E 267: Breaking Generational Patterns of Guilt and Anger in Motherhood Guest: Misun Oh

Yeah.

Well, hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction.

Today we have with us Misun.

Oh.

She is a spiritual life coach who works with moms who've done all the work, yet still feel stuck in yelling and guilt.

Her soul print approach focuses on identity level healing, helping mom remember who they are and create calmer, more connected homes.

Welcome.

How are you today?

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm so great.

Thank you for asking.

How are you?

Oh, I'm doing great.

So everybody comes on this podcast for a reason, whether it's a guest or a listener.

What brought you to a podcast called titled Adult Child of Dysfunction?

Oh, that's exactly like what I went through a year ago.

Like I did, I was attending hea, meeting other child, you know, and it brought up so much in me.

I mean, I started my spiritual journey 2009, and since then I'm really like intensely working on myself, healing myself.

But the other child work brought whole different level of layers.

So.

Yeah, I want to share about my story.

Okay.

So you, you said, I know somewhere, whether I read it in the application or we were just chatting about it.

You mentioned that when you became a parent is when you were really aware of the different patterns and kind of how they followed you.

Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah.

That's really funny.

When I became a mom, I was already over 10 years of my spiritual practice, so I thought, I'm ready.

I thought I'm gonna be different than how I grew up.

But, you know, I discovered myself yelling, angry, shutting myself down, and just walk away.

So many things.

But still I was thinking, that's pretty normal as a human being.

And I went through, you know, divorce.

And then after that, I was in another relationship very shortly.

And actually that person introduced the ACA meeting to me.

And that person was working on ACA for years.

And then actually he pointed out how I'm disconnected with my son when I'm getting upset.

I didn't know that.

I mean, I knew I was angry.

I was not supposed to be that way, but I don't.

I didn't see that as a huge problem or any.

Anything like I thought that was just normal.

But that my now my ex boyfriend, what he pointed out, really hit me so hard.

I mean, it hurt.

It hurt a lot.

And I couldn't believe what he's saying because that's exactly how I grew up.

You know, the how I felt while I'm growing up.

So I really, really wanted to hear that part.

And that's how I attend the work on the 12 step ACA.

And it brought up a lot.

And it brought a lot of healing too.

Yeah.

Well, good.

And the ACA program for those people that are out there that are listening but don't know what that is, it starts.

Started as adult child of alcoholics.

And so it was primarily for children that grew up in addictive and alcohol, you know, around addiction and alcoholism.

And then they kind of branched out and they changed the name of it.

And if you've listened to any of my episodes before, you know that I totally believe is that dysfunction is dysfunction.

So now ACA actually is the bigger umbrella term for adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families.

Yes.

Like, I don't know if you had alcoholism in the family.

I don't know what kind of dysfunction you had.

But at the end of the day, all of that that you went through changed the way that you react with other people.

So your children in particular.

And it is good that sometimes that it's that mom wake up call that we need to go.

Oh my gosh.

I am completely my parents.

Even though I swear war I would never be.

Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit about.

I don't know how deep you want to go in.

I know we keep it kind of raw unreal here.

But it's your.

How much you talk about is up to you.

What was your childhood?

What was your childhood like?

Like, what was the dysfunction?

I love it.

I love this kind of conversation.

And yeah, and exactly what you said.

You know, I just swore I'll never be that way.

You know, that's exactly how I messaging to my clients.

Like people who swore I would never be my like my parents.

But I notice I'm exactly like them.

Yeah, that's exactly wake up call.

Well, my childhood, my family.

I was born in Berry countryside in South Korea.

It was a really small town, like seven, eight houses that was all in town.

And everyone was farming, nothing else.

And we until my grandpa passed away.

I had quite good memory.

It was like my grandpa passed away when I was five years old.

So not having a lot of memory before then.

But somehow I have like a good image and good feeling when I think about that time.

But after my grandpa passed away, everything falling apart.

So I would say my grandpa was the person who was holding everyone together.

Everything together.

And as he goes, yeah, my dad has problem with alcohol and everything.

Abusive.

He was abusive alcoholic, a lot of woman, you know, so my mom.

I remember I have one memory that my dad was beating my mom in Front of our house, basically on the street, you know, it was a very small town, probably everyone could hear, but no one came.

