empowered teens and parents Archives

A Pathway Through Adult Mother Daughter Estrangement

by Debra | Feb 10, 2025

Are you experiencing Adult Mother Daughter Estrangement? In recent years, I’ve noticed a heartbreaking trend—many adult daughters, particularly in their 30s, are completely disconnecting from their mothers. While no mother is perfect, I believe that many of these strained relationships can be repaired with open communication, self-awareness, and a willingness to heal. Unfortunately, many daughters are unwilling to take this step, leaving mothers heartbroken and confused, wondering what they did to warrant such complete detachment.

I want to be clear—there are situations where estrangement is necessary, especially in cases of severe, ongoing abuse. But in many cases, the “crime” does not seem to fit the “punishment.” Emotional wounds from childhood, misunderstandings, and unhealed pain can build walls that feel impossible to break down. But I believe there is hope.

That’s why I am passionate about creating mother-daughter retreats—safe, guided spaces where both mothers and daughters can come together, even for just one weekend, to explore their relationship, express their feelings, and work toward understanding and healing. This retreat isn’t about placing blame or demanding immediate reconciliation. Instead, it’s a last effort to find clarity, acknowledge past hurts, and determine if healing is possible. I have worked with adult mother daughters that haven’t spoken in years, who then come into a healthy relationship where love is present again.

Why a Retreat?

A Safe Space for Honest Conversations – Many mothers and daughters struggle to communicate effectively. A retreat provides a structured environment where each person can feel heard.
Guided Healing – With the help of experienced facilitator, mothers and daughters can engage in exercises designed to promote understanding and empathy.
Breaking Generational Patterns – Many daughters fear repeating their mothers’ mistakes. Addressing family dynamics together can create healthier relationships for future generations.
Preventing Regret – In time, many estranged daughters may wish they had sought resolution. A retreat offers a chance to explore reconciliation before it’s too late.

The Challenge: Getting Daughters to Participate One of the biggest obstacles is that many daughters are unwilling to even consider reconnecting. Some therapists encourage complete estrangement, and societal messages often frame cutting off family as an act of self-care. While boundaries are essential, complete disconnection without an effort to resolve underlying issues can leave lasting wounds.

If you are a daughter, just think about what is possible to gain and what there is to lose. If, after the retreat, you are still in the same position, and your mother hasn’t budged on her position, this is okay, now you have your answer, and you can move on with your life, knowing you did everything you possibly could.

If you are a mother, my suggestion would be to send a text or email letting your daughter know how important your relationship is to you and that you’re willing to do whatever it takes to mend this bridge. Maybe try suggesting a retreat together with someone to mediate and send her my website info SedonaSoulRetrieval.com. If that doesn’t work, my suggestion is to work with me individually, mentoring to shift the energy and to detach from a loving place. Quite often after mothers work with me, looking at their fears and wounding and understanding how not to project them onto their daughter, the energy shifts on its own and the daughter comes around.

Through my Adult Mother Daughter Retreats and Mentoring, we will explore the complexities of mother-daughter dynamics, understand your part and heal old beliefs. If you are a mother struggling with estrangement or a daughter feeling conflicted about cutting ties, or just want to dig deeper into your relationship together and build a deeper connection, lets talk.

For those of you with teen daughters who would like to connect better and learn how to deepen or repair your bond, please check out my Teen Mother Daughter Retreats at EmpoweredTeensandParents.com.

Healing is possible, and you don’t have to navigate this journey alone.

Love, Debra

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Adult Mother Daughter Retreat Testimonial

“I can’t thank you enough for all you have done for me and my daughter. Having a “young adult” child move to the other side of the country while trying to resolve issues is needless to say challenging. When I was looking for an adult mother-daughter retreat online, I came across your website. Our expectations were exceeded. I loved that your retreat was so personal. The “one on one” sessions truly helped me see that my daughter was an adult and on her own journey. We both felt so comfortable talking to you. You were non-judgemental and so intuitive. You gave us both tools to use in life, not only with each other but with anyone we have a relationship with. Especially our own “little girls. The beautiful setting of Sedona and the activities you planned for us were the icing on the cake. We resolved so many issues and re-bonded emotionally and spiritually. I can truthfully say that we are closer now than ever. We have a new found respect for each other. My daughter and I needed this so badly. I have tears in my eyes again while writing to you. (and I am not a cryer) We love you and thank you for everything. With gratitude,” – Jill, Mother

Running From Our Fear and Pain! What Are Your Medicators?

by Debra | Oct 21, 2014

What do you do when you are suffering from either emotional or physical pain? Most people run like hell toward their medicators to distract themselves so they don’t have to deal with the feelings. First, let’s look at all the many medicators out there that we use to try to avoid our emotional and physical pain.

