Vanessa Bennett: Mothers and Wives

Tami Simon: [00:00:00]

in this episode of Insights at the Edge. My guest is Vanessa Bennett. Vanessa is a licensed depth psychotherapist, author and facilitator known for her direct yet compassionate approach to mental health. She’s the co-author of the book, It’s Not Me, It’s You. With her partner, John Kim, and co-hosts the podcast Cheaper Than Therapy.

Now, with Sounds True, Vanessa Bennett is the author of a new book. It’s a remarkable book, a book that I can highly recommend. It’s called The Motherhood Myth: A Depth Psychotherapist’s Guide to Redefine Parenting, Reimagine Intimacy, and Reclaim the Self.

Vanessa, welcome. Thank you so much, Tammy. I’m so excited to be here at the beginning as a way to get to know you a little bit more, and for our audience to get to know you a bit more, tell [00:01:00] us how and why you decided to become a depth psychotherapist.

Vanessa Bennett: You know, I don’t know how to answer that question. I feel like it kind of chose me a little bit.

Um, I was in advertising for many years and was just kind of feeling this pull to change, to give back, to be of service. And I was following what I like to call breadcrumbs, which is how I talked to my clients about it, which I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So I just started following that sense of aliveness and it kind of led me down the path of a few trainings and a few workshops and yoga therapy and teacher training and all of these.

And then my therapist at the time came in and said, Hey, I think you should look at this school, uh, in California. I think it would really resonate with you. And it was the school that I, in fact, ended up going to. Um, at the time I was looking for something that was more soul based, that was more spiritual psychology based, that kind of encompassed more than just.

The medical model that I was seeing out there. Uh, and I lived in New York at the time and that was pretty much all I [00:02:00] could find was the very left brain medical model, neck up kind of way of looking at psychology. So I made the decision to, uh, leave and go across the country because it felt like California was the only place I could really get this kind of education.

Tami Simon: And for people who are not sure they know what it means to be a depth psychotherapist versus other kinds of approaches to mental health, can you encapsulate that for people?

Vanessa Bennett: Yeah, so depth psychology is the umbrella term that’s used to kind of describe Jungian psychology, analytical psychology, um, and archetypal psychology.

So it, it’s really based in Jung’s work. Uh, and all I can say is that on my licensing exam when I became a licensed marriage and family therapist, there was one question out of a couple hundred that had to do with depth, and it literally just said, what does depth psychology mean? Uh, and or is known as.

And the answer was the psychology of the soul.

Tami Simon: Now, I said the motherhood myth is a remarkable [00:03:00] book, and right here at the beginning, I want to commend you on something that you did throughout the book that I find very rare, and I wanna start our conversation by talking about it. Okay? Which is you combine.

A social critique, how we’ve inherited expectations and norms from the culture around mothering, around being in partnership, uh, about being wives in, in, in those roles. You combine a critique of that and what’s expected of us, and then all the ways we feel we’re falling short with a second thread, which is, oh, person reading this book.

You can actually take responsibility to make changes in your life. And it’s up to you. It’s up to you to own your life experience and [00:04:00] advocate for yourself. And I wanna know, bringing these two together in a relatively seamless way or so it appears in the book, how this has worked for you personally to do that.

Vanessa Bennett: Yeah. You know, I, I guess I don’t even think too much about that being something that is, you know, unique to my voice or something I had to even really think about when I was writing. I think it’s the way that I take in information. And so, because I know that that has worked for me in the past and I’ve seen it work with clients, I thought, well, we must not be the only ones.

And I guess what I mean by that is I, well, two things. One, depth psychology really has trained me that you cannot separate the collective from the individual. So when you’re working with the individual, you have to be looking at the collective, right? The systems that we’re living in, um, the ancestral lineages, right?

All of these different kind of working components. So there’s that. But also, I need to know how we got here. In order to know how to move forward, and that’s not to say that I’m a [00:05:00] victim to the circumstance. It’s to say it’s important information so that we actually can depersonalize the way that we’re showing up, and then we can actually take responsibility for it.

I find with clients it’s, it’s that, it’s that tricky personalization that we so often do as human beings that our ego loves to do, make it all about us. That actually is one of the culprits for the defensiveness, for the inability to take responsibility. And so when you’re able to kind of take that away and say, Hey, look, this system has set you up to fail, right?

So it’s not a personal failure of yours. There’s something in that that feels really empowering for people to then say, oh, okay, got it. Now I can stand up and I can own what I have done, but now I can stand up and try to change it, if that makes sense.

Tami Simon: In the motherhood myth, you have three sections of the book.

Mm-hmm. You talk about the myths of motherhood, myths around sex, and then also myths around relationships. What do [00:06:00] you think are the most important myths that you hope get across in the book? And I realize that’s a big question because there are a lot that you touch on, but what are the most important ones you want to make sure people take away from the book?

Vanessa Bennett: I mean, like you said, there’s a lot that I cover in each, but the umbrella myth, right? So what I call the myth of motherhood, I think could also pertain to the sex and relationships category, which ultimately, at the end of the day, I believe this biggest myth is if you do not inherently know how to and love motherhood, sex and relationships, like romantic relationships and also our other interpersonal relationships, and you’re not fulfilled by them to the brim, there’s something wrong with you.

And I think that myth is the one that I see carrying through all of the categories. And then you can get into the more specific myths that are just related to motherhood. You know, like martyrdom is mothering. Um, and that we have to [00:07:00] prove ourselves worthy of, of being a good mother, right? Some of the, I don’t wanna say smaller myths, but I guess the, the ones that ladder up or like, for example, sex, right?

Um, some of the myths we have, especially for women in this culture around not owning our sexuality. And if we do that makes us, you know, insert whatever derogatory term here, you know, all of the slut shaming and, um, let’s say for example, it’s our job to always be in service of the other person as a woman, right?

And how that shows up in our sex lives. So each section has multiple myths, but again, it kind of ladders up to what I see as the biggest one, which is if you’re not doing it well and you’re not loving it while you’re doing it, there’s something wrong with you.

Tami Simon: One of the things you come out very clearly and say is, I love my daughter, but I don’t love parenting.

