I want you to take a moment and think about what kind of relationship you and your mother have. how are you? how did I make you feel Do your thoughts drift in good times or dwell in bad times?
Our mothers were central players in our development as children and formed the basis of our emotional and psychological development. To this day, our mothers continue to influence us through our deeply ingrained perceptions of life and our feelings about ourselves and others.
But even though our mothers may have tried their best to take care of us, our relationship with them was probably filled with shame, guilt, and obligation. We may continue to carry grief, fear, disappointment, and resentment toward our mothers long into our adult lives.
This deep pain is usually the result of underlying, unhealed wounds that are passed on from generation to generation.
If you have a wounded mother, you must learn how to heal, mend, and reconcile the broken parts of you that still crave your mother’s love. Healing the parental wound within you has the power to change your life and improve your relationships tenfold. And today we will explore how to do this.
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What is wound mother?
I have always had a very tense relationship with my mom. As a child, I remember the fear and reverence I felt for her; Fear because he was the primary disciplinarian in the family, and reverence because she was self-sacrificing.
As an artist, she was (and still is) highly skilled in watercolor and oil paintings, yet she was never able to fulfill her dream of becoming a paid artist despite being brilliant. These dreams faded further as she continued to be born, and eventually, it became rare to pick up a pencil or paintbrush.
I could always sense the underlying disappointment and resentment within. I think part of her felt like a failure, so the only area she could excel was raising kids. This was only amplified by her strict Christian beliefs which traditionally dictated that a woman’s place was in the home, not the art studio.
As I got older, the admiration and affection I had for my mother became tainted with anger, sadness, and even disgust. Although she was very generous with her time and effort, her emotional coldness was distressing to me. I made it clear that I was the child and she was the mother. There was no equality or common ground on which to meet.
The only time I felt like my mother’s friend and friend was when I did everything she wanted me to do, like a perfect little daughter.
These days, I only talk to my mom via text a few times a year. You made it clear to me that leaving the Christian faith and allowing myself to love Sol was an extreme betrayal.
However, despite the animosity between us, she still reminds me that “my family loves me” and part of me wonders if those words were written with a Christian agenda or stemmed from true sincerity.
Our mother’s wounds are traumas that are passed down from generation to generation and have a profound impact on our lives. When left unresolved, we carry on 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, hurting their children and their children with centuries of unresolved pain. (Please note here that our fathers carry their wounds, but in this article, I want to focus specifically on our mothers.)
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If you have a mother wound, you will face the following problems:
(For females) You constantly compare yourself to and compete with other females
Sabotage yourself when you experience happiness or success
Having weak boundaries and an inability to say “no”
Self-blame and low self-esteem manifest as the underlying belief: “There is something wrong with me.”
Codependency in relationships
Minimizing yourself to be loved and accepted
Inability to speak honestly and fully express your feelings
Unnecessarily sacrificing your dreams and desires for others
Waiting for your mother’s permission on a subconscious level to truly live life
Mother Wounds are developed at an early age and are related to the belief that “I was responsible for my mother’s pain,” and “I could make my mother happy if I was a good girl/boy.”
The fact is that we were not and still are not responsible for our mother’s pain – only she is responsible. We also can’t make our mothers happy unless they decide to be happy. However, unfortunately, as children, we were not aware of this and at a subconscious level, many of us still believe that we are the culprits of our mother’s anxiety.
Where does the mother’s wound come from?
Women lived under the patriarchal rule for centuries. Religion and society, in particular, have been instrumental in perpetuating myths that women should:
Stay home and give up your ambitions to have children
Be the primary supervisor of the household
Constantly serving others and their needs, while giving up their own
Keep It All Together 100% of the Time Because That’s What Good Moms Do
They completely exhaust themselves to provide for their families and raise children
As a result of these intense and superhuman norms, women abandon their dreams, bottle up their desires and stifle their needs in favor of fulfilling the cultural ideal of what motherhood “should” be.
This pressure is stifling for most women, producing anger, depression, and anxiety, which is then transmitted to their children through subtle—or even aggressive—forms of emotional abandonment and manipulation (such as shame, guilt, and obligation). This forms the parent wound.
Mother’s wound
How to heal the mother’s wound
But it’s important to understand how much our mothers went through in the face of these oppressive ideas and expectations. It is important to realize that no mother can be perfect, no matter how hard she tries to use this knowledge to generate forgiveness.
Finally, we must learn to humanize our mothers in a society that dehumanizes them. No mom can act lovingly 100% of the time. The sooner we embrace this reality, the better.
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Healing the mother’s wound – 3 steps
Many women these days talk about embracing the divine feminine which sounds nice in theory, but without facing and healing the maternal wound this is just another ambiguous example and form of spiritual transcendence.
As a woman who carries a very deep wound, I have experienced loneliness and grief at the emotional and psychological absence of your mother.
Although I still have room for improvement, I want to share with you three tips that will help you on the road to recovery:
- Learn to separate the human being from the archetype.
We briefly explored the typical mother above; A selfless, giving, completely nurturing woman who belittles her own needs in favor of those of her children. Indeed, mothers are human beings with flaws and issues.
The more we expect them to live up to society’s expectations of the “ideal woman,” the more we deprive them of their humanity.
You may want to ask yourself, “What harmful beliefs and expectations do I have about my mother that cause me pain?” Common beliefs and expectations include, for example, “My mother should always be available emotionally,” “My mother should be my best friend,” “My mother should never be mad at me,” and so forth.
- Give up the dream that your mother will be who you want her to be one day.
Stop waiting to receive love, support, and validation from your mom. Remember that you can never and have any right to change her identity – that’s her responsibility.
As you slowly learn to let go of your hope that she is all you want her to be, you can allow yourself to grieve her absence. Grief is a vital part of the healing process and in my experience, it can last for years. But allow it to happen. It’s good for you in the end.
- Find the 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 healing process has been learning how to re-raise my inner child (which you can read about in this article).
Learning how to love me has revealed to me a deep well of infinite love that sustains me cherishes me and wants the best for me. The same source of love is within you, too. When you slowly dissolve the limiting beliefs and concepts you have about yourself and the world, you will find it easy to turn your desire for external support into internal acceptance.
Related: 5 Surprising Signals That Your Relationship is Toxic
The final product…
Healing the mother wound inside you will change your life. You will be able to set better boundaries, have healthier relationships, take better care of your own needs, develop empathy for others, trust life more, and feel more comfortable in your skin.
Share with me below: What was life like with your mother? Are you still experiencing unresolved pain from your childhood, or are you in the process of healing the mother’s wound?