Actually I think that was pretty much normal, I would say, even though I have only one memory.

And then my mom left the house after that.

So that was when I was 6.

And then my dad in and out, he wasn't present as an adult in our house either.

So I had five siblings, they're all older than me and I was six.

My oldest brother was 17 at the time.

And.

But you know, no one was really like able to carry everything just as we were all kids.

Right.

So.

Right, no one, especially my brothers, they were not able to do that at all.

So my sister, she was only seven years older than me.

So she was 13 at the time.

She was the one who's keeping the house.

So she like go to the neighbors to helping and getting food, you know, things like that.

And that's, that's what I carried for my whole life like that.

Abandonment issues.

I didn't know of course until I started my spiritual journey, I didn't know anything.

I just lived as my life a complete victim.

Like it's my parents fault, it's my mom's fault, you know, everything.

Like if they didn't do that, I wouldn't live this way.

Especially in relationship.

Of course that's hardest part.

It's always trigger my fear of abandonment because that's what I need to heal.

I attract that kinds of guys.

So it always happens same way.

Like whenever breakup happens, that's just end of the world to me.

Whether that's a great guy or such a really asshole.

It doesn't matter.

He still left you whether he was an asshole or not, right?

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

It's just.

I cannot bear that I'm being left out.

Yeah.

So if I break up with someone, that's okay.

But if someone break up with me, I couldn't bear that pain.

And I didn't know what it is at the time, but that was the seated, you know.

And when I was six, so that's what I carried.

And then in my late 20s, I came out of a really painful breakup.

That guy, I would say worst guy I've ever met.

And still I couldn't let him go.

Still I couldn't accept that he left me.

Even though he found another girl and you know, such a falling in love with her but totally different way he interact with her.

And I still couldn't let him go.

I still couldn't accept that it's done So I couldn't bear the pain.

I tried to kill myself.

At the time, that was the only way I could get out of that pain.

I thought at the time.

Thankfully it didn't work out.

But that was the waking up call.

You know, there was like a little voice inside of me, there must be different way to live this life.

And then that was the start of my journey.

Um.

Yeah.

Exploding.

Yeah.

Well, sometimes, I mean, you don't want people to ever have to hit that rock bottom of suicide, you know, trying or attempting or even thinking about it.

But sometimes it takes something to scare you.

You know, I mean, that's.

It scares you into.

Oh my gosh, if I do this.

You know, you were obviously acutely aware that things were going on and things weren't right and you knew you were attracting the wrong people.

But you're right.

It's.

We actually just a couple episodes ago.

I'll have to get you the episode number.

You'll have to listen to it.

Because it's all about attachment theories and narcissistic like abuse and how we.

Our minds are so wired to familiar that we keep going back to those wrong people and knowing.

Knowing perfectly well that they're probably not good for us.

And then when it's gone, like you said you have that attachment is so strong.

It's almost like a trauma bond, you know, because they've got you so hooked in and you're so looking for love in all the wrong places kind of thing that you just.

You feel like you're gonna die.

I mean it literally, it feels like that.

So I'm glad you survived or we wouldn't be here today talking.

But what started making the biggest changes for you?

Like talk about your process of, okay, you've hit this wall.

You're like, enough.

There's got to be a better way.

What was your process like?

Okay.

And only always stage of my healing journey.

The first thing I learned from my journey was taking responsibility of my life.

That was a huge.

Because I really believed myself as a victim over my parents.

But I learned that I used to go to the church in my teenage years.

But it's.

It was not spiritual way.

It was only.

It was also escape season from my home.

So it was more like really just a religion, you know?

Right.

I didn't learn that much at that time.

So in my 20s, I stopped going to church because what I learned from the church in my teenage years was like, what shouldn't I do?

What should I do?

Like, if I do something wrong, I'm Going to go to the hell, like that's what I love.

So.

So when I entered university, I started drinking alcohol and I felt so much guilt I couldn't go back to the church.

So I stopped going to church.

And then I had to just by myself.

So I, I started to deny God completely.

I became atheist.

Oh, wow, okay.

20S until I find the God again.

And so when I started that journey, when I started to really accepting little by little, okay, this is my responsibility.

