Wake Up with Susan

Learning the Deeper Lessons from Our Loved Ones: Take of the Rose-Tinted Glasses!

• Susan Sutherland

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Hey, friends! In this episode of Wake Up with Susan, I’m diving into a topic that’s close to my heart—taking off those rose-tinted glasses to truly see our loved ones as they are. It’s not about judging or losing love for them; it’s about being more discerning so we can embrace the deeper lessons they have to teach us.

Sometimes, we idealize the people we care about, missing the valuable opportunities for growth that come from seeing the full picture—their strengths, flaws, and everything in between. Together, we’ll explore how letting go of illusions can lead to stronger, more authentic relationships and a clearer understanding of ourselves.

Join me as we uncover the gifts hidden in honesty, discernment, and real connection. Let’s wake up to the wisdom our loved ones bring into our lives when we see them clearly. I can’t wait to share this journey with you. 💡💖

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Speaker 1:

Rise and shine everybody. It's time to wake up with Susan. Spiritual awakening can be a beautiful, messy and sometimes lonely journey, so let's do it together. I'm your host, susan Sutherland. I'm an intuitive healer and spiritual mentor. We are all called to rise up above our conditioning and limiting beliefs and shine our light on ourselves and others. So let's get to it.

Speaker 1:

Hi, family, welcome to this week where we are going to talk about taking off our rose-tinted glasses. But before we do, I just want to say that I hope you had a very Merry Christmas if that's what you celebrate and that you are finding time for reflection and really thinking back over the previous year. I haven't had a ton of time to do that, and so, while I want to do an episode where I kind of recap 2024 and really my experience and what I, the nuggets that I'm taking with me that are the most profound, I don't feel like I've given myself enough time to reflect to be able to share that with you. I did start going back through my pictures to kind of relive the year and January 2024, for me it feels like it was a decade ago. I know that there are a lot of people who are like this year went by in a flash, but even when I think back to July and being gone with my family for a month, that feels like it was a long time ago, and January feels really like a lifetime ago, and so it feels like I am going to have to take a long journey through the year to get what was most profound for me this year, and so I look forward to sharing that with you. But I just haven't had that quiet reflection time yet, so I hope that you are able to carve some of that out for yourself. In the next couple of days, I am going to go to the mountains with my parents and my in-laws and I look forward to hopefully stealing I mean my parents, my in-laws and my three children so hopefully I will be able to steal some quiet moments to really think back over the year. It's something I enjoy doing is seeing how far we've come, seeing what those big milestones of awareness and development are, and so hopefully next week I will have that to share with you.

Speaker 1:

I tried to record this episode several times. You, I tried to record this episode several times, however, being in a house full of people, with a delivery driver coming every hour, it seemed, and a dog barking nonstop. I tried several times and then it was like you know I'm gonna end up swearing on this podcast going like, so I abandoned it. I abandoned it and now we are just recording a little late and that's okay. So I do want to share today something that has really been coming up for me over this holiday season, because I think of my mother so much during this time.

Speaker 1:

My mom was one of the ladies who wears the Christmas sweater with a turtleneck, with the matching you know Christmas tree and the earrings and the necklace and the socks. Like every day of the Christmas season. She had a new little kit saying I love Christmas. She was. She was that person and just embodied the Christmas spirit in her heart and I think about her a lot. And if you are new to my story or to the podcast, I will tell you that my mother passed away very shortly after I turned 18 years old.

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She was the guidance counselor at my high school. She was the guidance counselor at my high school and if you have ever been at school with a sibling and felt overshadowed because they were so popular or something, imagine being at the high school with your extra popular mother and she was so popular because she was loved by everybody. There was not a clique that she was outside of, she was beloved by everyone. And that was not exactly my high school experience. Now, to be honest, I didn't resent her for that and it is only with great reflection. In the past few years I have been able to see some of the things that I picked up through my experience with my mother, my mom. Her name was Janine, but I called her mom, so it's just totally weird to refer to her that way.

