Yesterday, while scrolling through Twitter found a tweet by a friend “TIL (healing) mother wound”.. I got curious cos I have been dealing with wounds and baggage related to my mom for decades now. she then shared a link to an Instagram post with a “Will be curious about your thoughts if you want to share đ I found the varied comments interesting ;p”
That was all I needed.. down the rabbit hole I went, only to surface a good half hour later… started by reading through the entire article.
Took me a few minutes to assimilate what I had just read, quite a few lines from the piece resonated with me.. some of them are shared below:
Yet, as a small, impressionable child, I contorted her reaction into a message about me and my worthiness as a humanâa pattern I would repeat with innumerable interactions throughout the years, a pattern which evolved into a detrimental cycle of hiding my every want, need, fear, and desire from my mom.
And I did, because I learned when I was very small that some things upset my mother and other things didnât, so I better do what doesnât upset her, because when she yells at me, it hurts.
Healing the mother wound is not about hating our moms; itâs about saying âNo more!â to the patterns of shrinking, competition, unworthiness, self-hatred, and every single limiting belief system we want to shed because itâs simply not ours but has been handed to us generationally and woven deeply into both the patriarchy under which we live and brainsfrom which we operate.
I knew I had to take control of my life and do something about this. While I hadn’t lived with my parents in nearly 20yrs, the pandemic changed everything. My parents were with me & gramma, I had to face and deal with them on a daily basis and this was not going down well. I was constantly battling with emotions, the need to burst out at mom whenever she said something stupid/illogical [ esp around the pandemic ], and of course dealing with them as an adult [ since they had last seen me/ been in close quarters with me till my late teens only]. We had both evolved and grown, especially me and things that I ignored earlier were now staring me in my face threatening my very being. That is when I decided to take the plunge and signed up for therapy. Oh boy, was it the best decision of my life? The perspectives the therapist gave me were eye-openers and in about 10-15 sessions I had grown some more, and it was quite obvious to me as well.
While I had shifted focus towards myself a decade ago, and become self-reliant and confident, there was still this baggage weighing me down. More than my mom behaving the way she did, it was about “why me?” “Why am I being singled out?”. and therapy helped me answer these questions, and make peace with mom. By the time I left home, I could see the difference in my attitude towards mom – I was able to hold conversations, discussions and be in the same room without wanting to bite her head off.
To anyone who says “oh she is your mother”, “she has your best interests in mind” etc.. pls take a hike~ You have no idea how deep and sharp and painful mother wound is. Am glad you don’t have to go through it, but do not belittle anyone who feels otherwise. Parents are the ones who brought us into the world, but then that does not mean they can bully/abuse or treat us ay which way that pleases them. We DO NOT owe them anything! We do OWE it to ourselves to live our life well and be happy, and to do whatever it takes to get there~~
As the author of this article says-
“As I confront my mother wound bit by bit, I learn to forgive; I let myself be forgiven; I forgive myself.
Leaving you with something to ponder about…
This is something that I discovered during a workshop on emotions and dealing with them –
