Motherhood: Can Our Adult Children Speak Their Pain?

I’ve been discussing motherhood with my Guides over the last week or two. Driven by the recognition that I am now the mother of an adult not a child.

It’s a strange rite of passage for both of us. One that my mother and her mother and her mother went through in their time. How strange that I feel I have to include those who mother in all sorts of other ways. And fathers too. But I can only address this from my personal point of view. Years ago they handed me the child I had grown in my womb and left me to get on with it. Well I got on with it. There was no other option. Surprisingly I found myself receiving so many moments of pure joy. As well as becoming prey to a whole new set of fears and judgements. In me and from others. However I learned and accommodated all of these into my own style of mothering. Motherhood turned out to be something I felt I could be good enough at.

So long as I withstood my inner urge to tell myself I’d got it all wrong. As well as the social pressure to tell me it was all my responsibility. In effect my fault. For anything related to my child. As the years passed I settled into my stride growing more confident with being a mother. I encouraged my child to tell me about her life, feelings and thoughts. I sheltered and defended my child. It was also necessary to remind my child how beautiful and talented she was. Then things started to shift. It seemed to be my challenge to push my child out of our nest and into the wider world. Motherhood became about independence, free will and negotiation. Big themes for big changes.

I feel that’s when motherhood shifted into a new phase. I was having to step back from my role of carer. What would emerge as my relationship shifted to being alongside another adult?

Now I understand why my Mother (now in Spirit but guiding me) laughed and talked about payback. Because my soon to be teenager didn’t always agree with me. Or want what I wanted. Nor did she feel that rules were necessary. Like all of us at that stage she found ways to rebel. Perhaps not big outward rebellions. But quiet, stubborn positions to hold. She also started to have her own secrets. As well as her own judgements about my mothering of her. Her feelings disappeared behind a wall that I couldn’t climb. So I respected her privacy. I talked to myself about how I needed to change in response. I revisited motherhood as an idea. Calling for my Mum I asked for guidance. Finally I learned to tell myself ‘it’s just a phase’.

Eventually I got tot the point of knowing I had to connect with her as an adult not my child. That’s when this particular rite of passage began. Because she needed to tell me things about my mothering that she didn’t agree with. I remember thinking to myself as a teenager that if I became a mother there were things I definitely wouldn’t do. Things my Mum had done to me. Actions that I judged were harsh or cruel. Yet I did the same things to my daughter. Because I understood that those actions came out of love. It was important that I teach her boundaries, about how to live alongside others and how to care for herself physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

I never told my Mum how much I appreciated those things I’d kicked against. I never shared my growing pains so she could explain and help me understand.

But I also wonder if she wasn’t ready to hear what I had to say either. An important part of seeing my child as an adult has been making room for her to tell me how she thinks I got motherhood wrong. Where she feels I’ve failed her. Letting her speak her blame. And yes, I could talk about the difficulty of balancing so much judgement and doubt within me. I could say I love you over and over. The temptation not to have that discussion is very strong. Perhaps there is a need in me to feel like a perfect mother in response to all of the years of responsibility and worry? Yet if I accept she is an adult I have to make room for her point of view. There has to be space for her to say she is angry with me, hates me, never wants to see me again. I have to bear both the love and rejection she may feel.

These are all her choices. And I can’t hold on to her as my child. I have to hold onto her as my adult daughter. With a life and concerns of her own. Hoping that she will have a good life. Being optimistic that she, in her turn, will understand when she becomes a mother. My Guides have helped me see that underneath everything there is always love. Pain is the response to love being conditional. However painful this transition I undertook to do it as part of being a mother. It’s the path I took with my mother. So I can embrace my love for my daughter knowing that any pain is momentary. Below it will always be love. It’s time to let her be an adult in her own right. And time for me to love the person she has become. Whether I agree with her thoughts, feelings and choices or not.

