Healing the Mother Wound for Homeschool Moms

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Healing the mother wound is a psychological and emotional process that often relates to one’s relationship with their mother during childhood. It typically involves addressing and resolving issues related to attachment, emotional trauma, and unmet emotional needs.

Here’s how digging deep into the mother wound for homeschool moms is linked to healing the inner child.⁠

Healing the mother wound for homeschool moms is relevant for these reasons:

1. Personal Growth: It fosters self-awareness and resilience, enhancing the ability to deal with homeschooling challenges.
2. Mothering: It helps parents create a supportive and emotionally healthy environment for their children.
3. Modeling Healthy Relationships: It enables parents to exemplify positive emotional skills for their children’s development.
4. Emotional Well-Being: Healing enhances emotional stability, reduces stress & improves relational effectiveness.
5. Reducing Interference: Healing removes emotional obstacles that might hinder effective homeschooling.

💡Here’s the unvarnished truth:⁠

We will remain stuck in patterns of playing small, self-sabotage, and overwhelm as women as long as the inner child believes that love, safety, and belonging are rooted in compliance with the patriarchal norms that were passed down to us through our mothers.

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Questions to Consider to help you explore and address unresolved issues, challenges, or emotional patterns related to your relationship with your mother and how that might affect your homeschool experience and motherhood experience.

1. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?
2. In what ways do you think your relationship with your mother might be impacting your mothering and homeschool style? Are there any similarities or differences?
3. Have you felt pressure or expectations from your mother, either directly or indirectly, regarding your role as a mother and homeschooler?
4. What are some specific triggers or moments when you feel your mother wound surfacing? How do you typically respond to these triggers?

More questions to address the mother wound for homeschool moms…

1. How would you describe your mothering style? Are there elements of it that you feel proud of and want to maintain, as well as aspects you’d like to change or improve?
2. Can you identify any patterns or behaviors in your homeschool approach that you believe are connected to your mother wound? How do these patterns affect your relationship with your children?
3. What are your personal values and beliefs when it comes to motherhood and education?
4. Do you see any connections between your wellness practices and how you relate to your mother?
5. Are there any specific communication challenges or conflicts with your children that you believe might be related to your mother wound? How can you work to improve these relationships?
6. In what ways can you start the healing process for your mother wound, and how might that contribute to a more fulfilling and harmonious homeschooling experience for both you and your children?

These questions can serve as a starting point for a coaching conversation and can help a homeschool mom explore her feelings, experiences, and beliefs related to the mother wound, fostering personal growth and improved relationships within her family.

NOTE: The term “mother wound” is a broad and complex concept, and the reasons for wanting to heal it can vary greatly from one individual to another.

I explore a discussion about the mother wound for homeschool moms via the things I’ve learned through Bethany Webster’s book, Discovering the Inner Mother: A Guide to Healing the Mother Wound and Claiming Your Personal Power.

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Let’s learn about the mother wound for homeschool moms.

“Refusing to carry your mother’s pain as your own is how the cycle of mother/daughter pain can begin to transform (boundaries!)

💥When we make painful patterns conscious, we can move beyond them into more joy, more peace, and deeper connection with one another.

As we heal, we begin to re-sensitize ourselves to life, feeling more connected to our own bodies, our intuitions, one another, and even the earth itself.”

MY STORY: Before I began my deep work in 2004, I didn’t ask myself how I felt, what I wanted, or what I needed, and I definitely didn’t trust my intuition. Rather, I asked others: how should I think, will you take care of me, and can you see me as useful to you if I serve you and your needs?

“In short, when we refuse to carry our mother’s pain as our own, we can become truly alive in a brand new way.

Healing the Mother Wound is a non-linear, multi-layered, unglamorous, and long-term process.

This is the real pathway to shedding the patriarchal and familial patterns of conditioning that cover the true self, to live a life of freedom and love.”

It’s hard to break out of unhealthy conditioning because it’s hard to break out of community with other humans. We lose a sense of belonging when we make breaks, temporary or permanent, or even shifts in relationships. This feels unnerving and lonely.

“Many of our ancestors did not have the will, the capacity, or the fortitude for this journey. I have said it before but I need to say it again. Now is our time.”

It’s also hard to break out of unhealthy conditioning because it’s work to create new, unfamiliar, & healthier patterns: work on repeat, work that will most definitely include plenty of mistakes. Defaulting into unhealthy patterns and thinking will be so very familiar. But those unhealthy parts and patterns you’ll eventually befriend because that is how you change them. You make friends out of them even though you’d never choose that friendship in real life.

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Ms. Webster says, “The price of living as your authentic self (because there is a price) is the discomfort of releasing all the false patterns that someone has accumulated through growing up in one’s family and culture.”

MY STORY: Girlfriend! It is so very uncomfortable (how’s that for a sales pitch to work through your mother wound??)

It’s just not comfortable. If you’re used to being everyone else’s cheerleader or being the yes-woman, if you’re accustomed to addressing other peoples’ needs as a life profession, (here’s lookin at me, kid!) you’ll have moments where you feel like your gut will fall to the floor & when you make choices toward yourself or you begin to relate to others differently.

You will possibly be terrified to make choices toward yourself, as I once was terrified.

And I actually legitimately mean terrified. I am not exaggerating when I say I felt true terror. I could give you the exact details as to why I have solid neural networks that experience true terror still.

If I’m walking alongside you in coaching, you’ll hear snippets of those stories if they are relevant.

I’ll leave the details of my stories for my memoir, which I declare I will write, again, beginning in my 50th year.

(Therefore, T-2 weeks and counting. Because I’m about to turn 50. Hopefully, by next year I’ll be pitching that story to publishers. Does anyone know a publisher?)

