How to Break Family Cycles: Dr. Mariel Buqué

September 17, 2024

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

If I could just say before we begin, Amanda, I’m just hugging you from afar. I know that your health is right now a priority for you, so just know that we’re with you in community.

Amanda Doyle:

Aw, that’s really sweet.

Glennon Doyle:

Thank you for that very much.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Yeah.

Glennon Doyle:

And here we are.

Glennon Doyle:

Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. Today, we are going to be discussing what I think is the hardest thing and the most important thing we can ever do in our little teeny precious lives, I think. Okay.

Amanda Doyle:

Big precious.

Glennon Doyle:

The person we have here talking to us about the hardest thing, which is the most important thing we can do with our little precious lives-

Amanda Doyle:

Big precious.

Glennon Doyle:

… is Dr. Mariel Buqué, who is so important, is a first generation Black Dominican psychologist, a world renowned trauma expert, and the author of the bestselling book, Break the Cycle: A Guide to Healing Intergenerational Trauma. Her mission is to help reduce the recurrence of intergenerational ACEs, Adverse Childhood Experiences, which we will talk about in the next hour. Welcome, Dr. Buqué first of all.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me and for bringing in this topic into conversation. I’m so grateful for all of you.

Glennon Doyle:

Well, let me tell you how and why your work has entered our life like a wrecking ball. She came in like a wrecking ball.

Amanda Doyle:

Yes.

Glennon Doyle:

Anyway, here’s how I just want to explain it to you in a short way is that I have been a great mystery to myself for a very long time. Okay? So I started having weird behaviors when I was 10, had a really bad eating disorder, and then that went into addiction. And then, it’s just been a game of whack-a-mole of whatever’s wrong with me just keeps popping up in different ways. And then, I slam down the thing, and then another thing pops up. Okay. So when I was first in therapy, I’m thinking of this in eras. I’ve been through therapy over many different decades of my life. And it feels like the first era, the question of therapists was, “What’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with this kid?”

Glennon Doyle:

And so, it was just a constant exploration of what was I born with that makes me so dangerous, broken, whatever, to the point where in my first memoir I wrote, “I was born broken.” Okay? I believed that a hundred percent. Then this next era came in, which it was better. And the question was not, “What’s wrong with you?” It was, “What happened to you?” Better. Okay? Still didn’t get it figured out. This last era, it feels like in the world of therapy, different questions as you frame them have come up, which is now just when you sit in the chair, it’s not, “What’s wrong with you?” It’s not even limited to, “What happened to you?”

Glennon Doyle:

But as you say, these extra questions, which are, “What happened before you and what happened around you?” These questions that point to intergenerational stuff and not just individual stuff have ushered the most dramatic and effective healing era of my life. Your work has been integral in this. Now, I would like to stop talking, and I would like for you to start talking for the rest of the hour because everything you say is brilliant, and the way you say it makes my nervous system calm. Why are those the questions we should be asking?

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Wow. Just wow, wow, wow. It is such an honor to be able to be in any way a part of your healing journey and a part of your awakening journey, right? And I think that, for me, that line of questioning, which culminates to the question, “What happened to you through the generations?” Is a line of questioning that is not only more comprehensive, meaning that we get more answers. We get more of an understanding of the human that is in front of us and the layers of hurting that they may under.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

But it also offers us an opportunity to also utilize those layers as a method of healing. So when we are able to know, okay, this person is not just walking around with the experience of what happened to them, but also the experience of what happened before them and the experience of what happened around them. When we start working through the trauma, the layers, and any of the remnants of the past, we’re working through all three of those layers.

Glennon Doyle:

Can you define what is intergenerational trauma?

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Yeah. You Know intergenerational trauma is the only trauma that’s actually passed down our family line, and it happens at the intersection of our biology and our psychology. So from a biological standpoint, when we were actually conceived, we received some genetic messaging from both of our parents. And a lot of the messaging that is genetic that we tend to know about tends to be around physical attributes, but that only happens to be about 2% of the genetic messaging that’s handed forward.

Amanda Doyle:

What?

