#66 Real Conversations with Mothers and Daughters

Episode Transcript
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Jen (00:00):
Welcome back to the unbreakable boundaries podcast
with your host, myself, JenniferManeely. I am really excited
about this episode for today,it's gonna be a really unique
episode. So my mom and I weretalking to this other mother
daughter team who's gone througha similar journey and really

(00:20):
wanted to do a podcast with oneanother. And we thought it was
going to be a really coolconversation, we wanted to talk
a lot about the family dynamicsand some of our experiences of
what it's like to kind of adultwith one another as parent and
child. And sometimes that can bereally complicated, especially

(00:42):
with mothers and daughters. Andso we knew it was going to be a
really powerful conversation.
And we decided to do somethingdifferent than just record, a
simple podcast. And we actuallyopened it up to a live audience.
And we invited people in just tobe a fly on the wall and listen

(01:05):
to some of this conversation.
And it was just an awesome, raw,real conversation between two
mothers and daughters. And I amexcited to bring you my own mom,
Lynn Carnes. And then ChristineDixon, and her daughter, Lauren

(01:30):
Martinson. So I really hope thatyou enjoy this podcast. And
please, always remember thatthere is always hope, even when
things seem the most hopeless.

Lynn (01:42):
Well, welcome, everyone.
Jen, Lauren, Christine, and Lynnhere for a live podcast with the
mother daughter conversation.
And, you know, I was thinkingabout what started this, we're
actually really here. And thereason we're live is just for
the realness of thisconversation. I mean, if you
think about it, who would haveever thought it would be hard to

(02:05):
be real. And yet, when I thinkof a lot of Mother Daughter
relationships, I know, includingmy own at different times, both
with my mother and with mydaughter, they haven't always
been real. And so I'm excitedthat we're coming here. But
we're not coming here for thoseof you listening. Because we
think we've got it all figuredout. We're just two sets of

(02:27):
mothers and daughters that havebeen on journeys that are sort
of similar, and we want to sharethat with people. And we also
want to celebrate and explorethe journeys that we have been
on. Maybe for the sake of havinga better relationship, you know,
what does it mean to have anadult relationship? And I think,
Christine and Lauren, when I metyou, that's what struck me was
that you all have an adultrelationship, which Jennifer and

(02:49):
I've worked so hard on. AndChristine, I also think about
that moment when we were in thepodcast Summit. And the one of
the presenters said, somethingabout mothers, and the
relationship people have withtheir mothers, and you could
feel it in the room. That somany people have this

(03:13):
experience. It's not necessarilygreat with the mothers and
daughters. So I think about, youknow, I went back to my own
mother, who I'm not going tobring into this conversation
because she's not aroundanymore. It's but this is about
Gemini, but we had anexperience. When she was in we
were both in a barn working withone of my trainers. And all of a

(03:37):
sudden, the trainer saidsomething to Jan and Jan ran out
of the barn, and we think shewas crying. And the trainer
looked over at me, she goes whenwhat just happened? And I said,
I don't know, I think maybe youhit one of her mommy buttons.
And so we sat there puzzling,knowing that she was outside
crying and wondering, okay,what? What was this? And in a

(04:00):
few minutes, she came back endsand said, Okay, I'm, I'm ready
to work again. And then later, Iasked her how she brought
herself back. And she said, I'vebeen reading Brene Brown's
books, and I can almost hearBrene Brown's voice and me
saying, Don't let this run you.
And I thought, Oh, this is good.
Like, it was one of thosemoments for Jen showed up as an

(04:22):
adult. So that's kind of whatwe're here to do. And so with
that,

Christine (04:32):
I wouldn't say not all adults have that skill yet.
So

Lynn (04:36):
you know, what's, you know, what's interesting, I
just, I just, you know, we wereabout to introduce ourselves, I
just was having thisconversation with corporate
executive that stuck in youknow, parent child dynamics at
work. And so how is, you know,one of the things we want to
talk about is how to parent andchild actual parents and
children do better than just abasic parent child dynamic of

(04:58):
power over and under. That'swhat One of our conversations
that we want to have here. Andyou know, we just want to help
make our relationships better. Ican't wait for this
conversation. So for tech, fortechnicalities, we are recording
this for those of you who are onand watching. Cool, welcome.
We're glad to have you. And forthose of you who are listening
after the fact, we're glad tohave you as well. For those of

(05:21):
you who are on we're also goingto hold a little bit of time at
the end. Probably we're on I'mon Eastern time. So I'm going to
use that time 230. Eastern, wemay switch our conversation into
q&a with through the chat. So ifyou're familiar with Zoom,
there's a chat feature just plugin your questions or comments or

(05:42):
thoughts, and we'll try to keepan eye on that. But there's a
lot to manage here with fourpeople as well. So well, if
we're not on it right away.
That's because we're we're stilltrying to manage everything. So
and if we get a lot ofquestions, by the way, we have
already talked about this mightbe something we do again, first
of all, because I just lovetalking to the three people that
I'm on this conversation. As youall know, it's like I want any

(06:03):
excuse to be on, on aconversation with them. Same. So
with that, we're going to startwith introductions. And I don't
know should I I'll start withsince I'm talking I'll start
with just my introduction. Asyou all know, I'm Lynn Karns.
My, my daily life looks likethis. I have a nine month old
puppy that I've been trainingsince she was a little puppy. I

(06:25):
get up every day and have totake care of her I try to get in
a good hike or a water ski everyday. ride horses every day,
occasionally fly airplanes everyday. And some once I get those
big rocks on my calendar, I putcoaching clients on the
calendar. And I had a coachingclient here for a two day
retreat this week. When wefinished it three o'clock on

(06:46):
Tuesday, I ran out and waterskied and then I wouldn't got on
a horse and then I came back andtrain my dog. So that's the kind
of life I live in. It's kind ofwho I am and what I do. So who
wants to go next?

Lauren (06:58):
No one wakes you up first. I couldn't follow that
up. I'm like, Oh my God, my lifeis so boring.

Lynn (07:11):
Not hardly. I know better.

Lauren (07:16):
I'm Lauren Martinson and I live in Los Angeles. And my
day to day life is much simpler.
I would say that I really workto be able to travel. So a lot
of my day to day is kind of, youknow, simple in a lot of ways
just so that I can have thosebig moments of travel and

(07:36):
exploration and whatnot. Butyeah, my day looks like going
for a walk in the morning,meditating, seeing some clients
throughout the day, and thensort of scrambling to get
organized and clean up and takecare of my fur baby, which is
Draco Malfoy, my adorablekitten. And yeah, that's about
me. Well,

Jen (08:04):
Christine, I'm volunteering you.

Christine (08:07):
I was about to volunteer you because I was
like, oh, no,

Jen (08:10):
I spoke first. So you get I volunteered you first.

Christine (08:12):
Okay. All right. So, um, my name is Christine Dixon.
I live just I live just outsideof Los Angeles on a horse
property with my horses, mychickens, my cats, and my dog.
And I work as a transformationalmentor, using clinical

(08:33):
hypnotherapy and Equine Assistedcoaching. And predominantly, I
work with people who haveexperienced pathological
relationships, either with theirparents, their children, or
their love relationships, andhow that plays into addiction as

(08:55):
well. So I am kind of, I guess,I get really jazzed about what I
do. I do go for walks, too. Ihave the Angeles National Forest
right here. So I take my dog forwalks, I go for walks to do
stuff like that. And I do loveto travel but mostly Yeah, it's

(09:16):
about being around the animalsand working with clients and
just being a student of life.

Jen (09:26):
Awesome. Well, my name is Jennifer Maneely. And, you know,
I try to model a lot of my lifeafter my mom, I think my mom has
pretty cool life, but I'm stillalso in a very different place
in my life, which means I still,you know, try to get up in the
morning and do some things. AndI work a lot with families that

(09:48):
have loved ones with substanceabuse issues. And that was
mostly born from our my mom andI's journey together through
that. And we've we've wonLearning grown a lot in the way
and, and so that's kind of wherewhere that came up. And I had
someone, because I do a lot inmy day to day life. And had

(10:11):
someone asked me one time shegoes, Man you like to? How are
you have? So like, how do youeven pack it all in? I say,
Well, I guess it's because Ionly do the things that I want
to do. So everything that I doare the things that I want to
do. And I may do a lot of stuff.
But it's all because it's thethings that I want to do. So I
look forward to everything I do.
So that's kind of kind of mylife. So living in North

(10:35):
Carolina as well.

Lynn (10:37):
Yeah. Yeah, Jen and I have the good fortune to live close
to each other. I'm not even surewe made it clear, whose mother
and whose daughter most peopleare. But we have the good
fortune to live close to eachother. And if there's any
enabling going on now in ourworld is Jennifer enabling me
to? To do what I need to do liketaking care of my dog when I'm

(11:00):
gone? Or we have chickens toChristine, I love chickens. But
Jen is the one who makes surethey get up every night. So
yeah, I get to enjoy the eggs.
She gets to enjoy all the work.
Nice. Well, we thought we'dstart we know this conversation
is gonna go this way. Who knowswhat this is, you know, we know

(11:21):
it's gonna go deep, but wethought it would be fun to start
with some favorite memories. SoJen, can you take it away with
your favorite childhood memorieswith each other? And we don't we
did this unplanned y'all wedon't know. Who's which memories
coming up.

Jen (11:36):
Yeah, well, that was surprised. Yeah, that's the fun
of it. Right? Is having thatraw. So you know, transparency
sake, we were talking and it'slike, Okay, what's the format of
all of this? And what's thetopic? So I think we each kind
of, you know, pick something.
And one of the things that Iwanted to talk about, especially
because when we're talking abouthaving real and raw
conversations with mothers anddaughters, it can immediately

(11:57):
almost make you feel like, Oh,this is gonna be really tense
conversation, right? And, and Iwas like, well, but it doesn't
have to be because I have somany great and wonderful
memories. And I have my Myfavorite memory. And this is the
memory that comes up often forme when I think about, like my

(12:17):
childhood and all this and evenmy mom doesn't know, but I go
back. I we were living inCharlotte. And we were living in
the apartment, the colonyapartments. Yeah, it was calling
apartments, right. And therewould be so many nights that we
would throw on you to dancearound the living room with our

(12:42):
hairbrushes singing like crazy.
So and mom was always the leadsinger. And I was always like
her backup person, right in theYouTube. And I think I can't,
it's escaping me this song. Butit was the and the name of love
in the name of love was thewarm, I want to steal one of my

(13:06):
more favorite songs because ofthat memory. Because I just
remember like, it's just like,in that moment, we let
everything was gone. And it waswe just had so much fun
together. So that was when Ithink about my childhood. I
think about my favorite memory.
That memory is the one thatconstantly comes up for me.

Lynn (13:27):
Okay, well already, I'm over clamped, because that was
my memory. And I was gonna talk.
I don't believe that's what Iwas like. Had in the name of
love. And there was one nightwhen we were both, like we got
in the rhythm, dancing. And thiswas a this was a time. In my
life. I was a corporateexecutive at Bank of America, we

(13:49):
had moved across the country. Wewere 1000 miles from any family,
the only family we had around uswas these other like, uptight
banking people. It was just youand me and them, you know, and a
lot of us had moved from Texasto North Carolina in this
timeframe. So we kind of hadknown each other but we were
feeling a little bit like wewere on an island. And we'd sit
there in that apartment dancing.

