Timeless & Unfiltered
Welcome to Timeless & Unfiltered, the podcast where we keep it real, raw, and refreshing for women in midlife. This channel dives into the joys and challenges of midlife with humor, honesty, and heart. From navigating menopause, dating, and fashion to tackling health, relationships, and rediscovering passions, we cover it all—nothing is off-limits!
Whether you’re laughing with us, learning something new, or simply enjoying the ride, Timeless & Unfiltered is here to remind you that life doesn’t slow down at 40—it gets better. Hit that subscribe button and join our community of unstoppable women living their best, boldest lives!
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Timeless & Unfiltered
Does Your Child REALLY Know You Beyond Being MOM?
In this powerful and heart-opening sit-down, Charisse dives deep into the emotional layers of motherhood, identity, and self-love. She shares her personal journey of feeling lost in the role of “Mom” and what it took to reconnect with the woman she is beyond the responsibilities.
🌱 Discover how to start meaningful conversations with your children
💬 Learn the importance of letting your kids see you as a full person
❤️ Explore ways to reclaim your identity without guilt
Whether you're a mother, daughter, or just someone navigating womanhood — this talk is for YOU. It’s time to stop hiding behind the title and start being fully seen.
📌 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more honest conversations about motherhood, womanhood, and self-worth.
#Motherhood #SelfLove #CharisseSpeaks #MomLife #WomensVoices #ParentingJourney
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Thinking about something last night. Ok, Thinking about a conversation I had with my daughter a couple of weeks ago. She said mom, I didn't really know who you were up until about four years ago. I think COVID really brought people together and so I thought that was so profound. Like what do you mean? You don't know your mom and your mother. It made me sad a bit, because I imagine there's so many women their children know them as their mom and they don't know any other part of them.
Speaker 2:This is Legra.
Speaker 1:This is Stephanie.
Speaker 2:This is Cherie and this is Ivanya and this is Evanya. And this is Timeless and Unfiltered, where we are spilling the tea on midlife one laugh at a time. Welcome to another episode of Timeless and Unfiltered. I'm Legra, I'm Cherie and again we don't have any other co-hosts, but that was intentional. This is the Get to Know Cherise episode. Just kind of a little deeper dive into whatever you'd like to share with us and for our audience can kind of get to know each one of us, Connect with whichever one resonates with you, and then we'll get back together and get back on the couch together and talk some more shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, Sharice is layered. It's interesting when we thought about doing this. I thought this is interesting because we sit down and have girlfriend talks all the time, but you know what this is a girlfriend talk down and have girlfriend talks all the time, but you know what this is a girlfriend talk.
Speaker 2:It's a girlfriend talk.
Speaker 1:This is absolutely what we do. We just come up with things that's going on in our lives and we talk about it. So I was just thinking about something last night, okay, I was sitting in my Zoom room and had a conversation, was thinking about a conversation I had with my daughter a couple weeks ago, okay, and she said, mom, I didn't really know who you were up until about four years ago, I think. Covid, you know, I think COVID really brought people together, and so I thought that was so profound, like what do you mean? You don't know who I am. I'm your mother.
Speaker 1:And I realized last night, just sitting and thinking she's right, because I think we have to be so many different people and personalities based on the environment that we're in, and not everybody necessarily, and I was thinking about that too. I think that some people, allegra, are strong enough to really be who they are from a very young age and they don't deviate from that. And I thought about it. Is that because it's ingrained in them? Is that how they were born? There's natural born leaders, there's people who they just have it in them to just be who they are.
Speaker 2:That wasn't the case for me, but that wasn't my case either, sharice, really no, we don't talk about you. That's interesting, but that wasn't my case either. Sharice, really Funny. No, we don't talk about you. That's interesting, but that's not my case.
Speaker 1:So, and I think that for me, I was a cumulative of my surroundings the things that you hear and right and we may all be, but somewhere where's my purse? So you know, I did a girl's trip a couple years late, last year in costa rica and I actually gave this out, but I was reading it last night because I was just thinking about that conversation I had with my daughter and it's so funny because it was just a little scroll that we put on the plate. So it was a scroll.
Speaker 2:Okay, it was a scroll.
Speaker 1:With a ribbon around it. Okay, okay. But I'm going to read this because just having that conversation with my daughter, this resonated in my soul. I'm like, oh my God, I got to talk to my friends. Why did I?
