Healing The Mother Wound - Insight Timer Live

Deep nurturing. Satiation. Embodied safety. For many of us, these states are elusive or impossible. In this recording from June 2022, Catherine shares the origin of our Mother Wound, from its roots in our ancestry through our personal mothers, and guides us in healing it. Trauma-informed and anti-oppressive. ***A note about audio quality: Know that this track is not up to Catherine's usual audio quality standards due to a mic issue that has since been resolved. Thank you for understanding.

Transcript

Welcome everybody to Healing the Mother Wound.

And thank you all who've been here before I started the recording for supporting me.

I was just in my bathroom sobbing and rocking myself because of a tech issue that just won't go away,

Which triggered really deep inadequacy fears in myself.

So that is walking the talk of this work for me to keep showing up and recording this regardless.

So thank you all so much.

So today is a topic that is close to the bone for me and for all of us who are showing up here live or on the recording,

The mother wound.

And if you know my work,

You know that what I generally do when I give a talk is I start very intimate and personal,

And then I zoom out to contextualize our intimate experience in the culture,

In our cultural,

Our collective experience,

Because we do swim in the waters.

Our intimate experiences comes from,

You know,

The streams of the collective experience,

Right?

Our bodies are imprinted.

So we'll zoom out and then we will zoom back in again in the context of that collective because the personal is the universal and the universal is the personal.

And the mother wound is something that we tend to think of as in our own family dynamic and it is,

You know.

So in just a moment,

I'm going to be asking you to just experiment with how facing your own mother reverberates in your body.

You might already be dreading it.

But I want to start from that embodied place because there's a lot of talk,

You know,

In healing communities and spiritual communities about mother wound,

But a lot of it ends at that.

A lot of it ends in talking about it as with most discussions of what we call mental health,

Right?

But as I certainly only become more and more aware of in myself,

What we call mental health or dysfunction is completely embodied.

It's ancestral,

It's systemic,

And it's also completely and intimately personal.

You know,

It's all of the layers.

And the mother wound is a really beautiful example of how all of those layers interlock intersect together.

So let's just start out in this visceral way together by taking a comfortable seat and just for a minute,

What I'll ask you to do in just a moment,

I'll just tell you and then we'll do it together is I'm just going to ask you if you're willing to close your eyes and just imagine that your mother or your mothering caregiver,

The person who fed you,

Your primary parent caregiver,

That she is in front of you.

And so we'll close the eyes in one minute,

We'll imagine that she's in front of you.

And the experiment is to,

Sorry,

Is to get curious about what your body is doing in her presence,

Not what you think about her,

Not the story about how hard she had it.

And that's why right we go into these rationalization.

When you notice the thoughts and the stories about your mother mothering parent just quiet those and come back to the body sensation and get really exquisitely curious.

What does my body do in the presence of my mother?

Do I want to move toward her or away from her?

Do I feel contracted or expanded?

Do I feel hot,

Warm or cold?

These are all examples and you might be there already.

But if you're not,

Let's start together.

This will just be about one minute of tuning in.

So go ahead and close the eyes.

Feel the seat or the surface beneath you supporting you.

Start to breathe into a softening belly.

And imagine now that your mother or mothering caregiver is in front of you,

The person who took care of you the most.

I mean,

Most often.

So imagine her there at a comfortable distance away from you.

Remember,

If this is too much,

There's no need to do this.

There's no need to close your eyes.

You can keep them open if it feels really unsafe to have your mother in proximity to you and that might be true.

If it feels safe enough for now,

Really amplify your imagination of your mother now.

See,

Sense and feel her in front of you,

Looking at you in a very neutral way.

Notice what your body is doing here.

What you notice might surprise you.

Just a heads up.

What's your body doing?

What's your throat doing?

What's your heart doing?

Your belly.

Breathe into any heaviness that you feel.

Just imagine that you can send it down into the earth.

You don't have to hold this alone.

And inquire within yourself,

Is this embodied feeling different from the story I tend to tell about my mother?

Is it surprising what I'm discovering?

I imagine for most of you,

This impression is pretty immediate,

But if it's a little foggy or vague,

Try imagining that your mother is getting a little bit closer to you in your imaginal plane.

That she's approaching you maybe a few feet closer and then see what your body does.

Just take a few more moments here.

Feeling the solidity of your sit bones or your back on the surface you're lying on if you're laying down.

Start to in that solidity and with a deepening breath,

Bring yourself back to the present now.

Really arriving here,

Opening the eyes.

And I'll read a couple of comments here because I think they'll be relatable.

