Iyanla’s caller this week joins with a very interesting dilemma: Her adult daughter lives in her house, but won’t speak to her. They haven’t talked in two weeks. Iyanla immediately realizes that there’s more to the story – What led up to this and why did she move back home? Iyanla explores what went wrong during parenting that the daughter wants to be re-mothered as an adult.
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I am a yamla. I had a baby daddy relationship. I spent time in a relationship with a married man. I had to learn the skills and tools required to make my relationships healthy, fulfilling, and loving. Welcome to the r Spot, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. How many of us, as mothers, loving from a broken place, raising our children from a broken place, see what our children do as hurtful to us, not as an opportunity for healing. When your daughter says or does something that hurts you, or that scares you, or that reminds you of your brokenness, rather than seeing that as an opportunity for healing, we go into making them wrong and trying to fix the situation, or into denial. The thing that so many mothers don't understand is that your children know you from the inside out. They may not know what they're looking at, they may not have the words for it. But Mama, that baby know you because she lived in your body. He lived in your body. This is mothers and their children. How many mothers live and parent from their brokenness, from their brokenness, from their wounds, trying not to do to their children, what was done to them, trying to give their children more than they didn't have, trying to do things for their children that weren't done for them. Loving from your brokenness means you miss the opportunity to love from the place you are right now. You love him from the past, your love, and from what didn't even go on. You're loving from what isn't going on anymore. You're loving from a brokenness, a woundedness that may have absolutely nothing to do with what your child needs, what your child wants, what's good for your child. You're loving from your lack, your wound, your brokenness, and that's not what our children need. And what ends up happening is we are not the parent that they need us to be. Take a listen. Greetings beloved, and welcome to the R Spot. Today we are talking about the sacred, complicated relationship between mothers and daughters. So are you a mother or a daughter? And what do you bring into the table?
I am a mother, Okay, I'm hoping to get some issues result or some help to navigate the conflict that me and my daughter is having. It appears that we're going to peer it is that she's very angry with me, and she says that she's not, but everything that she does, you know, her actions show that yes you are. But I don't know why.
How old is your daughter?
He's thirty?
And tell me what is your relationship like? What does it look like? How do you all interact?
What's happening right now? It's we live in the same house and we don't speak to each other, and we don't speak to each other because she.
Says, wait a minute, hold up, hold up, hold up, let me take a breath. You'all love to tell these shocking stories and keep on running. You and her live in the same house together, Yes, her house or your house?
My house?
So your thirty year old daughter lives in a house with you and doesn't speak to you.
Correct?
Do you speak to her?
Not anymore?
Oh? Okay? So how long has this been going on? How long this has.
Been going on? Maybe maybe two weeks?
And how did you get there? How did you get to the place where a person living in your house is not speaking to you?
Okay, let's unpack this, yes please, Okay, So it went out my ex Okay, this is big, right.
Okay, my ex husband her father. No, okay, So your ex husband violated her. What does that mean? He raped her, he fondled.
Her, he raped her. Okay, she was maybe sixteen or seventeen.
Okay, take a breath. What's going on in your brain? I can hear your brain clicking.
Okay, just unpacking it because I didn't find out about it until later later in her she was in her twenties. Maybe when I found out about it. How'd you find out she exposed it to me? She let me know.
She didn't tell you when it happened.
No, why, I'm not sure why. I don't know whether she felt like I wouldn't believe her, or she was afraid, or I don't know. I don't know why.
So in her twenties, how did she tell you that? She blurted out? Were y'all arguing? Did y'all go have tea? What happened?
She was going through some counseling, and I think it was advised to her that she should talk to me about it, And she just told me she was going through some other things, and I think she was just trying to clear her her chick list or something, and she that was one of the things on it to have a conversation with me. So we had that conversation.
And what did you say when she told you?
I apologize that it happened to her. I embraced her, I told her how sorry I was that that took place.
Were you still with him when she told you we.
Were still together? When she told me? Yes?
And what did you say to him?
I don't know if I can repeat that?
