47. Here Be Dragons - An Interview with Author Melanie Shankle Pt. 2

Emily continues her conversation with author and podcaster Melanie Shankle to talk about her memoir Here Be Dragons and the surprising metaphor that helped her finally see boundaries clearly: her dog’s leg amputation. The loss was painful, but it also removed the source of constant suffering and made room for real freedom. That same question hangs over so many of our lives: what are we still tolerating that keeps us limping?

From there we go into deeper themes of Christian healing. We also name one of the most hidden wounds in the mother-daughter relationship: envy. Melanie shares what it’s like to realize a parent resents your contentment, your marriage, and why naming envy isn’t arrogance.

We connect our personal story to the biblical account of Numbers 13, where Joshua and Caleb believe God’s promises and refuse to join the fear story even when the crowd turns on them. If you’re trying to break generational trauma, you’ll recognize the pressure to stay quiet, keep the peace, and return to “the way it’s always been.” We talk about parenting without turning kids into emotional caregivers and doing story work that brings truth into the light.

If you’re navigating boundaries, no contact, family dysfunction, or the long road to spiritual and emotional health, this conversation offers language and courage. 

Books that have inspired Melanie that she mentioned at the end of the episode: She loves all the books written by these authors!

John Mark Comer: Live No Lies

Ann Lamont: Traveling Mercies 

Tina Fey: Bossypants

Mindy Kaling: Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

Kelly Corrigan: The Middle Place

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Transcript

Welcome And Big Idea

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Story Matters Podcast. I'm Ryan Baker.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

And I'm Emily Baker.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

We believe people grow and heal through understanding how our stories are rooted in God's redemptive story.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

We hope our conversations encourage you to engage your story and the world around you with a new lens.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

We're glad you're here. Welcome back to a great conversation that Emily has had with author Melanie Schenkel about her book Here Be Dragons. Emily, take it away.

The Amputation That Taught Boundaries

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Okay. Well, let's jump back into your book. Chapter 12 and chapter 13 really landed for me. Um chapter 12 was about your little dog getting a leg amputated. Yeah, I know. Um we were not dog people until about eight years ago. We finally got a little schnoodle.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

And I did not realize how therapeutic I think I'm petting the dog, and actually the dog's petting me. Yeah. So let's talk about cutting off the source of pain. You did choose eventually to cut off contact with your mom. It was a long process. But I think most of us that are boundary setters at times, we've maybe dabbled in it. We've realized when you set a boundary with a toxic person, I'm just gonna label it like that. Yeah, um, the toxic person feels cut off, right? Because they want to engage in relationship how they want to engage. Yeah. There there will be no telling me how I handle this. Yeah. And so in some ways, the gaslight is we feel like we've cut them off, or they even tell people we've cut them off when we haven't. Yeah. Right. So I think you speak actually in that chapter. I don't think it's limited to people that have gone no contact. I think it really is a broader audience of anyone that's trying to set boundaries and they get accused. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So for people that haven't read the book yet, tell us a little bit about that process of realizing the dog's amputation was similar to what you'd experienced in your healing process.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Yeah. So we have a a dog, Piper. And when she was 11 or really 10, we she had contracted a fungus in her paw, and we had taken her to multiple specialists. And long story was basically they were like, there's nothing. This is going to continue to grow and spread. The only thing you can do is amputate the leg. Listen, we tossed and turned over it. We felt so bad. It's a front leg. How is she going to function? She's a hunting dog, all of the things. And what we realized after, I mean, like two hours post-op, the vet sent me a thing and was like, here she is, running around like on three legs, like it was nothing. And he was like, the thing is that had been causing her pain for so long that it had already almost been unusable that for her to lose it, it's almost freeing because she's we've cut off the source of the pain. And when he said that, I was like, that that is a whole sermon. Because I was like, what? You know, like, what do we allow in our lives that's continually causing us pain, but we just let it continue to cause us pain because we're so afraid of what is that gonna look like? How is that gonna work? How am I gonna function? And I think that's why I allowed my mom for so long, because I was like, how do you you can't just cut off your mom? That's not the natural order of things. And and here's the truth that's not supposed to feel good. And that's not supposed to be a decision that anybody can just make fliffantly or lightly. That's not the way God intended it to be. So we have that checking us for a reason. But I think when you start to realize, you know, and I think that's why so many people have a hard time setting boundaries, because you feel like, especially your family, these shouldn't be people that I have to have boundaries with. But isn't it the principle of every book you read about boundaries that it's like the people that you most need to set boundaries with are the very people who are going to push against those boundaries constantly. Because when I think of the healthy relationships in my life, I don't really have to have a boundary. I don't have to say, I mean, there's just respect there for who I am, for the decisions I make, for what I do, and I don't have to explain it. So I think you have to ask yourself if there's that person where you're constantly having to draw this line. And the reason you're constantly having to draw it is because they're constantly pushing against it. So ultimately you're gonna be the only one to be able to keep that boundary in check because they're never gonna respect it and they're never gonna honor it, because that's why you had to set the boundary in the first place. But I think you have to look at the things in your life and the relationships in your life that are repeatedly causing you pain or hurt. Um, for me, mine was just complete emotional upheaval. Like I would get to a place where I was settled and, you know, and I thought when I got married, I was like, great, now I have my own family. I can do my own thing here. When I had my daughter, I was like, great, now I can be the mom that I wish that I had had, and it's all going to be great. But the problem was is that my mom kept coming back into that narrative and blowing everything up. And every time I would get so upset, it would render me despondent for days where I just felt guilty and terrible and I couldn't be the mom I wanted to be, and I couldn't be the wife I wanted to be. And so you have to look at those things and go, at what point do you just have to say, this is no longer serving me at all? I don't have to stay in this, I don't have to allow this to remain in my life.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Well, and it really landed for me because I had found at a season of my life, the Lord led me to see those words cut off are repeated so much in scripture. You know, it feels so harsh. Yeah. He cut off my enemies. I will cut off my enemies in the name of the Lord. And it's like, ooh. And yet the way you describe the amputee, I thought was a great analogy that it was taking so much of the dog's resources, energy, and daily suffering. And then so when there was the cutting off, there was freedom. It was freedom.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

