Mothers & Daughters

Published Jan 3, 2024, 11:00 AM

A woman in deep breakdown with her mother for over the past decade calls Iyanla to vent about the frustration and anxiety she feels about the relationship. But after hearing the full story, Iyanla gets to the truth: The caller doesn’t see her mother as a woman first, and together they get to the raw, emotional healing.

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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. Greetings and welcome to the our Spot, the place we come to talk about, to examine, to explore, hopefully, to heal and uplift relationships, all kinds of relationships. I am young La van Zant. Today we're talking about what I think is one of the most sacred, it yet complicated relationships that we encounter as human beings. And that's the relationship between mother and daughter. I had two daughters. I've lost both of them. When I think about my relationships with them, my relationship with my oldest daughter, Jamia was probably one of the most fulfilling, loving, sacred relationships in my life, or at least that's what I thought until she passed on and I read her journals, and what I realized was that she was having a relationship with me that I was totally unaware of, and I was having a relationship with her that she didn't experience. Then with my youngest daughter, who just recently passed away, I'm real clear that we had a contentious relationship and it took me years and years to figure out what was the problem. She was the baby, she was spoiled, rotten, she will spoil rotten, and she demanded, required and really got more attention from me than any of my other children. But the contention in our relationship I discovered was that she represented the part and parts of me that I couldn't see, didn't want to see, never accepted about myself, and projected on to her the thing she needed to do to correct herself when I hadn't corrected those things in me. And once ide got that and I began to shift, unfortunately it was too late. There was so much damage done in our relationship. Her experience of me had been going on for so long until she was unable or unwilling to shift. Because you know, we get into a habit of seeing people a certain way, and even when they change, we still see them as the way they were instead of the way they are. So we got along, We didn't fight, We got along, but it was really really difficult. It was really challenging, and I know I'm not alone. I know there are hundreds of thousands of mothers and daughters who are just at odds, who just have contention.

And what I.

Always say to moms is, no matter what happens or how it happens, it's going to end up in your lap. And they don't understand that children all children. But as women, it's really really important that we understand that our daughters bring to life our subconscious issues. Our daughters bring to life our subconscious issues, and they show us who we are and who we're not, and then they experience it the way they experience it. And as moms we have to take the high road, and very often we are so hurt, so busy trying to control or fix or change our daughters till we don't do the inner work required to heal the relationship. That wasn't my case. I did the inner work, and my daughter just had a habit of seeing and experiencing me a certain way. She was my baby girl, and I loved her. I loved her with all my heart. I still love her, and now that she's not in the body, I want to say we have a much better relationship. But you don't have to wait till then, moms and daughters, because I think what daughters forget is that before your mom was your mother, she was a woman. She was a little girl, and she has a story, and she has issues, and she has challenges. And so instead of seeing her as just your mother with your requirements and demands and judgments, remember she's a woman who was a little girl, who has a history and a story that determines how she's going to show up in your life. So today we have a divine opportunity to take a look at the sacredness and the challenges that go on in a relationship between mother and daughter. So I'm going to take a deep breath because what I know as a coach and as a minister is my guests today are bringing my issues right up in my face. So hopefully, hopefully I can give them what I have. I can give them what I needed, I can give them what I learned from a place of love and compassion. So let's get started. Greetings, beloved, and welcome to the R Spot. Today we are talking about a sacred and complicated relationship, the one that exists between mothers and daughters. So what do you bring into the table today.

I've never been close to my mother. I've never had a relationship with my mother and my father perfect. My mother never had anything. He's gone years about talking with our longest find being four years. I'm thirty three. So basically, I've been listening to your podcast and I've learned that I don't know how to be in relationship with my mother. I've tried, I've tried counseling, but what I've realized is I do not like her as a person. I've also learned that that means that I don't like parts of myself. But I'm trying to figure out how do I move forward in a relationship with somebody who I feel like is always negative and they talked about everybody like there's really nothing positive that I can say about my mom, and I don't like that. But I'm just trying to figure out, like, how do I move forward in a relationship with her. Not to mention she just got diagnosed with cancer last year, and then just this July, when I stopped talking to her again, she got into another accident. Now she can't walk, and the family was trying to pressure on me to go take care of her. And it just was a lot. So I'm just trying to figure out how to move forward.

