Latest / The Midlife Momma Podcast - Empty nest mom, Parenting adult children, Midlife transition, Christian mom / 220. What Every Mom Needs: Healing from Mother Wounds with Best-Selling Author, Melanie Shankle

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220. What Every Mom Needs: Healing from Mother Wounds with Best-Selling Author, Melanie Shankle · The Midlife Momma Podcast - Empty nest mom, Parenting adult children, Midlife transition, Christian mom

• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Christian Parenting.
• 0:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, Mama.
• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Pamela Hinkhamen, certified emptiness coach and your listening to the Midlife Mama podcast.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: This show is for Christian moms navigating the emptiness, learning how to let go with grace, set healthy boundaries, reconnected marriage, and step confidently into their God-given purpose.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each week, I'll coach you through this season with faith-filled encouragement,
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: honest conversations and practical tools that you can apply right away to your relationships and your life.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: If this episode encourages you, I'd be grateful if you leave a quick rating and review.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It helps other moms find the support they need.
• 0:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll find the link in the show notes.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And make sure you're following the podcast, and let's get started.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to our series what every mom needs, real conversations for every season of motherhood.
• 0:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Today's conversation is tender, honest, and one I believe so many of us need, but we don't always know how to talk about it.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're talking about healing from other wounds.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whether your relationship with your mom has been complicated, painful, distant, or simply left you caring things you don't fully understand.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: those experiences don't just disappear.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: They often shape how we see ourselves, how we relate to God, and even how we show up for our own children.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm joined today by New York Best Selling Author, Melanie Schengel, author of Here Be Dragons, which just won the Christian Book Awards best biography and memoirs, where she shares her deeply personal story of navigating a difficult relationship with her mom and
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: and what it looked like to pursue healing.
• 1:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: With her trademark humor, candor and vulnerability, shankling currages readers to explore their own existing wounds and break generational cycles of trauma with the goal of handing a legacy of triumph over to our daughters.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: This conversation is full of hope and grace.
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: For the mom who was ready to stop caring, what was never hers to hold.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's dive in.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome Melanie.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks Pamela, I'm so happy to be here.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Congrats on your award-winning book.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know that kind of blew my mind.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: When they told me I was nominated, I was like, oh, that's so nice.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: What an honor.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then when they tell me that it actually won, I was just blown away.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just never could have imagined.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's so awesome.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would love for you to share kind of your heart behind the book.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why do you have it?
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: He this was always this was hereby dragons is the sixth book I've written.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it was the book that I feel like I always knew that I wanted to write and I would write some day.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it just so many things because it tells such a hard story about my relationship with my mom.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just, I had always laughed and said the title of this book was going to be now that everybody has died.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just, I, that's what I needed to be able to freely tell the story.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was in the timing really worked out when I signed the contract to write this book.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Originally, I thought it was just going to be about helping my daughter navigate kind of the main girls in high school and becoming an empty nester and those things.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I did not know that God had something else in mind and just through a series of
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: timing and life and things happening that it became that this was the time that I could write this book about my relationship with my mom and all the ways that has impacted me.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: that's amazing.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: In a nutshell, can you describe what your relationship with your mom was like?
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was it was chaotic.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was tumultuous.
• 3:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was draining.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: But one of the things I say in the book is I was like, it's so easy.
• 3:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: It would be so much easier if we could paint people.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: as all of one thing, but my mom was light and she was dark.
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't all bad.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just when it was bad, it was really bad.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I can see now is a grown woman who has an adult daughter of my own.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think so much of it is, I think my mom carried emotional wounds that led to emotional immaturity.
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think she was wrestling with mental disorders.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so much of it was at that, where I think there were ways that maybe she wanted to be better and she just couldn't be better.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes with distance and time, we can almost have this compassion towards them.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even though it was so difficult and so painful.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was a reason.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was a reason for the way they were.
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that in hereby dragons, you share honestly about your relationship with your mom.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what was the moment you realized that those wounds were still shaping you as an adult and you needed to do something about it?