(14:13):
And I remember one particularnight where I just felt free.
Not so uptight. You know, forthe first time in a lot of my
life and I felt connected to youlike I might have been actually
doing right by you. Because oneof the things I didn't talk a
lot about in those days, youwouldn't know cuz you didn't
need to carry this burden. Youwere like, what were you eight

(14:33):
years old?

Jen (14:34):
Nine years old.

Lynn (14:35):
I was not very old. Yeah.
And you didn't need to carry theburden of me going, oh my god,
am I screwing it up? Are weokay? Are we going to make it
like, you know, but thatparticular memory was magical.
So that was my memory to

Jen (14:49):
write. Wow. So I mean, that's amazing. But I think
yeah, in that moment, Somethingdefinitely happened. I guess for
both of us. Apparently. I wasdissipating that too. Your, your
memory as well, because that'sthe one that stood out so much
to me where it was like, I justfelt so connected in that
moment. Yeah, like everything'sgonna be okay. So,

Lynn (15:09):
you know those little moments, man, those are those
are treasures. So cool, Jen.
Yeah. All right,

Jen (15:16):
I gotta go to the next I know I'm going to the next
daughter, because I want to hearthe daughter's first.

Lynn (15:22):
Good job.

Lauren (15:25):
I think mine is when we lived in Yonkers, New York, and
we had a bunch of extendedfamily come stay with us for
Christmas. And it was one of ourbigger Christmases that we had,
because we're kind of a smallfamily. It's just my it was my
brother, my mom and I. So whenwe had all the family together,
there was just something aboutthat, that was so magical. And
that's probably why I'm soobsessed with Christmas because

(15:47):
of that association. So I wouldsay that that's my, one of my
fondest memories.

Christine (15:53):
She is obsessed with Christmas. Mine is going to be
kind of not your usual. Laurenwas a very fearless child. And
when she went to this small,little private school for a

(16:17):
period of time, I got a phonecall from the school that Lauren
and her friend had gotten introuble. And they had been
locked in a room. And theydecided to break out of the room
by climbing through the ceiling,to which they fell through the

(16:40):
ceiling into the teacherslounge. Now the call you would
normally get and but I know sheprobably didn't get in some kind
of trouble. But I was always soimpressed by how fearless that
she was. And I mean, she used tolove to do those rock climbing

(17:04):
walls. Remember that she waswith you like nine or something.
And she was at the next to thelast rock at the top. And her
her body is shaking her. Andshe's like, ah, try to get that
last one. I mean, she just wasthis fearless little girl and I

(17:26):
just adored that about her.

Lynn (17:33):
I've been at the top of rock climbing wall, the first
time I ever made it to the topand because I always was
chickening out. And I wasshaking like that. And it was
how I learned to repel because Ihad two choices either try to
climb back down with no muscles.
Or, or just go ahead and let therappelling work. Because I was
anything but fearless. Well, Iwant to transition. So first of

(17:55):
all, isn't it funny? What makeswhat sticks with us? You know,
there's a there's anunderstanding in brain science
that the limbic system that ittakes emotion to create a
memory. And the stronger theemotion, the stronger the

(18:15):
memory. The thing about that isoftentimes it's our worst
memories to that make it youknow, really stick. We can think
about things like that. But whenI think about the word fear, I
think about my own experience asa mother was often driven with
fear. And so, you know, whatthat did was make me very

(18:40):
controlling. So Jan, you might,you might identify with this.
And I may ask you to speak toit. But a lot of Jim's life, I
was trying really hard to beperfect. And not look bad as a
mother mainly to my mother. Andso what I wonder in Jan is like,

(19:06):
what, when did you recognizethat? I was struggling as a
mother like were you are wereyou in high school? Or did it
not hit you until much later?
Because I know for me, it was along time before I realized that

(19:27):
my mother was a human to likeshe was something else. And you
know, there was a point at whichJennifer finally I think could
see me as as not something else.
Does that make sense? Does thatquestion make sense, Jim.

Jen (19:41):
So this is this is what I'll say is I don't know that it
ever, ever struck me out. struckme as something where you were
ever struggling as a mother Idon't think I ever thought that.
I don't ever think even likegrowing up even when I got older
I would I didn't ever sit backand go, Oh, my mom is struggling

(20:03):
as a mom,

Lynn (20:04):
right? Like not as a young person, I would think no.

Jen (20:07):
Well, not even as an adult, honestly. I mean, I don't know
that I ever saw it now. Thatbeing said, because there was
two different questions, they'restruggling as a mom versus
seeing you as a human. Now, Isaw you as more human, when you
sat down and told me that SantaClaus didn't exist, though. That

(20:33):
was that was kind of my firstmoment. I'm going, Oh, mom's
human. And not this superhero.
person, because you just dashedeverything about Santa Claus.
And I say, yes, that's funny.
And yes, I'm also being a littleserious, too.

Lynn (20:53):
Well, that was, you know, I actually remember the moment
we were in that same apartmentand Charlotte, and we were
watching Major Dad. This willtell y'all when we were in
Charlotte, if you remember thatshow, and they they on that show
said something about SantaClaus, not existing. And this is
what Jennifer turned and said tome. She said, Wait a minute.
They said Santa Claus doesn'texist. I know he exists. Because

(21:15):
you told me he does. And youwould never lie to me.

Unknown (21:20):
Ouch. Oh,

Lynn (21:22):
and then I'm like, well, now how the hell am I supposed
to tell her? And, you know, weactually had a fair bit of
issues with lying. Probably melying to you as much as you lied
to me. By the way, Jim.

Jen (21:35):
Right. I was a big, fat liar. When I was a kid. I was a
big fat liar when I got to be anadult to for a long time. So

Lynn (21:45):
yeah. Yeah. So you know, so Christine, Lauren, why, and
what have you guys experiencedaround like the beginning of the
dawning awareness of who eachother is and what I'm thinking
about just as in the parentchild dynamic, you know, it's

(22:06):
sort of like the child is alwaysunder the parent. So they're
always looking up to the parent.
And it doesn't alwaysnecessarily, they don't always
necessarily see things for howthey are because of their
vantage point.

Christine (22:21):
Do you want to go first, Lauren?

Lauren (22:22):
Yeah, I was gonna say I actually really relate to what
Jen said, I really relate tothat. Like I never saw my mom is
struggling, either. Like it waskind of like, life was coming at
her. And I just was like, sheknows what she's doing. She's
got this. You know, like, Iremember even I was thinking
about this yesterday, a timewhen we lived in Maryland. And

(22:43):
we had no couch for like, thelongest time. But like a year, I
think. And then my mom's like,there's a couch outside. We're
bringing it in. And it was justlike one of those moments where
she was like, oh, things willjust fall into place. And it
just never seemed like astruggle. It just seemed like
she just took it and justcarried on and she would make it
work. I mean, we were neverhungry. We're never starving.

(23:06):
She just somehow made it work.
And even when we were alone alot because she couldn't afford
a babysitter being a single mom.
Even then, I just felt like itwas it was normal. And that she
just trusted me and that I wasmature enough to do it. So yeah,
I and I think that I stillstruggle today with the idea of

(23:27):
her being human. And I have tocheck myself on that still. And
you know, my boyfriend evensometimes it's like, yeah, it
feels like you didn't have thatlike, oh, yeah, mom is human
kind of moment. And I was like,I have I've had those moments,
but I still can get lost in theOh, Mom Knows Best. Mom, mom
take the lead. So yeah, sothat's something I struggle with

(23:50):
and something I have to I haveto really talk myself through
because I have to also humanizeher, I have to give her a break.
You know, sometimes I findmyself not giving her breaks.
I'm like, You should knowbetter. You should be better.

Christine (24:06):
And we all know who the parental FIDE child is.
Right? You know, I will say thatit wasn't like there weren't
times like when Lauren had to,you know, she was the older it
was her and my son and she's theolder one that, you know, some

(24:29):
of responsibilities landed onher as a kid and it's not like I
didn't know that. But when youare just struggling to survive,
like I would just go like, thisis how I would you know, do it
in my brain. I'd be like, Okay,well, you know what? In Vietnam,

(24:51):
women have children whilethey're out in the rice paddy
work and they gotta bundle it upand get back to work like there
are worse things in this world.
then this and I don't have anysupport or way to change this.
So I will just do the best thatI can with a crappy situation.
And it doesn't, it's not likeyou don't feel the weight of

(25:17):
that. And the older I get, themore I realize how much that
affected them. But at the time,when you're, you know, a very
young mom, and it was just aboutI remember going around just
feeling like, I can't believeI'm doing this, like I can't
believe like, it's working.
We're still here, everyone'sstill alive, you know? But yeah,

(25:39):
so this was what was thequestion? Again, my brain is
just gone.

Lynn (25:45):
Jan's the one who figured out what the question was.

Christine (25:49):
What What was it?

Jen (25:50):
What was it? Brett? Well, and it mostly pertains, because
it kind of pertained into, youknow, struggling? When did we
first see struggling as a mom?
Okay, versus, and of course, Iseparated the questions, which
was struggling as mom versusseeing mom as human.

Christine (26:07):
So when I realized I will, I will kind of manipulate
the question a little bit,because I will say that when I
realized that Lauren and I werea meshed was when it was
probably about eight years ago.
And I think Lauren probablyremembers the timeframe, too,

(26:31):
because she had, she had aboyfriend that was not that
great, right? So the dynamicthat would play out is that
Lauren would call me first, shewould hide that there was a
problem. And like, just put herbig smile on an act like
everything was fine, even thougheveryone's going. And then she
would call me for that motherdollar talk to kind of unload

(26:56):
everything that's beenhappening. But if I said
anything about the situation,she would attack me, more
judging him. And I knew you dothis. And it would be you know,
that whole conversation. So wehad some of these going. And

(27:20):
then I said, You know what? Ithink that you are smart enough,
brilliant enough, intuitiveenough to know the answers to
your own questions. And I don'tthink that you need me in the
way that this is playing out. Sowhy and we talked, we did talk

(27:46):
about this, but the idea islike, how about you try. And you
try to work on this issue, andyou try to do what you know, and
feel is the right thing to do.
And if you have a question, youcan always come to me, I'm not
unavailable to you. But we sawthe dynamic of her not taking

(28:13):
the initiative and being able todo things and make these
decisions without coming to me,but then I would be the bad guy
too. And it was just this wholedynamic. And we got when we did
this, we both experienced thissadness and fear that that meant
we weren't going to be as close.
That That meant that somehow wewere pulling away from each

(28:39):
other, instead of having therelationship evolve. Away from
the parent and child dynamicwhere like, you have to ask mom,
every Lauren used to actuallyget teased, like, we're gonna go
tell your mom now. She talks tome about everything. But it was
important because then if shedoesn't get a chance to even
make decisions, or makemistakes, even in the sense of

(29:02):
like, realizing, oh, thatdecision wasn't the best, I'm
gonna have to go back and make adifferent one. She's never going
to get the confidence inherself. And it'll just be this
constant need for me to figureit out. But then to push back
against me. And that was a realturning point in our
relationship. When you sayalone, yes, you remember that

(29:24):
conversation?

Lauren (29:28):
I actually don't, but I totally remember feeling I
remember the feeling of like,trying to dance on that line of
I want to tell Mom, I wantevents, but then I also don't
want her to know too much.
Because then she'll form anopinion about this person. It'll
be harder to be around her andthis person. So I remember doing
that. So I don't doubt whatyou're saying at all.

