What people experience as a child can have resonating ramifications for how they develop into adulthood. Two callers this week are working through their childhood traumas. One woman keeps having flashbacks to degrading and mean comments her mother made when she was young, and she feels like she can’t move on from it. Then, a second caller wants to be close to his parents, but feels like they never allowed him to express himself. Iyanla guides both callers toward forgiveness and acceptance of their unhealed inner child.
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This is a rebroadcast of Episode 13.
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.
I know you hate when.
I repeat myself over and over, but I do it so if I've said this once, I have said it a thousand times. There is no relationship more difficult to navigate or heal than the one that involves a breakdown with your mother. Your mother is your heartbeat, and the first thing you heard as your life began was your mother's heartbeat. And moms, they do the best they can. Let me own that we do the best we can, but sometimes it will still result in traumatic experiences and negative stories that people carry around with them for years into their adulthood. Instead, we must learn to do the work that leads us into understanding and forgiveness. My first caller today is having flashbacks of demeaning experiences from her childhood, and I want to support her in growing through them into something new. Welcome, Beloved, Welcome to the Rspot where we talk about all things relationships, problems, issues, challenges, breakdowns and questions. Which one do you want to nibble on today?
Talk to me?
Okay. So I have a background in trauma, meaning I've come through a lot of trauma, and I find now as i move forward and I've been processing and I've gone through counseling, I find myself stuck and scared because I'm ready to move to a new point in my life, like I've been doing the work to get here, and it's it's just to get to that next level. Like what's been coming up now is memories. Like I was just laughing with my son that I dropped something on the table and the remark that came to me, even though I said it as funny, was one of those disdainful remarks from my past. And everybody, you know, my children, recognize that they know what it is. But that's instead of feeling like I'm leaving that behind, I feel like it's caught up with me.
Does that make sense, Well, it does because anytime you declare yourself to be a thing, everything unlike it will show up. So if you declare yourself to be healed, every unhealed place is going to come up. If you declare yourself to be free, everything that keeps you enslaved is going to come up, and it's coming up for healing. It's coming to go. But we get stuck in the fact that it came up, and Oh, this should not be coming up because I've healed this, or this should not be coming up because I'm free of this. I went to therapy, I had full hypnosiscessions. I rubbed they crystals on my head. This should not be coming up.
Okay, I get it. Get How does one distinguish between your intuition, because that's what I was never allowed to use. How does one distinguish when something is your intuition as opposed to something that's a trigger, a memory trigger.
So let me ask you a question. Okay, how do you just distinguished between your intuition and a memory trigger.
I'm still fighting to understand that.
Why do you need to understand it? Just look at what you've done, because the mere fact that you can ask the question means that you've already had the experience, but for some reason, you're not trusting what you did in the experience. Think about a time when you just followed your intuition and it took you where you wanted to be.
Oh yeah, it did, like like a river flower, Yes it is.
Yeah. So what did you do?
Oh?
Many, I went to school, I had children, I got married, even though it wasn't the smartest decisions I made, but they went when I said, that's what I wanted to do. That's what enters my life immediately. Whereas this stage right here, I know I want to move to the next level, and I keep running against the wall and it feels like fear.
Maybe you're not ready. Oh maybe you're not ready, or maybe you're being prepared. And maybe the way that you're being prepared, it's being care fronted, not confronted, but care fronted with all of these memory triggers so that you can practice how to move through them and keep going. Oh what if you want to move forward but you're not ready, because life is so wise, and life will keep us where we need to be until we're ready.
My God, look right to my heart. Yes, ma'am, this.
Is what I heard you say. What keeps coming up is memories of the disdainful remarks that I experienced in my past. So my question would be how do you deal with disdainful remarks today? Well, honestly, no, lie to me, lie to me, don't be honest.
Sometimes sometimes I laugh at it, honestly when I hear it, because it sounds not only recognizable, but it's very nasty, mean the meaning words that were said all the time.
That's how you experienced it at nasty mean, And and what if it was sad and it was just being voiced as well, that's what you say, but you don't know what the other person was experiencing.
