We talked with Sherianna Boyle about the emotional needs of foster kids and foster parents as well!
Sherianna Boyle has been featured in over ninety-articles, her Emotional Detox Radio Show on healthylife.net is in the top five, her revolutionary method (CLEANSE Method®), Emotional Detox Coaching® services giving her worldwide recognition.
Yet, Emotional Detox was not her first rodeo. It is one of nine books, Sherianna has written. In fact, her book The Four Gifts of Anxiety was endorsed by The National Association for Mental Health.
Sherianna Boyle is an international, Emotional Detox Coach®, author of eight books, including her most recent Emotional Detox and Emotional Detox for Anxiety. Sherianna has been featured in over eighty-five articles, and a featured presenter for renowned organizations such as PESI® Behavioral and Mental Health Education, Kripalu Health & Yoga Center, 1440 Multiversity University, and more. Her book, The Four Gifts of Anxiety, was endorsed by the National Association of Mental Health.
She is an adjunct Psychology Professor and founder of Emotional Detox Coaching® servicing clients (of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities) virtually worldwide. She is the co-founder of CLEANSElife.com, which features her CLEANSE Yoga® virtual video collection, host of Emotional Detox Radio Show on Healthylife.net. and co-host of Emotional Detox Now Podcast.
Sherianna is married to her hometown hubby, KB raising three daughters, living her best CLEANSElife! Receive a free Calm Your Mind meditation when you register on her site here: https://sheriannaboyle.com/calm-your-mind
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Jason Palmer 0:03
Foster Care nation. Listen up, we have some exciting news to share, we’re going to offer up our first ever webinar, if you’ve ever been curious about what it takes to be a foster parent and help kids in hard places. Join us on February 18, at 5pm Central for our free, no obligation webinars, we’re going to share our hard earned knowledge and experience with anyone who has ever wondered about helping kids from hard places. If you’re interested, go to foster care nation.com and sign up for our newsletter. This is where you can get the details and the links to join us so that you’ll be able to ask any questions you have in the question and answer section. Now, I know what you’re thinking, webinar, free, no obligation webinar, it sounds like there’s a sales pitch at the end. I’ve listened to a lot of webinars, guys, I know what you’re thinking, I don’t have anything to sell you. I don’t have anything to sell you. I promise, I don’t have anything to sell you today. But what we are going to do is try and support you and help you join us in our mission to help kids. And if that’s what you’re interested in, come see us. I promise you, we’re not selling anything today, we’re just going to offer up our experience our knowledge, and try and help some people who are interested in helping kids. As you can tell in the background. I have some kids, they’re here, they’re noisy, and I’m not even going to try and quiet them down at this time. Because I’m not going to get that done. They’re wound up out there. But you know what they’re happy. And that’s what we’re looking for. We’re just trying to provide a safe place for kids to try and help them to some of their traumas, some of their things and make this world a better place. And if you want to join us on that mission, we welcome you to show up February 18, at 5pm Central. Like I said, foster care nation.com, sign up for the newsletter. And that’s where you’ll have all the information. Thank you so much.
Foster Care nation, listen up. This is
Unknown Speaker 1:56
foster care.
Unknown Speaker 1:58
journey.
Jason Palmer 2:02
String for the powerless courage for the fearful hope and healing for wounded hearts.
Welcome back to foster care and unparallel journey with Jason and no, Amanda, she’s off taking care of important stuff again today. So it falls to me today. So I have a guest here Sherry Anna Boyle. I am saying your name right, aren’t I? Yes. Yes, you are? Yes. Do
I forgot to ask you that before we started recording I, I have made that mistake in the past that I hate mispronouncing people’s names. And I’m really good at it.
So Sherrianna Boyle has a lot of experience and knowledge to bring to us because she comes with a background that’s really really valuable.
Sherrianna has a couple of books out there. One of them is emotional detox and emotional detox for anxiety. And, you know, let’s face it in the foster care system, in adoption in as foster parents, like anxiety is all over those places. And we live in a world that with COVID, and struggles and problems that we’re all dealing with anxiety is a bigger issue that I’ve seen today than ever in history.
Share. Hannah, have you been seeing that in your practice as well?
Sherianna Boyle 3:34
Of course, yes. I’ve been seeing that for quite a long time. But I’m also witnessing people transform it all the time. So it’s, it’s certainly on the rise because of COVID. And people, educating their children at home has brought in a whole source of stressors and learning that balance between
work and being a parent and I definitely I think some parents are feeling like a little overextended. Right, especially after we just got through the holidays. And seems like the schedules change a lot as well. And so I’ve heard from a lot of families in that regard, that it’s been a bit of a struggle and feeling anxious to the point where they don’t even know they’re anxious Jason because they’re so used to it. And that’s what I see more than anything is people don’t realize that they’re experiencing anxiety, it just becomes kind of a way of life. When you when it’s gone on for this long and let’s face it, we’ve been in the circumstances for well over six months now. Anything that is over six months is called chronic. And it can lead to to a lot of things and and
The big thing is, is you forget what it’s like not to have it.
Jason Palmer 5:04
Oh, I know exactly what you’re talking about.
My family has, you know, we have a family, we have bio kids we have. We have adopted kids, we have foster kids who come in and out of the house. And seeing these kids as they go through these things for so long, the average kid stays in care way more than six months.
And so if you were, we’ll just pick an age six years old, and pulled out of your home and thrown into somebody else’s home a stranger’s house, and you don’t really understand it. And now you’re with different people who might eat different food, who go to a different church, who put you in a different school have different set of rules, nothing is the same. And so now you have that anxiety that builds in a kid. I know you work with, with people of all ages, right?
Sherianna Boyle 5:53
I do. Yes. I mean, my roots are, are as a school psychologist, that’s that’s really how I entered the field of psychology is I worked with a lot of families in crisis, a lot of foster care families as well. And, and children being at being removed from homes and and so it’s very difficult.
