5. Six Destructive Generational Patterns & How to Break Them

Have you ever reacted to a situation without thinking—only to realize later that it was a destructive pattern? 

In today's episode of Navigating Motherhood Without Your Mother, Alyssa Carlene dives into the Six P's of Destructive Patterns -  subconscious, generational behaviors that many moms unknowingly repeat and model for their children.

Listen to the episode to answer the following questions: 

• Am I unknowingly passing down patterns from my own childhood?
• Do I sometimes feel like I’m parenting on autopilot, reacting in ways I don’t fully understand?
• Why do I fall into people-pleasing, perfectionism, or other habits that don’t serve me—and how can I break free?
• Could my unmet emotional needs be affecting the way I show up as a mom?
• What will it take for me to heal and finally break harmful cycles? 

1. Want to join a supportive, heartfelt community with other moms who are also navigating motherhood without their mothers? Join our Facebook Group today!

2. Are you ready to build confidence and emotional resilience as a mom, even without the support of your mother? Access the free video training now: Five Steps to Navigating Motherhood Without Your Mother!

3. Want to chat more about what it's like to mother without your mom and get personalized support? Send Alyssa Carlene a DM on Instagram!

Transcript

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I remember sitting in therapy, frustrated and venting about how I wished someone in my life would just show up for me the way that I needed. No matter how much I hoped, this person kept letting me down. Then my therapist hit me with a truth bomb. She said, It was like a flip switched in my mind. Of course, it all traced back to my mom. And the worst part, I didn't even realize that I was doing it. This unconscious projection wasn't just painful, it was destructive. So let me ask you, have you ever caught yourself doing the same thing? Do you ever place motherly expectations onto people who were never meant to carry them? If so... Stick around because today we're unpacking this and five other destructive patterns that could be holding you back. You're listening to Navigating Motherhood Without Your Mother. Here we help moms with young children who lack maternal support to heal childhood wounds and break harmful generational patterns through the five-step Roots framework. My name is Alyssa Carlene. I am a motherhood empowerment and generational healing coach. My mission is to help you heal the root cause of your struggles so you can learn to regulate your emotions and create a healthy, loving home environment for your family. Please remember that my podcast content is for educational purposes only and should never replace proper medical and mental health guidance from licensed professionals. I'm so happy you're here, Mama. Let's get started. Welcome back to the show. I am really excited about this episode because this information is really eye-opening. And from personal experience, it's crazy to wake up and recognize harmful patterns that you didn't know you were repeating. Now, this isn't me trying to inflict shame or guilt. It's quite the opposite, actually. I want you to feel motivated and know that you can change and model things differently than you learned as a kid because that's what this is all about, right? We pick up everything, so many things from childhood, both good and bad. Like a little sponge, we absorb and then we mirror because that's all we know. Then we become mothers and we have this reverse scenario where now we're the mom and we're trying to navigate with what we were given. These patterns are so common, especially for mothers who didn't receive nurturance or consistent mothering themselves. So if you're like me, it may feel confusing or discouraging at first. The previous episode, episode four, was all about this realization and recognition and why it's the first step in healing. Today, we are going into more personal examples and what I call the six Ps of destructive patterns. And let me remind you, these are generational. You will recognize that these are things you may have learned from your mother that she learned from her mother or another parent or caregiver. So the six P's of destructive patterns, projecting, people pleasing, perfectionism, parentifying, pressure, and panic reacting. After the episode, you will understand why each of these patterns is toxic and learn how to start implementing strategies to gently break these. First, let's talk about projecting our motherly needs. As I mentioned in the beginning, I was totally doing this without even knowing. And when you don't have your mother's support, it is completely normal to seek an outside motherly influence and figure in your life because you're craving that. Even if you don't realize it in your mind, your inner child, your subconscious being wants a mother. We were made to be mothered. And so you're going to look for this everywhere in friendships, partners, mentors, and maybe even your own children. Then once the other person or people don't provide the emotional care that you're longing for, you feel this deep disappointment. And these feelings are indeed valid and they're painful. Parenting is one of the places that's affected by this type of projection. And here's how. It can lead to unrealistic