And I think I mean you even think about Jesus saying, like, if you are not welcome here, shake the dust off your feet and leave. And I think sometimes there are situations in life and in relationships where you have to say, I'm gonna shake the dust off my feet because my whole self is not welcome here. And it's just not a place that is healing or whole or healthy for me.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah. Yeah. And I think you did a really good job overall in your story. A theme felt to me like you would say, I want a relationship with my mom. I want to be the wife and mom that I want to be, but I I want to be able to have it all. Yeah. But she was taking and taking and taking so much of your energy that you realize I can't be the wife and mom that I want to be. Yeah. And I think about Dan Allener once said, you know, we can forgive, that doesn't mean we continue to lend. Yeah. And that was an important part of your story, obviously. And we need to be, it's a call. We we are called to forgive. And so when women find themselves in your role of being a wife and mother, and yet their mother is still demanding time, energy, resources, manage my anxiety. You know, I the consumption feel. Yeah. That's very difficult to name without a good friend or a therapist or a husband saying you are spending a lot of your resources on this woman. Yeah. Sadly, I think it's kind of a subtle message in the Christian realm of that's what you do. Yeah. We've often in our podcast talked about the arrows of care should go from mother to daughter or mother to son or father to daughter. And I think somewhere along the way, children are like our unconditional love for the parent, it way outweighs. And so the arrows of care are going in the wrong direction. Yeah. Like our life is meant to be to care for my mother's emotions. I have to manage my father's anger. I have it's a reversal of mentality to say, no, I don't have to. That's not my role. That's not my purpose in life. And I thought you did a really good job showing iteration after iteration, your story was not just in the past. You needed to know and engage that story, but it was continuing in the present. Your mom was still taking from you.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

