Speaker 1: Holy Human with Leanne Rhymes is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Welcome everyone to a very special episode of
Speaker 1: Holy Human. I am joined by global expert Bethany Webster
Speaker 1: to discuss the mother Wound, something she believes we've all
Speaker 1: inherited to varying degrees. And I'm just warning you now
Speaker 1: this is a very triggering episode. It was triggering for
Speaker 1: me to record, very very very emotional. So put on
Speaker 1: your seatbelts because it's quite a ride, and I do
Speaker 1: think a lot of you listening will have some moments,
Speaker 1: maybe for the first time, we connect for a powerful
Speaker 1: and personal exploration of why this is a core wound
Speaker 1: and how healing it helps us grow and emerge as
Speaker 1: our full selves. On today's Holy Human. Yeah, Bethany Webster,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Holy Human podcast. Thank you so so
Speaker 1: much for joining us today. Oh, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me. I've had so many mixed emotions before
Speaker 1: this conversation. I've literally been so excited. I feel like
Speaker 1: we could do three parts on this right, so much
Speaker 1: to talk about, and all of a sudden, before, like
Speaker 1: an hour before, I started to get really somber about
Speaker 1: everything because I'm kind of in the thick of what
Speaker 1: we're talking about right now. I mean, I've been in
Speaker 1: my whole life, but in the thick of kind of
Speaker 1: setting boundaries and all that good stuff, which we'll get into,
Speaker 1: but it's, um, yeah, there's there's a lot of grief
Speaker 1: that's coming up for me in this moment, so I
Speaker 1: do um, I'm going to warn everyone there will be tears.
Speaker 1: I'm almost positive. Yeah, Well, thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate you being so like transparent and vulnerable
Speaker 1: because that is such a rich place to be when
Speaker 1: we're like really in touch with with what we're feeling
Speaker 1: and what we're experiencing. So I appreciate you opening with
Speaker 1: that absolutely. And by the way, feel free to ask
Speaker 1: me anything. I'm totally I am an open book pretty much.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm curious. How did you hear about my work?
Speaker 1: If I'm correct, I think I just found you over
Speaker 1: Instagram like somehow, Like you know, that's when the the
Speaker 1: algorithm actually does it, does me, does me good. Um,
Speaker 1: is when I find people like you and I've heard
Speaker 1: about the mother wound and the work around it, and
Speaker 1: I know I've been inadvertently kind of doing my own
Speaker 1: work around it for a long time, a lot of
Speaker 1: inner child work, and recently it's gone from a concept,
Speaker 1: this kind of conceptualization of something to starting to be
Speaker 1: an embodiment of truly understanding these concepts. And it's taken years.
Speaker 1: It's taken years and years. I'm so happy that your
Speaker 1: book is available and there's information about this work for
Speaker 1: people to get their hands on. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I've sent your book to like every friend of mine,
Speaker 1: every woman that I know, and I think it's just
Speaker 1: so healing. So I would love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: How you came to this work. Yeah. Absolutely, I came
Speaker 1: to this work kind of circuitously. It was never anything
Speaker 1: I set out to do. Really, I thought I actually
Speaker 1: had a perfect family, and it wasn't until college where
Speaker 1: I started to have a lot of like symptoms that
Speaker 1: were telling a different story. And I was really lucky
Speaker 1: at nineteen to find a really brilliant therapist who worked
Speaker 1: with me. I'm still working with her. That's awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: her therapy it's it's called depth psychotherapy. So it's not
Speaker 1: like kind of run of the mill cognitive behavioral or anything.
Speaker 1: It's it's actually about long term reworking your attachment bomb. Basically,
Speaker 1: but I avoided looking at my mother and that relationship
Speaker 1: for years because honestly, and I think I suffer from
Speaker 1: something that so many of us do in this culture,
Speaker 1: which is this like instant guilt right for anything that
Speaker 1: feels other than admiration for our mother's you know, I
Speaker 1: was kind of her caretaker emotional support from almost from birth.
Speaker 1: I felt really responsible for her, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: She struggled, and I wanted to make her happy. I
Speaker 1: wanted to please her. So in the family, I just
Speaker 1: kind of play this role of like absorbing everyone's pain
Speaker 1: and trying to make everything okay for everyone, my dad,
Speaker 1: my brother. You know, I was just like this little
Speaker 1: sponge of like I'll just make everything better and that's
Speaker 1: kind of how I'm going to survive, you know. And
Speaker 1: then um, but then it all kind of fell apart
Speaker 1: and I started getting support. But I think it was
Speaker 1: like five years into being in therapy before I actually said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think I'm finally ready to look at this because
Speaker 1: I noticed that every area I looked at, whether it
Speaker 1: was like romantic relationships, which was repeating the same pattern
Speaker 1: basically what I had with my mother, I would show
Speaker 1: up in relationships as compulsively trying to be the healer,
Speaker 1: the mentor that you know, and so I'd attract these
Speaker 1: potential partners in crisis or you know, starving artists types
Speaker 1: or whatever. And then um, then body image, so every
Speaker 1: area I had a piece of my mother in it,
Speaker 1: and I started to see it and be like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, you know, I actually do have to look
Speaker 1: at this because I could see that I was on
Speaker 1: a hamster wheel of the same patterns. So yes, I
Speaker 1: feel someone could see me right now. I'm just I
Speaker 1: keep shaking my head. Yes, yes, I know. Every your book.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, I completely relate to
Speaker 1: everything that you're saying. And you know so much about
Speaker 1: the emotional caretaking. And then how for me what I's
Speaker 1: been the most jarring as of recent is I thought
Speaker 1: I projected my daddy issues onto my husband, and I
Speaker 1: just recognized that it's not my daddy issues, it's my
Speaker 1: mommy issues. That's a powerful moment. It's intense, and there's
Speaker 1: so much green, like you see all the ways in
Speaker 1: which you've used manipulation to get your needs met, and
Speaker 1: then you're like, holy shit, it's just an intense moment
Speaker 1: and it's a beautiful moment too, because you have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to choose differently and to be able to have
Speaker 1: these conversations. And I've just started having these with my husband.
Speaker 1: It's like, these are some deep conversations and we almost
Speaker 1: have to stop for a moment, take a break, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, we'll come back to this. We'll come back
Speaker 1: to this. Yeah. But I mean, it's wonderful to have
Speaker 1: someone that is open to sitting down and talking to
Speaker 1: me and watching because he's he's been witnessed to this
Speaker 1: relationship that I've had with my mom for a long time,
Speaker 1: and he has seen how traumatic it has been for me.
Speaker 1: And it's not a new revelation that I'm coming to.
Speaker 1: It's just that now I'm I'm understanding it at a
Speaker 1: deeper level. So and as we're talking about this, I
Speaker 1: guess we should define the mother wound and what that
Speaker 1: is for people so they can kind of get a
Speaker 1: better understanding of what we're really digging into. Sure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I define. You know, the word mother wound has
Speaker 1: been around, no one's really defined it. So I think
Speaker 1: I've been the first one to really like set a
Speaker 1: firm definition of what is the mother wound. And I
Speaker 1: actually see it like the biggest one is the personal level. Right,
Speaker 1: there's the internalized beliefs and patterns that are self limiting, right,
Speaker 1: that we inherit from our mother's Right, So it's the
Speaker 1: unconscious ways that we limit ourselves, the way that we
Speaker 1: feel bad about ourselves, we feel guilt, we feel shame,
Speaker 1: um that originate with her and originate past that it's
Speaker 1: generationally passed down totally. It's like this inherited wound that
Speaker 1: we all have to some degree. It's on a spectrum, right,
Speaker 1: for some people, our mothers are really more resilient and
Speaker 1: more healthy and high functioning, and some mothers are, you know,
Speaker 1: on the other side of the spectrum where there's even
Speaker 1: mental illness or addiction or other challenges. So we all
Speaker 1: fall somewhere on this spectrum. And outside of the spectrum,
Speaker 1: which has a big impact is the culture, which is
Speaker 1: this cultural atmosphere of patriarchy. I define patriarchy very broadly.