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh gosh, I think I was very aware of it all in my 20s and 30s.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think when I became a mom myself at age 32 is when I really realized the depth because I think it takes becoming a mother to understand all that a mother carries and all that a mother feels and and maybe the way a mother's love is supposed to look as opposed to what it looked like in my life.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think even now, I say writing the books that made a therapy for the first time in my adult life, because when you start to uncover all those wounds, you start to realize the place where maybe you're still operating out of some of that woundedness.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's so important.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so important to have this level of self-awareness to go, oh my gosh, this is really impacting me.
• 5:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm thinking about it.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that we don't hurt our kids, right?
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: For me, it wasn't my mom.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have a good relationship with my mom, but I had my dad.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was just horrible.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my husband was the same way.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: We came from these broken homes, and we're like, we are going to do it differently.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now we have five kids.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, did we do things wrong?
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my gosh.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, for sure.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now that they're 25 to 37, we get to have all these conversations.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, we did wrong.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But,
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: our intent was to break the cycle and I'm not that's what you set out to do within your own family.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I want to know, how did you, as you were looking at your relationship with your your mom, where you feel both love and pain, how do you begin to entangle those complicated emotions without feeling guilty?
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for me, I don't know that I ever felt guilty so much as I think it's is a Christian.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's trying to figure out where the Bible says honor your father and mother.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it will go well with you.
• 6:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's the commandment that comes with a promise.
• 6:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so what does it look like to honor your father and mother, but also be able to take a step back?
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think the older I get the more I realize you can have when I made the decision to walk away from my relationship with my mom.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't with bitterness and it wasn't with anger and it wasn't with unforgiveness, but it was really a thing of that relationship with so toxic where I thought the best way for me to honor her is to take a step back and to walk away into set boundaries there for my protection,
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think, and I think the guilt comes from other people because when people say so you don't talk to your mom for years and to try to explain this is so layered and it's so complicated and it wasn't a decision I made lightly it was after a lot of prayer and a lot of years of trying to figure out a better way to do it.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, it's like you just have to kind of check in with yourself and more than that to me, it has to be such a prayerful consideration because if you go into it with anger or bitterness or unforgiveness, then at that point I think you're perpetuating the cycles that you're trying to break because you always say you kind of become the thing that you hate.
• 7:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: You just don't want to go go forward that way.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I love that.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that you came to a place of
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: not bitterness, not resentment, but I need to pay attention to what I need, so I can be safe.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I need to pay attention.
• 8:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I cannot keep allowing myself to be hurt in the way that I've been hurt.
• 8:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I cannot keep showing up and thinking, oh, this time it's going to be different.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, showing you that they don't have the ability to do that.
• 8:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
• 8:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 8:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And for some people, it can change.
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But for others, it won't.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It just doesn't.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 8:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So how was that for you?
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just accepting that this is how it is.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it was a long road.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was almost 40 before I realized this is never going to be any different.
• 8:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: But what God kept bringing me back to is he had given me this new thing in my family and in my daughter and in my marriage and I had always known even as a young child like I was I couldn't wait to have my own family someday and I knew that was going to be something that was going to heal part of me to be able to do that and so I was like if I can't do this well and make this my priority and I'm still hanging on to this past
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is what's breaking me.
• 9:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's like this is the thing that's keeping me unhealthy and it's keeping me in a cycle that I am very much trying to break and Whereas God I think sometimes so many times is here.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing a new thing But as I say I'm doing a new thing, do you not perceive it?
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm making streams in the desert and away in the wilderness and I think sometimes What we're called to do is to walk into that new place and leave what's in the past?
• 9:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's so good.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's so good to have the courage to do that.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I would love to hear about
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did you actually start naming what was wrong?
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because sometimes we have a name it before we can change it Or sometimes we need a name it before we can face it and do something about it.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what was that like for you?
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was a process because I think so much of for childhood And I think through my teenage years and high school years So much of the way you grow up What I always say is I think it's God's protection for kids That you don't know that what you've grown up in Is it normal and healthy?
