“I am following my sibling’s ‘request’ (it felt like an order) to go to therapy to work out my ‘shit’ (!) so that we can stop being estranged. I found a therapist to talk with, and what I discovered is that looking at myself is pretty painful. The other day, I actually said ‘Ouch’ out loud to something that my therapist had said.

Why is it so uncomfortable to look at myself? No wonder people don’t want to go to therapy!

Reluctant Participant !!

Dear Reluctant Participant,

First, I want to offer you my admiration for hanging in there with your therapy.

It takes immense courage to sit in that chair, mostly against your will, expecting to be declared totally in the wrong. That you were able to let your therapist’s observation land, and were honest enough to say “Ouch!”, bodes remarkably well for your growth.

Your “ouch” means you were able to acknowledge something true and painful about yourself without too much of a fight. That is not easy, at all, but it is where real transformation begins.

“The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves to look into the mirror.”

— Pema Chödrön

Nobody feels good taking in something that feels critical. We are wired to defend ourselves, and as we grow up, our inner alarm gets calibrated for when to go off and how loudly. In everyday life, an accurate observation can feel quite uncomfortable; in therapy, it can feel like a direct threat to the psychological armor we developed to stay safe.

When you begin to lower that protection, the sting can be sharp—not because you are defective, but because you are touching tender territory:

• The shock of dropping your public persona. We have all constructed a version of ourselves to present to the world. Loosening that persona to look at our more subtle “operating instructions” is uncomfortable and not something we often do. We are revealing parts of ourselves we wish were different or cause us shame. If a therapist shows us something about our patterns that we haven’t seen before, that realization will usually land with a force.

• The gap between intention and impact. Seeing that our fiercest, most loving efforts may have had a different outcome than we hoped for can be staggering. Holding both realities at once—“As your sibling, I tried to love you with everything I had” and “the way I did that also caused you strain and pain”—is humbling but ultimately beneficial work.

How do we move from merely enduring our discomfort to actually tolerating, and perhaps even welcoming, the unfolding of who we are?

• Shift from an autopsy to an archaeological dig. An autopsy hunts for what went wrong and who is to blame. An excavation gently brushes away dust to uncover artifacts of how you survived and developed. When you spot a defense or a blind spot, see if you can greet it with compassion instead of contempt: “Look at how hard that part of me worked to keep me safe.” Seeing your patterns as survival strategies makes self-discovery more illuminating, less humiliating.

• Savor the energy you get back. Maintaining an airtight image takes a huge amount of fuel. The moment you admit, “Yes, I can become controlling when I’m afraid of being abandoned,” you no longer have to spend precious energy keeping everything in order or having to be right all the time. Whew!

• Your insight can be a benefit, not a verdict. Looking inward can feel like hiring a judge. Instead, it is about befriending the tender heart beneath your armor. When you realize that your new awareness belongs entirely to you—and that the reward is your own hard-earned clarity of mind—the process can feel less like punishment and more like coming home.

______________________________________

Thank you for your honesty about the roughness of self-reflection. When what you see in the mirror feels sharp, remember to bring compassion to what aches. You are tender because you are healing.

Kathy

Please reach out to me in the Chat, Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #55

Today’s practice comes from a simple realization: you don’t have to feel calm before you move. You can start out walking exactly as you are—heavy, scattered, or numb—and let the rhythm of the walk begin to do the heavy lifting for you. Within about ten minutes, your body can begin to reset.

The Practice:

• Step 1: Just head out the door. Don’t try to clear your head first or fix your mood. Put on your shoes, step outside, and start walking at a natural, easy pace. Let yourself feel whatever you are feeling.

• Step 2: Let your eyes wander in sequence. Don’t try to take in everything at once. Let your gaze rest on one thing—a leaf, a porch light, a fence post—then gently move to the next. Notice their colors and shapes as you pass by.

• Step 3: Free your arms. Let your arms swing naturally by your sides. Notice the gentle, rhythmic motion as opposite arm and leg move together.

• Step 4: Feel the weight under your soles. Bring your attention down to your feet. Notice your heel striking the pavement, the rolling through to the ball of the foot, and your push-off with each step.

• Step 5: Sense the shift in your hips. Bring awareness to your lower body. Note the quiet, back-and-forth swing of your legs carrying your weight forward.

• Step 6: Notice your breath. By now, without trying to take deep belly breaths, you may notice your breathing has slowly lengthened and softened on its own.

Here is the link to the video that could help you follow along with the Practice:

Why and How It Works:

• Optic Flow Quiets your Alarm Center: As you move forward, what you take in through your eyes streams from front to back. In neuroscience, this is called optic flow. It sends a primitive safety signal directly to the amygdala (the brain’s threat alarm), quieting your biological urge to freeze or panic.

• Bilateral Movement Balances your Brain: Swinging your arms and alternating your steps creates cross-body, bilateral stimulation (the same principle behind therapies like EMDR). It helps coordinate the left and right hemispheres of your brain, which gets your thinking mind and your feeling body back in better sync.

• Rhythmic Proprioception Discharges Adrenaline: Stress floods your large muscles of your hips and legs with tension designed for running away. Walking transforms that restless energy into a steady, repetitive motor rhythm. The solid impact of your feet on the ground offers your nervous system proof of physical support, allowing your chest and lungs to loosen naturally.

_______________________________

I hope this helps you slow down, in order for you to make your way through your day(s). Please let me know if you tried this movement practice, and, if it was helpful. Also, please share your favorite way to slow yourself down and center yourself.

Best,

Kathy

Please share in the Chat, Comments or email me at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

After several years of thinking I HAVE to do something about my estrangement, and trying all ways to reach my child, I have taken a break. At first, I was really sad. I am terrible at “giving up” and this was no exception. Then, after several weeks, I began to notice that I was less preoccupied with my estranged child.

I have been making myself go to exercise class—dragging myself through it, really. Now, I at least felt like I had some energy to participate. Don’t get me wrong, lots of people in the class are more energized than I am, but I have some “juice” to bring to the movements.

Is it OK that I feel a little better? What could happen if I let this go on for a little while?

— Finding Some of My Juice

Dear Finding Some of My Juice,

We are in the third and final column of our series revisiting the Oceanic Loss model in honor of Dear Estranged’s first birthday. I couldn’t have chosen a better letter to conclude with, because you are describing what it feels like to swim in Calmer Seas.

You feel a little better. What you are experiencing is not defeat, nor is it giving up.

In my model of Oceanic Loss, grief does not progress in a linear fashion toward “closure.” Instead, grief ebbs and flows through three distinct waters: the initial shock of the Tidal Wave, the relentless churning of Rough Waters, and quieter periods of Calmer Seas.

For several years, you have been battling the waves. When an attachment bond is severed, our powerful pull is to repair it—to throw every ounce of emotional muscle into closing the divide. But living in chronic pursuit and agitation keeps your nervous system perpetually braced for impact. Frantic paddling is exhausting, and it doesn’t necessarily get you to the waters where you hope to swim.

That “juice” you are beginning to feel in your exercise class is energy resurfacing in your own body. You have recaptured some of yourself from your devoted pursuit of your loved one. You are feeling that energy in a part of your life where you can actually sense your own vitality and presence.

In Calmer Seas, your loss doesn’t vanish. As you see in the drawing of this phase, the heart floating in those gentler waves still wears a bandage. The difference is that the cresting swells have, for however long, moved to the perimeter. The water has calmed enough for you to catch your breath, look around, and realize: I am still here.

Calmer Seas Are a Phase, Not a Final Destination

It is important to understand that floating in Calmer Seas is not a marker of perpetual smooth sailing. Just like the other waters in this model, it is a phase you inhabit, not a permanent finish line. Shifts in life circumstances can abruptly alter the tide.

Recently I heard from an estranged mother who had been experiencing a period of relative calm, but was suddenly thrown back into acute grief and depression. She received an unexpected letter from her son announcing a second pregnancy—paired with a painful edict not to reach out. This mother had once enjoyed contact with her first grandchild, but that door had since closed. Now, facing an expanding family from which she was explicitly excluded, the loss hit with fresh, devastating force. In an instant, she transitioned from Calmer Seas right back into a towering Tidal Wave.

If this happens to you down the road, it does not mean you have failed, or that the peace you felt before wasn’t real. It means a new emotional earthquake has struck, sending fresh shockwaves across the waters. You are thrown off course by fresh heartbreak.

A Note on Losses That Resist Calm Waters

Before I say more about when waters might settle, I also want to acknowledge those who carry grief that resists calm, period.

Grandparents tell me that being cut off from grandchildren carries an especially acute, complicated, ongoing heartbreak. When an adult child cuts contact, there is at least an adult dynamic to grapple with. But being severed from grandchildren feels deeply powerless—you are left grieving young children who have no say in the separation, watching milestones pass from afar. For many grandparents, “taking a break” from grieving feels unbearable, as if stepping back is abandoning their grandchild.

I will take up this subject in future columns, but I want to be sure to acknowledge what grandparents have told me and recognize that Calmer Seas can feel unavailable at this level of heartache.

Living Alongside Your Grief

The Calmer Seas phase is not about forgetting your child. It is about finding space to live alongside your grief—not fully inhabit it. You can hold sorrow for the rift in one hand, and still, at times, experience your own vitality in the other.

You become a steadier harbor for yourself: in the thick of the storm, outreach often carries the frantic energy of our own panic. If a path toward contact ever opens down the road, your estranged loved one will find you more rooted in your own life.

“Healing isn’t about getting rid of the ache. It’s about expanding your capacity to hold the ache while still showing up for the life you have.”

— Lisa Olivera

Practical Ways to Possibly Access Calmer Seas

• Begin a practice of centering yourself: This does require you to try to set down your active grief. If that feels unbearable right now, wait until you feel ready. I have started to make a once-a-week offering of a centering exercise in this Substack column, published early in the week. You could try that, ask friends for ideas, or search for exercises that help settle your nervous system. Be sure the exercises are at the right level for you—focused breathing, for example, can feel too intense or emotional for some in acute loss.

• Return to parts of you that you may have set aside when you became a parent: Did you have hobbies, sports, or volunteer work that you used to enjoy? Gardening, knitting, pickleball, literacy support… what of those could you return to? You can begin to re-establish your importance to yourself and others by joining activities and slowing yourself down as a gift to yourself.

• Make plans with people who enjoy you: Seek out those who genuinely want to spend time together. Take walks, play cards, do a puzzle. Enjoy each other’s company.

• Check in with yourself about your reaction to doing more for yourself: Notice any negative voices criticizing you for setting down your active search for contact with your loved one. Tell them: “I know you; I hear you; but that doesn’t need my attention right now.” The voices can wait. You have tried everything, and you need a break. Self-care is key to making it through tough times, and it is vital in navigating estrangement.

Dear Finding Some of My Juice,

Thank you for sharing your calmer feelings. It isn’t simple to accept the lightening of your loss—you wonder if you should remain intensely focused on your estranged loved one.

I hope you will find genuine relief in your respite, and I am so pleased that you get this well-deserved break.

Warmly,

Kathy

Please send your questions about estrangement to ksinsheimermft@gmail.com or Comment or Chat here on Substack

This is column # 54

Last week I began offering a weekly brief somatic activity to alleviate some of the emotional strain of estrangement. I’m hoping the activity helps you experience some relief as you make your way through your separation from your loved one.

This week, the brief activity involves Orienting to help you center and slow down. I will embed a video in this column to talk you through the activity.

When emotional distress spikes, our bodies instinctively prepare for a physical threat. Without our realizing it, our vision narrows into a tight spotlight, our neck muscles lock up, and our nervous system gets stuck in a loop of scanning for danger.

If looking inward feels like too much right now, we can look outward instead.

Orienting is a natural reflex our bodies use to confirm safety in our surroundings. It requires no vigorous movement, no breath work, and no digging into painful emotions.

