Tag Archives: matrescence

How to get Ready for the Fall: Stepping into Being a High School Mom

Posted on by

September is the second January, a time for new beginnings, and also the ending of things. One has to go with the other; one in fact necessitates the other. As Jessie Harrold puts it, “while you are becoming, you are also unbecoming.” This is the dance with grief, and not being afraid to notice it in the corners of your inner dance floor.

It can be as simple as the new season meaning the end of the previous one. Where i live, that means the end of Summer and a crash into Fall. I can’t help but notice that it’s not just leaves and ripe apples that fall to the ground, but us as well, when we are faced with the reality of this change. It does come all at once. So it can be dysregulating, or at least a bit jarring, so we need to slow down and brace for it.

For those of us with school-age kids, it means the end of a summer or seasonal break. However it looked and especially if it meant a bit of ease off the routine and time off for yourself from other responsibilities. If you love Summer like i do, it also means intentionally relishing every last drop of that watermelon, the warm lake water, the fluttering of butterflies.

Not all of us have children, and yet September does mean a fresh start, whether it is for our own work or school programs, or digging up our wee gardens and their bounty. It also means preparing for the cozy season of Autumn.

“I have done nothing all summer but wait for myself to be myself again.” ~ Georgia O’Keefe

I am faced with this reality of many new things at once – not just the rotation of Earth and a new season, but as a mom to teens, i now am officially a high school mom. This is a messy and pivotal practice of Radical Acceptance.

There i said it – i am a Mom of teens now. This is a new Rite of Passage of Matrescence. I was just starting to get comfortable with my role and identity as a school-age mom (and i guess i still am with an 11-year old). And yet, i am at this threshold, this sea change of not quite a high school mom, but no longer just a mom to young kids.

One thing i’m noticing is that I’m more familiar with this age because I remember my teen years more. Maybe that is what’s guiding me and also adding a bit of anticipatory worry to my body. My own teen years were not easy, and the start of high school was especially messy and jarring. So, now i need to create a Nurturing Shadow Part for my own Inner Teen who is very much present for me now. Thank-you Rachel Macy Stafford for this reframe!

When i’m faced with this crossroads, i’m using what i know about Rites of Passage to hold me. Typically, this passage is when we move from one stage of life to another. It is marked with ritual and ceremony. Or at least it is supposed to be. Our culture has lost its way in truly marking this transition. We might host gender reveal parties or proms, but that only acknowledges a part of the story. We need to honour all three stages, otherwise our leap into the new experience can feel untethered and overwhelming. And, if we stay stuck in grieving what was, we can spiral into a felt sense of suffering in our mourning. It becomes more than just the understandable period it is meant to be. We resist the inevitable – the only constant is change.

So, we need to honour the Separation from what we were. That can be in ceremony or ritual. We need to say goodbye. We also need to learn what we need to hold us in the Transition. A map, an elder, a book of common humanity. And we can’t forgo the right we have to be honoured in the Integration. A lot of us get lost in the first 2 steps that we either miss the integration of this new phase in our life, or we don’t become the butterfly at all.

I already had my graduation and experience, and yet it hurts all over again – because it wasn’t held in its fullness. My path on the journey into high school is long over. This is their story now, their growth. Their Graduation comes with honouring endings first. We can’t celebrate until we grieve and close what was, even if it wasn’t always good and roses.

All Endings come with Beginnings
We cannot just jump into this new phase of life, and take it for granted. We do need to grieve or at least say bye to what we are separating from. That’s one reason why i wanted to be a part of my kid’s graduation ceremony planning committee – to honour this transition for them, and to also ensure that ritual and ceremony was bought into it. So, i lead the students in some gentle ritual and ceremony. They have been together for 10 years and i felt this was important to be honoured. We tied string together to connect them, and they all shared kind words about each other. We danced, we sang, and we ate – all good party necessities.

We are both going through our own journey of life, in parallel moving forward direction. One thing i had to reckon with is that my path is a few cycles up the mountain. Whereas they are at the mere precipice of this Hereo’s Journey. That’s why i’m so grateful there are elders to guide us both, to offer a map and lightpost. One such reference is Bill Plotkin’s work on the Five Phases of the Descent to Soul. Our Soul Journey includes Preparation, Dissolution, Soul Encounter, Metamorphosis, Enactment. Knowing there is a map or process helps us feel less alone in the unknown version of our own personal story.

Rachael Maddox does a wonderful job explaining this model in terms of the entry into motherhood HERE. She calls it the Motherverse: the transition and integration of becoming someone entirely new, in this case a mother. In my own work with Kimberly Ann Johnson and the MotherCircle program, this concept is incorporated into the arc of transitioning into motherhood and integrating this identity into all of me.

Rites of passage don’t have to be reserved only for the major stages of life like graduating from university, marriage or childbirth. Any change from a stage in our life is a paradox of no longer being something and not quite being something entirely new yet. It is the fine balance of both/and AND ALSO neither/or. When we honour the initiatory process of transformation, it gives our Soul the gift of maturation.

When i come back to my core values as a mom, these are my guideposts – i may not be there to stop the hurt from happening, but a core value of mine is to be present to love and guide them in ways they need (rather than how i might have needed it). This reframe comes from my Inner Nurturer, the one who holds space for my Wounded Teen.

