December 11, 2025 • 14 mins
Karen C.L. Anderson is a master-certified life coach and author who specializes in helping women understand and relate to shame differently so they no longer hurt themselves (and others) with it.
She is the author of several books including "You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma & Shame" and "Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters: A Guide for Separation, Liberation & Inspiration"
In This Episode
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She is the author of several books including "You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma & Shame" and "Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters: A Guide for Separation, Liberation & Inspiration"
In This Episode
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-trauma-therapist--5739761/support.
You can learn more about what I do here:
The Trauma Therapist Newsletter: celebrates the people and voices in the mental health profession. And it's free! Check it out here: https://bit.ly/4jGBeSa
———
If you’d like to support The Trauma Therapist Podcast and the work I do you can do that here with a monthly donation of $5, $7, or $10: Donate to The Trauma Therapist Podcast.
Click here to join my email list and receive podcast updates and other news.
Thank you to our Sponsors:
Incogni - Use code [traumatherapist] and get 60% off annual plans: https://incogni.com/traumatherapist
Jane App - use code GUY1MO at https://jane.app/book_a_demo
Journey Clinical - visit https://join.journeyclinical/trauma for 1 month off your membership
Therapy Wisdom - https://therapywisdom.com/jan/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Trauma Diver's podcast. My name is Guiming
Ferson and I interview incredible people who share the story
of how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big
thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest
and our sponsors. So five four three two one our folks,
(00:24):
welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as
my guest today. Karen C. L Anderson, Karen, Welcome, Thank you,
glad to be here. Welcome. Karen is a Master certified
life coach and author who specializes in helping women understand
and relate to shame differently so they no longer hurt
themselves and others with it. She's the author of several
books including You're Not Your Mother, Releasing Generational Trauma and Shame,
(00:48):
and Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters, A Guide for Separation, Liberation
and Inspiration. All right, so just a little bit about you, obviously,
but before we get going, share with the listeners, Karen
and where you're from originally and where you are currently.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, and I grew up
in Newtown, Connecticut, and I currently live in Waterford, Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Okay, awesome, awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I've traveled a lot, but I've lived in Connecticut my
entire life.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
You're back. Cool, all right, So let's get into it.
How did this start for you? This journey, this passion,
this specialist.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So I have a.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Mother, and as I grew up and grew and became
an adult and started living my life and doing my
work and all of that, right, the relationship that I
had with my mother, and consequently the relationship she had
with her mother, which I was watching as well, became
an issue for me. And you know, starting in the
(01:48):
early two thousands, let's say, it became obvious to me
that it wasn't healthy, but like, I couldn't. I didn't
really have much context. It was just like, oh, there
must be something wrong with me, or oh maybe there's
something wrong with her.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
You know, give us some more if you can't. What
was going on?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Well, I mean, you know, there's the childhood trauma, which again,
when we're in it, we don't necessarily see it as that.
