February 11, 2025 • 42 mins
In this powerful episode of Coaching Your Family Relationships, I sit down with Jodi Larae Cunningham, author of Estrangement Healing for Mothers and Daughters. Jodi shares her personal journey of mother-daughter estrangement and the deep generational patterns that influenced it. Through personal growth, responsibility, and emotional healing, she found a path to reconnection. We explore how family conflict often stems from unexamined patterns, the importance of differentiation, and the courage it takes to break free from unhealthy cycles.
Key Takeaways:
- How generational patterns contribute to family estrangement
- The role of differentiation in healing family relationships
- Why personal growth and taking responsibility are essential steps toward reconciliation
- How to navigate the pain of estrangement and find peace, even when relationships remain distant
- Practical tools for fostering safe, open communication between mothers and daughters
Resources & Links:
If you have a relationship with an adult child that is suffering, download this free guide:
5 Steps to Reconnect with Your Adult Child
You’ll begin healing the hurt you’re carrying, and your heart will feel lighter and more hopeful. You’ll begin taking a different road to building that precious relationship instead of walking on eggshells and riding the roller coaster of disconnection and frustration.
Click Here to Download the Guide
Jodi’s Website: Jodilaraecunningham.com
Link to Jodi’s Book: Estrangement: Healing for Mothers and Daughters
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If you found this episode helpful, please take a moment to rate and review the podcast! Your feedback helps others find the show and heal their family relationships.
Tina Gosney is the Family Conflict Coach. She works with parents who have families in conflict to help them become the grounded, confident leaders their family needs.
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Tina is certified in family relationships and a trauma informed coach.
Visit tinagosney.com for more information on coaching services.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Tina,welcome to the podcast today.
(00:05):
I'm Tina Gosney, a familyconflict coach, and this is
where we talk about messy familytopics and how to work through
them. Today's topic is a prettymessy one, because it's about
estrangement, estrangement withmothers and daughters, and I
have a guest Jodi LeRaeCunningham. She's the author of
estrangement healing for mothersand daughters. She's a really
(00:29):
great story. And if you've beenlistening to the last few
episodes about when I'm talkingabout how families handle
stress, and if you have you'llnotice some of those same
patterns that I've talked aboutin Jodi's experience in her
story. Before we get into that,though, I want to remind you
there's a free download for youfive steps to begin healing the
(00:51):
relationship with your adultchild. So especially if you are
experiencing something likeJodi, where you have some
estrangement going on in yourfamily, or you see this might
happen down the road, then youneed this training. Also, Jodi
talks about how it just kind ofcame out of nowhere for her. She
did not think that that waswhere she was going to end up,
(01:13):
and she was surprised when shedid. So if that is also you, you
have no plans for beingestranged for your children in
the future. You might want to godownload this, this pdf
training, just to start gettingsome perspective, because you
never know what will happen inthe future.
(01:34):
The training is not long, butit's going to steer you in a
helpful direction. It's going tohelp you to open up your mind
and your perspective to somethings that you haven't thought
about before. Now here are someof the things that you're going
to hear in this episode, thatfamilies handle stress and
anxiety in predictable ways, andone thing that's very
(01:55):
interesting is the generationalpattern of estrangement in
Jody's family between mothersand daughters. She tells how
this happened for severalgenerations in a row, and
families will repeat patterns.
This is such a good example ofthis, you're also going to hear
how Jodi put herself into someuncomfortable situations, and
how she did not shy away fromthose. She took responsibility
(02:18):
for her part, and she didn't tryto blame or put responsibility,
all that responsibility on herchildren, and she looked for
answers when she didn't havesomeone else's example to
follow. Now, when we aredeveloping differentiation,
these are vital skills that needto be developed. We need to be
uncomfortable for the sake ofour growth, for the sake of our
(02:40):
own personal growth, and thegrowth of their relationship, it
requires uncomfortableness, andwe need to take responsibility
for ourselves, not putting thaton someone else. Your brain
loves to look at other peopleand say, there's something wrong
with them. They need to change.
They've got to work on that.
What it doesn't want to do andit will actually resist doing,
(03:03):
is to look inward and say, Hey,what have I done? Or what am I
doing right now that hascontributed to this situation.
Your brain keeps that from youon purpose, another thing that
we need to do when developingdifferentiation is moving
forward even when we're not surewe're doing the right thing. Now
(03:25):
our brain will resist this. Itwill want to know that you have
all the answers, that you havethe exact map between A to Z,
and you can't know that. Itdoesn't want to put in the
effort until it knows these arethe exact things I'm going to
do, and this is the result thatI'm going to get. But this is
just a lie that our brain tellsus so that we can avoid doing
(03:48):
difficult things and avoidpossible failure, especially
when the stakes seem so high,when we fail and make mistakes
on our way to where we want tobe. That is how we learn. We
have to take a step forwardfirst see if it worked. If it
did, we take another stepforward if it didn't, and we
(04:08):
made a wrong step, we made amistake. We learn from it. We
make mistakes. That is a humanthing. We can apologize, we can
work to repair when thathappens, and then we can
continue to move forward. I hopeyou get so much valuable
information from thisconversation that we had. The
link to her book is in the shownotes, so go check it out. Okay,
(04:31):
I've got Jody Cunningham on thepodcast today. Really excited to
talk to her, because I've beenreading her book, and it's
really amazing. I'm gonna letJody, I'm gonna let you
introduce yourself and just tellthe listeners who you are, who
where, how you came to be, whereyou are, and just a little bit
(04:52):
about yourself so they can getto know you.
Great. Hello, everybody. I'mactually Jodi.
Cunningham. My middle name is L,A, R, A, E, you can actually
find my website. Jody, laraecunningham.com,
online, and we're actuallytalking about a book that came
out that I wrote earlier thisyear. It's called estrangement,
(05:15):
healing for mothers anddaughters. I have a 28 year old
daughter and a 31 year old son.
We were estranged for sevenyears, and during that time, I
actually went through a bigjourney of healing myself and
getting some other ideas, otherthan my own family, familiar
ideas on how to solve problems,and I put them down in this
book. So there's like eightchapters of very helpful tips
(05:37):
that will help even, you know,men with their dads with their
sons. But I specifically gearedthis towards my daughter and
towards mothers and daughters,because women have a special
bond, and as we learn how toreally love ourselves and love
with other people, we can getright with ourselves and right
with other people. So I justbasically started there. I was
(05:59):
married for 33 years, but I amsingle right now, and I've just,
you know, it's just interestingwhere life's taken me. I've
lived in 15 states. I've livedover in Europe. So I grew up in
Montana, so I've got a richbackground of meeting many, many
people. Inoticed in your book that you
(06:19):
said you were married to amilitary guy, so you moved a
lot?
Yeah, I was an officer wife inthe United States Navy for
nuclear power, and there was oneyear that we moved three times.
So I home educated our kidsthrough seventh and eighth
grade, because we were in sevendifferent states during that
(06:41):
time. And you know, it was thebest decision ever. I'm so glad
I did it, especially now thatthey're grown and gone. And, you
know, they have skills that Iwas able to help make sure they
have and and, you know, it was agood it was good, good momentum
for us,good. Well, we're talking about
estrangement today, and Iappreciate that introduction
that you can just let us knowthat this is a first hand
(07:03):
experience for you. And you alsomentioned in your book that you
it's not just your children thatyou're estranged from, but you
also went through something likethat with your mother too. Do
you mind sharing anything aboutthat?
Oh, sure, no problem. So it'sinteresting, because one of the
things I grew up realizing isthat, you know, my I saw my mom
(07:25):
estranged from her own momduring different times, they
would always kind of work thingsout. But my grandmother was
strong, like I am, as far asvery independent. My mom kind of
went along to get along, so shebut they still had some issues,
and then my grandmother's motherand her had issues, and it goes
back, actually, like fourgenerations. So I actually set
(07:48):
out to do life differently,because every single
estrangement between a motherand daughter, believe it or not,
the real iceberg was therelationship between the husband
and the wife, the iceberg andhow you related to your
children. And then, you know,the mucular family is just very
important. So I just, you know,start, I got married at 19, if
(08:09):
you can believe that. But I wasmarried 33 years. And, you know,
just created a world that Ithought was a safe, strong place
of forward momentum. But itturned out that some of the same
communication issues that mymother and her mother and her
mother before that had wererelevant in my own children with
(08:30):
me. And so I was like, Okay, Itry to do everything different.
I ended up in the same spot.
Yeah. How did you startidentifying some of those
issues? Because you were seeingwhat had happened generations
before you, but then it's it'sso much harder to see it when
(08:51):
it's you and your ownrelationship with your child.
How did you start recognizingsome of the things that you
needed to work on on your side?
Well, it was interesting,because estrangement with my
children was a big shock, sowhen they wanted to estrange, I
just thought it was like, we'dhave, we'd have family meetings,
and it was kind of fun, youknow, we would wear this, like,
(09:13):
goofy little shower cap and abig microphone, and everybody
would talk and say, Hey, thishappened. I don't like this.