I am initiating myself into this stage of Motherhood and life. So, as life itself is a living ceremony, i thought it was the perfect time to get a tattoo. Ritual and ceremony are so important to me, and i was pondering how to mark this transition. My youngest kid declared ‘about time, Mom!’ when i told them. And, i do find it a fitting marker – not only am i now a teen mom, i am also entering a new stage in my own life maturation process. But i’m saving that for next month’s journal entry!

I am casting a vision of the future, or at least this first year of high school for my oldest kid. We don’t have to have it all figured out just yet – we are a mere 3 weeks into our chapter of high school. Knowing that there are stages to a Rite of Passage gives me grace – i literally have a grace period before either one of us “has to” integrate and accept this new identity.

When we know that it takes time to transition into something new, this gives us agency and also self-compassion to let the feelings of grief and separation linger. It’s when we get stuck in the grief that it can turn into suffering.

Unleash and Surrender. Healing the Mother Wound

Posted on by

I’ve been sharing here about the loss of my mom this past year. I haven’t really described more about my actual relationship with my mom, and one thing I’ve left out is how complicated and strained it has been over the years. That might be something i explain more in time. For now, what feels important to offer is that i speak about the Mother Wound from my own first-hand experience.

For so long, i saw her as the villain or cause of my own suffering. And while that may be true to a degree, it is more than that. She wasn’t my enemy: in fact, all she wanted was the best for me. My mom was a product of a time, like we all are. Her time of mothering was very different from mine, both individually and collectively. I always tell folks that i have a plethora of books; shelves full of life guides, human development texts, and suggestions on how to be a good parent. My mom didn’t have those books (and not because she didn’t like to read – she read more books in a month than anyone else), it’s because the books didn’t exist.

It’s only now that I’m starting to see her in a new light. One with more clarity, grace and understanding.
For instance, she moved across the world at the young age of 20. I always took that for granted. Mainly because she was always an adult to me. And yet she was just a baby adult herself coming across the ocean, with no shared language to help her. English was a language she learned only after arriving to the country i now call home.

And that became a big part of her messy transition into life in Canada and adulthood, and it shaped her experience. To now realize just how alone she was makes my heart break for her: To have to do that all without family and her own mother, and then to become a mother herself without access to hers. She came here for good reasons, and yet no one should face major rites of passage alone. In fact, there is research that shows when we do go through this alone, it can lead to psychosis. She had no direct models of what a mother is, or at least ones that were the role models she needed. She had to mother and live without a village herself.

I don’t know all her stories and now I never will. I do know that she mothered her siblings and never really had the childhood i took for granted myself. She never got to be a care-free teen, so when i wanted that for myself, it really pushed her limits. She had several miscarriages before and after me. These were losses that metabolized in her body, mind and soul. She was alone in this experience as well.

And so, she carried the mother wound in her. It was absorbed in me as the seed I was.

WHAT IS THE MOTHER WOUND?
There is already a lot of literature on the mother wound, so I don’t want to re-invent the wheel. Bethany Webster shares so much wisdom. care of my time is in fact another way I heal my mother wound: I am enough as i am, and i don’t have to prove that to anyone else. Instead, I want to focus on what can heal. I share my first-hand experience having done some work.

The mother wound is an archetypal paradox where those of us who are socialized as women are taught that our innate gift and role in the world is to be a mother*. Since it is assumed to be innate, we are not taught this. And then we fail: We either don’t mother in a way that is aligned with our children’s needs OR we martyr ourselves and lose our self. We are forced to believe we are not good enough either way.

*Anyone who is not a mother to children whether it’s challenges/ infertility or choice are also put into this paradox. It is not just about our own relationship with our mom, and we don’t have to be mothers. And it’s also important to note that not all caregivers who mother identify as mothers or women. And the Mother Wound can impact men.

So, in short, patriarchy and capitalism created this wound in us.

Let me be clear: It is not about blaming your own mom, and not all wounds look the same.

It is a paradox or dilemma of choosing ourselves over our children. We are never good enough. We live vicariously or we are selfish. We are not good enough as mothers if we fail and not worthy enough as humans if we don’t become mothers. In this prescribed motherhood, we continue this internalized sexism story that tells us our mother part is the most important part.

The mother wound is a part of a complex intergenerational cycle of trauma inherited from one generation to the next. Dr. Oscar Serrallach is a doctor who supports families. He wrote a whole book on postpartum depletion so I’m glad he describes the mother wound as “the pain and grief that grows in a woman as she tries to explore and understand her power and potential in a society that doesn’t make room for either, forcing her to internalize the dysfunctional coping mechanisms learned by previous generations of women.”

This belief leads to oppressive and impossible standards that expects us to:
*Constantly prioritize others’ needs, at the expense of our own
*Be the primary default caretaker of the household
*Sacrifice our own dreams in preference for what is best for the family
*Do it all well and appear at at ease and attractive or ‘ladylike’
*Relinquish our needs and burnout by focusing on our children – being tired means we are doing the work

This paradox teaches us that we will never be good enough. Since it comes from a patriarchal model of worth, these standards for women are not sustainable because we were meant for more, but the male leaders 400 years ago felt intimidated and feared the power women, midwives, witches, and holy women had.

My mother died and my wound is still healing, but i have done the work to know what i need. That’s why it’s not just my mom, and our patriarchal society continues to keep the wound ‘alive’ vs scarred over. So, the problem is not mothers not being good enough, or not juggling the mental load of life well, but rather who created this social construct and who benefits from it most.

Some rules are meant to be broken. Especially when the pain that is caused can metabolize in our bodies for generations.