Speaker 2:whisper. I know, I don't know what I was going to say. I was going to say who are we whispering to? You know, I have my glasses on, oh wait wait.
Speaker 1:Oh wait, I thought I had them. That's okay, we're going to make it work. I'm going to make it work. Okay, go ahead. It says.
Speaker 1:As women, we are taught from childhood the importance of making others happy. Be pretty, be quiet, be fun, be just the way he wants you to be, be just the way he wants you to be. So we learn how to navigate, to present only the parts of ourselves that are pleasing to whomever, whoever we are trying to please. These other parts are still there, brewing, steaming in the displeasure of being ignored and denied, hidden away and covered with a pretty smile. A girl who's really just scared, and the author is sex life. It was. It was a movie on Netflix called sex life, but when I read, when I saw that and I listened to just that piece from and I literally pulled this out last night so it's interesting that you know it was just a good conversation, but I really thought about this and I thought about the conversation that I had with my daughter. I'm not going to cry, go ahead, I'm not going to cry Go ahead, I'm not Safe space.
Speaker 2:Yes, and all of the people watching that's all right, they on the other side of the camera it made me sad a bit, because I imagine there's so many women.
Speaker 1:Their children know them as their mom and they don't know any other part of them, right? So you know cause you're my friend girl. We laugh, we have fun, I act a complete fool. I'm a flirt, all I know is that I was when I wasn't in a relationship.
Speaker 2:No, you still flirt, but you flirt with respect, oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Whatever that is, you respectfully flirt. Oh Lord, oh Lord. But anyway, I say that to say I'm glad I moved away from this, you know, and while I'm not glad that COVID hit us and all of the things that happened, I'm glad for me that it gave me a space to be able to open up, to know my daughters and for them to see me differently and to be intentional in being their friend as well, being their friend as well. So, you know, a lot of times parents will say you know, we're not friends, you're my, you're my child or my daughter. Right, and they will always be our children. But I'm just glad in life, before I depart, that my daughters will get to see me as a woman. That's it. They actually get to see Sharice, the woman, the one that goes through pain, the one that have heartaches to, the one who don't understand and know who she is at times. You know the one who's vulnerable much more.
Speaker 1:I'm much more vulnerable, yes, even with them, and I can. I can show up with them without judgment. But I often wonder and I'll never know the answer but damn it, why did we get this be this way? So in every single relationship I truly showed up different, so it was like I don't know who I am.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who's the authentic Sharice? The Sharice that's been here probably for the last five or six years. So I don't know who I am. Yeah, who's the authentic Sharice? The Sharice that's been here probably for the last five or six years. So I don't know what others got from me. Honestly, I don't Everybody got something different from me. They got a piece. Because that's what? What did this thing say? The piece of you that they want you to see, and yeah, but today you know I'm. But that comes with maturity.
Speaker 2:It does, it comes with self-love self-acceptance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all of the things that I had to come to and, quite honestly, you know just I say it all the time, but just therapy really helped me dig deep and understand who Sharice is. What does she want? Being transparent and authentic with my children and you know I am who I am, every single part of me for everybody, like I love.
Speaker 2:I remember when we first met you were a little stressed about your daughters and everything, and even I have seen your evolution, your evolution, the way you stand up for yourself the way you set boundaries, the way you set boundaries not just in your children, but in everybody, how you set boundaries and relationships and friendships and your you know family things.
Speaker 1:That just how much you've grown and how much it was, hard it was, and I think a part of it just comes with what you got as a child or didn't get, and just growing up and just wanting to make sure that everybody was okay except but I think you were forgotten I think it's part of being mothers and a woman, because that was ingrained, because that's what we were taught right to be, whoever it is they want you to be and so you don't even know who you are.
Speaker 1:Remember you said when we had Cheryl on the show and she was like I looked up after so many years married and I'm like, who am I? Who am I?
Speaker 2:and I'm. I felt that in my marriage um, and I'm happy that I was able to recognize that at an earlier, earlier, an earlier age, and part of this conversation is funny.
Speaker 2:Du Bois and I had a little piece of this conversation a couple of weeks ago when we filmed our episode after Mother's Day Okay, talking about how we have this image that we have to have, especially as mom, mm-hmm, and we hide a lot of ourselves from our kids because we want you to. We're trying to raise you in a certain way. We're trying to protect you from certain things. We don't want you to see that we're vulnerable. We're trying to raise you in a certain way. We're trying to protect you from certain things we don't want you to see that we're vulnerable.
