Mother Wound

Part 1 in a series on the Lifetime Search for Healing

My parents in 1960 as newlyweds.

Many people coming into this world acquire a serious parental wound that shapes our entire worldview and life experience. These lucky “chosen ones” spend a large part of our lives either unconsciously driven by this wound…or consciously trying to heal it (or both).

Leading Up to the Mother Wound Epiphany

Fifteen years ago, after a six-year battle with cancer, my mother died. My mom, my best friend, the one person whom I knew believed in me and had my back in this world when all others failed or retreated, was no longer accessible to me. How could I face this world without her? What is a life without one’s mother? As many people have experienced, I often went to pick up the phone in the coming weeks and months to call her about a new life development, only to feel the sickening, stark reality descending over my heart that there was no one to call. But it all felt like normal, expected, appropriate surges of grief.

I grieved, but also, I felt strangely numb and distant from the loss. I assumed this is a normal response to grief—to only allow it to come in and shatter your heart in small increments. How do you accept that you are never going to see your mother again? Part of your heart has to remain in a state of denial through the days and months and even years following, because it is a profound, life-altering, inconceivable loss.

Our treatment of and regard to our mothers is an interesting thing. I noticed, while my mother was alive, how I often dehumanized her, taking her for granted and not treating her as if she had feelings. I pondered that phenomenon for a long while, inquiring of others who expressed similar confusing and contradictory feelings toward their mothers. Eventually I deduced that it it’s because we are so much a part of our mothers, and they so much a part of us, that they don’t feel like separate beings from ourselves. We take them for granted because they are not “outside of us,” so to speak.

It’s like depending on an aspect of yourself to do what it’s supposed to do: like taking for granted that your heart will circulate blood, your lungs will deliver oxygen, your brain will think, and reason, and problem solve. These things are happening 24/7 without a conscious thought or, more importantly, a conscious gratitude. Your mother, as far as you are concerned, is here to be your mother. You didn’t choose her, you didn’t have to activate her…she just always IS (or was) in your life, doing what mothers are supposed to be doing: loving, nurturing, serving, and ensuring your success in this world (if your mother was none of those things, I’m so sorry 😢, but keep reading as you may find some personal gems from what I’m going to say).

But then one day your mother takes her final bow on the stage of life. Suddenly you wake up to the fact that she is/was separate from you, because now she is gone, and you are still here. It is a shock beyond shocks into a new way of being that no longer includes your mother’s stabilizing force…your oxygen and blood…in this world. Suddenly, you have a deep longing to express novel gratitude to your mother for all of the ways she loved you and served you and put your needs before hers, but it’s too late.

What is so important about uncovering and healing a mother wound?

As modern science has discovered, a mother’s impact on a child genetically, biologically, and relationally is much more profound than has previously been recognized. In fact, genetically and biologically, a father’s impact is much less integrated or significant.

For example, it was discovered that blood and cells (including DNA) move both ways across the placenta during pregnancy between mother and fetus, depositing viable cells that persist in vital organs (i.e. heart, brain, skin) and tissues throughout both of their lives. These migratory cells can also elicit a healing response with the onset of various organ diseases or dysfunctions.

Cells from the maternal grandmothers have also been found to cross into children during pregnancy.

How is it possible that we carry living, viable cells of our mothers and grandmothers throughout our lives? This is a beautiful mystery because the human body is otherwise programmed to identify and destroy any invader that is "not self." It means that, although a child's DNA and blood type may differ from the mother’s, their bodies somehow learn to accept each other as "self." Also of note that in order for cells to migrate into the brain, they must be even more convincing as “self” in order to cross the rigid defense system of the blood-brain barrier.

In the study, “Scientists Discover Children’s Cells Living in Mothers’ Brains,” researchers go so far as to say that the cells of your mother, grandmother, and matriarchal lineage may even influence your personality and life decisions. “It is remarkable that it is so common for cells from one individual to integrate into the tissues of another distinct person. We are accustomed to thinking of ourselves as singular autonomous individuals, and these foreign cells seem to belie that notion, and suggest that most people carry remnants of other individuals (from the matriarchal line).”

There is a river of living cells flowing across generations of mothers and children, living in hearts, brains, and skin, communicating information to you about who you are, where you came from, and where you belong in this world. My mother and her mother are living in me. I and my mother and grandmothers are living in my children. This implies that we also may carry some of the traumas and wounds of our mothers and matriarchal grandmothers.

I’ve heard that we can energetically heal lineages in past, present, and future. We can intentionally (and maybe simultaneously) heal the wounds in our own hearts as well as upstream in our ancestors and downstream in our children. This is possible because time as we know it is a construct, and does not objectively exist in the quantum field. As I was learning about how we carry the cells of generations, I thought maybe that is one way we can suspend the time-space continuum to heal generationally. Perhaps you heal the living cells of both self and “other” in your body (children, mothers, grandmothers), and find that you also heal generations of trauma, pain, and dysfunction. What if you really do have the power to heal an entire ancestral line by healing yourself?

Think of mother and child, holding each other—literally—in their hearts, minds, and bodies for successive generations! It's a tender reminder of hope, that the motherly ties cannot be erased by time or space. Even when you have to say goodbye, that part of you that is your mother, lies safe inside you as a wise guide and seedling of promise.

That sounds all well and good. But what if you have a mother wound resulting in extreme dislike or animosity? What if the thought of carrying your mother’s biological imprint in your body brings you disgust or anxiety? Or what if you don’t even know if you have a mother wound? Trust me, if you have a mother wound, and you are intent upon or destined to overcome it, you will eventually identify it. If you ask for help, the Universe (and my forthcoming practices) will help you integrate (feel better/heal) the stuck energies and memories over time.

How do you know if you have a mother wound? Is it obvious?

