The Connected Mom

Welcome to the Connected Mom podcast, where we have real conversations about connecting more deeply with God, more empathically with our fellow moms, and more intentionally with our kids. I'm Becky Harling, your host that I have with me today, my illustrious cohost Sarah Wildman, and she'll be asking some questions in a few minutes. But, hey, today we have an amazing guest with us. Debbie Alsdorf is one of my favorite people in life, for starters. On top of that, she is a cheerleader of hope. I think that's why I love her so much. She is on a mission to help women live a better story by leading them to the heart of God's love and the truth of his word. She has spent most of her adult life in women's ministries in the past 25 years vulnerably, sharing her story with the purpose of helping others. She is a best selling author. And get this she was featured on the Today show. She is a rock star. She's been featured on other nationally syndicated shows as well. She's the author of 14 books. She's a literary agent with books in such literary management. Debbie and her husband, Ray, live in Arizona, where they are the parents of a blended family. That's another conversation for a different day. But today we're here to talk about a book that Debbie wrote. Because, Sarah, you and I have had conversations about this before. We're getting a lot of questions about what do we do about our relationships with our own moms and how does that impact our parenting. I mean, our moms and that whole relationship with our moms can be so complicated. I remember I had a therapist friend, and she had a pillow on her couch that said, if it's not one thing, it's your mother. And so we're all grateful for our moms, but sometimes it can get a little complicated. And Debbie co-wrote this book. I would be, uh, remiss in not saying that Debbie co-wrote this book with Joan Edwards Kay, who is a licensed therapist, and they did an amazing job on the book. I highly recommend it. So Sarah, moms can be complicated. Who knew?

Oh, just a little bit. And then you try to be one, so then it all comes out again, right?

Yes.

Well, Debbie, we want to jump in. Thank you for all you did to be with us today. We really appreciate it. But can you tell us your mom's story?

Well, I, um, actually was raised by a mother who I found out later, never really wanted me, but she had me. And so she, uh, kind of made a personal vow to herself when I was just a baby, if you can believe this, that she, um, would give me everything I physically needed, but I would never have her heart. And she kept to that my whole life. Of course, this came out in our healing conversation when I was in my forty s, and she was near death. Um um so I grew up with a mother that was very cold and critical. Um, I felt like I was never enough. I felt like I could never win her attention or her affection. And it is very painful, or it affects a child in a very specific way when you grow up with the lack of a mother's acceptance presence and affection.

What a story. Debbie, I remember hearing your story, and first, uh, of all, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you're up like that. I wish I could take it from you. But on top of that, those wounds, um, really impact us as children. I know I experienced, uh, some significant wounds from my own mother, who has since passed away. And how did your mama wounds the wounds that you experienced from your mom, how did that impact you as a mom when it came time for you to parent your children?

Well, first, um, it impacted me just as a woman and as a young girl and as a teen, because it made me this super overachiever. Because I was so insecure that I was always grabbing for attention and acceptance anyway I could get it. As a result of that, um, I became, ah, just a super achiever. Um, so those kinds of insecurities go with us. I want to say something before I talk about how it affected me as a mother myself, is that here's the tricky part. We grow up. I want to say, by the time I had children myself, my mother was a Christian. I was a Christian, which we weren't when I was growing up. And we were both believers, and we were really good friends. We never addressed our issues quite yet, but, uh, we were pretty good friends. She loved being a grandmother. She made up for it and being a grandmother. So the tricky part that I want the listeners to hear is, as an adult women, you might be pretty much okay with your mom. Like, she just irritates you sometimes or whatever. That isn't even what this is about. This is about what kind of wounds happened in you when you were young that you have carried on into your present. So I always tell moms, the best thing a mother can do is find healing for herself.

Yes, I echo that. Debbie, you talked about being a super achiever, and I, um, mean, you know that about me as well. That's how I manage the wounds from my mother. My mother was depressed a lot in my childhood. Spent days and days and days in bed. Left, uh, me as an infant with somebody else. I mean, all the things right? And yet it does impact who you are as a woman. And I didn't realize it either until I was in my early 40s. Like, how deeply this had impacted me. I started to realize it in my 30s. So it's kind of a long journey, isn't it? And yet it's so complicated, because we really want our mother's love, right? I mean, you want this Hallmark movie scenario with your mother, and a lot of times that's not really what it's.