The Practice:

1. Make sure you are in a space where you feel safe.

2. Wherever you are sitting, allow your head to turn slowly from side to side.

3. Let your eyes wander freely around the room without searching for anything specific.

4. Let your gaze rest on two or three neutral, ordinary objects—a book on a shelf, a patch of light on the floor, a houseplant, or a picture on the wall.

5. Name each object silently to yourself, noticing one detail like its color or shape, before slowly moving on.

Why It Works: Your brain’s alarm center will keep signaling danger until it receives real-time evidence to the contrary. When you gently turn your neck and let your eyes take in everyday, peaceful objects, you break the body’s freeze response. You are providing visual proof to your nervous system that the space around you is secure right now.

Please let me know whether of not this activity was helpful to you, and how so.

Best,

Kathy

You can contact me through the Chat, the Comments, or email me: ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

My sibling and I have taken a trip together every fall to see the leaves turn. When I started our planning for this year, she was vague about dates. I haven’t been able to get her to commit, and now she is not responding to my requests. She says nothing is wrong, but I am sure something is. She isn’t a great communicator, and telling me something isn’t right would be hard for her.

I’m frightened she is ending our sibling relationship—I almost said friendship, because it is that, too. And that she won’t tell me why.

I’ve been in emotional free-fall. I’m afraid we won’t have our trip; she is “scrubbing” our relationship, and that I will never know why.

Please help me think about this differently—I’m drowning!

— Scared, Mad, and Heartbroken

Dear Scared, Mad, and Heartbroken,

We are in part 2 of our 3-part series reviewing my Oceanic Loss model in honor of Dear Estranged’s first birthday. I chose your letter this week because it perfectly describes the pain of being caught in the Tidal Wave phase of Oceanic Loss. When communication suddenly dries up, you are tossed into emotional free-fall—unable to tell up from down, and barely able to catch your breath.

While Oceanic Loss can be progressive, it isn’t always a straight line from storm to calm. In the drawing of the model below, you will see the massive Tidal Wave on the left and a whirlpool right in the center of the Rough Waters. That vortex provides context and perspective: even as you begin moving toward Calmer Seas, grief can swirl you back up at any moment. A change in tone, an unreturned message, or an approaching seasonal tradition can pull you into the spin. Recognizing the whirlpool helps you see that you aren’t failing to heal; you are simply navigating the non-linear currents of relational loss.

Your Heart Will Hurt

An unavoidable truth of estrangement loss is that your heart will hurt. Someone you love deeply has stepped away from you and has reduced or cut off contact. The suddenness is shocking and throws you into the depths of the ocean of grief, with what feel like huge waves all around. You didn’t see this coming, you feel shocked, overwhelmed, suddenly bereft, disoriented, panic-y, and hopeless. This flies in the face of what you felt was true, at times making you doubt the history with your loved other as you remember it.

The place in your heart where that relationship lived and where your attachment lives feels ripped open.

“Heartbreak is what happens when love is lost or when a connection is severed. It is an involuntary yearning for wholeness, and grief requires us to reorient ourselves to every part of our physical, emotional, and social worlds.”

— Brené Brown

You feel ongoing hurt, possibly unlike any hurt you have known before. Your loss of control over any contact is deeply painful and can even be frightening, because all attachment brings with it a desire to be able to locate your beloved other. And when contact is reduced or cut off, your body registers that silence as a physical alarm.

Where to begin with a suddenly hurt heart?

• Recognize you are in the Tidal Wave: Accept that right now, you are being tossed around by acute fear and heartbreak.

• Acknowledge your lack of control: Recognize that you may be powerless to do or change anything in your relationship at this time.

• Sit with the discomfort: Allow yourself to be in this uncomfortable place without immediately trying to force a resolution.

• Accept the current ambiguity: Work with yourself to take in the reality of the present moment, even while it feels unfair and unresolved.

What next?

• Express the unsaid: Identify a way you can privately record your thoughts—a practice of talking (leaving yourself a voice memo), journaling uncensored, or making art to give healthy expression to your raw feelings. Your loved one can’t/won’ hear you right now, but it is important for you that you express yourself!

• Pause your pursuit: Step back from repeatedly asking for dates; give her silence some room so you aren’t feeding your own anxiety vortex.

• Explore somatic, self-calming practices: Engage in simple grounding practices—feeling your feet flat on the floor, lengthening your exhales, or gentle movement—to calm your nervous system when panic spikes. I have started sharing one of these practices each week with an accompanying video; see if those resonate with you, or search elsewhere for what suits you best.

• Refocus your energies: When you are ready, re-center your attention on areas of your life and relationships where you feel valued, reciprocated, and able to contribute.

• Center yourself regularly: Practice small, steadying rituals throughout the day to help you stay more even-keeled through the loss.

_______________________

So, Dear Scared, Mad, and Heartbroken,

Your heart is hurting like crazy right now. I am so sorry, and I get it. It hurts that your sister can’t be more direct, leaving you bewildered, sad, and upset.

Please talk with supportive others about the best way to handle your fall trip to see the leaves (Should you still go? Better not to, to avoid the hurt feelings you will no doubt have?).

Allow yourself to feel the real pain of this silence, and see if there is a gentle way to ask for a conversation when the dust settles. In the meantime, love yourself as best you can, and be sure that others who love you remind you of their love and support.

Warmly,

Kathy

Please reach out to me in the Chat, Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #53

(Happy Birthday, Dear Estranged!)

Our feelings live in both our thoughts and our bodies. When distress takes over, we rarely think our way into calm—we have to help our physiology settle first, and the mind will follow.

I plan to begin sharing one simple somatic practice midweek to help you discover easy, reliable tools to regulate your nervous system.

Here is our first practice.

Seated Grounding (Let the Chair Do the Work)

When we are carrying profound loss, grief, or family rupture, our minds tend to work overtime. We replay conversations, draft unsent letters in our heads, and brace against waves of emotion. Most relaxation advice tells you to “take a deep breath” or “put a hand over your heart,” but when your heart hurts, turning inward toward your chest or stomach can feel overwhelming.

We don’t need to dive into the deep end. We can start with simple, safe practices for centering. You are learning how to calm your body, and, just like learning to swim, it takes time, practice, and trial and error.

Your nervous system responds far better to tangible, physical facts than to positive thinking. One of the simplest ways to help an overtaxed body settle is through simple seated contact. So we will start sitting!

The Practice:

• Sit in any sturdy chair and place both feet flat on the floor.

• Don’t worry about fixing your posture or changing how you breathe.

• Bring your entire attention to the physical contact points: the weight of your thighs on the seat, your back resting against the chair, and the soles of your feet touching the floor.

• Pick one sensation—like the firmness under your heels—and just notice it for 30 to 60 seconds.

Why It Works:

When you are on high alert, your muscles unconsciously clench to keep you upright and ready for impact. By tuning into the supportive surfaces beneath you, you give your body permission to stop bracing. You are letting the chair and the floor do the holding. It sends a quiet, direct message to your brain: Right here, in this exact spot, the ground is steady.

Use this video link to help you walk through the exercise:

Please let me know in the comments if you tried this exercise and how it felt—or email me at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com. I would also love to hear about any grounding practices that have worked for you.

Best,

Kathy

Column 1 of this somatic series.

Thank you for your warmth, vulnerability, and support throughout our first year together. Your letters and comments continue to shape this space into a compassionate harbor for those navigating profound family rifts.

To begin celebrating our first anniversary, (next week!) I am launching a three-part series revisiting the foundational framework of this column: the Oceanic Grief Model.

In moments of acute distress, the Oceanic Grief Model is designed to give you an emotional compass. To help you locate where you are in the stormy seas, find your center, and begin moving toward calmer waters.

My reader asks:

Dear Kathy,

My child has estranged me beyond anything I could have imagined. Even when I am doing my estate planning, and I have questions for her, she wants nothing to do with me—or my money. Not even after I am dead!

How can I stop this painful cycle of finding her in my thoughts, wishing we could be in contact, coming up with what I hope is THE way she will reach back to me, unsuccessfully telling myself to “give it a rest,” feeling hopeless, and ultimately getting frustrated with myself for falling into this well-worn groove?

Please help, if you can!

— Yearning, Missing, Failing, On Repeat and Frustrated

Dear Yearning and Frustrated,

What you describe—finding yourself seeking contact with a loved one who has issued a “no-contact” ban—is painfully common. There are many sources that fuel your yearning:

Your loved one, in this case your child, has been very dear to you. Your heart has a location carved out for her, where she has nestled for many years. A home for her in your heart, as it were. You are attached to her; you have been from the very beginning. This architecture of your heart is permanent. So, step #1 may be to accept that. She is dear to you. Period.

However, she also doesn’t want to be in contact. This is beyond what you had ever imagined—you imagined forever closeness. Your future has been changed by her announcement: NO CONTACT. Not by any means. (And we have a lot these days.)

Here is where your work begins: Your job is to begin to let go. Not because this is what you would ever choose, but because this is your current, only option.

Your mind will argue:

• “But I love her so much!” (Yes, you do, and that will make this even harder for you.)

• “But she is a member of our family!” (Yes, she is, and she can remain so in your mind. But she may wish to identify herself differently.)

• “But she needs my/our support.” (It may seem that way, but she may feel differently.)

• “Families are forever. And they are supposed to stick together.” (As humans, we have thought this way for many years. These ideas seem to be undergoing a cultural upheaval.)

• “I haven’t had a chance to really work this out with her.” (This is, unfortunately, often the case with estrangement. The silence is deafening, and you keep hoping to speak or even yell through it or past it in order to be heard.)

• “It is so frustrating and hurtful to feel this powerless.” (Yes, it is, and here is where the work comes in…)

Exiting Rough Waters?

You are, like our heart in the drawing, currently in Rough Waters. Your seeking, while completely understandable, is keeping you there. You are struggling to accept what you have been shown and told: your child does not want contact, at least for now. Your brain cannot take in that information: What? My child doesn’t want to be in touch? Not imaginable!

I get it, but let’s take another look:

What would it take to imagine it? How could you wrap your head around her wishes, at least for now? And how can you tell your mind and heart to stop searching for her?

In the drawing this week, the heart has his flashlight and safety gear because he cannot stop looking for his loved one. He believes if he seeks long and hard enough—even with the tsunami waves crashing over him—he will spot his loved one with his flashlight and they will reunite in some way. This belief keeps him searching.

In order to feel a little more settled, our heart will need to put down his flashlight. He will need to pivot and find ways to steady himself. If he can seek shallower waters, less in the path of the waves and at least in view of dry land, he may begin to feel a bit calmer.

As author and therapist Lisa Olivera reminds us:

“Grief doesn’t have to be something we fight against; it can become a companion we learn to carry gently as we tend to the rest of our lives.”

How does our heart begin to do that? It’s not as easy as it sounds, but here is where to start:

Suggestions for Turning Down the Searchlight:

• Start by realizing you have lost your center.

• Let grief be a companion, but not your beacon. Acknowledge its presence without allowing it to direct your every action or keep you scanning the horizon.

• Identify parts of yourself that you may have been neglecting in your upset and grief.

• Make plans to re-focus on activities where you feel effective.

• Observe your effectiveness and take in your pleasure at accomplishing things. Briefly contrast this with where you feel ineffective (i.e., with your loved one). Note the difference and place that awareness in a spot where you can retrieve it when you need it.

• Be kind to yourself when your estranged loved one comes to mind, but ask yourself not to dwell there. Yes, you love them very much. They have asked for space, and you are working to provide it.

• Develop somatic ways to calm your thinking. Learning to slow your mind, utilizing breathing practices to settle your nervous system, and engaging in movement or exercise are fundamental ways we can process grief while finding our center again.

