What did it look like? How did it feel? Do your thoughts drift to the good times, or do they dwell on the bad times?
Our mothers were pivotal players in our development as children and they formed the very foundation of our emotional and psychological growth. To this very day our mothers continue to influence us both through our deeply ingrained perceptions of life and through our feelings towards ourselves and other people.
But although our mothers may have tried their very best to nurture us, our relationships with them may have been laced with undercurrents of shame, guilt and obligation. In fact, we may continue to carry unresolved grief, fear, disappointment and resentment towards our mothers long into our adult lives. This deep pain is usually the result of unhealed core wounds that are passed on from generation to generation.
If you possess the Mother Wound it is vital that you learn how to treat, repair and reconcile those broken parts within you that still yearns for your mother's love. Healing the Mother Wound within you has the potential to transform your life and improve your relationships tenfold. And today we'll explore how to do that.
What is the Mother Wound?
I have always had a very strained relationship with my mum. As a child I remember the great fear and reverence I felt towards her; fear because she was the primary disciplinarian in the household, and reverence because she was so self-sacrificing. As an artist she was (and still is) extremely skilled in watercolor and oil paintings, yet she was never able to actualize her dream of becoming a professionally paid artist despite how brilliant she was. These dreams further dimmed as she kept giving birth to children and eventually it became a rare occurrence for her to pick up a pencil or paintbrush. I could always sense this lurking disappointment and resentment bottled up within her. I believe a part of her felt like she was a failure, so the only area she could excel in was child-rearing. This was only amplified by her strict Christian beliefs which traditionally dictate that a woman's place is the house, not the art studio.
As I got older the admiration and affection which I held towards my mother became tainted with anger, sadness, and even disgust. Although she was extremely generous with her time and effort, her emotional coldness was distressing to me. She made it very clear that I was the child and she was the parent. There was no equality or middle-ground on which we could meet. The only time when I ever felt like my mother's friend and confidant was when I did everything she wanted me to do, like a perfect little daughter.
These days, I don't speak with my mother except via text message a handful of times a year. She made it very clear to me that leaving the Christian faith and allowing myself to love Sol was a severe betrayal. Yet despite the animosity between us, she still reminds me that "my family loves me" which in truth a part of me wonders whether such words are written with a Christian agenda in mind, or out of real sincerity.
Our Mother Wounds are traumas that pass down from generation to generation that have a profound impact on our lives. When left unresolved, we pass on the Wounds that our mothers and grandmothers before us failed to heal. These wounds consist of toxic and oppressive beliefs, ideals, perceptions and choices. Finally, our children repeat the cycle, harming their own children, and their children's children with centuries of unresolved pain. (Please note here that our fathers carry their own wounds, but in this article I want to specifically focus on our mothers.)
If you suffer from the Mother Wound you will experience the following problems:
- (For females) constantly comparing yourself with, and competing against, other females
- Sabotaging yourself when you experience happiness or success
- Possessing weak boundaries and an inability to say "no"
- Self-blaming and low self-esteem that manifests itself as the core belief: "There is something wrong with me"
- Co-dependency in relationships
- Minimizing yourself to be likable and accepted
- The inability to speak up authentically and express your emotions fully
- Sacrificing your dreams and desires for other people unnecessarily
- Waiting for your mother's permission on an unconscious level to truly live life
Where Does the Mother Wound Come From?
Women have lived under patriarchal reign for centuries. Religion and society in particular have been instrumental in perpetuating the myths that women should:
- Stay at home and give up their ambitions as child-bearers
- Be the primary caretakers of the household
- Constantly serve others and their needs, while giving up their own
- Hold it all together 100% of the time because that's what "good mothers" do
- Utterly deplete themselves in order to support their families and raise children
But it is important that we understand how much our mothers have gone through in the face of these oppressive ideals and expectations. It is important that we realize that no mother can be perfect, no matter how hard they try, and use this knowledge to generate forgiveness.
Finally, it's important that we learn to humanize our mothers in a society that strips them of their humanity. No mother can act in a loving way 100% of the time. The sooner we embrace this reality, the better.
Healing the Mother Wound - 3 Steps
Many women these days speak about embracing the divine feminine which sounds nice in theory, but without confronting and healing the Mother Wound, this is nothing but another fuzzy ideal and form of spiritual bypassing.
As a woman who carries a very deep Mother Wound, I have experienced just how lonely and saddening it can be to feel the emotional and psychological absence of your mother. Although I still have space to improve, I want to share with you three tips that will help you on your healing path:
1. Learn to separate the human from the archetype.
We briefly explored the archetypal mother above; that of the selfless, giving, completely nurturing woman who diminishes her own needs in favor of her children's needs. In reality, mothers are human beings with flaws and issues. The more we expect them to live up to society's expectations of the "perfect woman," the more we deprive them of their humanity.
You may like to ask yourself, "What damaging beliefs and expectations do I have about my mother which cause me pain?" Common beliefs and expectations include, for instance, "my mother should always be emotionally available," "my mother should be my best friend," "my mother should never get angry at me," and so forth.
2. Give up the dream that your mother will be who you want her to be someday.
Stop waiting around to receive the love, support and validation of your mother. Remember that you can never change who she is and nor do you have the right to - that is her responsibility. As you slowly learn to relinquish your hope that she will be everything you ever wanted her to be, you can allow yourself to grieve her absence. Experiencing grief is a vital part of the healing process and in my experience it can last for years. But allow it to happen. It is ultimately good for you.
