When are we going to fully realize the power of mother? Although we make so much about pregnancy and babies and women becoming mothers, I believe we have yet to admit to ourselves the power of mothering. When we talk about women’s power being fully acknowledged in the world, when we examine how the fear of the power of women is still holding us back in the workforce and in politics, might it be that the roots of that problem can be found in the fact that most are afraid to acknowledge the power of women have as mothers? Are we still blind in many respects to the absolute influence they have on the very core of who we are as human beings? Until we acknowledge the power of our mothers, how can we hope to set women free to be powerful in other areas of life? What is the reason women haven’t yet been able to break through the discrimination? I think it’s because we truly have yet to really look at how our mothers have affected our lives and how this relationship affects the whole world.
For one thing it fascinates me that we become adults and we either joke about how much our mothers have “screwed us up” or perhaps we find ourselves feeling so indebted to them, or a little of both. But here’s what I believe. I don’t believe that either of these perceptions are any indication of the magnitude of their power and I’ll tell you why.
Let’s first take the perception “she really screwed me up”. It’s been my experience helping people to heal that those who have no trouble admitting this to themselves, (perhaps they have even moved away far from their mothers because they acknowledge her toxicity) for the most part, these people have yet to fully feel the pain and anger that would be required to feel, to fully set them free from the consequences of her shortcomings. The reason I say this, is because if they had felt it, they would not still be making the statement that they “screwed up their life”. Once we feel the magnitude of the pain our mother can cause us, we no longer can describe it in such a terse and flippant manner. Admitting this travesty, in the context of a fully present being, would require a tone that would be full of the experience of having felt and worked through the pain that this unfortunate history had caused.
One the other hand, those who are proclaiming the profound positive effects of their mothers, are not always, but often, not believable in their declaration of gratitude because when our mothers have in fact done the job of loving us well, the proclamation of this fact comes with a somber delivery, that in its music, contains the notes of the truth of her fallibility, making it a much more balanced and believable statement based in truth and not infantile fantasy.
When I myself was struggling with the layers of truly feeling and knowing my experience of my mother, my journey went through many phases. There was first the phase of not knowing at all the reality of her strengths and weakness. I’ll call this the “ignorance is bliss” phase. Then I began to realize the truth of her inability to love me the way I needed to be loved because she had yet to face the emotions that would make her aware of her painful need for her mother. The details of intellectual realizations that followed, did nothing to free me of the uncomfortable dynamic that ensued as I went from teenager, to young adult to full adulthood. What finally helped me heal the places where she neglected or controlled me, was in the full experiencing of my pain, need, anger and sadness. That was a long journey. Now I can see the truth because I felt the truth and I can finally be ok with her, because I am finally ok from having felt the truth. It’s like I felt the truth for both of us, and now I can love her as she is and let go of the child in me that either never really understood or knew her, or that wanted so much more.
When mother love is healthy and organic, it’s a given, and as given, it is not experienced as a bonus and shouldn’t be experienced as such. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that acknowledging a mother who did her job well is a negative thing. I am saying that most of the time when I hear this with tones of bravado or and especially when it comes with tears, it’s usually a sign that there is some internal conflict built around that appreciation. When we acknowledge a mother’s love, it is not accompanied by the emotion of sadness as it pertains to some kind of sacrifice. That is a trap, it is not love, and it breeds codependency. Healthy maternal love gives power, leaving us without a beholden feeling to mother, only with power of self. As we come into this power, hers and ours, we can let women fill out all their power in the world and we will all be the better for having done so.
This Emotional Life 