A Personal Note From Orion

Welcome, Stellar Life listeners! Have you ever wondered how your mother’s untold stories might be shaping your own life path? This conversation hits me close to home—and might change how you see your family dynamics forever.

I’m thrilled to introduce you to Jennifer Griffith, author of “Both Sides of Then” and podcast host of “About Your Mother.” As a former tech executive who left her career after her father’s passing to pursue her true calling, Jennifer brings a unique perspective on how our mothers’ experiences profoundly shape who we become.

In this heart-opening episode, Jennifer shares how she discovered and processed the revelation that her mother had been forced to give up a child for adoption—her brother—before Jennifer was born. This secret, combined with her father’s emotional departure from the family, created what Jennifer calls an “emotional orphanage” that transformed her from a confident young girl into someone searching for identity through perfectionism and self-punishment.

As someone who has worked on my own maternal relationship, I was deeply moved by Jennifer’s insights about generational trauma and the courage it takes to break these cycles. Her powerful perspective that “trauma unaddressed is trauma transferred” resonated with me on a profound level.

Listen now, and let me know what resonates most with you. How has your mother’s story influenced your own? I’d love to hear your thoughts. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the show!

In This Episode

• [02:11] – Jennifer introduces her book Both Sides of Then, a heartfelt exploration of her mother’s life and the ripple effects of generational trauma.
• [09:15] – Jennifer recounts the life-changing moment she discovered her brother at age 13 and the emotional aftermath of her parents’ choices.
• [14:27] – Jennifer reflects on how her mother’s experiences with loss and societal pressure deeply influenced her own identity and self-worth.
• [17:07] – Orion and Jennifer exchange personal stories of healing, revealing how their inner work reshaped their relationships with their parents.
• [25:11] – Jennifer opens up about motherhood, sharing the values and wisdom she hopes to pass on to her son.
• [31:56] – Jennifer examines the delicate balance of parenting while navigating emotional triggers and emphasizes the power of conscious parenting.
• [42:43] – Jennifer reveals how therapy became a turning point, helping her validate her emotions and embrace self-acceptance.
• [49:02] – Jennifer wraps up by offering her top insights for living a stellar life—grounded, intentional, and full of heart.

Jump to Links and Resources

About Today’s Show

Hey Jennifer, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here. I am looking forward to hearing your miraculous story.

Thank you for having me. I am thrilled to be here. 

Before we begin, maybe we can share a little about yourself and your book.

Yes, my book is Both Sides of Then. It is the story of my mother’s life, being raised in an orphanage in Philadelphia and then being forced to surrender her firstborn, my brother, for adoption in the decades before Roe and the impact that those experiences had on the mother she was to me. I am a recovering technology sales leader, so I spent a lot of time in technology for almost 20 years. I had always wanted to write.

I had a calling when my father passed away nine years ago. When I was with him as he was crossing over, I realized how quickly life went. One of the things that he said to me a couple of days before he died was it just went so fast. That really sunk in. My son was four at the time, as my father passed away, and I just realized that I was trying to do it all but not doing the thing that I knew I wanted to do in life. 

I knew that on my deathbed, I wanted to say that I wrote a book. So, when he passed away, I left my tech career to be with my son and pursue my writing passion, and that is when my writing journey truly began. It took me five years to write my story. Originally, I had a coach, and I said, “I don’t know what this book is about,” she said to me, “Step out of the way. Just get out of the way and see what comes.” 

So when I did that, the voice coming to me was my mom as a young girl. I always knew that my mother had this captivating, alluring story because of the photos she framed on her dresser. She had a photo of the orphanage that she was raised in. She had a photo of her parents together, and she would tell me, “That’s the only picture I have of my parents.” 

I just knew something about her story was living inside of me, and that for many reasons, my mother was not going to be able to write her story, even though, throughout my life, I was the young girl where my mom would play the piano, or she would say a little bit about her childhood, the room would freeze, and everybody would say, “You need to write a book.” 

For many reasons, I knew that my mother could not do that and that when I stepped out of the way, my mom’s story came through me in first person. I originally wrote her story in first person and had my voice bookending it. That means I was introducing why I was writing my mother’s story, and I was closing out on the impact that her story had on the mother that she was to me, and an editor said to me, “It’s good, but it’s very sad.” 

My mom’s story is very tragic and very sad. It’s very cinematic and Dickens-like. The editor said to me, “I wanted more of your story.” One of the reasons that I’m sharing that moment is because I sat there for a long time and said, “No, I don’t have a story to tell. My mom’s story is the one. What do you mean you want more of my story? I’m just a girl trying to make it in the world, just trying to live in San Francisco, pay my rent, make friends, and hopefully get married.” 

