You don't have to be the Trauma that Raised You: An Interview with Author Lena Fein

Welcome And Memoir Setup

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. I am Anne. And today's guest, Lena Fine, wrote a memoir that doesn't just tell a story. It opens a door into the parts of ourselves many of us don't talk about. And Shattering the Mirror, One Woman's Journey Appealing. Lena shares what it was like to grow up in a home where appearances mattered more than connection, where emotions were unsafe, and where she learned very early on how to disconnect from herself just to survive. But this isn't just a story about what happens to her as a child. It's about what happens after, how those appearances shape the way that we love, the way that we see ourselves, and the way that we move through the world for decades. And ultimately, it's about what it takes to break those patterns and come back to who we really are. Lena, I really want to thank you for being here today.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Thank you for having me. And what a wonderful, deeply felt introduction about the journey to find myself. So thank you for that.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

I I read every word of your book and it deeply touched me. And it took me on my own journey too. I mean, that's what was really cool about it. And it was so visual. I felt it with you.

Trauma Memory And Fear Of Shame

SPEAKER_00 1:34

So thank you. And the visual, I I get a lot of feedback about that. And I think that's a result. I have to say thank you to my photographic memory that I had. Oh, yeah. A young child. I don't have that anymore, unfortunately. It's hard for me to remember what I had for breakfast. But that photographic memory was not just the visuals. It was actually remembering auditory, remembering how I felt inside. So I can go back and just like tell the story as if I'm right there, not making anything up or because I can't remember it. So that's why my scenes are like that, because I'm still there. I remember what happened in my past very well.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

You know, I think trauma can do that at times. You know, I mean, there's been times in my life where something happens and then everything goes into slow motion, and I can absolutely remember it like it's a still, like scenes.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Wow. Yeah. Yes. It is like that. And I always thought I was born with that. Obviously, I can't remember when I was born. I remember down to about 18 months when my sister was born. But I don't know, maybe it was because I experienced early trauma. That's what started the recording. And so actually, the recording was helpful for not so much when I was a young child, other than getting A's in school, because I could remember things, but it really helped me in finding the nuances of my story. So as an adult, I could heal them and see them from the eyes of an adult rather than a child. So it was really helpful. I never thought I'd publish. I thought, oh my gosh, my I'm going to be shamed. But putting the story out there and actually having woman readers that are mostly in my age group that were probably raised by traumatized parents from the Depression, World War II, whatever it was, and not being shamed. Like I was I feared shame, but I have not gotten it once. It's been more like me too. Oh, wow, that reminded me of something from childhood. So I I'm thankful that my writing something that was so hard to write about touched people to look at their own stories.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Well, I think our generation too, I mean, our parents, we were taught not to feel, not to express, to be kind of the one in the corner, you know, not sharing anything and to just accept what was going on in the room. And, you know, I I think it was partly, partly the times.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Yes. Because when I look at the demographics for the it's most it's all pretty much all women reading the book and they're in the age group of 50s and 60s and 70s. Yeah. Which really surprised me. Like, you know, I'm maybe a 20-year-old's like, what?

unknown 4:28

You know.

Numbness As A Survival Skill

SPEAKER_02 4:29

But it is a story for everybody. It really is. Because if you've had any kind of a trauma or any kind of grief or loss, I mean, it will touch you somewhere in your story. I really believe that. And I want to start where I mean, come on. The way that you started this book, when I learned that my mom, mother, had stage four lung cancer, I was paralyzed with fear. Not because I was afraid of losing her, but because I was afraid I would feel nothing when she died.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

I mean, I like lost my breath for a second when you said that. I mean, that was really profound. And it's an amazing place to start your book. And it says so much without really saying anything yet.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

Yeah.

A Polished Home With No Comfort

SPEAKER_02 5:21

And it speaks to a lifetime of disconnection, of survival, of shutting things down just to make it through. And this isn't just about what you went through as a child because it's about what happens when no one rescues you, when your voice gets buried, and you spend decades, decades searching for love in places that repeat the wounds and what it takes to literally come back to yourself. So you grew up in a home that looked put together. I mean, it was definitely clean. Yeah. There's no doubt about that. Well vacuumed, yes. And that's very but what was underneath that was you were a child calling out for a mom.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

And you were hurting, but you didn't hear anything but the vacuum because all your mom was doing was cleaning. And you were hurting, and you were being punished, and you were being shamed, and then comforted weirdly by the same person who was hurting you. It was not really even a comfort either. It was kind of like a here's a hug by, you know. I mean, it wasn't really a comfort.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

But can you take me, us into your childhood home?

SPEAKER_00 6:44

My childhood, I have very early memories. And my childhood home as from a really little young self was, ooh, everything's fun. You know, like um, I have an older sister, she's 14 months older than me, and then me, and then uh one that's um 17 months younger, and then another one. So four girls pretty much in five or six years. The home was from a very little girl's eyes, like maybe I'd say before too, was everything's funny, everything's fun. Mommy's vacuuming, but you know, sometimes she picked me up and I can see her dolls in the doll cabinet. And then I go and run and play blocks with my sister. We were basically left alone in the house. And that's, you know, there's a lot of accidents that were going on without mom being around. I feel like my that started that fairy tale world that I imagined broke maybe when I was in first and by the time I was in first and second grade, where I started to feel hopeless, depressed. I couldn't name it, but just sad and afraid to speak up in school and feeling like something was wrong with me. I didn't see it says something wrong with my mother as a in that first grade world. I'm getting teased, I'm uncoordinated, um, I have curly hair when everybody else has straight hair. So there was something that this very early about, I need to cover that up because I'm so ashamed that I don't measure up or I'm not cute enough. So that I think started in second grade and was just really reinforced by my mother constantly criticizing me for being clumsy. Um, that started at a young age and the pattern developed. And then when my mom really started to rage as I got older, then I was like, oh, you know, as a teenager, I don't, you know, my mom is this and my mom is that. But really the damage from a mother not paying attention or constantly saying I couldn't do something because I was didn't look right, or I was glitzy, or I was too whatever it was, that started really young.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Yeah. Yeah, it felt like you couldn't do anything right in her.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

And the the cruelty was relentless, especially about the way I looked. It was just, I feel sorry for the man you marry. You look like a slob. I mean, it was just these, it was like barbs of poison. And I compensated for that by okay, if I can't do it by how I run at sports or skip or dance or the way I look, then I'm gonna be really smart. So I developed the persona of, you know, uh doing really well in school. That's what I held on to. I'm okay because I'm getting A's in school. But really deep down, the the right deep part, the heart part was was closing.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Yeah. It was performative.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

Yeah. And you know, what was really difficult was that you were really trying to get your mom's love. You were trying so hard. And when the person who is supposed to be protecting you is actually the one abusing you, I mean, that adds such a difficult layer. It is one of the reasons why we have some of the hardest pains to rid of, I think. So, what did that do for you? What do you think that that does when the person who's supposed to be protecting us is the one abusing us?