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Yeah, only 2%. Can you believe that? Everything about you, your hair, your eye color, your skin color, the structure of your nose, literally all falls within that 2%. And then, the 98% is just about everything else, including temperament, including some of the emotional predisposition that you may be kind of carrying into birth. And so with that understanding, we also started knowing through the field of epigenetics, which is the field that helps us to understand how our environments shape our genes or gene expressions. We started understanding that if there was a parent that had suffered a trauma and had a longstanding emotional upheaval as a result of that trauma, that it could have actually shown up in their genetic encoding, so much so that they actually had gene expressions that changed and sometimes even in a permanent way.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And so when they conceive their children, their children are likely to get some of that genetic messaging, which can make them, in essence, predisposed to having more tenderness, more emotional tenderness, which of course, can be the precipitant to stress and trauma. But now we have the other side, which is the psychology. Right? And that’s in essence kind of everything that happens once you’re born. You’re a fully formed baby. Now, you’re earthside and you’re interacting with the world, especially those primary individuals that were a part of your world once you were born, which are usually your caregivers.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And if there is a caregiver that, let’s say, is still working through their trauma and is maybe missing some of the cues to attune to you, to care for you, to love on you, to make sure that cry, that sounds like just a little bit different, that they have an understanding, “Okay, I know what to do and I’m here. I’m present. I’m nurturing you and I’m a place of safety for you.” If that’s not happening, that’s already one element of what can cause a rupture in a baby’s ability to regulate their emotions. And then, they have the rest of the world, right? They have the possibility of entering the school system, and maybe there’s a bully there, and maybe they enter their teenage years. And uh-oh, here’s a toxic relationship, and that relationship just really flipped their life upside down.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And maybe they got laid off of their employment once they were already an emerging adult, and that put them in a financial crisis. And would you look at that? There’s a whole pandemic, right? And so, all of these things are the things that tend to poke at us. When we already have that emotional vulnerability that’s biological, that comes from the experiences of the people that come before us, it leaves us even more vulnerable to the possibility of now trauma symptoms surfacing in our lives because of that tenderness matched with the social environment and the psychology of everything that’s happening around us. So when that happens, when we actually have trauma happening now in the second generation, we now call it intergenerational trauma.

Amanda Doyle:

Wow.

Abby Wambach:

Wow. On that biology piece, epigenetic stuff blows my mind because, I mean, if you’re sitting there and you’re like, “This is pretty woo woo. How could something my great-grandfather did to my grandfather be living inside of me?” Can you talk a little bit about those studies where they take the, I think, it was mice or rats away from the mom, and then give them back, and then what happens in the babies of those mice? Because I always just picture myself as a sweet little mouse, and that helps me to really have compassion for myself.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Yeah. You’re not too far off. And we have to think about ourselves also really as the mammals that we are, right? We have animalistic functions within us, some of which are situated in our nervous system. And it just so happens that when a baby is extracted from their mother, their stress levels can increase if they’re presented with a strange environment. The initial studies that were actually done on humans, I don’t know if they’re really kind of ethical, if they’re conducted today. But back in the ’50s, that helped us to understand what attachment styles actually were. Some of those studies were actually conducted with extracting a baby from their mother, and then reuniting them.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And so, we have an understanding that there’s a level of distress that can happen for a child when that extraction happens. Now, from a biological standpoint. Internally, stress levels can actually lead to an upsurge of stress hormones, namely cortisol, which can actually create within that baby, especially if it happens with enough frequency. This almost kind of like cementing of an overproduction of this kind of stress hormone, and sometimes even at a very extreme level and under production of it. And it’s, in essence, what we tend to call being kind of stuck in a hyperactive nervous system state or a hypoactive nervous system state.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And what tends to happen or what we have seen with the body itself is that, particularly so when we’re in that hypoactive state for a prolonged period of time, more than what the body is naturally programmed to be in, it can actually create the breeding ground for a lot of physical health conditions. And most notably, we have seen that there have been autoimmune conditions have been matched to these kind of elevated stress levels, that there have been metabolic conditions like diabetes, hypertension.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And even some of the cancers in the world have actually… They’re newer studies, right? So we still have a lot more to go in terms of our excavation of the understanding of what is the mechanism of stress that is really kind of like making the body feel unwell. But we have some studies that are helping us to understand that piece as well. So the body really wears down, and it feels like it is no longer really able to kind of function in the ways that it used to. And so, that is in essence what stress can do when it enters our being for entirely too long.

Glennon Doyle:

So I have been lucky enough in my life to have very dramatic destructive behavior that makes it obvious that I need help. I’m joking, but not joking. It actually feels very lucky in the long run because everyone agrees we should figure this out, right? That’s how I knew I needed help and found this. How do most people who come to you who are not displaying dramatic obvious behaviors figure out that they have intergenerational trauma to work out?

Glennon Doyle:

Because it’s not that we wake up and say, “You know what? I think I might be suffering because my mother never let herself be happy.” That’s not what happens, right? It’s like, “Why do I feel dead inside? Why am I stressed out? Why is my body… Why am I fighting with my…” So what are the presenting issues that you see that are signals that people who are listening to this podcast might be like, “Wait a minute, maybe that is a signal that I should investigate this work?”

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Such an important question. And you know, there are many people that would come to me, and they perceive their experience to be kind of like depression or kind of like anxiety, and those tend to be some of the original signals that people kind of give out and the reasons why they may come to someone like me and say, “Hey, I think I may need a little bit of help with what I’m going through.” But when we start peeling the layers, we start seeing that there’s a lot more to the picture. And typically, there’s layers here too, right? There are some of the symptoms that are the prototype of trauma, right?