That's it. And I think that you just start to realize it really put it into focus for me when I became a mother, because all of a sudden, then you know what being a mother feels like and the way you love that child and what you would project on that child. And even from a young age, I was like, Caroline, my daughter, she should never be responsible for my emotional well-being. That's not a burden that she was meant to bear. That's not what she was created for. It should be me pouring into her, equipping her. Um, and you know, and not that our kids can't know when we're sad or mad or all those things because we're human, but it also shouldn't be theirs to fix because they're the child. But I think the narcissist, the emotionally immature parent, I think they come from I want you to make me feel better.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Do you know how rare it is that you just spoke those words and you believe those words? Like there's still the next generation of mothers believing this baby will provide for me. Yeah. This child will make me feel something I've never felt.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yeah. When I hear moms refer to their sons as like my little boyfriend or their daughter is like my little built-in bestie. And I'm like, that's not what they are. They're not there to serve you. Like your son is not your little boyfriend. He is a boy that you want to raise into a man who hopefully will go on to love and protect and care for another woman and not be so entangled with his mom that he can't function. And same for a girl, you know. I mean, my daughter and I are very close and we are very good friends at this point because she's 22. So she's an adult in her own right. But we have healthy boundaries there. I'm not looking to her to fulfill me emotionally or trying to live vicariously through her because this is her life to live and her decisions to make.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Well, and a lot of that is attributed to Perry and his love for you and that adult attunement that he gives you. Yeah. Which I think the stronger the marriage, the easier your your mentality is. Obviously, for divorcees or people that have lost their spouse to death, it is a much more of a challenge. Yeah. But yet such a worthy challenge to not allow our children to be our emotional caregivers. Yeah, absolutely. Um, my therapist told me something once, and it feels so appropriate to just share it here, that often my children, thankfully, are very aware, they're empathetic, they have that emotional attunement radar. And they know when I'm off. I'm course, I think we all know when our parents are off. But I think I didn't want them to be my emotional caregivers. I wanted Ryan to always be that. But if they would see me down, yeah, I would they would say, Mom, are you okay? And my initial was I'm fine, I'm fine. Because I didn't want them to have to care for me. Yeah. But the problem is, and I I love how she said, we want to raise children to have good knowers. We want them to trust their gut was right. I wasn't okay. Yeah. So instead of saying, No, I'm fine, I'm fine, because every child always thinks if mom's not okay, I've done something wrong. Yeah, we just live with shame. That's just how it is. But when I shifted to saying, Thank you so much for noticing, I'm actually not great. I'm not okay. I don't want you to have to care for me. I'm gonna talk to dad about it. It's gonna be okay. It's not, and it's not you. Yeah. But thank you, thank you for noticing. You know, it's like that, hey, you were right. Yeah, but you don't have to do, I mean, at every age and stage, I see them like skip away, like, yeah, I'm free.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

I'm free. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

It's not me, and I don't have to care for her.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Yeah, it is. It's so freeing, and it's the way that a child should be, you know. And I think as, you know, as your kids get older, because now, you know, that like I said, Caroline's older. So I may tell her more where I'm like, yeah, I'm upset because this thing happened or whatever. But there again, it had nothing to do with you, like, and you can't fix it. So just know this is what's going on with me right now. Thanks for noticing. Because I do think it's so important to teach them empathy and to let them see the real thing that's going on and to have real conversations because I don't think it benefits any kid to grow up in a house where they think everything was just perfect, and you're like, no, the truth is your dad and I fought. We had disagreements, marriage is hard. I mean, all those things they need to know this is the reality of life that any relationship requires give and take and forgiveness.

When A Mother Envies Her Daughter

SPEAKER_01 12:07

And they need to see that rupture repair process for sure. Yeah. Okay, I want to jump to something. You named something very subtly in one of your stories that is one of the hardest things to name. You were getting ready for your sister's wedding shower and you came into the kitchen. And I love that you mentioned that you were wearing an outfit from Herald's because I'm an OU girl and the original Heralds was in Norman. And I mean, if you were wearing a Harold outfit, you had arrived.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

100%. You were a grown-up.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

So I love it because I was like, yes, she looked beautiful. But your mom ridiculed you. She said that you look like a street walker or something horrible. Yeah. Now, if I were engaging that story with someone, it's difficult for people to name envy. But you actually had the proof later when you said something to your sister. Your mom was complaining that she was really getting tired of you bragging about how good your life was.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Okay, literally, my eyes got huge, my mouth dropped open. I'm like, you had it caught on camera that your mother was envious of you, and she told your sister, I'm sick of it.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Yeah.

unknown 13:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

So she just ridiculed you.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

So I can remember where I was when I was listening to an Adam Young podcast, and he was saying, you can be the recipient of envy, and it's just as bad as the sin of envy, right? Like, but you don't always name it because as believers, we think, well, that's boastful. Yeah. If I said my sister is envious of me, I'm saying I'm great. That's it, yeah. But it is such a killer and a pretty common theme for mothers to be envious of their daughters, whether it's their carefree life or their looks or their friendships. So I was thankful you named it. I kind of want to lean into it. What was that like for you to name that your mother was envious of you?

