Wow. I really do have the best job in the world. I get to hang out with powerful, phenomenal people and speak truth to them.  The Mommy wound has so many of us in a chokehold. To see two Black women free themselves from struggle bonding is nothing short of miraculous. I really love to see Black people winning.

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I struggled to build and maintain a healthy relationship with my mother for years. I rarely opened up to others about the physical abuse I endured as a child, but Gozá created a safe space that encouraged me to be vulnerable. Our conversations allowed me to acknowledge and process the negative emotions I had tried to ignore or bury unsuccessfully.  She helped me to see that while the abuse was extremely painful mentally, emotionally and physically, my mother’s refusal to acknowledge the abuse was what hurt me the most. 

When Gozá had the opportunity to meet and interact with my mother, I’m not sure what she said. But, after their conversation, my mother gave me a tearful, heart-felt personal apology, and credited Gozá with helping her to understand why it was so important to me for her to acknowledge the abuse.

Through subsequent conversations with my mother, I have learned that she had been reluctant to acknowledge my abuse because of the abuse she endured as a child, and the promise she made never to be like her father. Acknowledging that she abused me, would mean acknowledging that she had harmed her own child in the same way her father harmed her. 

My mother and I, and our relationship has grown so much since Gozá came into our lives. She has helped us to gain a better understanding of one another and to do the work necessary to establish and maintain the healthy mother-daughter relationship we both desired. 

I am eternally grateful for all Gozá has done for us.