Calling all Recovering Golden Children! I know you are my peeps!
This week, I sat down with Lauren Smallcomb, author of Golden Child—a beautiful book encapsulating and illuminating the journey from Golden Child to Scapegoat to Real Free Human. In this episode, we talk about what it means to grow up in a dysfunctional family system and how so many of us were quietly cast as the “good one,” the responsible one, the golden child—and the invisible cost of slowly disappearing from ourselves.
Lauren shares her journey through chronic illness, brain retraining, and the slow return to her body’s wisdom. We talk about how trauma hides in our cells, how survival can look like perfection, and how healing requires both grief and radical self-permission. This conversation moves through the deep waters of generational trauma, the tenderness of parenting teens, and the sacred practice of becoming who we really are—after years of pretending everything was fine. And we end the episode with a beautiful inter-generational prayer that one of the Safe Inside Mamas shared, so moving and powerful!
Lauren is such a wise, steady, empathic guide, and this was one of my favorite most nourishing conversations I've had in a long time.
You can find Lauren, her book and her work on IG: @goldenchildbook