Speaker 1: It really isn't about men. It's actually the principle of
Speaker 1: power over and the ways that this manifests. And for
Speaker 1: many of us, it's like we just feel that we
Speaker 1: live in kind of an anti woman world where women
Speaker 1: are less sanned, so we get this message reinforced and
Speaker 1: millions of ways, and our mothers and grandmothers had to
Speaker 1: absorb that also in addition to their own family trauma
Speaker 1: whatever they received. So what I like to say is
Speaker 1: the most insidious forms of patriarchal oppression actually get passed
Speaker 1: through the mother. And this is not to blame mothers
Speaker 1: at all. Actually it's to uplift them and respect them.
Speaker 1: But we have to see the ways that we don't
Speaker 1: want to look at this and it's very unconscious, right,
Speaker 1: It's about our blueprint of self. So the our mothers
Speaker 1: are extremely influential and how we shape our identity, how
Speaker 1: we see our bodies, ourselves, the world, partners, other people.
Speaker 1: So it's like our identity is shaped with our mothers
Speaker 1: in the early days of our lives, and so becoming
Speaker 1: conscious of that, looking at what were the dynamics there
Speaker 1: is incredibly empowering in our healing liberal ration as women
Speaker 1: as a whole, especially for women, because like how to
Speaker 1: be a woman was really taught to us by our mothers,
Speaker 1: you know, the dues and the don'ts and what's okay
Speaker 1: and what's not okay. It's such a significant impact our
Speaker 1: mothers have and so unfortunately we live in a society
Speaker 1: though that says if you don't have anything other than
Speaker 1: complete love and admiration, there's something wrong with you. So
Speaker 1: as women were shamed, we're shamed away from looking at
Speaker 1: our healing. So this is the conundrum that we face.
Speaker 1: To be honest, like, I thought about having this conversation
Speaker 1: with you, and I'm like, oh God, I hope my
Speaker 1: mother doesn't listen to this in a way because and
Speaker 1: and also you know, it's been interesting growing up um
Speaker 1: as this kind of yeah, you know, I started out
Speaker 1: with a thirteen in front of everyone's eyes, and especially
Speaker 1: when your parents have played such an integrate role in
Speaker 1: my career. At one point, it's like this respect and love,
Speaker 1: like you're saying you're supposed to have your family and
Speaker 1: this all American good girl, Like I just had it
Speaker 1: going for me. You did it did and so it was.
Speaker 1: You know, it's this interesting piece for me to even
Speaker 1: bring this up over my podcast because I think people
Speaker 1: have this idea of, you know, like you said, unless
Speaker 1: you have complete love and admiration for what my therapist
Speaker 1: calls the love object, which is you know, which is
Speaker 1: the mother. Um and there's there should be so much
Speaker 1: shame around me wanting to to bring this to the forefront.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that shame keeps us locked into so many things,
Speaker 1: and can we just talk about that shame piece. Let's
Speaker 1: go there. I would love to go there, yes, because
Speaker 1: I feel like, for I know personally, like that shame
Speaker 1: has kept me so small for so long, and you know,
Speaker 1: it keeps us from having this discussion. And I think
Speaker 1: that honestly, I feel like this work is probably the
Speaker 1: most important work that we're called to do in this
Speaker 1: lifetime because it really will shift everything, not just it
Speaker 1: was just shift as personally the culture. It will shift
Speaker 1: you know, the way we treat our planet. There's such
Speaker 1: a huge ripple effect from this work. So you know,
Speaker 1: how can we when we talk about shame, How does
Speaker 1: shame start to fit into this work outside of what
Speaker 1: we've just discussed, Like, how is it so insidious? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I'm so excited that you went right to shame because
Speaker 1: it really is at the bottom of like you know,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about it lately a lot, even in
Speaker 1: my own process. Now, shame is really the bottom, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's really at the core of so many of
Speaker 1: the ways that we organize our lives to feel worthy
Speaker 1: and loved, like whatever, I call it the mother gap.
Speaker 1: So whatever we didn't get from our mother's you know,
Speaker 1: there's always a gap. Our mothers are human beings, right,
Speaker 1: the gap between what we needed and what we got.
Speaker 1: And so often we can project that like gap outwards
Speaker 1: to our partners, bosses, you know, you name it. Love me,
Speaker 1: make me feel valued, And on some level we're running
Speaker 1: from this um shame at the bottom of everything, right,
Speaker 1: And I like to think about shame in a context
Speaker 1: of developmental growth, right, Like for a child, if there's
Speaker 1: some kind of disconnecting the attachment with the mother, the
Speaker 1: child's gonna blame itself wrapped to preserve the connection with
Speaker 1: the parent, because it's too much for a child's brain
Speaker 1: to process that my mom is not safe right now.
Speaker 1: So it gives it a sense of power and control
Speaker 1: um and a sense of safety to blame itself rather
Speaker 1: than see the mom. So it's basically we create an illusion.
Speaker 1: It's very useful illusion in a way because it helps
Speaker 1: us survive, right, But unfortunately it creates this illusion that
Speaker 1: I'm bad, something's wrong with me, and there's a despair
Speaker 1: in that, you know, especially for those of us who
Speaker 1: experienced overt shaming, like many of us had mothers and
Speaker 1: fathers who were really shaming, like you're bad, there's something
Speaker 1: wrong with you. Get away from me, those kind of messages.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's just a subtle atmosphere of like it's
Speaker 1: not safe to speak my mind, it's not okay to
Speaker 1: have needs. Um, I should suppress my truth otherwise I'm
Speaker 1: going to get in trouble. So, like you mentioned manipulation earlier,
Speaker 1: that's also a great survival mechanism, especially for those of
Speaker 1: us who were women, you know, female children who it
Speaker 1: wasn't safe to say no for example. Um, So shame
Speaker 1: is it's like a useful survival tool that helps us
Speaker 1: survive these really painful emotions as really young children. But
Speaker 1: it persists in the background, and if we don't address it,
Speaker 1: it can even into our adult lives. It can be
Speaker 1: impacting how we show up. Absolutely, you said something in
Speaker 1: the book that really blew my mind. You said, we
Speaker 1: hold onto shame in order to hold onto our mother
Speaker 1: because feeling shame makes us feel mothered. And I literally
Speaker 1: I was listening to the audiobook and I had to
Speaker 1: stop the book. I was like, oh my god, that
Speaker 1: explains shame and the reason that we continue to hold
Speaker 1: onto it, especially for me having a relationship with my
Speaker 1: mom where I really don't have a close relationship. So
Speaker 1: it's yeah, how is that evolved for you? Um, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've done a lot of work. I mean it
Speaker 1: sounds like you've really like been super conscious and aware
Speaker 1: and tried to do your best, which I admire. I have.
Speaker 1: I have tried to do my best. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of emotional caretaking and you know,
Speaker 1: unfortunately there's a there's a need for me to fill
Speaker 1: a hole that is just insatiable and it's kind of
Speaker 1: I think, I'm sure you can relate to this as
Speaker 1: the emotional caretaker in your family. That was always kind
Speaker 1: of who I was in the family. Like the role
Speaker 1: I served, yes exactly was that you know, I was
Speaker 1: born to fill a hole. Talk about pressure, right, And
Speaker 1: it's still there and that's still kind of the relationship
Speaker 1: that we've that's what it's been based upon, and I've
Speaker 1: really recognized recently that that is that's what it's been
Speaker 1: based upon. And I can't have that kind of relationship
Speaker 1: and it up to my mother to take care of
Speaker 1: her needs in order to be able to have a
Speaker 1: relationship that's built upon anything other than that. And that's
Speaker 1: a really I just had this conversation and it was
Speaker 1: the It was so hard because I think, I see
Speaker 1: when I look at my mom, I see a child,
Speaker 1: and I know I see that I know the child
Speaker 1: because I've had that in myself. I've experienced that, and
Speaker 1: I've been having to grow her up. I've been having
Speaker 1: to grow my own child up to meet and be
Speaker 1: with the you know, adult Leanne, and I've I'm still
Speaker 1: growing her up and so in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: and so I can't grow my mother up at the
Speaker 1: same time. And that is the God that is the
Speaker 1: most heartbreaking conversation. After I had it, I cried for
Speaker 1: a day because I just I saw this helplessness and
Speaker 1: it's so hard to hurt someone, especially when they're your mother,
Speaker 1: and to have boundaries in that way. And so, yes,
Speaker 1: so that's where I'm at. And it's been an up
Speaker 1: and down roller coaster ride of grief. Oh yes, which
Speaker 1: I would love to touch upon. Yes, all right, Loves,
Speaker 1: Before we dive any deeper into this complicated and personal dynamic,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break. Welcome back, my friends.
