Part 3:  A Mother’s Love and Truth

I have been writing about the consequences of our staying on the surface in the outer world and not doing the deep work, each of us in our inner world – the place from which what occurs in the outer world springs.

It seems to be such a difficult thing for people to comprehend and believe the fullness of the effect of inner on outer . . . and to commit to exploring, discovering, working with and healing the inner in order to create a healthier outer world.  As a result, starting in March, I began teaching in relation to a few arenas in our world where the interplay between the inner and outer is more obvious than others. This month’s theme is about the inner and outer aspects of the day created to celebrate motherhood and mothering.

In the United States, we just celebrated Mother’s Day.  Actually, Mother’s Day is worldwide – just not always in May. It is a day with many meanings and intentions to different people. For some it has nothing to do with mother; it is a Hallmark event in that it’s a real money maker – for Hallmark and other card makers, florists, restaurants, and who knows what other businesses.   For many, it does have to do with mother, but it is not the picture perfect event that Hallmark cards and movies portray. To some, it’s a day to be full hearted – to thank mother for her love or to be thanked with genuine appreciation. To some it’s a time to be broken hearted – to grieve that mother never loved them – at the very least, not the way they needed to be loved. Or a day to grieve that their mothering is not seen, felt, acknowledged, appreciated and that they are perhaps forgotten.

For some people Mother’s Day is a day to just “make nice” in the family and pretend, to purposely play “as if.”  For others, it’s a time to live unawares in the illusion and denial that everything’s fine in their idealized “wonderful” family – while the poisons of unhealed wounds are rumbling within – deep in the underground of each individual and deep in the underground of the family circle. Rumbling within and certain to seep out, erupt out, explode out into the family environment, and even from the family out into the world  . . . just like gasses from our earth’s underground seep out, erupt out, and explode out into the world.

There are those for whom Mother’s Day is a day to attempt to repair the wounds that exist between mother and child – as a result of the wounds inevitably passed down from one generation to the next, and finally to their own. Sometimes the repair is successful. Sometimes barely.  Sometimes not at all. This all depends upon how conscious and committed the people involved are in the process of healing and the process of repair – within themselves and with those around them.

Did you ever think about this? About the impact Mother’s Day has on so many people? When you say “Happy Mother’s Day” to someone, do you wonder how it really affects that person? When you don’t say “Happy Mother’s Day” to someone, do you wonder the impact it has?

Nothing is as simple as we try to make it. We are very complex human beings. And if we don’t come to know ourselves – even on a day like Mother’s Day – how are we going to know what we are capable of? On our own?  In relationship with others? On a daily basis?  During important moments of decision?  In challenging times? When we come to a crossroads? When we have crucial choices to make? How are we going to know the best of what we are capable? And create it? How are we going to know the worst, the most destructive of what we are capable? And heal it, prevent it?

If we are not truly conscious of the relationship we have with our mother – not just the one today, not just the one we remember, but the one that is still alive, though perhaps buried deep, within us from so young in our lives that perhaps we didn’t even yet have words or word-thoughts . . .

If we are not deeply aware of the relationship we have and have had with our mother – and the many feelings, reactions, coping mechanisms, defenses we developed in response . . .

If we haven’t worked with our relationships with and responses within us to our mother . . .

How will we really understand how our relationships are with other people in our lives today?  How will we really understand why we have the feelings, reactions, coping mechanisms, defenses we have in our lives today . . . in response to others, in response to ourselves, in response to our calling, in response to life itself?

And how will we find a way to heal what needs to be healed within us to become all that we have the potential to be? How will we find a way to give our gifts to our world and to life?  How will we find a way to truly help in our world . . . rather than helping as a defense?

A mother who is unaware of and disconnected from the experience of and consequences of her own relationship with mother . . . might try to keep us from such an exploration. A connected, loving mother would want us to do such an exploration, would encourage us, and would teach us how. A disconnected mother might not want to know how she may have hurt us unconsciously from her own wounding. A loving mother would want to know and make repair. A disconnected mother might let her children do whatever they want . . . under the guise of love. A disconnected mother might force her children to do what she wants . . . unaware she’s trying to get them to soothe the pain and fear of her own young experience. A truly loving mother would want to join her love with truth and help her children learn how to do the same.  She would want to help her children treat her, each other, others, and themselves well. She would make sure they knew that loving them does not mean condoning or allowing abuse as a mask of love. She would make sure they knew that loving them does not mean punishing, depriving, or abusing them under the guise of love.

A truly loving mother would want to teach her children about their feelings, giving them a safe space to feel and express their feelings, teaching them as they grow how to express their feelings safely and responsibly, how to utilize them for health and healing.

A truly loving mother would want to teach her children about cause and effect, so they can learn from the inside out that their actions have an effect . . . that even their thoughts and feelings have an effect . . . on others and on themselves as well.

A truly loving mother would want to teach her children about positive mutuality, in which there is a positive intention from both people in an interaction . . . in which there is an intention for each to be in love and truth and to find a solution from that joining.

A truly loving mother would do her own inner healing work in order to heal within herself and in order to be able to help her children do the same . . . and in order to help our world do the same.*

© Judith Barr, 2013.

*Almost everything said above about mothers and Mother’s Day could also be said about fathers and Father’s Day.

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WHAT YOU CAN DO
TO HELP MAKE YOUR AND OUR WORLD SAFE . . .
FROM THE INSIDE OUT

As we wind down from our celebration of Mother’s Day, take some time to reflect on what true “Mother’s love” means . . . and to explore your own relationship with motherhood, your own mother, and, if you have children, your own mothering.

When you were a child, were you given the help and guidance to explore and truly feel your feelings? Were you given the space to reveal when you were hurt by your mother’s (or your father’s) unconscious wounding?  What was your own mother’s reaction to such a revelation? Did she commit to do her own inner healing and to make repair over the hurt she caused? Or did she deny the hurt, and try to defend against the pain both of hurting her own child and the ancient pain within her that led her to hurt you?

Be aware of the feelings that rise within you when you remember your own early experience of mothering and your experience with your mother . . . When in the current day do you feel the same way? And who in your present life is connected with those same feelings? Onto whom in the here-and-now might you be transferring those feelings?

If you are a parent . . . explore how those feelings may affect your feelings about, thoughts about, and actions towards your own young children. What feelings from your childhood might you be transferring onto them? Do you give them the guidance to explore, feel and heal their own feelings, and not to act out on them? And how do you feel when they are hurt by your unconscious wounding ? Do you deny their hurt and defend against your own pain? Or do you make repair and commit to do the inner work necessary to heal those wounds, so it no longer affects your relationship with your child?

The greatest gift a mother can give her child, on Mother’s Day or on any day, is to explore and heal her own inner wounding . . . in order to be able to offer mothering and guidance to her children that comes from the joining of love and truth.