SPEAKER_02 13:52

You know, it's so weird to me. And that all happened before I had a child. But you know, now I look and I think as a mom, my prayer is almost any good thing that God has for me, like just give it to her. You know what I mean? I want my daughter to have those things. And and so the fact that my mom resented the happiness that I had found and the contentment that I had found is so I truly don't even understand it. That's where I'm like mentally, something is just not right there and it becomes a toxic thing. But I think I was able to recognize it. I think sometimes it's hard to recognize people being envious of you because you know all your inside stuff. So you're like, why are what what are you envious of? Like I have my own struggles, my own insecurities, my own things, whatever. But I was able to see it in the way she reacted to so many of her girlfriends. It was a pattern in her life where she would get a Christmas card and be like, well, all she did was brag about that they had gone to Europe. And wasn't that so great? Like she was so like catty about everything and people that were supposed to be her close friends, that I'm like, well, if she's that way with them, then it it's understandable that she also feels that way with me. But yes, for my sister to validate and say, mom said she's just so tired of you talking about how great your life is. And I thought the thing is, I'm not a person who walks around and it's like, let me tell you how great my life is. I was just content and happy. And I think in that moment, when that actually had come out, I think it was when I was pregnant with Caroline and I had gone through a terrible miscarriage the year before. So, like to finally be pregnant and we were playing in the nursery and all of that stuff, I wasn't. I was just like, I just feel so thankful that we got past that terrible year and that I'm pregnant and that the baby's healthy and I'm gonna have a daughter and all that stuff. And that was the conversation when my mom told myself, I'm just so tired of hearing about how happy she is. And I was like, wow, because it wasn't like I hadn't been through really hard things before that. So it's an interesting, but I think it's a very real dynamic with mothers and daughters.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

It is, and I and I just also want to say for our listeners, there are people that think they had a perfect childhood and everything went wrong once adulthood hit. And it's actually because mother was envious, mother became contemptuous around the daughter's freedom and happiness. Yeah. So everything was really perfect while the daughter was the belonging of the mother, because some mothers reserve that envy for the daughter. It's not seen with the other Christmas cards. I mean, I think I get that, but there is that deception of like she's so nice to everybody else and she's so great. So why is everything going wrong in my adulthood? But that's what to look for. That is a very sneaky robbery of good relationship, is when the mother envies the daughter. Yeah. So I was glad you had that. Your sister saying that was just so validating, but still it's crushing. Like you said, none of this, none of this is a good story. It's not like, oh, good for you. Yeah, yeah. It's just more like validating that there was a sickness, but it had a name. And that name was envy.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Yeah, it was. And I and I just think the fact that she felt that. And and there again, I always thought when you read through the Psalms, and it's like envy rots the bones, bitterness is poison to the soul. And it was like you really saw it play out in her life where it just fed upon itself to where she did get progressively worse as the years went by, because I think she lived with so much bitterness and envy. But the irony to me was is that she had so many chances at happiness and so many chances that she continually found a way to sabotage. So it wasn't like God gave me all these things that He didn't give her. It's just how do you steward those things and those blessings in your life?

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah, but you were directly punished.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Yeah. Oh, for sure.

Joshua And Caleb Against The Fear

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Now, we talked about subtitles because we love the first sentence: Navigating the Past to Heal What Lies Ahead. But your subtitle is Treading the Deep Waters of Motherhood, Mean Girls, and Generational Trauma. I have found myself recommending this book, ironically, for the topic you didn't even know was going to be the main theme, that was your story with your mother. But you do a great job really unpacking mean girls. Someday I want you to help me write a story about how mean girls actually want to run churches. But your chapter 13, I want to sit in that for a little bit because when I heard it on a walk and then I reread it in the actual book, I just thought, you know, sometimes a person will write a book and a particular chapter will land with people, and that becomes their next launching pad for a book. And I really appreciated the feel of this is warrior mentality to tread into to fight the dragons for you meant you needed to be obedient to a calling. And so, I mean, do you want to summarize chapter 13 about Caleb and Joshua were the only two of the 12 that came back believing they could take land and get out of slavery? Um, do you want to give like a quick summary to the chapter and then we talk about it? Sure.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

