I grew up with a lot of stigma around medication. My mom misused and abused prescription (not her rx) drugs. I’m exploring medicines now, and it’s hard for me to untangle her poor choices (using drugs for numbing) versus my actual diagnosed need to treat a mental illness. What comes up is, am I a druggie? Could I just try harder, exercise more, eat better and then I won’t need it? She was also an “invincible” person. She claims to rarely get sick or injured. And if she did get injured it was generally a big, significant injury that got her attention. I’ve worked very hard to create a different relationship with illness as an adult (for example, everyone gets sick sometimes, and it doesn’t make me weak, frail, attention-seeking, etc. It has nothing to do with my wholeness). But I still slip in shame. And especially now as I’ve started down the SSRI journey with my doctor. Mental health struggles are invisible. I can hear my mom rolling her eyes. I have to work hard not to apologize to my partner when I’m having a bad day. When I’m not feeling well, it’s a whole lot harder to be who I know I am in my heart. Old ways sneak in.

Dear Adult Daughter...

Um...did my mother have another daughter in another dimension? How did you end up with my mother?

Seriously though, as I write this I suspect my mother’s health is failing and she doesn’t want me to see her (because she, too, sees herself invincible and being sick as a personality flaw).

As well, I’ve been on my own health journey, having lost a significant amount of weight (taking GLP-1/GIP medication) and then a double mastectomy (no reconstruction and no “foobs”). I look very different than the last time she saw me.

I can imagine the look on her face if she saw me right now. I can hear the specific, somewhat accusatory line of questioning:

“How did you get cancer?!?”

“Why are you flat?!?”

“You’re taking the easy way out! You should just try harder, exercise more, eat better.”

And yes, the eye rolls.

Because her body perceives me (and some of the things I say/do, the choices I make) as a threat, and her default survival response is fight. And in the face of her “fight” my body perceives the things she says/does as a threat, and my default survival response is freeze/flop/fawn.

All of that to say, of course you’re slipping in shame (love that turn of phrase).

It makes sense that it’s hard to be who you know you are in your heart.

Old ways will always sneak in.

You may never “get over it.”

Healing isn’t the moment those feelings go away, it is when we stop abandoning ourselves (by shaming ourselves) trying to escape it. It’s the slow, intelligent (and sometimes tedious!) rewiring that becomes possible when we realize:

Nothing is wrong with me for still feeling this way and something is very right with me for staying with myself while I do.

Every time you remind yourself of your humanity, you are BEING that person you know you are in your heart.

Much, much love,

Karen

​Practice with me in the Shame School Community

My first thought was, “Why couldn’t I have fallen into the overachieving category?”

I had spent so much of my life letting it (my life) just happen to me; lacking the self-confidence to even know what I wanted, much less achieve it or succeed at it.

In the past 15 years I have worked with enough women to know that, actually, overachieving isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The self-identified overachievers worked themselves into a frenzy, hustling for their worth, trying to be perfect, burning themselves out, and never truly reveling in their accomplishments.

Underachieving and overachieving are two sides of the same coin, both are the result of living in survival mode, and both have us being incredibly mean to ourselves.

Add in the socialization we received – the internalized patriarchy, misogyny, and white supremacy handed down through our maternal lineages – that tells us there’s something inherently wrong with us, and OF COURSE we have a dissatisfying relationship to achieving.

Not to mention “overachiever” and “underachiever” are arbitrary words designed to keep us measuring ourselves against an outside standard we didn’t have a hand in creating.

Like:

Overly responsible.

Completely irresponsible.

Over functioning.

Under functioning.

Good girl.

Bad girl.

Tightly controlled.

Out of control.

^^^^

All of that?

Arbitrary words designed to keep us measuring ourselves against an outside standard we didn’t have a hand in creating...nor did our mothers...or their mothers. In many (most?) cases, however, they expected us to conform to that standard, for myriad reasons, some understandable and others not so much.

I created the Shame School Community to gather women who want to free themselves (safely) from the duality of overachieving and underachieving and to define for themselves what would feel right for them.

To stop shaming themselves for not meeting some arbitrary standard.

To no longer require their mother’s opinion or approval...or protection.

They cultivate self-awareness, self-reassurance, and self-trust.

Much, much love,

Karen

What I remember most about that time is how her neighbors, her long-time lawyer and friend (who urged her to name me legal guardian), and my mother (who lived about 400 miles away), were concerned that she would fall and break a hip, that she needed more in-home assistance, that she should go to assisted living, etc.

I thought about those things as well, not to mention the half-eaten bits of food in her refrigerator that she refused to throw away and the stacks and stacks of paper (mail, newspapers, catalogs) on every floor and surface, all of which had a date and other notes written on them.

She could become verbally and physically violent, if I touched any of it (she’d always been this way).

She wanted to be left alone except when she needed someone do her bidding.

My mother wanted to force her into a nursing home and “make her suffer.” I totally got that one.

Sure it would have been easier if she was being cared for 24/7 but I couldn’t “make” her do anything unless and until she was deemed incapable. I did have her evaluated. I did make sure her home was as safe as it could be. I made sure she had a medical alert device.

Ultimately I realized that if she fell and broke her hip...she would fall and break her hip.

And that may be her demise.

But she would die...free. On her own terms.

My attitude was not so much “you’ve made your bed now lie in it“ but “you are free to live your life...and death...as you see fit.”

In so doing I unhooked myself from a pattern that wove itself through many a maternal lineage:

You either “give of yourself selflessly” to someone who abused you all the while feeling bitter and resentful ...

or

You say “fuck that bitch” all the while feeling defensive and angry ...

or

You say “I can’t do it” (when what you mean is “I don’t want to do it”) all the while feeling guilty and regretful.

There is another way: the right to folly.

The “right to folly” is the right to make poor, eccentric, or risky life choices and it refers to an individual’s legal and ethical autonomy to live as they choose, even if it is detrimental to themselves, provided they retain mental capacity and do not harm others.

I learned about the right to folly when I read The Pain of Caring for a Parent Who Abused You (if you don’t subscribe to the New York Times you can cut and paste the link into removepaywalls.com).

The right to folly dovetails with my core value of autonomy. When I lean into it, it feels both generous and powerful. And loving. It’s conscious and intentional.

Because I include myself in my own values.

Including yourself in your own values doesn’t necessarily make life a breeze. It doesn’t prevent uncomfortable emotions. And I am not always consistent in doing it.

Eventually, my grandmother did fall. She refused to use her medical alert device for more than 24 hours. That was her right to folly.

She didn’t break any bones, but her skin was torn up and she developed rhabdomyolysis and was in the ICU for several days before going to a rehab facility and then into a nursing home. I wrote about it in detail in Your Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma and Shame.

She exercised her right to folly until she couldn’t. I like and respect myself and my reasons for “letting” her. I also like and respect the way I handled “taking over” and making choices for her I knew she didn’t like, while also not harming myself.

In the last several years of her life, I was the only family member who saw or communicated with her, with the exception of her son, who visited once. Neither of her daughters did. I don’t blame them.

She died alone.

That’s neither a “good” thing nor “bad” thing.

I have no idea what the near future holds for my mother in regards to her health. Right now she is an autonomous woman who gets to make her own choices.

And so am I.

Much, much love,

Karen

These are the kinds of things we talk about and work on and grapple with in the Shame School Community. Join us.

Before leaving for college I remember thinking: “no one will know me there...I can start over...be someone else.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d had that kind of thought and it certainly wasn’t the last time.