Don't do this to me again, youknow, because I come from a big,
joking family and, you know,just different things that we
were all working on, and itseemed to go well. So when they
said, I've had enough with, youknow, the way my husband and I
were doing parenting and doingmarriage and doing family, I
(09:37):
remember going to my counselor,and the counselor said, you're
an estrangement, like I'm not anestrangement. Who are you
talking to? These kids are goingto work it out. But she was
right. I was an estrangement,and at that time, I had
experienced almost instantly,mothers either being on the side
of very, very morally superiorthinking they were did
(09:58):
everything right for theirchildren and. And their children
were ungrateful, but they alsoexperienced mothers that thought
the whole world was going tocrash. And I know that there was
a middle ground. So I think alot about middle ground, and
middle ground, to me, is like avirtue. And if you slide off to
one side, you're into a vice,and you slide off the other into
a vice. So for example, virtueof courage. Courage is a virtue,
(10:22):
but if you rush in, it's a vice,and if you cower, it's a vice.
And so just I knew I neededhelp, and so I started the
journey of trying to search foranswers, because I knew that I
did something wrong. I had itwrong, and I had to take
responsibility for my part. Andso I was bound and determined to
flip every single rock andfigure out what was going on.
(10:45):
I think that's such a virtue inyou that you're you weren't
willing to go to those extremes,to one side or the other, to,
you know, to go into the I dideverything right, and these
children are ungrateful, and tonot be willing to look at
yourself, but then also not tothe other side as well, but to
(11:05):
try to find that middle ground,right, and those outside
viewpoints, those those all ornothing, the black and white
thinking rarely will serve uswhen we get into this type of
situation, and we're trying todeal with real people that are
nuanced and have we all havemessy things that we're bringing
(11:28):
to the table and to try tounderstand each other. So like,
what a great thing that you didby saying, I'm not going to do
either of those. I'm going intothe middle, and I'm going to
find my own answers here.
I think wisdom is something thatI've always thought about. You
know, I was reading the Bible atfive years old, and wisdom is
(11:48):
something you ask God for, butyou don't have it. And so I
think by saying in the middle,was a wisdom that was from the
Divine. It wasn't from mewithin, but I knew I didn't want
like, you know, if my childrenwere not estranged. I would not
think those things about them,you know. I wouldn't think, Oh,
they're ungrateful. And Iwouldn't think like, oh, the
sky's gonna fall down. They'regonna die. So I knew that was
(12:10):
not the right way to go. I couldjust feel it. So I wasn't in
touch with my body enough toknow that those were fallacy
thoughts. We have a lot offallacy thoughts,
for sure, for sure, it's so muchmore difficult to go on the road
that you haven't seen traveledbefore, like you're the first
(12:31):
one traveling it. Did you haveany examples of anyone that had
traveled that road before you,or were you kind of shooting in
the dark?
I was really shooting in thedark. And, you know, I the
people that have written otherestrangement books, and without,
you know, pointing anybody out,I noticed they were on the side
of a vice, one way or the other.
And I thought, I can't live mylife in a stoic behavior, you
(12:53):
know, or a fear based behavior.
Or, you know, I deserve to beestranged because you weren't
good enough. How do you becomepeace at peace with other
people, even if they've donethings to you that really hurt
you? How do you how do youabsorb when they accuse you of
(13:14):
something that you didn't do, orif you have done it, say thank
you for telling me so I canovercome and I know that there's
a way through this. And sothat's why I was like, I gotta
get a good counselor. I actuallyfired two other counselors. To
fire I found my other ones,yeah, and then I got a master's
in theology, which is divine initself, like I didn't even plan
(13:36):
it. Got all my answers. Youknow, I was in church growing up
and in the military, uh, wewould go from church to church.
So I was helped and served inlike over 14 churches, and I
knew some there was questionsthat weren't answered, and
theology really helped me. Studyin Greek, study in Hebrew,
yeah, yeah, you mentioned thatthe mother daughter,
(14:00):
relationship is unique. Can youtell me some more about that?
What do you see that's uniqueabout that?
Right? So I think what's kind ofunique is a little bit in
culture. Because, you know, inculture, the the things that
women can do, have done, whatwe're limited to, depends on the
century that you're in, and weare in an interesting, you know,
(14:23):
century where we can actually,you know, I've been single now
for three years, and I'm doingso well like I would have never
even dreamed, like when I was19, to think that I could do so
well without, you know, ahusband and a family. And, you
know, I believe in husbands andfamily, but I believe in being
single and being significant,whether you're married or
(14:44):
whether you're single. But whenyou have a daughter, you kind of
expect her to think the way youdo even more. But when you have
a son, you're kind of like,well, hang in there, buddy. All
you bravado guys, you gotta runwith the bulls. You know, and
so, but with the daughters, it'salmost like for me. I know that
(15:04):
I experienced when my daughterresponded to certain things that
were different than me. Itreally set me back a little bit,
because, you know, we are womenand but then I had to readjust
that thinking too, that she'svery individual, even though we
are the same gender and we aremother and daughter, but we do
count on each other, and we gotto be careful not to my daughter
(15:25):
can't think of me as her source,and I can't think of her as my
source. And I think thoseblurred a lot, especially if
you're in a relationship withtheir father, and the Father is
maybe not a very good companion,or something's missing. Mothers
do rely on their children, and Iseen that over and over, so
that's a hard pill to swallow.
Yeah.
(15:48):
So some cultural things likethis next generation, which our
kids are about the same age,there's a big difference in
culture between how we wereraised and then what they're
experiencing right now, and thatcan be, I think, is what you're
talking about in just thecultural differences in the time
(16:08):
that you're raised and whatwomen are allowed and expected
to do. It's so much more openfor these young women than it
was for us when we were theirage, and they just have so many
more options, but to have thatbe such a difference between you
is is really difficult. Yeah.
(16:30):
Did it ever feel like you wantto have children so yeah,
did it ever feel like it was arejection of you for her
choosing something different,1,000%
and the reason why it felt likeit was rejecting, the rejection
of me that was a sign of a vice.
So I actually thought of her asmy source. Like, here's my
little mini me. We're gonna, youknow, conquer the world
(16:52):
together, but all of a sudden,she's conquering the world in a
different way than I am, but Ican't see the wisdom of it. But
then again, if you think aboutit, as a mom, I mean, I wouldn't
trust myself at 1516, 2021, so,you know, just, just seeing
that, but it's interesting. Ithink we talked about this
(17:13):
earlier, Tina, there were, like,a couple little girls that my
daughter had an issue with. TheLittle girls didn't have an
issue, but they ran themselvesinto a little bit of a little
bit of a problem. And so themoms had to work on it. And I
remember some of the moms werevery cruel, and I remember
standing in the way and saying,No, I know our daughters got
themselves in trouble, butyou're not going to talk this
(17:34):
way to my daughter. And so Istood in the, you know, in the
void. But now that I've gotten adivorce, those mothers have come
forward and said, You know what,my husband had multiple affairs
and a secret life, so no wondershe couldn't handle some of the
stuff, like all of them havesaid that and come back and and,
you know, my husband was doingsome of the same, very same
(17:57):
things, I just didn't know. Andso it's just amazing. When you
put God as their source, it'sokay to you know, realize maybe
who are going to do the wrongthing. You can be who you are,
whether they are or not, and youdon't need to rely on your
children. You could supportthem, but you have to pay
attention. And it's not easy,right? And what that sounds
(18:18):
like. It happened quite a whileago, then, when she was a
teenager, maybe, yeah,when she was a teenager. But
it's interesting, because all ofour her friends and my
girlfriends, we were all likeJesus chasers. We were in the
church, loving the Lord. I mean,two of my girlfriends, their
husbands were actually pastors,and they're divorced, and there
(18:39):
was a lot of adultery, and so Ijust look back on that, and I
think I It has so much more of aof an impact on our children,
you know, whether they find outor not, and I didn't know what
was going on. And the impact hasbeen very powerful. And
estrangement kind of was likethe camel that broke this, you
(19:00):
know, the straw that broke thecamel's back. And as this all
started getting revealed, allthese truths came out, and I'm
like, Oh, well, of course, noneof the stuff I worked did worked
out hindsight. Yes, there's justsome things we're going we're
going through stuff. Our kidsare going through stuff our
(19:20):
marriages are, and we don't findout until much later. And then
things start to make sense well.
And then what I really learnedis that, you know, God loves me
more than my marriage. God lovesme more than my mother, but
more. He loves me more than mymy house, my career, and so to
be okay with, you know, whateverspouse chooses to do and allow
(19:43):
them to go their own journey.
You know, wish them well, or youknow, even your children allow
them to go their own journey.
That is a huge courage. That's avirtuous courage that you want
to run into a vice,yeah, even if you gotta sit on
your hands, yeah. Stay in thestay in the
virtue. Do, yeah, well, andstaying
in the virtue of that, insteadof rushing in and trying to fix
(20:05):
it, that allows them to work outthe things that they need to and
you stay a steady source ofresource for them when they're
ready, instead of you forcingthat resource on them before
they're ready for it.
