It’s Not You: Why Your Family Stresses You Out & What To Do About It

In this insightful conversation between Mel Robbins and Dr. Mariel Buqué, they explore the enduring impacts of generational pain, the process of breaking harmful family cycles, and the profound journey of healing oneself emotionally and neurologically. Dr. Buqué emphasizes personal responsibility in healing, the complexities of family dynamics, especially among siblings and eldest daughters, and offers practical strategies for nervous system regulation and emotional literacy. The discussion sheds light on how trauma manifests differently across genders, the importance of compassion for imperfect parents, and the critical first steps towards transformation.

Carrying Generations of Pain

Dr. Buqué opens by highlighting how individuals often carry the accumulated emotional wounds of preceding generations, which can make their own feelings overwhelming and healing seem unattainable. However, she assures listeners that despite this weight, there is always an opportunity to create a new, healthier legacy. Breaking free requires courage and conscious choice, starting with acknowledging these inherited pains and the desire to heal.

The Myth of the Perfect Parent

A key message is that no one has a perfect parent, nor can perfect parenting exist. Parents before us were often unaware of their wounds or the impact of their behaviors and simply did the best they could with the resources available to them. Recognizing this humanity in our parents shifts our perspective, allowing us to grieve what was lacking without demonizing them. This understanding is essential in breaking generational cycles without being trapped by resentment.

Healing Among Siblings and Birth Order Dynamics

Dr. Buqué explains that siblings experience family life differently due to birth order, gender roles, and other factors, meaning no two siblings share the exact same childhood landscape. For example, eldest daughters often become "parentified children," taking on caregiving and responsibility prematurely, which leads to deep emotional wounds. Healing within sibling relationships can be powerful but also complicated when experiences diverge significantly, especially if some siblings deny or minimize certain family realities.

The Eldest Daughter's Unique Wounds

The role of the eldest daughter as a family fixer can lead to lifelong patterns of self-denial, overachievement, and difficulty expressing needs or receiving care. She often sacrifices her childhood and personal needs to maintain family stability. Recovery for her involves learning to receive support without guilt, trusting others to meet her needs, and redefining her relationships by repairing or setting boundaries as necessary.

Compassion for Parents' Limitations

Dr. Buqué stresses the importance of holding space for the fact that many parents inadvertently hurt their children not out of malice, but due to their own unresolved trauma, mental health challenges, or lack of awareness. This compassion allows us to see our parents fully—flawed, human, and limited—without excusing harmful behavior but with a clearer, less reactive lens. It also guides decisions about boundaries and engagement based on realistic expectations.

The Burden of Being the Family Fixer

Growing up in families affected by addiction, emotional immaturity, or neglect often forces children into hypervigilance and caretaking roles, limiting their ability to rest or process emotions healthily. This trauma manifests in adulthood as chronic exhaustion, mental fog, and difficulties with presence and self-care. Understanding this pattern explains why such individuals often struggle with over-functioning and offers a path toward nervous system regulation.

Gender Differences in Trauma Expression

Cultural conditioning shapes how men and women process and express trauma differently. Women are more prone to internalizing pain and emotional suppression, sometimes developing autoimmune conditions as a physiological response. Men tend to externalize through anger or withdrawal but often suffer quietly due to societal stigmas against emotional expression. Dr. Buqué emphasizes the need for more inclusive healing spaces that encourage men to engage with their emotions safely.

Taking the First Courageous Step: Naming the Truth

The foundational act in breaking familial trauma is honest acknowledgement—naming the truths one has long buried, whether abuse, neglect, or emotional pain. This requires bringing family secrets into the light, at least internally, and validating one's experience without relying on others' acknowledgment, which may never come. Naming the truth empowers internal validation, setting the stage for transformation.

Navigating Invalidations and Lack of Support

When engaging in healing, many face skepticism or minimization from family members who deny their experiences or accuse them of exaggeration. Dr. Buqué advises that external validation is not necessary for healing; it is an internal endeavor. Recalibrating expectations about family responses and learning to auto-validate one's feelings and experiences are crucial tools in sustaining emotional wellness.

What Healthy Healing Looks Like Daily

Healing need not be an all-consuming effort but can be integrated into daily "micro moments" of self-care and nervous system regulation. Dr. Buqué suggests simple practices such as visualization, affirmations, deep breathing, and gentle movement throughout the day. These small acts cumulatively foster calm, presence, and self-compassion without requiring drastic lifestyle changes.

