Peter Pan Syndrome: Why You’re Afraid to Commit (and What to Do About It)

Pat welcomes Natacha Duke, a registered psychotherapist at Toronto Wellness Counselling, for a deep and compassionate exploration of Peter Pan Syndrome — a behavioral pattern marked by emotional immaturity, fear of responsibility, and resistance to growth. Together, they unpack the roots of emotional avoidance, the impact of parenting and trauma, and the numbing behaviors that can delay our growth into purpose-driven adulthood. Pat also shares his own lived experience with Peter Pan Syndrome, offering a vulnerable lens on what it really means to grow up, build meaningful connections, and live with integrity.

What You’ll Learn:

• What Peter Pan Syndrome really is (and why it’s not a clinical diagnosis)
• How parenting styles and early attachment shape emotional development
• Why commitment issues and “failure to launch” often trace back to childhood wounds
• The role of trauma, numbing, and emotional stagnation in adult life
• What inner child work looks like — and why it matters
• How to start living with more self-awareness, responsibility, and purpose

Social Media:

• After Peter Pan Podcast: 
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
• Natacha Duke:
  • Toronto Wellness Counselling
  • LinkedIn

Chapters

• 0:00 Hook & Intro
• 1:47 What Is Peter Pan Syndrome?
• 8:30 How Inner Child Work Heals Emotional Immaturity
• 14:50 The Hidden Role of Shame in Emotional Avoidance
• 18:50 Parenting Styles That Enable Peter Pan Syndrome
• 21:00 Childhood Trauma and the Fear of Growing Up
• 29:10 Freedom vs. Responsibility: The Peter Pan Trap
• 36:30 Why Men Struggle With Commitment
• 42:00 Living Out of Alignment: Integrity and Values
• 46:40 How to Break the Pattern and Grow Up
• 57:10 Final Reflections on Change and Self-Trust
• 1:00:49 Conclusion & Outro

Transcript

Natacha Duke (00:01)
is this okay? if this keeps happening, if I keep having a relationship that's six months long or seven months long or eight months long for the rest of my life, would I be okay with that? And if the answer is no,

than to really think about, okay, if I were to meet sort of quote unquote the one tomorrow, does my gut tell me that I would be ready to settle down?

And again, if the answer is no, then it's then wondering, okay, well, what is it going to take for me to get to where I want to go?

Pat Tenneriello (00:31)
Welcome to After Peter Pan, the podcast about growing up and finding deeper purpose. I'm your host Pat Tenerello and today I'm joined by Natasha Duke, a registered psychotherapist at Toronto Wellness Counselling. We dive into Peter Pan syndrome, a behavioural pattern marked by emotional immaturity, fear of responsibility and resistance to growth. We explore commitment issues, attachment wounds, emotional numbing and the illusion of freedom that can keep us stuck.

Along the way I share some of my own personal struggles with Peter Pan Syndrome. If you've ever felt stuck, avoided commitment, had that failure to launch feeling or wondered why your relationship patterns keep repeating, this one's for you. Enjoy the episode.

Pat Tenneriello (01:14)
know before we get started, there's a point that you wanted to make.

Natacha Duke (01:17)
That's right. So we always want to be careful that someone doesn't listen to a podcast or an interview and kind of walk away thinking that they can diagnose themselves or someone else. Diagnosis is a really controlled act that can be carried out by psychologists, doctors, nurse practitioners. And so if that's something you're looking for, you really want to meet with the right professional. And just to throw it there that Peter Pan syndrome is not

sort of a recognized mental health condition. It is a pattern of behavior, which we'll talk more about.

Pat Tenneriello (01:47)
Yeah. ⁓ maybe in your own words, how would you describe Peter Pan syndrome from, a psychotherapist perspective?

Natacha Duke (01:55)
Yeah, so I would describe it as a pattern of behavior where the personality hasn't matured in the way that one expects it. So if you look at the transition from adolescence to adulthood, there are certain things that we expect to see. And I'm not necessarily speaking about sort of milestones such as, you know, getting married, buying a house, having a kid, but it's more the development of the personality. And when we see someone who displays what we call pattern, Peter Pan syndrome, they're really looking at

somebody who avoids adult responsibility, is not really interacting with the world as one expects for their chronological age. They might be shying away from connections with others, shying away from any kind of commitment or personal responsibility.

Pat Tenneriello (02:40)
that makes sense. Before we take that further, wanted to also take a moment to get to know you a little bit. So I'd love to hear a little bit about your own journey and what led you to become a psychotherapist.

Natacha Duke (02:52)
Of course, yeah. So for me, I actually started out my career in journalism, like I was in school for journalism. And yeah, I took psychology as an elective. And immediately I knew I had to switch majors, careers, schools and go down that path. And I think that, you know, when I started learning more about psychology and behavior,

it really became clear that this was the path for me. And there's a quote that comes to mind that, you people say that you're born a therapist. And I do think that to some extent, that is true. When I think about, you know, growing up, I always wanted to understand why people behave the way they did, right? Why I behaved the way I did, right? Really trying to kind of connect things, create meaning around things.

Pat Tenneriello (03:37)
Mm-hmm.

Natacha Duke (03:44)
you know, and also just found that people sort of came to me, you know, with their challenges, with their problems they wanted to work through. And I always felt that it was such an honor to be, you know, to be asked to help. And so looking back, I think it was the clear path for me, but I kind of came at it a little bit of a different way.

Pat Tenneriello (04:05)
So interesting, people would naturally kind of turn to you for, call it life advice or in situations where they needed some help.

Natacha Duke (04:12)
They did. Yeah. And I, you know, I remember being quite young, you know, in elementary school, you know, grade seven, grade eight, and sort of that being the rule that I kind of took on, you know, in my friend group, where people, you know, wanted to talk to me about their, their problems, their challenges. I think that I was naturally a good listener. And, you know, someone once said to me, you know, to be a good therapist, you need to be a good listener.

and have a lot of common sense. And it's not really that much more complicated. Of course, you go through the training and you learn all these things and these modalities and everything. that, of course, helps you to gain understanding of how to conceptualize people's difficulties. But I think what it comes down to at its core is really being able to have a lot of common sense and listen well.