Wow. I find it interesting that you say you've always had a strange relationship with her. Take me back as far as you can to when you realize that your relationship with her was strained.

The furthest back that I can't remember is about seven years old when we moved into our house. The way that it was was my mom would come home and go straight to her room and smoke and drink. My stepdad would take care of us, He would do things with us. But I literally never had a relationship with her. And if she was talking to us, she was yelling at us. I have two brothers, That's why I say us. She was just yelling at us or telling us we didn't do our chores right, or if she came home and we did our tours perfectly, but there's a pin on the floor, we would all get beat, lined up and beat. So it was just like I just I never could be close to her. And now she's trying to be in my life. But it's like it's been years and years of torture and now she's trying to act like nothing happened. And I should just be her friend. I'm just like I can't like you know, I can't open up to you. I don't trust you.

You said years of torture. What does that mean?

It's funny because I actually found a note yesterday. So in this note, I broke down that she took my birthdays away from me for dumb reasons, like to pend on the floor. She would just say, you can't have a birthday this year. She would come home and yell at us. She would constantly put me on punishment. I never got praised for anything. I only got things pointed out if they were wrong. I was an ab suit and nothing was ever. I never had any problems. She would hold money over my head to try to control me, and that's why that's when I first I found my first form of independence when I was nineteen, because I finally started making my own money. She couldn't control me anymore, and I was the first one of all three kids who broke free of her control. Basically, she would hit me all the time. I personally felt like she hated me. She told me she did it when we went to counseling, but I felt like she hated me because she hates my dad, and I looked like my dad, and I act like my dad.

There it is right there, right there. Wait a minute, Wait a minute, Wait a minute. Take a breath, Take a breath. Wow, m tell me what's going on right there, right there? What's happening for you? Right now?

I'm about to cry, but.

Don't run away from it. Sit in it for a minute, and let's get that together. Because I was going to ask you. I heard you say your stepdad took care of you. Your dad didn't, So your mom hated your dad. Yeah, as a young as a young girl, you don't remember having closeness nurturing from her. She would go in her room and smoke and drink. No closeness, no communication, no rewards, no affirmation from her.

Yep.

Yeah, And that continued until you became a teenager. And what did you tell yourself about out why she treated you like that?

I just told myself my mom treated me poorly because she's crazy. Because it logically didn't make sense. I had a's and b's, I did all my chords. When I would go to my dad or my grandmaself, I never got whooping. It was only with her, so it didn't make sense to me.

Okay, she was crazy. When did you make that decision? How old were you?

That's probably when I was like eight or nine. It was very early. It was when we first moved to the house.

Although you say she hated your dad or maybe things happened in her relationship as a woman, things happened in her relationship with him that had nothing to do with you, but that she never healed. Is that a possibility.

Yeah, I believe that.

I heard you say that. Y'all have gone years without talking. What made that happen? What brought that about?

Well, the first time was when I was nineteen. She just she found out that I was a lesbian. I came to Atlanta, and I already was interested in women in Ohio, but during that time, at that time, it wasn't as accepted as it is now, So I didn't want to come out until I went to college, if that makes sense. So she found out somehow, and then she called me all kind of slud bidget whores sold, gave me Bible verses. So then we then I I'm not gonna lie. I said a Bible verse back to her and told her that she could miss adult tree. You know, because she was and I felt like he was attacking me. I packed her back and told her, were you commit adultery? And you know there's no fin above the other, like that's in the Bible too, So I did that and then I didn't talk to her after that, and then the biggest blowout was when I was twenty three, So from twenty three to twenty seven, she didn't We didn't talk because I actually had a girlfriend at that time, and I brought her to Ohio told me to bring her to Ohio when I when I came there, she just flipped out and I was like, I don't even think she wanted us to come, and she cussed me out again. And then I told her that I was leaving, and she was like, I don't care, and I'm taking off my life insurance. I mean, if I care about the left matures. But the point is she didn't care about was leaving, and that hurt my feelings because I'm like, damn, you don't even care that I'm leaving, even though I don't really like you either, but like I would a least think you would care that your daughter's leaving, you know. So we didn't talk for four years and I told her that I would never have a relationship with her ever again unless she agrees to counseling with a counseling for a year. That helped.

