December 28, 2022 • 44 mins
Iyanla says that sometimes one of the hardest things to do is to accept that people can come from toxic roots, and that it’s their job to uproot the toxicity. This week, two sisters join Iyanla for an extended episode where they share their own family traumas, ranging from emotional to physical abuse. Now, as adults, both sisters want to figure out how to have a relationship with their toxic parents, who they consider narcissists and broken people. Iyanla guides the conversation to steering away from judgement to a place of growth and forgiveness.
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Executive Producers: Sandie Bailey, Alex Alcheh, Lauren Hohman, Tyler Klang & Gabrielle Collins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
I am Younger, your host for this journey. I was
a hopeless love aholic but just could not get my
love to work. Then, after a series of heartbreaks and
deep heartache, I finally got clear about what love is
and what it is not. I want to share some
(00:23):
of what I've learned about love aholism. Welcome to the
Our Spot, a production of shondaland Audio in partnership with
I Heart Radio. Family trauma it is absolutely real. Now.
(00:51):
It doesn't have to be your truth, but it will
be a fact of your life and it will cont
sdruct your story. And the challenging part about family trauma, chaotic, disruptive, abusive,
neglectful family trauma is that it becomes etched into the
(01:15):
fibers of your being in such a way that it's
difficult to tell the distinction between you and the story.
And it lands on those who have the capacity and
the desire to do it differently, and that's hard. If
(01:36):
you have broken bricks in your foundation, if you have
toxic weeds, toxic roots in your foundation, you can pull
them up, but it takes work, and the work starts
with knowing how to tell your story, because if you
(01:59):
don't learn how to tell your story, you become what
I call s o s stuck on story, which leads
to stuck on stupid, which leads to stuck on sad,
stuck on sorrow. You have the opportunity not only to
edit or rewrite the story, but to can it so
that it never has to be played out in your
(02:20):
world again. I've got an incredible story for you today,
two sisters who are ready to relay the foundation and
take a turn in a new direction beyond family dysfunction.
(02:41):
They are incredible and I want you to hear their story.
Good afternoon, Beloved's, welcome to the art spot And what
is your relationship trauma dilemma? Issued allannge that we can
work through together Today, we are trying to fix ourselves
(03:06):
spiritually and physically because we've been through a lot during
our childhood and adulthood. Followerment to it, Yeah, it's just
causing a lot, a lot of stress, a lot of saying.
There's a lot of depressions, stuff that can be fixable,
but it's hard to fax, you know, alone, especially when
you're the one that went through it. Well, when you
(03:29):
say fixed, tell me what you mean. We want to
move forward when everything is broken. We wanted to be prepared.
We're ready to heal. We're ready to get rid of
these things in our lives, get rid of the strong on.
We're ready to be able to speak to our parents
and tell them out truth without them shutting us out.
We're arguing at us. They hear us, but they don't
(03:50):
hear they're out listened it. They don't care to understand
what we're trying to tell. They never taken in consideration. Basically,
so you you two assisters? Is that accurate? Yeah? Okay?
Who's the oldest, Deana? Okay? And how old are you?
I'm thirty thirty okay. And then who's the baby sister?
(04:12):
That's me, Maddie. I'm twenty three, twenty three. Oh, there's
a big spread there, right, excellent. So, Tianna, here's your assignment.
Tell me your story in a hundred words. My story
is It's complicated, is traumatizing, is depressing. It's very heavy.
(04:41):
I don't even have the words to describe my story.
If I could pick a hunter words, they will all
be words of weakness instead of words of strength. I
gained so much curt and stress from it, but it's
just terrible. Yeah, now, when did your story begin? As
far as I can remember, my story begins at around
(05:03):
age too, when I first saw the domestic volunt my
mom get hit for the first time. Yeah, and Maddie,
you weren't even born. Man, right, tell me your story
a hundred words? What would your story be? My story
is a roller coaster, honestly, because I'm very spiritual. What
(05:29):
does that mean? I meditate, I understand, I read energies.
A lot of people's energies affect me, and that's where
a lot of my problems came in that because I
was saying the things that were happening around me. So
me being the baby. You know, the babies are mostly
the fixtures of the family, you know, they can get
(05:51):
everyone to come together, or the grandma. So I've always
put myself in the place where I tried to fix everything,
and that My life is a roller coaster, is depression,
I'm trying to commit suicide. There's just a lot. Have
you ever gotten professional help, counseling, coaching, therapy. Yes. When
(06:15):
I tried to kill myself there like two thousands fifteen,
my mom had scheduled some meetings for me and stuff,
and I had a psychologists. After that first and second appointment,
she felt like I didn't need it anymore, Like I
didn't get the proper help. They would go for it,
(06:36):
but they would never stick to it. They would make
things look good basically. So your story as a roller
poster of depression and suicide. I want to give you
a language for what you're describing when you say you're spiritual,
and it is that you are empathic. I'm emphatively yeah, clarsation.
(06:57):
So you feel the specious air Satan clairvoyant sees Claire audience.
Here's Clarsatian Fields. So you are clar Satan. That's your
gift and it makes you empathic. So you feel what's
(07:17):
going on that may or may not have anything to
do with you being spiritual? Right, So I hear that
there was domestic violence in your story, Okay, a lot
of domestic violence. What else? Physical abuse? Verbal abuse? Okay,
(07:39):
ran mental transpires to mental abuse, you know, yeah, and
is that going on now? Yeah, the verbal abuse. Definitely
domestic violeusing to the relationships that we bring out a
head m hmm. So now you are repeating the pattern
of domestic violence in your relationships. I did I feel
(08:02):
like our relationships would be better if we didn't grow
up in the type of environment that we did. Because
most times people do go out and get a person
that has characteristics of their mother or their father. Yes,
they do, because we do what we know right, so
(08:22):
the energy will attract what's familiar to us. But what
I want us to look at is, you're not children anymore.
Do you live with your parents now? So if you're
not children anymore, if you don't live with your parents now,
(08:43):
why is this still going on for you? I think
we both have different answers to that. I'm the tear
old Maddie. I have two younger kids. I have a
one year old and I have a three year old,
And at one point I was saying with my parents
with my two children, and I let them do certain
(09:05):
things that I knew wasn't okay, but because they you know,
they did it with me, I didn't expect them to
put my kids in that type of predicament. But they're narcissists.
My dad got really attached to my son am I
popped to death, That's all he knows. So it's like
(09:25):
I can't just snatch them, you know, away from their grandparents.
Because they both share equal love. But I kind of
have to because that's not healthy for me or my kids.
You know, one of the most challenging things for us
to acknowledge and accept is that we can come from
(09:50):
toxic roots. And what my experience has been usually when
we come from toxic roots, it's because us. We are
the ones who have been chosen to uproot the toxicity
and do something different. You have to cut yourself off
(10:11):
from the root, maybe not forever, but until you get
strong enough to stand in the toxicity and not take
it off. So I hear you saying to me what
you can't do as opposed to what you can do,
and what you can do is live beyond the trauma
(10:33):
in order to learn something else. And it's not going
to happen by magic. I heard both you and your
sister say very clearly, we want to heal, we want
to fix this. Well, the first way you fix it
is to look at what it is and not make
any judgments about it, but to forgive it so that
(10:57):
you can do something else. Um well, I feel like
I forgave them, but then with certain things happen, like
you said, I gotta pick this on my own. But
I've tried. I've cut myself off of it for many years.