expectations of support from a partner. And it might make it hard to emotionally separate your needs from your child's needs. So here's how you heal from this specifically. You need to recognize when you're searching for a motherly figure and offer yourself self-compassion. When I do this, I try to turn to places or people that can offer Offer me maternal support. Because it's not that you don't have your mom and you just can't have any support. It's that your mom's not able to provide it. And if you're projecting it onto other people that can't provide it, then you need to find it elsewhere in an appropriate way. So it's usually outside of your own family circle or your friend's circle. And I feel like for me, my professional therapist who happens to be female and a mother can help guide me. She can provide that sense of guidance that I need. It's not the same. It's not like the motherly nurturance or protection, but it is kind of that motherly guidance. And the cool thing about it is that our relationship is purely therapeutic. And because she stands as an unbiased party, I feel comfortable seeking guidance specifically from her. from her, you know, and she provides that to an extent and I'm not projecting all these needs onto her and it's destructive. It's actually a very healthy relationship. Another way that I have really kind of tried to seek these maternal resources or guidance or whatever it is, is through books and other platforms where people help with healing the mother wound. I turn to God, I turn to a celestial mother, or I turn to a historical motherly figure that I can learn from. You want to turn to the right sources and make sure that you're not projecting because the projection is only going to hurt you more in the long run. And most important above all, I work on remothering myself as I mother my children and It can be a beautiful thing to give your children the love that they deserve and desire, knowing that at the same time, you're actually remothering yourself while doing it. The second destructive pattern is people-pleasing. So many of us struggle with this. For us motherless mothers, I feel like it's a different level. And this looks like difficulty setting boundaries because you may feel rejection or approval. Another example is really trying to over-explain yourself and saying yes when you really mean no or agreeing to things that you don't want to do, but you agree to them because you're worried about what the other person is going to think or how they're going to react. I once heard someone call themselves a recovering people pleaser. And I love that because we are all recovering people pleasers to some extent or another. As a child, you're told what to do, you're modeled what to do. And when you grow older, depending on what that information was that you were given, you may end up feeling like you need to please everybody else around you. So it's... It's going to take time to unlearn this habit. And it's truly a generational pattern, I feel like, that we need to break. Growing up, I experienced a lot of pressure because I was deemed the family peacemaker. That's kind of what my dad would call me. Even to this day, he'll say, you're the peacemaker in our family. And I know he didn't mean it with any ill intent, but this was really heavy on me as a little girl. These boundaries were blurred. Because of that, I just feel this strong need to help everyone around me. And it is hard for me to say no. Over the years, it's gotten a lot better because like I said, I'm this recovering people pleaser. I'm in recovery now. But I am constantly practicing these small, low stake no's, so to speak. It's okay to say no. It's okay to say, look, this doesn't work for me right now. Because really the no is about you and And it's about your boundaries and your health. And when you do this, it's building up the confidence that's necessary so that you can protect yourself and be in harmony with what you truly desire. Because if you're just saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, you're not being authentic, right? You're not being authentic, which I feel like we all want to be authentic. So remember that when you shift your mindset, these boundaries, saying no, refusing to be a people pleaser, are an act of love, and it's not rejection. Okay, the third harmful pattern is perfectionism. Have you ever felt like you have to be the perfect mom to be worthy? I used to feel this pretty hardcore. And it wasn't even so much perfect I was striving for. What I really wanted was just to be the complete opposite of my mom, which then led me to completely overcompensate in motherhood and totally lose myself while doing it. I just couldn't do it. These expectations that I held for myself were completely ridiculous. And one day it actually clicked that I can still be a cycle breaker. But I don't have to focus on 1,000% that I'm a mom and I'm not anything else. And I really just released this judgment of myself and of other people. And I remember in the beginning, when my first daughter was pretty young, I was really judgmental of other moms who were working or they took time away from their kids. I remember thinking like, how dare them? Don't they know about attachment? Don't they know these things? And you see, back then, it wasn't even about them. It was about me. It was about my unmet childhood needs. It was me, like