Vienna Pharaon: Breaking Family Patterns

Vienna Pharaon is a therapist whose practice centers around helping individuals—and couples—identify old patterns, patterns that often belong to the family system, that have them by the throat. And then, of course, she helps people break them and find new stories for how they show up in the world. Vienna is the host of the podcast, This Keeps Happening and the author of the national bestseller The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love, where she outlines the main themes that she sees in her practice. There is much in these pages to which we can all relate, as she articulates five core, original wounds that revolve around worthiness, belonging, trust, safety, and prioritization. Sound familiar? Let’s dive into our conversation now.

MORE FROM VIENNA PHARAON:

The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love

Vienna’s Website

Vienna’s Podcast: “This Keeps Happening”

Follow Vienna on Instagram

TRANSCRIPT:

(Edited slightly for clarity.)

ELISE: When did The Origins Of You Come Out? Was it last year?

VIENNA: Yeah, it was February 21st of 2023.

ELISE: Okay, perfect. I love a tidy book structure. And I'm sure so much of your work is messy, right? Or it can't be boiled down to five core wounds. But do you find, in your practice, as you attend to people's pain that typically there's, there is one primary Wound

VIENNA: Yeah. I mean, it's funny.

ELISE: it catches most people.

VIENNA: Yes, and I think sometimes wounds come out in certain dynamics, right? Certain relationships and also just like certain stages of life as well, right? So it's not uncommon for me to get a message from someone who's like, is it possible to have all five? It's like, it sure is. And I think a lot of people can relate but those five maybe show up in different different ways, but I put out a quiz and the results were not surprising of like, what's your primary origin wound. And so many came back with the worthiness wound, which when I was writing the book and really sitting with it, it was like, think we all probably brush up against this worthiness wound at some point in our lives in some way, right? Like that this is one of them that maybe doesn't skip over any...

ELISE: mm hmm.

VIENNA: And so, you know, I think a lot of people do relate to the worthiness wound, but yes, I, when I'm working with someone because people are coming in with something specific in mind usually, right? When people enter into therapy, it's not usually like, let's just scan my whole life and see what comes up, right? They're like, here's what's going on in my life. I want to talk about it. I want a solution. Like, here's where we want to get to. And in that unpacking is where we'll tend to find, you know, one or two wounds that really need tending to, that really need some acknowledgement and, you know, witnessing and grieving alongside of it.

ELISE: Not to speak in sort of major generalizations, but when you when people come in with their presenting problem, their problematic relationship pattern, whatever it may be. How long does it take to sort of really understand someone psychologically? And I'm sure it varies, but...

VIENNA: yeah, it can vary. I mean, I feel like I'm able to kind of see it fairly quickly. I've been doing this work for a long time now. I've worked over 25, 000 hours with couples, individuals, families deep in this work. And I've done a lot of work on myself, too. And I think it's, you know, part of my gift and skillset is hearing what people are saying, but understanding what the pain is beneath what it is that they're saying. And it's not true that like, Oh, if you're dealing with, you know, infidelity, here's exactly what that means. We're not in boxes, what has happened to us and what is a part of our story, it's about how we. So one of the examples I'll often give is if you grew up and, you know, dad left, there was an abandonment. For some people, they might internalize that as an as a worthiness wound, right? You left because I wasn't good enough for you to stick around for. Somebody else might internalize it as a trust wound. You left and now the important people in my life, right, are the people who are going to leave. I can't trust them. Right. And so that part of this work, I think is really important because it's not like, Ooh, you know, if we check this box, it means you have this wound. It's a very sort of like nuanced processing of understanding where the pain is. And most of us, when we come into therapy with the presenting problem, we're like, Oh, we have a breakdown in communication or, you know, our conflict is getting out of hand or I can't stand that in laws, they just don't. Do this X, Y, and Z, right? It's like, it's this thing that we're so focused on, but we're really disconnected from what that thing is activating within us that is historical, right? That probably has not been resolved from the past. And that's what this work is about is like, if we have unwanted patterns in our lives, if we have, you know, reactions that we can't get a hold of, these are things that are pointing an arrow to something before this moment that hasn't been to, that hasn't been resolved. If you can change a pattern, Quickly. Good for you. Don't

ELISE: worry about it.

Mm hmm.