This is true, this is this, and this will always be the case because she's passed on. So I have to go by memory.
No, you have to go by experience, not by memory.
They're not the same.
And here's the distinction. When you go by memory and you have the flashback, let's say, of that comment, you retraumatize yourself by remembering what was said and how you reacted and what it led to and how it changed you. And that's memory. When you have the experience, it's just that's what you just said. I grew up in an environment where mean and nasty things were common, and whatever they were going through that caused them to behave that way. I'm willing to forgive it so I can move on.
I got you.
That's why I ask you, how do you respond to disdainful remarks today? Do you go back to what it was? Or do you make a new choice about how to respond to it today? Because you made up that they were just mean and nasty vipers, they could have been broken, wounded, mentally imbalanced, emotionally bankrupt. You don't know what it was. You only know how you experienced it.
How do I respond to it now?
Yeah, when people, when you hear disdainful comments today, how do you respond to them?
I tend to either freeze or explode.
Just like back then. But back then you couldn't explode, so you froze, and that's where the stuckness is. That's where the stuckness is. So what I want to offer you is and this may be the ready ing that the universe is doing for you while you haven't really moved forward, but you can't move forwards freezing or or exploding.
That's not going to work.
Okay, When you hear a disdainful comment, or when a memory comes up, when a flashback comes.
Up, pivot, do something different.
Don't do what you did then don't even do what you do now. Pivot stop, take a breath, observe what's going on in your body, and then proceed in another direction. Don't try to move on, don't try to make sense of it, don't try to excuse it, explain it.
Take a breath.
Who that hit me?
Where did it hit me?
In my heart and my foot and my eye and my lip in my ear reminded me of back then, So let me go over here and do something different. Because I couldn't run away back then. I had to stay back then, So I don't want to be frozen. Let me proceed in another direction. But the important part of that, beloved, is the observation part. Stay present to the feeling that comes up when you hear a disdainful comment or when you experience something from the past. Stay present with it. You don't have to do anything about it, but don't run from it and say oooh that sure felt harsh or that made me feel this or whatever it is. Stay with it, observe it, become aware of it, and then pivot.
Go in another direction.
You are amazing. Thank you.
When you first started talking, I wrote down four questions that I would like you to work with as you move through these traumas that keep coming up. Because I suspect and I could be wrong. I'm always willing to be wrong that the way you are dealing with these memories is re traumatizing you. I could be wrong. We are going to get into those four questions right after this break. Welcome back to the R spot. Right before the break, I was about to ask my caller four questions about her traumatic childhood experiences as a way to help her get to the root of the issue.
Here are those questions.
I wouldn't wonder what is the story you tell.
Yourself about the trauma?
And what I mean by that it shouldn't have happened. They knew better, they didn't they felt this way, or they didn't like me, they didn't love me, they didn't care. But what is the story you tell yourself about the trauma? That's one question. What is the story you tell yourself about who visited the trauma upon you? I sense I don't know this to be true. It was your mother or your parents, or whoever the female was that raised you, Yeah, what do you tell yourself about her? And that's important because, particularly if it was your mother or your Grandma in that line, because you came your bone of their bone, your flesh of their flesh. So whatever you're telling yourself about them, there's a part that believes that.
To be true about you.
That's true.
Oh, I guess I'm good. I might call me in have a conversation. The other question, I said, what is the story you tell yourself about what the trauma has changed in you? What has it caused in you? And what has it changed in you?
People talk about that childhood where you're running, you're jumping puddles, and you're you're you don't think about responsibility, you don't think about tomorrow. You just enjoy the moment. That is something that I do not know how to do. Like the idea of running into a puddle and stomping in it just for the joy of it. Before I even think about it, I think of okay, first of trauma. Then then I've got to clean myself up, and then you're going to look to every I don't do that, and sometimes it really does, like I feel it because I want to be spontaneous in the morning moment. I want to enjoy my own creativity. But but that's a block. I still have not been able to get back.
So the next time it rains, go do it. Go to the park, go jump in the puddle, and not only go jump in the puddle, jump in the puddle in white clothes.
Yeah, you know, I don't own any white call for that reason.