But it wait a minute, Your mother, your crazy mother, who hated you, who thought you were a slut of bee, a hole whatever, went to counseling with you. M interesting, Yeah, Well did you ever try to reach out to her in those four years?

Never? Because she's just It's just I'm always the one being hurt, so I couldn't.

Did she ever try to reach out to you in those four years?

See, the only reason why she called me was because my little cousin, which is her best friend's mom, she was going through the same thing with her daughter, and I guess it made her so she called me.

Does it matter why she made the first move?

No?

So that was a twenty seven So from twenty seven to thirty three, what has that looked like now?

So from twenty seven to thirty two, I told her that I really would like for her to not call me and just text me because when she would call, I would get anxiety, like really bad anxiety. When she would call me, like it would just freak me out, like every time she called, I would rather her text me, so she didn't listen to me for the first three years of that. She just started listening when I was like thirty one turning thirty two, and then we were able to get closer. So like all of last year, we were able to get closer. But then this year I got triggered again because I went to Costa Rica four months. I didn't talk to anybody. I needed time to myself. And while I was there in Costa Rica, people were reaching out, including my mom. But I realize every time my mom would reach out, I would just feel like, Oh, I don't want to tap her. Oh I don't want to talk to her. I did some work and when I was journeying, I found out that I don't don't want to talk to her because every time I do, it's something negative. Every single time I answer the phone, there's some type of immediate vent, negative vent. And that's exactly what happened. When I got back in July. I answered the phone for her, and as soon as I answered the phone, it was three back to back negative situations and I was I just got so overwhelmed when I shut down, and I haven't talked her since July. I just like I feel overwhelmed.

We'll talk about that when we come back. Welcome back to the R spot. Let's pick up where we left off. How do you define negative? You said it was three negative situations.

Complaining talking about people, so sho. So when she calls me, she'll say, yeah, your brother, this pasty town. Yeah, your brother and his fucking baby mama, telling me all their businesses if I need to know their business. And then the next thing, again, I will talking to this guy and he's he's this, he's but I don't want to hear that. Like when I call my dad, it's positive, it's uplifting. When she calls me, it's just a dump of like this low vibrational conversation and it just it drains my energy.

And what if you're the only person she feels safe enough to talk to.

My brain is telling me, how could that be if we don't even really.

Talk like that, But somebody who stays in their room and smokes and drinks. The communication issues that you're identifying didn't start with you. Apparently she's had them a long time, and if she hasn't done anything to improve them, maybe that's the only way she knows how to communicate, and maybe she feels safe enough or familiar enough to share that with you, because you haven't created a boundary with her and said, Mom, I don't want to hear that, or Mom, I don't want to talk about that. Mom, you can call me and talk about my brother. Please don't do that. You haven't created the boundary, okay. And that's because it's not the thirty three year old woman dealing with her, it's the seven year old child. You haven't grown up her in her space yet. Yeah, what is your mother's story? How old was she when she had you?

