“All great truths begin as blasphemy.” ~George Bernard Shaw

A very basic definition of patriarchy is “a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it.” The patriarchy of western civilization is damaging to both women and men. In order for us to truly discover our innate wholeness and create lasting change in our world, we have to detox from the damaging patriarchal messages that we have all internalized to some degree.

Patriarchy is not a distant concept. It is alive and active in our daily lives, impacting us in internal and external ways that we are largely unconscious of. The process of naming and identifying is a powerful key in any kind of individual or collective transformation. I highly recommend this article by Bell Hooks entitled “Understanding Patriarchy.”

As women in patriarchal cultures, we are caught in a double-bind. If a woman focuses too heavily on caring for others, she is devalued and seen as weak. On the other hand, if she focuses on herself and her independent pursuits, she is seen as selfish. In either case, there is little opportunity for a woman to be accurately seen and valued as an individual.

What is needed is for us to find a way to come into balance–to be seen as distinct, unique individuals AND to have authentic connections with others.

A woman may adapt to this double bind by either becoming compliant, passive and silent OR becoming patriarchal herself, as in controlling, dominating and rigid. In either case, the woman remains stuck.

It is time for women to courageously individuate, to become more fully themselves and to voice their innate, inner wisdom.

Individuation is the process of becoming uniquely oneself, of bringing to birth a consciousness of human community precisely because it makes us aware of the unconscious, which unites and is common to all mankind. Individuation is an atonement with oneself and at the same time with humanity, since oneself is a part of humanity.”
~ Carl Jung

Individuation is different from Individualism. Far from being selfish, an individuated person feels a strong responsibility to support, serve others and to advance wholeness, peace and integrity in the world.

Individuated women are needed in our world now more than ever.

Women’s needs for individuation have been thwarted by the culture causing us to feel an unnamed aggression or chronic, low-level frustration simmering under the surface of our daily lives. A new model is needed to transform ourselves on the personal level AND to transform our culture as well.

Not every woman is a mother. But every woman is a daughter. In order to become the woman we are meant to be, we must start with ourselves as daughters to address the early patterns that were laid down in the earliest days of our lives.

The mother/daughter relationship is one of the most powerful relationships that humans can have. It is also one of the most ambivalent, conflicted and challenging.

The process of separating and individuating from mothers is generally more difficult for women than for men. This is because of the gender identification between mother and daughter, which may cause the mother to unconsciously push a son to differentiate from her much more than she would her daughter.

Because we have all internalized patriarchal values to some degree, mothers pass down these values unconsciously and unintentionally. And daughters absorb their mothers’ values as a form of loyalty to mother, but the loyalty to those values becomes a form of disloyalty to their own potential.

In order to stop the unconscious, inter-generational wounding of women by women, we have to address how the Mother Wound is a product of patriarchy and how women have had to compensate for the patriarchal mandate for women to remain small and non-powerful.

We have to take the risk and summon the courage to love and validate ourselves even though we may have never received this from our mothers or from the culture.

Even though we’ve never had the models we needed, we’re being called to step forward. We’re being called to take the risk to fully bless ourselves and one another, even without the external approval of family and society. Are you willing?

Most people believe that if we want something, we pray to an external force (usually male) to give it to us. This keeps us in spiritual immaturity. It is time for us to see that when we ask for something, what we actually receive is the shift in our own consciousness that is needed to create that thing from within ourselves.

We are being called to consciously own our power and to step out of all forms of victimhood that hold us back from the realization of our true responsibility as creators.

We do not birth the new world by asking for it to be given to us by external forces. We create it by embodying it within ourselves. We create it by BEING it.

The journey of individuating and becoming the women that we are meant to be requires that we first address the template for womanhood that we received from our mothers that was distorted by the patriarchy and transform that template into the divine blueprint that we are meant to live.

Issues involved in the Mother Wound that are rooted in patriarchy:

  • Receiving love in exchange for being small and non-threatening
  • Scarcity and power dynamics between mother and daughter
  • Unresolved issues of the mother being projected onto daughter
  • Mother being threatened by daughter and unconsciously sabotaging or causing daughter to feel doubtful of her aspirations
  • Daughter fears of surpassing mother and losing her love
  • Daughter feels she owes it to her mother to sacrifice herself the same way her mother did
  • Mother feels compensated for her own pain by seeing her daughter suffer

A critical step for a woman’s authentic empowerment is to heal the Mother Wound; transforming the generational pain of maternal wounding into divine feminine power. In order to do so, both mothers and daughters must start with themselves as daughters because this is the place where the wound originally occurred. This is the deep work that is required to embody our truth, authenticity, power and creativity for the benefit of all beings.

Based on the many years of my own healing process and my own research on the subject, I discovered that there are certain steps that we pass through in healing the Mother Wound. I teach this signature system as a roadmap for the healing journey. In my workshops and soon-to-be-released online course, I offer tools, resources, exercises and templates for each step in the process. I describe the entire process very briefly below.

The implications of this work are huge. As infants we experience ourselves as completely one with our mothers. Because the mother = life, the Mother Wound is essentially a wound with life itself. As it is healed, we have the potential to realize our unity with life on a very profound level. The gift within the crisis of the Mother Wound is the potential to be birthed into unity consciousness.

Healing the Mother Wound is a revolutionary and necessary act that allows us to separate ourselves from the patriarchal mandates that have been passed down through countless generations. It is a way of honoring the women who have come before us and the women who are yet to come. It is creating within yourself the container needed to hold powerful energies that are needed for our collective evolution.

“Nothing is more important for the future of our culture than the way children develop.”~ Gabor Maté

Healing the Mother Wound cannot be done alone or in isolation. Support is needed. Around the world, a community is being formed in which women can support one another in this process. You are not alone!

As women, when we claim and own our worth, we embody both the holder and the held. And we do this not only for ourselves but for each other and for all life. That is why our inner work is so pivotal and impactful at this time. There is a connection between our own inner healing and the healing of the world we live in. This is not a connection that depletes us, but a connection that strengthens and energizes us because it comes from the inexhaustible heart of all.

Art credit: Mara Friedman