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Bethany Webster about the complexities of our
Speaker 1: maternal relationships. Can we talk about how grief is such
Speaker 1: a intricral part of healing the mother wound? Absolutely? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for sharing that. I just want
Speaker 1: to say that I really commend your courage, because thank you.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been where I've found that path, and
Speaker 1: I've seen so many women as well I helped them
Speaker 1: through that process of you know, it sounds like what
Speaker 1: you went through is and this is so about grief
Speaker 1: is when we see the limitations of our mother's capacity. Right.
Speaker 1: So in our culture, we're taught, oh, you know, if
Speaker 1: you love someone should work or like, you know, there's
Speaker 1: like no acknowledgment of the work it takes to have healthy,
Speaker 1: authentic relationships. And such a painful moment for an adult
Speaker 1: daughter is to realize that our mothers have a limited
Speaker 1: capacity of how they can meet us, and that ceiling
Speaker 1: is determined by the work that she's done in her
Speaker 1: own life to be conscious, you know, to take care
Speaker 1: of herself. So whatever ways our moms feel deprived, owed,
Speaker 1: harmed and haven't worked on it themselves, they usually show
Speaker 1: up in some way with the daughter as kind of
Speaker 1: with a check, like you know, this is what I need,
Speaker 1: and they don't even realize they're doing it. Most of
Speaker 1: the time, as humans, we just kind of project, but
Speaker 1: we don't want to own, or we're not ready to own.
Speaker 1: We project outwards. And so it can be such a
Speaker 1: powerful moment to to have, and it takes resilience to
Speaker 1: be in this position. Right, it took me so many
Speaker 1: years to do like exactly what we described. I mean,
Speaker 1: it probably took me ten years to be ready to
Speaker 1: actually have the conversation in a loving, respectful way, but
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like this isn't working and I'd
Speaker 1: like to shift the dynamic. And what happened with my
Speaker 1: mom was she was so non resilient that she actually
Speaker 1: attacked me and kind of created this conspiracy theory. It's
Speaker 1: so weird, wild, but she had a conspiracy theory that
Speaker 1: my therapist was brainwashing me against her. So it was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I had that at one point. Also, Okay, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: more common I'm realizing than I when I realized at
Speaker 1: the time. But anyway, yeah, so the grief of realizing
Speaker 1: this is my best this is my mother's best. She's
Speaker 1: literally showing me her best right now, and it's not
Speaker 1: going to get better. And I need to kind of
Speaker 1: sit with that. And that is painful because a lot
Speaker 1: of us carry this little inner child who's like, well,
Speaker 1: if I just do this or that, or if I
Speaker 1: explain myself better, or if I help her, if I
Speaker 1: give her books, or you know, my mom's going to
Speaker 1: get it eventually, right, the impossible dream. Right, if I
Speaker 1: just do X, y Z, she will change finally and
Speaker 1: then we'll have this great relationship. Um. So yeah, the
Speaker 1: grief is really where the change happens. I think if
Speaker 1: we can sit with these feelings of sadness, even disappointment
Speaker 1: and rage, and I mean, there's a whole slew of
Speaker 1: things that can come up, and so getting support is
Speaker 1: really huge. But the good news is the grief leads
Speaker 1: to freedom because what's happening in the grieving processes where
Speaker 1: in a way our brains are reorganizing, right, so we're
Speaker 1: letting go of the old and we're making space for
Speaker 1: something new to happen. And it's a whole I see
Speaker 1: grief as a really holy process that has its own timeline.
Speaker 1: We can't predict it. Or control it or make it
Speaker 1: end on a certain date as much as we might
Speaker 1: want to. But yeah, just being with it and has
Speaker 1: cycles and layers. It will deliver us to a new
Speaker 1: way of being right where we're not. We're no longer
Speaker 1: controlled by that dream aam of I need to be
Speaker 1: a good girl for mommy, to be good with myself.
Speaker 1: And what I see that happens in that process actually
Speaker 1: is this huge shift. It's like a tectonic shift in
Speaker 1: our self concept where our sense of self validation and
Speaker 1: self worth is no longer based on the outside, it
Speaker 1: starts to be based on the inside. So I was
Speaker 1: actually just talking to someone this morning about this. She
Speaker 1: was like, I just realized my mother isn't going to change,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to start affirming myself first. Now I'm
Speaker 1: not going to wait for her to affirm me. And
Speaker 1: I was like, damn, there, It isn't like in action right,
Speaker 1: When we can accept our mother's limitations, we can then
Speaker 1: embrace our own possibilities because they're no longer linked in
Speaker 1: the same way. It just makes sense. Oh yeah, completely.
Speaker 1: I just had an experience and that I wrote about
Speaker 1: it on my blog. We were going to Father's Day dinner,
Speaker 1: and I knew I had to get ready, but though
Speaker 1: I really wanted to swim, and I jumped in the
Speaker 1: pool and allowed myself to swim, and if growing up,
Speaker 1: my mom woke me up an hour and a half
Speaker 1: early to do my hair for school. It was like
Speaker 1: the way she did things, and I so just didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, didn't want to be done all the time.
Speaker 1: And I had to because when I was working, so
Speaker 1: I had to always get dressed and I had to
Speaker 1: avoid It was like Leanne can't go play because she
Speaker 1: has to go work and she has to be pretty
Speaker 1: and present herself to the world in a certain way.
Speaker 1: And I got my hair wet and I let myself
Speaker 1: swim and everything still worked out and I still looked fine.
Speaker 1: But it was in those moments I recognized I was
Speaker 1: mothering myself in the way that I needed to be
Speaker 1: mothered as a kid, or desired to be mothered as
Speaker 1: a kid. And it's so simple, but I was asking
Speaker 1: people reading, like how are you how are you getting
Speaker 1: your hair wet? Like what are you not allowing yourself
Speaker 1: to do that? Your inner child is like so desperately
Speaker 1: longing for And those are where I feel like those
Speaker 1: embodiment pieces really start to to play into how we're
Speaker 1: rewiring our brains and how we're mothering ourselves and how
Speaker 1: we're changing our lives and allowing for freedom. You know,
Speaker 1: it's the moment it's like that there's such huge winds.
Speaker 1: They really are. I love that example. I would like
Speaker 1: to know it can the men men out there listening
Speaker 1: to this. This is not just female piece, right Like, no,
Speaker 1: are there's also a mother wound there? How does that
Speaker 1: look for men? How does that manifest itself? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: men definitely have a mother wound, and um, it manifests
Speaker 1: a little different for men, and it's usually the reason
Speaker 1: why it manifests differently is really because of these toxic
Speaker 1: kind of gender expectations that we have. Right. So, um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different ways that can show up
Speaker 1: for men. But you know, in either parent, I just
Speaker 1: want to say, like either parent can be the patriarchal parent,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm talking about patriarchy. It's more like
Speaker 1: whoever said or communicated to you don't feel, don't be
Speaker 1: too much or you know, don't be weak like I remember,
Speaker 1: like in my situation with my dad and my brother
Speaker 1: witnessing that dynamic. My dad was very harsh with my brother,
Speaker 1: and he would say things like, don't be a sissy,
Speaker 1: or if he would get hurt, would be like the pain,
Speaker 1: don't cry, you just take the pain. You're supposed to
Speaker 1: sit there as a boy and just not admit a tear.
Speaker 1: It's awful. But my mother never really stepped in, and
Speaker 1: so I think he developed a kind of misogyny and
Speaker 1: it comes from a legit anger about him not being protected,
Speaker 1: and so there was this kind of like lack of
Speaker 1: nurturing and lack of affirmation that he needed that he
Speaker 1: didn't get. And so that could be one of the
Speaker 1: ways that a mother gap can show it for men.
Speaker 1: For other ways, it could be some mothers are really
Speaker 1: smothering with their sons, and it can be like they
Speaker 1: feel deprived of something in the culture and their their past,
Speaker 1: and the sun is supposed to be the one that
Speaker 1: makes it all better, right, almost like an emotional incest,
Speaker 1: sorry and spouse kind of thing. And so there's a
Speaker 1: betrayal there of the child, you know, the boy child,
Speaker 1: getting all this pressure on him to make his mother's
Speaker 1: life worth living, you know, to make her feel important,
Speaker 1: to validate her role as mother. So yes, it really
Speaker 1: comes down to a lot of these expectations, and men
Speaker 1: have it just as severely as women do, just like
Speaker 1: I said, in different ways. So for men, I think
Speaker 1: it can be about discovering the ways in which you
Speaker 1: had to suppress your own female side, your own emotions.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really harsh on men. You know, don't
Speaker 1: feel anger is the only permitted emotion. You know, our
Speaker 1: sex is the only permitted like sensual things. So our
Speaker 1: families are the places where these patriarchal values get installed.