Things I might consume from the outside to change how I feel on the inside:

sugar, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, food, prescription drugs, illegal drugs, chocolate, gum, candy, soda…

Example of things I might do on the outside to change how I feel on the inside:

shop, gamble, work, sex, relationships, binge, purge, restrict, affairs, care take, rescue, enable, fix, worry, spend, religion, music, T.V., movies, computer, internet, exercise, blame, focus on others, criticize, judge, gossip, rage, depression, lecture, manipulate, control, keep secrets, thinking, keep busy, focus on negative, perfectionism, sleep, smoke, take things personally, bite nails, chew on objects, self harm, harm others, isolate, withdraw, shut down, argue, fantasize, sarcasm

Do you relate to any of these? I bet you didn’t even realize that you, too, run from your pain toward these medicators. When we are lonely, frustrated, angry, sad, hopeless, anxious, etc., we don’t like how it feels, so we do whatever we can to avoid feeling this way.

Your boyfriend breaks up with you and you are devastated; feelings of utter sadness, loneliness, and abandonment flood through you. What is your next move? People will often jump right into another relationship so they don’t have to feel like they aren’t good enough and the sadness that goes along with that. Unfortunately, stuffing those feelings and medicating just makes them bigger and they re-emerge again another time in a different situation.

Why is it so hard for us to be with our pain? What if we just sit with it until it dissipates? Even if we have do this many times a day, just be with the pain and feel it. Pema Chodron, a Buddhist author, talks about being with the pain and suffering and really experiencing it. What does it feel like in your body, what is its shape, color, etc. ? Analyze it! Look at what old belief is up that is causing this pain. If it’s physical pain, be with it, lean into it, and see what happens.

Running from our pain expands our old belief system and only perpetuates the pain. It may go away in that instance but it will return again with a vengeance! Look at the ways you run from those uncomfortable feelings and see what medicators you use. Try sitting with the feelings and explore them; embrace them and make friends with them.

Are You Being Compassionate With Your Meditation Practice?

by Debra | Apr 17, 2014

I used to be the gal who said, “Put the house on my back. I can carry it.”

I lost my mother when I was 26-years-old, my children were 4 and 5 years old, and I went into survival mode. I am a doer; I get things done, sometimes at any cost. The problem with operating this way is the price my health and nervous system paid.

Today, I know better, or I thought I did. That get- it- done- fast, do- it- right way of being crept back in my life into my meditation and processing. I noticed that I was being a bit aggressive with my practice and I was experiencing some anxiety. The funny thing is that I do know better. I know the best way to meditate and process through things in my life are through having compassion and slowing things down. This reminded me of how easy it is to revert back into old patterns and habits. It took a couple of days for me to realize this because I thought that it was a good thing to be so disciplined with my practice. Discipline is one thing, but cracking the whip is quite the other.

So, I had to look at what was coming up for me. What fear was making me want to move through my process fast and become enlightened now? Checking in with my old belief system, I noticed that it was tapping into the one where I always feel like I’m doing something wrong. After recognizing the feelings as anxiety and identifying this old belief, I was able to be with it and eventually let it go.

Sitting with these feelings of anxiety was not easy. I wanted to get busy, call a friend, do anything to distract me from the feelings I was having. But I made myself stay and feel them, and they did pass. It’s so important to realize how automatic our old beliefs slip back in, and how, if we are asleep, we may not even recognize how unconscious we were.

This is why it is so important to slow things down and pay attention; pay attention to what we are feeling, how we are behaving, and how fast we are moving. Throughout the day, stop yourself and pause and take 3 big, deep breaths, and be still. Then go about your day. Do this many times to connect with yourself and slow things down.

Living In The Present Moment

by Debra | Apr 7, 2014

We hear it in books, see it on affirmations, and our teacher’s tell us all the time, breathe and be in the present moment. It seems so easy when it is said, but just try it. Bring your thoughts, your mind back to what you are doing for just 5 minutes. It’s amazing how many times you will have to bring it back. Our thoughts are running rampant through our childhood wounding, through our old belief system and then toward what action we should or shouldn’t take. Or we have the random thoughts intertwined like; what we are going to cook for dinner, did the mail come, is it going to rain this weekend, did I pay my phone bill and ouch, I think I just pulled a muscle. It seems like a billion thoughts run across our minds like tiny little ants on a mission.

Often we seem to have difficulties being right where we are in the present moment. We are either in the past or in the future. If we are in the past, it could bring a yearning for what we no longer have or guilt for what we have done. If we live in the future, we will be trying to get something we want that we don’t have or depressed about someone or something we may never have. Either way it creates suffering. When we’re at work, we can’t wait for the weekend; on Sunday we are anxious because we have to return to work. We obsess about things in the past and fret about what may or may not happen in our future. Our thoughts control our daily lives, leaving us in the company of our unconscious suffering minds.

Our thoughts are what cause our suffering. If we can manage our thought, our unconscious mind, our suffering could be minimized.

How do we manage our thoughts?

1. Watch them.

First, bring your attention to the thoughts. Just check in and see how active your mind is. For just one day, pay attention to all of your thoughts and do nothing about them; just watch them go by. You might be pretty shocked, I know I was. At first I was actually embarrassed at how silly they seemed to be and how many there was.

