Navigating Estrangement Situations

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Education, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2021

⏱️ 80 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’ve received a substantial number of questions from our listeners regarding familial estrangement: when one family member distances themselves from the others, or chooses not to interact with them at all. It’s a common and extremely challenging situation, and the pain related to it can be particularly intense during the holidays.Today on Being Well, Dr. Rick and Forrest Hanson discuss family estrangement, particularly between parents and children, and how the questions we engage in this territory apply more broadly to how we balance our own boundaries with the responsibilities we have toward other people. Watch the Episode: Prefer watching video? You can watch this episode on YouTube. From Dr. Hanson: The Foundations of Well-Being brings together the lessons of a lifetime of practice into one year-long online program. Our holiday sale is going on now, and podcast listeners can use the code BEINGWELL25 for another 25% off! Please don't hesitate to apply for a scholarship if you're in need. Key Topics: 0:00: Introduction 3:05: Our framework for discussing estrangement in this episode 6:10: Joining and distancing 9:40: Duties in relationship between children and aging parents 15:35: Parents’ behavior then vs. now 19:00: Distinguishing family systems from parents as individuals 24:10: Functional forgiveness when someone doesn’t show remorse 26:45: Choosing the kind of relationship we want to have 31:45: Parents’ pain when children distance 33:40: How parents can consider the child’s perspective 39:40: Grieving an estranged relationship internally 45:30: Approaches to interacting with estranged children 52:30: How to decide whether or not to engage in a relationship 55:10: Awareness of cultural influences 57:20: Ownership and what parents can do to repair 1:03:00: The wide range of variables influencing family relationships 1:07:00: Wishing well regardless of circumstances 1:09:30: Recap Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors: Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world’s largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month! Want to sleep better? Try the legendary Calm app! Visit calm.com/beingwell for 40% off a premium subscription. Connect with the show: Subscribe on iTunes Follow Forrest on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Follow Forrest on Instagram Follow Rick on Facebook Follow Forrest on Facebook Visit Forrest's website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, and welcome to Being Well, I'm Forest Hanson.
0:10.0	If you're new to the podcast, this is where we explore the practical science of lasting
0:14.2	well-being, and if you've listened to before, welcome back.
0:18.0	We're fortunate to have very engaged listeners, and we get a lot of emails containing questions.
0:24.2	Most of those are probably what you'd expect.
0:27.0	It's about how to improve a meaningful relationship, build a particular inner strength, or overcome
0:32.3	some common psychological challenge, like anxiety or depression.
0:37.5	But one group of questions that's come up more frequently than I expected has to do
0:41.5	with familial astrangement.
0:43.8	This occurs when one member of a family distances themselves from the others, or chooses to
0:48.4	not interact with them at all.
0:51.2	Research conducted in 2020 suggests that roughly a quarter of Americans are estranged from
0:56.5	a relative.
0:57.5	It's an extremely challenging and perhaps surprisingly common situation, and the pain related
1:02.7	to it only intensifies around the holidays when people are swamped with family-centric
1:08.0	messages.
1:09.5	Even if this isn't something that you're dealing with personally, the questions that we engage
1:13.1	in this territory get to broader questions having to do with balancing our own boundaries
1:18.1	with the responsibilities we have toward other people.
1:21.9	That's what we're going to be talking about today, how we can think about and navigate
1:25.8	astrangement situations, including the balance between finding the distance we need and honoring
1:31.1	our commitments to others.
	...

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