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Part 3 or 4: Mourning the Mother I Needed · Back Porch Confessions

• 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. Hey beautiful people, it's Barbara here from Backport's Confessions. You know, I am only gonna share what I truly love. And y'all, this one's a game changer. Our Way Skin by AYXA is a simple, luxurious skincare created with real women in mind. Think clean ingredients, formulas you can see and feel, smoother texture, that healthy glow and confidence looking back at you in the mirror. Whether you're juggling family, work, or just need a little self-care moment, Ixa's products give you spa quality results right at home. I'm obsessed with Our Way Skin and the way it makes my skin feel buttery soft. Go check out Our Way Skin by Ixa at ourwayskin.com and tell them Barbara sent you because your skin deserves to be cared for your way. 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: Hey everybody, welcome back. It's back to Porch Confessions again. Barbara, as you know, this is part three of a four part series. And this one, this particular one is gonna be the focus on mourning the mother that I needed. and this goes for anybody that's or had to mourn a parent more so me being needing the mother. I needed the dad too, but anyway, we'll dive into that one later. Anyway, so welcome back friends. if you've been with me through this series, I first want to say thank you. thank you for trusting me with your heart. Thank you for allowing me to walk alongside you through some like really incredible difficult conversations. And it's not always easy to have these conversations or to talk about them. They can be deep. over the last two hours we've talked about the childhood or the child really who believed that they wanted more than they deserved. They believed that they weren't enough, that there was something wrong with them. We've talked about anger. discovered that anger wasn't our enemy. honestly it's often our protector. So we've learned about that our anger had been carrying messages to our hearts that didn't know how to speak. Today I'm gonna go somewhere even deeper. Today we're gonna be talking about grief, not the kind of grief that most people recognize, not the grief that comes with a funeral, not the grief that people send flowers for, not the grief that people bring casseroles for to the home of of the the bereaved. We're going to be talking about the grief that often goes unseen by most people. The grief of mourning someone who is still alive. I've breached this subject a few times on a couple of different podcasts. This time I'm going to go just a little bit deeper with it. Because the grief of mourning a relationship that never came back to Well, not really came back. But more so the the relationship that never became what your heart desperately needed it to be. Today we're talking about the mother wound. Now before we go any further, I I want to say something that's very important. This conversation isn't about blaming our mothers. This isn't about keeping score. This isn't about staying angry. And it certainly certainly isn't about encouraging people to hate their parents. That's not what any of this is about. This conversation is about truth because healing cannot happen where truth is not allowed to exist. For many years I didn't even know I was grieving. I've encountered this with many of my clients. I thought I was angry. I thought I was overly emotional, dramatic. I thought I needed to forgive faster. I thought I needed to stop thinking about my childhood. But underneath all of those emotions, There was grief. Not grief because I had lost my mother through death, grief because I was slowly realizing I had spent my entire life longing for something I never truly received. Maybe, just maybe, some of you know exactly what feels what what what this feels like, what this wound feels like. So I'm gonna talk about it in the beginning and it's gonna sound more like grief that has no funeral. You know what's difficult about this kind of grief? More often than not, nobody sees it. When someone dies, people understand. They know you're grieving. They check on you. They bring you food. They send you cards. They hug you. They ask how you're doing. All the things. That you're supposed to do when someone passes on. But when you're grieving the mother you needed while she's still alive, hmm. That's different. It just lands different. People don't always understand. Sometimes they'll say things like, Well, sh she's still your mom. you only get one mother. She did the best she could do. Just forgive her. Honor your mother, you know, all the little cliche things that I've heard my entire life. And you know. While some of those statements they may be well intended, intended by the person that's speaking them to you, they often leave one very important question unanswered. What about the child? What about the little girl, little boy, who kept waiting? What about the little girl or boy who needed comfort? Who needed encouragement? Who needed someone to notice when her heart was breaking? Who's grieving her? Because here's what I've learned from all of it. Children don't stop needing love just because they grow up. Many adults are still carrying the unmet needs of the child they once were. Not because they were weak, because those needs were never met. That's a