She said, “No, no, it’s your everyday story that I think is really going to resonate with people.” That’s where I tapped into this larger thing, that our mother’s story is so deeply connected to our own, and that when I wrote my mother’s story first, I was actually putting together the pieces of my life, which inspired me to start my podcast About Your Mother, where your story begins, but also inspired me to write the book the way that I did, that I go back and forth between our stories, mother and daughter in first person. 

The miraculous thing happens is that while my mother’s story looks so incredibly different from my story on the outside, they are deeply connected, and when I wrote her story than mine, what I put together is a link that trauma unaddressed is trauma transferred, that my mother’s trauma became my trauma as a young girl, and that the way that I needed to process it is to put it in its place, let’s say, was to write this book.

When did you discover you had a brother? 

I was 13 years old, and it was around Christmas time. My mother sat me down in the living room, and at this point, I was my mother and my father’s only child. My dad had been married before and had two girls who lived on the East Coast with their mom, and we were on the West Coast then. My mom said, “What would you think if you had a brother?” I looked at her at 13, full of sass, bad makeup and bad hairdo, and said, “You’re pregnant? Gross!” Imagine me. You know, 13, you’re at a special place in life. 

So my mom hits me with this bomb, and she says, “What would you think if you had a brother?” I looked at her and again, “I think you’re pregnant. This can’t be.” She said, “No, no, I just found him.” And it hit me: how do you lose a child? How was it that my mother, who lived solely to be my mother and was a wonderful mother, her firstborn, was given away? That began a more general understanding at a very young age that my mother was a woman with a story and was no longer just my mom. She was a woman with a story. This is chapter one. I’m not giving the book away. 

Trauma unaddressed is trauma transferred. It passes down, generation after generation. Share on X

And then, on the heels of that, my father came home months later and said he no longer wanted to be part of the family. He said, “I don’t want to be here anymore,” very simply. As a young girl on my way to discovering who I am, my parents leave, symbolically. They are emotionally no longer present in my house, leading to a very long unraveling of who I am. I was no longer secure in myself, and I was pursuing perfectionism and anything that could give me some sense of control in my environment. My adolescence got turned upside down, and I felt the effects of that, and that is a lot of what my story is, how those two moments undid my life and undid my sense of self and the way that I found self-acceptance and love after going through that as a young girl.

What was the difference in your personality before those two events happened, before your dad left, before your mom told you, “Hey, you got a brother, and I found him,” and I believe she was, like, all of a sudden, really focused on him. Did you meet him? 

Oh, absolutely. I think that’s a really brilliant question. What was I like? I did lose myself after that because my parents transitioned into their own worlds, let’s say. Life as I knew it was no longer the same. So, to first answer your question, my brother showed up a month later. My mother had found him, and he was 18 years old, which allowed her to identify who he was. He’s wonderful, and he’s had a wonderful life. He’s an incredible human being. 

He was raised by a wonderful family. He’s an out-of-this-world father. We have been in each other’s lives since that moment, and obviously, it’s had different transitions. As we have grown up, the closeness we felt when he first came into the family evolved as he raised his own family. But to answer your question on how those two things changed who I was. 

I had always known something was wrong if that makes sense. As a young girl, kids are so smart. I knew something was wrong in my family leading up to that, but you can’t articulate it when you’re young. You’re not the adult in the room. I knew my mom was different than other moms, and I will say, in researching this book and interviewing many women who went through what my mom did in the era before Roe, many of their kids say the same thing. 

I knew my mom was different because she was living with a ghost. While my mom was taking care of me, she was waking up every day wondering where her son was. “Was he alive? Was he happy?” And now, as a mom, I put myself in her shoes, and no wonder she was different from other moms. She was wrestling with this larger question that gripped her soul about her son that she had surrendered under societal pressure. 

So, while that moment with my mom was revealing, things started to come together. I felt somewhat rudderless. I had my interest at the time. I was into the clarinet and music, my friends and gymnastics, and it’s almost as if everything in my house went quiet after that. I became quiet. I internalized everything that my parents were going through, but not in a healthy way, because imagine your brother showing up a month later, and we never talked about what happened, never. My father announced he wanted to leave, and then it was never spoken of again because he ended up staying until I went to college. 

Oh, he ended up staying. Wow, okay. 

He ended up staying. I think what happened to me, the thing how I was different before and then after, is that I became silent, and silence is linked to shame, and shame can do a number on people if you don’t address it or talk about it.

I do think trauma of any kind can be about transformation.

“I’m the reason they did it, or I’m the reason they’re acting this way.” What was the shame about?

