how to hold compassion for your mother (while still letting your anger exist)
From a recent community care IG question box around motherwound healing:
First off I want to acknowledge that trying to do both these things simultaneously while in an active relationship with our mom is akin to hiking Mount Everest.
If your mom is open to growth, is receptive to feedback, is willing to be held accountable and also shows willingness to actively repair your bond, then my first suggestion would always be to have a candid conversation about how you're feeling.
That being said, I know many of you are here because that is most certainly not the case with your mother. If those things aren't a possibility with your mom, I've got you. Keep reading.
About 4 and a half years ago I was sitting in my therapists office talking -again- about my mother. She was asking me about my ability (or lack thereof) to hold compassion for my mother. Um excuse me? Get outta here with that.
During this particular session we had been talking about holding space for mental illness. That, whether or not my mom had a mental illness, she lacked abilities around emotional regulation, attunement, critical thinking and accepting complexity and nuance.
My therapist questioned me: if I could hold compassion around my mother having a physical illness, why couldn’t I hold compassion around her having a potential mental illness that actually limits her capacity to do the things listed above?
Great question. Confronting question.
I thought about this for a long time.
My answer: because of her lack of these skills, and because her unwillingness to seek treatment have deeply, deeply impacted the core of my being and my own emotional processing skills. I am angry. I am resentful. And as much as I want to be the Good and Kind and Enlightened person who can hold the complexity of both honouring my experience AND hers at the same time - at this stage am most certainly am Not that kind of person.
Asking me to find compassion felt like asking a brand new hiker to climb Mount Everest (see above). I would need training and tools and practice and maybe, can we start on a very mild incline please-and-thank-you? Asking me to get to compassion after a life-time of quelching my anger felt like a major exercise is step-skipping. And honestly, unrealistic.
Adult daughters of emotionally immature (or unavailable) mothers…the workshop you’ve been needing is now here.
If you’re feeling the ache (and anger and resentment and…) of your own motherwound…this workshop is a must for gaining clarity, understanding and a path toward healing.
It’s been 3-ish years now since I’ve been able to find compassion for my mother. There are three big factors that have allowed me to get to this place, and none of them have to do with being Good and Kind and Enlightened. Despite what you might see on IG, healing is often not love and light, but rather messy and deeply confronting Work.
Note:
I work through these elements with my clients who sign up for motherwound mentorship and I’m going to share them below but please, use your discernment in taking in what is best for YOU and your particular situation. This is a one-way essay and doesn’t come with the critical conversation, witnessing, validating and perspective questioning that comes with one-to-one mentorship.
My hope in sharing here is that it will give you a starting place and permission (if you need it) to start approaching your healing in another light, instead of white-knucking it - TRYING desperately to be compassionate while your body is screaming “hell no!” through a clenched jaw and rigid fingers everytime you come into contact with your mother.
Okay, here they are:
Space
Acceptance
Allowing
Space
Space from the relationship. This can be very scary but I believe it’s incredibly hard to ‘heal’ in the same environment that makes us sick. I know this from personal experience because I tried it for YEARS. Trying to heal the wounds from the relationship with my mother while being in semi-regular contact with her was like trying to get a gash to heal while continuously picking off the scab. I was constantly re-triggered and unable to reap the benefits that come with time and space while remaining in relationship with her.
Like drinking, it’s almost impossible to see the real and full impact alcohol is having on your life while you’re still actively drinking. It isn’t until we step away fully for a few months at minimum that we can start to see the total impact alcohol has on our lives. Same goes with this. There are realizations you’ll receive with space that you simply can’t get while actively engaging - you’re too close to the situation.
Getting space from the relationship is so valuable because it gives you time to sort through what’s hers and what’s yours. It gives you room to breathe and gives you perspective you just can’t get while you’re actively dealing with the stress of impending visits and phone calls. Choosing to step away isn’t for everyone and doesn’t have to last forever but it has been an invaluable tool in my own healing and many of the people I work with. It usually comes as a last resort after trying everything else.
Having space from my mother has allowed me to have more compassion for her because I’m not interacting or triggered by her on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. As a bonus, it allows us to practice the process of individuation which many of us weren’t granted growing up in enmeshed and codependent homes. It’s an act of fierce self-compassion and of sovereignty. Creating the boundary of space in the relationship actually gives you an opportunity to find compassion for yourself and your mother that would be otherwise very hard to find.