Pat Tenneriello (04:59)
You know, as you describe your journey to psychotherapy, I'm also questioning my own personal journey. come from a background of sales. I've been doing that for 15 years and I think part of the reason I'm good at it is some of the traits that you're describing with being a really good listener, having some common sense, people feeling comfortable around me and being willing to open up and share.

some of the things are going through and sometimes in some of my sales processes, I spend very little time on the actual product or solution I'm selling and just build a connection with someone, listen to someone, empathize with them. And, you know, I've always been kind of financially motivated, so that's tied in with sales, but lately I've been questioning, I've been doing a lot of interviews like this one with people who are in the field that you're in. And, I've been getting a sense of a taste of,

helping people, making a real impact in people's lives. And it's such a wonderful feeling that I am questioning the idea of maybe going back to school and entering that field. For you, you kind of had these signals that maybe this was a good path. You went down the path to journalism. Was there an aha moment where you're like, okay, no, I need to make this switch? Or was it just these little signals that kind of pushed you in that other direction? Tell me a little bit about that.

Natacha Duke (05:55)
Mm-hmm.

Pat Tenneriello (06:13)
that switch.

Natacha Duke (06:14)
Yeah, so I think that, you know, whenever we had an assignment to do in journalism, I was always sort of choosing things that kind of related to like behavior and mental health to write. And so I think that, you know, that was kind of, that's interesting. And when I took that elective class, I just thought it was so interesting to read all about human behavior. I mean, it was just fascinating to me. So I think for me, I think it was probably more a lot of little things kind of coming together.

and making sense to me at that particular time. Yeah.

Pat Tenneriello (06:45)
Okay. Okay.

And do you focus with, in terms of the patients that you speak broadly speaking, or do you work with many patients or do you specialize with certain types of patients?

Natacha Duke (06:57)
Yeah, so I think I would say my special interests would be anxiety, depression, stress management. I do see a lot of young adults in my practice. I've worked in many university counseling centers and so I do have a lot of backgrounds with that age group. So when I say young adults, I would say sort of 20 to 35. I do have a lot of experience in that, but I see people of all ages.

Pat Tenneriello (07:25)
Mm-hmm.

And I came across you from this article you wrote about Peter Pan syndrome. I'm curious, what sparked your interest in Peter Pan syndrome specifically and why does it matter to you?

Natacha Duke (07:36)
You know, I think that we're seeing a lot of sort of psychological like terms sort of popping up now in social media. There's a lot of, you know, articles that are being written about these topics and people are just more interested. And I started seeing this term come up and I started hearing about this term. And when I started looking at it, I thought, you know, this is so interesting because this pattern of behavior that's being described as Peter Pan syndrome is something that brings people to therapy quite often.

Right? That people will come to therapy because they're having trouble, you know, committing in a relationship or they're having trouble committing to one career. Right? Or, you know, they're having difficulty sort of, you know, leaving, you know, their parents home and sort of launching. Right? So these kinds of themes come up quite a bit. And the other thing that I thought was was interesting was that I think that there is a part of each and every one of us.

Pat Tenneriello (08:17)
you

Natacha Duke (08:31)
that is still a child, right? And so, you know, we have this sort of this inner child. And I think that even though we all have that inner child, most people are still able to mature and interact with the adult world in a way that's expected for their chronological age. It's interesting to me that certain people, though, get stuck, right? And why is it that certain people get stuck

and have difficulty sort of developing and maturing as a personality. And so when I started to think about that more, I started to have greater interest in this idea of Peter Pan syndrome because, you know, I think what it comes down to is sort of a blending, right? That for some people, their young self and their adult self are sort of bled in together, and they haven't really separated those parts. And so it's difficult for them to sort of develop and mature in a way that's expected.

And there's many reasons why that can happen, which I'm sure we'll talk about. But I think it's the blending of the child and the adult coming together that makes it difficult to launch.

Pat Tenneriello (09:36)
Yeah, there's two elements of that. want to get into more, more deeply. One is this idea of inner child work, which, know, if anyone's gone through psychotherapy, they probably have interacted at some point. I know I have, in my journey. for someone maybe who hasn't gone to therapy, what inner child, what does that mean to do that work? And what does that typically look like? so maybe we could start there and then I'll, I'll ask you the follow on question.

Natacha Duke (09:42)
Good night.

Sure. Yeah, so this idea of inner child is really the younger part of ourself. if you've gone to therapy, you've probably talked about parts, right? That there's always, there's part of us that's like this and part of us that's like this and part of us that feels this way and part of us that feels this way, right? And so when you talk about these kinds of parts, the child part of us is always there. For some people, this part is quite large and for some people it's smaller and it's kind of in the background, right?

And so really doing inner child work is examining that part of yourself and kind of really starting to think about, okay, how is this part doing, right? Is this part still trying to make sense or process past trauma? And is that causing the person to be stuck at sort of this younger age or be triggered in certain ways by certain situations? So to kind of work through that with the younger self.

It's almost like reparenting in a sense that the adult you is almost having to reparent that younger self in order to heal the younger self so that they can interact with the world in a way that's really best for them, very productive, very healthy. So it's looking at what that younger self really needs, what the younger self is really trying to work through, what the younger self has perhaps been through in their life, right?

And so to get in touch with that younger part of ourselves, I think it's crucial to most therapy.

Pat Tenneriello (11:27)
And what would be like a really simple example where someone might be stuck in that child,

Natacha Duke (11:32)
Mm-hmm.

there's so many that come to mind, Pat. For example, you might have someone who is sort of like a serial dater, right? Where they will date someone and then as soon as it gets a little bit serious, they might leave, right? One of the things that I would wonder about in that situation, because we don't know, right? Everybody's situation is going to be a little bit different. But one of the things I would wonder about is if that inner child

had issues with attachment and abandonment. And so we would start to look at understanding what was the relationship like with your parents? Did you feel sort of unconditionally loved and accepted and safe? Or was there something that broke your trust? Was there something that happened to you that makes it hard for you to believe people will stay so you leave? So these are the things that I would wonder about.

and we have to check in because that may or may not be the case, but that is something that definitely could

Pat Tenneriello (12:31)
.

Natacha Duke (12:33)
be.

Pat Tenneriello (12:33)
And when you're actually going through that work, what sort of, like, how do you get someone to connect with their inner child? And you said it's like reparenting. Like, what does that look like?

Natacha Duke (12:43)
Yeah, so I think, I mean, it's gonna look a little bit different for anybody. I think the first thing is, does the person want to do that work? Right? Then when we talk about therapy, I think one of the things that we have to talk about is there's always risks and benefit, right, of treatment. And if you're going to be doing therapy, there are going to be certain risks because oftentimes in therapy, you're going to start feeling worse before you feel better, right? That's just, right, because you're gonna be starting to look at

hopefully, things that have happened that are affecting you now, but that are really hard to remember or really hard to talk about or really hard to make space for to feel, right? So is the person first prepared to do that work? Do they want to do that work? And I would start to ask questions really around, you know, what it was like for them to be a child, right? What are three things to describe your mom? What are three traits to describe your dad?

