You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma and Shame (Living Free from Narcissistic Mothers and Fathers)

by Karen C.L. Anderson, Eric Maisel PhD (Foreword by)

Overview

Release the Generational Trauma of Shame

“Karen is the wise voice you want whispering in your ear when shame knocks on your door, reminding you that you are so much more than your relationship with your mother.” —Maggie Reyes, master certified marriage coach & bestselling author of The Questions for Couples Journal

#1 New Release in Adult Children of Alcoholics and Parent & Adult Child Relationships

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. 

Shift away from shame and turn to radical forgiveness. Grow your internal self acceptance and resilience with this guide for women. Packed with meditative prompts to help you explore your relationship to shame. You are Not Your Mother caters to your inner desires to be seen, heard, and known. The toxic generational trauma and unhealthy relationships stop with you!

Explore your personal roots to shame with an expert. As a top authority on recovering from growing up in toxic families, Karen C.L. Anderson walks you through her shame story, her relationship with her narcissistic mother, and the simple practices she has developed to alleviate guilt from unhealthy relationships. Author of bestselling Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters with over 150,000 copies sold, Karen offers tools to process, understand and move beyond childhood trauma so you can not only survive, but thrive.

Inside, you’ll find:

• Karen’s story on dealing with a narcissistic mother and how she overcame her shame
• Journal prompts, mind-body practices, and simple exercises to release shame and toxic habits
• A guide on how to finally identify shame, and how to embrace living free from it

If you enjoy therapy books and content on emotion management, then this book is for you! If you liked I’m Glad My Mom Died, Mother Hunger, or Uprooting Shame And Guilt, you’ll love You Are Not Your Mother.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684812660
Publisher:	Mango Media
Publication date:	06/13/2023
Pages:	196
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

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.

Eric Maisel, PhD, is the author of more than fifty books including Why Smart People Hurt, Fearless Creating, Mastering Creative Anxiety, and The Van Gogh Blues. Widely regarded as America’s foremost creativity coach, he is a former psychotherapist, active creativity coach, and critical psychology advocate. Dr. Maisel writes the “Rethinking Mental Health” blog for Psychology Today, lectures nationally and internationally, and provides keynotes for organizations like the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry and the American Mental Health Counselors Association.

Dr. Maisel facilitates workshops in locations like Paris, London, New York, Dublin, Prague, and Rome, has provided hundreds of print, radio, and television interviews, and has taught tens of thousands of students through his classes with DailyOM. He can be found at www.ericmaisel.com and www.kirism.com and can be reached at [e-mail].

Read an Excerpt

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.

Editorial Reviews

Through the power of story, You Are Not Your Mother: Releasing Generational Trauma & Shame speaks directly to the parts of our minds that most need to hear these messages. While our rational selves are busy learning the steps we can follow to unshame ourselves, our more tender parts get to experience what it feels like to be loved as we are.”
—Simona Vivi H, founder of The Center for Remothering and of reMothering.org

“In You Are Not Your Mother, author Karen C.L. Anderson unpacks the tricky territory of shame and how it can color your whole life and hold you back, unless you face it head on. Childhood can be a minefield of hurt, trauma, and shame both at school and at home with difficult parents. Anderson's revelatory courage in sharing her healing journey is inspiring and offers a roadmap to both mental health and the joy that comes from reclaiming your own life.”
—Becca Anderson, author of Badass Affirmations

“This is the book every daughter with a difficult mother needs. It is a wise, compassionate guide to liberating yourself from the stories your mother told you about who you are.
“Part poetry, part memoir, part savvy self-help book, Karen combines stories about the deep pain she has experienced in her relationship with her mother with simple tools you can use to help you dismantle and release the emotional grip a lifetime of being shamed creates in your heart and mind.
“If you have had a difficult relationship with your mother, you will recognize the feelings of internalized shame Karen so powerfully illustrates with the stories she shares, and you will know once and for all that you are not alone and that having complicated feelings about your mother is okay. “Karen is the wise voice you want whispering in your ear when shame knocks on your door, reminding you that you are so much more than your relationship with your mother.”
—Maggie Reyes, master certified marriage coach & bestselling author of The Questions for Couples Journal