Criticism Builds The Achiever Mask

SPEAKER_00 10:11

I think it killed my self-esteem. Yeah. It made me feel when I was mad and in my head saying this is not okay. Most of the abuse came when I was the only one with my mom. Like maybe my sisters were off doing something. So it happened. And I always thought it was just me, but I didn't find out till later, till after our mom died, that each one of my sisters got some version of the same thing when they were alone with mom. It happened when you were alone. So that feeling of I'm bad. Oh, and also my my mom is crazy. She's so mean. Why does anybody else say it? But I would get in, you know, the minute I'd lose my temper, she'd just keep going until I swore, would swear at her as I got to be a teenager. Like she would just keep going and going and going. And then when my dad came home from his travels on on the road, he'd say, you know, you're grounded because I, you know, you can't swear at your mother, but it didn't matter what she did. You know, by the way, you can't abuse your kids, you know. So I developed that uh achieving persona, that getting an A in school and getting a good job was what it meant to be a successful human being. And I I was behind as far as really loving deeply, not that I didn't love things, because I I do deep down have a tender heart. It was that I felt like I wasn't worthy or pretty pretty enough or delicate enough or whatever it was, um, that, you know, I was ashamed of the way that I would never be able to love because there was something wrong with me. I think that deep down was it was hard. Took me a long time to outgrow that and heal that.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

And another layer of that is that, you know, your dad, you were trying, you were begging. And like you just said, I mean, he really wasn't recognizing what was happening with you. And you wanted him to protect you. You were not being rescued. He would tell you, like you just said, to be nicer to your mom, the one who was emotionally and psychologically abusing you. That must have been even more confusing. Can you talk about what was like not just to be hurt by your mom, but to be not protected by your dad?

Dad’s Silence And The Lone Target

SPEAKER_00 12:28

It was hard because when we're in our home, my mother pitted us against each of our the sisters against each other. So I felt isolated, not realizing that my sisters had their own isolation. My dad traveled a lot. So I held out for so long, my dad is the hero. I can't wait till dad comes home. I'd wait at that window till my dad, father came home, always sure this time, this time he's no matter like that mom will be punished. That's what I would be thinking. And it never happened. Right. The breakthrough with my dad really didn't happen until after my mother died when I was 51. And then whole family dynamics changed. And I was able, my dad would come over once a week uh for dinner, and I was able to have real conversations. But dad, mom was doing this, and he's like, I had that one breakthrough conversation. Oh, I didn't know it was that bad.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

I mean, I think sometimes I don't know. I was wondering if he was ever in the room when that was happening, but I also was wondering if he just would look away and ignore it. I wasn't really sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

The best I could describe it is I remember I was in high school in San Francisco. I saw a play. I'd never heard of it. I never read the book called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest with Nurse Ratchet. And then I read the book and I realized the way to define my mom was Nurse Ratchet, that she would torment the one that kind of had the prisoner that, or the mental patient that had a mouth, torment him so much when he was, she was alone with him. But the minute you know a doctor came in the room, she turned into hi. And I that I have never cried so hard at a film or a play at since then or any time, because it just it was like, wow, that's my mother. That's Nurse Ratchet. It it makes for crazy making. Because she did the abuse always when no one else was around. Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

And um and and with your dad, I mean, there's something about that kind of silence, and it's like a loud silence. And and there's a point where you stop asking for help. Yeah, not being protected creates a different kind of wound. Not the not just the pain, uh, but an abandonment in plain sight.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

And it was until when my mother, she was diagnosed with lung cancer and within a week and a half of that diagnosis, and she had she was intubated, but she was still alert. So that looking at her eyes and for the first time not seeing black, but actually some light coming out of the eyes, I felt that my mom on her deathbed was making an amends with her eyes because she couldn't talk. She was intubated. She died within a couple of days later. That started the opening of realizing the miracle of that was realizing, oh, there is possibly a different path. Oh, what is that feeling in my heart? I started to follow that. It took, it wasn't just instant, but the realization that possibly I was living with a shield and my mother was living with a shield, that just possibly there's a way out of that. And there was. And it took years of just allowing slowly, I'm gonna allow dance in. Whatever my mom shamed me for, I started to allow it in, you know, uh, my hair, embracing my curly hair instead of getting it straightened or cropped short. To me, that's a miracle. And it took years to come to where I am today, where I feel like I'm living a real life in the moment, loving my grandkids, having anger, not, you know, there's no abuse, but that I have I'm living a heartfelt life, and that didn't really occur until, you know, my late 50s. Took, you know, what it takes. But I'm glad I didn't miss the memo. And I'm glad I had the courage to write about it. I never thought published. I never thought I and when I did, now it's like for every woman that says they were touched or that was a me too, like I felt like that too. I feel it's like that's what it's about for me is reaching those women that if they read something in my story that resonates them, that creates that aha moment so they have a more full life. That's what it's about with this book.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Well, it helps women to feel that they're not alone. Yeah. I mean, that's a really big deal to feel validated and feel that other people are going through this journey with you.

Sisters Coping Under Total Control

SPEAKER_00 17:05

And that's a good word to use alone, because if I have to look back after I had my little happy time when you're a toddler and you think everything is fun, really, you know, after the age of five or six, I I would say that's the key thing is I felt alone inside. Even there, I may have had sisters around, I may have had kids in school, even with all the A's I got, deep down I felt alone.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Speaking of your sisters, you were on a roller coaster ride with them as well. Because each of you them and you were surviving in your own way.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

And one completely left, and one became the target, and you were the target for a while, and then you left, and then um somebody else was the target, and that's how it said, or you were trying to follow the rules, and you were trying to stay small and stay safe. How did growing up in an environment like that shape your relationship with your sisters and how you each coped so differently?

