Welcome to the Mother-Daughter Relationship. Show the podcast for mothers and daughters who want to build stronger bonds, deepen their understanding and transform their relationships. I'm your host, Brittany Scott, licensed therapist and mother-daughter relationship coach. After years of working with hundreds of daughters. And mothers. I've developed strategies that help break generational patterns, heal wounds, and create the loving relationships you've always wanted. Each week I'll be sharing insights from real clients, expert interviews and practical tools you can use immediately to improve your mother-daughter dynamic. Whether you're struggling with communication breakdowns, navigating major life transitions, or simply wanna take your already good relationship to the next level. The show is for you. And yes, the transformation I guide my clients through can be yours too. I'll share more about how you can work with me. It's time to experience the relationship you both deserve. Are you ready? Let's dive in.

Hey, welcome back to the show. It's your host, Brittany. Two episodes ago, I told y'all I was setting up a form where you could submit questions to me to answer on the podcast. I got my first question and I'm excited to dive into it because it's something I think is important to answer and I've gotten the question before. So I'm glad that it was able to come back. The listener chose to remain anonymous, so I'm going to 100% respect that. The question reads, How do I know when me and my mom need family therapy as opposed to coaching or a program? It feels like what we have to process is too big to just happen in coaching this is such an important question because there's a lot of confusion about the difference between therapy and coaching, and honestly knowing which one you need can save you time, money, and frustration. And I never want anybody to waste money. So let me start with the most basic difference between therapy and coaching. Therapy looks backwards. Coaching looks forward. Therapy helps you understand why you're feeling or acting a certain way by processing what happened in the past. A therapist is there to help you work through trauma, understand your triggers and process the emotions connected to past experiences. Coaching helps you learn new skills and behaviors to create the relationships you want moving forward. A coach is there to teach you something, to train you in something, or to help you get better at something. Now, I know it can get confusing. Both can help you get to the same place eventually. I think therapy and coaching are both going, you're gonna end up in the same arena, for lack of better words, but the path of getting there is very different. In family therapy with your mom, you'd spend a significant time diving deep into what happened. You'd explore the specific incidents that cause pain, the emotions connected to those experiences when your mom made certain choices, how those experiences shaped your beliefs about yourself. This process is important, but it requires both mother and daughter to be emotionally available and self-aware enough to sit in that discomfort together. What I've seen happen so often is that this process can turn into a blame game, especially when you're dealing with a mother wound, you as the daughter finally have a space to express your pain, the trauma or the hurt or anything that's been lasting or anything you've been holding onto. and suddenly your mom feels attacked and defensive. If your mom isn't ready for that level of vulnerability and accountability, she might shut down or even leave therapy altogether. And now we say therapy didn't work. My coaching program, reconnection Rescue, takes a different approach in 13 weeks of 90 minute sessions where mom and daughter work together. Every single time there's no, I'm gonna come alone, or my mom can't make this session. In this program, we do acknowledge what happened. We need to understand where things went wrong. But the difference is we don't camp out there, we don't focus on the past. Instead, we identify the breakdown, what hurt, what felt confusing, what damaged the relationship. Then we understand the patterns. We trace your generational lineage to see what cycles have been passed down through your family. And we map those and you guys fully identify what generational cycles your family has. Then we build new patterns. We focus most of our time here creating new ways to communicate, set boundaries and connect, feel, heard and supported, and create a new level of love and trust in this relationship. The goal is to get you to a place where your relationship feels good today, not necessarily focus on healing every single trauma from the past. Okay, so now that I've explained that, how do you decide so I want you to ask yourself these questions. Do you wanna focus on healing trauma? If you need to process deep hurt, abuse, or complex trauma with your mom, therapy is the best place for you. but please know that this requires a mom who is emotionally ready to sit in all of that discomfort. Next question, do you want to focus on building a better relationship? If you want to learn how to communicate differently, set healthy boundaries and create new patterns moving forward, coaching might be effective. Now, again, like I said, therapy is going to get you to this part too. not to say that this doesn't happen in therapy, but you're gonna focus more on the trauma stuff first. You're gonna spend a lot of time there first, whereas in coaching, you're gonna spend a lot less time on processing the deep hurt or abuse or complex trauma. Okay, next question. How emotionally available is your mom? If your mom gets defensive easily. Struggles with accountability shuts down when emotions get heavy. I would suggest you start with coaching 'cause you might be more successful because you're going to spend less time. And that deep hurt, which is deeply emotional, deeply vulnerable. some people just cannot, they can't be seen in that way. They're not ready to hold. All of those truths that they, maybe they did mess up, maybe they did hurt you along the way and sit in it. Some people aren't ready. And the last question, what is your ultimate goal? Are you trying to heal from the past? Are you trying to create something better for the future? If you just want to work on having a better relationship with your mom, maybe get your mom back or maybe have the mom you never had. Maybe just focus on coaching because you're going to look forward and you don't have to focus on looking back. But if you are too hurt, if you need to process the trauma and you want your mom a part of that, Then therapy is probably the answer. So I'm gonna go through those questions again. How do you decide if you wanna do coaching or therapy? Think about these four questions. Do you wanna focus on healing trauma? That's going to be therapy. Do you want to focus on building a better relationship? That can start with coaching. Therapy will also get you there. How emotionally available is your mom? And the last question, what's your ultimate goal? Decide what you wanna get out of this. If you're dealing with mother wound issues, you probably don't have a super self-aware, emotionally available mom. Some of you might though. I've seen them, I've met them, but that's often part of how the mother wound happened in the first place because she wasn't self-aware. She wasn't emotionally