Jason Palmer 6:17
So what do you see with those kids when they when they come into that into foster care for the first time? And where do you see that that anxiety building them? What does that manifest as so that we, as foster parents can notice it and realize what it is for what it is instead of thinking that it’s just a kid acting out.
Sherianna Boyle 6:36
So I can speak to it as an emotional detox coach, which is what I primarily do now. And as a, as a coach, I do work with a lot of teachers and parents. And I can give it from that perspective, because and I think what can help people to now is when when someone’s put in a new situation, they’re going to have defense mechanisms up, they’re going to have coping mechanisms that they take with them. And a lot of those coping mechanisms are subconscious or unconscious, they don’t even realize that they have those. Some of them they’ve learned from the other environments they were in. And some of them they just kind of adopted on their own they created because of the way they thought they believe that they needed to cope. And the thing about coping mechanisms that I’ve learned is they were never meant to be long term. They’re, they’re great to get through a difficult situation. But after a while, they can cover up what you feel. And so these children come into these homes, and they have met what I call management styles for how they manage what they feel. And what they’re doing is they’re coping with their feelings. They’re not necessarily feeling their feelings. Now we as caregivers can look at them and say, well, they they’re angry. They’re aggressive, that means they’re angry, that means they have a lot of anger. And the way I look at it in terms of emotional detox, is that’s their reaction. That’s not actually an emotion. Now, I know we’ve been taught that Jason that anger is an emotion, I get that. But I see it more as a reaction. And I find that serves us better when we see it that way. Because when we treat emotions as good, bad, right, wrong, what happens is, is we confuse people, not only on what they truly are, but we we confuse them on whether to feel them or not, oh, well, if I feel that that’s a bad thing. I don’t want to feel that. And so if you have a child with a lot of anger, they’re really reacting to, that’s the way they’re managing, not feeling. They don’t want to feel. Because feeling is scary. Feeling means I could get hurt again, feeling means I might never get to, you know, go back to whatever situation I was in, even if it was the worst situation in the world who knows what they’re creating in their minds. So that’s what I see is I see patterns of coping with defense mechanisms that come along with them, which means they’re reacting to what they feel they’re not actually feeling. And that can create a lot of confusion because people can take things personally they can miss diagnose children, I saw that a lot as a school psychologist, people just kind of giving these random diagnoses and medications and remedies and never Just trying to fix it. And I think you probably can relate to this children can’t be fixed. Can’t Fix people. Amen. Right. And they’re not a project, right. So that that’s what I see.
Jason Palmer 10:18
You know, you mentioned something interesting in there. You never know what what kind of idea a kid will have built in their mind, right? We’ve got one little guy, he’s five years old. And he’s he’s our stryver now. And we have a lot of conversations, we’re really opening with our kids about where they come from, and, and maybe why, if that’s appropriate, and all that sort of stuff. And he has both of his parents, his biological parents are still alive. But he has a story, he tells us all these stories. It’s an amazing imagination, number one, but the story I hear most often involves the ocean. It involves trees, he’s in a forest is his Mama’s dead banana tree. And then they were attacked by a dragon. And they went out and killed the dragon. But the dragon killed them, too. He has all these just amazingly detailed stories about his backstory, that don’t make a lick of sense to somebody who knows his backstory. Because when he was less than two weeks old, he came to stay with us. But he has a story he’s built. And if I based all of my, all of the ways that I react with him, on exactly what I know, he’s experienced, right? It’s not gonna work out for him, he’s not gonna, he’s not going to work with me on that he’s not going to agree he’s going to have these problems. He has these stories build these crazy ideas built in his head. And that’s just how he comes. And that’s what it what I’m noticing that you’re talking about, I said, just because I know what truth is, my truth is objective truth from me. Right? Because is there? Is there a whole lot of objective truth, right, we could discuss that one for hours, probably. But the truth that I see is might not be the truth that he sees. And if I react to him, according to what I think is true, it’s not going to make sense to him. And he’s not going to make sense to me, and we’re probably not going to work through anything that way. Right.
Sherianna Boyle 12:06
Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s the way that he’s coping with with it, where his brain is at right now, his level of understanding his his brain is, he’s still very much and in a, that imagination, fantasy, kind of, that’s where he should be actually, you know, that tells you that his brain is functioning well, that after a while, and once he gets a little bit older, you know, more towards 10, he might handle it a different way might have, he might look at things through a new lens as as his brain develops, but right now that’s actually right on target. And of the way he is making sense of a very complicated situation. And, and you’re right, he he, that’s the way he’s managing what he feels. And if we don’t judge it, and we don’t worry about it, and we don’t try to change it. There could be Jason, and this is what emotional detox the books talk about, he could actually get some healing out of that story. Because the story, think of a story, stories give us feeling, they move us, they allow us to connect to something bigger they make give us meaning they give substance to something. So in some ways, his imagination might not just be coping, I’m sort of feeling like it could actually be helping him heal, and make and, and make sense of something that I don’t think anybody can really make sense over everything. Something that you can’t, really isn’t tangible. So I kind of in your situation, I kind of feel like it could work both ways for him.
Jason Palmer 14:08
Absolutely, absolutely. And we don’t really know what the best way to handle it is. And that’s one of the challenges of foster care is we don’t know.
Unknown Speaker 14:15
Hmm.
Jason Palmer 14:16
We, we don’t really know as parents how to deal with these different kids in these different situations they’re dealing with. So we do the best we can. And sometimes, sometimes we make the best choice we could possibly make. But most of the time we don’t, we don’t feel that way in the moment.
