[00:00:12.540] – Speaker 1
Well, hey, everyone. I’m Chris Tompkins. Welcome to the Shaping Our World podcast. My goal is to invite you into a conversation that will leave you more confident in understanding and inspiring the young people in your life. Each episode, we talk with leading experts and offer relevant resources to dive deeper into the world of our youth today. Today, we have Dr. Merry Lin on the show. Dr. Merry is a psychologist, podcaster, and author with over 30 years of clinical expertise. She’s the executive director of Dr. Lin & Associates, where she leads a team of psychotherapists, coaches, and leadership experts here in Toronto. She can also be heard on her popular podcast, The Fully Lived Life, with her friend Coach Gillian, where they speak about life, love, and purpose through the lens of faith and science. She’s a regular guest on a number of TV and media shows, and her first book is called The Fully Lived Life: rescuing Our Soul from All That Holds Us Back. Her new book, Rebecoming, Come Out of Hiding to Live as your God-given Essential Self, has already launched just this year. Dr. Merry is also an advocate for social justice and works globally to equip and support leaders who serve trafficking and survivors.
[00:01:31.330] – Speaker 1
It’s so great to have her with us today on the show, so let’s dive into the interview with Dr. Merry Lin. Before we meet our guest, a quick word about an opportunity at Muskoka Woods. Starting as a staff member here, I found it to be more than just a job. I discovered a pathway to personal and professional growth. We are committed to intentional staff development, providing training, and building a network that can propel your career forward. Imagine working where you’re nurtured to grow with access to amazing facilities and staff care events. If you’re seeking a role that prepares you for what’s next, visit jobs.muskokawoods.com for more details. Now, let’s get into the heart of our show. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Merry.
[00:02:20.820] – Speaker 2
Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.
[00:02:23.100] – Speaker 1
It’s great to have you here. Yeah. And just for our listeners, those people who’ve been tracking with a little bit, I have a personal connection to Dr. Merry for a long time. She has been my executive coach. She’s done Enneagram coach stuff with our team, has helped me and our former CEO, John McAuley, navigate our relationship and is a great friend and has, even as a clinical psychologist, has helped me beyond the executive coaching in a lot of ways, shapes, and forms, including helping us even with our daughter recently. So thank you so much for being with us. And people, the listeners, will probably get our collegiality and friendship come out in this interview.
[00:03:04.970] – Speaker 2
Yes. Well, I was just going to say, listeners, hit me up for any secrets about Chris, all right? I got them.
[00:03:10.870] – Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s right. No patient doctor confidentiality. Absolutely not. I wave it all. You can say anything you want.
[00:03:19.250] – Speaker 2
Excellent. I appreciate that.
[00:03:20.590] – Speaker 1
Let’s dive into picking your brain a little bit about young people and the world in which they live in. But before we start, let’s get to know you a little bit better. What shaped your world when you were growing up? What were big influences in your life?
[00:03:32.890] – Speaker 2
That’s an interesting question because I think I’m supposed to say Mother Teresa or something. But putting myself back when I was a teen in my own little world, which is always just my life and my experiences, I would say probably three things. One, I’ve always had an interest in human nature, but I was being pushed as an Asian to become a doctor. I tried my best. My friend had a nose bleed once. I almost vomited, and I just knew I couldn’t be a doctor. So I ended up deciding to be a psychologist, and it was the next best thing. That was pretty early on, but when I was 12. But the major influences was a combination of my family upbringing, a lot of family trauma, losses, very insecure financially. My family had bankruptcy. We lost her home. My dad ended up moving to Calgary for a job, so I ended up taking responsibilities pretty early. I remember just feeling a lot of stress and just trying to survive those years. Then on top of that, without giving away my age, which you can do the math and figure out, I grew up in the late ’60s and ’70s in a suburb of Toronto.
[00:04:58.160] – Speaker 2
We were pretty much the Asian family, so there was a fair bit of racism. And in that, I just quickly tried to be the nicest, smartest, well, whitest, if I can say it that way, person that I can be. I just really wanted to fit in. And I can see that’s where the roots of imposter syndrome started to creep in. More about that later.
[00:05:23.610] – Speaker 1
Yeah, we’re going to talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. Good thing there’s not a lot of blood with psychology, right? Yes. You can be a doctor in a whole different way without having to get woozy with blood. That’s right. What’s shaping your world today? What do you like to do for fun? What gets you out of the house and excited?
[00:05:42.320] – Speaker 2
Well, we just moved out to Prince Edward County a few years ago. We’re empty nesters, and we live right by the lake. You can already imagine what my day here looks like. Kayaking, sitting by the water. I go for walks. I love biking. I love nature. I also love the space that we have here. I’m always working with people, surrounded by people. Just to be able to have some alone time for someone who’s so people-oriented is actually very enriching for my spirit. That’s what I like to do for fun. I love to travel, and I love to try all sorts of different kinds of food, which is hard to get here in the county, to be honest.
