Mama Elke's Guide to Healing Your Inner Child of the Past Breaking the Cycles

• Childhood experiences shape our adult relationships in profound ways we rarely stop to consider. This Mindful Monday episode dives deep into the patterns formed in our early years and how they manifest in our current connections with others.

• When a perfectionist parent raises a child, that child often grows into an adult endlessly seeking achievement and validation. When neglect defines childhood, anxiety and difficulty with intimacy frequently follow. These patterns don't simply disappear with age—they transform into the relationship challenges many of us face daily. Through personal stories and insights from psychology, we explore how recognizing these patterns is the first crucial step toward healing.

• The episode addresses a particularly poignant letter from Donna in Virginia, who experienced the painful realization that someone she trusted responded with dismissiveness when she shared vulnerable health concerns. This common experience raises important questions: How do we protect ourselves while remaining open? How do we identify the people who are truly "all in" with us versus those who secretly smile at our failures? The answer begins with introspection, boundary-setting, and managing expectations in relationships.

• Perhaps most powerfully, we discuss how many of us become the opposite of what wounded us—becoming the nurturing presence we ourselves needed as children. By understanding your love language and embracing a growth mindset rather than a fixed one, you can communicate your needs effectively and build relationships that honor both your adult self and your inner child who still seeks validation, protection, and love. Listen now to begin your own journey toward healing the wounds of the past and creating more authentic connections today.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Elkivate Your Life
• 1:44 Effects of Parenting on Adult Behavior
• 6:20 Responding to Donna's Letter About Friendship
• 10:15 Healing the Inner Child of the Past
• 16:20 Supporting Local Businesses and Sponsors
• 24:10 Closing Thoughts on Love Languages

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Bow, chicka, wow, wow, hey. Good evening friends. Thank you for joining Elkivate your Life. I am your hostess, with the mostess L as in the letter L and key as in the key to your heart.

Speaker 1: 0:28

Well, I already did the video version for tonight's podcast and now I'm following with the audio version version, as I really wanted the opportunity to involve my sponsors and just talk about things that are relevant, because Donna from Virginia wrote in tonight and had some thoughts and opinions that she wanted to share with me and I thought, okay, I mean, it's interesting. Her thoughts and opinions that she wrote in about through the fan mail were very relative to things that I've been experiencing with friends, acquaintances, friends of friends, their relationships, and so I thought, yes, it's important and I should talk about it, so let's get into it. About it, so let's get into it. Basically, what I talked about in my audio was that how, how to navigate through your inner child of the past. I talked about how we all have an inner child of the past and how to recognize and deal with adult problems caused by troublemaking parental attitudes in childhood, troublemaking Parental Attitudes in Childhood, and this is a book that was gifted to me by my mom prior to her passing, like in the 70s or 80s. And it's pretty interesting it talks about if your parents were. By the way, this is Mindful Monday, so things to be mindful about.

Speaker 1: 2:50

So if your parents were perfectionists, then the adult that you could be would be endlessly preoccupied with physical, intellectual or social accomplishment. With physical, intellectual or social accomplishment. Were your parents over-submissive? If they were, then you as an adult could be impulsive, trigger-tempered, inconsiderate of the rights of others. And then if your parent was overindulgent, then that would leave you as an adult being bored, unable to initiate things, carry through or persist in your own individual efforts. If your parent were punitive, then you may be fiercely vengeful. If your parent were neglectful, that could cause you to be anxious, lonely and unable to feel close to others. And then the other example is if your parent was sexually stimulating, you may be obsessed with physical sex and dissatisfied with personal relationships. So, as I spoke in the video, my mom was definitely a perfectionist. So did I become endlessly preoccupied with physical, intellectual or social accomplishment? Not necessarily physical, but yes to intellectual accomplishment. Yes, my mother could also be punitive, which indicates that I might be fiercely vengeful. I don't know that I was ever fiercely vengeful. I'm not a vengeance person, I'm not a vengeful person, so I don't I don't necessarily agree with that, or I definitely can't think of a situation where I did that Neglectful yes, she was neglectful and that did cause me to be anxious and lonely and unable to feel close to others, like I had to fight to be close with someone, which pretty much brings me up to speed with a lot of my relationships, a lot of my relationships.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Well, what Donna from Virginia wrote in about is that she talked to me about. She's just kind of all over the place right now and what she was wondering is do we have people in our lives, no matter how long they've been there, who truly are not in it all the way with us? Are they fair-weathered friends, do they? They act all in, but deep inside they secretly smile if we fail. It seems to be human nature to see the best in people that we love or even make excuses for them, but if we are truly not all in, will we drop them as soon as it's convenient for some people? I'm seriously thinking I don't have as good as friends in some people as I thought, and it's definitely something to talk about and without going into too much of her story.