Oh, okay on the network. Okay, thank you? Uh huh, My ears are not worthy of such wonderfulness.
Right right, right right?
It was?
Yeah, it was a come to Jesus meeting?
Okay, So how did that? What does that have to do? Would while y'all stop speaking two weeks ago?
Okay? I think it all. I think it all is together in that, And I think she felt like I should have known or done something at the time. I think she feels like I was more you know, I have always been a you know, I get it done, I work, you know, my clothes. I you know, I'm more of a father figure, should I say, than a mother. I'm not the lovey w okay, yeah, your father? Right? Yeah, so I'm not that nurturing kind. I'm trying to be more like that, you know now. But I've missed that that window. So I have never been like a nurturing mother. I'm just like, Okay, you gotta do this. I check boxes, Okay, we got to get this done. I gotta get that done. But the nursing box, I wasn't checking.
What happened two weeks ago.
Okay, And it's amlation of a lot of things. Now. She suffers from anxiety and depression and she lost her jobs. Well, she didn't lose her job, she her car got stolen from her, and she's been having some financial difficulties and she's just had a lot of life situations start happening. And my and my gut feeling is saying that, Okay, she has seen how I handle things throughout life and just kept going. And she she often says, I'm not you. Now. I've never expected her to be me, but I hear her saying that, and so I take from that that maybe somehow she's trying to do things the way that I was able to do things being a single mom with three kids and still making stuff happen. I don't. I don't, I really don't know, and I'm probably getting off from the question. But she's had a lot of life situations happen to her that have been hard things, and then I will try and jump in and help. But then it's like, you don't want my help, but then you do want my help.
Oh, help me.
Make sense out of it? Yeah, I can't.
Well, I don't have to make sense out of it. When I started the show today, I said that help me, lord, because I know my guests are going to bring my issues to the table, because you just stole my story. I had three children. I was a great, great father and a horrible mother. Horrible. I had to have my kids. They had to be in line, they had to do a certain thing in a certain way, because you know, I had to pay the bills. I had to take care of everything. So I was a horrible mother, horrible. I was a great father, and I broke my children. I did in addition to being dysfunctional and crazy as hell, probably depressed, maybe psychotic, narcissists. I don't even know. I can't I don't even remember who I was. But I taught my children that they couldn't trust me emotionally. I taught my children that I didn't have time for your problems. I got to get to work, I got to pay the bills. I taught my children that their voice didn't matter. What mattered was what I needed them to do so that I could do what I needed to do. I mean, of course I didn't sit down and make a to do list. I'm going to destroy my children and damage their self worth. And then when I woke up until like oooh, this is really not how you need to be for yourself. And in the process of you not being who you need to be for yourself, you have destroyed your children. And I've always said everything my children needed I learned way after they needed it. The one thing they needed was my heart. I gave them my head, I gave them home, I gave them food and clothes, and they needed my heart.
Navigate that that's correct, that is oh so yeah.
She is angry with you. Absolutely is angry. And even though you didn't know what had happened. As a mom, your job, your responsibility is to protect your children. You brought the predator right into.
The house, right exactly.
And probably the reason she didn't tell you was because a part of her didn't want to destroy what she thought made you happy.
That's absolutely correct. And she has always been the one you know, she's my child, So I will hurt me before I hurt you. I'll take something on me.
That's not a good thing. It's not We'll talk about that when we come back. Welcome back to the R spot. Let's pick up where we left off. You say you don't want her to be like you, but I can tell you from experience when you have a high achieving mother, When you have a high achieving mother with a closed heart, nothing the kids do is ever good enough, even if you don't say it. That's that's how they end up being. Did you stay with him after she told you? Yes, betrayal betrayed her, So she's she's not mad at you, she's not angry with you. She is in high piosity, high perosity. You better sleep when one eye open.
Yes, with my door locked, do you hear me?
Do you hear me? Yeah? I do, And that's a that's a good step. Are you still with him?
No? Okay, I had to plan. I had to do an plan. I had to do an exit plan. And I couldn't sit down and tell her I have an exit plan. But you know, once that happened, I started trying to figure out, Okay, what am I going to do? And how am I gonna do this? And that's what I did.