Sherianna Boyle 14:33
Well, and that’s how you can relate. They’re, they’re in the unknown, and you’re in the unknown, and you come together in that space where you’re sorting through it together. Yeah. And that that’s the place of growth and really about letting go of needing to know all the answers and I think in parenting and I’ve three daughters and and that is that’s a journey in itself. Letting Go have the need to, to say the right thing, do the right thing. Make the right move, call the right person. And instead, what I always say is give yourself a chance as parents to caregivers, to feel what’s coming up for, you know, what is that like? to not know, what is that? Like? What does that feel like to not always understand what you’re seeing what you’re hearing how to handle it. And there’s feelings underneath there, Jason, how does it feel and when I’m when I’m not sure how to handle something, it makes me feel and there’s gonna be a lot of substance under there. Once you truly feel there’s there’s sometimes there’s feelings of inadequacy, or fear, or nervousness or helplessness. And it’s not again there. In the emotional detox perspective, there’s no right or wrong, good or bad, that’s just over. It just doesn’t serve us to think in those terms. What matters is that we recognize how am I withholding my feelings? How am I avoiding them, and they’re not something to fix or control, there’s something to be felt. And if I allow myself to have this experience, if I can do that, for me, if I can allow myself to feel the insecurity and the nervousness, then I can become an illustration for my child on what that looks like to move through feelings of insecurity and nervousness. And that’s what they need most is they need, they need to not just hear it, they need to feel it and sense it and see it around them. And it’s not going to always be pretty and it’s not going to be perfect. And it’s by yet there will be something really special that you feel in the end. And it’s not even happiness we’re shooting for. It’s a feeling of wholeness. And I think that’s another part where we can get confused as we think, Oh, well, if I do this to that, then we can be happy and move on. It’s about being whole.
Jason Palmer 17:25
Forget foster care nation, we’d like to take a quick minute to step out of the podcast here and ask you guys for a little bit of support. If you could share an episode with people, friends, in a group, with family, anywhere where there’s somebody who would like to hear this. Also, if you’d like to join us and support our mission, a couple dollars a month would be really helpful. You can find us on patreon@patreon.com slash foster care nation. Now back to the show. I love that because I’ve known for a long time that the goal in life is not to be happy. Happiness is a fleeting emotion, it lasts for a moment.
Unknown Speaker 18:01
Mm hmm.
Jason Palmer 18:02
And I’ve been struggling for the right thing to put in its place. Is it? Meaning? Is it finding that meaning in your life? That’s one thing I like the idea of wholeness though. Can you talk about that just a little bit so that people can understand what you mean by that, that feeling of wholeness, because some of us I think, have struggled to feel that in our lives.
Sherianna Boyle 18:22
Well, it’s one of the feelings that you get, it’s one of the ways you know, when you’ve processed an emotion is it just feels it feels sense of wholeness, meaning there’s nothing to say there’s nothing to do, there’s nothing to change, there’s nothing to fix. It’s, it’s a sensation that you get that this is exactly that I’m going to let this be, I’m going to leave this alone. I don’t need to sit up at night and worry about it and analyze it. I’m just going to feel it as it is. And and really you get that from emotional processing. But first you have to recognize how am I reacting? Take the lens off the child because yes, they’re in reactivity. Remember, you’re dealing with brains that are changing and bodies and hormones that are up and down in this way in that way and, and they’re not reading themselves properly. They’re not able to understand, well, this means hunger. This means fear. Like it’s very confusing. Because when you’re in when you’re imbalanced inside, when you feel when you’re restricting your feelings and the way that a lot of people do. What happens is use you don’t you don’t read yourself, you don’t have a clear understanding. Well, this is what my head says this is what my heart says kind of thing. And so it it’s most important that caregiving Reverse take time. And that the system I have in the books is called cleanse, it’s a seven step system, it’s a practice, you have to get to know it like anything else. It’s not, there’s no quick fix. But you get to know the steps and you take yourself through. And again, in this situation, and I would recommend the unknown, there is a lot of unknown and, but it’s a journey. And the thing is about any caregivers journey is these children are souls first. And I’m sure you’ve talked about that, Jason, they are souls, they come with far more history than you will ever know that you could ever get your hands on beyond biology. And they’re here to learn some things and to grow. And it is an absolute privilege to be a part of that. And if we can just look at it that way that it’s a privilege to be a part of your growth and expansion. And ask for guidance. Don’t be afraid to get up in the morning and say I accept and I under Stan, I, this is a privilege to be a part of this. And I understand that if I heal myself, that I will help this child heal, because very often, we are part of their pattern, they’ve picked us because we’ve got a similar pattern in us. Maybe you didn’t show up the same way through the foster care system. But it’s there, I guarantee you. So when we clear the pattern of reacting and avoiding our emotions, we can all grow together. So it’s like a garden, instead of a few plants thriving, the whole garden is able to thrive and grow together. And that’s that feels really, that makes you feel whole when you see the whole garden. Right, not just a few things.
Jason Palmer 22:03
You know, I think that’s a lovely description of what you’re talking about. But there’s one thing in there you mentioned that I think is really important for us to touch on. And that is that oftentimes, when you’re dealing with kids, when you’re in your own stuff, it’s really easy to look at a kid who’s doing something and they choose to be angry, they choose to be aggressive. They choose when a lot of times, it’s more of the ability and recognizing their ability to understand those emotions. And then the same thing for us as well. To do do we have that ability to choose our own emotions as well, to feel that to process through it? Do we have that ability yet? Or is that something we need to work on, so that we can create that in a model that for for the kids in our care?
Sherianna Boyle 22:48
I think everybody has to work on adjacent I think I don’t know if anybody has gotten the full picture. And it’s like, trying to it, it’s like one of those darn toys you get in the mail at Christmas, and the instruction sock. And you’re like, This took me you know, so long and I had to like, you know, figure out another way to put it together it feels when it came to emotions like the same thing. It’s like we all were given a little bit of information, but we weren’t given the whole picture. And so we have to give ourselves some slack here we have to cut cut our gives ourselves a break or cut ourselves slack. Right? And, and just know that yes, we we learned how to identify them, we are getting way better at talking about them. Like you said, we talk about it with our kids. And that’s wonderful that they have a family where they can have open dialogue about these tough situations and keeping those lines of communication open. But the part of the equation we kind of minimized or is the feeling part, how do we feel our emotions, and it doesn’t mean we talk about them, we feel them. And the best way we can teach children is learn how to do it ourselves first. Because otherwise it’s going to be you as a caregiver, manipulating, controlling feeling, right? So if I can manage my child’s feelings, if I can make them feel better, calmer, balanced, whatever, then I’m going to feel better.