subject all on its own, the child who never stopped waiting. You guys have seen me if you know me, you've seen me still waiting. I want you to think back for just a moment. Can you remember being a little child, a little girl or boy? Can you remember what you longed for? Maybe it wasn't expensive toys. Maybe it wasn't vacations. Maybe maybe it just wasn't the material things at all. Maybe all you wanted was to hear someone say, I'm proud of you. I love you. I'm here. Things like you matter, and I'm listening. I'm not leaving your side. I'm always going to be here for you. Those are simple words. But they become the foundation of a child's identity. Literally. When a child repeatedly hears those words, they begin believing. I matter. I am lovable. I belong. I'm safe. But what happens when those words are missing? Have you ever thought about that? Children don't just conclude my parent is emotionally unavailable. They don't even know what that is. Children conclude there must be something wrong with me. That is one of the saddest realities of childhood. When I figured that out with my therapist a few years back, I was floored. I didn't even realize that I felt that way. I didn't know what I was feeling. Children always make themselves the explanation. Children also live on hobium. I do that a lot. Can I confess something? Just a little something? For years, years, even up until recently, I kept hoping every birthday, every holiday, every family gathering, every phone call, some small part of my heart whispered. Maybe this time. Maybe this will be the conversation. Maybe this will be the apology that sticks. Maybe maybe this will be the day she finally sees me. Maybe this will be the moment everything changes. Hope is beautiful. Hope hope has carried many of us through very impossible seasons in our lives. But hope can also become exhausting. Especially when it's attached to someone who keeps showing us they cannot give us what we're waiting for. Think about that. How many years have you waited? Five, ten, twenty, forty, fifty, maybe even longer? How many times have you replayed conversations in your mind? How many times have you imagined the apology? How many times have you imagined hearing I was wrong? I should have protected you. You deserved better. Sometimes we aren't grieving the parent. Sometimes we're grieving the conversations that never happened. Alexa Volume Down. Sorry guys. you know, as children we create this picture of what mom looks like and dad looks like, what family looks like, based off of video and seeing other children and social media and whatnot. Here's something that took me a long time to understand. Sometimes I We're not grieving the person. We're grieving the possibility. We'll say that again. Sometimes we're not grieving the person. We're grieving the possibility. The version of them we hoped they would become. Think about that. There's the mother we had, and then there's the mother we needed. Or father. I mean, either one can fit in here. They're not always the same person. The mother we needed celebrated us, comforted us, protected and encouraged. The mother we imagined always chose us, always noticed us, always made us feel emotionally safe. And for many people, those two realities never matched. They never came together. So what happens? What happens with that? We keep waiting for reality to become the fantasy. And every time it doesn't, our hearts break all over again. You become like this invisible child. One of the hardest things about emotional neglect is that it's invisible. Bruises can be for you know, photographed, pictures taken of it. Broken bones x rayed, they'll see how many you've had. A cut will scar, burns will scar. But emotional neglect. leaves invisible wounds. From the outside. Your family. May have looked perfectly fine. People might have said you had a good home. You had food, you had clothes, you had Christmas, your birthdays. Maybe you did. But emotionally, you felt alone. Emotionally, nobody asked how your heart was doing. Emotionally, you learned that your feelings were inconvenient. Emotionally, you learn to keep everything inside, internalize it. Because nobody seemed interested in what was happening to you or within you. That kind of loneliness is difficult to explain, especially when you're a child. It is totally possible to be surrounded by people and still feel completely unseen. It happens our entire lives. I'm not saying it happens to everybody. But in all ages of life, phases and seasons of life, people can go through moments of feeling completely unseen. I believe that every child asks one question over and over again. sometimes without ever speaking it out loud. The question is, am I worthy of being loved? Not because children are innately insecure. It's a learned behavior. It's because children are trying to understand themselves through the eyes of the people raising them. Parents become mirrors. Children look into those mirrors to discover who they are. If the mirror reflects delight, the child believes. I matter. If the mirror reflects criticism, the child would often believe, what? I'll never be enough. Think about how much power those early reflections have. Long before we ever looked into a bathroom mirror, we looked into the faces of the people raising us, their expressions. Their words, their affection, their absence. All of that helped shape how we viewed