Speaker 1:We don't want you to see that we're broke right and we don't want you to see the stress on our face right and that we're stressing on how this is going to get done or that's going to get done.
Speaker 2:So we hide a lot of those things from our kids and I think we become very good at that that all of a sudden it becomes our identity and part of who we are. But whatever that's in you is still there and I always felt like I did everything the way I was supposed to, but according to whose rules? Whose rules? You know, my parents wanted me to do certain things. My mom I was supposed to graduate from high school Did that check.
Speaker 1:I was supposed to go to college.
Speaker 2:Did that check? You know I was supposed to get a good job. Did that check? Then you're supposed to get married and you're supposed to have kids. And then you look up one day and I say whose life is this?
Speaker 1:It's not mine, because there's other things that I want other than just this.
Speaker 2:And so I watched my mom be superwoman, and then I watched my mom develop into her womanhood and independence, and so that's when you said earlier at the show, like, like, this stuff is ingrained in me, it was like no, and surprisingly enough, I'm actually very shy. I don't care what you say, cherise, I'm shy, but I blossom in certain environments. I blossom in safe spaces, okay, but I'm actually shy, which is why I'm such a people watcher. I'm looking for, I pick up off energy, feed off energy, and I think that's one thing, one reason why we got along so great, because even crying, sharice, even though she cried every five minutes, charisse, you always had this energy, this spirit about you, and it was always genuine and it's always authentic but, that's just who, authentically who you were at that time.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying. So that old Charisse is still Charisse, but you were able to let out some of the other things in you, and I think that's because, like you said, we always hide behind a mask and now you're in this space of freedom. Yes, thank you, jesus Of freedom that you can be yourself, and it's a shame that it takes us so long sometimes to get there.
Speaker 1:And I think, if I'm being honest with myself, and I think they'll be okay with me saying this, but I feel like I did them an injustice in some ways because, um them trying to navigate through things that I think I never showed them because I didn't want them to see it. So you know, just being younger, how am I going to get this bill paid? Now, it always happened, but but it's.
Speaker 1:It's a double-sided, because I've seen parents stress so much over like finances or paying bills that they stress their kids the hell out and then they got anxious, so I didn't want that, but I also, in some ways, it's like damn, but I didn't show them you know what I mean, like some of the things that needed to happen. Yeah, or you know being in a relationship and some of the things that needed to happen. Or you know being in a relationship and maybe necessarily not having arguments, because you may have seen it and so you don't want them to see that, but then okay, damn, they don't. They don't know what this looked like, you know. So it's just that fine line that we, that fine line that you walk. But I think, ultimately, after talking to her, after you know, for whatever reason, just reading that again, because when she said that to me it was so profound that you're bringing up to really encourage them to be who they are and not you know bend and twist to fit into somebody else's circle.
Speaker 1:But I think it's hard to raise your children to do that when you're doing that, yeah right, you know what I'm saying. Oh, no, absolutely.
Speaker 2:We pour that on our kids Exactly.
Speaker 1:And that's why I think I'm saying today, because we have the wisdom right, making sure that hopefully somebody is here hear us. You know what I mean. Somebody understood and again, like I said in the beginning, it's not everybody. But for those that just wasn't strong enough, who didn't have it or at least understand what we're talking about, to start instilling that, if it's not your daughters, cause they're too old, your granddaughters, but just do it, Just, but just do it. Just. Just encourage us, the girls, to just don't let go, don't bend and fold to fit into somebody else's that probably go for the boy you do as well I do.