[00:06:27.360] – Speaker 1
You moved the wrong direction. I know. I know.
[00:06:32.380] – Speaker 2
I miss my food there.
[00:06:33.850] – Speaker 1
There’s some nice spots out there. Well, travel and food go hand in hand. That’s a nice combo as you get into different cultures in different parts of the world. Can you tell us a little bit about What you do in your professional life? As we said earlier, you do things like executive coaching for people like me. But give us a broad paint the brush on what you’re doing now, and then maybe even specifically where you enter into the world of young people, children, adolescents in the work that you do?
[00:07:03.770] – Speaker 2
Sure. I’ve been in practice for over 30 years. I get into the math. Oh, my gosh, I’m aging myself. This is the problem that without doing a video, you can’t show a picture of a younger version of me?
[00:07:15.020] – Speaker 1
No. Well, your picture is up in the intro to this, so people will go, Oh, there’s no way. She must have started when she was really little.
[00:07:22.740] – Speaker 2
Totally. I was a child prodigy. The The work that I do now is primarily supervising other psychotherapists on the clinical end. I do a lot of assessments as well. This actually is probably what takes me mostly into families and kids and adolescents. I assess for all sorts of things, from mental health to giftedness, ADHD, ASD, learning disabilities, all sorts of things. That’s the bulk of the work that I do now, as well as the coaching, as you and some HR consulting, team leadership development. I do some international work as well. It’s primarily coaching leaders in other countries with different tech Technical skills, clinical skills, and just leadership ability so that they can do, and primarily with organizations working with human trafficking. That’s it in a really quick nutshell.
[00:08:26.400] – Speaker 1
You share a lot of your insights in various mediums too. You’re on TV, you host a podcast as well, and you’ve authored a book, which we’re going to talk about a little later. So not only do you have that technical work stuff that you’re doing, but you’re also sharing a lot of your insights outside of that, too, which I can’t wait to get into a little bit.
[00:08:47.740] – Speaker 2
Yeah. And I think that if I could speak to that, the season of life I’m at, spiritually, I think in the early days, when you think about me with all those responsibilities and feeling like I had to try to fit in. I was running a large practice, and I was involved in maybe six different ministries at one point, and just trying to earn favor with God or something. Now With maturity, I feel like I am living a more spacious life, and that allows me to be attentive to what God is prompting me to do. And I know it sounds like I’m doing a lot. I have a great team, but it’s things that I feel are like such sweet spot kinds of work and ministry that I get to do. But it’s more intentionally deep, not spreading myself so thin. With the work that I do. That’s a significant shift that’s happened for me with the practice and enjoying it, too. Enjoying life.
[00:09:54.520] – Speaker 1
That’s great. As you mentioned, you have spent a lot of time, like over 30 years of practice. We want to get into a little bit of the landscape of what young people are wrestling through and how we, as caring adults, can continue to come alongside and help and shape and work on ourselves and all those other things we’re going to talk about. But I’m just curious as we get going, because of the breadth of your work over time, I want to ask you about what you see are some of the emerging issues young kids are facing today and how have they changed over your 30 years of practice?
[00:10:31.960] – Speaker 2
Well, there are definitely some societal changes, which I’m sure you’ve talked about in other podcasts. Today, I was just talking to a young person, and she was just mentioning the exposure to social media makes it difficult to form any deep friendships or relationships. She’s an old soul. She’s in her 20s, and she wishes to have really deep committed, authentic relationships, but she’s just finding it very difficult. Just the sheer access to information, the pressures that kids are under to try to choose, who am I going to be when I grow up? It’s the answer. They have to choose by the time they’re 16 or 17. It’s not possible for a lot of people. That’s maybe this… Superficial isn’t the right word, but those are the noticeable changes, maybe.
[00:11:30.130] – Speaker 1
Yeah, on the surface.
[00:11:31.770] – Speaker 2
On the surface. But I would say that the issues that I’ve seen in my own upbringing and across the board to now are still the same issues. It might look different on the outside because of those cultural influences. But I think that the questions and tasks that are facing our youth today are the same ones that we had to wrestle through, too. It’s the same for all human beings. If you’re going to really do it well, these are the things that you have to wrestle through.
[00:12:02.170] – Speaker 1
Have you seen the assessments that you do change over time, like frequency or types or things that parents are coming to you to help navigate with their kids?