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Some people can be hypervigilant, always kind of waiting for the next shoe to drop, right? Or not really feeling like they can have a sense of trust or a sense of peace enough to actually fall asleep, or that they have a chronic sense of sadness, or that they experience their appetite very drastically more so than the norm. There’s also avoidance, right? There’s also dissociation, which is when our minds just try and find a safe place outside of our present environment when it doesn’t feel safe.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

However, the added layer or the second layer to this is that, with intergenerational trauma in particular, we tend to see the next layer is that this person has codependent qualities, or that they may be a people pleaser, or that they may have some part of their being that feels a lack of trust in self and in others, or that there’s some self-hatred that’s there, that’s present, that I can find as I’m speaking to them in the language that they’re using in reference to themselves, or that there’s chronic shame.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And then, there’s even more layers, right? Because when we start peeling the next set of stories that tend to come out in the process of having conversations in the therapy room, then we start seeing that, oh, your mother was codependent. Oh, would you look at that? There were family secrets that were making everyone sick because no one was actually taking them out of the shadow of the family closet and bringing them to the fore to really sort them through. And would you look at that? That zoning out that you do that is, in essence, dissociation.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

That’s something that your father would also do. And sometimes, he would do things to distract himself to avoid his pain. And would you look at that? It’s really hard for you to accept love just in the same ways that it was for your mother and your grandmother. And no one really ever said I love you in this family because I love you was never really modeled for generations. So when we start seeing some of those patterns, we start understanding we’re dealing with intergenerational trauma here.

Glennon Doyle:

And why does that help people?

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

It helps people to actually feel less like they are “broken”, and more like there’s an explanation for why their pain has been so longstanding. And sometimes so inexplicable, and perhaps even so invisible, because these kinds of pains, they become so normalized in our families that they become invisible to us. We see it as the norm. It’s everything that’s around us. Everybody’s been that way. And so, there isn’t really a sense of consciousness around the fact that things could be different.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

So it could be very liberating for people to actually say, “You know what? That’s a trauma.” And actually, that’s a trauma that has been floating through my family for generations, and I can do something about it now because I have a tool, or I have techniques, or I have knowledge.” I call that intergenerational knowledge. We have a podcast like this, right? This is such a beautiful thing to be able to actually have a method of explaining something like intergenerational trauma and absorbing that information to be able to then do something about it. So I think that that’s the added gift of understanding. Listen, this is intergenerational trauma.

Amanda Doyle:

It is really interesting just listening to you talk. It’s making me think about when I first came into the family with Glennon and the three children. I was never really modeled a lot of I love yous and I was never really modeled a lot of physical touch as a child. And so even now to this day, this is seven years later, eight years later. Even now to this day, I have to overcome that weird moment that happens. Oftentimes, the kids say I love you first, and the response isn’t instinctual almost in a way… Of course, I love them, but I wasn’t modeled it.

Amanda Doyle:

And then, the other one is physical hugging of the kids. I have to overcome. I have this moment where I’m like, “Uh.” But I’m like, “Nope, this is what we’re doing here.” And I feel like this actual tension within me that is breaking through something, and I just don’t know if it will ever feel normal to me. That’s my question, I guess is like, doing this work, there is this time that I’ve been going through that feels like it’s hard and it takes time to overcome. Will it ever feel like it’s natural? Or is me breaking this generational trauma that I have in me, is it…

Glennon Doyle:

Forever awkward?

Amanda Doyle:

Yeah.

Abby Wambach:

I’m also interested in that.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

I think you might be in good company with that, right? So the thing about breaking cycles is that there are certain things that are at play, one of which is this added consciousness that you now have about… You’re almost kind of like an outsider looking into your own world-

Glennon Doyle:

Yes.

Amanda Doyle:

Yes.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

… in a metacognitive way, right?

Amanda Doyle:

Yeah.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And so because of that, you’re almost kind of like a therapist. You’re using multiple brains to really see your own behavior.

Glennon Doyle:

Yes.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And your own emotions, right? And so, that can become a bit more pronounced when you’re trying to get a sense of, what is this new thing? And it can dial down eventually with time, right? But the thing about it is that we also have a lot of these ways in which we’re programmed early on that tend to stay with us even if it’s just little tiny remnants of it. The other side of it is the fact that we also have compassion that is important for it to enter the picture whenever we’re engaging in that process of analyzing our world, right? And when we can bring in that sense of compassion like, “Wow, look at that.”

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

You’re really kind of like having to think with five heads about this moment of I love you, right? Just really talking to yourself in this gentle tone that can also help to really dial down the emotional response that feels like it’s a little bit out of sorts. So I find that eventually it does feel tolerable enough. But that’s the thing about healing is that I think we have a misperception about healing in this world, and the misperception might be that we believe that healing or being healed means, okay, clean slate. And actually what it means is I know different and I do different.

Glennon Doyle:

Even if it’s awkward, even if there’s a weird moment.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Even if it’s awkward, yeah. And you do, right?