I had a version of that thought a few days ago. I wanted to run away. Not from home. Not from my husband.

From myself.

I am sitting here, having typed that, feeling the familiar sharp, prickly ache in my throat and behind my eyes.

Stuck. Trapped. Shaming the ever living shit out of myself. Believing I deserve it.

It’s been a while since I felt it this intensely. It’s the same old shame but with a new/old twist:

Not only am I bad, selfish, spoiled, and pathetic...

I am a burden.

I know exactly what’s triggering it and what’s keeping it alive:

I don’t work hard enough.

I don’t pull my own weight.

I’m lazy.

I’m entitled.

Irresponsible.

I make the same old mistakes over and over again and I should fucking know better by now.

OUCH!

It is incredibly painful, confusing, and annoying.

I hate it.

I don’t want to feel this way.

But I do.

I want desperately to have someone reassure me that I am not those things. To remove them from me. Lobotomize me. So I can stop being me. At least that part of me.

And at the very same time it would be incredibly difficult for me to hear you say I shouldn’t feel this way or that you’re sorry I feel this way.

I won’t believe you. I won’t want to believe you.

Because shame makes the rational part of me go temporarily offline.

This is what it’s like for me when I experience shame.

I get it from my mother. She feels the same way. Do I know that with 100% certainty? No. But it makes sense to me that we would be similar in this way.

We’re like two shameful peas in a shame pod.

Okay that made me laugh.

This is the part where I am supposed to tie this up in a neat little “healed” bow.

I am not there yet. I’ve been trying to “correct” myself rather than “connect” with myself.

I am writing this to make that connection. I am writing it to you because expressing myself is one of my three core values (even when shame makes me cringe and says “stop it...stop telling your pathetic little stories”).

But I am on my way. The part of me that needs me most is the part that needs to be loved not “even though” and not “in spite of” but because.

Much, much love,

Karen

We were visiting for a few days and at one point, unprompted by me, and in a moment when my husband was alone with her, he told her how proud he is of me, how successful he thinks I am, how he sees that I help so many people. He really bragged on me.

He had asked me ahead of time if it would be okay if he did this. Because as a father, he finds it...curious? strange? that my mother seems to show no interest in who I am on anything other than a surface level.

Her seeming lack of interest in me used to hurt me (and he remembers this).

Then I discovered a lot of freedom for myself in it because I no longer take her lack of interest in me personally (this doesn’t mean I don’t take other things personally).

When my husband told me about his conversation with my mother, he indicated that she seemed to be in disbelief, that she seemed to want to contradict what he was saying about me.

I replied, “It’s hard for her to have her opinion of me challenged. And one of her opinions of me is that I am a weak and ineffectual person.”

~~~

But later, when we were all together again, she told the story of how, when I was an infant with a fever of a 106, the doctor told her to put me in a cold bath so I wouldn’t get brain damage.

“I guess it didn’t work,” she said with what I know to be her “teasing” face and tone.

I didn’t respond. No one did.

“Just kidding,” she said.

Ha ha ha.

She went on to tell more stories about how I am just like my father, whom, she has made it clear many times over the years, she didn’t like or respect.

It was almost as if she had to restore her story about me and knock me down a few pegs in the face of conflicting evidence. She has a fixed image of me in her mind.

"The way you see any individual in your mind is the best they can ever be in your presence." ~ John Overdurf

The whole thing reminded me of the way her father, my grandfather, used to recount the story of how she “flunked out of college after her freshman year because she majored in bridge and boys.”

Ha ha ha.

I clearly remember the last time I heard my grandfather say that to her in a room full of family, including my mother’s new husband and his son.

I remember finding her upstairs in her bedroom crying about it.

I remember her saying how much she wanted her father’s attention and approval.

I remember trying to make her feel better.

~~~

Yes, I read The Four Agreements.

And I was affected by her need to knock me down.

I was hurt because I am a human who is sensitive to cruelty, especially when it’s intentional.

In that quiet moment after her “ha ha ha,” I took a breath.

I checked in with my body.

I leaned into Dignity (one of the three values that upholds my intentional identity) by remembering:

#1 I do not deserve to be spoken to that way.

#2 I don’t engage with, or give my energy to, people who speak to me like that.

#3 I no longer internalize what she believes or says about me.

For the rest of our visit, I shifted my energy away from her. I didn’t look at her much. I kept my body slightly turned away. I was cool. We left earlier than planned.

~~~

On the way home I sobbed.

I grieved for my loss of a mother who might see me as I am and I grieved her loss of a father (and mother) who might see her as she is.

~~~

There’s a part of me that wishes I had responded differently. Declared something. Left right then and there. Instead of leaning into Dignity, I could have leaned into Audacity, and told her to fuck off. I’ve done that in the past.

I didn’t for two reasons:

#1 she enjoys knowing she set me off (this isn’t conjecture on my part…she has told me more than once that she likes pushing my buttons) and I didn’t want her to have that enjoyment.

#2 I respected my body’s wisdom in choosing otherwise.

~~~

Whether you’re estranged, low contact, or speaking to her every day, taking care of yourself in the relationship you have with your mother isn’t about never being hurt or angry.

It’s not about not taking a cruel “joke” personally.

It’s about holding yourself in such high regard that you remove yourself from cruel and abusive situations in a way that serves YOU. That comes from YOU having defined what you value, not how she defines it.

Taking things personally and/or being highly sensitive, is only painful when we believe we shouldn’t be be/do those things.

Revel in it.

Much, much love,

Karen

Join the Shame School Community, where we practice the art of “swallowing shame and spitting out gold.”*

Where we create safety within ourselves, where we’re intentional with our identities, and where healthy boundaries can’t help but be the result.

*from a poem by Christopher Sexton

I noticed a pleasant flutter in my heart, expansion in my chest, the desire to take a deep breath and sigh (which I did), and warmth.

I smiled. A whole-lit-up-face grin. I even looked at myself in the rearview window and reveled in it.

Later the same day, I was reading Maria Semple’s new book Go Gentle when this passage jumped out at me:

“It’s not enough to be happy. You have to be aware of it, and enjoy being happy. It’s a subtle distinction, but it’s the difference between living and being truly alive. In that moment, I made a point of immensely enjoying my happiness.” ~ main character Adora Hazzard

Oh hello.

That’s exactly what I was doing: enjoying the sensation(s) of happiness. I was more than aware of them; I had turned toward them. I let them be a whole experience.

There are three things to know about these kinds of experiences:

#1 they are an example of what “healing” can look like

#2 they are part of what I call “intentional identity;” an identity based on what you value, that you can turn towards and lean into as an alternative to the shame-based identities you (and I) inherited and carry.

#3 intentional identity based on your values are the foundation of your boundaries

Compare and contrast that in-the-car experience with this one:

A few nights ago I was having a hard time falling asleep despite “doing all the right things.” I noticed the incessant need to twich my restless leg, the tenseness in my face and shoulders, an alertness in my system. I started doing all my breathing and relaxation techniques...nada.

I was aware of all of it...and then I became aware that trying to fix it was disconnecting me from myself.

So I decided to let my body talk to me without trying to fix it. I eventually fell asleep but it wasn’t at all satisfying.

This too is an example of what “healing” can look like.

[this is not to say that practicing relaxation and breathing techniques is not helpful or healing...
I love me some box breathing for relaxation!]

