Latest / Back Porch Confessions / Bonus to Part 3 of 4: Mourning the Mother I Needed
Transcript
- Gravesb41: Sometimes my soul is just tired, tired of being strong, tired of carrying the heaviness, tired of fighting battles nobody else can see. And maybe you know that kind of tired too. The kind of tired that doesn't come from sleep, the kind of tired that settles deep in your heart, your mind and your spirit, the kind that comes from surviving, enduring, holding it all together and still showing up when your life had tried to take everything out of you. But here's the truth. Being tired does not mean you are weak, it does not mean you are broken, and it does not mean your story is over. At Renewed Mind we talk about the hard things, the hidden heaviness, the silent battles, the trauma, the grief, the healing, and the fight to keep going when your soul feels weary. This is the place where strong people can finally tell the truth, where healing gets honest, where pain is spoken out loud. And where the ones who have spent their whole lives pouring into others can find a space to breathe, be seen, and remember they are worth the battle too because sometimes the healer needs healing. Sometimes the strong ones need somewhere soft to land, and sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is admit you're tired and keep choosing to heal anyway. This is renewed mind, real talk, real pain, real healing. One honest conversation at a time. Welcome to Back Porch Confessions, where the sweet tea is strong, the stories are stronger, and no topic is too taboo for the porch. Grab a seat, kick off your shoes, and let's get into the kind of conversation your mama warned you about, but you listen anyway. Back Porch Confessions: Hello, little mini bonus. if these get too long, it takes a little harder for me to get them uploaded and stuff like that. So I'm gonna continue this little chat just for a little extra bonus. So I guess it is gonna probably end up being five or six pieces, but whatever. So I wanna just jump right in. one of the things I left off on was the forgiveness thing and You know, the weight that we were never meant to carry is a huge aspect of that. And I want you to imagine something with me. Picture yourself as as I've discussed in in earlier parts of this, and in a couple parts of this, honestly, picture yourself walking down a country road. And you're carrying that back. That heavy old back door. You've had it on so long that you barely notice it anymore, right? And inside the backpack are all the things that we've talked about the rejection, the shame, the fear, people policing, loneliness, hypervigilance, the belief that you have to earn love, the belief that you're responsible for everyone else's emotions, the belief that if someone is upset, It must be our own fault. Somehow it's our fault. So as a child, you didn't choose to put those things into your backpack. Other people put them there. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. Because they didn't know better on the un unintentionally aspect. Because they were carrying their own heavy backpacks. Because here's the truth. Someone placed those things on your shoulders, right? Just because that happened doesn't mean you have to carry them forever. There comes a point in healing when you stop asking, who packed my backpack? And you begin asking, what am I ready to put down? because healing isn't about denying what was packed. That's old. We're not doing that anymore. It's about refusing to carry unnecessary weight into the next chapter of our life. So we face truth without having hatred. One of the things I hear most often is, but Barbara, I don't want to become bitter. Well, neither do I. That's never been the goal, right? The goal isn't bitterness, the goal is honesty. There's a difference. Bitterness keeps you chained to yesterday. Honesty. Helps you understand yesterday. Bitterness says, I'll never move forward. Honesty says, I know what happened. And I refuse to lie about it. For years I confused those two things. I thought if I admitted how much something hurt, I was somehow dishonoring my family. Now I understand. Truth isn't dishonor. Truth is clarity. And clarity allows healing. You don't have to exaggerate your story. You don't have to minimize your story. Just simply tell the truth. And then you let the truth do what it was always meant to do. Set you free. So what is forgiveness? And what is it? I wanna spend a few minutes talking about forgiveness because I know the world carries a lot of weight. And some of you had forgiveness used against you. You've been told, well, if you were really a Christian, you'd forgive. If you really are healed, you'd move on. If you're still hurt, you must be unforgiving. anyway, I don't believe healing works that way. Forgiveness is not pretending. Forgiveness is not forgetting. Forgiveness is not saying what happened didn't matter. Forgiveness isn't giving someone unlimited access to hurt you again. Forgiveness is not removing healthy boundaries. Forgiveness is not immediate trust. And forgiveness is not reconciliation in every relationship. Sometimes reconciliation is not safe. Sometimes it's not even possible. Forgiveness is something much quieter. It's the moment you decide I refuse to let what happened become the author of the rest of my life. Do you hear the difference? Forgiveness isn't always about them. Sometimes it's about setting yourself free. Not because they deserve it, but because what? You deserve your peace, your peace of mind, your peace and quiet, your ability to rest. Freedom doesn't require your asking them for their permission. We don't need their permission. When I realized that it changed a lot for me. For years I believed that my healing