Beyond the Family Tree: Genograms in Real Life

0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. Hello, and thank you for tuning in to a Sharp Outlook on pay for HD radio and Talk or TV. I am Angela Sharp, your host our arm chair discussions with industry experts will give you the steps, tools and information to be successful in business and to prepare you to be your best self. Hello, I'm Angela Sharp, and welcome to a Sharp Outlook. And today we are going to talk about our families and genealogy and beyond that family tree of just names and dates and certificates, but we're going to get into genograms in real life. And have you heard of genograms? They are the maps or of patterns, pain and possibility. With them, you can see hidden patterns in mental health, addiction, relationships, and careers. It

1:31 gives an understanding of intergenerational trauma and resilience. They help make sense of family secrets, cut offs, and loyalties. Let's discover strengths and resources that run through our family lines. Whether you are a mental health professional, a student simply curious about your family, today, we will guide you step by step. Okay, I'll say our guest, well, guide do step by step into reading and creating genograms in a way that is practical, respectful, and deeply human. Today we have Christine Stensland, a relational leader, nonprofit founder, and co founder and CEO of genograms dot com. I'm inviting Christine to join us on a sharp to talk about genograms and how they can change the patterns or how you look at family and how you can find out about how they were able to succeed in different issues, their problems, and their successes. So Christine, come join me.

2:45 Hello, good morning, Well, good morning where I am. I'm assuming its morning wherever we're across. So I'm not sure if our audience has heard a lot about genograams. So how would you explain to genogram to someone who has never heard of it before. Well, that's easy because I had never heard of one up until about seven or eight years ago. So Actually, I'm going to start with Angel. I've listened to your last two podcasts just in preparation for this, and it was interesting because both guests brought up systems and humanization is the center of you know, medical care too, And what I want to start with is that the family is a system, right, And so when I explain what a system is, we think of all kinds of different systems.

3:30 You know, you have your body as a system. But I like to say, like when we're driving our car and all of a sudden your car veers to the right, You don't blame your steering wheel. You recognize that there's something else in the behind the steering wheel, be a flat tire or your alignment, it is causing the whole system to veer to the right. And justly, the family is a system and we're interconnected. Or if you are a visual person and you don't know what's behind the car when you're running it, think of a spider web, right. A spider web is how everybody's connected, and the spider creates this big, huge thing that has all these individual lines. And if you tear out a part of that spider web, it changes, it might not hold its integrity. Something has happened, but it's all a system, and so I want to start with it. The family is a system, and how I understood and got into druce to genograms is actually a PowerPoint. And so when my husband and I, so I said, seven years, but just hang on, I'm going to tell the story here. So over twenty years ago, my husband and I attended a conference because we were getting remarried to each other and we each had children, and my husband is a researcher, so he had to do the research of what is this going to look like?

4:45 How are we going to navigate having a step or blended family. And we went to a conference and the speaker put up on a PowerPoint slide a visual of what the reality is of a family system when you have a multi household family for children. And so that means that my children are running going to their my ex husband's house, my husband's children going to his ex wife's house. They have families in different homes. And so this PowerPoint like illuminated all these things and said, you think your family is just those six for us, six people living in one house, but it's really a system that includes this house over here where my boys. I have biological boys have other siblings, step siblings, half siblings.

5:28 The girls had other stepsister, had another step parent on both sides, and so their family reality was very different. So our system actually included those other families because when something happened at either one of those houses emotionally, mentally, physically, financially, it impacted us. And so we've really when we saw the picture, it framed for us what we were walking into. Well, what happened is I didn't know that was called a genogram my backgrounds and healthcare and nonprofit management like not mental health, health or social services. And so for us though, it just helped us see the reality that we were living in. It helped us understand that we weren't something wasn't wrong with us when we blended or created this step family, because there's some challenges when you have a complex family structure. And it also gave us words. And then we also knew resources because we had seen this in real life. Fast forward and we started saying, how do we make that PowerPoint more readily available to others?