Tell. Tell me more about that and how you’ve come to peace to say something like, I don’t love parenting. [00:08:00]

Vanessa Bennett: Yeah. I think that, I suppose. For what I do for a living, part of my role is to take the shame out of things, right? That I find to be very normal, very human experiences. I hear people saying these things all the time in the closed doors of the therapy room, but nobody really wants to say it out loud because they’re terrified of, of being ostracized.

Right? And I know very few people, and I’ll say people, not just women who truly enjoy what parenting entails. And we’re talking about, you know, the constant slog of driving kids around and the, the keeping the doctor’s appointments in check and the making food every night for the rest of your life.

Having to figure that out and, you know, the sleepless nights. And so parenting and the actual relationship with my child I find to be very different. Um, and I have number one, I suppose. Been able to say that the way that I say it, because I feel like I’m kind of carrying a torch for other people to let them know there’s no shame in admitting something like that.

But I [00:09:00] also, I think there’s something really important about us saying these things because we need to be whole individuals. If I want my daughter to be able to become a whole authentic individual, she needs to see me doing the same. And if I’m lying and gritting my teeth through things, but pretending I love it, then what is she actually learning about how to live in this world as well?

Um, so I think those two things have been kind of the leader for me and why I say what I say about parenting.

Tami Simon: Would you say that in the work you’ve done to uncover the motherhood myth, what have you discovered that’s allowed you to perhaps and you know, I’m, I’m, I am, uh, fishing here, like parenting more.

Vanessa Bennett: I have liked parenting more the more. Real and authentic I’ve allowed myself to become. So the less I’ve tried to fit myself into the boxes and the categories that society has told me I have to fit into to be, you know, [00:10:00] a, a, a respected mother to be a good mother, the less I’ve just done that for the sake of pleasing, the more I’ve actually enjoyed parenting.

And I think that’s a really big thing that a lot of parents need to understand is that sometimes our dissatisfaction with it is not actually our dissatisfaction with the thing it’s coming out of us trying to pretend and trying to fit ourselves in these roles that actually have nothing to do with us.

Tami Simon: You mentioned that the nuclear family is a relatively new invention in the history of humans, and you go so far as to say that it’s not really what we’re designed for as a species, and yet this is where we are. Mm-hmm. I mean, how many people have really figured out how to create communal support? Maybe some people within their family structure with grandparents and mothers helping mothers of mothers.

What have you seen your clients have learned about how to generate the kind of communal support [00:11:00] I hear people talking about, and it’s pretty hard to achieve often.

Vanessa Bennett: It is very hard to achieve. I’m still trying to figure that out myself actually. Um, yeah, I think that again, it, it’s like, okay, this is where we’re at.

These are the systems that we’re working with and that we’ve been working with for generations. So what do we do with it from here? I don’t think any one of us in this, this time on, on Earth is gonna be the one person or the one group that’s gonna dismantle patriarchy or that that’s going to return us to some kind of communal, you know, um, um, living like we used to.

Uh, but I do think that what we can do is take small kind of incremental steps. And so again, number one, going back to shame, we need to look at the way that we’ve been taught to not ask for help and not question the systems as they are. In order to keep us in these, in these kind of shame spirals. So number one, it’s actually acknowledging, admitting out loud, I’m struggling.

This isn’t working for me. I need help. Right? And whether that’s to your partner, whether that’s to your family, whether [00:12:00] that’s to your friends, it’s the, it’s the acknowledgement of that. Um, I actually had started doing this work before, um, you know, we, we had spoke before we started recording. I, I lost my community in the fires in January.

And one of the things that we had really started establishing, there was a few families on my street that all had kids, was exactly that. It was this, no questions asked, no shame allowed. Hey, I’m really struggling. I need some support. Is anybody available? Right? And it was just this reciprocal, one person might not be, but another person is.

And so that person would jump in with the understanding that when it was their turn to be struggling, one of us would jump in. Um, and so it it’s little things like that, that, is it gonna change the system overnight? No. But we all have to get better at understanding that you have to speak up, you have to look outside of yourself and say, I need support.

Um, how can we work this out amongst us?

Tami Simon: As I read through the motherhood myth, there were a couple of different [00:13:00] moments, and I’m gonna bring them both out in our conversation that they were wake up moments for me. I don’t know how else to put it. I was like, wow, I have, I’ve never really thought about that in that way.

This is remarkable for me, especially as someone who’s, you know, been at this for 40 years. When I find something that’s just absolutely fresh, you know, I kind of fall off my chair a little bit, and this is one of them, which is towards the beginning of the book you write about your psychology grad school thesis.

Mm-hmm. And the title of it. And I was like, do I even understand what this means? The archetype of initiation, a physical manifestation through psychically co-created trauma. And now we’re gonna, we’re gonna make this understandable for everybody you were writing about it. In the motherhood myth, in relationship to your own very difficult birthing experience [00:14:00] and how that was an initiation for you, and how often for new moms, there is no initiation, and this was quite a traumatic initiation for you.

So I wonder if you can put all these pieces together, your thesis around psychically co-created trauma and initiation.

Vanessa Bennett: Sure. Yeah. So what I discovered when I was doing research in, in my grad school program was, you know, as a, as a society, especially western society, we have really lost touch with the luminus.

We’ve lost touch with that spiritual essence. Um, you know, Jung would say that we, um, all human beings have a religious function of the psyche. I’m sure if he were alive now, he would probably say a spiritual aspect of the psyche, but obviously that was when he was alive. So. Really what he meant by that is there is a large chunk of our psyche that is dedicated to understanding ourselves through a relationship to something larger than ourselves, [00:15:00] right?

And in the West, we’ve so disconnected from that. It doesn’t mean it stops, it just means that we have kind of pushed it away, right? So what I started understanding was initiations, rituals, right? Um, these are very important aspects that the psyche needs in order to move forward on its individuation journey.

Now, we don’t need initiations to age like I became a mom, whether I had initiation or not. I became an adult from adolescence. Whether I had initiation from not or not, that obviously continues to happen. But what doesn’t happen is integration. What doesn’t happen is learning. What doesn’t happen is, um, you know, there’s this honor or this reverence given to the struggle that is inherent in those transitions.

And then we get to say, okay, so I’m not who I was. I’m not who I will be yet. Let’s be in that liminal space and let’s honor it for a bit so I can start to make sense of it so I can [00:16:00] start to learn from this experience. Right? So often in our society, it’s just go, go, go, go with little time to actually take a beat, right?