~~~

Here’s the disappointing part: “doing the work” and “healing” isn’t linear and it doesn’t make you perfect or “good.”

It makes you aware. Which in and of itself is more than many will ever experience.

Being aware changes the way you relate to yourself whether you’re grinning at yourself in the mirror because you feel all googly or you’re having a shitty night’s sleep.

Or, in the words of a client: when you’re fuckstrated and snarktastic.

Awareness is a massive first step. It’s why “Notice” is the first of the Six Ns.

We notice our discomfort, our shame, our guilt, our grief, our rage. We notice what’s creating it. We notice how it feels in our bodies. What urges it stirs. What habits it lives in. How our bodies literally respond as if they were a hedgehog curling in on itself after being poked.

When we notice, we create a space for something else. An opportunity.

In that space we have two choices: turn away and disconnect or turn towards and connect.

When we turn towards what we notice...when we connect with that’s alive in us in any given moment...we’re ALIVE. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Even when it’s restless leg. Or anxiety. Or shame.

But we’ve only ever been taught, in all the ways that teaching happens, to turn away and disconnect.

And because we’ve been taught that – to partition off the parts of ourselves our mothers didn’t like and the emotions that were inconvenient – we don’t know who we are.

So let’s break it down a little:

First we notice. Become aware.

Then we turn towards what we notice and relate to the parts of us that are having whatever the experience is.

There’s a back-and-forth, not just monitoring/surveilling/inspecting/fixing ourselves.

It’s a shift from:

“I have to change it.”

to:

“I’m learning to relate to myself as I am.”

It reminds me of the secret verse in Paul Simon’s song The Boxer:

Now the years are rolling by me,
They are rocking evenly,
I am older than I once was
And younger than I’ll be,
That’s not unusual.
No, it isn’t strange,
​After changes upon changes
We are more or less the same,
After changes we are more or less the same

There’s so much relief in that, I think, because when you’ve unshamed the need to change, everything changes even when you don’t.

This is self-mothering.

How do you want to relate to yourself when you’re having an experience you don’t like having?

Much, much love,

Karen

P.S. The Shame School Community is an opportunity to take everything you’ve read and now understand and...integrate it. Not perfectly with no fear or mistakes. Experimental action. Curiosity. Willingness.

Here’s what’s inside:

• Weekly calls (offered at a variety of times)

• Pop-up workshops

• Daily conversation/coaching in the Heartbeat platform

• Evergreen lessons/concepts/writing prompts/etc.

You were born with the ability to express those preferences in myriad ways.

In other words, you’ve always had boundaries. You’ve always known how to have boundaries. Boundaries are innate.

I’ve heard boundaries described as being like an immune system: it’s the part of you that knows how to respond to and repel abusive or toxic behavior.

But at one time in your life, stuff happened and that innate ability was undermined and compromised. Not because something is wrong with you, but because your infinitely wise nervous system learned it was safer not to have or express boundaries.

So now it might feel like you have to learn from scratch...it may also feel unsafe.

What I know for sure is that you have everything you need, right inside yourself, to remember what’s true and to feel safe.

How?

By unshaming those early experiences and acknowledging that your innate ability to express your boundaries in the face of abuse and dysfunctional behavior was squashed and became internalized on a bodily level.

​Join me on Thursday April 30 from 1 - 3 p.m. Eastern for a two-hour boundaries workshop where we will:

• examine a dynamic that often shows up when you want to set boundaries with your mother

• go over basic boundaries skills and practices

• learn techniques that will help you manage the discomfort as you practice

​Cost is $40 and there will be a replay!

Much, much love,

Karen

P.S. Related: The Generation That Refuses To Caregive is an excellent, nuanced conversation about something many of us are grappling with.

I had a specific reason for seeking out this help and on the intake form I was very clear about the kind of help I was looking for and what I wanted to know, as well as about what I already know and have experienced in regards to the issue.

Forty-five minutes into the 55-minute call it was clear I wasn’t going to get what I came for. She gave me advice and “tools” I didn’t need nor ask for.

I don’t doubt her knowledge and expertise...but it was apparent she was following a script that seemed to assume anyone who signs up for this service knows nothing (not to mention, the company wants to sign people up for longer term support, which is fine when we need longer term support, but in this instance, I didn’t).

It reminded me of opinion piece in the New York Times several years ago written by Cyndi Jones, who at the time was a minister awaiting call in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Entitled “What It Really Means to Heal,” Jones wrote about her experience as someone with a disability she’s had since early childhood, and about some of the stories of healing in the New Testament, including Bartimaeus.

“This happened to Bartimaeus, who was blind and sitting by the roadside begging. When he called out to Jesus, those around him told him to shut up and sit down, stay in your place. But Jesus called him to come near.

When he approached, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”

Jesus did not assume that Bartimaeus’s lack of physical vision was the most important thing that needed to be restored.

“In fact, the first healing for Bartimaeus was regaining his agency, being asked what he wanted and answering for himself. His dignity was restored, and then his vision.”

~~~

I am not a healer (nor am I Christian or religious), but I do facilitate healing.

Unlike Jesus...

...sometimes I think I know better than my client.

...sometimes I like to show off my knowledge.

...sometimes I like to tell people what to do.

I check myself often. I ask you what YOU want and let you answer for yourself. If you’re not sure, I can help you figure it out. I meet you where you are.

Because if there’s one thing my clients want, it’s their dignity restored, and then the vision they have for their lives.

Much, much love,

Karen

P.S. You already know you have a complex relationship with your mother. You’ve read the books and gotten the therapy. You know the impacts of narcissistic abuse first hand (which often includes feeling like you don’t know who you are or what you want because your mother decided that for you). Maybe regrets, confusion, guilt, and shame linger. Maybe you’re navigating how to remain in contact with your dignity (and boundaries) intact.

Helping adult daughters navigate complex relationships with mothers (narcissistic or not) so they can have the lives THEY want is my jam and it’s what we do in Shame School.

I’d had three UTIs in six months, not to mention a skin issue that had been plaguing me for well over a year, and which I picked at over and over again to the point that I needed to go on antibiotics.

My skin was dry and thinning. The dryness was creating an environment for “bad” bacteria to flourish.

The several times I went to Urgent Care, they were nothing but kind and compassionate, even when, in depths of shame and embarrassment, I was afraid to let them see what I had done to my legs (from scratching and picking) because I was so used to being met with disgust (first by my mother, then I took over).

They were honest and told me I was “this close” to developing a secondary infection that could kill me…and they were so very kind.

~~~

We’re less likely to seek help when we carry shame. Rather than responding with compassion, curiosity, and care for our experience, we are harsh and blame ourselves.

We can’t see the shame for what it is because we think shame is reserved for “truly bad people” who “deserve” to be ashamed.

Serial killers, psychopaths, abusers, pedophiles, fascists.

That’s why acknowledging shame is SO HARD and it’s why I am so passionate about the ​​Shame School Community​​.

When we see our suffering through an unshamed lens, we respond with compassion, curiosity, and care for ourselves and our experience. We are no longer willing to deny our humanity. We are no longer willing to blame ourselves.

And we are more likely to seek out (and truly receive!!) care.

~~~

Instead of treating myself as a pathetic loser who couldn’t control her picking issue, I received the compassionate help. I took my antibiotics, picked less, and healed more.

