Our mother’s role in learning to trust ourselves

Our ability to relate is a learnt skill and all our lives we continue this journey of learning to relate. Our mother’s womb was a special place, a perfect environment where all our physical needs were met. Though we were tiny we read her emotional force field very well. When we registered negative emotions we developed patterns about our own ability to trust ourselves and the world around us.

Through the eyes of someone else we learnt to understand, to see ourselves. The way our mother looked at us, saw us, smiled or frowned, spoke to us, touched us, was formative in how we trust or mistrust ourselves now. The way our mother responded to us gave us a picture of ourselves.

In order to find healing in our early wounding, it’s helpful to reflect on our patterns of interaction. This includes areas of life we feel capable in and where we struggle to trust. It’s interesting too, to look at how our siblings respond in areas we may find difficult, and vice versa. Though we share the same parents our emotional realities have been shaped differently.

If each of us does not do this work of healing our life hurts, we’ll tend to take our broken patterns to other relationships and to want something or someone else to ‘mop up’ our inner pain. It’s often in our closest relationships that these things really show and what we’ve considered ‘normal’ is called into question. In our relationship with God we’ll also find those same patterns evident.

As we reflect, we will come to see what our mothers were able or not able to give us, where we’ve been well formed and where our trust in ourselves has been broken. Just like we care for our bodies when we have physical pain, so our inner work of re-parenting ourselves can bring healing to our emotional pain.