Yeah, I think from my mother’s perspective, I realized as a young girl, “Oh, no wonder I was never enough. No wonder I could never be enough.” She had lost a child. I was one of two, and I was there every day, but I was never going to fill that hole in her heart. 

You’re half as important now, all of a sudden.

I’m half as important. I’m not saying it’s rational or absolutely healthy to think that way. Still, as an adolescent, going through my own identity issues, that certainly was the way that I swallowed it, especially because then we didn’t talk about it. Then, my father wanted to leave, that’s where perfectionism came in. I thought, “Well, if I were just a good kid, if I was perfect and I did things the way they wanted, maybe their marriage wouldn’t be in the state it’s in.” 

Oh, it’s terrible how kids take on their parent’s mistakes. It’s awful, isn’t it?

There’s a saying out there that we are the product of our parent’s unresolved issues. One of the things that I really focused on in this book was showing people how I processed these two traumatic events in a way that no longer consumed me but was a tool. I do think trauma of any kind can be about transformation and that your breakdowns are your breakthroughs in many ways, and the way that you get through those things is that you face them. To my earlier point, my parents were not going to do it. We were not going to talk about why my mother had to relinquish a child and why my father wanted to leave. These conversations didn’t happen until I was in my 40s.

When you layer the stories, your story, your mom’s story, what are some major points or similarities you were unaware of? 

There are so many, and it took me writing it. I could not believe that there were parallels in our stories. My mom had two parents who died tragically, and she was placed in an orphanage. I lived in a home with a mom, a dad, a cat, and a dog. How could my life be similar? But what was similar is that I lived in somewhat of an emotional orphanage because my mother was so detached from the things that she had to go through, and in many ways, she was silenced throughout her entire life. 

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So, when she was in the orphanage, they would tell her, “Forget what happened. Just move forward with your life.” And at the time, as sad as it is, they would say to her and the women in the home, “You want to find a good man, get married, and have babies.” That’s your life aspirations. So, in many ways, my mom, when her parents died, was told to move on from it, put one foot in front of the other, and move on. 

Similarly, when she was unwed and pregnant, and at the time, society shunned these young mothers. When she went away to the Florence Crittenton home, which is a maternity home where the girls would give up their babies, they told my mom again, “Forget what happened to you.” And so, throughout her life, she was told to swallow that shame. Shame is a silencer of the greatest kind and can be rather dangerous. 

So, for me, what I have learned is that until you break the cycle of the pain or the trauma that lives in your family, it is going to carry on, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. Trauma can transform you. It can elevate your life. It can put you in a more accepting place. There are varying degrees of trauma, right? Mine is, I don’t know, middle grade, but there’s extreme trauma out there, but because bad things happen in my life, and I was able to process them, it’s almost like it’s transformed into something different. It’s now a tool. 

It’s a tool that I think has conversations with someone like you about. It’s a tool now that I have conversations with other people about the impact their mother’s life had on the way they were raised and the mother they are today. I really was going out and eager to break the cycle that I saw in my family, which I was so acutely aware of as a teenager and then as an adult. Looking back, I recognize the impact that had on my life trajectory. I had a lot of things that I had to get over in order to accept what happened to me. 

Trauma can transform you. It can elevate your life. It can put you in a more accepting place.

We listen to other people’s stories, and we start thinking about our story. I see some major parallels in my mom’s life and my life, and I’m the one who’s breaking the chain right now. I did a lot of work on myself, attended tons of seminars worldwide, and I’m still at it forever. But I feel like I healed a lot. With epigenetics, we inherit some things for eight generations. 

When you heal, you heal not only for the people that came before you but also for the other moms that will come in the future because this is already like something that is healed in their DNA. You build this new belief, and you build this new code in the DNA because you were healing, so your son’s and your grandson’s lives will be completely different. They’re going to have more opportunity, and they’re going to have their own soul correction, obviously, but at least some of it, you’re already healed.

Yeah, you do. When I became a mother, I realized the stakes became much higher. I realized that all those things that I went through with my parents were going to impact the way that I raised my son, and I, quite frankly, didn’t like a lot of it. I said, “Wait a minute. These things feel really big to me, and I’m going to try to clear the plate as much as I can for him so that he can level up from where I came.” 

I think I struggle with it every day. I trigger—I don’t love that word, but it’s the best I can think of now. It’s so triggering. There are so many times when I’m parenting my son that I know I’m coming from an emotional place, a deficit in what I experienced when I was younger. But I do want to be conscious of it. I think that’s what we’re all trying to aim for—to be very conscious of the things we carry, good and bad. 