6:31 And we created software for that. But what happened is mental health professionals said, wait a minute, I don't want you just to show. I learned that in school. I learned what's called a genogram, which is usually traditionally has been taught in schools to show three generations of who's in the family, how they get along, intergenerational patterns of behavior. That could be addiction, it could be graduation from college, it could be cancer. It could be like, what are those unique attributes that are in families and how do we show them so we understand the system and how does it come down? And that is honestly the first time I heard the word genogram in context that way, I had seen the picture. It was valuable for our lived experience, and we had created this first software for primarily just blended families. But then clinicians were the ones now, So then I started learning about genograms and how literally they were developed so that mental health professionals in particular could understand why is Christine coming into my office today, how do we unpack how do I understand who's who's in the system today, what informed her system into why she's here today, and then how do we move forward to maybe improve the wellness or you know, whatever that is that's causing her some challenges today, So how do we see it, understand it, and forward? So all that

8:01 to say, think you mentioned genealogy, right, it's like your family tree with some real big mental health constructs, Just to say, how do we understand what we're seeing? Not just who was there, when they were there, what their titles were. You know, it's super interesting to go back far far back, but really what's impacting that family and that family system that can collectively work toward wellness? And I'll call it relational intelligence? Right, how do we understand how to make this family as strong as possible given you know, the pattern to which they came for. So that's probably a little confusing, but just think your family tree with some other information so you can understand how you got here and where we go forward, where we go next?

8:48 Oh well, I mean that is really interesting and exciting. I did my genealogy and there's like almost twenty one hundred people. Yet a lot I mean a lot of pieces of paper. Yeah yeah, And I was like, gosh, there's so many people having so many babies. What's going on here? And it wasn't like there was like a lot of rich people. So I was like, you know, I was just having lots of babies. So I mean, I saw some of those things, but I never thought of, you know, marking that down to see how it impacts you know, And I know, I know when you you go to the doctor, they're always wanting to know what's your you know, genealogy, what's your ethics you know, you know, ethnicity and things like that because of certain health patterns and stuff. But even emotional patterns and thought processes and things like that are just cultural teachings are probably in those genograms when you started doing it, what was one of the first things that surprised you when you begin creating your genogram?

10:01 So when we did our personal one, what was really interesting to us. So again I'm going to go back to I want to give just one quick part of history. This started on paper. So when this was first rolled out forty years ago or so, like in the industry, it was on paper. And so think about the limitations of paper, and they were used specialized symbols and that kind of stuff, and we've tried to make it approachable to all humans. Like, so it's actually a story that both those who own their lived can own their lived experience and anybody who's walking with them and serving them, supporting them professionally or otherwise can understand the same story. So when we first did ours, this is a long time ago, when we saw again our family, we drew it out in the blended family world. What we realized is some of it is that we just missed people.

10:52 Like we did it with a group that we were leading and almost everybody because we just we told them, you know, put down the two of you, who who your parents were, who your kids are, how help any whatever, And they drew it out on paper and almost everybody missed somebody. So as you're thinking through things, which was interesting, and a lot of it was in the homes that they didn't live in, but it was their reality for their children they were family members and other houses. The other thing is is then when we started to make this software ginograms dot Com, my husband and I were like, well, we don't have that much stuff in our background, Like, so we started mapping out our lives and recognizing, wow, even though both of our parents had remained married their whole lives, so no divorces prior to us in our lineage, you know, or siblings were all married still, so we're like we don't have that much, and we started recognizing some of the trauma and some of the cultural, like you said, realities, like even I am from a century farm family in Iowa. I did not grow up on that farm, but I learned from people who grew up on that farm, so that informed I do things because that's where I was taught. So we started looking at our own and we were just My husband and I were shocked because we thought we were pretty boring, right, But when you start looking at those patterns that come down and how they influence who we are today and how we see the world, it was pretty eye opening actually and a little less I don't know if i'd

12:24 say maybe humbling or also just what I find when I do a genogram with myself or others is that it allows us to step up from our story and not sit in the shame or blame. Right, so it's not me or you did this to me or whatever. It's now looking up at a level to say, this is what the system is doing, because a system. And one of your other speakers said this, and I was like, yes, it's pre something else, ha said this. But every system is to set up, is set up to perfectly get the outcomes that it does. That includes families, right, So if we know by better, we can do better. Yeah. I'm not sure that fully answered your question, but that was a couple of learning is along the way for us as we facilitated groups and then did our own.