Right? What comes to mind? What's your earliest memory? Trying to understand sort of what the attachment was like, what the parenting was like, what the relationship or the climate of the home was like in order to better understand. And the idea of re-parenting really just means being able to sit, right, with your difficult feelings, difficult memories, difficult emotions, and being able to tell that part of you that it's okay because you're here now.

Right? So yeah, like, Abel E was here now.

Pat Tenneriello (14:11)
I remember, that's what I remember about this work is this idea of like self-compassion, being able to like kind of recognize, hey, you were a child. it's sort of like the compassion I would have for like a very close friend or a loved one, the empathy and the compassion I would hold for them and the understanding that sometimes it's hard to, for me to feel for myself. And so creating kind of that space between me and my younger self and, and

Natacha Duke (14:17)
Mm-hmm.

Pat Tenneriello (14:40)
finding that compassion for that younger version. like, hey, you were just a kid. You didn't know better. Someone should have been there to look out for you, to have your back and they weren't. Am I getting that right that ties in with that inner child work?

Natacha Duke (14:53)
Absolutely, absolutely. think that, you one of the things that each and every one of us carries around to some extent from different reasons is shame. Right? And I think that, you know, usually, just like you said, we're able to have compassion for others, and yet we carry so much shame, oftentimes for things that happened to us, for things that we went through when we were very young.

And I think that, yeah, being able to give yourself self-compassion is crucial in order to be able to heal. I think self-compassion, of course, you know, that's a continuing, it's cultivating that skill just continues. I think it's so crucial just in life in general. But in terms of healing your inner child, being able to say to yourself, yeah, like...

I was deserving of so much love and I was deserving of feeling safe in this world. And I was deserving of, you know, having a childhood if one didn't, right? And so really being able to, you know, speak up for your inner child and let them know, no, like you did nothing wrong. You know, that was not okay, right? Oftentimes, right?

That was not okay what happened to you and I'm here now and I'm here to tell you that you did nothing wrong.

Pat Tenneriello (16:16)
Speaking of shame, I'm reading a book on discipline right now. have a two-year-old and I would like to just learn some things about how to discipline him in a way that's constructive and healthy and not just default to the way that I was disciplined, which wasn't all that bad, but I'm sure there are areas for improvement. One thing that surprised me about what I'm reading in that book is this concept of healthy shame.

always assumed from my work that shame, there's nothing healthy about shame, but in this book, they talk about healthy shame in the sense that it's, used as, as kind of the foundation or the basis for your, your kind of sense of right and wrong. So what you're trying to do when, when there's an, and, a situation that requires learning, teaching discipline, is you ask questions rather than just, just say, like that's wrong. And no, you kind of ask questions, get the child to

They call it their downstairs brain and their upstairs brain. their downstairs brain, of that reptilian kind of like tantrum part of the brain. And then the upstairs brain is you get them to reflect and kind of create some space with the situation and get them to reflect. And so by asking questions, they go from their downstairs to their upstairs brain. And by asking questions, you help them to recognize, okay, they know better. They know that they shouldn't have done that. It's like, why didn't they do that? And then they feel.

Natacha Duke (17:13)
Right.

Pat Tenneriello (17:32)
By figuring that out on their own, feel a bit of shame, but that's the shame that's going to be the basis for that right and wrong, that conscience. I was curious because I was so surprised by that. Have you come across this concept of healthy shame and do you have an opinion on that?

Natacha Duke (17:51)
So I have heard of it and I have an opinion that I'm not sure if it talks about this in the book that you're reading but the way that I would speak about that would be shame for the choice not for the person.

Pat Tenneriello (18:06)
Hmm. Right.

Natacha Duke (18:07)
Right? So

whenever, so, so I also have a two year old, I have an eight year old and whenever I'm, whenever they do something that, know, we don't want them to do and then we have to talk to them about it. I always try to focus on, was that a good choice? You're always a good, in my case, I have two dollars. You're always a good girl. Right? Was that a good choice? Right? And they think that's what,

you're speaking about is that then yes, you want them to grow up knowing right and wrong, you want them to grow up with values that are honorable, right? So they need to know if something's not okay. But who they are on the inside is always good.

Pat Tenneriello (18:50)
Right. I like that distinction. That makes sense. On the topic of parenting, think this ties, let's tie this back to Peter Pan syndrome because in your article, you talked about some parental styles that may lend themselves or kind of play a factor in the Peter Pan syndrome. So what are some early life experiences or parenting styles that you've seen that contribute to these patterns?

Natacha Duke (18:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so I think that there are two and if you look at some of the research that's been done, there isn't a lot but there is a little bit. They talk about sort of two parenting styles, permissive parenting style and overprotective parenting style. And both of those seem to be a risk factor for this type of pattern in adulthood, right? And so when we look at permissive parenting style,

It's really about not having clear boundaries with your child and the child being able to grow really thinking that they can do anything. And on the flip side, when we look at overprotective parenting, this is often relating to the child in a way that leaves them feeling that the world is unsafe.

Right? I need to have my hand held for everything because the world is unsafe. And so in both of those cases, although they're very different, they never learn, the child never really learns how to be resilient, right? How to pick themselves up, how to have, you know, their own sort of personal boundaries, right? And so I think that when we look at sort of

Pat Tenneriello (20:08)
Hmm.

Natacha Duke (20:28)
parenting, it's not to to blame, right? I don't think that any one of these is the cause, but we look at sort of risk factors. Yeah.

Pat Tenneriello (20:36)
Right.

Right. In bringing this back to my own situation, I don't associate with those parenting styles in my life. do see Peter Pan syndrome very much a part of my life.

and work that I've had to undergo. But one other thing in the article that you talked about, aside from parenting, so was also childhood trauma could play a role in this, could be a risk factor and that does speak to me. So what does the research, I know it's not a whole lot of research, but what does the research suggest when it comes to childhood trauma and Peter Pan syndrome?

Natacha Duke (21:07)
So I'll speak about it because I don't know of any specific studies, but I'll speak about it from my own experience, you know, just in general working in therapy. And, you know, I think that, you know, when we have trauma that happens when we're very young, right, that's it stays stuck in your body if you don't work through it. Right. It's almost like if you imagine, yeah, like, it's almost like a ball of anxiety, a ball of of of

Pat Tenneriello (21:27)
Hm-hm.