So in that chapter, I tell the story of Joshua and Caleb, and it's when Moses, they had arrived at the Promised Land. They were there, they were at the door, and Moses sent in 12 leaders. These were like warriors and men that had been through some stuff. They were strong, they were equipped, and he sent them in to scout out the land. And ironically, only two came back, Joshua and Caleb, believing that they could take the land. And to me, what's so interesting is when they saw it, it was everything God had promised them. They were literally holding like the fruit, these huge grapes from the promised land, like everything was rich and lush and what they knew it was supposed to be and what God had promised them. But they had they saw giants and it felt too scary. And what they said was we're like grasshoppers. And so they believed that mentality that they were weak and they quit trusting what God could do and that he was going to fight that battle for them. And whatever he had promised to give them, he was going to give them. I mean, Joshua and Caleb were the only two that held to that. And so what you see is like by nightfall, that fear had completely taken over the camp, you know, as it does in human circles when we all start to, you know, and so everybody was like, no way, we can't do it. And so because of that, they had to wander in the wilderness for 40 more years. I mean, so we always think about what does it mean the sins of the father, you know, are handed down to the children? And that's a tangible example where you see the unbelief of the fathers cause their children to miss out on years of promised land that they could have had. And so it's like, how does that translate to our own lives? Like, what are we not believing that God is going to carry us through, that he is going to deliver us through, that he has given us and put before us? Like, what is your promised land that you're continuing to stay in the wilderness because you don't believe God? And I think we do that so often. I just finished reading um a great book by John Mark Homer called Live No Lies. And his whole premise of the book essentially is like that really we have an enemy that doesn't even need to sabotage us because we will sabotage ourselves if we just believe his lies. And I thought that's everything that we don't take for ourselves, every land we don't inhabit, every promise we don't see fulfilled is because we believe the lie, that God isn't as good as we thought, that it's going to be too painful, that it's going to be too hard, that it's going to be too scary. Um, and so many times we'd rather stay where we are than to take that leap of faith to go to where God is calling us to go.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Girl, this is so good. I'm like, oh, it's like a double jump rope on the recess. I'm like, where do I jump in? This is so good. Um I reread Numbers 13 after you talked about it in chapter 13. Ironically, Numbers 13, chapter 13. And we love number 13. We don't think it's unlucky because we got married on the 13th. So we just think it's a baker's dozen. So it's 13. So this is where 40 years actually came from. I didn't realize I've always known they wandered for 40 years, but he punished them. For every day that those spies were in the promised land. They were there for 40 days. He said, For every day you were there, I'm gonna punish your generation a year. Yeah. And you will not see it. Now, I think another interesting aspect as I was reading the chapter, it wasn't just that the ten created fear, you know, they told the stories, they roused everyone to like, no way, we can't do it. They actually turned against Joshua and Caleb wanted to stone them. Yeah. So it it shows what you're up against when you name things from your story. Because I thought this was a great parallel. Yeah. For people that are wanting to break generational trauma, generational dysfunction, generational rebellion. It's not neutral. No. There will be people in your family, there will be people in your community, there will be people in your church that want to stone you because you're naming things that they don't want to name. That's it. Yeah, it's so true. So the bravery and the courage, because it wasn't like Joshua and Caleb just thought, yeah, let's try this. They knew God's promise. They knew what they were meant for. They knew why God had brought them out of slavery. It wasn't to leave them and to make them slaves to the desert. So it's about believing what we're made for.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Yeah. It's so true. Yeah. And I think it even says, I think later in 13, it even says like Caleb had a different spirit in him. And I'm like, that was the Holy Spirit. You know, he he had a different, everybody else maybe knew of God, but they didn't know God. And so, but it to me, it is such a great example of when you do this and when you make these decisions, there are going to be so many people in your family. It's what my grandmother did to me, where it's like, well, you're being dramatic. This is the way things have always been. This is the way she is. This is the way it's always going to be. Like, why do you need to, why do you think? And I even feel like to some extent, um, I was treated like somewhere it's because I thought I was like above it or I was better than them. And I'm like, that's not what this is about at all. So you're never going to make these hard decisions that you're not going to come up against people who metaphorically want to stone you for making those decisions.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Yeah, and I know that this portion of the Old Testament is a very challenging one for people of justice and love. How do you hold that God called this people group in to overcome and to make war? Um, something, and and I consider my husband a theologian. He said we were talking last night with our son about that kind of thing with war going on and just all the like how do we see things? But what point he made was the people, whether it was God's people or the people they were going to overcome, always had the option of coming into the family of God. Yeah. So they weren't just annihilated and they weren't just punished. I mean, there's always the invitation to live within the relationship with God where flourishing will happen. And that's that shalom restored. And yeah, I think the bravery you spoke to really landed for me because the people I get to work with, I think the men and women that do the story work that we do are the bravest that I know because they're willing to name what the culture and the community and the family and the church don't want to name.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Because, like you said, it's always been this way. But Melanie, when you were just talking about like you got accused of being above it or whatever, I just want to say you were hungering and thirsting for righteousness. You were not content. I mean, if you think about how Jesus says, Blessed are you when you hunger and thirst, that's not calm. Yeah. If you've been around someone that's hungry and thirsty, they're not okay. Yeah. They're craving something better. And Jesus blesses that. And I think you knew this is not right. Yeah. So I want to say to listeners, if you find yourself resonating with Melanie's story or the things we're talking about, putting yourself in community with others that hunger and thirst for righteousness, that are truth tellers and that are peacemakers, that's where you're going to find your courage and strength to be like the Calebs and the Joshuas to say, no, we do believe God has a good land for us.

