Healing Begins When You Rewrite The Story with Tania Khazaal

What's the first thing that someone can do who is stuck in a cycle of they actually don't even want to see their emotions, they don't want to sit still long enough, or they do want to drug themselves up forever and not look at the emotion. Where do they start?

We're in a society now where everything has a label, everything has to be diagnosed, everything has to have a label. And when you're diagnosing and labeling everything, it actually feeds into the victim mentality. What happened to me as a child? Let's uncover it, let's bring it up. So when you think about this new era of healing, it's very much about awareness. Think about what happened to you. What happened is that has gone from a clinical room to becoming normalized language on social media. How everyone is like, you're right, that is what happened to me. My mom was narcissistic. My dad was toxic. My dad was there. They went through a divorce. This explains why I am this way. You're right. It explains why you have these toxic childhood wounds. I don't like to call it trauma because same thing, trauma keeps you stuck. It makes it seem like something's wrong with you. No, there's childhood wounds. Every single person grew up with childhood hardships. The problem is they get stuck to that story. It becomes harder to say, wait, how can I pull myself out when society is just feeding into that victimhood and validating those feelings to keep you stuck.

Hey there. Welcome to the Amberly Lago Show. I am so glad you're here. I have been looking forward to forward to having this amazing guest on the show. Get ready for a powerful conversation that might challenge the way you think about relationships, healing and what it truly means to reconnect. And I think this episode is going to be so important for everyone to listen to, especially nowadays in a world where disconnection, division and emotional pain seem more common than ever. And if you want to be a powerful leader, I really feel like it starts at home. So our guest today is Tanya Cazale. She is a mentor, a speaker, a best selling author, and she's known for her. You got to follow her on social media, by the way. She's been known for her bold conversations around family estrangement, emotional resilience, healing relationships, and what she calls cutoff culture. So. And what I love about her is that she has lived it. It's not something that she studied, she has lived it. And so she walks the walk. She doesn't just talk the talk, she walks the the walk. Is that how you say it? Anyway, Tanya, thank you so for being here. I'm so excited to have you on the show.

Yeah. Amberly, what a wonderful introduction. I appreciate it. And that's. That's really it. It's a lot of people like what is cut off culture, and we see it now, and we see how it's affecting the home. And what happens at home feeds into your health and happiness and success and relationships and business and everything.

It really does. And I personally, we'll get into, like, I relate so much about what you share about the relationships and cutting people off, especially from some traumatic stuff that happened in my childhood and being able to heal that allows you the freedom to live a fulfilled life, and that there's a ripple effect in your business and your relationships and everything. But I would like for you to share a little bit about how you got into the work that you're doing now. What happened and what enabled you to go, okay, well, healing is possible.

Yeah. So it's a really good question. I mean, without trying to get into too much detail, really what it was is I was the estranged child. Right. I grew up in a home where I was the second child. Middle child, you could say. Middle child syndrome, whatever you want to call it. My sister had a lot of health issues that I didn't really understand. When I was younger, my mom paid a lot more attention to her, protected her a little bit more, spent more time with her, all of that. So very early on, I kind of built this identity around. I'm not as loved, I'm not as wanted as her. I'm the daughter that she didn't necessarily want. Like, I built a narrative around how my mother was treating me. And it's not to say that it didn't hurt, but I built that narrative. Well, fast forward to as I got older and I started to go through my own emotional healing. Um, I went into therapy. I did all the stuff that we're told to do as a millennial, and I started to resent my mom even more and more. So she would keep doing stuff that would hurt me, um, and I would build this resentment towards her. When I started to realize my own healing, and I was like, okay, wait, it's affecting how I'm showing up in relationships. The overachiever. Like, you really do build an identity around it and then try to. You operate out of that lack that happened as a child. So when I really started to understand, not even just the emotional healing point, but I was reading, like, Joe Dispenza books when I was 19, before anybody even knew who he was. Cause I was like, wait, tell me what's going on in my brain. Like, he says, how to lose your mind and create a new one. And I started to understand neck neuroscience, and I became obsessed with learning. And I was like, wait, I can, like, reprogram my brain from what I've told myself about when I was a child through that journey, I started to say, wow, if I can rewrite my own story, well, what's my mom's story?

Yeah.

And so I started to rewrite my mom's story. And when I rewrote my mom's story, I was sad. I felt sad for her. And I was like, oh, to her, she's doing the best that she did compared to how her mom was with her. So even though she failed me in many ways, or so I thought, she's doing a great job. She's trying what she can, but yet I built this whole identity. So I rewrote her story, which helped me rewrite my story to say all the things that I made personal about me and my worth and my confidence and everything had nothing to do with me. It was the space that she was operating from. And then what really took me even a step further is I became really immersed in the health space. My mom has a very chronic and unique disease called neurofibromatosis. Super painful. She got really, really sick. She was on her deathbed from too many pharmaceuticals. She wasn't functioning. I couldn't have conversations with her. And this is after we reconciled. But she. I was grieving her while she was physically still alive, and it was really, really hard.