Speaker 1:

But she was the most kind, hearted, in service person you could ever meet. She was always doing something for someone else, for her kids, her parents. She joyfully gave to others. It seemed endlessly and tirelessly and joyfully, and that is what I knew her to be. And even after she was diagnosed with melanoma in December of 1995, she continued working the school year and I think missed one day to go have her gallbladder out but showed up every day for those kids because she loved them so much. I think it was also a very healthy distraction from being terminally ill for her to go serve these children as well and help them launch the next phase of their lives. But she loved going to work and everyone there loved her, and I spent decades, decades thinking her perfect, and those are really great qualities to have.

Speaker 1:

You know, if you, if you think of how you would want to remember somebody, that is how. That is how you want to remember them, as as being so lovely and so loved and so giving and treasured. And she was amazing. And so it took a long time before I gave myself the gift of taking off my rose-tinted glasses, of seeing that as perfect and as my goal, which I really couldn't live up to and really now know I shouldn't. But it took forever for me to give myself the gift of that discernment. But when we see somebody as only their good, as never questioning their motives or the wounds that they are expressing through, we do not give ourselves the gift of the lesson. We don't understand how we could shift to improve what they've done or how they were meant to serve us by teaching us through their experience.

Speaker 1:

And so what I'm saying with this is I can't tell you a single hobby that my mother had. I can't tell you what she liked to do for fun. I can't tell you of any times where, other than maybe a walk around the neighborhood with the neighbor that she was putting her own self-care first, and so what I learned was you work tirelessly for others and put yourself last. Now, fortunately, after decades of, you know, just missing her and being brokenhearted by the loss, I have been able to connect with her from the other side, and there is nobody more strict and adamant Well, actually my grandmother, but those two are the most strict and adamant about the boundaries that I have, the gutter guards in my bowling lane, keeping me focused on helping but putting myself first. And this came up for me again recently because a friend of mine had two moles removed, and when she did, I just said, hey, just a heads up that skin cancer and skin issues are often about boundaries. And so, as you're reflecting on this, as you're, you know taking care of the physical manifestation of something. Just have a look back at your boundaries. And she is somebody who is very reflective and really focused on her inner awareness and her healing journey. And so she was able to get so many takeaways from thinking about the boundaries.

Speaker 1:

My mother died from melanoma. She died from not having boundaries, of not putting herself up. Now, that could have been, that could have been arranged long before in her soul contract. They never even found a mole for her skin cancer. There was no external lesion found, but she had stage four melanoma and died and and so when I've been reflecting now, after the boundaries came up, and because Christmas is a time that I think about her so much, anyway, it is so important for me not to look at her and see perfection.

Speaker 1:

And for a long time I thought that I had to give and give and give because I saw how loved she was and I was. I need to earn people's appreciation, I need to do for them so that they love me as much as they loved her. And now I understand that as a wound that she was acting through her own wound of not being able to love and accept herself and needing that validation and approval and love from others. Do I think she still did it joyfully? Yes. However, she never loved herself in a way that she could take care of herself first, and my grandmother used to say Janine, you're going to work herself to death. Because she never sat down, she never took a break, she was never at ease, she didn't play in the floor with us because there was always something to do or something to clean up. It was non-stop work and for a while I thought, because she was loved so much, she must have been the perfect example of how I'm supposed to be, must have been the perfect example of how I'm supposed to be, and it took a lot of healing and reflection and understanding that just because I loved her doesn't mean she was perfect and that I'm not valuing what she is meant to teach me if I see her that way. So it's not any kind of scorn or scar on their legacy for you to dig a little deeper into the meaning that they were meant to give you.

Speaker 1:

My grandmother, my dad's mother, was also just a kind person. She didn't say a bad word about anybody. You couldn't catch her being mean to a single soul, and I love her so much. And I also must acknowledge that my dad's inability to really communicate emotion and he has improved so much recently, but he was raised by a teenager who also didn't know how to communicate effectively. They didn't communicate appreciation or or love with words. They don't know how to articulate love and expression. It is not their strength, and so to see her as perfect means that there's nothing that I should work on to do differently or to learn from their situation so that I may change a pattern.

