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The Black Mother Wound: I Thought Me and My Mother Were Close · The Breakfast Club

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Black Mother WOMD Podcast, a production of
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  Speaker 1: The Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio, where we sent
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  Speaker 1: you the stories of black women as we heal from
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  Speaker 1: the painful relationships with our mothers. Welcome to the Black
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  Speaker 1: Mother WOMN Podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer Ernice. Welcome back, y'all.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday or whatever day it is that you are
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  Speaker 1: listening to this episode. I know last week y'all got
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  Speaker 1: to replay because I have been deep in the throes
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  Speaker 1: of becoming a mother of an official high school graduate.
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  Speaker 1: Vincent graduated from high school last week. I had family
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  Speaker 1: members over, I had friends over, people came from out
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  Speaker 1: of town, and Baby, when I tell you, it was perfect.
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  Speaker 1: I have been waiting for that moment since he was started,
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  Speaker 1: probably since the first day of kindergarten. And y'all know,
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  Speaker 1: the journey of us is just being he and I
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  Speaker 1: and me building a village slowly intentionally, and so to
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  Speaker 1: see people take the time out of their day to
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  Speaker 1: get on the highway or get on a plane to
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  Speaker 1: come and see him and celebrate him. Child, don't get me,
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  Speaker 1: don't get me to crime. And it's really interesting because
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  Speaker 1: he didn't want anybody to come. He was like, why
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  Speaker 1: are people coming to my graduation? It's not a big deal.
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  Speaker 1: Why are you doing all this? Why are you cooking?
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  Speaker 1: Why are you cleaning? Why are you da da da da?
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  Speaker 1: And I was just trying to help him to understand
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  Speaker 1: that what he's doing, it deserves to be celebrated. You know,
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  Speaker 1: everybody doesn't graduate from high school, and even if they did,
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  Speaker 1: you still deserve to be celebrated. And he was having
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  Speaker 1: a hard time with that. It was kind of like, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: what's I'm graduating high school, so what Like, I don't
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  Speaker 1: know what the big deal is. Then the day of
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  Speaker 1: came and he started seeing like the food being put
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  Speaker 1: out in the drinks and the setup, and he was
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  Speaker 1: kind of like, this is kind of nice, Like this
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  Speaker 1: is for me, you know, And then everybody started to
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  Speaker 1: file in, people showing up and we just kicking it.
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  Speaker 1: And then so you know, they're there, go to the graduation,
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  Speaker 1: come back, hang out. Everybody leaves, and I was like,
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  Speaker 1: how was it, you know, what was it like having
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  Speaker 1: people show up for you for something that you did?
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  Speaker 1: And he was like, that was that was kind of nice?
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  Speaker 1: It felt good And I want him to know that feeling. I,
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  Speaker 1: you know, two people came to see me graduate. My
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  Speaker 1: aunt came and my father came. My mother didn't come.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't have family members. I don't. Yeah, I barely graduated,
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  Speaker 1: you know, because I was in the streets. So I
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  Speaker 1: didn't grow up knowing that, you know, I should be
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  Speaker 1: celebrated or even having someone benchmark a success of mine.
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  Speaker 1: And even though I've always thrown birthday parties for him
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  Speaker 1: as a kid, somehow I have passed that on to him,
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  Speaker 1: that like people shouldn't go out of their way for
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  Speaker 1: him to you know, applaud him. And I really want
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  Speaker 1: to undo that. So his graduation this past week was
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  Speaker 1: just a great I hope, a great memory for him
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  Speaker 1: that he's important, that he's special, and even if you're
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  Speaker 1: doing something that you were going to do anyway that
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  Speaker 1: wasn't hard to do, that you are seen. And I
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  Speaker 1: just think that's so important because I didn't get that.
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  Speaker 1: And y'all know what it's like to be trying to
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  Speaker 1: parent your kids different, give them different experiences so they
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  Speaker 1: can grow up with like a different sense of who
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  Speaker 1: they are. And I hope he got that this year,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I really really do. And I hope he
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  Speaker 1: carries it with him. So, yeah, that was my was
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  Speaker 1: been going on around here. But now to the topic
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  Speaker 1: in hand. I was thinking about this. I was driving
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  Speaker 1: somewhere and I just had to chuckle. And what I
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  Speaker 1: was thinking was, I thought me and my mother were close,
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  Speaker 1: Like I really thought she and I were close. And
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  Speaker 1: I realized that I'm still coming to terms with our
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  Speaker 1: relationship and some things are still hard for me to say.