• Cultivate and strengthen the relationships where you do have ongoing contact. Improving your communication and emotional regulation within your active support system honors both yourself and those around you—while preparing you for the possibility of healthy engagement if contact is ever restored.

Focus on valuing yourself and tending to the loved ones with whom shared connection enriches your daily life.

_______________________________

So, Dear Yearning and Frustrated,

It is so understandable that your heart keeps looking for your loved one. You love her; she has a home in your heart; your heart doesn’t understand why she doesn’t want to come home.

For now, your hurting heart needs other sorts of tending: love from you and those near you who can actively provide warmth and companionship.

Early on in my columns, I found myself quoting the singer/songwriter Stephen Stills several times: “Love the one you’re with”. I think, as Dear Estranged completes its first cycle around the sun, we are back there. And it’s good advice!

Best,

Kathy

Please reach out to me in the Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #52

My siblings and I are struggling through the distribution of our parents’ estate. Though our parents thought they left clear instructions, carrying them out has been so contentious that we’ve had to physically separate two of my siblings.

Because key decisions were left vague, we’re in the dark about what’s fair. We’ve reached a complete impasse—both on how to handle the estate and how to relate to each other. At this point, several of us are no longer speaking, making progress nearly impossible.

Can you help?

— Frustrated, Sad, Conflicted, and Seeking Solutions

Dear Frustrated and Seeking,

Your frustration with the settling of your parents’ estate is more common than you might think. You don’t mention how it’s been to mourn your parents, but fighting over their estate is likely a painful, exhausting, and distracting part of your grieving process.

The death of a parent can be a profound and disorienting passage for adult children. In my own family, my father’s death triggered a long-brewing estrangement between my sibling and my niece. Somehow his presence had acted as an invisible lid keeping their conflict contained. With his passing, that lid blew off. It was as if the ceiling of a room had been torn away by a tornado (think The Wizard of Oz).

When the ground falls out from underneath a family, we become brittle, emotionally raw, and reactive.

Grieving, Sorting, Family Patterns, and Money

When you sort out the details of your parents’ estate, you are dealing with their legacy, their wishes, and their hopes for all of you. You each likely hold a unique belief about what you deserve, what is fair and what your parents wanted. Those beliefs may not match up—in fact, they may diverge so sharply that open conflict erupts.

At the same time that you are deeply affected by your mourning, you are somehow expected to think with legal clarity and administrative facility. Trying to be rational and functional alongside a sibling group that is equally affected by loss is an almost impossible combination of each of your internal experiences. It is no surprise that clashes occur.

Furthermore, sibling dynamics resurface in predictable yet unhelpful ways. During these moments of family crisis, I have seen:

• Siblings stop speaking over misunderstandings regarding a parent’s prior care or conservatorship.

• Sibling groups unable to agree on “fairness,” resulting in forced asset sales that no one actually wanted.

• Gridlock that freezes estate administration entirely, rendering legal resolution impossible.

• Parents who, overly confident of their financial and emotional legacy, leave their affairs in a precarious state to be resolved by adult children who never learned how to row together.

In a friend’s family, disagreements erupted over the dissolution of assets when individually held, unwritten promises from parents were suddenly brought to light. Secret agreements surfaced, reigniting old childhood rivalries, assertions of parental unfairness (“Mom liked you best”), and allegations of inequality. The legal documents only went so far, leaving a gaping void for the grieving siblings to navigate alone. Currently, two of the four siblings are completely cut off from contact. The 'silent treatment' has been deployed, entrenching the impasse.

Karl Pillemer’s research on family rifts underscores that the distribution of an estate is one of the single most common flashpoints for permanent sibling estrangement. But reaching an impasse does not have to mean a lifelong severance.

The Emotional Currency of Assets

As psychologist and estrangement expert Dr. Joshua Coleman explains: assets and heirlooms rarely represent just dollars and cents—they frequently serve as emotional currency, indicating how much a child was loved, protected, or valued by their parents. When a sibling feels shortchanged in an estate, what they often are experiencing is feeling shortchanged on love.

How to Rein in the Chaos

• Expect Regression—Don’t Take the Bait: When anxiety spikes and grief is acute, adult siblings naturally regress into their oldest childhood roles (the caretaker, the scapegoat, the peacekeeper, the boss). Recognize these behaviors as symptoms of systemic grief and anxiety rather than deliberate malice.

• Separate the Emotional Ledger from the Financial Ledger: Acknowledge that disputes over specific items are often proxies for unspoken emotional needs. Identify the underlying grief and desire for recognition before trying to force numerical or logistical solutions.

• Bring in a Neutral Third Party: When physical fighting or punishing silence enters the room, your sibling group can no longer self-regulate safely. Enlist an estate mediator, a collaborative family law practitioner, or a neutral professional executor to manage the process and facilitate meetings.

• Work with a Family Therapist: It can help to unpack family dynamics by looking at how your family system is functioning. Your family therapist can work with you to identify underlying themes in your grief, impasses and acting out. Looking at these themes and unpacking them can loosen the emotional hold on your family, allowing you to move forward.

• Prioritize Your Relationships: Ask yourselves honestly: Is winning this particular asset or point of principle worth losing our sibling relationship?

• Protect Life Outside the Estate: Set firm boundaries to keep estate discussions confined to scheduled meetings. Do not let administrative negotiations bleed into every phone call, holiday, or text thread. Allow space for your family to remember, breathe, and heal together.

• Acknowledge the Undercurrents of Loss: Every sibling moves through bereavement differently. Right now, you are likely in the Rough Waters of that voyage (see the Oceanic Grief diagram below). Deep sorrow leaves everyone tender and reactive. Make deliberate room to express your heavy feelings outside of estate meetings, whether with trusted friends or in quiet moments together with your siblings.

  _____________________________

  As Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön writes:

  “Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”

  ____________________________

So, Dear Frustrated and Seeking,

You are in the thick of your sibling dynamics at the exact moment all of you are trying to settle your parents’ estate. Your family patterns and resentments are flaring up, impeding your progress and opening old wounds.

Please be compassionate with yourself in your grief process. See if you can make space for understandable conflict at this time, committing to persevere—and when necessary, leaning on the wise guidance of outside support.

Warmly,

Kathy

Please reach out to me in the Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #51

When we started our family, we thought we would be bonded forever. We had two children and did everything together—camping, holidays, chores—all the activities that usually bring a family closer. And we thought ours was. We planned to have close relationships when our kids grew up, to care for our grandchildren—the whole nine yards.

And that is exactly how it went—until it didn’t. For several years, we were deeply involved in caring for our three grandchildren while our son and daughter-in-law worked. We were the go-to childcare on days when daycare was closed.

Then, completely out of the blue, that role was taken away. It was as if a curtain suddenly went down. Our (grown) kids told us they just wanted to “change how they arranged childcare,” but we know it’s something bigger than that. Now, we are lucky if we see our grandchildren twice a month.

We are absolutely devastated and heartbroken. Can you help us understand how to move forward when the future we assumed we’d have together has been completely cut off?

—Shocked, Heartbroken, and Lost

Dear Shocked and Lost,

It is devastating to have such a close relationship abruptly disrupted. To have a central role in your family’s daily life dismantled without a clear explanation makes your loss even more painful. It is completely understandable that you expected your active presence in your son’s family to continue. Having that connection suddenly scaled back naturally hurts to your core.

Violation of Expectation

What you are navigating is a psychological phenomenon known as Violation of Expectation. We bring two types of unwritten assumptions into every relationship:

-predictive (what we assume will happen based on past patterns) and

-prescriptive (what we feel should happen based on shared family values or norms).

Shaped by culture and personal history, these assumptions usually operate quietly in the background. But when someone abruptly rewrites the script—whether it’s a spouse or in-law pulling away, a friend ghosting, or an adult child changing the parameters of contact—it’s shocking. The version of the relationship you experienced and counted on disappears, leaving you struggling to process the chasm between what you expected and the new, shocking reality.

Pema Chödrön describes the somatic weight of this sudden shift:

“When things fall apart and the ground is pulled out from under us, we feel a deep sense of vulnerability... It is as if we were thrown out of the nest.”

I am reminded of a time when a close friend, seemingly out of nowhere, made a dramatic pivot in her way of relating to me. It took me time to even realize what was happening. But once the shift became undeniable, my disorientation set in. I realized I needed to make a shift, myself, in how I was thinking not only about my friend, but about our relationship. That necessary change hurt! I was (and am) reminded that sudden relational ruptures transmit a sense of emotional violence—the future you hoped for is thrown out, against your will. It takes a while to re-find your footing.

When groundlessness hits, your nervous system goes into a fight-or-flight response. Your body feels out of balance and your thoughts spill into disbelief. In your reactive state, it feels impossible to pause or process what’s happening clearly. The most compassionate thing you can do for yourself is to stop trying to force yourself to immediately make sense of the situation—give your shock a place to land. Slow down your breath. Give yourself permission to feel anxious, grieving, and upset.

As Brené Brown notes:

“Grief requires us to re-orient ourselves to a world that has been irrevocably changed.”

Grieving, especially in the beginning, can restrict your ability to make sense out of things. The loss of daily contact with the ones you love hurts deeply, but allowing yourself to grieve is also the engine that will eventually carry you through your disorientation. It allows you to honor your shattered expectations so you can begin to regroup.

How to Begin Re-Orienting: Practical Steps

• Separate the Logistics from the Relationship: Resist the urge to debate or bargain over their childcare decision. Trying to convince them why the old arrangement was better will likely cause them to retreat further. Treat the childcare change as a settled logistical boundary for now.

• Grieve the Expected Future Privately: Disentangle the grief you feel about your lost expectations from your direct interactions with your son and daughter-in-law. Unpack your shock with a therapist, support group, or trusted friends so that you don’t inadvertently bring demands or emotional pressure to your limited visits with your grandchildren.

• Anchor in the Present, Not the Prediction: When your mind loops back to “how things were supposed to be,” gently bring yourself back to what is true today. Re-orienting doesn’t mean liking the new reality; it simply means choosing not to exhaust your energy fighting what has already changed.

• Open the Door for Dialogue (When Ready): Once your nervous system has settled, consider reaching out to your son and daughter-in-law with gentle curiosity. It is common for families to act out difficult feelings through structural changes rather than talking about them directly. Let your son know that while it can be hard to share uncomfortable truths, you would always prefer to understand. Ask if you can sit down together so they can share what led to the shift in childcare arrangements.

• Listen to Understand, Not to Defend: If they agree to talk, focus on active listening and open curiosity. Resist the instinct to justify your past contributions or defend your position. Hearing their perspective—even if it feels unfair or difficult—is often the gateway to rebuilding trust and finding a new way forward.

_________________________________

So, Dear Shocked and Lost,

You are in the painful position of mourning a future you counted on and missing daily life with your grandchildren. I am deeply sorry this has happened, but I want to offer you this: in the wake of shattered expectations, there remains room for healing, growth, and meaningful connecting with yourself and beloved others.

Best,

Kathy

Please reach out to me in the Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #50

Dear Kathy,

I have started to think that we have lost our ability to tolerate each other. One part of my family doesn’t speak to me because of who I voted for in the last presidential election. Recently, my siblings treated me so badly, I wanted to cut them off. Sure, I was upset, but why did I feel the impulse to estrange? What has happened to our (my) tolerance of difference?

— Upset, disappointed, annoyed, and considering estranging

Dear Annoyed and Thinking of Estranging,

It’s tough when you feel hurt and you want to lash out. You feel mistreated and misunderstood. You want to feel respected in your choices and values, and you don’t. Maybe old patterns in your sibling group came up. Growing up, were you the family scapegoat? Were you the middle child in a large-ish sibling group and felt lost in the crowd? Likely, you didn’t/couldn’t get everyone’s respect, and you were reminded of that in your last sibling encounter. Old patterns can make you feel like giving up!