VIENNA: But if you've got a pattern that like keeps showing up, I always say like pain patterns are pain's way of grabbing for our attention. Right? It's like pain is really clever. I don't think pain's out to get us. I don't think pain wants to destroy us. Pain is not cynically rubbing, its hands together being like, how do I screw this person's life up? Right? It's like, I'd like to be acknowledged. I'd like to be honored. I'd like to be witnessed and I have to find these ways to get you to turn to me. And I know it's hard for people to turn around, right? People are like, I am the prize. Gotta keep it going. Gotta keep it moving. Like I came in here to discuss this thing and I want a solution to it. And I have to find ways to get people to turn their heads back like swivel head. We're not going to stay there forever, but we do need to go there. We do need to understand the family systems that you grew up in and how those things, those environments left an imprint on you and how those people left you with something that is still running the show today, right? That's our work. We have to understand that because so much is playing out there from the past would become who we are. So much of it, right? Is because of our families, maybe not everything, but so much of it. And we have to take a look there.

It's hard stuff. Everybody wants to say they did the best they could. They were so much better than their parents were to them. I'm afraid of what I'm going to find. I think it can feel like a very overwhelming process, but I think, I mean, my hope with the book was to make it a little bit more inviting. And I think with storytelling, at least for me, storytelling is a really beautiful way to be able to see ourselves or to see someone we love a little bit differently. It sometimes can feel hard if like the attention and spotlight is right on us or right on our partner or right on our adult child. But if we read a story about someone else who, ah, well that sounds familiar or like, Hmm, oh yeah. I can see a little bit of that in me. I think sometimes the storytelling can be a beautiful access point for people.

ELISE: I also think that there's sort of, understanding the layers because it feels like we're in a moment, right? I don't know, the last 30 years, I don't know exactly how to date it, of this focus on the family system and it's all family and trauma, et cetera, which it's like amazing to see that become a word that's accessible to most people or where they can define it as a core wound. And then also understanding, well, it's one layer, right? This family system that is then diagramming with your personality, with the wider culture, with other countervailing forces. And so as you start to sort of pick stories apart, because I feel like I've also had friends who struggle with substance abuse, et cetera. And they are sort of like, I didn't have any trauma. You know, like there's also an instinct right now to sort of blame everything. I don't know if you experienced this in your practice, like it has to be in the family system. And do you see that breaking down or is it always traceable in the sense that even if you're sort of like a highly sensitive person, or you are a very insular, introverted person born to parents who are extremely extroverted, like, is it always ...even if there's maybe no causality?

VIENNA: Yeah, it's such a good question. And I am such a believer that the work is not to throw our parents under the bus and to blame and point the finger. I don't want us to do that actually at all. I just want us to name the things that are true that need to be seen and need to be acknowledged. I think sometimes like people will really get caught, I call it wound comparison in the book or it's like, my life was so good or like the girl next door had it so much worse than I did, right? It's like we go to these places and the reason I use the word wounds was intentional, was very important because I think sometimes when we use the word trauma, people check out. So many people check out. I didn't have trauma. That's not my story. So there's nothing for me here. Wounds felt important because guess what? We have all experienced pain and disappointment.

And sometimes when we put this on This spectrum where you're like, listen, unless it's really, really bad, you've got nothing to complain about. Unless it's all the way over here, like you've got a pretty good life, you know, count your blessings and move it along. And I think, you know, in some of the stories, for example, in the prioritization chapter, I talk about a client of mine, alias is Andre in the book. And he had a single mom and he loved, respected her so much. Really, you could feel that in the sessions week in and week out. And he would like really protect her and he'd say she would work multiple jobs, you know, every single day of the week. They would go to church on Sundays together. They'd go to brunch afterwards. That was their time together before she would go to her job Sunday afternoon. He would say like, this is the way my mom was prioritizing me, right? He could rationalize what it is that she was doing in order to give him a good life. And he held that. But it was so important for him to eventually get to the place where he needed to say that the way he craved to be prioritized was through time spent with her.

ELISE: Mm...

