Mother’s Day is typically a day for us to honor the mothers in our lives. This year, on Mother’s Day, I invite you to expand your relationship to the concept of mother. The word mother and our connection to mother is a vital part of our well-being, self-growth, and spiritual path and is so much greater than just our personal relationship with our own mother.
After all we’ve been through in the last year the complexity around this Mother’s Day feels intense. As many of us have noticed, there’s a feminine rising stirring in the ethers, in our culture, and in our hearts. The feminine logic of love is asking to be restored and the feminine essence is rooted in mother. And it’s not just mothers raising children—mothering comes in many forms. There are those who mother the sick, the elderly, the dying. There are those who mother animals, the garden, or the Earth itself. There are also those who bring to life creative projects: books, blogs, art, music, poetry, and fresh thought.
The dictionary’s definition of the word mother is narrow, even shallow. Reducing the role with its simple definition. Mother: A woman in relation to her child or children. Is this indicative of the value we place on the endeavor of motherhood in our society, or in the world at large? The word mother and the act of mothering are so deeply rich it is almost impossible to write a description in just a few sentences. The act of mothering can hardly be wrangled into a trite and concise definition. Despite these truths, our society tends to do just that—both in the dictionary and in life. This is the fracture of our time.
Our relationship to our human mother, the one who gave us life and/or the one who raised us, can run a spectrum with varying degrees of closeness and connectedness. For some, this relationship is held dear and invokes feelings of love and comfort. For others, the relationship is complicated, difficult, or perhaps even painful or traumatic. As a coach who specializes in the relationship with mother, mother/daughter dynamics, mother wounding, and mother loss, I know very well how complicated our connection to the word, the concept, and the relationship to mother can be.
Stop and think about this question: Has there ever been a figure in history more blamed than the mother? I’m not a fan of the term “mother wound” because it perpetuates mother blame and shame. Still, I have definitely noticed a common thread of pain surrounding this vital relationship. Many of us at our core feel unmothered, the inner child longing to be heard, seen, understood, loved unconditionally, soothed, nurtured, nourished, and protected. We take this divine load of responsibility and place it on our human mother. Should she be anything less, we feel damaged, betrayed, and wounded. It is important to show love and compassion for the inner little girl or boy who may feel incomplete with the mothering they received when they were young. It’s important that we don’t bypass our own feelings of grief about what we needed versus what we received. There’s a deep self-honoring to step into.
There is healing work to be done for those who feel hurt, betrayed, criticized, or abandoned. In a time of conscious living, we’re being invited to open up this armored and protected part of ourselves and face our truths. At the same time, it’s important for us to see our mothers through soft eyes, with compassion and acceptance for the imperfections we all possess. For the feminine to fully rise, there’s a repair in order—a repair of this feminine fracture and it begins with the mother. We feel the feminine asking to be revived personally in our hearts, collectively in our culture, and globally, as we look to the future of the home we all know, Mother Earth.
This is our work.
For today let’s take time to appreciate the essence of Mother energy: the creator of life, the giver of abundance and love that is so vast it’s hard to contain. We’re being called to mother ourselves—to cultivate the inner mother. We can discover our inner mother by calling love forward from our spiritual guides: the Great Mother, Holy Mother, Divine Mother, the Earth Mother, or from the goddesses. In doing so, we can learn to show ourselves kindness, compassion, adoration, and gentleness. After offering it to ourselves, let’s give it to each other and to our planet.
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