Speaker 2:I do, just put them in a box and quit saying you got to go to college, you know you have to do this and you have to do that I told my son I didn't care if he went to college yeah, just just. But but college was for me. College was to give him a chance for to to be away from, from the, the protective net that we put around our kids. Right, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:I told him go out there, sleep with as many people as you want to while you're in college. I did. I. That was my, my pep talk. Go have as much sex as you want. Be be careful, because right now you're still in that safe space. You kind of in that safe space because you have plenty of times to be an adult. Go enjoy college. Come out with that piece of paper so we ain't waste our money. But, uh, that piece of paper. I wasn't really caring much about his grades. I know that's terrible. Don't flunk out, don't waste the money, but go have the experience. It was the culture of being able to meet people from all around the world, get different experiences, semi-live on your own. You know what I'm saying. Learn how to pay a few bills and stuff, because you, on your own you know what I'm saying learn how to pay a few bills and stuff, because you got your own little place, but you still have an independence, but you still got that rope around you.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, go to college and do that right go experience something I can't show you because now you can get it from a world of other people, like sometimes when I go back home, um like for people that have never left home. I think sometimes their vision or view is a little different because they haven't had the experiences and I've always wanted him to experience right experience all the things I can't show you. Yeah, you have to give yourself some credit as the parent. Um, she had to get that bravery from somewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably the things that we don't see sometimes, or this insecurity sometimes of thinking did I really do enough? Was I an okay parent? Those things that you dummy down sometimes. But I think that and I'm going to be honest, you may have heard me say this before, so it's kind of funny. But when people would say to me you know, you know, kids do great, and it's like congratulations, you did good, give yourself credit. And I'm like, well, you know what? I give them a whole lot more credit because they're the ones that did it, because if they was a serial killer, I wouldn't be talking about. Oh, that's my child, they got that from me. So, uh, it's funny, but you know what I mean? Like we have to give the credit too to the, the kids, the children, the young adults that really do their thing, because, yeah, they listened and they saw something.
Speaker 2:So if there was something you'd want your girls to know about you, what's something you would share with your girls to know about you, or how you would want them to see you?
Speaker 1:I would want them to see me as a woman, as a woman who have gone through a lot of different things. I would want them to know that I have not been as strong as they think I have been, that there has been a lot of vulnerability built in me and I haven't been as strong as they think I've been. I've just done what I needed to do and I think it's important for them to know that. Yeah, I operated out of a. I operated out of fear Fear of not being successful, Fear of not being good enough, Fear of how they specifically would view me.
Speaker 1:It wasn't even so much the world as it was them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's why when our children say things to us, it hurts so bad. Ooh, we talk about that all the time. Be like girl. My daughter said this. I'd be like girl. The boy said this. You know, and the way it stings you.
Speaker 1:Nobody can hurt for me yeah nobody can hurt you more than the things that you hear from your children, but I'm glad that we give them the freedom to be able to express it, because you know, a lot of parents don't a?
Speaker 1:lot of parents, even with adults, will not listen to their children. Well, that's just the way it was, or I didn't do that to you, or all of the things, and they really don't give them an opportunity to voice that. I'm glad that we do that now. It hurt, but not, but it hurt and we listen and we apologize and sometimes that's all our kids want.
Speaker 1:That's all they want is I hear you I apologize for, because how they feel is how they feel. We can't change that. And if we just did more of that? And I went through a lot, but when I listened and heard them, I did those things. You know what I mean and I'm much more, being a very young parent, but I'm much more intentional now, so it doesn't matter. You know where you start at. Just start and do something different.
Speaker 1:But yeah, just want them to know I'm a fun person, I'm funny, I'm loving, I'm a mess.
Speaker 2:The oldest knows that she think that you know she's starting to see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think when you have levels with your children. But I think that oldest, I think she's always seen me, though she's always seen me and she tells me now mom, you don't fool me, and she's like me. I don't know about that, I know, but anyway, but anyway yeah.
Speaker 2:Alright, good, okay, give me three words. Describe Charisse in three words and we'll wrap it up. Three words Describe Charisse. Charisse is.
Speaker 1:Charisse is today bold, bold, transparent. You know I tell everything now and she takes up a whole lot of space that's charise, come on, come on, charise.
Speaker 2:Well, all right now. Look, we got to see a little little bit of recent yeah, a little bit of recent food. I'm glad we did these. Yes, just kind of a little bit of, because you know you have to when you have to spread the love across all four. You know, sometimes I'm really looking forward to when we do ivania's, because she's the more quiet one, so I'm really looking forward to her getting to know the the crunk turnt up ready to party.
Speaker 1:Quiet, shy, because we're just learning her too. You know, we're really as a result of this, I think we're really starting to. We still don't know, but we know more than probably most, but that will be a good, interesting one. Yeah, it's going to be a great episode, but thank you, guys.
Speaker 2:This is another episode of Timeless and Unfiltered. And I'm Lycra, I'm Cherise and we're going to keep spilling the tea on midlife, one laugh at a time. We'll see y'all next time.