I think that when we feel the urge to estrange a loved one, we typically do it out of deep personal discomfort with that loved one—specifically, because we don’t like how we feel when we are with them.

I was sent an archived essay by Tim Kreider titled “I Know What You Think of Me.” It was published in the NYT in 2013.

“We all make fun of one another behind one another’s backs, even the people we love. Of course we do — they’re ridiculous.”

Kreider is reminding us that we are ALL ridiculous. (It’s important that we include ourselves.) We tend to forget this as we try to duck or refute others’ opinions of us.

Recently, four close friends were on a text thread together. One shared a vulnerable accomplishment. Two of the others—mistakenly thinking they had jumped over to a separate, private thread—mocked the accomplishment. The sharer, seeing the mocking, was hurt and cancelled her travel plans with her friends.

Interactions like this happen all the time, and typically (me included), we feel wounded, take offense. But isn’t it true that we often talk about each other when the “other” isn’t present? It’s a common human activity, yet we act as if it should never happen to US.

It can be painful when we discover the comments, of course. But why are we so shocked? Why do we expect we are exempt, even when we make this kind of remark ourselves? Aren’t we all ridiculous? Wouldn’t it help us to hold this more consciously—to be able to say, “Aren’t I ridiculous? And you, too?”

I think Kreider’s essay is useful in estrangement in the following way: are we not embracing our ridiculousness enough to be able to tolerate each other’s ridiculous (different) parts? For example, people estrange over how we voted in the last election, immigration policies, gender questioning, or lifestyle. Our judgments of others and our discomfort with their choices lead us to estrange them. Note my emphasis on our discomfort.

One contributor to this phenomenon of not tolerating difference—or our discomfort—comes from our devices. With our algorithms, we are fed information that matches what we already think, trends that we have already established. Our feathers are not ruffled; we don’t wince at anything we see or hear. Does this decondition our emotional muscles for accepting difference? If we don’t know or see anyone or anything different, does our tolerance window grow smaller?

More to the point, I think, is that some of us have unrealistic beliefs that we should be able to please everyone—which can make any criticism or disapproval feel huge. For women, this often began as being a “good girl.” In a recent podcast conversation between Dr. Becky Kennedy and Belle Burden, author of Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, both confessed to having grown up in the role of “good girl.” A “good girl” has to please everyone—at great cost to herself and her development. How does it happen that she has become so dependent on others seeing her as good? What if she could think, as Kreider does, that her drive to please everyone is actually “ridiculous,” helping her realize that universal approval is unattainable and actually harmful to her?

Taking this another step, what if we realize that other people are simply going to bother us? Period. Hopefully not all the time, but a share of the time. This brings to mind Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous line from his play No Exit:

“Hell is other people.”

Sartre didn’t mean that others are inherently evil; he meant that hell is being trapped in how other people perceive you.

So, has our current cultural moment brought us to thinking that others are disposable? That we can get rid of the “hell” of other people, be less uncomfortable, and that we will benefit from estranging them? We stand to lose so much by estranging others or being estranged: what can we do to pivot from this moment?

Pivots from Possible Estrangement

• Take space before reacting. A close friend/sibling/parent/child has really offended you. Instantly you feel you never want to see them again. You have already told them not to do that a million times. Now what? Perhaps you need a pause. Catch your breath. Don’t reenter until you calm down. If you want to remain in contact, you will need to find some bandwidth for your loved one’s behavior. Not easy, but likely your best way of saving your relationship.

• Ask yourself what you need from yourself to remain connected to your loved one. Is it one more conversation? Is it registering your complaint while knowing you may not make an impact? Is it looking at your own irritation to see if you could explore it a little more and thereby lessen your discomfort? Do they hit a vulnerable spot in you that you could benefit from examining more yourself?

• Question your own behavior—is it off-putting, alienating? (For example, do you get angry and try to force others to be on time because of your own fears of being late? Has this led to conflict and distancing?) Can you look underneath your strong reaction to see what it is made up of? Are there allegiances to loved ones who came before (a father who got very angry when you were late, for example)? Are those allegiances worth sacrificing your current relationships with your sibling, friend, or child?

• What if you accept that others will annoy you? Don’t ask yourself not to be upset. See if there is a workaround for the conflict. Yes, they voted for your most hated presidential candidate, but do you need to discuss politics? Are there other things you like to do with your loved one that you would like to preserve? Can you put down the political hatchet in order to enjoy your favorite activities with the loved one who clearly canceled out your vote?

• Ask yourself why you feel intolerant of choices your loved one has made. Is there anything more you can understand about your intolerance that would help you be more open to your loved one’s POV? Not adopting it, but perhaps not flinching at it.

• Ask yourself, “What is the most ridiculous thing I can remember doing?” Picture yourself doing that. Remember that we are all ridiculous, including your loved one and, first and foremost, you.

  ______________________________

So, Dear Annoyed and Thinking of Estranging,

Yes, other people are annoying! And we can literally wind up annoying ourselves, as well! Seeking more bandwidth for ourselves and others is key. Not easy, but key. Keeping in mind that what we are tsk-tsking over in others can turn out to be part of what annoys or hurts us about ourselves can be very helpful.

Best wishes for self-reflecting, loving, laughing, and gathering perspective. I will join you in practicing remembering that we are all ridiculous, and that includes me!

Kathy

Please reach out to me in the Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #49

I have spent many hours in therapy identifying my feelings. I learned to name them, identify them from my body sensations, and how to make use of them. That all seemed like progress to me and helped me in my daily life. Now, in my estrangement, it doesn’t seem to matter what I feel. When I can’t communicate what I’m experiencing, it’s as if my feelings have no value.

What should I do with my feelings now—is it sort of like the tree falling in the forest and no one hears? Can you help me figure out how to live with them anyway?

Hurt and Howling in the Wind

_________________________________

Dear Hurting and Howling,

Your feelings DO matter! And at the same time, what to do with them is the real question—especially when the person who evoked those feelings isn’t available to process them with you.

Feelings come from our bodies and the most raw parts of our psyches. They typically start as a somatic experience, followed by words, and sometimes crying or shouting.

They arise from experience so quickly that we are often shocked and overcome. Have you ever had crying, rageful feelings rise up so fast you felt like you were drowning?

Yet, while they feel primitive and intense, our feelings also help us be the most human and genuine we can be. Through them, we learn to understand ourselves. And while communicating how we feel to others is deeply important, this is precisely where the blockage of estrangement is felt—you hold emotions you want to express to an adult child, parent, sibling, or friend, but they cannot or will not receive them.

A friend’s father estranged her under the influence of his third wife. My friend tried to talk with him about what was happening and how she felt, but he was unable to make space for her experience. Her pain was so deep she began to wonder if he had ever loved her at all, or if she had simply imagined being special to him. For her, it was a double loss: the loss of her father, and the erosion of her own reality. If all her grief and hurt meant nothing to him, what good was it? Was it even real?

Her feelings were valuable anyway. Here is why:

• They helped her process reality: She needed her feelings to help her make sense of her experience and ground herself in response to her father’s rejection.

• They explained her story: Her feelings gave her a truthful narrative to share with herself and trusted friends.

• They protected her identity: Her grief was a genuine, congruent response to loss. Knowing her feelings is central to who she is. They belong to her, regardless of whether her father could witness them.

• Honoring yourself and your loss: As Lisa Olivera writes:

“The practice of turning toward the ache with care—reverence, even—might be one of the most meaningful gifts we can give ourselves.”

You have had a deep shift in a loving relationship that hurts and is real. Feeling that ache is part of you, part of being alive, and part of loving the absent other.

Finding Your Way Forward

So where do you begin when you are left holding these unexpressed emotions?

• Slow down. Sit with yourself, feet on the floor and slow your breath. Allow yourself to notice what you are experiencing, even if it is painful. Giving space to your inner world is a critical first step. Your estranged loved one may not be willing or able to witness your pain right now, but your experience is still yours to understand and hold.

• Feel your emotions’ physical expression. Be aware of your feelings in your body. When the waves settle, consider writing or talking it through. Some people prefer private journaling, while others need to talk it out with a trusted friend or therapist. Do whatever fits you best in the moment.

• Shift the frame. The pivot here is to value yourself when you feel thrown away. Remind yourself that your loved one’s choice to not engage in your relationship is largely about their own needs and uncomplete growth. It is not about your worth.

• Find what is yours. While holding compassion for yourself, take time to reflect on your own patterns or contributions to past relationship dynamics. Looking honestly at what you find can help you build self-awareness and pave a path toward more complex, genuine contact if the door opens in the future.

It is both a privilege and a responsibility to be in relationship with another human being. Sometimes the challenges overshadow the connection, and we fall away. Coming back into relationship takes courage, patience, and a willingness to try again.

_________________________

So, Dear Hurt and Howling,

You are currently in that quiet, painful spot where your estranged loved one is distant, leaving you to sort out your responses on your own. You have moved past the initial Tidal Wave and are navigating the Rough Seas. (Here is a link to my column explaining Oceanic Loss:)

https://www.kathysinsheimer.com/p/loss-during-estrangement-a-unique

Please be deeply compassionate as you navigate toward a fuller understanding of yourself—and, in time, perhaps your loved one as well.

Warmly,

Kathy

Please reach out to me in the Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #48

I have never felt more lost than now, during my estrangement from my child, Cory. How can this be? It’s like I have lost Cory, but I have also lost myself. What is happening???

Incredibly lost, lonely and cannot find my bearings

Dear Incredibly Lost,

Your pain is so clear. I can hear that while the cause of your pain is obvious, it doesn’t offer you enough to grasp the scale of your loss.

I think this is because you are experiencing a double loss: you haven’t just lost your child—you have lost a part of yourself.

Part of understanding estrangement grief comes from naming our lost roles: “I am Cory’s mother, and I can’t mother Cory right now.” But it’s more complex than our roles. Our ongoing interaction when we are loving someone develops into a part of us. That loving feeling, and that experience of being with our loved one, is a component of our identity—a way we recognize our own selves.

When contact with your loved one is cut off, it can be tougher to see that you have lost this internal piece of yourself, too. Loving a particular person creates a unique, resonant spot in you that is activated when you think of or interact with them.

You don’t just miss Cory; you miss who you were when you were with them. You miss the “Cory” part of yourself.

Think of it this way:

“There is a part of me that grew through loving my child. When I think of it, my heart actually swells a little. My child is nowhere near me, but this spot inside is mine, built over time through my interactions with them. When I can’t be with my child, I miss them, but I also miss the way I feel within myself as a result of our long history together. I miss the 'Me' I am when I am with them. I sometimes wish I could be with my child, not just to be with them, but to feel that version of myself again.”

When Cory leaves, that version of you goes offline. The Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön often writes about the deep groundlessness that happens when a major life relationship is lost. She points out that we are pushed to step away from a version of who we used to be, pulling us toward painful questioning of “who am I now”? It is an unwelcome transition, but it also reminds us that our identity is not fixed.

In my drawing, your estranged loved one is walking away, but the part of you that sees and experiences yourself through that relationship is walking away, too. We can be so focused on having been left, that we don’t initially see the version of us that seems to be leaving as well.

How to Grapple with Your Double Loss

• Slow down and inventory your feelings. See if you can begin to outline this part of your identity. Think of those MRI scans where a specific spot in the brain lights up in response to a stimulus. You have an internal spot that lights up at the thought of Cory. Ask what you can begin to learn about that part of yourself.

• Grieve that part of yourself with clarity. Grieving asks that you recognize your loss as completely as you can. Once this lost self is a bit clearer, you can say to it: “I know you. I feel _____ about you. I am working to accept this.”

• Look for other ways to experience those feelings and parts of yourself. If you can identify the qualities you are missing in yourself—like your capacity to play or laugh—ask if there are other ways to experience them. Cory may not want to be together right now, but are there other relationships or activities where that part of you can safely step forward? If you are too raw, give yourself time until you are ready.

