Mama Trauma

Linda unpacks a jarring Mother's Day experience from the year before and reflects on what happened since:

 I had to create a safe distance from last year's Mother’s Day to do this episode. I’ll bet you’re wondering why! As much as I’m a champion of mothering energy and inclusivity in that world, I experienced what I would call a profound separation from that.  And now I’m ready to talk about it. 

You can't always get what you want. But sometimes... you get what you need. Believe it. 

Key nuggets

• Finding the gifts in negative experiences
• Following popcorn trails and creating through lines to your purpose
• Landing in the VOID and where to go from there
• How to have unconditional love

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

Linda (2): 1:02

Hello and happy, I guess, mid may. Can you believe it? May known for mother's day for one? today's episode is what I, in my mind, I'm calling mother's day Redux. This episode, I guess, in a way. A year in the making. I think it started out as a blog post I needed to write after I experienced mamma trauma. Um, so I'm going to, I'm going to get into this story. it's special for me to have found sort of a breadcrumb trail, written by my younger son. Your younger self after experiencing, the said trauma and, I forgot that I'd written it to be honest. And when I found it and I was already poised to create a mother's day episode, and the funny thing was is that I was going to revisit, the episode. But I was introducing a whole different topic with it and I forgot that there was all this other juicy stuff to connect. So yeah, without further ado. Um, just so you know, I'm going to read part of what I wrote and, I'll sort of in real time, unpack the rest okay. So I had to create a safe distance from mother's day to do this episode. I'll bet you're wondering why. As much as I'm a champion of mothering energy and inclusivity in that world, I experienced what I would call a profound separation from that. Yeah, and now I'm ready to talk about it. So here's the thing. Anything that isn't love is a separation. We all feel other at times, those of us in the other hood definitely know what that is. Most of the time it's an inside job. Something occurs in the outside world. And our thoughts about it create separation. Seldom is it that someone actually says, get the fuck out, or, you know, the equivalent of that, right? Someone actually calls you on it and says, Your other, or you are less than, but sometimes that's what actually happens. So in an ideal world, I might've been getting mother's day love for my children. In an ideal world. Maybe my nieces and nephews might include me in their card distribution since you know, I'd be a fabulous auntie. In another scenario, I just get to enjoy a day with my nurturing non mom friends. And we just celebrate the energy of the day and the friend families that we've created. What actually happened was this. About a week before mother's day. I got a text from my mother. Saying that she didn't feel like celebrating mother's day. It was a three-part texts. So it started with, I don't feel like celebrating mother's day. With three daughters and no grandchildren, there isn't much to celebrate.