I've been going from home since I was seventeen years
old when I needed somebody. Day just was not what
they were supposed to be and it hurt me in
a way that I can't really. Yeah. So let me
(11:19):
ask you a question. You grew up with physical, verbal, emotional,
and mental abuse and sexual and sexual okay, and you
say they are still the way now that they were
when you grow up. So my question is, why are
you expecting them to give you now as you are
an adult what they couldn't give you and didn't give
(11:40):
you when you were a child. Well, I guess because
I feel I have hope, I feel like I can
grow and I can make changes in because you want to? Yeah,
do they want to? You can't want them to want to.
It's a toxic route. Doesn't make them bad people. They're
doing what they know, believe it or not. They're doing
(12:03):
the best that they can. And what if your lesson
in life is to be okay with their toxicity and
to do something else? Mhm. And what I'm hearing you
say is you're trying to get your healing from the
place you got hurt, and that is not gonna happen right.
(12:24):
So now it's time for us to put ourselves in
a position where we don't care how they act. Even
if they do hurt, we can't hear. No, that's not
the approach. Of course you care. This is your mom,
this is your dad. The first thing you heard in
life was her heartbeat. You are connected to her forever,
(12:47):
but you get to choose how to be in relationship
with her. My mother died when I was two, so
my grandmother raised me. She was meaned in a at cat.
Oh my god, when the goldfish saw my grandmother come in,
they stopped swimming. They just stopped swimming, hopefully she wouldn't
(13:13):
see him, okay. And my grandmother beat me in ways
that I can't even tell you. And she beat me
in the name of Jesus because she was convinced I
had the devil in me. So when I turned eighteen,
I disconnected from her. When I had children, I reintroduced
(13:35):
myself to her, and she was still good to them.
Mianus hell to me. And I know that you can't
love my children and treat me poorly. I don't care
what you say out your mouth. So I had to
disconnect from her again and she was all I knew.
She raised me. But we've been saying something to the
(13:57):
generational person no matter what comes by it, because we're
trying to get closure from what broke us in the
first place and never never happened. So we can do
is move forward. Is again, We're not gonna forget it
made us who we are. Man, it's crazy, though. What's crazy?
It's crazy that we watched my mom shift over three times.
(14:21):
What does that mean? We watched her shift, We watched
her shifts into multiple different versions of herself, but never
really being herself. Because my mom and my dad are
eleven years apart, and when they first started dating, I
think she's like sixteen or something. When your dad's are day,
she was like sixty. When my dad was messing my mom.
(14:41):
My mom had me at fourteen. My dad was not
being right, and my dad his narcissic waves are beyond narcissistic,
like he's he's very controlling and stuff. So it's like,
nobody knows our mom more than we know our mom.
We know what type of person she is at heart,
and my dad it's just her so many times with
(15:02):
the domestic abuse, like certain she can't say, certain ways
she can't look, you know, and us growing up being
a loan, too much on her phone for so long,
like can't pass gas. That's a real problem. Let me
let me ask you this question because I heard you
(15:25):
say that they are narcissists. Are you talking about your
mother and your father? Okay, well, let's take a look
at your mom for a moment, because she's your model
of womanhood. What we see in our mothers. We spend
so much time trying not to be like her that
(15:46):
we never become who we are. Right, So, I'm hearing
that you're trying not to be narcissistic, You're trying not
to be controlled, You're trying not But the question she
becomes who are you? And perhaps the focus needs to
be not on her and what you don't want, but
(16:08):
the focus needs to be on who you are and
what you do want. Now, let me ask you a question,
because you sound like very very conscious, intelligent young women.
I don't know if that means you woke, But what
do you think is going on in a woman's mind
(16:28):
that would make her stay with a man who beats her?
I feel as though that's all she knows. She's comfortable there,
so if she does go out of her way, she's
going to be very uncomfortable. It's familiar and she's comfortable. Yes,
Why else would a woman stay with a man who
beats her? She's scared, right, and she's scared. Good. What else?
(16:51):
He traumatized herself? She don't know that, Like she's brainwashed. Okay,
she's traumatized, she's brainwashed. What else she said within herself?
She's not happy with herself? Okay? Is it possible she
doesn't know who she is? Yeah? I wasn't gonna say that.
She doesn't know exactly who she is anymore because he
(17:13):
painted big creature for her and that's all she knows.
Like she literally doesn't have any friends because when she
does have friends, Brown, he has a problem with him,
say or yeah, like he doesn't like anybody that really
loved my mom. He doesn't want them around period. Okay,
you're talking about your mom again. I just want you
to talk about a woman would stay with a man
(17:35):
she doesn't know because how about she has no place
else to go? Yeah? Yeah, But what I want you
to see is that you're talking about yourself. You stay
attached to your parents because it's comfortable, because you're frightened
not to be attached to them, because you're traumatized, because
(17:57):
your brainwashed, because you're sad that they're not who you
want them to be, because you don't know who you are.
You just know who you don't want to be, because
without your parents, you may feel like you don't have
anybody else. So when you look at a woman or
when you look at your mom, understand that you're looking
(18:21):
at an aspect of yourself. Remember I told you that
we really can't be affected about the stuff that goes
on around us because it's just from another experience. Yeah,
how does it make you feel to say those things
about your mother that she's too frightened to lead, she's
(18:44):
so traumatized and brainwashed, she's so sad, she doesn't know
who she is, she has no place else to go,
she had nobody to protect her, and that all of
those things are for mill year to her. How does
that make you feel? It makes me really upset. It
(19:06):
makes me angry. H It makes me feel hate in
my heart because I have a daughter, and I don't
want my daughter to feel much just about me. So
that's why I'd be so hard on my mom. That's
why I tell her my treeth feelers, even if she
doesn't want to hear it, even if she blows it all,
(19:26):
That's why I tell her because that But we do
affect people, your children watching you hurt every day, your
children watching you not be yourself every day get they're permanently.
You just change because you're afraid of how yourself to.
And I never want my daughter to to look at
me that way. Well, how do you want your daughter
(19:49):
to look at you? I want my daughter to be
proud of me. I want her to be like I
want to be just like my mommy. I want to
be strong, I want to be determined. I want to
be successful. I want her to. I don't want her
to let things like this affect her because she's her
old person. The best way for you to do that
is to look at what pain. Are you comfortable with?