And ask you something really quick. Is that the. The nerve disease that affects your face or which one?

Oh, so neurofibromatosis is. Think about. It's tumors that grow in the nerves. Oh, God. Think about when you have, like, pain in your teeth. It's like nerve pain. And she has it throughout her whole body. So she's got, like, over 40 tumors throughout her body and super painful. So obviously, she was on narcotics, like oxy's, everything to try to manage the pain. This is what the doctors were just prescribing her, Prescribing her to the point that she was, like, not functional anymore. Cause she was just drugged up. She was adding a lot of meads. And so I was obsessed with saying, there must be something natural that I can do for her, because these are not working, and I refuse to let her die to the system. And I did. She became a guinea Pig. She got off of her narcotics. The doctors couldn't believe it. She started living, talking, laughing again. And I became obsessed with that. And that was now my passion, to help people understand the healing power within ourselves. But, Amber Lee, I didn't even make the connection between the emotional part at that point, even though I had studied it for myself. So now here I am, running hundreds and hundreds of health consultations and working with people and coaching them through their health until I was like, oh, my goodness. There's a correlation between the emotional healing and the physical systems that are showing up.

Oh, totally.

And so that was like an aha moment for me. And I was like, the emotional healing is the most important one I've had. People who ate the healthiest, exercised every day, did everything good on paper. But one woman in particular who had stage four cancer, she's like, I haven't spoken to my mom in three years.

Wow.

I don't know how to forgive. I hold on to resentment. I hold on the grudges. This is that. And that in itself is literally the culprit. So I was like, that ties into my emotional healing. Wait, this is how I start to get. And it all just started to make sense for me. And I was like, oh, my goodness. And here I am now saying, in order to heal your inner child wound or to heal your relationships, you have to take it back to the wound and rebuild and restructure the entire story that you built yourself around the villains of your story that probably has nothing to do with you personally. And, oh, story short, kind of. This is how I got here.

No, I. But I love it. And it's so important. And it just really hits home. Number one, I was diagnosed with a nerve disease. And, you know, doctors told me that I'd be wheelchair bound forever. I'd never work again, never walk again. And I was like, no, that's not where I see my. That's not the vision I have for my life. And there are a lot of people that unfortunately diagnosed with the same nerve disease that they. They do get hooked on pain pills. And. And actually I was on the doctor's tv and I had a lot of people that were mad at me because I was talking about mindset to. And they said, girl gets through pain with her mindset. And that's not all that I do. It is emotional. It is your mindset. It is spiritual as well. But there are a lot of people that start to define themselves by a diagnosis or by. Honestly, this drives me insane. People that say they are a product of their childhood or their, you know, how they grew up. I'm like, no, but you have the ability to change your life. It's your choice. You get to decide. And so what's the first thing that someone can do who is stuck in a cycle of they actually don't even want to see their emotions. They don't want to sit still long enough, or they do want to drug themselves up forever and not look at the emotion. Where do they start?

Yeah. So I think you nailed something really important here, is you're right. We're in a society now where everything has a label, everything has to be diagnosed, everything has to have a label. And when you're diagnosing and labeling everything, it actually feeds into the victim mentality. Something is wrong with me or something is wrong with someone else. Which explains why I am the way that I am.

Because it's easier, right, to just say, well, I'm the way I am because I come from divorced parents or because my mom was an alcoholic or, you know, whatever it may be, a hundred percent, I was.

Whatever it is, you're right. And I think what's important. And this is why in my episode with Oprah, I really broke this down about the three stages of. Of healing is therapy comes in handy for one thing, in my opinion, uncovering the wounds. What happened to me as a child. Let's uncover it. Let's bring it up. So when you think about this new era of healing, it's very much about awareness. Think about what happened to you. What happened is that has gone from a clinical room to becoming normalized language on social media. How everyone is like, you're right, that is what happened to me. My mom was narcissistic. My dad was toxic. My dad was there. They went through a divorce. This explains why I am this way. And I think it's important in a sense of, you're right. It explains why you have these childhood wounds. I don't like to call it trauma because same thing, trauma keeps you stuck. It makes you seem like something's wrong with you. No, there's childhood wounds. Every single person grew up with childhood hardships. Some are through divorces, Some are with abused parents. Some are with one parent absent, not the other. Like, there's just. There's hardships in different ways. The problem is they get stuck to that story and it's. It becomes harder to say, wait, how can I pull myself out when society is just feeding into that victimhood and validating those feelings to keep you stuck. Why? Because a stuck society Is easier to control, easier to manipulate, easier to throw anything to and keep them in that, that low vibration. But for me, when I think about what's that. One thing that you can do is you have to work through the three stages. So stage one is uncovering.

Good.