THE IMPACT OF THE MOTHER WOUND
Ultimately, the impact of this type of wound can lead to deeply embedded limiting beliefs about ourselves. The wound can manifest in many ways, mainly connected to feelings of shame, comparison, and an ever-present sense of guilt for wanting something different than we have. We may also feel the need to make ourselves small in order to feel any love at all. Here are some that i have noticed in my own journey:

Abandonment issues
I became Parentified and adultified as a teen because my mom learned some devastating news that was too much for her to handle and hold alone. And yet, she felt like she had no one to turn to, to trust, other than me. As the first-born daughter myself, this was a lot for me to take on. And i didn’t know how to say no. I couldn’t say no because i was afraid of her anger, and also because i was afraid of losing her attention. It led me to start chasing love and approval in my relationships, especially intimate ones. I also learned that my own feelings were not nearly as important as hers, and my needs were secondary. I then learned to bottle them up and luckily found poetry and journal writing as a place to unpack them. Not all of us with emotionally immature parents are this lucky. Clearly, this informed my path to become a psychotherapist in a big way.

For many, abandonment issues like this lead to attachment wounds, low self esteem, codependence, being or feeling too needy. We become avoidant in our attachment, or at times disorganized because of the polarizing needs at play – to feel cared for and to not be able to trust

Healing Balm: If this speaks to you, track what you need and give yourself it. You don’t have to be the one that meets your needs all the time by yourself – be a steward of your needs, ask for them to be heard and see who can meet them. Healing takes time, just like our physical wounds. We need to keep taking care of them, so that they scab over. Ask for help and get a felt sense of receiving it when you do. That means really feeling into the experience of having needs met. Doing this work moved mountains for me. I learned that my needs are valid and not too much, and that being human means we have needs.

Attachment Wound
I have talked about Attachment Theory a lot here. To get a better sense of it, go to my previous articles HERE or HERE. These wounds stem from emotional ruptures or wounds that come from a breakdown in trust. For instance, sometimes your parent shows up (be it after school, at a dance recital, or a community event). Often times, they don’t. This inconsistency leads to ambivalence or anxiety in the child – will they be here or not?

When we are ambivalent about our attachments to caregivers, we seek their attention as a form of connection. Sometimes, that means we intentionally (though subconsciously) self-sabotage things because it leads to attention. This perpetual loop keeps us stuck in insecure attachments with others. We say yes to people please, and then sabotage the plan when we worry that the person will leave us in the dust. We do the harm first because it hurts US less.

Healing Balm: Find people in your life that are Competent Protectors. These are folks (real or imagined) who you feel safe with because they have your back, and nourish you. They communicate and connect with you consistently. By doing this, we can heal our insecure attachment style and gain what is known as “Earned” Secure Attachment. It is not earned because we are now worthy – we were already worthy – but rather it is a testament that our attachment style is not static and can change, and heal. I have done this with my own intimate partner, and also with friends. I have created a composite Inner Guide who is a Part i turn to when i need to feel loved and seen.

Adult Relationships and Guidance
In Mother Hunger by Kelly McDaniel, she describes 3 pillars that are necessary to feeling loved: Nurturance, Protection, and Guidance. These pillars continue into adulthood. At times, we may be faced with the jarring reality that our mothers were present and nurturing when we were children. It is as adults that we are finding ourselves alone.

Maybe your mom was a great mom when you were a kid and now doesn’t know how to care for you as an adult – we still need to be cared for and eldered. Our needs have evolved but that does not mean we need our caregivers any less. Adult children still need a wise elder to guide the way. We need guideposts to help shine the light. Our needs have evolved from the physical care of providing us with clothing and food. Now what is needed for survival are the emotional and spiritual sources of vitamins for growth. The need for guidance does not stop.

For many, there is a rude awakening when we notice that the mom we had as a child is not the same person as the adult we have a relationship with now. Of course, we need to also recognize that our parents have also evolved into new archetypal stages of life too. My mom was no longer in her Mother stage, but rather a Crone. So that means she wasn’t actively caring for anyone else. That doesn’t make the need any less important.

Healing Balm: Find an Elder and have a healing corrective emotional experience. We are surrounded by other adults but not necessarily elders. One thing that can help is to have a reparative relationship with someone in your life now. They can’t change what happened to you before (i wish) but they can give you what you need now. Maybe they can sit with you as you have your hard feelings. Or they tell you how proud they are of you. Or they can give you wisdom when you are in a liminal space. This creates new neural pathways in our brain, and ultimately act like a fuse that seals an old wound.

Legacy Burdens
Some of the things that your mom carries on her emotional backpack are not even hers. They are older than her too and she inherits them. We don’t just inherit our parents good genes and hand-me-downs. Their emotional baggage backpacks also get passed down via procedural learning and Limiting Beliefs. Maybe you are a perfectionist like your mom, or competitive, or have a high tolerance for poor treatment by others. Maybe you become rigid or too controlling as a protective mechanism. If that sounds familiar, these are things you learned by witnessing your parents displaying it for you. It’s like the broken statue that still holds centre stage on the dust-filled cabinet.

Maybe you don’t want to repeat your mom’s mistakes and also don’t feel like you can betray her. This is another paradox that is deeply connected to the mother wound. As Bethany points out “we don’t just bond with our moms but also her trauma and limiting beliefs.”

Healing Balm: Practice setting Boundaries. We need to stop repeating the ruptures that have been passed down. Maladaptive coping strategies and unhealthy conflict styles perpetuate this type of wound, so much so that they feel inherited in our DNA. In fact, it is learned and therefore can be unlearned. One great resource is Nedra Glover Tawwab’s book Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships. Books like this are a testament that enough people have unhealthy and challenging relationships with their families, and that we deserve better.

