Episode 18: "I turned out just fine." Did you though?

You turned out fine. Or did you?

There is a difference between adapting to your childhood and not being affected by it. In this episode we walk through seven ways your upbringing might still be running your adult life, even when everything looks fine on the surface.

Transcript

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Have you ever thought about your childhood and thought, I turned out just fine? Welcome back to Breaking the Cycle. The podcast about unpacking your roots and rewriting your story. Have you ever been in conversation with somebody and talked about your childhood and then automatically said, I turned out just fine. Welcome back to Breaking the Cycle. The podcast about unpacking your roots and rewriting your story. Maybe you said that before. I'm curious. Turned out just fine. You think to yourself, my parents did the best that they could. I function, I show up, I have a job, I have a roof over my head, I have a life. I turn out just fine. I want to pause and ask you something. Like, really sit with this. Are you actually fine? There's a difference between surviving your childhood and being affected by it. And there's also a very big difference between adapting to the conditions that you grew up in and those conditions not having shaped you. Adapting is not the same as being affected. And today we're going to look at what adaptation looks like because a lot of people are walking around thinking that these adaptations are just part of their personality, but they're not. Here's a person who I'm talking about that says that they're fine. They grew up in a home where no one said I loved you, no one gave them hugs. When you had emotions, they were either ignored or shut off by your parents. But it looked like everyone was doing fine. You got along, no real big arguments or fighting. You grew up and became capable, independent, and easygoing. You thought those were good qualities to have. You never complained or asked for too much. You looked at your life and said, I'm fine. Nothing affected me until it did. Seven ways the childhood that you grew up in might still be running your adult life. And like I said, a lot of this you might think is just part of your personality, but it's not. Number one, you push people away when they get too close. This doesn't always look dramatic. Sometimes when somebody's trying to get to know you and they're genuinely showing warmth and interest, this is when you pull back because it just feels suffocating. You get critical when things just start to feel good with a romantic partner. You pull away, sabotage the relationship. Here's the thing: when closeness never felt safe growing up, when love had conditions or was inconsistent, the part of you that learned to protect itself will activate right at the moment of genuine intimacy. It tries to create distance before the person can disappoint you or leave you. You crave love, but yet push people away at the same time. Number two, you have a hard time accepting compliments. When you grow up in a home feeling pretty much ignored, you're gonna find it really hard to trust people when they talk to you about positive things about yourself. It's gonna feel uncomfortable or suspicious. Like something you need to deflect immediately. Because somewhere underneath it all, you're thinking to yourself, if that person really knew me, there's no way that they would have said that to me. So you'll minimize it, you'll change the subject, and you'll just wave it away like that. That's not you being humble by not accepting that compliment. That's you feeling uncomfortable when somebody is saying something nice to you because nothing was said that was nice to you growing up, so it feels fake. Three, you feel responsible for other people's emotions. You learned to read the room before, you learned to read books. Love was inconsistent. Sometimes you got it, sometimes you were ignored. Took responsibility for keeping the peace, managing moods, making sure everyone was okay. And you grew up and you're still doing those same things. When your feelings were not welcome growing up, when they were dismissed, minimized, or ignored, you learn to stop accessing them. You learn to push them down or manage them before they can even surface. Because your emotions made other people uncomfortable. You became and felt like you were too much for your parents. So what you did is shut off your emotions and focus on everyone else. And your own emotions became distant and unfamiliar to you. So when somebody asks you, how do you feel you genuinely don't know? But you can tell them exactly how everyone else in your life is feeling. Number five, you struggle to ask for help. When having needs made you feel like you were a burden to your parents, you learned how to handle everything by yourself. You became the person who figures everything out, who doesn't want to bother anyone, who would rather struggle privately than ask for any help. As if asking for anything that you need was just too much or a bother to anyone else. And you call it being easygoing, self-sufficient, and independent. But that's adaptations again and again and again. Number six you apologize constantly, like