Let it uncover. Bring up all the ugly things that happened to you that you thought happened to you. That meant about who you and everything. Uncover that that's important. But you can't stay there, and most people want to stay there because you become addicted to that. The hardship, you become addicted to the pain. Why? Because, I mean, we're energetic beings, we have electromagnetic forces, so we're naturally attracted to what our body feels safe with. And sometimes familiar pain is. Feels better than unfamiliar peace. Like, think about that. Someone would actually rather pain that's familiar to keep reporting, repeating that story and keep yourself stuck than unfamiliar piece. That could be like. Because my nervous system doesn't know how to deal with the unfamiliar. But if you move yourself into step two and say, wait, wait, wait, okay, what happened to me? Why did that happen to me? What is their story? Was it actually intentional harm? And I'm not talking about those real abuse and stuff, but was it intentional harm? Or was it something that I internalized and made personal based on someone else's behavior? Like, that is literally step one.

That's so good. That's actually. That's harder. Easier said than done though, right? Because it. I think that I started to transform when I accepted kind of what was going on. And then I could start to heal and start to take action steps in the right direction. But man, that was hard. It took courage.

Yeah, well, because it's hard to you, the acceptance of what happened comes after stage two, when you start to rewrite the person's story, you can't accept it without knowing that. So, for example, when I think of when I thought about my mom, I was like, okay, wait. My mom was the 15th out of 16 kids. Her dad died when she was three. Her mother unintentionally neglected her in so many ways that she didn't need to. But the reality is that was her for sure, her reality. She lived in a home that like, you know, they had immigrated here when she was only nine years old. They lived in a home with no heat. They were scavenging for food like it was very cutthroat between siblings because it was very survival. So to her, she's like, I have a solid home. I'm healthy with my husband. We've got kids, they've got Food. I'm helping them with their projects. I'm making sure that they're fed. I'm making home cooked meals like I'm watching them, they're clothed. We're buying stuff for to her. And when I wrote that story, that's why it made me sad and it brought up compassion and understand that I wasn't seeing before because I was like, wait, case, she missed a birthday of mine to wish me a happy birthday? She was going through something at the time, but when I was younger than it, oh, she paid more attention to my sister. Okay. But if I really thought about it, she still did pay attention to me in some ways. So it's like I built the emotional neglect that I felt in those things based on how I just chose to perceive it, not the truth. Because when I looked at that story to her, like I said, how can you not have compassion to say she never intentionally tried to hurt me? To her, in her brain, what I did with my kids is a thousand times better than my mom. I didn't repeat my mom's patterns. I didn't do those things. So she thinking she did a great job. So when you are able to do that, it's not to say that your pain wasn't real, it's not to say that what happened to you wasn't real. Because I think people seem to confuse that. It's like, well, what I felt is real. Yeah, it is real. But the way you interpret it in your perception is not always a hundred percent. So that to, to add to what you said is that allows you the acceptance of, okay, I'm making peace with this because that's not how it was. Which is why when three, stage three comes in, it's rewriting my story. And this works for both child, by the way, and parent. Because a lot of parents have to rework their own story too, based on how they're parenting. Right? Breaking that cycle. So stage three is okay. Now I can rewrite my story. Why did I tell myself that I was not worthy of love and I had to seek love so much outside of myself when I was young? How do I rewrite that? Because this whole time I thought that she didn't love me when it had nothing to do with that she did love me. Right? And so that's really. It's easier for someone to not want to take that level of accountability. To be honest with you, I don't even know why it's easier because it's actually so much more freeing and healthier and happier and everything to go through that, but it's the nervous system that's like. It's unfamiliar. I don't want to do what I'm not comfortable with. I'd rather stay where I am, even if that means stuck and not becoming healthier and happier, which is wild to me. But that's the reality of the world that we live in.

It's so true. And that saying, the truth will set you free. It's. It's. It really will. It might drag you through cobblestones at first, but it will set you free. But I. I love that you said, you know, we live in a society where if somebody says, oh, you know, I grew up with narcissistic parents, or, oh, I grew up with alcoholics or whatever it may be, or, oh, my mother's a bad mother, my father's horrible, and society really plays into that. What do you do when you. It's not even soc. Plan into that, but what do you do if you have a child and there's. You go through a divorce and the other parent is not in a healthy place at all, and they are constantly saying negative things about the other parent. And I see this often even with clients who've gone through a divorce. And it's just like toxic feeding negativity and even lies, and it's almost brainwashing the child, which is so sad because it's really just hurting the child. So what do you say for a child who's in the middle? Because I was certainly in the middle of a divorce growing up, and I've been divorced. But what do you say to a child who is in that situation? First of all. And then second, what does the other parent say to the parent who's spreading this toxic stuff to stop that?

It's. It's really unfortunate because this is why when I talk about, like, the society, society is operating from such a. Everyone's operating from their wounded childness, you know, and then what they're doing is they're projecting and taking, like, that resentment and their anger, their frustration, their insecurities, everything against the other parent, instead of thinking, it's not about us, it's not even about me. It's about what this looks like for the child.

Mm.