And integrate what we’ve learned. So as I got into the research, what I found so fascinating is if we’re saying that initiation is actually an archetype that is inherent in human beings and that the psyche actually requires it to integrate, the psyche will actually seek out moments of or opportunities for initiation, whether we’re giving it to ourselves or not.

So in a society where we used to have, you know, sanctioned initiations, we might still have a few Bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, some weddings, you know, quinceaneras. But we have lost a lot of them. So, okay, I’m going through my life. I don’t have any ritualized initiations. My psyche’s going, well, I need it because you need to make sense of what the hell is happening here right now.

And so since you’re not giving it to me, I’m gonna seek out some form of chaos or some form of [00:17:00] traumatic experience in order to essentially kind of push you off that ledge and force you into that moment of reckoning, force you into that moment of, oh my God, I have to be with myself in this moment and do that integration work.

Right? And so what I found and how I connected it back to motherhood is because in our culture, again, it’s not honored as a sacred initiation, right? So made into Mother this transition into motherhood, it used to be honored and it is still in other parts of the world because it’s not here so often.

Again, our psyche will say, okay. Well, if you’re not gonna give it to me, I’m gonna search out some chaos. I’m gonna search out some trauma. Uh, and, and a lot of my clients that have come in traumatic birth experiences, it’s a through line that, that I feel like so many of us share, and yet none of us know how to talk about it.

Um, and so that’s, I guess, I don’t know if that explains it, but that’s really why I brought that thesis understanding into the, this work.

Tami Simon: Well, I wanna ask a couple more [00:18:00] questions Please. ’cause this phrase, psychically co-created trauma. And I, I hope you won’t take any offense here. I’m not meaning to be offensive.

I’m trying to understand more Sure. And apply it in my own life. Do you believe that the traumatic birth that you went through, which was, you can tell us more about it, but it, it was, uh, not the birth you had, uh, blissfully envisioned, uh, at how smoothly it was supposed to go. That’s not what actually happened.

Do you believe that was quote unquote psychically co-created and that if you had had some other kind of conscious initiation rituals in the months leading up to your birth experience, that might not have needed to happen?

Vanessa Bennett: So what I believe is that the psyche potentially would not have held onto it as such a traumatic incident.

Had the transition itself been more honored and ritualized as it [00:19:00] used to be, or as I said, like in dozens of other countries. So, had I not been alone in a sterile environment with, you know, a team of doctors just kind of. Looking at their watches and being like, all right, let’s get this thing moving.

Right. Had I been given kind of the, again, the reverence, like, this is the transition that I’m happening. If my psyche had felt like that honoring was really there, I don’t know that it would’ve actually stopped the trauma itself from happening. But what I don’t know would’ve happened is it would’ve actually imprinted itself in my psyche as trauma.

So just because we go through a traumatic experience doesn’t mean it imprints itself Right. As trauma. I mean, you and I can have the exact same experience. One goes home with PTSD, one doesn’t. Right. So it, it doesn’t, it’s not a catchall. Yes. It has to be. So I, I have actually, and, and through my research I showed, there were other experiences in my life where I do actually believe that my psyche actually sought out a [00:20:00] traumatic experience in order to wake me up.

So. Really short story, quick example. I moved to la. I had not really grieved the life that I had left behind. When I left my life in New York, I just kind of ripped the bandaid off, packed some suitcases, left a relationship, moved to New York, hit the ground running right? My new life. I’m so excited, not looking at the past.

Boom. A week after I lands in LA I slip at a friend’s house, getting out of a hot tub. I come down on my jaw, break my jaw in three places. I’m wired shut for 10 weeks. Horribly traumatic incident. If I was slowing down and I was actually honoring this liminal space that I was in, would that have happened?

I don’t believe it would have, and I believe there’s many other examples of how, again, it doesn’t have to be something massively traumatic. It can be chaos, but our psyche is actually beneath the surface, seeking this chaos out in order to make us sit down, shut up, and pay attention essentially.

Tami Simon: In terms of [00:21:00] honoring the initiatory passage that, as you said, from maiden to mother mm-hmm.

Entering motherhood, what is required for women to do that consciously?

Vanessa Bennett: Yeah. I don’t know that there’s a checklist. I think it, I think it really just requires us to hold the person and the space again with reverence. So honor that it is a transition, so it looks different by culture, right? Every culture’s initiations kind of have their own flavor, and so that’s why I don’t say it needs to be something specific.

I think the point is, is that I, the person going through the transition feel that I am seen, that I am respected, that I’m being witnessed in that transition, that I have the safe space to essentially become undone. I have the safe space to really break down and be held in that liminality, in that like, oh my God, I’m terrified.

I’m not this person, but I’m not yet that person. Right. And so the actual ritual itself can look different, so long as my psyche feels as [00:22:00] though it’s been witnessed and been allowed to break down in a safe way.

Tami Simon: Now you mentioned, Vanessa, that you lost your home in the Southern California fires. You were in Altadena, you shared with me just this year, and that’s an event that I think many people would find both initiatory and traumatic.

Yes. And I’m wondering, with the research that you’ve done and knowing what you know, how have you applied that to that situation to lessen the, if I can say, PTSD effects both for you and your daughter and your family?

Vanessa Bennett: Yeah,

Tami Simon: I mean,

Vanessa Bennett: I think that it’s, it’s come up in a few different ways. So whether that’s just within our small family unit, which is to say anytime somebody has, um, a memory or an emotion that comes up, we all three of us, you know, we [00:23:00] have a very small family.

We sit together and we honor and validate that experience and we take a beat, right? So we all share in that experience and share in the moment or the opportunity to witness each other in that we don’t try to skip over it, but then also doing it in community. So, um, a few times, actually before I left, I was kind of the one that, that really called together the multiple families, uh, that were impacted, that were in my close circle, and we had different moments of an i, I guess a ritual, if you will.

So one of the, the best ones I can describe is. A friend of mine who’s a photographer, wanted to take photos of all of the families on their lots. And so we knew we were moving. And so the three or four families that were all really close on my street, I had them all get together with their kids. None of us had been back to the street together since it happened.