“Powerful. Liberating. Soul food. This book is a journey of transgenerational healing and self-love. Beautifully written, it will awaken parts of your soul that you didn’t know were dormant.
“For anyone that has lived with shame, or feels like they lost themselves as a result of being in a dysfunctional relationship, this book will make you feel seen and understood and open doors to freedom and healing. It includes easy-to-follow, powerful exercises that will leave you wondering how you ever coped without them! Karen shows us how to release ourselves from the shackles of shame and step into the beauty and strength of our true selves—unashamedly and with deep self-love.
“Thank you, Karen, for showing me how to love myself again and reignite my inner spark.”
—Yasmin Kerkez, co-founder of Family Support Resources

“Both unflinching and compassionate, You Are Not Your Mother offers an unconventional perspective on how shame is passed down through our maternal lineage, and how women and those socialized as women can manage the often debilitating mind/body experience that is shame.”
—Kara Loewentheil, author of the upcoming book Take Back Your Break 

“If you talk mean to yourself, if you let the opinions of others govern your decisions, if you allow cultural expectations and your own history and judgments of others to impact your view of yourself…don’t let this book go until you finish it. This book feels like a life-affirming conversation with a trusted friend, the one that you know will tell you the truth, no matter how difficult AND beautiful it is.
“In the first part, I had to remind myself to breathe. The experiences were difficult because I recognized myself in so many of them.
“Through succinct, staccato style, I gather mighty threads that help me attach elements of shame and toss the whole mess in the trash. I can’t guess how many times I will give this book to people who are on their way to hack their own path to live without shame.
“And. Let me tell you how delightful it feels to say, ‘I am not my mother.’ ”
—Mary Anne Em Radmacher, author/artist

“This book invites you to be aware. You need that awareness as much as a conductor needs a score. Without that score, the orchestra will play poorly and we will not get music. Without awareness, you will repeat your pratfalls, retain your pain, never feel quite right, and, history tell us, harm the next generation. If you are not to be your mother, best open your eyes. This book is a gentle eye-opener.”
—Eric Maisel, bestselling author of Why Smart People Hurt and Redesign Your Mind 

“In her powerful new book, bestselling author and certified coach Karen C.L. Anderson offers readers an empowering yet practical plan of action to transform shame. Filled with reflective writing topics, mindset reboots, and meditative practices, the book lends hope to anyone struggling in their relationship with a maternal family member. Not only does Anderson share the techniques she has used in her decades of coaching, she pulls back the veil to reveal the difficult and fruitful work she did with her own narcissistic mother to overcome toxic habits, release her shame, and move into open-hearted acceptance. Bonus: it reads like poetry.”
—Nita Sweeney, bestselling author of Depression Hates a Moving Target

“Karen C.L. Anderson does an amazing job at taking the reader through the raw, vulnerable, and authentic parts of our human nature in You Are Not Your Mother. Through her vulnerability, I was able to see myself and not feel alone. The reader gets a clear snapshot of what generational shame looks like, how it's passed down, and what can be done about it. I found so much value in gaining awareness of the messages that are playing in my own head and the guideposts showing me how to create a new relationship with shame. This is a book that I would recommend to any mother or daughter.”
—Rachael Wolff, podcaster, speaker and author of Letters from a Better Me

“This book has a felt-sense all on its own. From page one, I witnessed the tender waves of my own shame emerge—raw and exposed—but then gently held and nurtured in a new way, as the love infused into each page began to soothe & shift the wounds of a lifetime. Karen’s writing is a beautiful blend of incredibly relatable personal experience and integrative body-based healing practices that will guide you to fall in love with the deeply human pieces of yourself, over and over again.”
—Samantha Johnson, trauma-centered somatic coach & founder of The Alchemy of Truth