depended on someone else's apology. Right? I'm sure a lot of you were agreeing to that. I thought if they would just admit it, everything inside me would finally settle. Then one day I asked myself, What if they never do? What if she never does? My dad never will be able to, he's gone. What if they never apologized? What if they never understand? What if they continue denying everything? What if they blame me until the day they die? Which I'm sure my mom will. Does that mean I never get to heal? Well, the answer is no. Because my healing cannot depend upon another person's willingness to change. If it does, I'm still giving them authority over my future, right? So if if my healing cannot depend on another person's willingness to change. I'm not giving them that authority, right? I don't want that anymore. I know a lot of you don't want that anymore. So the people who hurt us do not get to decide whether or not we become whole. We do, you do. With God's help, God's grace, healthy support around us, good therapist, but with truth, time, courage. It takes courage, but not with their permission. It has nothing to do with. The day I decided to stop arguing with reality, one of the most peaceful days of my life. It wasn't the day that everything changed. It was the day I stopped arguing with reality. Reality said this is who they are. Reality said you cannot make someone become emotionally healthy. Reality said you cannot love someone into accountability. Reality said you cannot force another person to see your worth. And instead of spending another decade fighting reality. You surrender to it. Not because we like it, not because it's what we want to do, but because it's true. The surrender felt like grief. But after the grief came peace, serenity. Because I finally stopped investing all of my emotional energy trying to change someone else. And I began investing that energy into healing myself. I wanna close this little bonus piece. I know I've had you guys do a few of these, but I think it's very important that we integrate it into this. And I got a a grown man in here snoring Max. I want I want to close this off by speaking to our inner child. To the child inside every person that's listening to this. I hope that's okay. If not, then I guess you can skip this part. But I want you if you're driving to stop this right now and go listen to it when you have a peaceful place, no interruptions. And I want you to close your eyes if you're somewhere safe to do so. And I want you to take a slow breath. Just let all the weight leave your body. Imagine that little child standing in front of you. Notice the look on their face. Notice what they're carrying. Now kneel beside the child. Go, kneel beside you. I want you to look into your eyes, look into their eyes, and gently say, My sweet child, I've spent a long time wishing I could go back and protect you. I can't change what happened. I can't erase the loneliness. I can't rewrite your childhood. But I can promise you something. From this day forward, you will never have to face life alone again. I will believe you. I will listen to you. I will comfort you. I will protect you. I will speak kindly to you. I will no longer ask you to earn the love you've deserved, deserved rather from the very beginning. You're not too much. You never were. Never will be. You are not hard to love. You never were. You never will be. You were not broken. You were wounded. And wounds can heal. I promise to stop measuring your worth by someone else's ability to see it. I promise to stop abandoning you to make everyone else comfortable. I promise to choose truth over pretending. I promise to choose peace over proving. And no matter what happens, I promise I'm not leaving you again. Let those words settle because maybe no one has ever spoken that to the little child within. With that kind of tenderness. If you need to listen to this again, go back and listen to that again. Tell your inner child over and over again. You don't have to repeat it today. Go back and listen again tomorrow, the next day. So as I wrap this up, I I want well, I mean I don't want you to think that your healing has to be finished today. That's not what I'm trying to do here. Healing isn't an event, it's a relationship. It's choosing every single day to tell yourself the truth. The truth that says I deserve love. I deserved safety. I deserved comfort. I deserved to be protected. To be delighted in. The fact that I didn't always receive those things never meant I wasn't worthy of them. That's the truth I want to carry into the next hour four, part four. So for now I'm gonna stop here. We're going to stop looking over our shoulders. We're going to begin looking ahead and we're going to talk I say boundaries about joy, healthy relationships, peace and purpose, and what it what it really means to say the next fifty years belong to me. So until then, take a deep breath. Be gentle with yourself today. Keep yourself hydrated. Go sit on your own porch if you have one. Watch the sunset. Go sit by the water, take a walk, call someone safe. Journal what came up for you in this. Pray, rest, and remember, you are not responsible for the wounds someone else created. But you do have the beautiful opportunity to participate in your own healing. I'll meet you back here again, right here on the porch for the final hour. Hopefully no extra bonus. Thank you guys. As always, I appreciate you for sticking around. Have a great day. Gravesb41: That's a wrap on this episode of Back Porch Confessions. Where the tea is hot, the stories are real, and we never apologize for keeping it honest. Produced and edited by the magic makers over at Zay Media. Until next time, keep your porch talk spicy and your secrets safe, mostly.