When Oprah Winfrey released her podcast episode “When Families Cut Ties” on Thanksgiving, it ignited intense reactions across estranged parents, estranged adult children, therapists, and social media communities. Some felt validated. Others felt blamed, minimized, or misunderstood.

In this episode of The Estranged Heart Podcast, estrangement coach and relational mediator Kreed Revere takes a thoughtful, trauma-informed, middle-ground approach - neither defending nor attacking the episode, but asking the deeper questions that largely went unasked.

Rather than choosing sides, Kreed examines:

• why estrangement conversations collapse into defensiveness and moral certainty

• how culture, trauma, nervous systems, and power dynamics shape family cut-offs

• why behavior is often misinterpreted as fixed personality or intent

• and how the absence of curiosity keeps families stuck in cycles of pain
  

This episode is for estranged parents, estranged adult children, therapists, and anyone seeking healing over echo chambers.

• Estrangement is not a trend. It’s a relational signal

• Validation without resourcing keeps people stuck

• Trauma-informed work requires curiosity, not certainty

• Healing demands accountability without shame
  

Kreed Revere is a relational midwife who specializes in parent and adult child estrangement, reconciliation and mediation support. She is also the host of The Estranged Heart Podcast. Having lived estrangement as both an adult child and a parent - and facilitated over 65 reconciliations - Kreed’s work centers on capacity-building, trauma literacy, and moving families beyond blame toward meaningful repair.

Resources & Support

Facebook Support Group (facilitated by Kreed) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/estrangedmotherssupportgroup

One-on-One Services

• Private coaching

• Consulting

• Mediation services

Connect with Kreed:

• Website: theestrangedheart.com

• Email: [email protected]

• Support the work: Buy Me a Coffee (donation platform)

Disclaimer: Kreed Revere is not a licensed therapist. Nothing in this podcast should be considered or taken as therapy. If you need therapeutic support, please seek out a therapist near you.

In this Sacred Sunday conversation of The Estranged Heart podcast, Kreed explores the subtle yet profound experience of disorientation that arises when previously held beliefs and certainties begin to feel inadequate. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing this transition as a natural part of growth, rather than a collapse. Kreed encourages listeners to witness their feelings of unease and to understand that it is okay to feel disoriented during times of change. She advocates for a gentle approach to self-awareness, allowing oneself to sit with discomfort and recognize the evolution of personal beliefs.

Takeaways

• Certainty is a powerful shelter for many of us.

• Witnessing your beliefs is a tender process, not an aggressive dismantling.

• Feeling disoriented is a natural part of transition.

• Allow yourself to feel the wobble without labeling it as failure.

  
  

Resources & Support

Facebook Support Group (facilitated by Kreed) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/estrangedmotherssupportgroup

One-on-One Services

• Private coaching

• Consulting

• Mediation services

Connect with Kreed:

• Website: theestrangedheart.com

• Email: [email protected]

• Support the work: Buy Me a Coffee (donation platform)

Disclaimer: Kreed Revere is not a licensed therapist. Nothing in this podcast should be considered or taken as therapy. If you need therapeutic support, please seek out a therapist near you.

In this episode of The Estranged Heart, Kreed explores one of the most common and most misunderstood narratives in parent–adult child estrangement: blaming an in-law. When a parent says, “My child was always close to me until they married,” it often reflects not denial or malice, but a nervous system trying to survive unbearable loss. Kreed gently unpacks why certainty feels safer than curiosity in estrangement, how innocence claims can function as self-protection, and why scapegoating a spouse quietly removes the adult child’s agency making repair impossible. This episode invites estranged parents to move beyond blame without collapsing into shame, and to explore how grief, identity loss, and unexamined closeness shape the stories we tell when relationships fracture.

TAKEAWAYS

• Blaming an in-law often protects parents from overwhelming grief - but it also freezes the story and blocks healing.

• “I did nothing wrong” is frequently a trauma response, not a refusal to reflect.

• Repair becomes possible only when adult children are allowed agency in the story, even when their choices are painful.

Resources & Support

Facebook Support Group (facilitated by Kreed) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/estrangedmotherssupportgroup

One-on-One Services

• Private coaching

• Consulting

• Mediation services

Connect with Kreed:

• Website: theestrangedheart.com

• Email: [email protected]

• Support the work: Buy Me a Coffee (donation platform)

Disclaimer: Kreed Revere is not a licensed therapist. Nothing in this podcast should be considered or taken as therapy. If you need therapeutic support, please seek out a therapist near you.

In this episode of the Estranged Heart podcast, Kreed delves into the complex emotional landscape of estrangement, particularly focusing on the trauma experienced by parents, especially mothers. The conversation explores how estrangement can trigger old wounds and feelings of confusion, panic, and helplessness. Kreed emphasizes the importance of understanding these feelings without assigning blame, and the need for support and permission to process these emotions. The episode also addresses the perspective of adult children and the challenges of reconciliation, highlighting that healing is not always linear and may require different approaches at different times.

