As I’ve sat in the seat of guide and mentor over the last twenty-five years, I’ve been privileged to be invited into the deepest recesses of psyche where archetypal material – the pain, wounds, joys, thoughts, compulsions, and anxiety common to all humans – rises to the surface and is spoken aloud. In the realm of the sacred, I listen. I hold. I reflect with compassion and curiosity. I seek to create a space where people feel safe to share these places and, in the sharing and witnessing and reflecting back what I see and hear and feel, layers of healing begin to unfold.
In this archetypal, sacred space…
…I hear about the wide spectrum of intrusive thoughts, from harm anxiety to relationship anxiety to health anxiety;
…I hear about the pain of being a highly sensitive person in a culture that judges and shames sensitivity;
…I hear about doubt in intimate relationships and pain in friendships, both under-discussed topics;
…I hear about career anxiety and transition anxiety and lifelong fears around making a mistake, perfectionism, self-doubt, and the fear of being a bad person;
…and I hear about the mother wound.
As I’ve listened to profoundly painful stories around this wound, as I listen to women from around the world who share not only similar patterns that reveal themselves in a similar relationship with their mother but also how this wound has affected their other relationships, including their relationship to self-trust, shame, boundaries, enmeshment, and even the very right to exist and take up space, it’s clear to me that this wound is rampant. The wound is global. The wound is a result of patriarchal culture that seeks to annihilate the feminine ways of knowing and being. It’s yours and it’s intergenerational. In other words, this wound didn’t start with you.
But it can end with you.
What exactly is a “mother wound”?
As I share on this page, I define the mother wound as:
A rupture of attunement where a mother, due to her own unmet needs, lack of fulfillment/sense of self, and/or narcissistic and judgmental tendencies is unable to meet the emotional needs of her child. The mother’s expectations and needs become paramount and the daughter learns to orient around those needs.
And let me be clear: This isn’t about hating mothers or blaming for mothers for all our pain. The bottom line is that our parents will always fail us in some way; it’s the nature of being human. Just like there’s no such thing as a perfect partner or friend, there’s also no such thing as a perfect parent.
Many daughters are afraid to name and see the wound clearly because they’re afraid that in doing so they’re betraying their mother and feel bound by an unwritten loyalty contract. When I ran the first round of this course last summer, I heard from several women who shared that they were nervous to sign up for the course because they were scared that their mother would somehow find out.
But we must name and see our wounds clearly so that we can heal them. And healing the mother wound is one of the most empowering and liberating journeys we can take for when we name the wound and allow our mothers to be fallible and human we can examine the old contracts, write new ones, and set ourselves on a trajectory that allows us to chart our own path, regrow self-trust, step into intrinsic worthiness and the fullness of our light, and receive nourishment from other sources of mothering.
In this 40-day course, I offer a roadmap for healing this wound. It’s a personal course and a collective course, for when we heal the mother wound we do so not only for ourselves, but also for the generations that come after us and before us.
I know that many of you have been waiting for the next live round of this course, and I’m thrilled to be sharing it again. As it’s gestated slowly in my being for the past two years – for rushing the course through me would violate the very principles of healing from a mother wound – I’ve held many of you close to my heart, seeing your faces as I’ve created the content, imagining us together as I share this roadmap and guide you on this segment of your healing path. I’m truly excited to be sharing it with you now, and I look forward to seeing you there.
The second round of Healing the Mother Wound will start on Saturday, May 28th, 2022, and because of the tender nature of this topic, I only offer this course LIVE once a year (no self-paced version). You can learn more and register here. I‘ll see you in the sacred grove ❤️.
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The following are the times for the three group coaching calls. Please note that only about 1/4 of the participants are typically able to make the live meetings for my courses. All meetings will be recorded and available immediately afterward.
Thursday June 2 at 11am ET
Tuesday June 14th at 3:30pm ET
Thursday June 28th at 3pm ET
Please note that this course is for anyone who identifies as a daughter. To the beautiful men in my community: While there are parallels between the mother-daughter and mother-son relationship, the relationships carry different archetypal patterns and, as such, it requires its own course. Nevertheless, the blog posts that I share in advance of this course will likely still apply to you, and I welcome your thoughts and comments.
