This episode was a special request because someone messaged
me on Instagram and they asked me a very important question.
So let me go back and then come back to what this person
messaged me three years ago. I moved out of my parents house,
but it was not because I wanted to.
Things happened that pushed me to eventually having to move
out. I didn't move out like in the
best of terms, we weren't I wasn't on good terms with my
parents and I didn't think this was going to be difficult to
talk about. I guess I'm still, I'm not quite
there yet, but I'll, I'll still, I'll say as much as I can and
then as I keep on healing, maybe I'll able to talk about more
because healing is a very, it's not a linear process.
I mean, sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down.
And also these are conversations I haven't had with my parents
yet. Now says we are at a space where
we really consider each other's feelings.
Like despite what we've been through in the past, we're
actually really working on our relationship with each other.
There's so much love and unity and much more peace.
So everyone is trying and everyone is pulling their socks
in their own way. So I think I'll try my my best
to tell this story with consideration, considering I
haven't, you know, had this conversation with them yet,
which means I probably should. But I think Nilifika 2 points me
when you're in Alicia. Forgive me to mob.
I will talk about it in my book when I finish writing it.
You'll be able to see. I have not quite mastered the
car. Is it the courage?
I don't know. A couple months ago I recorded
an episode on the dialogue the Jaguaro show and my mom was my
guest. I was interviewing her, asking
her if questions and like a month ago Jaguaro told me he was
not able to upload the episode because I did not seem like
myself while it was in post production.
They felt like that video just wasn't me.
I wasn't the same the way I usually AM.
And it made sense when he said that.
It made sense to me because I don't know if it's because I
fear my parents or because I respect my parents.
I'm still trying to figure out the difference between the two
because I think it's it's the same.
I have respect for them now that I'm able to understand things
from a different point of view, like now that I have grace and
better understanding. But also, you see, I'm still
their kid. There's still a lot of things
I'm still angry about. There's still some things I've
had to teach myself to respect even though I do not agree with
because people are different and people react differently.
Someone can only meet you up to where like they've met
themselves. So I couldn't hold on to the
anger anymore. I just had to let go and forgive
so that we can focus on healing and moving on.
And this was joint effort. It wasn't.
I mean, it's, I feel like it started with me, but then I've
seen how it has transcended into everyone else.
It's the whole family pulling up their socks to become better.
Because I didn't move out of my home in the best Mimi Kwanzaa.
I was, I was such an academic child.
I was always deep in the books because that's what my parents
really, really wanted for me. I mean, I also love being in the
books, but not as much as I was. And being this kind of kid meant
that my parents weren't always there emotionally because my dad
was not there. He wasn't available either
because of work or just life in general.
And my mom was and wasn't around because, you know, she had to
work multiple jobs to keep the home afloat.
She was always very tired, exhausted, working really,
really hard because she did give us a good life.
The quality of life she gave us was amazing.
And she's maintained it all through up to now.
It's, I don't know, like now in such a thing.
It's such a dilemma because I do understand she did fulfill her
roles as best as she felt she did as a parent, but she didn't
know any better. Like she she didn't know she
could do like the emotional bit as well, you know, And I think a
lot of parents fall into this trap and cycle of why, you know,
you're scared about the quality of life you're going to give
your child. And unfortunately, when you have
to be chasing the money, it's sometimes difficult to be
present emotionally. I just realized this about
myself because sometimes I find I'm on go mode and I don't stop
to breathe. I'm just walking, making money.
I forget that it's important for me to also feel love and enjoy
love. So that's where the dilemma
comes. When I moved out, it wasn't in
the best of circumstances. I feel like I was chased out
like it was happening over the years.
I always felt that pressure of I'm not really wanted in this
space. And so even when I moved out,
Tijuana, Janda Muvaji, I always dreamt about having my own space
and it's something I always wanted for myself.
But I was so scared. I was always a must in my books
consistently. So my plan was, I knew that as a
woman at some point, OK, everyone used to say the plan is
go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, blah blah
blah. Village in Afuatana, having a
job and getting married. I might never I get to spend
time with my parents because I was always doing school stuff
since I was a baby and my parents are always away.
So there was a lot of lacking of emotional, my emotional needs
being met. I feel like my parents are very
unavailable emotionally and this led to me always feeling
neglected. So I knew Nikki Mazachuo.
I just want to stay home with my parents.
I wasn't in a hurry to move out and I thought, you know, I'm a
girl, there's no rush. But then Kukanza Tukukukuku even
more. And so I had to find a way out.
I have to say, me earning money from a very young age, it really
helped me a lot because I've always been really good at like
stocking up and saving and keeping money away.