Takeaways

- Mothers with significant trauma histories can experience an unraveling due to estrangement.

- Healing is not always a linear process.

- Estrangement can activate old survival (ie: protective) systems in the body.

- Reconciliation can sometimes exacerbate feelings of distress.

- Permission to pause and seek support is crucial.

Resources & Support

Facebook Support Group (facilitated by Kreed) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/estrangedmotherssupportgroup

One-on-One Services

• Private coaching

• Consulting

• Mediation services

Connect with Kreed:

• Website: theestrangedheart.com

• Email: [email protected]

• Support the work: Buy Me a Coffee (donation platform)

Disclaimer: Kreed Revere is not a licensed therapist. Nothing in this podcast should be considered or taken as therapy. If you need therapeutic support, please seek out a therapist near you.

In this episode of The Estranged Heart, Kreed addresses what the estrangement conversation has been avoiding: the traumatic impact of estrangement on parents at a nervous system level. This isn't about excusing harm or pressuring reconciliation. It's about understanding why telling parents to "just get it" has failed. There's extensive talk about adult children's experiences, boundaries, and emotionally immature parents, but almost no trauma-informed conversation about what estrangement does to parents. When something this big goes unnamed, it shows up sideways in resistance, defensiveness, rigidity, and shutdown.

For parents, estrangement isn't just painful - it's traumatic. From their perspective, it arrives suddenly, often without warning, and destabilizes core identity:

• Who am I if I'm not a parent in relationship with my child?

• What did my life mean if this is how it turned out?

• What does the future look like now?

  
  

Parents are expected to metabolize this identity collapse quietly and quickly while simultaneously becoming more reflective, accountable, and curious. This expectation is neurologically incoherent.

"Parents don't change because they are told to 'be accountable.' Parents change when their nervous systems can tolerate reality without collapsing."

Resources & Support

The Heart Collective Membership Community

• Twice-monthly live support groups for estranged and reconciled moms

• Community support and resources

Facebook Support Group (facilitated by Kreed) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/estrangedmotherssupportgroup

One-on-One Services

• Private coaching

• Consulting

• Mediation services

Connect with Kreed:

• Website: theestrangedheart.com

• Email: [email protected]

• Support the work: Buy Me a Coffee (donation platform)

Disclaimer: Kreed Revere is not a licensed therapist. Nothing in this podcast should be considered or taken as therapy. If you need therapeutic support, please seek out a therapist near you.

In this Heart Scripture episode of The Estranged Heart podcast, Kreed examines the profound connection between obedience and love, exploring how compliance often served as a survival strategy in childhood and the complex grief that emerges when we begin to question whether love should have required obedience at all.

Obedience as Relational Strategy

• How following rules became a map for preserving closeness and approval

The Tender Origins of Compliance

• Environments where unpredictability lived and belonging felt fragile

What Trembles When Obedience Is Questioned

• Why releasing obedience as an organizing principle feels like risking everything

The Grief of Losing Certainty

• Mourning the illusion that following rules guaranteed care

This episode offers compassionate space to acknowledge that obedience once worked. It protected something tender and kept us safe. It invites us to mourn what we're releasing without condemning what once served us, and to sit with the unsettling questions about what love requires when compliance is no longer the answer.

Resources & Support

The Heart Collective Membership Community

• Twice-monthly live support groups for estranged and reconciled moms

• Community support and resources

Facebook Support Group (facilitated by Kreed) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/estrangedmotherssupportgroup

One-on-One Services

• Private coaching

• Consulting

• Mediation services

Connect with Kreed:

• Website: theestrangedheart.com

• Email: [email protected]

• Support the work: Buy Me a Coffee (donation platform)

Disclaimer: Kreed Revere is not a licensed therapist. Nothing in this podcast should be considered or taken as therapy. If you need therapeutic support, please seek out a therapist near you.

In this powerful episode, of The Estranged Heart podcast, marking the 10-year anniversary of her own estrangement, Kreed explores why parents' feelings deserve care, but cannot be resolved by rewriting their adult children as villains. Drawing from her unique perspective as both a former estranged parent and adult child who achieved reconciliation, she examines the protective function of villain narratives and their ultimate cost.

The Hidden Function of Villain Stories

• Villain narratives aren't born from cruelty—they're born from overwhelm, pain, and protection

The True Cost of Moral Certainty

• Villain stories may soothe the nervous system temporarily, but they freeze movement and make real repair nearly impossible

What Estrangement Really Exposes

• Parents were told (implicitly or explicitly) that if they loved, sacrificed, and provided enough, their child would stay

The Casualties of Certainty

• Grief never completes its cycle because it requires contact with loss, not moral victory

• Shame goes underground and hardens into defensiveness

"What feeling am I protecting by needing my child to be the villain?" This isn't an interrogation—it's an invitation. You don't have to answer today.