This is like a big awakening,allowing your child children to
have their own success and theirown failure, you know? So my my
(20:29):
parents were raised bydepression babies, and so I grew
up, I grew up with the echoesof, you better fix that, you
better take care of that, youbetter get that done. And so
that's what I did. I mean, it'sunbelievable all the things that
I did, you know, as a stay athome mom, as a housewife, you
know, all the ways that we dealtwith our real estate, I was a
(20:51):
volunteer with basketball, withchurch, like all kinds of stuff,
homeschooling. I mean, I'msurprised I didn't exhaust
myself into a heart attack,because I did everything, but
now stepping back and doing whatI want to do, which is, now I
cultivate my talents likewriting. I do ballroom dresses.
I'm making a high fashion dressright now. And I help authors,
(21:14):
you know, write books too, andgolf. And I'm just like, this is
fun. This feels good. I don'tfeel stressed. I feel like I'm
in the RESTful temple of theLord as I just cultivate my own
talents and wish others you knowto find their journey as
you've been able to make thatshift. How is that affected the
(21:34):
way that you approach yourrelationships with other people,
that especially your family? Oh,it's
very interesting, because I knowit's been very hard, because
there's certain family membersthat haven't gone through the
training that I've gone through.
And so there's things, there'sreal life that comes up. And,
you know, I believe that Godallows these things into our
life, for for him to say, I loveyou, and you need to look at me.
(21:55):
And so there's issues that Iknow that I can't serve, them, I
can't help them. And to be ableto say, I'm sorry you're going
through this, but I know thatyou can figure it out when
you're ready, and until you wantto do it, you know, you might
not, I might not be able to bewith you until you kind of
figure that out, because youreally are hurting. It's kind of
(22:15):
like you need to go to thehospital and, you know, get some
medicine here. You know, yourmedicines to think about how
you're thinking and try to lovethe people in a bad situation.
Soas you've been able to move into
more authenticity in yourself,has Do you think that's become
easier for you to to give themspace, and to give yourself some
(22:36):
space away from them? 100%because one of the things that
really bothered me is what I wasmissing, like missing the great
Christmases together, missing,you know, missing like a
wedding, you know, not beinginvited to something. And it's
interesting how I've beenallowed to really rest in the
fact that God has protected me.
(22:58):
So I think a lot aboutestrangement as a as a mother
Swan puts her wings over herbabies in the storm, and even
Jesus put his arms out for us inthe storm of death so we can
rise again. And I think a lotabout that, and I think, well,
maybe I'm in the swan's wings tobe protected because there's a
storm coming. And it's veryfascinating, because I wouldn't
(23:19):
you know, I didn't know thiswhen I talked to you last time,
but I actually have a cousinthat started talking to me after
53 years, and like I thought shedidn't invite me to her wedding,
and she thought she didn'tinvite me, you know, she didn't
invite me to hers, like viceversa, come to find out, you
know, some of the family memberstook away Our invitations and
(23:41):
acted like we didn't want tocome. Oh,
and she found them interesting.
I'm like, What is this decadelater,
so we're having a very beautifultime with restoration and but
you don't know, like, ifsomebody doesn't invite you,
some somewhere who's in chargeof the invitation, you might
(24:02):
want to ask, but then you hideand you don't want to ask. You
don't want to say you don't wantme to come to your wedding. I
mean, I won't, but if you didn'tmean to give me an invitation, I
won't come. And they might be Iwanted to send you invitation.
Yeah, turns out somebody elsedidn't want you there,
right? And we don't usuallyfollow up with those kind of
questions.
Oh, no. There any any questionthat's that's difficult. So I do
(24:24):
a lot of like this might hurtyou, but I got a question, you
know, or I just let it go,because I know God, in the end
of the at the end of the day, isgoing to work it out, yeah?
Well, I know you said you hadyou noticed that your family
tradition of estrangement camefrom difficulty in the partner,
the marriage relationship. Arethere other ways that you've
(24:47):
seen mother, daughter, thembecome estranged? Besides that,
what are some of the common waysthat you see that happen?
Well, in the book, I talk a lotabout like a kingdom, like, if
you start processing, like, howyou think. Like your personal
kingdom, your cultural kingdom,and then even think about the
evil kingdom, you know, thesinister but then God's Kingdom
(25:07):
is over. So if your child isgoing to like junior high, we're
so influenced by our peers,right? And so that kingdom of
your peers can often trump yourfamily. So when you really start
thinking like, why am I making adecision to do this? Is it
because of my my peers, or in mypersonal kingdom? Do I really
(25:28):
want to do that? You know, Ithink it's funny. I grew up in
the 70s and in junior high, andus girls were crop tops, and our
parents did not want us to wearcrop tops. That was a cultural
thing. Then I thought, in mypersonal world, I didn't want to
wear a crop top, but I did wearone. So you grow and you
(25:49):
realize, well, my personal do Ireally want to do this, you
know? And then cultural so thosethe culture around your child.
You don't know what they'redealing with, and you definitely
don't know what your mother'sdealing with, that, that's for
sure. And if you have, like, abig argument, you have an
estrangement, there'll bethere'll be things that people
say that are triggers that needto come out for you to face it.
(26:13):
So a lot of issues that we'renot even it sounds like we're
kind of missing each other.
We're not seeing the culturalissues that maybe our daughter
or a mother is dealing with, butthen and just not, not even,
sometimes even knowing the rightquestions to ask to bring those
to light. Mm,hmm, right, right. And being a
space, safe place for your childto be able to say, you know,
(26:38):
Hey, Mom, I want to tell yousomething that I found out about
a friend, you know, or I foundout about Dad, you know, that's
hard because, you know, we werealigned. My husband and I
thought we're very aligned. Welook very aligned. But there
were things that my child knewthat I didn't know, and she
couldn't tell me. So, you know,just being able to say, you
(26:59):
know, Hey, I saw this. And beingable to tell your mom and and be
able to have her be a safeplace, and it makes it
difficult, because sometimes yougot to deal with those things,
and your child doesn't want towant you to deal with them, but
at least if you can deal withthem as best as you can and walk
that journey. But it's hard tobe, you know, in a relationship
with someone else. It's hard tohave children, but to be able to
(27:21):
realize that sometimes you haveto do hard things together, but
yet your child is brave enough,they have the tools they need to
and trust your child. It's goingto be your success. What do you
want to do?
Yeah, and I love this thatyou're talking about being a
safe place, because I think thatthere's not a lot that can
(27:43):
happen in a true connectedrelationship without having that
safe space. What are some of theways that you have created that?
So it's interesting, because oneof the things we talked about in
the book is we talked aboutcommunication goals, and
communication goals. Actually, Igot it from Audrey and Bob
Meisner from love marriedlife.com, and basically, through
(28:05):
all of their their counseling,they've noticed that every
person either likes to feelliked first. They like to feel
safe, they like to feel control,or they like to feel right. For
example, control might besomebody that wants to have all
the tasks done of the day, youknow, in organized time. But
then maybe somebody might like,like being liked, you know, or
(28:27):
or safe. So like, if you have achild that wants to feel safe,
the last thing they want to dois wake up to a morning routine
of the trumpet blaring. Let'sget everything done, right? So
if you know what your childlikes, that's a good that's a
good way to communicate and say,like, Hey, I know you want to
take the morning and rest, butwhen you're ready, here's a list
(28:50):
of the things that I need tohave done. You know, instead of
like, going your own way, I liketo be in control. We're going to
organize the day and up to itwithout any care of the other
person, because we all have animprint of who we are, and if
you take the time to learn, andyou know, it's interesting, when
I went through that test aboutwhat I was, I was actually had
(29:11):
no idea that I was living in anopposite way, because I was
mirroring what my husband liked.
But when I did things that Iliked, like I like to feel liked
and safe when I did that,everything went smooth, but when
I was controlled and being rightabout something, there was
chaos. And I couldn't even tellyou what my children's
communication goals were. That'show far off I was. Yeah, yeah,
(29:33):
you get so focused that you getfar off on what's important,
right? Andthis kind of sounds like what
you were talking about before,with just recognizing that that
child, that daughter that youhave, is not just a little mini
version of you, and assumingthat they have the same
communication goals and needsthat you have, but being open
(29:54):
enough to say this is a separateperson. Let me. Look and be
curious about what might beimportant to them, and maybe ask
them questions and just bereally observant. Maybe they
don't even know at a young agewhat's important to them, but by
observing, we can be we canlearn a lot. Well,
(30:15):
it's interesting because Ireally kind of detail this in
the in the chapter, and I alsohave a video on the school s, k,
o, l, about this. If there's abig family problem and you have
one parent that likes to beliked and one child that likes
to be liked that problem, thosetwo are going to work right
through it. No big deal. But ifyou have a big problem and you
(30:35):
like to be in control, and thenyou have a child that wants to
be liked, there's going to thatis so far apart, there's going
to be a big clash. It's almosttextbook. It is. It is so real.
So when you could think, okay,so here's a problem. And in the
book, I talk about like, youhave a family gathering, and a
family member comes that maybeneeds some therapy the child.
