The Mother Inside

It always feels wrong to write about my mother. Like I am breaking an unspoken vow to protect her at all costs, no matter the impact on myself.

The story I tell myself is that I will hurt her, by writing about her.

I believe that because 13 years ago, that's what she told me. "I don't want you to write," she said in front of dinner guests as we sat on the balcony in the summer, during one of my visits. "I don't want you to write because I don't want you to write about me."

In the moment, I froze as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on my insides. My lower belly dropped into a concentrated churn and I felt a clenching in my gut that I can still feel after all these years.

I started writing this blog at about that time, determined not to listen to her. It still followed me, though, this disapproval that she expressed about my writing.

How could it not? She is my mother.

I have thought about this a lot, because it's stopped me from writing. I had novels and plays and nonfiction books that I wanted to create, between then and now. But I didn’t let myself, because I didn’t want to hurt her.

It is heart-breaking to think about the loss I’ve created for myself because of something that someone else said. But the impact is important to acknowledge.

I notice how her statement has followed me like a shadow. My actual mother said it only once, but in my inner world, I have heard my inner mother say it a thousand million times.

I want to talk about how I carried that moment within me, in my inner world.

My actual mother didn’t do that. I did. And when I feel into it, the voice that repeats that I shouldn’t write, over and over, comes from a part of me that also wants to mother myself.

I call the part of me that wants to mother myself my “inner mother”.

You have probably heard people reference the “inner child”, or maybe you are familiar with the concept already. It’s a foundational term from psychology that helps us to think about and relate to the younger parts of ourselves.

In trauma healing, it’s helpful to think about our inner world as composed of many “parts,” including the inner child.

In the same way that we have younger parts, we can also have parts that want to protect and care for us in our inner world. They can be any type of caregiver, but I find that most of us have an inner mother and an inner father that we relate to inside.

If we’re conscious about it, this creates a tremendous opportunity because we can craft our inner mother or inner father exactly the way we want them to be.

Rather than being stuck in the past, we can empower ourselves by choosing what kind of inner mother and inner father we want to receive inner love, inner care, and inner attention from.

It doesn’t mean anything bad about our parents if we want our inner mothers and inner fathers to be different than our actual parents. Our inner caregivers do not need to have anything in common with our actual childhood caregivers.

Without thinking about it, many of us model our inner mother and inner father on our actuals ones. We copy and paste from reality, because that’s what we know.

But because our caregivers are human and did not do things perfectly, we also copy over the parts of them that didn’t work for us. Only we don’t always realize it.

This is how I found myself in the situation I just described, replaying something my mother said 13 years ago and letting it impact what I decide to do today.

It’s important to be aware of the inner parts that want to take care of us, and who they are, because with awareness comes so many more options.

When we’re conscious of our inner caregivers, we can listen for their voices. And then we can create them into something more aligned with our current adult needs.

Before, when I wanted to journal, a voice that sounds like my actual mother would remind me, "You can't write because you'll hurt your mother." When I had book or travel article ideas, she would shake her head and look at me sadly, "You can't write. Because you will hurt me."

My mind was already creating a script of what it thought my actual mother would say and do, in my head. It was crippling.

Over the years, I stopped pushing back against the voice because when I would write even peripherally about my childhood, the guilt got to be too much. Writing stopped feeling good. The joy was gone.

I am glad that I will always have a version of my actual mother in my head, but she doesn’t need to be my inner mother.

My inner mother can be completely different, made of archetypes, parts of people I have met, and my imagination.

The realization that I can create an inner mother who is different than my actual mother was a moment of transformation for me.

Since I already create a version of my actual mother inside my head, why not create an inner mother who is more supportive?

I began to create and relate to an inner mother who, because she is a part of me, is able to provide me with all the support and encouragement that I need.

If you’ve never thought about yourself as having parts like an inner child, an inner mother, or an inner father before, you might find all this talk about inner worlds a little confusing.

Just know that some of the most well-respected trauma researchers of our time also use this way of talking about the inner world and the parts of ourselves that we find there.

Here's a summary of this perspective of our inner worlds:

1. We all have inner caregivers (like an inner mother or inner father) who we look to in order to meet our needs. Our relationship with these parts inside helps us to give ourselves the self-love, self-esteem, and self-acceptance we need to thrive.

2. Unconsciously, our inner caregivers may resemble our actual caregivers in not very supportive ways. For example, our inner father might be dominating and avoidant at the exact moment that we need him to be encouraging and proud.

3. When we’re aware of this dynamic, we have a chance to "re-parent" ourselves. We can give ourselves the unconditional love and support — and even the boundaries — that we need. We don’t need to look to anyone else to do it for us.

Doing this for ourselves is deeply empowering. It’s our responsibility as adults to attend to our deepest needs.

I love this perspective because it means I can "remake" my internal model of how I mother myself. I can use my awareness and imagination to create an inner mother who responds immediately to what I need.

Allowing me to mother myself in this way has been a profoundly healing experience. I have found an inner mother who takes joy in my creativity and self-expression, and helps me set boundaries so I can do my work.

Each of us has the opportunity to give ourselves the gift of the mothering (and fathering) that we didn't receive.

Part of maturity, for me, has been learning how to become the one who cares for my needs. Finding and connecting to the mother inside.

I hope that this has encouraged you to explore your own inner mother (or inner father). We can create so much goodness within ourselves when we let ourselves become the caregivers we’ve always longed for.

I want that for you, too.

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