3. Find your inner source of unconditional love.
While you may not have received unconditional love from your mother, you can find it within yourself. A big part of my own healing process has been learning how to re-parent my inner child (which you can read about in this article). Learning how to love myself has revealed to me a deep well of endless love that supports, cherishes and wants the very best for me. This very same source of love is within you as well. As you slowly dissolve the limiting beliefs and perceptions you have about yourself and the world, you will find it easy to transform your desire for outer support to inner acceptance.
The Final Product ...
Healing the Mother Wound within you will transform your life. You will be able to set better boundaries, establish healthier relationships, take care of your needs better, develop empathy for others, trust life more, and feel more comfortable in your skin.
So share with me below: what was life like with your mother? Do you still carry unresolved pain from your childhood, or are you in the process of healing the Mother Wound?
I wouldn't even know where to start with this article. What a load of new-age malarky! Let's all reparent our inner child so we can embody the divine feminine and heal the mother wound! Maybe all of these things are true for Ms. Luna (really, Alethia Luna, Truth Moon, that's a good christian name.)
Who the heck is this Sol character she "wuvs."?
Also, I just can't leave this one alone: "Women have lived under patriarchal reign for centuries. Religion and society in particular have been instrumental in perpetuating the myths that women should:"
Slow down there sparky, society, throughout history, has forced roles on to everybody. No one was under "patriarchal" reign. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander on this one, and most of the men of the world were just as oppressed(and still are) by a PATHOCRACY. Not a PATRIARCHY.
Or do you really imagine that a system that forced men to labor in mines until they died gasping for air, drowning in their own mucous from miner's lung, that is if they didn't die in collapses. Or all those people who built the buildings, worked the smithy, and fought in the wars, yeah, truly it is a conspiracy of patriarchal domination. We really loved breaking our backs so you could complain about having to cook all the meals that you ate too.
Because of course every man dreamed of slaving his life away in hard physical labor, it was only women consigned to the home and hearth, to sweep and mop, who were the real victims. Quel Tyranny!
How about we all accept that the so-called patriarchal "domination" was little more than a program that ensured the safety and health of women at the cost of millions upon untold millions of men(all hard labor, all wars including those of universal suffrage, liberty and democracy). A system that only became useless around about the time Air Conditioned Offices became common.
These "oppressive ideals and expectations" are the ones foistered on EVERYONE, man and woman alike, by Elite Slavers who treat ALL OF US like their property.
The majority of things listed in this article have nothing to do with your mother and everything to do with a pathological materialist society.
Here's the truth kid: Your mother gave up on her dreams of being an artist because she wasn't any good at it. She did what most women do, got married and had kids. She felt her biological clock ticking, hopped off the carousel and married herself a fine fixer-upper and spent the rest of her life regretting how he didn't "recognize" what a magical divine feminine goddess snow flake she was, so she took it out on you.
Now you're gonna do the same, convince yourself how awesome you are, realize that there aren't any takers (you have low self-esteem because you suck). You're gonna hop of the carousel, find yourself a nice fixer upper who's just desperate for female acceptance because of his own mommy issues, and he's also not gonna live up to your romantic ideals and isn't going to "recognize" your special feminine snowflakeness, and you'll do to your kids what was done to you.
Here's the reason for each one, point by point:
"(For females) constantly comparing yourself with, and competing against, other females"
Yeah because there's just no evolutionary basis whatsoever for those behaviors. It's all the momma wound.
"Sabotaging yourself when you experience happiness or success"
You know you suck, people who suck don't deserve success. You don't 'deserve' anything by default. You earn it. With work. Start workin'
"Possessing weak boundaries and an inability to say "no"
BS. You possess weak boundaries because you're a weak person. Your "inability" to say no is you being lazy. You're not unable to say no, you're just too lazy to do it.
"Self-blaming and low self-esteem that manifests itself as the core belief: "There is something wrong with me"
Probably. If any of the above are true, I'd say something is in fact wrong with you.
"Co-dependency in relationships"
You don't have co-dependency in relationships, you have idealistic illusions in your relationships. You are so wrapped up in yourself you neither see nor appreciate anyone outside yourself.
"Minimizing yourself to be likable and accepted"
Everyone does this, you me, everyone. Why not try to be the kind of person where other people don't have to pretend to live up to your asinine ideals just to associate with you?
"The inability to speak up authentically and express your emotions fully"
Yeah, I somehow doubt that's a problem you really have.
"Sacrificing your dreams and desires for other people unnecessarily"
Bah.
"Waiting for your mother's permission on an unconscious level to truly live life"
How about using your mother as an excuse for not taking any responsibility or accountability in your life?
Mothers are people too. Let's stop pretending they were so bad that they ruined us for life. Living in a sick society, with inappropriate and damaging expectations damages us, more than mommy or daddy. Everyone wants to blame parents for problems that exist, and have existed, in society at large due to Pathocracy, Psychopathy, crass Materialism and Nihilism. Just because mommy didn't give you enough hugs is not why you feel powerless, it's not why you feel worthless, it's the sick society and it's bizarro social norms. And really it's articles like this. It's the constant, subtle, droning complaint: Oh, poor us, those bad mens they made us clean our own houses and take care of our own children, and it was so oppressive, all we wanted to do was paint lillies and frollick in the woods like free nymph spirits, but those dirty Patriarchs made us have children and and and obligations. WAAAAAH.