Glennon Doyle:

Yeah.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

So we can, in essence, put that in the category of healed is just healed in the version that you stand on right now.

Amanda Doyle:

Okay.

Glennon Doyle:

Good job, babe.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Good for you.

Abby Wambach:

It’s so true, isn’t it like… Because one of the perverse things about trauma and intergenerational trauma is that you might feel really shitty, but you’re so comfortable in that particular kind of shitty that sometimes it’s easier than a different kind that’s healthier because you don’t know it and you’re not comfortable in it. It’s really tricky because it’s comfortable because it was how you were raised, which if you bring the healing to your individual life, you feel uncomfortable because you’re sitting in a new awkward thing where you have to accept this love and that’s weird. You have to hold both at the same time, right? You have to get comfortable with feeling better than you’re used to feeling, which feels worse first.

Amanda Doyle:

That’s good.

Glennon Doyle:

For me, it attracts.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Yeah, that was good. It’s almost about being able to coach yourself through every single one of those moments by also acknowledging where you’ve come from. My goodness, you wouldn’t even have been able to say I love you 10 years ago.

Amanda Doyle:

Yeah.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Look at you now. You know?

Glennon Doyle:

Yeah.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Okay, so you have a two-second pause, but the I love you’s coming out. That’s amazing, right? So it’s almost like when we talk, and I talk to myself like that too. You know? I tell people to do it, but I also am like, “Mariel, would you look at yourself girl?” That is so phenomenal that you’re able to do this. And the beautiful thing about that, and really the technique or the clinical strategy is that we’re instilling a sense of pride in the progress.

Glennon Doyle:

Yes.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And as we know, pride dulls shame. So we’re in essence programming our mind to engage in pride on a continuous basis and as a strategy for our lives, so that we can really embrace the moment more and more and help ourselves more and more through that process.

Amanda Doyle:

Whoa, okay. This is a big deal for me because I love to celebrate. So what you’re saying is now, when I experience some of these moments where there is that tension, and I still go ahead and do it with the I love yous and the hugs, I should say, “Good job.”

Glennon Doyle:

Can I ask you this question? So I’ve been in this realm of healing two years, a year and a half, I don’t know. The first six months to a year drove me batshit crazy because all anyone wanted me to do was check in with my body. How does your body feel? Do some breathing. Try to feel your awareness in your thighs. I literally was like, can you just-

Abby Wambach:

Yeah. Do you feel it in your chest, and your belly, and your nose? I’m like, “[inaudible 00:25:14].”

Glennon Doyle:

And then I just felt like, “Can you just fix my issues with my fricking parents?” How is this going to help me? Okay? Now, I promised myself, Glennon Doyle, you will shut up. And you have gotten yourself here with your own wisdom, which means you’ve lost your privileges. So you will do what these people tell you for one year. You will offer yourself no feedback. You will have no opinions. One year.

Glennon Doyle:

Okay. Now, what I understand is that this is what you always talk about in your work, which is the reason why there’s so much emphasis on the body and starting to feel your body is because your body will eventually, if you’re paying close enough attention, show you where your trauma is, will show you, will tell you where it is.

Glennon Doyle:

So when Abby’s telling that story, I’m thinking now, “Oh, yeah, that moment of like, [inaudible 00:26:16].” They just said I love you. So can you talk to us about why all of this regulation, body awareness crap is not crap, and why you have to calm people’s nervous system before you can even begin to get to the trauma?

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Yes, yes. I love this question. And the thing about our emotions, particularly stress and trauma is that they’re largely situated within our bodies, in our nervous system, in a lot of the organ systems that we have that are connected to our nervous systems and our nerve endings. So all of that is in place in order to help you to absorb the stressors of life. However, when it becomes the default for you to be in a state of stress, your body in essence defaults to that continuously. And especially with the triggers around you, with the people, with the sounds, all of the environments that are part of your kind of like trigger category.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

So what’s important for us to do in the context of healing intergenerational trauma is to first go into the body to help you to befriend your body, help you to understand how your body responds to triggers, and beyond that to help you to engage in relaxation practices, so that your body can then default more to a state of calm and ease rather than a state of alarm. And a part of the reason why that’s important is because if you go into a conversation with a parent who is perpetually triggering you, and you go into that conversation with your entire body, literally every cell in your body feeling like it needs to protect you. What’s going to come out of your mouth is going to be something that’s going to be reflective of that need to protect yourself.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

If you have actually helped your body to absorb stress and triggers in a different way, meaning that you have understood the ways that you can down-regulate your emotions, even in the moment. You may be at that family dinner, and someone says something, but you already have the tool to learn how to down-regulate, then what you say is going to come from a place where your nervous system is calm and at ease and you are not in survival mode. And so, that’s why it’s really important to first go into the body to first train the person to understand how to regulate themselves. And then, go into the very, very hard stuff that’s going to be the digging work, which is going into the root of what is causing the trauma or what has caused the trauma.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

But if we go there too soon, there is a likely chance that we may push a person into avoidance. And what do I mean by that? So if a person feels like I’m already tender, I already feel like my entire body’s on fire every time I think of this person or this incident, and then I say, “Okay, but tell me about it.” Right? Tell me about the incident. Tell me about the person. I’m adding fuel to the fire. Instead, what I desire to do is to help that person understand how to extinguish their own fire. And then, start the conversation from a place of safety, psychological safety, and from a place of also having this person feeling empowered because they have the tools to when and if they may feel any sense of trigger, they will know precisely how to bring their body back to a neutral state.