Christine (29:51):
Which is actually the dynamic around abusive
relationships because we don'ttell people that what is
actually happening and we hideto protect the user, because we
know that people would be like,wait, what? Yeah.

Lauren (30:06):
And they're gonna change. We just need it like
behind the scenes try to changethem, help them get better, they
can change them.

Lynn (30:14):
So, Christine, I think this is one of those places
where you and I first connected.
When I tell the story of Jane'sAddiction on work Schiller's
podcast, and you reached out tome, but what struck me just then
it's that part where as mothers,we had to do some of our own
work, because we're not perfect.

(30:34):
And in my case, wasn't the I,you know, not only was I not
perfect, I hadn't really grownup in some ways. And it was my
self awareness work that freedme to be there for Jim the way I
needed to be for her. And itstrikes me that you didn't do
you didn't have thatconversation with your daughter
from nowhere? How did you cometo be able to have that

(30:55):
conversation with Lauren?

Christine (30:59):
Well, I think that would go back to my mother,
because my mother was a highlevel borderline personality
disorder alcoholic. So you'retalking about a hurricane, that

(31:22):
then you just pour gasoline ontop of so it was really
important for me to be theopposite of that. So I really,
like in other words, verytruthful, to maybe where like, I
shared too much truth with herwhen she was maybe too little do

(31:44):
you know, I mean, like trying tobalance that. I don't know how
well I did it that but I alwayswanted to tell the truth. I
always wanted to acknowledge herexperience and her feelings.
Because if anybody knows thatpeople listening know about
pathological relationships andpathological people, you are an

(32:07):
extension of them. So I wasnever allowed to have my own
thoughts, feelings or anythingwith my mother, because she just
saw me as she owned me. Andthey're very intuitive about how
you're thinking feeling oranything. So you don't need you
don't if you feel like you evenhave your own thoughts. So being

(32:27):
able to validate her, even ifshe thought that is an
experience or something thathappened, her recollection was
different. I always wanted herto be validated that her
experience was her experienceand, and her own. And I didn't
have to make her experiencemine. And I was okay. If I

(32:52):
looked badly in her view of whatthe experience was. And I could
own that, and I could apologizefor that. But I didn't feel like
it made me less than to behonest and say, Yeah, I probably
didn't handle that. That great.
You know, you see people all thetime. They, it's kind of like,
we'll go back to the Brene Brownthing, right? Where you said

(33:13):
like, Brene Brown? Yeah, Brene.
Brown says to people look, beingvulnerable, feels like you're
shrinking and melting and beingweak. But to other people, it
looks like courage and thetruth. And it's like inspiring.
And I think that that's, that'sreally important in our mother

(33:36):
daughter relationships, becauseI think parents often times feel
like if they admit there wassomething wrong, or that they
did something that wasn't right,perfect, right, something that
hurt the child, that somehow byadmitting it. They're now
vulnerable to attack rightthere. They now shrink in the

(33:57):
child's eyes or in their owneyes. But there's nothing more
beautiful and transformativethan owning the things that
weren't perfect and allowing thechild to have their experience
without having to try and fix itor, you know, sell them like

(34:19):
Well, yeah, I know that you feltthat way. But really, this is
what was happening. So you don'tthat's not your job. Your job is
just to listen and to validate.
And to allow it to be what itis.

Lynn (34:36):
Yeah, well, that's. That's what we all aspire to, I think,
but it's easier said than done.
Lauren, what was it like for youin that conversation? But did it
feel like your mother had freedyou or abandon you or something
else?

Lauren (34:53):
In the conversation about my boyfriend?

Lynn (34:55):
Yeah, because I would I would fear that Jennifer would
think I was abandoning her wouldbe the Example is why I use that
word. You know?

Lauren (35:04):
I think that it was more about like, oh shit, I am
responsible for my life. I thinkthat that's really what it was.
It was like, Oh, wait, you'renot going to guide me even
though you're trying to guide meI'm rejecting it Yeah, I think
like, very much like a, you'rean adult now, you know, voices

(35:28):
to make and no one can do it foryou. And you know, and I did I
did make those that choice Youknow, I finally relationship
luckily, like and, and it'sfunny how when you're in those
relationships, how you feel likeyou need to build a case. And
that's what I feel like I wastrying to build like I needed
like, I needed a real reason andproof and it needed to be like

(35:49):
indisputable, and, and thenfinally that moment came where I
was like, ah, there it is. Thereit is. He actually was verbally
abusive to me call me names.
Okay, now I can now I can leave.
Yeah.

Lynn (36:03):
Yeah, that whole good chat. I've got to justify Yes,
bit. Yeah, yeah.

Christine (36:09):
You got that for me.
I mean, you know, for sure.

Lynn (36:12):
I have it in spades, too.
I think it's pretty common.
Actually. You know, that, Jan,that their story kind of reminds
me of the moment where I didsomething similar with you in
the middle of your drugaddiction. And this was I told
this story in depth on warrick'spodcast, but I Well, should I

(36:34):
just tell the story, since wehave people listening, I think I
should tell the story. Becausepeople people have are listening
that wouldn't have I don't wantto make them have to go all
over. So. And this would be 16years ago, because Jan just
celebrated 16 years clean. I wasat a on a business trip in DC

(36:56):
and she had bailed on havingdinner with me the night before.
She was married at the time. Andwe were expecting her to be
moving to another apartmentbecause they couldn't afford the
one day we're in. And I calledher the next morning to check in
on what had happened with hercar because it was theoretically
a wreck that she had had thatcaused her to bail on dinner,

(37:19):
couldn't get a hold of her. Soalmost got on an airplane to
come home because I was going toget to be on the early flight
that night, but got a strong,intuitive message, go find her
and extended my rental car,change my flight and drove from
DC to Winchester and discoveredthrough a series of events that

(37:42):
there had been no wreck thatJennifer and her husband had not
even begun to move out of theirapartment. And that she was on
drugs again. And she had been inrehab once before. As I started
recognizing what was going on, Iasked Eric to I found air Eric,

(38:03):
her husband actually I found himfirst and said Take me to her
she was with his parents. And Iactually had to threaten to call
the sheriff to get him to do it.
I said Eric, take me to mydaughter or I'm calling the
sheriff now. So I followed themover to the house. And I saw the
cycle in place, I could see thatwith his him and his parents.

(38:26):
And with Jennifer, I'm lookingaround going they're gonna wring
their hands, and nothing's gonnachange. They're these two kids
are going to keep doing drugsforever until they die if they
don't keep things up, so Ilooked at, I looked at Jen,
after about 30 minutes of sortof assessing the situation and I

(38:46):
said, I said, Jen, I, I'm prettysure that you are doing drugs,
because you have a lot ofresentments for me. And I've
earned every one of them. I saidI will i am ready to face what I
did as your mother. But if youthink killing yourself is going
to destroy my life. Take anotherlook. I get teary every time I

(39:09):
tell this story because I knowit saved her life. I said take
another look because my life ispretty good. And it's not my
life you're destroying it'syours and I am strong enough to
live without you. And I left notknowing if that was going to

(39:29):
make any difference at all. Butknowing that that was the only
thing that would have could havemade a difference. And I'll
never forget because I drove toDulles Airport that night and
found a massage therapist. Youknow those little 15 minute guys
and I dumped all of my emotionson him I said when when he went
when it was like 3030 minutemassage or whatever that he did
did on me and when I wasfinished I just looked at him

(39:50):
and said you better go clearyourself because I just dumped a
lot of shit on you. But the nextday Jen came back and said she
was going to go to rehab. Andthen it was, I don't know, Jen,
how many years later was it foryou before you said, you told me
that that actually did make adifference for you.

Jen (40:14):
I don't remember how many years later it was I just
because I think it took me awhile. From that point. When I
got into, you know, back intorehab, I was still kind of
unsure if that was going to bemy life, if that's what I

(40:34):
wanted, because I had alreadydecided that I was going to die.
And so I was like, kind ofalready good with that. So I was
like, I don't know if I can dothis. So it definitely took me a
little while for everything tokind of sink in and start
looking back and saying, Well,this was the pivotal moment, or

(40:55):
this was a pivotal part of this,because it was like, I was just
trying to explore if I was evengoing to be willing or capable
of living a life without, youknow, using something to cope
with. It was like I don't evenknow anymore. And I was so raw,
it took a long time for me toactually go okay, I think this

(41:20):
is going to be my, my my life.
And so it's probably I mean, cutit had it had been at least a
year before I could look back onthat moment and say that was a
huge moment. With it all lookingat probably even longer than
that. Because I think it wasn'tuntil I kind of moved away.
Before I was able to kind of go,Okay, I think this is my life.

(41:44):
Now this, this is what we'redoing. Because I was even even
being clean, clean for a while I

Christine (41:57):
was still

Jen (42:00):
really struggling, I guess, emotionally, it just it wasn't
very clear to me where my lifewas going. So it was, yeah, it
was a tough, tough period. Butthere was a day when I had, it's
probably when I left and I wasmoving and I was on my way back

(42:22):
to this area from Virginia,where I had the thought in the
car of going, you're gonna haveto figure out how to be happy.
And I think it's a choice. Like,it was like, it's a choice,
right? I feel like being happyis a choice. And I'm gonna have
to go figure out how to makechoices that will lead to my

(42:44):
happiness. And it was that daywhere I was like, I think I
choose happiness. And that thatwas another pivotal, you know,
moment for me. And that thatdidn't happen until I had over a
year clean. And I had moved awayand I was like I'm gonna go
choose to be happy. Yeah. Andthen I started looking back on

(43:08):
everything else.

Christine (43:11):
Well, this story was the story that had me reach out
to Lynn. Because when I listenedto her story on wor X podcast, I
was working exclusively inaddiction. And I was working
mostly with the peoplestruggling with addiction. But I

(43:31):
also worked with families. Andit was something that you saw
all the time, where the child oreven a husband or wife was doing
this at a person we call itdrinking at someone right or
using at someone because theydon't, they haven't found better

(43:54):
coping mechanisms are ways todeal with what they haven't been
able to deal with so but tryingto explain to a parent, that the
way, the best thing that theycan do to help their child is to
take themselves out of thepicture so that there's nothing

(44:16):
to push against. I'm no longergoing to do the dance with you,
right? I'm going, I'm going topray for you, I will always you
get clean, you want to go theroute, whatever, I will be
there. But I'm not doing this.
Because what happens is, is thatwhen you no longer have that
place to put all of your angerand bitterness and resentments

(44:38):
and all of that. There's noplace now you're alone with your
thoughts and your life. And yourchoices really are only
affecting you. It can help theperson help the person have more
clarity about what they're doingto themselves. It's not a
punishment at all. And I thinkWhen I heard Lynn like, all I

(45:00):
thought was, Wow, that is one ofthe first times I've actually
watched someone step into thatrole because the thoughts as a
parent are, what if this is thething I do that kills them? What
if they would have now she goes,Well, if I don't have my mother,

(45:21):
I might as well just, you know,take all the drugs and because
you never know, but you don'tbreak the cycle. If you don't
break that racket that's justconstantly being run. There is
no end to it. You. You have toreach for that lifeline. Yeah.
Which I would say I want onething I wanted to bring up and

(45:47):
you guys can tell me what youthink about this. A very, very
good friend and mentor told me along time ago, she said to me
one day, she said, well, thereis no guilt without punishment.
And I didn't quite understandwhat she meant. But I'm gonna
make up names for them toprotect them. But let's say it's

(46:08):
my friend Sally and her son Bob,right. So Sally came from a very
Italian Catholic family whereyou don't get divorced. And she
added one son, Bob, and Bobby,let's say, and when Bobby was
little, she got divorced. And sothis big family thought poor

(46:33):
Bobby, oh, my gosh, poor Bobby.
So Bobby got everything he everwent had dough with. And
grandparents had a huge familyhe was his mother spent $50,000.
Back then on his grammar, schooleducation, she's under the best
football, she did all thesethings, because he was poor

Jen (46:54):
Bobby.