SPEAKER_00 18:05

That is a really amazing question because I would say, other than my littlest sister, where I kind of became her her mother and a protector. So I had a different relationship with her, and I still do, even though we're both in our 60s. Yeah, my older sister, she was like the thin one and the pretty one, or the one that got the dance lessons and the music lessons. So I would compare myself with her, and there was partly, you know, I felt rage inside, which I never really had a chance to express. I was, I was close to my sister when I was younger. And as we in junior high and high school, she would sort of flaunt the hair and do the whole thing. And I wasn't really allowed to, you know, I wasn't mean to her, but there was a sorrow and a maybe a jealousy deep down inside that I kept kept quiet. And so I did I wasn't very close to her like we were when we were really little. That is healed now. My sister's, you know, 14 months older than me. And so she lives right down the street, and we can talk about anything, and we could even talk about her mom, which she never, we really never could do growing up because it just wasn't safe. And where my mother was saying, I feel sorry for the man you marry, you know, you look like a truck driver because that was, you know, that was the era where we had army backpacks and jeans or whatever in school.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

The one that was um like a year and a half younger than me, I really never got close to her. She shared a room with the other littlest sister. And she was the one that I always thought my my mother would say, she's so cute. She's a cheerly, why can't you be like her? And she ended up when I left for college, our mother started on her to the point where she was brave enough to go to the authorities, which people didn't really do back then, report mom to school, but she still got put in like detention center. Oh acting out. So it was a big blow up. I wasn't there for it, but I definitely heard about it. And we didn't see that sister, like over the course of 30, 40 years. Maybe I saw her once or twice. She took this I she married her high school sweetheart and didn't tell anybody where she was for years because she didn't want to be part of that abuse. So that was really sad. But again, she lives 20 minutes away from me. Now there's we've all talked about it. So then my youngest sister, I treated her more like I was a her protector. Yeah. She was home alone because we were older. Um, she's four years younger than me. She was like the pretty one, but she really uh when she was alone with our mother, got a lot of the abuse when she was in high school. And she would come to me and talked about it. So I I was able to support, always support her. You feel crazy.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Yeah, you do. There's there's a moment with your younger sister where she darts out the door to go run after your mom. And you're, you know, your mom had just left, I think, to go to the store somewhere. Leaves your four kids alone. And right. And then your sister just and she's young, really young, just starts, yeah, a toddler. So she's just running down the street, and none of you go after her. None of you.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

And we're so afraid we're my our mother says, Don't leave the house. We're so afraid we're gonna get in trouble. So we let our sister run down the street, and my mom had to call the police to find her.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

There she and that just shows the amount of control that your mom had over you. I mean, it was a conditioning for sure. Nobody was leaving that house, even though your sister was in possible danger, and you guys were just too afraid to do anything because she told you not to leave.

Evicting Mom’s Voice From Your Head

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, when I go back and went through my memories. Wrote this all down. It's like, wow, you know.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

I know. I mean, she had so much power over you. Yeah. Yeah. All of us in different ways. And as you got older, your mom's voice didn't just stay in the house. It moved into your head. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Totally.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

I mean, I had even have a hard time saying some of the things that she said from you being, I can't even say, but she said fat. I mean, that's such a hard word for me to say because we don't even say that word, you know, or you're messy or you're unlovable. Right. And you took her words into everything that you did and every relationship that you had. And I think so many of us can relate when someone else's voice becomes our definition, our voice, our identity. When did you realize that it was your mom's voice and you wanted to stop allowing her to have space in your head?

SPEAKER_00 22:57

It took a really long time because even if I went to college and I was away from her and I put up, I was older, so I never kind of never went home again, other than for visits. That voice was definitely in my head. That voice was, oh, I shouldn't have curly hair. I kept it short for years until somebody, I like I walked into a workshop. I think I was in my early 40s, and somebody had curly, long curly hair. I said, Oh my gosh, I love your hair. And she goes, Well, your hair is just like mine. You just, I said, but it always gets in my eyes, so I keep it short. She goes, Oh, it's all about the clip. She took the clip out of her hair, put it in my hair, and I grew out my hair and realized I had those same curls, and I've never cut it short since. It took that because I had this belief I had to keep my hair short. And she also, she's like one of my best friends to this day. She was like, You need to go shopping. Like, stop wearing those baggy clothes and hiding your body. You have a great body. No, I don't, no, I don't. She'd stand me in front of me here and she'd dress me. It was really amazing how, like, having close girlfriends, when I started to get my voice back, and this one was more, I won't say pushy, but she was like determined, like, you had a meet. This was mean. We're gonna fix this. We're gonna get some, get you some new clothes, girl. That was also part of the process of getting my mom out of my head, which is like she was the voice. You're fat, you're ugly, I feel sorry for the man you marry, you know. Just it was relentless and it did stay in my head. Got out. It it still comes in a little bit, but in general, it's not, you know, I feel like I'm living a pretty full life with lots of women friends and men friends, and you know, so that voice doesn't really come in. But when I was writing my book, it was painful to put it on the page. Oh, I bet. I bet I really hard. And I, you know, was so terrified of putting it in print because I thought people were gonna, oh my gosh, you know, Lena's a whack job, you know, because this was all kind of the noise in my head. But I actually, the real heart-centered was there. She was just hidden. And through dance, through music, through being truthful, through storytelling, I feel like I I didn't miss the memo of who I really was. Like there's this pure little girl in there that's like, I love chocolate, you know. Um I found her. I found her. She was always there, just hidden with a pillow over her head. And I'm very thankful that I did what it took and had the support of friends and counseling, whatever it took, to break through because it's priceless. It's priceless to get my heart back.

Engineering Success And Reclaiming Art

SPEAKER_02 25:39

That's that's absolutely beautiful that you were able to sit next to that little girl basically and become one. Yeah. I I think so many times when we carry those voices, and it it's wild because even when the person isn't there anymore and they pass away, you know, the voice is still there, and you don't even realize at first that you've been living your life through someone else's definitions of you. Even as you succeeded in school, your career in engineering, you were still trying to prove something. Do you think that because you did a lot of overachieving in school and in general, you use that word, uh, that it became a way to try to earn love or outrun your pain, or maybe not to feel at all?