No one caused this pain in me.

I chose this.

And then I started reading all kinds of books and I read about like a soul, the source journey, like, and it just hit me so hard.

I totally believed that my soul agreed to this life and came with the consent when I'm going to experience it in this life to learn my lesson.

So I came with my own curriculum, with my own people, especially my parents, you know, and even now, when I look back, one of my biggest lessons I need to learn and transcend in this lifetime was overcoming that fear of abandonment.

So I had to have parents who can abandon me in early ages so I can really transcend that trauma wound.

So that's one thing I learned in the very early stage.

And then since I started taking responsibility for my life, the really amazing things happen.

Like, I used to have a very small, like illness, some more sickness here and there, like headache, cold, my period pain, you know, stomach ache.

Whenever I stress just a little bit that happens.

But I was pretty healthy when I was young.

I grew up in the very countryside, you know, it just grew up with nature that was very healthy.

I think that made my immune system very healthy.

So I didn't get sick very much.

But in my teenage years, I developed having sickness as a tool to get attention from other people.

So I believe that.

So I used to have that small sickness very often.

But when I started to accepting my responsibility for my life, all of my little sicknesses was gone completely.

It was over 10 years.

I never got cold anything like headache?

No, not at all.

Well, because, yeah, you knew that you were making that up.

So yeah, you knew that you were like, okay, if I'm taking, if I'm taking responsibility for what I'm doing, I'm sitting here making up stuff to literally make people like me or make people pay attention to me.

Yeah, that's.

Who was it?

I think it was Ben Franklin that said, with awareness comes great responsibility.

So it's like you, you don't know and, and, and everything you did.

I mean, I'm sure you look now, I mean you said so many words to me in just the last couple sentences that just screamed guilt and shame.

And it's like, you have to let.

That's the big thing.

I love that you said, too.

Was it the Soul's Journey?

Was the book you read?

Was that the title of the book?

Yeah, because I. I love hearing about that.

I had another episode here, too, where we.

The lady taught.

I think it was a lady talked all about the soul's journey, and she did say that.

She did say, you are put on this earth to learn certain things and do certain things, and you are going to keep continuing to come back life after life after life until you learn what you're supposed to be learning.

So it's almost like I feel like everybody should read that book because it's like, wow, I don't want to do this again and again and again.

Right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

It's like, let me just learn now, you know?

But we don't.

We don't know what we don't know until someone gets on a podcast and someone else hears this and then they pick up the book and they go, wow, Cha ching.

You know, it's like this.

Your light, your life.

Is this a plethora of just, aha.

Moments where you're like, okay, I can learn from this and move on and not have to do this again.

And when I say again, I mean life after life, right?

Not just moment after moment after moment.

We're talking, you know, 52 lives from now.

I'm still gonna be going, dang it.

Like, why didn't I learn that one?

You know, it's almost like you get this feeling of deja vu and you're like, wow, I. I feel like.

But I know this never happened.

Well, it probably did.

So, you know, so you did.

So you read the book, you started taking responsibility.

You really worked on that fear of abandonment, which is a really, really.

For the people out there listening, that's a tough one, because when you feel that everybody in your life or is going to abandon you, even when you get in the good relationships, you can't get close enough.

Like, you're just.

You're at arm's length because you, you know, in your mind, eventually he's leaving.

So I can't get close.

I can't open up my heart.

I can't feel that joy.

I can't, like, have that true connection.

Because you're afraid it's going to be over.

Yeah, it's.

I mean, it's not healed at the time.

That's another story Coming back recent like a few years back story like you know, after.

So since then I started reading all kinds of spiritual book.

I bought book after book after book, just reading, reading, reading.

And then I met a book of David Hawkins, I don't know if you heard of him.

And he became my spiritual teacher.

I just stick with his teaching and that's how I came busy to Sedona first time to attend one of his lecture.

And also I met my ex husband through that event.

So you know, it was like much more intense work.

Since I discovered his work, it's basically what he's teaching is really surrendering this more self completely to God and accepting who I really am, you know?

Right.

Surrender, practicing.

That's what I was doing.

And my life started to change a lot.

Like I was a teacher and education consultant in South Korea on almost 20 years.

And then, you know, I've never traveled overseas until I come to Sedona.