Christine (46:56):
And what happened was, that no matter how great
everything was, he came, heabsorbed that identity that
something was wrong with him,that he was poor Bobby. And he
struggled to ever grow up, hegot into drugs he had, it's

(47:18):
like, because there was all thisguilt. And we were in that he
was being parented by theextended family from a place of
guilt and poor him. He never gotto get the sense of seeing
himself as complete and capableand able. So you have to really

(47:38):
be very aware of when you'reparenting from guilt, because
it's really destructive. Itdoesn't do what you think it's
doing. Like you think, Oh, I'mgonna rush in and like, prove to
my child how much I love them bydoing this because there is lack
here. There's things there. Butthat it doesn't translate that

(47:59):
way. And I think that that'ssomething that is really
important.

Jen (48:06):
What and I have. So Lauren said something really important,
where it was like, Oh, my God, Ihave to take responsibility for
my life. Now, right? And in thatmoment, back to this moment, to
what you're talking about tothat moment, when mom kind of
said, Okay, you're responsiblefor your life now, and took a
step into that. It did kind ofshake me now I still had to make

(48:30):
a lot of choices after that. Icould have gone just as easily
the other way. Sure. Right. Andthat's not the choice that I
made. But I did have to starttaking more responsibility for
my life. And I'll tell you, frommy perspective, my whole life, I
got away with poor Jen. And itmade it really easy, because I

(48:51):
could get out of just aboutanything was poor Jen and I
pulled on those heartstringswith other people, with my mom,
with so many people in my lifeto get my way to get out of
trouble to get out of peoplebeing angry. I could always shed
a few tears and make people feelsorry for me. And it really

(49:15):
serves me very well in the poorgin to get to feel sorry for
myself to continue doing what Iwas doing. Right. So

Lynn (49:23):
you know, Bobby? Well, I I'm thinking back to how many
times I rescued you up untilthen, like we had to get pretty
serious before I recognized myrole in the poor Jin Gang.
Because you know, you almostdidn't graduate high school
because you got caught withcigarettes. Remember, I just
like hell instead of saying hey,figure it out. Don't smoke again

(49:46):
or you're not graduating. Ididn't want to inconvenience
myself to have you not graduate.
So I made sure you graduated andwe had story after story after
story like I came rushing in. Iwouldn't call myself Helicopter
mom, I would call myself atrampoline mom. I would run
under a she was falling with atrampoline going. Let's not make
it hurt too much. Yeah. Andyeah, you know, this finally,

(50:08):
this is where we ended uppartially because I hadn't
wanted you to own your life andI was having very real pressure
on me to continue to rescue you.
You know, I sat with, I remembertalking to somebody at one of
the ski likes I was at it wasthe father of the ski coach I

(50:30):
was working with. And I told hima little bit of your story. And
he said, he looked at me withall seriousness, I said, I
believe I would get my daughterout of that situation. And you
weren't a grown, you are a grownass woman married? You're no,
you're not really can't do that.
But there was a part of me thatthought, Should I? Am I screwing
up? If I don't?

Jen (50:51):
Right? Well, and there was there was a part and this is
this one, I'll say is followingthat, where I don't think you
were trying to get me out ofthat situation. But you were
trying to get me out of thatsituation and sending me out of
the state to another rehab whenI was already in a rehab. And I

(51:12):
actually, this was probably oneof one of my personal turning
points where it was like, Icould leave the state and like
go to this really fancy rehab orwhatever. Or I could do
something different than I'venever done before, which was
face all of my problems.

Lynn (51:32):
Right? Because by the way, that that part of the game back
to Christine, what you said,that was my guilt going, Okay,
I'm going to send her to thebest most expensive place I can
find, because then I can be feellike I'm washed and absolved of
having done anything wrong.
Yeah. And Jen, fortunately stoodup because I don't think that we

(51:52):
have would have been right foryou.

Jen (51:55):
Well, and I for some reason, like I knew it was just
like, I need to stick throughwhatever mess that I need to
stick through and face reallyface it. And, you know, I, I
did, and it was one of the bestthings Now eventually, I did
move on from that situation. ButI moved on because that that

(52:17):
chapter had closed in my life, Iwasn't running away from that.
But you know, kind of back tothis whole dynamic of, you know,
for for me of just waiting foryou to swoop in I'm sure Lauren
can, you know attest to thiswhen you're growing up, and you
have your mom and all you know,and mom knows best, right? And

(52:39):
that's kind of that is a lot ofhow I felt to where mom just
kind of knows best and we leanon, we lean on Mom, we have
those conversations, it's like,it just became part of the norm,
it just became part of what wedo is you just need to tell me
what to do with my life. I screwit up, you come in, you kind of,
you know, tell me some reallygood things. And either I listen

(53:01):
or I don't or fight against you.
And but at least you know, youhave to tell me and now I'm
going to do things drink at youor just do things you know,
against you, then you have to beabout drinking or using drugs.
It's just as like, well, I'mgoing to show you that
everything that you're saying.
It's this weird, really weird,messy dynamic, I'm sure that

(53:24):
Lauren can attest to a littlebit.

Christine (53:26):
I want to hear what Lauren says. But I will say you
brought something up reallyimportant there which is which
is unhealthy ways of gettingyour needs met by creating
problems and drama and chaos sothat the person that you have
the issues in the relationshipwith will come swooping in and

(53:49):
that's how you're how you'reexperiencing love. And I think
that there was an aspect of thatwith Lauren night too, right?
That where it would be this bigproblem and then I would come
running and I would always beavailable and then Lauren would
feel seen and heard and lovedbut then we have to keep
creating these things to bringthat in. But Lauren will also

(54:15):
attest to because I learnedabout the guilt without
punishment doesn't mean I didn'tstill do it. But they always had
constant they were the only kidsthat had consequences when they
screwed up because they wouldalways kind of make it nobody
else got grounded. Like whatyour ground. So go ahead,
Lauren.

Lauren (54:34):
Yeah, no, I was gonna say that actually. I feel like
trauma. And like creating justthese these scenarios and these
situations definitely becamelike a love language almost,
like within itself, and Itotally relate with that, like,
trying to. It's almost like theintensity aspects being confused

(54:56):
for intimacy. And it's like themorons. tend to situation is,
the more drama there is. And youswooping in. And now it feels
like oh, we've we've made aconnection here. And it felt
like if I don't have that, if Idon't have this, this drama
going on, because we grew upwith trauma, you know, like,

(55:17):
horrible neighbors, horribleteachers, family members moving
around all the time, financialsituations. My stepdad like,
things like that, that werealways based around like, oh,
no, how are we going to getthrough this? And we really
leaned on each other throughthose things. So yeah, for me, I
feel like there is asubconscious part sometimes that

(55:39):
wants to go, Okay. How do we getclose to mom? Oh, there needs to
be something going wrong inorder for mom to come forward.
And that's connection. And Iknow better, because I never
feel better after that. Likewhen we have that connection?
Part. Like, it doesn't feel goodafterward. I actually feel worse
afterward. Like a like aemotional hangover.

Jen (56:02):
Yeah, yeah. But that was definitely how I receive love. I
love when mom came in, you know,I did. Like she would just come
in and take care of all myproblems. For me. It was
amazing. She's like, well, youjust need to move here. Yes, I
do. Yes, yes, I do. You know, itwas it was great. It was both

(56:25):
toxic. And that was how I sawit. Because I think for me, and
this is part of the heartconversation, right? Where she
was a very busy woman. She wasalways there for me, though,
right? Like, but at the sametime, it was like she was

(56:45):
swooping in. That's how I reallyknew that we were connected in
love, right? Because the rest ofit was just going through your
normal daily life. Like shewould come she picked me up from
school, we'd eat dinner, we'dyou know, and I think that's why
my that was one of my favoritemember memories was in that
moment, we were genuinelyconnected. Without it being

(57:07):
anything else outside of we wereconnected in that moment. And we
had a lot of little moments.
That was that's the one thatstands out to me. But we had a
lot of those too. And so it's itis kind of like what Lauren is
saying is we're trying torecreate that connection. But if
we're not getting it in thehealthy ways, then we're gonna
get it in the unhealthy ways,right. And when we get older, it

(57:29):
looks very different. And Ithink when I saw when I started
growing up into high school andout, it's like, I'm looking for
that connection. But she's, itseems so far away from me,
because she's like, Okay,you're, you're at a house now go
live your life. Yeah. And it waslike, no, no, wait, we I'm still

(57:49):
the eight year old girl thatwants to dance in the living
room. Right?

Lynn (57:58):
Yeah, I I was just gonna say I think I was projecting on
you what I wanted to do myselfbecause I got married at 18 and
left home and had much less todo with my parents. I stayed
with him. I was in the sametown, but I wasn't. You know, I
was very independent. And I kindof thought at 18 You were going
to basically be gone. Like, youknow, I might see you once a

(58:22):
month or something at best. Andthen yeah, yeah. And, you know,
I did end up moving across thecountry and not seeing my folks
as much as you, you know, butyou and I've taken a different
path where you've gotten a bitcloser to me.

Jen (58:36):
Yeah, force it on you. So that made you say that was not
my story. It was not what Iwanted.

Lynn (58:44):
Yeah. Well, you know what, what for us another element I
want to go into in a minute, butI want to go back to something
Lauren said because I feel likethat's a distinction I'm going
to want to.

(59:39):
Action is at the end.

Jen (59:42):
Yeah, here you you. Oh, it broke out for just a second.
Okay. Yeah, we're gonna pretendlike that didn't happen. And I
say that again.

Lynn (59:50):
For the first time ever.
It says my internet connectionis unstable. I've never had that
here. So what I was saying toabout Lauren said something
really important. The Thefeeling you get when the
connection isn't from a goodplace isn't good. And that's a
signal that something's up. Ithink that's really worth
calling out.

Christine (01:00:12):
Yeah. I don't know if Lauren remembers, I'm sure
Lauren remembers this. I, Idon't remember the exact
details. But I do know that thisis probably within the past
couple of years. There wassomething happening where things

(01:00:34):
were playing out between Laurenand I were, we were getting in
these fights and like, havingarguments. And my perspective
was like, there was nowhere Icould go in these conversations,
because it started to feel likethis was coming up as some, you

(01:00:58):
know, feelings of her anger thatLauren had, that maybe she
hadn't fully become consciousof, and they were coming out in
these ways that felt like Ithere was nowhere for me to go
with this, right. Like, I wasjust getting, like peppered. And
I remember saying to hersomething along the lines, like,

(01:01:22):
I'm not going to do this withyou. If you go to this place
where, you know, nothing I sayor do is right, and, and
everything, then I'm, I'm justgonna hang up until, you know,
we can calmly talk about whathas happened. And I think that

(01:01:47):
this is a really important partof healing, because it's not us
butterflies and you know,rainbows that people don't do
things on purpose. But thingscan bubble up in ways that
aren't exactly the best,healthy, most calm way of
talking it out. And that was sohard for me to maybe hang up the

(01:02:11):
phone or or say that because itI learned I one thing that's
true about both of us, we cannotbe happy or calm. If we know the
other one is upset with us,right, like, and so being able

(01:02:31):
to do that and go, Okay, I just,I can't do anything in this in
this box. So I'm just not goingto do this was so hard. And it
took a few days, I think for usto be able to come back and
really talk about it. Do youremember that Lauren? Oh, cool.

