Healing the Mother Wound

It’s Mother’s Day in the U.S. and I don’t want to spoil it for you if it’s good. For many people it’s a mixed bag. I want to talk to those of you who know (or suspect) you didn’t get consistent, attuned, attentive care as a baby.

Let’s not get too caught in the pain of it here. For many people there’s a lot of it: resentment, heartbreak, disappointment, and wondering what life might have been like if their early start had been more supportive.

Instead, let’s talk about ways you can start to heal – without needing to involve your mother or other family members in the process.

5 Strategies for Healing Early Trauma

1. First and foremost, how challenging is this topic for you? Did your thoughts immediately speed up? Heart begin to pound? Chest tighten? If so, doing any of this work on your own might not be a good idea. Working with a therapist who is relationship focused and ideally someone who understands attachment and early trauma is critical to helping you stay grounded to do this work. Supportive others in your life also help – partner, close friends, siblings, etc.
2. Create “Safe Haven.” What your heart, soul and nervous system are all seeking is safety and comfort. Find ways you can create that feeling in your life. For example, when you crawl into bed at night, snuggle into the blankets and pillows – what is the feeling you get? If there’s anything pleasant, just pay attention to that feeling in your body for a moment or two. Is there a person in your life now with whom you feel comfort and can rest with? Do the same thing. Notice the feeling of pleasant rest with them. Repeat this often so you can build the neuropathways of safety and rest.
3. Re-parent yourself. Be the good parent you wished you had for yourself. Treat yourself with kindness, compassion and tenderness. Set limits on hurtful and negative self-talk. Put yourself to bed, feed yourself regularly and soothe yourself when you are hurting. If you battle with a very critical inner voice and cannot do this step on your own, see step 1.
4. Work on self-regulation. A big part of a caregiver’s role is to help you regulate big feelings. If that didn’t happen consistently enough, you might find it hard to calm down when you’re upset or rest after a lot of stress. Watch my video series on Developmental Trauma or any of the videos on my YouTube channel to work on this.
5. Identify your coping strategies. Everyone has coping strategies to get through stressful times. For people with a significant rupture in infancy in which there was separation from the caregiver, neglect, lack of attunement, adoption or illness, the coping strategies can be a little different. A great place to look for clues to your coping strategies is the book Healing Developmental Trauma, by Lawrence Heller and Aline LaPierre. Why is that helpful? Because chances are these coping strategies, while they were initially useful survival mechanisms, are directly impacting your relationships today – with everyone you meet. Healing from early challenges tends to pay big dividends in all kinds of relationships.

An important thing to remember is that infancy is a non-verbal period in which we can’t record memory in the same way we can now. Most people don’t even know the whole story of what was happening before, during and after their birth, and yet it had a major impact on their lives. This is why traditional methods of exploring through talk are not as likely to yield results. Non-verbally oriented therapies, like art and body oriented work is more likely to help, especially if the body’s physiology is taken into account.

*Otters are from the Monterey Bay Aquarium