It's really sad because when a child has to experience that they are caught in a loyalty bind. When a child is caught in a loyalty bind, it's really scary because it's almost like they stop when they're hearing so much bad about one parent. It's like they don't even understand I don't think the parent even understands is how much they start stop loving parts of themselves that are attached to that parent. It creates a deeper wound for that child because they're like, oh, well, I have. I'm like that like my mom or like my dad. I shouldn't be a shit. So they start doubting parts of themselves. Like, it's very destructive to think that your family, like the. The stability of the parents is being destabilized by this other parent is really unhealthy. And so for. To answer the first question is, for the parent, it is so important to not fight the other narrative, because when you're fighting the other narrative, that child feels like they're in a loyalty bind. And often than not, unfortunately, the unhealthier parent is the one that the child, especially if they're really young, will naturally gravitate to just because it's easier. It's easier because they don't want to deal with the high emotions and everything of that other parent. So it's actually easier for them and less stressful to just be closer to that parent because the other parent is not as emotionally heavy for them. So they do tend to. To attack, attract to that parent. But that does change as they get older. And sometimes, which, by the way, it happens both ways in estrangement, the cutoff culture happens because they built such a narrative to the other parent that they end up cutting off that parent who has actually had good intentions and were good parents, or this parent was doing it in their safety. Where I see a lot of moms, for example, a lot more than dads, where the mom is the single mom raising the kid, was working double jobs, doing as much as they can, but going through a custody battle, talking about the dad doing all of these things, blah, blah, blah. Especially if they have boys. And now what do these boys do? They're missing that male figure as they get older and they're building up that resentment, and then, boom, they want to reach out to dad, they want to talk to dad, they want to hear dad's story. Now they're fed dad's story, and they build this resentment to mom all over again. And then the cutoff happens that way. It's like, either way, you are risking having your child literally cut you off because you're choosing to put them in the mess. And it's not right for the child to cut off. But it's like I'm trying to understand myself, and now I'm building this resentment to both parents, which still brings me Back to what are both of their stories? Where are they operating from their inner childhood wounds? And that's how they pulled me into the fire that really had nothing to do with me. Nothing. But I catch a part of my identity and my hardships and everything to the crossfire that I was caught in between. So for the child, for the parent to finish that thought is, don't fight the other story. Be so grounded and steady and calm and show up the way that you can so that the child feels like this is always the safe, steady parent, because that will outlast the narrative that's being built against you the moment that you're fighting it and you're. You're feeding into that. I have to prove my point. The child is now really feeling like I'm in a fight versus just one parent over time. Seems like to be the emotional chaotic one, while the other one's like, wait, the story that I'm being told doesn't match the story that I'm seeing.

Oh, that's so good. Yeah. You know, and I won't get too much in about this, but, like, a lot of people think that when I went through my motorcycle accident and 34 surgeries to save my leg from amputation, like, that was the hardest part of my life. And it. It wasn't actually the hardest thing I've ever been through was when I got divorced. I was only married a year to my first husband, and. And it was terrible.

Just.

I just wanted my baby to be okay. And there were so many things that were untrue being said, and I just thought, you know what? I am just going to keep being the best person that I can be. And. And the truth will come out, you know, and. And sure enough, it. It did. I never had to say anything bad. I just had to continue to be exact, you know, just try to be the best mom I could be. Be the best person I could be. Which wasn't easy, by the way, because there was a part of me that was want. Wanted to shout out, you are lying. That's not true. Or. But I never spoke as much hell as he put me through. I never said anything bad about him to hurt my daughter because I was in that position growing up, and I never wanted to do that to my child. And it was. It was hard, for sure. But, yeah, I think so much about social media, and even when we went through Covid and there was so much disconnect and, you know, kids weren't going to school and learning to, like, actually have conversations or even Picking up the phone, they didn't even call each other. I was so grateful that my youngest daughter still had the barn, because everything was locked down in California, but we still had the barn and we could actually still ride horses because we were six feet apart. And so that was our little reprieve, was just hanging out at the barn, riding horses, being around the other horse people. And so do you see that it has impacted our youth, or not even just our youth, but everyone as a whole. That disconnect, or do you feel like it's starting to rebuild since COVID I

think that this programming conditioning has been happening for decades. If you want to go back and, you know, I talk about it from all the way to the Prussian school system, right? The industrial revolution. It created, like, people being obedient, listening, authority building, all of that. Like, it really dates back to a while ago where 50 plus years was very much listen, follow the rules, this is what it looks like, and these are the authorities. So what was happening is children were learning at a young age. Listen to the experts, listen to the teachers, listen to the doctors, listen to the therapists, listen to everybody but your intuition or your parents. And what happens is the parents started to cultivate that as well, where they started doubting their own instincts and outsourcing that. So from a while now, it's been people being groomed essentially to outsource their power instead of thinking, wait, wait, wait, if we keep outsourcing our power, what's it gonna do? It's gonna divide more and more and more. So that this way, any new incident, whether it's Covid, whether it's any new virus, whether it's the next war, whatever it is, it's constantly allowing there to be a battle between the divide. The. The classic divide and conquer. And I think that's what's really happening more and more, is the more they're able to do that, the easier it is to kind of dismantle people. Um, so I do think right now we're at a peak where it's happening. People are. Family are not talking to each other based on who they voted who, what they believe and how believe. And it's happening instead of saying, wait, what happened to deferring opinions and being able to still hold that bond? So I do think that we're at like a peak of that disconnection from people. Why? Because like I said, for so long, you're being conditioned to listen to everybody else. And then that from a young age, started to create that. My family doesn't Know everything. I have to go see where I belong. And then now you have found family. Everything is found family now found family on social media, followers, everything is in the friends group and all of that, so that you never are really attached to where you came from in your roots. And that's why you're seeing such a disconnection right now.