But my parents got divorced when I was two. My
mother got remarried when I was five. She married a
man who had a lot of substance abuse issues. I
didn't know this, but she did as well. There was
(02:33):
a lot of neglect, benign neglect.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
If you will. You know, I'm not one to.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Want to diagnose people, but you know, it has been
suggested to me that she's a narcissist, that she may
even have borderline personality disorder. But again that like when
I was a child, I wasn't obviously thinking about that
kind of thing. And when I was in my teens
and early days, my mom divorced my stepfather and she
and I became what I now can see is very
(03:02):
unhealthily close, and I lived with her and she basically
this would have been the early to mid eighties, you know,
take let's go out to nightclubs and meet men and
drink and dance and all of that.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
And at the time, it was like, oh, this is
kind of fun.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Because I was kind of a shy person to begin
with and I didn't have a lot of friends.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And yeah, in.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Hindsight, and like at any time that I tried to
sort of differentiate myself, separate myself, have my own friends,
have a boyfriend or a husband.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I did have a husband in there at one point.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
You know, she didn't like it, and I was constantly
seeking her approval and constantly trying to bend and contort
so that.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
She would like me when she would approve of me,
And so everything was.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
You know, enmeshed totally and match codependence.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Again, didn't have the language for it at the time.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I know what it was at the time, but you know,
so the healthier I got, the older I became, you know,
the more that I tried to, as I said, sort
of separate myself.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
From her, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And it's funny because I've started using this language more recently,
I'm realizing that I never probably ever felt safe with
my mother.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
And that's not to say.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
That she's a bad, horrible person, but I think most
of us are walking around now. I'm like most of
us don't feel safe in a lot of situations or
with certain people. And to be honest, based on what
the studying I've done, in the classes I've taken, in
the books I've read, I don't think she feels safe
with me either. I think that this is sort of
(04:50):
like a you know, triggered nervous systems living together and
not knowing how.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
To how to be with each other.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Without your weed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me in Rejeck
for a second, So at what point, how old were
you when you started to maybe get some perspective on
this and start to move away.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
So I'm sixty two now, I would say in my
early forties is when I started to get some perspective.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
When you started to become now okay, so let's define perspective.
When you started to become aware?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, like something's not right?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, okay?
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Why is this so hard? Why do I, you know,
struggle so much?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So what did you do when you started all the things?
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Perspect the therapy?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Like you know, I did all kinds of things, therapy, books, classes,
alternative therapies ef T.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Wow, right, because there were other things.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Concurrently that were happening in my life that, you know,
I thought I needed to fix my body, image, weight,
making money, like you know, all the things that we.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Use everything, all the things and do me at this
time professionally, what were you doing?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
So I spent the first I guess, half of my
career And this is so funny.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I've always been a writer, but I spent the first
half of my career as a plastics industry trade magazine journalist,
So eighties nine and up through the.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Early two thousands. Then I started freelance writing, and I
act it was.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And this is interesting because this is sort of a
turning point, is when I started blogging for myself.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Right, the internet comes along and we start right.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Adjusting to that and having that as a as a
resource and as a place of self expression and whatnot.
That's when it seemed that my mother like ramped up
her abuse of me, if you will, was because I
was starting to I was starting to feel really good
about myself.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I was starting to shine. I was like, oh wow,
people are reading my blog. This is cool.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I think I might write a book, and I did.
I wrote a book that came out in twenty eleven,
and that was where it really started to become really
obvious to me that there was something wrong because of
the books.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Are you referring to you or not my mother?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
No?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
No?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
No, okay, you and not your mother came out into
twenty twenty three. Now the book that I'm referring to
is it's not even on the market anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I pulled it off.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Okay, okay, it was cool.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
It was about body image and weight loss.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
So how do things unfold such that you started to
write about this?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Well, it's you know, I discovered that for me, writing
is how I know myself. And I was never one
to like journal like you know privately. That's why having
a blog, I don't know what it did for me,
Like I don't know what the mechanism was, but once
(07:55):
I was expressing myself to others, it's.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Like I to know myself. I said, this is how
I know myself. This is how I processed what's happening
to me. This is how I figure myself out. And
it's funny.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
There's an author who died. He's famous. He wrote the
Prince of Tides.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
What's his name?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Pat Conroy, and he wrote he had written about himself
saying that the more that I write and I explain
myself to myself, the more I help other people understand themselves.
And that's what I was starting to see is that
as I started to write about some of the struggles
that I was having, other people were like, oh wow,
Like I hadn't considered that, right.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, well, I was just going to say.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
And it was at that time that my mother.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
And again I don't know if you want the whole backstory,
because it's we could be here for a long time.