• Let others help light the way. If you are having trouble finding this part of your inner self beneath the fog of grief, ask trusted friends or family to talk with you about Cory. Their comments may spark a recognition that helps you see yourself better.

• Be as kind and loving toward yourself as possible. Estrangement easily tricks us into finding fault in ourselves. While a gentle self-inventory is important, plaese conduct it with warmth and self-compassion.

_______________________________

Dear Incredibly Lost,

You have named the very heart of the disorientation that accompanies estrangement. It makes complete sense that you are struggling to locate your full self right now. These steps are meant to help you find a more centered internal space—a quiet vantage point from which you can begin the repair necessary to feel more whole again.

My wishes are with you as you look inward, find your footing, and gently reclaim your whole-est self possible at this time.

Best,

Kathy

P.S. If you want to practice moving through these stuck places together, I’m presenting a workshop on August 1 with Ann Dyer, the founder of Mountain Yoga. We’ll gather in Oakland and on Zoom for an afternoon of gentle yoga, journaling, and talking through how estrangement lives in the body. You can find more info and reserve your spot here: https://www.m-yoga.org/living-with-estrangement.html

Please reach out to me in the Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #47

When I talk with my family members, I am stunned by how differently they see us. Not just as individuals and not just as a group, but even our history! Why does this happen? And, more to the point, how do we work things out when we don’t even have the same starting place in our perceptions?

Wishing for new glasses so I could see my family better

Dear Wishing for New Glasses,

I think you are at a great starting point—you have noticed a key to why we have differences—it’s about our perception. And our perceptions come from each of our unique views of each other and our experiences together. Preparing to respond to you, I remembered the parable of the 5 blind men and the elephant. (Which we could now re-name the 5 blindfolded humans and the elephant. Or the 5 blindfolded family members.)

To review for those who don’t know the parable: one human is holding the leg and thinks the elephant is like a tree. Another is feeling the elephant’s side and thinks an elephant is like a wall, etc. I used this story for the theme of my drawing this week, which features five blindfolded hearts trying to map out a giant elephant. Looking at the drawing, you will be able to tell the rest of the story yourself!

When we look at each other and our interactions, we each have unique take-aways. One family thinks that the older child is arrogant and selfish. That same child tells me he needs to save himself from a family dynamic of low self-esteem and defeatism. A friend tells me her estranged Bestie was too self-involved. The Bestie responds that her estranged friend wouldn’t stand up for what she wanted, and then blamed the Bestie when she didn’t get it.

What if each of them is telling a part of the story that could add up to a whole, but they can’t hear each other, so remain stuck in their unique but incomplete perceptions of each other and their relationships? This can often lead to family estrangement—or a painful rupture between close friends—if someone despairs of ever being heard, validated, or understood. If we get stuck in believing a particular narrative, another with a different viewpoint can feel silenced, criticized, or trapped. And if their attempts to explain themselves are not understood due to the overarching family narrative, they may feel the need to distance themselves entirely.

What do I mean by “Overarching Family Narrative”?

Families typically have stories they tell about who they are, what they are about, and how they operate. “We are a family with a fair amount of depression.” “We are a family that has fun but we sometimes spoil it.” “We are a family that works hard and isn’t so good at playing.” “We are a family that’s close but we can’t always tell each other what is on our minds.”

You don’t say what your family narrative is, but I am guessing that part of it is “We are a family that doesn’t agree about our history.” Saying that out loud may actually be the first step for you in making progress. But why does a disagreement over family history feel so terrifying that it can drive us to detach, causing family estrangement?

Are We Fighting For Survival?

Why do we cling to our perceptions so fiercely that we are willing to fracture our families to defend them? It is at least in part because our ancient neurobiology treats a shared reality as a matter of literal survival.

In our evolutionary past, if the tribe couldn’t form a shared representation of reality—if we couldn’t agree on where the danger lay or locate the enemy—the group’s defense fractured, and the tribe suffered. This same need to identify danger is sometimes present in modern times. However, in our daily family life, this need may cause conflict when understanding and compassion for difference would be more effective.

When a family member disputes your reality, your ancient survival brain registers it as a catastrophic fracture in tribal safety. The visceral distress you feel—the tightening chest, the fight-or-flight response—is a primitive evolutionary alarm.

If we cannot resolve the disagreement, our minds default to a primitive, binary way of thinking to restore order.

The great anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss noted that human cultures naturally organize a chaotic world into strict, opposing pairs: Us versus Them, Inside versus Outside, Safe versus Dangerous.

When we cannot achieve a shared reality, our collective system splits. To protect our internal reality, we map the binary onto ourselves and our loved ones: I am the truth-teller, and you are the enemy.

When being a part of the family tribe pressures you to abandon your own reality, detaching can feel like an essential act of self-preservation. This is an underlying engine of family estrangement. We pull away because the emotional vertigo of living with someone who denies our truth feels like an undeniable threat to our safety.

Tolerating Differing Realities

Moving forward asks for a profound perspective shift—it requires making space for a reality that looks completely different from your own without triggering the tribal alarm. Here is how we can begin to heal these rifts:

• Start with the assumption that you have an incomplete story. To use the parable of the hearts, if you are holding the leg and think the elephant is like a tree, your experience is real—but it isn’t the whole elephant. Accepting that a family member is holding the tail and experiencing something entirely different allows two truths to exist at the same time.

• Notice the somatic shift. When a family member presents a reality that jars you, pause and check in with your body. Notice the tension in your shoulders or the urge to interrupt. Grounding your nervous system first is essential; we cannot take in an emotional difference if our bodies are in fight-or-flight mode.

• Drop the need to convert. The goal of these difficult family conversations isn’t to get the other person to say, “You are right, my memory was wrong.” As the renowned relationship expert Esther Perel wisely points out, “It’s not hard to be right, but then you are right and alone.” When we demand that our loved ones surrender their perception to ours, we choose compliance over connection. Connection comes from seeing if it’s possible to understand what it feels like to be them in our family.

• Expect the emotional vertigo. Expect to feel thrown off-kilter by their perception of “what happened.” It is painful to take in a narrative that feels alien to you. Give yourself permission to feel discomfort without immediately rushing to fix, correct, or cast them out as the “enemy.”

• Bring compassion to the blindspots. Approach the conversation with patience for both of you. We are all blindfolded hearts doing our best to map out the giant, complicated elephant of our shared life.

___________________________________

So, Dear Wishing for New Glasses,

You are not alone in your wish to see and understand your loved ones more clearly. Navigating estrangement and learning to tolerate our differences is a life-long process. You will get better at it, and still not “get it” all of the time. Bring your patience and compassion along to help increase the vista for the new vision you are seeking.

Best,

Kathy

P.S. If you want to practice moving through these stuck places together, I’m presenting a workshop on August 1 with Ann Dyer, the founder of Mountain Yoga. We’ll gather in Oakland and on Zoom for an afternoon of gentle yoga, journaling, and talking through how estrangement lives in the body. You can find more info and reserve your spot here: https://www.m-yoga.org/living-with-estrangement.html

Please reach out to me in the Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #46

My estrangement is SO deeply painful. How can I live with my loss while still putting one foot in front of the other? I don’t want to forget the ache—in truth I can’t—yet I want to stop being consumed by it. How do I bear this while I try to live my life?

— Hurting, wondering, trying to live

Dear Wondering,

You aren’t asking how to cure the pain, and you are not asking how to build a wall around it so you never have to feel it again. You are asking how to coexist with it. This is a thoughtful beginning.

In our culture, we are often taught that grief is a problem to be solved, a mountain to climb and descend, or a process to complete. But when it comes to the complex, Oceanic Loss of family estrangement, pushing toward completion won’t work. Your grief has no expiration date, and trying to force an “end date” only leads to exhaustion.

Grief experts have observed that when someone significant to us dies, we most often process our grief enough that we can place our loss in our back pockets. The relationship stays with us in a quieter way, most of the time. The grief doesn’t end, it lessens.

In estrangement, our loss is even more knotted. We have to tolerate bearing the possibility of hearing from them at any moment—or not hearing from them for years. Our grief can appear at any trigger, then recede. Since we know that this grief will wax and wane, what if, instead of trying to outrun it, we slow down? What if we accept it as our companion?

This past Saturday I heard Lisa Olivera read from her new book, When the Ache Remains, (https://lisaolivera.com/when-the-ache-remains) and this exact theme of integration kept echoing through the room—the idea that healing isn’t about erasing our wounds, but about expanding our lives enough to hold them. She offered a profound shift, writing:

“If you are aching, ask ‘what do you need, grief?’”

Completing her grief was impossible, so she found ways to see her grief as her companion. When you ask how to bear your grief as you live your life, you are choosing to listen to the ache rather than silence it.

Oceanic Loss: A Framework to Help Us Understand Our Grieving

Through my work with families, I have developed the Oceanic Loss framework, which moves through three fluid phases:

1. The initial shock of the Tidal Wave

2. The unpredictable swells of Rough Waters

3. The more resting state of Calmer Seas

Right now, you are navigating Rough Waters. The initial shock has passed, but your sea is still choppy. Your first instinct might be to fight the current or swim away from the breakers.

But walking alongside your pain—asking it what it needs—is actually how you slow down fighting the tide. It is how we learn to float with the ache, allowing the waves to rise and fall without being pulled under. The ocean of your loss doesn’t disappear, but it becomes a body of water you are learning how to navigate.

When in Oceanic Grief: How to Stay Afloat

• Slow the Internal Rip Tide: See if you can steer your self-talk to language that offers more acceptance: “Right now, I am aching. This is the rough water I am in today, and it makes sense that I feel this way. I might be able to have other experiences today as well.”

• Ask your grief what it needs today: Look for a space for your grief to walk with you rather than consume you.

• Locate the Grief Somatically: Grief lives in your body. When the pain flares, try asking: What do I need in my body? Where do I feel the ache? Is my chest tight? Take a slow, deep breath into that tender spot.

• Ground Your Physical Self: Place a hand on your heart and your feet on the floor (thank you, Dr. Becky). Let your body know that it is safe to carry this feeling, and that you aren’t going to abandon yourself.

• Find Possible Acceptance: Part of what accentuates our pain is the belief in loss’s permanent injury to us. Accepting involves perspective-taking, where we listen to the injury we feel, but also see the possibility of new experiences as we walk through our days.

• Release the Need for Ongoing Active Mourning: Parents can feel guilty in moments when they are not missing their child, falling into a magical belief that continuous ache will somehow bring them back. This is not true. Befriending your grief will not push your child further away.

• Interrogate the “Victim” Schema: If your family of origin modeled the position of the “victim” as the primary explanation for emotional pain, that stance will visit you here. Acknowledge this view, but ask if you could see your estrangement from another perspective. The purpose is to move you into an active role—one where you have more autonomy in the architecture of your days.

So, Dear Wondering,

You ask how to bear your estrangement: possibly by feeling hurt and alive at the same time. You can carry a heavy heart while noticing the sunlight filtering through the trees.

The goal isn’t to step away from the ache. It is to begin to see that while your loss is your companion, it does not need to fully inhabit you. Your loss can be accepted as part of you, but ultimately not all of you—or who you wish to become.

Kathy

P.S. If you want to practice moving through these stuck places together, I’m presenting a workshop on August 1 with Ann Dyer, the founder of Mountain Yoga. We’ll gather in Oakland and on Zoom for an afternoon of gentle yoga, journaling, and talking through how estrangement lives in the body. You can find more info and reserve your spot here: https://www.m-yoga.org/living-with-estrangement.html

Please reach out to me in the Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #45

I think our category of estrangement with our daughter Sara (not her real name) is “low contact.” Sara texts us at the holidays and we see her once or twice a year. She wants us to work on ourselves before she will spend more time or have any more contact with us.