Linda: 4:20

Furthermore, it would be my parents' 50th anniversary next year. And she wrote next year is our 50th anniversary. And your father and I, we don't feel like we have much to celebrate here either. It's hard to describe the shocked hurt I felt. The shock muted the first wave of hurt, though. I watched my high conscious coach self spring into action to make my mom and myself feel better. I countered aggressive positivity saying, I'm sorry or depressed. I know it probably isn't easy to express what you just expressed. At least you experienced motherhood. Just because you aren't having the experience of grandmotherhood. It doesn't mean none of it had any meaning. I'm grateful that I have a mother. I'm grateful that my parents are alive and still get to enjoy so many things in life. I'm grateful that my parents stayed together. I'm grateful to have been born into the family I was born into. I'm grateful that Pa joined the Navy and managed to change his life by meeting you. I'm grateful for all that I've learned through you. I'd be grateful for any opportunity to share more joy with you. Beautiful. Right. But each day after this, I felt progressively worse. I confided in my trusted counsel, great supportive statements. Like what's up with her judgy sadness or God, her sensitivity blows me away. These were definitely helpful. I found myself going to my coaching toolbox and, there, I was reminded that I don't have to take this personally. She was having her own experience still. I was taking it hell, uh, personally. I mean, how could I not, I journaled. And I journaled and I journaled. The journal, got dumped with a lot of pain and I still hurt. I got very still and meditated. I let the wounding go all the way through me and it did. I made a decision at that time. I don't have to do this anymore. It's not the decision. You think. If it was the decision to not feel this pain or take it more personally? Well, yeah, that would have been something. I made a decision that I don't have to do this anymore. Be a coach, try to help people find their wholeness. I mean, how could I? One statement from my mother and I was no longer whole. If anything, this let me know that any wholeness I felt was a complete illusion. And my mother, like a fire-breathing dragon burnt down my party, decorations and spiritual festoons with one pass over the illusion of my complete life. I was gutted. I know not, I'm not a happy writing. So back in real time, how did I find my way back? Well, a few things. Deepening my spiritual practices for one, I know la di da. But seriously, finding purpose for another. And actually, now that I'm reflecting on it, this incident may have been the proverbial fork in the road that made me go deeper into purpose than I ever had before. I don't know. Maybe I had to prove to myself that I had purpose. Like I don't even need to therapeutically unpack it anymore. And that's a beautiful thing. Think about that, like, um, really so far past that place. But you want to know what really helped everything, exactly. Everything that I've ever shared. And I have more to share, but everything I've shared up till now, all of that's helped me in different ways. For instance, I've talked about looking at your story and how, we can repurpose and repackage, and rewrite our story. But beyond. It's it's like when we revisit the story, you know, we're thinking about one trauma or particular pain point usually. And that's what creates a significant date or location in your story. Right. What we failed to do, which I think it really behooves us to do is to go back there and see, well, what's happened since, right? Like what's happened since. So looking at your story and realizing what sprouted up from that place of hurt the place of trauma, the place of bruising, what happened after that? So I'm about to tell you what happened now. So picture this, like I'm just here to talk about a world that's possible, right? Like that's why I created this podcast last July, um, a rich world that you can create with your mind, fuel with desire, shape with your soul. This idea that you get to create the lens with which you look at life, that you can also Chuck, the expectations of society and family, especially the ones that need you to be something that your soul just isn't wanting for you. Right? That's what giving fewer fucks is all about. I came here to bring form to our collective desire for wholeness. And, you know, it's not the form, but it's a form. It's something that I'm shaping. This was my desire flowing through me. That was part of my why with creating this platform to speak. But what's really cool was that for the first time I started to understand more about purpose. So I. Talked about having studied life, purpose coaching, but you know, like coaching is coaching and that's kind of the truth of it, how you hold the space for another. For whatever reason, I was attracted to this idea of life purpose coaching. Did I freaking know what it was? Not really. I mean, I'll be honest. I don't feel like I had a purpose, not, not really not, um, not in a way that aligns all of your, everything you, you are right. And have grown into and like how to use that towards a specific kind of goal for your soul or for the rest of your human life. However you want to look at it. I really felt pretty rudderless, a large part of my life. And I would have glimmers of like, what did I love? What did I feel lit up by? Or what did I need to talk about? Like, what was I so damn excited about to share with others? And, um, I would say I would have described it more as like psychology. Like what makes humans tick? You know, like, why are we like this? Um, the good and the bad, you know. I just thought it was such juicy stuff, but in terms of like a larger reason for it all a larger reason for my being, I didn't feel it per se. But I went to life purpose because I liked the way it connected spirituality to the game. Like it's not just about aptitude and talent and will it fell of this world, but beyond this world too. But here's my truth bomb. My episodes about life purpose for the skeptical soul were just as much for me as for you. like true story. So taking you back to my, my momma trauma. It gave me something. Like her lightning struck my tree. And since then a lot of dead branches burned away and left me with something. It left me with this like essence of something. And I'm just now seeing that and the fact that now life purpose, I mean, I just feel like I'm in it. I'm not hung up on how to write about it or how permanent it even has to be. Right. Like, I know I'm in my purpose right now. Like right now, here in real time with you. So that's, that's a big gift. That's a gift I can't deny. And literally when I go back into my story, it was, it was from that point, I didn't feel into it at the time. I just moved towards this calling. Yeah. Just moved towards this calling. So what else helped? Well, you remember. The question to ask ourselves is not why is this happening to me? It's how is this happening for me? Right. If I said, why is this happening to me? Like, why would my mom do this