No Contact With Your Family: A Good Idea? Tania Khazaal Explains
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
We're here because your heightened awareness deserves heightened entertainment. The Last Show with David Cooper. Low contact, no contact, limiting your communications with your parents when your relationship with them doesn't work for you. Well, if your relationship's not toxic, I'm here with someone who says that might not be a good idea. I'm here with family estrangement and emotional healing expert Tanya Kazal, who can be found at Tanya Kazal on social media. Tanya, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, David. As someone who went low contact and no contact with my parents like 15 years ago, and now my parents are like some of my best friends, I'm particularly struck by some of the things you say online.
Let's put the abuse thing aside for just a second. Let's just say one has a relatively toxic but normal toxic relationship with their parents and is debating cutting them off. What advice would you give someone like that?
What are the implications of low contact or no contact with family?
Yeah, that's a good question. I was no contact with my mom as well for years before she became like my best friend. So the reality is, I mean, people use the word toxic so loosely when in reality, it's just things that upset you, things that activate you, things that are uncomfortable. You know, they bring out feelings. There's nobody but our siblings and our parents that can bring certain emotions out of us. And a lot of times we think that that's toxic, but really that's an indication for yourself to say, why am I so activated and what parts of me do I need to work on so I'm not just sitting here and blaming everybody else's behavior, especially our parents that we typically navigate to because it's the ones that should have known better, should have done everything perfectly when we were kids and all of that.
So if I cut my parents off, what if I have a lot of work to do? I sort of I've reflected on my own journey.
Why might cutting off toxic family members not be a good idea?
And yes, I blame them for a lot of stuff that caused this big fight 15 years ago. But like I needed that space to do the work to be able to come to a good relationship to them. Was that a bad idea? Was cutting them off for like a couple of years a bad idea? I mean, it's not about a good or bad idea. What I typically say is I try to help people not live in a place of regret. If your parents were to have died during that time of not speaking to them, we'd probably be having a very different conversation right now because of how it impacts you of like, oh, my goodness, that's not the right decision. And so while I think that sometimes distance is OK to be like, I have to group myself, that doesn't mean I'm ignoring my parents.
I'm never messaging them on all of that. It's like it's not it's an all or nothing thing. I think it's okay for a lot of people to say, I'm just taking a backseat right now because I know I'm aware that I need to work on myself. There's a difference between I'm aware that I need to work on myself while having some contact with them and saying, I love you and I'll see you on the holidays and that kind of stuff versus I'm going no contact. You're the problem. You're the danger to me. I'm better off without you. That is the distinction. I want to zoom into this fear of death thing because I want to make sure it's not like a scare tactic. I'm trying to reflect if at the worst of it, when I wasn't talking to my parents for a few months and maybe one phone call a quarter, if they had passed then, would I regret it now?
I don't know. I think I really don't know. You probably don't know it at the time, but it's something, David, that when you're older, like you are now, you're like, you're right. Maybe there's growth that happens. And I'm not talking about regretting in the moment. It's regretting it over time. And I can't tell you how many people have actually children themselves have said that to me. OK, so if a friend is struggling with the mother who's bad at boundaries or a friend is struggling with the father. It's just puts it into perspective that life is short and I'm OK with that perspective. Like life is really short.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:03–0:57
2
What are the implications of low contact or no contact with family?
0:57–1:44
3
Why might cutting off toxic family members not be a good idea?
1:44–3:28
4
What advice does Tania Khazaal give for navigating difficult family relationships?
3:28–5:02
5
How can understanding childhood wounds affect adult family relationships?
5:02–9:11
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