Natacha Duke (21:34)
of pain, right, that stays stuck in your body. And I think that if you carry around that pain, that anxiety, if it hasn't been worked through, you know, that it's going to start to interfere with your, your adult self, right. And I think that specifically with childhood trauma, you know, if that child within you, if that part of you that's a child, you know, went through something,

that led them to not feeling safe in this world, right? Then that part is going to not feel prepared, right? To move on into the adult world. That part says, no, like I'm scared, right? The world is a scary place. Look what happened to me. I was only seven or eight or nine or 10. And look what happened to me. Look what I had to deal with. I was alone. I couldn't tell anybody. I was scared. I was confused. I felt shame. I felt...

you know, whatever it was, right? And so that part, right, is really, you know, think not prepared for the adult world because they're stuck.

Pat Tenneriello (22:31)
Yeah.

That makes sense. also suppose that some of the coping mechanisms that may come, I think you're alluding to that coping mechanisms that come out of childhood trauma. Some of those coping mechanisms will kind lend themselves to this Peter Pan syndrome.

So that makes sense. think, you know, when I think about the work that I did in therapy, I went there for childhood trauma. was kind of the Trojan horse that got me in the door. But then once the door, I was in there, I realized there was a whole lot more to unpack and the childhood trauma, yeah, you know, that wasn't always easy to work through, but there was so much more after. I don't think I would have gone through that door if it wasn't for the trauma. it was really.

Natacha Duke (23:03)
Mm-hmm.

Pat Tenneriello (23:19)
the work was unpacking and looking at everything else and the coping mechanisms that I kind of adopted and were very deeply entrenched in me, because of the childhood trauma, partly for other reasons. It's kind of hard to tell where one thing ends and one thing starts, but so.

We've talked about some of the symptoms or behaviors of Peter Pan syndrome. We talked about commitment, lack of commit. We talked about some of the parental styles. are there others that we can identify associated with Peter Pan syndrome that people could maybe who are doing some self reflection might want to think about?

Natacha Duke (23:54)
Yeah, for sure. think, you know, emotionally shine away from conflict, you know, is a big one. That's not true only for Peter Pan syndrome, but it is one of the things that often does happen is that people will shy away from conflict or difficult conversations. And when you think about commitment or having close bonds with other people, it's pretty impossible to be close to someone and never have a conflict. Right.

And so I think that really, you know, being able to tolerate the difficult emotions and we call in therapy like distress tolerance, right? Being able to tolerate those difficult feelings, those difficult emotions that come up, you know, when we are having conflict with someone, right? Is something that I think people with Peter Pan syndrome often lack the ability to tolerate.

Pat Tenneriello (24:43)
I never checked in with myself. I feel like I never asked myself how I felt. I was always focused on the outside world. It was very foreign to me to kind of check in and say, I'm feeling anxious. I'm feeling this. I would try and always feel invincible, like nothing could affect me. It was very foreign to go through that exercise and check in with myself. Then once I started doing that in therapy, the other thing that was very foreign and new was this idea that

You can sit with multiple emotions at the same time. So I could be really, really excited about something and then really, really scared. And then also sadness could be somewhere too. Like I could sit with these emotions at once. And that idea, I didn't know that, that I could do that. I was just one at one at a time. Like it doesn't make sense to be happy and sad simultaneously.

Natacha Duke (25:12)
Yeah.

you

Right. Yeah. I think that's such an important point. So the first, the first point I think that you're making, which I think is so true is that it's amazing how many adults do not know how to name their emotions. Right. And oftentimes in therapy, you ask somebody how, you know, the classic question, how does that make you feel? And, and it's very difficult.

for a lot of people to name their feelings. So the first is to name your feelings and then the other piece, which is to make space for your feelings, right? So you say that you would go about your day and not really check in with yourself. That's so common, right? People often do not check in with themselves. They don't know how they're feeling. They can't name what they're feeling. And I think that especially, you know,

Pat Tenneriello (26:08)
Yeah.

Natacha Duke (26:19)
in this time that we're living, right? We're busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, busy, right? And really being able to slow down, to be able to come into yourself, to come into your body, to make space for your feelings is a very uncomfortable thing for a lot of people, right? It really requires being able to be still, you know, often be silent, right?

Pat Tenneriello (26:36)
Yeah.

Natacha Duke (26:45)
And coming into your truth in the silence and coming into your feelings and your emotions is something that I think, you we're not always accustomed to.

Pat Tenneriello (26:54)
I remember when I'd walk in and that would be the first question, how are feeling today? And my first response to me for a while was just good, I'm good. And the answer was what good's not, good's not an emotion. Like what emotions are you feeling? It's like good's not an emotion. ⁓ so.

Natacha Duke (27:01)
Good. Fine. Good. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. And the other

piece, Pat, I think that oftentimes if you ask somebody a feeling, they respond with a thought, right? And so, you know, often we're more comfortable, not everybody, but a lot of people are more comfortable cognitively than going into their feelings.

Pat Tenneriello (27:16)
Hmm.

And I think this is kind of a good segue into maybe the gender difference, because in the article it calls out that Peter Pan syndrome tends to be more towards men. It can also be for women, but mostly towards men. I also think that when it comes to checking in with ourselves and sitting with emotion, men in general have more difficulty with that. And so can you speak a little bit to how this syndrome, you know, shows up differently in men and women or?

You know how gender expectations might affect the way it manifests.

Natacha Duke (27:54)
So I think, you if you look at the writing historically, I think that there was, you know, a book written in the 80s about, you the man who never wants to grow up, right? And, you know, this idea of boys will be boys and they want to like play the field and explore, you know, different relationships. And a lot of that was very glorified. And I think that the early writings on this talk about sort of Wendy syndrome, where the woman is very like empathetic and wants to save somebody and

you know, that personality is kind of attracted to the Peter Pan syndrome personality. So I think that, you know, historically, you know, you do see sort of a difference in the way that the two are conceptualized by gender. In my experience, I think that you're right, I do think that, you know, for many social reasons, sort of social conditioning reasons, men might be less likely

to express their feelings, be comfortable expressing their feelings, even come to therapy. But I think at the heart of it, both genders can experience difficulty launching into adulthood. I see it in both genders. And I think that it's a hard time to grow up right now. I would argue that it is harder

to launch into adulthood now, right?

Pat Tenneriello (29:10)
Why and what why would you say that?

Natacha Duke (29:12)
I think that, you know, a few different things. I think that there is a lot of choice. And I think often with choice, people can sometimes get, it's obviously, I am all for having, you know, different choices, but I think sometimes I see a lot of people who are paralyzed by all the options. And the idea that if you take one, you know, you're letting go of a hundred others, right?

Pat Tenneriello (29:32)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I could relate to that.

Natacha Duke (29:34)
Yeah, and that can be true in career, that can be true in sort of like the dating apps that I see, you know, a lot of people coming to therapy talking about, right, that you kind of swipe and it's like another choice, another choice. So I think that, you know, there's, there's that piece of it. And then I think, you know, it's, it's, it's more expensive to buy a home than ever, right? It's, you know, people are, you know, carrying, you know, maybe a lot of a lot of debt now in order to live.

to have a home. And so I think that there's a lot of different factors that I think are at play in terms of becoming an adult. And I see it in both genders.