(20:14):
What frightens you? So that you don't walk away. We
did certain things out of habit. We're not even mindful
that we're doing that. You have to look at where
your brainwashed. You have to look at do you really
know who you are? Are you still living as the
abused child? The traumataged child who wants mommy and daddy
(20:38):
to change, or you gotta unlearn some stuff. You gotta
learn that you don't have to be comfortable in pain. Great,
And if you're still looking at your mom and what
she's doing and judging that as narcissism, you're not gonna
be able to clean it up in yourself. When you
look at your mother you're looking at you don't look
(21:03):
because imagine, just imagine with me, there must be a
broken little girl, traumatized, sad, angry, depressed, upset little girl
in your mother that would make her expose you to
the things she's exposed to to. Did you hear me, Tianna, Yes, man,
(21:29):
I feel like she wanted to do right, bonds, but
she just couldn't. How about she didn't know how right.
And the same way that there's a broken little girl
inside your mother, there's a broken, traumatized, frightened little girl
inside of you, a little girl, little boy. I don't
(21:53):
know what it is. So your job now is to
take care of that part of you by doing something different.
And we'll talk about that when we come back. Welcome
(22:16):
back to the our spot. Tell me three things you
think your mom needs right now. But one, I think
she needs to get back connected with God. But I
think she needs to remember what was she she capable
of being. And for three, I think she just needs
(22:42):
some guidance, She needs help, help to get out. I
think she just needs to learn how to be herself. Yeah.
Do you think her connection with God would help her
do that? I strongly believe that because she will her
(23:04):
husband say, you don't believe in God, So I think
that's a big part in her not following her faith.
My grandmother grew us up in the church. When I
talked to her about God, and when I talked to
her about Jesus and the Holy Spirit, she she seems
to understand, but her actions don't show that. M hm
(23:26):
and miss Maddie, what do you think the three things
are that your mom needs right now? The first thing
I f let my mom needs a lot of faith,
he needs love, and she needs time. She needs a
lot of time. Time is in her own time, what
(23:46):
she what she likes to do. That's what made me sad,
because I really want to like, how many of these
were you actually poking happy? How many actually feel what
you what you do? I'm mad that I'll need to
steel sad about it. I hate It's okay to be
(24:07):
mad if I could do what you can do well
not she doesn't have a model. Instead of being mad
at her and angry at her for staying, why don't
you become the model? We try? You try to fix
her as opposed to fix in yourself. We set her
(24:27):
down most of the time, not even together, but every
time we go to have a conversation from like heart
to heart or just letting our feelings out. Because we
are your children, you are supposed to be the one
that we combine in and we She is a broken
little girl and you're trying to talk to her like
she's an adult woman, and that's not working. Yeah, So
(24:52):
the question becomes, how do you deal with somebody who
can't hear you. The way you communicate with them is
in sign language. You show them because they can't hear you.
That means doing it differently. Yeah, I was gonna saying,
and now it's definitely different because I haven't got away
(25:14):
and I know that I can heal, and I know
that I have the strength and stuff too. Is like
I just wanted to bring my mom along with me.
If that's not your business. Like you said, you can't
can't miss her here. Your mother's healing is not your business.
It's God's business. Now, I want you to raise your
right hand up like you were taking an open court.
(25:36):
Is it up? Say my mother needs to connect with God.
My mother needs to connect with God just like me,
just like me. My mother needs love. My mother leaves
love just like me, just like me. My mother needs
to take time to do what brings her joy. My
(25:57):
mother needs to take time to joy, just like me,
just like Yeah, And where in any of that does
it say my mother needs to sit down and have
a hard heart and admit to me some of the
things that she's done. Every time you try to change
(26:18):
your mom, you revisit the trauma of what happened and
then causes trauma within your Say yeah, I mean what's
beautiful for me is that you all are doing this together.
I wanted to say that ever since I've been going
I love it some team And the one thing I
(26:38):
hated leave it by with my sister because I knew
what she was going through. And like all these years,
I'm like, no matter what, I don't care. Well, man,
I don't care what I'm doing O care what I
have to do. I want my sister with me. And
it wasn't like we didn't choose this, Like life just
happened and just so happened. I was in the right place,
right where God needed me to be, and Monsters was
(27:00):
able to come here with me. Two things I want
you to hear me. I want you both to hear me.
You survived. Millions didn't survive this suicide attempt, Miss Mattie millions,
millions didn't survive sexual abuse, Miss Tiana, millions of women
(27:22):
and men. You survived. That's the lesson. So instead of
keep looking back talking about what didn't happen, I want
you to turn around and look forward and say, what
will happen with your faith, with your love, with your
(27:42):
connection to God and you two holding on to each other,
what will happen? Will happen? We will be great. We're
about to move forward. We're about to build ourselves, build
ourselves in faith, build ourselves mentally, spiritually, physically, God for
and everything that's gonna follow. I really do believe that,
(28:03):
like you said, You're not gonna give us more than
we can handle. So every dently we was meant to
go through this photo strengthen us. Everything that we go
through in life is meant to strengthen you, no matter
if it hurts, no matter if it makes you sad
or cry. It's all for your benefit. If we had
to be the example for our mom our family, we
(28:23):
will be that. We can be that. So I hear you,
and that sounds a lot different than we need to
be fixed. We're broken. That's how you started out because
I ain't playing because they made me man. It made
me man. And when little things come up, when you
(28:46):
remember being beaten or being yelled at, or being shut down,
you say, and I survived. I'm moving forward because if not,
you keep re traumatizing the broken little girl inside you.
You reparent yourself by doing it differently to yourself, so
when she's crying for mommy, you have to nurture yourself.
(29:11):
The biggest thing for me is because as you said,
you're working with generational stuff. So I've got two assignments.
I want to give you three. Actually, the first assignment
is to get your story down to a hundred words,
because every time you recount the details, they did this,
(29:34):
and they said that, and they do this and they
do that. Every time you do that you re traumatized.
Do you understand that? Yeah. Well, one of the things
that you can do when something comes to mind for you,
you remember beating, or leaving or or whatever, write it
down on a piece of paper. I don't care if
(29:55):
it's a paper bag. Write it down on a piece
of paper. Set that piece of paper on fire. Mm hmm,
I've that before. Yeah, flush it down the toilet. You
know why you're changing the energy. You're taking it out
of your brain and then you release it in a
very natural way. Fire is a tool of God. God
(30:18):
came to Moses in the fiery bush. You got it.
You see how you got I told you you was woke. Okay,
So does that make sense to you. I want you
to look up Elevation Church and the pastor there his
(30:43):
name is Stephen for Nick. Let me tell you why
I'm sending you to Stephen fer Nick at Elevation Church.
He's young, he's hip, and he doesn't beat you over
the head with the Bible. I think he will speak
to your soul and help you to connect with God
in a language that as a young person I think
(31:06):
you can understand. Because you're thirty. He's forty two, and
he is powerful. So your second assignment is to get
one lesson from Stephen Fertnick every day for the next
thirty days. I don't care which sermon you listen to.
He has one, what if he has another one? Bent knees,
(31:28):
break chains, that's a beautiful sermon. But just go look
and see. You know, not that I'm sending you to church.
I'm sending you to a teacher because you have to
learn how to be different, and I think you can
find a lot with him. Yeah, So that's your second assignment,
(31:49):
and your third assignment this I want you to hold
each other's hands because this is a hard one. We're ready, Okay.