One of the reasons that I wanted to title my book “Both Sides” is because there is light and dark in all of our lives. It’s how we learn to dance with it, accept it, and use it that really matters. I think in our society, we are so focused on the way things look and that they have to be a certain way. And man, we do a number on ourselves when we do that, don’t we? Things aren’t perfect, love is not perfect, and families are not perfect. 

I think the more we become accepting of that, the more it’s the ascent in our life that matters, not the view from the top, and that’s when we get into the real magic. And to your point, what I love about what I’m doing is that people start to see similarities in their own stories, like you shared. That is where we create community and connection, and that’s what I’m really interested in. 

I’m interested in how we share our narratives in a way—I’m not suggesting everybody needs to write a memoir the way that I did; not everybody needs to put their stuff in the street. I call it for everybody to devour. But what I do love is this connection, even that you and I now have about epigenetics, how trauma is transferred through generations and the impact it has on the way that we mother and love. I think that’s the magic of life. That’s just my jam. 

I love that because I think it creates the closeness that we’re all so eager to have and to know that we’re not alone in any of this. We’re all going through similar things, and obviously, there are things in the world that seem unsolvable at the moment, but the more we create community and connection, the better off we’re all gonna be. 

Yes, what do you think your son is thinking about this whole journey you’re going through with his grandma and the story? He’s like, “What’s going on?”

Things in the world seem unsolvable at the moment, but the more we create community and connection, the better off we’re all gonna be.

He’s like, “Why is my mommy grumpy some days when she’s writing, and why is she really grumpy when she doesn’t write?” Yeah, living with a writer. I don’t recommend it for many people. This can be a little bit of an emotional roller coaster. 

I think every woman is emotional. I think, as women, our strength is our emotion. Our intuition is connected to our emotions. Our senses are our strong suit. When people say, “Oh, you’re too emotional.” I’m like, “Well, thank you. I feel everything. I’m a woman. It’s a part of my being. It’s okay. That’s why I’m here.” Of course, we need to know how to ride the waves and train ourselves. But emotions are good, and it’s fine, it’s healthy. 

It is, and to the earlier point of what my house was like, it was so quiet and emotional-less, meaning none of the emotions were on the surface. They were all inside all of us. And man, was that a recipe for disaster? I mean, that was toxic. I think, in many ways, my mother and my father were detached from the reality that they were still in a house, married, and with me as a child. They were detached from that at that point. That was really dangerous. 

It had a material impact on all of us. But I think for my son, one of the lines I put in my book is that “he can now see the emotional ink that is in my veins.” What I really hope from the book is that he understands me as a mom a lot better, my strengths and weaknesses, the incredible maternal lineage that was before him, and the things they survived. My mother has told him he can’t read the book yet. He’s upset because he says, “It’s dedicated to me. Why can’t I read the book?” 

I can understand why she’s protecting him. He’s only 14. They think they’re adults, but they’re not yet.

Oh, yeah. And then, you know Orion, what the amazing thing is? I’m writing about my life when I was my son’s age. I’m writing about my 14-year-old self and how I launched from that time and became the woman I am today. And he’s my age. When it came out, I made that connection. I looked at him and thought, “Oh my gosh, he’s so young.” So I get why my mom doesn’t want him to read some of it yet. And certainly, there are some parts in there about my story. I’m like, “Oh, we can wait on you knowing about those things.”

I get it. I have a very intelligent young boy, and we have conversations. Sometimes, I forget he’s five. I’m like, Oh, wait a second. He’s five.”

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Yeah, I know. Aren’t they amazing? Children are so incredibly smart. I’ve had a lot of readers come to me and say, “I identified with your story, your triumphs and your struggles,” but one of the things that they say to me is that they think about their parenting differently. A lot of friends, some of whom have divorced, are co-parenting with the other parent. I think some people see the mistakes that my parents made, and they learn from them. I think that’s a magical outcome of this book as well—that people are rethinking some of the things they’re doing in their own homes, based on my takeaway as a child. 

What are some of those things? If you get into more details that people came to you’re like, “I can’t believe I’m doing this to my kid. I’m gonna change this.” 

Yeah, I think a lot of it is a general theme. We’re saying that kids are so smart, and even though we weren’t talking about it openly in my house, I knew. It’s almost like when the parents go to the bedroom, and they’re like, “We’re gonna have a conversation,” and the kids now, “Oh, they’re having a disagreement behind a closed door in the bedroom.” It’s around how astute and how feeling kids are. 

I think some readers have been inspired to be more open with their kids, not about family secrets or things that are not age-appropriate, but more about if something is going on in the home, the kids can feel it, and you do deserve the space to tell them to the correct degree what is going on in the home. I have a friend who reached out. They have a somewhat acrimonious divorce, and the finances become a big point of tension between the two adults. 