Like, uh, especially for girls. Because I think that we do grow up wanting to be close to our mother. There is that kind of female thing. And sometimes we see it in movies or just in friends that we know. We see, um, a friend who seems to be just perfect and golden with her own mother. And so we could long for that. But sometimes appearances aren't really, um, as they seem. And a lot of people, the only reason they ever wrote this book by the time I wrote this book, my mother had been with Jesus for over 20 years. Our relationship was completely healed in the end, which I talk about in this book. But, um, the reason I wrote it is because I started realizing in everywhere that I went, though I wasn't speaking about the mother wound, I would tell a little tiny snippet of my story. In teaching the Bible, women would come up to me as if they missed everything else, and they just wanted to say, my heart hurts. Like, uh, my mother's. Your mother. And so I started realizing, from young and to very old, that women have some wounds from their mothers. But you asked me how it affected my parenting. Very interesting. When I was 18 years old, before I didn't have my first child, so I was 25. But when I was 18 years old, when I was thinking of becoming an adult, I was so devastated by my mother, um, that I made a decision. And I made a decision that if I ever have children, that they will be encouraged and that they will know that they're loved. So that sounds really great. It sounds fabulous. But the problem is, because I had my own wounds, some of that could look a little bit like codependent parenting. A little bit like, huh, excessive giving them everything they want parenting, uh, helicopter parenting. Sometimes our own wounds, if they're not healed, though, we mean well. And our mothers meant well, too. That's the thing about this book. It's complicated. It is not a mother bashing book, because both of us, as authors, are mothers ourselves. We believe that most mothers, most all mothers do the best they can with what they have. The problem is that most mothers have wounds that are never addressed that come way back, that Jesus wants to heal. And I think that I think that we can go across the board and say most of us have brought things from our earlier story into our present story that affects how we do things.

Yes. I have to say something here, because I resonate so deeply with your story, debbie and I will never forget sitting in a counselor's office, um, and she looked at me and she said, becky, you realize that you are trying to heal your mother wounds by buying your kids everything they want, right? And I wanted to be the perfect mother, because I also made a decision. I am not going to be like my mom. Uh, I want these kids to know they're cherished and loved. And so I went over the top. Sometimes I was the helicopter parent. I wanted them to have the best things. I never wanted them to feel sad. Which meant sometimes I stepped into fix things that I shouldn't have done. And so it does play out. What I hear you saying is all of us need to deal with the woundedness we've experienced, because our mothers you're right, they did have wounds. And unfortunately, back when our mothers were young, there wasn't as much openness or vulnerability, so they didn't deal with their wounds.

So, uh, Debbie, I know you probably go into this in your book, but at what point in your mothering journey did you identify that you had those wounds? What was it that really brought that to mind for you?

Well, sadly, uh, it happened when my boys were, um, eight and four and a half, and I was a pastor's wife, and they were pastors kids of a large church in California. And, uh, I went through an unwanted divorce. So, um, their father wanted, um, a divorce. Um, anyway, because of that. So I want you to imagine so the way my wounds manifested, hid themselves, kept under cover, is if I could perform, and I could achieve as a young couple, almost everything that we did turned golden. Like, ministry wise, I let a very large ministry, even though I was a young woman. And, uh, then all of a sudden, one day, my husband said he didn't love me and he left. And so now my whole world came crashing down for everybody to see in my little fishbowl house. That would be hard for anybody. But when I really could not cope at all with failure and I started going to a counselor. Fascinating. I went to the counselor about my divorce. I went to my counselor because I was so devastated. And after two visits, he narrowed in on my mother. He wanted to talk to me about my mother. I didn't want to talk about my mother. I mean, like, what does he know about my mother? But he picked it up because at that point in time, I want you to imagine my mother was like the queen. Like, she came in and took help me with me and my boys during the divorce. She was wonderful. She filled in all the gaps. And here I have a counselor saying, I want to talk about your early relationship with your mother. And as we began to uncover those wounds, that I never felt like I was enough, and that I always had to perform. And now life had robbed all ability to perform from me and I could not cope. And that I was in my mid thirty s. And that is when, um, I began the real journey of understanding that what happened to me as a child isn't to be blamed on anybody. But what happened to me as a child is something that I needed to understand because it was fueling so much of my adult life. And I want to say we talk about buying our kids all the things and I was just the same way, becky, even past this, like, uh, counselor, even when they were like, teenagers, right?