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  Speaker 1: You know, it's like it's cringey to hear it come
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  Speaker 1: out of my mouth because I don't I don't know
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  Speaker 1: if it's I don't believe it or I don't want
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  Speaker 1: to believe it, Like there's a part of me still,
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  Speaker 1: even after doing this work for ten years and me
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  Speaker 1: and my mother being no contact for all of those years,
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  Speaker 1: that there's this part of me. It's not I don't
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  Speaker 1: think it's that I wish that she was different, But
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  Speaker 1: my mind wants to hold on to memories of us
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  Speaker 1: in a good place so I can use them of
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  Speaker 1: evidence that I was loved, so I can use them
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  Speaker 1: as a benchmark for care and letting myself come out
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  Speaker 1: of that and not trying to make something be what.
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  Speaker 1: It's not as hard as fuck, because then it's like,
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  Speaker 1: if I don't have those pockets of moments, it's like,
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  Speaker 1: what do I have? And should I torture myself? You know?
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  Speaker 1: Should I really torture myself by obliterating these ideas I
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  Speaker 1: had around us ever having a genuinely loving, fucking relationship,
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  Speaker 1: And I know that we didn't, but I like to
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  Speaker 1: hold on to those I like to pretend. You know,
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  Speaker 1: it feels good to be able to say it to myself, right,
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  Speaker 1: But I also think that it might be hindering me
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  Speaker 1: because it's very important that I see things as they are.
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  Speaker 1: Because if I can't see her as she is, and
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  Speaker 1: that's not from a judgmental standpoint, but if I can't
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  Speaker 1: clearly see and assess my lived experience, I can't see
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  Speaker 1: myself clearly and honestly, and I will always think I
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  Speaker 1: have a back door to create another reality, which is
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  Speaker 1: really disassociating me from the body I'm in now, the
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  Speaker 1: life i'm in now, the present moment that I'm in now.
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  Speaker 1: So we're going to rip the band aid off in
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  Speaker 1: today's episode, and the question that we are asking ourselves
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  Speaker 1: is what if the relationship you thought was closeness was
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  Speaker 1: actually something else right, And I think that it's funny
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  Speaker 1: because I, you know, have people come and talk to me,
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  Speaker 1: send me messages, and they say, I didn't know I
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  Speaker 1: had a mother wound. I thought me and my mother
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  Speaker 1: were close. We talk all the time. They may even
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  Speaker 1: live together, you know, they take trips together, they plan things,
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  Speaker 1: they go shopping their their girlfriends. And then they listen
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  Speaker 1: to the episodes and they start to resonate with some
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  Speaker 1: of the things that I'm saying, and then they're like,
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  Speaker 1: oh shit, I do have a mother womb. And in
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  Speaker 1: the back of their mind, in the back of our minds,
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  Speaker 1: we know that something is off, but we think we
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  Speaker 1: can be a good enough person, a good enough daughter,
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  Speaker 1: a good enough friend to fix it. That is, just
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  Speaker 1: if we just keep tweaking it, that it'll be okay, right,
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  Speaker 1: that we can that. I don't even say we don't
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  Speaker 1: even thinking we can repair it, but yeah, we can
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  Speaker 1: fix it. So this looks like, you know, talking every day.
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  Speaker 1: Me and my mama used to talk every day. I
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  Speaker 1: would get up in the morning, brush my teeth, washed
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  Speaker 1: my face, be fixed my breakfast, and we're on the phone.
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  Speaker 1: I'm telling her everything is going on in my life.
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  Speaker 1: We just chopping it up. We're talking about nonsense. But
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  Speaker 1: I realized I had this urge to like, really, I
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  Speaker 1: think it was an obligation. It was this impulse that
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  Speaker 1: I had to prove that I was her friend, that
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  Speaker 1: I had to prove we were close. So I had
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  Speaker 1: to tell her everything I had to. I just had
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  Speaker 1: to expose myself to her at every moment. This is
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  Speaker 1: what I'm doing, and we're going here, and this is that.