Ancestral Trauma
Okay, this is a big one, and one that may feel daunting. It is not any less important. We can do this work in doable steps – to titrate the impact on us. Do you know that the egg that was first created in your grandmother? Think about that for a minute. Who was she, what time did she live in? What may have impacted her. This work is aligned with healing our Witch Wounds and legacy burdens. It’s important to share here because we are not that removed from the experiences of our ancestors. It an be the experience of war, poverty, enforced slavery, genocide.

Healing Balm: One way i do that is to first get to know the path that brought me here. Who were my ancestors, my foremothers? In Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ book, she shares that we need to know who came before us. It’s not to hold them in reverence (especially if they sucked) but rather to honour them as the makers of the line that brought us into being. This has been a journey all on its own for me. I am intentionally learning more about my grandmothers and mother line. I learned the names of my great-grandmothers only recently. My mom talked about them before, but to be honest, i never truly listened. Knowing this information is healing: I am the daughter my ancestors needed. Now that i know that, it means i don’t have to agree with their choices but accept them for what they had to endure at the same time.

If this is hard for you, books like It Didn’t Start with You, or What Happened to You are great resources to help explain this legacy and concept of intergenerational trauma.

HOW TO START HEALING
We need to grieve for the mother or care we needed and didn’t get. Since grief is also something we are not literate about, this makes this healing work that much more challenging and necessary.

When we start tending to it, here are some things that heal: our sovereignty, our relationship to our body, Money literacy, the choice to have children and to parent with intention, and our relationship with Inner Child heals. There are many reasons to do this work, to actively address the wounds with loving care and attention. That ultimately heals our ancestral line, or internal parts (namely our Inner Child and Inner Critic), and it can shift the story of any future family we may have. Even if we do not become parents ourselves, as a community member in this world, our own healing has a domino effect on others.

Some of us may need to cut all ties with their mom, especially if they are toxic or continue to cause harm. Ultimately, we can’t expect others to change so even the individual work we do for ourselves can be just enough of a dose to create a ripple effect. There is alchemy in that.

Bethany Webster is at the forefront of leading this shift. She has been prolific in sharing her experience, by offering courses and community. From her, i learned of the 3 C’s concept to heal a mother wound trigger: Be calm compassionate curious to do something different now if you feel activated or stuck. For instance, let’s say you go home to see your parents. Your mom may try to show you that she loves you, but it is somewhat messy. It comes off as yet another judgement or critique. I find that learning new resources to address triggers to be very empowering. We may not always be able to challenge her directly, at times it may not be safe or productive. Instead, do something that helps you self-mother the part of you that is triggered.

*Be Calm as a foundation – learn ways to access your basic Universal needs to regulate your nervous system. What might you do that is self-soothing?
*Be Compassionate as a way of giving ourselves loving kindness, and honouring our needs
*Be Curious so that we can move forward with new options and capacity, having turned that wound into a scar

Ritual to Unleash and Surrender
I love rituals as they enhance a wish or intention. Let’s say you want to let go of an old limited belief, or maybe you want to commit to a new dream for yourself. What do you want to leave behind? One way to do this is to create a ceremony for yourself by bringing in the elements – Air, fire, water, and earth. This is a sacred way to either unleash yourself from a limiting belief or to surrender into a new way of being.

*Fire: Write a Dear John letter to an old internalized belief about yourself and burn it – cut that cord!
*Earth: Plant a seed (a real one) that symbolizes a new dream that is growing inside you
*Air: Scream into the air or whisper love notes to yourself when you tuck yourself into bed
*Water: Have a cleansing bath with essential oils and rose quartz – or lots of bubbles

Have you heard of Womb Healing Rituals? This is a beautiful way to tend to yourself. The practice helps you connect back to your own body and also release some emotional blockages and/or baggage. I love guided visualizations that lead me through a meditation. Here are two such ideas for inspiration if this speaks to you: Yoga for Womb Healing and a podcast episode from Herbal Womb.

Still wanting more inspiration and self-love?

I recently joined a new friend in an offering for Mother’s Day. It was called Unleash and Surrender: Healing your Mother Wound. We lead folks through some guided meditations, somatic and reiki exercises. Mostly, we shared space with others who also feel this wound in their life. Katelyn shares more about the Mother Wound on her website HERE. The replay is available if you want to give yourself a bit of self-love and mothering. The included playlist and journaling prompts are worth it alone.

When we combine the understanding of the Mother Wound and how it impacts us, that allows us room to do the work. This is the Unleashing. Only after this happens are we able to Surrender to this new version our ourselves, where our wounds have healed over and we are able to live a full life without being afraid of the scab breaking open again.

We do this for us, regardless if we are a mother or not. We deserve this.The Mother Wound is called that because the pain is something that continues into present day. So we need to heal it so that the wound can manifest into a scar.

My Lost Self

Posted on by

“What must I give more death to today, in order to generate more life? What do I know should die, but am hesitant to allow to do so? What must die in me in order for me to love? What not-beauty do I fear? Of what use is the power of the not-beautiful to me today? What should die today? What should live? What life am I afraid to give birth to? If not now, when?” ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

This is the ending and a new beginning: a death and new version of me. This is the end of my life with a mother of my own. This is me entering a new phase of life self-mothering myself more intentionally.