And we gave the kids sidewalk chalk and they were in the road like they used to [00:24:00] always be. And we took our photos and I cracked open a bottle of wine in paper cups, and all the adults stood around and we, we cheered and we honored the fact that, you know, we used to do this. This was something we did. We stood in the street, we drank wine while the kids played.

There was this community. And this was kind of our last time doing that in this way, right? And so we stood together and we, we cheers and we cried over this wine and we, we spoke about what was and what would be. Um, and even in that, right, there’s a moment we all stop. Nobody’s on their phones. Everyone’s making eye contact, everyone’s being witnessed.

Um, and everyone is witnessing. That for me was a really big moment of, of, of, again, like a ritualized, almost initiation.

Tami Simon: Now, when I asked you about the, the different core myths mm-hmm. That you write about in the myth of motherhood related to myths around sex and relationships as well as motherhood, you [00:25:00] said?

Well, underneath it, the sort of mega myth is we’re supposed to really always be having a good time and be really good at this and meet society’s expectations. Okay. Well, I mean, you wrote the book, but when I read the book, I had this other insight of what I thought was underneath all these myths that you were pointing to that I thought was really brilliant, which was my second big kind of like, oh my god, Tammy, look how much.

Not only has this run your life, but in some ways still is, I hate to say it, which is the writing that you did about codependency and how we’re only your, your working definition, which I loved is if you’re good, I’m good. If you’re not good, I’m not good. And I thought to myself, how much that is alive for me in my marriage?

If you’re good, I’m good. If you’re not good, no, I don’t feel good. How can I feel [00:26:00] good? You’re my person. You’re not good. Mm-hmm. And then I thought, well, how much that’s alive for mothers? You know, if the mo you know, you all the, the mother can only be as happy as their children are happy. And so, I, I wanna hear more about this because, you know, I have to say, Vanessa, I think you are an incredible codependency expert and you’re naming something really important here.

Vanessa Bennett: Thank you. Um, codependency has definitely become the flag that I have waived for the last probably, I don’t know, seven years of my career. It, you know, there’s been so many books written about it. I guess that’s not why I, I lead with it, right? Because I, I do think it’s become a bit of a buzzword in the pop psychology landscape as of late.

But I do think that, I speak about it a little bit differently in the way that I say, I do believe that we are a codependent society. I don’t think this is like an infliction that some people suffer from and others do not. I think it’s the water that we’re all swimming in. I think it’s what we’ve been taught [00:27:00] relationships should look and feel and sound like.

Right? And again, whether we’re talking about my relationship with my kid, my partner, my friends, my mother, it doesn’t matter, right? It, it shows up in some way across the board. Because at the end of the day, as relational beings, to your point, we have been taught that we can really only be okay if everything and everyone around us is okay.

Right? And so we spend a lifetime placing our okayness. In other people’s hands and then attempting to control and manipulate them and the circumstances in order to get her okayness back. Right. And, and I see it happening again myself too. Right? Like you said, I hate that. It’s still me too. Me too. Um, and, and really my, my ahas came outta this, you know, I went through Al-Anon when I was in my mid twenties and I was leaving my last relationship, but I started realizing that it showed up again everywhere.

And that was when I started getting really fascinated by the kind of insidious ways control and manipulation [00:28:00] show up in all of our relationships. And so, yeah, I, I put it as a part three of this book, but I could probably write 10 books on codependency, honestly.

Tami Simon: Well, and I, I hope you at least write another one for Sounds true.

But I’m gonna bring forward this quote. It’s something you just said. Okay. And I’m gonna read the quote and then I, I want you to help deepen my understanding of this. Mm-hmm. In my years of facilitating weekly codependency recovery groups, I’ve come to believe that the most overlooked aspect of codependency is that it’s not just a personal issue, it’s a societal one.

Help me understand better the societal aspects.

Vanessa Bennett: Right. So. In our society, in Western society, we both men and women are kind of run on this Choose Me wound, which is I need to be chosen in order to be lovable, in order to be worthy, in order to be, you know, again, okay, in my skin, right? And so we learn very early on the ways in which [00:29:00] we need to act and behave in order to be chosen, right?

Typically, this comes from our parents, but it’s not just our parents, it’s our coaches, it’s our teachers, it’s society, it’s sitcoms, right? It’s telling us constantly how we need to behave in order to be chosen for women. This shows up many times as, um, the choosing wound meaning. I have to be partnered or I’m nothing.

And so for many of us, we spend a lifetime trying to squeeze and contort ourselves in whatever way we can be, so that we stay partnered or get chosen by the person, right? So that we can prove our enoughness. A lot of times for men, the Choose Me Wound is really, it’s similar. It’s being chosen, um, in partnership, but it has to do a lot with that thing on the arm, right?

Like, I am only as worthy as, you know, my, my air quote body count, which I hate that term, but it’s common, right? Or I’m only as worthy as how much money I bring home, or I’m only only as worthy as Right. Insert whatever patriarchal nonsense you want to here. And so we are primed from a really early age in our [00:30:00] society to be constantly externalizing our worth.

And we learn every one of us different techniques and ways. To make ourselves feel worthy through relationships. So we don’t have like a, your and my codependency is not gonna look the same, most likely we’re going to adopt and adapt different kind of, uh, personality traits. Right? Like I always say one person’s, people pleasing is another person’s Jack and Coke.

I mean, they all kind of serve the same purpose, right? And that’s again, to soothe anxiety, to feel better in my skin, to feel like I’m worthy, right? So, um, it could be people pleasing, it could be lack of boundaries. It could be not speaking up in order to not rock the boat because I’m afraid of conflict. I mean, there’s so many ways that this shows up relationally

Tami Simon: now to make it really real for people.

Maybe you could share an example of working with a client who identified their Choose Me Wound. It’s probably hard to think of, but then how after they were able to [00:31:00] identify it, it shifted through the work you did with them.

Vanessa Bennett: Yeah, there’s actually a couple that I talk about in the book. Um, and it’s, it, I use it in the book because it was so relatable to my own experience with my partner as well.

And it mirrored a lot of other clients, honestly, that I’ve worked with, which was, you know, in, in heteronormative dynamics, what I see happens so often is that men seek physical connection from their partner as a way to feel okay in their skin. Um, and I actually go so far in the, in the book as to say, as a way to feel connected to something larger than themselves, right?

