Author of You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma & Shame and Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters: A Guide for Separation, Liberation & Inspiration
when your mother is "mirror hungry"
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About One's Own Sense of Self ~ In this piece, Captain Tom Bunn, who is both an airline pilot and a licensed clinical social worker who works with anxious flyers, describes what happens when... "...instead of mirroring her child, a mother uses the child to mirror her. Dr. Beatrice Beebe has studied children who failed to thrive. She found that their mothers were so mirror-hungry that they, instead of mirroring the child, pushed their child to mirror them." ~~~ Have you read The Calamity Club? This part jumped out at me mostly because I could say this about my mother, but also because I've worked with enough women who have sisters like this. "...my little sis always wanted me to take what she thought a me and turn it into what I thought of myself. Ain’t that a gas? And you bet your last dollar, I use to think that too. Those were some real dark times, they were. I could hear her voice like she was sitting in my ear. Until one day I realized that my sister only wanted me to hate myself on account a she hated her own self even more.” ~~~ My colleague Simona Hadjigeorgalis is offering this free workshop in September for mothers of teens: 3 Keys to Set Loving Boundaries With Your Older Teen (in a fast-changing world) Without Guilt or Power Struggles ~~~ Much, much love, Karen My own work in the Shame School Community led me to write this poem. |
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