“Anderson conducts a highly personal exploration of generational trauma and healing, particularly between mothers and daughters, and provides a compassionate approach to a sensitive topic that helps guide readers through what is an emotionally wrenching book. Her depictions of abuse, while not overly graphic, are still painful to read—which make them all the more necessary to air out in the open... With a unique blend of past memories and present struggles, conveyed in a mix of poetry and prose, this text, the author freely acknowledges, is not a clinical or scholarly look at the topic of female generational trauma. Instead, this book is for those who wish to be guided by someone who has experienced what they have experienced—someone to walk them through what has worked for her. A large part of what works for Anderson is recognizing the difficulties and ordeals that her own mother and grandmother went through. The traumas they experienced perpetuated the feelings of shame that they then handed down to the author—the exact same process that has occurred with so many women over countless generations: ‘The shame was so pervasive we couldn’t see it…it’s the water we have been swimming in for…ever. And it wasn’t ours.’ Anderson’s honesty and dedication to plumbing the depths of her own life provide advice and guidance for anyone who finds themselves in similar circumstances. While the subject matter itself may be heavy, the author’s empathy and kindness (both to her readers and herself) make this an important companion for those looking to escape from generational trauma.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Karen C.L. Anderson begins her compassionate book so that we can safely recognize shaming through her—in a timeline of her life experiences in prose poetry, rhythmically punctuating the emotional beats of shock, hurt, freeze, erasure, and breakdown.
“As we further read, think, absorb, and realize the shame within us in stages of understanding, bringing us home to Self, Karen follows our thought processes and centers us in a conceptual framework with the tenderness of an embrace.
“It is in the practices that the brave-hearted work begins, as Karen guides us in many ways to express and objectify our shame through creative, interactive, multisensory activities that move our experiences outward. These lively, improvisational practices delight and challenge since we are free to select, develop, and share their transformative power.
“When we emerge from this deep journey of self-knowing in a reverse timeline with positive, life-affirming reflections of Karen’s experiences, we will have made the choice of worthiness, self-acceptance, and self-love, realizing that we are not perfect, but simply human.”
—Kate Farrell, author of Story Power: Secrets to Creating, Crafting, and Telling Memorable Stories

From the Publisher

2023-09-05
Anderson conducts a highly personal exploration of generational trauma and healing, particularly between mothers and daughters.

The author looks into the frequent feelings of shame from which children of abusive parents often suffer. As Psychology Todayblogger Eric Maisel writes in his forward, “Shame is one of the primary results of tyrannical parents harming their children. The shamed child of one generation becomes the shaming parent of the next generation." After identifying the problem and assuring readers that they can end the traumatic cycle, Anderson presents her poetry. Almost stream-of-consciousness in style, each poetry section is divided by age (0-5, 5-10, 10-15, 15-20, and 21+) and offers glimpses into Anderson’s own horrific instances of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Her frequent reference to “disappearing” describes a disassociation that permeates her adolescence and adulthood. The turning point comes when she meets her husband and finally begins learning that she deserves unconditional love (a process that the author admits is still ongoing). Anderson discusses the various sources and symptoms of trauma, using her own experiences as well as outside research to support her opinions. She provides plenty of practical exercises for readers to try on their own, such as thinking of a time when they felt “alive and energized, in the zone, or authentically you in all your you-ness.” These exercises are used to achieve what Anderson calls “unshaming,” a process of becoming your “favorite” (not necessarily your “best” or “most productive”) self. The book wraps up with a concluding section of poems entitled “Connection Recovery” to demonstrate the healing that is possible even after a lifetime of abuse.

The author’s compassionate approach to such a sensitive topic helps guide readers through what is an emotionally wrenching book. Her depictions of abuse, while not overly graphic, are still painful to read—which makes them all the more necessary to air out in the open (she also specifically provides a trigger warning before she tells a personal story of animal torture that she witnessed as a child). With a unique blend of past memories and present struggles, conveyed in a mix of poetry and prose, this text, the author freely acknowledges, is not a clinical or scholarly look at the topic of female generational trauma. Instead, this book is for those who wish to be guided by someone who has experienced what they have experienced—someone to walk them through what has worked for her. A large part of what works for Anderson is recognizing the difficulties and ordeals that her own mother and grandmother went through. The traumas they experienced perpetuated the feelings of shame that they then handed down to the author—the exact same process that has occurred with so many women over countless generations: “The shame was so pervasive we couldn’t see it…it’s the water we have been swimming in for…ever. And it wasn’t ours.” Anderson’s honesty and dedication to plumbing the depths of her own life provide advice and guidance for anyone who finds themselves in similar circumstances. While the subject matter itself may be heavy, the author’s empathy and kindness (both to her readers and herself) make this an important companion for those looking to escape from generational trauma.

With warmth and understanding, Anderson offers a new approach to healing for those who wish to break the cycle of abuse.

Kirkus Reviews