We recently learned that Sara has run into financial difficulties and is living on her savings. She is looking for work and the economy is terrible. We are afraid she will run out of money and health benefits and begin to have trouble paying her rent. We aren’t wealthy, but we have adequate resources to offer her help.

Should we do that, even though she offers us very little of herself? Is that like rewarding bad behavior?

Confused, a bit resentful, and wanting to help (all at once)

Dear Confused,

I am sorry to learn about you and your daughter’s circumstances. She is currently struggling financially and has been low contact with you. You know she has needs, but you are afraid to act. You don’t want to offend, you want to help, and you don’t want to feel exploited—even if it is by your own choice!

You are experiencing many conflicting emotions. Your protective parental instincts go out to your child, only to be met an instant later by the remembered sting of her low contact. It is painful to watch a daughter face the stress of finances, while you are juggling fear for her welfare with a simmering resentment over her boundaries.

Money is a difficult topic, period, but estrangement adds a another layer of complexity. It transforms financial support from a gesture of care into a fraught balancing act. To figure out if and how you should step in, let’s look at how money functions in family systems, and how to build a path forward.

Is Money Symbolic of Love?

In family life, money is rarely just bank accounts.

Financial Insight: As the late financial writer Jerrold Mundis observed in Earn What You Deserve, “Money is one of the premier screens onto which we project our emotional issues. We use it as a substitute for love, a weapon to punish... and a tool to control others.”

Many adult children who are financially vulnerable find themselves caught in the turbulence of what their generation calls “adulting”—the challenging process of establishing an adult identity and independence. Some step away from their families of origin because they feel unprepared for the world and feel they need separation to find themselves. They rely on peers for emotional support, but peers rarely have the capital to offer financial lifelines.

This retreat from family feels backwards to parents, who want to protect their children during life’s transitions. What makes your particular scenario so difficult is the prospect of offering material support to Sara in the absence of being able to offer comfort or advice-giving. It is chastening to feel like the only valued offer would be financial. And will Sara be able to tell that this IS an offering of love, in the form of financial support?

How Money Comes Up

In our current economy, it is difficult for younger generations to secure work that covers basic living expenses, let alone create a financial buffer. While financial struggle is an age-old human trial—and many parents survived it without family assistance—having the means to help changes the equation for you.

When resources are available, I typically see two distinct scenarios emerge in estranged families:

• Some families stretch to offer help: Parents have just enough funds to help. Even if it requires a tight squeeze, they would vastly prefer to stretch their resources than endure the worries of knowing their child is suffering.

• Some families wind up in a Tug-of-War: In these families, all members are aware that adequate resources exist, but confusion arises over control. Parents view the resources as theirs to distribute under their own terms, while adult children view it as collective “family money.” This mismatch can become an entrenched power struggle, where children sometimes estrange as a way to protest parental financial control.

How It Can Feel to Offer Money in Estrangement

Offering support during low-contact leaves a parent wondering: What does my gesture mean to my child? Am I unwittingly supporting her decision to cut me off? Parents worry that giving money validates their own exploitation, yet they simultaneously fear that withholding it will harm their child and their relationship.

Clinical Framework: As family expert Dr. Joshua Coleman warns in The Rules of Estrangement, “Using money as a tool to leverage contact, control behavior, or express resentment is rarely successful. If you decide to give, give cleanly. When gifts have strings attached, they cease to be gifts and become transactions—ones that adult children will often refuse if the emotional cost is too high.”

Sharing money under these terms is emotionally expensive. Parents frequently tell me they feel reduced to a faceless wallet or a bank.

When parents try to alleviate this agonizing “ATM feeling” by tying financial help directly to a requirement for contact, it almost always backfires. While an adult child might temporarily agree to the deal to keep a roof over their head, they are forced into a terrible dilemma: compromising their boundaries just to survive. This turns a parent-child relationship into a transaction that ultimately does not benefit your relationship.

Determining What is Best for Your Family

It is common that control over family resources lies with parents. However, when the means are there, you could think about offering structured, thought-through generosity. To ensure your offer preserves your dignity and respects Sara’s current boundaries, it’s best to lessen your emotional expectations. You may find you still have them, but you will be aware of your need for caution with your own heart.

Possible Steps for Thinking and Planning:

• Examine Your Intentions First: Have an honest conversation with your spouse. Can you afford to give this money as a gift of support? Check in with your financial and emotional baseline: are you ready to send this help without expecting an increase in contact, an apology, or a progress report?

• Propose a Structure: Do not make an open-ended offer like “let us know if you need money,” which can feel intrusive or infantilizing to an adult child fighting for independence. Instead, define a clear financial plan upfront. Offer to cover her rent for a specific period—such as six months—while she navigates her job search. Plan a check-in time, designated only for the subject of funds.

• De-Link the Money from Contact: To lower Sara’s defenses and honor her terms, clarify in writing that this gift has no hidden hooks. A simple, direct note is best: “We know the job market is incredibly tough right now and we want to make sure your housing is secure. We want to cover your rent for the next six months. We respect your need for space, so this offer comes with no expectations for increased contact.”

• Keep Your Eyes and Heart on the Long Term: Remind yourselves that stepping in during a structural crisis is not “rewarding bad behavior.” It is an honest demonstration of parental love and goodwill. You are showing her that even when your relationship is in Rough Waters, your care for her fundamental safety remains absolute.

You can’t know the outcome of your offer or support ahead of time. You are giving because you will feel better parenting in this way, and you will be relieved that your child has support in her difficult transition into adulthood.

So, Dear Confused,

Thank you for opening up this conversation on such a fraught topic. My wish is for you and your spouse to find a way to support Sara that honors your protective instincts, preserves your personal dignity, and leaves the door quietly open for future healing when the season changes.

Best,

Kathy

P.S. If you want to practice moving through these stuck places together, I’m presenting a workshop on August 1 with Ann Dyer, the founder of Mountain Yoga. We’ll gather in Oakland and on Zoom for an afternoon of gentle yoga, journaling, and talking through how estrangement lives in the body. You can find more info and reserve your spot here: https://www.m-yoga.org/living-with-estrangement.html

Please reach out to me in the Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #44

Estrangement is usually approached through words: explaining, analyzing, remembering, and trying to understand. So combining estrangement work with yoga may initially seem like an unusual choice.

But estrangement does not live only in our thoughts. It can also show up in our bodies—as tightness, guarding, collapse, restlessness, or the feeling that we are bracing for something that has already happened.

Yoga can help us become more grounded, and open as we approach the emotional places in estrangement that words alone do not always reach.

Workshop Details

Living With Estrangement: A Better Way Forward

Saturday, August 1 · 2:00–5:00 p.m.

Attend in person at Mountain Yoga in Oakland or join us on Zoom

With Kathy Sinsheimer, MFT, and Ann Dyer Cervantes

Learn more and reserve your spot

“From the voice behind the Substack Dear Estranged, this workshop offers a compassionate space for navigating the reality of estrangement—when contact with someone you love is limited or nonexistent.

Therapist Kathy Sinsheimer brings clarity and care to this often-unspoken experience, offering insights and practices intended to support everyone affected by estrangement.

We begin by focusing on you: your feelings, questions, and hopes. For a little while, we step back from trying to solve the relationship itself and make room for your own experience.

From there, we explore the dynamics of estrangement—how it lives in relationships, in our thinking, and in the body. Through reflection, conversation, and gentle yoga led by Ann, you will have an opportunity to soften some of the “closed spaces” where pain, fear, and disconnection can take hold.

We then turn gently toward the relationship itself, making room for new perspectives and possibilities without forcing a particular outcome.

You will leave with additional tools, greater understanding, and a more compassionate way of holding what is. Whether your estrangement is recent or long-standing, you are not alone.”

The Mountain Yoga Website

Learn more and reserve your place in the workshop

Please feel free to contact me: ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

You and others write about an adult child’s need to estrange themselves in order to separate and individuate. Ok, I can see why an adult child needs to do that. But why do they need to make the parents so bad in the process? It’s one thing to need distance, like moving 2000 miles away so it requires planning and a plane flight to see each other, but why so negative? It’s almost as if they need a scapegoat in order to step away. And, if that’s true, why is it happening with such ferocity and frequency? I know there is a cultural trend, but still!!??

— Not Wishing to be a Scapegoat

Dear Not Wishing,

You ask a very important question about our collective need for scapegoats. It seems that in the landscape of estrangement, there is active finger-pointing. Across the generations, family members are frequently casting one another into rigid, negative roles to explain the need for rifts in their relationships. Personal flaws are quickly recharacterized as psychological deficits, individuals are labeled as narcissistic or borderline, and mental health diagnoses are frequently hurled across the divide. In the case of these rapid diagnoses in particular, I blame—see? There’s my own scapegoat—I blame the internet for making clinical labels so readily available without the necessary, responsible descriptions and warnings.

Scapegoats serve us when we cannot find the bandwidth to take responsibility ourselves. We wish to eject our difficult feelings outside of our own skin, hoping that someone else will take the blame. The image of the scapegoat comes from the Old Testament, where a goat was burdened with the community’s collective guilt and cast out into the barren wilderness, symbolically carrying away the sins of the population.

In modern terms, we still use scapegoats to unjustly weigh down an individual, group, or entity with faults, mistakes, or wrongdoings. This concept is incredibly useful in explaining the current phenomenon of estrangement, where an outside force is often designated as the cause of our personal discomfort.

In asking this question, you have highlighted a deeply painful period in the lives of families today: the widespread need that adult children are expressing for cut-off. There is a well-understood developmental need for a young person to separate—a vital stage of growth termed Identity vs. Role Confusion by psychologist Erik Erikson in 1950, though present for centuries before. Most of my readers will recognize this fluid, turbulent phase in their own histories.

What I hope to explain is how that healthy, normal developmental need has shifted from a phase we all recognize into something as absolute as a total relational cut-off. And I want to see if I can explore our situation without simply pointing fingers outside of ourselves.

Let’s start with how we are handling our analysis of this situation. Blame is currently being placed everywhere—within the family as well as on technology and society at large. Yet, where there are many locations of responsibility, we may be overlooking our own personal contributions to this phenomenon. When we look closer at this cultural moment, a striking pattern emerges: there are many scapegoats in our dialogue about estrangement.

We are living in a climate of dissatisfaction, where both generations are locked in painful, reciprocal blame, using similar language to describe one another:

• From the adult child’s perspective, parents are often seen as immature, narcissistic, lacking psychological awareness, or self-involved.

• From the parent’s perspective, adult children are frequently viewed as insensitive, coddled, withholding, unkind, or even cruel.

• And collectively, society and culture are cast as external villains, with social media, smartphones, and a hyper-individualism being blamed as the authors of the family rupture.

I want to be clear that I believe the above list includes very real contributors—it’s just that the challenges are within us as well as outside us.

The reality is that the adult children I talk with are working hard at “adulting.” It is not easy, and there is a great deal of quiet suffering involved. Many are trying to look entirely confident in their choices, yet they are often left secretly needing the very support and guidance they felt forced to cut off in order to feel independent.

At the same time, the parents I talk with are also distressed and uncomfortable. Many have lost their planned-for parental and grandparental roles while simultaneously navigating the everyday realities of aging, retirement, and a challenging social and political climate. Are our scapegoats truly helping us with our challenges?

The Universal Reflex to Offload Pain (to Scapegoat)

What does a scapegoat actually offer us? At its core, a scapegoat is a psychological relief valve. Humans have a low tolerance for sitting with uncomfortable internal anxiety. When life feels overwhelming, unpredictable, or deeply unsatisfying, looking inward and holding those responses is painful.

We look for an outside object to receive our “bad feelings,” so we don’t have to experience the weight of them within ourselves.

• For a young adult trying to forge an identity in a challenging world, it can make sense to point backward and say, “I am unhappy because of how I was raised.”