My friend said, “You know, I read your story, and when that became part of your parents’ divorce, you felt as if your wings had been clipped.” I had wanted to continue going to get my master’s, and my parents eventually just kind of said, “We’re done with you. We’re going to fight about money between the two of us.” That was a really isolating feeling for me and really painful because I did need their help, and they basically kind of both turned their backs on me because they were fighting about money. 

It’s things like that where I think people just kind of rethink their approach to what might be sometimes tension between adults and how the kids take it in. 

Do you think your mother feels like she found her voice through you? 

Oh, that gave me chills. That’s a beautiful question. I think, yes. Shame robbed my mom of her voice for a very long time. She was ashamed she was an orphan. She was ashamed she was a mother that relinquished. The other big layer of her shame was when my father no longer wanted to be married to her. I think it took me a long time to get her to see it, but she now sees the power in her story and how she’s a hero. 

That gives me chills. 

She is the hero. She really is. I’m incredibly proud of her because most people would have stopped trying. She wanted a house and a family. While it did go sideways, she did have it. She is the hero of her story, and I think she now sees it. I think she also sees that she’s giving voice to the millions of women. It’s millions of women and young girls who were forced to relinquish their children under societal pressure. They were shamed. They were told, “Your baby deserves a family. You do not deserve to raise this child.” I think for my mom to put a stake in the ground and say, “I did not like what they did to us,” and to put a stake in the ground and to say it was wrong and to do that on behalf of a lot of women who have never told their story, I think she likes that. I like it for her. I like how empowered she feels now when I think of many times in her life when she was powerless.

How did it heal your relationship with her?

Well, it’s been complicated. 

It’s always been complicated with moms. 

That mother-daughter relationship. I mean, boy, there are millions of books written about it, and there will be for the end of time.

For the rest of eternity.

When I was writing it, my mom and I have always been close in a way, and I think in many ways, I was mothering her a lot of my life because I saw she was so stuck. 

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I understand. That’s a heavy burden to take on, to become your mother’s mother; it’s not yours. In the last two or three years, I’ve put more boundaries around what I’m giving up for my loved ones, and especially emotional boundaries with my mom. It’s healthier for me because I’m like, “I don’t need to be anyone. I will always be there for my family and my mom. I don’t need to be her mother. I am a mother.” 

I have one child right now, and hopefully, God willing, I will have more in the future. I’m my son’s mom. That’s it. You know, they say until 13, they’re still in your aura. Then it kind of grows up a bit, and then at 18, of course, they’re their own person. But right now, I am my son’s mother. I’m not my mother’s mother. I want the best for her, and sometimes, she doesn’t make the right decisions the way I think they should be. 

It’s nice to be powerful and controlling sometimes, but I’m letting go of that as much as possible because it’s not healthy for anyone. I just understand that I do not need to take on that burden; for me, it’s a weight off of my shoulders. I can always be loved, help, whatever. I’m a really good daughter, but I also don’t need to take on this emotional happiness. It’s not my responsibility. 

Every person on this earth came for their own soul correction and to go through their own journey. Sometimes, when you help too much, you just get in the way. They need to go through their own stuff, even my child. It’s easier said than done, but I’m working on it.

Rage is a misguided emotion and can get you in trouble.

I’m working on it too. I have a question: what inspired you? Was there something that brought you to this level of awareness that you needed to do that for yourself?

I don’t know. I always learn, evolve, and analyze. I work with coaches. I did a lot of personal self-development work. I spoke with 407 amazing people, or 10 by now, on this podcast. I keep learning. I don’t know where the inspiration came from. It could be a coach I worked with. I don’t know, but it’s intuition and God’s guidance. As we grow, we see things differently, and if we’re interested, we take a deep dive into our magnificent world and recreate ourselves in a different way.

Yes, and I feel like I’m still doing this work, and I think it’s going to be my whole life that I’m struggling with this balance that you talk about, of over-nurturing, not mothering myself enough. That’s something that I’ve learned. I overextended myself to other people’s emotions, and because I was doing that ever since I was a young girl, I could see that my mother was, as I said earlier, “stuck” and that she didn’t have any fight left in her. In my book, I explain how rage became my companion as a teenager. Rage is a very misguided emotion and can get you in lots of trouble. 

Like what trouble? 

Well, once this moment happened and my house kind of transformed, I just became lost and wayward. And to your earlier question, where you said, what were you like before, and what were you like afterward, I had lost all feeling and respect for myself. 

You needed the rage to feel something, to feel alive.