Jason Palmer 24:32
You’re talking to me right there. Are you familiar with the enneagram? The numbers of the enneagram system. It’s just a personality typing system. And for anybody in the listening audience who is I’m a I’m a hard five, five exchange motion for data and we love to look at things learn things. We don’t feel things very much. And that’s something I’ve struggled with for a lot of years and I know I’ve struggled with that. I don’t feel emotion very much at all. And as a reaction, I don’t emote a whole lot as well. And I’ve seen that, that play out how that plays out in some of my kids, you know, I have, my oldest daughter would have been 24 now, and my oldest son is 22, I have a 20 year old. So I’ve seen like the full gamut play out, I have as young as five and seven. And I can see that know that. I need to work on that. So for the parents out there for the dads out there, because this is more of a dad issue, typically, but not always, you know, the moms as well who may be as part of their coping mechanisms as kids who learn to turn off emotion.
Unknown Speaker 25:37
Mm hmm.
Jason Palmer 25:38
How do you learn to feel that again?
Sherianna Boyle 25:42
Well, you know, emotional detox, when I wrote that book, I was actually in an emotional detox. I didn’t plan on it. I had planned on written writing the book about emotions and emotional detox. And then lo and behold, I was struck with some really traumatic news. And my whole family was impacted. And the reason I’m sharing that part is I had gone to therapy, and I had done tried to do with, you know, what I thought was the right thing. How do I feel my feelings? I’m, I’m a mess. I’m in trauma, I’m in crisis, what do i do i at the time, I didn’t have a therapist. So I went through to three therapists. But the challenge was, I had read too much learn too much from the research of emotions, and I was a terrible client, patient, whatever you want to call it. I just was stubborn. I just thought to myself, yeah, you’re telling me to talk about how I feel. But I just read a whole bunch of research, that tells me, that’s not going to help me feel. And so I eventually would write the steps of an emotional detox based, so I would go through it myself. And so that’s the first thing is it’s really not talking. I’m not saying don’t talk about your feelings, I say process them first, then talk about them. So a couple of things, you need oxygen to feel. You can’t feel an emotion without oxygen that helps anybody. And you know, with children, when we send them outside that can shift their mood like that, right? Oh, 100%. Absolutely. Or you put them in a bathtub. And the next thing, they’re calm, right, because they’re getting oxygen is starting to kick in and their body’s starting to relax. They have an outlet, they have a way. And so the moment you start increasing oxygen, that’s why physical exercise is so great. And breathing is wonderful. But let’s face it, children, they don’t work that way. Then when you tell them to exercise, like they look at your cross side what go tell them the play, right? Tell them to play skateboard, bounce a basketball, that’s a whole lot different than go get some physical exercise. And so oxygen is key for us caregivers. And then we want we have to notice when we’re not feeling and what does that look like, we’re very distracted. We’re looking at our phones, we’re thinking all the time we’re planning, we’re problem solving. If you’re heavy in that, then you are avoiding what you feel and you’d be better off to just pause, sit down. And that’s where the cleanse system can be really, really helpful. Do a couple stretches, get in your body, you know, even just a little neck stretch over the head stretch, that will also increase oxygen once you start stretching. And then just check in and say okay, yeah, this is what’s happening. I’m, I’m yelling a lot of the kids. How do I feel right now? And just allow yourself give yourself what what’s it feel like to be me right now? And then, Jason, you just breathe. You don’t answer the question. You don’t get into the dialogues. You don’t get into the history. You just take a breath. That’s it. And then there’s a several other steps after that. What it’s really about what the cleanse does, is it’s about feeling what’s showing up releasing all the reactions, you’re probably a perfect match for those kids Jason, because they withhold feeling right as a survival thing, and you withhold feeling. And so you’re actually the perfect parent for them. Because once you start to feel and loosen that up, you’re going to loosen up a pattern,
a soul pattern that exists between you and that children. That would be the great to skip that you could do is recognize and when I am when I avoid my feelings, right? And it makes me feel and just free, don’t get into it. Don’t revisit anything. And then there’s several other steps that you would guide yourself through in the cleanse that would help you land in that space of groundedness and wholeness as a person and a space of reassurance that you know what? I’m, I’m exactly where I need to be right now. And I’m going to trust the universe, that there’s a lot of love and support around this family right now. And we’re going to trust that for all of us, and we’re going to receive it and we’re going to accept it. And we’re going to stop pushing it away and pretending like we’re in this all by ourselves, because you’re not.
Jason Palmer 30:51
That sounds like a lot of stuff that wouldn’t hurt me to order a book here.
Unknown Speaker 30:57
Ah, no,
Jason Palmer 30:58
let me because not everybody’s like me, I took me a while to figure that out. The world is not all like me. I don’t know why they should be be simpler, but they’re not. My wife. I know, opposites attract, they say and now we understand a little bit of why but my wife has the exact opposite. My wife operates in emotion very, very, very well. She understands what she feels. And you know, I, I can have an average day where I feel like free for emotions, right? And she’s like, What are you talking about? That was the last 30 seconds for me. So what about the people who are on that side of the spectrum as well, who, who feel those emotions constantly, and tend to end up overwhelmed by a lot of it?
Sherianna Boyle 31:38
Okay, so this is the emotional detox perspective, there’s only one emotion. And that’s love. Everything else is a reaction. I’ll say that, again, there’s only one emotion. And it’s love, which is feels very whole, by the way. Everything else is a reaction. That means if somebody is feeling overwhelmed, they’re probably reacting as well. They just, it just looks like they’re overly emotional or sensitive or wearing their heart on their sleeve. And I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna say that they don’t have those feelings. But they’re revisiting them. That’s one of the ways that you know, if you need an emotional detox, is you revisit the same five feelings over and over again. And the frequency is high, right? You and your wife probably have similar patterns, you just deal with it different.
Unknown Speaker 32:41
Oh, absolutely.