Jameel says,

It's going to be hard,

Really,

Really hard.

My body reacts with fear and so much overwhelm.

She is not a safe person.

Just going to breathe into it.

Yeah,

So much.

Sergei says,

I feel there is a stone in my throat,

Something big.

Want to say too much,

Build boundaries,

But I can't.

Trish says,

A cold distanced feeling with a thick wall between us.

I wish I could feel her warmth too fearful and my throat closes.

Yeah.

Ginger says,

My arms immediately crossed over my heart and protection.

Yeah.

Judy says,

I felt completely empty and hollow inside and my left eye started twitching.

Yeah.

Irene says,

I don't feel safe with her.

Regina,

I feel anxious and vulnerable to her energy.

Yeah.

And Judy,

That twitch.

So know that twitching in like the somatic experiencing world of trauma repair,

Twitching is considered to be an incomplete flight response.

So if we notice twitches in our,

In our eyes or our face or legs or anywhere in the body,

It's like our body wanting to run but not be able to.

Right.

We didn't have permission to run from our mothers.

We couldn't.

Our life depended on her.

Right.

So a lot of anxiety is also considered to be an incomplete flight response in the nervous system.

Yeah.

Yeah,

So I'm,

I'm seeing a lot of kind of similar themes here for folks.

Diane says,

My body opens I'm aware of draining her heartbreak.

Okay,

That sounds really codependent.

But it's what a lot of us do for our mothers,

Right.

A lot of us who are drawn to my work are empaths.

And for many empaths we grew up emotionally caretaking our mothers.

And that's how we develop this kind of over developed empathy.

So many,

Many empaths have we developed this over,

Over empathy overdeveloped empathy we because we were old souls who came into this world.

Came into this world,

Already deeply compassionate and we noticed that our mothers were suffering.

You know my mother,

Our mothers couldn't get their needs met.

And so,

Through no fault of our mothers right this is just a dynamic,

Many of us began to direct our energy toward the other,

Instead of from ourselves.

So what does she need,

Who does she need me to be right now,

Instead of what is my authentic feeling need or desire right now and I've taught a lot about this in the past so I don't want to go into it.

I highly recommend listening to my talk called nervous system retuning for empaths.

If this is interesting or sparks curiosity for you.

A few things I want to say,

Zooming out.

Well,

Let me let me backtrack a little bit.

I want to share a personal story as a mother myself,

Where I really woke up to the extent of my own personal mother wound.

And as many of you know,

I had a really excruciating postpartum experience,

And I won't get into it here.

And I'm,

I know I'm not alone in that,

By far.

But what happened.

One thing that happened when I became a mother is I found myself alone,

Or mostly alone with my baby,

You know,

Nursing.

And keep in mind I have so much privilege,

And I have such a supportive partner,

You know,

But I found myself.

Most of the day,

Every day alone with my baby.

And I felt an aching gaping painful emptiness,

Where my body was expecting to be surrounded by my sisters,

And my mother and my grandmother,

And my aunts and women who were taking care of me and cooking for me and cleaning for me and allowing me to rest and focus on my connection to my infant.

And there's,

There aren't,

There's no rational way to explain this besides that my body felt that this was terribly wrong to be in a nuclear family with my child.

You know that there was something deeply and terribly wrong with what is considered completely normal and quite privileged in our culture.

And I had,

You know,

Layers of postpartum,

What was called postpartum depression,

Postpartum anxiety,

Acute insomnia,

And I just had this sense through it all,

That it was not me.

It was not a problem with me,

It was a problem in the culture,

It was a,

It was a deep,

Deep,

Deep wound that went way,

Way back.

It was a problem in the culture but also more personally to me,

A problem in my lineage of what it meant to be mothered,

Of what it meant to be food for somebody.

For any of you who fed an infant,

You know that you are food 24-7,

You know.

To literally be food for another human being,

To literally have created and nourished,

Like to be home to a human being,

To be food for a human being.

And there was this sense that I wasn't supposed to feel so disconnected from this experience.

I longed to feel this overwhelming love for my baby.

That of course was there in some ways,

But there was a layer that wasn't.

There was a layer that was distanced and I felt extreme guilt about that.

You know,

Extreme guilt,

Like extreme shame for not just being able to show up as this overflowingly abundant,

Nurturing,

And happily giving mother at all times,

Right.

But I didn't have support.

You know,

I had support according to our culture,

But I didn't have the support that our bodies have evolved to need postpartum,

That anybody needs postpartum.

And so that was true of my postpartum experience.