Nervous System Tools: Rocking and Humming

To regulate the nervous system, Dr. Buqué highlights the power of rocking and humming. These actions engage the ventral vagal nerve, stimulating the body's parasympathetic response—promoting rest, safety, and ease. Such accessible tools can be used by anyone, including children or neurodivergent individuals, helping them self-soothe during stressful moments.

Managing Family Backlash and Emotional Triggers

Healing often triggers defensiveness and shame in family members because it exposes wounds they may not be ready or able to acknowledge. Dr. Buqué encourages patience, celebrating small moments of insight when they occur, and grieving what cannot be changed. Instead of reacting impulsively to triggers, she teaches cultivating a pause and responding from a more grounded, healed self.

Setting Boundaries While Holding Compassion

The decision to maintain contact or estrangement with difficult family members is deeply personal and context-dependent. While some situations—especially involving abuse—warrant firm boundaries or no contact, many cases benefit from holding complicated truths simultaneously: recognizing parental limitations while seeking possible connection. Compassion for oneself and others is essential in navigating these complex relational terrains.

Breaking the Cycle: Buying Back One Second

A pivotal marker of breaking generational trauma is "buying back one second" of reaction time—the ability to pause before responding to triggers. Within milliseconds, the brain assesses and chooses a new response, replacing automatic fight, flight, or freeze reactions with conscious, intention-driven actions aligned with healing and personal values. This small yet powerful shift restores agency lost in traumatic family dynamics.

Emotional Literacy as a Parental Gift

Teaching and modeling emotional literacy is paramount to preventing future generational pain. Skills such as naming emotions, expressing them openly, and demonstrating the language of repair (apologizing and making amends) equip children to navigate their emotional worlds healthily. Emotional literacy breaks the chain of suppression and shame often passed down as unconscious family legacies.

Common Ways Parents Invalidate Emotions

Even well-intentioned parents can invalidate their children's feelings by telling them not to cry or dismissing their pain as fleeting or exaggerated. Such comments discourage emotional expression and teach children to suppress their feelings. Dr. Buqué advocates for open-ended questions and curiosity—asking children how they feel and how they can be supported—as a more validating approach.

Choosing Healing Daily

Healing is described as a daily commitment to choose transformation despite setbacks or backslides. It is a continual process of returning to oneself, recalibrating responses, and nurturing self-compassion. This choice anchors the journey and keeps cycle breakers steadfast in their mission to change their family's emotional legacy.

Modeling Change within Unchanged Systems

Since family and social systems rarely change in tandem with the individual, healing often means entering familiar dynamics as a changed person. Dr. Buqué advises practicing tools in private until mastery is built, then using subtle regulation techniques—like deep breathing—to maintain calm in triggering settings. This approach disrupts dysfunctional patterns without confrontation or resistance.

The Power of Compassion for Self and Others

Finally, cultivating compassion—for oneself, for imperfect parents, and for the ancestors whose unhealed trauma shaped the present—is vital. Compassion allows holding dual truths: acknowledging harm while recognizing human limitations. It enables genuine connection, healthy boundaries, and a path toward lasting change.

Intergenerational Higher Self and Inherited Strength

Dr. Buqué introduces the concept of the intergenerational higher self—the layer of ancestral wisdom, resilience, and strength that accompanies inherited pain. Tuning into this higher self fosters self-trust, curiosity, and calm, enabling individuals to reclaim their belonging and chart a course beyond marginalization and trauma.

Navigating Estrangement in Modern Times

While protecting oneself through boundaries is necessary, the current cultural trend toward estrangement sometimes results from insufficient tools to engage in painful but necessary conversations. Dr. Buqué cautions against hastily severing ties without allowing space for healing dialogues, especially when avoidance stems from disparity in healing stages rather than extreme harm.

Addressing Impostor Syndrome through Ancestral Resilience

Dr. Buqué shares her personal experience of impostor syndrome amplified by societal marginalization but overcome by grounding herself in the strength and perseverance of her lineage. Recognizing impostor syndrome as an inherited experience reframes it from personal failure to a challenge that can be transcended by activating ancestral wisdom.

The Importance of Sharing This Work Across Genders and Generations

Given the underrepresentation of men in seeking emotional healing, the conversation advocates for expanding resources and safe spaces for all genders. Sharing knowledge about trauma, emotional literacy, and nervous system regulation across families and communities is key to fostering healing at scale.

The Invitation to Be a Cycle Breaker

Throughout, Dr. Buqué emphasizes that healing is a choice available to everyone, regardless of age or circumstances. By stepping into accountability and compassionate awareness, individuals become cycle breakers, shifting not only their own trajectory but that of future generations. The journey requires patience, daily commitment, and trust in the possibility of transformation.