There is no one like your Inner-Mother
If you grew up with a mother, parent or caregiver who was neglectful, anxious, avoidant, disorganized, or abusive, you will have little access to your own wise, Inner-Mother.
Inner-mother is a whole-brained, whole-bodied part of you that can and does access choice.
When you are connected to your Inner-Mother, you are able to hold, nurture, validate, co-regulate and comfort yourself, or parts of yourself, and others, not only in stressful moments or seasons, but in moments of clarity, creativity, connection and trust.
Inner-mothering is part of regenerative neuroplasticity, growing the parental brain and restoring the autonomic nervous system. It’s also part of building a capacity to feel and stay in your body while also increasing emotional intelligence.
Connecting with and creating a secure-attachment with our own Inner-Mother happens slowly, as part of reparenting and healing through foundational fields of study such as attachment science, neuroscience, parts-work, and Integrative Somatic Healing.
While some providers or practitioners focus primarily on mother or father wound, we go further in helping you acknowledge the wound as a wounding, which reframes how you relate to it, creating movement and supporting you in making a coherent narrative about events in your personal and relational history and how you feel about it.
After making a timeline, Integrative Somatic Healing sessions help you bridge gaps in memory and practice self-empathy, emotional intelligence and non-violent communication with self and others.
When cellular memory is recalled, dialogued with, validated, and reconciled, an acceptance of what happened helps you bring your attention to what is true now.
It’s not so much learning this outside session, because it is modeled for you in session, as part of our framework, and the work you do to reclaim your choice in session becomes implicit.
Building implicit memory in session helps you integrate and practice your healing and choose new behaviors out of session and in your life-world.
Mother-Wound educator, Bethany Webster, writes “What we fail to accept, we will project,” examining how denial of feelings or memories for the sake of staying “tough” will limit your discovery of your Inner-Mother and true-self.
This is part of how intergenerational trauma keeps getting passed on through the matrilineal lens with the burden increasing.
Though a big part of reparenting or Inner-Mothering is remembering how to feel. It’s also remembering that no matter your relational or attachment history, you are and were a sacred child and being, worthy of being loved and experiencing connection, safety and inner-peace. This can take time and coming to terms with many outdated, or toxic beliefs.
We encourage pendulating between resource and distress in session as you build capacity and self-intimacy, helping you begin to understand, learn from, name and claim the gift, or wisdom, within the wound.
This is one of our favorite parts of session-work to witness, as it is extremely powerful, liberating and paves the way for further parts-work down the road. The wound doesn’t go away, but your relationship with it changes.
Integrative Somatic Healing sessions offer a doorway to creating greater wholeness and a holistic relationship with the self and parts. This doorway expands self-discovery and extends relationships, helping you connect deeply their longings, truths, children, partner, family, earth and world.
You begin inviting your holistic body into this whole-brained practice of knowing, being and holding yourself in ways you needed but weren’t modeled with somatic dialogue, processing and integrating out of session.
There are many layers to the brain/body accepting this and changing beliefs and choosing new behaviors, but connecting with the wise part of you helps to nurture you in present-time, opening doors for ongoing healing and exploration.
Surrendering to this path and awakening to accessing and remembering this level of healing that is already within you, your holistic body begins to heal, recover, connect, feel, expand and grow into wholeness.
And your body will always remember the work. Inner-mothering is not about perfection or constant regulation, it’s about coming back to center and connecting deeply with your wisest, higher-self when overwhelmed, challenged or the inevitable ruptures in connection happen.
Epigenetics will transform and you and your will begin co-creating sovereign somatic-resourcing to access when life gets hard, stress levels rise, or more healing and transformation happens.
And, you don’t always have to be processing. Inner-mothering healing is about learning inner-safety, learning to access choice, learning when to rest, to enjoy life, and when to come back and process again.
Inner-mothering is a way to participate fully in life, providing for and nurturing your family in ways that feel true to your values and authentic self.
Whether or not you were mothered or parented well by a caregiver who cared deeply and saw you for who you truly are, you can cultivate a relationship with your wise Inner-Mother and parent your children well at the same time.
Inner-mothering is one of the greatest gifts of intergenerational healing we offer our lineage, the land and world.
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Mothers longing for this kind of support might choose ourPostpartum C-PTSD package or ourIntegrative Somatic Healing Package of Six.\
References:
Seipp, Tess, MAE. Womb to Spirit Living Library. 2022-2026.
Siegel, Daniel, M.D. Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: An Integrative Handbook of the Mind. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2012.
Webster, Bethany. Discovering The Inner-Mother: A Guide to Healing the Mother-Wound and Claiming Your Personal Power. Harper Collins Publishers, 2021.