So she's come home to be remothered. Does she have children, yes? Are they in the house also?
Yes? Oh lord, yes, two daughters, yes.
And I bet you have a good relationship with them, don't you.
I love them, yes, and they love me. They're me me, and and it gets to the point where, you know, it's like I love the way she mothers them, you know. And I often tell my daughters, I love to see how you guys interact with your children, because I never was that way with them, So it makes me proud to see that. But it's now at a point where she even tries to keep them away from me, even though we're in the same house.
Well, because she's jealous, not the grown thirty year old woman, but the little girl. And her is jealous. Yeah, that you give her those little girls what you didn't give her. This is a hot mess, you know. Yes, So now let me ask you this. Does she pay rent in your house?
No, ma'am?
Okay, Well then she's a If she's in your house using your lights and your toilet water and your toilet paper, she don't get to not speak to you, mother, she don't get to do that to her mother. Now, if she wants to pay rent and be your tenant, then she can do whatever she wants to do. So you're all gonna have to make some decisions here. You want to be a tenant and live here, here's the rules, here's your rent, this is when it's due. You do what you want to do. But if you who pass through my body are going to live in my house, we have to work together. We can't do this and this is not how I want my grandchildren to see two women interacting. Yeah, we're not setting a good example for them. You don't get to be in my house, under my roof, using my toy toilet paper, in my electricity, and don't speak to me. I'm the mama, Yes, ma'am, I'm the mama. Like me, don't like me, mad at me. We can work that out, but that you won't do. Now. You want to be a tenant. Your rent is this amount, and this is when it's due. Because you're still the mama, even though you was horrible at your job.
Thank you.
I wonder what would happen. I wonder what would happen if children could fire their mothers right, your guilt, Your guilt and your shame will allow you to let her treat you anyway? No, no, no, no. Would you have a girlfriend, would you have a friend of yours, another sister woman living in your house not speaking to you?
Absolutely not?
So then why are you allowing her to do that.
Because of the guilt and the shame and not wanting her to retaliate and probably take the kids someplace else where. I right now I know where they are, but then outside of my sight, I don't know what might happen.
See, you can't rescue her and persecute her. At the same time, you can't rescue her if you don't trust her. How old are your granddaughters.
At eight and two?
Well, Mama, you got to be willing to give them out to maintain your dignity. You got to be in the throne. You got to put the queen in the throne. Mama can't run the house. The queen runs the house. Mama can have conversations with her daughter. You can't have it both ways. And if she's a good mom, she won't take your grandchildren away. Not if she's a good mom. Now she's a good mom, then that's a whole another situation. Okay, I'm glad you tell her that too. And can I say this, because it's right up in your house, right up in your face, and clearly you don't have the skills to deal with it. Find out if you and her can go to counsel. Do you think she would be willing to do that?
That is a confirmation, because that's something that I've been kind of wanting to introduce to her because she goes and I was like, you know, even when I saw or I felt like, Okay, you're saying that you like me, love me, this, any other, but those are not the actions that you're exhibiting.
