You're listening to the Reconnection Rescue Podcast for mothers and daughters with your host, Brittney Scott. A podcast where we process all things mother daughter relationships and the direct effect it has on the relationships we hold as adults. Hey, y'all welcome back. It's Brittney. Let's dive into mother wounds.. I used the term mother wound because it's a term that resonates with a lot of women. So I'm going to stick with it. I'm still searching for a term that I love, because I don't really love the term mother wound. But it's what we're using for now. So we're going to call it that and move on. The mother wound is a catchall phrase that describes the pain and trauma women feel and carried through them. Matrilineal line, their maternal lineage. The mother wound, it's an attachment trauma. That is carried by each daughter and then passed onto the next daughter. And it's, an attachment trauma because it usually shows up the wound shows up when there's a disruption in how the daughter is able to attach to the mom, how the daughter is able to emotionally connect to the mom. And how the daughter is able to feel emotionally supported by her mom. So when a mother wound is present, it is an attachment trunk. And mother wound can include all types of behaviors from neglect to physical abuse. But in my perspective, a mother wound typically points to emotional support that was missing during the daughter developmental years. It's about a daughter not receiving the emotional support she needed from her mom, creating a relational gap or a painful dynamic between them. In many cases, moms may be unavailable, harsh, or judgmental leading to a lack of connection and support. They may also have been abusive. So when a woman is struggling with a mother wound, they don't all look the same and they don't all come from the same behaviors of their mother. Through my years of working as a therapist, part of that specifically focused on mother daughter relationships. I found that emotional support is often the missing piece. Daughters' find themselves supporting their mothers emotionally instead of the other way around flipping the roles upside down. Think of the emotional support between a mom and a daughter, like a river. Rivers flow down, not up. Emotional support should flow from the mother to the daughter seamlessly. When the daughter is a child. And never the other way around while the daughter is still in her developmental years and growing up. This backwards flow happens because mom has no one around to provide the support that she needs. So she gets it from the person closest to her, her daughter. This leads to a daughter being an emotional caretaker of her mother. Leaving her carrying emotional burdens that should be designated to another adult and never to a child. A mother wound doesn't just affect little girls and impacts grown women in many areas of their life from self-esteem and relationships to anxiety and perfectionism. People pleasing guys, that list could go on. Our earliest relationships, especially the ones we have with our mother set our factory settings. It's where our brain is creating wiring and connections and making sense of things and creating the behavior that we're going to go on to repeat and kind of do subconsciously. It's how we learn to respond in certain situations, how our body reacts when it feels a certain way, all of this is happening while we're developing. And if we are developing in a way that is providing support to another person, Versus receiving support from the person we're supposed to receive it from like our mothers. We are going to struggle as adults because we don't know what that looks like. The settings often carry into adulthood, affecting how we relate to others today. It affects how you show up in your relationships, romantically platonically in the workplace. Like it doesn't just stop between you and your mom. Saw recently on social media. Someone talking about how they hate the term unlearn or the idea of unlearning because our brains don't actually unlearn anything. And while I get the sentiment, I do understand the behavior and the meaning behind unlearn. The reason I bring this up. Is because in order to. Change the relationships that you have today, so that they feel good. You feel good inside of them. You're being supported. Your needs are being met the way that you need them to be. You're going to have to unlearn a few things, but really what the term is saying is that you have to. Reteach, you have to repair it. you have to redo some things that weren't done correctly when you were a child. And so you're going to have to relearn new things. Unlearn, the old things that are not working. You're going to have to be intentional. About. Calming your nervous system. About teaching your body when it is actually safe. Because you may be in safe situations, but it's so foreign to you that your body doesn't know how to react. And maybe you ruin it. Maybe you self-sabotage, maybe you run from these things because you've never really felt this way. So. Calming your nervous system. Retraining your brain rewiring your brain really to. Make new connections to behaviors that you actually want to perform. Two. Ways you actually want to feel. And making sure that like the brain and body connection that you have is actually working together to put you in spaces. Where you are fully supported, where your needs are fully met and where you feel your best in your highest self. And like I said, that's going to take intentionality. That doesn't happen by just saying I won't be like my mom. That doesn't just happen because you say I'm going to do the opposite of what my mom did. Yeah. But it doesn't just happen overnight. It happens because you're intentional about understanding who you came from. Where you came from and what the women, before you pass down to you. Because it didn't just start with you. It didn't start with your mom and I can almost guarantee it and start with your grandmother either. And so if we take your lineage map, And we understand the stories of the women that came before you. We understand the behaviors. They pass down to the women that came after them. And essentially got passed down to you. Then you had a roadmap of what you no longer what to want to pass down. Of what behaviors you no longer want to. Emulate copy. Just do, because it was done. And you have a roadmap and a blueprint to effectively changing things that. No longer serve you. Never served you, but now as an adult, You are. Consciously aware that this doesn't serve you. This isn't how you want to be. This isn't how you want to show up. And maybe ultimately this isn't how you want to parent. When I'm working directly with a woman, one of my favorite questions to ask, because it gives me so much insight into where she is and where we may be starting her healing journey. Is what do you need? Depending on the look on their face. When I asked that question tells me exactly where we are. And where I will start the work with her. And when I say the work, we'll get to what that looks like, but stick here with me. What do you need? The response for some people is. Girl. I don't know. Maybe the response for some people is. What do you mean by that? Maybe they say. In what context? Like, what do you mean? What do I need? What are you talking about? And so the, I don't just go by what they say or how they respond to the question. But mostly their face, like their face kind of tells me at all. I can see when like their wheels are