SPEAKER_00 26:23

All all is correct. Looking back, I that over, overachieving. And the way that I did, it felt good. And I was competent and it was it felt good, but it didn't allow me to fully develop the heart space. And I was in engineering at a time where it was all in my whole career, you know, over 30 years of being an engineer and moving in, I was really good actually with relating sales and marketing. And that gave me whole career, I managed, you know, sales reps and distributors that were mostly all male. Maybe there were six women. When I visited these companies that we were automating equipment, it was all men. And I learned to relate very well with men, but it was work-related. When I finally left, and then all of a sudden it was like I started doing things like dance, having events in my home that were music that I would call them maybe more feminine events, mostly women were there and supporting the arts. I explored this whole different side of me where I was like a madam for the arts and I loved it. And then I started to go, well, I could sing too. Maybe I could paint too. Like I'd have all, and I began to have the bravery to do things that weren't of my mind, but more, oh, it feels really good to do abstract painting. Feels really good to not follow steps and dance, to do more rhythmic and flow dancing. So everything was like not anti-engineering, but I wanted to be loose and free and not have all these rules and steps to follow. So I started doing abstract painting and just loving it. There was no wrong in it. It was just it felt good to paint. There was no wrong in dancing. You know, my mom said I never could have dance lessons because I was, you know, unclutz and uncoordinated. And I broke through that because, like, when there's no steps to follow, you could do whatever you want. Oh, I follow the rhythm. Guess what? I know how to follow rhythm really well. All that was after my mom died. And the opening was realizing as she was dying that, oh, maybe I was living life from that filter of being a good girl engineer and being smart. It kept me safe. It put money in the bank, but it it blocked who I really was, which is you know, being in the feminine. Yeah, like you started breathing when she stopped breathing. Oh, I love that. That's great. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, and when I started singing, which my mom always said, no, you can't, you you would be away, music lessons would be a waste on you. When I started singing, and the the teacher was so paced, she goes, You must have had trauma. Was there noise in your household? Because I had closed my ears, and now I'm like, oh, I'm singing with a group of women. We put on two concerts. I never thought I'd be able to do that, but she gave me such support for the trauma I had and just very slowly took me into without pushing, without shaming, into the singing world where I could learn to listen to the vibration of music instead of the vibration of my mom, which was screaming. So there was like shutting my ears down. Why would I want to tune into that when somebody exactly right?

Repeating Relationship Patterns Without Seeing

SPEAKER_02 29:43

Yeah. And when we're looking at your adult life, it's something that so many people, you know, we recognize or we do, you know, you start searching for love. And the love that you found, uh, it looked really familiar because the patterns were familiar. Men who don't fully show up, men who keep things surface that and say all the right lines. Yeah. That can be.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Of course I'm like, ooh, someone thinks I'm pretty, you know.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Yeah. It very surface. Yeah. You know, and and the commitment isn't there. And men don't choose you. Yeah. That you know, do you think that you kept them at a distance, or do you think that they sensed what was going on or your past or whatever? And it caused them to keep a distance.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

On it. Because I married very young. And I oh my gosh. You know, I had a 16-year marriage with two kids. He, I would say now I he's on a little bit on the spectrum. So I was like his first and only girlfriend. And I didn't we got along very well, but it was it wasn't, it was sweet, but there was the sensuality really wasn't there. Right. And so we are still co-parent, like we have adult kids, grandkids. We have an amazing friendly relationship. It's almost like he feels like a brother. So that was like sort of one category. And then my second husband was more the the partier and the drinker and the swinger, you know, and I got a whole different flavor, but that didn't work either. It was because I was choosing, like, oh, I was this person likes me. So it was, I wasn't showing my full self. Right. Now I could, you know, say I've had, yeah, I I I made some messes, but I had the last couple have been really true. You know, they're older, no one's necessarily looking to get married. You know, it's just very, I feel the kindness. I don't feel maybe the controlling, they have to like me a certain way. It feels and that's all coming from just being courageous to be who I am and to speak up. I s I definitely speak up a lot better. So that's a miracle. And I guess I can say it's never too late.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

It's never there you go. It really isn't. It is never too late to start your life or just to begin again. Did you find yourself choosing people without even knowing that the cycle was continually repeating?

unknown 32:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

When I look back at it, especially when I wrote about it, I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm doing it again. Yeah, because I think when you have I after a lot of counseling, that when you are raised with abuse like that, your picker gets distorted and off. And you think, oh, that guy's really cute or he's really smart. And, you know, whatever it was, not being able to see the real person in front of me because I wasn't developed enough to see the real person inside me. And I was looking kind of into a persona that was still maybe performative and not really realizing it. And also, I think not having a voice, I learned the engineering voice. I was really good marketing and sales, but when it came to personal stuff, I would just hold back. I was too afraid to say that. Oh, he might break up with me, or I don't do that anymore.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

Isn't that interesting though? I think that when we're younger and we have so much trauma, I think it keeps us at that age. And so when we're dealing with life's circumstances as an adult, we're still kind of handling things as that child. Yeah. You know, you know, we're dangerous. Yeah. We haven't matured and and we're still kind of back there and we're still afraid. And and there's all those things that are going on that was still, even though it's not happening still, it's still happening. Yeah. And so we just keep repeating those cycles over and over. And you wanted intimacy so much, but you didn't feel safe in it at the same time, and you kept hugs away. You know, he's like, no, I you really didn't want the hugs, even from your closest friends. Yeah. But then you brought the strange men in for intimacy.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Yeah.

Naming Dad’s Harm And Setting Limits

SPEAKER_02 34:13

So how did your childhood shape the way that you showed up in all of your relationships? Did you keep seeing yourself in those relationships from when you were a child?

SPEAKER_00 34:23

It was a I adored my father. And I didn't really realize until I started going to maybe after my mom died, when I started going to some different therapies, and I I had a counselor point out to me, you do realize your dad sexualized sexualized you. Yeah. And I'm like, I was so pissed off when she said that. I'm like, no way. Like, because he was my hero. But he was a human being. And I, when I started to do events in my home, this was after my mom died, my dad would show up at the events. It was mostly women. Wow, my dad's a flirt. And in some ways, he liked being fond, like, oh, dad, I can't wait for dad to come home. I, it took so much bravery. I can't remember how it was after my mom died, and my dad used to come over for dinner once a week. And he started dating really quickly after his wife of however many years, you know. And I was like, whoa. And it took therapy, a therapist maybe, you need to tell your dad that when he starts talking about his new girlfriends, yeah, you need to say, Dad, I'm happy for you. And that's too much information.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