Very Important: a final note about space, no matter what length ⬇️
Taking space will only be really valuable to you if you focus on doing your own inner work during this time. Simply cutting people out of your life claiming that they’re toxic without doing your own deep inner work is a recipe for continued heartache. What we resist persists and I can almost guarantee you that if you take the "I'm gonna cut her out and be done with it" route, you're going to see these very same dynamics show up in other relationships and other people you attract into your life. We all know someone who has cut numerous people out of their lives and is still miserable - I don’t want you to be this person. Taking space in the way that I’m suggesting is more akin to going into hibernation from the relationship so you can do some deep healing work and then when you re-emerge you get to decide if you are in a space to re-engage with her (or not). Use the time, space and distance to seek out support and healing if you want to become more compassionate to yourself AND your mother.
Acceptance
There is a concept in mother wound healing called living the impossible dream. It’s the idea that we still hold a child-like fantasy that our mother will magically become the person we’ve always wanted and needed. Unfortunately this is fantasy and is not based in reality. Take a moment and think about one or two things you really want from your mother.
Maybe it’s:
- to have her acknowledge the pain that her actions have caused
- to have her take accountability and actively try and repair the relationship
- it’s to have her celebrate your accomplishments instead of turning everything into something about her
It’s so normal to want those kinds of things AND (though question coming up…) - has your mother ever, historically been able to provide those things to you?
If not, and you are still pining away for them, this is an indication that you’re living in the impossible dream. Please don’t beat yourself up for this - I can’t stress how normal it is for us to dream of our mother meeting our needs. It’s normal and natural (especially in our society that says ’mothers know best’) to think that she’s the only one that can make you feel whole, but I can assure you that’s not the truth. Thoughts like those diminish your personhood and autonomy and ability to move forward. It’s also placing a lot of power in the hands of someone who has proven that they can't be responsible with it.
Accepting the truth of our mother’s inabilities and limitations can be very, very painful because it makes us face reality. But this is important because it’s even more painful (and an exercise in futility) to fight against what is.
Acceptance is one of the hardest parts of motherwound healing because it inevitably leads us to facing feelings that we may not want to feel, may have never had permission to feel or are scared of what will happen to us if we actually allow ourselves to feel them. Which leads us to…
Allowing
The (never ending) process of healing is inevitably going to bring up some really big feelings and it’s imperative that you allow yourself the time, grace and space to feel them:
Allowing yourself to feel the anger of having to do the work that your mother refused or wasn’t able to do.
Allowing yourself to feel the sadness of what you missed out on as a result of her inability to mother you in the ways you needed.
Allowing yourself to feel the heartbreak of grief over not having a mother who gave you the nurturance, protection or guidance you needed - and deserved.
Allowing yourself to be witnessed in your shame stories (many of which are likely Not yours, but instead have been handed down to you).
Emotions and feelings need to be allowed and met with tenderness, understanding and grace. They need recognition and witnessing and they need an outlet from our bodies. Whether thats slow and gentle movement, crying, screaming, rage walking, running, dancing or putting pen to paper and letting them out through your fingertips.
The more we repress and ignore how we truly feel about things, the more they build up and we see them manifest in anxiety, depression and other mental and physical illnesses.
Ignoring your feelings will not make them go away. They will just stand at your door and knock louder and louder until you let them in...so...when you’re ready, crack that door open and let them start to come in. Make sure you great them kindly and let them know that they belong and it makes sense that they need to visit. Gentle, gentle, gentle.
When you become more skilled at allowing and tolerating your own feelings, it helps you develop capacity and understanding toward other people's and their emotions - including your mother’s.
Developing true compassion (not to be confused with saviourism or pity or transactionalism) for your mother really starts with developing deep compassion for emotional and lived experience. It involves planting your stake in the ground and saying "my experience matters, too." Giving yourself the gifts of support, space, acceptance and allowing are a beautiful, humbling and sustainable way to do just that.
The road is long and the journey can feel really lonely at times - but despite what your hyper-independance tells you, you don’t have to do it alone. We are hurt in relationships…and that’s also where we heal.
A note: This was essay was originally for the subscribers of Soul Notes. If you like reading essays where people admit their faults, embarrassments and missteps while also trying to keep the shame monsters at bay, you should definitely sign up. In the emails we talk about shame-reduction, sobriety, motherwound healing, grief and anything else that’s asking to be explored.