Learning to Mother Ourselves

We often enter a new life stage aware of the external changes in our lives, but only vaguely aware of how it may be impacting us at a deeper level. We have crossed a threshold – the loss of a parent or sibling, a change in job or relationship, or the crisis of unexpected health issues. Perhaps nothing has really changed at all, but we sense that something is off. We’re feeling down, overly anxious or lacking vitality and connection to our deepest desires. We feel adrift or out-of-step in our own lives and bodies.

These tender times in the life of a woman are often met with an urgency to fix or resolve whatever is perceived as the problem. Depending on our personality and upbringing, this may look like over-planning, restricting or bingeing, escapism or numbing. It may look like involving ourselves in the lives of others or our work so that we stay busy and distracted from our own experience.

Many times, these behaviors reflect what we learned from or experienced in relationship with our mothers. The thing – eating, distraction, busyness, shopping, gossip – became a fill-in for what we desperately longed for. Whatever form the connection took, it was a substitute for what we really needed – belonging, attention, care, curiosity, love. Our young hearts accepted what we were offered. In time, we came to believe that’s all we could get and began to offer the same to ourselves. We stopped expecting any more, stopped wanting any more. Because to want – to feel the desire and longing – was too painful, too unsafe and threatening to the connection.

But as we learn to mother ourselves, we meet ourselves with curiosity and compassion. We explore what the parts of us that have been outside of our awareness are really seeking, what purpose the behavior is serving. We begin to hold ourselves in love, even as we feel the grief of deep longing and the pain of unmet desires. At first, it feels deeply unsettling, rivers of unmet wants feel destabilizing and unsafe. We remind ourselves that we’re safe and what we need is the stabilizing, steady presence of an Inner Mother to contain us, to hold the fear and longing, to reestablish safety and connection.

Mothering ourselves is the work of a lifetime. I say a lifetime because new memories, connections and unexpressed, unfelt emotions present themselves when we least expect. If we have a strained, difficult or estranged relationship with our mother, we have that experience to hold as well – the inner mother soothing and attending to our needs, while we decide with great care how to approach the outer mother in a way that does not re-wound and harm us. We are learning to hold both deep attunement while not re-enacting patterns of aggression or abandonment. This takes practice and skill, but it is workable.

Many of us need support and guidance in this process. We need models of mothering in literature or art to draw on. We can also draw on images of our experience of the Great Mother, God, our Higher Power, the Divine if these feel safe and accessible. It may help to spend time in wild places and nature, grounding ourselves in the expression of love, joy and abundance we find. We meditate, pray or we practice silence and solitude.

We allow ourselves to grieve, and the space to reflect. We give ourselves permission to tell the truth about our lives. Over time, we discover a sense of deep safety, resting in the arms and at the breast of an Inner Mother who never sleeps or grows weary, who gazes on us with warmth, curiosity and deep love. We then carry this feeling of being held into our days – grounded, curious and alive with energy.