Author of You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma & Shame and Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters: A Guide for Separation, Liberation & Inspiration
what happens when shame is held in silence
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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 how we relate to ourselves. The unspoken acknowledgment of a mistake does not stay contained. It leaks into other areas. An apology, when it comes from a grounded place rather than a place of self-punishment, is one of the most effective tools for releasing that accumulated weight. Not because it erases what happened. But because it completes something that was left open. The relationship benefits. But so does the person doing the apologizing. Your self-worth is not on the table in that conversation. Your integrity is. And integrity, unlike worth, is something you actively demonstrate through your choices. That distinction is worth sitting with. ~ Dr. Brenda Lau, pain medicine specialist, anesthesiologist, cancer patient I share this because for a long time I believed that making a mistake meant "I'm bad" (so bad there's no coming back from it). Guess who I learned that from? I break that cycle by changing my relationship to shame. Much, much love, Karen
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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
Here's the tweak: change the reason you are setting boundaries with your mother from: "Because she's doing something bad and wrong and I need to protect myself." to "Because I respect myself and know who I am and what I want." (Are there times when protection is appropriate? Yes. And as you evolve your boundaries practice, you will find that protection is needed less and less.) Setting boundaries because you think your mother shouldn’t be doing whatever it is she's doing, or because you don’t...
The meme said: "Be kind and full of love...but have boundaries like a motherf-er." Here’s what it gets wrong: there's no "but." Healthy boundaries ARE – in and of themselves – kind and full of love. They make room for anger. After more than a decade of helping women take care of themselves in the relationship they have with their mothers (including myself), here's what I know for sure: It's messy. There's no perfect answer. There's no precise way to do it. All you can do is be human (a human...
You know what has been super helpful to me in the past nine months since my mother ended her three-year silence to tell me she wants to move closer to me? Instead of trying to plan for every possible outcome and rehearsing all the possible conversations in my head (talk about exhausting and confusing), I ask myself: "Who do I want to be when I engage with her?" If you've been following along, my mother reached out to me in January to tell that she wants to move closer to me (she currently...