(30:59):
And you know, maybe the child incontrol is like, I'm going to
tell my uncle what to do and heneeds to get into therapy. But
the mom might be liked and say,Hey, let's not talk about it
till later. Then the two arelike, you don't care about my
uncle. And then the mom will belike, You wrecked everything
again. See how that crashhappens. So just understanding
(31:19):
that kind of gives us, like alike a boundary. So I play a lot
of golf, and the white stakesare, are in bounds. And so what
are your white stakes like,knowing what the inbound game
is, understanding the player, sothat you can play your best all
the way through. It's a littlebit like that in a parallel
(31:40):
universe somewhere? Yeah,I really liked that chapter. I
thought that was reallyinformative and and just so
helpful to look at it from thatperspective.
It really, it really is, yeah,yeah.
So once, let's just say, once weget estranged, right? What are
some of the roadblocks, thestruggles to finding that
(32:03):
reconnection, to coming backtogether again. Well,
you know, they they have to theother person you're estranged
with. They're going to have todo their own part. And so that's
why the front of the book hasgot two bridges where the
bridges are exactly equal, andthere's a mother and daughter in
every each side. They have tohave a secure bridge. So if you
can work on yourself, you'regoing to be so much better.
(32:25):
Because, let's say your mom ordaughter do come back, but yet
they're, they're, maybe they'redealing with stuff that's really
hard. You know, we have a lot ofvery difficult things in the
world that have affected ourmothers and our daughters. So if
you can, you can work onyourself. You know, challenge
every thought you have, and juststart being a safe place for
yourself. It's going to be hard.
You're going to go throughgrief, and grief hurts bad, but
(32:48):
you will get to a place ofpeace. And I'm almost as a place
now that it's been like, youknow, my daughter came back
after seven years. I haven'ttalked to my son yet, but he's
doing a very important job forthe military. So I'm not sure
when that'll happen, but Inoticed that I have so much joy,
even though I don't have my kidswith me, 24/7 and I had my kids
(33:09):
with me, 24/7 for they were 21and like 23 I was like the mom
in it, in it, to win it, but Ilost it, yeah,
yeah. I like how you said eachperson needs to do their own
work, because so often, when youget in those types of
(33:30):
situations, so easy and andnatural, I think for most people
to point the finger at the otherperson and say, you need some
help. You need when you fixyourself, then I'll come back
without, you know, pointing afinger at yourself and saying,
what, how have I contributed?
What work do I need to do? Howcan I learn and grow through
(33:50):
this situation that is a muchharder ask to do, a much harder
road to travel than to justrequire somebody else be
different. So I love that yousaid, everybody has their own
work to do. Well,you can't see what your mom went
through, really. You know. Youonly know your mom based on your
own age. You don't know whatshe's gone through. And then
(34:11):
also, you don't really know whatyour daughter is thinking too.
And so giving that space tolike, maybe I don't know all the
answers here, and maybe I'm sostuck in my own head that I've
judged everything that I need tokind of let them find their way.
And the other thing is thatpeople have to find their way.
You know, when everybody's gotto swim in the water on their
(34:33):
own, you can't swim forsomebody. And so they might
really struggle for a long time.
And it's not easy, because I'mthe kind of person that
understands the joy and theexcitement and the fun that can
be hot, that's that's who I am.
I would love to have rainbowpuppy dog, you know, puppy dogs
and rainbows all the time. But Ihad to learn to accept that,
that, you know, people aren'tgoing to jump up and be like me.
(34:55):
I got to give them space to. To,you know, just be who they are,
even if they're not like me, andthat's rough. Yeah, because, you
know, when people are hurting,it's a lot like a dog that gets
hit by a car if you go to helpthem to chew your arm off. You
know, you have to let you knoweither the professionals take
care of them, or just, you know,because it it is hard and it's
(35:17):
painful, because you want yourmom in your life. You want your
children in your life, but atthe same time, they're dealing
with something that is hurtingthem, and you you don't want to
be taken under the undertow withthem.
Yeah. And, and let me give youthis idea. And I really believe
that, just like you said, when adog gets hit by a car, you try
(35:41):
to help it, it's going to chewyour arm off, right? So when we
are hurt by someone, it feelslike an open wound, and there's
probably open wounds on bothsides, and when you continue to
be around them, you just keep,like, pushing on that wound,
right? And it doesn't have timeto heal, and it just keeps
(36:03):
getting reopened over and overagain, the more you're with the
other person. And I reallybelieve that just a I don't want
to call it estrangement, I wantto say like a timeout from each
other, and do a lot of healingwhen you're both taking a time
(36:24):
out, and at least on your end,you are purposely taking that to
do some healing and to to figureout some things without having
those buttons pushed all thetime. Yeah, that that can be a
really helpful and a reallyhealing thing to do. What are
you right? Yeah, 100%so now that my daughter is back,
(36:45):
she has been working very hardon herself, too, and the things
that we share are amazing. Soit's almost like when you clear
all the yuck out of your life,you and your mom could do
anything together. You know,once you realize your vision
side by side, and you're allboth doing your own part. It's
worth it, even though it's veryhard. In the book, I also talk
about your emotions that aretrapped. And there's a great
(37:08):
book called The Body Keeps theScore, and it talks a lot about
this. And it's interesting howcertain emotions linger within a
child or within you. And I usedto think that I was never going
to do anything that would makemy child feel a feeling that I
didn't like. Well, I had noidea. The only way to really get
(37:29):
your child to not feel thatemotion that's trapped in you,
you have to heal from it. Youknow, you know, for example,
it's interesting. The worddiscarded is an emotion, and I
felt discarded over a lot ofdifferent things just based on
my family journey. And so I dideverything to help my children
never ever feel that way, but mychildren felt that way. And then
(37:50):
when I talked to my mom, she waslike, I never discarded you. I
felt discarded. And I'm like,Wow, this emotion is true, and
that kind of science came out inthe 1990s and also there's this
ace test. It's called ACE traumatest, and it came out in the
1990s anything that your childexperiences, even if it's in
(38:11):
your utero, and emotion that'sgoing to stick in their body
until they can heal from it. AndI never realized it until I went
through estrangement, and Iactually was like, What is wrong
with me? Why is I'm doingeverything? I'm hitting every
single goal in life, but I'mbored, not getting much out of
it. And then my kids gotestranged, and I realized I I
(38:33):
need to heal all those spots,and that's kind of cool, yeah,
now that you're on the otherside, it hurts to get through
it. Oh, for sure, but I'm gonnado it. I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna do the hard work,because
I know what's on the otherside. And I think that you just
highlighted something, thatestrangement is painful,
especially when you're in themiddle of it and you're not
(38:56):
understanding why it can besuper painful, and working
through that pain is very, verydifficult. What do you think is
one, like, maybe one or two mainthings that people get wrong
when that happens? How are theynot thinking in a helpful way
for themselves?
(39:17):
Well, it is hard because, like,I know that I actually,
thankfully, I had money to goand pay for a counselor, because
I went to some counselorsthrough my universe, through,
like, the medical and I didn'tlike them, but I found these
other counselors, so I had topay that with my own money. And
then also, you know, theuniversity. But if you can find
people you're around, pick upthis book, you know, look
(39:39):
through that book, there'svideos, and then also find
people that want you to stay onthe path that is the path that
holds you to your value, holdsyou to your virtue. For me, I
found that with church, peoplethat really do believe in
Christ, that really do followChrist. And so, you know, my
counselors are Christian, thepeople that have given me.
(40:00):
Wisdom, and I will seek wisdomon certain things 100% because I
know if I go my own way, I'm notsure that I can see everything.
And now I give those friendsthat I trust, I give them the
free reign to say, hey, Jodi,you're being dumb. You're right.
I must be being dumb. So, youknow, be humble enough to
(40:20):
listen, then maybe you're notquite on the right path, because
you're going to find out you'reon the wrong path, and if you
find out you're on the wrongpath, well then be glad you
found out. Start fresh. There'snothing wrong with being wrong.
There's nothing wrong withfailing. Professional athletes,
they're they're so good atfailing, and if they would give
(40:40):
up when they fail, they wouldnever be able to compete. That's
such a good thing to remember,because we expect it in
something like, you know, sportsor a musical instrument or
something like that. But inlife, it's just as it's not as
acceptable it feels like tofail, or in our family
relationships like that, no,no. And the human relationship
(41:02):
is so interesting because we dokind of, we do slide into as
thinking somebody is our source,or somebody's supposed to behave
a certain way. But when you juststep back and how am I going to
respond, and what am I going todo? And my source is, God, it's
not somebody else, but itdoes hurt when somebody messes
(41:22):
up, but then you gotta like, allright, maybe they messed up
because I chose to believe themand you know it wasn't right, or
maybe I made the way easy forthem. So just take a step back.
We're all human. We all makemistakes.
That's such a good perspective.
Well, this has been awesometalking to you, and we're going
to put a link in the show notesfor how they can find your book.
(41:44):
But I have one question for you.
Okay, last question, if youcould go back and tell young
Jody something, what would youtell her?
Listen to the Holy Spirit.
