The Trinity Wounds: The Mother Wound
The Mother Wound. It sounds a little intense, huh? Well, it is. But here’s the scoop — every single person suffers from the Mother Wound in some capacity. Why? Because this particular wound is a form of cultural and familial trauma specific to those of us living in a patriarchy¹. It shows up in all areas of our lives — personally, culturally, spiritually, collectively. In my introduction piece (The Trinity Wounds: An Introduction) I mentioned the personal and collective costs of not healing these wounds as well as what can happen when we do personally and collectively begin to heal them. This article will go more in-depth about the Mother Wound specifically and how you can begin to understand it within your own life circumstances. Before I go too much further, I want to acknowledge that my personal experiences that I share with you are influenced by my privilege. As a white woman writing this article, I am doing so under the knowledge that I have and continue to have unearned privilege. When I speak of experiences or examples of the Mother Wound, I am doing so with the limited personal experience I carry, along with the research and studies done by other women in the field.
While I’ve researched and studied many, many scholars, psychologists, analysts, and more — the resource I keep coming back to as the best and most fundamental place for this is Bethany Webster and her book, Discovering the Inner Mother. I find Bethany to be relatable, understandable, and deeply encouraging in her approach to the Mother Wound. I will take cues from her when discussing this topic as well as generous linking to her materials.
Before we dive deeper into what the Mother Wound is and how it shows up, I think it’s important that we acknowledge one of the reasons it’s so prevalent. Believe it or not, it shares many of the same factors as other kinds of traumatic wounds (childhood sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, etc.,) — it’s “taboo” to talk about. In fact, I’d say the Mother Wound is even more “taboo” to talk about because the mother-daughter relationship bond is revered as sacred. When we begin to talk about the dysfunction and cracks in the mother-daughter relationship, we are often shushed or asked to keep it “behind closed doors.” In fact, I can remember my grandmother saying the words, “we just don’t air out our dirty laundry like that.” So as you can see, the hiding, secrecy, and non-acknowledgment of this wound is part of what keeps it in place.
So what is the Mother Wound, exactly?
The Mother Wound is a social condition that is rooted in patriarchy. Specifically, it is the pain of being a woman passed down through generations of women in patriarchal cultures. And it includes the dysfunctional coping mechanisms that are used to process that pain.
According to Bethany Webster, psychologist, and pioneer in the study of the Mother Wound, there are four distinct levels of the wound and how it shows up.²
Personal Mother Wound: A set of internalized limiting beliefs and patterns that originates from the early dynamics with our mothers that causes problems in many areas of our adult lives, impacting how we see ourselves, one another, and our potential.
Cultural Mother Wound: The systemic devaluation of women in most aspects of patriarchal cultures, rooted in colonization, that have come to dominate much of the world, and the dysfunctional imbalance in the world as a result.
Spiritual Mother Wound: The feeling of being disconnected and alienated from a higher power and life itself.
Planetary Mother Wound: The harm caused to the earth (e.g., deforestation, mass extinction of species, climate crisis, etc.) that is threatening life on this planet.
As you can see, at one time or another, these wounds intersect and compound at each level. But what’s important to know is that it all starts with the personal level first.
To heal collectively, we must be willing to heal ourselves, first. Only then can we find the empowerment and courage to begin to heal collectively.
How does it manifest in our lives?
Once you understand what the Mother Wound is and how prevalent it is — you start noticing it everywhere. It can show up as (not an exhaustive list):
A pervasive sense that there’s something “wrong” with you
A deep-rooted fear of failure or disapproval
Fear of success and fulfillment
Weak boundaries
Unclear sense of self
Action dependent on not making waves or “rocking the boat.”
Self-Sabotage
While these are just a few examples, they are extremely powerful ones. And they are examples that many people can relate to.
As I began my own work on the Mother Wound, one particular situation came to mind in my own life. It was my sophomore year of college and I’d had a change of heart. I no longer wanted to major in Spanish and Russian language. I wanted what I’d always wanted in my heart — to be a writer. I’d decided to transfer to a college that had better opportunities for writing majors and I sat with it for weeks before I called my mother to tell her. Always a journaler, even in college, I had pages filled with sentiments like:
She’s going to be so disappointed in me.
