The Mother Wound: Part Six
Understanding Anxiety
Anxiety is not our enemy. It is not something to be ashamed of. Anxiety is an expression of fear.
Fear is meant to keep us alive, not keep us from living.
We are here to experience all types of emotion that the physical body can feel. We are not meant to stay in those limiting emotions for long periods of time.
Anxiety is generally created to warn us of impending doom, or harm that is coming from outside of us. This is the sense that kept us alive in the days of dinosaurs and sabre-toothed tigers roaming the earth.
The problem is that we are taught not to trust our feelings and that the world has much to fear. This is not nearly as true as we are led to believe.
We create a bubble of energy around our bodies and we generate what fills that space. We decide consciously or unconsciously what to fill it with.
Do I walk around in a tight bubble of fear? Do I choose to fill my bubble with love and light instead; trusting that the universe has my back?
When I was a young lady, my mind was filled with fearful thoughts which pumped anxious vibes into my aura; my bubble was filled by a desperate need for love.
Wouldn’t someone love me? Wouldn’t someone, anyone, want to be my friend? I would give and give and give to people in my life in order to earn their love.
It took decades for me to realize that I had a huge reserve of what I was seeking in my own heart, which meant I did not need to find it from somewhere else; from someone else.
I do not want you to wait until you are in your thirties, forties, or fifties to find the light and love within you. That is why I am sharing my sort. My goal, my heart’s desire, is for you to find self-love, and self-acceptance now, at whatever stage in life you are and however many years you have been walking the earth.
The Inside Voice
I have a little voice inside my head who talks to me. She is especially loud when I am about to choose something new, something I have not tried before, or when I am saying NO to something that everyone else is saying YES to.
I named her Yahbutt, and I decided that she was not my friend. I mean, the way she talked to me, how could she be? She was always telling me that I was not good enough, tall enough, thin enough, pretty enough, or popular enough, to even consider the things I wanted to do; never mind actually doing them. She held me back from a lot of great experience and convinced me to make some choices I wished I had not because of the good old FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) that she placed in my head.
Yahbutt was loud and insistent that she was right. I listened to that small, frightened voice for a long time, allowing her to surround me with fear.
Do you have this voice too? Do they have a name? Do they resemble any other voices you have heard before? Are they repeating the beliefs of your friends, parents, or other authority voices in your life? It is interesting to examine the truth of the voice and if it really belongs to you.
My Yahbutt is a younger, weaker version of me. She is filled with the fears of generations of women before me who suffered greatly when they stuck out in society as being different. It was dangerous to be outspoken with original ideas, and strong opinions, especially as a woman for an extraordinarily long time.
This was the voice of my ancestors coming through my current relations based on their lives over centuries. Were their beliefs still true now, in today’s world? For me? Was there another way I could live? Yes. There was for me and there is for you as well.
I was in my early twenties when I named that little voice the Yahbutt; when I decided she was a bitch, the enemy. I told her to shut up and pushed her away. She was ruining my life with all of her worries and fear. My response was to angrily pursue whatever I wanted, to put on false bravado, and forge ahead into whatever I wanted, pushing anyone and anything out of the way. On the outside, I looked confident and sure; in the stillness of the night that voice replayed my words and actions, telling me all the mistakes I made; leaving me either the victim or the villain of the story, never the hero.
Anger was definitely an emotion I could choose but it was not a particularly good choice. I thought if I were a mean girl that I would not be the left-out loser. Strike first and all that nonsense.
When I was about twenty-two, I worked in a small office, most of the others were my age with a few in their thirties. In our small business team, there were few choices of who to be with and I desperately wanted to fit in.
At one point, a young man transferred in from Newfoundland and Labrador; he was different from the rest of us. He was loud, brash, and rather unpolished, or so we thought. He ate a lot of cabbage and expelled a lot of air because of that. Between the unpleasant odor and his proclivity to douse himself in Old Spice cologne; being around him was not a pleasant experience. He tried to fit in but we were not making it easy.
One day, the assistant manager took me to the back room.
I want to speak to you, Patty. Why are you treating our new team member with cruelty? I understand this behaviour from some of the others, but I expect more from you!
Wouldn’t you rather participate in his success, rather than stand back and watch him fail?
Whoa! That really blew my mind wide open.
This is part 7 of an ongoing series, if you are new to my stack, you can find the first installment here:
Straight from the journal… The things I did with my time, while I kept interaction with my mother at a minimum…
January 1, 2023
My guiding word for 2023 is FREEDOM.
Jayme Price says, “Freedom is an inside job.”
I chose FREEDOM to remind myself that I can choose where to spend my energy and time. I am choosing to release myself from the “should’ s” of myself and others.
Freedom of mental and emotional expectations
Freedom of connection to a new potential:
Let go of expectations
Find Neutrality in situations you are forced to endure for instance, Gray Rock situations.
Freedom allows more creative expression.
Release bonds which no longer serve me.
Amplify internal and external loving bonds and connections.
I have chosen a guiding word instead of making a New Year’s resolution for the past few years:
2022 – Empowerment
2021 – Trust
2020 – Change
January 2, 2023
What does my Soul want me to know right now?
You are doing right by you and that is acceptable. It is time for you to choose yourself and to give love to yourself that you have only reserved for others in the past.
Your mother did the best she was able to do and you need to understand that her actions have nothing to do with you.
You did not cause her life issues nor does it fall on you to fix them. You do not owe her your present moments for her to spend them on her past. That is neither fair, nor helpful.
It is okay that you leave the next move up to her. I f you reach out in a friendly way to make connection. She will believe everything is back to normal. Normal cannot be the destruction of your peace.
Take this time to heal.
January 12, 2023 – Pondering Depression
This is the day that I wrote Trauma Train. You can find it here.
This has been a very difficult journey to find peace. Rivers of tears have been shed, with many nights spent tossing and turning, believing I would never get past the pain and disappointment. I thought there was no solution to be had while my mom was still here, while I had to continue to interact and reopen the wound again and again.
I was wrong. There was a way. I am living in peace now. I have found a way to accept her as she is, to accept her love as she offers it, instead of needing it to be packaged and presented according to my specifications.
I have peace.
This is why I am sharing the experience of healing my Mother Wound with you, dear reader. I hope that in some small or large way that my story can help you find hope as you walk your healing journey, whatever it is.
Thank you for sharing your precious moments with me by taking the time to read my story. I appreciate you in whatever capacity you are participating in My Weird and Wonderful Life.
Lovely Patricia! 🤎