Exactly. The result was I was a very good student. My grades went off the cliff. I was involved in a car accident. That was probably the most shameful moment and the hardest part of my audiobook to read because I was right there. My audiobook just came out, and it was a fascinating journey to read. It really acts as your book for people to listen to. But that was the scene; I could not get through that chapter. 

There is a saying that the abandoned become the abandoners. That’s very true of my mom.

It took me a really long time, because as a woman and mother now, I look back at that young girl, and I can feel how lost I was and how abandoned I felt. There is a saying that the abandoned become the abandoners. I think that’s very true of my mom. She abandoned me emotionally when the house of cards fell down. I’m not mad about it anymore. I was. I got to like how my relationship had evolved with my mom. 

When I was writing the book, I had a lot of angry moments, disappointment, and just a whole range of emotions. But then, when I got through it, and I really understood what it was like to live my mom’s life—I call it “zipped myself into her skin.” I told her story in the first person. I embodied everything I could about my mom’s life. I had tremendous empathy for her. On the other side of forgiveness is love and acceptance, and I can still not like what happened, and I can regret the years that I lost. 

And mourn them. 

And mourn that young girl who is in the back of a police car with her hands behind her back, having done a horrible thing in the middle of her small town. It was out of a movie. I had had an accident. I lived in a small town, and the whole community stood around me, watching me have terrible moments. But your breakdown is your breakthrough, and I was determined from that moment on not to let what was happening around me take me down the way it was. 

It took me a long time to get out of it, but I think we all have those kinds of breakdown moments. I call them the “bathroom floor moments” where you’re on the bathroom floor, and you’re like, “Okay, no more of this, whatever this is.” Through writing my story and sharing it with the world, my relationship with my mom has evolved in a big way. 

What I think your listeners will find interesting is when she finally read the book, I thought she would always be upset about me writing her story for her. She was not upset about that. She was upset about my take on my life, which is very telling and very interesting. I think that the complicated dynamic that we talk about with mothers and daughters is that a mother and a daughter are never going to walk away from the young years of their relationship with the same perspective. I think that’s like the risk of parenting, right? You do your best, but you don’t know what their memory will do.

The risk of parenting is that you do your best but don’t know what their memory will do.

I know. I keep reminding myself that it’s okay and they don’t have to be perfect. Even when I think I want to be, I’m not perfect. Okay, let’s start with that. But even when I have this something, this guild, I’m like, “Oh, I shouldn’t have said that. I should have treated him better. I should have done this, or this and that,” or, “Oh, my God, look at Mom’s lunch box. Mine should have been more nutrient-rich and not just peanut butter and jelly.” 

I know exactly what you’re talking about—the little things. 

But you know, I’m doing my best, and I’m conscious. I continuously learn and do my best, and that’s all I can do at any moment. I have great intentions of being a phenomenal mom, and I’m doing a lot for my son, and it’s so perfect. My mom says that even if it’s imperfect, it’s perfect. So it’s like perfect imperfection. Even if something is not perfect, it is still perfect. So just let go of the trying to control and be that bizarre image of a parent that that you see on Instagram, those moms that cook this perfect meal wearing Gucci and Louis Vuitton. Like, seriously?! That’s not real.

That’s not real at all. I actually don’t think I want to hang out with that person. 

I might want to have their suit like the Gucci thing.

Maybe you can have their closet. Yeah, but I think you make a great point. I was obviously listening to your podcast, the one with Christine Hassler, where I think one of the most important things as parents is this notion of rebuilding because we are going to make mistakes. What do we do after the mistake? The advice I received a long time ago was the importance of parents apologizing to their children and saying, “I was wrong. I should not have done that.” It’s such a magic sauce. 

I do that a lot. Sometimes I do it, and I’m like, “Wow, I’m apologizing again,” but, you know, I’m looking at my little one, he’s so forgiving. I’m like, “Wow.”

We are all born from a mother, but very few of us understand the woman they were before they became our mom.

Oh, aren’t they? 

They’re such bright lights. Their heart is full of love. They forgive so much. They forgive us more than we forgive ourselves, just like you did with your mom.

They do. And look, this is a lifelong journey. Some people have bigger hills to climb in this category. Some don’t. I never want to say I use trauma a lot, but there are varying degrees of trauma, and there’s some trauma out there that we can’t even comprehend. I’m not obviously saying I’m an expert in any of that. I’m not, but I just think the power of forgiveness is love and acceptance, as I said earlier, and that’s something that I feel genuinely for both of my parents after going through this exercise, which I encourage people to do. 

Even if it’s minor reflections or questions that you ask your mom or your dad if they’re still with us or even just writing down, what do you think it was like to be them? There is a universal truth that if you really want to get to know somebody, ask them about their mother. Because we are all born from a mother, but very few of us understand the woman they were before they became our mom. 

