Join me in a powerful conversation with Laura K. Connell as she talks about her experiences growing up in a dysfunctional and emotionally abusive family, where she was subjected to a narcissistic mother and an emotionally neglectful father. And how she battled with alcoholism while addressing the deep-seated trauma she endured.  ✅ How and why survivors turn to various addictions (alcohol, substance abuse, eating disorders, etc) to cope  ✅ Feelings of relief from our emotional pain addictions initially bring.  ✅ Ah-ha moments that awaken the need to change  ✅ What triggers help us turn our lives around  ✅ Both the growth and the grieving of toxic family dynamics are round/whole rather than linear  ✅ It’s Not Your Fault -realizing your parents are character-disordered  ✅ Going No Contact  ✅ Stay the course, life gets better after definitive boundaries have been set on our toxic family members  Laura K. Connell is a trauma-informed author and coach who helps professional women discover the subconscious reasons they self-sabotage and how to finally have the fulfilling life they deserve and desire. She writes about the impact of dysfunctional family dynamics on her website, laurakconnell.com.  Her guest articles have reached millions through personal development websites Life Hack, Pick the Brain, Dumb Little Man, Highly Sensitive Refuge, the anthology Chicken Soup for the Soul, and national newspapers The Globe and Mail and Toronto Star.  She has helped thousands heal from dysfunctional family trauma through her popular online retreats. Her book It's Not Your Fault: The Subconscious Reasons We Self-Sabotage and How to Stop is available now at the Simon & Schuster website. Mentioned in the episode: 

Addiction and Coping: Insights from Laura K. Connell (Bonus Episode 9)

Toxic family is real. Toxic parents are real. Smear campaigns are real. Toxic in-laws are real. You are not alone. On this podcast, you have a voice.

On this podcast, Dr. Sherrie Campbell will help you learn more about your family dynamics, unconscious patterns that drive toxic human behavior, and ways to deal with your trauma. 

And most importantly, you will embark on a journey that will help you know yourself and love yourself more. 

Dr. Sherrie is a nationally recognized expert clinical psychologist with over 25 years of clinical training and experience. She was featured in major media networks such as CNN, Time, USA Today, and The Huffington Post. 

She is the best-selling author of But It’s Your Family…Cutting Ties with Toxic Family Members and Loving Yourself in the Aftermath and Your Pocket Therapist: Quick Hacks for Dealing with Toxic People While Empowering Yourself. 

She is a mom who bravely shared her story to help more people break free of toxic family relationships and thrive in the aftermath. 

Subscribe now to get your monthly "Sherapy Sessions" (Sherrie Therapy Sessions) straight from your phone.

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While the holiday season is often associated with warmth, love, and familial bonds, for survivors of toxic family systems this is not the case. Toxic family members gift wrap holiday nightmares packaged as love. They ruin holidays for sport.  In this episode, you'll learn ✅  The time period between Halloween and Valentine's Day is the time when survivors of family abuse are subject to the most intense “hoovering” from their family.   ✅ The holidays are a time we all want to feel love, safety and warmth, and not the nightmare of our psychologically abusive family members and all their attention-seeking antics. ✅ Holiday hoovering puts a fearful twist and gut-wrenching anxiety into our holiday season. ✅  Their hoovering is not occurring because they genuinely miss us. Nothing our family does is motivated by love. They are motivated by their own needs and feelings. ✅ Our family views the holidays as the “season of second chances.” ✅ Our abusers need us, transactionally, to uphold the image of “family” they desire to project into the world. ✅ Our family intentionally preys on our guilt during the holidays because guilt (and our natural sentimentality) are the easiest emotions for them to manipulate. ✅ Tactics of Holiday Hoovering ✅ How To’s and Boundaries to Set Books by Dr. Sherrie Campbell:  ⚉ Adult Survivors of Toxic Family Members: Tools to Maintain Boundaries, Deal with Criticism, and Heal from Shame After Ties Have Been Cut. - https://amzn.to/3L3sMuA  ⚉ But It’s Your Family…: Cutting Ties with Toxic Family Members and Loving Yourself in the Aftermath - https://amzn.to/3tuNQEn  ⚉ Your Pocket Therapist: Quick Hacks for Dealing with Toxic People While Empowering Yourself - https://amzn.to/3JBql1R  ⚉ Success Equations: A Path to Living an Emotionally Wealthy Life - https://amzn.to/3uobd1u  ⚉ Loving Yourself: The Mastery of Being Your Own Person - https://amzn.to/36mlXp5  
 Connect with Dr. Sherrie Campbell:  ⚉ Website: https://drsherriecampbell.com/  ⚉ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SherrieCampbellPhD  
 Check out the Sherapy Master Class: The Toxic Family Sherapy Course designed to help people master toxic family members and turn their life around to one of freedom, peace, and empowerment. Click here https://bit.ly/SherapyMasterclass  
 Get early access to news, insights, and tips straight from your inbox. Subscribe to Dr. Sherrie’s email list, go to https://drsherriecampbell.com/ 

Conquering Holiday Hoovering (Bonus Episode 8)