Oh, yeah.

Everything. I wanted them to have the best of everything. I would work really hard no matter what. I want them to go the best schools, whatever. But you know what? Uh, they're adults now. They're between, uh, 37 and 41, our children. And to have my sons lovingly. But honestly, tell me, mom, you don't know what it's like to be raised by a mother who is a professing Christian, a woman who has a lot of faith, a woman who ministers to others, but you know, she is filled with fear. Mhm, it wasn't meant to hurt me. I'm very close to both of my sons. But why I'm bringing that up is I could buy them all the things, I could cover it up with all the fluff. But the truth was, I had a lot of fear because of being left alone when I was a child, because of not having what I needed as a child. I grew up with, um, an unsurmountable amount of fear. And I didn't go to Jesus to heal it because I didn't understand it. I thought Jesus just wanted me to be stronger and faith filled and moved forward. And so, friends that are listening to this, what I want you to understand, Mama, is that, yes, we have responsibilities day in and day out. We're busy raising kids, we're busy working, we're, uh, spending so many plates, but, oh my goodness, we need Jesus. We need time in his presence every day, even if it's just ten minutes. We need to ask him, show me, Father, where it is that I'm wounded, that I that I don't even understand. And you might be surprised because for me, I always thought, oh, I know I'm insecure, but I didn't know. Well, that's fear.

Yeah, it's interesting because, um, uh, my husband Steve and I sat down with our four kids who are around the same ages as yours, and, um, we said to them, what do you wish we had done differently? And, I mean, they told us we did a lot of things right, but their words to me were, mom, you had so much anxiety and fear and same thing. And I want our listeners to know, I like you, buried myself in the Word and really went to Jesus. But that's a continual journey as you get older and you are going to make m mistakes with your kids, but when you do, it's also beautiful when your kids hear you say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I modeled that for you. Because at the time, Jesus hadn't healed me of that. Now they see a difference in my life, hopefully. And it's a journey that you keep growing with Jesus, and you keep going back to Jesus. And when the insecurity rises up again, you get on your knees again and you say, this is an invitation to you, Jesus, because I need you more today even than I did yesterday.

100%. I mean, that's the thing. Like, we all have our areas of woundedness, and there's no shame in that at all. Um, it's just being able to identify it so that we can bring it before the Father and to be able to identify it so that we can guard against some of the, um, actions that might come from those wounds. One of the things that blew my mind in writing this book, which I have to give a shout out to my friend Joan, the therapist that I co wrote this book with. She's so brilliant. And we would have these writing days every Wednesday where she would bring a body of research and material, and we would sit down and add that to stories and some of her case histories with clients. But, um, I was blown away when I started realizing that there is actually, like, scientific, real information that has to do with how early we are imprinted. And so we're imprinted so very young. And, uh, we talk about that in the beginning of the book, but then we talk about, uh, beyond the imprint. We talk about that. There are four things, and she identified these four things. I think that's for girls or boys, but this book was for daughters. So, uh, we said four things that every daughter needed was a mother who was present, a mother who kept her safe, a mother who leaded and guided her, and a mother who celebrated her. And we take the women through that, like identifying factors. There's a little quiz that Joan put together as a therapist so that women could identify what was lacking as they were growing up. Not to blame a mother, but to be able to find the scriptures to go into the healing journey so that Jesus now could be that parent that we needed and that he could make that lasting change in us.

Yes. I love that, Debbie. It's amazing, too, in the word of God, because I think a lot of people think of God is our father, and I get that. However, there are certain scriptures where God says, I have loved you like a mother and search for those scriptures because they really can heal. I also think that younger women need to seek out older women who can become spiritual mother figures for them, who maybe can use them to heal some of the wounds they've gone through with their own mothers. Because I think the body of Christ is really important in this.

I think that that is so true, Becky. And I know, uh, that I have had the privilege of having older women in my life that have served in, uh, that way. Now I'm so old, I don't know if there's anyone older than my life now.

Debbie we are the spiritual mamas to the younger.