13:10 Yeah, and you say you go back like at least you know, like three generations, So that's like your parents and then your grandparents. Yeah. Yeah, and that's traditional, that's a traditional. Our software is now adaptive. I mean, if you think about it. You know, I have paper in front of me right now, and I didn't draw on it. But I just mean if I started drawing here and I went up, but like you, you run out of room pretty quick. Yeah, computers are adaptive, and so our software actually is unlimited. You can go as far back as you want. You could bring in your twenty one hundred people and you know, I mean don't no, I'm just. Kidding, No, I won't. But I you know, it's adaptive now, and so you can actually utilize computers to better understand if you do want to go back further. But I would say traditionally for people people that have like a mental degree called a licensed marriage and family therapist. So if you see an L or m FT, I don't know what all the states are. In Minnesota where I am, it's LMFT.

14:08 It means they're license and then a social worker. Those are the two that in class in their training programs. They were taught in systems and they were probably had a genogram's class. So those folks would see understand sort of why those generational things are you know, good to capture at more than three if needed. Yeah, yeah, Like I found a lot of amazing things just looking at the genealogy, but just didn't go into the you know, getting into you know, actually touching their lives. You know. The other was just you know a lot of dates, you know, when they were born, when they when they died, you know, when they married, where they lived, things like that. But it doesn't get into a lot of the personal. But I could see some personal things and patterns and it's like, boy, like to see how that's affected you know.

15:04 Yeah, yeah, it's you can delve right in and that's for sure. And again when you know better, you can do better. Right, Like, so, what out of trait that I think is serving me well? If not, how do I understand it in a way that I can use it as a strength. Well, if someone is building their first genogram, where should they start? Yeah, so yeah. First contacting you at least, that's also right. Absolutely, Well do the. Paper people, I'll tell you don't want to do that the piece of paper. I would recommend actually seeing intuitive icons. So on genograms dot com there is a free trial for thirty days, no credit card required, because we want humans to have the opportunity to do that. For our genogram, we have a question in take questionnaire, a questionnaire you can answer and then the computer says, draws your base genogram for you.

16:04 And you know, I like to say instead of circles, squares and squiggly lines, which is what a traditional genogram was taught to be, like, men are squares, women are circles. And there's different constructs for you know, gender and gender questioning, and I mean there's also you can put trying. I mean, there's all these different specialized symbols that you have to know if you want to do this to better reflect your lived experience. We've tried to make that approachable and so you can choose things and then the computer changes things. Does that make sense, so I don't have to have my I mean it's pages long of what these symbols are, and how do you show a cut off relationship? And how do you show a divorce? And how do you show abuse physical, sexual, emotional? How do you show like but our computer system actually you can just go through and choose. You know, I'm going to add a parent, I want to add a child. I want to add an emotional bond. I want to add an abuse bond.

17:02 I want to you know, like so anybody, quite frankly can do this. I would say people who have been trained in it will have a little bit more understanding on the power of the use through the therapeutic process. But it doesn't mean that everybody can have a look at their family. I mean, that's that's available now on genograms dot com. And so if you want to do it, you just go take the questionnaire and then it'll build the base genogram and you can decide what you want to add an intuitive if you really want to understand and do the traditional symbols, you can just look up traditional genogram symbols and go and start. You know, to me, it's so much better now we have faces you can choose I could have had blonde hair, you know, could have I mean, we have all the cultures, different cultures represented, so you can see that we have intuitive symbols for a home versus you know, whatever your living experience, be apartment or unhoused or you know, incarcerated even and so we have symbols that are a jail cell, a suitcase, school house, so that people can see real quick what that family's lived experiences and and so can the family.