So I think that really helped me because that's how I've always
been, even since I was a child. And I think this stemmed from me
feeling like, you know, I felt like I was always neglected.
I was like the glass child. This made me feel like I was
never seen. I was never given the emotional
attention that I needed. Iliqua 2:00 AM I performing in
school? Am IA good, kid great.
Am I responsible? Fine.
So I always had to be responsible for myself and This
is why I learned. I don't want to say money
management but like to stack money up because I always felt
like I have to be responsible for myself.
That's why when it was time to move out, I was able to move out
of Nkona Shankar. How was I?
Where was I going to learn from? I could see that my dad, I
don't. I don't know what to say.
I want Kukua too, and I saw my mom struggle a lot.
As a woman, I really, really get her, but as her child, it's hard
for me to like to understand why I had to come into such a
situation. This led to me always being a
bitter kid because I was I was rebellious.
I didn't know how to handle emotions or to manage them or
even to discuss them. I didn't know it was the lack of
love that was causing me to act this way and to become this kind
of person. And I also didn't like being
told what to do. My dad was such a talker.
He was not a guy of his ward. He never kept his ward.
He used to, you know, talk big and give promises, but he had no
action. He had no involvement.
We basically had to beg him to be involved in our lives.
That's how crazy it was. I was deleting some emails on my
laptop a few weeks ago and I went down, down, down to emails
when I was in uni and I found an e-mail I had sent to my dad to
his office e-mail. And I read the e-mail and I
really cried because in that e-mail I was begging him to pay
my school fees. I was begging Yanni, my mom, she
used to. I don't know if I should go deep
into that. But anyway, my you know, because
I talked about consideration. Maybe I shouldn't talk about
that today, but it was a bad situation.
My mom in turn was always angry and I feel like she used to
project this anger onto me. I don't feel like she OK, it
felt like she hated me but I don't know if she was really
aware that this is how she was making me feel.
I've tried to have this conversation before and she
denied OK. Now she's done a lot of growth
and healing, so I know that the conversation will go different.
She'll apologize and she'll take accountability.
But me processing those emotions as a kid, it was just crazy.
It felt like she hated me and every time I brought it up I was
being gaslit. I made it my mission to just
fuck off. And my teenage hood was
especially hell. There was constant fights and
friction and anger and shouting. I grew up in a house that was
really chaotic. Like it had it had, it had
violence, it had abuse. It was just crazy.
So I got my first job at 17 and I guess that's where I never
stopped. The abuse was physical,
emotional, financial. And This is why I have a lot of
poverty trauma. Like I have a lot of fear of
being poor because I used to see how my mom would struggle, like
to give us a certain life and she would give all her life into
that. Which like I said, I really get
it as a parent. From a parent's point of view, I
really understand because she did manage to give us that life,
but then it made her a really angry woman who was never
available. It's taken so long for me to
even teach my mom to say I love you back.
At least now we're there. But you can imagine.
Imagine now is when my mom is even.
Like it's because she's never had it herself.
Like no one has ever told you I love you.
It's through me, me now threw me healing that she's starting to
heal herself as well. So it's it's crazy.
And when I hit 21, I got severely depressed, severely
depressed. Whether when I was 22 years old,
I was even living with my my friends.
I had to run away from home. I don't know if my friends knew
I was staying away from home because of the situation at
home. I don't know.
I mean, they did take me in and they took care of me and we grew
up together for a bit. But they don't know how much
that escape helped save my life because many Lakona feel me kani
Lakona cheesy. AT23 my career started taking
off like love and orgasm started growing even bigger.
And by the time I was 25, I was able to move out into my first
apartment and I went no contact from my family, from my whole
family extended from the cousins to the aunties to the everyone.
I cut everyone off and I just started my life.
I can say that the distance helped and I think it is during
this time we were away from each other.
It was about 5 months to six months.
It is during this time that helped my mom realize, Oh my
goodness, what have I done? It's like maybe she had a
revelation and realized this is not this was not her plan.
She was not intending for her family to watch Anna.
But she didn't realize that me being in that environment was
causing this friction and us to fight consistently.
And so during this time, I went through so much.
I went through so much anger and bitterness and I was so lonely
and I was so broken because, you know, every child deserves the
love of their mom. I used to really seek my mom's
approval because I really do care about her, and she used to
criticize me a lot, criticize everything I do.
OK, now she's so understanding. And even if she doesn't
understand, she takes time to teach herself and to learn
better. She listens so much better.
But this is coming from a time where Katuna bug heads.
There was nothing we could ever tell each other.