A Rite of Passage has three distinct stages – separation, transition and integration. In the story of my loss, i went through the separation and then a transition time. Now, i am in a new stage now as I integrate and incorporate the loss of my mom into my life. I think i didn’t experience what others have access to, namely because my mom didn’t want a funeral. This rite of passage wasn’t marked and it wasn’t witnessed in the way that needs to be. These markings are for the grievers, as a path to help them be held in their grief, and to know it leads to something else. There needs to be another side to grief, a threshold as opposed a place that feels stuck in a web.

I’ve been finding my Lost Self again; This is some of the soul work i’ve been doing. It’s been an intentional practice of checking in with my soul self, and asking her what she needs. I think i lost her for a while, years ago. When Prairie posted a reel about this concept on Instagram, my soul jumped in excitement. It so desperately wanted me to notice this was what i too have been feeling.

We banish in ourselves what we want and then resent other people for doing just that. This resentment is connected to jealousy, not anger. It is a messy reminder of what we also have wanted for ourselves but are afraid to ask. What is it you want? I appreciate Brené Brown’s reframe on resentment: Instead of seeing resentment as a form of anger, it is more helpful and accurate to see it as something someone has they were wanting for ourself. And yet on the other side of it I think it’s also this balance of making sure I live my life more fully in a way that my mom never could.

When i became a mom, i went full steam ahead into that identity. I didn’t know another way to enter this new phase of life. I started to notice jealousy or even resentment towards other mom friends who had a more full life. It was only when i noticed this pattern come up that i realized it is because i wanted this for me as well. It’s been a journey back to me and all of me these last few years. It’s been an intentional practice of soul work, where i’m re-connecting with the various aspects of what makes us whole as humans. For many of us, it is our soul self that has been lost, or kept in the shadows. If this concept resonates with you, read this article to get a better sense of how to practice it for you.

One way i did this soul work was to sign up for events that speak to my soul. This helps me do the work deliberately, as an apprentice to it (a term i learned from Francis Weller). For instance, i recently attended a day workshop, a retreat for myself. It was absolutely the treat and reset I needed. With the name of it actually being TEND, I knew that I was in the right place. I joined a few other women who also can relate to this feeling of caring for so many others, that we also need to receive this tender, loving care. There was also a photo session experience, where i was able to fully embody parts of myself that i have lost, that have become lost along the way. It’s been a cathartic practise to sit with the photos, and see my FULL self reflected in them.

Another way to dive into finding myself again is to reflect on where my heart has taken me. Jessie Harrold shared her concept of “Rites of the Heart” again recently. While the term is not new, when i saw it on her instagram page last week, it really resonated with me. These are the (not so) little things we do for ourselves that are on our own, in private but are just a meaningful. It can be quitting a job and starting a private practice, it can be starting a garden in your new home, or deciding to embrace your new sense of style. They are the change of heart that comes with deepening into our soul’s calling. This shift then trickles down into our everyday life: I honour them with rituals like like a candle when i take a bath, or play a special song when i cook, make a cup of a special tea when i am feeling a need for a hug. I love this as it makes sacred the small things we do to give our soul vitamins, by making them rituals and intentions, instead of things we start to take for granted.

I have been really coming into my own with my sense of style. I have embraced (literally) the boho feminine goddess that has always been in me. This lost self is finally free and so happy to be. And, she’s been seen in the best possible ways. Last week, a friendly stranger complimented my outfit and shared she’s been an admirer of my style for some time. Not only was i touched, especially when she said she sees me and notices me – i am also now noticing that she voiced something i was missing with the loss of my mom: the admiration, the noticing of details, being a witness to how i adorn myself.

I don’t want to lose that. This doesn’t have to be a lost self.

I can incorporate (see what i did there???) ways to feel connected to my mom in my life now.

I have a mom still – her teachings and stories are within me. What i don’t have now is the active involvement, guidance and love from her moving forward. And i have so many questions for her that i didn’t get to ask – like how was menopause for her, or what are my great-grandmother’s names? And i wont’ be able to get her appreciation of my outfit, or share pride in our knitting. I won’t get to say i’m sorry to her when i’ll be in the throws of raising teens.

Ugh – i’m not sure how to be a mom without a mom; a mom to teens without my mom.

I have been reading a lot about this transition. Books are a way that i find anchor in a messy storm of life. They help me know i am not alone, and also act as a guide. One book that i just finished ways Rachel Macy Stafford’s latest gift Soul Shift: The Weary Human’s Guide to Getting Unstuck and Reclaiming your Path to Joy. In it, she breaks down into doable steps how to just do that – get unstuck and find your path to joy. I appreciate it has a step-by-step guide like a map. And yes, it includes the necessary involvement of soul work. THIS article does a great job in unpacking the book.

I also have been reading Women who Run with the Wolves for the third time. It’s my bible, really and truly. I read it every Sunday evening, and especially when i take a ritual bath. It’s the first time since becoming a mother, and also in this transition phase I’m in. One thing that’s been amazing isn’t that I’ve been really resonated with this book because I have, but actually the things that I underlined over 25 years ago that are still resonating now. And when i read it now, i have both the capacity and place in my life to make sense of the words and guidance the book shares.

