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359: The Story of Indrani

\\u201cWhy can\\u2019t I get close to my
daughter who I love so much?\\u201d

Today, we present the awe-inspiring work that David and Jill did with Indrani in the Tuesday group at Stanford. Indrani was a mother with a heart-breaking but all-too-common story of a conflict with her daughter. Sometimes, we love someone tremendously, but every time we try to get close, they seem to push us away. The story should ring true and be helpful to so many people, as nearly everyone runs into conflicts at times with our family members, including our parents, siblings and children.

And, as usual, the solution often involves attending to your \\u201cinner\\u201d dialogue, which is the conversation you\\u2019re having with yourself about the conflict, and the \\u201couter\\u201d dialogue, which is what happens when you try to get close to the person you love.

And today\\u2019s session illustrates not one, but two forms of enlightenment. The changes in the inner dialogue involves challenging and crushing the negative messages you\\u2019ve been giving yourself about h problem with the person you love so much. You can see Indrani\\u2019s Daily Mood Log if you click HERE. As you can see, she\\u2019s been telling herself that her daughter has shut her out of her life, and that she\\u2019ll die alone/ That\\u2019s incredibly sad! And she\\u2019s also telling herself that all of her friends have wonderful relationships with their daughters \\u201cand I don\\u2019t\\u201d and she\\u2019s blaming herself for the problem: \\u201cI deserve this treatment,\\u201d and \\u201cnothing I do pleases her.\\u201d

You can also see the intensity of Indrani\\u2019s negative feelings, including sadness, anxiety, inadequacy, loneliness, embarrassment, discouragement, irritation, and more.

You can also see a typical exchange with her daughter if you look at her Relationship Journal (RJ). As you may know, the whole theme of my interpersonal model in TEAM-CBT is that we create our own interpersonal reality at every moment of every day. In other words, we unknowingly create and cause the exact relationship problems that we complain about, but just don\\u2019t realize this, so we think there\\u2019s something wrong with the other person.

But how can this be? If you look at Step 2 of Indrani\\u2019s RJ, her response to her daughter seems innocent enough! But stayed tuned, because Indrani makes a shocking and mind-blowing discovery during the session, and that discovery requires the exceedingly painful \\u201cdeath\\u201d of the \\u201cself.\\u201d But this \\u201cGreat Death\\u201d is instantly followed by a \\u201cGreat Rebirth.!\\u201d

At the end of the session, a Tuesday group members named Keren, said this to Indrani: \\u201cYou wowed me!\\u201d One of the men, Ed, could barely speak because he was sobbing. You may also be sobbing for joy when you listen to this heart-warming story.

In part 1, today\\u2019s podcast, you\\u2019ll hear the initial T = Testing and E = Empathy. In part 2, in next week\\u2019s podcast, you\\u2019ll hear the M = Methods, including Jill and David\\u2019s incredible work with Indrani on her R and her rather sudden discovery, in Step 4, of exactly how and why she\\u2019d been driving her daughter away\\u2014and how to stop doing that and begin to communicate in a way with a far greater chance of enhancing closeness and love.

The Jill and David turn to Imani\\u2019s Daily Mood Log so she can smash her distorted negative thoughts with the Externalization of Voices, and several role reversals illustrating the integration of Self-Defense, the Acceptance Paradox, and the CAT (Counter-Attack Technique.)

You can see Imani\\u2019s initial and final Brief Mood Surveys plus her Evaluation of Therapy Session,

We are extremely grateful to Indrani for giving us this very intimate glimpse into her inner life in a way that will illuminate and inspire every person with the good fortune to listen to Indrani\\u2019s amazing Journey this evening!

Thanks for listening!

Rhonda, Jill, and David