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
Author of You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma & Shame and Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters: A Guide for Separation, Liberation & Inspiration
Some people avoid apologizing because it feels like an attack on their own identity. As if saying “I was wrong” is the same as saying “I am bad.” (and they are probably unaware that they are doing this) Those are not the same thing, and confusing them is what keeps most apologies unspoken. What I find clinically interesting is what happens in the body and mind when shame is held in silence over time. It does not dissolve. It accumulates. It changes how we relate to the people around us and...
[this is a long one...showing one's work means focusing on the transparency of the process rather than just the end result. It's something your math teacher may have required] My mother's husband is now in a nursing home, seven years after being diagnosed with Alzheimers. Here's an abbreviated version of the back story: Since January 2022, she has talked about moving from Maine to Connecticut to be closer to me. She stopped communicating with me in August of 2023 when I decided to stop...
the paradox of shameis shaming shamejust creates more shame.so what if we kissed it instead?let the warmth of being metdissolve every storythat insisted love only arrives after perfection. Christopher Sexton That's it for today. Much, much love, Karen JOIN THE SHAME SCHOOL COMMUNITY