SPEAKER_02 26:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

In the land of the living.

SPEAKER_02 26:12

We will see his goodness. And I think, you know, what I would encourage people with, if there's somebody who's listening who's like, I'm afraid to make this step, or this feels too scary, or I don't know if I can do it. For Perry and I both, as we came into our marriage, it was so important to us that we were like, we want to break off any generational chain that is going to keep our child from being who God created her to be. That's going to keep our marriage from being what it's supposed to be. Because Caroline is now at the age where she really does understand. In fact, in the paperback version of Here Be Dragons, it just came out, she actually wrote an afterword. Um that's kind of her.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

I tried to find that. Is that not in your hardback? It's not in your heartback.

Breaking Generational Trauma In Parenting

SPEAKER_02 26:51

No, it's uh they only did it in the paperback because they didn't think about it. Um I know, sorry. Now you gotta go buy the paper. So buy the paperback. I'll buy it if you haven't bought it. Yes. But there's an afterword where it's like she gets it now, you know, and she's so appreciative of of what we did and what we did to help her be healthy and whole. And so, like to me, I'm like, that's the payoff. You know what I mean? That's worth all the ladies from the church that wanted to email me or write me letters and tell me how terrible I was. Cause I'm like, look at what God has done in our daughter and look at how spiritually and emotionally healthy she is, to the point that even she was she was in a relationship at one point, and that other family was so unhealthy that she said she was like, You've worked too hard to break off generational trauma for me to put myself in another situation where I'm gonna have to deal with somebody else's generational trauma. And I thought for her to be able to name that and recognize it is everything because it's setting her up for whatever future God has for her in whatever her version of the promised land is, you know?

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Well, I have tears in my eyes, so I want to say that we don't have this visual. I I'm gonna I'm gonna throw out kind of a devil's advocate for a second because I think this is a really important point you're making, that your child is realizing she's free. She's living in the land she was meant to be. But what about the person that would say, Well, why couldn't you have just raised her to be that way and still been in contact with your mom? What's the big deal? Why can't you just grin and bear it and let your mom be your mom? Yeah. And let your grandma be your grandma. And you don't need to disrupt everything. How why did you have to do the cutting off and why is that directly tied to raising your daughter?