Pat Tenneriello (30:10)
You know, the, the lack of the challenge with commitment was one that was probably the biggest one for me in the kind of the, my Peter Pan syndrome. I would date and I remember I would hear, often from the women I would date, they would say, you know, be, be emotionally available. Like you're not emotionally available. You're like checked out. They would love to, like, they really enjoyed being around me. They would say, I feel like I'm on vacation when I'm around you. Like, you know, I was just like,

Natacha Duke (30:28)
It's good.

Pat Tenneriello (30:37)
Like a free spirit. it's like, we let's, let's go to Vegas for the weekend. Let's like do this. It was like, I was always, I was gallivanting and I felt, think I brought like a sense of freedom and fun and vape, but yeah, like they felt like they were on vacation, but then when it was time to like, take it a step further, like they would often say, yeah, you're just emotionally like checked out like, then eventually they just lose, you know, they would just, um, they would just kind of check out and themselves and they would move on because they saw that I wasn't.

I wasn't in that head space. And so is that that is that pretty consistent with the behaviors that were written in the article? When, when I read that section, I thought, yeah, that this is, this is me exactly. And the Wendy syndrome, the Wendy syndrome is a partner, will kind of, go along with that for some time. Is that right? They will enable that to a certain extent.

Natacha Duke (31:17)
Mm-hmm.

Exactly, Pat. So what you described would be, yes, fitting with this Pat Peter Pan syndrome, like behavior that we're talking about. And, you know, being very charismatic and fun to be around, but not really wanting to get into anything too serious, often attracting a lot of attention. But, you know, when things get more serious, kind of pushing the person away.

And then yeah, the Wendy syndrome, the way that it's talked about is the idea of a really empathetic sort of female who, yeah, really kind of feels they want to be of service to others, they want to help others, they want to try to fix others. And oftentimes, yeah, the two can kind of be magnetic, but that eventually, there's resentment that sets in for the

person playing the Wendy syndrome role of, yeah, no, I want more. And this is me kind of giving you sort of emotions and giving you myself, and I'm not really getting anything back. And so when we think about Peter Pan syndrome, it's really one of the things to look at is sort of this inability to really have meaningful bonds and connections with others. Right? So kind of coming back to it's not about hitting

Pat Tenneriello (32:18)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Natacha Duke (32:40)
certain milestones that makes us an adult. But it's really about being able to connect, have connections, have meaningful connections with other people, maintain a sense of responsibility, live a life of purpose, right? As opposed to, know, kind of check marking certain milestones, Kind of way we think about adulthood sometimes.

Pat Tenneriello (32:41)
Thank

You mentioned, yeah, I mean, purpose, mean, such an important word. And in some of what you're talking about, the word that is coming up for me on the opposite side of that is hedonism. And this idea that you said it's, you know, it's more than ever, it's difficult to grow up in every, you know, the world is in the world today. And I think there's a lot of importance placed on freedom. This idea that like, don't get tied down,

Natacha Duke (33:13)
Mm-hmm.

Pat Tenneriello (33:27)
I think of myself, it's like to me, that was my freedom was so important. idea that I can go and live anywhere. can do anything. I was free to go out. I didn't have any commitments. I wasn't tied down. Like that was so important to me for so long. And I feel like society or the way I was raised, even the education system that.

a lot of importance on my career above all else, kind of helped to make me see my, know, to prioritize that in that way. Despite the fact that I knew that one day I would like to have a family, I would like to have kids, but ⁓ I don't know if you, you feel like kind of the growing up and the education system.

Natacha Duke (33:59)
Mm-mm.

Pat Tenneriello (34:07)
kind of tilts us towards this idea of freedom, which to me tilts us in this direction of hedonism, makes life about us versus this idea of finding purpose and kind of looking for that outside of ourselves.

Natacha Duke (34:20)
it's interesting, right? When we say freedom, a certain picture comes into your mind, right?

You know, you kind of think about the way you describe someone being able to take that plane to Vegas, right? Somebody being able to kind of, you know, you know, you know, do something on a whim, really being impulsive, right? Not really answering to anybody, right? But freedom isn't really about that, right? Freedom is more about the freedom to make choices, right?

That's the way that I see it. It's like the freedom to choose one thing over another, right? That we have that choice, right? We always have a choice, right? And so I think that the way that, we sort of talk about freedom and the way that we sort of glorify, you know,

Pat Tenneriello (35:03)
Mm-hmm.

Natacha Duke (35:16)
throwing caution to the wind, being young, like all those things are very glorified and, you know, kind of living your best life, live for today. Like these things are all very glorified. But really what freedom is, it really comes down to choosing, making good choices.

Pat Tenneriello (35:32)
idea of freedom also takes away from this message of taking responsibility in your life. It's, you can't, those kind of pull in different directions, right? Like I think that what's satisfying in life is to also to take on responsibility, to take on that burden. And when you're just,

You know, when, when I was in that Peter Pan mode, I was, I wasn't doing that. And I, it's kind of like a race to the bottom in a way, because it's like that, that freedom, like you said, it's, it's really not freedom because at the end of the day, it's just, it was just akin to like short-term gratification. It was just trying to do things on a whim that made me feel good. That gave me pleasure. That gave me fun, but they were kind of like short-lived. were.

they would, they were fleeting and they left me sometimes feeling lonely and they, because I didn't have those meaningful connections or I wasn't able to create those meaningful connections and those, sort of those roots that provide kind of that long-term sense of satisfaction and purpose and meaning.

Natacha Duke (36:33)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there so many things kind of running through my head and I think that you're right on one of the things that I would wonder too about you at that point was that was there any numbing going on? Right?

Pat Tenneriello (36:49)
There was a lot of numbing, Natasha. was, I was smoking pot, pretty much nightly for about a decade. That was my numbing. I was partying and drinking. I don't think I had a drinking problem, but just drinking too much. so that was probably, there was, there was definitely some numbing going on.

Natacha Duke (36:50)
Yeah, okay.

Okay. Yeah.

Right. And so that's, think, you really common. And people often do think of recreational drugs when we talk about numbing. And that is definitely one way we numb. But we can also numb ourselves by overworking. We can numb ourselves by partying, right? We can numb ourselves by being excessively busy. Right. And so there are different ways. And so I wonder about when we talk about freedom, right?

