The Secret Mother’s Day Gift We Really Want
(Photo: Dakota Corbin)
I will never forget my first Mother’s Day. My first-born daughter was four months old. My husband gifted me a silver bracelet adorned with a heart charm and the letter T (the first letter of our infant’s name). On that first Mother’s Day in 2011, I felt honoured, validated and loved. Basking in the love of our new marriage, my hidden fear of not being good enough was temporarily patched up and superficially fixed. At the time, I thought I had finally nailed how to feel safe and be happy. In this mild state of denial, any cravings for emotional healing were wiped clean.
Whether your dream Mother’s Day gift is jewellery, a fancy dinner or a spa day, what you really desire is something different. What we really desire is…drum roll please…to feel loved, seen and appreciated. However it is not our spouse’s job, nor is it our children’s jobs to make us feel this way. It’s time we let them off the hook.
Placing our happiness and our sense of self-worth in someone else’s hands is risky and irresponsible. It’s like giving someone else the remote control for how we feel inside. When we put our emotional well-being in the hands of our spouse (or our family or friends), we carelessly give our power away. We make ourselves emotional slaves to the external world. Not only is this unwise, but it is also manipulative.
(Photo: Andre Hunter)
Projection and its Inconvenient Truths
We project our sense of inadequacy and our fear of unworthiness onto those we love. We project our buried pain outward onto others. Then we demand (either out loud or quietly in our thoughts) that our partners prove to us that we’re appreciated and lovable. When they don’t do so, we become irritable and lash out. We feel sorry for ourselves or play victim. We become cold, hardened and distant.
Originally, the job of making us feel loved, safe and seen belonged to our mothers. However our mothers weren’t always capable of unconditionally loving us when we were small. Often our mothers reacted to us with closed hearts and from their own stored pain and inner suffering. As small children, we felt this…and it hurt. It left us feeling confused, alone and scared.
Abandoning our Vulnerability & our Authentic Selves
As little ones, we learned early to protect our hearts from experiencing more hurt and shame. We closed our hearts and put up our walls. We learned to stop engaging with the world from a place of beautiful vulnerability and openness. As small children, we started to learn the ways of the ego.
As adults, it is now our jobs to love the hurt little girls and boys within us. To appreciate and accept ourselves. To celebrate ourselves. And to see ourselves as the brilliant light that is our true essence. Lovingly mothering the innocent little girls within us is one of the most important jobs of our lives.
(Photo: Ratiu Bia)
Emotional Healing
In my 20s and my early 30s, I used to try to outrun my stored emotions. But no matter how hard I tried, I was never fast enough. I wound up feeling more intense, uncertain, unhappy and over-the-top anxious. Basically I was a hot mess with a harshness that could cut through my own heart and the hearts of others.
We aren’t meant to march through life crammed full of sorrow, shame, hatred, self-loathing and anger. This isn’t the real you. And this isn’t truly living.
Instead of putting our emotional well-being in the hands of others, we need to look within us and feel what we’re harboring. Do you feel helpless, unloved or not good enough? Is there sadness or a sense of abandonment? It’s time to quit running, numbing out or denying. Instead, let’s…Stop. Feel. Heal.
(Photo: Pete Shoniker)
Take time to regularly sit in silence. Drop down into the emotions within you. Feel it all. Emotions are energies that are meant to move. They aren’t meant to be clogged up inside of us. Emotional healing asks that we feel our feelings and let them go.
Each of us has within us a loving, all-knowing, compassionate cheerleader and guide. This is your authentic self. Get to know this inner light as the real you. Give yourself permission to know who you really are.
Try this beautiful six-minute meditation to help you align with your inner radiance: Turn up your Light.
The gift that we secretly, deep down long for this Mother’s Day is a gift that only WE can give ourselves. The gift of self-acceptance, appreciation and love.
Happy Mother’s Day!
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Much Love,
Rachel
Intuitive Healer & Clairvoyant
To take a peek at my client testimonials, please click here: Happy Stories