Speaker 1: And so I would ask men to think about that, like,
Speaker 1: how are these patriarchal values taught to you? Where were
Speaker 1: you taught not to feel, not to be yourself? Because
Speaker 1: I think what's happening right now is all of us
Speaker 1: are realizing the status quo doesn't work. These messages we
Speaker 1: got our toxic and so we're feeling we're developing almost
Speaker 1: like growing pains, trying to develop our resilience to be
Speaker 1: outside of these lines that we were taught as the
Speaker 1: way that we're supposed to be. Um. So I have
Speaker 1: a lot of respect for men who are doing this work.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, absolutely leading women to this work has
Speaker 1: got to be an incredible challenge, but leading men to
Speaker 1: this work is got to be incredibly challenging and some
Speaker 1: of the most important work I think men can do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, not only to be able to support themselves
Speaker 1: and heal their own wounds, but also to support the
Speaker 1: women in their lives in a in a new way.
Speaker 1: I think for both of us. Relationship is so important
Speaker 1: when it comes to doing this work, because you really,
Speaker 1: in relationship everything gets dug up, right, Oh, for sure,
Speaker 1: It's amazing. It's like, Yeah, I have been thinking about
Speaker 1: that a lot lately. It's like the ideal situation is
Speaker 1: if both partners come to the table with some awareness
Speaker 1: of what they missed and the ways in which they
Speaker 1: can project those needs out, and then the couple can
Speaker 1: work together, like by each taking responsibility for their inner
Speaker 1: child rather than handing the child to the other one,
Speaker 1: Like make me feel important, worthy and special, you know,
Speaker 1: because that's never gonna work, right, no matter how much
Speaker 1: we try. Just like with our mothers, that feeling of
Speaker 1: worthiness can only come be cultivated inside that person. No
Speaker 1: other person can can do that for us, but we
Speaker 1: have an expectation from childhood that it could, because back
Speaker 1: then that was true we did need an external person
Speaker 1: to help us feel valid. That was legit developmental stuff
Speaker 1: from early childhood. But now it's like the child and
Speaker 1: us still thinks that's the case, and so the inner
Speaker 1: mothering work. Like you're saying, we can start to help
Speaker 1: the child see that she actually now has an adult
Speaker 1: woman or parent or adult man who's there to be
Speaker 1: with her and help her fill her needs that we
Speaker 1: don't have to look outside compulsively to others. It's such
Speaker 1: a beautiful process, like relationships that can do the work
Speaker 1: when both of people are like aware, have the capacity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that awareness is key, it really is. And I think
Speaker 1: it's challenging because almost like one part of your relationship,
Speaker 1: it has to die in ways, in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: like the way that you've been getting your needs met
Speaker 1: from one another has to dissolve, and a new form
Speaker 1: of the relationship has to take birth. I was just
Speaker 1: talking to a friend of mine last night about this,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of people get lost in
Speaker 1: this gap. A lot of times the relationships are just dissolve.
Speaker 1: There's not a real framework around how to both come
Speaker 1: to this place and then grow together in a new
Speaker 1: form and not be two children trying to get your
Speaker 1: needs met from each other. But two adults that are
Speaker 1: actually feeding themselves, that are now meeting together in this
Speaker 1: incredible relationship, that are both sovereign and choosing to be there,
Speaker 1: um not from a wounded perspective. Yeah, absolutely beautifully said, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's something that I found really interesting. We hear a
Speaker 1: lot about the mother when we hear a lot about abandonment,
Speaker 1: which we talk about often, but we don't hear enough
Speaker 1: about the exploitation of a child. I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you could touch on what exploitation, what you mean by
Speaker 1: that and what that looks like. What I mean by
Speaker 1: that is any way that a child can feel used
Speaker 1: by a parent, And a lot of times this can
Speaker 1: happen because the parents themselves were objectified in some way.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, we live in a culture that even religions
Speaker 1: honor thy father and mother. So if you think about it,
Speaker 1: children are the most vulnerable humans. They don't have many
Speaker 1: rights down there with animals, you know, they don't have
Speaker 1: many rights, they don't have a voice, They're completely dependent
Speaker 1: on their caregivers. However, wounded our parents, those parents are
Speaker 1: that come to the table with a child if it's
Speaker 1: been severe trauma that those parents have experienced, they're more
Speaker 1: likely to severely traumatize their kids. And wonder with the
Speaker 1: ways that can happen, is you know feeling used? Um?
Speaker 1: I know, like when I first started doing my healing work,
Speaker 1: you know, like really committing to it, I sesing myself
Speaker 1: all the time because I'm like, I didn't get bruises
Speaker 1: and I wasn't sexually molested or anything. So I was
Speaker 1: always like, why am I Why do I have such
Speaker 1: strong symptoms? Like why I haven't been beaten? But it
Speaker 1: became clear to me that the emotional and the research
Speaker 1: tells us this, the emotional trauma is just as impactful
Speaker 1: on our brains as you know, the physical harm. So
Speaker 1: I think society is changing a bit to see that.
Speaker 1: And when I talk about used, used can mean many
Speaker 1: different things. There's a term prentification that I use a
Speaker 1: lot in my work because I was a prentified daughter,
Speaker 1: and that what that basically means is the child is
Speaker 1: asked from a super young age to be an adult
Speaker 1: and to care for the parents. So those rules are reversed.
Speaker 1: So that's an exploitation and a lot of cultures and
Speaker 1: places that's normal parenting. Right. I've talked to some students
Speaker 1: around the world who say, Yeah, in my family, you're
Speaker 1: supposed to take care of the parent, and then when
Speaker 1: you're an old person, then your kids are supposed to
Speaker 1: take care of you. And and not just like very
Speaker 1: minor ways, but like a major like they kind of
Speaker 1: become little children, they became like infants. Do you have
Speaker 1: to do everything for me? So that's it can really
Speaker 1: run the gamut the exploitation, right, And I think the
Speaker 1: whole awareness around trauma right now is expanding. People are
Speaker 1: becoming more aware of what trauma is. And so I
Speaker 1: find this extremely exciting because I think we can start
Speaker 1: to look at child development and parenting in new ways
Speaker 1: where we need to be willing to be horrified a
Speaker 1: bit to do better. And it doesn't take much to
Speaker 1: unconsciously harm a child. So what that requires is that
Speaker 1: we do the work to become more conscious, because what
Speaker 1: we're conscious of we can change, right. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think that there's, like you're saying, trauma is now being
Speaker 1: expanded upon where it used to be, you know, big
Speaker 1: T traumas were also now you know, understanding all of
Speaker 1: the little T traumas, the small things that that we
Speaker 1: may not have thought of as trauma, but it does
Speaker 1: affect us in the same way. And same thing with abandonment.
Speaker 1: It's not just about leaving a child. There's a there's
Speaker 1: many ways in which children can be abandoned emotionally, you know.
Speaker 1: And also, like you're saying with the exploitation, I encourage
Speaker 1: people to go really start to expand their definition of
Speaker 1: these words, because they're they're not just the big things
Speaker 1: that we've been taught in the past. I know so
Speaker 1: many people and my husband is one of them that's like,
Speaker 1: nothing happened to me, Like yeah, I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: know that. Definitely, it does in small ways, and a
Speaker 1: lot of times we we don't know what to compare
Speaker 1: it to, you know, like we just are in our
Speaker 1: childhood homes. We assume that everybody else is the same
Speaker 1: exact childhood as us. And then we become adults, and
Speaker 1: if we're resilient and if we have support, we'll be
Speaker 1: able to say reach a point where we're like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, that wasn't normal. I need to support, and
Speaker 1: then we can start to come to terms with a
Speaker 1: magnitude of actually what we what happened to us that's
Speaker 1: another place where grief comes in is to get to
Speaker 1: it with that grief process. Absolutely, and we absolutely will
Speaker 1: be right back after we take a quick breather. Welcome back,
Speaker 1: beautiful souls. I am chatting with the wonderfully wise Bethany
Speaker 1: Webster about grief and the mother wound. We've talked about
Speaker 1: being emotional caretakers in the family, and I think that's
Speaker 1: just across the board as women were kind of expected
Speaker 1: to be the emotional caretakers of in any relationship. And
Speaker 1: you know, so, what was the most supportive thing for
Speaker 1: you when looking at the ways that you emotionally caretake
Speaker 1: tew you say that was the emotional caretaker in relationships?