Speaker 1:

Fortunately for me, my mother's dad was the most communicative of appreciation and love. In fact that's what he would say, is he'd say, susan, I love you and I appreciate you, and he would touch your hand, touch your elbow. When he said it and he genuinely meant it and you felt like you were engulfed by love when you heard those words. And so on one side of the family you could show up and when you hug or something, there were no words. It wasn't like I love you, I'll see you soon. I may say it, but it might not be reciprocated. And then on the other side you've got this man, who's you know, coming up and grabbing your elbow and looking you in the eyes and saying I love you and I appreciate you.

Speaker 1:

Neither are right or wrong. They are expressing from their experiences, from their limitations, from their level of consciousness, and that is for me to learn from. But if I only see them because they've passed away or because I love them, if I only see them as great and there's nothing to learn, that I want to shift or change, then I've kind of messed up the whole path of consciousness evolution. In this lineage, it is mine to gain from their missteps. And it is really hard if you have somebody who served you so well in life and who was loved and kind, it is hard to look and not see perfection. But then you miss the lesson we're supposed to get the lesson.

Speaker 1:

And my mom often is the one highlighting like, hey, that's not yours to fix, that's not yours to do, that's not yours to chase, settle into you, stay in your lane. And I think it's because that is not what she did. And so when I spent decades trying to be as wonderful as she was, because wonderful meant doing only for others, it meant giving until and I never was capable of giving, always joyfully, I would give and be resentful and be scorekeeping. And you know well, I've done this and this and this and this and this. Well, then you shouldn't have. If you needed to track score of it, it wasn't yours to do. Note to all of you who are sitting there saying, well, I did this and this and this. Well, if you needed to keep score, then either delegate or don't do it, because that's not the energy you want to be giving from.

Speaker 1:

But I thought, because she was so loved that that was the pinnacle of what I'm supposed to be as a mother. I knew she loved me and I was a handful, an absolute handful, in my teenage years, going through insomnia and clinical depression and drug use, and she was patient and she was kind and I just thought, wow, she's. She's the not only the perfect person, she's the perfect mom. And I put her on such a pedestal that for so long I couldn't understand that she wants me now to learn that she didn't have boundaries and I need to. I didn't understand that that's not how we're supposed to be, and so it has required me going through this healing journey and understanding that she was expressing through needing to seek other people's validation and approval and love, because she has not given it to herself. And now she is working so hard on the other side to be like no, susan, stay in your lane.

Speaker 1:

So especially, I feel like if a loved one has passed a lot of times, we give them a very thick rose color, gold remembrance that we will only see the good in them. But if you do that, you are missing the lesson, and finding the lesson means you appreciate them more, not less. It is not like you are trying to find fault in them. We all know we are here just experiencing these roles to give each other new ways to learn, and some of that learning is through forgiveness. But if we don't acknowledge imperfection, you can't acknowledge that there's anything to forgive or be forgiven for. And so we are here to create these opportunities of expansion. And so when we only see this one path, this one, everything was good we are not allowing ourselves the full circumference of what that expansion would be. I think this can also happen in relationships, when someone leaves and you only remember the good things, or sometimes you only remember the bad things, and that is a coping mechanism. I'm not going to acknowledge the good things that we had because I need to hate them, and so that's a whole nother. What kind of glasses would those be? Like poop tinted glasses? That's a whole nother. Situation that is denying you to see how you expanded in a positive way, how you expanded in a beautiful way of. These are the things we did well together.