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  Speaker 1: And part of me probably was happy to have her
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  Speaker 1: to talk to. But I also can remember if I
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  Speaker 1: didn't want to talk and I didn't want to call her,
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  Speaker 1: just maybe I'm just tired, you know, like talking to
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  Speaker 1: anybody that I would feel guilty and it's like, no,
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  Speaker 1: go ahead and call her because you don't want her
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  Speaker 1: to think some like some type of way. And I'm like,
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  Speaker 1: why would a daughter think her mother is going to
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  Speaker 1: think about her in some type of way if she
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  Speaker 1: doesn't call her one time, you know what I mean.
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  Speaker 1: But hearing it now, this shit sounds crazy. But back
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  Speaker 1: then it was normal and it drove me and I
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  Speaker 1: followed it till I hit a brick wall. I used
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  Speaker 1: to always say that she's my best friend. I was
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  Speaker 1: so happy to tell people that my mother was my
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  Speaker 1: best friend because we talk all the time and were
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  Speaker 1: going and again, then we're going to stein Mark and
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  Speaker 1: we gonna take a trip over the ralls, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna ride around, and we're gonna go to the
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  Speaker 1: thrift store and all these things are fun and we
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  Speaker 1: did have a good time. But when I look back,
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  Speaker 1: we were engaging in activities. I was doing things that
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  Speaker 1: were her things. We never did the things that were
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  Speaker 1: what I liked to do. I didn't even bring up
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  Speaker 1: what I liked to do. I was so indoctrinated, so
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  Speaker 1: much of the good daughter that I knew not to
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  Speaker 1: even unpack parts of myself around her because it would
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  Speaker 1: make her uncomfortable. We wouldn't have peace, she wouldn't support me.
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  Speaker 1: But that didn't matter. She was my best friend. So
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna do however we can find the fun where
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  Speaker 1: she's happy with me, then that's what we're going to do,
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  Speaker 1: right And it makes me feel like, how can I
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  Speaker 1: When I look back at that, I'm like, if you
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  Speaker 1: thought your mother was your best friend? And this is
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  Speaker 1: like off topic. I see now why I picked the
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  Speaker 1: friends that I did when I was younger, and I
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  Speaker 1: was like, so ride or die for them, But it
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  Speaker 1: was the same thing. It was all about them, all
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  Speaker 1: about what they liked, all about what they wanted, all
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  Speaker 1: about what they wanted to talk about. And I never
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  Speaker 1: forced the issue, which you should never have to force
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  Speaker 1: the issue. That's what's crazy. It's like in my like, dude,
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  Speaker 1: you hear me talking right now, it's like, oh, I
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  Speaker 1: didn't force the issue to bring up things I like.
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  Speaker 1: To me, that was me being a good friend and
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  Speaker 1: me wanting to have friends. And that's why it's really
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  Speaker 1: a slippery slope with relationships. When you have a relationship
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  Speaker 1: with your mother where things seem like they're good. You know,
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  Speaker 1: they're not perfect, but they're cool, and we accept that
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  Speaker 1: and then we say, well, I can't really be myself
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  Speaker 1: with her, But when I go out in the world
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  Speaker 1: in these other directions, in these other spaces with other people,
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  Speaker 1: I'll be myself there. But when I come back here,
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  Speaker 1: I'll be her daughter because that's my duty and that's
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  Speaker 1: my obligation, and that's what makes her happy. Like that
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  Speaker 1: is it's like what it's what I owe, And it's
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  Speaker 1: like a game we play and we think that it's
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  Speaker 1: not harmful, but it's extremely harmful to our psyche because
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  Speaker 1: we are micro dosing self abandonment. Okay, we are little
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  Speaker 1: by little pinching pieces of ourselves off in order to
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  Speaker 1: stay connected to someone who cannot see us or recognize us.
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  Speaker 1: So we're trying to be something they can see, and
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  Speaker 1: they can they can recognize, and then we get to
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  Speaker 1: a point where we don't even see or recognize ourselves,
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  Speaker 1: and then what And you know, it's just it's so
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  Speaker 1: freaking it's so crazy, and yeah, that shit is wild.