I'm going to invite you to take a fast from
your mother for the next forty days. Mhmm. That means
no call, no text, no contact. You can do that
(32:15):
from her and pop pop. Okay, you're going to be
listening to pastor for Nick for thirty He's gonna help
you get through that. Then you're gonna have ten days
to integrate all that you've learned. So at the end
of that forty days, you're going to have a new
habit and you're going to be able to do things differently.
(32:39):
Does that make sense to you. I'm telling you no contact, none,
and she may want to know you're okay and and
this and that that's okay. And you tell her I'm
on a fast, I'm fasting from you, and she may
be upset and she may be heard. You don't have
to explain your no. I'm on the fire, love you
(33:02):
mean it. I'm on the fire. I'll see you soon.
You got too much energy, your hand crazy, We barely
even moving. Don't know where I'll be right back. Okay,
where is she going? I'm okay. Where is she going to?
The bad food? Yeah? Okay, we'll talk to her when
(33:27):
we come back. Welcome back. I am me. I'm learning.
This is the our spot. I want you to tell
me something you know now that you didn't know when
you first call. I did not know that working all
(33:50):
myself could help God, my mom. I did not know
that I was too folkys going trying to think to her,
not understand that she didn't have the ability to listen
because the same stuff that she put us think, she
went through herself. And you also cannot make anyone understand you.
(34:16):
Nobody's business to understand you but you and God, because
that's the only one that's gonna take this walk with you.
That's the only one that's gonna actually hear your cry
and take it into their possession to to fix you.
I get upset about the smallest things, the smallest things.
(34:36):
My bride won't come on time, and I'm just like, oh,
this is just pissing me off. I'm just so angry.
Everything's making me angry. But in reality, God is blowing
you down, trying to get you to understand this didn't
work because of this, and that didn't work because of this,
and we all have a hard time understanding that because
we want things to go our way, but that's not
(34:58):
an option excellence. So you learned a lot today, didn't you. Yes,
a whole lot. Is Miss Tiana back? Yes, Okay, come
to the phone, Miss Tianna. All right, tell me something
you know now that you didn't know when you called today.
After talking to you and saying some of the things
(35:19):
that I said, I realized I do have this strip
in the courage. I have the tools that I need
to survive. And not only did I earn though, but
God give them to me. We're sot. Yeah, we may
do something that a lot of people didn't we knew that.
But again, sometimes you just have to hear it from
(35:40):
somewhere else and I can do it. I will do it.
I am doing it, Miss Tianna. Oh, I want you
to tell me three things that you appreciate about yourself. Oh.
Number one is effect that no matter what's going on
(36:03):
around me or no matter what happens to me, I
never shy away from giving someone else love or kindness.
M number two, Oh, you have a lot of things
that I mean. I love my mind and I love
the will power that I have to elevate. I love
the understanding that I have with myself. Put it that way.
(36:25):
That's called self awareness. You're aware of yourself, your strengths,
your weaknesses, what you're working on, what you're want. Thank you.
Can I tell you three things that I appreciate about you? Yeah, okay.
I first of all, appreciate the power of your energy.
(36:47):
Oh my god, WHOA. I can feel you all the
way through these phones and chords, And I just appreciate
the power of your inner g I appreciate your loving,
caring soul. That's why you never gave up reconnecting with
(37:13):
your sister, and it was well into our conversation before
it was revealed that you and her have different fathers,
and you could have said my half sister, but you didn't.
You said my sister. And that's because of the depth
of caring and love in your heart. And the other
thing that I really really appreciate about you, Miss Tiana,
(37:36):
is your determination. You are I gotta fix, I gotta change,
I gotta When someone has that level of determination, it
says to me that they have a vision. That vision
may not be clear, but because of the depth of
your caring, love and determination, I know you have a vision.
(38:00):
And my prayer for you is that vision becomes crystal
clear and you step into it powerfully because that's who
you are. Yeah, I appreciate you so much. Appreciate Miss Maddie.
Can I tell you three things that I appreciate about you? Yes.
(38:24):
One of the things that I learned a long long
time ago that the best students get the hardest tests.
That when life, the universe, God have a big job
for you to do, you get some of the hardest tests.
And when I hear some of the tests, particularly the
(38:46):
suicidal ideations that you have overcome, it says to me
that you have a gift and a mission. And the
thing about a test, Miss Mattie, is you don't have
to get a You just have to pass your test
(39:06):
of trying to give up on life, because that says
to me that your gift is stronger than your grief.
My prayer for you is that that gift of empathetic
feeling and clear sations that it grows into something that
you can use to help others in the world. And
(39:30):
I appreciate that you are supporting and holding onto and
listening to your sister. And you are the young and
I've really really appreciate that about you. So a couple
of things I want to leave your with because I
know that you're going to do your assignments. Your story
(39:54):
is real, it's what happened, it's fact, but it's just
that it's a story. And that story can be edited,
that story can be rewritten, that story can be canned.
You get to be the author, the creator of a
new story. The other thing I want you to understand,
(40:19):
particularly as young women in the new millennium, is that
your family tree can put a noose around your neck,
but the only way that it'll hang you is if
you don't take the news off, and I think today
you took the news off the other thing. I want
(40:41):
you to know this is very important for you, Miss Maddie.
Your mother was a broken little girl and she broke you.
Not because she wanted to, not because she expected to.
She broke you because she didn't know any better. Yeah,
and it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility
(41:06):
and only you can fix your problem. Ms t honest
as she appreciates her mind. So I want you to
train yourself to focus on now, not then. What can
I do now? If they didn't give you patience, be patient,
If they didn't give you kindness, be kind if they
(41:26):
didn't listen to you, listen to yourself, listen to each other.
Give yourself now what they didn't give you, then, Yes, maybe,
thank you so much. We really do appreciate you. Thank
you so much. I want you to check in. I
(41:48):
want you to start your fast start your lessons and
work on that story. Okay, all right, thank you so much.
Alright YouTube Villa of it, bye bye bye bye bye.
So for all of you living out there that heard
(42:09):
Miss Tiana and Miss Maddie, and you're dealing with your
own family toxicity and your own cracks in your foundation
and toxic roots in your life. I'm going to repeat
this again, uh historical family, generational. As the lady said,
(42:32):
curse that family tree can put a noose around your neck.
But the only way it don't hang you is if
you stay in the noose. For all of you who
are down on your mom's because of what they did
or what she did or what she didn't do judging her,
remember this, broken little girls, break girls because they don't
(42:56):
know how to do it differently. But it is your
problem and your responsibility to get yourself healed. The way
to do that focus on now and what can happen,
because you've got to unlearn some stuff in order to
learn some stuff. And if you're focusing on then, you
(43:18):
won't make yourself available to the learning that's present now.
If they didn't give you the good quality cookies, go
by itself and eat all of them at once. Stop
whining about what you didn't get then, and give it
to yourself now. Family dysfunction, it's everywhere, and it's a test.
(43:46):
And remember when you're tested, you don't have to get
a you just have to pass. If you're here today, beloved,
you passed, So it may be time to just celebrate.
