Founder of Shame School and author of You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma & Shame and Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters: A Guide for Separation, Liberation & Inspiration
focus on being a joy and a delight to yourself...
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...rather than on being a disappointment to her. If it's hard, remember, not only were you taught not to focus on being a joy and a delight to yourself, you were probably actively discouraged from it. From earliest childhood those of us socialized as women were taught and persuaded to survey everything we are and everything we do in terms of how we appear to others. Our own sense of being in ourselves is supplanted by a sense of being appreciated by others. Others act and we...appear. Others look at us. We watch ourselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women, but also the relation of women to themselves and to other women, including our mothers and daughters. It is never too late to be focused on being a joy and a delight to yourself. This is the work of re-parenting on a deep level and I share an exercise that will help you do it in the next Cycle Breaker Summit (complete with a downloadable worksheet). This free event runs December 9 - 12. Click here to get your free ticket. Much, much love, Karen |
Karen C.L. Anderson
Founder of Shame School and author of You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma & Shame and Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters: A Guide for Separation, Liberation & Inspiration
"It's hard not to be on the defensive, after a lifetime of being defensive," she said."Of COURSE you're defensive...it makes all the sense in the world that you're defensive," I replied. "I'm defensive, too.""Oh wow...why do I feel like crying with relief?" she asked."Because you've been making yourself wrong for being defensive," I answered. "Getting mad at yourself for being defensive is like getting mad at yourself for shivering when you're cold. We're biologically wired for it.""It feels...
[have a question you'd like me to answer? hit reply on this email and ask! I'll answer here, keeping you anonymous...Dear Abby's got nothin' on me!] Question from a reader: How do I stop working so hard to please my self-absorbed mother? Dear Adult Daughter… People-pleasing (aka “fawning” or “appeasing”) is a stress/trauma response/adaptation. It is something your very young nervous system did to keep you safe and alive. Understanding that (and not making yourself wrong for doing it) is the...
Someone recently called me out for being hypocritical because in one day I posted what they saw as two opposing opinions: one was about living a life so saturated in love that no one can convince you to hate, and the other was about cutting ties with...certain people. The person identified themselves as one of those "certain people" and then went on to tell me how good they are because of the volunteer work they do, and so on. It made me glad I've done my shadow work around being...