Wow. Well, how does someone who has been hurt by a situation, whether it's politics or disagreement at a family function, and they are just hurt, and they are never. They're saying they're never going to forget, they're dead to me. How do you approach that person and say, hey, can we talk about this and do a little bit of forgiving and reconcile or come together? How do you approach that?

I mean, that's. It's a very big question. But generally speaking, when it comes to approaching hard conversations, that's also the reality of the world that we're living in is people don't know how to have hard conversations anymore. They avoid it. And by avoiding it, they'd rather cut off because it's just a. Easier.

Yeah, I think that's it. That's it.

Because they're not. They're not equipped. Nobody's equipped to have these Harvard conversations. You're in a society where, like I said, for a long time it's been anything that's dis. Uncomfortable is. Is. Anything that brings me discomfort is dangerous. Anything that's triggering me is unhealthy. So now everything's about protect my peace. And protecting my peace has become such a. Such a BS term in a sense of like, I'm going to avoid anything that disrupts me or activates me to protect my peace. Where it's like protecting your peace actually means getting yourself so internally stable that whatever's happening around you is not going to shape up, shake up your internal world. Like, that is true peace. That's really what it is. But people are misinterpreting it to saying, I got to keep my Zen in

order to heal with that. I'm not going to go through that hard thing.

So if people can work through that which ties into communication, everything, it really comes down to what is the first. I always say one has to lead by example. So this is in any conversation, whether it's the parent to the child, spouse, anything. If you're going to be the one to lead, to try and reconcile the conversation, you have to first try and just open up with small talk. And by small talk, I mean like, hey, I'm thinking about you when you're ready. I want to have a conversation. Do that. When the conversation opens up, it's really important for the person who's looking to reconcile first, because sometimes the other person might be a little bit more reluctant or a little bit more defensive. How you approach the conversation is everything. By saying, I'm not approaching the conversation to be right or heard. I'm approaching the conversation for them to feel acknowledged and allow them to open up. That's so good. It's it. Because then their defenses are low. If you're coming in and saying, like, I almost want to debate it so that they could see my perspective and be right, you've lost. Versus, listen, I know that this happened. It's a heated conversation. I want to hear more from you. Like, tell me what you think. Tell me why you think that way. Like, help me understand you. That's it. Let them talk. Talk. Ask more questions. Okay, how did that make you feel? Okay, by, let's just say, voting by someone voting differently than you. Tell me how that makes you feel. Unsafe. Tell me, tell me, tell me. The more they talk, the safer they feel. Being vulnerable around you, then that allows you the space to say, wow, I never saw it that way. The acknowledgement piece. Right. I'm sorry that you feel that way. The acknowledgement piece. It doesn't mean that you're letting go to your entire belief system and giving it to them, but you're allowing them to feel seen and heard, which means, I explained my perspective. I got acknowledged. That now allows you the space. Be like, okay, I never saw it that way. Thank you for sharing that. I. I'd love to be able to share my perspective. Like, are you open to hearing it? Guess what they're more likely to say? Yeah, of course. And it's okay to say. You might not agree with it, but this is just my perspective. So I'd love to be able to have a conversation. Like, feel free to challenge me. You're approaching in a way where they're putting their defenses down. And that even if it could be a hard conversation, allows more space to both parties to be heard. The problem is, as most people enter these conversations to be right, so it's defensive and an argument because I have to prove my point. Wait, you're wrong on this because of this perspective. Wait, you're wrong on this because of this perspective. And then it ends up being like, shut off. And they don't get it. I don't get it either. Let's just not have this conversation at all.

Well, I relate so much to what you were saying earlier about being a middle child. I was a middle child, and I was always the fixer, the, you know, the mediator. And I am like, I don't want to be. I don't want that label anymore. I don't want to be that person anymore. But it seems to happen a lot where I become that middle person in between, Whether it's friends with a disagreement, whether it's family members with a disagreement, or whether it's still parents with a disagreement or sibling. I mean, you name it, and I'm just like. I just try to be an example because I don't want to be the fixer or anything anymore. But. But there are some relationships that. It's sad to me that there's. They're not willing to talk and not willing to reconcile. They're both very stubborn. Any suggestions you could give me. I'm sorry I'm being selfish, but maybe somebody who's listening is in the same predicament. Any suggestions?

Maybe not talking to a parent.

I'm assuming it's a spouse, not talking to a parent.