If you identify with me, if you see yourself in this podcast episode in any way, know that I was uncomfortable in engaging in every relationship: whether in my church at the time, in my partnered relationship, in my parental relationships, in my relationship with the creator, or any other relationship.

At that time, I didn’t realize I had a relationship with myself! so I wasn’t uncomfortable there, because I didn’t know I had one.

But though I didn’t acknowledge my different parts at that time, I quickly discovered that it was uncomfortable to be okay within myself.

Because there were so many parts of me that needed peace, attention, reparenting, nurturing, and a firm, and respectful guide, I had to learn to become that FOR me.

(Also have a whole lotta therapy and surround myself with attached, healthy relationships).

It was all sooo uncomfortable. But I was unwilling to surrender my true self at the doorstep of a church, my parent’s home, any friend or relative’s home, (and I have a lot of relatives, 60 cousins, 18 + aunts & uncles), and even unwilling to surrender my true self in relationship to my partner.

Oh, and I should add, at this point in my journey, our oldest daughter was 3 and our second daughter was 1. And our youngest two kids weren’t yet with us. I wasn’t yet homeschooling, and it would take years for me to have a strong sense of myself, even as a mother to my own kids.

So I was learning all these things as I mothered my own kids. So when I tell you I didn’t get things right, or I made plenty of mistakes, or that I wish I could start mothering my own kids over again, I really mean that.

(However, I am also accepting of my reality as it is (generally, though I definitely have my days when I am not: mostly because I know I can’t go back, and pining for what could have been won’t benefit anyone now).

Hey and FYI, my very favourite, fun reading genre is time-traveling stories, like my very favorite movies Age of Adeline and About Time.

And in one of my favourite interview episodes, when I got to interview one of the authors of my favourite books, The Not So Big Life by Sarah Susanka, she taught me that I didn’t need to be a perfect parent anyway.

And I digress to remind you of that. When you learn whatever you need to learn, your kids will be able to immediately benefit from that shift, if they so choose, and begin to heal a wound.

Just as we adult children want with our parents. And just as our children want to do with us.

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So returning to Ms. Webster’s words here, “The price of living as your authentic self (because there is a price) is the discomfort of releasing all the false patterns that someone has accumulated through growing up in one’s family and culture.”

There is a profound misconception that taking care of ourselves takes away from others. 💥⁠

Or as I like to remind you (& myself), I’ll let you know when you can stop thinking about what you need when you start being more than a human being.

💡There’s a sense of scarcity; of having to choose between caring for yourself or your loved ones and not being permitted to have both. ⁠

It’s a double bind in which we lose if we care for ourselves, because we end up feeling guilty, and we lose if we neglect self-care, because we end up feeling resentful.⁠”

However, choosing our authentic selves gives us permission to be real.👊⁠And being real is the best feeling in the world. Just ask Velveteen Rabbit.

As Ms. Webster says, “⁠This permission is something that happens in the intimate space between you and yourself. ⁠🔥As you heal the Mother Wound, you increasingly become the secure base for exploration for yourself. ⁠
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As the inner mother to your inner child, you become the profound space for everything to be OK.”

**Let’s discuss this inner mother.

“There is a powerful circle of love that flows through this inner bond, allowing you to increasingly let go of limiting patterns from your family of origin. ⁠

Exploration, experimentation, and mistakes are all welcome. ⁠(Like I said, they become your familiar friends).
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Here, there is no such thing as failure, only learning. ⁠What freedom! ⁠

As we become more safe within, we become free to take risks, to chart new territory, to really explore the inner landscape without the usual fears of “what will they think of me?” ⁠

✨These fears may still come up but do not have the power to stop you anymore. ⁠You’ve tasted the sweetness and soul-nourishment of your own integrity.⁠”

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I am not a stranger to the dark
Hide away, they say
‘Cause we don’t want your broken parts
I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars
Run away, they say
No one’ll love you as you are

But I won’t let them break me down to dust
I know that there’s a place for us
For we are glorious

When the sharpest words wanna cut me down
I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown them out
I am brave, I am bruised
I am who I’m meant to be, this is me
Look out ’cause here I come
And I’m marching on to the beat I drum
I’m not scared to be seen
I make no apologies, this is me

This is Me, from the Greatest Showman

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ps Guess what? Wanna know one of the reasons this song is so powerful? Because the person singing the song was experiencing these words as her truth as she sang them. You can watch her perform them in rehearsal here.

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“I truly believe that in order to break the cycle of exhaustion, we must claim our need for self-care as valid, even in the face of criticism from others. (Boundary building required again!)

The path of stepping into our power as women may be lonely at times, but you are never truly alone.

“As we become more free ourselves, living from our inner truth and authentic center, we assist others in discovering their own freedom as well.”

And girlfriend, I am so frickin hear for that! I didn’t work my ass off to learn these things so that I wouldn’t be able to offer the things I’ve learned.

So if you want to consider life coaching, ask me for a booking link and connect with me this week!

Bethany Webster says, “A free, self-anointed woman is willing to do these things because she is committing to living from her own sacred source… no matter what. ⁠
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✨She refuses to be confined by the patriarchal conventions of the culture. ⁠
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She demonstrates profound self-trust, aliveness, strength, joy, wildness, and deep integrity.⁠

💥As we become more free ourselves, living from our healed, authentic centers, we assist others in discovering their own freedom as well. 💥⁠⁠

⏰It all starts with the radical and simple commitment to value and care for ourselves and to acknowledge our mother wound, and to heal our mother wound”.⁠
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Okay, so yeah, you should read the book.

I’d love to hear how you feel reading this. Let me know in the comments or message me to let me know about your experience addressing the mother wound for homeschool moms.⁠

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• If you’re curious to learn more about life coaching, join Teresa for a conversation.

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Call to Adventure by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3470-call-to-adventure
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/