[00:12:12.960] – Speaker 2
Yeah, for sure. We’re definitely getting a lot more ADHD and ASD assessments happening later, particularly for kids who maybe just masked it better or are pretty high functioning They did well in school. They’re doing well in school. They’re getting good marks. But it seems to take them longer. They seem to get more stressed out. There seems definitely more anxiety. And anxiety can be because of the pressures they’re facing, fewer resources for more people. But I think a lot of it has to do with this pressure that they place on themselves to perform. It seems that the world has told them that to be seen as successful, you must have high marks, or you must have a good career, or whatever it might be. If you’re neurodiverse in the way you think, you might not get the marks that really exhibits how smart you actually are. So part of the reason why I love doing these assessments is I always find brilliance in every kid and adolescent that I meet, always. I love seeing them, their faces, brighten up and for them to feel seen. I do adults, young adults as well, because that’s often when you start to have the wheels come off the truck a bit, where you’ve been able to do okay, even get mostly through university.
[00:13:43.810] – Speaker 2
I often hear of very intelligent students who, Why am I not doing so well? I don’t have good work habits. And then get into this whole, There must be something wrong with me. I’m lazy, unmotivated, when actually they have ADHD. And so they white-knuckle their way through, and then they end up sometimes in a crash of just exhaustion because they’ve been faking or just trying to accommodate their way through it. I just also appreciate being able to help young adults say, No, you need to reframe how you see yourself. You are not stupid, you are not lazy, you are not unmotivated, you’re neurodiverse. The number of times I’ve had people crying because they say to me, they finally feel seen. I get so moved even just thinking about it, especially females. Females, the norms for ADHD and ASD have primarily been on male norms. If you have females who are good at masking and They are generally on the outside, look successful, but there’s some chaos going on in their life. They’re the ones who often struggle with, there’s got to be something wrong with me, low self-esteem and all sorts of things. Same thing with being on the spectrum.
[00:15:02.930] – Speaker 2
People have a perception of people who are autistic as somehow you can see them a mile away and they just act really quirky and weird, and that’s not always the case. It’s often mast, but it takes a huge amount of effort on the part of that person, so they’re exhausted. They will tend to want to withdraw, even though it’s like a foreign land walking into a social situation, trying to figure out what’s everyone saying, what am I supposed to say in return? Those are some of the things that I’m seeing. And I don’t know. It is definitely being diagnosed more, but I don’t know if it’s because we’re just better at what we are doing. I think that’s a big part of it. And I don’t know. There’s some thoughts and research around what’s going on in the environment that could be also contributing to it. So I know this is going to be a very difficult question to dive into broadly.
[00:16:00.740] – Speaker 1
But as we talk about these things, kids that are neurodivergent, working through anxiety, like you talked about the mounting pressures. So all of those things that young people are navigating in their world. Again, we could probably spend a whole podcast in-depth on this, but generally speaking, when you’re a parent or carrying it on and you’re looking at that, you’re like, what am I supposed to do to help? So what role do you see parents taking? How can we effectively, even from an initial standpoint, journey alongside the kids? What are some key principles to think about the process without getting into specific things?
[00:16:41.240] – Speaker 2
Well, first of all, I would remind parents that they are so important in this, in this journey of adolescence and young adulthood, even if they push us away, which is the stage of individuating. And so individuating does mean that they want to make more of their own decisions, even as Is they are anxious about, Am I making the right decision? So you get this push-pull. But if you keep in mind, the three major tasks that they’re going through as they’re maturing is these three questions. Who am I? Their sense of identity. Sense of identity is like, who are they? What are their gifts? What are their weaknesses? What are their strengths? What are their passions? As parents, we get to call that out. You can see it from a very early age if there’s certain things that they’re good at or they enjoy, to just affirm them for it, give them an opportunity to develop in it. Don’t get so caught up in the weaknesses side of it. Yes, there are definitely some ports. If you do have a child who has a learning disability or ADHD or ASD, there are some supports that you want just equal level of the playing field a little bit so that they’re not getting dinged for neurodiversity when they’re in a neurotypical learning environment.
[00:17:57.210] – Speaker 2
But really celebrating who they are in their character, in how they handle relationships, how they love others, how they love nature, how they take care of their pet. There’s just so many ways that we can help them feel a sense of identity and groundedness, that they are unique. I always used to… I loved calling out the weird in my kids because I didn’t want them to feel like they had to be like everybody else. Because remember what I said about my own experience, I lost my sense of self in trying to fit in. I wanted my kids to be uniquely them. We would call out the weird and they would celebrate it. To this day, they are both living not typical lives for young adults as a result. So that’s one thing. The second thing is their sense of autonomy. So the second question is, what am I capable of? And this is often where there’s the push-pull with parents, because this is when they’re developing their their own sense of power and the ability to choose for themselves, their sense of agency. And that is actually one of our human needs, is we have a need for agency.