Another lost self of mine is one that chooses pleasure and treating myself to things that i enjoy. My mom didn’t always model that. Recently, I saw a woman going to a movie. It looked like she was there by herself and yet she was there to enjoy a movie. This is something my mom never did. Outings were not something she prioritized, whether it’s watching movies or going out to restaurants on a regular basis, or having date night with her husband. She claimed it was because she didn’t need to or want to, but i never truly believed that. Mind you, she did other things that were more home-based like painting, reading, and watching shows. And yet I’m not sure if I’m seeing her through the lens of my life (where I feel like that is lonely) when in fact, maybe it’s exactly what she wanted, and she’s a homebody or introvert. I will never get to know this now.

A part of me wants to create a version that helps me feel better towards the life she had. And yet another part feels more sure that my mom was a product of patriarchal motherhood that idealizes martyrdom. She didn’t know how to live her own life without being on the periphery of her family’s. She didn’t know how to do it because most moms didn’t back then. And if they did have their own life, they were shamed and judged for it; or worse, banished by the other moms who couldn’t fathom that for themselves.

If you are feeling lost, you are not alone. Life is full of transition, curve balls, and changes of the heart. Each need to go through a process in order to be integrated into our life. That can be after a break-up, adapting to life again after the pandemic, or maybe you are in a messy change of heart with your career path. If any of these is the case, start with where you are at – find your presence in the here and now moment. Orient to your surroundings, ground into your body, and from this place ask yourself these questions: 1) What is your want right now? 2) What did your 8-year old self dream for you? 3) What makes your mind body soul smile and relax? These prompts may be just the right dose of inspiration. If not, maybe one of these articles can serve as a starting point.
* How to Find Yourself Again
* 7 Tips to Help Find You When You’re Feeling Lost
* My Dream for Women

“[T]o be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves. It is a tormenting tension and it must be borne, but the choice is clear.” ~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Surrendering into That Kind of Mom

Posted on by

I want to be that mom. That mom that is always ready to have her kids’ gaggle of friends over on a whim or moment’s notice. That mom who has her kids and their friends come to her for support or guidance.

As my kids get older, i am starting to see just why i want to be that mom. It’s because i’m a therapist and am well versed in hard vulnerable conversations. The ones that need to happen and rarely don’t. It’s also because i so needed that in my own childhood. My mom couldn’t be that for me. She tried – she got the snacks ready, she hosted the sweetest birthday parties in my younger years. And yet, i couldn’t turn to her for the big stuff as i got older.

For one reason, it’s because she was faced with her own big stuff. I know this because she turned to ME for support and guidance, for solace and to grieve.

When my youngest kid’s friend recently had a period scare, i was that mom – that mom who was not only at the right place at the right time, but also that mom who they could come to in their embarrassing need for help.

And it was a few months later that i was told i made it to the Cool Mom Club. Did you know that was a thing? It’s not really. I made it up but i know that we all claim to not care about it. That we would rather be the kind or funny mom. I don’t want to be the (insert sport here) mom, or the chauffeur mom.

I do like the sound of the cool mom though.

It means i am someone who is safe to turn to for embarrassing stories, hushed secrets, for questions that are hard to ask but important to, and to feel less alone in this thing called life.

Recently, my cool mom status was put to a further test when i let my kids go on amusement park rides on New Year’s Eve. The test really came when i agreed to go ON a ride. You know the one, it’s where we go sideways and backwards really fast and lose all sense of gravity. My first mistake was thinking i was not only cool enough but young enough. My second mistake was picking the seat for pure colour (it was PURPLE) and not logistics like it spins more.

In the end, I did get off the ride when it was over. I also needed to take care of myself by sitting on the curb for quite a few moments to gather my bearings. It also meant that my family was able to care for me while i took one for the team. My daughter also was grateful to share the experience of this ride that took me by surprise in more ways than one.

“Always appear what you are, and you will not pass through existence without enjoying its genuine blessings, love and respect.” Mary Wollstonecraft

Now that my kids are not so little anymore, their pains and feelings are getting bigger. They are in fact very similar to ‘real life’ stuff like managing conflict with friends and peers, healing their own heartbreak, and figuring out who they are. Me eldest child is starting high school in the Fall, and is really thinking about who they are. My youngest kiddo is dealing with friend drama and is heartbroken with a recent full-blown conflict with people she thought were her best friends.

When i hold them in their pain at age 2 – and it’s about sharing their favourite toy – i can be there to hold them in the much bigger life lessons. I can’t stop the pain from happening but i can be there to hold them so they are less alone in the pain that has to metabolize and heal.

This is what i truly wanted and did not get as a child. I had a bully and mean girl drama in grade 6 that was very isolating and alone. I was alone in my suffering and i do not want that to be the experience for my own kids. My mom didn’t really know my friends as i got older, and my peer orientation became so separate from my life at home. I also have to track my own reactions so that i don’t transfer my scars unto my kiddos. What is mine is not theirs. Thank goddess for good books like THIS ONE that keep me on the right path.

I may not sing in key, but i also know a lot of the best and most current pop songs, even if they are sourced by Tiktok. By the way, while my status as a cool mom is valid, i am not that mom that will allow my 10-year old to be on Tiktok or have a phone. I’m still very much a cool AND feminist eyes-wide-open mom.

This recent experience also helped me anchor my word for the year, which is SURRENDER. I don’t see surrender as giving in but rather soften into trying something.
Surrender is not giving up. It is much more active than that. It is not passive, but rather permission giving. Surrender is sovereign. It is not giving my agency or power to someone else. Permission from within to myself.