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's almost once you go off to college or you get out in the real world and you start to talk to other people and you realize things that other people say where you're like, huh, so this was not normal thought this was the way everybody's mom was or I thought this was the way and I think there's so much gas sliding from an abusive parent.
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: That tells you that you're the problem, and so I think I had always believed I was the problem And so it took being in my 20s and starting to look around at the friends that God put in my life when I'm at Perry my has been For people to point out to me.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, you know that this is not okay This is not healthy the way that she talks to you the way that she treats you But it's also really hard because so much of mine was emotional abuse and verbal abuse
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: but you hear these dramatic cases where people have endured so much worse.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's hard to call at that, especially when like I said, you can't paint it all is all bad.
• 11:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it was just like, so I think it took me so long to kind of reconcile M.I.
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: the problem.
• 11:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think I spent so many years feeling like, if I could just behave a certain way, if I could just act a certain way, if I could just,
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: conform to what she wanted me to be enough, then she would be at peace.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it really took being in my thirties to realize that's never going to happen.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because she was asking me to bear an emotional burden that was never mind to bear.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, God.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like we don't know what we don't know.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, you don't grow up in these families and we're like, your family isn't.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, you just think it's the way it is and I think because my parents got divorced when I was eight I just thought this is I'm from a divorced family and from a broken home and so this is just a way this looks and but then you get to college and other people you're like oh so your mom didn't stay in bed all day oh okay just if there's just stuff that started to click that for a long time you don't realize that's just not the way it always is right
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I want to know how did your relationship with God shift as you worked through these wounds with your mom?
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: What did he show you about his character, even as a father?
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think just so much that he is my protector and that he's my provider and I think it's as an Isaiah in the Psalms where he says he sets the lonely and families and just that he was good and so loving to do a new work and to give me the husband that I have and the fact that I look back and go given what I grew up and the fact that I was able to marry somebody who's
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I just, I tell my husband all the time, I'm like, I knew you were a good man, but there were so many questions that I didn't know to ask because I wasn't healthy enough to ask them.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the fact that God did that for me is a miracle.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think the fact that God put other women in my life and other mother-daughter relationships for me to know what to model and what I wanted to create with my daughter.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: was amazing.
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I just see the ways that he always goes before you, that he always had me.
• 13:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that even though I think the Bible is full of these stories of these bad things that happen in terrible circumstances and hard times and in life we're all going to have those things, whether it's in our childhood or something we go through in our marriage.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: with the child or whatever, but it's like he's always working it out for greater purposes and a greater good.
• 13:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so to kind of see the redemption for me, my beauty for ashes that he promises is the relationship that I have with my daughter.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there again, not that I've done it all perfectly, we could have her on and she would probably tell you the ways
• 13:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: that I didn't do it right and the wisest screwed up.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I did it faithfully and I did it prayerfully and and I think so much of parenting is just having a willing heart to be like oh I really screwed that up.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So let's figure out how we can go back and fix it or can you forgive me because I yelled too much or lost my patience or was it what you needed me to be in that situation?
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: exactly.
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: The redemption.
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: God is all working it.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: God is always working it out.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: We didn't know it, but here he is.
• 14:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: He shows up and he's, look what I've got for you.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's it.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he started that with your husband and then you knew that you were going to do it differently and that's the beautiful thing.
• 14:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every painful story that that we've walked through, God wants to flip it.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Summer is here, and that means it's time to stock up on your summer reads.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: This year, Christian parenting puts together its very first summer reading pixelist, and it's packed with great books for the whole family.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: For the grandkids, you'll find illustrated storybooks for little ones, fun biographies of prominent men and woman of faith,
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: A mystery series perfect for elementary and middle schoolers, Bibles with scripture memory cards and games, devotionals that help kids learn how to spend time with God, and even into sluxia, friendly, Bible.
• 15:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And grandparents, we didn't forget about you.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a curated selection of devotionals and books covering faith, culture, and spiritual growth.