That she emailed me and she said, I don't like
the person she put it, I'm disappointed in the person
you've become. And that's and that was at the end
of twenty ten. That's what I cut ties with.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
My mother at that pretty heavy statement.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, And it's funny because up until that point it
had always been verbal.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
She had never written it down, and it was sort of.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Like, you know, and you know, I think a lot
of people who struggle in these types of relationships.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Are like, did I hear that right?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Like that?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
She couldn't have meant that, Like, no one's gonna believe that,
you know. And you know, my husband who I was
married to at the time. I'm still married to this
husband I had too one a long time ago.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
My current husband, we've been together almost thirty years and
he's amazing. But you know, he he sort of played
a role in this too of like I don't think
that's how mothers are supposed to talk to their their daughters.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
You know, So so he he kind of helped you
with that a little bit.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Yeah, I mean I think he was also like.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, okay, so how do you think it was?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
It was once it was like it had started to
become so obvious.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I don't think she could contain it the way she
used to do her contempt.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
For me, which is my perception of how she thinks
about me. But he was like, Okay, it's pretty obvious.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Now, yeah, and oftentimes we need that other voice, yeah,
to like I often need that, I need someone to
like shake me, Like, what the hell are you doing?
So when did you start coaching women and writing about
this specifically?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
So you know, it's so funny.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I went to the coach schools, right, I've done several
certifications and whatnot. Again, I came into this world sort
of around the idea of body image, weight, fitness and
all of that, and it became more obvious to me that, okay,
there's an issue with my mom. And it was during
(10:48):
one of the coach trainings, and it was after I
had cut ties with my mom. So this is maybe
like twenty twelve thirteen. In that timeframe that I became
my grandmother's legal guardian, my mother's mother, who was still alive.
And again, family history was such that my grandmother was like,
(11:09):
I don't think I want to trust my mother to
be her legal guardian. So I became the legal guardian
required me to be in touch with my mom and
my aunt and uncle. I'm navigating that as I'm doing
this coach training, and as I'm doing the coach training,
it's becoming obvious to me that I need to be
coached on this or have therapy or both. Because it
(11:30):
was it was really difficult for me, and in the
coach training, it was so transformative for me. Some of
the tools that I learned that I was like, oh,
maybe I could coach women around this, but also like, okay,
but I'm not a therapist. I'm not a licensed professional,
So what is my lane right without you know, wanting
to cross that line? And it's that's been a big
(11:52):
learning curve as well. And so, you know, it was
that's how I started. I was writing about it.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
People signed up for my mailing list, you know.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It just people are like, tell me know what specifically
was transformative to you around this topic.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Well, it's interesting because it was so transformative at the time.
And then it's not that I don't agree with it anymore,
but it's more nuanced because I think the other thing
that most of us, maybe some people knew it back then,
but is understanding the role of the nervous system in trauma,
and I didn't understand that in the beginning, and when
(12:28):
I first started doing my coach training, I didn't know
that I had trauma. If you will, I wouldn't have
used that language.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
But it was transformative because it was teaching me.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
That I could that the way that I was thinking
about myself in regards to my mother was hurting me.
And this is where the shame piece comes in, right,
because then right around that time, Brene Brown is out
there with her talking about shame and vulnerability, and I
was like, oh, shame, That's what's going on here, right,
Like I'm kind of instantly thinking there's something wrong with
(13:01):
me that I can't deal with my mother or that
my mother scares me, you know. So the transformative piece
was I don't have to it's the way that I'm
thinking about myself that is causing me all this pain.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
But then I was like, Okay, well, what's wrong with
me that I keep thinking this way?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Right?
Speaker 3 (13:24):
So it just but it was transformative in that I
had a.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
New it was like a new way of seeing myself
and my mother and my relationship to her.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
And it's it's been evolving ever since.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
But you know, when you first learned something, it's like boo, yeah,
and then ten years later you're like, yeah, that was big,
but right.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Right, right, So you said, all along you've kind of
been doing quote unquote doing your own work and stuff,
or in addition to that experience with that coaching, if anything,
were therapists or treatments, was anything working for you helping you.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I have found internal families to be very helpful. I
have done a little bit of EMDR, which it was
funny because I went specifically for I have a phobia
about throwing up or other people throwing up, significant anxiety,
so it was like in that I also in hindsight
(14:19):
can see that that was partly a perimenoplause thing, the
anxiety that I was experiencing back then, but it seemed
to all be focused on this throw up phobia thing.