Sherianna Boyle 32:42
So she manages by maybe, over right fit the the overwhelm could be a form of management, and I and I can totally relate to her, I do that too. as well. I know that when I get to overwhelm, if I’m in a state of overwhelm, I’m in a management style, I’m trying to manage everything, I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself, my expectations are too high. I am feeling responsible for everybody else’s well being. That’s when I know that’s my reactive pattern, which I would just then say, Okay, I need to feel something here because I’m managing by telling myself that somehow I’m responsible to make this better. And, and that that can happen a lot for women, they feel like it’s their job. Now, that’s their job is to manage the emotions of others. And and if you’re doing the same thing, you’re just doing it, you’re just doing it differently. You’re you’re kind of minimize your feelings.
Jason Palmer 33:51
Yeah, you’re not wrong there. You’re not wrong there. And that overwhelm is something that that I think you said it perfectly, because my wife and I have had a lot of discussions about this. You know, we both come from some, we have difficulties in our in our background or history, some of the grief we’ve suffered as a family. Some of the trauma we’ve dealt with, you know, even with some of the kids we’ve had through our house, some of the stories are just man just dealing with a story sometimes is traumatic in and of itself, though these kids have been through. And we’ve had a lot of these conversations and she said to me the that’s where she’s at. You know, she’s trying to make it okay for everyone. Yeah, and that’s, that’s not I don’t think that’s possible isn’t?
Sherianna Boyle 34:35
Well, that’s, that’s a great awareness on her part. She got some clarity there. But now she’s just got to run it. Now. Now it’s about that’s how she’s minimizing what she feels. She puts everybody else first. She puts it all on her shoulders. And so what I teach is if you can feel your feelings Basically, it’s like filling your gas tank, right? She’s not filling her gas tank, we don’t want to go on a long trip, right? A long challenging trip where we know there’s going to be a lot of twists and turns and weather conditions. With a car that’s a tank that’s low on gas, and you’re on a trip, you’re on a journey. So she’s got to fill herself up more. But that means feeling what she feels, and starting to value that that actually is going to be one of her her greatest resources. And being a mother to these children, that she can fill herself up by choosing to feel you know, when I don’t feel like I’m doing good enough when I don’t feel, you know, it makes me feel how does that make me feel inadequate? See where you guys are sitting might be similar, inadequate and secure. unworthy. There’s the threat.
Jason Palmer 36:07
Oh, yeah, that sounds like conversations we’ve had. Over the years, we’ve had some deep conversations. have to admit like, I’m a guy, right? So I’m kind of simple. Am I thinking?
Unknown Speaker 36:17
Yeah, why?
Jason Palmer 36:18
I’ve fallen to logic really fast, deep logic, because that’s the way that things make sense. Dang it. And all you people should understand that. So when I see the title of your book, emotional detox, my first reaction is Oh, I don’t need that. I don’t I don’t have emotion.
Unknown Speaker 36:35
Yeah.
Jason Palmer 36:37
But I think you’re hitting it on the head there, those those emotions that sit under the surface that we don’t really notice that that guilt, that shame, that fear, that unworthy feeling. That’s something that I think we probably all do deal with.
Sherianna Boyle 36:53
Well, men actually love this work. And the reason is, is they don’t have to talk about it. I don’t want them to talk about what they feel, because I don’t believe that’s feeling. So when men hear that they are like, Oh, thank God, thank God, I don’t have to talk about it. You don’t have to talk about it. It’s perfectly fine. But you do have to become aware. And that’s enough.
Jason Palmer 37:21
And I think it’s important to talk to the foster dads out there, because and this is just my little personal soapbox. Amanda and I have talked about this a lot over the years. But there’s a lot of conversation around foster moms. The dads though we were not. We’re not so much in that conversation. You don’t hear dads talk about guys who are foster dads, you don’t hear them talk about it. A lot of times. When we when we interview a couple who’s a foster family, a lot of times, the vast majority of the conversation comes from the mom, the dad sits back, he’s quiet. He doesn’t mention a whole lot. He doesn’t talk a whole lot about it. And that’s just how we are wired. We don’t we don’t talk that much about it. But we still experience it.
Sherianna Boyle 38:03
Definitely.
Jason Palmer 38:05
And I think we probably need that work as much as anyone else if not more because because we don’t realize it but our our lack of emotion oftentimes comes out as looking like anger.
Sherianna Boyle 38:18
Well, there there’s a lot in that emotional detox that is my husband’s integrated into the book. So we talked about marriage, we talked I talked about family. So I think people can relate to the story of of hardship, you know, when a family going through a hard time. And really, there’s coming it just sometimes just comes right in front of you and you can’t avoid it anymore. Right? I mean, you can only avoid it so long and then sometimes things get really bad and you’re faced with it and you’re like okay, what do I do I can either run and and or hide or bury some more or I can actually I can actually learn some skills here and it’s not work it’s really actually just being more of yourself because i think i think it’s hard to be fully feel like you and that’s the biggest benefit that I experience when I process emotions or teach people is they get to just be themselves and not worry about pleasing other people doing the right thing saying the right thing. And it’s such a relief just to just to feel like you can just be you
Jason Palmer 39:41
What does a parent who’s really integrated this this work into their life look like when they’ve finally integrated those emotions and and deal with them healthy? What does that look like for the for the parent who thinks that maybe this sounds like it might be useful, but I don’t know if it’s worth the work.