~~~

What others say about my work:

“One of the things I love about you and your continual centering of this is that my body and my spirit know having a place to speak about it is necessary to my emotional health. IMy need to speak about it is often seen as a problem or as disrespectful. But I think there’s something profound here – there’s extreme rupture in one of the places where my body and psyche will continue to want to repair. My parent refuses to acknowledge the rupture or be a part of actual repair. It feels like an open wound being carried with me everywhere. Your space is like a sort of emergency room or simply an area with a healer who will acknowledge the wound, change the bandages and patch me up for a while. There seems to be no full healing of this particular wound, and I think that’s okay. But I do think it requires consistent tending. Not poking or making worse or infecting. But consistent medicine and tending. It’s really a broken heart in many ways. I’m really grateful for you. Thank you.”

~~~

Many of us internalized shame before we could form sentences.

We spent much of our lives running away from it, not realizing it wasn’t ours.

We just felt this pervasive…wrongness and badness about ourselves.

That’s what we were trying to escape from.

Shame is a well-travelled path. It’s been here since whatever organisms existed here on earth evolved into humans.

Shame, when it’s unconscious, chronic, and internalized, is debilitating and paralyzing. It makes us unfree.

We feel the face-burning sting; the curled-in, sunken posture; the stark feeling that we are not okay. We are not enough. We are bad. There is something truly and irrevocably wrong with us and there’s no coming back from it.

So of COURSE we hide.

Hiding shame inflicts an additional burden. We become unsafe to ourselves and others.

It’s a bond we share but rarely talk about. Instead we shroud it in desperate silence. Why is it so hard to talk about it? Why must it be hidden away?

What I have learned after a 15+ year personal masterclass on shame is that authenticity is shame’s casualty...and its antidote.

Talking about it out loud because helps us feel less frozen by it and less alone in it.

You can stop carrying it alone.

​Join the Shame School Community​

Much, much love,

Karen

I didn’t want reconstruction. I didn’t want prosthetics, either, but I got them anyway, just in case. I wore them once for about 10 minutes.

I’ve written about how, once I made the decision, there was no real sense of doubt, grief, or regret, and certainly since the surgery, that has been the case.

I don’t think I have EVER felt as comfortable and confident in my body as I do now.

At 63. Finally.

Some of it has to do with having lost a significant amount of weight on a GLP-1 (which is why I started this Substack to begin with), but really, it’s only been in the past year that I have felt…truly free.

Giddily happy with my body. IN my body.

Home.

I like the (slight) ambiguity of it.

I don’t need or want a label like non-binary, trans, or gender-nonconforming, because I identify as a woman.

But now I get why people who DO identify in those ways don’t feel like they’re in the “right” body.

I don’t think I ever felt like I was in the “right” body until now. My breasts used to be a big (no pun intended) part of my identity, but now that they’re gone, I can see that they served more as “performance” than true identity.

Thanks breast cancer.

Directly mine taught me that I could be and do anything. She modeled it (not 100% of time, and that’s okay...she’s a human, not a robot).

Indirectly, I learned that I could be and do anything (as long as she approved).

Both directly and indirectly I learned that other women’s choices were to be judged.

~~~

She once she said to me: “It took me until I was well into my 30s to get out from under my father’s thumb and do what I wanted to do with my life.”

I thought to myself, but didn’t say, “It took me until I was well into my 40s to get out from under yours.”

Sometimes she asks, “Do you still write?”

When I say yes, and tell her what I’ve written, she usually says something I interpret as being dismissive: “Those books actually sell?”

There’s a pull inside to prove to her that my work is valid. Valuable. Serious enough. Not silly. Worthy of her respect.

I understand that she might be wary of hearing about my work, given the subject. But she seemed wary long before I wrote about difficult mother-daughter relationships. Dismissive. Because what I wanted to do with my life wasn’t what she thought I should want. What I wanted wasn’t what she wanted and it seemed to baffle her. And much of what she wanted for her life, she never got to do.

~~~

The day after the 2020 Super Bowl my social media feed blew up with posts and memes about the half-time show:

#1: “that was disgusting...those women with their junk in my face...disgraceful...too sexual...I couldn’t let my kids watch it, etc.”

#2: “they shouldn’t objectify themselves that way...it’s disempowering...an exploitation...a disservice to feminism...this leads to sex trafficking, etc.”

#3: “JLo and Shakira are powerful, strong, and talented women who put on an amazing, multi-faceted show that included thematically and culturally important messages, they show us that at any age we can be and do what we want, etc.”

After watching it for myself I thought about what it’s like to have other women, starting with my own mother, not support me in expressing myself. To have my choices derided, dismissed, questioned, and shot down.

I thought about the times *I* was the one deriding, dismissing, questioning, and shooting down.

And the impact doing that had on me.

Whom does it serve when women deride, dismiss, question, and shoot down each other’s ability and opportunity to express themselves? Whom does it serve when women tear each other down?

It serves those who don’t want women to vote or have jobs or have certain jobs or credit cards or protected sex or abortions or dress the way they want or have sex with whom they want or not have sex at all or play the sports they want to play or have children or not have children or breast feed in public or wear makeup or not wear makeup or dye their hair or not dye their hair or wear their hair blue with yellow stripes or express themselves they want to or be as strong as they want or move their bodies in ways that are natural and feel good. Or or or.

As I have healed my relationship with my mother, I have become a woman who not only doesn’t want to deride, dismiss, question, and shoot down other women, but a woman who actively wants to support women in their choices...in expressing themselves authentically.

In HAVING choices.

In exercising those choices.

Because our mothers did not necessarily have those choices. And their mothers had even fewer. Depending on how old you are, you might not have had them either. I know I didn’t. But you can be sure as hell that I want the women who come after me to have them.

At the heart of difficult mother-daughter relationships is this dynamic:

Fear: “If she makes that choice she will be cast out, shamed, not marriageable (yes even now), hurt in some way, and maybe even die.”

And/or

Jealousy: “I didn’t get to make the choices I wanted so she shouldn’t either.”

This runs deep in our DNA.

But when we police other women’s choices we hold OURSELVES back from what is possible for us.

And isn’t that interesting?

What if supporting other women on (whether you do it in obvious, public way, or it’s in the quiet energy with which you show up), even if they’re making a choice you wouldn’t make for yourself, is tied to being able to freely express yourself and make the choices you desire?

When I posted about this on Facebook, a friend replied: “If we love on other women’s choices, if we support even when it wouldn’t be our own path, we then give ourselves permission to show up as we are, even when our desires are unexpected.”

Another friend wrote: “My mom had my whole life planned out. She wanted me to be like her. A woman who waited ‘til marriage and lived her whole life to work, be a wife, and mom. I didn’t live up to her standards and I felt it, for years. There’s something about sticking up for yourself and showing them who you are and how powerful you can be in whatever circumstance you’re given or decision you make. I’m a single mom who had kids before I finished college and did everything backwards. I guess you’d say I was a disappointment and I felt that. My sister lives up to my mother’s standards. I felt as though I let her down. Then I realized I was letting myself down allowing her opinion and ideas of what my life should look like control me. I forgave us both and I stand in who I am. I will tell you this though...she recognizes my strength and how hard I’ve worked. She once said to me ‘I could never be as strong as you.’ I’m so glad I decided to live my own life out from under my mom.”

Hell. Yes.

My work has evolved from being about navigating difficult mother-daughter relationships to navigating the relationship you have with yourself and your choices and creative expression. And funnily enough, it’s still about setting boundaries and it’s also about feeling free to express yourself in whatever way suits you. Lights you up. Makes your heart sing.

Whatever it is you decide you want to do with your life is as valid as what the next woman decides to do with hers. You are not less than or better than if you want to be a singer, poet, or artist. You are not less than or better than if you decide you want to be an engineer, journalist, or banker. A sex worker, pole dancer, or movie star. If you wear a skimpy outfit or a burqua or a business suit or sweats and a tank top.

Check out the Shame School Community. This is the kind of stuff we’ll be talking about.

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 hypocritical!

Because here’s the thing...unless you’re willing to acknowledge that you experience hate, contempt, and shame, don’t preach to me about love and “goodness.”

Acknowledging your capacity for hate, contempt, and shame, creates a more profound understanding of the human condition and allows for a more realistic and grounded form of empathy for others.

Experts on love do not ignore their “darker” impulses, they witness them...with love. They are aware of them. They know how to experience them and name them and feel them.

They may or may not act on them, but if they do, they do so consciously and with the knowledge that there may be consequences.

People always talk about how they got hurt, used, abused, and manipulated. Never have I heard anyone say, “I was a villain once to someone.” ~ ho.nest.y on Threads

It reminded me of something that happened last year.

I was a villain. Mostly in my head, but a little bit outwardly, too.

My husband and I went on a guided tour of the Connecticut College Arboretum, and boy did I have a lot of judgment about this one guy who was there. You should have heard the commentary streaming from my brain!

I stood apart from the group, arms crossed, mirrored sunglasses on. I felt like an eye-rolling, judgmental sack of contempt.

[guess who I reminded myself of?]

When I am like this, at the very least I try and witness it without shame, and at best, I love myself because (not “even though”) I am snarly.

[guess who didn’t teach me this?]

I used to just believe I was bad...so bad there was no coming back from it. Sometimes, when I couldn’t control it, I’d project it onto others.

A few times I was cruel. Outwardly. To people I love. Relationships ruptured. Intense shame and regret ensued. I’d be shut down for weeks. I wrote about some of these times in You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma and Shame.

Relating differently to the part of me that sometimes feels like an eye-rolling, judgmental sack of contempt helps me not act on those feelings.

Because ultimately, two things are true at the same time: #1 I truly do not want to be cruel to others and #2 I have the capacity to be the cruelest of the cruel.

This is the paradox of the work I do.

The more I love the part of me that can be a cruel-ass bitch, the more I cultivate the capacity to be authentically kind, nurturing, and compassionate...to be silly, engaged, and joyful (like when I am silent disco-ing on the boardwalk)...and to have those qualities emanate from the deepest and best place within me.

I can have hard, awkward conversations without my shit leaking out sideways. Mostly. Sometimes I don’t do it as elegantly as I’d like. Sometimes I’m a little leaky. And I know how to make a repair and change my behavior (if I want to). And even then, things might remain uncomfortable. My voice shakes. I can’t find the “right” words.

Sometimes I speak in paradoxes because the truth is too rich for simple logic. I am extra fluent in paradox. I am raw yet powerful, aching and grateful, confounded but clear. I am both dying and being reborn. I am no longer trying to resolve the contradictions, but rather immersing myself in them, basking in them, and allowing them to teach me all they have to teach. This entails me sitting with my sadness as I laugh and letting my desire and doubt interweave. The contradictions I face with open-heartedness gift me with sublime potency and authority. ~ Rob Brezsny describing those of us of the Scorpio persuasion

Getting back to that event at the Arboretum. While that stream of judgmental commentary issued from my brain, I used my tools to create safety and unshame the experience. I doubt the guy had any clue about what I was thinking about him.

I also recognized a consequence: I may have missed out on making a genuine connection with someone. I didn’t give anyone the opportunity to interact with genuine, warm me; nor did I get the opportunity to experience the same in them.

I am okay with that. And the next time I am in a similar situation, I can choose differently. Or not.

