Unbreakable Mind & Body
Welcome to The Unbreakable Mind & Body podcast with host, Tiana Gonzalez—a multi-passionate creative, storyteller, and entrepreneur with a fierce love for movement. This is our space for powerful stories and actionable strategies to help you build mental resilience and elevate your self-care practice. Together, we’ll unlock the tools you need to create an unbreakable mind and body.
Unbreakable Mind & Body
Forgiveness, Healing and Making Peace with the Past
What happens when a routine doctor's appointment triggers a flood of unresolved trauma? This raw, unfiltered episode takes you through my unexpected 48-hour emotional journey after my cancer-survivor mother needed a hospital stay.
During what should have been a simple appointment, I found myself catapulted back to 2007 – when my mom battled brain cancer while I juggled a soul-crushing corporate job and an unsupportive relationship. The memory of her telling me to "stop fucking crying" during one vulnerable moment had shaped years of emotional suppression that I'm only now beginning to unpack.
We don't need to live in our memories to learn from them. "You can look back, get your notes, make your mental checklist and then move on," I share, inviting you to consider where you might be dwelling unnecessarily in past pain.
The most transformative insight came when examining my approach to self-growth. For decades, I thought healing meant abandoning my former self. Now I understand that true integration means thanking those earlier versions of myself for doing their best with limited tools.
Whether you're navigating complex family dynamics, processing old wounds, or seeking to make peace with your own history, this episode offers a gentle reminder that forgiveness – especially of yourself – might be the key.
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Disclaimer: This show is for education and entertainment purposes only. This is not intended as a replacement for therapy. Please seek out the help of a professional to assist you with your specific situation.
Welcome to the Unbreakable Mind and Body podcast. I am your host, tiana Gonzalez, a multi-passionate, creative storyteller and entrepreneur with a fierce love for movement. This is our space for powerful stories and actionable strategies to help you build mental resilience and elevate your self-care practice. Together, we will unlock the tools that you need to create an unbreakable mind and body.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the show. I am your host, tiana, and I got to tell you I'm recording this episode at the 11th hour. It's about 8 pm Sunday night and I like to launch each episode 4 am Monday morning, so I am cutting it close, but I have good reason and I'll get into that in a second. This episode will center around a few different topics that are interconnected and also very unique and overlap, so I want to talk about forgiveness, healing and then dwelling in the past. Now I'm going to share some personal things with you about the experiences I had this weekend with my mom, and they will shed some light on why I couldn't get to record and produce this episode until now.
Speaker 2:So my mom does not live close to me at the moment, but her network of doctors is within my proximity, so when she comes to town to do her appointments, obviously she'll try to put a couple close together if she can, and she had an appointment Thursday that a friend took her to and then she had an appointment Friday. So I planned to pick her up, take her out to lunch, do a little scenic drive and then take her to her doctor appointment and potentially go shopping and stuff like that Just kind of go with the flow, and I am going to conserve or protect her privacy and not share some of the details. However, we did have to go to the emergency room after the doctor appointment that I took her to on Friday because he wanted her to do some further testing, and you may or may not know this, but my mom is a cancer survivor and she had brain cancer. We found the tumor in July of 2007 and she had the tumor removed and then did about 18 months of various treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City. So because she's a survivor, obviously there are certain things that we have to pay attention to, a little bit more than perhaps somebody who's got survival of different types of things, somebody who's got survival of different types of things. So we go to the emergency room and it was sad and cute and funny and frustrating all at once, because my mom didn't even want me to walk her in or check her in to the emergency room.
Speaker 2:I'd like to give her autonomy. She is able to make her own decisions. She'll ask me for advice when she needs it, but I think something that's important is to allow people to do what they want when they want to as they're getting older, and so I want her to feel like she can do these things on her own. And she does. So she says to me we pull into the emergency room parking lot and she looks at me and says I'm not going to be long, but I'm going to go in by myself. You go, do what you have to do and then come back. And I said you know, are you sure? She said yeah, I did have an errand I needed to run, so I do that.