• For a parent watching a beloved child walk away, it is an equally powerful survival instinct to point outward and say, “My family is broken because of technology or an entitled generation.”

By placing the locus of the trouble in an external source, both sides offer themselves temporary psychological relief. The narrative shifts from internal vulnerability to a neat, orderly analysis: I am OK, and you are the problem.

No One is Winning

The tragedy of this moment is that everyone is participating in the same script, but not arriving at a collaborative conclusion. The adult child’s goal—the search for autonomy and a stable identity—is entirely legitimate. The parent’s goal—the desire for connection, meaning, and mutual respect—is also entirely legitimate.

But if we lack the relational tools to help these two competing, necessary goals meet in the middle, the system freezes. Instead of a gradual, messy developmental step into adulthood, we wind up with the phenomenon of cut-off. We don’t have space to value each other’s inner worlds because we do not know how to be in the complicated space of being different while staying connected.

Maturity for both a parent and an adult child begins when we drop our scapegoats. It happens when we realize that our parents, our children, and even our smartphones are not all-powerful forces responsible for our struggles. Until we can stand confidently in our own lives, owning our struggles and sitting with our shadows without needing an adversary to blame, we will find it difficult to process the very anxieties we are trying to cast away.

How to Rescue Ourselves from the Scapegoat Trap

Within yourself:

• Notice when you blame something outside yourself. This is vastly different from seeking an explanation. Fuller explanation includes an accounting of our own actions—blame looks only outward.

• Observe the desire to avoid personal “fault.” Victimhood is a highly prevalent identity in modern culture—and who doesn’t feel like a victim sometimes? But remaining in a passive, wounded position rarely brings us to a solution that offers a possibility for future growth.

• Ask yourself if there is something you could learn about yourself by taking in what your “scapegoater” is telling you. There may be useful truths within their complaints that could help your relationship.

• Work on listening to others, even if it’s painful. We don’t love to hear these truths about ourselves, but we can grow by saying “Ouch”, recovering, and working to take in the information.

Finding and Keeping Your Center to Find Clarity:

• Engage in intentional, mindful movement. Practices like breathwork, yoga, swimming, or dedicated walking help slow down a racing mind. This physical centering allows us to cultivate a perspective that exists outside of our immediate emotional reactivity and to look within.

• Ensure your self-care contains a return to internal rhythm. Build routines that actively nurture you, giving you the replenishment you need to re-find balance when it eludes you and the temptation of a scapegoat beckons.

________________________________

So, Dear Not Wishing,

I wish this for you as well—to not be a scapegoat, and to choose to not welcome one of your own. The more you can find your own balance, anchored by a broadened perspective, the more you will be able to experience a kind of centeredness that will steady you as you walk through your days.

Best,

Kathy

P.S. If you want to practice moving through these stuck places together, I’m presenting a workshop on August 1 with Ann Dyer, the founder of Mountain Yoga. We’ll gather in Oakland and on Zoom for an afternoon of gentle yoga, journaling, and talking through how estrangement lives in the body. You can find more info and reserve your spot here: https://www.m-yoga.org/living-with-estrangement.html

Please reach out to me in the Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #43

I have been wanting to change my name to try to reclaim myself. I have already done this with my parents—I call them by their given names instead of Mom and Dad. It reminds me that besides being my parents, they are ordinary people, too. But that still leaves me with the feeling that I am not my own person. I’ve continued to use the name my parents gave me, but I am thinking of trying a new name. Would that help me feel more like I could reclaim myself?

—Wondering about My Name

Dear Wondering,

You ask a deep and important question: How do I claim who I am for myself? You have taken an intentional step by shifting what you call your parents. Dropping the titles “Mom” and “Dad” in favor of their given names can create a notable psychological shift. For many adult children, this isn’t done out of cruelty, but out of a desire for emotional distance. It can symbolically remove the weight of your parents authority, helping you see them not through the lens of your childhood dependency, but as separate, complex individuals who have their own histories and struggles.

But as you’ve discovered, changing what you call your parents only goes partway. It creates space, but it doesn’t necessarily fill that space with the clarity you are seeking. As you look to shed the identity you developed growing up in your home, you are wondering if changing your given name would help with that process.

Names Hold Meaning and History

Names can carry a multiplicity of meanings. Long before a child arrives, parents dream, hope, reflect upon their ancestries, and respond to internal wishes as they choose baby names. They might name a baby for an important ancestor to anchor them to a lineage, or choose a name like Roberta to connect them to a father. Sometimes a name reflects a family’s lack of preparation or a sudden surprise—like a hurried nickname when they were expecting a boy and gave birth to a girl.

Naming raises the fundamental question: How do we come to know who we are in the first place?

Psychological theories suggest that identity is initially built through how others respond to us. In early childhood, we develop what sociologist Charles Cooley called the “looking-glass self”—we learn who we are through the reflections, reactions, and expectations of our primary caregivers. If they look at us and see someone able, fragile, or responsible, we see that reflection as who we are. As we grow, we become more aware of own views and perceptions of who we are—an important step toward individuation.

In mid-late adolescence, we enter what psychologist Erik Erikson called the “Identity vs. Role Confusion” phase of development. In this stage, our central task is to more completely separate from our family narrative and form an independent sense of ourselves. Finding our adult identity requires us to turn our gaze away from the family mirror to determine which parts of us were accurately reflected, and which parts we need to re-claim for ourselves.

Does My Name = Me?

Because we are called our name multiple times daily as we grow, our given name inevitably becomes fused with who we are. Our family dynamics contribute heavily to the shaping of that identity. If you grew up feeling you needed to be the quiet one, the high-achiever, or the emotional caretaker, your birth name can become deeply intertwined with the roles you assumed.

Relationship expert Esther Perel speaks to the internal struggle between connection and autonomy—the lifelong dance of “How do I connect to you without losing me?” When an adult child experiences deep emotional suffering within the family system, they may feel the only way to develop a separate identity is to step away. This need not sever the connection, but will require adjustment from all family members.

Shedding or altering their given name is a way for some to claim their separate identity. Narrative Therapy speaks directly to this power of “re-authoring” our lives. Choosing a new name can serve as a declaration of your readiness to write a new chapter of your identity in your own words.

I think of a friend who spent her early life in the role of the cute, placating girl, and later, woman. In childhood, her natural charm was how she navigated her parents’ high-conflict relationship. As an adult, that role no longer served her; it kept her from expressing her own capacities, intelligence, and autonomy. As she worked to claim her own authority, she chose to change her name to one that felt more genuine to how she perceived herself and who she wanted to become. Her new name acted as a clear signal that she was transitioning into a life where she could be strong rather than accommodating.

Making Use of the Power of Names and Naming

If you are reflecting on your own relationship to your name, consider these practical steps and entry points:

• Notice your internal response: Do a scan of how you respond when you hear your name. What do you notice? Are you comfortable with what your name brings up, or does the resonance of your name bring wishes for change, not only in your past, but in your future?

• Explore the origin: Understand the history of your given name and consider if you wish to continue to identify with that origin or disconnect from it. Does your name currently feel like a gift, a burden, or both?

• Evaluate the relational impact: Consider the power of the name those closest to you call you. Are there aspects of those relationships that could change in a positive way if you alter the name you are called?

• Test it with loved ones: If you want to try a new name, start with a temporary change among a small circle of close, willing friends. See if the new name brings you the sense of fresh possibility you are hoping for. If it feels comfortable, you can gradually broaden the circle.

• Try reframing: If you don’t want to change your name, but you do want to change your association with it, look to Buddhist teacher Pema Chödrön. She suggests that we often get hooked by the rigid narratives of our past pain, and advises learning to sit with the raw, unconditioned self underneath those labels. You can practice viewing your given name not as an anchor to childhood struggles, but simply as a word—one that you could redefine with your own adult meaning.

• Explore alternative tools: Remember that changing a name is only one path. Other powerful ways to shift your self-perception include psychotherapy, support groups, journaling, or taking up entirely new practices—such as meditation, new forms of movement (like yoga), joining communities aligned with your aspirations, or engaging in activities that feel more congruent with who you are becoming.

_________________________________

So, Dear Wondering,

Naming is clearly on your mind: both what you are called and what you call others. You are hoping to change your experience with others as well as your self-perception. There are many paths to achieving this, and changing your name is a powerful option you can try.

I support you in finding ways to experience yourself as you would like to become and being seen by others as you wish to be seen.

Best,

Kathy

P.S. If you want to practice moving through these stuck places together, I’m presenting a workshop on August 1 with Ann Dyer, the founder of Mountain Yoga. We’ll gather in Oakland and on Zoom for an afternoon of gentle yoga, journaling, and talking through how estrangement lives in the body. You can find more info and reserve your spot here: https://www.m-yoga.org/living-with-estrangement.html

Please reach out to me in the Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #42

Six months ago, my close friendship of many years ended in a note on a card. We had a pet name we called each other. Over the years, we always started our cards “Dear (pet name).” This card began “Dear (my real name).” We’ve processed things over the years, and I thought we were doing a good job of airing our differences. In the card, she ended our friendship and asked me not to contact her. My heart hurts. I’ve been working with the pain, and it’s gotten better, but sometimes, Yikes!

A meditation column I subscribe to suggests that friendship loss is a growth opportunity—that every moment of growth is also a small death as you leave something behind. Can you help me see how to take some of those small steps while grieving? I might be stuck.

Shocked, Grieving, and a Little Curious

Dear Shocked, Grieving, and Curious,

I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of your friendship. Your friend couldn’t keep working on the relationship problems with you, and gave up your friendship instead. In my Oceanic Loss model, you are past the Tidal Wave (the shock phase) and are currently in Rough Waters. Several of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s phases of grief apply here; you are no longer in Denial, but you may very well be experiencing Anger and Depression as you struggle toward Acceptance.

Accepting estrangement is very challenging. You’re accepting the absence of someone who is very much alive—an experience that is incredibly different from accepting the loss of someone who has died. Their choice to estrange you is deeply hurtful because it is a form of rejection. When we are rejected, we feel devalued, dismissed, unwanted.

A very small version of this is when someone gives us the Silent Treatment. The silent one acts as if you are not worth their attention or conversation, but they remain nearby. Their silence serves as a protest over your behavior. As the recipient of the silent treatment, you know that—even though it can sometimes feel like a long silence—it is temporary. In estrangement, your loved one takes themselves away not temporarily, but in a manner that seems permanent.

Your friend couldn’t find a way to successfully share with you what she wanted you to know was wrong. I don’t know if she tried or she didn’t, but ultimately, she felt she couldn’t convey what she wanted to, so she stepped away. In a long life, I wonder if almost everyone winds up on one side or the other of this experience at least once. Having to leave someone because you can’t communicate what you feel you need to can be very painful. Being left because communication has failed is reciprocally painful. No one comes out a winner.

Friendship Breakup Hurts!

Last year, I was close to a friend breakup. I will call the friends “Susan” and “Maddy.” They were very close, exchanging messages daily and serving as an important part of each other’s support systems. For Susan, something had shifted in their relationship—she felt Maddy had become inexplicably aggressive towards her. No amount of trying to talk together conveyed how Susan felt Maddy was mistreating her.

When Maddy couldn’t take in Susan’s concerns, Susan explained she had to take a break in the friendship until she felt Maddy could stop being aggressive. Susan was devastated. Their friendship was deeply meaningful and now taking a break was her only option. Their break has become more-or-less permanent, as the communication impasse continued.

The breakup has been deeply painful for both of them. Maddy has been hurt, and Susan is in pain as well, missing Maddy and experiencing her frustration at not being understood. I think when we are the rejected one, it can be difficult to realize that the rejecting one could be feeling awful as well. I promise neither side feels good.