We were consistently fighting. So this distance, it helped my
mom and me for her to stop, you know, being so controlling over
my life and for me to grow up and be able to control my own
life without being dependent on her.
Because you remember my mom was the breadwinner and she was
doing everything for us, everything.
So it was, it's hard on her mom. It's like she was a single
mother. Well, I also learned how to be
like a better listener, more forgiving, how to let go, how to
be honest and how to have honest conversations.
Now we don't hold back. Like I've said, the same way I'm
learning the lessons is the same way I can see my mom learning
along with me things we used to fight about.
Like now we have easy conversations.
Our household is not a household of people who shout anymore.
We just talk to each other and everyone listen.
We're much more kinder to each other and yeah, it's just so
much better. So at 27, this is last year?
No, when I was coming around to 26, I started now gaining
stability on my own and me and my family reconnected again.
We started being closer. I went back home.
I was able to, you know, just start mending my relationship
with my mom. I started being understanding
that I needed to extend grace. Like if, if I want a
relationship to work, I have to put in the work.
I have to sit around and listen and also do the work.
It's not just expecting the other person to, to put in the
work on their own. And sometimes what that looks
like is you starting the work talk without anyone.
Mimi. Mimi could move out.
Konza could realize, OK, I don't need to be in a household where,
you know, there's anger and violence.
And I've created a home for myself where nobody shouts.
Nobody has ever shouted in this house.
Everything is calm and peaceful. This is the safe haven even for
my friends. They come here to rest and
recharge their energy. So I've been able to share this
energy with my parents as well. And I think This is why my mom
loves having me home. She says I bring a lot of peace
when I go over, like she's able to rest and relax and breathe.
And it's such a nice thing for your mother to say, especially
so when I was 27 years old last year.
My mom was diagnosed with cancer.
I think this also propelled our family unity because now you
know when 1 of you is sick, you realize how things like fights
are so dumb. It's it's so dumb to waste time.
When you know time, you get a taste of how precious time could
be and it stops muttering. All those fights and anger and
where they stop muttering because you start to see a
bigger thing. You start to see a bigger
picture where instead of wasting time being angry at each other,
blaming each other, it's just so much easier to love each other,
each other and care and to be kinder.
It's just it's so much easier. So I think that pushed us
unintentionally, whether we liked it or not, because now we
only had each other. And you know, when something I
learned is when one of you has a terminal illness, first of all,
it's very expensive to cheat and manage and stuff.
You know, you think you'll have support.
But when my mom was going through treatment, not many
people, like, especially not many people called in to check
in, especially not the people I expected would The people who
were there for me were my friends, people I've met in
months, people I have known for a couple of years.
Those are the people who were checking in on me, sending me
meals, helping me pay my bills, like taking care of me
consistently, just my friends. But family, you realize that?
Yeah, you're on your own. Nobody cares.
It's not their mom who has cancer.
It's just yours. So going through that reality,
it's taught me there's no need wasting time being angry about
things that don't matter. It's important to cultivate and
fix the relationships that matter to you and me.
For me, I knew my mom. I knew I mattered a lot to my
mom. Like my mom really really loved
me a lot and she needed me in her life and I felt the same way
about her. I I think I'm mildly in love
with my mom. I really really love her.
I care for her so much as a friend.
So isn't it was it forced us to have difficult conversations and
these days not even even pre he had diagnosis.
OK now she's healed from it. She's fine, she's perfect, she's
doing well, and my mom learned how to be apologetic.
Sometimes she might not even understand what she's done or
how she's doing it, but anytime I bring up something, she's
always ready to validate my emotions, to listen to, to, you
know, just make me feel very reassured and reaffirmed.
And she's always willing to work on it.
If I say, I didn't like how you said this, she said, OK, teach
me how to do it or I learn. And she always does better.
She's always improving. Like there's no more excuses,
there's no more fights, there's no defensiveness.
And it goes both ways. If they tell me this is how I
feel about this, this, this, if it's reasonable, you know, we
talk about it and we we negotiate like we teach each
other, each other's points of view.
So it really helps having conversations.
And because of this, our conversations are so much
better. We have so much kindness towards
each other. We care so much about each
other's opinions because we know it always comes from a place of
love and care. And also, I understand that my
mom's control came from fear. She just feared that the things
that happened to her would happen to us, her children.
And that's why she was so protective.
And her being protective meant she had to, you know, go into
her masculine energy and just become a mother who is taking
care of her kids. Regardless of what.
How can I your time, your kuka soft kuka to Mama.
She had to be out there doing the The Dirty work and the hard
work. So that's why I'm able to
understand her, although it cost me a lot of, you know,
abandonment issues, a lot of me consistently seeking validation.