Speaker 2:I come back and they tell her she may need to be admitted because some of the testing that the doctor ordered for her she would have to wait until the next morning. She didn't even want to take off her shoes. I said Ma, are you sure? You know? We can take your sneakers off. I'll bring you some pajamas. She says no, I'm not staying long, they're going to do the tests and then I'm going to get out of here.
Speaker 2:And I don't know if she was being cavalier or just using the law of attraction or manifesting a positive outcome, but I love that. I really do love that. Now, I do think it's a little delulu. However, you've heard me say on previous episodes that sometimes, to achieve the levels of success that you want in your life, you have to be somewhat delusional, a little bit crazy, a little out there, because it's those people who actually accomplish those lofty dreams that they set out to accomplish. There is a saying and I'm going to mess it up because I can never remember it, but it's something to the effect of only those who go too far ever fully know how far they could possibly go, and I love that. That's my mom. That is my mom. She will go far.
Speaker 2:My brother the one closest to me in age and myself both got that from her. We are adrenaline junkies. We push ourselves really hard. We always go just a little too far, and my brother has been injured many times on his mountain bike. He has pushed himself in running events. He's had a lot of broken bones and injuries over the years and great stories to tell about it. And I'm just somebody who has said out loud to people that I'm friends with during a workout. I feel like I'm going to die. I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack and you know what? If it happens while I'm doing this, I'm going to die a happy woman, and I mean it when I say shit like that. So I get a little bit of this stubborn hardheadedness from my mom. There's no lie about that. They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and I'm living proof of that.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, she spent about 46 hours in the hospital. She did have to get admitted and she stayed two nights because she had to wait to get results from the doctor after he analyzed the tests. So she was released today and she couldn't wait to get out of there. Obviously Now I'm checking in with her the whole time to make sure she's okay. I bring her some some things a headphone set for her phone, a charger for the phone, and I had planned to bring her her favorite sandwich and a book. But then she called me and said guess what? I'm good to go, I can get out of here. So, um, you know, she got an Uber and left. She didn't even want to wait for me to come and pick her up. She was ready to get the fuck out of there and you know what? I don't blame her, so she's good to go. She does have some follow-up appointments to take care of, but nothing urgent and nothing critical. But I will say this that was the most stressful 48 hours of my life. I broke down in tears in the locker room today at the gym this morning because I kept thinking about what the experience was like when she had cancer in 2007 and 2008, and just how difficult it was not for me, but difficult it was to see her go through that and I realized that I have some unresolved emotions. I have some big feelings about that time of my life.
Speaker 2:In 2007, I was working for Lehman Brothers in Midtown. It was my first real stressful big girl job episode that, unfortunately for me, the day that I interviewed for that job I was in a car accident and I just had like so much adrenaline rushing through me. When they made the offer, I immediately jumped on it without really thinking it through and negotiating a better salary. Once I took the offer and started working in the city, I realized I was actually making less because I had to spend more money on clothes, transportation, my parking at the train station every month and then my monthly train pass, not to mention incidentals like coffee, lunch snacks, things like that, so unbeknownst to me until I was in it.
Speaker 2:I was in a really stressful situation with this job. Not to mention, I was in a relationship with somebody who was not contributing anywhere near as much to the relationship and not very supportive, especially when my mom was diagnosed with brain cancer. In fact, the day of her surgery was diagnosed with brain cancer. In fact, the day of her surgery, we got into an argument and he never showed up for me. He didn't show up at the hospital, he didn't call me, he didn't show up at my house. No card, nothing. I got a text message Now in 2007,.
Speaker 2:That's unacceptable. In 2007, we were not texting important things. We were not texting novels to each other. In 2007, you were telling somebody hey, I'm outside or I'm on my way, but you weren't texting them. I hope your mom survives brain cancer. I hope your mom survives her surgery. I hope your mom is okay and it's not cancer. Things like that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Unacceptable.
Speaker 2:So I'm painting this picture for you Super fucking stressful life, super stressful job, stressful job. And on top of that, here's where the emotions come in. I really was not able to. I was not allowed to show my emotions regarding my mother's illness at the time. One day I vividly remember one day I was driving her.