Listen to Scripture, even whenit comes to what the Church
tells you, because every churchthroughout time has got
different ideas and differentdoctrines. Doctrines are great,
(42:05):
but the Holy Spirit is dead on,and so is scripture. And be
careful not to think thatbecause you have a marriage or
because you have children,you're just totally safe. No,
keep your eyes open and trustthe momentum, even if you go
through something, God has gotyou, he's there. This is his
life through you. Give him thatchance to just, you know, be
(42:26):
all, all things through you.
That's beautiful. Thank you. Ifpeople want to find you later, I
think you gave you gave me alink to your website. Is that
correct?
That's right. Okay, me there.
Okay, we'll put a link to thatin the show notes. Thank you so
much for being here with ustoday. We really appreciate you
and your book. Nice meeting you.
Thank you. Bye, bye. You.
Tina,welcome to the podcast today.
(00:05):
I'm Tina Gosney, a familyconflict coach, and this is
where we talk about messy familytopics and how to work through
them. Today's topic is a prettymessy one, because it's about
estrangement, estrangement withmothers and daughters, and I
have a guest Jodi LeRaeCunningham. She's the author of
estrangement healing for mothersand daughters. She's a really
(00:29):
great story. And if you've beenlistening to the last few
episodes about when I'm talkingabout how families handle
stress, and if you have you'llnotice some of those same
patterns that I've talked aboutin Jodi's experience in her
story. Before we get into that,though, I want to remind you
there's a free download for youfive steps to begin healing the
(00:51):
relationship with your adultchild. So especially if you are
experiencing something likeJodi, where you have some
estrangement going on in yourfamily, or you see this might
happen down the road, then youneed this training. Also, Jodi
talks about how it just kind ofcame out of nowhere for her. She
did not think that that waswhere she was going to end up,
(01:13):
and she was surprised when shedid. So if that is also you, you
have no plans for beingestranged for your children in
the future. You might want to godownload this, this pdf
training, just to start gettingsome perspective, because you
never know what will happen inthe future.
(01:34):
The training is not long, butit's going to steer you in a
helpful direction. It's going tohelp you to open up your mind
and your perspective to somethings that you haven't thought
about before. Now here are someof the things that you're going
to hear in this episode, thatfamilies handle stress and
anxiety in predictable ways, andone thing that's very
(01:55):
interesting is the generationalpattern of estrangement in
Jody's family between mothersand daughters. She tells how
this happened for severalgenerations in a row, and
families will repeat patterns.
This is such a good example ofthis, you're also going to hear
how Jodi put herself into someuncomfortable situations, and
how she did not shy away fromthose. She took responsibility
(02:18):
for her part, and she didn't tryto blame or put responsibility,
all that responsibility on herchildren, and she looked for
answers when she didn't havesomeone else's example to
follow. Now, when we aredeveloping differentiation,
these are vital skills that needto be developed. We need to be
uncomfortable for the sake ofour growth, for the sake of our
(02:40):
own personal growth, and thegrowth of their relationship, it
requires uncomfortableness, andwe need to take responsibility
for ourselves, not putting thaton someone else. Your brain
loves to look at other peopleand say, there's something wrong
with them. They need to change.
They've got to work on that.
What it doesn't want to do andit will actually resist doing,
(03:03):
is to look inward and say, Hey,what have I done? Or what am I
doing right now that hascontributed to this situation.
Your brain keeps that from youon purpose, another thing that
we need to do when developingdifferentiation is moving
forward even when we're not surewe're doing the right thing. Now
(03:25):
our brain will resist this. Itwill want to know that you have
all the answers, that you havethe exact map between A to Z,
and you can't know that. Itdoesn't want to put in the
effort until it knows these arethe exact things I'm going to
do, and this is the result thatI'm going to get. But this is
just a lie that our brain tellsus so that we can avoid doing
(03:48):
difficult things and avoidpossible failure, especially
when the stakes seem so high,when we fail and make mistakes
on our way to where we want tobe. That is how we learn. We
have to take a step forwardfirst see if it worked. If it
did, we take another stepforward if it didn't, and we
(04:08):
made a wrong step, we made amistake. We learn from it. We
make mistakes. That is a humanthing. We can apologize, we can
work to repair when thathappens, and then we can
continue to move forward. I hopeyou get so much valuable
information from thisconversation that we had. The
link to her book is in the shownotes, so go check it out. Okay,
(04:31):
I've got Jody Cunningham on thepodcast today. Really excited to
talk to her, because I've beenreading her book, and it's
really amazing. I'm gonna letJody, I'm gonna let you
introduce yourself and just tellthe listeners who you are, who
where, how you came to be, whereyou are, and just a little bit
(04:52):
about yourself so they can getto know you.
Great. Hello, everybody. I'mactually Jodi.
Cunningham. My middle name is L,A, R, A, E, you can actually
find my website. Jody, laraecunningham.com,
online, and we're actuallytalking about a book that came
out that I wrote earlier thisyear. It's called estrangement,
(05:15):
healing for mothers anddaughters. I have a 28 year old
daughter and a 31 year old son.
We were estranged for sevenyears, and during that time, I
actually went through a bigjourney of healing myself and
getting some other ideas, otherthan my own family, familiar
ideas on how to solve problems,and I put them down in this
book. So there's like eightchapters of very helpful tips
(05:37):
that will help even, you know,men with their dads with their
sons. But I specifically gearedthis towards my daughter and
towards mothers and daughters,because women have a special
bond, and as we learn how toreally love ourselves and love
with other people, we can getright with ourselves and right
with other people. So I justbasically started there. I was
(05:59):
married for 33 years, but I amsingle right now, and I've just,
you know, it's just interestingwhere life's taken me. I've
lived in 15 states. I've livedover in Europe. So I grew up in
Montana, so I've got a richbackground of meeting many, many
people. Inoticed in your book that you
(06:19):
said you were married to amilitary guy, so you moved a
lot?
Yeah, I was an officer wife inthe United States Navy for
nuclear power, and there was oneyear that we moved three times.
So I home educated our kidsthrough seventh and eighth
grade, because we were in sevendifferent states during that
(06:41):
time. And you know, it was thebest decision ever. I'm so glad
I did it, especially now thatthey're grown and gone. And, you
know, they have skills that Iwas able to help make sure they
have and and, you know, it was agood it was good, good momentum
for us,good. Well, we're talking about
estrangement today, and Iappreciate that introduction
that you can just let us knowthat this is a first hand
(07:03):
experience for you. And you alsomentioned in your book that you
it's not just your children thatyou're estranged from, but you
also went through something likethat with your mother too. Do
you mind sharing anything aboutthat?
Oh, sure, no problem. So it'sinteresting, because one of the
things I grew up realizing isthat, you know, my I saw my mom
(07:25):
estranged from her own momduring different times, they
would always kind of work thingsout. But my grandmother was
strong, like I am, as far asvery independent. My mom kind of
went along to get along, so shebut they still had some issues,
and then my grandmother's motherand her had issues, and it goes
back, actually, like fourgenerations. So I actually set
(07:48):
out to do life differently,because every single
estrangement between a motherand daughter, believe it or not,
the real iceberg was therelationship between the husband
and the wife, the iceberg andhow you related to your
children. And then, you know,the mucular family is just very
important. So I just, you know,start, I got married at 19, if
(08:09):
you can believe that. But I wasmarried 33 years. And, you know,
just created a world that Ithought was a safe, strong place
of forward momentum. But itturned out that some of the same
communication issues that mymother and her mother and her
mother before that had wererelevant in my own children with
(08:30):
me. And so I was like, Okay, Itry to do everything different.
I ended up in the same spot.
Yeah. How did you startidentifying some of those
issues? Because you were seeingwhat had happened generations
before you, but then it's it'sso much harder to see it when
(08:51):
it's you and your ownrelationship with your child.
How did you start recognizingsome of the things that you
needed to work on on your side?
Well, it was interesting,because estrangement with my
children was a big shock, sowhen they wanted to estrange, I
just thought it was like, we'dhave, we'd have family meetings,
and it was kind of fun, youknow, we would wear this, like,
(09:13):
goofy little shower cap and abig microphone, and everybody
would talk and say, Hey, thishappened. I don't like this.
Don't do this to me again, youknow, because I come from a big,
joking family and, you know,just different things that we
were all working on, and itseemed to go well. So when they
said, I've had enough with, youknow, the way my husband and I
were doing parenting and doingmarriage and doing family, I
(09:37):
remember going to my counselor,and the counselor said, you're
an estrangement, like I'm not anestrangement. Who are you
talking to? These kids are goingto work it out. But she was
right. I was an estrangement,and at that time, I had
experienced almost instantly,mothers either being on the side
of very, very morally superiorthinking they were did
(09:58):
everything right for theirchildren and. And their children
were ungrateful, but they alsoexperienced mothers that thought
the whole world was going tocrash. And I know that there was
a middle ground. So I think alot about middle ground, and
middle ground, to me, is like avirtue. And if you slide off to
one side, you're into a vice,and you slide off the other into
a vice. So for example, virtueof courage. Courage is a virtue,
(10:22):
but if you rush in, it's a vice,and if you cower, it's a vice.