Pat Tenneriello (37:21)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Natacha Duke (37:34)
We could be talking about how we think about freedom. We could be talking about numbing. And really, when we kind of come into being still and having responsibility, part of that is being able to come to terms with, sometimes life is really mundane. We're going to do the same thing every day. And being able to be able to sit with that.

really involves also being able to allow emotions to come up because we're not kind of being distracted. Right. And so I think there, there is a lot sort of going on when we talk about responsibility. It's not just the responsibility, but I think it's also having to kind of sit with the things that are going to come up because you're not distracting yourself.

Pat Tenneriello (38:16)
Wow. You nailed it. Hit the nail on the head. Like I had a really hard time with that mundane. I felt very

Natacha Duke (38:24)
Hmm.

Pat Tenneriello (38:25)
I didn't want to feel bored. That was one of the reasons I would smoke is, is, was to kind of cope with that sense of boredom. wasn't bored and bored if I was smoking, but like even doing mundane tasks, I just hate like brushing my teeth or like doing the laundry or like those mundane daily tasks.

Natacha Duke (38:40)
Mm-hmm.

Thank you.

Pat Tenneriello (38:45)
when I did cannabis, least it felt like it was all of sudden it was, it was exciting and my brain was racing. And, and so I, yeah, I had a hard time just sitting with that mundane, that how would you describe it? Just the data, the everyday kind of chill low, you know, slow parts of life.

Natacha Duke (38:58)
Yeah.

Absolutely, and that's a huge part of adulthood and being able to find the joy in the boring and the mundane, I think, involves a certain amount of being at peace with yourself.

And if we haven't worked through our past trauma, or we haven't worked through our stuff, so to speak, and we're not at peace, when we engage in that boring mundane, anxiety kind of creeps up. So I always wonder when, because I hear boring a lot, like I'm bored, I feel bored, right? When there's boring, is it really anxiety?

underneath, right? That it's that I need to keep myself busy because my defenses are breaking down. This is kind of causing me some anxiety.

Pat Tenneriello (39:46)
Can it be tied in the ego? Like I'm thinking, I always kind of viewed my life as extraordinary or wanting it to be extraordinary. And so those, that mundane kind of brought me back down to earth and it was a bit of a hit to the ego. Like you're not special. Like you just, just like everyone else. I wonder if, I'm not a particularly anxious person. I'm quite a, I'm people, I'm very calm.

I'm a very calm person. noticed some anxiety at times in the shower, actually, I could notice a little bit of anxiety in my stomach. tend to do meditation that helps back then. wasn't doing that, but could it also be, could it be tied in the ego? This idea of not wanting to sit with the mundane.

Natacha Duke (40:09)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Well, you know, one of the things that I don't know if you've seen in the literature that they talk about Peter Pan syndrome, there's some people who do believe there's some narcissism involved. ⁓ I'm not sure that I see them as as as overlapping, because when I think about narcissism, I think about somebody who doesn't have a lot of empathy for other people. But there are there are people who do believe that they overlap.

Pat Tenneriello (40:36)
Mm-hmm.

Natacha Duke (40:52)
and that this idea of being deserving of things or having a sense of importance or self-importance that goes along with Peter Pan syndrome. So that's sort of one lens to look at it. But I think that...

wanting your life to be great is not something, you know, to be ashamed of. think, you know, deep down, we all want our life to be great. Right. I think that one of the things that maybe is a more important question to ask is, how can my life be meaningful? Right. How can my life be purposeful? And will that bring me greater happiness?

than having my life be sort of big or great in the way that maybe we kind of think about it when we're younger.

Pat Tenneriello (41:38)
how do you typically tackle that to get someone to think about it that way with like meaningful purposeful? does someone go about that?

Natacha Duke (41:46)
Well, I think the first thing, know, what I always think about is, you know, is this a problem for the person? Because sometimes people come to therapy because somebody told them to, but they don't actually think it's a problem, right? Like they might not want a purposeful or meaningful life and that's okay. But I think that the issue is, is that oftentimes they do, right?

And if there is kind of a dissonance between what they want and how they're living, that's when we would start to kind of look at that and start to kind of ask questions around, well, how can we begin to get you closer to where you want to be? What are you prepared to do? Where are you prepared to take maybe some responsibility or

Pat Tenneriello (42:25)
Yeah.

Natacha Duke (42:30)
or what brings you a sense of meaning? Have you had that sense of meaning or purpose in the past? Maybe it was fleeting, but did you ever have it? And what were you doing when you had it?

Pat Tenneriello (42:37)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that discrepancy between day-to-day actions and goals. I, I had that a lot when I, when I went to therapy, the word that really resonated and had an impact for me at that time was, the word integrity and learning to live with integrity. And my day-to-day actions were not in line with my values at that time. And it was, the work was to kind of, okay, well, what are your values?

Natacha Duke (42:47)
You have.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Pat Tenneriello (43:04)
what

does living a life of integrity look like for you? By doing that work, it kind of brought the actions and the goals more in line with one another.

Natacha Duke (43:13)
Exactly. That's, I think a great point because a lot of adults do not know what their values are. Right. And, you know, we certainly don't often think about that when we were in school, we don't take, you know, any classes where we look at sort of our values and what does that look like? And so I think that a lot of us grow up not knowing what our values are, right? Well, yeah, be a good person, but what else, right? What's really important to you? What's a priority for you?

What do you want to be able to say when you're 60 years old and we're sitting here? What do you want to be able to say about your life?

Pat Tenneriello (43:52)
Yeah, and I bring it back to the education system again, because the education system is really great at getting us ready for career. But what you're describing, which is so not really a class in school that's going to teach you that, right? There's not much space in our formative years to

really think that through.

Natacha Duke (44:12)
There was, it reminds me of when I was working at a university and we did this workshop talking about, you know, kind of your personality, what you believe, your values, all this. And it was one of the most popular workshops because everyone finally got a chance to sit down, take a piece of paper and write down, you know, what's important to them. And they had never really done that before.

And I think there's a little bit more now because people are starting to do like gratitude journals. And I think there's a little bit more kind of like interest in that direction. But one of the most therapeutic things we can do is put pen to paper.

right, and really start to kind of get clear of what we don't want and what we want.

Pat Tenneriello (44:53)
Yes, and then that comes up a lot in my conversations, journaling, writing down, writing as akin to thinking it through, to getting it out. And there are various suggestions for ways to kind of, what's the word, to structure the way to write. So you could do open form, which for some people is daunting.

Natacha Duke (45:01)
Yes.

Pat Tenneriello (45:12)
What I tend to do, I really like to do grateful, I do grateful journaling. So I'll kind of write when I'm grateful for once a week or things I would really like to accomplish and I do more bullets. What have you found or what sort of suggestions would you have for journaling?