Oh my god.
Honestly only I honestly, even my wedding dress was not white. I made it bone instead of right. I don't wear white for that very reason.
Well, wear some white. How about you wear white for the next fourteen days, Go buy someone wear some.
Oh my god.
Okay, because it seems like you may have an aversion to or an addiction to perfection, because your imperfections will highlighted.
Yeah, I think addiction to perfection or attempted yes, ma'am.
Would that be accurate? Yeah?
Yeah, So go get you some white clothes, oh boy. And the next time it rains, go to the park and just jump in a puddle. Jump in a puddle. And when you have to go home and clean yourself, have fun with it. You have fun, I mean, because you're just going to reverse that experience.
But look at those four questions.
What is the story you told yourself about trauma, about the what is the story you told yourself about who visited it upon you. And when I say the story you tell yourself, I'm talking about what is it that you looked at that person and said, they shouldn't do this. They know better. They do it because they hate me. They do it because they're wretched, because I'm wretched. What is that story? You've got to dismantle that and stay present with the feelings. What is the story you tell yourself about what it caused you? And what is the story you tell yourself about how it changed you? Because, beloved, you may be more attached to the trauma than you are to your healing.
You're right about that. That's a concern of mind that, now that I'm actually ready to step into the healing, like to live it, I'm afraid to do that. I'm afraid of who I'm going to become.
Because who you're going to become is a contradiction to who they told you you were or who they led you to believe you were. So you're getting ready to contradict that, and the little girl in you has a fear of contradicting.
The big people. Oh amen, give you four questions.
I really want you to work with them, work with them in your journal, work with them in your prayer, work with them right, and write this down. Nothing is permanent, so the trauma isn't permanent, but you may be telling yourself that what it caused in you cannot be changed.
Got it.
Nothing is perfect nothing. Nothing is perfect, no relationship, no person, no healing modality. Nothing is perfect. And you have an addiction to perfection. I gotta get it right, I gotta do it right. I gotta be right. I want you to think of that in a different way instead of saying I've got to be right. I'm willing to be wrong. Yeah, take a breath. I'm willing to mess up. I'm willing to look stupid. I'm willing. All you got to do is be willing. If you're fifty one percent willing, the Holy Spirit will give you the other forty nine percent.
Wow.
Willing to be wrong, I'm willing to mess up. I'm willing to be embarrassed. I'm willing to make a fool out of myself. I'm willing. I'm willing.
Wow.
I remember being challenged by that, not only because I'm a virgo and I'm obsessive, but because I also I grew up in an environment where I didn't have to be right, but I couldn't be wrong.
I could not be wrong.
There's a very slight distinction, and I won't go into that now, but I remember one of my teachers says, I want you to go buy an outfit that you would never wear. Polka dot skirt, plaid shirt, you know, white, go, go boots, whatever it is. He said, I want you to go, and I want you to go to three places in that outfit.
Oh my goodness.
Go to the.
Walmart, go to the supermarket, go to the you know, go to the mall and walk around and live through people staring at you, pointing or what you think people will be staring at you, because nowadays, with green hair and piercings in your eyebrows, people won't even look. But you know, but it's not for them, it's for you to know. You can look like that, be like that and survive.
That's true.
So I went and got some of them tied up orthopedic shoes that I would would you know, just kill me, I would never be caught dead, and that. I got me a wig and put it on backwards, and I got me a church lady hat and put the hat on top of the wig, and I got I had on like a I don't know, some kind of plaid polyester skirt and just something. I mean, it was just ridiculous. I just went to the thrift shop and bought, you know, fifteen dollars worth of clothes, and went to the mall and walked around. And I wasn't even looking at the people. I just wanted to deal with the feelings that I had as they came. Okay, who's looking at me? And what are they say? I mean, you know, And then I went to the counter to try to buy something, and you know, I think was red lipstick. Because I grew up in a strictly religious environment where you couldn't wear a lipstick. I went to the counter, looking like a fool in them clothes and try it on every red lipstick I could possibly put my hands on, and dealt with the feeling of it. And I stayed, stayed with the feeling. Stay with the feeling, and then when the feeling comes up and you observe what.