Speaker 1: Where because I know, for me, I'm at a point
Speaker 1: where I'm starting to see I mean not that I
Speaker 1: didn't know that, but I'm starting to to really understand
Speaker 1: and all the ways in which I try to I'm
Speaker 1: hyper vigilant and and wanting to make sure that everybody
Speaker 1: is okay because then I feel safe and I feel
Speaker 1: comfortable and I don't have to deal with all the
Speaker 1: emotions that come up. You know, So, for sure, where
Speaker 1: do we begin to reframe that for ourselves as women
Speaker 1: such a great question. I think a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Um One, I would say anger has helped, and I'll
Speaker 1: get into that, and then the other piece before I
Speaker 1: lose it is about looking at manipulation. So anger first, like,
Speaker 1: I think getting in touch with how angry I was
Speaker 1: that I was basically not allowed to exist on my own,
Speaker 1: you know, with boundaries and a skin and a voice
Speaker 1: and needs that so kind of like oh you just
Speaker 1: touch yeah, like yeah, yeah, and exhaustion as well, like
Speaker 1: I'm fucking tired of doing that, you know. So seeing
Speaker 1: getting in touch with my real emotions about what it
Speaker 1: feels like to be an emotional caretaker and how that
Speaker 1: was kind of an exploitation of me as a child,
Speaker 1: like I didn't really get to be a child. I
Speaker 1: actually never identified as a child. I realized this a
Speaker 1: few years ago. I was like, I've always felt like
Speaker 1: an adult and and so getting in touch with the
Speaker 1: betrayal at the heart of that. So I think that
Speaker 1: really set a fire in me to kind of fight
Speaker 1: this impulse a bit and like kind of fight to
Speaker 1: be a and I lose fight in like a mild sense,
Speaker 1: just hold my ground. I get to have different needs,
Speaker 1: I get to be at a different pace than other people.
Speaker 1: I'm not everyone's emotional slave, you know, And that's kind
Speaker 1: of how I felt like my mother's emotional prostitute. There
Speaker 1: was a dirtiness. I felt like dirty and used. I
Speaker 1: wasn't a person to her, I was an appendage. So
Speaker 1: this getting in touch with a rage around not being
Speaker 1: able to be human, not being able to be separate,
Speaker 1: help me a lot to try to get to that
Speaker 1: place where now. And this is a lot of what
Speaker 1: I teach women is how to feel the legitimacy of
Speaker 1: your sovereignty, like you get to have a separate reality
Speaker 1: and help that little girl inside of you that might
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, I'm going to be left for dead
Speaker 1: if I actually say no or you know, so it's
Speaker 1: kind of like helping that child and you feel safe
Speaker 1: with sovereignty. That's how we begin to trust our our
Speaker 1: relationship with ourselves. I think we've learned to because we
Speaker 1: have been taught like we can't have our own sovereign
Speaker 1: selves and experience. We always question our own experience, and
Speaker 1: so getting in learning to trust that whatever is coming
Speaker 1: up for us is valid is such a huge piece
Speaker 1: because when you're emotionally caretaking all the time, it's like,
Speaker 1: oh I must be crazy, there must be something wrong
Speaker 1: with me. Why am I making that person feel that way?
Speaker 1: It's that piece for me is my anger. I mean
Speaker 1: now I'm just starting to really get in touch with
Speaker 1: healthy anger and allowing that to promote a separate self
Speaker 1: and it's intense. Yeah right, Yeah, I'm psyched for you actually,
Speaker 1: because this is a powerful place to be in the journey,
Speaker 1: because it's like our anger is a part of our power.
Speaker 1: When we're ready to own it, you can start to
Speaker 1: feel this life worse. Yeah, just like, oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel the life force. That's so powerful. And I like
Speaker 1: to teach women to that you are the authority. You're
Speaker 1: the authority on what's right and best for you, no
Speaker 1: one else. And so many of us, like you said,
Speaker 1: have had to kind of disable that signal inside that
Speaker 1: says I'm I'm done, like I want to do something
Speaker 1: else now, or just whatever our needs are. As little girls,
Speaker 1: we had to muffle that signal in order to always
Speaker 1: be at the whim of other people. So I think
Speaker 1: as women, we have to learn how to recover and
Speaker 1: listen to what are my limits, what do I really need?
Speaker 1: And to hold space for that for a long time,
Speaker 1: I had to learn to say I don't know, I'll
Speaker 1: get back to you. I would always immediately say yes
Speaker 1: to people, you know, immediately, immediately, and then I had
Speaker 1: to question that and literally slow down because there's a
Speaker 1: part of me that felt like death to not say yes. Yes.
Speaker 1: I understand that feeling. I understand that, and I love
Speaker 1: that I don't know, I'll get back to you. I
Speaker 1: love Okay, everybody please remember that. I think that's such
Speaker 1: a huge piece. It's like, if we don't feel comfortable
Speaker 1: with saying no just yet, right, I don't know, I'll
Speaker 1: get back to you is a great and it is
Speaker 1: a great way to segue into it now totally. I
Speaker 1: think you know that manipulation piece. I think that leads
Speaker 1: so well into the manipulation piece because instead of manipulating
Speaker 1: and saying yes, well we mean no just to keep
Speaker 1: the peace or whatever it may be, we're no longer
Speaker 1: abandoning ourselves, and that that's basically what we're doing when
Speaker 1: we say yes, and we know we're abandoning ourselves, and
Speaker 1: so when we say I don't know, I'll get back
Speaker 1: to you. I find that a beautiful middle ground in
Speaker 1: a way, to grow into saying no with with love
Speaker 1: and being able to connect back to our own self
Speaker 1: and not just jump immediately into abandonment, which is basically
Speaker 1: when we say yes to the things we mean no,
Speaker 1: you know, want to say no to That's that's all
Speaker 1: we're doing is abandoning self totally, totally, and in that
Speaker 1: moment we might not even know what we want do
Speaker 1: I want to do? That took a long time for
Speaker 1: me to admit to myself, I don't want to hang
Speaker 1: out with that person or I don't want to do
Speaker 1: that thing, and it's so it was so empowering for
Speaker 1: me to start to actually say, yeah, give yourself that
Speaker 1: male ground of I don't know, let me get back
Speaker 1: to you. And then that gives you also time to
Speaker 1: kind of form an empowered no and practice that when
Speaker 1: in your own time, at your own pace, because it
Speaker 1: that anger piece then can come in. For me, I've
Speaker 1: noticed that I can just jump right to anger and
Speaker 1: like let that drive my no sometimes and it's like, wait,
Speaker 1: the empowered no is the anger can inform that, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be the way in which we
Speaker 1: express it. And sometimes the little one and me just
Speaker 1: get starts to get angry wants to just jump to
Speaker 1: the expression of it comes out as as anger, and
Speaker 1: I know that there's a better way that I would
Speaker 1: like to express that No, that feels more empowered. Yeah, beautiful,
Speaker 1: thanks for sharing that. That is so true. I mean,
Speaker 1: I it's very natural as we get in touch with
Speaker 1: those true feelings for the inner child to we kind
Speaker 1: of blend with her. We might all of a sudden
Speaker 1: blend with our inner child and see the world or
Speaker 1: other people through that the lens of her wounds, which
Speaker 1: is I'm trapped. I have to say no quick because
Speaker 1: I might get hurt. So it's powering to slow that
Speaker 1: down and so that that no is like a calm choice.