VIENNA: and I share this because it's such a delicate story because it's like, here's an example of someone who isn't malintended, isn't doing anything wrong, he loves her, she loves him. She's a wonderful parent in so many ways, right? Like there's nothing terrible that's happening here. She's doing the best that she can actually, right. And he loves her for it, but it doesn't change the fact that he still wants more time with her, that he still wants to be prioritized through time spent. And that story, I think, is so important, right? Because a lot of times when we're thinking about wounds and pain and trauma, we're like, they were terrible. They were abusive. They had to be doing these malintended things. Like they were negligent. They didn't care. In order for me to have access to a story. And if we participate with that narrative, so many of us are just going to continue distracting ourselves away from what it is that needs attention. And this isn't like, Oh, we've got to find something that, you know, it's like sometimes be like, Oh, well, I just don't want to go on the hunt, right. To find something that was wrong if there wasn't something that was wrong. But if there is something that is playing out in your life today, like this is your indicator. If there's something that's playing out in your life today that you can't shift, that you want to shift, right? Like it is letting you know that there is something there that has been overlooked.

And if you only tell yourself that unless it was awful, unless it was a 10 out of 10 or a nine out of 10, you don't have a right to spend time with it, I think you're going to stay stuck. And so there's a bit of this where it's like, we cannot compare. Of course, some people's stories are horrific. If you didn't have a horrific story, beautiful, right? Like that's good. And it does not mean that you didn't experience certain things that still were disappointing or that still were a letdown or still made you question if you were loved unless you were performing well, or like you were a part of something, you know, Unless you believed something different than the family believed, right? Like these things are very important for us to be able to name and spot and acknowledge because otherwise, like I said before, pain is going to find clever ways to keep presenting itself in our lives and in our relationships, particularly.

ELISE: Yeah. I think, you know, we need more systems, just listening to that story on Andre, because so often, right, we go right into this blame, like the drama triangle, right? Like they're in every story, there's a victim, there's a villain, there's a hero and when it doesn't abide, as most stories, like that story that you just told, don't abide, I think we don't have a narrative map for how to figure out where to apportion blame or even acknowledge everything that you just said about not getting everything that you need. And it's interesting, I was just doing a book club with my mom and her friends and, you know, they're 75 year old women and my mom is someone who would benefit greatly from therapy and yet she's like, I'm going to save the money so that you can inherit it. I don't want your therapy money, mom. I would much prefer for you to process your, her childhood, which was very hard. But it was interesting because one of her friends was like, I just want to comment, you know, I've never been to therapy and it seems like you've done a lot of therapy. I mean, she didn't say it with it that much judgment, but there was some judgment and of course just because of the job that I had to do I talked to a lot of therapists, right? I've only really had one primary therapist in my life, but it was interesting and to me it was also suggesting like a generational divide of Our parents didn't necessarily spend time on the couch, right? I don't know what the actual rates are, but I do think that there was fear. It was tinged with fear. Like if you go looking, you'll find stuff. And of course, right?

VIENNA: Of course. And you're right. I don't know, like you said, what the stats would be, but certainly right, that fear and also I think shame, Oh, what? Oh, it's therapist. Something has to be awfully wrong, right? Versus now it's like people are like, I'm going to go get my nails done. I'm going to go to my therapist. I'll see me meet you for dinner afterwards. And it's just something that, you know, no one thinks... emotional hygiene. And no one thinks that like, you have got to be drowning in order for you to be at a therapist office. And so there is a big shift and I think, you know, for that generation, obviously there's still, you know, a huge stigma around it. And I think we're in maybe a similar generation that has worked hard at destigmatizing it and, you know, making it something that is part of the conversation. And I think it's, you know, doing some wonders for many people. But it can be hard to feel that resistance. Especially when we're doing the work, right? Like a lot of times people are like, Oh, like, you know, you want your parent to change or you want your parent to heal, or you want them to see something that they are not able to see. And that part can feel so hard and so frustrating because, you know, if you've gone through some of this work and you have experienced some of the benefits of it obviously, like you said, I know part of my mom's story and I know that it's hard and I would love for her to maybe experience some relief there you know, if she can. I do think sometimes though, in that generation, I think you said that she's 75 or the women are in that age range. Sometimes going there is so disruptive at that chapter of life. You know, that like actually the status quo is what keeps everything intact, is an interesting...

ELISE: Chaos on the other side.

VIENNA: yeah, exactly right. The system starts to shake in a really big way when you look at it.

ELISE: Yeah. And what I experienced too, this is more sensed than stated, but how much we all want to be seen and a desperation to be seen and you call it witnessing. And I sense that very much from my mom. And then also the sort of implication of narcissism or deep self involvement to sort of think that you're worth it. Meanwhile, you know, I've been in therapy for probably four years. I see a Jungian and it's like creative coaching for me too. And it's the growth, you know, I've grown so much just from taking that hour and actually thinking about things, and that's how we grow, right? Like all of these things that we don't really want to happen. That's the material for our growth, unfortunately, without any suffering or resistance or whatever you would want to call it, we don't really have an opportunity to get bigger.