It is, then pivot and do something else.
Buy the red lipstick, take the wig off, scratch your head, then put the wig back on in public. You know, something that you would rather die than to see people, you know, because people buy these wigs thinking that this their hair, ain't your hair. Take it off in public, scratch, oh gosh, and then put the wig back on backwards. Okay. And the next time it rains, get you something white and go play in the mud.
All right.
So nothing is permanent, nothing is perfect, and this one is going to choke you. Nothing is personal. It ain't personal, baby, It's an experience. It ain't personal at it.
Wow, okay, all right, thank you.
Yes, in about six weeks, let me know how you're doing. And keep listening to the r spots.
I will be, I will be. Oh, thank you so much.
Okay, all right, my love, bye bye bye bye. Now listen, it is so important that you are ready to do the work that.
Is required to heal.
And my caller today is not yet ready to forgive her mother because she hasn't fully unpacked her feelings about the experience. And that's okay. And as I said, it may not even be about my caller forgiving her mother, because before you can forgive someone for something, you must understand how you feel about what you have experienced and how you are reacting to it, and that has nothing to do with the other person. That's about you, boo, and all of that your feelings. The experience is how you're reacted. That has to be unpacked. And when you have a breakdown with your mother, whether she's alive or not, whether you consider it to be her fault or not, the healing is your responsibility. My next call is dealing with a similar issue, but he has taken hits to his own self image because of his childhood, when in reality he is a powerful, strong person who just needs some guidance and will get into his.
Call right after the break.
Welcome back to the Our Spot Today we are talking about childhood trauma and growing into forgiveness with your mother, and we're welcoming my second caller for today, a conversation that I think many of you will really gain a lot from. Let's listen. Hello, good afternoon, the love it Welcome to the Our Spot. How can I support you today? What is your dilemma, challenge issue as it relates to relationships.
Yes, ma'am, I was calling you today to discuss the relationship with my parents. I don't really feel as though we haven't been close. Everett, and I've been twenty nine years old. I've really been kind of speaking next one on one time with them, and if I try to express myself, I've always been told that basically like my feelings don't matter. I mean, they apologize to the way they know how. But I feel like sometimes that I've been the parent and that's unfair to me because I'm the oldest child. But aside from that, I do think I've ever had a time to just just leave my shoulder on my parents and sell them to be there for me. I've always had to seek that love that I've yearned for from other people.
I want you to know that I heard you, and what I heard you say is that you're seeking a better relationship with your parents, that you want to know that they support you, and that you've never really had the opportunity to share with them the truth of your heart. Yes, Neil, and now at the age of twenty nine, this has become important to you to be able to have a deeper relationship with your parents. Why do you think it's so important to you now?
In order for me to do the things I want to do, I feel like I need to them and I feel like that's okay to want toff and yearn that because they're a lie, they're capable. It's just not I don't feel like I've ever been a priority. I'm trying not to let it hinder me too much, but I've unfortunately us with a lot of traumatic abits throughout my life. I'm at a place right now to whereas though me being quiet is making me ill and I don't want to be like study. So I'm trying to express myself because I'm at a place in my life to work. So I want to not only make an impact on the world, but I want to share my journey to see a sense of inspiration illumination to someone else. But in order for me to do that, I really got to heal a lot of stuff that happens to me before. And I feel like just in the older I get I'm like, i feel like I'm forgotten about like that, I'm genuinely thankful and honor to have them, But at the same time, since they are here, since they are capable of yearned for that versus me just happened to always look up to God or my ancestors or someone else's parents, are real there I want mine, and I feel like that's okay.