Okay, wait a minute, Hold hold up, hold up, Hold up, daddy, Hold up, daddy, because right there, you're making her wrong. You're making her wrong, even if you know in your soul she's really pissed and she really has a right to be pissed. You didn't protect her. You brought the predator in the house. And hear me, I'm not judging you or making you wrong for this. I'm sitting on I've got on her shoes right now. I'm just putting her shoes on and telling you what she's walking in Okay. Can you hear me, Mom? I don't want you to hear me making you wrong. I'm just walking in her shoes. You brought that beast into this house. Yes, your job was to protect me and take care of me. You let him do this to me, and yes, stayed with him. That's in her shoes. Now, you and I know maybe something else was going on. You had no awareness. But here's the peace, Mom. She didn't trust you enough to tell you take a breath. You're not breathing, Come on, breathe. Yes, So there's that, and then there's a part where loving you, wanting you to be happy. She didn't want to destroy what she thought made you have. That's another reason she didn't tell you. So she's got that conflict going on inside of herself. Here's what I can tell you, Mama. You're gonna have to own all of that, and not from a place of I know I didn't do this, and I know I didn't do that, but I did this and I had to do No. No, no, no, no no. That's not how you're gonna own it. I failed you. I failed you. Breaks my heart to know it to say it, But I failed you, and I hope one day you can forgive me and then you've just got to let her let it out. But she gonna tell you how you failed her. But that's not something y'all can do at the kitchen table over cheese and crackers. You need third party intervention. You need a neutral third party. But this is to the bone stuff right here. And you're gonna hear things about yourself that you it's gonna be hard for you to hear and believe. And I'm not whitewashing her because she's not dealing with you as a thirty year old woman. She's dealing with you as a broken little girl. That's what kids do. I'm not your friend. I'm not gonna speak to you. Wait a minute, hold up, boo, you in my house. And at the same time, you can't say, oh, you will speak to me. No, you can't say that. The thing is because she never got your heart. She doesn't feel safe with you. But she thinks you're gonna correct her.
Right, And that's something that I hear her say as well, because you know her truth is that I'm very judgmental, okay.
And you are judgment Oh yes you are, Yes, you are, Yes, you are ask me how I know? Ask me how I know? I had asked, how do you know? None of your business? None of your business. And what happens is she probably feels you as distant, cold, mean, Dutch metal and I'll just speak from a place of knowing of myself. Okay, this is just between you and me. Because I had so much to do, I didn't have time for little childhood imperfections. I just I didn't have time for that. And then, you know, a born perfectionist, I wanted them to be perfect, so I was extremely critical. I never forget when my son, who you know, in my eyes was the only son in the world. Everybody else had boys. I had a son and he was gonna do right and be right because I had him at sixteen and he was not gonna shame me in the world. Now, that's how I handled that. And when he grew up and did everything that I told him not to do, everything I taught him not to do, he did and ended up in God's Vacation Retreat Center aka prison.
You got one of them too, No, I don't have one.
You Okay, Well I did. I ain't shamed, and I'll never forget the day he said to me. He said, you are the reason I am the way I am. You it's your fault. And he said to me, you your fears for me were not the fears that I have for myself. You gave me enough rope to hang my myself and then you beat me up about it.
Wow.
You never told me what I could do. You always told me what not to do. And I grew up thinking and believing I couldn't trust myself because you didn't trust me. Okay, that's what my son told me from the prison phone on a collect call that I was paying for. And you know what I said, because instead of defending myself and instead of making him wrong again, I said to him, I hear you. Tell me how I can do it better now. We'll talk more about it when they come back. Welcome back to the R spot. Let's get back to the conversation. Tell me how I can do it better now. And what he said saved our relationship. He said, stop being my mother and be my friend. And that's what I did. I stopped correcting him, I stop criticizing him, I stop asking him his business. And if he didn't come to me, I didn't go to him. And sometimes even today at fifty four, my son will go to other people before he comes to me because that little boy in there still doesn't believe that he has my heart. Wow, she's in your house because she wants you to rescue her. But she treats you like her persecutor. It's a vicious thing, so she can manipulate you out of fear, your fear that she's gonna take your grandbabies. Yeah, and it hurts your feelings, right, it does. It does that you're providing for her and doing everything that you can to the best of your ability, whether she likes it or not, hurts your feelings. See, if you let her know that, then she'll know. Oh, she does have a heart. She's not just a cold cow eating grass in the fields. So can I ask you a question? What happened to your heart? Baby? What happened to your heart? Mama? So here we go. You go to therapy on Tuesday, and you and her go together on Friday because you're healing. Really, your deep level of healing will happen when you can share your story as a woman, woman to woman. She don't know your story, but something happened to harden your heart and We don't have to go into that now. But that's where you're healing, is I ask me how I know?
I dare not. You learn quick. I won't know.