ourselves. That's why healing often means replacing old reflections with truthful ones. Say that again. That is why healing often means replacing old reflections with truthful ones, not the fantasies. Reality. I'm gonna pause for just a second and ask a question. I want you to ask yourself this question. What did I spend my childhood waiting for? Was it affection? Was it attention? Encouragement? Safety? Acceptance? Approval of some sort? An apology? Whatever came into your mind, don't judge it. Just notice it. Because awareness is where healing begins. Seeing it there is where it begins. No shame, no blame, just awareness. Maybe for the first time in your life, you're giving yourself permission to admit, I missed something very important. Not because you're ungrateful, because you're honest. And honesty is where healing begins. Right? Being honest with yourself, being aware of your surroundings is where healing begins, right? One of the places. I want to talk about something that's changed my life forever. It's the difference between loving your mother and grieving what she could never give you. Because those two things can exist at the same time. And understanding that may be one of the greatest gifts you will ever give yourself. I want you to think on that for a minute. I also asked you a question. What did you spend your childhood waiting for? As per the other places this series. Maybe you answered the question immediately. Maybe you didn't. Maybe you had to pause it. Maybe your heart knew the answer before your mind did. Maybe maybe you spent your whole life waiting for something that never had a chance to arrive. That's hard to hear. Maybe you've spent your whole life waiting for something that never had a chance to arrive. Because none of us want to believe that. We want to believe people can change. We want to believe tomorrow will be different than yesterday. We want to believe that if we explain our pain just one more time, if we love a little bit harder, if we become a little more understanding, maybe then, maybe they'll finally see us. Maybe they'll finally hear us. Maybe they'll finally love us in the way we've always needed. It took me years to understand. That hope was attached to someone who has repeatedly shown me they cannot meet me where I was. And when you go through that, when I go through that. I've been going through it for the last several years of my life or longer. Hope being attached to someone who has repeatedly shown me they cannot meet me where I am. It became another form of suffering. I don't say that to take away hope. Hope it really is a beautiful thing. I say it because I want to set someone free. There's a difference between loving someone and waiting for them. So go drop me bananas. One of the biggest breakthroughs in my healing came when I realized something. I could love someone. without continuing to wait for them to become someone they had never shown me they could be. to say that again. I could love someone without continuing to wait for them to become someone they had never shown me they could be. Because I think some of you need to hear that twice. If not more, bump it back at you and hear it again. You can love someone and still grieve what they could never give you. Those two things are not opposites. They're actually part of a healthy healing. I think for years that I believed I had two choices to either stay angry or Or pretend everything was okay. Either cut someone completely out of my life. was one choice, or continue allowing the same wounds to happen over and over. Healing has taught me there was another way. I could acn acknowledge reality through this. I could stop pretending. I could stop making excuses for her. I could stop minimizing the pain that I have. And I could still choose compassion. Alexa, volume down one. Compassion simply means I don't understand that hurt people often hurt people. I know that's a cliche a lot of people don't like hearing, but it is a true fact. Hurt people often do hurt people. Grown adults who were raised poorly and were hurt as young children grow up to become parents and repeat the same behavior. Hurt people often hurt people. The difference comes from when you're an adult and you are a hurt person, but yet you decide to live with compassion, forgiving what you can't forget, and choosing To love people where they are and understand they have been hurt too. Doesn't excuse the behavior, doesn't mean that you have to forget. Doesn't mean I have to ignore Things. But understanding someone else's pain, what that person's pain was, what your parents' pain was when they grew up, doesn't mean that you're ignoring your own. It means that you're meeting it with compassion for your own healing. So somehow along the way through all of this, we become like the family historian. Have you ever noticed something in many families? There seems to be that one person, that one person who carries all the emotional awar awareness for the whole family, right? I a few of you are raising your hands. So they're the one who notices unhealthy patterns. They're the ones that are asking the difficult questions. They're the ones who go to counseling. They're the ones who are reading the books. They're the ones who are trying to break generational cycles. And because they're the ones speaking the truth, they often become labeled as the problem. The black sheep. The