welcome back to the palabraycuerpo.com blog where I offer healing through words for free here, and through subscription for meditation through Insight Timer app!
The mother’s wound is real. We can run from it all we want. But if we went through trauma, from the womb, from infancy, from our adolescence, it starts with our Mother and our Mother’s mother. If your mother was overly critical, chances are, that you have been, too, and actively still have had a choice from growing from that. This is how generational trauma happens. When we’re left screaming, crying, in our crib, and no one comes to soothe us, we’re taught abandonment. Yes, on the flip side, the theory is that’s how you can raise an anxiously attached child. Either way:
Mothers are providers. (I won the lottery with my Taurus mom).
Full stop. They’re creators of life. Now, not every assigned-female-at-birth’s destiny is to become a mother. That’s where some of y’all get heavily confused. If it’s a no, then it’s a no. You are infringing on someone’s bodily autonomy and sovereignty if you’re continuously convincing them otherwise.
If you’re reading this, someone birthed you, too. A human before a mother.
Patriarchy makes us believe that the reason why we have a roof over our head is solely because of men, meanwhile men have historically had a reason to build houses because of women, and women create an empty building from scratch, from nothing, into a home. Speaking here specifically to Black, brown, and Indigenous women, mothers, and femmes.
Having a gender expansive view of this also contributes to my thinking.
Having a reproductive health and ab0rtion access framework, legacy, and movement participation also contributes to this point of view.
What we run from, sometimes. is not only the trauma, but the blessings. Generational blessings, joys, gifts, talents, skills are also inherited. Take nothing personal from your mother. But pray and give to Mother Earth archetypes. We all need mother. We all need the Moon. We all the need the light. We all need nurture. We all need love. We all need care.
Homework: read the Toltec wisdom from Four Agreements.
Again… I won the lottery with my Taurus mom. Shoutout to single mothers. If you have a single mother in your life, you need to do better to show up for them, we all do. They are the mother and father archetype combined, often, it’s so hard to ask for help. Loving on their children is the best way to show up for them, but also simply the mother, as a human, and what they need. I say all of this and know that my mom is faulty. She’s imperfect. Yes, we’ve had extreme tiffs. I am her “problem child” siempre con la corriente. I know what’s she sacrified, as proud Mexican migrant of Indigenous descent, and I continuously learn more about her mother, and it starts to slowly all make sense.
If you have the privilege of having a good, decent relationship with your mother, ask.
Ask about her before it’s too late.
See your own humanity in her.
Funnily enough, the older I get the more I realize I am my Mother archetypes.
If you do not have a good, decent relationship… It’s okay to let go. It’s okay to redefine what motherhood, and womanhood, is defined for you, at all stages of your life. If you are caring for living things every day, you are motherly. Las sanaciones de constelaciones truly have you release your attachment to your parents. You release them of everything you’ve ever blamed them and the responsibility lies in raising yourself. I believe that to some extent. Many people run around approaching 30 and beyond run around blaming their parents for everything. At some point, you do just have to… Grow up. Take accountability.
If you are unwilling to accept nurture, care, affection, love… then yes dear. It’s time.
I have a recommendation and resource. Jai has an expertise in mother healing. (thematriarch_healer on Instagram) But neither them, or I, are licensed mental health professionals, to really get into the nitty-gritty details. With love.
Mother Earth. The beginning, the end all, be all. To think we are separate from her is… misinformed. Mother of All Things, we believe in a creation story of some sort. The land we exist on now is the land we need to take care of. Brought, migrated to, due to settler colonialism, all of that matters in context of who we are, but our responsibility is the same.
We must be water protectors, land defenders, not extractive, not wasteful. We need each other.
Here are some suggestions to start:
- Eliminating food waste, composting, growing herbs, veggies, supporting local farms, Water and Land Protector Work (clean ups)
- Donating to mutual aid groups, activating, uplifting, and platforming others to do this work
- Become community with Black and Indigenous leaders doing the environmental justice work. Be an accomplice. Allyship is performative. Change is needed; change looks different.
- Become a leader yourself, the safe space for youth, the ear to listen for elders. They know the way.
- Champion Leadership, Resilience, Power, Integrity, Strength, Honor, Community, and Connection
To take care of the land, we must actively seek and be in it. Go outside. Feel that sunshine on your face and breathe in with the wind. She’s calling. Go outside of the city if you live in one, but also parks, paths, washes. (shoutout to Wetlands, an East Side gem, the wash that runs through Lake Mead and into the Colorado River.) Pray.
(Sidenote: I discovered the most QTBIPOC spiritual space in Vegas, on the East Side, through a drumming circle for deities Yemaya, Oshun, and the Orishas. Spirit is everywhere).
Hasta luego, un besito pal camino,
XOXO