Join Dr. Sherrie in a candid conversation with Kimberly Shannon Murphy as Kimberly tells her story of survival from sexual abuse perpetrated by her family,  as told in her book, Glimmer.  In this episode, you'll discover:  ✅ The pain of being an unprotected child.  ✅ Why family members tend to take the side of the perpetrator.  ✅ Why self harm is so often involved as a way to cope in victims of sexual abuse.  ✅ How to find your voice and set boundaries on all family members who choose to stay in the denial.  ✅ How to liberate yourself and reclaim your voice and your body.  ✅ The power of journal writing as an avenue to finding your voice.  ✅ Coping with the multiple layers of betrayal trauma and feelings of abandonment.  ✅ Breaking the cycle of generational  trauma.  ✅ Family members who don’t heal simply learn to abuse in different ways.  ✅ Finding love and learning to thrive.  Kimberly Shannon Murphy is an Award-Winning Stuntwoman and the Author of Glimmer, A Story of Survival, Hope, and Healing. Kimberly is Hollywood's Go-To Stuntwoman for Premier Silver Screen actresses. Her resume is loaded with top box office films such as Top Gun Maverick, Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, Knight and Day, The Lone Ranger, Jack Reacher, Hunger Games, Savages, Men in Black 3, and the list goes on.  
 Mentioned in the episode: 

Kimberly Shannon Murphy - A Survivor's Story of Sexual Abuse (Bonus Episode 7)

Understanding the differences between the silent treatment and no contact can help you navigate your relationships with toxic family members. Let's explore these topics: ✅ It is natural to have many moments of questioning ourselves around no contact because we never want to be like our toxic family members. ✅ The difference between the silent treatment and no contact comes down to intent.  ✅ Signposts to when silence is being deployed for abuse.  ✅ When we go silent we do so to  stay silent. We have no want, need, or desire to hurt our toxic family members by toying with them in any way.  ✅ How do we know we’re not the bad guy (toxic person) our family accuses us of being?  ✅ What is going on when our family members call us the toxic ones for going no contact? ✅ How To’s and Boundaries to Set — Get my latest book!  — Adult Survivors of Toxic Family Members: Tools to Maintain Boundaries, Deal with Criticism, and Heal from Shame After Ties Have Been Cut. Get it here:  https://amzn.to/3L3sMuA  — Connect with Dr. Sherrie Campbell:Website: https://drsherriecampbell.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SherrieCampbellPhD 
Books by Dr. Sherrie Campbell:But It’s Your Family…: Cutting Ties with Toxic Family Members and Loving Yourself in the Aftermath - https://amzn.to/3tuNQEn Your Pocket Therapist: Quick Hacks for Dealing with Toxic People While Empowering Yourself - https://amzn.to/3JBql1R Success Equations: A Path to Living an Emotionally Wealthy Life - https://amzn.to/3uobd1u Loving Yourself: The Mastery of Being Your Own Person - https://amzn.to/36mlXp5 

 Check out the Sherapy Master Class: The Toxic Family Sherapy Course designed to help people master toxic family members and turn their life around to one of freedom, peace, and empowerment. Click here https://bit.ly/SherapyMasterclass  
 Get early access to news, insights, and tips straight from your inbox. Subscribe to Dr. Sherrie’s email list, go to https://drsherriecampbell.com/ 

The Difference Between the Silent Treatment and No Contact (Bonus Episode 6)

Our family members are famous for their pristine ability to play the victim.  Playing the victim can manifest in a variety of contexts. In this episode, we are going to unpack: ✅ Our psychologically abusive family members get thrills off any opportunity they can create that affords them the opportunity to take the stage to put on their Oscar-worthy winning performance of the victim. ✅ They use this victim role to gain pity or sympathy, and to evoke compassion as a path to getting their way.   ✅ They play this role publicly and privately to evade accountability by smoke-screening their abuse of you.  ✅ The basic story your toxic family members tell of themselves is that they are the“good,” “caring,” “moral, “selfless,” person in the relationship, and you are the “bad,” “abusive,” “cruel,” “immoral,” “selfish,” “toxic,” one. ✅ Conversations with your family members that play the victim can never be about your feelings. It must be all about them. ✅ Family members who play the victim grossly embellish the untruths they tell about your “monstrous” behavior to create a more powerful narrative about how profoundly you have victimized them.  ✅ Goals and payoffs of playing the victim ✅ Impacts of this emotional game on the targets ✅ How to’s and boundaries to set Get my newly released book!  — Adult Survivors of Toxic Family Members: Tools to Maintain Boundaries, Deal with Criticism, and Heal from Shame After Ties Have Been Cut. Get it here:  https://amzn.to/3L3sMuA  Connect with Dr. Sherrie Campbell:Website: https://drsherriecampbell.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SherrieCampbellPhD 
Books by Dr. Sherrie Campbell:But It’s Your Family…: Cutting Ties with Toxic Family Members and Loving Yourself in the Aftermath - https://amzn.to/3tuNQEn Your Pocket Therapist: Quick Hacks for Dealing with Toxic People While Empowering Yourself - https://amzn.to/3JBql1R Success Equations: A Path to Living an Emotionally Wealthy Life - https://amzn.to/3uobd1u Loving Yourself: The Mastery of Being Your Own Person - https://amzn.to/36mlXp5 

 Check out the Sherapy Master Class: The Toxic Family Sherapy Course designed to help people master toxic family members and turn their life around to one of freedom, peace, and empowerment. Click here https://bit.ly/SherapyMasterclass  Get early access to news, insights, and tips straight from your inbox. Subscribe to Dr. Sherrie’s email list, go to https://drsherriecampbell.com/ 

Addiction and Coping: Insights from Laura K. Connell (Bonus Episode 9)

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