[00:19:08.370] – Speaker 2
God gave us the gift of free will. And so even though it can be highly uncomfortable when our kids are pushing back at us, giving them that space to contribute to decisions, guiding them with maybe some good questions to ask, but letting them ultimately make the decisions and make mistakes, because that teaches them that they learn from mistakes and failure. That teaches them to tolerate failure. It gives them a good growth mindset to be able to do that. And so, as painful as it is, two approaches that parents can tend to do, they can either go on, come on too strong, and try to shut it down, which maybe on the surface, your child or young adult will look compliant, but on the inside, they’re not, or you shut down their spirit and their capacity to even make wise judgments for themselves. Or in the other extreme, it’s like, You’re going to push me away? Okay, you decide everything. You’re on your own, almost. Part of it is you want to respect their personhood. But see, this young woman I was talking to who is longing for these deep friendships, what she also mentioned was Just this lack of mentoring or wise counsel in their life.
[00:20:21.390] – Speaker 2
We get to still do that. We just can’t do it directly. It’s not telling them what to do all the time, but it’s asking their permission. Is it okay if I tell you my thoughts on this? Is it okay if I give you some of my opinion on this or that? As opposed to just, Well, you should do this or you should do that. This is what I think, and this is where we get into trouble. Then when our kids say things that are different or opposite, instead of going, Well, that’s wrong, is to actually say, Well, tell me more, to show curiosity. We make such quick judgments about our kids often out of fear because we’re afraid they’re going down the wrong road or they’re not setting themselves up for a good future. And so we, out of fear, try to shuffle them down a particular path. And that’s not helpful to them because they have to discover their true sense of self on their own with God’s help and with us being there to be like wise guides along the way. And then the third thing is their sense of belonging. So the question would be, where do I fit in?
[00:21:23.300] – Speaker 2
And back to what I was saying, but that young lady is, I think teens and young adults these days tend to form more clusters where they all have social groups because they belong to a church youth group and maybe at school or some sports or whatever. These relationships tend to be a bit more superficial, and it’s more about survival, as in, I don’t want to be here on my own. I need my buddies with me, than it is any depth. We’re not always teaching the kids. So either as parents, we can, again, go one of two ways. We can either have explosive arguments in front of the kids, and then they don’t know how to handle conflict, or they do the same with their friends and push them away, or we cannot do any conflict in front of them, so they don’t know how to handle conflict. We’re Canadians, so we don’t love conflict. What happens then is it’s superficial, and there’s so many people relationships that break down because they don’t talk honestly about what’s going on. Then people end up feeling like, Well, I have no choice but to do this so I can fit in.
[00:22:32.960] – Speaker 2
Fitting in is not true belonging because you have to follow the group rules and norms and whatever they say to be able to fit in. Whereas true belonging is, I am accepted for who I really am, quirks and all. That’s what I think ultimately all of us as humans, we’re looking for. But this is so key for our young adults, and they struggle with a ton of insecurities and social anxieties on the rise like you wouldn’t believe because people are so insecure about their acceptance, especially with social media.
[00:23:08.890] – Speaker 1
As you were unpacking those, you referred to what you talked about earlier around this idea of shadow self, essential self. In your new book, Rebecoming, which we talked about in the intro, it’s out. In it, you challenge people to live as their essential self as you’ve been talking. As you mentioned today, and in the intro of the book, you talk about that cost of fitting in and how trying to fit into a predominantly white community in Canada as an Asian-Canadian woman caused you to lead into that shadow self, not as your God-given essential self. Can you break down those terms even further to us, like the essential self and the shadow self? And when you talked a little bit about your experiences, how does the shadow self get formed and how are we aware of it?
[00:23:59.890] – Speaker 2
Well, I believe that our essential self is God-given, that God actually creates each one of us completely unique. There’s no two Chris’s in the world. There’s no two Merry’s in the world. It’s a combination of temperament, experiences, all sorts of things that shape us, opportunities, all of that. But no two of us are the same. And it is that self that God created in us to actually reflect reflect his glory. And this is the thing that I find so beautiful, is that every single person has the capacity to reflect God’s glory, but in their own unique way. So if you imagine a string of Christmas lights, and they’re all the scene of Merry and Joseph and baby Jesus and all that. It’s just stunning with all the colors and everything. Well, if one light is not showing up, you can see it. It’s missing. So it’s together. We can really shine the glory of God. But on our own, we’ve got to do our part in figuring out who we really are. And the challenge is that although it’s implanted in us at a young age, we are raised in less than perfect, no matter how loving our parents are, we all experience injuries along the way.
[00:25:18.560] – Speaker 2
Then we make conclusions that aren’t always accurate. We develop these strategies. The human species is the one that has the longest period of dependency on the parents. And so you think about how God would have designed us to have to be able to survive, sometimes some really difficult circumstances. And so, again, for me, I learned that if I was responsible, if I worked hard, if I cared for other people, I would be liked, I would be loved. And so I developed these strategies where I’m actually really good at it to the point where I become blind to it. And that’s where the shadow self starts to emerge. It’s like the things that I do to protect myself from rejection, from failure, from whatever I’m afraid of. Because I learned early on that if I don’t do this, something bad could possibly happen, and I don’t want that to happen anymore. I like to call it shadow self. Some people will have read things like true self versus false self. I use essential self because I think it’s more like essence of our self, essence of God. And I use shadow self because our shadow self is actually a place of real vulnerability for us.