~~~

If our mothers couldn’t tolerate their uncomfortable feelings and love the parts of themselves deemed shameful, they couldn’t do the same for us, and that’s what makes it hard for us to do the same for ourselves (and others).

It’s something we can do to evolve humanity.

This doesn’t mean we’re only love and light, it means we love the whole of who we are, including the parts that are hateful and dark. Eye-rolling, judgmental, and contemptuous. Defensive. Selfish. Grouchy. Mean. Hypocritical. Etcetera.

The invitation is to unshame these feelings and parts. To witness them and love them and ask them what safe expression they seek.

This gives you the space to act with consideration rather than letting those parts leak out sideways in ways you don’t intend.

This is why I created the Shame School Community.

Curious?

Come meet me on Zoom on February 26 at 4 p.m. Eastern to learn more and get your questions answered.

“I see dead people,” he says to the psychologist he sees.

Cole says the dead walk around like regular people, but they don’t see each other and they don’t know they’re dead. His gift was distressing to him and he often felt isolated because of it. Cole eventually overcomes his fear of the ghosts that visit him and is able to help them find closure.

I see shamed people. I can see and talk to them...they walk around like regular people but they can’t see themselves under the layers of shame that have been draped over them and they don’t know they’re ashamed (and I know this because I spent much of my life unable to see myself and didn’t know I carried shame).

This is my gift.

I am not afraid of it, although sometimes it can be isolating because, well, who wants to examine shame?

Who wants to be around someone who can see this in them?

I have been a student of shame for the past 15 years and it is my mission to educate and destigmatize this debilitating experience in the hope that the more we talk about this most private of emotions (which is paradoxically one of our most universal experiences), we will bring more empathy and compassion to humanity.

Believe it or not, talking about shame can be fun.

And then there’s the closure and the relief that comes with it.

I made the Shame School Community to do this work over the course of a year.

I am hosting two “open houses” via Zoom for anyone who wants to chat with me about it. If you’d like details, comment on this post and I’ll share the details.

Assumption: if you’ve gone no-contact with your mother for any reason other than the assumption above, it means you are some combination of: ungrateful, disrespectful, bratty, dramatic, misguided, horrible, irresponsible, overly sensitive, reactive, entitled, immature, hateful, spoiled, selfish, weak, or cruel.

Assumption: you have been brainwashed by therapists, coaches, and the Internet to believe that you were abused as a child and that’s why you went no-contact.

Assumption: you didn’t try hard enough.

Assumption: you don’t care about your mother, don’t miss your mother, and/or don’t want a relationship with your mother, and are anti-family.

What’s more likely: because of...

#1 the patriarchal conditioning those of us socialized as female have received, going back thousands of years, combined with intergenerational trauma and internalized shame;

#2 a lack of understanding of trauma and what it does to our holistic selves, not to mention that acknowledging trauma or seeking help was seen as weak and shameful;

#3 racism, white supremacy, misogyny, poverty, and so many other intersections and aspects of a culture that doesn’t value women equally...

...some mothers – especially Baby Boomers and those in the Silent Generation – were conditioned to be disconnected from themselves and their emotions, and to believe that there is something inherently wrong with them. They were thus ill-equipped and un-resourced for motherhood the way it has been configured for centuries:

You shall marry a man; he will work; you will have his babies and raise them by yourself in your own home without help; you will raise them to be smart, productive, workers who don’t have feelings because feelings are stupid and get in the way of being “normal” and productive; and you will be happy about it.

So they become one more link in the chain and unwittingly pass the trauma (which at it’s core is a disconnection from one’s feeling/sensing self) and shame to their daughters.