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: We've even included several summer reading bingo cards to make it a whole family experience, because the family that reads together grows together,
• 15:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: head over to ChristianParenting.org forward slash shum summer to check out the full list and make this the summer your whole family grows together in faith.
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now let's get back to our conversation.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Melanie, for moms who are afraid that they might repeat the same patterns with their own kids, what hope would you offer them?
• 15:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what does it look like to parent differently on the other side of healing?
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think one thing is if you're asking those questions, if you're aware enough to say, I want to do this differently, then I think it means you're going to do it differently.
• 15:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just, I think that people who continue to repeat cycles aren't people that are asking the question of am I repeating a cycle because you either haven't recognized a cycle.
• 16:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: you don't know enough to know that something needs to be done differently.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So first of all, I think you have to acknowledge just the fact you're asking the question, means that God is guiding you and is going to give you wisdom in that.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I just, I think it's like everything about parenting.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: What makes this pray more than knowing that we are responsible for raising a human being?
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's about being faithful to God.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I need you to give me wisdom and how to do this.
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I need you to give me discernment and what I need to know.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: What this child needs?
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have one child, so that was easy, but I watch my friends with multiple kids and I'm like every one has a different needs and different love language and different ways that they need you.
• 16:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I think you have to give yourself grace.
• 16:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think we do the best that we can to break those cycles and I think you ask God, where am I?
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: repeating something and to just kind of be aware of and sometimes almost like part of my thing was I felt like for a long time I was almost overcompensating.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had set in my mind I'm going to be the perfect mom.
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be so perfect and guess what I'm going to let you know that did not go well for me.
• 17:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like because you're just you're going to screw it up.
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to be late for a big small.
• 17:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so stressful and you're putting all this pressure on yourself that you can't carry because you're not going to be the perfect mom.
• 17:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: You were never meant to be perfect.
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like everything else in your life.
• 17:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's just, it's new mercies every morning that they're going to be days that you yell too much that you lose your patience that you're frustrated, that you're not having a good time, that you wish nobody needed you for anything.
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're all human.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: But it's just no one that there's grace in that, and to give yourself that grace, and just on the days where you screw it up, you pick back up and say, okay, but start all over again.
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what is one greatest part of your parenting journey with your daughter?
• 17:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there one thing that you say?
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know I didn't do everything right, but this is one thing I got right.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: What would that be?
• 18:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think I had an older mom friend say to me when Caroline, that's my daughter, when she was a toddler.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was like, you have to listen to him now.
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: You have to really listen to him because they'll keep talking to you for the rest of their life if they feel like you're listening and that you're hearing them.
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I have to say, when there are times, when there are four or five or eight, and they're telling you a story, and you're like this, the dumbest story I've ever heard, I'm so bored, I don't want to listen to it.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: But just paying attention to what it interests them, what lights them up, what gets them excited, like all of those things, because I look at my daughter now, and she's 22, about to be 23.
• 18:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, we have a real friendship.
• 18:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm still the person she calls when she has good news.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bad news, a hard day, a great day.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's because she knows I'm always going to hear her.
• 18:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm always going to see her.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I feel like I really did a great job of that, of building that foundation for all those years.
• 19:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just love God did redeem your story.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: He did completely did through your daughter and that's amazing.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now you get to help other women see and know that they can find healing from the wounds that they got from their mother.
• 19:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's phenomenal.
• 19:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I want I want to speak to the woman out there.
• 19:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: The mom listening to right now, who just feels stuck.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's unsure how to move forward.
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is that?
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: One gentle step she could take towards healing.
• 19:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, I think you have to let it go.
• 19:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just, I think you have to let it go.
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's really hard and I think that we want to our brain chemistry.
• 19:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think wants to replay all the ways that we've
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: been hurt and I think the enemy is very calculating in that that if he can keep us trapped in our hurt and our bitterness, then it keeps us for being able to move on.
• 19:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think let go and just and look at the ways that you're like it ultimately, it wasn't about you.