And so just I knew I neededhelp, and so I started the
journey of trying to search foranswers, because I knew that I
did something wrong. I had itwrong, and I had to take
responsibility for my part. Andso I was bound and determined to
flip every single rock andfigure out what was going on.
(10:45):
I think that's such a virtue inyou that you're you weren't
willing to go to those extremes,to one side or the other, to,
you know, to go into the I dideverything right, and these
children are ungrateful, and tonot be willing to look at
yourself, but then also not tothe other side as well, but to
(11:05):
try to find that middle ground,right, and those outside
viewpoints, those those all ornothing, the black and white
thinking rarely will serve uswhen we get into this type of
situation, and we're trying todeal with real people that are
nuanced and have we all havemessy things that we're bringing
(11:28):
to the table and to try tounderstand each other. So like,
what a great thing that you didby saying, I'm not going to do
either of those. I'm going intothe middle, and I'm going to
find my own answers here.
I think wisdom is something thatI've always thought about. You
know, I was reading the Bible atfive years old, and wisdom is
(11:48):
something you ask God for, butyou don't have it. And so I
think by saying in the middle,was a wisdom that was from the
Divine. It wasn't from mewithin, but I knew I didn't want
like, you know, if my childrenwere not estranged. I would not
think those things about them,you know. I wouldn't think, Oh,
they're ungrateful. And Iwouldn't think like, oh, the
sky's gonna fall down. They'regonna die. So I knew that was
(12:10):
not the right way to go. I couldjust feel it. So I wasn't in
touch with my body enough toknow that those were fallacy
thoughts. We have a lot offallacy thoughts,
for sure, for sure, it's so muchmore difficult to go on the road
that you haven't seen traveledbefore, like you're the first
(12:31):
one traveling it. Did you haveany examples of anyone that had
traveled that road before you,or were you kind of shooting in
the dark?
I was really shooting in thedark. And, you know, I the
people that have written otherestrangement books, and without,
you know, pointing anybody out,I noticed they were on the side
of a vice, one way or the other.
And I thought, I can't live mylife in a stoic behavior, you
(12:53):
know, or a fear based behavior.
Or, you know, I deserve to beestranged because you weren't
good enough. How do you becomepeace at peace with other
people, even if they've donethings to you that really hurt
you? How do you how do youabsorb when they accuse you of
(13:14):
something that you didn't do, orif you have done it, say thank
you for telling me so I canovercome and I know that there's
a way through this. And sothat's why I was like, I gotta
get a good counselor. I actuallyfired two other counselors. To
fire I found my other ones,yeah, and then I got a master's
in theology, which is divine initself, like I didn't even plan
(13:36):
it. Got all my answers. Youknow, I was in church growing up
and in the military, uh, wewould go from church to church.
So I was helped and served inlike over 14 churches, and I
knew some there was questionsthat weren't answered, and
theology really helped me. Studyin Greek, study in Hebrew,
yeah, yeah, you mentioned thatthe mother daughter,
(14:00):
relationship is unique. Can youtell me some more about that?
What do you see that's uniqueabout that?
Right? So I think what's kind ofunique is a little bit in
culture. Because, you know, inculture, the the things that
women can do, have done, whatwe're limited to, depends on the
century that you're in, and weare in an interesting, you know,
(14:23):
century where we can actually,you know, I've been single now
for three years, and I'm doingso well like I would have never
even dreamed, like when I was19, to think that I could do so
well without, you know, ahusband and a family. And, you
know, I believe in husbands andfamily, but I believe in being
single and being significant,whether you're married or
(14:44):
whether you're single. But whenyou have a daughter, you kind of
expect her to think the way youdo even more. But when you have
a son, you're kind of like,well, hang in there, buddy. All
you bravado guys, you gotta runwith the bulls. You know, and
so, but with the daughters, it'salmost like for me. I know that
(15:04):
I experienced when my daughterresponded to certain things that
were different than me. Itreally set me back a little bit,
because, you know, we are womenand but then I had to readjust
that thinking too, that she'svery individual, even though we
are the same gender and we aremother and daughter, but we do
count on each other, and we gotto be careful not to my daughter
(15:25):
can't think of me as her source,and I can't think of her as my
source. And I think thoseblurred a lot, especially if
you're in a relationship withtheir father, and the Father is
maybe not a very good companion,or something's missing. Mothers
do rely on their children, and Iseen that over and over, so
that's a hard pill to swallow.
Yeah.
(15:48):
So some cultural things likethis next generation, which our
kids are about the same age,there's a big difference in
culture between how we wereraised and then what they're
experiencing right now, and thatcan be, I think, is what you're
talking about in just thecultural differences in the time
(16:08):
that you're raised and whatwomen are allowed and expected
to do. It's so much more openfor these young women than it
was for us when we were theirage, and they just have so many
more options, but to have thatbe such a difference between you
is is really difficult. Yeah.
(16:30):
Did it ever feel like you wantto have children so yeah,
did it ever feel like it was arejection of you for her
choosing something different,1,000%
and the reason why it felt likeit was rejecting, the rejection
of me that was a sign of a vice.
So I actually thought of her asmy source. Like, here's my
little mini me. We're gonna, youknow, conquer the world
(16:52):
together, but all of a sudden,she's conquering the world in a
different way than I am, but Ican't see the wisdom of it. But
then again, if you think aboutit, as a mom, I mean, I wouldn't
trust myself at 1516, 2021, so,you know, just, just seeing
that, but it's interesting. Ithink we talked about this
(17:13):
earlier, Tina, there were, like,a couple little girls that my
daughter had an issue with. TheLittle girls didn't have an
issue, but they ran themselvesinto a little bit of a little
bit of a problem. And so themoms had to work on it. And I
remember some of the moms werevery cruel, and I remember
standing in the way and saying,No, I know our daughters got
themselves in trouble, butyou're not going to talk this
(17:34):
way to my daughter. And so Istood in the, you know, in the
void. But now that I've gotten adivorce, those mothers have come
forward and said, You know what,my husband had multiple affairs
and a secret life, so no wondershe couldn't handle some of the
stuff, like all of them havesaid that and come back and and,
you know, my husband was doingsome of the same, very same
(17:57):
things, I just didn't know. Andso it's just amazing. When you
put God as their source, it'sokay to you know, realize maybe
who are going to do the wrongthing. You can be who you are,
whether they are or not, and youdon't need to rely on your
children. You could supportthem, but you have to pay
attention. And it's not easy,right? And what that sounds
(18:18):
like. It happened quite a whileago, then, when she was a
teenager, maybe, yeah,when she was a teenager. But
it's interesting, because all ofour her friends and my
girlfriends, we were all likeJesus chasers. We were in the
church, loving the Lord. I mean,two of my girlfriends, their
husbands were actually pastors,and they're divorced, and there
(18:39):
was a lot of adultery, and so Ijust look back on that, and I
think I It has so much more of aof an impact on our children,
you know, whether they find outor not, and I didn't know what
was going on. And the impact hasbeen very powerful. And
estrangement kind of was likethe camel that broke this, you
(19:00):
know, the straw that broke thecamel's back. And as this all
started getting revealed, allthese truths came out, and I'm
like, Oh, well, of course, noneof the stuff I worked did worked
out hindsight. Yes, there's justsome things we're going we're
going through stuff. Our kidsare going through stuff our
(19:20):
marriages are, and we don't findout until much later. And then
things start to make sense well.
And then what I really learnedis that, you know, God loves me
more than my marriage. God lovesme more than my mother, but
more. He loves me more than mymy house, my career, and so to
be okay with, you know, whateverspouse chooses to do and allow
(19:43):
them to go their own journey.
You know, wish them well, or youknow, even your children allow
them to go their own journey.
That is a huge courage. That's avirtuous courage that you want
to run into a vice,yeah, even if you gotta sit on
your hands, yeah. Stay in thestay in the
virtue. Do, yeah, well, andstaying
in the virtue of that, insteadof rushing in and trying to fix
(20:05):
it, that allows them to work outthe things that they need to and
you stay a steady source ofresource for them when they're
ready, instead of you forcingthat resource on them before
they're ready for it.
This is like a big awakening,allowing your child children to
have their own success and theirown failure, you know? So my my
(20:29):
parents were raised bydepression babies, and so I grew
up, I grew up with the echoesof, you better fix that, you
better take care of that, youbetter get that done. And so
that's what I did. I mean, it'sunbelievable all the things that
I did, you know, as a stay athome mom, as a housewife, you
know, all the ways that we dealtwith our real estate, I was a
(20:51):
volunteer with basketball, withchurch, like all kinds of stuff,
homeschooling. I mean, I'msurprised I didn't exhaust
myself into a heart attack,because I did everything, but
now stepping back and doing whatI want to do, which is, now I
cultivate my talents likewriting. I do ballroom dresses.
