Welcome to Grow Authentically: an online resource and guide to help you on your therapeutic journey.
Welcome back to the blog. I know it’s been a long, long time but I’m back. If this is your first post, WELCOME! My name is La Shauna Richardson and I am a licensed clinical social worker who owns a small group psychotherapy practice in New Jersey. If you’re okay with it, I’d like to pick up where I left off 2 years ago (I said it was a long time ago). Boundaries, Boundaries, Boundaries. A great place to begin this boundary discussion is with mothers–mother wounds to be exact.
What are mother wounds and why do they matter? To explain that, I will start with a story.
I had a client with a very toxic boss. And, to be clear, I am not using the term toxic lightly. She was demeaning, condescending, and asked my client to do things that were questionable if not completely unethical–a human resource nightmare, if you will. However, my client could only seem to see the redeeming qualities this manager had. As we explored her relationship with previous bosses, many of whom were male, it became clear that had any of those managers put her in the same compromising positions she would have pushed back on their requests immediately. So, what was so different here? Through our sessions, we discovered that her current, toxic boss had qualities that reminded her of her mother. So much so, that my client had a difficult time seeing that her boss’s behavior was really unhealthy and that she needed to create appropriate boundaries to protect herself AND her company.
As her therapist, it was glaringly obvious to me that her inability to set boundaries and advocate for herself with her boss was connected to her relationship with her mom, but, for my client, this wasn’t obvious at all.
Here’s the truth: what happens in childhood can follow you into adulthood when it is unidentified and unaddressed. A complicated relationship with your mom is one of those things. Whether it is intentional or unintentional, significant hurt, pain, or emotional distress caused by your relationship with your mom/maternal figure or lack of a relationship can have long-term effects. In short, it creates a mother wound.
Read that again. A mother wound can be:
Intentional or unintentional
Caused by a mom or maternal figure
Result from an unhealthy relationship with a mom who is present or a lack of relationship with an absent mother
What happens in childhood can follow you into adulthood when it is unidentified and unaddressed.
Research tells us that children who experience adverse childhood experiences, including abuse or neglect, can be impacted by those experiences through adulthood. Some of those impacts include, but are not limited to:
Heart disease
Anxiety
Depression
Simply put, health outcomes for someone who has experienced adverse experiences in childhood are not the same for someone who has not experienced those things.
Besides health outcomes, mother wounds can show up in ways that you might not expect.
Are you hyper-independent?
Do you experience an overwhelming sense of self-doubt and constantly second-guess yourself?
Are you extremely harsh in the way you talk to and about yourself?
This is not a complete list, but I am sure you are starting to see the point. Each of these COULD be reactions to real or perceived harm you experienced in your relationship with your mom.
Am I saying you are doomed to a lifetime of depression, bad relationships, and bad health because of it? No. What I am saying is that it is important to talk about mother wounds and process them. Learning how to heal from a mother wound is important because it can drastically improve the quality of your life.
As for my client, it took some work to recognize the link between her reaction to her boss and her relationship with her mom. But once we got there, we were able to work on creating better boundaries. Once she made and enforced those boundaries, her stress level at work significantly changed. Not processing her mother wound limited her ability to see the unhealthy work relationship for what it was and to take action to create a healthier environment.
Here’s something important to remember: taking the time to explore the impact your relationship with your mom (or lack thereof) is having on your life is NOT something you are doing TO your mom, it IS something you are doing FOR yourself. Trust me, a good therapist is not going to use a whole session to help you bash or trash talk your mother. Healthy therapy sessions are spent validating your reality and holding space for you to feel and express things you may have not had permission to as a child. A good therapist does this to create a foundation to help you decide and work toward what you want your life to look like in the future.
Interested in exploring this topic further? Reach out for a therapy consultation or join us at our upcoming therapeutic retreat (May 2025). Refresh, Relate, Release: Journey to Mending Hearts is designed to help women with difficult mother-daughter relationships have a nonjudgmental space to begin working through the impact of their relationship with their mom on their life in the company of other women and licensed therapists who understand these relationships can be complicated. Want to learn more? Visit here.
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Talk soon!
Growing, Authentically…
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