And if for whatever reason, you can't get her to go to counseling, you go because you still need to soften your heart. You need to heal your heart. Here's a little secret. Don't tell anybody I told you this. Okay, you promise, promise not to tell nobody.
I won't tell anyone.
Okay, don't tell anybody I told you. Mama. She lived in your body. The first thing she heard was your heart beat and your voice. She knows you from the inside out. She may not know how to put it in words, she may not underst stand what it all means, but she knows you from the inside out. So some of the things that you deny about yourself, she knows they're truth because she lived in your body. Take her breath, you really stop breathing, Come on, breathe.
I just I took that in, you know, I took deep rest and I was just receiving all of that because that's so true. And it's like she knows me, you know, she watches me. She observes me. She's very observant, and that's why I think that she knows how to maneuver and do certain things because she knows how I'm going to react to it.
She manipulates you from your fear, but she also manipulates you from her intuitive knowledge. She lived in your body.
Yes, ma'am.
Yes, So some of the things she says about you that you can't hear your judgmental, No, I'm not. Yes, you are. We all are. Were you mean it? What makes us crazy as hell? But she knows what your judgments are. She knows what broke your heart. She may not know the story, but she knows your heart is broken and that's why she knows. She didn't get it and she doesn't trust it or you. So whether she goes to counseling or not, and I don't, I want to encourage you not to tell her, invite her, invite her. I want to heal. You mean the world to me and you're my heart and I want us to heal. And I don't know how to do it. And I want to know if we can go to counseling together. And does she have an income at all?
She does?
And ask her say, I pay for most of it, but I also want you to invest. I don't care if it's ten dollars. Let's do this together for each other, not that you mom take it on and do it, because then in her mind, you're controlling it. She's got to make an investment. You pay for your own. Like I said, you go on Tuesday, you'll go on Friday, right.
And I'm listening to how you're saying to say this because I wanted to come off like you're saying it, because that's exactly what I'm what I my intentions. But sometimes when I say it, it's like the control thing. Okay, we're gonna go do this, and we're gonna go do that, and I think it'll be good, you know. But I need to let her know, you know how I miss her and how she does mean the world to me, and I don't want this brokenness to continue. I want it to be mended, you know. I want to be healthy.
So here's what I want you to do. When you get to your therapist. I want you to tell her a couple of things. You can tell her, I said it. Tell her that your heart is closed. You're what I call neck down dead you live below, then you live above the neck, not below it. Tell her to help you understand how you control. Tell her to get to the root of your judgments, and tell her to help you diffuse your anger. I want you to start there, and let me tell you why, because you are heady and you'll be in therapy for six and a half years telling your stories and justifying your bad behavior. So let's go in. Let's go in with a game plan because you ain't got a lot of time. Okay, Yeah. The thing that I want you to know is that the heart has a voice. If you can get out of your head and get into your heart, the heart will start speaking and it'll say things that you would never think of, things like I know I failed you. I know I didn't protect you from the predator. I bought it now. But this is unacceptable. It scares me, It hurts my feelings. We cannot be in this house together and not to speak that that that's not working. Tell me what you know now that you didn't know when you called me today.
I know now that my queen has to take over as far as the house is concerned, and not let my daughter walk through there and not speak to me, that's not acceptable.
Yeah, and it feelings and it hurts your feelings, and it frightened and it frightens me. Yeah, now those are feelings.
I know that her little girl is operating and not the thirty year old woman. Right, So we did have a woman to woman conversation. But I knew that before our I called you, I didn't know that. But now I know how to have that conversation. I know how to introduce us going to therapy and not be it necessarily my idea, but let her know that my brokenness and how I want to resolve it, and let her know how well how I feel, so that she's not seeing me as the judgmental, you know person, that she sees.
Me as as a judgmental, controlling person. I have been on it, and I can say that to you because I know me right, and it's okay, it's okay. I could probably tell you your story. Well, that'd be a whole other episode if I hear it in your voice, constantly trying to prove your worth, your value, constantly trying to prove your right, and you will fight, be right, fight anybody. You're a fighter too. You scrap it out in the streets. I'm not gonna tell you to ask me how I know. But the piece that you don't understand, and this is what has created this rift between you and your daughter somewhere, and I'm guessing between maybe eleven and thirteen, possibly earlier. Not only were you abandoned by someone, you abandoned yourself. You abandoned yourself, and you abandoned your daughter emotionally.