And so I did EMDR, and of course my mother
came up in that, and we uncovered some stuff from
my childhood about that, learning how to set boundaries, learning
(14:39):
how to understand and work with my nervous system. Not
from the perspective of like, oh, I have to hack
my nervous system so that I can be perfect, right,
but how can I
Welcome to the Trauma Diver's podcast. My name is Guiming
Ferson and I interview incredible people who share the story
of how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big
thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest
and our sponsors. So five four three two one our folks,
(00:24):
welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as
my guest today. Karen C. L Anderson, Karen, Welcome, Thank you,
glad to be here. Welcome. Karen is a Master certified
life coach and author who specializes in helping women understand
and relate to shame differently so they no longer hurt
themselves and others with it. She's the author of several
books including You're Not Your Mother, Releasing Generational Trauma and Shame,
(00:48):
and Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters, A Guide for Separation, Liberation
and Inspiration. All right, so just a little bit about you, obviously,
but before we get going, share with the listeners, Karen
and where you're from originally and where you are currently.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, and I grew up
in Newtown, Connecticut, and I currently live in Waterford, Connecticut.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Okay, awesome, awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I've traveled a lot, but I've lived in Connecticut my
entire life.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
You're back. Cool, all right, So let's get into it.
How did this start for you? This journey, this passion,
this specialist.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So I have a.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Mother, and as I grew up and grew and became
an adult and started living my life and doing my
work and all of that, right, the relationship that I
had with my mother, and consequently the relationship she had
with her mother, which I was watching as well, became
an issue for me. And you know, starting in the
(01:48):
early two thousands, let's say, it became obvious to me
that it wasn't healthy, but like, I couldn't. I didn't
really have much context. It was just like, oh, there
must be something wrong with me, or oh maybe there's
something wrong with her.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
You know, give us some more if you can't. What
was going on?
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Well, I mean, you know, there's the childhood trauma, which again,
when we're in it, we don't necessarily see it as that.
But my parents got divorced when I was two. My
mother got remarried when I was five. She married a
man who had a lot of substance abuse issues. I
didn't know this, but she did as well. There was
(02:33):
a lot of neglect, benign neglect.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
If you will. You know, I'm not one to.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Want to diagnose people, but you know, it has been
suggested to me that she's a narcissist, that she may
even have borderline personality disorder. But again that like when
I was a child, I wasn't obviously thinking about that
kind of thing. And when I was in my teens
and early days, my mom divorced my stepfather and she
and I became what I now can see is very
(03:02):
unhealthily close, and I lived with her and she basically
this would have been the early to mid eighties, you know,
take let's go out to nightclubs and meet men and
drink and dance and all of that.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
And at the time, it was like, oh, this is
kind of fun.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Because I was kind of a shy person to begin
with and I didn't have a lot of friends.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
And yeah, in.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Hindsight, and like at any time that I tried to
sort of differentiate myself, separate myself, have my own friends,
have a boyfriend or a husband.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I did have a husband in there at one point.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
You know, she didn't like it, and I was constantly
seeking her approval and constantly trying to bend and contort
so that.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
She would like me when she would approve of me,
And so everything was.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
You know, enmeshed totally and match codependence.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Again, didn't have the language for it at the time.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I know what it was at the time, but you know,
so the healthier I got, the older I became, you know,
the more that I tried to, as I said, sort
of separate myself.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
From her, you know.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And it's funny because I've started using this language more recently,
I'm realizing that I never probably ever felt safe with
my mother.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
And that's not to say.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
That she's a bad, horrible person, but I think most
of us are walking around now. I'm like most of
us don't feel safe in a lot of situations or
with certain people. And to be honest, based on what
the studying I've done, in the classes I've taken, in
the books I've read, I don't think she feels safe
with me either. I think that this is sort of
(04:50):
like a you know, triggered nervous systems living together and
not knowing how.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
To how to be with each other.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
Without your weed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me in Rejeck
for a second, So at what point, how old were
you when you started to maybe get some perspective on
this and start to move away.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
So I'm sixty two now, I would say in my
early forties is when I started to get some perspective.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
When you started to become now okay, so let's define perspective.