18:11 I think that's what That's what I'm most excited about the work that my husband and I and actually our children. It's a it's a software developed by our family for families. Our children all have special degrees and helped us because they believe in the mission of humans bringing the human back. Just like your recent guests spoke about is putting the human back into medical care. We want to put the human back in life like you know, wherever that shows up for somebody, so health, our social services. We want the humans to have feel like they're seeing, heard and understood. And I heard the word value to one of your guests, and I believe that to be true when you actually see me and I'm not just a number I'm not just a square. I'm not just you know, a circle or a squiggly line, and you see my life, and then I believe that you are invested in my life because you've taken the time to see and try to understand my life and I personally, and I can't speak for everybody. If somebody's leaned in, I'm way more likely to trust them, and I'm way more likely to value what they have to say, because if I don't know how much you care, I don't care how much you know, I don't and I don't think you. I don't know if that's been my experience just walking this earth with others, but you know, for us that was very important that people feel seen, heard and understood.

19:38 Yeah, and I was just as you were talking and visualizing this genogram. I think like the younger generation would really just go, yeah, we're easy with that, because I mean they were in emji world, right, I'm still trying to figure out the little bit of emojis. Trust me up. It's like we're sure talking to me. Like with emoji language, I don't know what. Right I have to look it up to it or even some of the short like the acronyms. I'm like, I don't even know what that means. My kids told me, they said, Mom, we know that you've been kidnapped if you if we ever get a text from you that is any acronyms, because you do you type out complete sentences when you text us. And I'm like, I do because my English teacher from sixth grade would roll over in her grave if she knew that I wasn't trying to use proper grammar and all.

20:33 That I did right now talk about me? What is that? What is right? And I wouldn't you know, I it's funny because I I don't know how i'd show that on a genogram my sixth grades English teachers influence, But there's got to be a way. Yeah, I'm not a standard thing. Yeah, And then you know, like you said that, it brings kind of like an emotion so that you actually not only see yourself, but you see all the people before you and then see pieces of them in you, And you know maybe kind of does that kind of you know, make them more enthusiastic about maybe achieving or something like that if they've seen that there's achievement, you know, in their genogram.

21:29 Yeah, I think it empowers people to make change. So we're working with a local addiction recovery in patient program. So thirteen months and when we walked in and started talking to some of the residence clients and they started telling their stories, I could visually see the genogram because they're like, my parents was an addict, my grandmother was an addict, you know. And they start seeing it and they wanted to do their genograms because I think again, it takes off some of the shame, like there's something wrong with me, I'm doing something wrong, and they can say, okay, I was influenced too, like this was my lived reality, this was my mom's live reality, versus me blaming my mom because it's not my mom. I'm just saying, like blaming my parents. They can also maybe have a little bit more grace and understanding for their parents because that was the environment in which they were raised. And so you start seeing that there are some nurture things that influence us. And if that's all I know, that's I mean, there's a large chance or there's the genetic component. You know.

22:33 I'm not I'm not an expert in addiction from a genetic standpoint or anything. Else. I know there's patterns, and I know that when people see them, they think, okay, like I can step out of my blame and shame, and I can maybe have some grace for those who came before me, and now I can make them my next generation. In the next generation, the next generation look different, so they feel powered to make the change, maybe repair some relationships because they can take the blame off of of other people and maybe express some great So as we roll this out, it's really exciting to see the different uses of it, and and people seem to change pretty quick. I can tell a couple of stories if you want them, you know, like I don't know how much you want or how much we want to keep getting it. We can keep getting into the details of genograms.

23:24 But it's really powerful when you see somebody accept their story in a way that facilitates change. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I was just thinking when I had done the general genealogy and I saw my you know, some of my relatives, and I saw that there was a problem with alcoholism, you know, I felt a certain way, and and then years later I then found out Okay, they were they were in the military, they were in this they were in that. And I realized that when I had talked to some people that had been in Vietnam and they told me about some of the trauma and things like that, and then I finally saw, you know, how long they were in military, what or were they in things like that. I got a better understanding as to why there was some alcoholism there is because of the trauma and the way of numbing it, because you know, they weren't even recognizing that you could get PTSD until you know, probably thirty years ago.

24:39 All of those ones before then, you know, it was just that's just who you are, and so we didn't know any better. So they gave me a better understanding and and it alleviated, you know, some of the embarrassment I failed as a child. Yeah, I shouldn't have. There was a real problem there that no one, no one had learned how to address. So, yeah, all those things you know, you see in there and then just trying to learn to understand him is really important. Also, Yeah, when you're looking at a genogram, maybe your own or maybe someone else's. Like you said, you're doing some you know, work with other programs and things like that. What are some of the first things your eyes searched for.