(01:02:57):
I really was traumatizing forher.

Lauren (01:03:02):
Sounds familiar? I'm just trying to remember what it
was about.

I don't remember what it was about. But you were mad
at me. I wasn't doing it. Right.
It wasn't doing anything, right.
And I'm not listening. And I'mnot. And I was trying my best.
And it was just very animated.
So I think that when when youwork on things, in the way that
you communicate, becausecommunication is everything.

(01:03:28):
That you have to have patiencewith both sides, you have to
have patience with yourself, andpatients with the other person.
And if you feel like you're,you're sliding into those old
ruts, you know, those old likeeverybody knows what the other
one's gonna say, because we'reback to that argument. We're
back to that way of relatingthat we have to Gree that we're

(01:03:51):
going to tap out in that moment,right? Like, okay, this is going
back to the old pattern. Let'stake a minute, let's take a day,
let's take whatever we need toto like get back to where we can
sit down and talk about thisagain, no matter how many times
it takes, so that we break thatold pattern. Because that's

(01:04:12):
that's really important. Andthat's really, you know, even
what you did with yourconversation with Jen was what
you did, there was a patternthat was going between the two
of you broke it, and that thething about breaking the pattern
is it opens up a whole bunch ofspace in the relationship to be

(01:04:32):
able to be different and relatedifferently. It's making

Lynn (01:04:39):
me think about, you know, we're sort of talking about the
let's call it fights that wehave with our daughters. I guess
we actually do have fights withour daughters, Jan. And what
year was it Jan about 2016 2017I actually asked her to come
work with me in my business.

Sorry. Yeah, I only laugh because I ah it's just so
open like, I believe itprobably, it looks like it works
really well for you guys butlike it's so late with like
landmines? Oh, I didn't know

Lynn (01:05:22):
we were about to tell you about, about one of the
landmines because one of thethings that we decided would be
good for me to do is videos thatI could do for the coaching
clients, you know, that I wasworking with, I was saying the
same thing over and over againto a lot of so it's like, let's
record a few videos. So that youcan say, hey, go watch my video

(01:05:42):
on this thing, and it'll helpyou. So we're out. I'll never
forget it, we were at theretreat center at over at Mystic
waters, the place where I nowbring some of my clients in. And
I wasn't doing a good job. AndJennifer said, Wait a minute,
you're not being very real orsomething like that. And I made
a face of frustration. And itwas at myself. This was not

(01:06:07):
directed at Jen in any way,shape, or form. Actually, I was
appreciative that she had thecourage to say, hey, that ain't
good enough. You know, she wasbeing she was

Jen (01:06:15):
performing. And I always wanted her to be authentic. And
she's like, this is not you.

Lynn (01:06:23):
So she just did it. Yeah.
But I made a face. And the nextthing I know, Jen is gone.
Should I ran into the retreatcenter. And I'm standing out in
the parking lot. Well, well,what the hell just happened?
Like, I must really be screwingup. And so then I'm like, Well,
do I go? And what do I do?

(01:06:47):
Because I thought this was allabout me, of course. But we were
in a pattern. And the patternwas what we ended up calling mom
face. So evidently, when I madethe face it myself, Jen, you can
pick it up from here. What didthat face mean to

Jen (01:07:04):
you know, she had that typical mom that mom face that
happens when like all of asudden, like you're that little
girl again, I don't care how oldyou are. And it like it sent me
in. And here's the thingconsciously. I was aware that it
had nothing to do with me. Butit was so ingrained that face
was so ingrained, it sent me intears. And I didn't want to make

(01:07:28):
it a thing, even though I had nochoice but to be a thing because
I ran away in the bathroom. Andshe's like, I was like it was
that face. That face that momface just hit me out of the
blue. And so I just it I had nocontrol over that moment of what

(01:07:51):
my reaction was. It was like, Iknew it wasn't personal. I knew
it wasn't about me. But I stillhad to run away and go hide in
the bathroom and cry. Because itwas it was just so that moment
was just so engrained. And nowwe can laugh at right. We were
actually through that landminethough, we were actually able to

(01:08:12):
talk about the mom face, right?
And now it looks a lot like, Oh,Mom, you're giving me that face.
It'll be like, and it won't evenbe you're giving me that face.
It's just like, out there it is.
There's a mom face. And I canjust say that, right? And it
doesn't send me over the edge.
Because we hit that and then wewere able to talk about us. And
well, this was my experience ofwhat just happened was like you

(01:08:35):
were really, you know,frustrated about so we had
plenty of our landmines that didhappen. And we had a lot of
really difficult conversationsthat we had to have. Because
things weren't working for awhile. And a lot of that not
working, I'll say was, I don'twant to say it was just on my

(01:08:58):
end, because we all we all haveresponsibilities. Right. But I
think it wasn't working and Ihad to I had to go do some
things. Because we were hittingso many childhood things for me
the resentments that would popup. Some of them that I wasn't
even aware of, that we had nevertalked about, because I wasn't

(01:09:19):
aware of them until we wereworking so closely together. And
not to mention, not just workingtogether, but she's also my
landlord. Right. oscillation. Weare very intertwined into a lot
of complicated dynamics here.
And when it first startedhappening, we're first kind of

(01:09:43):
approaching this transition intothese very complicated dynamics.
It got really hard. And youknow, there was a point at
which, you know, things werereally clear because she had her
dad you My grandfather was notdoing well. And I don't think we
were communicating as openly aswe needed to about the future of

(01:10:08):
what all this meant for us. Forthe business, because this was
my livelihood, I was working forher as a W two. This was my
livelihood. This was how I paidthe bills. And so I felt like
some of that was in jeopardy alittle bit, even though I was
like, I really hope that mylandlord doesn't kick me out.

(01:10:30):
Yeah, we're complicated. Butyeah, we had to have a lot of
really, really difficultconversations. And we did hit a
lot of landmines that includedhaving to restructure some
things. Yeah. to, but we had tohave the conversations. Yeah,
right. And you work, hardconversations, the ones that,

(01:10:51):
not only just about how shepissed me off in this moment,
but how she pissed me off when Iwas five years old.

Lauren (01:11:00):
I wanted to ask a question for the moms, because I
think that it takes a lot ofemotional strength, to be able
to hear our grievances and sitwith them, and process them and,
and hold space for us. Becausenot a lot of parents do that.
Parents can get easily defensiveand explain themselves. And, you

(01:11:21):
know, maybe even discount thechild's experience. So or, you
know, chalk it up to you didn'thave it bad, you know, people
out there have so much worse.
Are you kidding me? And I feellike you both really hold space.
And maybe that was sort oflearned over time. But I'm just
curious, how do you frame it inyour mind to where you're able
to hold space and not take itpersonally?

Well, I would say question,

Lynn (01:11:49):
a good, great question.

I can't go back in time and fix and change the
things that I would like to, orthe things that hurt you or
weren't good for you. But theleast I could do is empathize,
understand and be present foryou sharing them so that you

(01:12:17):
don't feel like you now have toconvince me that they happened
as well. Yeah. And I would saythat, Lauren, I think one of the
things that makes that makes ithard for Lauren to share things
with me isn't that it's notavailable to her. It's that I

(01:12:41):
think that Lauren also feelsvery protective of me. And so
when she has feelings that havemaybe anger or frustration or
hurt or anything, I think she'sconflicted, because part of her
wants to rail at me and tell mewhat it is. And you know, all
that, and then the other part ofher wants to protect me from

(01:13:05):
that, too. And it makes it thatcan make it hard for her to
that, you know, so maybe thenthere's these weird arguments
that I have no way out of,because that's how it's, it's
showing up?

Lauren (01:13:20):
Yeah, my, my displaced anger starts to come out. And
it's like, Wait, you're thatangry over this or that upset
with me over that? Like, yeah,and full transparency. I'm still
working with a therapist throughthat, because I think you're
very you're spot on mom, I thinkit totally is. There's a part of
me that feels protective andfeels like, and also I think
there's that that element oflike, well, she should know

(01:13:43):
better than this, you know, soif I, if I am upset, or I don't
agree with you on something,it's like she should know
better. But who am I to tellher? And then it's like this
back and forth. It's stillfeeling like the kid in?

Lynn (01:13:59):
Well, that's, that is the dynamic, isn't it? Like that
belief they should know better?
And how dare they are? Who am I?
And we get caught going kind ofback and forth. I know for
myself, you asked the question,how not to take it personally. I
wrote a whole book about this.
Because I did take thingspersonally. I spent a lot of my
life thinking everything wasabout me. And you know, so as as

(01:14:23):
Jen and I started going throughthis part where we were trying
to learn to work together. I didat times take it personally and
yet strived to treat her as muchas possible like an adult, you
know, with the power withdynamic as opposed to power
over. And there were times whenI was like I don't know what I

(01:14:47):
just did. You know and then shewould be mad and I remember
another day we were working upat the Pavilion overlooking the
the big lawn and like at Mysticwaters and She's she's very
accurate arm she threw her waterbottle and hit the post very
accurately, because she alwayshad a very accurate arm. But I
was like, What the hell did Ijust do? You know. And so it was

(01:15:09):
sometimes confusion. And thenthere were just times when I had
to realize, you know, nothing isever personal if I can just
remember that. You know, but itdoesn't. It's so funny because
like Jen was talking about themom face trigger. Right after
this happened with her, I wentto the grocery store, and there

(01:15:30):
was this guy in the grocerystore, just the produce guy. And
he made a face that looked likemy mother. And it was about the
third time walking by him. But Iwas inside like unconsciously
just kind of go, what's hisfriggin deal? You know, about
her? realizing, oh, that's justhis face. And it just reminds
me, this other face, and itshows you how unconscious our

(01:15:53):
triggers can be. Yeah. Right.
And so, back to your question.
To not take it personally wasactually a conscious effort on
my part, like I had to draw onall the self awareness work I've
done and it you know, I startedworking on myself. I was I was
truly I did a TED talk on this,I truly was a raging bitch. And

(01:16:13):
my self awareness work startedkind of around the year, I say,
you know, these things alwayshappen in droves. But I would
say when I started doing theartists way in 1999, that was
the kind of turning point when Istarted saying, you know, Lynn,
you may have something to dowith the state of your life. And

(01:16:34):
it's time to start owning that.
And I'll say, I'm still workingon not taking things personally,
including, you know, when, whenJen and I occasionally cross
things up, although we don'tcross up nearly as much as we
did before. We've had a lot ofthose conversations now.

Jen (01:16:53):
Yeah, well, because it was getting to the point where I was
throwing things. And I'll tellyou what she did to real
accurately, I'll say, Well, Iwas pretty upset because she was
like, yelling things at me. LikeI believe in you, Jen, I know
you.

