What is a Mother’s Role?
Our birth mother is the giver of life. We may not all be mothers reading this piece, but we are certainly all daughters or sons. Each of us was once inside our mothers womb and she carried us around inside her for nine months give or take, before (often) painfully birthing us into the world. Think about that for a moment. Before you were even born, your mother had made such huge sacrifices so that you could live.
For most of us our mother is the first woman we ever meet. She will go on to teach us how to be a woman and/or what to expect from women. She shows us through her own life choices and behaviours, what women are allowed or not allowed to do, and what they should look and behave like, think, feel and say. Also, our mothers show us through how they live day to day, what women can achieve and ultimately what’s possible (or not), for them, including whether they are ‘allowed’ to meet their own needs and to rest.
A mother’s fundamental role from the very beginning of our lives is to keep us alive. Our very survival depends upon her capacity to connect and bond with us, and to want to nurture, nourish and protect us.
The multi-faceted role of a mother includes….
Protecting and keeping us safe from harm
To soothe, comfort and nurture us
To play with, teach and guide us
To mirror and show us that we are seen, heard and understood and that we exist separately from her. She shapes our very identity.
To notice us and help us understand, express and regulate our emotions.
Allowing us our own feelings and choices separate from her own
Being our champion in life, encouraging and supporting us step by wobbly step.
Allowing us to ‘fall’, to make mistakes, to ‘fail’ and to learn from these experiences.
Teaching us healthy boundaries and helping us navigate different stages of our life and growth.
Allowing us our early tantrums and later rebellions. She encourages us to safely rub up against life and to grow and expand as a result.
Preparing us to healthily individuate from her. To age appropriately cut the apron strings, whilst equipping us with the life skills required to ‘do life’ and to thrive.
Perhaps most importantly she gives us her full blessing and permission to leave when it is time. “Off you go now my love, you are ready, so fly…….”
Phew! Now that’s a HUGE ask of any mother. What a job description to live up to (and I’m sure a mere tip of the iceberg)! I feel exhausted just writing it. Even the healthiest, most well-adjusted and securely attached mothers would struggle to honour all that lot. No wonder we carry such a heavy load of guilt and shame. In addition, many of our own mothers were carrying their own unprocessed pain and trauma, wounds and heartbreaks, fears and unfulfilled dreams, when we arrived in their lives. Most of them did not grow up in the generation of personal development as we have, and had no awareness of, nor access to therapy. And all of this neatly wrapped up within a patriarchal system invested in keeping women in their place. ‘Know your place little missy’.
When you view mothering in this broader context, it seems inevitable that our mothers would disappoint and wound us. How could they possibly not?!
So what is the Mother Wound? (MW)
The MW encapsulates the myriad of ways our mothers struggle to honour this impossible role and ‘job description’, and the inevitable emotional wounds created inside of us as a result. The MW describes the ways our mothers were unable to meet our needs, causing us deep pain and hurts that for many still affect their adult lives and capacity to healthily parent their own children.
Often with mothers our wounding exists somewhere on a spectrum of ‘too much’ - attention/protection/smothering/control, to ‘too little’ - neglect/unavailability/rejection/abandonment/weak or no boundaries.
Examples of the mother wound might include:
Betrayal and lies - her saying 1 thing and doing another.
Abandonment and rejection
Addiction issues including love addiction
Neglect including benign neglect (google it)
Smothering/over protection, not allowing us the space to become our own person.
Failure to protect us, for example from a violent father
Physical/emotional abuse
Emotional unavailability - there but not there
High levels of criticism/judgement and in some cases cruelty/bullying
Inability to see us or notice/respond appropriately to our needs.
Needing us to look after them, they were the child and we became their parent.
If a mother has not addressed her own wounds and trauma or come to terms with the sacrifices she has had to make, she will often leak her grief and pain all over her children. Unconsciously passing it on. How our mother parented us is directly determined by how she herself was parented as a child.
‘If you do not transform your pain, you will always transmit it.’
Father Richard Rohr
Possible impact of an unhealed mother wound:
Core beliefs about what we can and can’t do
That we are flawed/wrong/never good enough/unloveable
Strong feelings of worthlessness and a strong inner critic
Lack of safety and trust in ourselves/others/the world
Lack of vision/purpose for our lives/feeling lost & untethered
Feelings of inadequacy/lack/failure
Guilt and shame - It’s my fault/I’m to blame
Weak boundaries/inability to speak up for ourself
Suppressed/internalised rage that makes us sick
Feeling that we don’t belong anywhere
Believing we are undeserving of love and happiness
Self sabotage when we do receive love or feel happy
Remaining a victim and an emotional child.
Essentially, we internalise the mother of our childhood, doing to ourselves what was done to us. So if your mum was great and met your needs more often than not, you will be able to do the same for yourself. However if your mum for example abandoned you physically or emotionally, you will likely abandon yourself as an adult until you heal this core wound. The mother wound will affect all areas of your life – from your relationships, career, finances, health and your capacity to trust your intuition and your own parenting.
Ways to begin healing the mother wound
Acknowledge the pain and suffering she has caused you in the past without trying to justify or excuse her behaviour and choices.
Share your stories safely with benevolent witnesses (eg. a therapist or close trusted friend), without fear of punishment or filter of your emotional truth.
Feel and express all of your feelings/grieve for your lost childhood including anger (this always involves the body).
Imagine or find out what your mother’s childhood and early life might have been like, ‘walk a mile in her shoes’ (empathy).
