UNVEILING THE JOURNEY: HEALING RELATIONSHIPS
What could you benefit from shifting your perception a milimeter?
Let me share with you a little into how I began my journey. I will try my hardest to stay on track with my thoughts.
A little general overview about my childhood: I grew up in an average household. My parents were divorced when I was a baby and my mom remarried when I was around 2 years old. A lot of people have horror stories about their step parents, that is not the case for me. I was blessed to have a wonderful Stepfather. My mom is one of the most amazing humans on the planet. However her and I have always had a roller coaster of a relationship I would say. When things were good they were great and when things were hairy they got a little scary as a child. Now for the past 6 years or so, her and I have an incredible relationship that we are mutually very proud of. It took a lot of work though. My mom is a fun, caring, boisterous and passionate, 80s loving beauty queen that grew up in Connecticut. Her Childhood years were in an abusive environment, she left home at 16, and she carried a lot of anger within her. She also got into plenty of fights as an adolescent. So all my life up until about 6 years ago she was known as having aggressive and confrontational behavior, which was opposite of passive Kayla. I was (unknowingly to all parties involved) trained to be hyperaware of everyone else’s emotions beside my own. It got to the point where I could tell what kind of mood my mom was in by the footsteps I heard, the body language and any sort of change in tone of voice. I became a people pleaser because I didn’t want to “set her off”. I thought my opinion didn’t matter because I never had the chance to voice it. I became good with words on paper because I always had to write letters to my mom apologizing for whatever it was at the time, or if I was trying to get my point across it would go in a letter. Now if I got in trouble for something my mom would try to have conversations about whatever it was but I was never able to get my thoughts out….at all, which would sometimes aggravate her further I just literally could not find words, or maybe just didn’t want to out of fear of continuing the issue. I felt very much not good enough for her. My life even well into my 20s revolved around my mom. Everything I did on a regular basis was to make sure she would be happy. Can you see the trend here? This part is called Generational Suffering and it was definitely at this time being passed to me. Now I was never physically abused or anything. My mom was just doing the best she could with the knowledge that she had at the time. Read that sentence again……. You only know what you know. She has always been on my side and tried her very best, she just didn’t have the knowledge at the time on how to control her emotions, Just as I didn’t have the knowledge to express my emotions. You can see how that was a conflicting problem. I didn’t write that for a “ohhh you poor thing”, absolutely not. We went through what we had to go through in order to have what we have now and I am very thankful for all of it. The good the bad and the ugly.
Roughly 6 years ago my step dad dove very deep into spirituality. His findings triggered a shift in both my mom and myself. He saw the hold mom had on me and how much she controlled my life into my adult years, and ultimately he wanted her to heal all her pain and trauma from her past. Him and I had some pivotal break throughs and realizations that snapped me back to earth. He also forced her to have her own clarity. Which was not an easy task I must say for any of us. Our family came to a screeching halt learning all these teachings. Everyones relationship was on the rocks. Especially my mom and I. Divorce was on the table for her and my stepdad. She thought we were against her, like we were teaming up to make her the bad guy. This went on for probably a year or more. Our family was broken. We all hardly spoke to each other. My mom would get so so mad if my stepdad and I were having conversations because we were “talking shit” about her…… Not even the slightest but looking back I can see how that was construed. He didn’t give up on her though, he slowly just kept dripping and dripping teachings on her to have her expand her mind some into the world of generational suffering. He also kept on with me. He saw something so incredibly broken and knew there could be mending. One of his major influencers was Eckhart Tolle and he has a quote that states “If her past were YOUR past, her pain YOUR pain, her level of consciousness YOUR level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion and peace”. Woah…..talk about a slap in the face. You’re right. Look at how she grew up and her own trauma that was never healed. No wonder she is the way she is. Id be the same way, WOW!!! eye opener!. A SLIGHT SHIFT IN PERCEPTION CAN CHANGE SO MUCH!
The healing part wasn’t easy in the slightest. Our relationship got worse. It was shredded all the way to the ground and completely rebuilt. It is often said that during the healing process relationships get worse. Peoples “pain body” as Eckhart Tolle says begins to show, and lashing out can increase tremendously. Which was the case with my mom. Her pain body was in full swing for at least a year on her journey. So we separated quite a bit here. The thing is once you find some understanding for the other party and can take into account your own part played in the relationship then the healing can begin which requires looking inward. Thats not easy either. It takes vulnerability and honesty to do the real work. It has taken me years to heal myself and I still have plenty of work to do and always will. However I now have a voice, I have an opinion, I live for me and what makes me happy. My mom has found peace and honest joy. Together we have built a bridge for our bond that is now indestructible. We talk about hard shit and no one loses a temper or slams things or leaves, we have real conversations, we hang out, we are a lot more alike than we thought, and our bond is unconditional.
That is my hope with this blog, to give some tips, and guidance to set your relationship on the road to “construction zone-new bridge in process” instead of a “dead end”. Everything is achievable with a little knowledge and willingness.
Open your Mind, Love yourself, Find your tribe, Keep pushing forward, Admit more, and everything in between. Thanks for reading Bridging Bonds first Blog post! Here we speak our mind, Cuss a little, Give people grace, and lift each other up. Its a pleasure to have you here!
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Love yall, Be Good humans,
—Kayla—