Sherianna Boyle 40:00
I think that things will shift. I think that a lot of people sit in situations, they feel stuck, that’s where I hear a lot, a lot is sort of feeling stuck, feeling trapped, feeling a little, like there’s no hope. And what I’ve seen as things shift for them naturally, without, without, I think everybody knows inside, what they need deep down what they need, what they desire, what they, what they want. And I think those things can get covered up by caregiving, I think we can put those needs aside those dreams, the parts of ourselves that we would really like to explore, like creative parts of ourselves, pieces of ourselves get a little lost. And so what I see with parents, when they start to, you know, this is a 10 minute practice, I’m not talking about a long thing, once you learn it, and you do this 10 minute practice of emotional processing the cleanse steps, you start to find those pieces again. And, and you start to bring them into your parenting that, wow, I can actually, I can actually be me, I don’t have to give this up and that up, and I can bring myself into the equation again. And you find that people, they, they simplify their lives, they realize sometimes that their maybe their lives are a little bit too overscheduled or too complicated. I mean, COVID has done a lot of that for people as well. But those are some of the things that I’ve seen, I’ve seen marriages shift, partnerships shift, people stop fighting so darn much. I mean, I think the biggest shift was, you know, one of those situations where there was a divorce, and it was so bad that they had to, like meet at the police station to do the exchange for the visitations. And I think that that was one of my best, you know, things I’ve seen when those people reconcile are unable to communicate, and there’s no more fighting and finger pointing and all that kind of stuff. And the children get to benefit from a harmonious relationship with, with their, their caregivers,
Jason Palmer 42:38
their foster care nation, if you’d like to find yourself in a group of like minded people toward Facebook, and you can find us@facebook.com slash groups slash foster care you J. We’ve got a group over there where we talk about foster care, we talk about adoption, we talked about all the things related. If your podcast player allows it, you can also reach out hit that subscribe button. So you get notified every week when we put up uploads every Tuesday, a new episode comes out. We’d love to see you next week. Now back to the show. Wow, you said two things in there that that really resonated with me. And that’s part of is that being a caregiver allowing that to cover up a lot of other things. Almost like it’s it becomes one of the coping mechanisms. It’s look at what I’m doing. So I don’t have to, I don’t have to feel what I’m feeling and it becomes a cover up part there. And I think we’re probably all guilty of that a bit.
Sherianna Boyle 43:34
Absolutely.
Jason Palmer 43:36
That’s a really, that’s a really interesting thing to look at it. You also mentioned that it’s almost when you get through this looks like that feeling of wholeness, that contentedness, if you will, is is really possible for some of us because, I mean, I don’t want to speak for anybody else, but I’ll speak a little bit because I think we all can understand we can all agree that we’ve felt that that feeling like we’re not content, we’re not whole, like that emotion that says or thought pattern that says is this really all there is? Yeah, you know, and if you haven’t felt it yet once you have teenagers and they decide how much they hate you and how horrible you are and how you know because that’s just a natural part of teen years.
Sherianna Boyle 44:21
Absolutely.
Jason Palmer 44:22
But man dealing with that there’s days where it’s that takes some some struggles to get through and feel okay at the end of the day.
Sherianna Boyle 44:31
Absolutely. Yeah, it’s very difficult not to take things personally or hard when you’re, when you’re really working your tail off and you’re doing everything you can to help this person thrive and have what they need are these children and it can it can definitely wear on you I I’ve felt that as as well and, and so always coming back to that place of balance and and making sure that We take care of ourselves and our and our relationships are our foundation.
Jason Palmer 45:08
Okay, well, I’m kind of curious, because it seems like you’ve been through a lot. And you’ve taken a lot of time, you know, you said, you went through some stuff with your family that really puts you in a difficult place it kind of pushed you into, into creating this content for people. Yeah, but what made you step into the world of psychology, child psychology, working with kids in a school? Like, what? what pushed you in that direction in the first place?
Sherianna Boyle 45:33
Probably, I mean, my I grew up, my mother always called me her little therapist. So I was literally like her little therapist, but I must have actually liked that role. Because I ended up Yeah, I do. That’s what I do for my work. And I grew up with a lot of trauma, a lot of addiction and alcoholism, and a lot of things that occurred in my childhood that were not very, quote unquote, what other families were going through, you know, my brother went to prison or family, you know, sighs to go on Sundays to visit him. And, and that led to when I was in college, studying psychology actually did a internship in state prison. So he was in the local. And then when I was studying, they said, Okay, it’s time for your internship. And they said, What do you want to do, and I said, um, I think I’ll pick the one in the prison. And so I worked for a state prison, and really was for moms I worked for was all women. And one of my jobs was to take a van, I was, I wasn’t the driver, but I’d get in the van as the as a chaperone. And we would go around the city. And we would pick up children on Sundays, and they, we would take them to the prison to visit their, their mothers. And so my job was to be a support on that bus. So you can imagine what those children felt like, and they’re all different ages. And, and we would, it was about an hour and a half ride. And so I was there to help them. And then I would sit and I would witness the visitations so that I would witness the moms visiting with their children, they had limited time, of course, and I, and then my job was to get back in the bus and, and now I’m with kids that are a mess. So I’ve got some that are crossing their arms shutting me out, and I’ve got some crying uncontrollably, and I’ve got some angry, you know, and, and that, that, you know, looking back, and I did it all for free, you know, every Sunday. But, um, but it was a great experience. And I think it really shaped me as a person. And I’m really glad that I made that choice, because I understand, you know, when people judge people, you know, that say, Oh, they don’t care about their kids, they don’t love them. They most definitely love them, I witnessed these mothers, you know, who were really broken, and had to say goodbye to their children, and we’re trying to fix their lives. So that was only a part of what I did. And then I had other jobs. You know, once they got released, I could, I had to help them kind of get back on their feet. So I think that was a big part of I always wanted to work with children. And then I worked in the schools and things like that.
Jason Palmer 48:50
Wow, that had to be really impactful experience for you. As you as you went through that, you know, you saw so many moms and kids. And I’ve said this before, it’s so easy to be judgmental, it’s so easy to look at, look at a situation, especially as a foster parent and say, How could you do this to this kid, right? You have a kid who’s born addicted to methamphetamines, or heroin, when you have a kid who’s who’s, you know, been been neglected or, you know, whatever the situation is abused. Because we see it all come through the system. It’s really easy to look up and say, How could you do this to your child, you horrible, horrible human. And part of being a foster parent, is to take these kids who are going who are in a place of their own crisis. And initially, the very first goal is reunification all the time. That we’re going to try and help these kids. And these moms work out. And I say moms a lot because it’s a lot of moms dads in our in our world tend to have been uninvolved not always but but it’s we deal more with moms and so dealing with that and trying to help these moms like appreciate what They have and learn to be a part of the kids life. How can we, as foster parents, change our view of these of these parents and really help them get to that point of reunification? Because that’s a big struggle in our world.