VIENNA: And it's hard to watch people we care about and love stay in the stuckness or stay in the smallness.

ELISE: Yeah. When people hit that core wound, I mean, so there's belonging worthiness prioritization, trust...

VIENNA: and safety.

ELISE: and safety. When they hit that, how quickly in your experience does transformation happen, is it like a lens shifting in a camera where suddenly they can see more clearly or does it typically take a long time?

VIENNA: I think the seeing of it can be quick, right? What we would call the aha moment or like the light bulb goes off, right? And it's like, Oh, right. There's the dot. What happens next can take some time, for some people it might be a little bit shorter for others. It could be something that takes years. And I'm always mindful when I say that because I think life's journey is that like it is a forever process that just because we identify a wound and we do some, you know, witnessing and grieving of it doesn't mean then all of a sudden it is packaged and it goes away and it never revisits, right? It will revisit and it will poke its head up from time to time in different chapters and stages of our lives, probably through different people and sometimes the same people. But I think the identification of the wound, it's that first jolt of like, this is why this is happening, or like, this is why I do this, or, oh, this behavior that I don't like about myself is protecting me from something.

I'll share a quick example. I was having in a conflict with my now husband, but we were not married at the time. No clue what the conflict was about, but I do remember myself like proving my point, doubling down, tripling down. And he's like, I got it. Totally understand. I got it. Totally understand. I'm still going and going and going. And I'm like having this out of body moment. And I'm like, stop talking. And I can't stop. It's continuing to go. Finally, I stop, shame enters in. And then probably because I'm a therapist, very quickly I'm moved to curiosity. What does proving my point and needing to be right serve? Okay, squiggly line right back into my family system. My parents went through a nine year divorce process when I was in first grade. Really terrible. A lot of gaslighting, manipulation psychological abuse, paranoia, emotional flooding, high, high, high conflict. Only child, just like tiny little human in this system watching all of this go down.

And, okay, squiggly line back into there and the gaslighting and manipulation was directed at my mom. So I was just an observer of it, but I watched it intently, closely. And what I saw was my dad so good at like masterfully changing details and information. And it led to crazy making for my mom quite literally. And as a kid. Assigned, okay, power control safety over here when you're right, when you can prove that you're right and lack of safety, lack of security, unwellness over here when you are wrong. And I remember like, you know, it's like those moments where it clicks in and you're like, compassion for the self, because wow, this behavior in me is protecting me from something, right? Because being right is equal to being safe in my experience. And when I can see it that way, through that lens, something shifts. Now guess what? I don't get to keep that behavior, right? It's not like, Oh, it makes sense. And so I'm going to keep proving my point and needing to be right in every conversation.

That's not going to work either. My wise, mature adult self needs to come into the conversation, needs to come to the table. But it's so important for us because our behaviors, all these behaviors, Oh, I can't believe I do that. Any place that you have shame or embarrassment, guilt about something, right? It's like there is going to be a link there that is protecting you from something. And when you can start to understand, Oh, This is what it's protecting me from. Hmm. Did it, where did it come from? Right. I'm curious about that stuff. And sometimes we find it and sometimes we don't, I don't want people to get so lost. I'm like, I need to know where it came from. Right? Like sometimes that becomes a distraction too, but if it's available to us, beautiful. There's a storyline there that's really important for us to hold and maybe bring forward to a partner. I remember sharing it with my husband my partner at the time, being like, I did some thinking and like, I want you to understand a little bit more about this behavior and why it shows up sometimes.

And, grateful I have a very self aware husband and, you know, someone who cares deeply about this work who was very curious about it too. But it gives us that space to begin our work. So when you ask like how quickly does it move? Well, the awareness, the like naming of something helps us touch it, right. It lets us like work with it from there, the process that happens after that, ah, repetition practice. We're not going to be great at this all the time. I still point proof sometimes, but I have a much faster line and I'm also able to, I call it pivoting in the book. But I'm also able to change my behavior much more easily with things now because I've spent so much time working through, you know, this origin healing practice of identifying, naming the wounds, bearing witness to them. I don't believe we heal without witnessing. I don't believe that we heal without bearing witness to our pain and that's not reliving our pain or reliving our trauma. It doesn't have to be that, but it's bearing witness to the experience being seen. Like you said before, right? We're using different words, different language, but being seen, being heard, being understood, having the experience acknowledged, that has to happen for things to move. It has to. And then grief for me is just the authentic expression of emotion that comes from the witnessing.

