How I Repaired My Relationship with My Mom

About Me

I’m Johnson. I grew up as an only child in Seattle to 2 Taiwanese immigrant parents. I did well in school, had a traditionally successful career in tech for ~5 years, saved up a bunch of money, and quit my job in Oct 2019. End of 2022 and early 2023 I spent most of my energy directly or indirectly working on my relationship with my mom.

Before and After

As of a few years ago, I couldn’t spend more than a day or 2 with my mom without getting into a major conflict, with my mom usually either saying/yelling hurtful things like “I wish I didn’t have you as a son”, or giving me the cold shoulder for days. I amateur-ly diagnosed her as narcissistic, I didn’t want to spend time with her, and had no feelings of warmth towards her (mostly resentment and disdain).

Today, I enjoy a harmonious and loving relationship with my mom. This year and last year, I’ve lived with her for a month at a time and it’s been sweet and enjoyable (certainly we still have disagreements and frustration, but they feel light and easy to navigate). She trusts me and shares stuff with me she hasn’t shared before. I trust her way more and share much more of my life with her.

I’ve personally benefited far more than I could’ve possibly imagined. Some things to point at:

• My harsh inner critic went down ~95% overnight

• I completely stopped questioning if I was worthy of love

• I’ve had my first experiences that I would describe as divine

• It’s helped me deeply connect to ancestry and purpose and place in the world

• It’s help me become an adult

An unexpected benefit is that my parents' relationship to each other improved! This is after a lifetime of trying and failing to improve their relationship.

What I Did

Chronologically, I went to a residency in France for 1.5 months, then spent a few months in Bali, then went to Taiwan for 2.5 months to actually “do the repair” in person together. I’d say it was overall about 6 months worth of concerted effort.

How I Prepared

1. Inner work

   1. This residency in Fall 2022 was called Embodying Collective Transformation, where we lived in community, and basically full time lived and breathed Internal Family Systems (IFS) and Non Violent Communication (NVC). It was during these IFS sessions that I realized that all my sessions seemed to end in talking about my mom 🤔🤔🤔

   2. I also started doing some more raw forms of somatic and emotional expression, largely from Tantra related practices. These often looked like yelling/roaring, hitting stuff (pillows), weeping, etc. Two main ones I’ve done are an anger expression exercise and something called a forgiveness ritual. The latter I’ve offered many times, and at this point I consider it a seminal emotional release practice.

2. Relational work - practicing and getting into NVC, Authentic Relating, and Circling. Basically I learned and got better at things like listening, staying present with myself, noticing what’s happening in me, expressing it, while in an interaction with other people. There’s a lot of this in Bali, though it exists all around the world and online.

3. Support system

   1. Going back to 2021, I started crewing, a practice of getting small groups of people regularly for some shared purpose with periodic self/collective reflection, where often the first shared purpose is building trust, connection, emotional safety. I’ve since started a few dozen crews, wrote an essay on starting crews, helped lead a program to teach crewing, and have benefitted massively from them.

   2. One of the most concrete benefits was creating a large support group for myself, mostly from people that I had crewed with. I was able to lean on this group to great effect. Previously a tough interaction with my mom might have weighed on me for days, or even weeks. If I called a friend for support, I could return to clarity and regulation in like an hour, which is like a 10-100x increase in pace.

   3. Professional support - in 2020 I convinced my mom to see a therapist with me for a few months, which I’d argue actually made things worse for a bit, but the primary benefits were 1) setting me off on my own journey of “oh I contribute to this too”, and 2) having a professional that my mom had some trust and rapport with that we could later call upon.

4. Made time and space - I cleared out 2.5 months of time to be with my mom and try and work things out. Didn’t have major competing priorities like work.

My Time With Her

An important foundation in my approach came from IFS - “can I love and accept my mom as she is, and if can’t, what is it in me that prevents that?”

In practice, it looked like:

1. Initiate difficult conversation with her

2. Try my best to slow down, stay connected to myself, share my experience rather than project my stories

3. If I was successful at #2

   1. The conversation would be deeply connecting and clear up misunderstandings.

4. If I was unsuccessful at #2

   1. I’d get triggered

   2. Leave, call a friend in the support group, journal

   3. Come back and hash it out from a more grounded place

5. Rinse and repeat every day or few for 2.5 months

Honestly it was kinda brutal lmao. One of the hardest parts was not knowing - all I could experience was that things seemed to be getting worse and worse, harder and harder, and I had no idea if we were ever going to turn a corner.

And it didn’t feel like she was helping - I wouldn’t say I dragged her kicking and screaming into the process… but I wouldn’t say I didn’t 😅. In retrospect I can look back and see the huge degree to which she was meeting me as best she could. But overall I’d say she was enrolled over time.

The last month in particular was one of the most emotionally intense of my life. In IFS terms, I’d say we were touching on the most tender parts in both of us. Every few days, with therapist support, we were unwinding multi decade misunderstandings with big emotional releases.

I documented at length the interactions that I had with my mom. A few that I like to highlight:

• I actually listened to my mom for once - she told a story she’d been complaining about for over a decade, and she hasn’t brought it up since

• I shared that the main feeling I had around her was fear, which I hated, because the main thing I wanted to feel around her is love. This was an early conversation that started shifting the vibe from adversarial to collaborative. Turns out we’re on the same team! Turns out she also wants me to love her, not fear her.

• She helped me release the pressure and burden I felt around keeping her alive, particularly when she was depressive/suicidal.

• I realized that my lifelong belief that my mom didn’t give a shit about what I wanted or how I felt was untrue. This was maybe the biggest one. I still get emotional when I tell this story in person

Since Then

Since then have come monumental realizations and self growth that wouldn’t have been possible without her. I’ve alluded to a few - feeling fundamentally loved, my shifting relationship with ancestry and place in the world, touching divinity, etc.. It's fundamentally shifted how I see relationships. It instilled a deep humility in me - if I was so convinced that I knew my mom after 30 years, and was wrong about so many things, what else might I be wrong about?

I continue to be amazed at how much richness has come out of these experiences, and I have no idea how much further it will take me.

Tough Lessons

The process has been humbling. I’ve had to face uncomfortable truths about myself in the process, that have certainly made me a better person. Some examples:

• If I want my mom to treat me like an adult, I have to act like one. If I’m always trying to get her to take care of me like a child, including emotionally, she’ll treat me like one.

• I’ve hurt her just as she’s hurt me, and all the repair and apology that I want, she wants as well, and deserves

• I had shitty boundaries and have had to learn to express them sooner and with love

• And more in this thread

Conclusion

I’m a bit frustrated because I feel like I’m missing some pieces in this essay - I’ve shared this in person and had people ask follow up questions, but I don’t remember them anymore :/ Leave a comment if you have any lingering questions?

Otherwise, I’m hopeful that my sharing inspires you, contributes to a sense of “oh maybe this is possible”. If not, I’d be interested in hearing about what feels hopeless.

And finally, plug time - I do offer coaching specifically for improving relationships with parents/family. Twitter is probably the best place to reach out to me, but any of my socials work.

And as of Jan 2025, I’d like to try and take someone through this process on a bounty basis. If you’re interested in committing to 3-6 months of dedicated time (e.g. sabbatical), or 1-2 years of intensive time (e.g. a degree) to healing your relationship with your parents, I’d love to talk. Based on recent experience (I recently spent the holidays with a friend who described me as an “angel”, in terms of how I supported them with difficult family dynamics), I’m feeling pretty confident I could help someone through this process.