2. Don’t judge them.

When I first started watching my thoughts, I was amused at how out of control my thoughts seemed to be. There was never a quiet moment where I could just be. What we want to do is just observe our thoughts and not judge them. They are just thoughts, nothing more. When we judge them, we give them the power to control us.

3. See if they are creating suffering.

If we act like our thoughts are real, judge them, or act on them, this is what creates suffering. If we don’t give our thoughts any meaning, they come and go and are merely nothing but thoughts. A friend told me of a friend of her’s that just got diagnosed with cancer. My mind went to,”Oh my, maybe I’m going to get cancer! My mom had cancer at 43 years old.” I then start to worry. Do you see where my thoughts just took me? I might die of cancer. The reality is, cancer might be in my future and worrying about isn’t going to prevent that and it also might not.

4. Bring your mind back to the present.

When your mind goes running off the road, just say “thinking” and bring it back to what you are doing. Realize it’s just a thought and bring it back to the present moment. This isn’t easy, by the way. We have lived a very long time in our fantasies and delusions of our minds. Be careful about hanging out in your mind; you might be in enemy territory. When we buy into our thoughts we may be sabotaging our life.

Staying Out Of The Drama and Moving Into The Higher Learning

by Debra | Apr 1, 2014

How do we stay out of the drama of life and take that drama and move into a place of higher conscious learning? First what is drama? Drama is conceived through getting wrapped up in a situation that happens instead of looking at why it is happening. Let’s say someone treats me with disrespect. If I lament about the situation and say things like, “I can’t believe she did that to me, she is such a nut job, what is wrong with her, she must be crazy,” or I keep the thoughts circling in my head, I am stuck in the drama of the situation. If I am stuck in the drama, I miss the higher learning.

The higher learning looks more like looking at what you have to learn from it, your wound around it and your old belief system attached to it. Maybe when you were younger your family didn’t respect your rights and therefore when it happens in your adult life, it triggers you. Then you proceed to do your work around healing that wound and not buying into the old belief system. This opportunity will be completely lost if you stay in the drama of the event.

Tips To Stay Out Of The Drama

1. Recognize your triggers. Anytime you are not at peace, you are triggered.

2. Step out of the trigger and connect it to your wound as a child.

3. Look at your old belief around the wound.

4. Don’t buy into the old belief, know it’s a lie.

5. Create a new belief and sink into it’s truth.

It is going to be impossible to create happiness and peace if you are not aware of your childhood wounds, your old beliefs, and how they make you react to certain situations. They key is getting to know yourself in a much deeper way. Look at how your life is showing up for you and you can get a good picture of how strong your old beliefs are. They only way to shift an old belief is to know where it came from and not to buy into it.

Living A Conscious Life

by Debra | Feb 22, 2014

What does living a conscious life mean exactly?

It means not sleeping on the job! It mean being awake! Going through your day with awareness, not being on autopilot. The majority of people on this planet are sleep walking and don’t know it. They get up in the morning, drag themselves to the coffee machine, take a shower, go to work, work, come home, fix dinner, watch a little TV, go to bed exhausted. Get up a repeat the same mundane experience over and over.

I try to live my life as consciously as possible by staying awake to what is going on in my day. I get up in the morning and greet my day and either hike in nature or sit and at least get a 5 minute meditation in. When I hike I go to a certain point on the hike and say my gratitudes and intentions for the day. This really sets the tone for paying attention to how my day unfolds. Meditation does the same thing. It grounds me in walking through my day awake. When I get to my office, down the hall, I look at my day and see what it has in store for me and how I might be able to affect the people in my day positively. Now, sometimes during the day I find myself going on autopilot, it’s natural, although I try to wake myself as soon as possible.

Another thing that happens to get in my way of living consciously is all the stimulation the world has to offer. My phone, emails, internet, my mind, everyday daily activities. It’s important to bring ourselves back to the present and look at what is important to us. It’s a daily practice to look at how you want to live your life and take the action to do it.

A few questions to ask yourself would be:

1. Are you on Autopilot?

2. Are you doing what you love in your career?

3. Are you spending quality time with the ones you love?

4. Are you overweight and eating for comfort or out of habit?

5. Are you bored with your life?

6. Are you walking through your life not knowing what you want out of it?

7. Are you stuck in the drama of your life instead of the learning?

If you have answered yes to any of these questions, it might be time to WAKE UP!

I heard a great story about a man who knocks on his son’s door. “Jamie,” he says, “wake up!” Jamie answers, ” I don’t want to get up, Papa.” The father shouts, “Get up, you have to go to school.” Jamie says “I don’t want to go to school.” “Why not?” ask the father. “Three reasons,” says Jamie. “First, because it’s so dull; second the kids tease me; and third, I hate school.” And the father says, “Well, I am going to give you three reasons why you must go to school. First because it’s your duty; second, because you are forty-five years old, and third, because you are the headmaster,” Wake up, wake up! You’ve grown up. Your to big to be asleep.

It’s time to wake up, your to old to be asleep. if you need help waking up, looking at your life and how it’s not working for you, let’s talk about how you can be more conscious and live your life with more passion and zest.