Or their emotional selves, which we’ve cut off for, for them right? In, in a patriarchal society. And so. This couple, which was again, mirroring back to me, me and my partner. This is what was happening. She started naming the fact that if they were sexually connected throughout the week, his entire personality changed.

He was nicer to her. He was a more present father. He had a, you know, a little [00:32:00] pep in his step. And when she didn’t or couldn’t, for whatever reason, it impacted his mood negatively, right? He would pout, he would withdraw, affection. Um, and we started talking about how this is his version of that. I need you to choose me.

And if you don’t, in the way that I believe I need to be chosen, which again, for men a lot of times is, is physical connection. I feel worse about myself. I feel worse about the connection, and so I’m going to act differently, right? And what I helped him understand in this dynamic as well as my own partner is how that is a, a subtle form of coercion.

It really blew his mind. He was very offended when I first brought the term coercion into our work together. Um, because I think a lot of us think coercion. We think of major coercion, you know, the, the big R word, whether we’re talking about rape or sexual assault, and it’s like, no, actually what coercion is, is I’m going to do these kind of manipulative tactics in order to get what I want.

And in [00:33:00] this case, it’s sex with you, right? Because I need to feel chosen through this sex. If so, facto, this actually isn’t about you. It’s not about connecting with you, my partner. It’s about you making me feel better. It’s about you making me feel chosen.

Tami Simon: You quote the Jungian analyst, James Hollis in the book in a way that I thought was quite, uh.

On point and memorable that for men who have a mother wound and a sense of, you know, please choose me as a result because I didn’t feel loved and connected in the way that I wanted. Consistently, the work has to be them being there for themselves in a certain way for that wounded child. And I wonder if you can speak more about that.

You write beautifully both about the mother wound and the father wound and how we heal this wound. That’s re results in Please choose me, please choose me [00:34:00] in one way or another related to either the mother wound or the father wound. Mm-hmm. I know these are big open questions. Take them. You want, we’ll see where we go.

Yeah,

Vanessa Bennett: we’ll see where I can go with it. So yeah, the, the idea of, well I would say men having to actually. In essence, heal this mother wound. But I mean, I would say the same for women as well, is that again, when you come up in a society that teaches you that you have to look external to make yourself feel better.

I struggle a lot with some of the more modern attachment work, for example, that I feel continues to kind of perpetuate this idea that you’re going to become securely attached through your relationships with other people. And a lot of emphasis is usually put on the romantic partner. Um, I’ve never seen that actually happen.

I’ve never seen somebody become secure through their relationship with somebody else. I’ve only ever seen that happen through their relationship to themselves and with themselves. Now it can be mirrored back by a partner, but [00:35:00] ultimately it’s got to come from within. So in your question, what do I mean by this?

And this is actually a little bit of that personal accountability that we touched on in the very beginning of our conversation. If I, again, we’re talking heteronormative, if I, the woman in this partnership continue to placate my male partner in his choose me wound, his mother wound right around, let’s say the sexual connection, I am not helping him by any means.

I’m also not helping myself, right? So what happens first and foremost is the female in that situation, and I wouldn’t even say actually the female, I would actually say that I’ve seen this in, in its own way, show up in same sex couples. But let’s say the person who’s watching the other act out their mother wound in that way needs to say, oh, I recognize and realize this actually isn’t about me.

This isn’t about connecting with me. This is you desiring from me something that feels larger than me, right? And it doesn’t feel good to me. I feel [00:36:00] used, I feel, you know, taken advantage of whatever word you wanna use. And in that moment we have to decide and, and kind of set a boundary where we say, here’s what I’m not willing to do anymore.

I’m not willing to actually, um, help you feel better about yourself by connecting with you sexually, because that’s not helping either one of us. What I am willing to do is X. And so you might say, I’m willing to sit with you and, and talk to you when you’re feeling anxious, and maybe we can talk about why you’re feeling anxious.

Right? But both parties have to be willing to kind of own their part in disrupting the unhealthy patterns, right? Disrupting what we used to do to scratch that itch, which doesn’t actually help us get beneath it and actually start to do the healing. Now, being with myself, why I quoted James Hollis, and that means, and my partner would be a good one to speak to because this has been a lot of his work in the last few years.

I’m feeling that way. He wasn’t able to [00:37:00] discern that it was actually coming from that wound. He was actually just thinking it was about me and sex. Once he was able to get there, he started backing his way into the kind of somatic responses that were coming up in him when he was feeling not worthy, when he was feeling a little low about himself, when he was feeling maybe, um, not inspired creatively or in work and how that led him to then seek out connection with me.

Right? So backing into, oh wait, stimulus response. Let’s pause there and sit with myself in those feelings of discomfort and those feelings of anxiety. Do some journaling, do some breathing, do some somatic movement, right? Um, and know that it’s not her responsibility to kind of fix it or soothe it for me.

I’ve gotta start myself. And then again, I can bring her in as a support system if she’s willing to sit with me and discuss it. But I have to be the one to start it. So, I know it was kinda long-winded, but hopefully we got there.

Tami Simon: [00:38:00] Well, and also just to name a, a myth about sex. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Uh, heteronormative relationships.

If you’re not willing to keep your man happy or something like that, you’re gonna lose him. That’s right. What would you, what would you say to that in terms of its, uh, nature of just making women, uh, selfa abandon and how to not do that, but maintain the glue and health of the relationship?

Vanessa Bennett: Ooh. I mean, you just said the words, right?

It, it’s, it’s self abandonment 1 0 1. And, and women are taught very early on that it’s their role to keep everybody happy. Right. And then it translates into our relationships with our children after it’s present in our relationship with our partners. And so, again, this coming back to being with myself, for me.

I’m, if I’m striving to kind of heal that specific wound, what I need to do again, back my way [00:39:00] into right stimulus response, I’m sensing something is off with him. Right? So simultaneously, let’s go back to the example of me and my partner. He’s feeling, let’s say a little down about himself. He’s not feeling creatively inspired right now.

That’s shifting his mood internally. Well, I’ve been primed for a lifetime to be able to notice and feel into him being a little off, right? Because that’s what we tell women to do. We tell women to focus externally and pay attention to everybody around them. So great. We work great together. He’s feeling a little down.