Right. Fair enough. Okay. Yeah. So it's always gonna be two ways. The parent is either too old, too in their ways to change their behavior now. And the reality is, like, my dad's 74 years old. I've even accepted that with my mom, where they might never change. My mom is still sick. My mom is still operating from that unhealed. The wounded child. And in order for me to have a relationship with them and to lead to. To lead by example for my children, what it means to not have love be disposable, because I think that's another big problem that we have, is they see love is disposable if it doesn't meet me where I am. At some point, the child has to make the decision to say, if I want to have a relationship with my parents, even if it's just not as in depth as I would like, I have to be able to accept them as they are. And it might never change. That's just a reality. I love you. How are you? I want to see you. And then when they try to say things that activate you. So this person that's still, you know, say, not talking to parents is still operating from their wounded child, as much as they don't want to hear it, because what happens is they're still doing that. They're still triggering me. They're still doing, like, you know, you have these expectations of your parents, and as you get older, because you're fully aware of it. They're like, no, I'm aware of what I expect from you, so you should give that to me. That's not always realistic. It has to say, okay, well, they might never be able to meet that because they never had the resources. The podcasts, the, the, the talk shows, the, the books, the, everything that we have, the resources that we have available to us, they never had. And the reality is they might never actually be able to adopt that. So how can you still have a relationship with them and say, I love you, I want to be able to have a relationship with you even before you pass? Because the regret of them passing is far worse than anything that they might have hurt you with. Now, that's for the child. But then there's also parents, a lot of parents who are like, I'm genuinely trying and I want to like my cutoff culture. The amount of parents that have bought that program that are like, I want to try to understand the emotional language of my child so that I can help reconcile, so I can help them. I'm talking about parents who are in their 70s are purchasing it to saying, I want to understand my child. I want to rebuild with my child. So sometimes it's the parent who's leading, and sometimes it's the child who's leading. The reality is, if it's the parent who's like, I'm willing to learn and do this incredible for you. And that's why reconciliation is so much more far likely to happen. But on the flip side, if the parent is not, then they're so stuck in their ways. That doesn't mean that you can't have a relationship with them. That means that you have to let your expectations and the reality settle in for you to say, this might be the only version I'm ever going to get of them. So how and what do I need to work on within myself to be able to have a relationship with them? So for myself, my mom never changed. She didn't. I had to work on my own internal triggers, my things that activated me about her to allow myself to have a relationship with her, that I was no longer being affected by it. When she would do something that I would call toxic and triggering to me before, I'd be like, she's operating from her wounded child and I'm sad that she doesn't see it. And I'm sad that she can't be a healthier, happier version. But that's okay. This is the version that I'm going to get. I've made Peace with it. I love you. At least I have a relationship with you. And that's it.

Yeah, I think so too. And I think one thing that really helped me is I don't. I remember I used to be so hurt because I would have expectations. These. These big expectations of them showing up or that. And it's like when I let that go. And that's not just with parents, that's with relationships. Relationships. I just, you know, I just didn't have expectations of anything. And it was so freeing, you know, so freeing. Well, I. I've got so many questions, and I know we're running out of time, so I want to get right to them. I could. I literally. I'm learning so much from you, and I could talk to you all day. But in. In your opinion, what's one of the biggest lies social media or modern culture is teaching people about healing?

Oh, that's a good one. I think what I had mentioned about the protecting your piece, both one and that your parents are the villains. Social media is doing a really good job of getting people to label. That's the number one thing, is actually label characteristics of people, boundaries, narcissistic gaslighting, toxic triggers, trauma. It's labeling so much of people where they're learning emotional language before they actually even have the emotional capacity to understand what that even means. And then the second one is the protecting your peas. When we are in a generation where people are becoming more aware, consciously aware of how to support their nervous system, which I think is important. And there's so many ways to do that. You think meditation, emdr, tapping, like, there's just so many ways to support the nervous system. But what's happening is because of that, live in peace, become Zen, all of that. People are perceiving life to be one big, calm journey, and it's not. In order to truly be at peace, you have to work on an internal state that allows you to go through the chaos of the world in a way that doesn't shake you up. And you. You kind of receive it with humbleness. Like, I'm going through this hardship, and it's something that's meant to grow me. And right through struggles come strength. It's. It's happening for me. What am I meant to learn through that? So you're coming into it where it's like, I'm gonna go through hardships. Life is freaking hard. But that doesn't mean that my stability, my internal stability is. Is sabotaged by it. So that is one of the biggest lies where people Are like, life is so calm and it's great and everything is Zen. No, if everything is Zen all the time around you and there's no chaos and there's nothing that's activating you or needing you to pull into the discomfort. Discomfort. It's. It's a fallacy. In my opinion. That just means that you've cut everything off. Right. That's what I'm going. So I think that's one of the biggest lies is, oh, protect your peace. And then cut off anyone who makes you feel uncomfortable, who makes you look. Look at yourself in the mirror. Right. How activating is it when someone tells you something you don't want to hear, but you know that you need to hear? And you're like, I'm triggered by this. And it's like, yeah, of course. Because you're hearing what you don't want to hear, but you know that you need to hear it. So it's like, instead, it's like, I'll cut them off. Instead of looking at myself in the mirror and saying, where can I take accountability here? That's the thing is people lack accountability. People don't want. That's another big one, too, is like, there's no one that's teaching personal accountability and saying, I'm one of two people in my life. I either look in the mirror and I love who I am. I love the person that I've become. Cool. Thank your parents. In every challenge that you have gone through in your life. Cause that shaped you into who you are, or I don't love who I am. I need to work on myself. Like, I, I, I should be better off. I should be more ahead. I should be, should be, should be. That's a you job. Nobody else's too.