I'm making a high fashion dressright now. And I help authors,
(21:14):
you know, write books too, andgolf. And I'm just like, this is
fun. This feels good. I don'tfeel stressed. I feel like I'm
in the RESTful temple of theLord as I just cultivate my own
talents and wish others you knowto find their journey as
you've been able to make thatshift. How is that affected the
(21:34):
way that you approach yourrelationships with other people,
that especially your family? Oh,it's
very interesting, because I knowit's been very hard, because
there's certain family membersthat haven't gone through the
training that I've gone through.
And so there's things, there'sreal life that comes up. And,
you know, I believe that Godallows these things into our
life, for for him to say, I loveyou, and you need to look at me.
(21:55):
And so there's issues that Iknow that I can't serve, them, I
can't help them. And to be ableto say, I'm sorry you're going
through this, but I know thatyou can figure it out when
you're ready, and until you wantto do it, you know, you might
not, I might not be able to bewith you until you kind of
figure that out, because youreally are hurting. It's kind of
(22:15):
like you need to go to thehospital and, you know, get some
medicine here. You know, yourmedicines to think about how
you're thinking and try to lovethe people in a bad situation.
Soas you've been able to move into
more authenticity in yourself,has Do you think that's become
easier for you to to give themspace, and to give yourself some
(22:36):
space away from them? 100%because one of the things that
really bothered me is what I wasmissing, like missing the great
Christmases together, missing,you know, missing like a
wedding, you know, not beinginvited to something. And it's
interesting how I've beenallowed to really rest in the
fact that God has protected me.
(22:58):
So I think a lot aboutestrangement as a as a mother
Swan puts her wings over herbabies in the storm, and even
Jesus put his arms out for us inthe storm of death so we can
rise again. And I think a lotabout that, and I think, well,
maybe I'm in the swan's wings tobe protected because there's a
storm coming. And it's veryfascinating, because I wouldn't
(23:19):
you know, I didn't know thiswhen I talked to you last time,
but I actually have a cousinthat started talking to me after
53 years, and like I thought shedidn't invite me to her wedding,
and she thought she didn'tinvite me, you know, she didn't
invite me to hers, like viceversa, come to find out, you
know, some of the family memberstook away Our invitations and
(23:41):
acted like we didn't want tocome. Oh,
and she found them interesting.
I'm like, What is this decadelater,
so we're having a very beautifultime with restoration and but
you don't know, like, ifsomebody doesn't invite you,
some somewhere who's in chargeof the invitation, you might
(24:02):
want to ask, but then you hideand you don't want to ask. You
don't want to say you don't wantme to come to your wedding. I
mean, I won't, but if you didn'tmean to give me an invitation, I
won't come. And they might be Iwanted to send you invitation.
Yeah, turns out somebody elsedidn't want you there,
right? And we don't usuallyfollow up with those kind of
questions.
Oh, no. There any any questionthat's that's difficult. So I do
(24:24):
a lot of like this might hurtyou, but I got a question, you
know, or I just let it go,because I know God, in the end
of the at the end of the day, isgoing to work it out, yeah?
Well, I know you said you hadyou noticed that your family
tradition of estrangement camefrom difficulty in the partner,
the marriage relationship. Arethere other ways that you've
(24:47):
seen mother, daughter, thembecome estranged? Besides that,
what are some of the common waysthat you see that happen?
Well, in the book, I talk a lotabout like a kingdom, like, if
you start processing, like, howyou think. Like your personal
kingdom, your cultural kingdom,and then even think about the
evil kingdom, you know, thesinister but then God's Kingdom
(25:07):
is over. So if your child isgoing to like junior high, we're
so influenced by our peers,right? And so that kingdom of
your peers can often trump yourfamily. So when you really start
thinking like, why am I making adecision to do this? Is it
because of my my peers, or in mypersonal kingdom? Do I really
(25:28):
want to do that? You know, Ithink it's funny. I grew up in
the 70s and in junior high, andus girls were crop tops, and our
parents did not want us to wearcrop tops. That was a cultural
thing. Then I thought, in mypersonal world, I didn't want to
wear a crop top, but I did wearone. So you grow and you
(25:49):
realize, well, my personal do Ireally want to do this, you
know? And then cultural so thosethe culture around your child.
You don't know what they'redealing with, and you definitely
don't know what your mother'sdealing with, that, that's for
sure. And if you have, like, abig argument, you have an
estrangement, there'll bethere'll be things that people
say that are triggers that needto come out for you to face it.
(26:13):
So a lot of issues that we'renot even it sounds like we're
kind of missing each other.
We're not seeing the culturalissues that maybe our daughter
or a mother is dealing with, butthen and just not, not even,
sometimes even knowing the rightquestions to ask to bring those
to light. Mm,hmm, right, right. And being a
space, safe place for your childto be able to say, you know,
(26:38):
Hey, Mom, I want to tell yousomething that I found out about
a friend, you know, or I foundout about Dad, you know, that's
hard because, you know, we werealigned. My husband and I
thought we're very aligned. Welook very aligned. But there
were things that my child knewthat I didn't know, and she
couldn't tell me. So, you know,just being able to say, you
(26:59):
know, Hey, I saw this. And beingable to tell your mom and and be
able to have her be a safeplace, and it makes it
difficult, because sometimes yougot to deal with those things,
and your child doesn't want towant you to deal with them, but
at least if you can deal withthem as best as you can and walk
that journey. But it's hard tobe, you know, in a relationship
with someone else. It's hard tohave children, but to be able to
(27:21):
realize that sometimes you haveto do hard things together, but
yet your child is brave enough,they have the tools they need to
and trust your child. It's goingto be your success. What do you
want to do?
Yeah, and I love this thatyou're talking about being a
safe place, because I think thatthere's not a lot that can
(27:43):
happen in a true connectedrelationship without having that
safe space. What are some of theways that you have created that?
So it's interesting, because oneof the things we talked about in
the book is we talked aboutcommunication goals, and
communication goals. Actually, Igot it from Audrey and Bob
Meisner from love marriedlife.com, and basically, through
(28:05):
all of their their counseling,they've noticed that every
person either likes to feelliked first. They like to feel
safe, they like to feel control,or they like to feel right. For
example, control might besomebody that wants to have all
the tasks done of the day, youknow, in organized time. But
then maybe somebody might like,like being liked, you know, or
(28:27):
or safe. So like, if you have achild that wants to feel safe,
the last thing they want to dois wake up to a morning routine
of the trumpet blaring. Let'sget everything done, right? So
if you know what your childlikes, that's a good that's a
good way to communicate and say,like, Hey, I know you want to
take the morning and rest, butwhen you're ready, here's a list
(28:50):
of the things that I need tohave done. You know, instead of
like, going your own way, I liketo be in control. We're going to
organize the day and up to itwithout any care of the other
person, because we all have animprint of who we are, and if
you take the time to learn, andyou know, it's interesting, when
I went through that test aboutwhat I was, I was actually had
(29:11):
no idea that I was living in anopposite way, because I was
mirroring what my husband liked.
But when I did things that Iliked, like I like to feel liked
and safe when I did that,everything went smooth, but when
I was controlled and being rightabout something, there was
chaos. And I couldn't even tellyou what my children's
communication goals were. That'show far off I was. Yeah, yeah,
(29:33):
you get so focused that you getfar off on what's important,
right? Andthis kind of sounds like what
you were talking about before,with just recognizing that that
child, that daughter that youhave, is not just a little mini
version of you, and assumingthat they have the same
communication goals and needsthat you have, but being open
(29:54):
enough to say this is a separateperson. Let me. Look and be
curious about what might beimportant to them, and maybe ask
them questions and just bereally observant. Maybe they
don't even know at a young agewhat's important to them, but by
observing, we can be we canlearn a lot. Well,
(30:15):
it's interesting because Ireally kind of detail this in
the in the chapter, and I alsohave a video on the school s, k,
o, l, about this. If there's abig family problem and you have
one parent that likes to beliked and one child that likes
to be liked that problem, thosetwo are going to work right
through it. No big deal. But ifyou have a big problem and you
(30:35):
like to be in control, and thenyou have a child that wants to
be liked, there's going to thatis so far apart, there's going
to be a big clash. It's almosttextbook. It is. It is so real.
So when you could think, okay,so here's a problem. And in the
book, I talk about like, youhave a family gathering, and a
family member comes that maybeneeds some therapy the child.
(30:59):
And you know, maybe the child incontrol is like, I'm going to
tell my uncle what to do and heneeds to get into therapy. But
the mom might be liked and say,Hey, let's not talk about it
till later. Then the two arelike, you don't care about my
uncle. And then the mom will belike, You wrecked everything
again. See how that crashhappens. So just understanding
(31:19):
that kind of gives us, like alike a boundary. So I play a lot
of golf, and the white stakesare, are in bounds. And so what
are your white stakes like,knowing what the inbound game
is, understanding the player, sothat you can play your best all
the way through. It's a littlebit like that in a parallel
(31:40):
universe somewhere? Yeah,I really liked that chapter. I
thought that was reallyinformative and and just so
helpful to look at it from thatperspective.
It really, it really is, yeah,yeah.