But after that I went to Spain to walk Camino.

And then after that I went to Sri Lanka to you know, work as volunteer for two years there.

And then I yeah came back to Korea, I worked there a little bit more as education consultant.

And then I met my ex husband to move to Sedona.

So my life is just changed direction completely.

And then here I became, I mean I couldn't speak English when I moved here, so that was a really challenging time.

But became a mom was a much more challenge.

The biggest challenge in my life actually.

Like I felt like I'm all alone here.

No support, like no family member of course here.

And my English was not good enough.

I cannot communicate how I feel with it, you know, friend.

I had good friends here, community.

But still I felt so alone.

I didn't feel like supported by my husband, ex husband.

So it the first year when my son was born, I think I cried every day, literally every day.

And fighting with my ex husband like so often and when I look back, like I'm really sorry for my son like you know, as newborn baby, just he's hearing that we, we are fighting, arguing all the time.

And yeah, so many things happen.

And my ex husband, yeah I have that anger.

So much anger came toward, came out towards my ex husband.

But later what I realized was it wasn't really anger, it was a fear of abandonment because my ex husband used to ask me to get divorced a lot from beginning.

Okay, yeah.

So he kind of kept you dangling on a string like you either perform and be the good wife or I'm leaving knowing your weakness because it doesn't matter.

People know.

He knew that was something that scared you.

Yeah, yeah.

And he used that.

But the good news is, how old's your son now?

He's almost six.

I was gonna say.

The good news is you can undo all that.

I mean, you did make a good point though.

And I am going to bring this up for the audience.

Children absorb everything.

And they don't just absorb it in their ears and their mind, they absorb it in their bodies.

So even when they're little kids, there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing yoga with a six year old and letting him tell you how he's feeling and, and get that stuff out of his body now before he's 26 and he's in therapy and he's saying, well, my mom and dad used to fight a lot.

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah.

You know, that's a, that's the biggest benefit from my work, my own work.

I see like, you know, after break, after divorce, after another breakup.

That breakup really, really led me to another, another rock bottom.

Because that guy came into my life when I'm really struggling by the divorce, struggling emotionally, financially, you know, everything.

And he came in with so many like, like really pink color promises.

Like, you don't have to worry about it.

I'm going to support you, I'm going to help you to build your business and I'm gonna support your son.

And we are.

It was so like, I mean I definitely saw the red flag, but I ignored it.

You know, we both were other child, we both had so much childhood trauma and we knew each other, but still we thought we can work on it together.

But he walked away in a pretty quick, like in a few months he walked away and I went, I hit another rock bottom.

I was really, really in dark place.

I don't know what to do.

So I.

One night I woke up, middle of the night, just crying.

Couldn't sleep.

I was crying, crying, crying hours.

And then finally I just kneel down.

Not by my will, it's just my body, you know, just collapsed onto the ground.

And what I said, even I cannot ask help me.

I don't know, you know, I don't know even if you can help me.

I don't feel any hope.

There is no hope.

I feel completely dark.

So I told God that I believe and okay, I don't know why I'm experiencing this.

I don't know why I have to go through this pain.

Probably I did something similar to others in the other lifetimes.

But whatever the reason is, if I have to live with this pain, rest of this life, I will accept it.

So you just surrendered.

You just surrendered.

That was a complete surrender.

And that's what brought me to complete opposite side.

Wow.

As soon as I say that, I say it out loud by myself, just in the room, you know, okay, let me just live with this pain.

I will accept it and I still trust you.

And then all of a sudden it's very similar what people like a near death experience, you know that description.

So I felt like I lifted up into the light from that darkness and I felt presence of Jesus, which I felt like unconditional love.

And then you know, it's like in a voice like you are never alone.

I was with you whole time, I was holding you whole time.

And then what I saw was really like that unconditional love that I'm experiencing.

That's not something out there, it's in me.

And I'm part of that unconditional love.

I'm part of that light.

And I was just so much in pain because I was looking for that love from outside, from wrong places, from wrong people.

No one can give this to me.

And I was completely buried that by the fear of abandonment, right?

Fear of rejection, fear of being alone.

So I didn't see, I didn't feel that love in me.

But that moment I completely could see that it's within me, nothing to do with others.