turning and they're trying to decide how they want to answer the question. Versus when their mind just went and blink and they have no idea how to answer that question. And so ultimately what I set out to teach women is how to answer that question. What do you need? If you know how to get your needs met. And actually know what needs you are getting met. You are on a path to having better relationships when you are unaware of what your needs are. You're unaware how to answer that question. You don't even know what you're really looking for. Then there's some self-awareness that needs to be had first. Otherwise, no, one's going to be able to actually support you and meet your needs inside of the relationships that you have, your best friend. Isn't going to know how to actually show up and support you. Your significant other, isn't going to know how to show up and support you. Your boss at work. Like I can keep going on. If you don't know what you need, you don't know how to voice that. No, one's gonna know how to meet those needs. And so your relationships will never feel good. And so that's one of the first questions that I ask. And so I'm going to ask you. If you have a journal with you if you have a notes app on your phone, wherever you have it in front of you right now. I'm going to pose a question and I want you to just answer it. You can take it in whatever context you want. Let your brain kind of go to the first. Area of your life that he can think of, or maybe break down the different areas of your life and answer the question for each one. So, what do you need? When it comes to your relationships. What do you need? When it comes to the relationship with your mother. What do you need? When you think about boundaries with friends and maybe boundaries with coworkers. What do you need? And so pause this episode here. Take some time. Answer that question. I wonder what comes up for you. And if you get stuck in our unsure. Then this is where your healing journey starts. If you can answer that question, that's wonderful. Because from there then what we need to do work on. And maybe you already do this. Maybe you don't. But if you can answer the questions and the next step would be to. Understand how you are voicing those needs to others. And how you are getting those needs met. When I started lineage map with a daughter or maybe a mom and a daughter together. One of the things that goes on to that mapping is what did it sound like? Or what did it look like when you, your mom, your grandma, your great grandma. However many generations were mapping. What did it look like or sound like when they were attempting to get a need met? Were they angry? Did they yell? Were they passive? Where they aggressive. Were they. Quiet and silent if they retreat you know, if we think of fight or flight, like what did theirs look like? Like how did they attempt to get their needs met? And. That always kind of gives some insight into how the daughter you know, whatever generation we're looking at, how the next daughter. Ended up getting her needs met. Also sometimes it ends up being the opposite. Sometimes it ends up being the same. But. That can kind of give you some insight into how you're attempting to get your needs met. What does it sound like? What does it look like? How are others able to respond to you? You know, are you aggressive when you're trying to get the mat? Are you aggressive or passive when they're not being met? Yeah. What does that look like? What does it sound like? Who do you become? Next question. I want you to spend some time thinking about. Is what did you need while growing up from your mom that you did not get. Where does she fall short? Where does she cause harm? Where. Where does she essentially miss up? Like. What would have made y'all's relationship better? I think I just posed a lot of questions in that, but take whichever one resonates with you from what I just said. And answer that. What did you need growing up from your mom that you did not get. When you're working on healing from your mother wound. You're going to have to think about what you want on the other side of this. Is it that you want a better relationship with your mom? Are you looking to heal with her? Or. If you're not you've accepted, what you're going to get from her, or you've maybe decided that she is no longer allowed to be a part of your life. Or you're going to. Take what you can get, create solid boundaries and. Kind of just move on from there. So maybe the other side of this is more about putting effort into making the relationships you want to be a part of. So fulfilling and supportive. What's what's on the other side of this. And if you don't know that you don't know how to answer that. Maybe the start of healing, your mother wound is going to be. When you think about your mom, when you think about the relationship with your mom, What hurts. Where does your body feel the pain? What part of your body is responding? Does your chest get tight? Do your, your fist clench. Do you feel like you want to cry? Do you just get angry? Like what is still hurting? What is the painful dynamic? What are the hurtful words? What exactly. Are you trying to heal from, and what do you want on the other side of this? Because for everybody it's not the same. And so when people talk about healing, a mother wounds, some people will tell you like, Certain things you need to do, but I don't think every woman is looking to heal in the same way. There are some women who are absolutely cutting off their mothers. There are some women who are desperately seeking their mom and wanting to pull her in, but needing her to take accountability and apologize so that they can have a better relationship. And then there are some women who kind of fall right in the center and they're like, look, she's never going to change. I know what I'm getting, but I don't want to completely cut out of my life. So I need to figure out how to create airtight solid boundaries that keep me safe when I'm around her. And so those three lanes. The healing is not going to look the same. And so you need to be able to answer the questions of what you need and want. What still hurting you? Because that is where your journey will start in. That it will be. The road that you take. And your roadmap will also look different because the women you come from are not the same women. Of the next woman, like your stories are not going to match. And if you're going to be the change maker, if you're going to. Be the generational change person in your family. If you're going to be that person, you have to actually know what you're changing. We cannot all be changing the same thing because we don't all have the same stories. We don't all have the same mother. Some people are carrying a mother wound because her mother was absolutely. Abusive and they should cut their mum off. And some women are carrying on the other wound because their mom was desperately seeking. Love and support and companionship. From others that she neglected her daughter. That she was aggressive with her daughter because she was so tired and so exhausted. And so unloved. And just, she, she didn't know how to manage any emotion and her daughter got the brunt of all of the ugly ones. Like it doesn't all look the same. And so we can't make. Healing from a mother wound one lane and make it all look the same. It's never going to work. And so you have to be able to answer that question for yourself. And when you can, your journey starts there on that path.