weird one. The drama queen. The know it all. Has that ever happened to you? I have a few of my friends that feel this way. Have you ever been called too sensitive? Dramatic? Black sheep? The difficult one? the one who just can't let things go. Sometimes the person who's trying to heal Looks like the problem in a family that depends on silence. Say it again. Looks like the problem in a family that depends on silence. Mm-hmm. Sometimes the healthiest person in a family is the one everyone else calls unhealthy. Because they're no longer participating in the pretending. Families built on denial often struggle when someone chooses honesty. Not because honesty is wrong, but because honesty changes the system that has been going on for generations and generations and generations. And systems often do what? They resist change. There's some family rules that we never agreed to. Those of us who want to change the system. Many of us grew up with invisible family rules. Mm most of them still exist. They get passed down. Nobody's wrote them down. They're not sitting on the refrigerator. But everybody knows them. Everybody knows what those rules are. What kind of rules can I address that have happened in my world? Don't talk about what happens in this house. Don't embarrass the family. Respect your elders no matter what. Even if they don't respect you, your space. Your heart, your body. Make sure you keep the peace. Keep that peace. Don't you cry. Don't you question? Don't you confront And don't you make anyone uncomfortable. You are to smile, pretend, and move on. I recognize almost every single one of those things. Reckon that's why they're in there. Maybe you recognize some of those rules. Maybe you've spent years living with them. But here's what I want you to consider now that you've heard that. Who made those rules? Like who benefited from them? was usually, more often than not, those rules protected the people with the power. Not the children without it. Healthy families don't require silence. I'm I'll say it again. Healthy families don't require silence. Healthy families make room for truth, compassion, empathy, open conversations. Constructive criticism. Healthy families apologize and don't withdraw them. Healthy families spend time repairing what may have been broken. Healthy families would never expect children to carry adult secrets. But if you're a Gen X child, you're probably carrying a few. Why do we keep waiting for that apology? With our apologies. Why do we wait for them so much? How many of you have imagined that conversation and how it would go? I know I did. You know the one that you've rehearsed a thousand times, driving down the road, laying in the middle of the night when you can't sleep, in the shower, when you get bored at work and your brain wanders off. You know exactly what you would say. Right? You imagine sitting across from them. Right? On the phone, in person, whatever. You imagine them finally looking into your eyes, or you can hear the tone of their voice that they're really ready to listen. Finally hearing your heart. Finally saying, I didn't realize how deeply I hurt you. I'm sorry. I wish I could do it differently. I should have protected you. I should have believed in you. I should have believed what you told me. I should have listened. I failed you. I had that conversation. I dreamt it, then I had it, and then she took it away. And she gaslit me. I'm gonna let you know something. based off of what I just said, you know that I'm gonna tell you that if it does happen, it couldn't end the way you think it's going to. And also, the conversation the conversation is probably never going to happen. Probably not. And I know hearing that probably is not what you want to hear. It's supposed to be about telling the truth though. So I'm here to tell you. Probably not gonna hear it. And if you do, they'll probably take it back. I know what it's like to long for that conversation, to long for that moment of healing. Here's what I also know. if your healing depends upon another person's apology You've unknowingly handed them the keys to your freedom. If healing depends upon another person's apology, you have unknowingly handed them the keys to your freedom. That's a heavy burden. That is a heavy burden. 'Cause for whatever reason, some people never develop the emotional capacity to acknowledge the harm that they've caused. Never. My mother will never have the capacity to acknowledge what she has done to me. Ever. That doesn't mean your pain isn't real. It simply means you may have to heal without receiving the apology you feel you deserve. You do deserve it. But you're probably gonna have to heal without receiving it. And that is one of the deepest forms of grief there is. What does grief sound like in this type of situation? People think that grief always sounds like crying. Sometimes it does. I've choked up on here a few times. But sometimes grief sounds like I wish. I wish she had come to my games. I wish she had hugged me more. I wish she had protected me, celebrated me. I wish she had asked how I was doing. Believed in me, noticed me. I wish he had even chosen me. Every one of these sentences that I just said begin with the word I wish. Those words reveal what? Longing. And longing reveals love. Because children don't stop loving parents simply because they're hurt. Most children continue loving them. long after they've stopped believing that they'll ever fully be loved in return. That realization breaks my heart. Like I see it and and I mean, yes, it's happened to me, but I see it in so many children, even now, even still. 