It took a lot of bravery, and that bravery, having the courage to say that to my father, opened up a whole new layer of conversation about my mother, you know, his wife. Right. That was real. And I said, Dad, I, you know, she was so abusive. And he goes, I didn't know it was that bad. Because he was traveling. It was always when he wasn't home. Right. So there was a lot whole lot of healing that went around. And then my dad died on it, you know, I don't know, it was 10 years after my mom. I felt like I was really he, I had a real relationship with my father. That's awesome. Yeah, that a real one where we got all the stuff out. And I think that that distorted sexuality, not only was my mother shaming me for the way I looked and kind of cursing that. Like I feel sorry for the man you married. That's what she would say when I was younger. And my dad, because he was more sexualized, I think that distorted things as well. So that I tended to pick men that maybe were more sexualized than authentically, you know, they were trying to, you know, I just I was like, like you said, I was at a young place. I was more like a teenager meeting more elder men who sure. So I assumed that they're safe, but they really weren't because I had that pattern of choosing that somebody liked me.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Yeah, because well, when you grow up like that, you don't just go for looking for love, you know, you go looking for something that feels familiar too. And it's unfortunate that we do that, but we look for things that feel familiar. And sometimes familiar doesn't make it safe, it just makes it something that we know. And I I'm not sure, but the loyalty to your mom and even your dad beyond what it should have been, probably, you know, no matter what, you continue to stay in relationships with him. It's really interesting that it happened after she passed away that you guys got close. All of us, my sisters, yeah, all of it.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

It was like we were living with a really dark force that, you know, we absorbed into our body whether we wanted to or not. I don't think I was ever unkind like my mother was, but I could see patterns of thinking, you know, that's why shattering the mirror, like, oh my gosh, I'm never gonna have a good relationship until I look prettier or whatever it was. There's those messages that are really deep down about not being good enough, not being pretty enough, not being feminine enough, whatever it was, they stick in there for a long time. And it took modalities, somatics, whether it was dancing in the kind of dance where you don't have a teacher shaming you because you're not a ballet star, but it's like free, which was really important for me to have that, to practice doing things. My voice was blocked, and it took a lot of patience to open my ears to real sound and to to know how to attune to that in my body. It took a lot of practice in years and a really safe teacher that didn't shame me, and some really good counselors that were really great to guide me. And some really, really amazing woman friends, like this woman that gave me the clips out of her hair and said, You, you too could have long curly hair. You just keep it out of your face with a clip. Oh, wow, okay. Took that. So I feel really blessed that now at this time in my life, I'm 68, that I have extraordinary women friends. Extraordinary. That are all doing their work. And many of them have read my memoir and are like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad. Thank you for writing that. Like you had the courage to write. That happened to me, you know. Right. So that's been a blessing. And now it's just feels natural. Like I can sit with a group of friends and we could all joke, and I'm not, we're not worrying. We're older, we're not worrying about how we look, but we still could feel sexy and do all the things. I'm thankful.

Therapy Validates Reality And Opens Healing

SPEAKER_02 39:42

Therapy was, I think, one of the things that really did help crack open what was going on inside of you. You know, your therapist said that your mom was abusive. Yeah. Started naming things, started calling out the patterns that you were living and some things that were going on with your dad as well, and that that wasn't okay. You know, you know, that's a lot to hear and to take in. What did it feel like to finally have someone name your reality?

SPEAKER_00 40:09

I was terrified at first because my mom, one of the things she always said, if you don't behave, I'm gonna take you to a psychiatrist. That's what so for me to actually go to a therapist that was a psychiatrist, a Freudian therapist, and have me lay on the couch and smell whatever was like, I don't know if they even do that anymore. It was amazing. That was really pivotal to it. It took me a year to for him to even find out that my mom was abusive. I I can't remember how many years, but it was three years, and it started out one time a week and then it moved to a couple of times a week. It was a lifeline for me to break those patterns. I if and to just move to a different level. And then I had did different therapies and somatic therapies to move my body. So I did lots of different things. But that first therapist was like, my mom used to threaten me. If I don't behave, I'm gonna take you to a psychiatrist. And then I actually saw one. And he's telling me my mother's actually, she sounds like she's borderline, you know. And that to be heard, because I couldn't talk to my dad. The sister, my mom would pit our the sisters against each other. I couldn't, like I was working as an engineer. I'm certainly not talking to the men at work. I didn't even have the skills to talk to a good girlfriend because I was so, you know, shut down. Like you don't speak outside that your mom's this. I, it was a miracle. And then later on, when I I'm still friends with the girlfriends that I had in grammar school. Oh my. They'll see, and we've been through, and I it just happened a couple of years ago because our mom started dying, and I said I started saying something from my childhood or uh something about my mother being mean. She goes, Hello, we all knew your mom was, you know, back to crazy. And I never I always thought like I was putting on a good show that so nobody would know.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Uh like I would stay overnight at their houses and love them. Okay, no one would ever stay overnight at mine, you know?

SPEAKER_02 42:13

Yeah. And it really is when someone else points it out lots of times that it, you know, then we we kind of feel okay. You know, it kind of changes everything because for so long you've been questioning yourself. And that validation coming from other people outside of you and your family is the first step to healing. And your your therapist said to you, You are no longer living under your her roof. Yeah. You need to protect your own family now. What did it take? And I think I might know this answer, but what did it take for you to finally believe that you were allowed to have boundaries with your mom, or I guess I should say, actually enforce them?

Boundaries To Protect The Kids

SPEAKER_00 42:55

Oh my gosh. It took me having a baby who was, you know, a finicky little girl, and two, she was a defiant little girl. And when I saw my mother, and then I also had a son two years after that, when I saw my mother be so disdainful of my daughter, and then right in front of my daughter, like she actually said, Oh, to my son, you are such a good little boy. And my daughter, you're, you know, such a brat. When I die, you're not gonna get anything. Things like that. To the son, you're gonna get everything. It was so like I was like, bye, mom, come on, kids. And I talked on the phone and saw my parents for Thanksgiving and the holidays. But as far as having an outing, having grandma come over and watch my kids, no way that was ever happening. So that was boundaries. And she would like, oh, you know, I'm their grandmother, I'm entitled to see. Of course, comparing to the sister, your sister's children are so much more well behaved. You're raising spoiled brats. It was still this relentless thing, and I kept my kids away.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

It it was very visual, that description of your daughter in the stroller and your mom saying, and and she was crying, and you just wanted to pick her up. That's all you just wanted to pick up. She's only like nine months old or something. Right. You just wanted to comfort her, and your mom didn't believe in comforting a baby when they're crying, just let them cry out. And she grabs the stroller and she was so unsafe. I mean, to just I felt terrified for you in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

It was it was very terrifying to I'm running down the floor of my neighborhood with my breath leaking, you know.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

Yeah, just and yeah. Your but your mom wasn't even being safe in that moment. I mean, she could have fallen. The baby could have fallen out. I mean, she could have gone into the street. I mean, anything could have happened that it could have made it a lot worse.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

I mean chasing after my own mother because I wanted to nurse my child. You're spoiling her with all that nursing. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

Did you see in that moment that the amount of control your mom was trying to hold it?

