Tonda Chapman, Candy Finnigan, & Jeanie Griffin – Part Two – The Family Choice: Using “Bad” Words Like Intimacy And Vulnerability [Episode 85]

Understanding The Human Condition | Tonda Chapman, Candy Finnigan, & Jeanie Griffin | Intimacy And Vulnerability

 

In Part Two of this very special three-part series, Dr. Jason Flowers welcomes back to the show Tonda Chapman, Candy Finnigan, and Jeanie Griffin. Tonda, Candy, and Jeanie talk about the critical role that family plays in recovery and the value of intimacy and vulnerability.

Key Takeaways

01:31 – Tonda Chapman, Candy Finnigan, & Jeanie Griffin all join the show today to talk about intimacy and vulnerability

07:52 – Tonda speaks to the importance of family in the process of recovery

11:14 – Dr. Flowers thanks listeners for tuning in to Part Two of this episode and encourages them to return for Part Three with Tonda, Candy & Jeanie

Resources Mentioned

JFlowers Health Institute – https://jflowershealth.com/

JFlowers Health Institute Contact – (713) 783-6655

Subscribe on your favorite player: https://understanding-the-human-condition.captivate.fm/listen

Tonda’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonda-chapman-3018b2154/

Candy’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/candy-finnigan-8194068/

Jeanie’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanie-griffin-d-d-lmft-lpc-lcdc-25a3939/

**The views and opinions expressed by our guests are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of J. Flowers Health Institute. Any content provided by our co-host(s) or guests is their opinion and is not intended to reflect the philosophy and policies of J. Flowers Health Institute itself. Nor is it intended to malign any recovery method, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

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Tonda Chapman, Candy Finnigan, & Jeanie Griffin – Part Two – The Family Choice: Using “Bad” Words Like Intimacy And Vulnerability [Episode 85]

Intimacy And Vulnerability

In this episode, we’re talking about act two, we’ll call it, with Candy, Jeanie, and Tonda, our guests that were here a while back. We talked about intimacy and vulnerability. It’s a hard thing to talk about.

It’s bad words for some people and families. Those are not people’s favorites.

Those always are difficult words it seems in families. Talking about that with whoever you’re talking about, people are uncomfortable with it. Jeanie, Candy, and Tonda open up. We laugh about it. We have an amazing time. I hope you enjoy this episode. We’re calling this The Family Choice: Using “Bad” Words, Intimacy and Vulnerability. Enjoy.

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I’m fascinated with family from being adopted. I spoke in Twelve-Step meetings for my first 5 or 6 years and never mentioned that I was adopted. There was no shame involved in it. I just thought I got lucky that I got picked by a wealthy family in Kansas. There were seven little girls with red hair and it was like picking tomatoes. My dad said he’d pick me up. I tinkled on him and he went, “I’ll pick her.” That was the beginning.

My parents had lost a biological child to polio and I always thought of myself as a replacement daughter. I have an older brother who’s a genius and can’t walk across the street. He’s lovely. I got asked to speak at the American Adoption Congress. All that is fractured families. “Why did they give me up? What about this? I can’t believe it. I can’t find them.” Kansas and New Jersey were the last two states that were closed to adoption and I’m from Kansas.

“My parents lost a child to polio, and I always felt like a “replacement daughter.” When asked to speak at The American Adoption Conference, I realized how many face fractured families, asking, “Why was I given up? Where are they?” It was then I truly began to understand family.”

It’s one of those things where I started realizing what family was. Like you said, there’s not many left except for your nieces. You were able to go with Michael and find a family that loved you no matter what. It’s the same way with me. I felt in some senses more comfortable with my new family and the Twelve-Step program because I got to pick them. They got to pick me but I didn’t have much say in it. I was always taught, “Look what your parents got stuck with. My parents got to pick me. I’m not sure if that was such a cue.”

I used to say it as a little girl. Oddly enough as I had my own kids, I didn’t tell them I was adopted. My mother-in-law made me and I got them cabbage patch dolls because they have adoption papers. When I would go and speak at the Congress, all of the adoptees were in the middle. They were called peeps. All the adopted parents who had adopted kids were on the right side. It’s usually the women and families who had given a child up.

The first thing that the peeps did was they walked in and said, “Do you have a room that we could have a Twelve-Step meeting in?” The percentage is so high. We already have that hole in our soul. There are open adoptions and all of that, which there wasn’t when I got adopted in the ‘40s. It’s a fascinating thing because adoption is all about creating a family and so as foster.

