Mel Robbins

Everybody's needs come before yours.

You are a people pleaser.

You're a perfectionist.

You're super critical of yourself.

or you have destructive habits, like you write about in the book how addiction can become a replacement for your mom.

Once you have the self-awareness and you can recognize that this hunger for mothering, for nurturing, for protection, for guidance is there, where do you begin?

Like, do you need to forgive your mom?

That goes right along with my favorite definition of forgiveness that I heard Oprah say, which was true forgiveness is when you stop wishing things were different.

There you go.

And that helps you also, in this case, not forget.

You just stop that sort of toxic, pathological hope.

Pathological hope, exactly.

You forgive the moment you say, I'm going to stop wishing things were different and accept them as they are.

One of the things that I think is really exciting about the conversation, frankly,

is that once you see it and you can name it, now you can do something about it.

Exactly.

And the more that you really allow yourself the space to process your grief and your sadness, the more that you accept what didn't happen and what did happen, the more you look at your own mother through compassionate and understanding eyes, but you still protect yourself.

The more you realize an apology is not coming if she's not doing the work and doesn't want to.

Yeah.

And you stop wishing things would be different and you accept them as they are.