She’s going to lecture me on why this is the wrong decision.
She’ll be worried I won’t be able to “make it” as a writer.
Whether or not these sentiments were true — it came from the source of my mother wound. The place where we feel like we can’t truly or fully be ourselves because of the threat of disapproval. I was scared of my mother’s rejection. It wasn’t just rejection of the choice though — it was the fear of being rejected on the basis of who I was and what I wanted in my life.
A common mother wound I see rampant amongst the millennial and younger generation is the resistance to the patriarchal mandates that their mothers ultimately submitted to. We see a lot of unprocessed mother wound trauma in what we call “mommy-shaming” and it does nothing but continue the cycle of shame, blame, and trauma.
I worked with a client once who had stopped communicating with her mother because of their differing opinions on working as a mother. My client not only wanted to work after her maternity leave, she felt she needed to in order to keep herself empowered and to have a sense of agency and autonomy. Her mother disagreed and claimed that only “bad” mothers would continue working, while “good” mothers stayed home to raise their children.
Here’s the thing — neither of those things are inherently bad or good. They’re neutral. The difference is the meaning-making behind them. My client’s mother had children in a time where women had to choose. Most could not afford to continue working even if they wanted to. The patriarchal culture demanded that she be one or the other. This was an internalized wound that my client’s mother faced. Thus, when her daughter became a mother, she was reminded of the pain of that wound. Probably even unconsciously. But that wound is then placed onto the daughter to either accept (and reject her own ideals) or to reject her mother’s ideals (and cause a rift in their relationship).
Why patriarchy is at the root of the Mother Wound
It’s no surprise that the male-dominated culture conditions women to believe they are “less-than,” thus not deserving or worthy. This sense of unworthiness has been internalized and passed down from generation to generation. Here are some examples of ways the patriarchy encourages the Mother Wound:
An expectation that all personal ambitions go out the window in favor of caring for the family
Depletion of the self to support their families and children
The expectation of being the primary caregiver
The expectation that their “role” is to serve others and others’ needs while stuffing down their own
The expectation that on the “outside,” everything appears perfect. The perfect family, the perfect wife, the perfect marriage, etc.
When a woman and/or a mother must bend to the demands of a partriachral society — she loses a part of herself in the process. She carries the pain, burden, and trauma of oppression. And because there’s no place to grieve or process it — it is left to compound, fester and rise up inside. As Bethany Webster says in her book³:
We must become conscious of the ways in which patriarchy deprives mothers and how that deprivation is delivered upon their children, ultimately crippling us all collectively, to some degree.
I’m sure you’ve observed and been a victim of the patriarchal binds that we as women face. These binds are messages sent to us consciously and unconsciously like:
Women should be sexy, but they shouldn’t be too sexy as to be considered anything other than “pure.”
Women should be successful, but only within the confines of feminine success (never more successful than a man)
Women should be strong but not too strong (men don’t like women who are stronger than they are)
Women should be smart, but not smarter than her male counterparts
Some of these may seem outrageous, but just take a few minutes to examine what you’ve seen, heard, and experienced in life. Do you have experiences that challenge these binds? If so, good — take that a step further and examine why your experience may be different than the millions of women who experience these binds on a daily basis.
And the patriarchal culture is not reserved just for women. Both boys and girls, men and women, are conditioned to believe that any “unacceptable” feelings are considered “weak,” “wrong,” and “bad.” This then leads to the individual (male or female) internalizing these feelings and feeling shame. I find this quote from Bethany to be quite on point and sums up just how much shame and patriarchy shapes, enhances, and perpetuates the mother wound (along with every other form of oppression): ⁴
Shame is the main cultural enforcer of patriarchy. It is the primary emotion of the oppressed and the intended emotion of the oppressor because it paralyzes its victim. Shame makes us easy to control. It makes us compliant.
Healing the Mother Wound is not Mother Blaming
One of the fallacies that keep the Mother Wound intact is the belief that by healing our Mother Wounds we are effectively blaming our mothers. But that is simply untrue. Mother-blame is avoiding responsibility and can be categorized by:⁵
Complacency and a sense of victimhood.
Hiding from our own power and responsibility.
Projecting unprocessed anger onto others.
Avoiding underlying grief about your childhood.