Sherianna Boyle 50:17
Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s challenging. I know, I wasn’t maybe it was a couple summers ago, I, I took my emotional detox books, and I went to it’s called independence house where I live and it’s basically a place for battered women where they go and they live with their children, they’re and they’re getting out of abusive, and then so many of them are drug addicted, and all this kind of stuff. And, and so I ran a emotional detox group there. And it was really interesting, because I have written, I had run other groups, and yet they weren’t getting it, you know, they weren’t. So I had to change the way I taught. Because it, it’s almost like they missed some basic skills, you know, it’s like someone trying to teach someone algebra, and they didn’t get addition and subtraction. And so I found that, for me, it was really about bringing things down to a very, very basic level and, and walking someone through something. And I know, it can seem like we’re, you know, maybe maybe come across as, like, we know more something. But really, it’s about compassion. And slowing down your pace with people. Sometimes we talk too fast, sometimes we try to, we have an agenda, we, we have, I want to, I want to achieve this with this person, and this amount of time, I want them to get this. And, and then and then it just comes out very different. And so we have to really lower expectations is what I’m saying. And bring it down to a level where it’s, it’s, um, it’s almost like you’re teaching as you’re connecting. And, but not teaching at them alongside of them. And I found that helped a lot. It’s like cooking, you know, it’s one thing to watch a video a whole different ballgame to do it with it. So doing things together, you know, let’s, this is the way that we put a chat, they put them to bed, you know, would you be open to walking through that with me? Would you be open to watching how I do it? And would you be open to trying it out? And you know, I mean, it’s a lot of skill building, and I’m not sure what goes on, but there needs to be a lot of support. And basic basic teaching, and short. Nothing too long, because they’re struggling. Now, again, a lot of them are, are struggling with a lot of conflict. And they’re still they got boyfriends and girlfriends, and they’re caught up in things that seem like irrelevant, but in their mind, it’s consumes them, you know, and the drugs, so it’s gonna take time, I wouldn’t rush, the reunification. You know, I wouldn’t put timelines on it. I think that praise goes a long way. Really honoring and asking people how it feels for them. I know what this is like, for me, what’s it feel like for you? And I know, in our, in our minds, we’re thinking how selfish, you know, how could you say that? How could you say those words? How could you not? How can you miss, you know, what this child’s going on in this child’s life? How can you dismiss what they just said? How can you know, and all those judgments are a form of avoiding what we feel. So I would I would recommend, we look at our own judgments, our own expectations, our own agendas, our own timelines, because they will get in the way. And everybody’s different, but I will say never underestimate the power of emotional processing. process what you feel before they show up process with you feel after you leave the situation. You know what that was like to be with this child’s mother? How did that make you feel? There’s a lot of emotion there. And if we go ahead, I have
Jason Palmer 54:57
a friend of mine who he was sexually abused as a child and he and I’ve talked about it quite a bit. And as a coping mechanism, he fell off into drugs. I think he said the only thing he that he knows that exists that he hasn’t tried is his heroin. And so you know, he’s really open about it in our conversations. But he one of the things he’s recognized about himself, as he says, I feel like, at the point where I started into drugs, when I really got addicted, that’s where my emotional growth stopped my emotional age kind of locked up there. And you’re talking about, you know, these things seeming different ways to a biological parent. And maybe if they’re, if they’re dealing with, with a drug addiction, we might be dealing with a 34 year old teenager. Yeah. And we forget to factor that in sometimes, because you’re 3434 year old Mom, you should know how to do this.
Sherianna Boyle 55:49
Exactly. Yeah, we assume they know that they, and then and the bigger thing is, letting them experience what it feels like. what it feels like to be cared for, like that, you know, how that feels. They don’t know. And, and praise, you know, when we’re learning new skills, we need encouragement, and love and acceptance, but it’s really hard to do that. If we’re not processing our emotions, we’re gonna feel ambivalent, we’re gonna feel angry. Yeah, we’re gonna feel, especially if the child comes back, and then the child’s acting worse, and you know, it can get really messy. And I know the whole system is is messy, right? You know, sometimes you have, sometimes the support systems aren’t really helping much. You know, it depends who you get. It’s like anything, you know, it’s like, go into the supermarket. And sometimes you get a great cashier, and sometimes you get one that stinks, you know, or waitress, it’s just the way it is, no matter where you go, or waiter. You know, sometimes you get the best, and sometimes you get that. Not so great. And, you know, making sure that you get Take care of yourself along the way, but I guess I would just really detach from having it look a certain way. But yes, they need skills. That’s, that’s what I learned most from working with those women as they really need hand holding. Well,
Jason Palmer 57:29
yeah, that’s that’s great information and a great perspective that it’s really difficult for most of us to come up with.
Sherianna Boyle 57:36
Well, I wrote it down, I would write a lot down to I would do the visual, the auditory wouldn’t just speak because you know, the auditory, not everybody learns by hearing. So I actually grabbed a piece of paper. And, and then what I would do is, you know, we would go over it, okay, now you you try it with me. Tell you give it a whirl. That way, I know if they got it or not. So here I’m teaching you here’s step one, step two. And now you you try it on me like almost like a roleplay.
Jason Palmer 58:13
Yeah, yeah, it’s an auditory the visual and the kinesthetic. Yeah,
Sherianna Boyle 58:17
you need the hands on and and almost like, I mean, think about it, children learn through play. And a lot of these moms did not get play. They became adults and very well, not really adults, but they retreated older, they were left on their own, you know, left didn’t have the emotional support physical, any of it now. And so they they didn’t get the basics a lot of times is when I’m finding basic lessons that we all take for granted, like cleaning, like cleanliness and self care, and that making an appointment paying for something, you know, little basic things that they don’t cover it up, because they know that they don’t know how to do it. So they’ll avoid it.