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  Speaker 1: Not all mother wounds come from distance. Some can come
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  Speaker 1: from a lack of separation, because in actuality, what me
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  Speaker 1: and my mother had was immeshment. And I haven't used
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  Speaker 1: this term in a while, but I used to always
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  Speaker 1: talk about your energetic and emotional umbilical cord, like the
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  Speaker 1: ways in which we as black daughters are connected to
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  Speaker 1: our mothers energetically and we're getting our nourishment from them. Right,
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  Speaker 1: we don't have a sense of our own identity, and
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  Speaker 1: we are still we have chosen and we have been
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  Speaker 1: raised to identify with a version of us that is
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  Speaker 1: only an extension of her, her wants, her needs, her fears,
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  Speaker 1: her desires, her dreams, her projections of the world, how
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  Speaker 1: she sees ourselves, how she sees herself. We take all
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  Speaker 1: of that on in the world in order to stay
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  Speaker 1: connected to her, and so we never have our own
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  Speaker 1: sense of self. We don't have autonomy. That's what the
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  Speaker 1: black mother wound is. You don't have the autonomy even
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  Speaker 1: when you think y'all are close. It's so interesting, like
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  Speaker 1: to grow up. It's like, you know, they say, the
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  Speaker 1: adults say, I'm not one of your little friends. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not one of your little friends. And then you grow
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  Speaker 1: up and it's like, oh, yeah, we're best friends. Me
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  Speaker 1: my mom are best friends. And there's some of y'all
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  Speaker 1: out here where that is. That's what you have. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not saying it's not, but I want you to ask yourself,
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  Speaker 1: is it genuine closeness or is it immeshment? Right? And
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  Speaker 1: immeshment makes you feel guilty for being yourself. Immeshment makes
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  Speaker 1: you feel like you are betraying your mother if you
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  Speaker 1: show up in your full authenticity. And that's where codependence
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: comes in, right, because we're trying to, because we've done
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  Speaker 1: this all our lives, regulate our mother's emotions through our behavior. Right.
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  Speaker 1: We know that if she's happy, she'll shine that light
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  Speaker 1: on us, and that's all we want, just want to
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  Speaker 1: feel the warm, loving light of her affection, her attention,
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  Speaker 1: her approval. And so we we shift ourselves and we
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  Speaker 1: put ourselves actually in a very dark place to do that.
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  Speaker 1: So then when she shines the light on us, it
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  Speaker 1: really never gets to be bright because we've dimmed ourselves
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  Speaker 1: so much. But we're so used to it that it's like, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: that's I'm happy to have that. I'm happy to have
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  Speaker 1: any part of that, right. And so that's how immeshment
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  Speaker 1: really plays a role in mother daughter relationships and mother
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  Speaker 1: son relationships. That immeshment when your mother, our mothers think
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  Speaker 1: that we are an extension of them and that there
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  Speaker 1: is a payback oh to them for whatever they did
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  Speaker 1: as parents. For us, it creates a bond that is
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  Speaker 1: really toxic and it's almost like a vampire. It's like
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  Speaker 1: our life for us, our youth, our passion, our dreams,
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  Speaker 1: our confidence is being siphoned off so we can maintain
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  Speaker 1: a relationship with the most important person in our lives,
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  Speaker 1: with the most important person ever. It's like that's our
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  Speaker 1: priority to keep a relationship with her, because if we
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  Speaker 1: do that, then we're good people. That is the evidence,
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  Speaker 1: that's the trophy that I'm good, is that me and
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  Speaker 1: my mother are close. But are you really? Are you
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  Speaker 1: really close? Right? Do you feel guilty when you're making
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  Speaker 1: decisions and that your mother disagrees with Do you need
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  Speaker 1: her approval before major life decisions? Do you feel responsible
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  Speaker 1: for her emotions? And do you have difficulty forming opinions
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  Speaker 1: that differ from hers? Those are some questions I want
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  Speaker 1: you to ask yourself to be able to come to
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  Speaker 1: some clear, honest conclusions about is it closeness or is
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  Speaker 1: it immeshment? And the fucked up part prison is immeshment
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  Speaker 1: is marketed to black children as respect. It's not marketed
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  Speaker 1: as something toxic or abusive. It's really marketed as love
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: and respect. If you love and respect your mother, then
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  Speaker 1: you will want her to agree with your decisions. You
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  Speaker 1: don't want her to be upset with you. If you
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  Speaker 1: really love and care about your mother, then you want
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  Speaker 1: your opinions to be in alignment with hers because that
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  Speaker 1: shows that she raised you right. See, when you have
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  Speaker 1: an opinion that's different from your mother's, it is like
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  Speaker 1: a slap in the face. Because what you're saying is
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  Speaker 1: you're wrong. That's what they hear. And it's like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: you have found fault with me. That's not that's not allowed.
