Orienting to the Inner Mother
And what she has to do with our relationships
The Inner Mother drives our daily habits and thoughts about what we deserve, how we should be, and how much we can ask for. She is modeled on our early caregivers. We learn the skills and capacities of those folks who teach us how to take care of ourselves and what is important and good about us. We also use our early care to determine what we can expect from others.
And so often we end up at a place in our adult lives where we need more from our Inner Mother. We need her to care for the young ones in us that are still sensitive to what we didn’t receive.
Growing the Inner Mother grows our capacity and skills for better relationship and a stronger sense of self. And tending to our relationships also requires us to tend to our inner dialogues.
Sometimes once we see this connection we want everything to change right away. We hope that the awareness is the answer. But there’s always more. These old skills are embedded in our neural networks, we have to practice at something different. This makes sense, because by this moment of awareness we’ve often been in pain for a really long time.
But we can’t rush the intimacy, connection, and trust that we’re building.
In Landscape of Mothers, we can call on Mountain Mother who has the capacity to stay with what is difficult. She has that holy stability that helps us to find our steady roots, our good ground, and our persistence.
To connect with Mountain Mother in you: Place your feet on the ground. Ideally, bare feet on the earth, but any “feet on ground” situation will work. Feel into the sensation of the stability of mountain, of her endurance and her slow pace. Breathe deeply and slowly. Breathe in as if you are pulling air into your lungs and moving it all the way down your body and into the earth. Breathe out from the earth all the way to the top of your head.
This helps your energy root into the earth beneath your feet. It centers you right here right now. This gives the mind and energy a place to move from.
If this resonates for you, you may be interested in an upcoming Landscape of Mothers workshop called Orienting to the Inner Mother. You can find more information at my website.