Natacha Duke (45:27)
it's important to kind of meet yourself where you are and kind of go with what's going to work for you. So, you know, I've had people tell me that, you know, like it doesn't feel like them to get a journal out. So they might just write down, you know, kind of what they're feeling in their phone. I think that's fine. I think some people might use an app. There's apps for everything now where you write down sort of what you're grateful for.

other people, you know, they feel really comfortable writing letters that they never send. They might feel like, you know, what you're saying, the gratitude journal works for them. Right. So I think, you know, pick something that feels like you, picks pick something that fits in with your life too. If you're like a father of a two year old, you're probably not going to have time to write every single day. So set a goal that feels like you can meet it as well. Yeah.

Pat Tenneriello (46:17)
Right.

I feel like we've sunk our teeth into what Peter Pan syndrome looks like, what the coping mechanisms are. We've all the patterns of behavior. We've also talked about kind of some of the work in therapy, maybe we can switch more into, someone who associates with some of these

behaviors.

can someone do if they start recognizing these patterns in themselves?

Natacha Duke (46:42)
Yeah, so I think the first thing would be to sort of check in with yourself and see where you're at. Right. You know, I really believe that we come to things when we're ready. Right. And so check in with yourself if you've recognized these behaviors. are you ready to make a change? Are you ready to start to

you know, ask yourself some tough questions, you know, to be asked tough questions, you know, are you ready to perhaps start some therapy? You know, maybe it starts with you kind of confiding in someone close to you. You know, I've noticed these things in one area of my life, or I've noticed these things in many areas of my life, or people keep telling me the same thing, that I'm emotionally unavailable, right?

and so I think that it starts with really asking yourself if you're ready to make a change.

Pat Tenneriello (47:33)
Someone who doesn't check in with themselves may not, may have a hard time with that. And I'm sure the answer that will come from within may not be a clear cut one, right? Like I guess curiosity might start the way you might start bringing it out into the open.

And I guess writing things down might be one way to kind of tease it out or think about it too. But for someone, someone who struggles to make space for that sort of reflection or thought, what could be like the precursor to that? Like, is there a precursor to getting to that point?

Natacha Duke (48:02)
think that Pat, there's many things that we could kind of think about. I think one of the things might be, you know, it's always helpful, I think, to ask yourself, if I continue exactly as I am.

what will happen in 20 years? Where will I be in 20 years and 30 years and 40 years? And is that okay? Like, will I be okay with that? Right? So oftentimes, projecting your behavior into the future can be really helpful. Another thing to think about is, you know, if one person tells you something, it might be their opinion. But if this keeps coming up for you,

if you keep noticing a pattern, whether it's like an internal pattern or like an interpersonal pattern, but patterns are very telling. And if you start to notice a pattern, I think as you said, maybe to just wonder about that. Maybe you're not ready to do anything or feel anything, but just to wonder about that. I wonder why that is.

I think it just being able to wonder is a very helpful tool.

Pat Tenneriello (49:02)
Absolutely and I'm sure there are some people listening. I'm thinking of some men listening who are, you know, have been dating and struggling with commitment and the same outcome keeps happening, right? Like the relationship ends or, you know, you run away or you're looking, you got an eye over here, you're thinking the grass is always greener. There's someone better out there.

those are things that I can relate to. And I often would wonder and talk to friends and close, yeah, people who are close to my life. Like, you know, the same outcome is happening. Like, why is it this keeps happening to me? And I used to wonder, is it the right partner that's going to come along? The right person is going to come along and kind of change me and make me realize like, okay, I'm, you're the one, or is it me who needs to do some work first?

Natacha Duke (49:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Pat Tenneriello (49:51)
Is that something that you've come across?

Natacha Duke (49:53)
absolutely. think that that's a such a, it's such a common thing people come to therapy for. Right. ⁓ So you have your own sort of experience with it, but I think that oftentimes having to do the personal work and being able to ask yourself, right. You know, you're wondering, why does this keep happening? Why does this keep happening? And

Pat Tenneriello (49:59)
Mm-hmm.

Natacha Duke (50:17)
I think even if you're not ready to change, even just wondering is a good place to start. And then I think the second place to go is, you know, is this okay? Like if this keeps, if this keeps happening, if I keep having a relationship that's six months long or seven months long or eight months long for the rest of my life, would I be okay with that? Right. And if the answer is no,

than to really think about, okay, if I were to meet sort of quote unquote the one tomorrow, does my gut tell me that I would be ready to settle down?

And again, if the answer is no, then it's then wondering, okay, well, what is it going to take for me to get to where I want to go? If that's where I want to go, right? And I think that being able to just, yeah, talk through some of your thoughts and feelings can be, can be really helpful.

Pat Tenneriello (51:01)
Hmm.

I also think sometimes people, they find that they may think like, the quality of who I'm attracts, who's attracted to me is not, is not where I want it to be. I wish it would be a more quality person. and so they wonder about that. but I think from, from everything that I have consumed, I feel like the answer that is to look inward and see, how, what can I better in myself?

how can I be a better version of myself in order to attract the quality that I'm, that, that I'm comfortable with? yeah.

Natacha Duke (51:41)
Absolutely.

I think we attract what we are.

Right? I truly believe that. Right? There is sort of a, I think a tendency to believe opposites attract. And certainly sometimes that can happen. But I think more often than not, like attracts like.

Right. And so we, we attract, we attract what we are and where we are.

Right. And so really being able to, yeah, go inwards and, you know, I think to what you're saying is become the person you want to be with.

Pat Tenneriello (52:12)
Exactly.

Natacha Duke (52:13)
Yeah, you know, is a great place to start.

Pat Tenneriello (52:19)
In your opinion, Natasha, what can we do culturally to normalize conversations about emotional immaturity and growth?

Natacha Duke (52:26)
You know, I think that one of the things that you talked about was integrity. And I think, you know, just starting to show up with integrity, being authentic, being vulnerable, even just with the people in our life. I think if we all started to start to just be more authentic with one another, being able to have conversations around mental health.

being able to check in with people in our life about how they're really doing. All of those things, I think, will start to normalize just conversations about mental wellbeing in general. So I think that, yeah, just being able to really, yeah, be vulnerable with one another. I think historically it's been, hey, how's it going? I'm fine.

Pat Tenneriello (52:58)
Yeah.

Natacha Duke (53:17)
but really kind of saying, you know, not doing so good today, you how are you doing? Or I had a, you know, a bit of a rough morning. Like it sounds like a small thing, but I think really just trying to normalize when we're not okay. And that it's okay to not be okay. It's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay not to be perfect. Can start to sort of, I think just create sort of more of a social norm of like,

We all have emotions, we all have difficulties, we all have challenges. Yeah.