There are adult daughters and mothers (in all generations) who are on a leading edge of undoing that conditioning and who are choosing a different way: a different way to be women, a different way to be human, a different way to be mothers, a different way that might include not becoming a mother, a different way of mothering, a different way of working, a different way of relating, a different way of healing, a different way of life, a different way of [fill in the blank].

There is a subset of Baby Boomer/Silent Generation mothers – who instead of being okay with, and encouraging their daughters to choose a different way – take it as a personal affront and rebuke of themselves, their values, and their mothering.

Then uncomfortable feelings (usually fear, shame, or grief) arise and they don’t have a healthy way to process those emotions (because they were taught not to). In some cases, those feelings were so painful they triggered a fight, flight, freeze, flop, fawn response.

When you try to talk with your mother about it, you’re met with some combination of a blank stare, tears, dismissive comments, helplessness, pity, resentment, contempt, anger...and definitely a lack of empathy.

The vulnerability is too much.

She “can’t” have these conversations. She can’t acknowledge her own trauma or choose to do her own healing work because her nervous system has been hijacked, and even though the tools are now available to her too, she won’t use them. Over time, she creates a narcissistic shield to protect herself from shame, fear, and deep sadness or grief. She becomes increasingly bitter, critical, and negative, and projects the shame, fear, and sadness onto you. This can create a trauma bond between the two of you.

As you grow (and do your own inner work, which your mother criticizes you for), you find it increasingly hard to be around your mother. You may realize that you don’t feel safe around her. That it takes too much energy to “control” yourself around her. It’s hard to like and respect yourself around her.

You want to break the trauma bond. Break the cycle. And the more you separate in this way, the more autonomous you become, the more angry / hurt / sad / jealous / resentful your mother becomes.

You then have a heart-wrenching choice: attachment (no matter how insecure) to your mother (and maybe also belonging in your family of origin), or your own authenticity and aliveness.

My sense is that it’s rare for an adult daughter, who is enmeshed (through not fault of her own) with a mother as I described above, to be able to choose her own authenticity and aliveness without going no-contact, at least for a little while.

It’s possible for an adult daughter, who has gone no-contact and has done her own work to cultivate and protect her authenticity and aliveness, to re-establish contact with her mother in a healthy way (boundaries!).

It’s also possible for an adult daughter who has chosen permanent estrangement from her mother to live a life of authenticity and aliveness, no matter what people assume about her!

(adapted from my book You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma & Shame)

In the Shame School Community we cultivate and protect our authenticity and aliveness, know our own minds (and values), feel safer in our bodies, set healthy boundaries, and discern when being in contact with our mothers is threatening to our authenticity and aliveness.

Much, much love,

Karen

“You know...you look fat in that dress!”

She froze.

Then had the wherewithal to turn and say, her voice taut with pain, “MOTHER!” before rushing to a restroom where she cried as a friend consoled her.

Later, when she shared this story in a public forum, she wrote “My mother hates me.”

The responses?

“Oh I am sure your mother loves you...”

and

“I don’t think your mom hates you, she’s just jealous of your accomplishments.”

and

“Please stop thinking this way about your mom, she is human also. You only get one.”

~~~

No.

NO!

HELL NO!

~~~

Here’s the thing: hate is a universal human emotion. We all experience it. Even “good” people hate sometimes. And yes, mothers are human, too.

When it’s repeated and consistent, a mother’s hatred for her own child, no matter what age, is devastating, traumatizing, and shame inducing.

To be told that your mother loves you when her behavior and treatment of you indicates otherwise is confusing and crazy-making.

Carl Jung’s concept of the “shadow self” suggests that individuals often project their own negative traits, feelings, and desires onto others without realizing it. This can lead to hidden resentment and even hatred directed towards those they are closest to.

Jung outlined eight behaviors, which when consistent and repeated, are a signal that someone hates you (even if they say they love you):

• Contempt

• Sabotage

• Silent competition and belittling

• Superficial “cold” support

• Control/manipulation disguised as caring

• Gossiping about you

• Lack of joy in your success

• Involuntary, unconscious, hostile energy, attitudes, and bodily signals

None of these feel like love because they are not love!

Repeating for emphasis: to tell someone on the receiving end that the person who does those things loves them is misguided at best and harmful gaslighting at worst.

It took me decades to come to terms with my mother’s consistent, repeated hatred of me and to see it for what it was: her hatred. Her shadow. Something she experienced in her body and projected on to me.

It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my responsibility. It was never because of me.

[it can take a long-ass time to get this...to grok it on bodily level so it no longer takes you out]

To be clear, it’s not hatred that is the problem. It’s repressed-shadow-hatred that leaks out sideways all over others that does the most damage.​

Much, much love,

Karen

People who do shadow work tend to experience increased self-awareness, acceptance, and maturity, improved relationships, super-charged creativity, emotional regulation, reduced projection, and...ta-da! Less shame!

The Shame School Community is a place to practice.

It’s for the wild ones who were told to rein it in and taught to play small. Who want to know and experience and love themselves as as they are. Who want to run their own show without shame calling the shots.

Plain text is adapted from my own writings over the years.

~~~

“….there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety. Well, it won’t.”

There is a tendency for adult children to go along to get along, to accommodate, to avoid trouble, to hope that compliance will buy safety. It won’t. We are no longer willing to cater to the most dysfunctional and emotionally immature adults in our families in the name of temporary ‘peace’.

~~~

“The system's power comes not from its truth, but from everyone's willingness to perform as if it were true, and its fragility comes from the same source. When even one person stops performing … the illusion begins to crack. Friends, it is time for companies and countries to…” stop performing.

Many adult children are no longer willing to perform as if it were true. The illusion is cracking.

We are no longer interested in participating in "dishonest harmony" at the expense of “honest conflict.”

Honest conflict involves being open and addressing issues with compassion, allowing for growth and connection. Dishonest harmony is a superficial peace created by suppressing feelings and avoiding conversation. And threats.

~~~

“We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false; that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And we knew that international law was applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”

We knew, because we were told over and over again: “life’s not fair.” Or “you live under my roof you follow my rules.” And we saw that they weren’t abiding by their own rules. We saw how the rules weren’t applied justly.

We were told to stop being so naive. We were taught to believe that wanting better conditions for ourselves and others is not only impossible, but it is childlike and naive to think a better is even possible.

"Don't be so naive" is shame-laden, patriarchal, “conservative” speak for "you have no power."

~~~

“This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods, open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security and support for frameworks for resolving disputes.”

Many of us tend to use language like “it wasn’t that bad” when speaking of abuses, of being bullied in our families, because in many ways we also had it “good.” Especially if we came from white families with resources.

~~~

“So … We participated in the rituals, and we largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality. This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition.”

So, we tried to get along, to participate in the rituals we realized were harmful while also trying to mitigate their impact. We tried to have conversations about what’s okay and what’s not okay because we saw the gaps between rhetoric and reality. But in many cases this bargain doesn’t work. Many families are in the midst of, or have already, ruptured.

~~~

“You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.”

We will not live within the lie of mutual benefit through participating or upholding or enabling dysfunctional behavior because it will become the source of our subordination.

~~~

“We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is.”

We understand that it is time for us to be honest about our families (and ourselves!) as they are. Because when we love something, we tell it the truth. We no longer participate in perpetuating harm.

~~~

“The multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied … the very architecture of collective problem solving is under threat. As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions that they must develop greater strategic autonomy, in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains. This impulse is understandable. A country that can’t feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself, has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.”