Glennon Doyle:

And for anyone who’s listening who’s like, “Wait, I don’t get it. What the hell?” Can you give us an example of just a human, real or not, but who might enter and figure something out about their past that makes them understand themselves more in their present? Just tell us how it would work anecdotally for a human.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Yes. I’ll speak to a client that I previously worked with for a number of years, and this person was actually someone who would constantly be in a state of triggers whenever she would enter her home. She lived in a multi-generational home, so her grandmother and her mother lived there, and so did her aunt. But this person, whenever her mother, let’s say, would have a bad day at work, her mother would enter into a furious rage, would start yelling, and just up in arms about everything. And so, this client of mine would oftentimes feel that as well. I mean, literally the grandmother, everyone was just feeling it in the home.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And it’s a part of what, even in my work, I call the intergenerational nervous system where you have a multi-generational home where people are collectively triggering each other and everybody is in a state of alarm. More often than not though, not everybody is presenting with the same behaviors. There’s one person that may flee, and they may just leave the room, and they can’t further engage in the conversation. One person might be the yeller. One person would over appease just to try and make it all go away. That’s the people pleaser or the one that’s fawning, right?

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And so, usually you have this constellation, all these different types of ways in which people work through the very same stressor in that home. And this client, for her, it was incredibly empowering to be able to understand there is a way in which all of these people are being triggered. And that is why someone might say something that could hurt me or that could further disregulate my emotions.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Now I understand what is happening at a different level. It’s not just that I’m attending to the words that they’re saying and I want to say something back. It’s that I understand that their nervous system is currently in a state of threat and alarm, and they’re responding to me from that perspective, and I’m doing the same, and so is my grandmother. And so, when people are able to know that, people are able to gather greater compassion. This client did for herself and for her family.

Glennon Doyle:

Yes.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And I think that it allows us to see each other’s humanity in a more profound way. And when we’re able to see each other’s humanity in that way, we’re able to then almost kind of shift into a mind state where we want greater peace or connection rather than whatever it is that we can do in order to fend off the threat, which is typically fight or flee or anything that tends to be default for us.

Glennon Doyle:

Do you find that people are afraid to do this work because it feels like blame?

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Absolutely.

Glennon Doyle:

Do people feel disloyal or is that part of the hump? Because I have actually found that it does bring just absolutely more compassion in the long run because you realize that you’re just a part of a chain that’s been going on forever, and everybody’s just been a part of that chain. And there’s no big bad wolf. It’s just energetic parade. It’s a parade. But I will admit that for a good long time, I was just angry all the time, when I figured out. There was moments where I just felt angry all the time at everyone in my family.

Abby Wambach:

Like I have to do this work because they didn’t do the work.

Glennon Doyle:

Exactly.

Abby Wambach:

Why wouldn’t they have done the work, so that I didn’t have to do this work?

Glennon Doyle:

Or why didn’t you do better? Why didn’t you do this? I mean, there’s many obvious reasons for that. There wasn’t Dr. Buqué where my dad wasn’t like, “Hey, I have a Dr. Buqué.” Right? There’s a lot of reasons. But just talk to us about why this work doesn’t have to be framed as disloyal and really can be the biggest gift that you can give to your lineage and your future generations.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Yes. It’s one of the hardest things for cycle breakers to actually do, which is to talk about details about their family without feeling like they are leaving them behind without feeling like they’re being disloyal to them, or they have in any way kind of ruptured the family norm of keeping their family secrets in the family, right? Airing dirty laundry is like a big thing for folks in many cultures. And the predominant emotion that tends to come up in those conversations at the very start of the conversation tends to be guilt. People feel immense guilt, almost debilitating guilt in talking about a family member, especially a family member that they still love despite their shortcomings.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And so, the reframe to that, that is really critical is to understand that the intergenerational loyalty that they have to keeping things as is, to keeping the status quo, and not talking about things, and not really engaging in the healing process is only going to hurt everyone in the family because we’re just going to keep the pain going into the next generation versus the true loyalty that can exist, which is the healing that we can do ourselves, which will have ripple effects back and ripple effects forward.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And when it comes to ripple effects back, it can show up in the ways that we now interact with the same parent who is saying the same thing because they may not ever have an opportunity to really heal that, but we respond differently. We are a different person. Our nervous system is structured differently because we’ve worked on the internal mechanisms of how we’re carrying the pain. And the ways in which it impacts the next generation obviously from a biological standpoint, with all the things that we’ve mentioned around epigenetics, but also from the perspective of modeling. We’re modeling a different way of being to the next generation.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

They’re seeing that, oh, mom or aunt or cousin or whomever is not actually lashing out at grandma anymore for that thing that grandma says. Instead, they have a different kind of response, and it seems like it’s more settled. And so, there’s so much richness and so many generational gifts that can come out of the interchange that can happen when a person chooses to disrupt the status quo, step out of that intergenerational loyalty that doesn’t serve anyone, and instead break the cycle.