Speaker 1: It's like a calm, respectful choice. Some of the things
Speaker 1: I invite people to think about to see if you're
Speaker 1: blended with your inner child, urgency and like a reaction,
Speaker 1: like a reactivity or desperation. Those are signs that we
Speaker 1: are blended with the inner child. And so it can
Speaker 1: be good to take a step back and like say,
Speaker 1: little Bethany, I see that you're super angry right now,
Speaker 1: tell me all about it, or let's you know, have
Speaker 1: a conversation or like a connection with her and then
Speaker 1: when you feel calmer, then you can approach it as
Speaker 1: your adult, right, And this is just kind of a
Speaker 1: learning curve like working with our inner kids and then
Speaker 1: eventually being able to have interactions always as our adult,
Speaker 1: so that we don't get overtaken by the inner child,
Speaker 1: which can create all kinds of problems. It definitely can. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think a lot of us are living
Speaker 1: lives that are inner children, are running, are inner wounded children.
Speaker 1: And where you know my example the other day of
Speaker 1: letting myself get my hair wet. I love when my
Speaker 1: inner child can actually play and run the show from
Speaker 1: the place of feeling safe. That's when life can become fun.
Speaker 1: It's the innocence and that when we're looking at the
Speaker 1: world through our wounded child, which most of us are,
Speaker 1: and I'm for many many years have done it. Now
Speaker 1: I can recognize what I'm there and when I'm the
Speaker 1: awareness around the piece of when I'm there and when
Speaker 1: I'm an adult and what's going on. But thank God
Speaker 1: for the awareness of that because now I've learned how
Speaker 1: to and like you're saying, this a learning curve, learning
Speaker 1: learn how to step away and be like I can't
Speaker 1: have this conversation right now, or I need to I
Speaker 1: need to take a break because where I'm coming from
Speaker 1: is not the place I want to come from. That's powerful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's such an empowering thing to be able to have
Speaker 1: the resilience to do that exactly you say resilience. It
Speaker 1: is exhausting, it is, right, it is. So I was
Speaker 1: just going to mention one other thing because you would
Speaker 1: ask me such a great question about how to move
Speaker 1: out of a commercial caretaking and the other the second
Speaker 1: part was going to be about integrity, Like I noticed
Speaker 1: I was manipulating people because I wasn't being really honest.
Speaker 1: So I was also motivated by how can I be
Speaker 1: really true? And I think so many of us are
Speaker 1: feeling this desire, like we want to be true, we
Speaker 1: want to be have authentic relationships, we want to be
Speaker 1: authentic people, We want to embody what's true and important
Speaker 1: to us. And starting to see that emotional caretaking was
Speaker 1: a manipulation of other people. With my ex partner, I
Speaker 1: remember I had this total moment of recognition where she
Speaker 1: would ask me something and I would be like yeah, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, And then I dissected a little bit more
Speaker 1: later and I was like, oh, it was kind of
Speaker 1: it was a total mimic of what I had with
Speaker 1: my mother, Or was like feed her before she feeds
Speaker 1: on me. So what do I understand? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it was like because that's what I had to do
Speaker 1: with my mother. And my mother was basically a ravenous
Speaker 1: in her child. She was a ravenous little girl, wounded
Speaker 1: little girl in an adult body, so she could be
Speaker 1: a bully, she could be a tyrant. So it was
Speaker 1: I had to navigate that as a little girl, like
Speaker 1: I need this person for survival, but she is harmful.
Speaker 1: So I think we also when we look at manipulation
Speaker 1: as women, we need to have compassion for ourselves because
Speaker 1: that manipulation was a real legit survival strategy and it
Speaker 1: was empowering when I realized it, Like I was feeding
Speaker 1: her quickly so that her needs wouldn't become so big
Speaker 1: that she would feed on me. That's so well said. Painful,
Speaker 1: it's painful, but I know I, like I said, I'm
Speaker 1: just kind of coming to that place of understanding how
Speaker 1: I manipulate. And because of that reason, and there's this cringe,
Speaker 1: there's like like that far because it because I'm thinking.
Speaker 1: You know, it's of course as an adult woman, I
Speaker 1: don't want to manipulate my really in my relationships. But
Speaker 1: the piece of me that's manipulating is this child that
Speaker 1: is exactly what you're explaining. And there after that comes up, Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, like you're saying, I think there's such it's
Speaker 1: so important that we do slow down and give compassion
Speaker 1: to these pieces of ourselves and be the witness of
Speaker 1: it without judgment, because if we just if we keep
Speaker 1: judging this part, we're never going to be able to
Speaker 1: look at it either, like with clear eyes and with
Speaker 1: that open heart and shift something. If we're constantly judging
Speaker 1: this piece of ourselves that just is icky. It feels icky. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the most liberating insights for me lately, especially
Speaker 1: when shame, is realizing that there's nothing actually shameful. We're
Speaker 1: all just trying to survive. We're all innocently trying to
Speaker 1: survive inside of the conditioned patterns that we developed as kids.
Speaker 1: That's what's happening. And all of these strategies, as icky
Speaker 1: as they are, came from pain, right, Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: it's so liberating to start to look at myself without
Speaker 1: the shame lens. Oh, this is what you needed to do.
Speaker 1: You were so scared you had no other option but
Speaker 1: to manipulate her, you know, give her what she wanted
Speaker 1: so that you could be safe. And you did the
Speaker 1: right thing at that time, you know. So I think
Speaker 1: it's as adults we have to the real responsibility is
Speaker 1: about integrity and not trying to be as conscious as
Speaker 1: possible so that we don't replicate. Absolutely, Yeah, that's all
Speaker 1: we can do. Really. Yeah, it's very true. I know
Speaker 1: you went for a long long time without talking to
Speaker 1: your mom, and have you had any contact with her? No?
Speaker 1: I have. It's been actually, let's see two thousand of
Speaker 1: it's ten years. Um, she did show up occasionally, you know,
Speaker 1: as a troll on my website and occasionally trolling with
Speaker 1: these like horrendous statements all in caps. So but she
Speaker 1: stopped doing that. So yeah, I haven't heard from her
Speaker 1: in years. Some nasty letters. But wow, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I UM, that's okay, thank you, But I'm I feel
Speaker 1: really liberated now. Oh I can tell I absolutely and
Speaker 1: I understand, but it's it's still you. When you hear that,
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, I'm so sorry you had to go
Speaker 1: through that at the end point, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about an estrangement because I I feel like, you know
Speaker 1: we're talking about first off, this whole conversation, you can
Speaker 1: be very shame inducing for a lot of people, and
Speaker 1: then to be estranged from family. I know we live
Speaker 1: in this culture where it's like they're your family. You're
Speaker 1: supposed to just deal with it, you know, and love
Speaker 1: them for who they are. And yes, there's a piece
Speaker 1: of I can love you for for who you are
Speaker 1: and accept your limitations, but that also might not mean
Speaker 1: that I can be around you. And and that's such
Speaker 1: a talk about shame inducing. And in a society where
Speaker 1: it's like love the love object, love the mother, how
Speaker 1: do we begin to well, I guess it's kind of
Speaker 1: like having these conversations that we begin to normalize it.
Speaker 1: But for anybody out there who is estranged from their
Speaker 1: mother or thinking of even setting that boundary of I
Speaker 1: can't have that connection with you. And we will unpack
Speaker 1: that loaded question right after we pause for a quick break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back everyone. I have just asked Bethany Webster about
Speaker 1: the best way to set boundaries while navigating the mother wound. Yeah,
Speaker 1: great question. I think I would just say your feelings
Speaker 1: are valid. The part of you that says I can't
Speaker 1: do this anymore is a part of your truth. For
Speaker 1: many of us going estranged, I don't even like that
Speaker 1: word really, but yeah, you know, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: weird word. But yet to go no contact is can
Speaker 1: be one of the hardest things that we have to
Speaker 1: go through as as humans, I think, because everything in
Speaker 1: our bio aology or physiology is to connect, right, so
Speaker 1: things have to be quite bad. And I have such
Speaker 1: a respect for people who are contemplating this because I
Speaker 1: almost see it like part of our evolution, like we
Speaker 1: have to learn how to do this. Our parents are
Speaker 1: not entitled two relationships with us. They have to earn that.
Speaker 1: And this is a new concept for many people, that
Speaker 1: parents are entitled to relationships with their kids, their adult children.