I said in the beginning, projecting in a different way, projecting like... this idea that, oh, I have to be this great mom. And if no one else is doing it, then I might as well do it. And it's kind of silly to think about now, right? But we're human. We're judgmental. We make mistakes. And now I feel so much better in myself and in my mothering that I've let go of this pressure. And we'll talk a little bit more about this pressure because these two really go hand in hand. But really, this is a generational pattern of perfection that was passed down to me. And it's not working. It doesn't work. It's not attainable. It's truly unattainable. So this is how you heal. And you reframe. You reframe any of your mistakes as growth opportunities. And please practice this self-kindness and model that compassion and self-compassion for your kids. Let yourself take a break from mothering and don't feel guilty about it. Even me just working on my podcast sometimes or doing things for myself, I feel that guilt kind of start to seep in a little bit. And it just doesn't serve me. It's impossible to be perfect, but it is possible to move forward and have your own identity within motherhood. You don't have to be this perfect mom. You're never going to be. So just let that go and move forward. Next, we've got parentifying. Do you know what it feels like to be parentified? Thank you so much for joining us. And I secretly ached for her to just be my mother. It's like, mom, I don't need you to be my best friend. I need you to be my mom. And of course, at the time, I didn't really think that. I think I was kind of excited that she was wanting that. But it's interesting in hindsight to recognize, okay, that was sad. It was not okay. She needs to be the mom. Another example of this that I thought was worth sharing. was that before even this podcast, I had another podcast. And I had let my mother know last year that I was sharing stories from my childhood and that I'd be talking about her. And if it were to get back to her somehow, that I wanted to be the one to let her know. And her reaction was interesting. But the other part of it that I thought was really kind of crazy was that she, you know, I told her I really have this desire, mom, to help other people. And she said, you know, Lissy, you really, they call me Lissy, you really should be thinking about me and your dad. Like, you don't, you know, you should be taking care of us. Who's going to take care of us? And I remember just kind of, I don't even know what my exact reaction was, but I kind of chuckled under my breath. And I just said, okay, mom, you know, because my relationship with her right now, we don't talk hardly at all. We're not estranged, but she is not a very big part of my life at all. This was just something that I wanted to make sure she was aware of. I'm almost 30, and my mom... still is putting these expectations on me to parent her. And I don't think that she meant this to hurt me because a lot of what she does is under the guise of like severe mental illness and complete unconsciousness with the reality of the world. But this time I could actually see what it was, parentifying still. And I just imagine like my teenage self, like I talked about, I probably would have reassured her like, of course, mom, I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to put you on the I'm going to put you on the pedestal and my family's on the back burner. And man, I am so glad that my eyes are open because I am not responsible anymore. I am not the parent. She's the mom and I'm the daughter. So if you relate to this, I share this because I feel like it's powerful for you to keep telling yourself, I am the daughter. She is the mom. And you need to remember your place in the family. Because even if you don't talk to your mom or wherever you're at on that level of support that you have from her, she's the mom and you're the daughter. It doesn't matter how old you are. And that place, that family placing is still important. So if you are parentified, you might see yourself repeating this pattern without even a flinch. And you maybe expect so much emotional support from your children or you feel uncomfortable when they express big emotions. And this is okay because, again, you were taught these things, right? You're repeating these patterns. You're not necessarily aware. So it's time to work on yourself and continue drawing that line. And I think breaking this cycle is one of the most important ones to break because, again, it's that clear line of I'm the mom. She's the daughter. Now, talking about now for your kids, right? I'm the mom. She's the daughter. He's the son. And you get to practice letting your kids be kids without taking on adult responsibilities, which is, it's what they need. They just need to be kids. So you've got this. Okay, the fifth toxic pattern is reacting in panic. Now, there's a time and place for panic, right? If you are literally being chased by a bear, you can react in panic. Your body's going to react in panic. But this is the interesting thing. So I have a life coach who she does neuro-linguistic programming, NLP. And she introduced me to the idea that some of our emotions are actually inappropriate and unwarranted emotions. reactions because of our unresolved trauma or unresolved struggles from the past. And this is a really, really fascinating subject because