And then when I was on the mat,

I don't know,

When I say on the mat,

I mean my morning practice,

My devotional practice where I just show up and I usually grieve.

Like that's my yoga.

Show up and I cry and I connect to my guides and my ancestors.

Anyway,

It was revealed to me on my mat.

I just,

I noticed that when I tuned in,

When I was thinking about doing this live,

I was shown my grandmother's.

And because my mother,

When I think about her in front of me,

She's a very friendly,

Very spiritual person who I feel no warmth from.

You know,

She did a lot right,

Quote unquote,

On paper.

She was a great mom in many ways,

But I don't feel nurturing from her and I never have.

And so I don't have the imprint of what it feels like to have been nurtured by a mother.

But what I was shown when I showed up for my practice was,

Oh yes,

And her mother,

Oh my gosh,

Like her mother's mother,

My great grandmother died when my mother's mother was eight years old.

And my mother's mother had to become the mother for all of her younger sisters.

And it's like this phrase kept repeating in my mind,

Like,

It's all up to me.

Like,

I'm on my own.

There's nobody to help.

This is all up to me.

Like that was my grandmother's life.

She,

It was all up to her.

Everything rested on her.

And that was my mother's imprint from her mother.

And that was my imprint.

And when I thought about my father's mother,

She died when he was 14.

She was abused.

She was silenced.

Some people in my family say she got out the only way she knew how.

And this phrase landed in my body of,

I am the daughter of orphans.

And even if that isn't literally true,

That's the feeling that I got that my mothers,

My grandmothers were bereft.

They were not nurtured,

You know,

Far from it,

Far from it.

So how could I possibly have the imprint in my body of being nurtured?

And when I was talking with my therapist about this,

I have a fantastic therapist.

She mentioned the term.

She's like,

Oh,

You have a nourishment barrier.

And all of your mothers and grandmothers that you know had a nourishment barrier.

And this phrase just,

This just lit up my whole body with truth.

Nourishment barrier.

That we haven't known how to receive nourishment.

Our bodies just don't do it.

Even if we try,

You know.

And have you ever had,

This is kind of a rhetorical question.

Have you,

Because I know everybody,

Especially everybody here has had this experience.

Have you ever been with a partner or a friend or someone who's just trying so hard to love on you and you just can't let it in?

Who's trying so hard to help you but you just keep refusing the help?

Keep refusing the support?

Especially if you were socialized as a woman,

This is probably you.

But also guys too.

Yeah.

And so the mother wound results in a nourishment barrier that is passed along the generations.

Does that make sense?

This nourishment barrier didn't start with you.

It's not your problem.

It's not something wrong with you.

It has been passed down.

So just take a moment to,

Take a moment to think about your mothers and your grandmothers and their life experience.

Could they receive nourishment?

Were they supported and nourished?

Do you see how this is not your fault?

Do you see?

Do you see how this,

These roots go way,

Way back?

And this can be the gift of opening to the reality that our personal healing happens in a vast context,

An ancestral context,

A collective cultural context,

Right?

Do you feel that there's a lightness that can come when you allow it to not be your fault?

It is not your fault.

Yeah.

And because we live in a culture that is hyper individualized,

Including most of the healing discourse out there,

You know,

Is also hyper individualized.

The pressure that this puts on us is enormous,

But it's also a lie.

Because it's not all up to you and because of you.

This doesn't negate our responsibility,

Right?

But it takes the burden from only our shoulders.

And it allows for a deepening of self compassion and compassion for our ancestors.

Georgina,

You say maybe this nourishment barrier is the root of my overeating problems.

Absolutely.

And thank you so much for bringing that up.

Food,

Right?

So our nourishment barriers,

Our mother,

You know,

Which is basically synonymous with mother wound,

Our nourishment barrier is the root of all eating disorder,

Right?

Because eating is about how we nourish ourselves.

So for example,

And it doesn't matter if you're an overeater,

Undereater or anything in between,

Nourishment issues all boil down to this ultimately,

Right?

This that we never feel satiated.

We can never feel satiated.

We never feel enough,

That we are enough,

Or we never feel like we can have enough.

Yeah,

So my eating disorder,

I mean,

It's not technically disordered eating,

But it is,

It is,

Is I'm a chronic undereater.

And I have way too many criteria for what I will and will not eat.

Like it's a very controlling thing.

And I've come a long way with it.

And it's still a journey.

So I want to say just a few words about how far back this or how far down this rabbit hole goes.

Because it's way back.