When you are ready, begin to move towards a place of understanding and compassion. Perhaps even forgiveness…..
Learning how to parent yourself (becoming your own healthy inner mother).
Becoming your own inner mother
Learn to accept and allow your feelings as they arise with compassion and tenderness.
Learn to comfort and self soothe.
Meet own needs and ask others to meet them in healthy ways.
Treat yourself with respect and dignity, including your body. This includes kind, encouraging words, healthy choices, food, exercise etc.
(Re)learning how to play and have innocent fun.
Check in regularly on younger/wounded self and hold your own hand.
Practicing boundaries and self discipline.
Becoming your own best friend.
Healing is possible
How do you know when you have healed the MW? Of course it’s a process and for some of us, a long one! The depth of your core wounding might determine the length of your healing journey. You can’t just do one piece of work on the MW and think ✅, job done. (Nice try). Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.
For me personally, the day I finally felt a liberation from my mother wound and when I emotionally matured as part of that process, was when I could see my mother as a woman first and foremost. That she had a life, love, and longings way before she became my parent. When I could recognise that she was once a little child (just like me) with hopes and dreams (just like me). When I was able to consider her pain and suffering without comparing it to my own. To know that she had made many mistakes because she was human (just like me).
And when I finally realised what she had sacrificed for me and the gifts she also passed on to me, (including the ones with a turd for a bow), I found freedom. There was nothing left to forgive.
“If you can’t even begin to light up the path towards forgiveness for your parents, how on earth will your own children find that same path back to you?”
Donna Lancaster
Resources worth checking out about healing and the mother wound:
The Bridge book by yours truly (published by Penguin Life)
Discovering your Inner Mother - Bethany Webster
Mother Hunger - Kelly McDaniel
Healing from the Emotionally Absent Mother - Christy Lincoln
Transforming the Mother Wound - Monika Carless
https://www.motherkind.co/listen-1/ep-251-every-mother-needs-to-hear-these-words-with-donna-lancaster
Mother & (Adult) Child Independence Ritual
Some of you may sense that there remain unhealthy connections between you and your mother (even if she has passed away), that are holding you back in your adult life. Almost like she (or you) can not untie the apron strings that will set you free. Energetically you will therefore remain by her side, unable to fully take flight, long after you have left home and moved on. These are known as ‘invisible family loyalties.’
This ritual can support you to begin to make the healthy separation that is required for you to fully ‘leave home’.
1. Place two separate small photos of you and your mum (as adults) side by side where you can see them.
2. Each day spend a few moments in the morning looking at them and turn to your mothers photo and say ‘ I love you mum. Thank you for all you have given me but it’s time for me to go now. It’s not my job to save you mum and neither can I. That’s up to you. I am choosing to save myself. I let you go with love and deepest respect. I will always love you and bow my head to honour you.
3. Pick up the photo of yourself and take it with you, in your pocket, bag or place somewhere else where you can see it throughout your day. When you remember say ‘I choose you’ to your pic.
4. Repeat this ritual every day until you feel an energetic shift towards your mum that frees you up to behave in more boundaried ways around her.
5. Celebrate ‘leaving home’ with a dance/meal/song and place a flower or small gift next to the photo of your mum to honour and thank her.
If you do this ritual, please let me know how you get on in the comments?
And by the way if your eyes are rolling at the thought of this, don’t worry. Rituals have been proven (by Harvard research no less) to work, even if you don’t believe in them. So why not eye roll AND do the ritual?!
Words and ritual created by Donna Lancaster
“If you are still blaming your parents for what happened to you as a child, you haven’t left home yet.” David Richo
And Finally….
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Thank you as always Donna, I know your wisdom is hard earned and has taken years to hone so I’m very grateful that you share it with us (me)
This particular piece is a double/triple? Edged sword for me. My mother wound runs deep although now that she’s passed and through lots of work I find I can forgive her in swathes most of the time. Then I look at the kind of mother that shaped me to be (angry/shouty) and find it difficult to forgive myself the horrible parts which stops me celebrating the many wonderful parts - I read somewhere that abusive mothers always remind their children of the good parts and therefore I simply can’t for fear of it being just that.
The triple edge extends to watching my daughter becoming a mother, oh my is she good at it and honest with it. She doesn’t mind exploring her feelings and her own needs whilst simultaneously being the most incredible mum to her 7 month old baby.
I feel very privileged to be a part of that and guide her when she asks, offer tit bits even when she doesn’t and remind myself that I was like this too when she came along. 3 babies later, a dysfunctional marriage and my own mother wound was in full flow made a hundred times worse by the fact she was entrenched in our lives. The guilt is still crushing despite them being adults, flown the nest and still very much part of my life.
However today I’m going to celebrate with those that live nearby and let it be just that, a celebration of life, of relationships, of acknowledgment that we came through and keep working on making it the very best it can be.
I love that you give us tools and resources too to carry on our healing Donna, thank you and Happy Mothers Day to you too 🙏
I really struggled finding the right mothers day card this year as so many contained words that I did not feel (and caused me pain as they represented so much that I grieve for and lack in my relationship with my own mum)
I really love the ritual suggestion... incredibly helpful as I continue to work on healing my mother wound and strengthen/ soften my mothering of my children. I am also finding that I have an increasing capacity to mother myself which is such a beautiful discovery and a real source of continued healing. 🥰 On Mothers Day itself I took time to drink cacao, snuggle in a blanket and read - as well as spending time with my daughter. True joy.