Speaker 1: They are not. You don't owe anyone, You don't owe
Speaker 1: your parents anything. I'm a strong believer in that. What
Speaker 1: I'm crying because it's well, it's just I think there's
Speaker 1: a relief in just hearing someone else say they're not
Speaker 1: entitled to you, and that is a new way of
Speaker 1: living and of being in this world. For so many
Speaker 1: of us. It's a cultural shift that is really deep,
Speaker 1: and like you're saying, by biologically, I just talked to
Speaker 1: my nervous about this the other day. It's like I
Speaker 1: wish I could cut out this piece and be a
Speaker 1: biology that's like I need a mom, because I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's for so long I've understood, you know,
Speaker 1: my mom's limitations, and I feel like I've let go
Speaker 1: of the dream of having it differently, but there's still biologically,
Speaker 1: there's still something that's like I need a mother. And
Speaker 1: I think that just hearing you say that, I mean,
Speaker 1: it brought me to tears because I think is relief
Speaker 1: for anyone who's challenged with these relationships in their lives.
Speaker 1: Um to the extent that you know, you and I
Speaker 1: have been um, there's just relief and that so thank
Speaker 1: you for thank you for saying that and giving people permission,
Speaker 1: because ultimately it's up to us to give ourselves permission
Speaker 1: for this, but I think there's so so much support
Speaker 1: in hearing it from you. Yeah. Absolutely, thank you for
Speaker 1: asking the question because I think we have to get
Speaker 1: here as a culture because otherwise what we're doing is
Speaker 1: saying that people get to abuse me, and that can't
Speaker 1: be true anymore, whether it's blood or friends or primary
Speaker 1: relationships parents, nobody is entitled to your time and energy,
Speaker 1: and we have to feel worthy of that. I feel
Speaker 1: like people who go no contact are important in the
Speaker 1: culture because we carry a torch for a higher standard
Speaker 1: for human relationships and that it's possible to have chosen
Speaker 1: family right who who do nurture us and support us.
Speaker 1: It's like kind of creating a new model for family
Speaker 1: UM where we're not stuck with people who abuse us
Speaker 1: and we have to accept that as normal anymore. I
Speaker 1: don't think we can um and and so yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I honor all the we're warriors, those of us
Speaker 1: who have had to go this is a warrior path.
Speaker 1: It's a very spiritual path, I think, because in the
Speaker 1: process you actually can develop a profound sense of self
Speaker 1: worth and a solidity in yourself that few people have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to develop. Up. Yes, I completely agree with you,
Speaker 1: and it's not for the faint of heart, absolutely at all.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to talk about because I know we've
Speaker 1: been talking about a lot of heavy stuff. I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about what's on the other side of this work,
Speaker 1: because when when you begin to peel back these layers.
Speaker 1: And you know, healing we talk about is kind of
Speaker 1: it's a spiral, and there's layers to it, and I
Speaker 1: feel like this is a lifelong process in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, especially since we are the first kind of
Speaker 1: generation that's peeling back the layers of the onion of healing.
Speaker 1: You said something in your book which I wanted to
Speaker 1: touch upon because it's so beautiful and I had the
Speaker 1: same experience when it comes to innocence. I actually wrote
Speaker 1: a song on my new album called Innocent. You were
Speaker 1: talking about on the other side of this what you
Speaker 1: got to where you came to with your truest essence,
Speaker 1: with your innocence and recognizing it's not gone, Like we
Speaker 1: haven't lost something. And I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: biggest lies that we're told that were made to believe,
Speaker 1: whether it be from abuse or whatever. You know, however,
Speaker 1: we feel like we've lost our innocence. For me, it was,
Speaker 1: you know, starting so young and not having a childhood
Speaker 1: and all of those things. But all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: when I heard you talk about this in this book,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, she's had the same experience.
Speaker 1: It was like recognizing that that innocence and the pure
Speaker 1: essence of who we are that's untouched by trauma is
Speaker 1: still there and we can access it. And I think
Speaker 1: this work is the direct line to being able to
Speaker 1: access that piece of us. I would I would just
Speaker 1: love for people to hear your experience of what that
Speaker 1: innocence and being, you know, touching upon that piece of
Speaker 1: you is like, yeah, thank you for this like kind
Speaker 1: of bringing us here to this kind of place in
Speaker 1: the conversation, because I feel like this is where this
Speaker 1: work goes to a really profound, kind of spiritual place
Speaker 1: where it is truly like the tectonic plates of life
Speaker 1: shift from the shame based identity which most of us have.
Speaker 1: Two we can live in a more of a place
Speaker 1: where it's like feeling, yeah, your life force come back
Speaker 1: to you, right. So, Like in my experience, one of
Speaker 1: the most profound realizations was that my mother had this
Speaker 1: thing with me that was just like I know who
Speaker 1: you are, and you're bad. It was really her own
Speaker 1: shame that she was projecting onto me because she fell
Speaker 1: out of control. And then realizing that none of that,
Speaker 1: none of what happened to me actually had a flick
Speaker 1: to do with me. None of it, and I think
Speaker 1: I knew that conceptually, you know, through doing the work,
Speaker 1: but then there was this place where it was just
Speaker 1: everything opened up and it was just like on a
Speaker 1: visceral level, I could feel it. I could feel the
Speaker 1: reality of my goodness that is indestructible and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of vitality and energy, like almost a playfulness. It's
Speaker 1: like recapturing, you know, underneath the gunk and kind of
Speaker 1: the accumulated crap and illusions that we have to take
Speaker 1: on to survive. We start to feel like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: that wasn't me at all. And I know who I am.
Speaker 1: I'm the expert on me, and I can feel my
Speaker 1: goodness and that that has a right. I have a
Speaker 1: right to exist. I don't have to prove it. I
Speaker 1: don't have to earn it, I don't have to strive
Speaker 1: for it. I just am. You have a right to
Speaker 1: exist within that emotional experience of goodness and joy and
Speaker 1: like playfulness. And I think that's one of the biggest
Speaker 1: pieces for me is you know, and I oscillate kind
Speaker 1: of back and forth between trauma and pain and then
Speaker 1: joy and play, and it takes a long time where
Speaker 1: it has for me at least, I'm still learning how
Speaker 1: to exist within that playfulness and that joyous space because
Speaker 1: that wasn't That wasn't safe as a child like joy
Speaker 1: joy wasn't safe for me, And so it takes a
Speaker 1: while once we start to touch upon that. At least
Speaker 1: for me, it has to allow myself to wake up
Speaker 1: every day and go, oh, I can exist in a
Speaker 1: different space even though my trauma is still here. I
Speaker 1: don't have to exist there today. Yes, I love that totally,
Speaker 1: And thanks for emphasizing. It's like rebirthing ourselves. It is
Speaker 1: like a birth, like it does. We just stretch, and
Speaker 1: the more joy and resilience we have, then we can
Speaker 1: handle a little bit more pain that might come up. Right,
Speaker 1: So it's an interesting progression where it's not like everything
Speaker 1: gets super easy, but we might actually have more pain
Speaker 1: to come up as we get more resilient to handle it.
Speaker 1: But then there's a time where we I'm going through
Speaker 1: it a little bit of this right now myself where
Speaker 1: I just recently moved and I'm there's so much beauty.
Speaker 1: It's coinciding with all these different things. But my inner
Speaker 1: child is like I can a teen part, not my
Speaker 1: youngest part. But a teen part who had to protect
Speaker 1: me as a child with combat She wore combat boots,
Speaker 1: you know, surfer skateboarder girl. She's like, I can just
Speaker 1: exist and see all this beauty and like the sun
Speaker 1: comes up and then it goes down, and it happens
Speaker 1: every day and I can just enjoy it. Interesting. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I kind of feel high, almost like my senses are
Speaker 1: are actually becoming more cute. The more that I heal,
Speaker 1: the more I can see the wonder and the awe
Speaker 1: of just ordinary existence. Absolutely, I totally understand everything that
Speaker 1: you're saying right now. Uh, And I love that you
Speaker 1: just brought that up. Thank you for that's just a
Speaker 1: personal thing. Thank you for saying this team part of me,
Speaker 1: because I think that's kind of where I'm at right now,
Speaker 1: is like this connecting with this the teenage self that
Speaker 1: had a lot of coping mechanisms, you know, and had
Speaker 1: to in a very public way. Yeah, thank you, just
Speaker 1: on a personal note for for validating that, because it's
Speaker 1: it's where I'm currently hanging out. I think I've I've
Speaker 1: a lot of my younger self. I've I've been able
Speaker 1: to get in touch with. But it's interesting in the
Speaker 1: teenagers because all of a sudden, the rebellion. Just to
Speaker 1: touch upon this, you just mentioned this kind of like
Speaker 1: harder piece of you that was protecting you, but the
Speaker 1: the rebellion can be exhausting in itself, and you know,
Speaker 1: been learning like what what rebellion I want to keep
Speaker 1: when that can serve me, and when it's you know,
Speaker 1: not served me in the past, and when that's been
Speaker 1: a when that's been a protective mechanism, and it's just
Speaker 1: such an interesting ride. That's that piece totally. It sounds
Speaker 1: like it's for you. My team was definitely the most
Speaker 1: hyper vigilant part, so she would be like a scanner soldier,
Speaker 1: like you know, when everything's fine actually felt scarier because
Speaker 1: it means something bad is going to happen at any moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting that lives in ourselves, right, that's just part
Speaker 1: of our brains and nervous system that is wired to
Speaker 1: look for that. It's been a lot just through loving,
Speaker 1: reaffirming to her every day and multiple times a day
Speaker 1: that you don't have to worry about anything. I've got you.