Because we talked about this nourishment barrier being in our female ancestry,

And actually in our male ancestry as well,

Right?

But I want to take it back,

I want to open your eyes to just how deep this goes,

Just how far this goes.

And I want to credit my teacher of decolonialism for this,

Dr.

Rosales-Messa,

And I will write her name here in the chat.

Dr.

S-R-O-S-A-L-E-S,

And then M-E-Z-A.

Those are her two last names,

And you can find her on Instagram.

And she has a course called Decolonize Your Mind that I took.

And Dr.

Rosales-Messa is an initiated medicine woman of the Quiero Inka lineage.

She's also a former psychology professor,

And she's an incredible teacher,

So I credit her for what I'm about to share with you.

So when did this start?

When did this nourishment barrier start?

We don't know for sure,

But it happened probably somewhere in Europe,

And it became what we know as,

Well,

It flourished in what we know as Greek and Roman civilization.

And then it became Roman imperialism.

And so this,

What this is,

Is when humanity,

Or part of humanity,

Groups,

Certain groups in humanity,

Made the switch from Earth-based,

Goddess-based,

Reciprocal relationship with Mother Earth,

With the Earth,

Who is our home,

Who is our nourishment,

Our source of nourishment,

To domination over,

So power over,

Domination using the resources,

Using people.

When we made the switch from intuition and embodied knowing to worshipping reason and logic,

When we made the switch basically from the feminine,

Or rather a balanced,

Relationship to the Earth and each other to patriarchy,

When we started to have hierarchies,

Right?

Hierarchies of some people are more worthy than others.

And so,

Yeah,

From heart to mind you could say,

Laura.

And this imbalance,

Which then became extreme in Roman imperialism,

Which then became the church,

Which then became,

And I'm talking about,

You know,

The particular version of the church back then,

That decided that it was,

Quote unquote,

The white man's burden to convert and civilize the world,

Right?

Do you see how this is the root of the nourishment barrier when we cut ourself off from our bodies,

When we started living in our heads,

When we started dominating,

And when we started controlling.

Control instead of care.

Control instead of care.

And so what happened in colonialism,

One thing that happened,

Is that we became separate from the land and Europeans,

You know,

European men colonized the world.

And like I'm right now in what we call Seattle,

Which was lived on since time immemorial by the Duwamish people,

And was a rainforest,

You know,

For thousands upon thousands for millennia.

But what happened is,

And this is from Resmaa Menakem,

The author of My Grandmother's Hands,

Is that we took that trauma,

And by we I'm talking about white body people,

Like we took the trauma of that severance from land,

Severance from the heart,

And we brought it to the new world,

Among other places,

New world,

Quote unquote,

And we,

This is Resmaa Menakem's language,

We blew the trauma through the bodies of black and brown people,

And we just kept going,

And nothing could ever be enough.

Nothing could ever be enough.

Do you see how this is the same sickness of the nourishment barrier?

Nothing is enough.

I have to keep consuming,

I have to keep getting more land,

More resources,

Enslaving people.

Do you see how this is the same at its root?

Never enough.

And it says,

Why the hell did they ever do that?

I don't know.

I mean,

It's shrouded in mystery,

Right,

Why that severance happened.

And so now we find ourselves in this cultural soup,

This colonial cultural soup,

Where we also have capitalism,

And do you see this,

So this is very important,

Do you see how capitalism requires a nourishment barrier to survive?

I'm going to say that again.

So capitalism requires a nourishment barrier to survive,

Because it rests on the principle that we always need more.

We are never satiated,

We will always need more and more and more.

Better,

Better.

Yeah.

And we,

And this is also quite important,

Do you see how much of our attitude toward ourselves on our healing journeys reflects the same pattern,

The same colonial programming?

If only I do this,

Then I'll be healed.

I'm not enough now,

I have to heal this to be okay,

And then I'm going to heal that.

Do you see how this is the same?

This stems from the mother wound,

This stems from that nourishment barrier.

I like to define healing these days as a moment-to-moment relationship with the self,

Instead of a goal that we achieve someday.

So for example,

I know I'm healed if in this moment I can accept and love myself exactly as I am.

And this is one of the reasons I keep showing up in front of hundreds of people even if I'm crying.

I can love and accept myself just as I am.

And in that moment I'm healed.

Do you see?

Do you see that that's possible right now?

And this is not something I'm inventing,

This is also Buddhism,

Right?

In this moment,

In this moment,

Yeah,

I can be healed.

I am healed right now.

And this kind of satiation,

This enoughness in the moment is revolutionary in a culture that everywhere we look wants us to be not enough.