[00:26:35.120] – Speaker 2
It’s when our shadow self shows up, it’s because we’ve been triggered in our insecurities, our unmet needs, our fears, all that human stuff that goes on within us. I don’t think… Part of the reason I don’t like the term false self is that it sounds like you just want to kick it to the curb, like get out of here. But I think that to do honor to our story is actually when our shadow self shows up to have compassion for her or him and go, What was going on that Shadow Self showed up? Now, I don’t want Shadow Self to be in control because she doesn’t usually make the best decisions. But to even acknowledge and give compassion for the pain that I’m feeling, the upset, the insecurity, whatever that’s arising in me, to then be able to go, Okay, I can give compassion to it, but I can still choose better. I can choose a better response. The shadow self will be around until the day we’re in glory because that’s part of our humanity. It takes insight and self-reflection again and again and again just to see how much we live out of that gentle self and how many blind spots we have.
[00:27:50.780] – Speaker 1
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[00:29:12.840] – Speaker 1
This was two questions, but How do we discover that essential self more clearly, particularly for young people? And then how can we start to discern when that shadow self shows up? And if it’s in our young people, how do we do that without drawing attention to the negative that you’ve talked about before? Because we want to speak into strengths and encourage that.
[00:29:35.400] – Speaker 2
Well, if I can speak as a parent of young adults and then go backwards, I was just looking through my phone and there was a birthday card that my son had sent me. They know my love language is like words of love. So he had written a very, very lovely message. In there, he said, One of the things I’m most proud of you, Mom, is how often you demonstrate a growth mindset and how I can see you are changing and growing, and that inspires me to do the same. This is like at the time he wrote it, he was 23 saying that. So I think that parents first, you can’t teach what you don’t do. And in fact, you teach better by doing than by speaking. And so that would be the first thing is get healthy yourself and develop your own self-awareness because your kids It’s actually see your blind spots. In fact, here’s a little fun dinner activity. Ask your kids what they think your blind spots are. You tell them there’s no punishment, no negative. I genuinely want honest feedback from you. If you’re not aware of your own blind spots, you’re not aware of how that’s affecting your relationship with your kids.
[00:30:53.340] – Speaker 2
That self-awareness and that own personal responsibility to your own journey of growth and discovering your essential self. In fact, I talk to a lot of adults and they’ll be like, I don’t know who I am. How then do you bring that out in your kids in a way that’s really them as opposed to you projecting yourself onto them or what you wish you would see in them? When you have this confidence in who you are and this self-acceptance, it makes it easier then to not see our kids as reflections of us and to feel like they must follow a particular prescribed path to fit in because you’re so afraid that they won’t fit in or you’re so afraid. Again, fear, fear, fear. If you can do that background work, then you can show up for your kids in a way that will help you call out what you see is real because you will have a piece about it and you’ll notice things about them. Back to my son, when he was three, I used to talk to him about his character, and I go, You handled that with a lot of character. You can just imagine a little three-year-old walking around with his chest popped out and he’s like, I got character.
[00:32:03.090] – Speaker 2
I got kicked. It’s just really noticing the things that they do that are kind, especially for kids with ADHD that are creative, that help them think outside the box. It just get to know your kids and you will see the patterns and just start calling them out and then look for opportunities to invest in those areas. A lot of the investment may be time, it may be coaching, it may be external activities. Sometimes it may be having them have access to other adults who could speak into their life. So you taking the time to form a really healthy community of friendships around you can be really beneficial to your kids as well because they learn from our friends as well. It’s very age-stage-specific. It’s like your kids are puzzles. This is part of why I love doing assessments. I get to meet these kids, and they are like a puzzle I get to figure out. The The signs are there. It’s pattern recognition. It’s looking for those behaviors and when their face lights up and how much they enjoy doing certain things and just being able to help them with that. At the end of the day, though, The number one most important thing that a parent can do for their kids is to be a safe place, because really, ultimately, their journey of finding their essential self is their journey.
[00:33:27.630] – Speaker 2
As much as I’d like to tell my kids who I think they are, it’s between them and God. And so it’s being a safe place. It’s trusting God and trusting their essential self, their soul, to find their way out to come out of hiding. And that can only happen. Our souls are very skittish. They’re very timid, and they only come out when they feel safe, when they feel they can be their full self without judgment, and when they feel like As parents, we genuinely delight in our kids when we can laugh with them. Don’t spend all your time teaching them. Play with them. Have fun with them, even all the way up until adulthood. Enjoy them. And in the joyment of them, they will experience your delight in them, which will give them that freedom to be able to come to you. By the way, they may push you away, but ultimately, if you’re a safe person, they will come to you for guidance and advice when they’re wrestling through the tough stuff of life. That’s exactly Say what you want. But with my daughter, I had a situation where I completely stepped over the boundary.