Speaker 2:Now, at this point, she's probably about 90 pounds. Her hair had all fallen out and she was very skinny. She had a bandana on her head. I think she had lost most of her eyebrows too and we were talking about something and I started to cry in the car and she started screaming at me. She basically told me stop fucking crying, you're pathetic, this is about me, it's not about you. And I think that was just her defense mechanism. Her go-to was always anger. Her go-to was always anger. But I never, from that day forward, really showed any emotions in front of my mom about her or how I felt about her situation, like I wasn't trying to make it about me at all or feel sorry for myself. It was really more about that.
Speaker 2:I was sad that she was going through that experience, but at the time she didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to see it. So this morning I worked out before I had my clients and, as I'm in the locker room, we spoke on the phone briefly. This was still before she had gotten word from the doctor. So she was waiting to hear from the doctor and we were hoping she would be released. But we talked about. She called me and we talked about what I was going to bring her her favorite sandwich, maybe a book, you know, a fresh pair of socks, just something. Book, you know, a fresh pair of socks, just something. Magazines, something to keep her entertained.
Speaker 2:And when I hung up the phone, it just was so reminiscent of going to see her before and then immediately after she had brain surgery in 2007. And it reminded me of what our family dynamic was like for almost two years you know, 18 months to two years where you know things were just off. She needed a lot of help and she wasn't herself and I just crumbled, started crying right in my towel in the locker room. I think I had my workout pants on but my work t-shirt on, or vice versa. I was like half dressed and these emotions just overwhelmed me and I had to let myself feel those feelings and then also tell myself and remind myself that it's important not to catastrophize everything and to not worry about something that might not be. Mother always would tell me don't worry, until you have something to worry about, don't worry. And I don't know if she was always telling me that just to gaslight me or just to try to make me feel better, but she was worrying or if she really meant it. But regardless, I said that to myself, I pulled it together and I just felt really sad most of the day and even after she said, oh, I got released or I'm getting released. And we spoke and she was with her friend where she's staying, and she was like, so happy.
Speaker 2:And then this heavy guilt feeling came in and I I haven't been able to shake it. This happens to me a lot. When I see my mom and we have a good experience, or we talk on the phone and we have a good time, and then it's over. I'm really sad and I wish that there was something that I could do to change it. But I know why I'm sad. There was something that I could do to change it. But I know why I'm sad.
Speaker 2:I'm sad because we didn't have a ton of that in the past. There was always fighting, there was always frustration. There was always this sort of energy of one upping each other. And you know it's family, right Like you joke on, you play jokes on each other, you're pranking each other, you're sharing embarrassing stories in front of your brother's girlfriend, or he is in front of my boyfriend or my you know, et cetera. And so I can't help but think about the past a lot today and think about what that time of my life was like and remember when.
Speaker 2:Remember when, that's the saying, remember when. But we can't stay stuck there. But we can't stay stuck there. Remember and remember everything positive and anything you categorize as negative too, because it probably taught you something. But you don't have to live there. You can look back, get your notes, make your mental checklist and then move on. You don't have to sit in that memory anymore and guess what? You can change the energy of it, change the story. For a long time I was upset with my mom about that incident in the car, when she told me to stop fucking crying You're not the one with cancer. And I remember being like how dare you.