See you next time, and in the meantime, stay in peace,
(44:08):
not pieces. I hope this has been helpful to someone,
and if you have a question about this or any
other relationship issue, you can call me live at seven
seven five three zero seven seven seven six eight. Now
be sure to follow me on social media for all
of the calling times. The R Spot is a production
(44:35):
of Shondaland Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
I am Younger, your host for this journey. I was
a hopeless love aholic but just could not get my
love to work. Then, after a series of heartbreaks and
deep heartache, I finally got clear about what love is
and what it is not. I want to share some
(00:23):
of what I've learned about love aholism. Welcome to the
Our Spot, a production of shondaland Audio in partnership with
I Heart Radio. Family trauma it is absolutely real. Now.
(00:51):
It doesn't have to be your truth, but it will
be a fact of your life and it will cont
sdruct your story. And the challenging part about family trauma, chaotic, disruptive, abusive,
neglectful family trauma is that it becomes etched into the
(01:15):
fibers of your being in such a way that it's
difficult to tell the distinction between you and the story.
And it lands on those who have the capacity and
the desire to do it differently, and that's hard. If
(01:36):
you have broken bricks in your foundation, if you have
toxic weeds, toxic roots in your foundation, you can pull
them up, but it takes work, and the work starts
with knowing how to tell your story, because if you
(01:59):
don't learn how to tell your story, you become what
I call s o s stuck on story, which leads
to stuck on stupid, which leads to stuck on sad,
stuck on sorrow. You have the opportunity not only to
edit or rewrite the story, but to can it so
that it never has to be played out in your
(02:20):
world again. I've got an incredible story for you today,
two sisters who are ready to relay the foundation and
take a turn in a new direction beyond family dysfunction.
(02:41):
They are incredible and I want you to hear their story.
Good afternoon, Beloved's, welcome to the art spot And what
is your relationship trauma dilemma? Issued allannge that we can
work through together Today, we are trying to fix ourselves
(03:06):
spiritually and physically because we've been through a lot during
our childhood and adulthood. Followerment to it, Yeah, it's just
causing a lot, a lot of stress, a lot of saying.
There's a lot of depressions, stuff that can be fixable,
but it's hard to fax, you know, alone, especially when
you're the one that went through it. Well, when you
(03:29):
say fixed, tell me what you mean. We want to
move forward when everything is broken. We wanted to be prepared.
We're ready to heal. We're ready to get rid of
these things in our lives, get rid of the strong on.
We're ready to be able to speak to our parents
and tell them out truth without them shutting us out.
We're arguing at us. They hear us, but they don't
(03:50):
hear they're out listened it. They don't care to understand
what we're trying to tell. They never taken in consideration. Basically,
so you you two assisters? Is that accurate? Yeah? Okay?
Who's the oldest, Deana? Okay? And how old are you?
I'm thirty thirty okay. And then who's the baby sister?
(04:12):
That's me, Maddie. I'm twenty three, twenty three. Oh, there's
a big spread there, right, excellent. So, Tianna, here's your assignment.
Tell me your story in a hundred words. My story
is It's complicated, is traumatizing, is depressing. It's very heavy.
(04:41):
I don't even have the words to describe my story.
If I could pick a hunter words, they will all
be words of weakness instead of words of strength. I
gained so much curt and stress from it, but it's
just terrible. Yeah, now, when did your story begin? As
far as I can remember, my story begins at around
(05:03):
age too, when I first saw the domestic volunt my
mom get hit for the first time. Yeah, and Maddie,
you weren't even born. Man, right, tell me your story
a hundred words? What would your story be? My story
is a roller coaster, honestly, because I'm very spiritual. What
(05:29):
does that mean? I meditate, I understand, I read energies.
A lot of people's energies affect me, and that's where
a lot of my problems came in that because I
was saying the things that were happening around me. So
me being the baby. You know, the babies are mostly
the fixtures of the family, you know, they can get
(05:51):
everyone to come together, or the grandma. So I've always
put myself in the place where I tried to fix everything,
and that My life is a roller coaster, is depression,
I'm trying to commit suicide. There's just a lot. Have
you ever gotten professional help, counseling, coaching, therapy. Yes. When
(06:15):
I tried to kill myself there like two thousands fifteen,
my mom had scheduled some meetings for me and stuff,
and I had a psychologists. After that first and second appointment,
she felt like I didn't need it anymore, Like I
didn't get the proper help. They would go for it,
(06:36):
but they would never stick to it. They would make
things look good basically. So your story as a roller
poster of depression and suicide. I want to give you
a language for what you're describing when you say you're spiritual,
and it is that you are empathic. I'm emphatively yeah, clarsation.
(06:57):
So you feel the specious air Satan clairvoyant sees Claire audience.
Here's Clarsatian Fields. So you are clar Satan. That's your
gift and it makes you empathic. So you feel what's
(07:17):
going on that may or may not have anything to
do with you being spiritual? Right, So I hear that
there was domestic violence in your story, Okay, a lot
of domestic violence. What else? Physical abuse? Verbal abuse? Okay,
(07:39):
ran mental transpires to mental abuse, you know, yeah, and
is that going on now? Yeah, the verbal abuse. Definitely
domestic violeusing to the relationships that we bring out a
head m hmm. So now you are repeating the pattern
of domestic violence in your relationships. I did I feel
(08:02):
like our relationships would be better if we didn't grow
up in the type of environment that we did. Because
most times people do go out and get a person
that has characteristics of their mother or their father. Yes,
they do, because we do what we know right, so
(08:22):
the energy will attract what's familiar to us. But what
I want us to look at is, you're not children anymore.
Do you live with your parents now? So if you're
not children anymore, if you don't live with your parents now,
(08:43):
why is this still going on for you? I think
we both have different answers to that. I'm the tear
old Maddie. I have two younger kids. I have a
one year old and I have a three year old,
And at one point I was saying with my parents
with my two children, and I let them do certain
(09:05):
things that I knew wasn't okay, but because they you know,
they did it with me, I didn't expect them to
put my kids in that type of predicament. But they're narcissists.
My dad got really attached to my son am I
popped to death, That's all he knows. So it's like
(09:25):
I can't just snatch them, you know, away from their grandparents.
Because they both share equal love. But I kind of
have to because that's not healthy for me or my kids.
You know, one of the most challenging things for us
to acknowledge and accept is that we can come from
(09:50):
toxic roots. And what my experience has been usually when
we come from toxic roots, it's because us. We are
the ones who have been chosen to uproot the toxicity
and do something different. You have to cut yourself off
(10:11):
from the root, maybe not forever, but until you get
strong enough to stand in the toxicity and not take
it off. So I hear you saying to me what
you can't do as opposed to what you can do,
and what you can do is live beyond the trauma
(10:33):
in order to learn something else. And it's not going
to happen by magic. I heard both you and your
sister say very clearly, we want to heal, we want
to fix this. Well, the first way you fix it
is to look at what it is and not make
any judgments about it, but to forgive it so that
(10:57):
you can do something else. Um well, I feel like
I forgave them, but then with certain things happen, like
you said, I gotta pick this on my own. But
I've tried. I've cut myself off of it for many years.