Many adult children are drawing the same conclusions that they must create safety and autonomy in their lives because they can’t rely on the systems and institutions that influenced the dysfunction in their families of origin.

~~~

“Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships.”

Authoritarian parents of adult children cannot continually use manipulation, bullying, and coercion in their relationships with their adult children.

~~~

“Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty.”

Adult children will create “found” families amongst their friends and those who share their values to create safety.

~~~

“They'll buy insurance, increase options in order to rebuild sovereignty – sovereignty that was once grounded in rules, but will increasingly be anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.”

Adult children are rebuilding sovereignty, as well. We are teaching our children what it looks like to thrive in community.

~~~

The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls, or whether we can do something more ambitious.

Is estrangement simply building higher walls? Maybe but I also see it as the step before the start of something more ambitious. It’s more like a sabbatical. Because most of the time things can't be repaired well without a clean break.

~~~

“Canadians know that our old comfortable assumptions that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security – that assumption is no longer valid. And our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb, the President of Finland, has termed ‘value-based realism’.”

Adult children know that our assumptions about our families of origin are no longer valid. We are more committed the values WE define, and we see and acknowledge that our families of origin may not hold the same values. And that doesn’t mean we can’t move on. Separately from them.

~~~

“…put another way, we aim to be both principled and pragmatic – principled in our commitment to fundamental values, sovereignty, territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force, except when consistent with the UN Charter, and respect for human rights, and pragmatic and recognizing that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner will share all of our values.”

We continue to uphold and champion our values while recognizing that in many cases our families of origin do not share our values.

~~~

“So, we're engaging … with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be.”

We are engaging (and not engaging) with open eyes. We see our families and our parents as they are, not as we wish them to be. And this, too, is love.

~~~

“We are calibrating our relationships, so their depth reflects our values…”

Same.

~~~

“…we are no longer just relying on the strength of our values, but also the value of our strength. We are building that strength at home.”

Indeed. We are building that strength within us. At home in our own bodies.

~~~

“…great powers can afford for now to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity and the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not. But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what’s offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating.”

When we negotiate with family members who are only interested in holding power over us, we negotiate from weakness. We fawn and accommodate at our own expense.

~~~

“This is not sovereignty. It's the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.”

Exactly.

~~~

“In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice – compete with each other for favour, or to combine to create a third path with impact.”

In a family that operates within the concept of the Drama Triangle (villain, victim rescuer), members have a choice. Operate and “cope” within it, or create a new path that takes us out of that dynamic altogether.

~~~

“What does it mean for middle powers to live the truth?”

What does it mean for an adult child to live the truth?

~~~

“First, it means naming reality. Stop invoking rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised.”

It means naming reality. Stop invoking “blood is thicker than water” and “but she’s your only mother” as though it functions as advertised.

~~~

“Call it what it is – a system of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using economic integration as coercion.”

Call it what it is – a system that mirrors power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests, using threats and manipulation as coercion to keep you quiet and compliant.

~~~

“It means acting consistently, applying the same standards to allies and rivals.”

It means acting consistently, applying the same standards to ourselves and our families or origin. It means facing our own hypocrisy without shame.

~~~

“It means building what we claim to believe in, rather than waiting for the old order to be restored.”

Exactly that. Rather than waiting for our mothers to change.

~~~

“The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, and more just. … The powerful have their power. But we have something too – the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together. That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently. And it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us.”

Family structure has changed many times over thousands of years. We are in the midst of such a change. This is the task of those of us who are navigating estrangement, no matter which “side” we’re on. Grief is part of this process.

And yes, from this fracture we can build something better, stronger, and more just.

Although we may feel powerless in our families, we have something too: the capacity to stop pretending.

There is a middle path forward between the EITHER and the OR that many adult children face:

You’re EITHER the good girl who does exactly what your mother wants you to do even if it goes against everything you want for yourself. You’re blindly loyal and obedient. It costs you your integrity, dignity, and self-expression. You betray and abandon yourself. And you seethe with resentment.

OR you’re the angry/mean/selfish/bad daughter who betrays your family...

...who risks their wrath (and the accompanying fear that your parents brought you into the world...and they will TAKE YOU OUT!)...

...or their sadness and disappointment (and the accompanying guilt that feels like a heavy, wet, suffocating blanket).

The middle path:

This is who I am, separate from you and your expectations of me. Are you willing to accept me as I am? If you can’t or won’t, that’s okay. I am clear about who I am and what I want and I’m letting you off the hook for approving of me and my choices.

You haven’t seen or spoken to your 85-year-old mother in more than two years (more her choice than yours).

You get a phone call from an ER nurse in the town where she lives (300 miles from where you live).

The nurse asks if [name] is your mother and you say yes.

She asks if you’re local and you say no.

You ask if she can tell you what’s going on with your mother and she says no.

She says they’re deciding whether or not to admit her because they’re not sure she should go home unless there’s someone to keep an eye on her (besides her husband, who has Alzheimers and isn’t living in a nursing home like you had assumed).

You tell the nurse you and your mother are estranged and she says that if necessary, someone will call back.

No one calls.

What would you do next?

I’ll tell you what I did...and what I would have done 10 years ago.

What I did: nothing (and no guilt)

What I would have done 10 years ago: called the hospital, called the manager of the retirement community where she lives, maybe even driven up there so I could come to the rescue and take charge.

I’ve stepped out of the victim-villain-rescuer dynamic (aka the “drama triangle”) we’ve been in our whole lives.

And I’ve adopted what some call the “empowerment triangle” or observer consciousness: a state of alignment with and acceptance of reality; observer consciousness is the state we are in when we see, and are in accordance with, the way things are.

Trust me when I say that I am not a permanent resident of the empowerment triangle :-)

When I am living in observer consciousness, I am able to decide what (if any) role I want to step into and who I want to be when/if I do so, while respecting my mother’s boundaries.

I am choosing to be a curious observer until she herself, or a professional who has deemed her incapable of caring for herself, reaches out to me.

Maintaining clear, healthy boundaries means respecting hers, and she’s been clear: she doesn’t want to hear from me.

Old me would have wanted to insert myself into the situation, to control her under the guise of “rescuing” or “protecting” her. Of being a “good” daughter (as defined by others).

I am no longer concerned about what other people would do in my shoes. I am no longer concerned about what other people think about my level of involvement in her life.

Because I know my heart.

I do not wish harm on my mother. I do not want her to suffer. I respect the choices she has made for her own life. She is a free, autonomous woman and so am I.

And that feels like love, which, according to C.S. Lewis, “...is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”

~~~

“I WISH my mother would just leave me alone...she chases me, not the other way around!”

More specifically...

What if I am the one who want to move on but my mother doesn’t let me do it? I am divorced and she doesn’t accept it. She is always in the victim role and she keeps saying that she is dreaming of me and my ex-husband remarried. I blocked her so that she cannot text me privately, but she keeps texting a separate group I have with my two daughters (16 and 11). She is always saying that she is very sad about our divorce. You stated that your mom agreed not be in contact with you, but my mom wants to be chased. She always wants to be heard. She always wants to be put in a very special area in my life, she still wants to have control over my life (I’m 50 years old). That’s why my mind is still blocked, I want to move on in my life but something stops me. The “ghost” of my mom is everywhere although I stopped contacting her frequently.

Dear Adult Daughter...

I want to clarify that my mother didn’t “agree” to not be in contact and I wasn’t asking her to. Instead of calling her every two weeks like I had been, I invited her to call/email me when she wanted, and said I would do the same.

Was I nervous before I told her? Yup.

Did I feel the familiar sensations of fear, shame, and guilt after I told her? For sure.

I’d been a “bad girl.”

I sat with those uncomfortable feelings without acting on them (i.e., reaching out to her to make sure she wasn’t hurt, mad, offended, etc.).

I can guess how she felt but I don’t know because I haven’t heard from her.