We know that the quote that's attributed to Viktor Frankl about like between stimulus and response, there is a space, right? It's like when we witness and grieve that space expands. It just pulls further apart. There's more space there so that when something happens in our lives, we feel a surge of activation. We want to become reactive. You know, something protective wants to take place, right? And it's like, I'm going to prove my point. I'm going to protect myself this way. When we do more of that witnessing and grieving, we have such a greater access to our internal world and worlds, right? Partner, whoever the other person might be with greater access to our history, to our story, what's actually happening here. And when we have greater access to that, then I believe we have greater opportunity for choice. And choosing to replace things that tend to be very disconnective or destructive in relationships with things that are a little bit more connective, a little bit more expansive than what we're used to. So, you know, it's not a quick process because, you know, for most of us, we've been doing a lot of the stuff that we're doing for decades. And so this idea that like, okay, we're going to identify it and then be able to move on from it, I think is a bit farfetched, but you know, we're reworking decades worth of protecting ourselves and, you know, navigating through the world in the way that we have been. But it can happen, right? Like that's the beauty of it. There is change that can take place here.

ELISE: it's interesting, I think, about doing a lot of work now, being an adult myself, middle aged, so wild, I don't know how suddenly so old, but how much distance do you think that people need from events in order to be able to really go back into them with maybe a little bit more perspective or life experience or in terms of these wounds? Do they need to be a little scabbed, a little calcified before you can really heal them?

VIENNA: I think so. I think a little scabbed. You know, part of middle life is that hopefully there's a little bit of wisdom there. And I think that is part of what we gain as we go through this journey of life is that there is wisdom that's accrued, which allows us to exist a little bit more in the complexity and nuance of things. I believe so much of this work is that we have to hold grace and compassion. And we also have to hold ownership and accountability and responsibility. And I feel that way, right? It's like, okay, if there's something that happened in our childhood or something happened in our teenage years, something that happened in our twenties, right? It's hard to process those things really early on. And especially when we're younger and really immature, because the lens is so narrow. I think as we grow and hopefully as we get wiser, that the lens opens.

Context really matters. Now, I'm so careful because context is not an excuse, but context really matters. And I think when you can hold context while still honoring what your experience is, there's something very beautiful about that. Right at the end of the book. I share an exercise from a psychotherapist, Michael Kerr, and he says, I want you to think of your mother as your grandmother's daughter and see how that shifts your perspective. And I love that exercise for every single one of us, not because I want you to make excuses for anyone, but because the context of, huh, right, every single one of us was a tiny little human. In a complicated system, right in a system that had some flaws to it where there's a range, maybe some really hard stories, maybe not so bad stories, but still a complicated system with layers and complexity to it. And when I can remember that you, the person who did hurtful things to me or disappointed me or let me down or didn't see me or acknowledge me or gave me conditional love or gave me the silent treatment as a form of punishment, right? Like when I can see you in this way, where your pain is front and center for me too, then I do think it gives us that perspective that we often need to move through this and not just solely be focused on us and them as the enemy, right?

Like them as this is who I need to blame. And so, yeah, I mean, I think the time from the wound itself, some space, but the wisdom. And sometimes the wisdom is there and sometimes that takes a long time. But for people who have that already, if there's a wound, it's going to take some time to let it scab over. And we do need a little distance, but you might be closer to resolving it or spending some time with it than someone who maybe hasn't picked up some of those wisdom pieces just quite yet. Wisdom is a huge part of this because you have to be able to see the system at large. And you know, it's tough because like memories we know we're not gonna remember everything perfectly. You know, we have stories that we've repeated to ourselves so many times. How much of That is accurate? How much of it is inaccurate? We get lost there. But I think there's just something about if we can hold the greater system in our hands as we move through healing, I think that gives us a much greater opportunity at getting to a place of reconciliation and peace.

