You Are Not Your Mother

Préface

• Her essays have appeared in OprahMag.com, Rebelle Society, Maria Shriver's Architects Of Change, Women For One, and Elephant Journal
• She performed one of her essays at "Listen To Your Mother" in Providence, RI 
• She's been featured on Thrive Global's Books That Sparked A Movement, and many podcasts, including Experience 50, Maybe Someday, Your Kickass Life, The Life Coach School, Women In The Middle, and Oh Hell No
• Her titles, which have sold over 150,000 copies, have been published in print, digital, and audio formats
• She has an aggregate social media following of 15,000, encompassing multiple presences on Instagram, Facebook, and Linked In plus newsletter subscribers.

Auteur

Karen C.L. Anderson is a storyteller who believes that the truth never creates suffering and that all stories can be told through the lens of truth. She is also a feminist, a writer, speaker, workshop presenter, and blogger who consciously chooses to live her life as an experiment and to view the world through the lens of curiosity and fascination. Her previous book, The Peaceful Daughter’s Guide to Separating From A Difficult Mother, is an international best seller, having sold well over 100,000 copies. In another life, Anderson spent 20 years trying to fit her right-brained self into a left-brained career as a trade magazine journalist in the field of plastics (and if she had a dime for every time someone mentioned that line from The Graduate…). She is married to a left-brained engineer and they live in Southeastern Connecticut.

Texte du rabat

What is your relationship to shame? How can you overcome it and live an intentional life of vulnerability? *You Are Not Your Mother *guides readers on how to see shame, and live separately from it. 

Échantillon de lecture

Shame Is Like an Appendix


 There may, at one time in the very distant past, have been a healthy reason or “positive” purpose for humans to experience shame. 
 The same can be said for an appendix. 
 According to evolutionary biologists, at one time humans needed an appendix to digest food. It is no longer needed for that purpose. And yet humans are still born with an appendix—an organ that can make them sick and maybe even kill them. That is why they are often removed. At some point the human body will evolve to the point where it doesn’t have an appendix. 
 According to evolutionary psychologists, shame evolved to serve a function of social defense, similar to the way pain protects us from things that hurt us physically. We are born with shame “hardwired” into our physiology. It is no longer needed for that purpose, And yet we still experience it. And it can make us sick, and in some cases, kill us. 
 In other words, there is no longer such a thing as “healthy” shame. 
 There are people who believe shame is “needed” in order to be “good.” That’s what guilt is for. 
 Shame = I am bad. Irredeemably bad. There’s no coming back from this. 
 Guilt = I did something that is out of alignment with my values or my own moral code, and now I will course-correct. 
 There is never, ever, ever a good or healthy reason to believe you are bad. 
 Yet if you do believe it, it’s not your fault. Most of us think shame is reserved for when you do something truly terrible and you feel like a bad person. 
 But here’s the thing: Most of us have grown up learning that there is a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and if you choose the wrong way, you’ve made a bad choice or decision, and that means you’re a bad person. 
 What’s actually true is that most decisions and choices in life are morally neutral. 
 You don’t need shame to keep you in line. 
 Shame won’t hold you accountable. 
 Shame won’t “rehabilitate” you. 
 Shame isn’t what keeps you in integrity. 
 Connection to yourself and what you value does that. 
 Empathy and self-accountability do that. 
 You don’t need shame. 
 Your will never shame yourself to goodness or wholeness. 
 If ever there was a hill to die on, it’s this one. Besides… 

“I’d rather be whole than good.”

—Carl Jung

 * 



I Will Not Be Quiet


 After years of estrangement, my mother sends me a letter in the mail asking what I am going to do to “rectify the situation.” 
 We go back and forth a couple of times, and then she tells me all the things I have done wrong…all the things that she is ashamed of me for. 
 I imagine her donning her metaphorical sparring gloves, bobbing and weaving, waiting for me to hit back. 
 Which is what I did for years. 
 Instead, I tell her I am confused and that I am not sure what she wants. 
 She tells me she wants to rehash the past ten years, that she’ll send me some articles that may enlighten me, that she doesn’t want to lose me, and that she wants to know what caused me to cut her out of my life. 
 This response has a whole different energy to it, but it’s familiar to me: First abuse me, then act all lovey-dovey. 
 I tell her my confusion is due to her: 


• saying that she wants me to rectify the situation

• telling me all the things I have done that she doesn’t like or is ashamed of
 She’s ashamed that I blog about my struggles with my weight. 
 She’s ashamed that I wrote an article for a magazine about how to get a proper bra fitting and used photos of myself in a poorly fitting bra and a bra that fits well. Even though you can’t see my face. 
 I ask her, “In order for me to rectify the situation, do you want me to be ashamed too? Do you want me to apologize for being who I am? I am not ashamed of myself. I am proud of myself.” 
 I tell her to check out Brené Brown. 
 I tell her vulnerability is not shameful, it is the antidote to shame. 
 I tell her shame separates and isolates. 
 I tell her vulnerability connects and that if there’s anything that this world needs more of, it’s connection and compassion. 
 What I still haven’t realized is that she’s not into kindness and compassion. 
 I tell her that I am not responsible for her feelings. 
 I tell her that she if she wants to feel ashamed of me, then she gets to feel shame. 
 I tell her that she could also choose to be proud of me, and then she’d get to feel pride. 
 I tell her that she can choose to love me, and then she’d get to feel love. 
 I tell her that I am not sure if rehashing the past ten years will get us to where we want to be, but that I can’t speak for her. 
 I ask her what she wants our relationship to look like and how she wants to feel. 
 I tell her I have nothing left to lose at this point. 
 She goes silent. 
 But I…I will not be quiet. I refuse to be quiet.