~~~

That decision brought me to an interesting fork in the road. I could go back down the familiar, “safe” path and end up back in the dynamic where we both trigger the hell out of each other.

Or, I could take the less familiar, uncertain path and end up...who knows where?

One place I ended up is down on the boardwalk where I am known as the Silent Disco Queen :-) Something my mother would hate.

But it’s something that has, for three years now, brought me unmitigated joy. I chose to be special in my own life.

~~~

You write “I want to move on in my life but something stops me. The ‘ghost’ of my mom is everywhere...“

Indeed.

She wants to be put in a special area in your life because she doesn’t know how to be special in her own life. And that’s not your fault or your responsibility.

At a certain point, for some of us, it comes down to making a choice: me or her.

This doesn’t mean we want our mothers to suffer or be harmed (although going through a phase of wanting that is normal and part of the healing journey).

What we wish is for her to choose to be special in her own life. And that is something only she can do.

I will always root for you to choose to be special in your own life.

Come check out the Shame School community. It’s a place where you can practice that.

Here are five things you can do to help yourself:

#1 Let her have her alternate reality (and notice what happens inside you when you do).

I once had a conversation with my mother in which she recounted a situation that not only do I remember very differently, my husband does too.

I felt myself reacting. Anger was rising…defenses were triggered. “She’s gaslighting me!” and underneath that, “She thinks I’m stupid!” and underneath that, “Maybe I am.”

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to get to the shame-based thought you may be having about yourself – the one that’s underneath all the other thoughts.

[Having these thoughts isn’t your fault. Seeing them for what they are can help you step out of her narcissistic dynamic and choose freedom]

Having identified what was happening inside me, I took a deep breath, asked myself “who do I want to be in this moment?” I chose to lean into dignity, which is one of my antidotes to shame (the other two are expression and audacity).

I didn’t try to correct her. I didn’t share my memory of the situation.

I stepped out of the dynamic and freed myself from the shame.

#2 Don’t engage in rehashing the past with her in order to get to “common ground.”

This is related to #1. Rehashing the past, even the recent past, tends not to end well.

You can’t make her understand.

You can’t make her take responsibility for herself or her actions.

You can’t make her see what she did and how it impacted you.

What keeps you in the rehashing-the-past dynamic is your hope that if the two of you could just come to some sort of agreement about what happened, then there’d be apologies, forgiveness, and compromise, and you’d move on.

But that (pretty much) never happens.

She doesn’t have to change in order for you to feel better. <—— YAY!

She doesn’t have to agree with you, she doesn’t have to understand you, she doesn’t have to apologize to you, forgive you, or compromise with you.

Nor you with her.

#3 Focus on yourself, not her opinions.

Focus on being a joy and a delight to yourself, rather than on being a disappointment to her (and notice what happens inisde you when you do.

When I typed those words, I noticed what happened in my body. My face grinned and my chest expanded and I got truthbumps.

Put another way…the more you know yourself and what you value, the less her opinion of you matters. There are SO MANY ways to get to know yourself. What lights you up? What captures your imagination? What has you doing a double-take and leaning in closer?

It’s only when you believe her and worry that what she’s saying is both true AND bad (as in the example in #1), that you want to fight back.

Instead of fighting back, disengage. Or agree with her (and then disengage). Notice what it feels like to agree with your mother that you’re [fill in the blank with whatever her opinion of you is], and take a deep breath and feel the freedom. And delight.

#4 Accept yourself as you are (and you will no longer need or want to blame her, besides, blaming keeps you “engaged”).

You are worth your own respect and regard…right this very second. There’s nothing to fix or improve in order for that to be true. This isn’t just some new-age pablum. Think about it for a second…who benefits from you seeing yourself as wounded and pathologizing yourself to the point where you feel there’s no hope for you?

“The degree to which a person can grow is directly proportional to the amount of truth they can accept about themselves without running away.” ~ Leland Val Van De Wall

This is one of the things we do together in Shame School. And you know what? What we end up accepting about ourselves isn’t something awful or shameful.

We accept the truth about ourselves, no matter how beautiful it is (thank you Macrina Wiederkehr).

That is the “harder” work...the work that heals, both personally and collectively.

Tend to yourself as a healthy, well-equipped and well-resourced Mother would. You’ll do a better job of it!

#5 Establish and maintain healthy boundaries.

Yes, it is possible to set boundaries with a mother with narcissistic tendencies. If you haven’t yet received the most recent version of my boundaries guide, click —-> ​​​​The Mother Lode - A Definitive Guide To Setting Healthy Boundaries.pdf​

And be prepared for the maintenance part.

I lit mine on fire!

After 12 nights, you are left with one, and this is the one you are meant to bring into the new year...and make happen.

I was gobsmacked when I opened that final wish.

When I wrote them down (which I did over the course of several days before December 24), I had a mix of super specific ones and some more general ones. Some were on the more practical side and others were a bit more woo.

What I was left with is super tender for me.

Because when I read it I knew that it is what underpins all the other wishes.

“I am supported and adored and I receive both with the knowing that it was always supposed to be this way.”

I can feel the exquisite tingle and pressure of tears as I write this.

A friend asked what I thought this would look like...and how would I know when I had “achieved” it.

Here’s the thing: I already already know what it looks and feels like.

~~~

A year ago I was diagnosed with breast cancer after about four months of tests, scans, appointments, etc.

A year ago I shared this on Facebook:

I have entered the cancer industrial complex and am having a couple of weeks of being “injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected.”

[thanks to Arlo Guthrie for those impeccable lyrics from Alice’s Restaurant Massacree]

Today I have two rounds of injection, inspection, and detection: CT scan with contrast and MRI with contrast.

But one of the words does not apply in the least (at least not now): “Neglected.”

In fact, I woke up out of sound sleep this morning around 4:30 and realized how cared for I feel. I woke up and simultaneously my brain offered me these words “you deserve to be cared for” and I felt a delicious, warm expansion in my chest.

It’s not the truth to say that I’ve been neglected my whole life, but in the first five years of my life, right when my nervous system was wiring itself, I was neglected, not because those who were in charge of my care consciously wanted to hurt me, but because they were in the throes of their own chaos...the result of the neglect they experienced.

Yes, I was fed, clothed, housed (all quite nicely and more than adequately), and mostly there was someone over the age of 21 around when my parents were not.

But I was profoundly lonely and emotionally alone.

That’s when shame became internalized.

Because to be honest, my mother has never adored me.

~~~

I had forgotten about that 4:30 a.m. moment last year.

But now that I have remembered it, it’s becoming part of my Intentional Identity. I can now tap into that experience again. And again. And again. Until it becomes embodied.

One of our most powerful tools is repetition.

Much, much love,
Karen

Intentional Identity work is part of what we do in Shame School.

In Shame School we unlearn what we were not meant to learn, in order to discover what we were intended to learn.

Shame School is changing quite a bit and is going to be more expansive, flexible, and spacious. Click here to be notified when I announce the specifics.