Speaker 1: I'm your big b and I'm looking out for you,
Speaker 1: and I've got so much support and you can just
Speaker 1: enjoy living in the beauty. And so it's taken months
Speaker 1: and months and months since this part has arrived, and
Speaker 1: she's so awesome, like there's so much love and beauty
Speaker 1: inside of her that's not hard, Like the hard part
Speaker 1: was just like the shell. But underneath is this like
Speaker 1: flower that's blossoming. And I love that. I love that
Speaker 1: for you. I love the friends because I think that's
Speaker 1: one last question before I head over to the music
Speaker 1: side of things. What do you envision when you see
Speaker 1: a world where we've all done this work? What do
Speaker 1: you see as you know the what do you see
Speaker 1: the world looking like? What do you envision for for
Speaker 1: us as a culture, as spiritual beings, as this planet?
Speaker 1: How do you see this rippling out? I see that
Speaker 1: as more of us do this work, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's going to take many, many generations, but I think
Speaker 1: we can have a culture based on connection. The more
Speaker 1: I do this work, the more I realize that attachment
Speaker 1: is really about love. It's about coming into the world
Speaker 1: feeling safe, feeling loved, feeling that we can trust life,
Speaker 1: trust our bodies. So as more of us do this work,
Speaker 1: we pass down less harm, we model we feel comfortable
Speaker 1: being connected. There's less of a push or fight or
Speaker 1: less defensive. So I think we can ultimately build a
Speaker 1: culture around attachment. I get excited by thinking about what
Speaker 1: society looked like if we based everything on a secure
Speaker 1: mother child relationship so that each child gets everything here
Speaker 1: she needs. That would be amazing. It would mean like
Speaker 1: clean water, universal basic income, healthcare, everything. And I think
Speaker 1: more creativity. I think I see like a renaissance, like
Speaker 1: we think at the Renaissance of sixteen hundreds and you know, Florence,
Speaker 1: Italy and Europe. I think that's just like a speck
Speaker 1: of what could happen with our creativity. Because to be
Speaker 1: a creative, you look at human development. To be creative,
Speaker 1: a child needs to feel safe and actually feel a
Speaker 1: little boredom in order to actually start to you know,
Speaker 1: really engage the imagination and stuff. We need time to
Speaker 1: day dream, we need we need time to play. I
Speaker 1: don't come up with ideas at my desk. I come
Speaker 1: up with ideas on walks and travels and staring at clouds,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, So I think it would just be
Speaker 1: this amazing outburst of creativity and fun and human connection,
Speaker 1: like a whole renaissance. And I love that you think about,
Speaker 1: you know, when children were kind of basically raised within community,
Speaker 1: like years and years and exactly I've been thinking that
Speaker 1: about that a lot lately. Here we are and the
Speaker 1: mother is supposed to be you know, five million things
Speaker 1: at while while trying to raise a child, and here,
Speaker 1: you know, the first six seven years of a child's
Speaker 1: life is so important, and we have women who are
Speaker 1: just completely absent because they're trying to create a career
Speaker 1: and all these different things. And it's three jobs exactly,
Speaker 1: everything everything trying to be a wife, you know, a friend,
Speaker 1: and work in the community, whatever it may be. There's
Speaker 1: just so many things pulling us away from this real
Speaker 1: connection that we need to give to children. And I
Speaker 1: think the community piece is so important. And I think
Speaker 1: of you know, you're saying that we could be connected
Speaker 1: and in community, and I think that I I see
Speaker 1: when you say that, us almost going back to this
Speaker 1: way that where we have more people that are able
Speaker 1: to help us raise children in the right way to
Speaker 1: that connection. So yeah, it's not amazing to think about.
Speaker 1: I could literally I could talk to you for days.
Speaker 1: So I feel the same. Thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I always ask my guest, they're holy five, as I
Speaker 1: call it, their top five songs. This could be like
Speaker 1: over your lifetime or like what you're listening to now,
Speaker 1: but um, I would love to hear what you're five are.
Speaker 1: Thank you for this question. By the way, I've been
Speaker 1: working on it very diligently and come up with many revisions,
Speaker 1: but as of last night okay, um, yeah, so I
Speaker 1: would say I was thinking I'll start quickly. Dirt is
Speaker 1: a song by the Stooges nine seventies album called fun House.
Speaker 1: It was my first introduction to punk music when I
Speaker 1: was a teenager, so that's perfect to talk about the
Speaker 1: team so representing her, representing her number one yea. And
Speaker 1: then I would say Banita apple bum by Tribe called Question,
Speaker 1: Oh nice, I love it um. And then let's see
Speaker 1: back to Life by Soul to Soul back to yeah um.
Speaker 1: And then another one I love is in God's Country
Speaker 1: by You Two Do I the Joshua Treep. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I love that so good, so good um. And then
Speaker 1: another one is um. There's this song called Rhodes by
Speaker 1: Porta's Head. It's an album called Dummy that came out
Speaker 1: in Like Or Or something and every time I hear it.
Speaker 1: I was in Budapest once and the whole entire album
Speaker 1: came on and I was just like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: this album is so good. Um Roads, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: check that out. Roads. It's a slow, kind of like electronic, dark,
Speaker 1: beautiful song. Okay, did I do five yet? That was five?
Speaker 1: That was good. I know. It's so funny people. Everybody
Speaker 1: that comes on here, it's like, this is the hardest
Speaker 1: question anyone ever answered. Well, thank thank you so much.
Speaker 1: It's been so fun to chat with you, Leanne. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you and the work that you're doing and what
Speaker 1: you're bringing to the world. It's really remarkable and magnificent
Speaker 1: and it's really fun to be part of it. So
Speaker 1: thanks for inviting me. Thank you, Sam, Sam, and I
Speaker 1: look forward to continuing this conversation with you. I think, yes,
Speaker 1: it's really important. So we love that. Take care bye
Speaker 1: bye who And that wraps up this episode of Holy Man.
Speaker 1: Thank you all so much for spending this time with me.
Speaker 1: I think this episode was so so so important. Take
Speaker 1: care of yourselves. If this brought up anything for you,
Speaker 1: because it is a very tender topic. I know it
Speaker 1: can bring up a lot of different emotions for each
Speaker 1: and every one of us, So just treat yourself with
Speaker 1: care and compassion. And I so appreciate you being here
Speaker 1: and would love to hear your feedback, especially on this episode,
Speaker 1: so please full free to reach out in the comments
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening. Please be kind. We're all navigating this
Speaker 1: life in our own way, and I know from myself
Speaker 1: I definitely shared a lot of personal deeper information on
Speaker 1: this episode. So let's treat each other with kindness and compassion.
Speaker 1: And if you think this episode might help someone you know,
Speaker 1: please pass it along while I go check my phone
Speaker 1: for my mom's text just about now. I love you all. Bye.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Holy Human, I'll be welcoming
Speaker 1: my dear friend n Kate Horseman, an integrative healer with
Speaker 1: a unique holistic approach to utilizing nutrition, breath work, and
Speaker 1: energy work to navigate trauma and attain more enter peace.
Speaker 1: I hope you will join us. I'll see you then.
Speaker 1: Holy Human with Me Leanne Rhymes is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. You'll find Holy Human with Leanne Rhymes
Speaker 1: on the I Heart app, Apple podcast or wherever you
Speaker 1: get the podcasts that matter most. To you,