Things We Aren’t Supposed to Talk About: Family Estrangement

Cadre, happy Friday. It is Shannon coming to you from a live workspace in St. Paul. Welcome to grief day on Cadre. So, for those of you who don't know me, who haven't joined me before, I am not a clinician. I am not a mental health professional. I'm a human with lived experience, living with anxiety. I'm the caregiver of a child with autism. My hair is wild here. And I am also a person who lives with something called CPTSD, which is really a form of trauma that's relational in nature. So on grief day here, as I talk about family estrangement, that's where that CPTSD comes in.

So, for those of you who have been following over the last four weeks, I have created a series of content called really how to stop living in survival mode. And so, for me, this was my journey, being in therapy for eight years and learning how to manage a challenging family relationship and some really practical steps that I learned. So you're more than welcome to go back and watch my other lives. The quickest recap is if you feel like there is a relationship in your life, a familial relationship.

For me, it was my mother that is not in alignment with who you are as a human. That's what this is for. This is what I did. Again, my one person's experience. So, five things. Step one is to know that something is not right. It's something you're going to feel in your body. It's something that you're going to know that what's happening on your inside is not matching the way that you're showing up in the world on the outside. So that's number one. Number two is to say it out loud for me, when, with my familial relationship, that saying out loud manifested as me saying, my mom is not the mom that I needed.

Why does that matter? Because the story that I'd been living with up until that point was that something was wrong with me, that I was inherently unlovable. And so when I said out loud that the actual alternative version of that, that truth for me and my experience was that actually I am lovable. It's just that my mom wasn't the mom that I needed. You can see how that articulation of it in the world creates a different story. Number three is to start to notice. So now I have a new story. My story with my mom is, hey, not my fault, not her fault.

She's just not the mom I needed. And when I started to go out into that world with that new narrative. Notice what happens, right? Notice how that feels different in your body. For me, it meant if my story is that I actually am inherently lovable, think about how I would show up in a room. Think about how you would show up in a room if you flipped that script in your head. That is what happened. For me, number four was to imagine a world where this new story was true and a world that it's not only true, but it's like the bedrock of the way I show up in the world.

So that as I navigate new relationships, as I navigate stuff with my parents currently, right, it's being able to, again, go out into a world that is foundationally grounded in a different truth, which creates safety for me, which creates a better self worth for me, which creates a model for my children, frankly, that they matter. So those are all of the things. Today's step five. What do we do now? Right? So now we're living in a new world. When it comes to family estrangement, when it comes to these challenging family relationships, I have a new story.

The last step, the one that never, ever, ever ends, friends, is practice, practice. This is hard. This is where grief comes in. I am going this weekend to see my parents. Many of you maybe as well. Excuse me. It's Memorial Day weekend. And as I show up in my family home, and as I show up in a place where a different story used to exist, and the story was that I was inherently unlovable, I now come with a new story, which means I get to practice the evolution of that story. I get to practice showing up as a person with a different story.

And because it's grief day, that can come with grief, right. I will no doubt be reminded as I go to my parents house this weekend by the smells and the sights and the words and how they show up in the world of a different story. And I will have to work really hard. And I'd love to know if any of this resonates with any of you. If there are relationships where you have to work really hard to live day in and day out with a new story of your truth. I will likely cry when I come back, right? I will likely have moments of struggle during this weekend.

But what I can do is remember the story, the new story that I know to be true, and I can practice it. And that is step five, is practice, practice, practice. So for those of you who are living in a similar situation, for those of you who have had to tell yourself a new story within your family systems, within your family relationships. I invite you to allow yourself to grieve it, to allow yourself the space to say, this isn't perfect, and I don't love it. And that's hard. And you might cry, and you might be sad, and you might do whatever you need to do.

Read a book, go for a walk. And I invite you to remember that a new story can be told. And the beautiful thing about it is that you have the opportunity to tell that story to yourself. So I wish for you the strength to do it. I wish for you the peace of knowing that this grief that you're in will not last forever. It doesn't. And I just welcome you. Being here in the quadrisphere and being a part of all of this high speak wonder. I'm glad you're here. I just invite you to know you're not alone in this.

You're not alone in this endeavor. You're not alone in the work it takes to be who you are, even within your family systems. And we are here for that. And thank you for being a part of this place where we are imperfect. Hello. Just like everyone else in the world, right? Because we're human. So I hope you all have a fantastic weekend. Please continue to join us here in the cadres fair and know that.