I think even now I subconsciously really seek her
validation. If my mom says I look beautiful,
then that will make my whole year.
That's enough for me. That's like fuel to my ears.
If she tells me something, you know, your face, what's it
really makes me think like, why would she say that?
Because she's she's just saying it.
I mean, she's learning how to be mindful, but you know such
things when you're not when you're in a relationship with
someone, it's like which is engineer, you really have to be
patient with them as they're learning along the way.
And I think that's the grace of being able to accord to each
other. I know how control came from
that fear and high experiences as well.
But now we are being very intentional.
We are taking time and we realize that family is
everything. It's all a work in progress.
Every relationship takes a lot of effort and intentionality.
And the same way my mom wanted to mend her relationship with me
is the same way I wanted to mend my with hers.
So now I'm talking about all this because this person asked
me. You just went straight from
having drama with your family to now you're consistently doing
family stuff and you guys are together.
What happened in between? So I think I've explained what
happened in between leading up to where we're at now, but let
me just finish off by saying that it took delivery to work.
It took, first of all, Sisi Kutakumen relationship and then
Sisi kuku kisana naku actively fixed.
Like if someone says they have an issue, it's important to
listen to them and work on it actively.
This has helped us be together. I don't want to say that the
cancer helped, you know, bring unity, but it kind of did
because like I said, everything else stopped mattering.
I don't one wish a calamity on anyone for you to realize that
your family is important. You can learn from people who
haven't had to go through calamities or people who've had
to go through them and they can speak about them.
But don't let it get too late. If you care about someone, go
and talk to them. Like go and fix that
relationship. Tell them you love them, work on
it. This is if the relationship is
not toxic to you and hurting you.
You see, for me it took for me to go no contact for a while,
like I said, before we were even able to talk to each other and.
Listen to each other now. Also, it can be the kilometers,
sushi, ego. No more beating of the chest.
It's just honest conversations about how we really feel about
each other. And now I can see it's been
about three years. I can see a significant change.
Us guys do everything in harmony.
We're always together. We're travelling together, we
eat together. Everyone used to eat in their
rooms. Now we eat all of us.
We eat at the dining table. We we consistently call each
other, we're consistently texting.
And I can say that I'm able to enjoy my family now and I'm able
to be grateful for us giving each other a second chance
because it's important. It gives me a lot of confidence
in myself, makes me love myself because at home, I'm really
loved. And that gives me a different
kind of, you know, love for myself as well-being loved by
your mother and your father, it makes you really, really have
confidence. That's how we salvage our
relationship. I don't know if I've touched on
everything. If you have any more questions,
just feel free to ask me and I will respond immediately.
But other than that, yeah, that's how I fixed my
relationship. Personally, I haven't gone this
for this episode. I haven't gone anywhere like to
Google. How do you fix your relationship
with your parent? I've just told you what I did
for myself. I I saw this shit was
dysfunctional. This fighting and arguing is not
good for me. It was killing my vibe, killing
my art, killing me, killing my life.
Fighting with your mom is not fun.
It really destroys even your perception of relationships with
other women. While in real sense, you're
supposed to be working on, you know, having a strong sense of
community around you, especially of women, because women will
always save you. They'll always love you
unconditionally. So now that I've, I'm fixing my
relationship with my mom and my dad and my brother, US guys are
super, super close. We're, we always say we're,
we're the four best friends, but it's taken a lot of work.
It's not it was not easy. It didn't happen overnight.
It's taken a lot of work. Come on, imagine CC to look
intentional and we wanted it. And now is when I'm starting to
see the fruits of our labor like three years later, imagine with
parents who are not willing to see something is wrong with kids
who are still, you know, bitter and angry about the things that
has been done to them, the abuse they have been subjected to.
It's not easy. And I really acknowledge that.
So be patient with yourself. I know it's really hard to live
without your parents, whether they are not around or whether
they are around and they're not present.
It's really difficult. It's like grieving, grieving.
It's like grief, actually. And it's not easy.
So I truly understand. But I just say give yourself the
grace. You don't have to understand
anything or accept anything just yet.
Your job is just to heal yourself.
Heal yourself in the smallest of portions that you can.
And at some point you'll get to a point, maybe you'll be able to
understand them, not necessarily accept, but just understand why
they did what they had to do. And even if you never get there,
it's fine. As long as you're able to give
yourself the space to grieve and heal and grow and learn, that's
all that matters. So feel free to ask me any
questions in the DMS and I will respond to them.
Thank you so much for listening. This is how I fixed my
relationship with my parents.