Yeah. I have to tell you something funny. So my oldest daughter, who. She's amazing. She's. She's 30, and she just graduated from Yale and she went to medical school at Yale, which for our family, like, I never even went to college. So that was a very big accomplishment. But she was saying, yeah, mom, it was so traumatic for me when you had your motorcycle accident that all I did was just, I just started studying and studying. That's all I did to cope. And I said, well, you're welcome. I said, look, you got into Yale. Now you're a doctor, so you're welcome. It was a good thing.

But you're right. Like, that's the thing. Like, everything that happens that's so hard in our life is meant to be a fundamental piece of our story. And if people embraced that as like, the hardships that I went through, the harder the hardship is that I went through, that means the bigger my purpose is here on earth. But instead of people embracing it, they resent it as if they're a victim to what their circumstances versus no, these circumstances happen to teach me something. What am I meant to do with this knowledge? If people just flipped that perspective, the world would be so much more powerful than it is right now, where people are using it as wisdom to help other people versus allowing themselves to be stuck.

Yeah. And it's like you have a choice to be the victor or the victim. Victim of your life. And I think that I have trained my. Because I've been through some stuff and I've immediately trained myself to go, okay, what do I need to learn from this? You know, I'll say, God, what are you. What. What do I need to learn? What did I not learn from the other time that I need to soak in? I need to learn it so I don't repeat anything like this ever again. So I think that helps. Just the flipping, the perspective on it. That's so good. Well, now I feel like a lot of times there's not a lot of emotional toughness or resilience. How do you teach that to the next generation without becoming emotionally unavailable parents?

Yeah, that's a good question. So I think one of the biggest things is parents now have to understand, like I said, how the emotional language has changed. They have to understand it. I'm actually working right now on building out a few lessons to add into my cutoff culture because I don't want to create a whole new program for it because it's so powerful. That's speaking to the teens, for example, about when you understand the different phases that children are going through in terms of identity formation and everything, parents are better equipped. So, for example, when they're 16, 17, 18 years old, and they're pushing away even more and they want to be with their friends, they don't want to be with their parents. It's like parents think that there's something wrong there when it's just like, no, that's normal. That's them starting the identity formation, which is like, who am I becoming outside of my parents in the world? And I'm finding myself. So there's ways to support. Support that. But the number one thing that I see across the board is the parents who are coddling their kids. Gentle parenting to the other extreme, where they're saving their kids from hardships and Hard decisions are creating the most sensitive, fragile society that has no respect, no discipline, and a sense of entitlement to the universe and to the world that has them more likely to cut off anybody who doesn't give them what they want. And that's not even to say that they're a bad kid. That's what they learned. It's learned behavior. And so the, the most dangerous thing a parent can do is over coddle their kids versus showing a little bit of tough love. Let them hurt, let them go through the hardships that you went through. Maybe not as bad as you went through, but they need to go through that in order to build the emotional capacity and, and the reality check to go through the hard world that they live in. They need to go through that. They need to hear no, they need to get that tough love. They need to do all of that. And it's necessary. It's so necessary. So if there's one thing that I could say to the next generation is spend time learning about your child and the world that they're living in, because they're not living in your world right now. So you need to know how their perspective is looking at the world that they're living in now. Number one, which is why I help do that in the Cancel Culture program. Number two is how can I now parent with this new perspective? In a way, that's tough love, but conscious parenting. So there's a difference between conscious parenting and gentle parenting. Conscious is I'm taking the time to communicate better with them, to show up a little bit differently while still not just giving them whatever the heck they want. Whereas gentle parenting is like, I'm just going to say yes to everything because I really don't want them to have a hard life. And you know what I mean? Every time they talk back to me, they've got zero consequences. Because what that might look like. And so that's. That's kind of my advice a little bit, is they need a little bit more tough love. But the parent also has to spend a little bit of time understanding the cultural dynamic that's happening so that you can understand the perspective that they're operating from.