I've been going from home since I was seventeen years
old when I needed somebody. Day just was not what
they were supposed to be and it hurt me in
a way that I can't really. Yeah. So let me
(11:19):
ask you a question. You grew up with physical, verbal, emotional,
and mental abuse and sexual and sexual okay, and you
say they are still the way now that they were
when you grow up. So my question is, why are
you expecting them to give you now as you are
an adult what they couldn't give you and didn't give
(11:40):
you when you were a child. Well, I guess because
I feel I have hope, I feel like I can
grow and I can make changes in because you want to? Yeah,
do they want to? You can't want them to want to.
It's a toxic route. Doesn't make them bad people. They're
doing what they know, believe it or not. They're doing
(12:03):
the best that they can. And what if your lesson
in life is to be okay with their toxicity and
to do something else? Mhm. And what I'm hearing you
say is you're trying to get your healing from the
place you got hurt, and that is not gonna happen right.
(12:24):
So now it's time for us to put ourselves in
a position where we don't care how they act. Even
if they do hurt, we can't hear. No, that's not
the approach. Of course you care. This is your mom,
this is your dad. The first thing you heard in
life was her heartbeat. You are connected to her forever,
(12:47):
but you get to choose how to be in relationship
with her. My mother died when I was two, so
my grandmother raised me. She was meaned in a at cat.
Oh my god, when the goldfish saw my grandmother come in,
they stopped swimming. They just stopped swimming, hopefully she wouldn't
(13:13):
see him, okay. And my grandmother beat me in ways
that I can't even tell you. And she beat me
in the name of Jesus because she was convinced I
had the devil in me. So when I turned eighteen,
I disconnected from her. When I had children, I reintroduced
(13:35):
myself to her, and she was still good to them.
Mianus hell to me. And I know that you can't
love my children and treat me poorly. I don't care
what you say out your mouth. So I had to
disconnect from her again and she was all I knew.
She raised me. But we've been saying something to the
(13:57):
generational person no matter what comes by it, because we're
trying to get closure from what broke us in the
first place and never never happened. So we can do
is move forward. Is again, We're not gonna forget it
made us who we are. Man, it's crazy, though. What's crazy?
It's crazy that we watched my mom shift over three times.
(14:21):
What does that mean? We watched her shift, We watched
her shifts into multiple different versions of herself, but never
really being herself. Because my mom and my dad are
eleven years apart, and when they first started dating, I
think she's like sixteen or something. When your dad's are day,
she was like sixty. When my dad was messing my mom.
(14:41):
My mom had me at fourteen. My dad was not
being right, and my dad his narcissic waves are beyond narcissistic,
like he's he's very controlling and stuff. So it's like,
nobody knows our mom more than we know our mom.
We know what type of person she is at heart,
and my dad it's just her so many times with
(15:02):
the domestic abuse, like certain she can't say, certain ways
she can't look, you know, and us growing up being
a loan, too much on her phone for so long,
like can't pass gas. That's a real problem. Let me
let me ask you this question because I heard you
(15:25):
say that they are narcissists. Are you talking about your
mother and your father? Okay, well, let's take a look
at your mom for a moment, because she's your model
of womanhood. What we see in our mothers. We spend
so much time trying not to be like her that
(15:46):
we never become who we are. Right, So, I'm hearing
that you're trying not to be narcissistic, You're trying not
to be controlled, You're trying not But the question she
becomes who are you? And perhaps the focus needs to
be not on her and what you don't want, but
(16:08):
the focus needs to be on who you are and
what you do want. Now, let me ask you a question,
because you sound like very very conscious, intelligent young women.
I don't know if that means you woke, But what
do you think is going on in a woman's mind
(16:28):
that would make her stay with a man who beats her?
I feel as though that's all she knows. She's comfortable there,
so if she does go out of her way, she's
going to be very uncomfortable. It's familiar and she's comfortable. Yes,
Why else would a woman stay with a man who
beats her? She's scared, right, and she's scared. Good. What else?
(16:51):
He traumatized herself? She don't know that, Like she's brainwashed. Okay,
she's traumatized, she's brainwashed. What else she said within herself?
She's not happy with herself? Okay? Is it possible she
doesn't know who she is? Yeah? I wasn't gonna say that.
She doesn't know exactly who she is anymore because he
(17:13):
painted big creature for her and that's all she knows.
Like she literally doesn't have any friends because when she
does have friends, Brown, he has a problem with him,
say or yeah, like he doesn't like anybody that really
loved my mom. He doesn't want them around period. Okay,
you're talking about your mom again. I just want you
to talk about a woman would stay with a man
(17:35):
she doesn't know because how about she has no place
else to go? Yeah? Yeah, But what I want you
to see is that you're talking about yourself. You stay
attached to your parents because it's comfortable, because you're frightened
not to be attached to them, because you're traumatized, because
(17:57):
your brainwashed, because you're sad that they're not who you
want them to be, because you don't know who you are.
You just know who you don't want to be, because
without your parents, you may feel like you don't have
anybody else. So when you look at a woman or
when you look at your mom, understand that you're looking
(18:21):
at an aspect of yourself. Remember I told you that
we really can't be affected about the stuff that goes
on around us because it's just from another experience. Yeah,
how does it make you feel to say those things
about your mother that she's too frightened to lead, she's
(18:44):
so traumatized and brainwashed, she's so sad, she doesn't know
who she is, she has no place else to go,
she had nobody to protect her, and that all of
those things are for mill year to her. How does
that make you feel? It makes me really upset. It
(19:06):
makes me angry. H It makes me feel hate in
my heart because I have a daughter, and I don't
want my daughter to feel much just about me. So
that's why I'd be so hard on my mom. That's
why I tell her my treeth feelers, even if she
doesn't want to hear it, even if she blows it all,
(19:26):
That's why I tell her because that But we do
affect people, your children watching you hurt every day, your
children watching you not be yourself every day get they're permanently.
You just change because you're afraid of how yourself to.
And I never want my daughter to to look at
me that way. Well, how do you want your daughter
(19:49):
to look at you? I want my daughter to be
proud of me. I want her to be like I
want to be just like my mommy. I want to
be strong, I want to be determined. I want to
be successful. I want her to. I don't want her
to let things like this affect her because she's her
old person. The best way for you to do that
is to look at what pain. Are you comfortable with?
(20:14):
What frightens you? So that you don't walk away. We
did certain things out of habit. We're not even mindful
that we're doing that. You have to look at where
your brainwashed. You have to look at do you really
know who you are? Are you still living as the
abused child? The traumataged child who wants mommy and daddy
(20:38):
to change, or you gotta unlearn some stuff. You gotta
learn that you don't have to be comfortable in pain. Great,
And if you're still looking at your mom and what
she's doing and judging that as narcissism, you're not gonna
be able to clean it up in yourself. When you
look at your mother you're looking at you don't look
(21:03):
because imagine, just imagine with me, there must be a
broken little girl, traumatized, sad, angry, depressed, upset little girl
in your mother that would make her expose you to
the things she's exposed to to. Did you hear me, Tianna, Yes, man,
(21:29):
I feel like she wanted to do right, bonds, but
she just couldn't. How about she didn't know how right.