SPEAKER_02 28:37

Yeah. Um, for me, it was because the only way I was gonna be able to be truly emotionally and spiritually healthy was to not be in contact with my mother, to not have her constantly tearing me down and sabotaging me for me to continue my own emotional and spiritual growth. I those two things were never gonna coexist. I couldn't fully get healthy as long as my mom was in my life. And so that's why. And I also think it sets such a um, because you know, the conversations we had with Caroline along the years were age appropriate to what season she was in. Now she knows the whole story. But I think it's also your your kids are paying attention to what you tolerate in your own life. And they pattern relationships that they see you engaging in and all of those things. And I never wanted her to think I was afraid of the ways that my mom would poison Caroline's mind if I allowed her to stay in contact with us because of the lies that I knew she would tell, because of the way she manipulated things, because of the guilt. And I didn't want that to be a part of Caroline's story.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

So that's why I think that's well said, yeah, well articulated. Melanie, I just can't say it enough. You are very gifted. You have so much wisdom and your story, the way God paved the path for you to be a podcaster and an author where people are drawn to you and you're fun and you're funny and you're lovable, and then you offer this to the world. I can't express enough what a gift it is.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

That's so nice.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

That you are giving people language to name truth and to be those hungering and thirsting for righteousness. And our world needs this. And so I just I can't thank you enough for the bravery.

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Thank you. That means, I mean, that truly, I can't tell you what that means to me. That's all I've ever wanted is to to live humbly and walk with God and just to try to be a light in a world um where I can be.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

I'm wearing my necklace that says light because I think this conversation is bringing light into very confusing stories. And I tell my people, anytime there's confusion, there's darkness. For sure. And where there's darkness, there's evil, and it needs to be named, and we've got to shed light on it. So your story, the way you tell it, and by the way, I haven't listened to your podcast yet, but I think I might just put it on. I want to listen to you talk about lipstick and style and all the things because I I think sometimes there's more joy to the degree we're willing to engage the suffering and engage the pain. Yeah. It just expands that ability to be joyful and and live well. And so I have no doubt. I'm I'm gonna probably get all your books and and read and you know, but I'm just so sweet. I truly am grateful for um it was entertaining for me, I think, because there was lightheartedness and obviously for a living engaged stories of trauma.

SPEAKER_02 31:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

But literally, when I told Ryan about the book, he was like, She's writing a book as to what we're trying to help people do. Like, obviously, we're not gonna have our clients aren't gonna write books. Yeah. But then again, why not? Why doesn't everyone have a memoir? Yeah, you know, like everybody's got a story, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

I think and I think there's something so healing about telling your story. Somebody told me a long time ago, my very first literary agent, I said it just feels like what everybody's this story's already been told. And he was like, but you haven't told the story, you know? And I think there's something to you telling your own story that I think you can find so healing. I mean, even if it's just, you know, on a Google Doc on your computer that nobody's ever going to see but you, I think there's something about getting it all out that you'll find healing, you'll find truth. Sometimes you'll find the answers that you're looking for because stuff will come to you that you're like, oh, like even for me, you know, I think in the introduction to the book when I'm like the dawning realization of like, oh, my mom was my first mean girl, you know, that was such a revelation. But you have to kind of process and think through those things, which for me has always been by writing. So don't discount it.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

When I've told people she wrote a book and she was helping her daughter navigate the waters of mean girls, but she realized her first mean girl was her mom. I mean, people's eyes just get huge. Yeah. Like, oh, wait, you can say that? It yeah, it's um yeah. And and when you see the movie Mean Girls, I I actually had to stop. I was like, this is too activating. I didn't realize later we've seen it on Broadway, but what makes it so convoluted is I think we all know that sometimes you're in with a mean girl, sometimes you're an assistant to the mean girl. Yep. And it's like that's what makes stories so interesting. Everyone's story is unique. There's not one story, there's not one human, there's not one face that's identical. But evil isn't creative, it just mars the beauty of what stories should be. So you can kind of see patterns, and I think that's why your book lands for so many people is it's not the exact story. Yeah. Yeah. But but evil has patterns and it's predictable. And when it becomes predictable in your own life, it puts us on the offense. Like we get to now go out and go, no, hell no. Yeah. And that's that's what Dean Allener's like. We're gonna stand on the neck of evil and say, hell no. Yeah. And heaven, yes, to living in freedom. So I wasn't discussing.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

Nah, listen, it's hell, it's in the Bible. Uh, but I think that's why to me, I love the analogy, and that's why I like the cover of the book when I was like, no, I want her putting a sword through the dragon because it's like driving a stake in the ground of like, this is we're gonna call this what it is. I mean, it's an enemy that we're at war with. We were made to be warriors, so it's okay to fight those battles when we see them.

