Healing the Mother Wound - once and for all.

"She said the wound would give him pain, the kind of pain that you can't hide. From this wound a lovely flower grew, somewhere deep inside. ~ Sting/The Lazarus Heart

On this Mother's Day weekend, I thought it would be a good time to share some thoughts about our moms. I had the profound realization yesterday that I had achieved my goal about my own mom, and my wish had come true. Needless to say, it was quite an emotional moment. The point being, that I truly love my mother and when she is gone I will genuinely miss her. She has become a friend to me and I cherish the relationship. It certainly wasn't always this way...

To make a very long story short, let's just say for many years I didn't like my mother that much, even though part of me always loved her. There were times were I downright hated her and harbored much resentment towards her too. I know I'm certainly not the only one who has felt such things!

My father died when I was very young and I was often left in the care of my Godparents, who while they were wonderful didn't take the place of my mom and the relationship that I always felt I was missing. For years I learned to think that I must have been defective in some way, for my own mother to have rejected me in such a way. As a kid I as confused about this. Perhaps I possessed some deep, fundamental flaw that only she could see? It was deeply and profoundly painful. As a teenager I was exposed to some very unhealthy situations where abuse took place. In my 20's I was still trying to win her love and found myself throwing myself into sexual relationships with men trying to feel okay about myself but of course, that didn't work out very well and ending causing even more damage.

I've learned in my adult years as a spiritual counselor that our relationship with our parents can mirror our relationship to our concept of God/dess. To me for at that time I felt God/dess must have rejected me too, since my own mother did. It created an existential crisis of epic proportion that took me decades to work out. It colored all of my relationships, jobs and pretty much my entire view of the world. How could I have been forsaken like this? For years I was so angry and hurt. Though I was still often the life of the party and made every one laugh, I felt like I was dying inside, by the drop, a little more every day. I didn't know what I could ever do to make the pain go away. I would have been content just to have it hurt a little bit less; but it never did, not for a long time.

In my late 20's I started out on a spiritual quest though I didn't know it at the time. I decided to become an energy worker and massage therapist. Little did I know I would have to work out my own "stuff" along the way, and work it I most certainly did! The Universe in its wise beneficence put some amazing teachers and mentors in my path over the years. Just when I thought I was feeling better and was stronger about my relationship with my mother, another layer would appear. How long could this go on? Would I EVER be finished? It just seemed so exhausting, and depressing too.

One wise Buddhist teacher spoke of using the taking the manure of our lives and growing a lovely tomato garden out of it! I remember I laughed when I heard that, little did I know that's exactly what I was in the process of doing. It just took 25 years to do, that's all. That garden is looking pretty great today I tell ya, and those tomatoes are the sweetest ones you'll ever eat.

The Mother wound for those who have one, is one of the deepest pains one can ever experience. For those that were gifted with good, healthy relationships with their mother, they simply can't relate and that's okay. They also were not given the wisdom and gifts that are given from taking that particular journey of healing. It's a give and take.

If you had a mother that was hurtful or less than loving, I am sorry. I completely get it. On this Mother's Day and any day, you can take your power back and rejoice in the wonderful, unique being that YOU are. If you can find any good qualities about your mother take them in fully and make them yours, and just let the rest of it go. Even if she can't see you and the glory you will or have become, she will know it. She is still your mother, wherever she is. If the roles were reversed, perhaps you wouldn't have made her mistakes 'tis true, but you very likely could have made other ones. We are all here just doing our best, trying to make our way through. I know longer need to know or understand why she made those fateful decisions for my life, I just know I don't have to keep being hurt by them. Letting go of figuring it all out was a big step for me. I was always trying to "tie it off" somehow, thinking if I knew her motivations it would help, but that is certainly a big trap we can fall into also. It always keeps the peace at bay, and keeps us striving for something that maybe we can never achieve. We can certainly achieve peace NOW, and we do that by letting go. Also, she may have dished it out then but now you are responsible for your own pain and reactions now. It's tempting to blame it all on our mommies, daddies or whoever, but that only gives us false and temporary satisfaction. I was told by Guidance that "vindication is the realization that you no longer need to be vindicated, because you have let it GO."

One of the most damaging things that can come from a dysfunctional mother relationship is the fear of love. If you have learned to block love in your life in any way, shape or form, my hope and prayer for you is that Divine Mother fill your heart so completely that any and all barriers to love dissolve into light. Our Divine Mother has never abandoned us. It is only mind and our own mis-perceptions that try to convince us otherwise.

Happy Mother's Day.

~ Rev. Irma Kaye Sawyer/Bright Star Blog