Amanda Doyle:

And before we get on the path of compassion and healing, I do want to just admit for myself, and Glennon, I don’t know if you would agree, but there’s this period where you did say you were angry or ragey. I felt like throughout this process of understanding my familial generational trauma, there’s a moment where I’m just so incredibly angry and almost despondent. Excuse my language here. Fuck everybody who came before me because it feels like, oh, now I’m the one that has to change this thing. Right?

Amanda Doyle:

It feels like there’s a select few of us that are brave enough to go down this path of trying to heal some of this intergenerational trauma, and it feels like so heavy. And so, a lot. I feel like this comes before the compassion and before the healing. And so, if you do want to go down this road of trying to heal this within yourself and maybe among your family, know that there is, for me at least, there was a time where I felt really angry, and frustrated, and overwhelmed, and pissed off that I was even having to do this.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda Doyle:

Is that true? Is that common in clients that you see?

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

I would say it’s almost universal.

Amanda Doyle:

Okay.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

I think every single person that has some element of trauma that they’re sorting through that is generational, and they see that the pattern wasn’t broken, and that they’re hurting because of it will have some form of rage, that’s righteous rage. It’s rage that has to be honored. To be frank, if I don’t see it, I would be working really hard as a clinician to bring it in, and to find it. Yes, because it is very much a part of what keeps shame alive.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

It’s a part of what is also hindering the healing and growth process if we’re not tapping into the rage. And very often, what we tend to find with rage is that rage tends to be a secondary emotion, and it’s secondary to the primary emotion of feeling hurt. And so, what I would want is to find our way through the rage, understand it because it is a messenger. It’s helping us to understand something.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And beyond that, I would want to know what hurts. What’s hurting in you that’s creating this experience of you feeling angry? Because angry is more accessible, and it’s also an emotion that is likely to make you feel more energized to fight off anybody that comes near you, right? Whereas, hurt feels entirely too vulnerable for you to tap into because anybody can come and potentially hurt you even further. You don’t have your armor.

Amanda Doyle:

Yep.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

So it’s an experience that is really, really important to hold onto, both clinician and client or both family members that are working through this together. We have to hold moments for the rage and invite it into the process if we want true healing.

Abby Wambach:

Oh, my God. And it’s such a macro too of the whole thing. It’s like we have to go through that process to start dealing with intergenerational trauma, but that whole rage is more comfortable than hurt or fear is what got us in so much intergenerational trauma to begin with.

Glennon Doyle:

Totally.

Abby Wambach:

Our parents and our foremothers and forefathers, they couldn’t be that vulnerable maybe literally because they would die. Or that they never got the skills, and so they raged at us because they couldn’t… That was covering up their fear or their hurt, and now we have it. And so ironically, we have to go through the rage part to get to the hurt part that they never could. That’s crazy.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

That’s a mic drop right there. That’s exactly it. But think about it in this way also. When we’re talking about generational healing, for many of us, it’s not everyone, but for many of us, it is really critical for us to do the healing for the people who couldn’t or the people who didn’t have the privilege and the access to be able to do that healing. And I think that that can also really penetrate our hearts in a profound way to help us to feel like, okay, this work, it’s hard, but it’s really worth it.

Amanda Doyle:

Oh, my God. That changed something in my being.

Glennon Doyle:

Yeah, I do. I think it is a great honor to have the time, space, privilege, money, perspective, whatever it takes because it does take a lot. This takes a lot of access I feel like.

Amanda Doyle:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Yeah.

Glennon Doyle:

Or it has for me. And I think a lot of people think, “Oh, this is just blame.” I’ve heard that actually from a lot of people. You just want to blame somebody. But for me, I have never done anything that is more like taking responsibility. This is taking responsibility. If we live in autopilot with all these patterns, that is an avoidance of responsibility. Richard Rohr says, “You either transform it or you transmit it,” and that’s it. There’s only two options. So the actual moment of, I will not. I will figure this out.

Glennon Doyle:

And it might be a process, and I might think of myself as a little isolated puzzle piece, and now I see myself in this big puzzle. And it might feel like blame for a little while. But now for the first time in my life, I am responsible, meaning in each moment, I am able to respond from power, peace, freedom, compassion instead of from familial patterns that leave me completely irresponsible. It’s a great responsible-

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Absolutely.

Glennon Doyle:

… moment.

