Growing up through the life cycle – these podcasts are deigned to prompt thinking about one’s own life adjustments as well as reflecting on the experiences of members of the broader family.

To listen on iTunes, click HERE.

Episode 2 – Maturity in leaving home

It is common to hear that rising stress levels and increased incidence of burnout in today’s workplaces are the fault of the workplace itself – the workload is impossible to sustain. While workload and performance pressure are factors, the patterns of relationships that we participate in are crucial for understanding times of energy depletion and disengagement in our work.

We take our relationship sensitivities with us to work and can easily find ourselves contributing to our own disillusionment through over or under-functioning, distancing and triangling. The good news is that when we can recognise our relational patterns of reacting to stress at work, we are able to choose to adjust them. To flourish at work a person stays clear of their responsibilities and doesn’t expand into other’s tasks; or conversely, one doesn’t allow colleagues to take over their own duties. They stay open in communication about who is responsible for what rather than distancing and venting to third parties about workplace tensions.

This podcast describes ways to understand mental health symptoms as part of a relationship systems. It presents the principles of “ Functioning not fixing”; “Person not Patient.”; and “Contact not Cutoff.” In the example Jenny uses one man’s example of depression to show how this is part of years of increasing relationship dependencies that are linked to previous generations of his family. Rather than become despondent about this, a person can utilise this knowledge to have realistic expectations of themselves and others; and to continue the effort to be a self in relationships.

Growing up through the life cycle – these podcasts are deigned to prompt thinking about one’s own life adjustments as well as reflecting on the experiences of members of the broader family.

To listen on iTunes, click HERE.

Episode 1: Our family of origin – each sibling grows up in a different family

This talk was presented by Dr Jenny Brown in Dec 2018 at the school presentation day for PLC Sydney. It was delivered at the Sydney Opera House.

Jenny reflects on how flourishing emerges from solid internal character, to connect genuinely with others and to self-regulate and self-direct.  She proposes that the more parents and other leaders in young people’s lives try to make project out of improving and changing a them, they may inadvertently contribute to a loss of flourishing.

After a predictable period of cutting off from an ex-spouse it is worth finding a way to make contact again.

“How making more contact helps to get unstuck: One of the interesting paradoxes of becoming more mature is that making more contact with previously significant people helps to create better boundaries in these relationships.” – Jenny Brown Growing Yourself Up, Chapter 11, Separation and Divorce: Getting beyond blaming.

– Balancing holding our limits with non-anxious connection.

Keeping a focus on our thinking and behaviour as parents is especially difficult when parenting teenagers. Sometimes adolescent behaviours are full of so much impulsivity and intense emotion that we turn all our attention to trying to manage them –  rather than managing ourselves in our interactions with them. In this pod cast Jenny Brown reflects on how limit setting is most effective when the parent sticks with what’s in their control rather than trying to change the mind and mood of their young person. She also reflects on the value of connecting to the whole child rather than focussing on what worries us about them.

In this podcast Jenny Brown shares ways that parents may become anxiously focussed on one or more of their children. What is the effect of this focus on the child’s development? What difference does it make for children when the worry focus is reduced and parent confidence increases? How can a parent work on growing their clarity and confidence in their role?

In this Podcast Jenny Brown goes into the complexities of having your first child, including the joys and challenges that both parents may face.

In this podcast Jenny Brown goes in to how to become an active observer and refrain from confrontations & saving any important conversations for meeting with family members 1 on 1.