25:30 Yeah, so, and I know are app better than any So I mean again, you can use paper, but when I do, I have somebody use one of our genogram applications. What I look for first is actually you can rate your emotional bonds with people, and so one of the other. I'm in a lot of different spaces because my you know, my personal goal is to support strengthen families, and so support strengthen and so families, and so that's my lanes are different sometimes, but I'm using that's my north star. And so for instance, I do co parent coaching, court ordered co parent coaching. So right now is the ones that I haven't been court ordered, which means that parents are fighting, right, that's just legit. They're fighting, And so I have them do the genogram because I want to understand who's in their family. So I'm one, I can call the right people the name, like I know their children's names, and I can say that because when you say somebody's names. I don't know all the neuroscience, but I heard there's neuroscience that proves that a part of your brain lights up. And so I want to be honoring and respectful of the people that I'm serving and also say I see you, and by using names that help, so I get their genogram map to truly just know who's in their family and who they are in their family? Right, So, is it the child? Is it their ex spouse? I don't want to confuse their ex spouse's name with their new spouse's name, right, Like, so I can look at the map and know which children live in which homes, how often, how long they're living, what the custody looks like.

27:02 But the biggest thing that I'm looking for is emotional bonds, and so people can rate like is it a warm like am I super close to this person? Is it a green bond that's the strongest emotional bond. Is it a blue bond because it's still positive, but it's not nearly as strong as the green. Or is it a meth? I call it meth in the middle. I don't really have good or bad feelings toward this person. We just coexist. But then you go down to the negative bonds, and so like i'd say, you know, if you're thinking plus two plus one zero and then your negative one, negative two, and if I see a lot of negative two, negative ones and negative twos. They show up as orange dash on our application, orange dashed lines and red dashed lines.

27:48 I'm going to start asking some questions, right because what that shows me is, again remember that spider web. If there's one emotional bond that's negative and it's ues. We're going to start with the borring parents in court. You are not getting along at a plus two, okay, so you're probably you're definitely in the negative one negative too. So that so if you think about a bond between two parents, so two parents here, there's this red bond because the court's involved, but they have one child together, and they're likely green. Biological bonds are the strongest because we're many. They're minimes. It doesn't mean that if you've had a foster adopt child that you don't love that child. You do, you can still have a green, but in general, biological bonds are again they're minimes. They do have my epigenetics that came through that, right, we lived our whole lives together. And but if you have one negative bond and two positive bonds, there's a theory called structural balance theory that's said that's an unstable triangle. So if you think about it that that child is literally in the middle of two people that don't get along. Right. And you've heard these stories, right, you hear Disneyland parent because they want the child to want to come to their house, or the permissive parent because they want the child to come to their house. And this child is like this in the middle, going I'm going this way, I'm going this way, I'm going this way. And if you've ever had one of those triangles in your personal life, I can think about even friend groups. Right, we're all getting along until two people aren't getting along and they both

29:19 call me and say, can you believe this? Can you believe this? You know? And so now you're like, oh, I believe I wasn't there. I'm not. They're both my friends, and it's just better when we all get along. What that's called is an in the middle triangle. And nobody wants to be that person in the middle, you know. And so I look for triangles, and especially those unstable in the middle triangles, and then you know that happens a lot. And in divorced families, they just do because they're literally functionally in the middle. But if we can get that co parent bond between the two parents a warmer or even just a meth then that child does at like they have to choose because that's not a great place to be. So that's what I'm looking for, to see how many of those exist. I like to understand even beyond the warring parents, you know, how do the siblings get along, the half siblings, the step siblings, you know, And this could be even an addictionary recovery, right, Like, let's talk about somebody whose addiction has now negatively impacted other family members. Are they cut off? Are they? You know?

30:27 How warm are those relationships are this? Does this person still try to connect with the recovering addict or you know, like, how do we repair some of the relationships? And I do it by looking at what emotional triangles exist and which bonds can we help repair that the whole system gets more stable and it's work, but I will tell you it's so rewarding when people start understanding it's a system. And in my work, I've seen families go wait, what, like they I've never thought about the fact that I've been creating a whole other family over here in my child like that, and that threw this whole system off and I've seen change pretty quick, like starting to try to co parent better because they're understanding visually what they've been feeling, like this is so hard, or why is my child frustrated and not wanting to come to my house?