And then I was just so happy to even like I could see my exes in my imagination like thank you.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity.

Thank you for giving me this time, painful time so I can experience this finally.

I can find this truth that I was knowing only as intellectual information.

Now I know that experientially, I know what that means.

I cannot find the love from others.

I found it in me.

I love it.

I absolutely love it.

It's so powerful because it's so true.

I mean we're all looking and especially when you aren't treated well when you're young, you spend your whole life searching for someone to fill those voids.

And you're the only one that can do it.

You're the only one that can wake up in the morning and say, thank you God for giving me another day.

What am I going to do today to make my day a little brighter?

What am I going to do today?

What am I going to do?

Not what are you going to do for me, everybody and world.

But I absolutely love it.

And so then it just kind of things once, you know, there's so many little and that's not a little mind shift.

Don't, don't.

It's not little.

But I'm saying there's so many little ones like that that all of a sudden it's like I said, it's like that epiphany.

Like, oh, my God, like, what have I been doing?

You know what I mean?

And it's.

That is beautiful.

That's what I'm seeing.

Like, I. I really, you know, I used to say, like a declaration that I am statement.

For years, my personal line was, I am a holy child of God.

I am complete and whole.

But that's exactly what I experienced at the moment.

And when I look back, actually, you know, everything makes sense now because like three years ago, one day when I yelled at my son in the car because he was crying, I looked in his eyes and.

And I saw my little girl in there that afraid of losing mommy, that afraid of being abandoned.

And I know that pain so well.

So I didn't really want my son grow up with that pain.

So I made it really.

Inner commitment, like, I don't know what I can do.

I think I do everything I can.

So I don't know I can do more here.

But I am really committed to be a different moment.

I'm not going to be the mom that I grew up with.

So that commitment brought me so many events, which can break me, crank me open so I can really see who I really am.

So all the events, what I experienced after that, which was a painful surface level, but every event le me discover layer after layer after layer.

And I finally see me as, yeah, I am a child of God.

So that.

That identity shift that brought us so much different, so much changes my relationship with my son.

And like you said, you know, I know he's probably holding a lot in his body because we had so many conflicts, so many times.

Conflict.

But now we have a bedtime ritual like we lit the cat light the candle, and we're talking about our feelings, what we experience during this day.

Yeah, I mean, he's young.

He's young.

There is so much time he's not going to remember.

You know, he's.

You're going to bring that subconscious anything that's already stuck in his little body, and you're going to bring it out.

He's only six years old.

You're going to bring it out of him and you're going to.

He's going to be fine.

I mean, 100%.

I was just more kind of telling the people that were out there listening because a Lot of people, like, oh, you know, because I don't want this podcast ever to make people feel shame for them to get off the podcast and be like, oh, I yell at my kid all the time, or oh, I say this all the time.

You can undo anything.

And every, as a parent, every time, tiny moment that you spend getting better, your kids see that, they feel that energy and they're taking that all in.

And the best thing you can do is just continue to walk forward.

You know, you, you can't like, stop focusing on the past and just continue to walk forward and be like you said, be the best person you can be.

It is, it is amazing though, when people have that total life changing situation because, like, you made again, you made a couple comments like you could turn around now at your ex husband who you had so, so much animosity and so much hatred to, and you're thanking them for the opportunity to like, give me this experience so I can learn from it, so I can grow like that.

That's a totally different you.

Yeah, that's true.

You know, that's.

And that's really what it takes you when you're in that victim mode, you don't have the capacity to have compassion and empathy for anybody else.

But once you can even like.

I remember the moment that I could see my mother as a young child, abused and abandoned, and then all of a sudden I was like, well, she didn't know any better.

But when I was angry, I couldn't see that.

Right?

And when you can't see that, you hold on to all that and that's where the damage is done, the physiological damage.

Like you said, you know, you let go of that and you stop getting sick all the time.

I mean, I was 18, I had bleeding ulcers.

I mean, vomiting blood just from stress.

And it wasn't until I could just be like, she didn't know any better.

Why am I holding on to this anger?

Like, why don't I just focus on moving forward and becoming a better me instead of holding on to that hatred and that anger?

So, yeah, it's, it's an amazing experience.

It's great.