Speaker 1: 7:04

She basically had some health issues, some health scares, and she shared with a friend and she didn't necessarily get the response that she was hoping for, that she was hoping for. And you know, she opened herself up and she was vulnerable and she shared this information. That was, you know, very personal information that probably family only knew about about, and the response was kind of minimizing the situation. It was just like oh, congratulations on your weight loss. But it didn't talk about the health concerns that led her to that weight loss. That led her to that weight loss and she's really struggling with it because she's. She said, you know, now I wish I would have, I wish I would have never shared.

Speaker 1: 8:20

Is it something that we should not overshare? Why do we need to share? Why do we need to share and how do we protect ourselves from things like that? So, donna, in Virginia, I would say number one is yes. When we are in kind empathetic people or so we think, uh, when we are kind empaths, what we end up doing is seeing the good in everybody and can't always see the red flags, or maybe we overlook them or choose to overlook them or don't want to listen to our intuition. So I would definitely say that you have to be cautious in who you let in to your inner circle.

Speaker 1: 9:19

And I'm 56 years old and I'm still having to back off from some people that I let in or realize after the fact, maybe I shouldn't have shared that much information with this person that I trust, because how well should I trust them? How well should I know them? Um, was that a fair thing to do? So the good news is you are asking yourself questions, and I believe that's where it starts. When you ask yourself questions, when you question yourself, you are being introspective and you are trying to learn from your mistake. So being introspective and self-reflecting, I think, is super important in these instances, and sometimes people can be very good in masking their true selves and who they are. So I would say try lowering your expectations and that when you are going to do something, if you don't expect anything in return, then you could be pleasantly surprised. Expect anything in return, then you could be pleasantly surprised.

Speaker 1: 10:54

An old friend, actually Travis Lemire, taught me that if you lower your expectations or don't have any expectations, then when they respond or react, you're not disappointed, you're not hurting yourself, because we can only control our response, our reaction, and so that's one of the things that I suggest to you. I also think, in refreshing my mind with this inner child of the past, that we bring a lot of our inner child of the past into our adulthoods and we have to make sure that we are being mindful of our choices with people who we surround ourselves with, exchange energies with, who we surround ourselves with, exchange energies with, and make sure we are getting to know them, how they were raised, what their family dynamic is like, what does friendship look like to them, what does marriage look like? Whatever the commitment is, I think it's very helpful to have insight to protect yourself better. Don't be afraid to set those healthy boundaries early on, because sometimes we try to implement the healthy boundaries later, after we've already let a lot of stuff slide and you're going to get pushback because these people are not used to you setting healthy boundaries. So just as it's new to you, it's new to them. I hope that's helpful to you, donna. I will say it is important for us to heal our inner child of the past.

Speaker 1: 13:07

For me, I realized my mom was the perfectionist and she was neglectful, and it did impact me. To where, because she was such a strong woman and provider, I didn't get the loving, nurturing side that I wanted, and so now I am the complete opposite of what she was. I am a strong woman, but I always try to include the underdogs, the kids that don't get picked for volleyball or dodgeball or whatever when they're picking teams. I also will approach people in a social setting if they're sitting by themselves or they look like they're lonely or left out or socially awkward or shy, that I am the person that will go over to them and try to include them and talk to them. And, yes, so I guess you could say in that way, I have become more the nurturer, the lover, the hugger, the well, that's how I became Mama Elkie.

Speaker 1: 14:30

I didn't get those things the way I wanted and needed growing up. I didn't get the words of affirmation, the physical touch. It was just like you're going to apply for that job, how are you going to get that job? You don't have enough knowledge, you don't know enough math, and I remember having to tell myself it's okay, I'm going to try and it doesn't matter what she said. But I wanted her approval, I wanted her confidence. That would have made it easier for me to go and apply for that job knowing that my mother believed in me and she didn't. So it was twice as hard to go and try things and do things and feel confident in doing them when I had that voice in my head saying how are you going to do that? You don't have the skills.