So what does healing the Mother Wound look like?⁶
Examining the mother-daughter relationship with the intention to gain clarity and insight in order to create positive change in our lives.
Transforming limiting beliefs we’ve inherited with the intention of adopting new beliefs that fully support our self-actualization.
Taking responsibility for our own paths by becoming conscious of previously unconscious patterns and making new choices that reflect our true desires.
Healing the Mother Wound starts within ourselves, first. It requires acknowledgment of the grief and pain that our mothers endured, and then grieving and looking at the pain we, as daughters, endured as a result. It also requires us to believe that we, as daughters, are not responsible for the emotional stability of our mothers.⁷ We can empathize, we can relate, but we are not responsible for their wounds or for the healing of them. Bethany Webster sums it up beautifully here:⁸
It’s important that we see the truth, however uncomfortable, that healing the Mother Wound is not mother blame. It is an essential part of being a conscious, mature adult. In fact, healing the Mother Wound (and not passing it on to the next generation) is the ultimate expression of maturity and personal responsibility.
How do we heal the Mother Wound?
Often our most potent resistance is to dropping the emotional labor we do for our mothers.⁹
The antidote for healing the Mother Wound is not easy. It’s not quick. It’s hard, painful, messy work in fact. And that’s what keeps many women from actually doing the work. But beginning to heal the Mother Wound can start as questioning your conditioning. What familial or cultural “norms” do you have resistance to? What “norms” do you reject inside of yourself but are scared to bring it to the surface in fear of rejection or disapproval? Those are the places where you can begin to see the cracks of the Mother Wound.
In addition to questioning your conditioning, you can get curious about the ways in which your needs weren’t adequately met by your mother. Here are a few questions that Bethany Webster recommends starting with:¹⁰
What did you need from your mother that you didn’t get?
How did you cope with not receiving her love in the ways you needed it?
How has it affected your life?
In what ways have you compensated? What coping mechanisms and strategies have you used to fill this gap in motherly love — both as a child and as an adult?
Other ways to begin healing the Mother Wound include actions such as:
Research and educate yourself further on the Mother Wound
Setting boundaries
Resist the urge to avoid the pain of the Mother Wound
Identify new, positive, and empowering beliefs or patterns and then taking action on them
Enlist the support of others who are doing similar work or have expertise in this realm (trauma-informed therapy, trauma-informed coaching, support groups, circles, etc.)
Healing the Mother Wound is complex and this article will not do justice to the importance and vital need for us to heal it individually or collectively. But it’s a start. Every time a woman decides to question the status quo, to speak her truth, and is willing to go into the dark places to find the light — collectively, we are one step closer to healing.
Do you feel the calling in your bones? Can you see the future generations of women who will benefit from our strength in numbers? Can you imagine a world in which women are revered and equal? Then you are ready to begin the inner work and I welcome you to the feminine empowerment revolution.
There is so much to the Mother Wound that I was not able to touch on in this article due to time and space. I encourage you to read Discovering the Inner Mother by Bethany Webster as well as many of the resources she suggests in the appendix of the book.
Resources
¹ Webster, Bethany. Discovering the Inner Mother (p. xvi). William Morrow. Kindle Edition.
² Webster, Bethany. Discovering the Inner Mother (p. 6–7). William Morrow. Kindle Edition.
³ Webster, Bethany. Discovering the Inner Mother (p. 60). William Morrow. Kindle Edition.
⁴ Webster, Bethany. Discovering the Inner Mother (p. 72). William Morrow. Kindle Edition.
⁵ Webster, Bethany. Discovering the Inner Mother (p. 11). William Morrow. Kindle Edition.
⁶ Webster, Bethany. Discovering the Inner Mother (p. 12). William Morrow. Kindle Edition.
⁷ Webster, Bethany. Discovering the Inner Mother (p. 28). William Morrow. Kindle Edition.
⁸ Webster, Bethany. Discovering the Inner Mother (pp. 62–63). William Morrow. Kindle Edition.
⁹ Webster, Bethany. Discovering the Inner Mother (p. 78). William Morrow. Kindle Edition.
¹⁰ Webster, Bethany. Discovering the Inner Mother (p. 98). William Morrow. Kindle Edition.