Throw the water bottle

Jen (01:17:21):
was because she's like, I believe in you. And in my head,
though, because of like myfilters and where I was at with
myself. I heard that as acondescending insult. Right. And
so your page down? Already know.
I believe in you. I know you cando this. Right. And like, I

(01:17:43):
think in her mind, she was beinga good mom. And in my mind, I'm
like you're being condescendingbit. But that's what made me so

Lynn (01:17:53):
I forgotten that's what it was. But yeah, no wonder I was
thinking about what I do.

Jen (01:17:59):
Like, I was like I was complimenting you. But I'm sure
Lauren can also She's shakingher head and resonance with what
I'm saying of how that can beperceived. And when you're in a
particular state of mind, andwhy I'm throwing things may be
necessary.

Lynn (01:18:19):
So why did you do because I, you know, you did go do some
reflection. Because what startedhappening soon after that was I
noticed that when I would askfor things like Jen and I were
like, going back and forth withyou know, web design and
newsletter and she produces mypodcasts. And I would ask her

(01:18:40):
for a status on something or askher for something. And before
kind of prior to the bottle,throwing incident, I would get
sort of this grudging answer.
And then it started becomingmore like working with somebody
I really wanted to work with,like, Oh, let me go check. Let
me find that out. Let me get itto you. Let me you know, it was
sort of all of a sudden, we wereadult to adult instead of me

(01:19:02):
feeling like I was the unwittingparent to a child. I didn't want
to be a child parent, too, ifthat makes sense. So what did
you do?

Jen (01:19:13):
Well, I can't really, we don't have enough time to
explore everything that so I canonly say in a nutshell of like,
you know, what did it look like?
Because, well, for me, it has awhole lot to do with like, all
my insecurities, right? Youwould ask me a question, can we
follow up and I felt like Iwasn't doing a good job. I felt

(01:19:36):
like that was a hit against mein terms of, oh, I should have
already you like you're payingme so I should have already had
that in front of you, orwhatever it was right. It was
like, some of it was myinsecurity. Some of it was like
Well, all of it was myinsecurities. Let's just put it
that way. So what I ended uphaving to actually do in a

(01:20:00):
nutshell is really gets aanother person to like help me
explore what those insecuritieswere. So whenever she would say
something to me, I wasn't takingit. I wasn't hearing it through
my insecurity lens, right? Itwas like, Oh, she's just asking
me like, What's the status onthis? Or, you know, can we

(01:20:23):
change this or because I feltlike everything before, that was
not good enough, I felt we'renot good enough. And so I had to
really work, work through that.
And that was, that's theconversation where it's like, it
took a lot of work to get tothat point and some
restructuring, right? Like wehad to re I had to stop being a

(01:20:45):
W two. Honestly, I had to go tobe an independent contractor.
And then it was like, now we'resame dynamic. Say I'm doing the
exact same thing, except it'sjust laid out a little bit
differently. So I'm able to showup like that. But you know what,
I would love to go back in herebecause I know Lauren, had some,

(01:21:07):
some thoughts. Maybe I'm hopingshe'd be willing to share that
resonance with the I can seewhere you're coming from in the
throwing water bottles when Momis just trying to tell you how
great you are.

Lauren (01:21:25):
Yeah, I think that what would come up in me is like, Mom
is well, I guess what I waswondering with you is, did you
feel like it was abnormal foryour mom to do that? Like,
because I know that there was achange in your guys's dynamics
that did you suddenly feel likehell's this? The sort of

(01:21:46):
cheerleading encouragement overthe top, whatever.

Jen (01:21:49):
Well, I definitely think that she was always a
cheerleader, but she would notlike sit there and go, Jen, I
really believe in you. Eventhough she really believed in
me, right? She wouldn't saythose things necessarily out
loud, maybe because she didn'tever feel like she needed to say
those things out loud beforeuntil she saw me kind of, I
don't know. I guess spinning outof control mentally. And this is

(01:22:13):
by the way I had like years,this has had nothing to do with
addiction is years clean. I feellike I'm a mature adult. Except
I wasn't a mature adult anymore.
Right. So yeah, I do actuallyfeel now that you asked that
question. I'm like, Yeah, Idon't think that that I felt
like that was a change. Like,why are you saying these things
to me?

Lauren (01:22:36):
Yeah, I can identify with the feeling that you had. I
don't have a water bottleincident, per se.

My car?

Lynn (01:22:46):
Oh, well, there's a story there

Lauren (01:22:48):
was anger in general.
Right.

Now that aren't so Lauren. See, the way I perceive
Lauren to take that as Laurentaking? I believe in you is now
there's the pressure of anexpectation you have of me. Just
one more thing that I can failat that two degree

Lauren (01:23:17):
degree? Yeah. Or it would just be overthinking it.
Honestly, it'd be like, shewouldn't need to say that if it
were true.

Jen (01:23:25):
Right, well, okay, so it's a lot. I think, to me, when I
really break it down. It's awhole lot like people, which I
understand this because now thatI'm like an adult, like I can
see why we do this, but liketelling someone that they have
so much potential, right? Ithink it's almost even though
like I know how we mean it, butwhen you really break that down,

(01:23:48):
it's like So are you saying thatI'm not actually like the best
version of myself because evenif I feel like I'm the like I'm
doing the best that I can rightnow. And saying I have so much
potential is kind of telling methat I'm still not good enough.
So like people used to tell methat all the time and I took it

(01:24:08):
as like so am I not good enoughlike because I feel like at this
present moment, I'm seriouslydoing the very best that I can
so by you saying that to metells me like so when I hear
like I believe in you. I thinkat that moment. It felt like you
were saying you have so muchpotential and I still felt not

(01:24:29):
good enough yet that makes you

Lynn (01:24:32):
know that that if there's anything that can get people it
is that me everyone? I've notthink I've ever worked with a
single client that didn'tsomewhere have that not good
enough. And if you put that lensfilter on everything else comes
in a little bit like a funhousemirror. It's not a clear

(01:24:55):
reflection of who you are. It'slike warped because you can take
everything The wrong way.
Because you don't you don'tpersonally feel good enough or
you feel like you're somehowmiss thinking about? Yeah.
nodding heads.

Lauren (01:25:13):
I was gonna say the potential thing I totally
understand. Because I rememberwhen people would say that to
me. For the longest time, Iwould feel heavy after I would
be like, What do I do with it?
Like it? I know it's binary, butit's like, it's like a pressure.
And again, it's like, well, Idon't have direction or clarity
of what I want to do. And nowyou're saying, I have this
potential. And I'm now trying tofind it. And yeah, it's the,

(01:25:33):
especially if you feel like youare doing so much. It can play
on you like this. This is all Ihave, right? Now you want more?

Lynn (01:25:44):
Like you want more, it's pressure for more, or that,
heaven forbid, I'm going towaste something. I hate waste.
And it's like, oh, my gosh,you're telling me I can have a
wasted life? Or I could, youknow, but but the whole thing,
it all, it all comes down to thestrangest things like pressure,
like Jennifer was feelingpressure, just from me asking
her for something. Hey, where isthat thing you did for me? And

(01:26:07):
it's just a simple request. Idon't remember I don't remember
because I don't like I have aterrible memory on these things.
Where is it? And for her, itwould be like, you're not good
enough to have?

Jen (01:26:17):
Well, right? Well, she would ask me to do the things
that I had already done overagain, because she forgot that I
did it. And that was a while torealize that right? did take me
a while to realize that becauseshe's like asking me for things
I'm like, but we've already donethis. So like was that not?
Because I thought when we hadthe conversation about this,

(01:26:37):
that you were happy with mywork. But now you want me to do
it again? All because she justforgot that we had already done
it because her memory sucks.

So when you say that, because there was the old
dynamic and story there. Thebrain went right to the story,
instead of Let me ask somequestions. Right. Let me you
know, we did this before. Isthere something about that, that

(01:27:07):
you didn't like? Is there someknee jerk, but it just goes
straight to the story? And andthat's why when both people are
open to actually like changingthe dynamic? It helps because we
can help the other one, get backon track, right. But but a lot

(01:27:28):
of times there's nobodyunderstands what's happening,
right? Because one person'sgoing off the rails. Yeah, I
know what happened to over here.
I'm trying to catch up. Andthere's a whole breakdown. So
sometimes you just kind of ridethat wave until you figure it
out without engaging in the oldpatterns.

Jen (01:27:51):
Right? Well, now, I asked more questions.

Lynn (01:27:55):
She's so much better at it. But you know that the thing
about those patterns is they dotranscend our relationships with
our mothers and daughters. Inother words, the very pattern
that Jennifer and I had is alsocarries, you know, into other
relationships. Because we seethe same triggers. It's just

(01:28:16):
like the guy at the grocerystore, having the mom face of my
mom, you know, and it wasaffecting me and he had no
intent whatsoever to affect me.
He just had a permanent scowl on

his face. Resting bitchface.

Lynn (01:28:30):
It was a male with a resting bitch. Yeah, a bitchy
resting face or whatever theycall that. That's, that's
exactly what happens is thesepatterns. You know, I can't tell
you how many times I'm having tounwind a parent child dynamic in
a work situation where peopleare hearing what the boss is

(01:28:51):
saying. You remember Jennifersaid she had to get off being a
W two because that makes me nother boss, but more like her. I
don't know what I am when I'm acontractor, but it's different.
Like she's a client. I'm herclient that instead of her boss
and it changes the dynamic. Butsometimes I tell people treat
your boss like a client and itchanges everything because they
get out of that parent childdynamic that we have sometimes

(01:29:15):
even with our bosses. So you canimagine for Jennifer and I bless
her heart. She had threelighters she had me as her
actual mother. Then she had meas her boss and her landlord. It
was really well. It took a lotfor us to get to where we are at
the moment.

Yeah, I I would like to throw something in here
because I really wanted to getthis out and make sure that I I
wanted to be able to give peoplesome tools to be able to use in
these situations because you canhave the you can have the
intellectual understanding andsee it play out but then you can
get stuck. And this is one of myfavorite tools because it It

(01:30:00):
puts you back into being incontrol of the way you are
showing up and breaks thepattern. And it's three
different stages to it. Thefirst one is called Mirror. The
second one is called empathize,and the third one is validated.

(01:30:20):
And how this looks, I used touse this a lot in in the group,
so they would do at thetreatment center for addiction.
So because I would say, okay, soyou're here for 30 days, and
you're gonna go through thisentire process of self
exploration and therapy andunderstanding and you're gonna
feel great, you're not going tobe using anymore, you're going

(01:30:42):
to get healthy. And then you'regoing to go back home. And when
you go home, what you don'tfully understand is that those
people, the last time they sawyou, they were pouring you into
a cab on the way to the airporton the way to treatment. So they
didn't go along the lot, thiswhole treatment process with

(01:31:05):
you. So, when you go home,you're so excited. And you might
be like, Oh my gosh, I'm soexcited to be sober and clean
and live this new life and youcould be met with some very
cynical,

Lauren (01:31:21):
resting bitchface.
Resting bitchface

Jen (01:31:25):
resting bitchface it's just a bitch face. Let's be clear.

And so and people could say things like to you
like, yes, well, we heard allthat before. Okay, that could be
a real trigger moment. Right?
Because it could go right intothe old story of, you know,
resentments and everything here,I did 30 I did this huge thing
in my life, and these peopledon't even support me, let me

(01:31:53):
get, I'm only gonna getvalidated for that. And then now
you've got that feeling of orinside of you. You've got a
distance between the personthat's in your life. Maybe it's
a sister, mother, whatever. Butif you do something like a mere
emphasize and validate what thatlooks like, and say, Okay, so.