I mean, I don't know the spiritual ancient, I'm not sure. But anyway, I'm good with it. The thing is that. Um. What I'm noticing with young women is that. Um. In our culture. With all the social media stuff and all the influencing and all the making it look a certain way or being. Uh. Maybe almost fakely vulnerable to make it to contradict that certain way. There's so much focus still. Just like it was when I was young. On having it together. Especially as Christians. Because of that, I think that we miss identifying the woundedness. Not so that we can sit there and stew or blame or get depressed, but so that we can heal. Uh, I liken it to this, like when you have weeds in your yards, it's so easy just to go like, lop off the weeds and it looks really good for a while, but if you don't dig down and get to the root of that little weed, it's going to crop up again. And that's what I feel like we spend our whole life doing. I have to be completely transparent here. In writing this book, in my sixty s, I began asking Jesus to go down to the root of some things that were coming up for me even in writing the book. And so I began realizing for so many years, I've managed pain as a believer. There's nothing wrong with managing. But we have a God who says that he is a healer and he knows us. We're seen by him. Even when we don't understand the pain in our story, he does. And so he wants to go and get the root, go down to the root of the insecurity, go down to the root of the fear. And he wants to heal us at that place.

Yeah. I love that. Debbie. You know, I've heard young, um, moms, very young, um, I remember there was one who was just in her 20s saying, well, we want to do parenting a certain way so that our kids will grow up and we'll never have to go for therapy. And I was thinking to myself, we're all broken, Mamas, and we all make mistakes. So I really want our listeners to get that because you are not going to be able to do it perfectly. We have Jesus because we're broken. And so we continually need to go back to Jesus, even in our 60s, like Debbie and I are now. And say, Jesus, heal this part of me that maybe I've kept buried for too long. Sarah, you wanted to say something? Go ahead. I just wanted to jump in with that real quick.

That's good. Well, so I'm seeing how you guys are talking about identifying that wound, seeking the healing. Like you're saying, Debbie, the very root, the base. But then in practical terms, I'm thinking, especially as believers, it gets down to forgiveness, right? So would you mind sharing maybe what that looks like for you? But then the council you give to women about forgiveness, because when does that come into the healing process?

Yes. I mean, for everybody it's different. And for some women, um, it takes two people to be able to have that healing conversation. You certainly can forgive your mother for what she did to you without her consent. You can forgive her because you made a choice to do that. But for me and my mom, um, it happened very late in life where I went to her, even though we were good friends as adults. And she helped me a lot with my kids. And nobody on the outside would have known there was a problem, but those that lived in our house knew because she wasn't a bad person. She was very loving and gregarious with my kids and my new husband and with people on the outside. But she always just dug at me. And everybody knew it. My kids knew it, my husband knew it. I mean, there was an issue. So I went in and, uh, she was living with us when she was very old, and she was getting ready to go into hospital. And I went into her and I said, mom, you've almost died a few times here. And that would make me really sad because I don't want to lose you. But worse than that is, I will never know my whole life what was wrong with me, because you seem to be okay with everybody else. But, um, there's something wrong with me. I'm defective, and I need to know what it is. And I was so sincere. And she began crying, which my mother was not emotional or a crier. She's kind of a tough cookie type of woman. And she just looked at me and she said, I've never wanted to tell you this. And she began telling me her story, a very sad story. But I began to have tons of compassion because it was my mother's story. She didn't want me, but she told me the reasons that she didn't want me because of an unhappy marriage, et cetera. And, um, she began telling me that once she had me, she heard me cry. And like any mother hearing that baby cry, you don't care about the chimpanzee. It came out of you. You're going to love it. And so she felt like, it's going to be okay. I'm going to love her. She felt something when she heard me cry. But when she took me home, if she held me, I screamed. But if she gave me to my drunken father or my 13 year old sister, I would be as quiet as a lamb. When I was six months old, my mother, because she had her own wounds, could not handle one more ounce of rejection. And so that's when she went to her local priest and she made that commitment. I will always provide for her, but she can never have my heart. That day, as my mother poured out her truth and sobbing tears and said to me, it even still gets me emotional when she said to me, how could you ever forgive me? And I looked at her and I said, how could I not? You were just a hurting young mom. I'm a young mom right now. And you were a hurting young mom who was having a baby late in life within a horrible marriage, in a horrible circumstance. And so at that point, essentially, I was able to thank her for keeping me because she thought of not keeping me and thank her that I had life. And we began our relationship was already okay, but from that point on, we began healing our relationship. And I miss her every day. That's the thing that we need to understand as mothers, is that our mother will always be with us.

Yeah.