Writing Influences And Final Encouragement

SPEAKER_01 34:15

That's so good. We'll we'll end our conversation, but how about you give us um of your lifetime of being a writer? Tell us some of your top authors or books that have been influential to you from funny to spiritual to, and I mean, I know you mentioned Irma Bombach. Yes. Bomback.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

Bombeck, Irma Bombeck. She was like my she's my OG. I mean, I feel like reading her column as a little girl was like, oh, she just makes everyday life funny. Yes. Um, so I just she's a treasure that we lost. Um, I think I get my inspiration. And Lamotte Bird by Bird. I tell anybody who wants to be a writer, that book to me is the is the Bible on writing well and and how to get started. Um, I've recommended it a thousand times. I also love just I love everything that she writes and the way she writes traveling mercies. And when she's an example of like, I don't agree with her on a lot of things, but I love the way she tells a story and how funny she is and the way she mixes the holy and the humor is just brilliant. Like when she talks about making Jesus want to drink out of the cat dish. I'm like that, I get it, like that. But then I love like Tina Faye, bossy pants was so pivotal to me of how you can tell stories. Mindy Kaling is everyone hanging out without me. Just I love a really well-written memoir because it's the way you see people make you're like there again. This is an ordinary story. We've all been to fourth grade and had this experience or whatever, but it's being able to tell it well. And then another author I've always loved is Kelly Corrigan. She writes memoirs. My very favorite was the middle place that she wrote about being a young mom in her 30s and being diagnosed with breast cancer at the same time that her father was diagnosed with cancer and just being in that middle place of life where you're both the parent and the child. But there again, just a really good, funny, humorous writer. And then just for pure, like theological. I think I'm reading my third book by John Mark Pomer right now. It's been really good for me in this stage of life for just spiritual growth and all that.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

So good. Yeah. Oh, and is your husband still in ministry or did he transition out? He said something about and he was a youth minister.

SPEAKER_02 36:22

He did, yeah. He was in youth ministry when we got married. We were did campus life, which is like young life. So we did that when we were newlyweds. He did it up until 2003, but now he has a landscape business. So, you know, we're still always in ministry. We have a small group that we do with some young couples for about marriage and stuff like that. But we kind of laughed. We switched. I became the full-time person in ministry.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

So well, and you may need to keep the door open to therapists because honestly, I would come see you as a therapist ten times over someone that has not engaged their own story. I think that is the crucial aspect that we cannot take people further than we've gone ourselves. Yes. And you you have dug in the dirt, in the manure of your life, your story, your pain, and you've come up and beautiful things are growing from that. Obviously, we don't dig in dirt for no good reason. But I I just want to say your book will be such a tool for people's journey as they get healing. And I love the word therapy because it's really just about care and healing. Yeah. So yeah, you really are in full-time ministry. Who's your book? So thank you.

Healing Validation And Goodbye

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Thank you for recommending it. Thanks for having me on. Thanks for just being so affirming and validating about it, because it is that whole thing of when I gave it to my own therapist to read, I was like, here's my book. This may be like the short version for some sessions. You know what I mean? But for her to come back and go, oh no, this was bad. Like this, this really was this wasn't in your head, you know. So it just, it just feels good to know. Um, and that has always been my prayer when I wrote this book is I was like, God, I it felt so God ordained and the timing and the way it all worked out that I was like, God, if you can use this to help other people find their healing to navigate their own journey, um, to, you know, figure out the parts of their past or relationships that are holding them back, then, you know, then that prayer has been answered. So it's ultimately all a love letter to him and to what he can do.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Well, that came through. And obviously the humor helps, but I think it's so validating when we can write our stories that we're used to laughing, we're used to covering up, and someone says, it's not funny. Yeah, it's painful. And that's more of the space for the therapist to lean in and say, Okay, let's get to the heart. Yeah. But your humor and the redemptive narrative of what is Jesus doing in my life was absolutely in the whole book. And so I I highly recommend it. And I'm so thankful.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

Thank you for getting on here. Absolutely. Uh, you've been fantastic.