Jason Palmer 59:09
Yeah, because one of the things we’ve seen in the foster care system is that a lot of these issues tend to be generational, they obviously did not get these skill sets from their parents. And, you know, to the kids that we have adopted here. Now, I know a local police officer who has told me he remembers when their mother was in foster care herself. Yeah, you know, what’s generational, and a lot of that can be that sort of thing that that really just comes down to a lack of knowledge because they weren’t given that chance as a kid and so they never grew into the adult that they should have grown into. So rather than judging them, maybe helping them makes the difference,
Sherianna Boyle 59:47
helping them breaking it down, creating a routine routines or key, some kind of a structure and checking in Following up and offering support it takes time.
Jason Palmer 1:00:08
Absolutely, absolutely. No, no. You mentioned emotional detox and emotional detox for anxiety. Is that two separate books?
Sherianna Boyle 1:00:17
They’re two separate books. Yeah.
Jason Palmer 1:00:19
Okay. What I have to ask because like I mentioned at the beginning here anxiety is just seems to be such a such a prevalent issue these days panic attacks were not existent when I was a kid. Now, I mean, I’ve, I’ve sat through a number of them with people and and had to learn how to help people cope through that. So it’s a real deal in our world. So what’s what is the the emotional detox for anxiety? How’s that different?
Sherianna Boyle 1:00:45
So the core book emotional detox, which is where I talk about our family, it talks about the cleanse system, which I developed through my own emotional detox, as well as the research, emotional detox for anxiety applies it to for people who experience anxiety, and it really teases out, well, what is anxiety? What have we learned about it similar to emotions, what, what have we focused on, and I had to redefine it to write that book. And so the way I define anxiety in that book is an emotion attempting to be processed, but can’t, because we won’t let it. So once again, anxiety and in that book, emotional detox for anxiety is defined as an emotion attempting to be processed, but can’t, because we won’t let it. And that’s because we’ve been trained not to feel when you again, suppress or repress your feelings, the body will develop symptoms. Some of them are physical. Some of them are, such as increased heart rate, nervousness, chronic worrying, trouble sleeping, eating digestive problems, basically inflammation in the body. And, and so a lot of people will focus on Well, how do I make these symptoms better? How do I cope? How do I deal? How do I manage? And an emotional detox for anxiety? Say, I don’t want you to manage anxiety, because why would you manage something that you don’t want? Right? Why? Why would we manage something that that we is is causing us problems. So I recommend that they learn how to process their emotions. And that book just kind of really gets into the step by step process because people with anxiety need a structure. a moat, the core book, emotional detox tells the story, which has been very helpful for people, for people, which I from what I understand. And the feedback I get, is people get the tools, and they appreciate them. But they really get it because of the story. They’re like I could relate to the story. And it helped me make sense in my life. Emotional detox, for anxiety is going to take it. And it’s going to put a structure around it. Because people with anxiety need structure, they need consistency. And they need, they need to know what to do when they’re in that state. Because if you have like a bunch of different tools, you might try one you might not or you might try one for a little while. But this is an actual system that you integrate into your life. So that’s what they’re gonna get out of that book. And believe it or not, they’re very different. They’re like, but different you get it gets more in depth into the process, more structure.
Jason Palmer 1:04:01
That sounds like it’d be really, really valuable for a lot of people who who struggle with that, because anxiety is not like some of us would like to believe it’s not a choice. It’s somebody you know, chooses to do that. You could just choose joy, right? Just choose joy. That’s all you gotta do. Just stop worrying about things. So simple.
Sherianna Boyle 1:04:20
I wish it was that simple. I mean, you can after a while, but not in the beginning.
Jason Palmer 1:04:25
Yes, yes. I’ve had to learn that the hard way. Yeah, yeah, I, my wife, except my wife and I are 100% different on that. That’s something she struggles with versus the things that I struggle with. And, and we don’t understand each other sometimes. And it’s really easy for people to begin judging one another that way as opposed to working together. So I yeah, maybe maybe just maybe I need a couple books instead of one. They could make our life a little bit better. So. So I really appreciate you coming in here today. Sharing. It’s this is this is been just a ton of information, reaching into the place in our life with the kids that we deal with, with the people that we deal with the parents that we deal with. And, and and within our own lives with the things that we struggle with most, and we don’t ever talk about it.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:15
Yeah. It’s,
Jason Palmer 1:05:17
we want to hide that, you know, that’s a shame and that guilt sneak in that we think nobody needs to know about.
Sherianna Boyle 1:05:24
Sure, yeah. I mean, it’s really a sacred journey that you’re on. It’s extremely sacred journey. Because whenever you’re in a situation where the triggers are really high, you know, and we can get triggered, that’s part of this. Just know that every time you experience a trigger, meaning a reaction, that that’s a memory, emotions that are suppressed or memories, and their memories in us of our own trauma. And that’s why we get so rattled. And it could be trauma from the bloodline, it doesn’t even have to be from our own, it could be from our parents trauma. So just remember that you’re on a very sacred journey. The more you get triggered, the more sacred it is, because it’s memory, but you can you can dissolve and transform all of that by learning to process your emotions.
Jason Palmer 1:06:27
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I really appreciate you coming in here and, and talking with us about this today. So thank you. Give me just a second here. Okay, foster care nation. Thank you for listening, sharing our story. Now take her knowledge and wisdom to heart so you can create love and healing in your family and community. Be sure to come back next week with new episodes every Tuesday. If you’d like to share your story as a guest, you can reach out to us at foster care uj@gmail.com you can connect with other like minded people on facebook@facebook.com slash groups slash foster care uj. And don’t forget, we have a Patreon where you can support our mission for as little as $5 a month. It’s at patreon.com slash foster care nation. The links to everything are in the show notes in your podcast player or at foster care. nation.com. And as always,
Unknown Speaker 1:07:21
thank you guys.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:26
Thank you. Thank thanks
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