SPEAKER_00 45:12

It was I saw that that this was so not okay. And I like I like raised my wound. We finally got to the park and I sat down and my daughter was just crying. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. And I was like, I made the decision then. I think I am going to limit time with with my mother.

SPEAKER_02 45:32

Yeah. Isn't it interesting though? Because you know, I I've had a similar, a lot of similar experiences. And it's really interesting how we can draw the line with our own kids. Yeah, you can you can call me all these names, you can do whatever you want to me, but you are stopping here. You are not gonna do it to my kids.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

Yes, like it totally like I was a furious mama bear. Exactly. For like the first time, like just really setting a huge boundary. Like, no.

SPEAKER_02 46:02

Yeah. And it's it's drawing that line and that generational thing, you know, like it's not crossing this generation. Yeah, it's gonna be different. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

My son and his wife have a three-year-old little boy, my daughter and her husband have a 19-month-old little girl, and I see how they're parenting, and it's amazing. Isn't that beautiful? And I'm the welcome grandma. Like I would never like, you know, just yeah, a Nana, and it feels really healed, really feels wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 46:29

The way it was supposed to be.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Yeah, yeah. So I feel like I didn't repeat it. They went through their own stuff as teenagers, but at the end of the day, with all the counseling and all my work, by the time they got into teenagers or teenagers, but by the time they got into their mid-20s, I realized me and their dad raised two pretty good kids. It wasn't abuse.

SPEAKER_02 46:53

It is really beautiful that you did the amount of work that you did in order for them to have a somewhat normal upbringing and be able to raise their kids the way that they are. I mean, you did a lot of work to make this happen.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

Yeah, I feel really thankful, especially since I see them now. You know, I'm the flying grandmother in the Pacific Northwest. I'm in San Francisco, and I fly every couple of months and just or and we FaceTime. I feel like I have a really, really good, strong relationship and we're all being ourselves, and there's no abuse.

Cancer Brings Family History To Light

SPEAKER_02 47:26

I want to talk about when I think you pretty much said when the healing started for you. And I want to go back to your mom's dying. Um, that was really a mix because for one thing, it took your mom realizing that she was terminal for her to change and actually have conversations with you about your heritage and your religion and your ancestors. And she showed you pictures. She took you into this room and she showed you pictures and the stories behind them. And this was such a precious moment, but it only happened, I think, maybe because uh your mom didn't want to die without you not knowing these things. And and then it was just so beautiful that you got to get the pictures and the history with them. She had just started chemo, and bam, like you kind of said, I mean, it was fast. It happened.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

We started chemo and she was supposed to have like three or four days, and she only made it through two, and then she just she we my dad called me and said, Oh my god, you need to help. I can't get her out of bed. Like he should have called an ambulance, but I went over and helped like actually dress my mother, like it was moment. And she we brought her to the ER, and it was so long in the ER that she collapsed in the waiting room and we whisked her off and they had intubated her. We didn't think, at least we had when she was intubated, she had like two days where she can communicate with her eyes, because I have a sister in New Zealand who flew in in time, and then you know, she died. But I knew that she, when I went over to her house, which I really did, and she took me into the guest room, which was all frilly, so I never really went in there, and she she pointed out the pictures on the wall of our whole family heritage, which there was a lot of trauma there of people coming, immigrating from Russia, you know, holocaust whole thing. I that was really important, and I listened. And not only that, my mother was an only child and had a first cousin who I she's still alive, she's in her 90s, and she I have visitor, you know, assisted center, and she's told me some stories about my mom when my mom was younger, and my mom about her and her dad not getting along, and my mom had disorders and had my mom had her, it was the only child her parents don't work, worked during a depression, and she walked her alcoholic grandfather home. She was tasked with walking him home when she was in school, picking him up at the bar. So I found out even more from that first cousin who said there was a lot of, like I really got a sense of that family trauma, which my mother had never talked about. She showed me the pictures and said where everyone came from, but it was really that her first cousin that after my mother died, that she shared a lot more information. And there was just trauma in the lineage because, you know, people leaving their homeland with no money and coming to America and making their way.

SPEAKER_02 50:37

Yeah, you're talking about what she shared with you. I mean, she did share a lot. Yeah. You're from what it sounds like, she was kind of still leaving out a lot. You know, you lost, I think, understanding. And I think lots of times that that can be a grief in itself because you know the person passes, and then you really don't have the whole story to why they acted the way they did. And that makes it even harder. I think it you don't have a complete closure. Um, I'm glad that she told you some of that, but she really didn't tell you the entire story. And I'm sure that that made it hard.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

The aunt, the her first cousin. I got some really closure from her, the more real stories that you know she remembered, so I could put pieces together. There was trauma. Yeah, you know, someone might have put her head in the oven and this they were all Jewish immigrants that were in pogroms in Russia and and got here one by one and poor and not, you know, worked really, really hard. So there was definitely whether my what the diagnosis of my mother was borderline or she had a mental illness, and I think part of that might have been biochemical, biological, but a part of it was being raised as an only child during the depression and then World War II when other people were lost and right.

SPEAKER_02 52:00

There's a lot of trauma that came with that. Yeah, absolutely.