And the same way that there's a broken little girl
inside your mother, there's a broken, traumatized, frightened little girl
inside of you, a little girl, little boy. I don't
(21:53):
know what it is. So your job now is to
take care of that part of you by doing something different.
And we'll talk about that when we come back. Welcome
(22:16):
back to the our spot. Tell me three things you
think your mom needs right now. But one, I think
she needs to get back connected with God. But I
think she needs to remember what was she she capable
of being. And for three, I think she just needs
(22:42):
some guidance, She needs help, help to get out. I
think she just needs to learn how to be herself. Yeah.
Do you think her connection with God would help her
do that? I strongly believe that because she will her
(23:04):
husband say, you don't believe in God, So I think
that's a big part in her not following her faith.
My grandmother grew us up in the church. When I
talked to her about God, and when I talked to
her about Jesus and the Holy Spirit, she she seems
to understand, but her actions don't show that. M hm
(23:26):
and miss Maddie, what do you think the three things
are that your mom needs right now? The first thing
I f let my mom needs a lot of faith,
he needs love, and she needs time. She needs a
lot of time. Time is in her own time, what
(23:46):
she what she likes to do. That's what made me sad,
because I really want to like, how many of these
were you actually poking happy? How many actually feel what
you what you do? I'm mad that I'll need to
steel sad about it. I hate It's okay to be
(24:07):
mad if I could do what you can do well
not she doesn't have a model. Instead of being mad
at her and angry at her for staying, why don't
you become the model? We try? You try to fix
her as opposed to fix in yourself. We set her
(24:27):
down most of the time, not even together, but every
time we go to have a conversation from like heart
to heart or just letting our feelings out. Because we
are your children, you are supposed to be the one
that we combine in and we She is a broken
little girl and you're trying to talk to her like
she's an adult woman, and that's not working. Yeah, So
(24:52):
the question becomes, how do you deal with somebody who
can't hear you. The way you communicate with them is
in sign language. You show them because they can't hear you.
That means doing it differently. Yeah, I was gonna saying,
and now it's definitely different because I haven't got away
(25:14):
and I know that I can heal, and I know
that I have the strength and stuff too. Is like
I just wanted to bring my mom along with me.
If that's not your business. Like you said, you can't
can't miss her here. Your mother's healing is not your business.
It's God's business. Now, I want you to raise your
right hand up like you were taking an open court.
(25:36):
Is it up? Say my mother needs to connect with God.
My mother needs to connect with God just like me,
just like me. My mother needs love. My mother leaves
love just like me, just like me. My mother needs
to take time to do what brings her joy. My
(25:57):
mother needs to take time to joy, just like me,
just like Yeah, And where in any of that does
it say my mother needs to sit down and have
a hard heart and admit to me some of the
things that she's done. Every time you try to change
(26:18):
your mom, you revisit the trauma of what happened and
then causes trauma within your Say yeah, I mean what's
beautiful for me is that you all are doing this together.
I wanted to say that ever since I've been going
I love it some team And the one thing I
(26:38):
hated leave it by with my sister because I knew
what she was going through. And like all these years,
I'm like, no matter what, I don't care. Well, man,
I don't care what I'm doing O care what I
have to do. I want my sister with me. And
it wasn't like we didn't choose this, Like life just
happened and just so happened. I was in the right place,
right where God needed me to be, and Monsters was
(27:00):
able to come here with me. Two things I want
you to hear me. I want you both to hear me.
You survived. Millions didn't survive this suicide attempt, Miss Mattie millions,
millions didn't survive sexual abuse, Miss Tiana, millions of women
(27:22):
and men. You survived. That's the lesson. So instead of
keep looking back talking about what didn't happen, I want
you to turn around and look forward and say, what
will happen with your faith, with your love, with your
(27:42):
connection to God and you two holding on to each other,
what will happen? Will happen? We will be great. We're
about to move forward. We're about to build ourselves, build
ourselves in faith, build ourselves mentally, spiritually, physically, God for
and everything that's gonna follow. I really do believe that,
(28:03):
like you said, You're not gonna give us more than
we can handle. So every dently we was meant to
go through this photo strengthen us. Everything that we go
through in life is meant to strengthen you, no matter
if it hurts, no matter if it makes you sad
or cry. It's all for your benefit. If we had
to be the example for our mom our family, we
(28:23):
will be that. We can be that. So I hear you,
and that sounds a lot different than we need to
be fixed. We're broken. That's how you started out because
I ain't playing because they made me man. It made
me man. And when little things come up, when you
(28:46):
remember being beaten or being yelled at, or being shut down,
you say, and I survived. I'm moving forward because if not,
you keep re traumatizing the broken little girl inside you.
You reparent yourself by doing it differently to yourself, so
when she's crying for mommy, you have to nurture yourself.
(29:11):
The biggest thing for me is because as you said,
you're working with generational stuff. So I've got two assignments.
I want to give you three. Actually, the first assignment
is to get your story down to a hundred words,
because every time you recount the details, they did this,
(29:34):
and they said that, and they do this and they
do that. Every time you do that you re traumatized.
Do you understand that? Yeah. Well, one of the things
that you can do when something comes to mind for you,
you remember beating, or leaving or or whatever, write it
down on a piece of paper. I don't care if
(29:55):
it's a paper bag. Write it down on a piece
of paper. Set that piece of paper on fire. Mm hmm,
I've that before. Yeah, flush it down the toilet. You
know why you're changing the energy. You're taking it out
of your brain and then you release it in a
very natural way. Fire is a tool of God. God
(30:18):
came to Moses in the fiery bush. You got it.
You see how you got I told you you was woke. Okay,
So does that make sense to you. I want you
to look up Elevation Church and the pastor there his
(30:43):
name is Stephen for Nick. Let me tell you why
I'm sending you to Stephen fer Nick at Elevation Church.
He's young, he's hip, and he doesn't beat you over
the head with the Bible. I think he will speak
to your soul and help you to connect with God
in a language that as a young person I think
(31:06):
you can understand. Because you're thirty. He's forty two, and
he is powerful. So your second assignment is to get
one lesson from Stephen Fertnick every day for the next
thirty days. I don't care which sermon you listen to.
He has one, what if he has another one? Bent knees,
(31:28):
break chains, that's a beautiful sermon. But just go look
and see. You know, not that I'm sending you to church.
I'm sending you to a teacher because you have to
learn how to be different, and I think you can
find a lot with him. Yeah, So that's your second assignment,
(31:49):
and your third assignment this I want you to hold
each other's hands because this is a hard one. We're ready, Okay.
I'm going to invite you to take a fast from
your mother for the next forty days. Mhmm. That means
no call, no text, no contact. You can do that
(32:15):
from her and pop pop. Okay, you're going to be
listening to pastor for Nick for thirty He's gonna help
you get through that. Then you're gonna have ten days
to integrate all that you've learned. So at the end
of that forty days, you're going to have a new
habit and you're going to be able to do things differently.