'Cause children don't normally just in the natural atmospheric type way give up on their parents. Hope keeps them there, waiting. Hope keeps me there, waiting even into my fifty-four years of life. Well, fifty four in a couple of months. Who are you still waiting for? Who are you still waiting for? Not because you need to judge yourself. Don't take it that way. Because awareness brings freedom. I do these to bring awareness. Awareness brings freedom. Who are you still hoping will finally become who you've always needed? And if that person never changes, what would healing look like for you? Not what would be fair, not what should happen. What could healing still look like? Maybe healing looks like accepting reality. Maybe healing looks like grieving honestly. Maybe it looks like building a life that no longer depends upon someone else's emotional availability. Saying it again. Maybe it looks like building a life that no longer depends upon someone else's emotional availability. Maybe it looks like believing. I deserved better. Not because you want revenge. We're not doing the revenge thing. But because it's true, because you do deserve better. You've always deserved better. Wanna just say a little prayer? Lord help me release the version of people I've spent my life waiting for. Help me to stop confusing hope with denial. Help me to love without losing myself. Help me grieve what I did not receive what Help me accept what I cannot change. Help me become the safe place. That little children for that little child rather inside. Of me. Be that safe place that she's been looking for, she's been searching for all along. Let me be her safe space. Amen. This is I'm sure this probably gonna put me in a funky mood when I get done with this. But it's okay. Becoming the safe adult your younger self needed. You know, maybe maybe that's the person you've been waiting for. Maybe Maybe you've quietly become that for you. Maybe you will quietly become that for you. I hope so. Trying to do it for me. If if your if your six year old self knocked on your front door today. Would she feel safe coming in? Think about that. If the little girl who once was or the little boy Walking up that sidewalk, knocking on that door, and if grown you on the other side opened it. What would they find? Would they find someone constantly criticizing themselves? Would they find someone exhausted from trying to earn everybody's love while paying for it with their own life? Would they find someone who still believes they're not enough? Or Would they find someone who says Come in? You don't have to be afraid anymore. You don't have to earn a place here. I've been waiting for you and I think one of the greatest gifts healing gives us. Is the opportunity to become the safe adult we desperately needed when we were children? Not because we can go back to that because we can't. We can't change what happened, nor should we want to really. Not because we deserve to have to do this ourselves. Because you know, obviously we didn't But because today we finally have something we didn't have back then. We have ourselves. People often ask me. When does the inner child finally go away? my answer usually is is I don't think they do. I don't think they do. I think they grow up with us. When we go through that healing process, that inner child grows with us, that healing grows with us and intertwines the two. So even though you're healed. Every time someone raises their voice, every time someone forgets your birthday, every time someone walks away, abandons you. Every time you get criticized, ridiculed, put down, rejected. She's there every time. Every time we're loved. Celebrated. Even when we're afraid, that inner child is there. The little girl doesn't just disappear. She simply is there waiting to see if the adult version of you will finally do something different. Think about that. Every time life becomes difficult, your inner child, she's watching. She's asking one question. Are you gonna leave me too? That question. in my brain when doing this hit me like a freight train. 'Cause it's the first time I really realized that was something I was thinking. Are you going to leave me too? Because for years I wasn't afraid just that other people would abandon me. I kept abandoning myself. Every time I ignored my needs, every time you ignore your needs, every time I stayed silent to avoid a conflict, every time I tolerated disrespect. Every time I convinced myself that someone else their comfort me was more I don't know the c their comfort mattered more than my own well being. Like what? I was unintentionally repeating what had already happened to me. Not because I wanted to, because it felt what? Familiar. Healing has interrupted that pattern. And I'm able to step away and see those things now. And the way we speak to ourselves makes a huge difference. How do you speak to yourself? Not how do you speak to your friends, not how do you speak to your children? how do you speak to yourself? When you make a mistake, what do you hear? I'm so stupid. I always mess everything up. I should have known better. I'm I'm never going to get this right. What are some other things I've said