I’m noticing he’s feeling a little down, and I know deep down that it’s my job to make sure that he’s happy and content in the relationship. Also, it’s driven by a bit of a fear, right? If it’s about me, he might leave me. And so I jump into action. What do I need to do to keep him happy? Well, I know as a woman, one thing that will keep him happy, I can connect with him sexually.

’cause I know that will make him feel connected. It’ll make him feel grounded. It’ll make him feel better with me and with his [00:40:00] life, right? So I do that before there’s ever even a moment for either person to slow down and question what the feelings are. So on my end, what’s my responsibility? Well, I notice his discomfort.

Let’s say I notice him being a little weird. I might acknowledge it verbally. I might not. I might sit with it and just say, let me see where this goes. Let me see how this plays out. Right? And then I might say to him, Hey, do you wanna have a conversation tonight? Like, let’s talk tonight. Let’s connect. I’d like to hear what you’re going through, right?

What I don’t wanna do is this. I don’t wanna, we’re not gonna have sex tonight. I don’t think that that’s gonna be helpful, but I’d love to have a deep conversation with you. How does that feel? Right? So both parties are noticing, again, that stimulus moment before they act. We’ve gotta slow down and be in that before we jump to the action.

Tami Simon: Now, both you and your husband John, are very transparent, forthcoming in the book. You share [00:41:00] some really personal stories that, first of all, thank you for doing that. It made you really real. And to your point earlier, it made the struggles we all go through normalized. Uh, this one I’m gonna bring up because it was a laugh out loud moment for me, which is you share how, how John shared with you.

You know, I pleasured myself this morning and I, you know, I just thought I’d let you know, uh, as a way of like, I took care of myself and you said, what do you want me to do? Give you a cookie? And I just thought that was so funny. And I, I guess I also wanted to hear. More about it in terms of, do you think when there is a, a sexual desire disparity, you just keep it to yourself?

Is that the point you were trying to make or what exactly were the, was the point you were trying to make when you said, should I give you a cookie?

Vanessa Bennett: I think I also said, should I give you an effing cookie? But, um, I don’t [00:42:00] remember exactly, but it, we were in the midst of it. We were, we were really deep in, in dismantling a lot of these very codependent tendencies.

Um, and I was really deep into my work around being very clear that I did not want my daughter to watch her mother’s selfa abandon anymore because I’d done it for a lifetime and I wasn’t gonna teach her how to do it. And so there was a lot of rage that I was experiencing as he was kind of stumbling through his attempt to own his part.

Right. And this was coming out of, uh, a back and forth that we had been having around him saying, okay, so what, every time I wanna have sex, that’s my mother wound. And me saying, no, but I want you to go inward and say like, why, why do I wanna connect? I want to know that it’s about me. And that it’s not just about, again, you like scratching an itch, right.

And so there was this timeframe where it felt like every time he thought he had done a good job in this work that we were doing, he was coming to me [00:43:00] as if I was his mother, hoping to get a pat on the head, hoping to get acknowledgement, hoping to get recognition. And what I had said to him multiple times leading up to this kind of outburst I had, was.

You’re doing this for you, you’re not doing this for me. So when you come to me to get acknowledgement or to get a pat on the head, it, it kind of dismisses the point. Right? The point that is, my point is, you keep coming to me and asking me to see you in that way. And what you’re doing is you’re placing me in this maternal role, you’re placing me in this role of you’re coming to me and saying, am I doing a good job, mom?

And then I have to say yes or no. Which by the way, is not doing you any favors in the sexual department because it’s not super attractive. Right. When I have to feel like your mom. And so my pushback to him in this moment was coming out of him doing this multiple times and saying, see, see, see, I’m doing the work.

I’m doing the work. I’m doing the work. Which felt very, again, it’s about me. It’s not about him. And so I was trying to prove a point in that moment. I don’t care. [00:44:00] I don’t care. Do your work. You don’t need to bring me in on it every single damn time, but just to, to ask a question

Tami Simon: about this. Yeah. Because, you know.

When we start through our own inner exploration, becoming aware of whatever the deep core wounds are, often that happened even pre verbally in our lives. Mm-hmm. With our parents. There is this sense of, isn’t my partner going to be the person whose not just companioning me, but helping me through this healing process?

So, how do we use our partner and maybe use says a lot about it ’cause mm-hmm. The way it came across. How do we partner, how do we collaborate? How does our relationship be a healing relationship without mm-hmm. Turning them into this, you know, parent, parent role that kills the sex.

Vanessa Bennett: Yeah, I think again, it has to start with us inquiring within like what is the purpose of me [00:45:00] sharing this information?

Right? So if John had been really honest with himself in that example about why he was sharing it with me, it was actually to get me to kind of pat him on the head and say, good job, right? So he was looking for some kind of external validation from me, which was kind of the crux of the, the fight to begin with was, was the constant need for this external validation.

So, okay, we didn’t have sex, but you’re still seeking that from me in this other way, which is through the verbal validation, right? Um, and so it’s not that we can’t. Give our partner credit where credit’s due and we can’t bring our partners along for the ride on this inner journey, which I, I always tell people, please do that, but we really need to get real and clear with ourselves about what we’re seeking from them when we’re asking them to give us that validation.

Right. Am I, am I seeking validation because I’m not able to actually source it from within? Am I seeking validation? I would say sometimes in this example [00:46:00] as a way to whether, we’re not talking conscious here, but in my experience as a way to say, oh, good job. You didn’t come to me for that. Now let’s have sex as like this interesting back doorway of kind of getting what I want, even though that’s not what I’m saying.

I dunno if that makes sense. But again, it comes down to what is the end game here? What am I actually desiring? Am I desiring my partner and I to stand shoulder, shoulder to shoulder and kind of tackle this like self-improvement journey that I’m on? Or am I seeking external validation from somebody to say I’m doing it right?

Because that actually has to come from within. That can’t come from anybody else other than a parent, really. So if I’m looking for somebody outside of me to say, good job, you’re doing it right. In some essence, I am actually parenty that person.

Tami Simon: Right. I think I’ll be more, uh, just straight ahead with what I’m asking because what I’m asking is, is there a role [00:47:00] for our mm-hmm.

Partner to actually be the healing agent with us? No, it’s not coming from inside. I want it to come from you. We’re healing together. That’s the nature of this relationship. We’re both bringing our wounds to, or are you saying No, I don’t, that’s not what I, uh, want to validate because it doesn’t work for people.