you're just apologizing for existing. You say I'm sorry before you've even spoken. You apologize for having opinions or for taking up space, or pretty much just being in a room with somebody. Because growing up, being fully yourself was too much for your parents. You felt like you were an annoyance to your parents just by being yourself. And saying I'm sorry is just making yourself smaller. So no one will ever make you feel like you're too much ever again. Number seven, you hide parts of yourself or perform to feel accepted. Maybe your parents were known for comparing you to one of your siblings, or they constantly criticized you. Or maybe they made you feel like you were just not enough. Like anything that you did was just never good enough. All seven of these adaptations make complete sense in the environment that you grew up in. But here's what I need you to hear surviving and adapting is not the same as thriving. And functioning is not the same as unaffected. These adaptations that we just talked about are running your adult life. They're closing you off from relationships, from the love that you were longing for, and the ability to actually connect with yourself. Here's the thing. As a child, you adapted to your environment. But as an adult, you get to choose differently. Not because the adaptations were wrong, but because you deserve more than surviving. You deserve to actually live. You deserve to actually thrive, to know what you feel, to ask for what you need, to let people in. And without apologizing for merely existing. If you're ready to do this work alongside myself and a community of women who truly get it, then my membership, Breaking the Cycle, is specifically made for you. Full disclosure, I was supposed to launch my membership this week, but I just got back from one of the most healing weeks of my life. I spent a week in the Burgundy district of France with my boyfriend's family. It was the first time meeting them. And it was a place where I could fully be myself and feel 100% accepted. It was so like I could take a breath of fresh air just to be around so many people who were comfortable being themselves. I never felt criticized or judged, or I had to edit a version of myself or shrink myself. It was just so beautiful and healing, and I needed a space to just land in all of that. And that's where I'm right now. And in nine days, I'm going to go back home to spend 10 days with my own family. So this is the first time I've seen my family after my father passed. He passed October of last year. And this is also going to be a really heavy and emotional time for me. I'm reconnecting with my sister, who I went no contact with for eight years. And we reconnected after my father passed. And I just want to be in the best place possible when I'm leading this group with my membership. I really want to be in a good physical, emotional place. So I'm just, I'm not actually gonna tell you the date of my launch. I'm just gonna say probably sometime in late August. That is my projection of when it's all gonna land. I'm also starting a series on my socials on this week. I'll be heading to the streets of Stockholm, Sweden, and asking women on the streets two questions. How did your mother make you feel as a child? And the second question is how has that affected you as an adult? I'm super excited and super nervous about doing this. I'm using my skills of being an ex-Jehoba's Witness, of approaching people randomly and talking to them. And I don't actually know if anyone is gonna be fully honest with me, but I'm starting the whole series with me answering the question on my on my socials and and just taking it from there. I don't know how many episodes it's gonna be, but I'm calling it imprints from my mother. That is gonna be the series. And I might also go into the streets of Detroit when I'm there. Detroit, Michigan is the metro Detroit area that my family lives in, not in the city of Detroit. Um, but yeah, that's just me being real with you guys and telling you what's up with my life. And in the meantime, I hope this podcast episode resonated with you. I hope you saw yourself in one of these adaptations. I know I certainly had seen myself in all seven of these adaptations at one point or another, continuously working with them. And I said this so many times in other episodes before, but we heal the same way that we got hurt. And that is in relationships. So the relationship could be with a friend, with a partner, with a family member, with a therapist, with a coach, with a group of people, which is what I'm hosting my membership or my membership will be. It's a group of women, very intentional group of women on that same healing journey. I'll be hosting it. All the women will be joining in. It'll be essentially group therapy for women who grow up with emotionally unavailable mothers, ready to find clarity and come home to themselves. Before I let you go, I want to ask you a question. Which of these seven things do you recognize yourself most in? And what are you afraid would happen if you allow yourself to show up fully as yourself? If you enjoy this episode, I would love for you to leave me a five star review. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll talk to you next time.