to myself? You're an idiot. Glutton for punishment. You're the walking definition of of insanity. Repeating the same thing over and over again, waiting for a different result. Now imagine saying those words to a six-year-old child. Of course you couldn't do that, could you? Of course not. You wouldn't say those things to your a six year old child. not if you have any sense about you. So why do we say them about ourselves? Because somewhere along the way, many of us have become fluent in self criticism. We've repeated those messages too too often. To the point that they sound like the truth. They're not truth. They're echoes, echoes of old wounds, echoes of old experiences, voices that were never supposed to become our identity. Healing asks us to replace those echoes with compassion. Instead of saying, What's wrong with me? We begin saying, This is hard. I'm learning. I've survived so much. I'm proud of how far I've come. I'm allowed to make mistakes. I am worthy. I'm still worthy. Those aren't just positive affirmations. They're corrective emotional experiences. You're literally teaching your brain a new language. So in all of that, safety is a feeling, right? So let's talk about safety for a moment. Most people think that safety is simply locking your doors at night, locking your car, making sure the windows are locked, blocking people out. But trauma survivors know something different. Safety is a feeling. It's the feeling of being able to breathe deeply. It's the feeling of not having to watch every facial expression. It's the feeling of being able to disagree without fearing abandonment. It's the feeling of crying out without shame. It's the feeling of laughing without waiting for someone else to ruin the moment. That's emotional safety. And here's the beautiful part. You can begin creating that safety inside yourself. No, you can't control everyone around you, but you can control the environment you create within your own heart. You can become a place where kindness lives, where grace lives, where truth lives, where compassion lives. Imagine what your life would feel like if your own heart became the safest place you've ever known. Let's think about the child again. What did she really need? Did she need perfection? No. No. Did she need expensive gifts? I didn't. Still don't. She needed someone who noticed. Someone who would say, I can see your hurting. She needed someone who asked, What happened today? Instead of what's wrong with you. She needed someone who celebrated her curiosity, who heard her, who comforted her fears, protected her heart, who reminded her, reminded you that you matter. Think about how often children are corrected. Don't do that. Be quiet. Sit still. Stop crying. I'm gonna give you something to cry for. Now think about how often they're simply just delighted in Whatever, like my brain just froze on y'all. Children don't just need discipline though. They need delight. They need someone whose face lights up when they walk in a room. Someone who's generally happy to see them. Someone whose eyes say, I'm so glad you're here. Maybe no one ever looked at you like that in that way, but you can begin looking at yourself that way now. I promise. It's easier than it seems. Once you start healing through the process. So there's something practical I want you to try whenever you're listening to this. When you brush your teeth the next time, don't rush away from the mirror. I don't like mirrors. Because I don't like looking at myself. Look into your own eyes. Not your wrinkles. Dollar looking at your wrinkles. Do not look at the gray hair you see there. Do not go over the flaws you've spent years criticizing yourself over. Look into your eyes. And simply say, Good morning. I'm glad you're here. We're gonna have a good day. I know life has been hard. But we're still standing. I'm proud of you. I know you've carried so much. And you don't have to carry it alone anymore. Do you know why that exercise matters? Because healing isn't only about changing your thoughts. It's about changing your relationship with yourself. I'm gonna say that again. It's about changing your relationship with yourself. For years, you may have looked in that mirror searching for everything that was wrong. Now you're going to look in the mirror searching for the person who survived. There's a difference. Can you imagine what happens when that little girl realizes or boy that she no longer has to protect herself? Can you imagine what happens when she realizes that? There's finally an adult in her life who listens, who believes her, who can comfort her, who doesn't shame her emotions, who doesn't leave when things get difficult. She rests. Maybe for the first time in her life, she'll rest. And isn't that what all of us have been looking for? Haven't we all been looking for that? Some rest, some peace? Not just physical rest, emotional rest. The kind where your nervous system is finally goes it exhales. The kind where your shoulders soften. You stop waiting for the next disappointment. The kind where you realize I'm safe. Right here. In me. I'm safe. If your younger self could describe the adult you've become. What would he or see she say that? Would they say She protects me? She believes me. She speaks kindly to me. She lets me cry, she lets me laugh. She doesn't make me earn love anymore. If not, that's okay, because healing isn't about