Finding You: by Dr. Brad Reedy

Dr. Brad Reedy welcomes actor and director, husband, father and human, Justin Baldoni to the podcast. Justin shares about the work that went into writing his book, “Man Enough: Undefining My Masculinity.” Justin shares his perspectives on God, life, and family from the perspective of the Baha’i faith. Brad and Justin talk about the growth that can only come from failing and struggling. Justin shares his “why” about doing your own personal work. The special aspect of Justin’s words are how challenging it is to be a human and to come face to face with one’s own imperfections.

In the first of this two-part series, Dr. Brad Reedy discusses the book Contexts, newly released by his therapist and mentor Dr. J.D. Gill. The book dissects the meaning and importance of contexts—familial, societal, and behavioral, among others—when endeavoring to understand one’s Self and Others. This understanding, this “seeing” as Gill might call it, can help turn judgment into compassion, leading to a more authentic and honest way of living.

Dr. Reedy welcomes renown artist Caitlin Connolly to the podcast. Caitlin shares her perspectives on motherhood, activism, feminism, and duality. Caitlin uses her art to give a voice to themes that often lie just beneath the surface of the conscious mind. She shares insight into her accidental journey into feminism and the challenge of dialectics—holding two seemingly opposite ideas at the same time. She talks about exploring all of life, the light and the dark, and how such a pursuit adds depth and texture to our lives.

In this Q&A Dr. Brad Reedy discusses how to handle it when your child, who is back from wilderness, starts to smoke pot again. He answers other questions about how not to let the symptoms of your problems distract from the root of your problems, what one parent could do about being triggered when attending the Evoke recommended 12-Step programs, and how to “detach with love.” He also addresses what to you do when it seems like your child is not really doing the work out in the field and how to create closeness with your child without creating the pressure to be close.

Dr. Brad Reedy took your live and pre-submitted questions. He answered questions about the value of psychiatric evaluations, "rescuing" our children, what happens to a child when one household seems more "stable" than the other, and whether or not there is such thing as "healthy codependency" (there isn't), among many others.

Dr. Brad Reedy defines Attunement and Codependency and describes the differences between them. While it might feel like a fine line divides them, once you understand the effects of each on the family, that fine line widens to a large gap. Attunement is quite simply seeing and responding to the child’s needs. Codependency is projecting onto the Other your needs and meeting your needs through the Other. He also discusses the effect of healthy attachments and attunement on the family system and how the right kind of therapy can be used as a way to repair deep and historical attachment wounds, rather than “fixing” surface level manifestations of those wounds.

Dr. Brad Reedy addresses a few questions that essentially ask: What do I do when my [child, parent, significant other] is feeling [a certain emotion]? He responds: When we give people the “right” to feel their feelings it helps them—and ultimately us—process and then let go of the harder or negative feelings. Then we can all start making decisions from the right place--not from control or fear or guilt or outcomes. Our decision making is then driven by something higher. He also talks about how Evoke keeps wilderness clients warm in winter, how to manage a child in a trauma response, and and how parents can structure therapy with their child's wilderness therapist, among others.

Dr. Reedy revisits his favorite book on boundaries, “The Dance of Anger,” by Harriet Lerner. He talks about how guilt and fear must be faced for us to set boundaries and become who we are. He explains that anger is a signal that we need to take better care of ourselves. He also explains how we do everything (blame, argue, guilt others, complain, rage, debate, reason, etc.) except set a boundary to get others to change to avoid doing the harder work.

Dr. Brad Reedy took your live and pre-submitted questions. Tonight he answered questions about treatment-resistant teens, how to give yourself a time out when you're in lockdown, and what effect having high expectations on your kids actually has, among others.

Dr. Brad Reedy defines trauma responses, discusses how to recognize them (i.e., If it’s hysterical, it’s historical), and then talks about ways to begin the process of moving past these automatic reactions into more intentional behaviors and response flexibility. “As parents, it is important for us to understand our trauma responses when we are trying to be a safe person for our kids. Trauma is inescapable, healing is elective,” says Dr. Reedy.