She was twenty four and she had my brother when she was twenty with my brother, so she got pregnant in college. Just two different stories. Her version is she was raped. My dad's version is she wasn't because he knew the guys and currently on my dad's version, she was, you know, doing what she was doing, cheating on him, got pregnant with my brother. She lied and told everybody like, oh I got raped. I don't know. I don't know, but I know my mom is. She lies a lot. But in my mind I kind of believe my dad because she's I was lying, but I will say that either way, she was young. She was nineteen and she found out she was pregnant at like five months, so she didn't even have much time to prepare for my brother. My dad stepped up, even though he knew that that wasn't his child, because he knew who the father was. He stepped up. And then four years later I came. My dad was in the military, he was gone. I was born on a military base while he was at war. My mom was all alone on the base in South Carolina. So she drove back to Ohio with my grandma about a month before I was born. So I was born in Ohio. And then after that she met my stepdad in Ohio and he's been in my life since a baby. So I've never seen my mom and my dad together ever.

She got pregnant in college. How did her mother respond to that.

I don't know how her mom responded, but I know that my my great grandmother, which is her grandmother, which is who was taking care of her, because my mom also had a straight relationship with her mother. So my mom went to Birmingham when she was sixteen, stayed with my great grandmother. I know my great grandmother. She wasn't happy, but she was supported her and all of my aunts that were in Bermia, which we have a really big family.

So my mother wasn't there for her when she got pregnant in college and came home or whatever to have a baby. Her mother wasn't there for her at a critical time in her life, right, the same way your mother wasn't there for you at a critical time in your life when you came out. Yeah, if her mother wasn't there for her at a critical time in her life, where do you think she would have learned how to be there for you?

Actually, I don't. I don't not. Once we went through Countling and I talked to my mom, and then I talked to my grandmother, I realized y'all have the same story. Right, So once I learned that, that completely is out of the window. Now now I know that she couldn't even give to me. She didn't have it. You don't even know what it looks like or feels like.

Well, if you know she doesn't have it, if you know she never seen it, she didn't receive it, why are you still expecting her to give it to you?

I think I'm not really expecting for her to give me an love. I I just thought, I just don't want to be her dumping board for her negativity. Like it's literally as soon as I answer it.

Dump I get that. I get that, But I also want you to consider, what if you are the person she feels safe enough, familiar enough to share those things. What if as a young woman she had no place to ask questions to be nurtured or guided the same way she didn't guide and nurture you. See, the thing that I know is that children bring to life the subconscious issues of the parents, the things the parents can't see, don't see, can't accept, won't accept about themselves. Very often, the children bring those to life and they live them out. And if you're saying you were a good kid, a peaceful kid, a smart kid, you knew that there was probably a part of her she was in college that was good and peaceful and loving, or that nobody ever affirmed. You know, I know that she didn't do it for you, which says to me, nobody did it for her. But you stuck at seven or six, have made this about how she treats you and not about who she is. And when I'm hearing in your conversation you don't want your mother to be who she is.

I think there's true to that where you said I don't want her to be herself because when I first came well, when she first came back there on at twenty seven, I wanted to go to counsel because I can't deal with you if you're going to be that person. But that is her and I tell her, yeah, I don't accept her, ask who she is.

Here's a pearl for clutching. Okay, don't even clutch your pearls. Don't even just take this one pearl and clutch it to your bosom. What if you are doing to her the exact same thing you say she did to you. What if rejecting her, not talking to her, judging her, seeing her wrongness, not affirming her, not acknowledging her, not looking beyond your hurt and upset, not looking at her story, dismissing her truth. What if she really was raped because that simply means that somebody wanted to have sex with her and she said no. What if she really was raped in her mind? But the peace that I want you to get to love it, whether you go take care of her or not will deal with that in a minute. Is that you are doing to her the very same thing you accuse her of doing to you, which is not accepting her for who she is. She doesn't accept you because you're gay. You don't accept her because she's a wounded, broken little girl who grew into a wounded, broken woman. Let me tell you something, if your mother hated you, she would have never stepped foot in the counselor's office.

I can accept that.