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  Speaker 1: You're not allowed to find fault with me because I
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: gave everything to you, not realizing everybody makes mistakes, but
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  Speaker 1: they you know, and I don't want to say to
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: their defense, but in a way, to their defense, being
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  Speaker 1: a mother is about you doing it right the first
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  Speaker 1: time right, and buying into that leaves them in a
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  Speaker 1: space where they have objectified themselves as the queen mother
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  Speaker 1: of all, and if you don't agree with with their
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: policies and practices, it is a personal blow to their
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: identity because their identity as your mother is that I
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: make all the right choices, and if they feel like
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  Speaker 1: they don't, then they feel like they failed. And that's
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: a pressure that has been put on mothers that's definitely
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: not put on fathers. But then it gets passed down
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  Speaker 1: for the kids to continue to uplift uplift that lie right.
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  Speaker 1: And I just think that it's really important that even
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  Speaker 1: when you're doing this in ways that seem very harmless,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: it's like, girl, I just go over there on Sundays
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  Speaker 1: and just let her say what she gonna say. Child,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: just eat my dinner and get my stuff and gone home.
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  Speaker 1: I don't even start anything with her. That is still abandonment.
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  Speaker 1: You know. Imagine if you had a child, y'all know
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I love using examples like this. Imagine you had a
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  Speaker 1: little girl and you tell the little girl, You're just
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  Speaker 1: gonna go over to Uncle Johnny's house on Sundays for
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  Speaker 1: a little while. He's just gonna, you know, rub your
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  Speaker 1: shoulder a little bit, say little funny stuff. Week is
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  Speaker 1: eye at you, and then you can come home, don't
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  Speaker 1: say nothing, and then it's fine. Child. That's what's fucking happening,
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  Speaker 1: because even though it's once a week or once a
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  Speaker 1: month or only on holidays, you are teaching yourself how
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: to accept abuse and how to rationalize it, how to
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: accept being not seen, how to be dehumanized and say, well,
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  Speaker 1: you know, it's my mother. I don't want to get
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  Speaker 1: into it, you know, I don't want to make a
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  Speaker 1: big thing because next thing, you know, you're gonna call
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  Speaker 1: everybody and have home on my phone and then and
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  Speaker 1: you in essence, it's like quietly being bullied, and you
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  Speaker 1: also will then try to fix it. With closeness. Mam,
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna come get you tomorrow and take you to Costco.
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  Speaker 1: We're gonna go get some stuff. I'm gonna take you
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: know your birthday's coming. I'm gonna do this for you
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  Speaker 1: to Now, what you think you're doing is repairing by
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: giving this closeness, but actually what you're doing is rewarding
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  Speaker 1: bad motherfucking behavior because she is behaving in a way
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: that is disrespectful, is not loving. And then you come
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: around and say I'm gonna reward that behavior. I'm gonna
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: let you do what you wanna do and talk to
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: me how you want to talk to me, and then
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna come pick you up and drive you all
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: around town on Tuesday so we can fix it and
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: laugh and keep key and have another memory overlay that one.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: So you just want to put perfume on shit and
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: then call it closeness, Yeah, that's not what we're gonna
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: keep doing. A question that I have here is can
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: you make a major life decision without worrying about how
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: your mother will feel about it? Can you do it right?
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And then if you're somebody who you're saying you're not
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: in contact with your mother anymore. So you don't go
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: through this. I want you to think about how you
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: show up like this with other relationships. Could be a
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: romantic relationship, your platonic friend relationships, other family members where
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: you're still playing this role up. We're close, but y'all
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: ain't really close because they don't really fuck with you
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: like that, you know what I'm saying. And what this
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: also creates is a parentification between you and your parent
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: because they're behaving in an emotionally immature way, which then
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: forces you to act in a mature emotional way. And
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: then also while you're doing that, you're looking up to
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: them as the parent, but you're acting as the parent.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: That's parentification, and that shit is backwards. And it creates
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: this dynamic of when when for her because she can
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: behave anyway she wants to and still get treated like
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: a baby. And it's a lose lose for you because
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: you're taking and accepting treatment that is less than loving, disrespectful, toxic, abusive,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: and you got to swallow it and come back around
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: and be the bigger person. And you still think y'all
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: are close. I still thought that we were fucking close,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and I think I'm i might be disassociating a bit
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: even as I'm talking about this, because my mind will
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: not let me feel the pain of this. But I
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: know it's painful because it's like I can't I can't
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: even deal with that right now, you know, So what
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: the fuck did we ever have? What did we have?