Thank you all for receiving this.

And I want to thank Dr.

Rosales-Messa for teaching me and continuing to teach me about unlearning my colonial programming of never enough,

You know,

Of that mother wound-ing.

Because I couldn't,

I would not know this without her teaching.

My eyes would not be open to this without her teaching.

So please look her up and consider taking her course.

Decolonize your mind.

So Rich says it's like moving into opposing worlds simultaneously,

A healing one and a capitalist one.

Yeah.

And that's also,

That's also the mindset that's going to bring us into the future of humanity is this ability to hold multiplicity simultaneously.

Because I think this was bell hooks that said this,

But remember that patriarchy is also either or thinking,

Right?

Black and white thinking that it's either this or it's that,

That's patriarchy.

Inclusive thinking,

Like the and consciousness is integrated consciousness.

That we can have both and.

I can be both healing and imprinted with a toxic culture.

Or I can be healed and also deeply traumatized at the same time.

And the path is just moving moment to moment into more moments of loving acceptance of myself,

Which then overflows into loving acceptance of others.

Well,

Laura,

You say,

No,

It's not the mother,

It's the culture.

That's either or thinking too,

Right?

That's colonial programming.

The mother is the culture.

Just ask any baby.

Their culture is their mother.

How we relate to mother's nourishment defines the culture.

So our little practice today that I want to leave you with is I want to give you the gift of connecting to somebody,

A female ancestor in your lineage,

Who is pre-colonial,

Right?

Who is pre,

Like who,

Who existed and loved you and dreamed you into being before the severance happened,

Whenever it happened,

However it happened,

Right?

We don't know.

But all of us,

All of us have a healed ancestor,

At least one that we can call on.

And so for now,

What we'll do,

And I'll guide you into it in a moment,

Is I'll ask you to get still within yourself and connect with the love that's in you.

Knowing that,

Of course,

It's not just,

We've talked a lot about toxic inheritance today.

But remember,

There's also the inheritance of love,

Even more so,

So much more powerfully than the inheritance of toxic culture,

Right?

There's also the inheritance of love that goes way,

Way,

Way,

Way,

Way back to the very beginning.

And so I'm going to ask you in a moment to allow that felt sense of the love that you are,

The love that is your essence.

Remember that these toxic cultural traumatic imprints are not us,

They're not our essence.

And they're not ultimately powerful.

What's ultimately powerful is love.

That's always been true.

And so we're going to use the power of this love that's in you to show you,

To just let your imagination show you an ancestor.

And I know I'm talking about feminine ancestors here,

If you happen to see a masculine ancestor,

That's 100% cool too.

But I invite you to imagine that healed ancestors,

Someone who has dreamed you into being.

You are their dream.

And I don't mean that to put pressure on you.

I mean that as a way of talking about this thread of love that exists between you.

And so we'll just encounter them and they might have a message for you.

We might allow them to hold you.

So that's going to be the practice.

Yeah.

Alright.

And I'll just say for me,

When I did this practice with myself the other day,

Who I saw was a Scottish witch named Agatha.

She was like this old,

Like this crone Scottish herbalist,

Healer,

Wise woman,

Witch.

And she just looked at me like she had a very like matter of fact expression on her face.

She just looked at me with so much love and she's become one of my guides and it's been really empowering.

So I wonder who you're going to see.

So if you'd like to practice with us just in this brief gift today of connection with a healed ancestor,

Go ahead and find your support on sit bones or your back if you're lying down.

And start to breathe,

Allowing your belly to be soft and round,

Knowing that body tension is a sign of the mother wound.

As we tense against life,

As we tense against the hand that feeds us,

Body tension is the mother wound too.

As you soften tension in your body,

Just with great acceptance and love,

Not about forcing the tension to soften,

Softening through the places that need softening now.

Go ahead and connect to your heart.

If it's helpful,

You can put one or both of your hands on your heart space.

And see if you can amplify what's here.

If you need to imagine somebody that you love,

You can do that like a beloved animal,

A child,

A partner,

A friend,

Somebody that you love that might help you feel and amplify these feelings of love in your body.

And if you feel disconnected from that,

Simply say,

It's okay to feel disconnected and that's showing yourself love too.

Anything that comes up is okay.

And imagine this love amplifying more and more,

Taking up as much of your body as feels right,

As feels possible with every breath,

Softening and allowing that love to spread and really become you,

Knowing that it's more of an unveiling than a trying to become something because this is you,

This always was you,

This love.