I encourage people to figure that out because it is a roadmap to who you are and the things that make you great and may have to be overcome. It’s such a healthy exercise to do. I mentioned I have tremendous empathy for both of my parents. Even though they made giant mistakes in raising me, they also did some things really well. I think the roadmap to our own life and where we’re heading is first, you gotta look back and say, “Okay, where do I come from? Who were the people that were raising me?” 

Obviously, mothers and fathers come in varying forms, and the setup can be varying. But if we want to know where we’re going, first, look back and say, “Okay, where do I come from?” That just makes the road ahead so much clearer. I’m not sure we’re always encouraged to do that. I think there are a lot of people who are interested in doing that, but I’m not sure that’s always been part of the family conversation. “Tell me about your life, Mom, Dad. Tell me who you are.” 

I love that. I always ask my mom about her life. I’ve been to a seminar. I don’t know if it was Brendon Burchard. I can’t remember. I’ve been to so many stuff. They talked about taking a video camera and asking your mom all the questions you want to ask, and I did that a few years ago. For my mom, it felt a little ominous, like, “I’m going to die, and this is my heritage.”

As I matured, I no longer saw my mistakes as something wrong with me. I saw them as lessons.

“This is my final documentation.”  

It’s not.  But it’s actually good. My mom is very closed off. She doesn’t talk about some events in her past, but slowly but surely, sometimes I get a little glimpses into this and that. I think as I am evolving and developing on a quantum level, it affects her field. I see that she’s evolving as well. Everybody around me is evolving when I’m evolving. We are all connected. My field affects everyone, not only in my close family but worldwide. So, the more work I do on myself, the more I can help heal them and heal the world. 

100% 

I want to ask about your healing journey. What kind of things did you do to heal? What did you learn, or who did you talk to?

There were a lot of things that really helped me put myself back together. One of them was I suffered from an eating disorder for years when that was deeply connected to control and perfectionism, and those things that I was trying to fix. One of the first things I did as I started to move was walk, and then I started to run. Running became my religion. It took that negative voice in my head and silenced her, and the voice started to change. 

It started to become, “You are powerful. You are strong.” Running really saved my life. Music saved my life. I love music. I listen to music all day long. I love all kinds. I think music is very healing. That was another thing. Then, books, reading, getting to this connectivity we all have, and sharing our narratives. We don’t feel as alone. We can see ourselves in other people’s stories. That’s the magic of life, right? 

Books were a big part of my healing journey. Then, in the book, I do talk about my relationship with my therapist, Susan, and how eye-opening that was and what a wonderful thing it was for me to be able to see that and to have somebody validate that what happened to me was not right. Sometimes, we don’t give ourselves that; sometimes, we just need somebody else to validate, like, “I hear you. You didn’t deserve that. You deserved better.” 

If you don’t think you have time for it, you do.

I think, for me, therapy is a multi-layered cake. That was a very important moment. Then, the other thing on my way to healing, I failed all the time. I failed at relationships, and I dated bad guys. I made lots of mistakes, but the difference was, as I matured in my 20s, 30s, and 40s, I no longer saw my mistakes as something wrong with me. I saw them as lessons. When I made a mistake, the thing that I ended up doing overtime was not punishing myself for making it. Whereas before, if I made mistakes, I would punish myself in big ways.

Wow, phenomenal. I kind of like writing it down. What you said was running and getting in the flow state. So you were running, and your body was releasing endorphins. You were getting in some kind of flow state. When you’re in such an expanded state, there is a place for intuition, God, energy, and inspiration to come and actually show you who you really are, and the conversation in your head starts to change. 

Then, listen to music. Music is very healing. You read books, you educate yourself, and you put intention on healing. You went to therapy with Susan, and she was your mirror, and she reflected to you that you deserve better, you’re okay, and you deserve to be loved. So she gave you permission to love yourself more, and then you got to a point where instead of shame, you embraced the lesson and became more self-accepting. Self-acceptance is phenomenal. It’s where you go and you create magical things,

I started to see that my mistakes were like a coat of armor. I study professional athletes, and that’s one of the things that I do. Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, I’ll study all of them in their mindset. I’m obsessed with the story behind the athletes, not necessarily the athletics itself, but how they become great. Universally, athletes know that you have to fail to succeed, and they know that they will miss a huge percentage of shots to be great. 

When you change that paradigm shift in your life, I’m not saying go out there and make mistakes and be reckless, but see the lesson in it and know that that’s what makes you who you are, and that’s the ascent I was saying earlier. I think we get so obsessed with the view from the top, and then it has to look a certain way. It’s really the climb. That’s where the grit and the passion live in the ascent to the top, whatever that is.