Speaker 1:

Just remember that their legacy is not that you idolize them or think that they are perfect. The legacy is actually in how much growth and expansion all of the souls that they encountered have because they knew them and there is so much growth in learning even how somebody expresses positive traits through wounds. I have to acknowledge that, even though she was beloved by so many, it is not a healthy way for me to show up in this world. She doesn't want that for me. I've had to learn that a lot of the validation and the love and the acknowledgement that she was seeking outside of herself I have to first find in me. I have to make sure I'm taken care of. I have to make sure that I'm pouring into myself first, which she never learned to do. So I just want to remind you that they love you so much that they don't want to be seen as perfect. They want you to do better. They want you to have more. They want you to love more. They want you to heal. They want you to be healthy. So take off the rose tinted glasses. Allow the lessons to come through that they have for you. Allow yourself to say were they expressing through love or were they expressing through a wound?

Speaker 1:

A lot of people always talk about how you know.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my parents have been married for 52 years. Okay, are they happy? Do they have a balanced relationship, or are they from a generation where they felt like they were stuck. Just because somebody is doing something that often we admire like a long-term relationship, doesn't mean it's something you emulate. If you are not happy, if you are not respected, if you are not expanding, if you are not growing, a lot of times what we are putting as the pinnacle for our success is not a good role model. Oh my gosh, hello to Hollywood, hello to a lot of our athletes and our politicians. We put the wrong things and the wrong people to look up to, and so I thought oh, I've got a great choice here I'll look up to my mom and I do. Great choice here I'll look up to my mom and I do. Oh my gosh, I do.

Speaker 1:

But I had to also learn to see things with a skeptical eye not skeptical, but really truly just a discerning eye. And so I've really thought about this a lot when my friend had her moles removed and about boundaries, because I haven't always been willing to look at my mother's selflessness as a problem, but it was. But it was. It was a lack of boundaries, it was a lack of putting herself first, it was a lack of loving herself. So just remember, we're all doing the best we can, but you have to find your way for what feels good with you, without copying somebody else, because they were just acting through their limitations and their wounds and their experiences All right.

Speaker 1:

This week, the invitation is to you to have some reflection, and may that reflection include taking off the rose-tinted glasses. In this society of law of attraction and manifestation and good vibes only, a lot of times we feel like we are doing ourselves and our powerful creator abilities problems. When we see something as okay, nope, that wasn't quite right. When we see something as okay, nope, that wasn't quite right. But it's our job too. It's our job to see things and you don't have to pass judgment on it. You don't have to say my mom was wrong. I'm not the victim of my mother's really great behavior.

Speaker 1:

It seems ridiculous for me to even mention being a victim of her, but I will tell you, I expressed in unhealthy ways for over a decade because I was expressing through her wounds. I didn't realize it because she was so loved and I wanted to be loved, just like her, and I was seeking that validation and that approval and that love, just like her. Just don't be afraid to just look at things through a different lens, through the lens of hmm, what am I supposed to learn here? Is that right? Does this feel good for me? So that's your invitation for this week Find some time to reflect, one reflect on the year gone by. What were the biggest takeaways for you, those key milestones of achievement? And they don't have to be achievement like stats that somebody else is going to measure. But an achievement could be like wow, I'm able to see my childhood differently, I'm able to see these wounds that I'm expressing through. It doesn't mean you fixed it. It doesn't mean you're not expressing through it anymore. It means you brought awareness to it. And let me tell you that is a milestone.

Speaker 1:

And the other invitation is to take off those rose tinted glasses. Allow yourself to receive the full circumference of a lesson by being inquisitive. Was this right? Maybe there's a pattern here I'm meant to break, and if I keep seeing it as perfect, I'm not going to be the breaking of the pattern person. Surely there's a better way to say that I will not be the one that breaks the pattern. And that's what you're here to do. I promise, if you're listening to this podcast, you are here to break some patterns, which means you have to be able to see. I promise, if you're listening to this podcast, you are here to break some patterns, which means you have to be able to see when there is a pattern to be broken and we cannot do it with rose tinted glasses. Thank you so much for listening. 2025 is going to be a blockbuster and I am glad we are doing it together.

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Susan Sutherland

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