Somewhere in your family line, someone was hurt.
And without meaning to… they passed it on.
In this episode of What Would Dorcy Do?, I share a moment that stopped me cold — sitting in a restaurant, overhearing a mother guilt her daughter in a way that will likely echo through that child’s nervous system for decades.
It triggered me.
And that’s the point.
After 20+ years helping families heal, I still get triggered. Healing doesn’t mean the past disappears. It means you notice it. You name it. You move through it — instead of living inside it.
We talk about:
- How trauma installs “programs” in children in everyday moments
- Why the wound doesn’t care whether you’re the parent or the child
- What performance mode really looks like in adulthood
- Why therapy sometimes helps you understand… but doesn’t fully unhook the body
- The difference between being healed and being sovereign
If you’ve ever thought,
“I’ve done the work. Why is this still here?”
This conversation will land.
The cycle doesn’t stop because time passes.
It stops because someone becomes conscious enough to interrupt it.
Maybe that someone is you.
If you’re curious about the deeper healing work I mention in this episode, you can find more information here https://dorcypruter.com/sacred-return-retreat/
Transcript
Somewhere in your family, someone got wounded, they passed it to their child, who passed it to theirs, who passed it to you, and now it's showing up as the fight you can't win and the relationships you can't fix, or the version of yourself that you can't. Seem to become, no matter how hard you try, and you might be the parent, you might be a child, you might be both like me.
It doesn't really matter. The wound doesn't care what role you're playing. It just keeps running until somebody stops it. I'm Dorcy Pruter, and this is, what would Dorcy do? And I'm gonna do something different today. Usually I come on and I teach, I give you frameworks and I tell you what to do or how to handle specific situations in this family.
of you need to hear that the [:As I've been healing and evolving, I wanna share with you that what really matters the most is not just another strategy, but I wanna tell something to you that I don't usually share. With people. And one of those things is that I still get triggered and. I know it might be hard to hear as a family trauma reunification expert, a person who spent 20 plus years in helping families heal.
s talking about going to her [:And why does she have to leave and go to her friend's house for the weekend? And she was really guilting her daughter and she kept. Driving the knife, digging even deeper. And then I heard it, the mom say in front of everyone, your father left us. He didn't want this family. And if you wanna leave on the weekends and be with your friends, maybe you should just go live with him then Go ahead.
she kept eating like nothing [:And I thought. I know exactly where she went because I've gone there myself. And how many of you have done the same thing? So. That one sentence, that one phrase, her mother just installed a program, really multiple programs. So if you spend time with your friends, you are and and not with me, then you don't love me.
mpletely disappear inside of [:And so she picked up the fork and she started. Performing being fine, and she didn't choose any of that and she didn't consent to it. It was just installed in her, this one sentence over lunch on a Tuesday. And I think one of the things we miss is that the mother doesn't even know what she did. She's not evil.
She's wounded and she's running her mother's program. The one that says when people leave, it means I'm not enough. And the one that says. I have to keep my child close or I'll be abandoned again. And she's not parenting her daughter in that moment. She's reacting from a five-year-old wound that never got healed and that little girl, if nobody intervenes.
and cutting off the parts of [:And I'll tell her. Because of a sentence at a restaurant when you were 12 and your 12-year-old self told your nervous system, it wasn't safe. And that is how the cycle transfers. And it's not through these dramatic moments. It's through the Tuesday lunches and a sentence. The mother doesn't even remember saying through a little girl who learned to pick up the fork and keep going, and this is why.
knowing it, or maybe you're [:There I was. At this restaurant completely triggered, shoulders up. My jaw was clenching and I was scanning. I could feel my body dysregulate. And for a second, I was that child again. Sitting at dinner, performing, making sure I didn't say the wrong things, didn't do the wrong thing. And, and here's the part that is important to hear.
y you'll wake up and you are [:Healing actually means the program. Still tries to run, but you catch it faster and you don't live in it for days or weeks or months anymore. You don't ruin relationships over it, and you don't spiral out of control and you are not immune. You're just sovereign and there is a big difference. So if the woman who's been doing this for 20 years still has moments, then you can stop beating yourself up for having them too.
performance than when I was [:But performance. All the same. I was trying to prove that I was fine, prove I didn't need anyone building a career at full speed, because if I stopped moving, I'd have to feel, and I got really good at it. So good that people thought I was healed and I was strong and I was totally put together. And the truth was I wasn't.
I was running and I built the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute and I've helped thousands of families and. The irony of all of this is I was helping parents. I've been helping parents and kids reconnect while I was still disconnected from myself, the little girl who packed the trash bags and walked out when I was 18, I left.
t actually reaching her. And [:It's in my nervous system and in the places that words. Really can't access. I tried EMDR, somatic work, breath work, all of it. Moved something, but none of it finished the job.
Well, I'm telling you all of this because I know some of you are in the very same place that I was and you've done all of the work. You've read the books. You might be in some of my programs or other programs. You are maybe doing therapy, you're implementing strategies, you're working with coaches, and something is still there.
never lands on something in [:ork. I've been doing it since:vel, you can unhook from the [:Don't ignore that. That's not impulse, that's recognition. So trust it, and the link to apply is in the comments. Or you can DM US retreat and we'll send you everything. If you're not there yet, that's also completely okay. Everything I teach here still works. Keep using it, keep going, keep implementing, but I just want you to know that when you're ready for the next level, it's there.
ink in the comments and join [:Ceremonies, meal prep work, integration after you just need to pay for the flights to San Jose Costa Rica. And the retreat cost starts at 8,000 and honestly, the investment isn't the room. The investment is how much is another year of the program running worth to you? Another year of the voice, another year of the performance, another year of not knowing who you actually are.
That's the real calculation. So if you're thinking I'm scared, good, me too. My first time I was terrified I wasn't even going to do the medicine. And yet I decided at the last minute that I would do it, and I'm so grateful that I did, and the program that was running in the background wanted me to leave because the program doesn't survive what happens in this container.
yeah, you should be scared. [:How much and is the program still running? Sometimes the most expensive thing isn't the investment. It's another decade of staying stuck. So if you want to speak to someone on my team, book a call and let us talk about it. There's no pressure, just real conversations. We have a few spots left and if you're interested, we'd love to have you join us.
know this was different from [:Teaching it. So if you wanna go deeper, you know where to find me. The link is in the comments. If you wanna book a call so that you can speak to somebody on my team, we'd love to have a chat with you. And if you just wanna keep showing up here in my lives and watching, what would Dorcy do? I'm not going anywhere.
I want you to take care of yourself this week. Actually. Take real, authentic care of yourself, not the performance of taking care of yourself, but really tap in and take care of yourself, the real thing. So peace in so you can have peace out. We'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in.