When you started to become aware?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, like something's not right?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Yeah, okay?
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Why is this so hard? Why do I, you know,
struggle so much?
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So what did you do when you started all the things?
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Perspect the therapy?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Like you know, I did all kinds of things, therapy, books, classes,
alternative therapies ef T.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Wow, right, because there were other things.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Concurrently that were happening in my life that, you know,
I thought I needed to fix my body, image, weight,
making money, like you know, all the things that we.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Use everything, all the things and do me at this
time professionally, what were you doing?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
So I spent the first I guess, half of my
career And this is so funny.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I've always been a writer, but I spent the first
half of my career as a plastics industry trade magazine journalist,
So eighties nine and up through the.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Early two thousands. Then I started freelance writing, and I
act it was.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And this is interesting because this is sort of a
turning point, is when I started blogging for myself.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Right, the internet comes along and we start right.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Adjusting to that and having that as a as a
resource and as a place of self expression and whatnot.
That's when it seemed that my mother like ramped up
her abuse of me, if you will, was because I
was starting to I was starting to feel really good
about myself.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I was starting to shine. I was like, oh wow,
people are reading my blog. This is cool.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
I think I might write a book, and I did.
I wrote a book that came out in twenty eleven,
and that was where it really started to become really
obvious to me that there was something wrong because of
the books.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Are you referring to you or not my mother?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
No?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
No?
Speaker 2 (07:16):
No, okay, you and not your mother came out into
twenty twenty three. Now the book that I'm referring to
is it's not even on the market anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I pulled it off.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Okay, okay, it was cool.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
It was about body image and weight loss.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
So how do things unfold such that you started to
write about this?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Well, it's you know, I discovered that for me, writing
is how I know myself. And I was never one
to like journal like you know privately. That's why having
a blog, I don't know what it did for me,
Like I don't know what the mechanism was, but once
(07:55):
I was expressing myself to others, it's.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Like I to know myself. I said, this is how
I know myself. This is how I processed what's happening
to me. This is how I figure myself out. And
it's funny.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
There's an author who died. He's famous. He wrote the
Prince of Tides.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
What's his name?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Pat Conroy, and he wrote he had written about himself
saying that the more that I write and I explain
myself to myself, the more I help other people understand themselves.
And that's what I was starting to see is that
as I started to write about some of the struggles
that I was having, other people were like, oh wow,
Like I hadn't considered that, right.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, well, I was just going to say.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
And it was at that time that my mother.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
And again I don't know if you want the whole backstory,
because it's we could be here for a long time.
That she emailed me and she said, I don't like
the person she put it, I'm disappointed in the person
you've become. And that's and that was at the end
of twenty ten. That's what I cut ties with.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
My mother at that pretty heavy statement.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, And it's funny because up until that point it
had always been verbal.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
She had never written it down, and it was sort of.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Like, you know, and you know, I think a lot
of people who struggle in these types of relationships.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Are like, did I hear that right?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Like that?
Speaker 2 (09:22):
She couldn't have meant that, Like, no one's gonna believe that,
you know. And you know, my husband who I was
married to at the time. I'm still married to this
husband I had too one a long time ago.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
My current husband, we've been together almost thirty years and
he's amazing. But you know, he he sort of played
a role in this too of like I don't think
that's how mothers are supposed to talk to their their daughters.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
You know, So so he he kind of helped you
with that a little bit.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Yeah, I mean I think he was also like.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, okay, so how do you think it was?