ELISE: I don't know if I can articulate this well, but one of the things that seems to be happening online too and it seems like younger generations are really therapy obsessed, right? I mean, there's like a lot of therapy on TikTok and people always ask me, they're like, are you going to, you know, go and workshop your book? I'm like, I would never. ever workshop my book without a therapist. I'm not a therapist. I'm not equipped to sort of open people up and put them back together. So one, obviously we see a lot of therapy language sort of catch a life of its own online in a way, but what also seems to be happening is this idea where it almost feels like the inverse function of therapy, which to me has always seemed like how do you take extreme personal responsibility, not to say that you're responsible for what happened to you, but how do you do that emotional hygiene? How do you metabolize the experiences that you've had in your life? How do you heal, whatever the word might be so that you're not projecting your pain and hurt and anger onto other people? Right? To me, it feels like, how do we all become bigger containers for being in the world? Now there seems to be this, like, the world needs to be safe for me, words are violent, your presence is violent, I need you, world, to be how I want to experience myself, and or, I'm not doing a great job of explaining it, but it's a little scary to me, like that there's this idea. I don't know if it can be blamed on increasing literacy around therapy, but that the world shouldn't hurt you, right? And it gets back into this sort of victim villain narrative, but I worry that instead of recognizing like, No, this tormenting of experiences and suffering is like part of life. We're not supposed to not have any suffering. I don't know.

VIENNA: It points, though, to what you were saying before, which is like, without any suffering or hardship, there is no opportunity to become bigger, right? To grow and to expand from it. Now, of course, we're not like searching for suffering, right? We're like, okay, like, where can I find it today? And I think as parents, right? Like we try to minimize you know, as much awful stuff as possible for our children, but I get parents asking me all the time, like, how do I make sure that my children are not wounded? And it's like, you don't, they will become wounded. They have to become wounded. They don't exist in a vacuum. And yeah, like what happens if we exist in a vacuum, that is a little bit scary because there's nothing to earn. There's nothing to earn back for yourself. Now, again, obviously you and I are not advocating for people to become traumatized. Right. But it's like, there is something about, you know, what I say to parents is obviously you're going to do your best not to do big, bad stuff to your children and you're going to try to protect them from big, bad stuff happening to them. But it's not about whether or not they experience pain. It is about your ability to repair with them. It is about how quickly you race to ownership and accountability and responsibility and apology when it is appropriate. When you do that, life is not the avoidance of pain, but our ability to repair. That is what is needed, right? That is at the core of attachment, not, not going through hard things, going through hard things and getting to the other side together. That is at the core of it, right? And so this idea that like, I can't, no, I can't handle anything at all. This has to be entirely safe at all moments. I think that that's probably not a great setup for most people. And also like, it's going to find a way in anyway. And yeah, I hear you on what you were saying. And it's like, it's so hard to heal if you are only blaming others.

ELISE: Mm hmm.

VIENNA: it's also so hard to heal if you hold in a victim position, not meaning that you weren't a victim, right? Let's really differentiate that, right? You can absolutely have been a victim to something, but if you cling to that, then there is no way to heal from that position, right? It's like what you were saying before, who says the quote, like the pain might not have been your fault, but your healing is your responsibility. I don't know if that's Glennon or like, but it's like there's something to that, which is, and sometimes we have to stay in that position for a period of time, of course, because in that space, we need to be witnessed and we need to, you know, do a lot of that processing. But eventually we have to say, how am I going to interact in the world again? And if I am in this place of blame only, then there is no space for my role and my accountability and my choice, actually, as like you just held in a disempowered position

ELISE: Well, it's when being a victim, which is very real, particularly, you know, for children, and where that becomes victimhood in a prolonged state where you're holding on to the story, and the re victimization or the desire to sort of stay, right? And what does it look like to start moving out of that?

VIENNA: Yeah. And listen, sometimes we stay there because there hasn't been enough witnessing, right? Like sometimes we have to stay there because something hasn't completed here. But I think if we're not doing intentional work towards, you know, a completion of something so that we can move, right, then we remain in the suffering and that's heartbreaking.

ELISE: Yeah. I know some people in my life who have just an extreme negativity bias or a tendency towards victimhood. It's like they can be in a really nice hotel and yet aggrieved, right? Like there's always something, there's always something to complain about. Not to generalize, but do you feel like you can invariably trace that back to a moment where they actually felt unwitnessed as a victim, and they're just like, finding ways to bring it back to that, like, recognize my discomfort and my pain? Or is that a leap?