It also means i do not have to do it alone. Surrender is a very intentional acceptance of softening, which allows for the gift of vulnerability of asking for help. It means reaching out at the same time as turning inward. So, it’s time for me to read the beautiful wisdom of Sil Reynolds’ book Mothering and Daughtering. She co-wrote it with her own daughter when she was a teen. I’m ready now to accept my new phase of motherhood is to teenagers – this is new terrain indeed. Just when i thought i knew what i was doing with school-age children, they are now blossoming into adolescence.

So, as all rites of passage remind me – this is the ebb and flow of life. It is the birth/death/rebirth cycle. Speaking of witch (ha ha!), this year, I plan to surrender to my witchy side, to the divine feminine in me, to the goddess. This is a part of me I have been keeping hidden and quiet. I’m ready to surrender to this calling. Surrender is spiritual and divine, it is acts of ritual and an all-in attitude of acceptance.

I’m also planning to offer something new in my work. So surrender is needed to take this next step, to stop resisting this dream. Stay tuned! Hint: I’m putting the final touches on a course for parenting after experiencing trauma!

Surrender is also needed to help guide me away from stuckness. It is about making peace with the messy parts of life. I hope it gives me space and new ways that are aligned with the me I have evolved into. Not the old me.

Each year, I find words that act as guideposts or lights for my main word. Besides the theme for each month, these words play a role in helping me make a decision. Some are seasonal and some are more regular visitors.

Let’s see how I will surrender myself into this.

I am Not My Mother, My Daughter is Not Me

Posted on by

“Until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate” Carl Jung

I like a good podcast to keep me company. I don’t always like to listen to them when i walk home after work: I like to immerse myself in the walk and the quiet. And yet, i was pulled to have company on a few walks recently. So, podcasts were a great solution. And guess what, they gave me both company and pause.

For instance, on Glennon Doyle’s recent podcast episode on her wonderful program We Can Do Hard Things, she had Dr. Becky on a two-part episode. They talked about parenting in modern times and the struggle to be present parents. And yea! They talked about IFS.

There were some nuggets in there for sure. As an attachment-based trauma therapist, a lot of what she shared was not new to me. And yet the timing in my own life is pretty serendipitous.

Here are some quotes i got straight from the source:
– “It’s the child job to have feelings and it’s my job to guide them to be able to have a way to process through them”
– “I need to embody my authority and boundary AND honour my child feelings”
– “We can’t learn to regulate feelings you don’t allow yourself to have”
– “We react most to who and what provokes our earliest attachments”

So this felt really relevant to me. I definitely have witnessed and experienced for myself that we look to shutdown in others what was shutdown in us: It is just too much for us to bear. It’s partly because we are triggered by our children in areas that not finished in our story. What doesn’t get healed and integrated in ourself can manifest into anxiety. And as Dr. Becky reminds us “anxiety is a symptom of what you want to do right or new but it old wiring and need to update the circuits.”

Um…yup yup yup.

In my recent therapy session, my own therapist reminded me to track what is my story and what is about my daughter directly. This was not a new idea to me: I’ve been noticing that this ending and beginning interplay between us has been quite present over the years. I have learned to say to myself “what is mine and what is not mine.” It’s a way of helping me discern where my own story ends and my daughter’s may begin, especially if there is overlap.

Lately, there has been a lot of overlap.

Some of it goes further back and i am also noticing what my mom’s story was.

It’s important to have this distinction because it helps to know what is within my control and worth tending to. It also gives me some agency to know what is worth my energy or when i might be transferring my own needs and experience onto my daughter.

For instance, i shared last month how my daughter is again facing a year at school where she is separated from her friends. I know this is a common experience, and yet it angers me that it still continues to be so. I wish that more consideration went into what we know now about children’s self-esteem and attachment theory.

I know what it’s like to be alone, separated from friends and not having a felt sense of belonging. Having a community is essential to help us grow into more actualized adults. It also can help buffer us from further pain related to relationships. When we have a good foundation, it gives us a healthier perspective on relationships and life in general.

Let’s not forget we are social creatures, wired for connection.

My mom did not have a big community when i was growing up. She had a few friends and spoke to our neighbours. My parents came to Canada during a mass immigration, but before the diaspora due to the war in what was Yugoslavia. She didn’t belong to a community, even though she supported family to come after her. I saw her try – with exercise classes, Spanish lessons, and talking to other dance moms. She was shy and quiet, mainly due to feeling insecure about her strong accent and a deep distrust of sharing herself with others. So that meant that i didn’t really see her socialize and have friends. It was rare for her go out in the evenings with a friend. More rare, or in fact never happened, was a weekend event outside the home.

Now, as an adult, i am catching myself comparing myself to my mom. I see one of the hardest struggles she endured was loneliness and a deep aloneness in her experience. She turned to me to be her confidant and emotional support. Even at 15 years old, i knew my place was to hold other people’s needs. It’s no surprise that i chose to be a psychotherapist, holding space for other’s feelings and narratives.

In my personal life, I make an intentional point to make plans with friends. This is important modeling for my kids. I want them to see not just that i value community but that having a felt sense of belonging establishes a healthy self regard for ourselves. It is also tied to feeling joy and pleasure in our life. I am grateful for a dinner out with friends or being able to start hosting them again in my home.

And yet, these past few months have been more lonely and alone than i ever would have expected. And that comes on the heels of a pandemic, rather than at its peak most isolating period.

So, when my daughter learned that she was not in the same class as her friends, i couldn’t help but put myself in her shoes. We are the same size so i actually worry i put her in my shoes.