After all, if I have done some good things in her life she will be able to share her pain, criticisms and judgements of me with me. Not silently letting them eat away at her heart creating bitterness and distance. I love her and wish her well.

Day 572 of our blogging challenge

Choosing the Energy of the Next Nine Years

img_2381This has definitely been a Nine year. Full of upset, endings, parting of the ways and closure. Also full of refelction, truth and searching. As a Nine person I can find a Nine year more of a challenge than most.

That’s why today I needed a bit of help with making sense of it all. So much has happened to me on an inner, personal level this year. A lot has gone by in a blur. Often I’ve felt like I’ve bounced from one situation to the next, steering myself purely by what it felt right to do at the time. Thinking about ending this year and how I want my December to be I realise I want it to be very different than all those other Decembers of the last nine years. And the ones before it back to when my Mother died. That changed December in a very big way for all of my family.

As I write this blog I recognise that an important anchor went with my Mother. Yet she came back to me as a Guide. I had to become independent in my human life whilst we shuffled the relationship around. Then we could work together without compromising my free will choices. She has been very much around in the past couple of weeks. Along with my Nanna, her mother, my Dad and other family members. They have been standing strong for me while I worked out what I learned about myself this year. And then began working out what I want 2017 to be for me.

As the energy of new beginning approaches I know that the Universe is offering me anything I want. I have so many options. But there is the trap. Do I revert to old habits, my comfort zone, which means I stay restricted. Or do I seize the new?

It’s an important decision. I know that I will be setting up the energy for the next nine years by the choices I make. In fact that’s true for all of us. Even if I get a huge blast of new energy, if I’m not careful, I am going to be containing it in my old patterns. Of course that won’t work. The new energy will fade away due to my old choices. New energy will carry me forward over the next nine years only if I invest it in new beginnings. Not the trick of seeing the old as new. But the clear sightedness of recognising something as genuinely being new. So back to thinking about what I’ve learned about my patterns in the last nine years.

Sometimes I need a prompt. This afternoon I got out my tarot cards. An old, familiar friend when I’m stuck. My thoughts were all over the place. I asked in my mind for help. What could the cards tell me, and everyone else, about this new year? Of course, I ended up pulling card number one in the Major Arcana. In my pack it is called Awareness (the Magician in other interpretations). As I read the information these two sections stood out: “This card is one of the key reminders that you already possess all of the tools to guide and direct you in your life.” ‘This card represents your ability to create your own reality – to set ideas into motion and watch them grow.”

I was smiling to myself as I reached for the next card. It’s true. I know so much more about myself, my abilities and skills than I did at the start of this nine year cycle. And I’m ready to use my wisdom to create my dreams.

The second card I got was also in the Major Arcana. It was Fertility (the Empress in other packs). Once again I looked to the information in the book. I read “Through this card, the manifestation of growth is on the horizon. You’re the creator, and the seeds that have been planted in the past … are now ready to give birth into your world. Be patient as you watch your seeds take root and grow. Nurture them as they become strong and healthy.”  I have certainly had a lot of new dreams this year.

When I’ve been coping with the challenges of bringing my Spirit being more fully through into my human being I’ve imagined as much positive as I could. I’ve known I needed more than me to get my dreams into reality. The people and Energy Beings around me have been a key part of my choices. Their support, actions and reactions have informed what I’ve done. And what I have chosen for my future. Feeling like I am grounded back in to a clear vision I know that I will be stepping as far out of my comfort zone as I can reach. I’m saying yes to the scary new. The safe new is a trap I want to avoid.

Sometimes my inner intuition is scrambled. Like today. How wonderful to see my way by using the gift of the Tarot. In two days it’s the birthday of Margaret. She was the Earth Guide who introduced me to reading cards 24 years ago. I like to think that from her place in the Afterlife she approves of the way I still call on her lessons to help me see the way forward. Thank you my dear friend ❤️️

Day 384 of my blogging challenge.