So, so tell people.

Tell me what you do now.

Like, how do you work with people?

Where do you.

Where can they find you?

Yeah.

Now, so after that experience, I really, it came to me so, so strong.

Like, I really want to help mom because I want all the kids grow up with feeling of safety and being loved and that I didn't have as a child.

I longed for, like, so deeply.

So Now I see my son that like, between him and me, the connection is totally different than we had before.

So it's not like I'm perfect.

I'm still angry, you know, but it's a communication.

I can communicate about my feelings instead of just exploding.

So I wanted to help mom.

So now I'm really focusing on helping mom especially who have done a lot of inner work but still end up yelling and feeling guilt.

And you know, my friends, mom friends around me or I'm hearing online a lot, like, I don't think that's wrong.

Like we are saying that's okay.

We are just human.

Right.

You know, that's not wrong.

But what I want to say is we are not just a human, we are mom.

We are lazy, tiny human being into someone like, who can really lead the world in the future, you know, so we can be better and there's a way we can be better version of ourselves.

And I can help with that.

And also I'm offering complimentary session.

So if you go Visit my website, sedonacoat.com There is the, you can schedule the complimentary session from there.

Okay.

And I will put that in the show notes so people, you can just jump down there and grab that in the show notes because it never hurts just to talk to someone if you're feeling a little lost, if you're feeling a little, a little rough, if you're feeling like, you know, if you're feeling any of that guilt and shame.

And I, I know it.

I think back to the times I said things to my kids and I'm like, ah, why did I say that?

And then you spend the whole rest of the day beating yourself up.

And then most likely what you do is you do the exact opposite of what you should do.

And to make up for it, you over give and you over spoil and you have no boundaries.

And you do all that because you want to be that perfect mom and have your kids love you.

And it's not about that.

It's about raising healthy, happy, well adjusted, emotionally intelligent children.

And that's what the goal is.

So.

Yes.

Yeah.

So reach out.

And I mean, I can, my friend.

People will say to me, oh, my kid told me they hated me.

I'm like, well, they haven't told you that at least once.

You haven't, you're not, you're not setting any boundaries then.

Because kids have to express themselves.

They have to get mad, they have to get angry.

But if you've never gotten them to the point where they're mad, at you.

Their problem.

There's probably not a lot of structure in your house.

That's so true.

Yeah.

And I mean, my kids now are 21, 28, and 30.

And I have a great relationship with all of them.

Did I make mistakes?

Absolutely.

Did I ever try to say I was perfect?

Absolutely not.

But I let them know they were loved and, you know, and I.

And they watched me do the work.

So it's a good place to be.

So it will.

You said it was SedonaCoaching.com SedonaCoach.com SedonaCoach.com and again, I will put that in the show notes so people can go in there and grab your link and go visit you and find out more about you.

In the meantime, thank you for coming.

I so appreciate you.

Love your story.

That was very heartwarming.

And for the people out there listening, it just goes to show that there is hope.

I mean, you just went through three rock bottoms with us, which means you went through so many more rock bottoms that you didn't talk about.

And you're here smiling and standing.

I get it, I get it.

We don't have all day, right?

Yes.

But can you give the audience one last message from you?

Big picture, something to make their day a little brighter.

What would it be?

Yeah, one thing I'm doing for myself.

Like when I'm feeling something uncomfortable, I imagine like my body.

I just close my eyes, pause, and imagine the.

All the every single cells in my body are listening to me right now and I'm telling we are safe.

Love it.

Yeah, love it.

So try that.

When you use your voice, literally, when you talk to yourself, even every single cell, trillions of cells in your body react physiologically.

So tell you, I take people every day.

That's such a good, such a good tip because I tell people every day, put your hand, one hand on your heart, one hand on your belly, breathe in and just say, I am safe.

I am loved.

I am more than enough.

Yeah.

So thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you so much having me.

And I really enjoyed our conversation.

And you're a great host.

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

And for everybody else out there listening, you heard it from the mouth of babes.

I mean, what a heartwarming story of hope.

And let's, like I said, re rock bottoms.

And look at that smile if you're not looking at it because you're listening on audio.

She is beaming ear to ear with hope and joy and love and light.

So you can too.

We'll see you next week.