First of all, I want to thank you for trusting me, well, first for trusting yourself and then me, and then this our spot community with your vulnerability. Vulnerability is something that scares a lot of people. And even though we can't see you, your voice communicates and your voice touches us in our soft places. So that says to me that you are in a place of learning to trust that you can be safe in sharing the vulnerability of your heart. So I want to acknowledge you for that. That's number one, Okay, thank you. Number two, I want you to hear this. I want you to hear this with every fiber of your being. Okay. The best students get the hardest tests. The best students don't get the multiple choice tests ABCD, where you could guess the right answers sixty percent of the time. The best students don't get true and false. They don't So your life is not multiple choice or true and false. Your life is fill in the blank. Why because you can handle it, Yes, ma'am. The best students get the hardest test Why because they are learning and learning to master what it is they're going to have to walk out, live and demonstrate for others. So the wisdom of the universe would take you into a life experience where you have parents who don't give you what it is you think you need, but you're not going to handle it. If you continue to stay in the place of wishing and hoping and yearning for something that you don't have and may never get, you are assuming it's an assumption that your parents know how to give you the love you want. You're assuming that because every child thinks their parents should know. You should they should know, they should know, and they can do it. They're just not doing it. What good reason would they have for not doing it? What do you tell yourself is their reason for not doing it?
I think that sometimes they don't give that to me because that's probably not something that they were used to grown up.
Yeah, mental health is important, and that's not something that's always been discussed in my family.
Mental like coexisting and making sure that your grades are good or school and you're doing well and staying out of trouble. Those things have always been advocated of mental health and just taking time to stop and feel your emotions, understand them and let them pass. These are not things that I've had the opportunity to discuss in my family, even going back to my grandparents. So I tried to be very understanding and before I I just try to make people aware and espress myself more because I've never really been good at that growing up as a child. I've always just followed it up, followed it up, out of it up. I don't know. I guess there's still that inner child in me that still is there.
I want to talk to the six year old little boy who's leaving home to go to school. It's going to be around other kids and see other kids with their mothers and fathers. Who's going to make up that they go home and their life is much better than his. I want to talk to him. Is he around?
It's okay here the kwan.
Honey, listen. I know you may not understand this. I know this may be hard for you to hear. But your parents don't have what you want. It's not your fault. It's not even about you. They don't have it, baby, And in fact, you may be the healthiest one in the room. And that's because you're a good student of life. Life, and that's because God source your creator, knew you could handle this. It's gonna be hard, baby, but he knew.
You could handle it, Yes, ma'am.
So what I want you to do, du Quan is I want you to depend on the big du Quan, the twenty nine year old du Quan, to give you what you think your parents didn't because they don't have it. Ma'am, I want to talk to the big du Quan, the twenty nine year old Daquan. The best students get the hardest test, and right now your test is learning how to parent yourself. I know that's not what you want, but hey, you know I want to be rich in that. But yat, I ain't got it.
I'm gonna get there.
I want you to hear what I'm saying. Do not continue to abuse six year old du Quan by you at twenty nine yearning for something he didn't get. Give it to him. Give yourself that time, that energy, that attention, take care of you, talk to him, trust your vulnerabilities, and it looks this way because you can handle it. Did you grow up in the church, Yes, okay, So I'm going to take you to one of my favorite places in the Bible, psalms in the Psalms. I call him the peace Lambs, because if you really want to get some truth and some healing, go to the psalms. Okay, and there's a psalm that says, when my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord, the Love, the truth, the spirit, the soul of who I am will lift me up. The twenty nine year old has to lift that six year old up. And here's how you're going to start. What would be different had your parents loved you the way you wanted them to love you.
What would be different?
I would be adjusted to express it myself. So and I feel like sometimes it's a crime to do that. I feel like when I try to just genuinely express that, but it's always my faults. Oh, it's your culture. You know you're upset. No, I don't know. I don't like to feel like I'm the bad guy for expressing myself.
If your parents had been who you wanted them to be, you would be able to express yourself better. First of all, I want you to know that on this call, you've expressed yourself very well, but okay, and maybe that you want them to agree with what you're expressing, not that you can't express yourself, but that they don't agree with what you express. Is that a possibility, yes, ma'am. Okay, So it's not that you could express yourself, but if your parents had been who you want them to be, they would agree with me. That's what you tell yourself. That's not true. That's not true that they would agree with you. You don't know that to be true. You could express yourself perfectly, clearly and they still don't agree with you.
You know, when I feel like I can't do it with people or being misunderstood, just going somewhere to where so I know that I don't have to worry about soo and judging. Is that's like a microphone or just singing or trying to do something that's always been my avenue.