Speaker 3 (09:56):
It was once it was like it had started to
become so obvious.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I don't think she could contain it the way she
used to do her contempt.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
For me, which is my perception of how she thinks
about me. But he was like, Okay, it's pretty obvious.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Now, yeah, and oftentimes we need that other voice, yeah,
to like I often need that, I need someone to
like shake me, Like, what the hell are you doing?
So when did you start coaching women and writing about
this specifically?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
So you know, it's so funny.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I went to the coach schools, right, I've done several
certifications and whatnot. Again, I came into this world sort
of around the idea of body image, weight, fitness and
all of that, and it became more obvious to me that, okay,
there's an issue with my mom. And it was during
(10:48):
one of the coach trainings, and it was after I
had cut ties with my mom. So this is maybe
like twenty twelve thirteen. In that timeframe that I became
my grandmother's legal guardian, my mother's mother, who was still alive.
And again, family history was such that my grandmother was like,
(11:09):
I don't think I want to trust my mother to
be her legal guardian. So I became the legal guardian
required me to be in touch with my mom and
my aunt and uncle. I'm navigating that as I'm doing
this coach training, and as I'm doing the coach training,
it's becoming obvious to me that I need to be
coached on this or have therapy or both. Because it
(11:30):
was it was really difficult for me, and in the
coach training, it was so transformative for me. Some of
the tools that I learned that I was like, oh,
maybe I could coach women around this, but also like, okay,
but I'm not a therapist. I'm not a licensed professional,
So what is my lane right without you know, wanting
to cross that line? And it's that's been a big
(11:52):
learning curve as well. And so, you know, it was
that's how I started. I was writing about it.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
People signed up for my mailing list, you know.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
It just people are like, tell me know what specifically
was transformative to you around this topic.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Well, it's interesting because it was so transformative at the time.
And then it's not that I don't agree with it anymore,
but it's more nuanced because I think the other thing
that most of us, maybe some people knew it back then,
but is understanding the role of the nervous system in trauma,
and I didn't understand that in the beginning, and when
(12:28):
I first started doing my coach training, I didn't know
that I had trauma. If you will, I wouldn't have
used that language.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
But it was transformative because it was teaching me.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
That I could that the way that I was thinking
about myself in regards to my mother was hurting me.
And this is where the shame piece comes in, right,
because then right around that time, Brene Brown is out
there with her talking about shame and vulnerability, and I
was like, oh, shame, That's what's going on here, right,
Like I'm kind of instantly thinking there's something wrong with
(13:01):
me that I can't deal with my mother or that
my mother scares me, you know. So the transformative piece
was I don't have to it's the way that I'm
thinking about myself that is causing me all this pain.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
But then I was like, Okay, well, what's wrong with
me that I keep thinking this way?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Right?
Speaker 3 (13:24):
So it just but it was transformative in that I
had a.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
New it was like a new way of seeing myself
and my mother and my relationship to her.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
And it's it's been evolving ever since.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
But you know, when you first learned something, it's like boo, yeah,
and then ten years later you're like, yeah, that was big,
but right.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Right, right, So you said, all along you've kind of
been doing quote unquote doing your own work and stuff,
or in addition to that experience with that coaching, if anything,
were therapists or treatments, was anything working for you helping you.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
I have found internal families to be very helpful. I
have done a little bit of EMDR, which it was
funny because I went specifically for I have a phobia
about throwing up or other people throwing up, significant anxiety,
so it was like in that I also in hindsight
(14:19):
can see that that was partly a perimenoplause thing, the
anxiety that I was experiencing back then, but it seemed
to all be focused on this throw up phobia thing.
And so I did EMDR, and of course my mother
came up in that, and we uncovered some stuff from
my childhood about that, learning how to set boundaries, learning
(14:39):
how to understand and work with my nervous system. Not
from the perspective of like, oh, I have to hack
my nervous system so that I can be perfect, right,
but how can I
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