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: We have these memories and I think about them, and
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: I'm like, if I would have said, like my truth
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: in any of those moments, would that memory have been ruined?
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: If I would have shown up at myself, if I
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: would have asked for honesty, if I would have asked
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: for real care, if I would have asked for real support,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: what would that moment have turned into? And I already
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: know the answer. And I would have rather had the
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: memory than have the truth. And now I have them both,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and it's it's not worth it, but it was all
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I knew. And I think that's the case for you know,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: for a lot of us. And what happens when you
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: become that parentified child, which happens early on that things happened.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: This whole closeness, this air quote closeness for people listening,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: it starts so early on, because that is your mission
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: for y'all to be close. Right, So I was the
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: person my mother convent to. She worked at the prison,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: and she could come home and talk about those people
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: all day long, and I would listen, and I would
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: give her advice and give her counsel and you should
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: do this and do that, and then I would say, hey,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: there's a field trip tomorrow. I clean my room, I
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: clean the kitchen. I you know, have all. I'm still
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: on on a roll. All my grades are where they
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: need to be. I've done everything, I've folded close. Can
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I go on the field trip tomorrow? No, all of
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: a sudden, now we're not friends. You can tell me
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: everything you got going on, and I'm there for you
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: and I'm understanding of you. And I'm a high school student.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: I want to go on the field trip and I've
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: done everything I'm supposed to do. But they answers still,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: motherfucker no for me. And we get used to that
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: closeness being one way. It's very one sided. It's very incited. Okay, yeah,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: when we you know, she vinced to us, we're expected
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: to comfort her. Right, whenever she's down, we show up
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: for her. We don't want to prove we're a good friend.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: But when we need it back, it's not we don't
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: get it back the same way, because then she gonna
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: point out all the things we did wrong, or why
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: it's our fault, or you know, you want too much anyway.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: And I think that because we grew up with that,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: we don't ever realize how fucking mean it is. I
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: think that's the part that hurts. It's like I can
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: feel it, how fucking mean it is, for no fucking reason,
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: how mean it is. So what I want you all
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: to think about today is being close to your mother
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: doesn't automatically mean the relationship is healthy. And I'm not
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: trying to throw salt on a healthy relationship. I just
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: want you to consider this. Love and immeshment can exist
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: at the same time. You can love them and still
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: have a meshment with them. You can love your mother
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: and still need boundaries. You can have both of those.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Real relationships are a two sided coin. If the relationship
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: only got one side, that ain't a real relationship. And
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: healing is about developing a stronger relationship with yourself, not
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: a stronger relationship with your mother. I'm not trying to
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: tell you to go somewhere and fix your mother and
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: fix the relationship with your mother so it's better and
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: it actually is healthy, because that probably won't happen if
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: it hasn't already happened. I want you to focus on
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: building a better relationship with yourself so when you go
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: in those situations, you can advocate for yourself. Okay, I
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: think that is what is super duper important. All right,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: that's what I have for y'all today. I love you deeply.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Please share this episode with someone that you think needs it, like,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: share and comment. If you're watching this on YouTube, please
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: give us five stars. If you're listening on the audio.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: If you're interested in coming to see me live in
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Charlotte in July, click the link in the show notes
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: so you can get your ticket. We're still doing early bird.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: If you're interested in working with me in a group setting,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: click the link and join the wait list for Resolve
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: so you can find out when that is coming back out.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I love you, guys. Don't let anybody play in your
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: face haha. See you later. Bye. Thank you for listening
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: to the Black Mother Wound podcast. I hope you enjoyed
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: today's episode, and make sure you comment, subscribe, and rate
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: the show. You can keep the conversation going over on
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: ig at Black mother Wound and click the link in
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the show notes to download the free mother Wound Healing Guide.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: See you next week.