And now opening your imaginal plane,

Your imagination,

Your mind's eye,

Ask your inner wisdom the question,

Who wants to support me right now as a healed ancestor?

Who wants to show up as a guide for me?

Breathing and allowing whatever first impression arises to be true.

And find yourself in front of this person now.

Find yourself if it feels right at their feet in gratitude,

In reverence.

Thank you for living.

Thank you for dreaming me into being.

Because you are the one in your lineage to wake up.

Remember that.

You are the cycle breaker.

You are the healer of your lineage.

You are anointed.

You might see and sense them anointing you as the healer of your lineage.

Just simply by being yourself,

By being the love that you are,

And by opening your eyes and your heart.

Now imagine that they have something to say to you that's deeply healing and supportive.

Open your ears and your eyes to receive that from them now.

What's their message for you?

And imagine now that they have a gift to give you,

An object,

A gesture,

They have something to offer you.

What is that thing?

Imagine yourself graciously,

Reverently receiving them.

Is there anything else that they want to show you,

To do for you or with you?

Just allow whatever needs to arise for completion to happen now.

And whenever that feels complete enough for now,

Knowing that this might be just the beginning of a lifelong relationship with them,

That you can come back any time to consult their advice,

Their wisdom,

Or to receive nourishment from them.

Knowing that you can come back any time,

Go ahead and express gratitude to them now in whatever way feels right.

Maybe giving an offering to them or just simply deepest thanks.

Thank you for this remembering.

Whenever you feel ready,

You can come on back and look around your space.

Maybe taking some movement if that feels nourishing and right.

Deep breaths.

Coming back.

And if you feel like it would be supportive to share what you experienced,

You can certainly do that in the chat.

And I'm reading that Trish says,

I'm sensing my long ago grandmother,

Abigail Pike,

She was Quaker and preached peace to soldiers in the Revolutionary War.

I sense her strength of nourishing peace and love.

Peace.

I love that Trish,

How perfect.

And it sounds like you sensed an ancestor who was not pre-colonial and that's perfect too.

Like whoever comes up is the right one.

Chuck says the ancestor was telling him to move and stop being stagnant.

You're here only once in human form.

Yeah,

As long as that message is loving,

You know that that's the real guidance,

Real ancestor.

Thank you,

Diane,

For your donations.

So thank you all so much for your donations,

By the way.

And if this was helpful and revealing to you in any way,

If this was supportive,

Donations are a great way to express that.

So thank you so much.

Someone says,

I'm not too sure who or what,

But I felt warmth and love.

Well,

That's beautiful.

And if you also didn't see anyone,

That's completely fine too.

Diane,

I teach every couple of weeks these days and the best way to follow me is to literally follow me here on Insight Timer and join our group called Shadow Work.

So I'm the admin for a group on Insight Timer called Shadow Work and we have over a thousand people in it now.

And it's a wonderful space to connect between lives and even you can give requests for topics for lives if you want and find support.

It's a really beautiful community.

So it's called Shadow Work,

The Shadow Work group on Insight Timer.

And if you go to my teacher profile,

Then you'll see that that group shows up there.

And also if you go to my teacher profile and scroll over to the about section,

You can find my website where you can learn about what I'm doing outside of Insight Timer too.

I'm so glad that you found yourself sitting on your grandma's bed.

A lovely warmth held me tight.

I'm glad that was beautiful.

Sarah said,

My Irish ancestor laughed and told me,

Relax,

It's all okay.

Andrea says,

This was a more challenging practice for me.

I relate so much to nourishment,

Barrier,

Love,

Barrier and imagination barrier.

I've heard about imagination and Shadow Work,

Maybe even something from Jung about imagination mind.

What do you think?

Is it wrong with imagination?

Is it like working with heart intuitive mind?

Yeah.

So like Jungian psychology calls it active imagination,

Which is ultimately where I got it.

But really this practice of going inward and allowing what we call the imagination to show us images is a,

This is an indigenous practice,

Right?

Like this is shamanic ultimately,

And it was co-opted by Jung,

You know,

Innocently in his time,

Right?

But it was colonized so to speak in what we call a lot of,

I mean,

A lot of different forms of parts work,

A lot of different forms of inner work and psychology.

But it is ultimately an indigenous deeply,

Deeply rooted human way of accessing truth is to simply ask an image to show up,

You know,

And trust it,

Trust that it's true.

We call it working with a heart,

Working with intuitive mind.

Yeah.

But remember that all and I learned this from Prentice Hemphill,

And I'll write their name in the chat too.