VIENNA: I don't think it has to be a leap. I think that there could absolutely be some dot connection there. I imagine that there could be like a number of different stories that would lead us to that moment where it's like, this is a really beautiful experience and you are constantly trying to find something wrong here. Or yeah, I need somebody to tend to me here or I don't feel taken care of properly. I don't feel seen properly. Like this room isn't the best room in the hotel, you know, whatever it might be. Right. And so, yeah, I think we could probably trace it to a number of things. That's a really interesting example. I know some people like that.

ELISE: Right? I mean, I know and love some people like this, and it's like, wow, it's, it becomes a primary way of relating.

VIENNA: And I'm just going to give you one example of this, like the first thing that came to mind as I just paused in that was, if I am difficult, can I still be loved? Right. And I'm not suggesting that that is true for each individual, right? Like I said before, it's how we internalize it, right? Like and how it turns into something, right? But like, Oh, what would somebody be looking for in those moments? If I am difficult, can I still be loved? Can I still be taken care of? Can somebody still show up? Can some, you know, will people still want to be around me? Right? And that might be from somebody who experienced a lot of conditional love. Like I only get your presence, attention, your validation, your connectivity when I am easy going. I mean, that was a part of it for me. Right. It's like when I was a little bit difficult, I'd get the silent treatment as punishment. Right. And so I think there can be these interesting ways in which it presents itself, which might be like always finding something to be something that's wrong or, you know, be difficult about something, even when you're in an incredible place and most other people are appreciative.

ELISE: No, it's remarkable. It's also one of those things when you start to notice it, it's hard not to notice it. Throughout the book, you offer a bunch of questions, which I think are really interesting just to contemplate, right? Because most of us don't think about it. I love this sort of central core question, the most important question, What did you want as a child and not get? That seems like so bingo, right? Does that just crack people open?

VIENNA: Yeah. So bingo. And it cracked me open the first time I was asked that question and you're like, Oh, like it was fine. Everything was good. Like I got everything that I needed. All my core essentials were totally there. And you're like, slow into it, right? Like let yourself answer that question without rationalizing, without explaining, well, I could have used a little bit more time with dad, but like he was working so hard and he was providing for the family full stop. I wanted more time with my dad.

ELISE: Hmm.

VIENNA: I wished there was less criticism from my mom. I wish that my siblings mental health challenges didn't take so much attention away from me. Period. What a period at the end of it. Stop tossing it away. Stop giving the explanation around it. Just let it have its moment and, you know, when you let yourself answer that question, I do think something presents itself. And again, that doesn't mean that we have to hate our parents. It doesn't mean that we're throwing them under the bus. It doesn't mean that we have to point the fingers, but like just make some space for what your experience was. Because what I'll tell you is that most likely the answers to that question, the little squiggly line to your present day, like where you get reactive, what upsets you, where you struggle in your partnership, what activates you with your child, whatever it is, right? It's like, there's probably some familiarity there.

ELISE: Yeah, so interesting. I'm just thinking about my kids, too, who are 10 and 7, and I'm like, what will they be in therapy for? And just to recognize, like, there will be content, right? There will be content. And just getting comfortable with that. In part because, you know, my husband and I, I was talking to my 10 year old, I don't even remember how he brought this up. He might have even asked. But, Essentially, I was like, you're going to hate us because you're going to complain that we were too indulgent, that there wasn't enough structure. And that we let you, you know, have too much screen time, this is going to be your litany of complaint, even though we're theoretically giving into what you want, you are going to be full of criticism. And your dad and I are like this because we had more authoritarian parents, right? Who did not indulge us. And every generation is some sort of I'm guessing, right? We're all giving our children the childhood that we think that we wanted.

VIENNA: Yeah. Right. It's like, we're either repeating it or we're giving the opposition, right? It's like the swinging of the pendulum, right? It really is. It's like you either repeat it, or you, like, choose the 180. And sometimes you choose, like, the 180 blankly, across the board, or other times it's a 180 in certain areas, right?

ELISE: I can't wait to criticized for that. Yeah.

VIENNA: Totally. I mean, it's funny because I'll say to clients and this is a hard question and it's a hard one to sit with as a parent where it's like, you know, when your child is on there sitting on their therapist's office, whatever, 10, 15, 20 years from now, depending on the age of the child like what's the story they're going to tell about you, you know, and can you tolerate that story? Cause if you can't tolerate it in this, what you're saying, you're going to be able to tolerate that. Cause you're like laughing about it. You're having a conversation with them, like, listen, you're going to hate this. And you know, we're still great parents and yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. But it's like, if you can't tolerate what they're going to say, then you have to look at that. Right. And it's a hard pill to swallow. It was a hard one to look at. Like, what will they say about you?