31:22 And because they're trying to pick they don't want to be here anymore. They don't want to be in them. Yeah, yeah, I've seen that kind of thing when when too, a husband and wife just can't get along, they get divorced, and they utilize the children as the ping pong ball to get back at one another, and they have no idea emotionally, you know, even physically what they are doing to that child, and then you expect them to be whole, whole and healthy and you know, and all of these things when you have actually use them as a weapon against another parent.

32:04 And the thing is what they fail to understand is at one point in time, you love them, you love them enough to have a child. But now you're angry or whatever it is, How is it? Then? What does that make me? Because I'm a product of that right and that gives me love? Does that make are you angry with me too? Because I look like them? I mean, it's it's such a terrible and destructive thing that can happen. And you know those you've got these two people fighting, you know, and there's children involved. Yeah, it's so hard. And I've seen court cases dropped because they recognize that this is not in the best interest of their children. I'm not saying there's not reach.

32:52 I don't want to get it like I'm not going to get political or I mean or just even stepping all that. What I'm saying is, if you take the time to understand from a child's perspective what's going on, there might be changed hearts right, Like it might be like, Okay, this is not what I want my child to experience. And even though I'm hurt by a relationship that didn't work for whatever reason, is it really worth this continued, Like you said, pond game and playing. And I think people when they see the picture one recognize that I've also set up a structure that that that I wasn't acknowledging by, you know, in some cases getting remarried and having my own children somewhere else, and that's different for my kids. And I just, you know, like didn't recognize that that was it was a different I think pictures are powerful. Right, I go to a new city, I don't just walk drive in and go, well, I don't know where I'm going, but I'm just gonna start driving.

33:46 I'm pulling up a map, right, like something, I have a little bit better understanding of what's going on. And I think that's the power of the genogram. And again, it can be used in various and a sundry places. From the co parent coaching, I think it'll be powerful in mediation or divorce even when you look at that stuff. If you look at that stuff up front, maybe set up those coparent relationships in a different way. It's in recovery, it's in social services, it's in mental health professionals, and I think anywhere that's serving families or families, it's powerful because you're seeing a story and you're saying this is these are humans involved, and how do we understand in a way, Like I said, we know better, we can do better. Right. So I'm excited about the power of genograms in this generation, especially with the adaptability of our software program that I am biased, but I get that, but I just think we've really tried to represent a person, you know, like that would be approachable, so humans feel like they're seen.

34:51 Yeah, can you share a story where maybe Geno Graham revealed a pattern no buddy had ever noticed before. Again, I'm going to your last Your last guest was talking about foster adopts children and we got invited in and this foster adopt family had both biole and foster adopt children. And what happened is we put up the genogram. The genogram came up, and there was a lot of blaming of a specific human in their system. I'm just going to say that. And what was recognized pretty quickly is that all the negative bonds were going It's a child.

35:36 So I can only say a child. I don't want to violate any hip or anything like that, but it was a child and they all recognized. And I'll just note the ages of the kids were enough that they could understand. It wasn't two year olds. These were a little bit older kids than some teenagers and working with the parents, the teenager stayed in the room. So sort of like you said, young people, because now it's it looks I'm not going to I want to use the word gamified, because it's not, but it is more picked for all and ogs. Either we're not that complex. It's not people's real faces. So I mean, we're not that it's not that cool. But but the teenager stayed in the room. What it did was they recognized who they were scapegoating as a word that you would hear, like who they were all blaming this stuff on. And they facilitated conversations and asked questions of how they could do like to each other and to the coaching people that were there, because it wasn't just you know, our stuff, and they started to learn some skills. We got reports back within a week that that family structure had already made changes recognizing when they were scapegoating a child who I mean, guess what if everybody's scapegoating you and blaming you, are you probably on your best behavior? I'm guessing that right, So it's going to fix this child. It was we're going to fix our system, right, And it happened quick.