So Prentice Hemphill is a somatics practitioner,

And a lot more.

And what they say is the whole field of somatics,

And I could add the whole field of heart,

You know,

Heart openers heart based spirituality that all only exists because of colonialism.

Because we were separated from that one.

So we have to relearn it.

We have to relearn how to be in our body.

We have to relearn how to connect with our hearts,

Right?

None of this would exist if not for colonialism.

So Jay says,

This was difficult for me as I don't know much about my parents lineage.

I have seen a photo of my mom's mom.

She came to me as I was hearing birds as she was sharing her energy of strength with me.

Wow,

That's awesome.

Yeah,

I mean,

I don't know this person Agatha at all who showed up for me.

And so most people I would say when they do this experience,

They don't necessarily know the person who shows up for them if it's really an ancient ancestor or someone from really far back.

The Sergei says don't know that person.

It was a woman in our national clothes.

She said that I'm worthy to be loved and hug me felt resistance in that moment and cried but finally became calm and relaxed.

Yeah,

I mean,

Because of our nourishment barrier actually receiving love and support can be extremely difficult.

Just breathe with love into that part of you that resists just say it's okay.

Of course you resist.

Of course it's hard to receive.

I'm here with you.

And this is how we heal the mother wound.

We just keep showing up to the parts of us that resist nourishment and say I see you.

I love you and it's okay.

So this is again this is how we heal the mother wound.

Every time part of you that resists nourishment shows up.

Just give them an energetic hug.

Give that part of you a hug and just say I see you.

I'm here for you.

Of course you feel that way.

And in this way,

We're developing an inner mother.

You see that,

Like in this way we're developing nurturing satiation,

The ability to soothe ourselves.

Any kind of shadow work like Jungian shadow work that I guide on in Sight Timer does that right where we go to the most vulnerable parts of ourselves and we offer love and acceptance of exactly where those parts are at.

Not trying to make them different,

Not trying to control them,

Not trying to change those parts of ourselves.

Unconditional self acceptance.

And so Judy says,

Can this work help with reconnecting myself with my mother who I have all but abandoned?

I have a question for you,

Judy.

Did you abandon your mother or did she abandon you first?

I don't think you would have quote unquote abandoned your mother if she hadn't abandoned you first.

And I don't say that as a way of blaming or pointing finger,

But as an invitation for you to have deepening self compassion for the harm that sounds like it was there in that relationship.

Yeah,

That's what I mean.

Yeah,

You felt abandoned as a child emotionally.

Yeah,

Then you were abandoned.

And so if we desire genuinely to have a relationship with the difficult mother or mother figures,

Then the only way that we can do that is to have a robust internal mother within ourselves.

So that we're not so that they can't topple us over anymore,

You know,

So that we have that internal strength and that capacity and resilience because we have our own back because what this work does is it gives us our lot our own back.

Another person I would recommend looking into their work about the mother was specifically is and I'll write her name.

It's on Bethany Webster.

Bethany Webster has devoted her life's work to healing the mother wound and she has awesome content on it as well.

You can just find her online Bethany Webster.

Yeah.

Says,

Being male and understanding the mother wound is a huge breakthrough in my own understanding but trying to bring this up to talk about as a subject is so difficult I have to be very selective of who I can be that vulnerable with,

Of course.

Yeah.

And as Brené Brown says like not everyone deserves your vulnerability.

Very few people really deserve your vulnerability.

So it's self loving to be selective about who you share this work with.

Because again,

We don't we don't live in a culture that yet we don't live in a culture yet that openly and widely talks about these kinds of things,

Especially when we,

When we trace it all the way back to colonialism right.

Very few people are talking about that but that will change because it has to.

Yeah.

Rich says I met an adult female deer who came down from the mountain to the shoreline to meet me and gave a strong message to me.

So beautiful.

I love how that ancestral or nurturing figure showed up as an animal for you.

So beautiful.

Yeah,

So thank you again so much everybody I'm going to be going in a couple minutes here.

Just remember that there are lots of ways that you can continue this work,

You can continue it,

You can continue the work of healing your own mother wound with any of my shadow work meditations on insight timer.

There's one called nourish yourself through suffering that's probably the most directly related.

There's also a talk a recorded live called healing resistance to rest,

In which I talk a little bit about.

I don't say the word nourishment barrier but it's what it's about to.

So yeah,

The meditation.

Nurture yourself through suffering,

Or any of the shadow work guided meditations will be great ways to continue this work.

And of course you can reach out in the shadow work group on insight timer with any questions.

