What is a Mother Wound?

How does a Mother Wound occur? What are the childhood conditions that contribute to the wounding?

A Mother Wound is as a result of having a mother who is absent, abusive, critical, mentally or physically ill, overwhelmed by stress, addicted, or is otherwise dealing with life circumstances that prevents her from being loving, nurturing, and present to her child’s physical and emotional wellbeing.

Clients who have been abused by their mothers, or who have had mothers with a mental illness or addiction, tend to understand that they have a Mother Wound. However a Mother Wound can occur in children whose mothers were not contending with such challenging circumstances.

Many mothers adequately meet their child’s physical needs and oversee their schooling and activities, but aren’t present to their child’s emotional needs. This looks like dismissing or mocking the child’s emotions, being critical of ‘mistakes’ which can include punishing or scolding (and leads to perfectionism), not believing the child or failing to protect the child when they report abuse or mistreatment, spanking or other forms of authoritarian parenting styles. This behaviour in our Mother is the result of ancestral trauma - there is emotional trauma in our family line that has not yet been healed, is showing up in our Mother, and has resulted in her hardening her heart.

Children have underdeveloped emotional processing and nervous systems - children cannot process emotions or regulate their nervous system on their own. Children rely on their caregivers to be present, attuned, and regulated, to help the child co-regulate their nervous system to the parent, and once calm, to help the child identify and process their big emotions. When, instead, a child is scolded, sent to their room, and they don't receive the needed emotional support, the child’s system becomes overwhelmed. The child disassociates due to the confusion and intensity of emotions and dysregulation. The child also learns to perform in order to get approval from the parents (this creates the False Self vs our Authentic Self) and creates the pattern of externalized people pleasing in the child.

The child also develops a critical and shaming inner voice. This ‘voice’ is an adaptation that arises in the psyche of the child as a result of the childhood environment where it wasn’t safe (certainly emotionally but perhaps also physically) to make mistakes. This adaptive feature is trying to anticipate the complaints of the mother, and is trying to protect the child from further rejection, humiliation, or punishment. This inner voice results in anxiety: overthinking, overanalyzing, and perfectionism.

Also often - but not always - the Mother treats her sons differently than she treats her daughters. It’s common for the son to be the “Golden Child” and to get preferential treatment, while she is harder on her daughters. This is a result of her own internalized sexism and gender bias, and projecting her unresolved frustrations of the gendered social limitations imposed upon her.

The childhood experience sets the stage for our adult experience and our unresolved childhood wounds continue to play out in our adult lives.

The result is that many adults with a Mother Wound feel lonely, even when partnered. We tend to have the belief that if our mother didn’t love us, who would? Our inner child is left feeling stuck and unable to move forward. We long for emotional intimacy yet we fear it. We may look for love from others in order to try to soothe this inner emptiness. What’s really needed is for our Mother or Father archetype within to be the nurturing, loving force that can meet our Inner Child with love, understanding, and compassion. From this perspective, our Inner Child can feel safe, seen, and heard, and can begin healing in earnest. Unfortunately, many of us have a critical, shaming inner parent archetype due to the dynamics I described above. This can change ❤️

Our childhood:

• programs our subconscious mind (the part of our minds that contain our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us and our unconscious motivations)

• calibrates our nervous system (our fight/flight/freeze responses, anxiety, depression, stress levels, coping, etc.)

The childhood programming of the subconscious mind continues to inform our habits, thoughts, interpretations of the world and our interactions, and is the source of our motivations. A person who developed a wounded subconscious mind in childhood will continue to be wounded as an adult, and will continue to play out these patterns in adult life.

In order to create a new potential for our lives and move past our childhood wounding, it is necessary to reprogram our subconscious mind, feel the emotions that have been repressed, and learn how to meet ourselves with compassion and love. We can challenge our existing beliefs about ourselves, acknowledge our patterns, and understand where they come from. We can connect to our Inner Child with deep compassion. Once we connect with compassion, we can explore our childhood experiences to feel the emotions that were repressed and are stored in the body and nervous system. We can learn how to care for our nervous system - how to soothe ourselves and become regulated. We can help our inner child to feel safe and loved. This balance within our system allows us to navigate the challenges of life from a place of inner safety and stability which opens doors to growth, healing, and the fulfillment of our true potential.