Speaker 1: 15:39

So fast forward to my adult life. When I come up with great ideas or I remember names or I figure out the murder mystery in the play or the movie, I just want somebody to say good job, that's awesome, how did you figure that out? Wow, you're really paying attention, you pay attention to detail or you're really smart or whatever. Something along those lines. Hopefully you're picking up what I'm putting down. At any rate, I do want to make sure that I mention some important people which are my newest favorite cookie lady.

Speaker 1: 16:33

Her name is Stacy, and she makes delicious home-baked cookies. That's her passion project, and I'm trying to find the information. Bear with me. Anyway, her name is Stacy, she is on Nextdoor and and she makes delicious home-baked cookies. These home-baked cookies are chocolate pudding cookies just what I don't need to be having, pudding cookies, just what I don't need to be having. And her name is Stacy D Oliveira. You can find her on Nextdoor. She does make cookies for Easter. Looks like she's still accepting Easter orders until Friday 4, until this Friday, 4-11 to the 25th. Wait 25 for my chocolate chip pudding cookies. In case you're interested, I'll be at the Walgreens on Wintermere Parkway, san Ramon, for delivery on Saturday, april 19th from 10.30 to 12. If you'd like to place an order, please DM me. So that's Stacy on Nextdoor. She also does delicious Kahlua cookies or a Kahlua cake. She bakes those for the holidays. One cake feeds 15 to 17 people and is best served with Cool Whip. Cool Whip or canned whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. Anyway, I've tried the cookies. I can tell you they're amazing. They're well worth the money. And you can also find her on TikTok, stacey D Oliveira.

Speaker 1: 19:28

And the other thing I want to talk about, since we're talking about cookies, let's move on to cavities. Well, if you have any cavities and you're looking for a dentist, look no further than Persimmon Dental. The staff at Persimmon Dental Dr Lamb, teresa, kenzie, everyone there warm, welcoming gentle explains things as they're going along very thorough family dentist, dentist. And they're conveniently located in the persimmon plaza next to the habit burger and pacific catch. So you just give them the code word, hashtag elkevate and let them know you heard about them through me and they will happily take care of you.

Speaker 1: 20:23

Also want to give a shout out to Kara, kara Kitchell, kara Canfield, love my artist. She is always cooking up some interesting, creative. Sorry, my phone froze on me, but she always has various different art deco stuff on her lovemyartistetsycom from paintings to music videos, to t-shirts, to personalized beach wedding favors, um shoes, leather shoes that are made in italy. Uh, she does these really sweet custom song lyrics, video gift if you have a family that you want to honor, if it's for wedding, birthday, anniversary, something like that, and, yeah, just a lot of neat stuff that she creates that has her trademark on it, which I love because it's a butterfly and I love butterflies. And then we have her partner in crime, tom Guzik, who his website is Miners Pick Studios and he sells more creative rustic art, utilizing many different materials and modern technologies to create stunning pieces. He does a lot of hanging art, really interesting pieces. You would just have to go and look at the. Some of them are ornaments. Some of them are hanging art that you could hang on the wall. Some of them are hanging art that you could hang on the wall. Some of them look like things you could hang from your window or just various different things for all occasions. So I want to thank all of my loyal subscribers.

Speaker 1: 22:52

Lisa Roberts Curbelo Big love to you, my friend. I hope you are doing well and your family as well. Looking forward to seeing you in the very near future. Jeff Parra, parapalooza, should be coming up looking forward to it. Mike Kaufman, the guy. Thank you for supporting me. And, last but not least, kyle Few commitment to love.

Speaker 1: 23:26

Love is a verb, folks. If you haven't looked up his book Audible, please do so. It's an easy read, it's informative, it's helpful. I've told a lot of my friends, kiddos at school and just basically everybody that could learn a little bit more about love and what it means to a partner, to yourself, to whatever aspect of your life where you are practicing love. It's so helpful and insightful and I think that you will really get a lot out of it and it's definitely worth it. I think that's all. Thank you all for tuning in. Thank you all for listening. I hope that you will apply these new tips and tricks from your inner child of the past. Find out what the five love languages are and what your love language is, so that you can communicate those things with family, friends, partner and be open to a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset, so you have the ability to be flexible and adapt and grow with your partner, not grow apart from your partner. That's it for tonight, folks. Thanks you for tuning in. Ciao for now.