Healing The Mother Wound
“By embracing your mother wound as your yoga, you transform what has been a hindrance in your life into a teacher of the heart.”
Phillip Moffitt
Are you an Unmothered, under-mothered, or motherless woman?
Was your mother (or mother figure) emotionally or physically abusive?
Was she unkind or overly critical?
Did she neglect you or ignore you?
Did she abandon you emotionally or physically?
Was she struggling with addiction, depression, or anxiety?
Was she so overwhelmed by her own issues that she wasn’t able to be there for you in the way you needed her to be?
Perhaps she was a good enough mother, but not very emotionally available for you.
Mother wound work is for ALL women, even if your mother was loving and supportive. The Mother Wound is an increasingly popular topic these days, as women are rising and learning how to truly stand in their power, and they are learning what has separated them from that power. The Mother Wound is a big part of this.
The Mother Wound, in short, is the pain of being a woman in a patriarchal society. It is pain that we all carry, and it is passed from one woman to the next, mother to daughter until someone finally stops the cycle. The Mother Wound tells us that we aren’t enough and that we are too much...it tells us that there is something terribly wrong with us, that we are weak, that we don’t matter, and as a result, that we should keep quiet, be “good”, not rock the boat and just COMPLY with the status quo and DO AS WE ARE TOLD.
The Mother Wound is a result of the rupture of our connection with the Mother:
the Divine Mother
Mother Earth
and our birth Mother.
It runs very deep.
The Mother Wound has far-reaching repercussions. It creates within women feelings of lack, chronic fear, of not-enoughness, anger, depression, feelings that there is something wrong with us, patterns of self-sabotage, perfectionism, people-pleasing, chronic stress and worry, relationship issues, boundary issues (trouble saying no), trust issues, a tendency to not speak up, to hide feelings and squelch your own dreams, therefore settling for scraps. It makes us give ourselves away. These feelings get passed down, mother to daughter, generation after generation. Essentially it stunts our growth and stunts our potential. It keeps us small and if we allow it, it will keep us locked into a childlike way of being that cuts us off from our essence and our highest potential.
Thankfully there is a silver lining - this core wounding can be transformed. We can heal the painful patterns and make more empowered choices that serve us and help us to expand past this fearful, constricted state.
How? The primary work of transforming the mother wound is in becoming our own loving mother and of learning what it means to truly practice self-love...when we do this work, we repattern our core wounding and step into a new, more embodied, and soul-aligned part of ourselves.
The primary role of a mother is to be unconditionally loving, supportive, compassionate, deeply present, understanding, and accepting, offering guidance through her example and teaching us how to live as empowered women in the world, making choices that support us, taking responsibility for those things we can control, and accepting what we cannot, monitoring how we speak to ourselves, how we respond to others and life, keeping our attitude about ourselves and life as positive as possible without being too rigid, setting goals for our lives and holding ourselves to a certain standard that is fitting to what we deserve and desire for our lives...and making choices along the way that support us, support and nurture our growth, our well-being and the fulfillment of our goals and aspirations.
MAMA
Ruptured, severed, and seemingly destroyed was the connection with mother.
Which one first, I’m not sure…
My connection with Mother Earth,
the human mother who carried me for nine months in her womb
and gave birth to me,
or my own inner mother,
only just a seed of potential until now?
I was ripped away, torn away from her womb.
Violently and suddenly separated.
From the warmth, coziness,
and safety of her womb and loving embrace
to the freezing cold void.
Alone, isolated, afraid,
and without support.
Never will I be so warm again, or so I thought.
Until I re-birthed myself.
I was screaming, crying for mother,
Searching everywhere for her…
Mama, come, save me, hold me, make me feel safe.
Why don’t you love me?
Why have you abandoned me?
Why won’t you save me?
Please love me, mama…
Please love me.
Then, the small, quiet voice deep within my own womb said,
“I’m here…I’m mama.
I’M THE MAMA and have always been here, within you.”
I AM mama, and I am YOU.
I pushed, bore down, re-birthing myself from the blackness
of the void where I felt so alone, so separate, so afraid,
“It is safe to LIVE, dear one, safe in this body.
It is safe to be YOU.”
You are safe in this breath.
Safe in this Body.
I am here, mama is here.
Breathe, breathe into this moment, into this body, into this life.
Come ALIVE, my love.
FEEL yourself.
Feel the power of your animal body,
Feel your whole being awaken.
ROAR with the power of aliveness…
THIS IS MY BODY, MY LIFE!
I claim it Now!
Mama is here. I AM MAMA,
and nothing can ever tear us apart.
I AM mama, the divine, the source, I am compassion embodied,
and I am here, my love.
I am the truth of your essence.
Mama is here with you, now and forever.
Ruptured, severed, and seemingly destroyed
was the connection with mother.
Which one first, I’m not sure…
My connection with mother Earth,
the human mother who carried me for nine months in her own womb
and gave birth to me,
or my own inner mother,
only just a seed of potential until now?
Alone, isolated, afraid,
and without support.
Never will I be so safe again, or so I thought.
Until I re-birthed myself.
- Karallyn Streit, 2022
The MOTHER WOUND HEALING JOURNEY
Understanding how this core wounding affects you and who you are beyond the pain
Knowing that what happened to you is not your fault
Seeing your mother for who she is vs. who you wish she was
Understand that it is not your job to save or fix your mother (healing parentification and enmeshment)
Allow yourself to grieve for what happened and what did not happen
Get to know yourself and your needs
Develop healthy self-soothing skills and stop looking outside of yourself for a surrogate mother to save you
Practice self-compassion and self-forgiveness
Cultivating healthy boundaries with others and spending time with others who are emotionally available
Seek outside support when you need it, and stay out of self-isolation
Mother wound healing is an ongoing journey of reparenting our wounded inner child and cultivating the loving inner mother that we never had in our lives. It is a journey of self-love in the deepest way.
If you would like support on your journey of healing the mother wound, please reach out. I would love to support you in any way I can.