I think that's such great advice. And yeah, you know, I used to teach and for years and I would have kids in class and oh, my goodness, you could tell the ones that were not disciplined at all, that were always told yes, they were so disrespectful. And it. And that was when I would teach. That was when I was teaching dance. Then when I Went into the fitness industry for 26 years. I trained clients. I remember I trained this one client and she had a daughter that was a teenager and she said just may I just need you to make her happy. And I was like, what? I'm a fitness trainer. I'm here to get her healthy. You know what I mean? But that, that kid, I'm sad to say, ended up going down a very wrong path because there were no consequences there was it. She came from a very, very wealthy family. And it's just sad. But I also understand the difference between like, I know it's hard. It was hard for me because I grew up with not, not much and I had to work for anything that I wanted. You know, I bought my own car, paid for my way through everything. Didn't get money for to go to college or start my, you know, get did I. I worked for it and it taught me a lot. I never resented it as it really taught me to. I wouldn't probably be where I am today if I didn't learn that as a kid.

Well, I think you said something really important to that first example that you gave where it's a wealthy family. All of that just make her happy. What does the number one say? Like when you think about meditation people, everything that's taught to us, the number one thing for happiness is what? Gratitude. And if someone is constantly given everything without having to even build gratitude for what they have, they've never built the muscle to show appreciation. You're never showing appreciation. Means that I'd be happy with that. How are you? How like literally you created the monster. Because we don't know how to be grateful.

Oh my goodness. You just said so much. I just had a situation where I was like, I was kind of like, what is going on? Like this person has no appreciation and she's been given stuff her whole.

That's why it's too hard because it's not even the child's fault and it's also not always the parents fault because they don't know. And that's why there's such a disconnection. It's like, wait, how can I get her to show a little bit of gratitude now? You cannot over give your way into a child and think that they're going to learn gratitude overnight. The reason why you understand that Me too. I grew up in community housing. I was working at 14 years old and paid my way through buying my first brand name shoes. Like I remember. So you understand the value. It takes a lot more grit, which means you Have a different kind of appreciation because you can't just go and buy whatever you want and do all of those things. It's important. So I had, I had a really good friend of mine who came from a very wealthy Italian family. Super, incredibly wealthy. Do you know, I had zero idea that she came from a wealthy family. Her parents made her pay for her car. She drove a used car. It was no better than mine. She worked so freaking hard until the one day that I went to visit her after being friends with her for so long and I went to her home and I was like, holy girl, you live in a mansion. And she's like, it's my parents house. Her past.

Wow.

I don't meet many people like that where the parents are like, yeah, this is our success. You're working, you earn your stuff. And she's still a hard worker. Till now she's doing a different level of gratitude. And so I think that the parents have to really say, how can I build that into my child? Where if I look back on me, my. The reason why I think I'm successful and happy and healthy is because the grit, the tenacity, the perseverance, the patience, the consistency that we had to learn is foundational to what our kids need to learn. Because if not, then we're raising a spoiled, sensitive, fragile, entitled, emotionally unavailable generation that is blaming it all on their parents.

Oh my goodness. We just. Can we just shout this off the rooftops?

I'm trying to.

Oh, my God, you are amazing. You are amazing. Well, how can people get involved and some of your programs, I mean, first of all, tell us where we can get your book, get involved in your programs. I think this is great for any person that is ready to be a better leader, a better parent, a better person, a better friend, daughter.

Honestly, Emberly Tanya Cazale, across the board. That's my website, that's my social media handles. I do want to say my book is actually in more for the health coaching and the health space that I was in before. So I wouldn't say. I mean, it kind of ties into this because it's really about building that sovereignty. I'm all about building sovereignty. That means strengthening your relationships, your health, your business, everything. But I'm in the process right now of actually working on a book that's focused on the cancel culture and the cutoff culture. So that's it. Tanikazal. If there's anything I would say start with the program like cut off culture. That is, it's. It's the new It's. It's called the cutoff culture because it's the new rules of family repair and what people need to know in terms of how it's changing. So I spent a lot of time and energy working on that program, and the reason why I did it that way is because I could sit here on one on ones all day and I could help. Actually, I literally thought about it a few weeks ago. When you're talking about it with my team, people are like, well, how come you don't do one on ones? How come we don't do this? And I was like, I have literally helped thousands of parents reconcile that. If I was doing one on ones, I could say, oh, I've helped five, six, seven, 10 families reconcile 12. But instead, I could see the patterns. Like, look at our conversation. Even though each situation is different, the fundamentals are the same communication, understanding the other party, the new emotional language, the different dynamics. So all I do is I take all of this information, say, how can I build it in a foundational place where it's actually applicable to most things, situations? And so that's exactly why I built it that way, so that I could just get to more and more people and help more people for less than a fraction of the price that allows me to just show up and keep having these important conversations to raise the awareness.

Well, you are amazing. Your message is so needed in the world today. So thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you so much. And you know what? If this message encouraged you, challenged you, or inspired you, please make sure you take a screenshot and share it on your social media and tag us and let us know your biggest takeaway. That would mean a lot. And thank you again for being here and thank y' all for tuning in. Because of you, this is a top 1% podcast, and that wouldn't be possible unless you tuned in. So I appreciate you being here. And as always, remember, joy is not the absence of hardship. It's the presence of purpose, gratitude, and connection through the journey. So thanks for tuning into the Amberly Lago show, and we'll see you next week.