Speaker 2:I'm allowed to feel what I feel, and I look back on that situation now and I say to myself I know why she did that. She was scared. She also probably wasn't used to seeing me be emotional in front of her that much, because I didn't. I wasn't. Often I would run away from her. I was the kid who, when I was upset, I'd go to my room and lock the door and put the music on loud. I would always pretend that I was fine. I didn't want my mom's advice, I didn't want to tell her what was going on, and so I always just pretended that I was fine. But on the inside I was miserable or sad or heartbroken about something, or I was missing my dad and I just didn't want to talk to her about it, you know. So if I'm thinking about feeling sad after seeing my mom and thinking about the past and trying to create good things in the present moment, then that means I need to forgive myself for harboring resentment and holding anger and maybe thinking about things from the past in not such a great light, because I can choose to see things differently. I can choose to humanize my parents and realize that they were kids when they had me, they probably did the best that they could. I trust that they did the best that they could with what they had, but they were still growing up too. And when you do that, when you really put yourself in a position to understand the whole story, the generations before us and the generations that will come after us Not from me, because I'm not having kids, but I'm hoping that my youngest brother has kids someday. He's the hope, you know. That's how you heal, that's how you make the present moment the best that you possibly can, because you forgive yourself and you forgive other people for shit that happened. Now, obviously, for many of us there are things that are truly unforgivable and there's pain that's so deep rooted we'll never really fully be freed from those shackles. But what you can do is look for the light. You can choose to be optimistic in a world that may feel dark to you. You can choose to be that little sprig of grass that's growing through the crack in the concrete, that's growing from the rain that comes down and then eventually sprouts into this beautiful lavender flower with white in the middle and the leaves are rounded and soft and angelic looking and they just poof up and open up and, before you know it, you focus on that flower instead of on the crack in the concrete. There's another one, and another one, and another one, and now there's a bee and there's a butterfly, and now you have a whole fucking garden in the middle of this concrete. Actually, side note, did you see? About a year ago there was a little koi pond that someone created in the sidewalk in an area of Brooklyn. I wish I knew the neighborhood. I think it grew from a hydrant that was leaking and then somebody put some fish in there and before you know it, it was a whole ecosystem and I love that. And that's kind of what I'm getting at here.
Speaker 2:In the midst of chaos, you can choose to be calm In this concrete place. You can choose to be that flower, or you can at least choose to see it. You don't have to be it, but you can choose to see it. To see it and that forgiveness piece that is about freeing yourself from the shackles that you're holding yourself in. Oh, this person hurt me when I was five years old and you've been holding onto that pain since you were five years old. What if you could make peace with it and set yourself free from the weight of that burden. How would your life change then?
Speaker 2:I have no idea if this episode makes sense to you. It's more of a ramble. It's more of a word vomit. It's more of me giving you a little bit of insight into who I am.
Speaker 2:Life is complicated, family is complex and nobody's family is perfect. We all have shit. Everybody is dealing with something private. Everybody is coping with things that they will never talk to you about, but they are heavy in that person's heart. That's why you choose to be kind. That's why I choose to just give people a little bit of grace, you know, because everyone has something. Everyone's going through something. Now my mom will be okay and we'll be okay. Our relationship is pretty good now. We talk, and I have a lot more patience than I ever did before. But I'm certainly not going to get on a soapbox and tell you how you should live your life and how you should treat your loved ones, because we all live different lives. But if you can find a way to cut some of that weight, to get rid of some of that emotional burden you're carrying around so that you can float a little higher, I would highly encourage you to explore and navigate those things that you're still harboring inside, that that ugly part of you, and maybe you can find a way to see it differently. Maybe it's not going to change completely, but you can look at it through a different lens, because all of it is you.
Speaker 2:And in my own healing journey, in my own process, the mistake I made for a very long time probably up until I was about 42 or 43, which is only a few years ago is in my healing journey, I identified myself as becoming a better version of myself and doing away, abandoning the old version of me, and I see things and view uh, I view things very differently now Now, yes, I still agree I'm becoming the best version of myself possible. I am currently the best version of myself right now and I'm going to keep quantum leaping and getting better and better and better. The difference is I'm not doing away with the old versions of me. I'm looking back and saying thank you to those old versions of me and integrating those darker parts of me, the parts that maybe I feel shame about now, because I did the best I could at the time with the tools that I had at my disposal, and I can't ask for anything more than that.
Speaker 2:So why would I abandon the person who did the best she could for me, which is the past me? That doesn't make any sense, right? She did everything for me. She cultivated this whole life, got an education, changed jobs, left toxic people, toxic friendships, toxic boyfriends, toxic jobs. Whenever the shoe didn't fit, she said I'm getting the fuck out of here. And the older I get, the faster we do that. And the older I get, the faster we do that. We do not have anything promised. We do not know how long we have on earth, so you got to make the most of the time you have now here today, this moment. Live to your fullest potential, forgive yourself for mistakes, integrate those parts of you into the better, newer, more amazing version that you are and that you're becoming, and maybe just look on the past and say, wow, that was crazy. Or wow, that was amazing. Look how far we've come. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. I appreciate your time and attention always, each and every week, and I'll catch you on the next one. Bye.