So if you have a strange relationship with your mother, it just might take some humility on your part to not go to blame her for anything, but to go ask her, mom, is there anything that we can do to make this better? I didn't know what I was going to hear, but I went into the room that day, actually under the guidance of a counselor I was seeing. And I went into the room that day knowing that if she said mean things, I wasn't going to respond. I was going to listen and try to understand her. That was really key. Um, but, um, for a lot of women, they don't realize that if you don't heal the relationship, you're going to take it with you your whole life. Yeah. In the beginning of our book, we have this little poem about from an unknown author that says, your mother is always with you. And it's so sweet. It's like it says, uh, your mother lives inside your laughter. She's crystallized in every teardrop. She's the place you came from, your very first home. She's the map you followed with every step you took. She's your first love and she's your first heartbreak. And nothing on earth can separate you. Not time, not space, not death. So mamas that are listening to this, you have such an important part in raising your children. You have their heart even though you're not perfect. And you know your mother holds your heart even though she wasn't perfect. So back to a practical sense. Sometimes we're going to be the ones that need to make the move, uh, for others. Ah, maybe their mother is already not here, and they will need to go before the Lord and say, I want to forgive her. Sometimes it helps to write a letter to her that she never sees and just let out all the pain and all the hurt and then give all of that over to God. But by all means, if you still have life and breath, and she does, even though it's scary, it might do your heart and your future good if you went to your mom and said, we haven't had a perfect relationship, but I want it to be better. I'll do anything I can to make it better. And I want to say something. To us as Christian women, there is power in an apology. There is power in forgiveness, and there is power in peacemaking. So we all want to be like Jesus. We talk about it. We sing about it. But when the rubber meets the road, are we willing to push past pain to get there? Are we willing to accept our mothers as the imperfect people that they are? Because Jesus accepts them and he loves them?

Well, we are almost out of time, and so I kind of want to wrap this up, because I think this has been so powerful. Debbie, thank you. Thank you for writing the book. Thank you for reaching out, uh, to our mamas who are listening, because this is such an important topic. So I kind of want to recap. First of all, none of us are perfect. Mamas right. We've all inflicted wounds, and we've all received wounds, and so we look at our woundedness. Second, and we are reminded that Jesus is the healer, and we need to go back to Jesus continually. Yes, go for counseling. You've heard Debbie and I both say that we've spent time with therapists, and we're big fans of that. But beyond your therapist, get on your knees and just ask Jesus, jesus healed me. Heal the places that I don't even know are broken, because he will do that for you. And then thirdly, it's never too late to forgive. Whether your mom is alive or whether she's long past forgiveness sets you free. It doesn't necessarily even set your mom free. It sets you free, and it can repair the relationship that you have with your mom, and it makes you a healthier mom for your kids, because they see you modeling forgiveness in their life. And so, Debbie, would you be okay just closing us out with prayer? I sense today that we have a lot of moms that are listening who have been deeply impacted by this, and some of them are hurting. Some of them are thinking, but you don't know my mother. Some of them are thinking, I don't know if I could do what Debbie did. Would you just close us out with prayer and. Pray for all those, mamas.

Yes, I would love to do that. Hey, Father, we just come to you today and all of us are in completely different places, from small wounds to really great offenses that, uh, may have been laid against us as we grew up. But Father, we come to you knowing that walking in peace and walking in forgiveness and loving as Jesus loves is all part of the picture of following you. So, Jesus, we need our wounds healed. We need you to touch us in a way that only you can touch us so that we can be better mothers today, whether we're young mothers or whether we're mothers of teens or whether we're adult moms and grandmothers. Father, we leave a legacy and we leave a heartprint everywhere we go. Father, I pray that you would use our lives to imprint truth, m love and kindness to our children and to our grandchildren, too. Father, I pray that we will be more conscious of being present, of making sure that they are safe, of leading and guiding them with love and celebrating everything, Father, that they tried to do, even if it doesn't look like a success, but a failure, that we will celebrate who you uniquely made them to be. And, um, Father, we just come to you asking for you to take that part of our heart that is hurting and meet us right there and lead us in a path that will bring more healing and a better future, not only for us, but for our family. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. Hey, thanks Debbie. Hey, friends. Thank you for listening to the Connected Mom podcast and we hope you're going to join us next time so that we can continue conversations about connecting more deeply with God, connecting more empathically with our fellow mom, and connecting more intentionally with your child. Thanks for joining us today. We'll see you next time.