[00:34:38.800] – Speaker 2
Can’t help it. I was giving her advice. Then she was very good at showing me pretty quickly that it wasn’t helpful. Then I checked in with her and she said, You know what, Mom, I have to say I’m not going to share that much about my personal life with you because I got to figure it out for myself. I was broken because I That’s the last thing I want. So I asked for her forgiveness and I said, Amanda, I promise you my commitment is… Because she’s 27 now. My commitment now is to not give you advice, to be a safe place for you, to give you empathy and understanding, even if I don’t always agree with everything you’re doing. If I cross the line and give you unwarranted or unwanted advice, you have my permission to call me on it and tell me to back off, and I will not take offense because you know I’m going to forget. Then at the same time, if you want my advice, please just ask me. I’m happy to do that. I stay connected to my kids, and it’s just generally because they don’t live with me, it’s just generally like, Hey, you were talking about that situation.
[00:35:47.860] – Speaker 2
How’s that going? And very gentle. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, and then it’s up to them. There’s no pressure. I have found that they come to me and they ask me, and so that they’re I’m actually able to be an influence in their life, and I actually am able to help them affirm who they are as I see them emerging as an adult in their personhood.
[00:36:13.610] – Speaker 1
That’s one of those things that You and I have talked about this, too. It’s so good in theory, too, to be able to do that. Then you just sometimes can’t help yourself as a parent to be like, I just want to tell you what to do because I see this big thing coming down the road that you can’t see yet, and I want to help you avoid it. I’ve always learned to, when I’m apologizing, to remind my daughter that the reason I get involved is because I really want the best for you. It is because I love you a lot. It’s not because I’m trying to control you, even though that’s probably what it is at the end of the day, right?
[00:36:48.540] – Speaker 2
That’s totally. Well, because it’s our fear for our kids. I would also add that even as we’re affirming our kids, we want to teach them how to have accurate self-awareness, which means also being aware of their own character flaws in their areas of growth. This whole self-esteem movement has been shown to not actually be a good thing. It’s raised pretty self-centered People have to win at all costs a thing, as opposed to self-acceptance. Self-acceptance is having this honest awareness of my strengths and weaknesses, taking responsibility for where I need to grow, being able to take responsibility for my part of the breakdown in relationships or a work situation and not being all defensive and all that. That comes with modeling it for sure. But also, even from a young age, I would talk to my kids about certain actions that they would have taken and just try to help them reframe it as perhaps it wasn’t the most helpful response. So both my kids can now pretty accurately talk about their strengths and weaknesses because there’ve always been open conversations. As I’ve been with my own strengths and weaknesses, too.
[00:38:03.300] – Speaker 1
I love how you talked way earlier in the interview about all the weird things that we can highlight about our kids and celebrate those things. I think one of the things that I’ve been really aware of is it’s in the subtle things about what we’re talking… To me, it’s like helping your kids with the essential self is not trying to subtly or intentionally push them into this definition of success and normal. Exactly. And what I’ve realized is how subtle I can do that without really knowing it. Who are the kids in my daughter’s world that I ask about that I am interested in? Or the type of behaviors or practices that, who’s the valedictorian this year? Or who got the highest grade in that class? Without even thinking, I can just reinforce that those are the people that are more interesting to me as an adult and important And so I haven’t necessarily come out and said, Sweetheart, in order for you to be successful, you have to be this way. And I say, No, I’ve never said that. But implicitly, I just got to be careful about what things I affirm, celebrate, highlight in the world around me, and what do I value?
[00:39:18.170] – Speaker 1
And I love that. It’s like, how do we celebrate the weirdness, the things that aren’t always there, the things that the world will tell us is success and subtly… Because it’s one thing we say, Sweetheart, you can do whatever job you want, and it doesn’t matter what your grades are. And then without knowing it, I can say, Well, what was the class average? What did everybody get?
[00:39:38.420] – Speaker 2
Exactly.
[00:39:40.110] – Speaker 1
I’m saying, No, I don’t say that, but I’m subtly doing that. I think that’s a great reminder for us, and I know it always is for me, is it’s in the subtle things for my own life that I value and talk about and place priority in, even in my daughter’s world. For sure. Because that’s just reinforcing to her what I think is important.
[00:40:00.580] – Speaker 2
Exactly. We were raised to think that high marks, great jobs, big incomes, big houses, et cetera, even in the Christian world. The interesting thing is there is absolutely zero correlation between marks in school and later success in life. And yet, if you look at how much we emphasize marks to our kids growing up. If they’re dropping in an area, we on it, we get them extra help and all that. It’s just communicating to them that the most important thing for them right now is to get high marks. I often say to kids that I’m assessing, If you can get through high school with your sanity intact That’s awesome. You will never have an experience like that ever again where you have to take courses you don’t enjoy. You got to muddle your way through a whole bunch of social situations that everybody’s just as awkward and trying to find their way and not always being nice about If you can get through this with a sense of your self-worth, with reasonable social skills, resilience, a sense of the self that you want to take into your future, and not get too caught up in the drama that happens at high school, then that’s awesome.