• 19:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was about a very broken person who was trying to raise you and maybe screwed up in a lot of ways, but you have the chance to be something new.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in the longer you stay trapped in the old, then you can't grab hold of what's new.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think so many times God is telling us like, it's time to move on.
• 20:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I love that.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't stay stuck.
• 20:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't stay in the past because we're not there.
• 20:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because God is doing a new thing.
• 20:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not too late.
• 20:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not broken.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not damaged.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're just a woman who needs to move a little closer to God.
• 20:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you can't feel you.
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a work.
• 20:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: See if in there, Mist.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: to have this wholeness that God intended for you.
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's so true, because it's so freeing on the other side, but to somebody times I think we put ourselves in these prisons of our own making, because we want to stay, I think sometimes the pain feels familiar and it feels validating and we want to stay stuck, but I think God is so in the business of setting us free and cutting off the dead branches that are not bearing fruit and just know that he has new things for you if you will let go of the old.
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's beautiful.
• 21:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you Melanie.
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would love if you could share with a listeners where they can find you online and get your award winning book I couldn't put it down.
• 21:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was it's just so cute.
• 21:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
• 21:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: That means so much to me.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so beautifully funny you
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: friends wanting to know Melanie is funny.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's funny, but she's pulling in and she's honest.
• 21:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So where can they find your book?
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is sweet.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you can find here be dragons pretty much everywhere books are sold.
• 21:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's Amazon Barnes and Noble.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think Target Online in your Christian book stores.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: It should be available just about anywhere.
• 21:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can find me on Instagram.
• 21:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just Melanie Shankle on Instagram and then I have a sub-stack that I'm
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: not in that season right now.
• 21:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, but if you want to find some fashion, there's that.
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do put clothes.
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's that.
• 21:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: But if you're looking for some deep spiritual truths, that didn't necessarily happening right now.
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I'm fit.
• 22:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wonderful.
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will leave all those links in the show notes on secret conversation.
• 22:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: If today's episode starts something in you, I want to gently remind you, you're not alone.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And your story isn't too messy for God to redeem.
• 22:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Healing doesn't happen all at once, but every small step toward honesty, toward truth and towards God loves matters more than you can think.
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's your coaching tip of the week.
• 22:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: In each episode, I will give you one actionable step to improve your life.
• 22:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Remember, you can't change everything, but you can take one step to be better.
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: This week, if you are carrying a mother moan, I want you to take the brave step to get honest about the wounds that you carry.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sit with God and make a list and then release them to Him.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And do what you need to do if you need to see a counselor, a therapist, whom ever, do what you need to do to start the road of healing.
• 23:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if this episode encourages you,
• 23:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Would you please share it with a friend who might need it too?
• 23:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're walking through this hard seizing with your adult children, or carrying things that feel heavy in this season of motherhood, I want you to know, you don't have to do it alone.
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Coaching might be your right next step.
• 23:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can apply for coaching at the link in the show notes.
• 23:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Grace and Peace Mama, you've got this, and God's got you.
• 23:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for spending time with me on the Midlife Mama Podcast.
• 23:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: My hope is that you leave each episode feeling encouraged, grounded and clearer.
• 23:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Clearer about what you're feeling, what God may be stirring in you, and how to move forward in the season of the emptiness.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Through these conversations, I'm not just sharing stories, I'm coaching you, helping you name what's happening beneath the service, challenging the thoughts that keep you stuck and take intentional steps toward peace and confidence as a midlife mom.
• 23:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're ready to go deeper in what personalized coaching support, I invite you to apply for coaching.
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Coaching is a focused one-on-one space where we work together to gain clarity and
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: process emotions and discern what God is calling you to in this next chapter.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll find the application linked in the show notes and let's stay connected.
• 24:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can find me on Instagram at P-Hinglman, that's P-H-E-N-K-E-L-M-A-N, or on Facebook at Pamela Hinglman, Emptinessed Coach.
• 24:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to figure out the season alone, mama.
• 24:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Support and direction are possible, and I'm here when you're ready.