Amanda Doyle:

Is it a thing that we’re also taking on responsibility for those who came before us? Are we taking on the responsibility with them in a way? Because I do think that some of the blame that does come, I can hear my parents saying like, “Oh, that’s just Abby.” Woo, woo, spiritual, all that shit. But I do think there’s a part of this process for me that I am trying to, in honor of them, and maybe their inability to take responsibility. I am taking on responsibility for myself, and for them, and for my grandparents who might not have had the chance. Is that wrong in my way of thinking, like taking on what maybe they couldn’t?

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Well, the role of a cycle breaker is to take on that title with the understanding that we’re doing it for the collective, right? We’re doing it for those who came before, for ourselves, and anyone who’s in our generation, right? The three of you are really closer in each other’s lives, so any healing that you do will ripple laterally, right?

Glennon Doyle:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Amanda Doyle:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

And then, the same for anybody who comes thereafter, like children, grandchildren. So it is a quest that has a layered impact. And so, yes, the quest does require that we take on that title with the understanding that we’re doing it for everyone.

Glennon Doyle:

For everyone. And it’s not just generations. I don’t like it when it’s only framed as this is for your children, because that’s not the way the world works either. We’re transmitting trauma when we have a road rage incident, when we are rude to somebody in a meeting, when we are mean to someone in a coffee shop. Whether we have children or not, we are constantly passing on our trauma or not, right? So can you speak to people? I have had many moments in the last couple of years where I thought, “Oh, that’s so funny that I was so vigilant about any trauma that could touch my children when they left the house.” And actually, all of their trauma was coming from inside the house. I would’ve learned to just calm my nervous system.

Glennon Doyle:

And I have had moments where I felt like, “Damn, now they’re 20.” And now I’m doing the work, and I am different. And they talk to me about it all the time. And I no longer think of success as… If I accomplish 60 things and get 40 awards in a day, and a million people tell me I’m the best. For me, if my child says something to me, I am not in a reactive mode, and I’m calm for a second, and I take a minute, and I respond in a different way. That is the biggest success in the world to me now. Can you tell us why it’s never too late? I just want anyone who’s listening who’s thinking, “Shit.” I don’t even know if that’s true, but we really need you to say it, Dr. Buqué whether it’s true or not.

Abby Wambach:

Just take one for the team here.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

I’ve got you. Don’t you worry.

Abby Wambach:

Thank you.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

It’s true. And I’ll give you some reason. So the most important buffer that we have against experiences in life becoming trauma and symptomatic, right? Making trauma symptoms surface is having a secure and safe person that we can lean on, and we can say, “They showed up for me. They came and they helped me to understand the circumstance. They helped me to understand themselves, and their response, and their reaction.” When we have those experiences of repair, of also orientation around situations, especially when we’re little, those can have such a positive effect upon how we absorb the world, even how we absorb the very people that may have erred.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

So it’s really important for us to hold in consideration the fact that we can actually have a conversation with the people in our lives today, especially our children, right? And grandchildren. And we can offer some sort of repair that can have a profound impact. And what’s the alternative? Leaning on shame and saying, “No, I’m not saying that. I’m sorry.” And then, leaving this earth and leaving that person with an understanding that you were never sorry for what you did. I mean, that’s the alternative, right?

Glennon Doyle:

Mm-hmm.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Or you can do the more courageous thing, which is really hard for us to do, but we can do it, right? Which is to actually engage in whatever repair can look like. I’ve had, in my own family, a parent say to a sibling of mine, “I’m sorry,” when my sibling was 40, right? I’ve had an 84-year-old client say I’m sorry to their 60-year-old child, right? And these are the moments in my personal and professional trajectory that helped me to understand, it is never too late. So long as we’re living, we have an opportunity for repair and restoration of the relationships that we have in our lives.

Glennon Doyle:

Just want to sit with that for a moment. One of the ways that I have explained to the kids why things are a little bit different right now and what I’m working on. Even talking about it, I think makes them remember that whatever anxiety I passed on to them isn’t theirs.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Yes.

Glennon Doyle:

I talk to them about, “Oh, that stuff I used to do, that stuff I still do.” That is my stuff. That is not inherent in you. And even saying to them, “I want you to keep figuring out what’s not yours. Go ahead and light me up later.” I fully expect you to be writing about me, this shit.

Amanda Doyle:

For sure. For sure.

Glennon Doyle:

Light me up, but just know in your second mind that I gave you the match. I gave you permission-

Amanda Doyle:

Yeah.

Glennon Doyle:

… to do this. Right? Even talking about, if your kids are old and you’re just starting. If you think this work cannot change your life, their life, just think about how you would feel if your 80-year-old parent came to you and said, “Actually, this stuff was never yours.”