My trauma is not my daughter’s trauma
My mom’s needs are not mine

Relational and attachment wounds start in childhood, mainly due to an insecure attachment to a primary caregiver. They can also arise later in life, due to an unhealthy relationship with an intimate partner or toxic friendship. They are a type of trauma. Being separated from friends in school can be a “small t” trauma itself. We feel so alone in the classroom, it feels like noone has our back and it is us against the world.

Here is the distinction though: not all events lead to trauma. What may be impacted by one person as trauma, another person who experiences the same thing may not be traumatized. In The Body Keeps the Score, countless stories remind us of this truth. It is not just that they are more resilient, but rather they were not alone in their experience and had a space to unpack their feelings. Peter Levine shares that one reason that trauma gets stored in the body is because we are alone in experiencing it and no one was there to help hold the story for us.

In the book What Happened to You, the authors shared their concept of the Three E’s of Trauma: Event Experience Effect. All three need to be reviewed to get a sense if the person is experiencing trauma as a response to an event.

This knowledge of trauma healing work gives a better backdrop to a family’s trauma cycle: the generational experience and patterns that may lead to intergenerational trauma.

Did you know that the egg that made you was first embedded in your grandmother? So her life experience can carry into your own cells. This includes legacy burdens.

“Only with heightened coping skills will we be able to rise above our shell shock and be who we want to be. All of us have the capacity to do this, and when we do, we will increase our own happiness and be of greater service to those around us.” Mary Pipher, Reviving Ophelia
Break the Cycle
I’ve been thinking a lot about epigenetics and the impact of intergenerational trauma. I have been tracking what ages of my children have been harder for me, not just as their mom but also as it brings up triggers of my own experience. At times, it shows me the scars of my unresolved traumas are being cut open again.

There are some things are definitely mine: The pandemic, my own birth trauma, i left home at 16 and i am the only mother in my extended family who also works outside the home (to name a few examples). And there are other things that are in my mom’s backpack baggage: Driving is hard, dating as a wife and romance was not visible, she left home country at 20 and had no family support.

How do these very different experiences impact us? One way we are impacted by intergenerational trauma and attachment wounds is our self-esteem. We witness our mothers and how they care for and see themselves. That modelling gets passed down to us and we internalize how we think we need to think about ourselves.

Self-esteem is the internal understanding of our self-regard. It gets mixed in with confidence, but that is an externally based reflection, due to a focus on attributes, success and sought-after items. Take for example, my parents got me a car in high school. It helped me get to dance class and yet it was a hot commodity with my friends. My confidence was boosted by the popularity i received by owning my own car.

Our self-esteem is a lifelong journey. At times, it is tumultuous. Many of us were raised in an era where our self-esteem and worth were not at the forefront of parenting or child-related systems (i.e. school). Now we know better.

Girls’ self-esteem peaks at age 8. In an era of social media and technology, i can’t help but wonder if the age is even younger now. According to Richard Schwartz, who created Internal Family Systems, we are born with all our Parts. What changes their role is how our life is shaped between the ages of 0-11 years old.

My kids are 13 and 10. No pressure, mama.

I have not always caught what triggers me until after the fact. Case in point: my daughter’s room. I thought i’d be that mom that didn’t care about how messy a kid’s bedroom got. For a while, i would just brush off the impact. At other times, i would go in and clean it up. Now, i barely go in there – and let’s be clear, it’s almost impossible to step foot on the actual floor. But i have to be mindful of what i say here – i am not a fan public shaming. Rather, my point is noticing with surprise, the impact my daughter’s room has on me. I have learned it’s a trauma response for me that is still unhealed, that makes it hard for me to accept the state of her room. I was never allowed to have a messy room. I internalized that in order for me to feel safe and calm, i needed a tidy space with everything where it belongs. For the sake of my nervous system, this helped me feel safe when i felt like i walked on eggshells at home.

Does that make me a permissive mom? Maybe. It also makes me a conscious, respectful and regulated mom who accepts what i cannot change.

Gretchen Smeltzer wrote in her book, Journey Through Trauma “the feeling of safety is an outcome, not an input, and trauma work. You create a safe environment in mind body spirit emotions and relationships and then you practice taking safety in.”

We become our patterns especially when we are not aware of them. That is what gets repeated.

I had an out of body experience recently, looking at my life from the outside in. Going through my mom’s things had real hon me how similar I have become to her. I have been so dreading becoming my mother for years. Her unhappiness, her endless craft works in progress, her lack of community. And lately I feel like I became her subconsciously, without realizing it. I noted that I don’t have to repeat what had been broken.


Coming out of the woods and back on our path is like healing from trauma. It is a hero’s journey – what we do with our life after healing trauma. Judith Herman’s theory of the 3 stages of trauma therapy really unpacks this process well. They mirror the journey of the hero, finally getting to integration.

Trauma is not just what happens to us, it’s what was taken from us because the trauma got in the way of our development. It’s also not having the support and resources we need to heal.

Trauma is a nervous system wound, and it is also a heart wound. “The ways it shapes and takes and changes us could be nothing less than heartbreak.” Syanna Wand. So it is also grief work – grief of what could have been, and was taken from us and can never be.

Trauma resolution is moving from a trauma vortex that’s designed to protect us from further harm to a more embodied place of pleasure and living life with full expression

Healing takes time and new wounds can happen, as new traumas can be had. What shifts is the dual awareness of what we need now, and what no longer is stored in us as a trauma vortex, but a more healed one.

So this is where I sit now – being able to notice where my story ends and my kids’ begin. It’s a way of stopping the intergenerational trauma from continuing on.

No pressure, mama.