Mothering Myself
Reintegrating the Matriarch
This started a few months ago when I was clearing house in my life. I took stock of what was working, what needed improvement or redirection, and what needed to go. This was happening at a pivotal time in my life, as I had been feeling burnout and helpless. Over the past few months of reflection, meditation, prayer, and presence, I have come to the revelation of my need to mother myself. To be the constant force of love I needed. To be the ever-willing nurturer to my needs, to treat myself the way I only hope to treat my future children. The lack of care I had for myself was a culmination of overcaring for others, a critical mindset, and my agonizing need to try and “fix” everything. I had realized that if I don’t care for myself to the utmost extent, I can’t translate that for my future self or children. I want to be better for my future but also for myself right now. I have decided to officially commit to being the mother I’ve always needed.
I grew up with a mother figure that did everything she had to do. I had all my basic needs met, and I was cared for, but I was emotionally starved. I wanted this connection with my mother that I thought was supposed to be innate. I understood early on that my relationship with my mother wasn’t what I saw in the media or with my friends’ families. Growing up into my teen years, I resented her for this. For being able to do everything a mother should besides care for my emotions. I was hurt and felt unimportant. I felt internal feelings of inadequacy and questioned myself constantly. Her lack of emotional warmth allowed for a critic to grow in my mind. To question why I wasn’t receiving the love, was to question my worth. Am I Enough? Am I deserving? Am I lovable? I had to cope with this with no help. Oh, do I long to cry in my mother’s arms and tell her about the weight of the world on me. But unfortunately, that ship has sailed.
With all the work she has done for our family and the healing she’s done herself, I am proud of her. Me acknowledging my wounds doesn’t negate the work she did to create a better childhood for me. And that’s where most of us mess up. We try to create conditions opposite to what we had in childhood, and instead of growth we see continued wounds passed down. My grandmother was a helicopter parent that was constantly on top of my mom and my aunt. Knowing she was doing this because of her own fears of childhood doesn’t negate the negative impacts it has. Due to this, my mother went in the completely opposite direction and was a “chill” parent. This polarizing parenting is why we keep seeing the same themes just in different ways. Growing more into my womanhood, I cry for my mother now. She was doing only what she was able. She was a young girl with the world in her hands, just as I am now. I can look back and see that I was deeply hurt and needed maternal love. I can stand in the present and see that she was a wounded woman doing her best with the cards she had been dealt. The older I got, the more I realized her lack of love wasn’t personal at all. It was an overcorrection of the smothering she had experienced and resented. There was never anything wrong with me specifically. The issues are with the ways we choose to tend to these generational wounds. Perspective and framing have been deeply important to me in this era of my life as well. I am able to transmute the shittiest of situations into something half good. And that is a tool I wouldn’t have acquired if I grew up the way I think I should’ve.
My mom had me in her early twenties; I am now older than my mom was when she had me. I can confidently say that I only got to see a sliver of the hell she went through, and she did a damn good job. Knowing my mom had to make life-altering sacrifices for not only me but also for the well-being of others allows me to forgive her for her lacks and forgive myself for internalizing it. With our relationship getting better, I can definitely see why she is the way she is, and understanding her helps me understand myself and my experiences. If I had a kid right now, I know I’d make a million mistakes. Though the healing is prevalent, I don’t believe that I’d be able to have that type of relationship with her. I want to have that with my mom, but it just doesn’t feel natural. I wish I could have the love I see my friends have, but I know they have great nurturers because they need one another. I like to think I got the short end of the stick for a greater purpose. The perspectives I’ve gained and experiences I’ve been a part of allow me to see this from a less biased stance than before.
This is an opportunity for transformation and reintegration. This is a chance for me to throw out the old beliefs that were passed down my matriarchal line and transform them into ideas and concepts for further growth. This lack in my childhood created a mind that has helped me understand the world and others more. Though there was no one for me to lean on, that doesn’t mean I can’t be that for myself, others, or the world. I still crave a maternal connection, and I have many female figures that are significant to me, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t care. I want someone to see me the way I feel like my mother should’ve. I want to talk to my mom about my life and my dreams, I want to cry to her, and I want to have a connection to my feminine. Though these things aren’t a reality for me (yet), I know that my vision will be actualized. The whole purpose of this was so that I’d have sort of a blank slate to build my own personal mothering blueprint. This change in perspective is enlightening. I wasn’t dealt a shitty hand just because life sucks; I was dealt a challenging hand to see what I could make of it. Many years ago I would’ve just chosen to be bitter because life isn’t fair. I’m so thankful that mindset has been trashed too. Now I have an opportunity that many people do not get: pure, uninfluenced creation. I have no previous knowledge of “what a mother should be” because I don’t have much to pull from. I don’t fear being the same mother that mine was because that’s not energetically possible. The love my heart holds cannot be described or understood as anything other than “innate.” The same way I took stock of my life and cleared the bad, I will be creating a mothering space where I can weed out what I don’t want and integrate what works. I want to do this for myself most importantly, but for others as well. I want the blueprint of divine nurturing that allows for healing through care, love, and community. Like I said earlier, though I’ve been in tough spots, my framing of these tough times has allowed me to gather tools I never knew I needed.
Mothering yourself starts with knowing that whatever it was, it was never personal. Even if you had an evil mother, whatever they said to you or did to you, it was never about you; it was about how your presence impacted them. They never hated you for existing; they hated themselves and took that out on you. They never thought you deserved the abuse they dished out; they were projecting their own internalized hatred onto you. They never thought you weren’t enough; they used you as a mirror of their own self-esteem. Getting rid of these mindsets is the first and most important step because the only reason why you got treated like that was because your parents didn’t absolve themselves of their inner critic or their image issues before you arrived. Now, some children help their parents grow and dispel these things, while other children might amplify and make it so they can’t avoid seeing their shadows. And what’s one thing an unhealed person hates the most? Someone triggering them into seeing their true self. Someone who doesn’t even have to hold the mirror because their presence, their essence, is the mirror. The first step to becoming your own mother is to forgive and let go. You didn’t deserve it. You already know that. But if you spend the next 15 years dwelling on why she didn’t do this and why she did do that, you will never be able to experience the joy of mothering yourself. If you get stuck before the race even starts, you’ll never know how it plays out because you never allowed yourself the opportunity. So today is the day. I am fully committed to my new mothering journey and excited to understand this new echelon of opportunity and love.
Unconditionally,
Haven <3