Can you accept that? Looking at your mother, you're looking at another part of yourself. You call yourself nice and sweet and loving. You haven't said not one nice, sweet, loving thing about her. You have told me every single thing that's wrong with her. Does she have nice eyes? Does she have nice hair? Did she make you a good sandwich? Yeah? Yes, she beat you or punished you and controlled you with money. But that wasn't who she is. That's what she did from her brokenness, her wounds and won't personal. Wasn't even about you. People do what they do based on who they are and the information that they have at the time. And you've made her hurt, her brokenness, her woundedness, all about her, which she probably inherited from her mother. But you, little miss Sunshine, you probably show her things about herself that she's never even considered were present, and she can't see it. She can't accept it, she can't receive it. And it's not about you, it's about her brokenness.

So if I say to her like, hey, I don't want to talk about my brother, like I create a boundary. If I create a boundary on everything.

Well, first of all, you can't do that until you grow up. You got to grow yourself up in your mother's presence and be willing to stand with her woman to woman. And you still get not to like her, you know, you still get to if you wouldn't pick her as a friend. She don't have to be your friend, but she's your mother, and without her you wouldn't be here, gay or straight, Ohio or Alabama. Where's the gratitude for that?

What do I do that? I don't tell what to do?

Now, take a breath, Take a breath. That's what you do. You don't have to do anything. Let's see if we can get you to be thirty three. We'll talk more about it when we come back. Welcome back to the R spot. Let's get back to the conversation. I had a daughter like you who she I don't care what I did or how I did it. It was never right. She always saw the negative that I did because growing up I was so dysfunctional that I infected her with my dysfunction. And then as I healed up and cleaned up, even though she grew up, she still saw me as dysfunctional. So I heard you say that your your mother now has cancer and she had an accident and she can't walk. So I want you to close your eyes for a minute. Close your eyes for just a minute, and I want you to see your mom as you know her, to be bandaged from head to toe like a mummy. The only thing that's out is her eyes and her nose and her mouth. Can't see her hair, you can't see her head. You can't see her arms, her fingers, her legs. Nothing, see her bandaged. And how would you treat her? How would you treat her if you walked into a room and that's what she looked like? What would you do?

Probably give her something to eat through a straw?

How about ask her mom, do you need anything?

I think this is important. I don't know. I feel like I need to give this to you. But when I was in a Fio in July, it was the last time I got there she called me because it was like a week you know that call I told you about where she dumped all of it on me for a week. After my older brother was having a baby shower, so I flew to Ohio and she had an accident. That's how she ended up mouth walking. She already had the cancer, was walking when she goes me when I got there. It was the day before I got there, she had the accident that landed her in the hospital. And when I walked into the hospital and she called me at the baby showers, I couldn't even enjoy the baby shower, which kind of irritating me because I was over here for thirty minutes she called. So of course I went to the hospital with both my brothers because we were all there. And when I walked in and I seen her in the hospital bed, there was a part of me that came up that was like it was like not happy that she was there, but it was more so like, yeah, that's how I felt as a kid, and I felt so bad or feeling like that, but I didn't it just came up, like to see her in pain. Yeah, that's how I thought.

That's a typical seven year old response. Good for you, see see good for you. That's normal.

Okay.

And now you, as a thirty three year old, were probably horrified.

Yeah I was.