Vanessa Bennett: So I guess the line here is, again, so much of this work that I have found in the codependency realm, which is I can’t heal unless you tell me that I’m doing a good job. I can’t heal unless, right. It’s very dependent on somebody outside of myself. We could take this outta romantic relationships and talk about the number of people that will come to me, and they’re perpetually stuck because they cannot move forward unless their parent apologizes to them for something they did 40 years ago.

To me, it feels like the same thing. I am stuck in my [00:48:00] healing because I’m not getting that external validation that I’m doing a good job. So long as that is reliant on somebody else, anybody else telling me and mirroring it back to me, we’re going to stay stuck. It is a beautiful, wonderful, nice to have when our partner or our friends or our family or whoever is able to witness us, is able to reflect that back to us, but it shouldn’t be a requirement for us to move forward.

Now if you say, okay, but I’m very clear that I want my partner to validate me when I’m doing this work. That’s your decision to make you, but you don’t get to make that person the bad guy. For not either wanting to, having the capacity to having the desire to do that for you. That’s your desire within a relationship.

So I would say, well then maybe we need to find somebody who’s better suited to reflect back to you and give you that constant validation. ’cause for whatever reason you’ve sought someone out that they don’t wanna do [00:49:00] that, that makes them uncomfortable. They’re not in that state. Right. So I don’t know if that helps break it down.

Yeah. But it’s like this need that we have, right. That can’t really be fulfilled by somebody else.

Tami Simon: Yeah. Now you, you say that you’re known as the cold water in your face therapist. Who came up with that as a description of you?

Vanessa Bennett: A few of my group members in my longstanding codependency recovery group. And it was after a couple times where I made a comment about something and was like, it’s kind of manipulative.

Right. And they were all like, oh God, I don’t wanna think about myself as manipulative. But yes, that’s what it is. Why do you have to throw that water in my face like that? And me saying like, well, ’cause it’s kind of helpful to just be called out for what it is. Right.

Tami Simon: Then you write the hardest pill to swallow for everyone I work with is this.

While the wound is not our fault, the healing of the wound is our responsibility. Yeah. It’s hard and further, and this is one that [00:50:00] I, uh, circled. Own your 100% in every dynamic and situation, your resentment is entirely yours to own. Because I thought of a couple of things that I feel resentful about and how that’s not getting me anywhere, it’s mine to own.

So I wonder, once again, maybe you could give an example of working with a, a mother, uh, who had resentment and the process of owning her resentment and how that unfolded.

Vanessa Bennett: Yeah, I mean, I could give a million examples of my personal life, but the client example that comes to mind that’s in the book is a woman who I worked with who had kids that were a little bit older.

I don’t remember exactly the age it’s in there, maybe six and eight or something. And she felt constantly resentful of her husband for not doing enough right air quotes. So she felt like she was partnering. Um, she was parenting, excuse me, alone. She felt like she couldn’t leave them with him. She felt like he, [00:51:00] you know, wouldn’t do the way the things and doing it in the way that she wanted him to.

She couldn’t trust him to kind of be the parent she wanted him to be. She was constantly carrying around this resentment for feeling like she was doing it alone. And so when we started breaking down this concept of resentment is yours to own, what happens when we do that is we start realizing that we tend to be our own biggest enemies in this way.

So I’m gonna resent my partner, for example, for not parenting the way that I think they need to parent. Right. Then I don’t let myself, let’s say for in this example, she was desiring to pick up some, I think she was doing some, um, I think it was like some styling work that she was doing. And, and, and there was a styling gig that required her to be gone for two days.

She had never left her children overnight with her, with their father, and they were like eight or something at this time. And she kept saying me, well, I can’t because he’s this, he’s that, he’s not reliable, you know, he won’t feed them the way that I feed them. He won’t, he, she wasn’t concerned about their physical safety.

She [00:52:00] was really concerned about these things that I’m saying. I’m not eating correctly. I’m not brushing their teeth on time. All of these things. And so what I started saying is, so you are, in essence, we’re trying to control. There’s fear there. I understand it. And so because we’re trying to control, because of our fear, we’re making it his fault that we can’t pursue our dreams.

We’re making it his fault that we’re exhausted and burnt out and overwhelmed at the end of the day. Right. There was never any work on her part up to that point around. Looking at the way that she was controlling and looking at the way that she was actually creating these feelings internally and then stewing on them without giving anybody an opportunity to actually step up and do that work.

Right? So that’s just one example, but, but I always talk about res resentment is like my favorite tool in codependency recovery. I think it holds so much information.

Tami Simon: Can you share, you said there’s a lot I could say from my personal life about that resentment is [00:53:00] mine to own. Gimme an example from your personal life, Vanessa.

Vanessa Bennett: Yeah. I mean, I think resentment, um, inventories have been. Very helpful in me acknowledging, I always say resentment is your codependency being activated. So if I can take stock of even a tiny little bit of resentment, it doesn’t have to be some massive overwhelm, and I can say, okay, what am I not speaking about?

What am I brushing under the rug? What am I um, wishing were different, right? Like, what aspect of this person am I wishing were different? Um, and so I’m not seeing them for who they are, right? And then I’m getting upset with them for not being who I wish they were. Um, and so I think that comes up a lot in, in my relationship.

My husband and I are very different people. He moves to the world in very different ways. Um, and there are oftentimes just like this client that I was talking about, where I feel this fear or this sense of, I can’t trust him to be the kind of person or the kind of partner that I wish he were. Uh, and then I’ll harbor resentment for that.

[00:54:00] And so a lot of times what I will do is I will do that inventory and then I will say, okay, there’s, there’s something going on here. I need to either have a conversation with him about this. I need to say to him, Hey, I wanna do this thing. And I’m feeling like I can’t trust you to be there for our daughter in this way.

Uh, and that’s why I’m not doing this thing. And so now I’m resentful about it. How can we figure this out? Right? Bring him in on the journey, or I need to be with myself. And I need to say, Vanessa, you’re trying to control the situation. At the end of the day, his relationship with his daughter is his relationship.