37:00 And those are the things that just energized me to do the hard, hard work of you know, starting a software company and you know, self funding and software company development. And because we see the value and the benefit and that is so important to my husband and I is that there is impact that that can be had to help families get stronger together and have more relational intelligence to do that. And so so that's one that's one example of many. Again I told you core cases have been dropped like that's in the best interest of a family. But this is how they operated, not only in their home but with people outside their home. They looked at the other generations and they recognize some problematic behavior and they proactively I'm mean to use some buzzwords in the industry used, you know, took agency over their own life, which means they made their own decisions without the benefit of having other people around and recognize when they were going to go into a situation that might throw their own home into us spin because an external person had a negative bond with somebody. So that family made a plan.

38:07 They were able to make a plan because they saw a picture. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Yeah, but you know, I think most of us are visual. If we do see see a picture and realize we might be the ones that's causing this thing to be red or orange or you know, yeah, flashing lights, but yeah, yeah, you know we would we would probably step back and say what am I doing what am I doing? Because nobody wants to really, I mean not consciously. They don't want to hurt their own child.

38:48 They want their child to be grow up, to be happy, to to be you know, successful, and you want them to even achieve more than you did. Then when you go in and you see this situation where you are sending these negative things to their to their to their lives and putting them in in situations where they're they're supposed to choose which parent they like the most. And I mean just some of that kind of stuff. I mean, it's it's hurting them and it's hurting them emotionally, and you know, I think if they see that visually, yeah, I think they would probably change. But you know, right now, it's just everything's kind of quiet or a secret or whatever you want to call it. Yeah, and they don't need.

39:35 To see it. The kids see too, right, Like, so even teenagers made choices like because they don't want to be that way either. And so how do you stop or change? I don't you know that those intergenerational patterns that aren't serving the family, right, let's see them so then we can work on them. Mm hmm. Yeah. Now, and and as far as like therapy. You you you've done the genogram and the some therapy or coaching. How do you typically introduce the idea of a Jenograham to a new client. Yeah, so interesting that you asked that we're learning because we're pretty new company. But when I use it, I just say, hey, I really want to better understand your family, right, I'm not. This isn't to judge you. You get to tell me whatever information you want. Like, it's not a requirement, but I have a better understanding of your family, then I can figure out which better targeted resources or information that I have that might help your family. You know, navigate this again, those who use co parents, you know, navigate this current challenge in your co parenting journey. And so we talk about it and a lot of times, because it's software, I can do it on Zoom even I'm standing there, you know, we do it on Zoom and I say, okay, tell me about this person, and they watch me build their family. They can tell me what they want or they don't want to. It's their story.

40:59 But I introduce it is let me understand your story as much as you want to tell me. Again, the questionnaire, I can send that out in advance of meeting with somebody, so I would know what's come, what I'm who, I'm going to see, if I'm coaching, if I want to I I've done it both ways, and so I think the introduction again is just I'm taking a look at what's going on in a way this tool that I like to use. If you're uncomfortable with it, that's fine. It's not a requirement. It's your lived experience. The better I understand, the quicker we can get to the root of the problem. And so I think most people I haven't had anybody tell me no. In fact, I've had people ask if they could do their genograms because they want to understand. I think we have a curiosity in general of sort of you know, where did we come from?

41:50 Where those twenty one hundred people that came for me? What does that mean? Why do I have? You know, for me, I always tell my dad, I A had his nose, so you know, like who had this nose? You know, like where did that come from? You know, you're just curious what came? Why Why am I Christine today? Why am I today? Or why? You know, why why am I Angela today? And so I've had I haven't had any resistance and using it yet, I mean, that could happen, and I'm okay, it's just about being curious, non judgmental, just helping create clarity, you know, like those sorts of things. So I would use with somebody that i'd be introducing the genogram to.