Yeah, but that's what a kid would do. And that's what I really want you to get. You're not dealing with your mom as a thirty three year old, rational, rationally minded woman. You're still dealing with her from the fear and they're upset and their anger as a seven year old. And that's fine, but you just have to be aware of that and do something different as a thirty three year old woman, create clear boundaries with her and again dealing woman to woman, not child to adult. Woman to woman. You want to come from a place of love, honor, and respect. Ma, I can't. I can't with you. I can't do me a favor. It breaks my heart when you talk about my brother like that. So I'm going to make a request that you don't talk to me about my brother in that way. You can ask me a question, you can ask me my opinion, but that cussing him and I can't. I can't do that. With you please, And if she doesn't have a good response about that, and you say, okay, Ma, when you call me and you talk about my brother like that, I'm gonna end the conversation. I'll call you back later, but we're not going to do that. I'm not going to do that with you. That's how a thirty three year old woman speaks to another woman. You make the requests, you create the boundary, and then you implement the consequence. Wow, and she'll forget. And every time she forgets, you remind her you're not seven. At seven you had to stand outside the door. At seven, she could hit you. At seven, you said. At nineteen, when you were stepping into your womanness that you said, Oh, she tries to control me with money. Let me do something about this. You made another choice. You stop participating in the drama. See, you and your mother are deep in the drama. And in the drama, there's the victim, there's the rescuer, and there's the persecutor. And she keeps playing different roles with you're her victim, but you want her to rescue you. Why don't you like me? Why don't you love me? Why don't you treat me? This? Way, and then she's your persecutor. But she can only be your persecutor if you stay the victim. And it's not you at thirty three, that's the victim. It's the seven year old. So you got to take care of your seven year old. And the way we can get you to be thirty three is to give that seven year old a voice and let her talk about all of the things that she needs to say to her mommy, because that's who's in trouble. You fine, you, okay, it's that little girl. Can you see her in your mind when you come home and mommy's in the room drinking and smoking. So let's do this. Let her go outside your mom's her mom's been room door. Let her go outside her mom's bedroom door. And what does she want to say to her mom? Let her just stand there and talk to the door. Take a breath, and I'm scared. Yeah, I'm scared, Mommy. Say that I'm scared, mommy. Tell her what you're scared of I'm.

Scared of her because at any moment, she could book I'm scared of you.

No, no, talk to her. I'm scared of you because.

I'm scared of you because at any moment, you could just blow up for no reason.

How about I'm scared of the way you treat me. I'm scared of the way you hit me. I'm scared of the way you yell at me. How about that.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what else I can do to be a good child. Like I just feel like a bad child, and I know I'm not bad.

Yeah, yeah, you make me feel bad? Mommy? Tell her?

Do you like me? Feel bad? Mommy?

Yeah? Confuses me and you hurt me. Yes, yes, you confuse me.

You confuse me.

Tell her you confuse me and you hurt me, and and what else? Yeah? And I just want you to love me.

Yes, I just want you to love me and actually pay attention to me, like see me please?

Yeah, you don't see me.

Because it was paying attention and you pay attention to the micro and I'm just in the middle.

Yeah.

Yeah, just let her cry for a minute. Just let her cry.

How come you don't like me? Mommy? How come you don't like me? Ask her?

How come you don't like me?

Like?

What am I doing wrong? That's what it is?

Like? What am I doing wrong? I just feel like no matter what I do, I do everything. You take care of my baby brother, Like, like, what what am I doing wrong?

Like you're not doing anything wrong, baby, I just don't have it. I know you need it, I know you want it. I just don't have it. And every time I see you, it reminds me of what I don't have. So I just stay behind this door. I just stay here because I don't have what you need because I never got it. I never got it, and what little bit I had I lost. Trying to get people to love me, trying to get people to make me feel better, trying to feel better about myself. I see you, I see you, and I don't like what I see because I don't have it. I can't believe that something as precious and beautiful as you came from me. I can't believe that. So I try to stay away from you, hoping that you'll get what you need forgive me. I don't know what else to do do, but look at you. You're beautiful, you're successful. You want me to see you. I don't want you to see me. Okay, take a breath. I want to hear it. Come on, breee, you want to blow your nose yeah, let me blood. Okay, go blow your nose. I'll wait for you. I'll hummmm is that better? Yeah? Your little girl probably triggers her little girl, and if her little girl is broken and wounded, then it's just gonna be two little girls together. That's why she's coming to you saying f this and this one. Now, she's gossiping with you. That's what little girls do. She's gossip y'all, a gossipin and you calling it negativity. That's how she's communicating. You're stuck at seven. She's probably stuck in eleven or twelve. And I just I have to bring to your awareness, beloved, that you haven't said one positive thing about your mother in this conversation. Not one. So I got one more question to ask you, and then we're gonna give you a prescription so you can move forward. And I want the absolute rot gut from the pit of your belly. Truth. Why do you want to be in relationship with your mother?

