The Difficult Mother-Daughter Relationship Journal

How many times have you said to yourself, "It stops with me! I won't treat my daughter the way my mother treated me." Or "My mother died and yet she's still controlling me from the grave." Or "My daughter has changed. I no longer know who she is." Or "I am so tired of living in reaction to my mother." Or "She doesn't respect me or my boundaries!"

You're not alone. Studies suggest that nearly 30% of women have been estranged from their mothers at some point, which suggests that the number of women who struggle in their relationship with their mother or daughter is even higher. It is often considered taboo to discuss the pain of dysfunctional mother-daughter issues outside of lofty clinical pathologies and personality disorders, unless, of course, it’s in a private support group where, often, the “support” ends up keeping women stuck in their painful stories, reactions, and patterns of behavior. In that paradigm, affected women are stuck conveying “lesser versions” of themselves, which, ironically, is often what happens between mothers and daughters who have a failing or dysfunctional relationship.

Difficult mother-daughter relationships are fraught with conscious and unconscious, spoken and unspoken patterns. In this healing journal, mother-daughter relationship expert Karen C.L. Anderson compassionately guides readers through revealing those patterns and provides tips and tools to heal them, with the understanding that healing simply means transforming something that creates pain and suffering into a source of creativity and wisdom. Whether you are an adult daughter or a mother (or both), the prompts and practices in this journal will help you create peace in your troubled relationship.