I'm really active in that group,

Answering questions so if you didn't get to ask something today,

Please know that you can ask it.

In the shadow work group.

Thank you all so much for your presence,

First and foremost,

For doing this work for your donations.

Thank you for your ratings and reviews on insight timer because they're so so so helpful for getting this work to more people,

And I'm really excited to be able to talk to you about this work.

Thank you all of you who leave reviews and notes for me in those reviews I just,

I can't overstate how that keeps me going.

That keeps my heart open.

Just to know how helpful this is for you.

Yeah.

Thank you as well.

Yeah.

Thank you as well.

Yeah,

For mentioning Prentice Hemphill's name.

Oh,

And also,

I will mention their podcast.

They have my favorite podcast which is called finding our way.

All right it had Prentice Hemphill finding our way.

Podcast.

It is awesome,

Especially like the whole first season touches on really intersecting topics to what we've been talking about today so yeah,

Highly recommend that podcast.

Thank you all so very much for your support.

I'm going to go back to my own toddler because yes,

I am a mother.

I love you all so much.

Reach out in the shadow work group or on email or any way that you want.

I always love hearing from you and I wish you all such a beautiful,

Beautiful,

Beautiful day.

Bye bye.

Reviews

Thank you for the wonderful journey into loss and healing, definitely following up with your shadow group and the many authors you mentioned, Charlie ❤️

So helpful. It gave me new perspectives on the difficulties I face daily as I live with my elderly mother. Thank you!

I loved this…. I am new to this and I was really curious to learn more 🙏🏻

Thank you Catherine for your amazing work on healing the Mother Wound.. I’m tackling this as a 75 year old who lost her chronically ill mother at age 13, leaving me with different roles as a daughter, sister, & girlfriend/wife…💝🙏🏻

A warm and nurturing talk with a beautiful guided meditation. Highly recommended for those who would like to heal their pain.

Catherine, what would I do without you?!
This resonated so much with me… the connection to never being satiated, never feeling enough, never being enough. That lack of nurturing and nourishment that shows up in the relationship with food. And how interesting to hear that connection you talked of Catherine, with your grandmother and your mother. I feel this also in my family. The women have unspoken grief. They are bereft. Life has been harsh on them.
What you shared about post-partum - I felt that. I understood what you meant about your body craving that connection, that village. The absence of those women. Thank you - that is so insightful to recognise.

As always, I am so inspired by the content of what you share and am now gong to look for the course about decolonising your mind. Also - very vivid imagery when you shared Resmaa Menakem’s words about cutting off from the land, ancestors always craving more… blowing the trauma into the bodies of others. I felt this awful lurch in my body.
As I’ve said before… I revisit your work often and there are so many beautiful layers. Thank you 🙏🏼 so much 💜

This was truly wonderful, nurturing, and inspiring. And thank you for so many references to further explore.

Good stuff. Human stuff. Appreciate her vulnerability

Thank you so much. This was challenging but brought a new sense of peace. I especially appreciate you talking about colonialism. Hugs. T

I have listened to a LOT of talks on the Mother Wound. Its a central issue I personally struggle with. This is by far the MOST helpful talk I have come across so far!! Thank you for this insight!

Sooooo excellent- really helped me open a door to a wound I’ve been curiously circling for a lifetime. So grateful for this, thank you.

Well, for me this was so pertinent that I’ll say some might be wise to sit with this in a safe space and time. I found myself in an excruciating place between my thoughts about my mom, and thoughts about myself as a mom. It’s difficult to face wounds we have and even more so to face wounds we have inflicted. Doing my best to stop the legacy. I so appreciate these words.

Such a novel & powerful approach for me. Thank you

I made a deeply healing journey to meet my ancient relative Tikara. Thank you. The sound was just fine. 🙏❤️😊

Such a critical and impactful topic. We all need to hear this.
Thank you so much, for diving right in with such open vulnerability and wisdom.
And thank you for sharing so many great resources for further exploration!
Grateful you were willing and able to record this powerful live session. It was so rich I found it very helpful to be able to repeat!! ❤️🙏❤️

Absolutely heart and soul opening! Thank you!

As always, so much to ponder on, thanks🙏❤️

Love all of these Catherine 🙏🏻❤️.

Thank you so much for this gift of imagination. I was very much afraid of my mother growing up, so this talk hit me deeply.

Thank you so much! I started following the work of Dra Rosales (after you’d posted her share on Instagram)- and my eyes are opening now more than ever!! Everything is coming together! It’s incredible!! Thank you for guiding us 🙏