Motherwound in action

Lately I have been brought in contact with the mother wound, not so much as something to diagnose in other people, but as a relational pattern I have begun to recognize more clearly in myself.

I had a parttern to find myself in connection with men who carried something unresolved in their relationship with the feminine. I could feel the dynamic, but I did not fully understand why it affected me so strongly. At times I even felt disappointed in them for not seeing what seemed so obvious to me.

Then, a few months ago, I came much more tangibly into contact with my own mother wound.

And something changed.

What has changed is my relationship to what appears. It’s like gaining sight after being blind before.

Before, a wound could recognize another wound and call it connection.

Now awareness can recognize the dynamic before it starts living it’s own life in the shared field.

There is a distance that was not there before. Not a cold distance, but the kind of distance that makes seeing possible.

And from that distance, boundaries become much clearer and easier.

I can decide which games I participate in.

Someone can offer me a role without me accepting it. I can notice an invitation to soothe, reassure, rescue, emotionally carry, endlessly understand, or become something for another person that they may not yet know how to hold within themselves. I can decide what I am genuinely willing to give, when I am willing to give it, and where my responsibility ends.

This does not require closing my heart. I can care deeply without becoming responsible for another person’s inner world.

And I can also notice with gentleness when I do step into the old role.

Sometimes I still find myself becoming the mother, the helper, the one who understands, explains, regulates or rescues. The difference is that I can increasingly see it happening. I do not have to shame myself for entering the pattern, nor blame the other person for inviting me into it. I can simply become conscious of the position I have taken and step out again.

This has made me think about the drama triangle: victim, rescuer and persecutor. The roles can shift surprisingly quickly. The rescuer gives beyond what is actually theirs to give, eventually becomes depleted or resentful, and may suddenly experience the person they were trying to help as demanding or draining. What began as helping can quietly become a cycle in which neither person is fully standing in their own agency.

Perhaps the first movement out of that triangle is simply observation.

Ah. Here I am again.

Not judgment. Not diagnosis. Just recognition.

Then comes the conscious step out.

I do not need to rescue. I do not need to become the persecutor in order to stop rescuing. And I do not need to make myself a victim of someone else’s needs. I can return responsibility to where it belongs and remain responsible for my own choices.

This also changes how I understand boundaries. A boundary is not only something I place between myself and another person. It is also the place where I become conscious of my own participation.

I cannot always choose what another person brings toward me.

But I can choose what I join.

I can choose what I nurture, what I reciprocate, what I allow to deepen, and what kind of relationship I am willing to build.

a gentle question to be asked:

What role is this dynamic asking me to occupy, and do I want to occupy it?

I’d say this is one way inner work begins to reshape the outer world. Through conscious action.

Not because the old pattern never knocks on the door again, but because I no longer automatically open the door and invite it in.

Healing may not mean that the old pattern disappears.

Sometimes it simply means that it no longer feels like home.

..

This picture is taken earlier this year, In a tender moment facing my mother wound full force.