available. She wasn't a safe space. Traditionally, therapy can work, but it takes a very specific type of person to sit in a room where they're being held accountable for pain. They cause, especially if they never had to face it before I created my coaching program because I kept seeing moms run away from therapy. When it got too heavy, they'd feel blamed and attacked and instead of healing, the relationship just got worse. In coaching, we acknowledge the hurt without camping out in it. We say, this happened, it was painful. We're never doing it again. Now let's learn how to do it differently. So my personal recommendation on where you should start is going to depend on a couple things. My immediate answer is going to tell you to go to therapy. Because I know that therapy is a container that can hold the trauma, that can hold all of the big stuff that can help you guys process the pain and the triggers and everything else that might be playing a major part in your relationship. Okay? That container and that safety and that support is going to be with a licensed therapist. I will always tell you to see a therapist, but if you have the opportunity to work in a coaching program with someone. Like me, and I don't, I don't say that to mean myself in particular. I would love to have you as a client, but this is really about you finding the right support. So I'm not, I'm not saying I'm the right support in this moment. What I'm trying to say is that someone like me who is specific to the mother-daughter relationship. The training that I have the things that I have learned and the way that I work, I focus on how mothers and daughters attach to each other, how the relationship breaks from each other, and how to bring mothers and daughters back. I understand how mothers and daughters relate to each other. I know what I'm looking for inside of these relationships, and this is what I'm doing 90% of the time. I have 10% of clients who are women and they're not necessarily working on. Mother-daughter relationships, but sometimes it's adjacent to that. But 90% of my work is with moms and daughters. So if you're able to find a coach that is super specific to your needs, then I'd say you're most likely safe there and can bring your things to a coaching container. The other part that is going to be very important because we're talking about relational things. You heal relationships inside of relationships. So the person that you're working with, whether they're a therapist or a coach or someone like me that has created a coaching program, but I hold a license and I am a licensed therapist. You want to like that person. You want to vibe with that person, you want to, you wanna be able to build a relationship with them. You don't wanna work with them just because they say they're the best, but when they talk you, you hate it. Maybe you're skin crawl and you don't like their voice or. You like the work that they do, but there's something they said that just doesn't align with you morally or doesn't align with your values, and it's gonna be a struggle to build a relationship with them. You wanna be able to build a relationship with the person you're working with, and that is going to be central to all of the work that you do because you should be able to trust them. If you're holding back and you don't fully trust them, it doesn't matter how good they are. No real work is going to happen. They can be the absolute best in their field, but nothing will happen if you don't trust them because you won't fully open up to them, and so therefore, no real healing is gonna happen anyway. So that's the other piece that whoever, whichever lane you decide to go down to attempt to heal this relationship or to just heal like your own traumas, maybe by yourself, make sure that you like the person. Nothing else would matter if you don't even like them. I promised. But if there's significant trauma that's actively affecting your daily life, like if you're having panic attacks, severe depression or past experiences are making it impossible to function. Then individual therapy for yourself is probably the best step. To the person that asked this question, you said it feels like what you have to process is too big for coaching. I hear you, but I want you to consider this. Sometimes when something feels too big. The last thing you need to do is dive deeper into it right away. Sometimes what you need is to build some skills and stability. First, learn how to communicate with your mom in a way that doesn't trigger both of you. Practice setting boundaries that feel safe, maybe create some positive experiences together. Then if you still feel like you need to process the deeper trauma, you'll have a stronger foundation to do that work from. So as you can probably hear in this, there is no perfect answer to whether you need therapy or coaching. It depends on what you want, where your mom is emotionally and what your specific goals are. It also depends on what you're bringing to the room, because coaching, especially with somebody who has no therapy background cannot hold you in. Having panic attacks, severe depression heavy trauma, maybe suicidal ideation. You can't take that to coaching. Those big things are reserved strictly for therapy. A coach won't know how to help you through that. A coach won't have the container to help you through that, and they may not have the skillset. So if you're bringing. Those big things. Individual therapy is probably the best answer. If your mom is willing to work on the relationship, don't let the opportunity pass you by while trying to figure out the perfect approach. Start somewhere, build some momentum. You can always adjust course later. You can always change plans. You can. Switch from coaching to therapy or vice versa. You don't have to figure this out alone either. Whether you choose therapy coaching or something else entirely. Having support as you navigate the process makes all the difference. If you have questions about my coaching program specifically, Or if you want to explore whether therapy or coaching might be right for your situation, I'd love to talk with you. You can reach out through my website to schedule a consultation call. They're free and there's no pressure to become a client. You can come and ask your questions. That's all I have for today. I do hope that I was able to answer the question. I hope I helped and I will catch you in the next one.

That's all for today's episode of the Mother-Daughter Relationship Show. Thanks so much for spending this time with me. I hope you picked up some valuable insights that you can start using right away in your own relationship to create deeper connection and understanding. If something from today's episode resonated with you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it with the mother or daughter in your life who needs to hear this message. And while you're at it, please consider leaving a rating. And review so we can reach more families and transform the way mothers and daughters relate to each other. For those ready to take the next step, you can visit my website to learn more about my private coaching programs and my program designed specifically for mother-daughter pairs. Whether you're dealing with communication challenges, life transitions, or just wanna strengthen an already good relationship, I'm here to help. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you in the next one.