The Eye Contact That Changes Everything

SPEAKER_01 52:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 52:04

I want to go to that moment though when your mom was passing away and she wasn't able to really speak because she wasn't debating, she didn't have much time left, and your eyes would not look away. Yeah. You both just kept looking at each other, and you felt a warmth that you had never felt before. Take us there to that moment.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

What was that like? Uh oh, I'm getting chills just like when you're mentioning it. Just looking in her eyes, which I had always been afraid to look at before, because when she was raging, her eyes looked pretty darn black. Uh not only was I looking at her eyes and feeling seeing depth in there, but it was the aha moment. Well, not really an aha that I knew my mother was going to die. You know, it was gonna be two days, a week, and she died, you know, within a couple of days of me looking into her eyes. And then when she actually died, not in front of us, and when we walked into the room, her eyes, everything it was just she was gone. You know, those machines keeping her alive. And it was the aha moment for me, aside from my mother dying, was that I'm seeing something that I'd never saw before and maybe it existed before, but I couldn't take in her eyes before. I don't know. I I do believe it's because when she was on her deathbed, she was having an maybe a her life review or an awake awakening of her own because her eyes really did look different. That for me was the aha moment that through her eyes I saw that my eyes had been closed to. Do I ever really make long eye contact? No. Like I really, it started me on this path of realizing it came at a time because it's really a lot to go, oh my gosh, I've been living a life in a shell. There's a brick wall around me, and I didn't even know it. At least it started me on the path of I'm not as happy with engineering anymore. Maybe I'll still do it and then start inviting musicians into my home because I'm really noticing I like music. It's there was this slow awakening of the parts of myself that I had shut down, which was femininity. My mom said I couldn't sing, all those things that I shut my eyes to because my mother told me to, I was bad at. I reclaimed every single one of them. It wasn't overnight singing with feeling the vibration, not just you know, singing words, but actually feeling singing with feeling. Oh, and eye contact, I realized, wow, do I ever really look at someone's eyes other than a split? Right. All that initial awakening happened when I looked into my mother's eyes. It wasn't instant, but it started the door.

SPEAKER_02 54:52

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 54:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

I mean, I miracle. I didn't miss the memo. I have to say that when we do sit with our moms or somebody that that important, and and we see something different in their eyes, it hits differently. Because I did have a moment like that too, where everything that you think that you understand about somebody shifts in a moment and it's confusing and emotional and complicated because you're holding what they did and who they are, and all of a sudden it's like you didn't really even know them. And maybe that good person was in there. And wait a second, don't go, don't go now, because the the conversation just star started between us, and we need to pick it up from here, and then they're gone. You know, it's it's so sad and complex all at the same time. What I do love is that you did get that closure with your dad. I mean, what that that's a gift that you were able to sit across from him and said, Look, you know, you shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have been able to rub your back when you were in your underwear. And you've kind of crossed lines by telling me too much information about your girlfriends. And, you know, and you didn't stand up for me when mom was doing these things. So you got to say those things, and he did get to apologize. I mean, I'll tell you what. Maybe your mom did apologize through her eyes too. And maybe that is what you saw. So those kind of closures mean everything.

Shattering The Mirror Of False Self

SPEAKER_00 56:27

I agree. Like, I'm not like I do feel that that's what I wrote in my book, like that she was making an amend through her eyes. That's what I got. So that was a healing moment. It wasn't like, oh, in an instant I'm fine. It took me many years to open all those doors within myself that I had shut. And um, yeah, it's a miracle. Yeah. And that then I'm like, I look at shattering the mirror is like in a way I'm gifting to other women, especially in my age group. Here's the mirror that perhaps you might be looking through, and it could be a false or distorted mirror. And here's what we do, how it looks when you shatter it. And on the other side of that isn't necessarily more wounding or that you're, you know, I did shattering the mirror, my nose was severed by broken glass. So that was a metaphor. It wasn't necessarily about falling through the glass and cutting off your nose. It was about shattering the mirror that we've built that really is false because we're taking in, you know, as ch children, take in what you see probably and don't necessarily always have the capacity to process it. But you still have the feelings. And I think my gift that I felt is having that photographic memory that recorded not only the sights that you see in the mirror, but the auditory and the feeling state. So that I could go back and said, Oh, wow, I felt that way when she told me that as an adult, going, huh, that's not true. Right. Like I feel sorry for the man you marry is kind of is cursing somebody. Right. It is. So that's a distorted mirror right there.

SPEAKER_02 58:07

Yeah. And like we said earlier, I mean, it we take on those definitions and they do become ours, unfortunately. Yeah. Even though they're absolutely not true, that we can believe that we're not even worth anything.

SPEAKER_00 58:20

I mean, it's yeah, it's it's funny because when I have moments, I just sounded like my mother. Moments where I didn't speak with kindness. Oh, sure. And now I really watched that, I don't do that anymore. But I learned from her to she was always so mean to whatever. If we went out to dinner, which was rare, she would be the place isn't quiet enough, this isn't good enough, and I start I remember like I think my kids were teenagers, and we went out to dinner, and I was sort of said, I kind of was like sniping about and they go, Mom, stop that. Everything's fine at this restaurant. So I realized, oops. You know, you pick up stuff that you and it gets normalized.

SPEAKER_02 59:03

Your second husband, I found this interesting because you're talking about raging, you know, and he just kept saying, you know, I just don't even think that I can live with this, with your type of anger. And whenever I would read through the pieces that you said that you did, you wrote what you did and his perspective.

SPEAKER_01 59:24

Right.

SPEAKER_02 59:25

And then how your mom was, you really, I'm just gonna tell you, you really did not seem like your mom. You really didn't, even when you were mad, and you had every right to be upset. Yeah. When you were upset. So you had every right to question him, you had every right to be upset. So, you know, I don't know. There's anger and acting in your anger, which, okay, maybe we shouldn't really act when we're that mad. But there was a difference between what your mom was doing and so condescending and mean and purposely hurtful versus you just being mad.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:08

Yeah, I agree. I've been thinking about that. And I realized as I've wrote the book, my mantra for how I walk, I even like the world's crazy upside down. We don't need to talk about that. But I have never felt more right side up. And my mantra is I walk as a blessing, that I'm walking in the world with my heart open. If I need to say something, I say it. But in general, I feel like I stay in the moment and be what's needed here. And I feel that as a little girl, I always had that feeling of I love fairy tales and I love happiness of being good and kind. That is my core place, but it got covered up by some armor so that I started maybe acting like a curt, cursing the moment, but that's not my true being. I realize that my true being is that with my book, whatever it is, of blessing the moment, being what's needed in the moment, doesn't mean it has to sound pretty and it has bows and ribbons on it. Yeah. I'm still blessing the moment and laughing and giggling with a two-year-old and not cursing the two-year-old. See, and who doesn't? And that's like so different from my mom. And so I'm glad if my real purpose is to be a blessing, however that looks in the moment.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:31

Your your healing journey was not easy, and it has taken decades. Therapy, dance, voice, art, spiritual work. You had to learn how to feel after a lifetime of not feeling. So, where did you finally say, you know what? I have found myself.

