In this episode, Chris Hemmings speaks with Josh Connolly, author, speaker and breathwork facilitator whose work explores childhood adversity, family dysfunction and the lasting impact of growing up with emotionally immature or harmful parents.
Josh grew up with an alcoholic father and later struggled with addiction himself, getting sober in 2012. He talks about beginning to understand the connection between his childhood and his adult struggles, and how dysfunctional families can learn to hide, minimise and protect the very behaviour that is causing harm.
Chris and Josh explore what those experiences can look like in adulthood, from people pleasing and abandoning your own needs to struggling to know who you are outside of what other people need you to be. They discuss parentification, emotional neglect, becoming a parent yourself and the difficult work of trying to break patterns that may have been passed through generations.
Finally, Josh shares his experience with breathwork and why he believes it can offer men a particularly accessible route out of their heads and back into their bodies. He explains how discovering breathwork gave him something that years of understanding his experiences intellectually had not, and why reaching men sometimes means talking about wellbeing in language they actually relate to.
You can find Josh here:
Instagram: @josh_ffw
You can find Chris here: https://chrishemmings.co.uk
Episode page on Men’s Therapy Hub: [add link]
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