Identifying a mother wound is not obvious for everyone. I think many of us are wandering around in this world with forlorn, lost inner children because of parent wounds that we don’t even know are there. As you will learn more about shortly, I didn’t even know about my mother wound until five years ago because it was buried deep in my subconscious, overshadowed by my father wound.

Here are some possible telltale signs of a mother wound, but surely there are more and they may emerge differently in different personality types as well as types of wounding:

·      You experience irrational fear of abandonment (irrational fear of partners leaving you, fear of being alone).

·      You demonstrate attachment disorders: Avoidant, Anxious, or Complex (mixed)

·      You hold deep-rooted feelings of unworthiness or insignificance.

·      You experience deep-seated feelings of being lost, alone, or not finding your way in this world.

·      You have difficulty experiencing emotional intimacy in romantic partner relationships (related to many of the other bullet points listed).

·      You encounter difficulty trusting people enough to let them in (also related to fear of abandonment and attachment disorders)

·      You have a painful awareness that you don’t know how to give or receive love.

·      Other possible signs are perfectionism, extreme or unusual jealousy with certain relationships (specific to certain people), self-destructive behaviors not attributed to other causes, a critical internal dialogue (you’re not good enough), unexplained fear of becoming a mother, or ongoing dreams about your mother.

To be honest, I can check the box on nearly all of those signs, yet it has still taken me this many years to figure out why.  

Some of the childhood scenarios encountered by children with a mother wound.

The mother:

·      Took care of the physical needs of the children (perfunctory), but didn’t meet qualitative (emotional, relational, or security) needs.

·      Didn’t provide empathy to mirror the child’s emotions and help them learn how to manage those emotions or didn’t allow the child to express negative emotions.

·      Criticized excessively.

·      Expected the child to support her own physical or emotional needs.

·      Wasn’t emotionally or physically available to the child due to excessive career demands or being busy with her own interests.

·      Repeated her own unhealed parental trauma wounds of emotional or physical abuse or neglect.

·      Suffered from an untreated mental health condition (e.g. depression, bipolar, or borderline characteristics).

·      Suffered from alcoholism or drug addiction.

·      Embodied negative feelings about being pregnant, being a mother, or experienced depression, insecurities, or trauma during her pregnancy that were absorbed by the fetus.

How your mother nurtured you (or did not nurture you) during your infancy and childhood might be unknown. You might be guessing by apparent clues more than facts or memory.  

My Mother Wound

Throughout most of my childhood and young adult life, my father wound of abuse (physical and verbal) had been a huge urgent focus, a red herring of sorts, distracting me from the deeper, more profound brokenness of my mother wound underlying it. The dad wound gripped me with uncontrollable anger and rage, depression, and other behavioral problems. I remember in grade school being singled out and put through several days of psychological evaluations because of my maladjusted behaviors in class and with my peers. I was an intelligent child, and I remember being incensed that the adults—especially my mom who arranged the evaluations—would blame me for my display of behaviors, instead of looking at the cause: living in terror at home, not having a safe place emotionally or physically, never knowing what to expect from my dad who’s violent outbursts were erratic. I don’t believe the professionals ever identified the real problem at that time, because they didn’t ask me the right questions. And when you’re a kid, you don’t know that your life is unusual. But this post isn’t about my dad. That’s all water under the bridge.

The unconscious, inner child is a mysterious thing. The universe began the delicate work of bringing my mom wound to light about fifteen years ago, shortly after my mom’s death. At that time, I began having frequent, distressing dreams about her. Each dream was slightly different circumstances, but they all had the same theme. She would suddenly move away from me without telling me where she was going, and without giving me any way to contact her. I would search and search for her, distraught, and when I finally found a way to contact her, she wouldn’t answer her phone, or return my call. The times I physically located her, she was completely disinterested and would not look at me, or give me any indication that she missed me. It felt like the worst kind of abandonment from someone I needed and wanted so desperately in my life.

I was baffled by these dreams, clueless. What could they mean? I felt as if I had made peace with her death, and did not have any apparent unresolved feelings toward my mom. I understood that it was her time to die, and that she did not try to leave me. Yet these dreams were charged with deep sadness, frustration, longing, and hopelessness.

It was only about five years ago that I started becoming conscious of my mother wound. Finally, through some important life events that I’ll expound on next week, the real wounds surfaced: abandonment and insignificance. As a child, my mother buried herself in her career as both an escape from her fearsome, controlling husband (my dad) and also because of her lack of motherly skills or desire to be a mother.

It was a difficult wound to identify because my mother was a wonderful person. She exuded warm, soft energy, quick wit, playful energy, savvy business skills, and had a great personality. Everyone in our small town loved her and wanted to be around her. That was the problem. Juxtaposed to my dad, I really needed my beautiful mom in all the ways she was not there for me as a child. Everyone else got her attention. I felt unimportant to her, forgotten, and unprotected and vulnerable with my dad. There were times that she forgot to pick me up from school or sports. She didn’t show a lot of interest in my life or activities. I practically raised myself from age six and beyond because her career always came first (and the babysitter of my toddler years was untenable). She was almost completely unavailable emotionally for her family, only going through the motions of being a mother while giving the smallest required amount of qualitative or relational input into our lives. Ultimately, I felt unloved.

In part two, I will identify the catalysts that helped me uncover my mother wound, and offer more details on how facing it has impacted my life and relationships in the past five years. It’s been quite a struggle! There are many things I wish I had known (or seen) earlier that could have helped this process along, but I assume I wasn’t ready. You can’t help a chick out of an egg, after all, or it will die. The chick has to work its own way out, however long it takes.

I think that a good portion of the world has a mother wound. I would like to hear from you if you have identified one in yourself. How has it impacted your life and relationships? How have you found answers and healing (if you have)?