42:30 So that kind of helps to protect clients from feeling overwhelmed, because you know, like you say, you start getting into families, you might see there might be some painful patterns that show up, you know, I mean, how do you keep the client from being overwhelmed or anxious or whatever when they see this? You know, yeah, actually the patterns come up. Actually, I have one of my favorite stories, and this wasn't me. It was somebody else in the social services world who told me that in her career she had met this young teenager, young mom got in trouble. Anyway, she ended up checking the boxes of Okay, she's showing this sign. She's showing this sign in her intake, in the in the agency she was working in, and she finally was getting enough resistance. She's like, I just put everything down and I said, tell me your story, and they mapped it out because this particular person had used a genogram and so she did it on paper. And when it did for this young lady, as she went to the different programs that she was going to be required to take to maintain custody of her child, the young lady just said, I don't have to retell my shame based story over and over again, because every person that wants to know you know, okay, you're here for this service, tell me about your story, and I'm here for this. Like every time you have to tell that story again, it opens a wound. Right, I don't love telling my divorced story over and over again because that's a hard part of my journey. I do, I will,

44:02 but I mean just like it's I don't love it, Like who wants to go over something that was hard. So this particular young lady, she literally had a folded up because she was long. And this. Person, the worker said okay, here's your story, and this young lady I heard again it was not my story. I just heard it through the grapevine in this networking you know, in the network of people that utilize our store, our software. She said. She would walk in and say, hand it, put it out. And she's like, if you ask me any questions that's already written down on my story, I'm walking out because you don't care about me. You only care about checking boxes and doing the process that you were taught to do. And she took power over her story, didn't have to relive her shame over and over or her trauma over and over again. And she she put the people on notice who were there to help her that you really want to help me do your homework. I've brought it to you. Understand who I am, so that we can this has already happened. Let's figure out what the rest of the story is. And I just thought that was the coolest story of this young lady's empowerment and saying I am not interested in telling you my trauma over and over again because you're re traumatizing me and that is not helping me move forward.

45:20 So here's my documented story. Let's go. And so I just that I haven't had one of those moments yet with personal work that I do, but people have told me those stories, and I think that's pretty awesome. Yeah, Well, I would like you to share the information on how our listeners is able to get Graham and get in touch with your organization. Yep. So if you go to genograms dot com you'll see a big orange button at the top right hand, so sign up for free and that is legit for free right now and just no credit card required. We'd want you to be able to access and utilize the tool.

46:01 You'll get just a pop up window when you do that and it'll say where to start. But there is a learning tab in our genogram software that you can just play right like I want to do it. If if you're actually a clinician who uses it, there's a client tab, hip a compliance the software is so it can be utilized or and is being utilized in mental health spaces. So I think if you just want to do it for your own story and you're you know, on checking it out and go for it, I mean and and and if it doesn't work right, you have now met one of the two owners are founders, say founders. One of the two founders that you can contact in my email is literally Christine as you see spelled there k R I S T I n E at g nograms and it's g E N O g R A m S dot com. I'm an extrovert. I like talking to people, so I will answer your email. It might not be within two minutes, but I'll get back to you because I like to hear from people. If it didn't work for you, if you're concerned, or I needed it to show this, or it didn't accommodate this. We are committed to continually making sure that it works for those who will benefit from it. And you've heard from me now, and hopefully you again if you don't care how much I know, until you know how much I care, and I hope that you've heard that I do truly as a human care about this and this is important work that we believe that we get to that we get to step in and work with others to get done. Well.

47:30 I just want to say I am just fascinated with the work that you do and how human it really is. I've had several people on just talking about the humanity of the work that we're doing, and what you're doing is just so wonderful, because, like I said, when you go in and start finding out some of the history or some of the things that have gone on, even the trauma, it can be very difficult. But I'm going to push the button. Right on and I'll see your name is Again. We're a very small team, so I'll go to else when you should sign up. So yeah, I'm going to try it, Yes, definitely. Well, I know that we have all been informed about the genograms.

48:13 You have gotten the information how to begin your genogram to find out the story of your life and where to go from there. And so I want to thank everyone for tuning in to a Sharp Outlook. We're here every Monday at eleven am Eastern time and eight am Pacific time, and as I always say, stay informed. I want to thank you for joining us on a Sharp Outlook. We have been informed and energized to take the next steps. We have posted links to websites and videos to learn more on today's tipping. Please join us again next week for another thought for looking conversation right here on key for HD radio and Talk for TV. Listen to the podcast on all the podcast apps, and until next week, stay informed.