perfectionism. It's about becoming. And that's it. It's about becoming. Every single day you have another opportunity to become the safe adult your younger self has been waiting for. It's about becoming. So I think next part I'm gonna talk about forgiveness. Forgiven forgiveness is is a whole podcast that I've done. It's definitely a a difficult subject that deserves its own podcast. But once you get done with these series, go back and read that one. We're not talking about the forgiveness though, the kind that minimizes pain. Or pretends that nothing happened. We're talking about the kind that says, I release the burden without denying truth. I release the burden without denying the truth. Can you remember those words? I want you to write them down. I release the burden without denying the truth. You can remember your story without allowing it to become your identity. Let that sink. You've been carrying a lot with me through these last few hours. Just listening not listening to my story only, but listening to your own. Because if you're anything like me, there have been moments during this conversation where you weren't hearing my voice anymore. I do it all the time. I have to rewind all the time. But you were remembering. You were remember remembering that inner child, that little boy or girl, the lonely moments, the unanswered questions. Birthdays that felt empty, conversations that never happened that should have, hugs that you needed, that you never got. The words you waited your entire life to hear. And maybe for the first time, you've allowed yourself to admit that I really did lose something. Not because someone died, but with because something every child deserves was missing. That realization is painful, but is also so incredibly honest. And honesty is where what? I've said it a few times, honesty is where healing begins. The weight we were never meant to carry and How many of you have carried that weight for an entirely well for entirely too long for your entire life? It's been too long. Let the weight go. Drop it. I know that this one has taken a long time and it has Been a long one. I might have to do a little bonus thing because I want to add a little more to this third hour, so I may have to do that. But I'm going to end this one here for now. and I'll go into the the the forgiveness thing just a little bit. I'm not gonna do a whole podcast on it, but I will do a little bonus part to this because it's just getting it's getting too long. But anyway, thank you guys for being here. As always, make sure you listen to the commercials. I do I am talking to the people about the the mouth pouches that I'm using and ask them if they want me to put a commercial in for them and they have said that would be delightful. I get these, they are in my TikTok shop. if you want to go to the showcase and and order some. If you have burning mouth syndrome, it may be a little bit you to get used to using these you may not get used to them it may not be something for you maybe that you need to go get the gum that has the xylitol in it to help with the dryness in your mouth if you have any conditions with that anyway I am gonna be working on doing a commercial for ops and this dry mouth pouches by ops but anyway thank you guys for listening as always I appreciate every single one of you I appreciate you always showing up sharing it out giving the love and doing the things And helping pushing me into the algorithm a little bit more. I love you all. Until next time. Bye bye. Thank you. Gravesb41: If you're looking for beautiful, meaningful, and custom-made creations that tell a story, Little Butterfly Design and Print is where creativity and compassion come together. Cheryl specializes in personalized designs that celebrate life's most important moments, from custom shirts and prints to heartfelt gifts, memorial pieces and unique creations made just for you. Every design is crafted with intention, care, and a personal touch that you can feel. Whether you're honoring a loved one, supporting a cause, building your brand, or simply want something one of a kind, Cheryl brings your vision to life in a way that feels truly special. Little Butterfly Design and Print isn't just a business. It's a reminder that even the smallest ideas can transform into something beautiful. Support a small business that pours love into every detail. Find Little Butterfly Design and Print by Cheryl A. Harlan online and see how she can create something meaningful just for you. Y'all, let me tell you about one of my favorite little gyms back home in Robinson, Illinois. If you're looking for boutique style that feels good, fits right, and doesn't break the bank, you have to stop by Polished Boutique, owned by my sweet friend, Mindy, and her two friends, Jennifer and Valerie. And it's ran with heart, y'all. Polished is one of those places where you're not just shopping, you're family. From on-trend outfits, cozy everyday staples, statement accessories, and deals that make your wallet smile, Polished has something for every woman, every season of life. So if you're anywhere near Robinson, Illinois, go see Mindy and her girls at Polished Boutique. Tell them Back porch confession sent you. And don't be surprised if you leave feeling a little more confident than when you walked in. Polished Boutique, where style meets heart. 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.