Absolutely. I agree. It took me a while to understand that it’s about the journey, not the accomplishment. Accomplishments are great, but how long do we celebrate our accomplishments? A day? A month? Few months? A year? Two years? And then we’re on to the next thing. It’s all about the journey. It’s not about the moment. “When I get to the top, I’m gonna dance and be happy.” Be happy now. Just like you said when your dad said, “It went so fast, I wish I did more.” Every day matters. 

The element of the human experience that matters is being connected.

Every day matters. The one thing I’ll also say is that we knew when he was going to die. I asked him, “Well, what do you want me to tell my son about what it means to be a man?” Because my son was the only grandson he had. The rest is that he has women all around him. That was a karma wheel getting my dad back. But I said, “What do you want me to tell Drake about being a man?” My dad said, “When they knock you down, keep getting up until you can’t get up anymore.” When he said that, I looked at him and thought, “That’s exactly who you are, Dad. You just keep getting up. I see the world trying to knock you down, but you just keep getting up.” My mom was the same way. I think that one of the reasons that this story resonates with people is that there is extraordinary greatness in ordinary lives.

Yes, beautiful. So, if you give us three top tips for living a stellar life, what would they be?

Be honest, look for the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable, and celebrate that truth. Number two, find your purpose, your why, and whatever that is, something that will fill you up. If you don’t think you have time for it, you do. I learned this from Mel Robbins. Do it for 15 minutes a day—15 minutes of inspired work towards something that you know will fulfill your life’s purpose because, to my dad’s point, it goes fast. Then, there are three ways to share your narrative. There are lots of different ways to do it. Memoir doesn’t necessarily have to be it, but share your story because it matters. We all have a story to tell. We start sharing them like you, and I have today. We are now connected. I now understand you better. We might be thousands and thousands of miles away, but you and I are now connected. 

I feel like we’re so close right now I can just hand you my cup of tea.

Exactly, and I would love that. I could still talk to you for hours. I think that the element of the human experience that really matters is being connected. And then that connection, we have community. I think we need it now more than ever, obviously, for lots of different reasons.

Where can people find you, learn from you, and get the book? 

It turns out there’s a lot of Jennifer Griffith in the world. My website and my handle are @byjennifergriffith. My book is available wherever books are sold—Both Sides of Then. I will tell you, for people who are reading it, they read it in two days. It took me five years to write, but I guess it’s a page-turner. That’s the feedback. I wrote the book that I love to read. So, I wanted it to be something people couldn’t put down. I would love for people to read it. I also just launched the audiobook, so if that’s available as well if people aren’t into reading, which seems to be kind of common these days,

Phenomenal. Congratulations. That’s beautiful. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your heart and being a voice for yourself, your mother, and other moms out there. I really appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I love what you’re doing. Thank you for having me. That was a beautiful hour.

Awesome. And thank you, listeners. Remember to be honest, find your why, and share your story because it matters. You matter. Remember, you matter. Have a stellar life. This is Orion till next time.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

{✓} Write your mother’s story to understand your own. Our mothers’ stories are deeply connected to our own, even when they appear completely different on the surface.

{✓} Break the cycle of unaddressed trauma. Make a conscious effort to process and heal your family trauma rather than passing it on.

{✓} Transform your trauma into a tool. View difficult experiences as tools for growth rather than permanent wounds.

{✓} Be conscious of what you carry. Pay attention to the positive and negative traits you’ve inherited from your parents – and how they influence your parenting and relationships.

{✓} Create physical outlets for negative emotions. Find a physical activity that can help you healthily process emotions.

{✓} Ask your parents about their lives before parenthood. Understanding the woman your mother was before she became “mom” provides a roadmap to understanding yourself.

{✓} Practice self-forgiveness for mistakes. When you make a mistake, focus on what you can learn rather than punishing yourself.

{✓} Find your purpose. Even if you think you don’t have time for your passion, dedicate just 15 minutes a day to inspired work that fulfills your life’s purpose.

{✓} Share your narrative in whatever form works for you. What matters is connecting with others through authentic sharing, which creates community and helps others feel less alone.

{✓} Connect with Jennifer Griffith. Follow Jennifer on social media @byjennifergriffith, visit her website, listen to her podcast About Your Mother, or read her book Both Sides of Then. 

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About Jennifer Griffith

Jennifer Griffith is a mother, author, and podcast host. In her writing, she explores the complexities of motherhood and the extraordinary moments that shape our lives. Her lived experience with generational trauma inspired her first book, which honors the power of the female voice even after it’s been silenced.