Third, great, I can see it now.
Yeah you were eight eight nine, Okay, yep, you abandoned yourself. So right now you're operating on autopilot, survival autopilot. That's why I say, get thee to a therapist quickly. How old are you, my love?
I am fifty four.
Okay, this is critical. You don't this is it. You gotta do it right here, because if you don't do it right here, this situation is going to continue to you're sixty three.
It won't.
Yeah, no it no, I don't choose for it to happen. Tell me something good you can do for yourself today. Tell me what would make you feel good, like is there a Starbucks drink you like? Or can you get online and buy yourself something stupid? What can you do good? For yourself today.
Now here you go, get me Asahi bowl.
Okay. I want you to do that. You know why, because you did good work today.
Ma.
You haven't resisted at all, you haven't fought, and I feel your heart. I feel it now. I want you to celebrate yourself today because your pattern is to do it, hit and rock, do it, get it done, get it done, on to the next thing. But I want you to go get you a SAYI bowl and sit there and eat it, maybe eat it with your fingers, so that your little girl can have fun. Can you do that?
I will do it.
You promise me.
I promise you, I will do it.
And you know what, bring one home for your daughter. Breathe, don't talk, but don't think she's not going to receive it. She don't have to receive it. You bring it home for her. And all you have to do is say, I got myself one, so I got you or whatever she likes. Yes, does she like those bowls?
That's what I was thinking. She didn't like those bowls. But I know what she does like.
Okay, what does she like? Okay? Get it. After you get your bowl, to celebrate the good work that you've done, go out of your way, get her what she likes, bring it home, give it to her, whether she accepts it or doesn't accept it or whatever. I got myself something nice today, So I got you something, and then turn around and walk away. And then after that you can say this is unacceptable. We can't do this in front of the children. We can't do it. Yes, ma'am, go get your bowl. May you did good work today. Thank you for trusting me with your story.
Thank you for helping me with my situation.
Bye, mama, I have a great fan.
Thank you you two.
Thank you. Let me just be honest here. I know that I have lived most of my life, my adult life, as an awful woman. I know how to do. I know how to provide, I know how to protect. I know how to check the boxes off and get it done. And I am a casualty of the masculinization. That's a word, right, masculine nation of women were masculinized. If that's a word, somebody correct me. And one of the challenges the difficulties of being an alpha masculine woman is you lose access to your heart, you lose access to your feelings. You have a vacant emotional library and as women, as mothers. Our children could feel us before they could see us. They need our hearts. And when we don't have access to our heart, when we don't have a well stocked emotional vocabulary and emotional grounding, our children feel abandoned. They feel lonely, and they don't trust us. When we're correcting and directing and guiding all the time supposed to nourishing and nurturing, when our hearts are close to us, when our hearts are close to the world, when our hearts are close to love, our children feel abandoned because they know us from the inside out. And when they can't feel our hearts, they feel like they're by itself. That is absolutely going on here. One of the things that I had to learn as I healed my heart to be better for myself so I could be better for my children is this. And I want you, moms and grandmoms and all of you out there, I want you to write this down. It is unkind and unloving to ask yourself to do something that you've never been taught how to do. Nobody taught me how to affirm myself my children. No one nurtured me and nourished me, so I didn't nurture and nourish my children, and it was unkind and unloving for me to expect that I could have should have done that when I didn't know how to do it. So the key to healing that is forgiveness. I have to forgive myself for believing I should have been able to do something I didn't know how to do. And I had to ask my children to forgive me for not being who they needed me to do, but not giving them what they needed me to give them because I didn't have it. How many of you out there can get on that step with it. I hope that you know something now that you didn't know when you tuned in. And until we meet again, stay in peace, not pieces. The R Spot is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.