Pat Tenneriello (53:46)
Yeah.

So, know, we, our society, you know, we, value small talk, right? We talk about, how we do and good, good. We saw things are good. Weather's let's talk about the weather now. It's even with close friends, ⁓ to like, to have that kind of underlying conversation and connection. for me, it was when I started.

Natacha Duke (53:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Pat Tenneriello (54:05)
exploring my childhood trauma and going through the therapy, then I would come out of therapy and share that with close friends. And that's where I discovered vulnerability. what I noticed was when I started talking about this very vulnerable thing that I was going through, it would immediately – like the person in front of me would immediately reciprocate that vulnerability and then there would be that feeling of connection which would

eliminate that feeling of anxiety in my stomach that I might have from just social interactions sometimes. ⁓ So I'm totally with you. I wish that it was easier to have those conversations. I wish they were normalized.

Natacha Duke (54:33)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that, you know, what you're saying is so true that when we share, we inspire others to share and we reduce any shame that we might have. We also break down other people's shame. Right. It's like, Oh, you went through something really hard. I went through something really hard. Right. Um, as opposed to sort of trying to kind of be, you know, I think right now we're like,

you know, especially like Instagram and all these things, right? There's all this emphasis on perfection, right? But actually, nobody wants that. Right? It's an interesting thing because, you know, it's chased, but nobody wants perfection. People want vulnerability and connection. Right? And so if we can, yeah, if we can even start to kind of do that with the people in our circle, I think that's a good way to start.

Pat Tenneriello (55:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Hmm. Well said.

And I think, bring it back to Peter Pan syndrome. Like the Peter Pan, it's like he's the peacock. feel like, I feel like I was like a peacock when I was in that mode, right? Like the ego, like the charisma, like, like that kind of fed into like the, the dating and the lack of commitment and jumping around from partner to partner. Like, and so when you're in that peacock mode, I couldn't, I wasn't vulnerable. I didn't want to be vulnerable. Okay.

Natacha Duke (55:43)
Yeah.

Pat Tenneriello (56:02)
That idea would be very foreign to me and it would kind of knock against the ego, is what would kind of get me that attention that I was looking for at the time.

Natacha Duke (56:03)
Yeah.

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. And, you know, I think that those things are very common things to go after, right? Like attention and having people, you know, kind of surround you or want to be around you and kind of feel like you're unstoppable and sort of desired and wanted and all these things, right? These are common things that people chase. But yeah, if we feel

if our self-esteem is in a good place, if we feel really good about ourselves, right? We're not going to need those things as much.

Pat Tenneriello (56:44)
Right.

Natacha Duke (56:45)
Right. And so really starting to kind of look at what confidence really looks like. Right. Is important, I think, as well.

Pat Tenneriello (56:53)
Mm.

And someone who's listening to this, who's feeling some shame was maybe, maybe this is hitting home a little closer than they would like. What would you say to someone like that? Like how would they confront their own emotional stagnation?

Natacha Duke (57:09)
Mm hmm. I think that whenever we feel something, right, I think there's a tendency to kind of want to go like that, right. It's actually it's it's healthy, right. It's good. Like if you if you feel something that you haven't felt in a long time, like that's good. And so to be able to, you know, kind of even sit with the emotion, even for just

like a minute. And even if you're not ready to go there, you can say, okay, I'm having a feeling right now. I'm feeling shame. This is uncomfortable. I'm not ready to deal with this yet, but I'm acknowledging that I'm experiencing it.

Right? That's, yeah, go ahead. I was just going to say, that that's it's the being able to name it and and call it out, even if you do nothing with it is better than just kind of ignoring it. Right. Just call it out.

Pat Tenneriello (57:48)
I find... Sorry, please finish your thought.

That process to me is so helpful. so if I'm, if there's emotion, like whatever emotion is running through my body, fear, anxiety, sadness, it's like that energy's all over the place. ⁓ as soon as I identify it, it's like it, there's like, I've gained a certain control or upper hand on, on it. it's like it's located now.

Natacha Duke (58:16)
Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Pat Tenneriello (58:29)
And in my, at my embodied feeling, feel immediately more comfortable. It's still there, but now I've identified it. I've like rationalized, okay, that's, that's what that is. Okay. And just that process makes me feel a whole lot more comfortable in my body.

Natacha Duke (58:45)
Exactly. That's exactly right, Pat. And so being able to name it, yeah, it's like, there's a part of me that's feeling anxious right now. It's not forever, this feeling that's for now. This is my feeling right now, right? It will pass. Right now I feel anxious, or there's a part of me that feels anxious. If I'm prepared to look at that more and explore that more, great. If I'm not, that's okay too.

But I am acknowledging that there's a part of me that feels anxious. This is for right now. This is not for always. Yeah.

Pat Tenneriello (59:17)
Yeah.

Natasha, anything about Pan syndrome or other topics that you hoped I would ask you about that we would cover that we didn't get a chance to

Natacha Duke (59:28)
I think this was really great. think we really kind of got to the core of it and kind of looked at it from sort of different angles. I think that if this is something that you're experiencing for anybody who's listening, I think that if you want to work on it, that, you know, to have hope, hope is a huge thing, right? In therapy, hope, biggest predictor of change, hope, right? That it can change.

Right? It can change. You can work through your challenges and your difficulties if you want to. Right? And if you're ready. Right? And so I think that to be able to carry that hope that if this is something that, you you want to be different, you will and you can.

Pat Tenneriello (1:00:11)
What a great message. love that. I end every conversation with this question, Natasha. everyone has their own growing up story. Growing up means something different to everyone. What does growing up mean to you?

Natacha Duke (1:00:24)
Such a great question. I think that for me, it means trusting yourself. So being able to trust yourself to make the best decisions for yourself, being able to trust yourself to do hard things, being able to trust yourself to get to where you want to go and to live the life that you want and be the person that you want to be.

Pat Tenneriello (1:00:48)
I love that answer. Well, it's been a pleasure with you, Natasha. I really enjoyed this conversation. I throw around the Peter Pan syndrome words all the time and I've been looking forward to this conversation for many months with you be able to kind of dig deeper and understand what does that really mean even though it's not a diagnosable thing. Let's unpack this thing. so I think I know I really resonated with it and I'm sure many of our listeners will too.

thank you for taking the time. appreciate it.

Natacha Duke (1:01:16)
Thank you so much, Pat. This was great. Thank you.

Pat Tenneriello (1:01:18)
Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of After Peter Pan. If it resonated with you, I'd love if you could leave us a like, drop us a rating. It really helps to drive new audiences to the show. Thanks again and until next time.