What Your Feelings Deserve:

• Your grief deserves care

• Your anger deserves space

• Your shame deserves tenderness

• Your heartbreak deserves witnesses

What They Cannot Do:

• Your child cannot be the container for those feelings

• Neither can a story that requires erasing their inner life to soothe your own pain

Kreed's Personal Testimony"I firmly believe that if I had stayed in that frame of mind [of villainizing my daughters], we would not be reconciled today. And we have been reconciled eight and nine years this year."

Resources & Support

The Heart Collective Membership Community

• Twice-monthly live support groups for estranged and reconciled moms

• Community support and resources

Facebook Support Group (facilitated by Kreed) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/estrangedmotherssupportgroup

One-on-One Services

• Private coaching

• Consulting

• Mediation services

Connect with Kreed:

• Website: theestrangedheart.com

• Email: [email protected]

• Support the work: Buy Me a Coffee (donation platform)

Disclaimer: Kreed Revere is not a licensed therapist. Nothing in this podcast should be considered or taken as therapy. If you need therapeutic support, please seek out a therapist near you.

In this inaugural episode of Heart Scriptures, Kreed offers profound compassion for those navigating the collapse of certainty - exploring the grief that emerges when the structures that once provided safety, meaning, and belonging begin to constrict rather than shelter us. This episode offers sacred permission to grieve the collapse of certainty without pathologizing the process. It reminds us that we are not behind, not broken - we are simply standing at a threshold where what once held can no longer do so. The invitation is to rest in the not-knowing, to honor what mattered enough to wound us, and to resist the urgency to replace old certainties with new ones before we're ready.Take AwaysCertainty as Shelter - The way certainty organized the world and clarified belonging

The Quiet Failure of Certainty - When what steadied the nervous system begins to constrict it

The Grief of Letting Go - Discovering obedience doesn't always equal goodness

The In-Between - Feeling unmoored in the space between certainties

Shame in the Threshold - Shame for doubting what once felt sacred

The Cost of Defending Certainty - The weight of unspoken truthwww.TheEstrangedHeart.com

Email: [email protected]

Work with Kreed: https://theestrangedheart.com/services

(private coaching, mediation, support groups, webinars, etc.)

The Heart Collective: https://theestrangedheart.com/membership

Facebook Support Group for Estranged Moms (facilitated by Kreed)https://www.facebook.com/groups/estrangedmotherssupportgroup

To support the podcast and Kreed’s work with estranged and reconciled parents and adult children: https://buymeacoffee.com/kreedrevere

In this episode of The Estranged Heart, Kreed explores the profound impact of curiosity in relationships, particularly in the context of estrangement and reconciliation. She emphasizes that curiosity is not merely a communication skill but a fundamental respect for another's experience. Through personal anecdotes, she illustrates how the absence of curiosity can lead to feelings of erasure and dismissal, ultimately affecting relational dynamics. Kreed advocates for a shift towards curiosity as a means of granting dignity and fostering deeper connections.

Takeaways

- The absence of curiosity can lead to feelings of erasure.

- Self-protection often prioritizes coherence over connection.

- Curiosity requires emotional slack and openness.

- Curiosity is not just a skill; it's a willingness to be changed.

- Curiosity fosters dignity in real-time interactions.

www.TheEstrangedHeart.com

Email: [email protected]

Work with Kreed: https://theestrangedheart.com/services

(private coaching, mediation, support groups, webinars, etc.)

The Heart Collective: https://theestrangedheart.com/membership

Facebook Support Group for Estranged Moms (facilitated by Kreed)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/estrangedmotherssupportgroup

To support the podcast and Kreed’s work with estranged and reconciled parents and adult children: https://buymeacoffee.com/kreedrevere

In this episode of the Estranged Heart podcast, Kreed discusses the damaging myth that adult children expect perfection from their parents. She emphasizes that what they truly seek is behavioral change and accountability. The conversation explores the emotional complexities surrounding estrangement, the importance of repair in relationships, and how discomfort is often misinterpreted as abuse. Kreed invites parents to reflect on their own fears and the need for self-awareness in order to foster healthier connections with their adult children.

TAKE AWAYS

• The belief that children expect perfection is structurally false.

• Behavioral change is what adult children are truly asking for.

• Estrangement often results from patterns of emotional injury, not single conflicts.

www.TheEstrangedHeart.com

Email: [email protected]

Work with Kreed: https://theestrangedheart.com/services

(private coaching, mediation, support groups, webinars, etc.)

The Heart Collective: https://theestrangedheart.com/membership

Facebook Support Group for Estranged Moms (facilitated by Kreed)https://www.facebook.com/groups/estrangedmotherssupportgroup

To support the podcast and Kreed’s work with estranged and reconciled parents and adult children: https://buymeacoffee.com/kreedrevere