[00:41:17.440] – Speaker 2
So it’s a different focus, right?
[00:41:19.660] – Speaker 1
Yeah, that’s great. I’d love to just go back because I really thought your point about helping kids recognize part of their character that needs work. There’s a difference between being overly critical of your kids all the time and them feeling like they’re never measuring up and just ruling with an iron fist around behavioral things. I do think to your point, sometimes we can go to the other extreme. And so what would be a good way for us? And I know it’s not directly the parts of their character that need work and the shadow self, but is there a connection there and how can we help? What’s the best way to do that without being overbearing, mean, but also not ignoring it? I really was intrigued by that. So how might we do that effectively?
[00:42:10.160] – Speaker 2
Well, as I said, there’s a lot of role modeling where you’re showing that vulnerability and that humility to admit your own mistakes and weaknesses and even talk about what you learn from that situation or this situation. So a lot of it is teaching our kids how to reflect. So from even a very, very early age, you ask them about their day and they’re talking about that situation or this situation, you get them to reflect on what they might have been feeling. Of course, a lot of kids are big feelers, and other kids are not as big feelers, but the ability to know how you feel is one of the most critical things. Getting them to… Sometimes there’s fun emotion charts and things that you can use. There’s tons and tons of resources out there. But it is getting them to think about their feelings, their thoughts, to reflect on their internal world, even as they’re also reflecting on the external world, on their actions and how people are reacting to them, and then just start to put together the picture of what it might be. Just tell me about that situation when Johnny said those mean things to you.
[00:43:15.740] – Speaker 2
How did you feel? It felt really hurt. So what did you do? Well, I pushed him. Okay, so what were you thinking about with pushing? I don’t know. Well, could there have been a better way to respond to showing your hurt? I don’t know. And then what about… And then sometimes you do some role playing. What about next time you say things like, Johnny, that really hurt my feelings when you said that. The thing about it’s called emotion coaching. Well, it is. That’s a formal term. But the good thing is it’s never too late, and it also doesn’t have to be perfect because you got lots and lots of opportunities to practice these skills over and over again. In fact, you Who do you even practice? They can go, Look, I listen to this podcast. Apparently, we’re supposed to learn to manage our emotions and understand them, and I have no clue, so let’s do this together. It’s that openness to talking about our inner world and our fears and the things that we’re anxious about, not to overwhelm our kids. It has to be age-appropriate. It’s just having deeper kinds of conversations so that they become comfortable with talking about difficult things.
[00:44:26.910] – Speaker 2
Especially for all of us, it’s not fun talking about our weaknesses. Getting them to self-reflect and identify and then even go, Okay, I got to go say sorry to Johnny. Yeah, I think that would be a good idea. And then we’re playing it, right? Yeah. The other thing to reassure parents, because you’re probably listening going, Oh, my gosh, I haven’t done any of that. I don’t even know how to do that. And there is coaching for it, parenting coaching. But the key thing with relationships is never that you do it perfectly. I wish, but actually, I don’t wish because you learn really good skills when you have breakdown in relationship. It’s always about the repair.
[00:45:04.320] – Speaker 1
Yeah, the journey getting there is part of it. I think that you’re right. Sometimes our fear of getting it wrong, we just don’t do it. And that should never stand in the way of doing it. I’ve shared this a few times before because I remember this was so helpful, actually in my marriage counseling, and I think it applies to parenting, is sometimes when we see these things that we’re talking about, some of these things, areas of their that need working on, the shadow self shows up and we’re like, Oh, who is that? And that’s not really them. I think sometimes when we’re experiencing it in our world, we get emotionally responsive to it and we want to enact right in the moment. I think sometimes, like you said, to have this open-ended conversation about how are you feeling in that moment. When you said that to mom or dad, how do you think that made me feel? I just You’ve prepared this really good dinner and you said it’s disgusting and you spit it out of your mouth. We can deal with the behavior in the moment, but we can also make a mental note and come back when it’s disarmed a little bit and you’re disarmed a little bit.
[00:46:17.620] – Speaker 1
And that’s one of the… You said earlier, and you’ve even helped me with this over the time, is the best way to manage how we respond to our kids is by managing our own anxiety and our own stress. And sometimes, if we’re not careful when we’re doing what you’ve just encouraged, we’re emotionally invested in it as well, and we don’t realize it. So we’re doing it less perfectly because we’re just not doing it at the right time either. So I just want to make a mental note. And I think the danger is, which I learned in my own counseling years ago, is we say, Okay, this isn’t the right time, but then we never circle back to it. So there’s that tension of saying, Hey, the way you’re talking right now, I want to circle back to you after dinner when we’re both a bit more calmed because that wasn’t appropriate. I always find that’s really helpful to think about because sometimes I’m less perfect in responding when my shadow self is getting engaged and coming head to head with their shadow self in the same moment, right? Oh, my gosh.