Well, healing is a process. It's not going to happen overnight.
One day at a time, ayanas. I definitely am learning that. And I'm not one to be yearning for everybody like me. I'm not that kind of guy. But those two, but my parents, for sure, that's like something.
That they don't have it. They don't have it. So let me tell you about the ruthlessness of the ego. The ego that wants us to believe that were separate from God. The ego that wants us to believe that we're not good enough, The ego that wants us to believe that we're little and insignificant.
The ego.
So, the ego has you wanting something that you cannot have. You cannot have now at twenty nine, the love your parents didn't give you at four five six, you cannot have it, and the ego will give you all manner. Well, look what they're doing over there, Look how they treat them, Look what they say to them, Look how they're doing this. They should know that's ego. So your first commandment has to be I shall not want what I cannot have. That's the first commandment. And it's sad. Why because it's your learning curriculum. To stop wanting what you cannot have and stop wishing things were any different than they were before, and to forgive yourself for thinking that had you had it, it would be different. At twenty nine, you're gonna have self esteem issues. At twenty nine, you're gonna have confidence issues that'll settle out when you get.
To be around thirty three thirty five.
Learn to trust yourself, hold yourself differently inside. Learn how to give that six year old boy that means you what it is you think your parents should have given you. Learn how to give that little six year old attention. Learn how to listen. When you find yourself irritable or upset or breaking down, ask yourself, what am I wanting that I cannot have because you can't go back and get that. That's done and love them, bless them. That's all you can do. And you're learning to accept them just as they are, and maybe one day you can express to them. You know, there's a lot I wish you had given me that you didn't, but I'm learning how to give it to myself. And I forgive you for not having what.
I need, yes, ma'am. And I'm going to swallow that and just take it and said, that's something I have to face, and I appreciate you for expressing that. And this is Paul call is not to ever to Yeah, my parents said, I love them genuinely, but at the same time you're write I have to you nine year old. The kun is finally learning to slowly but surely, because Rome wasn't built in a day to deal with that. And I know that's how I having one hundred percent heal from it. But I am definitely willing to put in that work, and I know it all starts with me.
Stop trying to fix yourself. Stop trying to figure this out. Ask God, life, source, the Holy Spirit, whoever you turn to help me, help me see this differently, help me do this differently. Help me feel better right now. Stop trying to fix yourself. There's nothing wrong with you. You're a good student, and it's okay to be the healthiest person in the room. Don't go in the room and say, oh my god, everybody in here is broken. Say oh my god, I'm the healthiest person in the room. What do I need to do to be healthy in this moment?
Does that make sense?
Yes? Suggests?
Can you do it?
That's suit you it.
So, what is going to be your next step?
Well, to accept the truth, to make myself happy, and three accomplish everything that I to die in this lifetime and swell, that's what my next steps up.
You wanna call me in six weeks and let me know how you're doing. Yes, okay, all right, my love, be well.
Thank you so much, God, pleasure, Thank you so much.
Mister Okay, bye bye.
Growing past childhood traumas can take an enormous amount of energy and effort.
That's what we call work.
Why because you've been carrying it around with you for so long. Now it's challenging work, but it doesn't have to be hard. First, you must recognize and unpack your feelings about what you experienced as a child. Then you have to identify and understand the stories you've told yourself about those experiences. After that, you must put yourself on the path to forgiveness. Now it may be a long road, but it doesn't have to be a difficult road, because the thing is, you don't just want to say the words about forgiveness. You want to experience forgiveness. When you unpack your feelings and you understand the story, you are moving on the path of experiencing forgiveness. But I'm here to tell you that no matter what the situation is, it's all about you, boo, and it's up to you to do the work and take the steps towards your own healing. And you can do that if you're willing to put in the time, the energy, and the effort. I hope this has been helpful to someone and if you have a question about this or any other relationship issue, you can call me live at seven seven five three zero seven seven seven six eight. Now be sure to follow me on social media for all of the calling times, and until then.
Stay in peace and not pieces. The R Spot is a.
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