think about the emotions that we have that are coming up and surfacing from a trigger that actually have nothing to do with that trigger at all. And they have everything to do with something else entirely. So that reacting in panic is can be from those unwarranted emotions. So reacting in panic is going to look like going into fight or flight mode very quickly when you're triggered and feeling like every challenge is an emergency. It's a crisis. And you may absorb the stress or develop anxiety from someone else and your child might start to absorb it from you, and it becomes this cycle. Growing up in my home, it felt like every health problem that we had was a crisis. I mean, my mom would take us to the doctor every time, and I guess that could be a good thing if you think about it. She cared enough, but it also was not healthy how often we were going to the doctor and how it just felt like this constant crisis. crisis every time somebody got sick or something was remotely wrong. So the real way that you can heal is number one, trying to recognize if your emotions are inappropriate or or if they're unwarranted and you got to pause before you react. Like it's a habit and it's all about regulating your nervous system and recognizing, have I been living in fight or flight for this long? Is this a generational habit? that I've picked up because of the way that I was mothered or the way that I was parented or my childhood, whatever it is. And how can I start to regulate my nervous system? I can do breath work. I can do grounding techniques. I can go to therapy. I can go outside and take a walk. Whatever it's going to take for you to not feel like you're constantly in a crisis. And it's going to take time. I feel like I've gotten a lot better at this, but I've had periods of my life where things pop up again and I realize, oh, I'm kind of reacting in this crisis. high alert anxiety. But the awareness now is what helps bring me back down. So that awareness is powerful. Last but not least, we are addressing pressure. So this goes for all the pressure that you put on yourself as a mother and the pressure that was put on you as a child and then the pressure that you put on your children. Of course, you know, we talked about perfectionism earlier, which is the unrealistic standards that Pressure is the weight of expectation, feeling like you must perform, you must succeed and get it all right. Pressure and perfectionism are definitely related, but they are distinct. For example, a mom might not expect herself to be perfect, but she still feels immense pressure. So this is kind of like the example I was talking about earlier. I knew I couldn't be perfect, but I had pressure. And I don't know where that pressure came from. I think a lot of it came from me. on myself. But I think some of it did come from my childhood, from the idea that I was the peacemaker, from other sources as well. And you can't juggle it all. It's so hard to feel like you have this immense pressure and you never can drop the ball and you always got to get it right. And then a child might take that on and feel like, oh, they have to They have to keep up because mom feels this way and they got to excel academically or they have to behave a certain way or they meet a parent's emotional needs because of this pressure. And ultimately it is exhausting for everybody. So when you're breaking this, you got to ask yourself, where is this pressure coming from and why does it feel so heavy? And instead of measuring success by productivity, behavior, or achievements, you can redefine it. Like, Did I show up today for my children? And did I meet my child where they are? Did I show up for my inner child? Did I meet her where she's at? Another thing to keep in mind is that pressure thrives in busyness. So if you intentionally slow down, set some boundaries, prioritize rest, rest is good. Rest is good. It's not a luxury. Don't think of it as a luxury. It's a necessity. And I understand. that some people, they don't have the village, they don't have help, like whatever it is, but you can find the time to rest. You can. You must. And that pressure is no longer worth it, right? So rest up, mama. What's worth it is your mental health and your capacity as a mother. Because your kids, they don't care about specific achievements or they don't care if their room is always clean or the dishes are done, blah, blah, blah. Like what they really care about is that you're going to love them and show up for them unconditionally. So you better start loving yourself that way and get rid of that pressure. These six patterns, projecting, people pleasing, perfectionism, parentifying, panic reacting, and pressure are often passed down to us, right? Without even realizing it. But our awareness is the key. It is the power to break the cycle. And when we start to notice them, we can choose a different way. one that is rooted in connection, self-trust, and compassion. Healing isn't about getting it perfect. I'm not perfect. You're not perfect. We're never going to be perfect. But it's about giving ourselves the permission to grow, to mother in a way that feels true to us, and to create a healthier foundation for our children. Every small step you take toward healing is truly a step toward rewriting your family's story for generations to come. Thank you so much. You are a cycle breaker. You can do it.