[00:47:18.130] – Speaker 2
Absolutely. That’s always the prettiest moments. Yeah, it’s being able to recognize. And that, again, self-awareness. Why is shadow self coming up? I’m actually hurt by my child because she said or he said something really disrespectful. You know how they can find those weak points and just get an arrow right there? Somehow they just sense it.
[00:47:37.770] – Speaker 1
We know that’s true, particularly in public, because we’re so worried about how we are viewed and judged as a parent. Absolutely. Oh, my gosh. The first thing is like, this person thinks I’m a horrible parent because my kid did X, Y, or Z, right? Our whole identity is getting questioned.
[00:47:55.120] – Speaker 2
Then our shadow self is in full control. What’s our shadow self? Raging. Raging. Well, for me, I don’t rage. I’m more of a people-pleaser-complier. Yeah. Well, internal rage, I guess, as I’m getting more honest with myself. Yeah. Great.
[00:48:13.530] – Speaker 1
There’s been so many great things we’ve talked about as we’ve navigated this, and particularly coming out of your book on the essential self and shadow self. We talked about assessments and neurodivergent young people and stress and anxiety and pressure and what we can do as parents. Where are some resources or opportunities you can suggest to parents to go who are wanting to get to know more about this topic and help their kids navigate essential cells? Please tell us about what you do, where young people can find you.
[00:48:44.910] – Speaker 2
Yeah. What I was going to say, my book, you said resources, the resource. It’s not the Bible, but it’s the resource. My website is drmarrie. Com, and it’s Merry, spelled as in Christmas. I think if you Dr. Merry as a mother of Jesus, it might still show up. And on there, I do have some resources, free resources, videos, access on YouTube. You can reach out through a work website, Dr. Lin & Associates, if you’re interested in assessments. But all of that is linked in the Dr. Merry one, so you can just move around there. On Instagram, it’s Dr. Merry Lin, and I actually do a few series on ADHD, ASD, and just leadership-type ideas, just some different thoughts at the time that I’m just thinking about it. The last place I would point parents to is a podcast I do with my friend Gillian. She’s a life coach. It’s called the Fully Live Life. We get pretty real and honest and transparent.
[00:49:53.680] – Speaker 1
You guys have too much fun, I think, on that podcast.
[00:49:56.100] – Speaker 2
That’s also true. But we do talk about issues. If you follow along, there’s usually some pretty practical insight, and then there’s some practical takeaways from each episode. We try to keep it short to 30 minutes. You have your gem, and you can go off and do something with it.
[00:50:14.850] – Speaker 1
Amazing. And then as we wrap up, any final thoughts or words of encouragement for parents who are working through some difficult challenges at home with their kids and young people and are just feeling like they’re up against What would you say as we wrap up to encourage them today?
[00:50:33.420] – Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s really never too late. I get the privilege of meeting parents all the time, and I know you adore your kids and you would do anything for them. And so you’ve made mistakes along the way, sometimes because you’ve loved them too much. And so give yourself grace and compassion. If you have a harsh inner critic and you’re always beating yourself up as a parent, that actually just comes out as anxiety to our kids, and that doesn’t make them respect us in what wisdom we want to show. So really do the work for yourself, but at the same time, have the compassion that you are, work in progress. We’re all pretty messy, and I’m at this ripe older age, and I feel like I’m just really getting to know the real truth of who I am and working through things things. I’ve gone back, because my kids are young adults, to apologize many, many times to the point where they’re just rolling their eyes and say, Stop it already, because I take on too much responsibility for their stuff. If you can just recognize that you’ve got time, it’s never too late. If you have adult kids or older kids and things are tense, you can work towards rebuilding it.
[00:51:50.370] – Speaker 2
If you feel lost at the idea of doing it, don’t be afraid to ask for family counseling. Ultimately, our kids want our approval and our love love in our affirmation. That is what everybody longs for from their parents. I always say, you’re the adult in the room, even if they’re adults, but you’re the adult. So you reach out, you initiate, you pursue, and get help if you feel like you need to be able to do that well.
[00:52:18.400] – Speaker 1
That’s great. Great, great perspective. Great advice. Dr. Merry, thank you for being with us today. It’s been my pleasure to be able to expose more people to all of the brilliance and insight that you’ve helped me with over the years. So thank you very much. It’s been great to have you with us.
[00:52:35.630] – Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s been fun. It’s been great to chat with you. It’s definitely like talking to an old friend. Not old as an old.
[00:52:42.660] – Speaker 1
Yeah, I’m old, too. You’re getting there. That’s fine. Exactly. It’s been great to have you.
[00:52:48.100] – Speaker 2
Take care.