Because when I'm not with her, I feel like a piece of musiness.

Yes, yes, And now you're being asked to take care of somebody that you don't feel took care of you. Yeah, what a powerful, powerful blessing that is because you get to be for her who she wasn't for you. You get to be there, You get to be kind, loving, compassionate, You get to heal up some stuff. You get to sit with her and talk with her now the way you didn't when you were twelve and thirteen. But if you don't want to do it, don't do it because you cannot do it from obligation. To do it from obligation would be harmful to you and to her. You'll be resentful, you'll be angry, you'll be mean. Don't do it. But what if, what if her lessons, her healing, her evolution in life is going to come from being mothered by the person she didn't mother. What if this isn't her lesson, This is your lesson, and maybe her lesson is to learn how to receive it. Because the same way you know she didn't take care of you, she knows she didn't take care of you, telling you she didn't have it to give, and how she responds to it now it's not your business. But if you can find it in your heart to be for her who she wasn't for you, what a powerful blessing on your life so sit with it. Sit with it and see how it feels. But don't go into it trying to get her to be who you need her to be. Go into it being who you are and accepting her as she is. How she responds is none of your business, because it's going to take a great deal of humility and surrender for her to allow you to take care of her. She may have it, she may not. I don't know, but I know all things are lessons that our creator would have us learn. So this is your learning curve. It's probably hers too, But I'm not talking to her. I'm talking to you. In the book Forgiveness forty Days to Forgive Everyone for Everything, I have an entire section on forgiving your mother. If you get a chance, get that book and do that work. You got to forgive you your thoughts about her, your beliefs about her, your judgments about her, and your feelings about her. Not that you don't have a right to have those thoughts, beliefs, feelings based on your experience, but to forgive them opens you up to see things from a different perspective. What's going to be different when you get off this call?

What's going to be different? Is my mindset about the story that I told myself. To be honest, I've told myself a very horrific story, and I've repeated that.

Story, traumatizing and over traumatizing yourself.

Yeah, yeah, I tell that story. Is different now I have more understanding of her positions and even my position and my opportunity to grow.

But here's what I want you to do, because your seven year old still needs healing. When that anger and that whatever it is, you know, you know what it is comes up in you, I want you to take a breath and tell your seven year old I got this, because it's not the thirty three year old who's doing that. So we want to take care of the seven year old. So you almost have to remother yourself because it'll come up, you know, as soon as she says something or does something or tells one of her negative stories, your seven year old is going to freak out. So within yourself you have to say, wait a minute, baby, calm down, I got this. I got this. You sit right here, I got this, and then you allow the thirty three year old to deal with mom. Yeah, this is a major turning point for you because you're thirty three years old, the dark night of the soul where you're getting a chance to kind of rewire yourself and recreate yourself. But you can't continue to re traumatize yourself. You have to respond differently. Every time it comes up. You gotta respond differently. Okay, Yes, let me know how you're doing. Okay, And if you go, take care of mom. No heat, no judgment anyway, any either way you choose, because if you think you have to go, don't go. Go when you feel you can do it from a loving space.

Okay, Thank you so much, Anne, I really truly appreciate you, like I'm so grateful for this God. Thank you, and thank you for showing me myself.

Thank you for trusting me with your story and with your tears. Thank you. It is an honor. Take good care, mean too. All right, bye bye. Let's be clear, there are many mothers out there who are not who their children need and want them to be, but they are who they are, and when those children become adult, the work is not traumatizing yourself about what your mother didn't do or who she wasn't It's about seeing her for who she is today, a woman with a history and a story and having compassion for that so that you can step fully into your adult self and learn how to deal with your mother or any parent from an adult space, not as a wounded, broken child, because no matter what she gave you or didn't give you, you are who you are today because of her. 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 The Shells

The R Spot with Iyanla

Each week, New York Times best-selling author and famed spiritual life coach, Iyanla Vanzant, invite 
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