I got very confused. I panicked. I started my alcoholic drinking after I had my daughter because I didn’t know what to do with her. I’d had nannies and all of that. I thought I had to learn how to live an authentic life. Alcohol was my best friend because it didn’t tell me that I didn’t know what I was doing. I was able to get into a family system of people who, no matter what, would not judge me.

I got judged a lot growing up because I was from such a wealthy family, was a debutante, and all the rest of this stuff that didn’t matter to me but mattered to them so you had to act like it mattered to you. It was interesting. As an interventionist, if I could go in, grab you, and take you to treatment, I did my job but I left this puddle in the middle of the living room that was called family.

I recognized it more than any other time with the show because I’d spent all this time, not 3.5 minutes but 4 hours, doing a pre-intervention. I couldn’t have any communication with them. My job was done. I take them to treatment. They didn’t care if they had a family program or not. I insisted. Some of them said they did and they didn’t. That’s why I put a lot of people in Origins to have a family program. You seek what you know works. I do two small family programs on Zoom.

There are still people who are taking people to treatment who don’t know anything other than for this amount of money, they better come home well. Wellness is a lifelong destiny. That’s where I started figuring out how it all worked. Every level of recovery has a family involved in it, whether it’s your home group or community. That’s why I’m sober. My mother-in-law had a black belt in it. I wasn’t kidding. If you don’t, you don’t want to vote. The wonderful thing about why we’re all sitting here is we all feel it’s possible to get well and we know the recipe but you still have to learn how to cook it yourself.

“Every level of recovery has a family involved in it, whether it’s your home group or your community. That’s why I’m sober is my mother-in-law had a black belt in Alcoholics Anonymous.”

The Role Of Family In Recovery

I want to mention too that I strongly believe in a multifamily, including the client. The one I’ve written and facilitated is the client is there most of the time but not every single time. I want the families alone and they fight with me on that. I’ve done a three-day program and I’ll tell them it’s designed as the first day we think, the second day we feel, and the third day we do action.

“I do a three-day program and I’ll tell them that it’s designed so that the first day we think. The second day, we feel. The third day, we take action.”

I’ll say, “Stay with me. Trust me.” I did a lot of education on the first day. It’s not as threatening. I understand that the mind can only absorb what the butt can take so I give them a lot of breaks but then we do a communications exercise and they don’t want to air their dirty laundry in front of one another. They’re so full of privacy. I’ll say, “You got to trust me. I know what I’m doing. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I will help you tweak what you’re going to put on your paper to read aloud. You don’t have to go tell every family secret.”

They don’t say anything on their paper that they’re going to say to one another that I don’t know what is on that paper. I guarantee that when we do the family communication exercise, I run it like a dictator. “You start to ad lib and I’m going to jump on you. I’ll get out my duct tape and do whatever.” What do they end up doing? They’re exhausted at the end of the communication exercise but for the first time, they’ve been able to say to one another things that they’ve yelled at one another in their kitchen.

However, this time, the client is going to be present and not anesthetized by some chemical. The family is not going to be standing there screaming and self-righteous. It’s so healing by the end of the day. They open it up and they can talk among themselves. There’s not a mother in that whole group who can’t have sat across from every single one of the other sons. The same thing that’s happening at your house in Alabama is happening at his house in Maine happening at her house in Boise, Idaho.

The process of identification is the first step in healing. We all know that you can have an individual client and not make half as much progress as you can when you put that client in a group process. If you’re my client and I’m suggesting things, you could argue with me in your head but when you say something and the whole group nods, you can’t fight with it as much as like, “You all see that in me?”

“The process of identification is the first step in healing.”

By the end of the week, on the last day, I say to them, “Do you feel closer today to these people in this room than you did on Wednesday morning when we came in here?” “Yeah.” I said, “That’s what’s called intimacy.” When we’re vulnerable and honest with one another, we bond. They’re all collecting each other’s phone numbers and things like that. I said, “This is a family of choice but if you’d all come in here and I talked to you for three days or that you had individual sessions with the therapist, you wouldn’t have made as much progress.” It’s the humanity of it or the identification.

Family is such a crucial part. Thank you so much.

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Tune In For Part Three

Thank you for joining us. We hope you’ll join us for part 2 and part 3 with Candy Finnigan and Jeanie Griffin. As always, if you have questions about J. Flowers Health Institute, please look us up at www.JFlowersHealth.com. Thanks so much. Have a great day.

 

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