and make me feel so less than right? I mean, shit, she's a mother. So if she feels like there's nothing to celebrate, then should I just like kill myself? I mean, okay, I'm being extreme here, but it's just like, if we're using that kind of mental equation about fair or unfair in life. Well, yeah, we can, we can doom more ourselves very, very quickly. How is this happening for me though? Hmm. Well, I'll tell ya. It's given me the path where I can walk my talk. Tell you what I mean by that. When I set up shop as coach, I passionately wanted to help people on the journey to motherhood. Like, I know what I did to try it. Like within marriage, after getting divorced, uh, as a single woman, I, I knew what I did.The journey. It kicks up a lot, even if you don't, you know, get into the arena the way I did it kicks up a lot and knowing. Having experienced my beats. I wanted to create a tender, but empowering space to look at it. Um, yeah, I wanted that for anyone who felt overwhelmed or like that it couldn't happen for them or they lacked the resources or that somehow they felt shame in their ambivalence. I wanted to create safety so that someone could lay their burden down and, and move forward with whatever they needed to move forward with. But the more I leaned into this idea about helping women create motherhood, the more I realized that. This wasn't exactly it. I wasn't attracting the people that were still trying for motherhood and realizing that was hard. You know, I, I took a little shame because it is it like, because I'm not a mother or I don't look like a proof of concept. Is that possible? I mean, maybe, but yeah, I wasn't attracting the people that were still trying. I was attracting people who wanted wholeness. End of story. That's, that's what I feel. That's what I know. And it makes sense, right? Because I want that too. So I now see that, although I never needed anyone I supported or coached to specifically become a mother. And that what I really wanted was to carve out space so that the blocks we encounter on the journey are addressed and dissolved and ultimately integrated to be part of the whole right. And to be empowering, to incorporate the shadow, all that stuff. I wanted people to feel into choice and action rather than helplessness and overwhelm. So I think it turns out that the journey I'm talking about it's just life. I mean, it can be the motherhood journey. It can be any point in your story. It's the story of your life and what you're making of it like motherhood, parenthood. Yes. It's an aspect a powerful one. It's so tied to our. human form, our biology, our belonging, our self-perception our legacy, right? Like what part of us can remain after our body's no longer here. So all of that, yes. It can be about having a child, having an extension of yourself in that way. Being the doorway for another soul. But it can be other things too. And the more I've moved into that understanding while still holding the space that I'm holding. Um, yeah, the, the more, I feel aligned with my own purpose and I feel like all of this is happening for me even, uh, so-called negative information or feedback. So one last thing I learned is that this episode with my mother, this spiraling down and climbing back up, getting to the depths of the shadows. Is recognizing that this was another gift, to walk my talk, this one is about unconditional love. I've talked about unconditional love before and how we get it wrong. Oftentimes we want, and it doesn't mean it isn't, this it's only part of it. We want to be unconditionally accepted by another. We want to feel like it's there. I really had to do a flip in order to find this because I didn't feel like it was there because I had a mother who could say such things to me. Right. And there were things in the past this was not an isolated incident, but that's another story. I felt like the floor could fall out from beneath me when it came to unconditional love. And, um, what I learned in these past years was that we do get it wrong, that we want it to be just that someone loves and accepts us no matter what. And to do that, a few things have to happen. Like you have to be in your. Share that truth and be able to handle how another person response to you and you have to handle their human reaction. Even when it doesn't feel loving to you, you have to remember your love for them and allow them to be who they are. Does that make sense? You have to be unconditional love in action, which means. You know, it's not roses all the time. What's unconditional love. Oh, it's when I'm ugly crying. When I'm watching a rom com I mean, that's the cutesy version of accepting me as I am, but, you know, try being married, try just having a lifelong relationship with a parent. It's not that. You know, we're all gnarly in our ways. We're all beautiful in our ways. Our truth can ruffle what we think of as love. And it's up to us to stay the course, stay grounded enough to hold them. Like you don't judge a baby for screaming, and thinking that they just simply hate you. Right? Like you understand that they're communicating something, the baby speak their truth, like no other. Right. And so what I realized with my mother is that she gave me an opportunity to practice it. All these years, I'm looking for some way, for me to feel unconditional love from her. And I'm looking and I'm looking, and I, I'm just finding it really hard to find the evidence, but when I flipped it and I found myself being unconditional love to her, everything changed, and it didn't change in an instant, not by a long stretch. Again, this took me looking at my year ago, story to sort of know that, wow, somehow in the course of this time, As, nasty is all that was, I've learned. I've deepened in, in my unconditional love. And I'll be honest. I mean, I haven't thought about this in a minute, um, because my mom just seems so adorable to me, like truly adorable, you know, it's the same woman that said that stuff that doesn't care about my feelings. I find her so adorable and so worthy of love. And I don't hold back from that. hold back from sharing it. I'm also not scanning for like what I can get from unconditional love. It's it doesn't feel transactional. It's like, I'm just in love. I'm just in love. And so, yeah, this is my, um, kind of vulnerable lesson, that I'm sharing with you all. But this is what it's like to put these things into practice and to measure your growth right. To reflect and see that. You are higher up the mountain or your consciousness has expanded just that bit more. Right? Keep, keep opening that door. Maybe you're just looking into the room. Maybe have a foot in the room. Maybe you're in the room, but it's blinding and you can't see how big it is and where you are in the room. But I promise you, I promise you it's totally worth it. Remember this journey, no matter how it turns out. It's happening for you? Not against you, even though it can feel like that's sometimes. Okay. I promise you there's beauty in your life and in the unfolding of your purpose, you are whole, you are held, you are loved. This is what I believe. This is my why.