Years ago – more than 15 – I was visiting my mother.

She was in her kitchen and I was outside on the deck. I saw her looking out the window so I grinned at her. She looked at me with a sneer on her face, lifted her hand, and raised her middle finger.

I don't remember what happened next because – although I didn't know it at the time – I froze. High alert.

What I DO remember is that later I was both furious and devastated, a familiar set of emotions when it came to my mother. I told anyone who would listen what she had done.

The responses from others ranged from shock ("What kind of mother does that??!")...

...to practical ("That's about her not you.")...

...to quizzical ("Why are you taking it so personally? I would have laughed if my mother did that.").

I logically knew her behavior wasn't personal (to be honest, I think she did it because I reminded her of my father and she hated my father), but in the moment I couldn't access logic because my body perceived a threat.

Back then I had no clue about my body's intelligence, so I spread a thick layer of shame over the situation.

"I shouldn't have taken it so personally. How pathetic am I? I read The Four Agreements. I should know better."

The more I shamed myself, the more I kept myself in survival/stress mode, the more I kept myself small and hidden.

"...shame produces trauma and trauma often produces paralysis." ~ bell hooks

~~~

We're told "don't take it personally" but we're not taught to understand our body's intelligence, which perceives whatever "it" is differently. And when that happens, we beat ourselves up because we didn't stand up for ourselves or laugh it off. We shame ourselves, sometimes subtly, but the harm is still done. We remain paralyzed.

One way to dissolve the shame is to say to yourself (with a hand over your heart)...

"Of COURSE I'm taking it personally...it makes all the sense in the world that I'd do that! How about I just let myself be human?"

Notice how it lands in your body when you say that, what a relief it is to be truly kind to yourself, to validate how you actually feel and not make yourself wrong for it, and see what happens, longer term, as a result.

This is what it means to send cues of safety to your body, and when your body feels safe, you can finally stop taking it so personally.

Dissolve the shame. Dissolve the triggers. Get ready to be delighted.

Much, much love,

Karen

P.S. While the choice to stop shaming yourself is now yours, the conditioning you received, that has you continuing to be cruel to yourself, was not. There's no inherent flaw to fix. There's only shame to dissolve. This is the work we do in the Mother Lode.

Reasons to work with me:

• You want to improve the relationship you have with your mother or adult daughter.
• You want to take shame out of the relationship you have with your mother or adult daughter.
• You want to establish healthy boundaries with your mother or adult daughter.
• You want to determine if going no-contact is for you.
• You want to re-establish contact.
• You have a dream you've put on hold because you're afraid your mother will disapprove of, or you're afraid of "outshining" her.
• You want toxic patterns to stop with you.
• You don't want to be "just like" your mother.
• You want to navigate your role in your aging mother's life.
• You want to reduce the amount of guilt, shame, resentment, and anxiety you feel.
• You want to be less triggered around your mother (or adult daughter).