So once, let's just say, once weget estranged, right? What are
some of the roadblocks, thestruggles to finding that
(32:03):
reconnection, to coming backtogether again. Well,
you know, they they have to theother person you're estranged
with. They're going to have todo their own part. And so that's
why the front of the book hasgot two bridges where the
bridges are exactly equal, andthere's a mother and daughter in
every each side. They have tohave a secure bridge. So if you
can work on yourself, you'regoing to be so much better.
(32:25):
Because, let's say your mom ordaughter do come back, but yet
they're, they're, maybe they'redealing with stuff that's really
hard. You know, we have a lot ofvery difficult things in the
world that have affected ourmothers and our daughters. So if
you can, you can work onyourself. You know, challenge
every thought you have, and juststart being a safe place for
yourself. It's going to be hard.
You're going to go throughgrief, and grief hurts bad, but
(32:48):
you will get to a place ofpeace. And I'm almost as a place
now that it's been like, youknow, my daughter came back
after seven years. I haven'ttalked to my son yet, but he's
doing a very important job forthe military. So I'm not sure
when that'll happen, but Inoticed that I have so much joy,
even though I don't have my kidswith me, 24/7 and I had my kids
(33:09):
with me, 24/7 for they were 21and like 23 I was like the mom
in it, in it, to win it, but Ilost it, yeah,
yeah. I like how you said eachperson needs to do their own
work, because so often, when youget in those types of
(33:30):
situations, so easy and andnatural, I think for most people
to point the finger at the otherperson and say, you need some
help. You need when you fixyourself, then I'll come back
without, you know, pointing afinger at yourself and saying,
what, how have I contributed?
What work do I need to do? Howcan I learn and grow through
(33:50):
this situation that is a muchharder ask to do, a much harder
road to travel than to justrequire somebody else be
different. So I love that yousaid, everybody has their own
work to do. Well,you can't see what your mom went
through, really. You know. Youonly know your mom based on your
own age. You don't know whatshe's gone through. And then
(34:11):
also, you don't really know whatyour daughter is thinking too.
And so giving that space tolike, maybe I don't know all the
answers here, and maybe I'm sostuck in my own head that I've
judged everything that I need tokind of let them find their way.
And the other thing is thatpeople have to find their way.
You know, when everybody's gotto swim in the water on their
(34:33):
own, you can't swim forsomebody. And so they might
really struggle for a long time.
And it's not easy, because I'mthe kind of person that
understands the joy and theexcitement and the fun that can
be hot, that's that's who I am.
I would love to have rainbowpuppy dog, you know, puppy dogs
and rainbows all the time. But Ihad to learn to accept that,
that, you know, people aren'tgoing to jump up and be like me.
(34:55):
I got to give them space to. To,you know, just be who they are,
even if they're not like me, andthat's rough. Yeah, because, you
know, when people are hurting,it's a lot like a dog that gets
hit by a car if you go to helpthem to chew your arm off. You
know, you have to let you knoweither the professionals take
care of them, or just, you know,because it it is hard and it's
(35:17):
painful, because you want yourmom in your life. You want your
children in your life, but atthe same time, they're dealing
with something that is hurtingthem, and you you don't want to
be taken under the undertow withthem.
Yeah. And, and let me give youthis idea. And I really believe
that, just like you said, when adog gets hit by a car, you try
(35:41):
to help it, it's going to chewyour arm off, right? So when we
are hurt by someone, it feelslike an open wound, and there's
probably open wounds on bothsides, and when you continue to
be around them, you just keep,like, pushing on that wound,
right? And it doesn't have timeto heal, and it just keeps
(36:03):
getting reopened over and overagain, the more you're with the
other person. And I reallybelieve that just a I don't want
to call it estrangement, I wantto say like a timeout from each
other, and do a lot of healingwhen you're both taking a time
(36:24):
out, and at least on your end,you are purposely taking that to
do some healing and to to figureout some things without having
those buttons pushed all thetime. Yeah, that that can be a
really helpful and a reallyhealing thing to do. What are
you right? Yeah, 100%so now that my daughter is back,
(36:45):
she has been working very hardon herself, too, and the things
that we share are amazing. Soit's almost like when you clear
all the yuck out of your life,you and your mom could do
anything together. You know,once you realize your vision
side by side, and you're allboth doing your own part. It's
worth it, even though it's veryhard. In the book, I also talk
about your emotions that aretrapped. And there's a great
(37:08):
book called The Body Keeps theScore, and it talks a lot about
this. And it's interesting howcertain emotions linger within a
child or within you. And I usedto think that I was never going
to do anything that would makemy child feel a feeling that I
didn't like. Well, I had noidea. The only way to really get
(37:29):
your child to not feel thatemotion that's trapped in you,
you have to heal from it. Youknow, you know, for example,
it's interesting. The worddiscarded is an emotion, and I
felt discarded over a lot ofdifferent things just based on
my family journey. And so I dideverything to help my children
never ever feel that way, but mychildren felt that way. And then
(37:50):
when I talked to my mom, she waslike, I never discarded you. I
felt discarded. And I'm like,Wow, this emotion is true, and
that kind of science came out inthe 1990s and also there's this
ace test. It's called ACE traumatest, and it came out in the
1990s anything that your childexperiences, even if it's in
(38:11):
your utero, and emotion that'sgoing to stick in their body
until they can heal from it. AndI never realized it until I went
through estrangement, and Iactually was like, What is wrong
with me? Why is I'm doingeverything? I'm hitting every
single goal in life, but I'mbored, not getting much out of
it. And then my kids gotestranged, and I realized I I
(38:33):
need to heal all those spots,and that's kind of cool, yeah,
now that you're on the otherside, it hurts to get through
it. Oh, for sure, but I'm gonnado it. I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna do the hard work,because
I know what's on the otherside. And I think that you just
highlighted something, thatestrangement is painful,
especially when you're in themiddle of it and you're not
(38:56):
understanding why it can besuper painful, and working
through that pain is very, verydifficult. What do you think is
one, like, maybe one or two mainthings that people get wrong
when that happens? How are theynot thinking in a helpful way
for themselves?
(39:17):
Well, it is hard because, like,I know that I actually,
thankfully, I had money to goand pay for a counselor, because
I went to some counselorsthrough my universe, through,
like, the medical and I didn'tlike them, but I found these
other counselors, so I had topay that with my own money. And
then also, you know, theuniversity. But if you can find
people you're around, pick upthis book, you know, look
(39:39):
through that book, there'svideos, and then also find
people that want you to stay onthe path that is the path that
holds you to your value, holdsyou to your virtue. For me, I
found that with church, peoplethat really do believe in
Christ, that really do followChrist. And so, you know, my
counselors are Christian, thepeople that have given me.
(40:00):
Wisdom, and I will seek wisdomon certain things 100% because I
know if I go my own way, I'm notsure that I can see everything.
And now I give those friendsthat I trust, I give them the
free reign to say, hey, Jodi,you're being dumb. You're right.
I must be being dumb. So, youknow, be humble enough to
(40:20):
listen, then maybe you're notquite on the right path, because
you're going to find out you'reon the wrong path, and if you
find out you're on the wrongpath, well then be glad you
found out. Start fresh. There'snothing wrong with being wrong.
There's nothing wrong withfailing. Professional athletes,
they're they're so good atfailing, and if they would give
(40:40):
up when they fail, they wouldnever be able to compete. That's
such a good thing to remember,because we expect it in
something like, you know, sportsor a musical instrument or
something like that. But inlife, it's just as it's not as
acceptable it feels like tofail, or in our family
relationships like that, no,no. And the human relationship
(41:02):
is so interesting because we dokind of, we do slide into as
thinking somebody is our source,or somebody's supposed to behave
a certain way. But when you juststep back and how am I going to
respond, and what am I going todo? And my source is, God, it's
not somebody else, but itdoes hurt when somebody messes
(41:22):
up, but then you gotta like, allright, maybe they messed up
because I chose to believe themand you know it wasn't right, or
maybe I made the way easy forthem. So just take a step back.
We're all human. We all makemistakes.
That's such a good perspective.
Well, this has been awesometalking to you, and we're going
to put a link in the show notesfor how they can find your book.
(41:44):
But I have one question for you.
Okay, last question, if youcould go back and tell young
Jody something, what would youtell her?
Listen to the Holy Spirit.
Listen to Scripture, even whenit comes to what the Church
tells you, because every churchthroughout time has got
different ideas and differentdoctrines. Doctrines are great,
(42:05):
but the Holy Spirit is dead on,and so is scripture. And be
careful not to think thatbecause you have a marriage or
because you have children,you're just totally safe. No,
keep your eyes open and trustthe momentum, even if you go
through something, God has gotyou, he's there. This is his
life through you. Give him thatchance to just, you know, be
(42:26):
all, all things through you.
That's beautiful. Thank you. Ifpeople want to find you later, I
think you gave you gave me alink to your website. Is that
correct?
That's right. Okay, me there.
Okay, we'll put a link to thatin the show notes. Thank you so
much for being here with ustoday. We really appreciate you
and your book. Nice meeting you.
Thank you. Bye, bye. You.
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