ELISE: Yeah, but it's also like, you're talking about, you know, as meaning making machines, right? Who construct whole experience from story. And I just did something about facts versus stories that I'm sure my parents would contest my version. I know that they contest my version. I mean, not in a harmful way, but I don't think that they remember things in the same way that I do necessarily. And even I see this with my son sometimes where he's telling stories. I'm like, well, that didn't happen. But, you know, I also appreciate it, right? Like, this is in a way what we do, ultimately none of us can control the narrative that anyone sort of needs to put together.

VIENNA: Right. And it's, you know, it's from each person's point of view. Like I said, I think I say this in the book where it's like, I didn't feel like there was any space in my family for me to not be okay because they were not okay. Now, if you ask them, they'd be like, sweetheart, of course. There's room for, you know... But it's like, no, but my perception of the system at five, six years old, it was like, there's no space here for me. And if that's how I told the story, right? And if that is how the story lives inside of me, we've got to deal with that story, right? Regardless of whether it is true or untrue that there was room for me to not be okay, right? And it's tricky. It's tricky when you see it very differently. It's like people are going to have the story that they're going to have and they're going to have to process that story the way that they have to process that story.

ELISE: Yeah. And part of it has to be letting people tell the stories that help them make sense of their experiences, right? Well, congrats on the success of the book. I'm thrilled that it's going far and wide, and I'm sure people invariably want to try to see you, but it's one of those books I think you can get a lot out of it, it's not a workbook, but it has those components.

VIENNA: Right. Yeah, you know, I'm not taking new clients I haven't for a long time, but we do have a practice in Manhattan, and we have some wonderful clinicians that can see people in different states. I'm also do retreats and workshops and there's lots of opportunity to do some of this work, but I think ultimately this book, part of why I wrote it was knowing that lots of people still don't want to go to therapy or they don't have access to it or they can't afford it or, or, or, or, or, and some people just like to do this work in the comfort of their own home, right. Like in their own privacy. And that was part of the reason to do this was to put all of these years of, you know, both what I have done for myself personally, but really what I've seen for 17 years with so many clients and try to put it into one place for people to begin the work that has been really powerful and important for me and my clients. I don't believe that there's a one model. I think there's as many models of this work as there are humans on this planet. But I do think like one thing that I could stand behind is that I think we have to look at our family systems, like I believe in all the different modalities, but if you're trying to get somewhere without ever looking at your family, I don't know, jury's out on that. Like that one, I'm not sure I can get behind. So at the minimum to begin this work and exploring these systems is so imperative.

ELISE: Well, and I feel books like yours are wonderful in the sense that a component part of friendship or being a good citizen in the world requires some understanding of what might be happening underneath someone's big reaction or pain, and the more literate we can all become. The more verse we all are, I think the faster, you know, we can become.

VIENNA: Yeah. That's right. I'd put out this quiz, like I was saying before, I had so many people sending me messages and screenshots because they would send the link to all of their friends. And then every friend was being like, here's what my like origin wound is. And they were passing this around and was starting these conversations and friend groups, which I never imagined that that's where that would go, but it was so striking to me. It's like, Oh, like that is incredible to remember that friendships and being like, Oh, there's a history and a story here too for you. And this is how it shows up and opening up some of these conversations like I was just so struck by that and I love the point that you're making here as we close out.

ELISE: Well, thanks for everything, and thank you for being here.

I wanted to give you some examples of some of the questions Vienna asks throughout The Origins of You, because I think that they’re quite telling. She asks questions like: Who did you have around you growing up? How did the adults treat each other? In what ways did they express love? Describe your father to me—both who he was as an individual and who he was as a father to you. Share the things you admired, the things you judged, what you disliked and liked. Same for your mother. She asks questions about step-parents and other parental figures and about any events that happened that changed the way adults treated one another or treated you. She also asks questions like: What did you crave as a child? And describe your relationship with each of your siblings. Honestly, it’s a list of questions that are, I think, quite therapeutic in and of themselves, and just working through her book like a work book is worth it alone. Thanks for listening, I’ll see you next time.