(01:32:17):
So what you hear is, yeah, Ibelieve it when I see it. We've
been here before to you mirrorthat person. So let me see if I
understand what you're sayingis, is that I have before said
that I was going to get soberand be sober and be healthy. And

(01:32:41):
that didn't happen. Yeah, that'sright. It didn't happen. And you
lied all the time. Okay. Soyou're saying that I lied. And
that is that was that really washard for you? Is that what
you're saying? That I lied, andI said that I was going to be

(01:33:01):
sober and I wasn't? Yes. Okay. Ican then I can understand you
empathize. I can understand whyyou would feel this way. Right,
I can understand it. I did dothose things. That did happen.
And now you validate. If I wereyou, I would probably feel the

(01:33:30):
same way. And then you have totake yourself out of it. In
other words, you're not doingthis as some kind of parlor
trick to like gain control ofthe conversation or you know,

(01:33:51):
some chest move. This is this isso that you can not you can walk
away and not have picked up thatjudgment about Yeah, well, we
heard this before but because ifyou own it. No, I used to say
anybody seen eight mile? Anybodyseen that movie with with

(01:34:15):
Eminem? Oh, yeah. Right?
Brilliant scene where he's goingto have like a rap off. Right?
And he's the only white guythere. And he's, he's terrified.
And what happens is like, theguy is going against is just

(01:34:36):
brutal. He's gonna get shredded.
So what he does is, he goes outthere and he owned every single
thing that guy could have eversaid about them. He said that
about himself. First he owned itall made it his so that there
was no place that the other guycould come at them. Because he
had no vulnerability because heowns it all. It's brilliant. You

(01:35:00):
think that it means that you'reagreeing about your you're a bad
person, it doesn't, you're justacknowledging that someone else
could have a differentexperience around what's
happening. And by letting themknow that you see and hear and

(01:35:20):
understand that that can also goreally far in taking that
tension away. Because when weget into arguments, everyone's
waiting to just throw theirpiece back. There's a big wall
between you and we're lobbingballs over it, right? Because no
one's listening, because we'rejust waiting to like, give our
side. But this makes us stop to,I'm not doing that I'm not going

(01:35:45):
to argue or give evidence oranything, I just want to stop
for a minute. And I want toreally hear what you're feeling
and what you're experiencing.
And without having to change it.
And to just acknowledge, like,yeah, I guess, you know, if I
was you, I'd probably feel thesame way. And it takes away so

(01:36:05):
much of the energy behind it.

Lynn (01:36:13):
That's a brilliant tool.
Yeah. Great. I love that. I lovethat.

Jen (01:36:19):
That was a that was a great tool. Lauren, what's your go to
tool? But new on this? Sorry.
I'm allowing you the opportunityto immediately use your tool.

Lauren (01:36:36):
Well, actually, it's funny when you you're saying
about like, how your mom wouldsay something to you, or email
you or whatever, and how youwould interpret it. Like, my big
thing that I'm trying to reallyincorporate is the like,
recognizing, like, what's thefacts? What are the facts here?
Right? Oh, an email was sentsaying, Did you do this thing?

(01:36:58):
And how am I saying it in myhead when I'm reading it? Did
you do this thing? And that'susually like, oh, well learn,
you're kind of adding you'readding an inflection there that
isn't there. Right? It's simplydid you do that? It's just a
question. And if someone elseasked you this, would you feel
the same way? So you know,because we're sometimes applying
like, oh, well, this personthinks this way. We're mind

(01:37:20):
reading. Right? So it's kind oflike catching myself when I go
into those cognitive distortionsas they call it, right? Like,
remind reading, when I'mcatastrophizing like, how many
of us when we hear like, oh, theboss wants to see you. And
you're like, I'm in trouble. Youhave no idea what's gonna be
said, but you just immediatelygo into I'm in trouble. I don't
think I've done anything wrong.
But they probably foundsomething that I've done wrong.

(01:37:42):
Though, yeah, trying to catchmyself when I do that, those. So
the cognitive distortions listis like, huge for me. Another
thing that I do is, especiallybecause we were talking about,
like the codependentrelationship mom, and I have
something that I have learned tocatch myself in pretty much
daily is when I have a problem.

(01:38:07):
And I want to call Mom, it'slike a knee jerk reaction to be
like, let's go on and then rightand I, and then we get stuck in
this pattern again, and again,it's exhausting. And then we're
on the phone for hours wastingtime. And then afterward, I
don't like, sure there's alittle relief, but not really,
it doesn't last. So I feel likeholding back from calling mom

(01:38:29):
being mindful of that, andactually going and sitting with
myself or journaling or findingmy own coping strategies is has
been really, really helpful. Andalso recognizing when I'm
calling mom about somethingnegative, or to complain, versus
Am I calling mom and anytimeabout something positive,

(01:38:52):
something helpful. I want thatto be more so than the
complaining and the negativity.
So what's my ratio is what I'mconstantly Oh, that's good.
That's awesome. Because Mom, Iused as a dumping ground for a
lot of

Lynn (01:39:08):
I think moms are. I mean, I thought that that was besides
the eyes in the back of our headand the third hand to carry all
the dishes back to the kitchen.
I thought that was one of ourjobs.

Right hits you. I was I was I was there for until I
was like, beat into submission.
But, you know, it just became soheavy to constantly be getting
that and that it didn't feellike it was helping. It was like
just stirring the pot, you know?
Right.

Lauren (01:39:39):
Yeah. You did a good thing to like, I would start to
recognize when my mom was sortof like check out a little or
she'd be like that you wouldn'tgive me much and I was like,
Okay, this is like okay, this isboring. I gotta get up fun. Give
me anything.

Jen (01:39:55):
That's with you. Thank you.

Lynn (01:39:58):
So I no more gasoline on it. Far.

Lauren (01:40:00):
Yep, exactly. Or she would? Or she would even there
was a period of time. And Mom,you're probably not, you're
going to be reminded, and you'reprobably going to start doing it
again. Where he would kind ofcut me off where she would be
like, I gotta go. I have toattend to this thing over here.

Lynn (01:40:20):
New empty the dishwasher.
Yeah, I

Lauren (01:40:22):
knew it was an excuse.
I'm like, Mom, you take yourphone everywhere with you to you
know, we've had conversationswhile you're doing laundry while
you're, you know, you're feedingthe chickens like, so I know
that that's BS, but on a certainlevel, I also know that that is
what I need. So I do accept it.
I'm like, Ah, we've reached thatpoint. Mommy's not valid me.

Lynn (01:40:45):
Does are helpful. That was very good. That was a very good
tool. So those awarenesses Jan,what are your What are your
what's one of your go to Tools,and then I'll share one.

Jen (01:40:54):
Um, well, this is mostly for like, when my when I'm in
like, it, the immediate reactionif I get, cuz this is where I
struggle the most is when I'mconfronted with something, and I
don't know how to respond and mybrain kind of flatlines for a
minute. And then, you know,like, that's, that's my biggest

(01:41:16):
struggle. I'm like, I don't knowwhat to do here. And my go to
for that particular thing thatsometimes I remember it. And
sometimes I don't, sometimes Ijust flatline and like, you
know, but when I remember it,it's good. As I just asked a
quick, can you tell me moreabout that? Very, very easy to

(01:41:39):
remember. I don't have to doanything else. Can you tell me
more about that? Not becausethis is what I tell the people
want to tell people how to usethis tool, not because I
actually care what they have tosay, I just need my brain back
in that moment. And I know it'sgonna take them a minute to tell

(01:42:01):
me more about what they mean.
Because, you know, so I'm like,Okay, this is gonna give me at
least five to 10 minutes. Eithermyself, of can you tell me? Can
you tell me more about that, butI need about five to 10 minutes
to get my brain back. Because myimmediate reaction is usually
not good. It looks a lot likethrowing water bottles.

Lauren (01:42:30):
Like we I relate to you on that. It's like either, we
react and it's really not good.
And it's like, oh, no, I want totake that back. Or it's just I
don't have like I because I'moverthinking. And I know that I
don't react well, in thosesituations. Now. I have nothing.
Yeah. line,

Lynn (01:42:48):
that line. You know my mind harder and was wanting to
be able to get to a place ofcuriosity when something's
coming at me that I'm notexpecting like, Jen, why did you
throw the water bottle and becurious as opposed to pissed.
But to get there, I've learned Ihave to assume positive intent.
And, you know, it's no secretbecause I wrote the elegant

(01:43:12):
pivot the book about that, butto, to, to see that it's not
personal. And that there's areason somebody's doing
something, and it's notnecessarily about me, is really
helpful to get to pure curiosityfor me. And it applies almost
everywhere I go, but but it'sreally, really hard to do. But

(01:43:34):
you know, most people reallydon't get up in the morning,
trying to screw up your day.
Like Jan, I knew when we weregoing through our stuff that you
weren't getting up in themorning, trying to make life
hard on us, you know, or makeour life hard on me or make my
my lack of good memory be aproblem. So if I could, you
know, after the first hit,there's always that first

(01:43:54):
thought, which is usually notgood. My second thought I tried
to have be assuming positiveintent, just so I can be curious
and say, Well, what is going on?
If I don't like that? Whatwhat's going what's behind this?
And, you know, then I feel likeI can find my way out a little
bit. From there. Yeah. So one ofthe things we wanted to do

(01:44:16):
towards the end of this is Iknow we have a few people on
live, if you want to add anyquestions to the chat, we may
open it up to do a little bit ofq&a. Or if you have anything
that struck you that you want toknow more about anymore, or
more.

Jen (01:44:33):
Raise your hand and I can unmute you. If you

Lynn (01:44:36):
oh yeah, Jen, you can? You could do it that way. Yeah. Jen
is Jen is the Zoom master here.
She knows how to make that work.

Jen (01:44:42):
Right. So you go to the chat or raise the hand if you
have any questions or commentsor anything you want to add to
the conversation. Yeah.

Lynn (01:44:51):
One of the one of the themes that I've noticed from
this conversation is sort of thehelpful fame. I We'll say is it
is possible to break patterns?

Lauren (01:45:06):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
And you're a participant inthat. I was just gonna say it
comes from both sides.

Yes. Well, I would also say, I would just also say
that you can only control yourside. So even if the other
person is not willing, you canstart doing it yourself.

Jen (01:45:27):
Yeah. And, you know, I think I think even for me, like,
I don't think it was one sided,I think, even during the thing
with my mom, and I few yearsback, I think I did a lot of the
heavy lifting about say, shedidn't do her work, but I think
a lot of the heavy lifting wasalso on me, as well. So, you

(01:45:49):
know, a lot changed, for medoing the heavy lifting, because
she was able to have some moreto go with that. From there,
right. Now she's able to have,you know, now we're able to have
real conversations and hardconversations because I can be
present. And then she can bepresent. Right? So but it does,

(01:46:13):
yeah, it can. It can be a lot totake on on from both sides. And
sometimes we don't always get topeople, which is why I'm really
grateful that we have, you know,the four of us here, where it's
like, you know, wow, this is alittle, I guess unique, because

(01:46:34):
it's, we have all of usparticipating and the growth of
our relationships is amazing.
What makes this amazing.