You cannot control his relationship with her. So what if she doesn’t brush her teeth today? Is she safe? Is she fed? Yes. Okay, then that’s enough. Right? And you are creating your own resentment by clinging so hard to, there’s one right way to do this. So there’s different ways that you can kinda work with resentment, but for sure, for sure.

There’s codependency underneath it.

Tami Simon: So if someone does this resentment inventory mm-hmm. After they list the [00:55:00] things they feel resentful about, then there’s a question of either communicate, take some action, or be prepared to truly let it go. Yes.

Vanessa Bennett: Yes.

Tami Simon: That’s it. Boom, boom, boom. Okay. One other very practical tool that you offered in the motherhood myth, and you said that, uh, people in their twenties and thirties have heard a lot more about this than someone like me in their sixties.

I had never heard about it, but I started using it after I read it in the book, and it’s already had terrific results, is this notion of using consent. Language. And so just this morning I was getting ready to do something I normally do, which is I’m in the same room with Julie and I’m just gonna start spilling what’s going on for me and just kind of just being verbal about my process because I love her input and I thought to myself, why don’t I ask her consent?

Do you want to hear me talk right now? And I thought, wow, that’s [00:56:00] interesting. Do you want to hear me talk right now? ’cause I was just gonna start, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I thought, God, you know, she may not, she may be in her own thoughts. She may not wanna service my thoughts. And she had a moment, she was just like, did you just ask me?

And I said, yeah, I just asked you that. And she’s like, yeah, sure. I’d love to hear what’s going on for you. And I was like, oh, great. And I said, what did you think about that? I, I’m using this consent tool. And she’s like, please use it a lot.

Vanessa Bennett: Oh, interesting. I love that you just gave that example because it is like the emotional consent too, right?

When we think of consent, I do think a lot of us think just physical, but it is emotional consent, right? It is. Like, you’re right. She might have been in her own head about something and you kind of barging in would have made her feel in that moment a little bit of like a tightness, right? Or a little bit of like a, ugh, I gotta do this for her.

Um, and if we’re, if we’re looking for reciprocity. That’s not it, right? That’s a okay, I have to do this for my partner. [00:57:00] I feel like I’m obliged to do this for my partner, obligated rather to do this for my partner. Um, I cried the first time that I was given these tools to work with by an intimacy coach.

Uh, and I had never realized, to your point, it’s like something that we don’t have the language for My daughter, who’s just now five. I mean, it’s in preschool, right? They’re, they’re saying they’re learning these words. Please don’t touch my body right now. Please. That’s too close to me. I’d like some space, right?

Like, it’s fascinating to hear these kids talking nowadays. I wish we had more of that, but it’s new language for us. So. When John, similar to you, John is somebody who will come in and just kind of verbally put it out there. Uh, and it can be very overwhelming for me, especially with a little kid. I’m in the middle of doing something with her.

I’m trying to get her ready, she’s talking to me and then he comes in and then he’s talking to me and it’s like my nervous system, short circuits. And I would really like the opportunity to say in that moment, can you just give me five minutes? I don’t have the capacity right now, but I do wanna hear you.[00:58:00]

’cause you’re gonna get a lot better response from me if you give me five minutes than if you do it right now. Because if you do it right now, I’m gonna be like, ah, you don’t have time. Right.

Tami Simon: Can, can you summarize how to use the consent tool for people who are hearing about this for the first time?

Vanessa Bennett: Yeah.

So what the consent tool really looks like is anytime that I am looking for somebody to, you know, again, verbally, emotionally, physically, um, I don’t wanna say connect with me, but I guess give me input I need to ask first. Right? So some of the examples I gave in the book were not even just me and John.

They were me and my daughter. And so, you know, John might come up behind me. And to your point, the usual would be come up behind me in the kitchen, wrap his arms around me immediately when he sees me. Sure, that sounds romantic and sweet, but if I’m not in a state to receive that, it’s gonna be, excuse me, a bit of like, again, that like tightening in me, right?

He’s gonna feel that. So consent might look like him coming up behind me and saying, Hey, are you available for me to wrap my arms around you right now? Would that feel good? And allowing me to take a [00:59:00] beat to check in with myself and actually ask, is that something I’m available for right now? And again, I think for women especially because we have not really ever been given the opportunity to say no.

So much of our lives are around saying yes to everyone around us, that for a lot of women when they start doing this, they’re like, do I actually want that? Because that was my question. And there were some times when I felt no. And then I said, I actually feel bad saying no, and then I had a whole other land to work with.

Right? Or I might look like again with my daughter. I’ll give you a quick example. My daughter is, you know, she’s five. She likes to climb on you. She gets on the couch, she goes behind my neck. She likes to pull on me. I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel good in my body. Dad’s the one that, you know, you get to do that with.

I, I, I’m not the wrestler. And so I’ve, I’ve started practicing with her. Hey, baby, I love you. Can you come sit next to me on the couch? Mommy doesn’t like her body to be pulled on like that. So that’s teaching her that she should also be asking before she climbs on [01:00:00] somebody and does something like that.

So there’s all these ways in our day-to-day relationship, whether physical or you gave the example of kind of emotional that we can be kind of checking in with people to see where they’re at, to give them an opportunity to check in with themselves.

Tami Simon: I’ve been talking with Vanessa Bennett, she’s the author of the new book, the Motherhood Myth, adept Psychotherapist’s Guide to Redefine Parenting, reimagine Intimacy, and Reclaim the Self.

To Conclude, Vanessa, what do you hope will come in the wake of the publication of this book for people who pick it up and engage with it?

Vanessa Bennett: Oof. I mean, a lot of things, but I think. If I just had to summarize one, I think it’s like a reclamation of agency. It’s a reclamation of I have the power to shift and to change some of the ways that my life feels like it’s kind of happening around me.

You have agency, you do [01:01:00] actually have power. Again, no one person’s not gonna change patriarchy overnight, but there are ways that we can take our power back then we can own our 100% and, and make these shifts in our relational world, um, so that we are able to live a more, you know, authentic and, and kind of sovereign and, um, life.

That feels good to us.

Tami Simon: Vanessa Bennett, author of the new book, the Motherhood Myth. Thank you so much. It’s a terrific book. You poured a lot into it. There’s a lot of layers and dare I say, a lot of depth, a lot to work with. Thank you so much.

Vanessa Bennett: Thank you. Thank you, Tammy.