I hope it helps to hear that friends go through this. It must have hurt not to see your pet name on your friend’s card. I am guessing she felt a kind of powerlessness in your friendship dynamic and was trying to regain a sense of control. If she wrote your given name and not your pet name, she could gain a sense of distance. (I often find a parallel dynamic where estranged adult children call their parents by their first names. I think they are trying to re-identify their parents as ordinary humans, to remove them from their key parental role.) It probably seemed like your friend took the upper hand, but more likely she was trying to get a grip on a ledge in order not to fall.

Breakup is a Growth Opportunity? You Have to be Kidding Me!

Of course at first, when we are rejected, we don’t think: This is a growth opportunity! My friend has dumped me and I want to grow! (Ugh!) But we can try to get there.

“Every becoming is built on a small dying.” — From Meditate with Heart

In other words, when you are in pain, the energy of that pain could start a small fire in you that helps you grow through and then beyond the pain.

How IS this a growth opportunity? Take time to examine how your friendship was working for you, as well. Were there things you wanted to flag but couldn’t figure out how? Could there have been a way you were outgrowing the friendship and were unaware? Had you recreated unhealthy patterns from your earlier family life that you wanted to change?

For example, we may find ourselves reenacting relationship dynamics from growing up. Susan and Maddy had a power dynamic in their relationship modeled on their earlier family lives. Susan was a little afraid of Maddy. Maddy brought a need for power into the relationship, and for quite a while, Susan complied, trying to please Maddy to keep her happy and preserve their friendship. These roles were familiar, and worked until something shifted.

It’s possible Susan had become less amenable to placating Maddy, and this had caused Maddy to up the ante—to be more aggressive, hoping to reassert her power. This made Susan even less willing, leading to her pulling away. Enacting their dynamics from their own families initially brought them together because they were familiar. Later, fatigue with playing these roles led to the dissolution of their relationship.

She Won’t Communicate—What Do I Do?

You have been silenced in your friendship—a place no one likes.

What to do? Try journaling. You have not been silenced to yourself. Write what you would have liked to say. What you would have liked to work out. What you wanted to make understood that you couldn’t.

As you reach beyond that friendship loss to create new opportunities for closeness, one thing you will see is how you may have relied upon that friend in areas of both strength and weakness. There may be ways you have grown beyond your friend that you only see as you step into a future without her. Perhaps when you had a particular type of problem, you always took it to her, almost reflexively. Without her, what do you notice? You may find that you actually have learned and can problem-solve on your own some of the time. You may find that others have good ideas to help you with difficulties in ways that are unexpected. There may be new people that you want to know, or people who have been more peripheral in your life that you want to know better—all of whom can enrich your life now that you are looking at the world differently.

Two things are key here:

• Your friendship was valuable and important to you. It can still be in your heart and memory. In a way, your friend lives inside you and will always be there.

• There are people in your life who want to know you and support you. When you look at them with fresh eyes, you will find opportunities for new, enriching connections that you hadn’t seen before.

Ways to Reframe

• You didn’t volunteer for this growth opportunity, but embrace it. Estrangement is a deeply painful human experience. Looking for ways to grow within your estrangement will help you process and move forward.

• Journal to memorialize: Write about your friendship in valuing ways to honor the genuine good that it held.

• Talk with trusted friends: Allow yourself to be angry and let others support you in that anger. But also remember to hold space for the value of what you once had with each other.

• Create a small ceremony: Value your lost friendship with a personal ritual. This is a way to complete your old chapter and to intentionally begin a new one.

• Honor your history: That friendship will always be important and meaningful to you, even as you move on. Be as respectful of the friendship and your feelings of loss as you can be.

• Build a stepping stone: Finding a way to let the loss be a catalyst for self-discovery values both you and the journey you shared.

_______________

So, Dear Shocked, Grieving and Curious,

Your heart hurts at the loss of your deep, long friendship. There is extra sting because you were rejected by your friend. It seemed like she gave up instead of trying to work things out. Of course that is hurtful, as if you were being dismissed. My sense is that your friend didn’t have the capacity to let you know what she hoped to convey to you, and instead circled her wagons. This is a loss for both of you—you couldn’t have the difficult but generative conversations your friendship needed. You would have tried if you had been given the opportunity.

My wish for you is that your stepping stone emerges as the swirling waters subside. And that your growth from your loss serves you well as you offer your heart connection to lucky others in your future human connections.

Best,

Kathy

P.S. If you want to practice moving through these stuck places together, I’m presenting a workshop on August 1 with Ann Dyer, the founder of Mountain Yoga. We’ll gather in Oakland and on Zoom for an afternoon of gentle yoga, journaling, and talking through how estrangement lives in the body. You can find more info and reserve your spot here: https://www.m-yoga.org/living-with-estrangement.html

Please reach out to me in the Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #41

You suggest being in touch with my feelings. The estrangement blogs on Substack talk about sadness, anger, resentment, grief, fear—all of it. Sometimes my estrangement is so overwhelming that I can’t tell what I am feeling. I’m not even sure I CAN feel. If being in touch with my feelings is supposed to help, what if I am numb?

And WHY am I numb? I was never good at naming my feelings. Now, I either feel numb or like I am drowning. Can you help me sort this out?

— Confused, Troubled and Numb

Dear Confused and Numb,

You are probably experiencing emotional overwhelm from having too many feelings at once. If you were never very good at identifying your feelings, and now you are flooded with them, your numbness may come from overload. Estrangement often brings a deluge of cascading responses. Picture yourself under a waterfall with the water pounding over you. Estrangement can be an emotional version of that pounding, surging, relentless stream.

You shared that you were never very good at naming your feelings. Learning to know what we are feeling—to identify what we are feeling, name it, get to know that feeling and work with it—is a lifelong challenge for many of us.

Why Feelings Go Incognito

There are three main reasons why we have trouble naming our feelings:

• A Breakdown in Connection: The psychological term for having “no words for emotion” is alexithymia. When this happens, your body can be having physical feeling responses—your heart is racing, you may be tearing up, in other words using the language of the body. However, the language of your body is not connecting to the language of your mind. You have no words.

• A Learned Defense: If you grew up in a home where your feelings were dismissed, ignored, or met with, “Stop crying,” you learned very early that having emotions was unsafe or even dangerous. You may not have had help understanding what you were feeling, or how to learn from emotional experience. To survive, you built a habit of suppressing feelings. Decades later, those neural pathways connecting your physical body to your conscious awareness have lost strength and may need to go to an emotions gym.

• The Subconscious Shield: Sometimes, your mind draws a line for self-protection. When an emotion-filled experience like estrangement is too threatening to bear, your subconscious may step in to shield you. You may wind up numb or begin to intellectualize to keep you from drowning in the impact. The numbing is protecting you.

The Contribution of Parenting

Those who raised us are our first teachers about our emotional life. Our body shows us what we are feeling with physical surges of sorrow, anger, disappointment, joy, desire. The first people who help us translate those surges into words and teach us to be emotionally aware about ourselves and others are our caregivers. A number of my readers are parents, so you will also know this from teaching your own children about their emotional lives.

When we are babies, if we show a feeling, and our caring adult can help us, they will name the feeling and offer help. They give us words: “You are sad or mad or disappointed”—whatever their best guess is about the feelings you are expressing. They also may offer solutions, like, with a baby, soothing the baby, or with a young child, offering words and possible solutions.

“You were so excited about your ice cream cone that you were swinging it around. Then the ice cream fell off on the ground and you were so mad and disappointed. First, let’s see if we can take some breaths to calm down. Then, let’s see if there is any more ice cream.” We offer words, self-soothing, and a possible solution.

You don’t say what your parents did to try to help with your feelings. Not all parents can. Learning to know what you are feeling and how to work with your feelings helps us function in the world. Not being aware can make things harder during emotional stress.

Feeling numb in the face of estrangement may seem disabling to you. Whether you felt the need to estrange, or your close other (child, sister, friend) felt the need to estrange you, it helps to know what you are feeling in order to unpack your internal experience. This, in turn, should help you metabolize your experience.

What I mean by metabolize is to digest and process—turning the thoughts and feelings into understanding and ideas for yourself in the face of your estrangement. This, in turn, could help you better understand your estranged loved one.

If you find you are struggling to feel your feelings, to know, name and express them, I want to offer some explanations and suggestions.

How Do Feelings Happen in My Body?

It helps to understand the ways feelings show up:

• Physiologically: Feelings happen in the body. You might find yourself crying before you even have a conscious thought about why. Your fists might clench and your blood might course before you register the word: Anger.

• Mental Functioning: Your brain may quickly engage with thoughts, sometimes swirling, about what is going on. Typically, emotions emerge as more raw experiences, and are often more black and white. Remember a moment when a song or a movie scene affected you. You were instantly smiling or crying. Then the feeling became more nuanced, perhaps even bitter-sweet. Feelings evolve from their initial moment and can become more complex.

• Mixed Feelings: Emotions are rarely one feeling at once—this ups the level of challenge when trying to understand your feelings. Consider the sibling whose sister made the baseball team when he didn’t. He might feel a dizzying mixture of emotions all at once: proud of his sister, envious that she gets to play, ashamed that he didn’t make the cut, angry at the coach, and embarrassed to sit in the stands.

Sorting through a crowded experience of emotions requires a feelings vocabulary and emotional facility. If your caretakers couldn’t give you those words, you aren’t failing at feeling—you just haven’t been taught the language yet.

Dr. Becky Kennedy, a clinical psychologist known for her work on emotional regulation, often reminds parents—and adults looking to heal—of a fundamental truth:

“To a child, an unnamed feeling feels like a dangerous ghost. When we name the feeling, we take away its power to terrify. The same is true for the child still living inside you.”

To move out of numbness, treat yourself with the same patience, perception, and compassion you would offer a child who is learning something new.

Getting Better at Knowing What You are Feeling

As a therapist, I, of course, recommend psychotherapy to help you be more in touch with your feelings. But, therapy isn’t for everybody. Here are some other options if you haven’t found therapy helpful, don’t have the time or resources, or feel therapy isn’t for you:

• A Two-Second Reset: Before doing any big emotional work, focus on slowing down and establishing safety. Put both feet flat on the floor until you feel your muscles anchor. Place one hand on your heart and one on your belly, and take just one breath where your exhale is longer than your inhale. Tell yourself: “I am safe in this room right now.” Take more similar breaths to help you slow down if one is not enough. Thank you, Dr. Becky, for this model.

• Conduct a Body Scan: Take time to slow down and conduct a body scan. You can find guided body scans on the internet. Pick one that you feel is your frequency: pacing, language, length and good closure.

• Journal to Express and Metabolize Your Thoughts: Make one entry where you write the facts of what is going on. Read your entry and then write your responses to what you just wrote. Be compassionate towards yourself as you write and respond.

• Explore Somatic Practices: Take expressive movement classes or begin a yoga practice that helps you focus on your breathing and your body. Look for gentle, slow approaches to opening your body that are specifically designed to help your nervous system safely reconnect with your physical sensations.

• Start Group Work: Find a support or therapy group designed to help you process your experience with others. Be sure the approach is open, supportive and at a comfortable pace.

____________________________

So, Dear Confused and Numb,

You have asked a brave question. To know your feelings better is a challenging journey. Please be sure you have enough support from friends and family, and that your helpers such as your yoga instructor or support group leader are compassionate and kind.

You will need to feel safe as you open up to a world of feelings that you have, for good reason, shut off until now.

The world of feelings is vast, rich, painful and joyful. I wish you well on your journey toward more fully feeling.

Best,

Kathy

P.S. If you want to practice moving through these stuck places together, I’m presenting a workshop on August 1 with Ann Dyer, the founder of Mountain Yoga. We’ll gather in Oakland and on Zoom for an afternoon of gentle yoga, journaling, and talking through how estrangement lives in the body. You can find more info and reserve your spot here: https://www.m-yoga.org/living-with-estrangement.html

Please reach out to me in the Comments Section or at ksinsheimermft@gmail.com

This is column #40