(32:39):
Does that make sense to you. I'm telling you no contact, none,
and she may want to know you're okay and and
this and that that's okay. And you tell her I'm
on a fast, I'm fasting from you, and she may
be upset and she may be heard. You don't have
to explain your no. I'm on the fire, love you
(33:02):
mean it. I'm on the fire. I'll see you soon.
You got too much energy, your hand crazy, We barely
even moving. Don't know where I'll be right back. Okay,
where is she going? I'm okay. Where is she going to?
The bad food? Yeah? Okay, we'll talk to her when
(33:27):
we come back. Welcome back. I am me. I'm learning.
This is the our spot. I want you to tell
me something you know now that you didn't know when
you first call. I did not know that working all
(33:50):
myself could help God, my mom. I did not know
that I was too folkys going trying to think to her,
not understand that she didn't have the ability to listen
because the same stuff that she put us think, she
went through herself. And you also cannot make anyone understand you.
(34:16):
Nobody's business to understand you but you and God, because
that's the only one that's gonna take this walk with you.
That's the only one that's gonna actually hear your cry
and take it into their possession to to fix you.
I get upset about the smallest things, the smallest things.
(34:36):
My bride won't come on time, and I'm just like, oh,
this is just pissing me off. I'm just so angry.
Everything's making me angry. But in reality, God is blowing
you down, trying to get you to understand this didn't
work because of this, and that didn't work because of this,
and we all have a hard time understanding that because
we want things to go our way, but that's not
(34:58):
an option excellence. So you learned a lot today, didn't you. Yes,
a whole lot. Is Miss Tiana back? Yes, Okay, come
to the phone, Miss Tianna. All right, tell me something
you know now that you didn't know when you called today.
After talking to you and saying some of the things
(35:19):
that I said, I realized I do have this strip
in the courage. I have the tools that I need
to survive. And not only did I earn though, but
God give them to me. We're sot. Yeah, we may
do something that a lot of people didn't we knew that.
But again, sometimes you just have to hear it from
(35:40):
somewhere else and I can do it. I will do it.
I am doing it, Miss Tianna. Oh, I want you
to tell me three things that you appreciate about yourself. Oh.
Number one is effect that no matter what's going on
(36:03):
around me or no matter what happens to me, I
never shy away from giving someone else love or kindness.
M number two, Oh, you have a lot of things
that I mean. I love my mind and I love
the will power that I have to elevate. I love
the understanding that I have with myself. Put it that way.
(36:25):
That's called self awareness. You're aware of yourself, your strengths,
your weaknesses, what you're working on, what you're want. Thank you.
Can I tell you three things that I appreciate about you? Yeah, okay.
I first of all, appreciate the power of your energy.
(36:47):
Oh my god, WHOA. I can feel you all the
way through these phones and chords, And I just appreciate
the power of your inner g I appreciate your loving,
caring soul. That's why you never gave up reconnecting with
(37:13):
your sister, and it was well into our conversation before
it was revealed that you and her have different fathers,
and you could have said my half sister, but you didn't.
You said my sister. And that's because of the depth
of caring and love in your heart. And the other
thing that I really really appreciate about you, Miss Tiana,
(37:36):
is your determination. You are I gotta fix, I gotta change,
I gotta When someone has that level of determination, it
says to me that they have a vision. That vision
may not be clear, but because of the depth of
your caring, love and determination, I know you have a vision.
(38:00):
And my prayer for you is that vision becomes crystal
clear and you step into it powerfully because that's who
you are. Yeah, I appreciate you so much. Appreciate Miss Maddie.
Can I tell you three things that I appreciate about you? Yes.
(38:24):
One of the things that I learned a long long
time ago that the best students get the hardest tests.
That when life, the universe, God have a big job
for you to do, you get some of the hardest tests.
And when I hear some of the tests, particularly the
(38:46):
suicidal ideations that you have overcome, it says to me
that you have a gift and a mission. And the
thing about a test, Miss Mattie, is you don't have
to get a You just have to pass your test
(39:06):
of trying to give up on life, because that says
to me that your gift is stronger than your grief.
My prayer for you is that that gift of empathetic
feeling and clear sations that it grows into something that
you can use to help others in the world. And
(39:30):
I appreciate that you are supporting and holding onto and
listening to your sister. And you are the young and
I've really really appreciate that about you. So a couple
of things I want to leave your with because I
know that you're going to do your assignments. Your story
(39:54):
is real, it's what happened, it's fact, but it's just
that it's a story. And that story can be edited,
that story can be rewritten, that story can be canned.
You get to be the author, the creator of a
new story. The other thing I want you to understand,
(40:19):
particularly as young women in the new millennium, is that
your family tree can put a noose around your neck,
but the only way that it'll hang you is if
you don't take the news off, and I think today
you took the news off the other thing. I want
(40:41):
you to know this is very important for you, Miss Maddie.
Your mother was a broken little girl and she broke you.
Not because she wanted to, not because she expected to.
She broke you because she didn't know any better. Yeah,
and it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility
(41:06):
and only you can fix your problem. Ms t honest
as she appreciates her mind. So I want you to
train yourself to focus on now, not then. What can
I do now? If they didn't give you patience, be patient,
If they didn't give you kindness, be kind if they
(41:26):
didn't listen to you, listen to yourself, listen to each other.
Give yourself now what they didn't give you, then, Yes, maybe,
thank you so much. We really do appreciate you. Thank
you so much. I want you to check in. I
(41:48):
want you to start your fast start your lessons and
work on that story. Okay, all right, thank you so much.
Alright YouTube Villa of it, bye bye bye bye bye.
So for all of you living out there that heard
(42:09):
Miss Tiana and Miss Maddie, and you're dealing with your
own family toxicity and your own cracks in your foundation
and toxic roots in your life. I'm going to repeat
this again, uh historical family, generational. As the lady said,
(42:32):
curse that family tree can put a noose around your neck.
But the only way it don't hang you is if
you stay in the noose. For all of you who
are down on your mom's because of what they did
or what she did or what she didn't do judging her,
remember this, broken little girls, break girls because they don't
(42:56):
know how to do it differently. But it is your
problem and your responsibility to get yourself healed. The way
to do that focus on now and what can happen,
because you've got to unlearn some stuff in order to
learn some stuff. And if you're focusing on then, you
(43:18):
won't make yourself available to the learning that's present now.
If they didn't give you the good quality cookies, go
by itself and eat all of them at once. Stop
whining about what you didn't get then, and give it
to yourself now. Family dysfunction, it's everywhere, and it's a test.
(43:46):
And remember when you're tested, you don't have to get
a you just have to pass. If you're here today, beloved,
you passed, So it may be time to just celebrate.
See you next time, and in the meantime, stay in peace,
(44:08):
not pieces. I hope this has been helpful to someone,
and if you have a question about this or any
other relationship issue, you can call me live at seven
seven five three zero seven seven seven six eight. Now
be sure to follow me on social media for all
of the calling times. The R Spot is a production
(44:35):
of Shondaland Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Iyanla Vanzant
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