Abby Wambach:

If you’re not with it enough to think of a specific thing to apologize for. Sometimes I’m so aware of how I am predisposed and I’m so afraid of that being my children’s experience, that it’s so terrifying to me that I think if I don’t look at it, and I don’t talk about it, and I don’t mention it to them, maybe they won’t notice. But if I bring it up, then they’re sure she ain’t going to be like, “Well, you know? Come to think of it, that is true. You’ve been doing that for 10 years.”

Abby Wambach:

So I’ve just started to name it. When I was growing up, I felt like this a lot. I know I’m still like that a lot with you all. When you feel that, because I’m sure you do, that’s me. So the same thing like you’re saying, just naming the thing you’re most afraid of is so liberating to you and probably to them too, to know that they can stop internalizing it as their fault.

Amanda Doyle:

Yeah.

Abby Wambach:

That they’re feeling that way.

Amanda Doyle:

I mean, just the other day before a therapy session, the kids were at Craig’s house, so they weren’t here. And I made a list, little short list, of things I wanted to talk about. My therapist encouraged me, when were moments that you felt a little dysregulated this week? Because I’m trying to get aware of when it is, so that I can kind of overcome it in the moment. So I had a little list, and in the list I had some stuff that happened with the kids. And lo and behold, one of the kids came over unbeknownst to me, literally while I was on the therapy session, and saw this little list. And so, one of our kids texted Glennon like something about-

Glennon Doyle:

She thought it was my list, of course.

Amanda Doyle:

Yeah. And so, I had to go and talk to our child about this, and I sat her down, and I said, “Listen, I want you to understand my process and therapy.” Talked about IFS, whatever. And I was able to have this conversation with her about how this had nothing to do with them. This was me and my need to not try to be this authoritarian parent that I was raised as, all of it. And she was like, “Oh, yeah, I wasn’t offended at all.” And I said, “Totally. But I need you to understand that none of this is for you to carry thinking that you’ve done anything wrong. I’m trying to be a better parent. And so, this is for me to discuss with my therapist.” And it was so important for me to do that. And luckily, you encourage me to do that, Glennon, maybe just go talk to them.

Glennon Doyle:

Yeah.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

The added benefit here is that everybody has just been trained. Parents are these all-knowing beings. They are perfection. They’re always right. And it has done such a disservice to both parents and child because a parent really has to kind of live up to these expectations that are unrealistic for them and shave away their humanity. And then, their children aren’t able to actually experience the fullness of the parent that they have in front of them, and then also be able to have a mirrored reflection of this fully human being, right?

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Instead, they’re fed this idea of a parent, just by way of society. Socialization, right? It’s not anything that anybody did, it’s just kind of how we’ve been. And so, what I love about what you’re all doing is you’re disrupting that completely. You’re shattering it. You’re like, “I am in my full humanity here.” And I want you to see it on full display, so that you can see that it’s okay to just be a human that is in their process. And I wish for more of us to be able to have those moments of vulnerability and reflection that are really, really authentic and can have a multi-generational impact.

Glennon Doyle:

Well, so here’s the deal. If you are someone who cannot get to a therapist, I think that your book, Break the Cycle, it’s the closest you can get. It’s the closest you can get to like exposure to the skills and the deep work, but also having someone who knows how to hold the trauma that will come up with actual exercises, with a voice that is so wise and steady that you just feel very safe exploring things that feel unsafe. It’s really a feat. It’s a feat because it’s not just a book. It’s a whole experience.

Glennon Doyle:

And your work is so important and timely, and it’s not just what you say, but just how you say it and how you are. It’s like we’re all saying, “Okay, we’ll have what she’s having.” Additionally, now that we’ve gotten through all of the meaningful stuff, I have to tell you that if anyone ever says to me, “Can you send me your nomination for the best author photo that has ever been taken on any book jacket?” This is it. And now, everyone just go by the books, so you can see this fricking picture. Okay. Is there anything you want to leave us with before we go?

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Yes. I’m so honored. You all are so amazing. I really want us to all hold onto the idea that every single day presents an opportunity to break a cycle. All we have to do is take it. So I hope that people can know if yesterday was a little rough and you leaned on those familiar patterns, it’s okay. Today is a new day. Just take today and find a way to do different for yourself and for the collective.

Glennon Doyle:

Thank you, Dr. Buqué. We love you forever.

Dr. Mariel Buqué:

Love you too. Thank you. Thank you all. It’s been such a pleasure.

Glennon Doyle:

Pod Squad, We Can Do Hard Things. Dr. Buqué swears to us, and we believe her. We’ll see you next time. Bye.

Glennon Doyle:

If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us. If you’d be willing to take 30 seconds to do these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to We Can Do Hard Things? Following the pod helps you because you’ll never miss an episode, and it helps us because you’ll never miss an episode.

Glennon Doyle:

To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right-hand corner or click on follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you’re there, if you’d be willing to give us a five-star rating and review and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much.

Glennon Doyle:

We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Weiss-Berman, and this show is produced by Lauren LoGrasso, Allison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill Schultz. I give you Tish Melton and Brandi Carlile.