Recording The Audiobook Without Shame

SPEAKER_00 1:01:49

I it's funny. This is gonna sound crazy. So I wrote the book, paperback, published, and some of the women were like, it's so hard for us to read now with our old eyes. And I thought, okay, I'm gonna do one. I'd never done one before. So this has only happened like in the last three months. The sound engineer was 30-something male, my son's age. My son's like, mom, not reading your memoir, right? You know, my daughter's read it, not my son. Understand. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I have to read this book out loud with feeling in front of a 30-year-old man. He uh what's gonna happen? I would make flubs, which I guess everybody does. Every paragraph I'd mispronounce with or some word, and he goes, never shaming once. No problem. Take three, take two. Oh, no problem, take four. You know, it was great. Never shame me for making a mistake. Love the guy. Then, like, I would read sometimes. I read a passage that was really hard for me to get, and this was healing in itself to read out loud. My drama. I thought writing it was hard, reading it out loud with a listener. And sometimes after I was finished, he like he walked out of the sound booth, he goes, Wow, you are so courageous. Like, thank you for sharing that with me. And then when we were done, like I could only do two hours at a time. Two hours was like a hundred pages, and then I'd like two days off and come back into the sound studio. When we were all done, I come out and he goes, It was so great. He said, It was so great. I think you have an incredible story. And he goes, And by the way, my wife is 10 weeks pregnant with her first child. And I just like got tears in my eye and gave him a big hug. Like that was he talk about healing moments since that time, because I read the story out loud to a man didn't shame me. Okay. I felt like that la and maybe there's never a last, that last layer of film. Like I became like I feel like I'm just free. Like I felt like that was, I never want to say it's the last step, but that my trauma out loud, expecting shame and not getting it, expecting somebody to go, oh my gosh, I can't, like, I'm gonna hire we're gonna get somebody else in the sound booth because that's not like it was just the opposite. That was so healing for that's amazing. So I I feel like I arrived like two months ago with really like this open face.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:24

Oh my gosh, what a process you've gone through. And you're right. I mean, the writing would be one healing, but then actually saying it out loud is a whole nother set of feelings. And then and then having a male listener, I would imagine, would add to it for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So you never know.

Choosing Yourself And Living Whole

SPEAKER_00 1:04:45

And that I look at that as a miracle. Yeah. And and one that you didn't even look for. So much bravery. Like I didn't know what I was doing, but I did it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:54

The the line that stood out to me in your story what the most, you had never chosen yourself. You never chose yourself. I'm gonna tell you what, that's really that is a different level of hearing healing as well. When you decide to choose yourself, yeah. What did that feel like for you to realize that you were starting to choose yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:19

Like I'm here. I'm pure and courageous, not perfect, and I could be silly, and I could, I could say things with like being a blessing. I'm not curated, but just coming from a thing of kindness, has every single one of my relationships, and I thought they were pretty I have amazing women friends, I have amazing men in my life. Every my kids, uh the relationships have gotten you know past the teenage stage, are have gotten even better because I feel like I'm more here more brave the moment. So I'm having more real conversations with my. Daughter than I've ever had. More real conversations with my son than I've ever had. More even at this retreat, which I've been to before, and it's different women. I've even this time feel I'm more real than I've ever been.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:12

Yeah, at the end of your book, you are alone. I mean, you're living alone. Let's put it that way. You're not living with men who treat you badly. You're not putting them first, you know, thinking of other people first and not thinking of yourself at all. Your kids are at a point in your life where they're grown, like you said, and they're doing very well. You appear not empty anymore. I mean, now in this conversation, I can tell that you are in an amazing place.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:43

Not searching like you used to, not chasing. You seem to really love who you are. If that little girl could now sit next to the adult version of you, what would you tell her? Could you hug her now? Really embrace her? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:01

Oh yeah. Like, oh my gosh, you're so cute and so silly and so precocious. I I would, I'm imagining my grandkids in front of me because that's how I know how I feel with my grandkids. I feel so pure. I get they they smile. They I'm so silly with them. My three-year-old grandson who now talks in paragraphs, but before he was talking in paragraphs, and he was, he would say, more nana, more nana, like, you know, just more. And I feel that I'm walking in the world as more Nana.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:36

I have a three-year-old grandson, and it's the same thing. I mean, he just, he, I love you, you know, and it's just the the most heartwarming thing. And I what makes me sad though is with your family, your parents, is that look who you are. You look at your grandkids, and that really is who you could have been. You could have been that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:00

And you weren't able to be. Your parents missed out on who you could have been.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:06

But I'm glad that you're reborn, basically.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:09

All the things that my mother shamed me for, I'm doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:14

Not doing because I need to get an A in school, but doing because it makes my heart feel good. And here's my voice. And it doesn't matter if I go off key because I'm here.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:23

Your voice was stifled, you know, it was stopped. And you have a voice and people are listening. Yeah. And so there you go. I'm and your mom can't stop that.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:36

Yep. And it's, it's, I feel like I've been on such a journey. I'm glad I I did the journey. And I look back, but I don't feel traumatized reading about my past now. I'm owning my past, but I feel like, well, this is who I am now. That's what matters.

Where To Find The Book

SPEAKER_02 1:08:52

There's there's a difference between being alone or living alone and finally being at peace with yourself. And that's where you are. And it's the first time that we can feel safe. And this story isn't just about trauma, it's what can happen when no one comes to save you. And you finally save yourself because that's what happened here. You stopped waiting for them to save you, and you saved yourself. So Lena Fine shares in her book, Shattering the Mirror, one woman's journey of healing. And what you heard today is something so many people live, but don't always have the words for, because this isn't just about what happened to her. It's about what happens to us when love feels out of reach, when the people who were supposed to show up don't. And we start searching for that missing piece everywhere else. And we talked about the numbness, the patterns, the relationships that mirrored old wounds, and the long, honest work of therapy, of finally seeing yourself clearly and choosing something different. And maybe the most powerful part is that Lena didn't just survive her story. She came back to it. She understood it, and she found a way to stand in her own life, whole, grounded, and no longer waiting to be chosen. So if today's conversation connected with you, her book Shattering the Mirror, One Woman's Journey of Healing, goes even deeper into that journey because healing isn't about rewriting the past, it's about finally understanding it and choosing yourself. So, Lena, I really want to thank you so much for being here today. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:46

It was amazing. I really appreciated this interview. Thank you so much. How can people get your book? Do you have a website? I uh shattering the mirror, www.shatteringthemir.com. Um there's links to Amazon and it's available in Audible and Kindle and paperback.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:06

And to our listeners out there, remember that there is always purpose in the pain and there is hope in the journey. And as usual, we will see you next time. Thank you so much.