I also say that there's so much more that we
certainly didn't talk about, Oh,yeah. And I made so many
mistakes. But I was very shutdown. And in fight flight, I

(01:47:06):
think most of my motheringyears, like, so. It was just go
go go. And work three jobs,whatever it whatever had to be
done, had to get done. And Ithink that the tunnel vision,
the vision does get smaller andsmaller and smaller of what I

(01:47:29):
knew I had to do and what Icould do. And I think maybe
there was a bottle lying tomyself, like I was, you know, it
was delusional about how great Iwas knocking it out of the park.
And as you get older, you know,you start to see that that's not
necessarily what was happening,you know, like that. And, and

(01:47:52):
that can be painful. And theguilt piece. I mean, there,
there is a truckload of thingsthat we could talk about. That
happened that would lend itselfto trauma bonding between Lauren
and my son and I were, I do knowthat I used to say to them when

(01:48:17):
they were kids, because and thisis where there's no right or
wrong and parenting, right.
Like, it's just how it can be.
It can be processed in thechild's mind. You don't you
can't know that ahead of time. Iwould say, as long as we're
together. We're good, right?
Everything's good as long aswe're together. And when I

(01:48:38):
didn't realize that, that thatmade them. I think they really
liked that as kids. But then asadults, it reinforced the
enmeshment because now we'reonly okay if we're together. So
going away or doing somethingthat makes the most move apart
and be more grown up feels likethat's where the scary stuff is.

(01:49:00):
So you never know how somethingis going to unravel later. And
it's really important to knowthis is a lifetime of unpacking
and being present and andallowing it's not something that
happens. Oh, I did that lastyear. It was not how this works.

Jen (01:49:21):
Yeah, we have someone that has raised their hand. I'm going
to help I say this right. Andplease forgive me if I don't
bridgid that. Yeah. I think Iasked to

Lynn (01:49:32):
let she's unmuted. There you go. You got

Unknown (01:49:35):
it. Um, well, first, thank you guys for being here
and having this conversationsfantastic. And I I was taking
notes through the whole thingand thinking about and I got
into a little bit like oh, yeah,I did that. I did that. And some
of it wasI did what was would have been

(01:49:55):
considered like the good thing,but um, realizing it came from a
place that didn't make it thegood thing. So I was going back
to like when you saw your mom ashuman, and I was thinking for
like with my daughter, I think Idid a lot of like pre emptive
striking, like, I suck at this,I'm not good at this. And then

(01:50:16):
that did not allow her to sayyou suck at this, you're not
good at this, because it waslike, I already took that out of
the picture for her. Like, itwasn't an option for her to say,
because I already did it. And Ihave a clear memory. We built a
house. And when you build ahouse from scratch, buying the

(01:50:39):
land, you end up with like allof these. You know, you have the
How to that now everything'sonline. But at the time, I had
this giant drawer in my kitchenthat had like how to do the
microwave, how to do the stove,how to do the sprinkler system.
And one time when my daughterwas 12 to 14 and just pushing me
pushing me pushing me like, allthe buttons, were getting

(01:51:02):
niggled. I had a meltdown. And Iwent to that drawer, and I just
started just standing there inthe kitchen. I started pulling
these flyers out, like themicrowave, the this I'm
screaming, pulling these thingsout. There's no freaking
brochure for you. I am doing andno. brochure. I don't know what

(01:51:25):
to do with you. I wasoverwhelmed. And in the moment,
like looking back, it's like,Oh, how beautiful. You admitted
all of your crap. But now I'mrealizing like, Well, yeah, but
that was so preemptive, like Inever gave her the opportunity
to go, you freaking suck. Sohuge realisation. And I like use

(01:51:51):
bumps right now because thatthat moment just sticks out in
my mind so much on what shelooked like on the other side of
the kitchen counter and what itfelt like to be like throwing
papers. Like, I know how toinstall a doorknob, like
throwing just things. And no onegave me for sure. I just brought

(01:52:14):
you home and there your

Lynn (01:52:21):
mother's across America or identifying with you.

Yeah, yeah. So

Unknown (01:52:30):
it's amazing. How, you know, in one way you guys were
talking about how it's, youknow, so nice to let them know
that they you know that you makemistakes, and yet the way and so
I was always going oh, good girllike you, you. You told her you
didn't always have the answers.
But now I'm really realizingalways the yin and yang of all

(01:52:52):
of those things and where theycome from. So thank you so much
for that's

Lynn (01:52:58):
actually a really good awareness.

That's Yes. really insightful. That's what I was
just as it shows that intentionis really important in
everything right? What andquestioning why you're doing it,
because it can change thedynamic of taking, like you said
the good thing, but theintention is so that I don't

(01:53:20):
have to hear you tell me thatyour experience of it being bad.
So I'm just gonna say it's bad.
I did it. It's bad. So now youdon't have that opening? or
feeling like you do.

Unknown (01:53:34):
Yeah, yeah. And my mom was an alcoholic, but she was
not a closet alcoholic. She toldeveryone she was an alcoholic,
and no one ever came to save me.
It's it literally the samedynamic, right? Like, I couldn't
call her out on all the drugs.
It was like, no, she just threwit out there. There was no

(01:53:56):
secrecy at all. And so here Iwas trying so hard to not do
that same thing. It didn't havean alcohol or drug problem.
There were other other thingsbut and then looking back on it
going, Oh, same thing. You know,same thing.

Yeah, yes. Last was very less, much less not as bad.
You know, much more doable.

Unknown (01:54:21):
Right. Right. Same damage could be the same damage,
but yes, complete completelydifferent. So it's, um, yeah,
yeah. been fascinating. Thankyou, guys.

Thank you. Thank you.

Lynn (01:54:33):
This is the journey, isn't it? I mean, that's what we're
all on is a journey. Whetherit's the mother daughter or just
in all of our relationships, butthe mother daughter
relationship, I think doesreally shape our lives. And as
we come up on our promise,closing time, what I thought
would be nice for us to do isjust have each of us briefly

(01:54:57):
speak about how people can findout more or find each of us in
our respective worlds and alsohow they can just find out more
about what we do. So let mestart Lauren, let me start with
you.

Lauren (01:55:15):
You can find me at LGM method.com. Also tick tock
Instagram. Facebook is LGImethod as well.

Lynn (01:55:24):
LG M. S. Martin, your last

Lauren (01:55:28):
name? Lauren Grace Martinson method.

Lynn (01:55:31):
There you go. LGM that beautiful and you're on tick
tock. Yes. What do you do ontick tock?

Lauren (01:55:38):
Um, so I actually have been doing videos, sharing tools
with people from various books,various personal development
books, certain exercises that weall seem to skip usually in
those books. Yeah, I'll get tothat later. Let me just read
this book. Well, I actually havepulled out some of the my

(01:55:58):
favorite ones and just basicallytalk about it on those videos.

Lynn (01:56:02):
Oh, that's amazing. I don't I'm not tick tock. So I
need you to post them somewhereelse.

Lauren (01:56:10):
Share them on Instagram.
So.

Lynn (01:56:12):
Okay. I think I may be following you there then. Okay,
good. Good. Good. All right.
Jan, how about you?

Jen (01:56:21):
You can just go to my website, Maneely consulting.com?
m a n e l y consulting.com? Orjust shoot me an email? Jennifer
Maneely consulting.com.

Lynn (01:56:32):
Yeah. And describe a little bit about what it is you
do, especially with parents?

Jen (01:56:36):
Yes. So I work with families that have loved ones
with substance abuse. So Italked to a lot of the parents
just trying to help themnavigate that whole confusing
world where people can getreally lost. It's, it's hard. So
sometimes you just need a guidethrough the darkness. And that's
kind of what I do. Yeah.

Lynn (01:57:00):
Well, Christine, tell us about what you do and how to
find you.

I would, I would say, I always ended up saying things
like, I'll say one thing andthen I have to feel like I feel
like I have to add a but on theother side be like I say when I
talked about the mere empathize,validate, I've seen people
actually take that as a weaponand use it because their

(01:57:28):
intention was to take control ofconversations instead of have
clearing. So I would say whenyou're talking about being
vulnerable, and allowing a childor a parent to have their
perception of things that canalso be weaponized depending on
the person because if you'redealing in a pathological

(01:57:49):
relationship with someone who isnarcissistic, or borderline or
Oppositional Defiant Disorder,any of those things, there's
always a power strugglehappening there and control of
the narrative. So you wouldn'thandle those necessarily in the

(01:58:09):
same way. So I just feel like Iwanted to,

Lynn (01:58:12):
I'm glad you had that added that clarity. Put that

in there. I, I work for a long time in with people
helping them get sober and thenworking as a sober coach.
There's a huge amount ofcrossover with pathological
relationships and addictionbecause pathological
relationships with all thegaslighting, love bombing,

(01:58:39):
abuse, lying, everything, peopleget stuck, it literally creates
a loop in their brain thatdoesn't allow them to be able to
leave. And addiction, liketurning to drugs or alcohol is a
way to leave without leaving.
And it's taking you out. Right.

(01:59:00):
And I saw those correlations andit seems that you're you always
say like, you get your theperfect people to work with you
like if you put out the rightenergy, and I tend to work with
people who have had thoserelationships, and are trying to
get back to themselves andbecause you lose yourself and so

(01:59:22):
finding a way back to yourselfand knowing even who you are
now, that because you're livingin someone else's brain and
nervous system just to be safethe whole time. So, I work as a
transformational mentor and Iuse hypnotherapy and Equine
Assisted coaching as other toolsto be able to help people you

(01:59:43):
know, get the life that theywant to live and not and heal
from this and themselves.

Lynn (01:59:50):
That's the I love I love the term transformational
mentor. It's it's really it'sreally potent when you start
talking about true transformnation? What's your web? So? Oh,
yeah, give us

on the path coaching dotnet

Lynn (02:00:07):
on the path coaching dotnet, we'll have all of this
for those of you who arelistening in the show notes as
well. And for me, the best wayto find me is that my website
Len carnes.com. And there youcan subscribe to the coaching
digest, which is, I put it outweekly, and it really is
everything I coach on all of mytools, blogs, everything is

(02:00:30):
there for free. And then once ina while somebody will actually
want me to do a true executivecoaching with them. And that's
what I do when I work withsomeone one on one is is
executive coaching typicallymore entrepreneurs than ever now
but also with with seniorexecutives in the corporate
world. So finding me at Lynnkarns.com You can find me there.

(02:00:51):
And of course, you may havefound that through this podcast
if you're listening, this willgo out on both the creative
spirits unleashed podcast andJen money lace unbreakable
boundaries podcast. I was

one thing if anybody out there is has questions or
need support around thepathological relationships,
whether that was a parent, or alove relationship. I've been
doing this thing called FirstFridays. It's a Friday. Yes,
it's awesome. A free group call,the first Friday of every month

(02:01:25):
will be next Friday. So if yougo to my website, you can sign
up for that for free. And that'salready started being great
conversations on there.

Lynn (02:01:34):
Great. I did the last one.
And I'm going to just endorse itright now. It was worth being
there. So sign up for that ifyou can. It's worth it's really
great. So with that I'm going towe promised to be done at three
o'clock and we are at threeo'clock. How about that? So
thank you all so much forjoining and for having this

(02:01:54):
conversation. And I look forwardto future conversations because
we're all friends and we will bewe will be back plotting new
ideas after this one. So thankyou everybody, and we look
forward to seeing you on thenext episode. Is that will I

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#66 Real Conversations with Mothers and Daughters

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