Mothering & Your Other Mothers
Published: Sat, 05/12/12
I've been spending many hours over the last weeks considering mother as an ideal as I shape the Inner Mother Inner Father program (see below).
What is the ideal of mother or your ideal mother?
Here are a couple of dictionary definitions of ideal to help you with the question:
adjective
1. satisfying one's conception of what is perfect; most suitable (suitable to you and your needs.)
2 existing only in the imagination; desirable or perfect but not likely to become a reality
noun
3 a person or thing regarded as perfect:
4. a standard of perfection; a principle to be aimed at
Please do yourself a favor and write down your ideal of mother, then come back and read the rest of this post. Do not describe your mother or yourself as mother. Just think of the ideal, the archetype.
Now review your list. You probably wrote a bunch of adjectives such as nurturing, sensitive, kind, wise, etc.
Now make a list of verbs! What are the actions of mothering?
Mother is the name for the woman who gave birth to you or adopted you. But did she mother you? This is where we run into our upsets and difficulties - not with "mother" but with the mothering.
Mother (father and parent) are nouns/names and VERBS!! Child is always and only a noun and is the object of mothering.
When you review your list of verbs, think of all the people, besides your mother, who mothered you. Make that list and fill your Mother's Day heart with gratitude for each one.
I am having a special time with someone I mothered a lot when he was growing up and it is a joy for both of us. My son's best friend has recently moved nearby and he comes over for dinner and long conversations every couple of weeks. I've known Michael since he was 7 and now he is thirty!
Is your best friend's mother one of your other mothers?
Please share your verbs and pay tribute to your other mothers by leaving a comment on the blog.
Inner Mother Inner Father is going to be one of the most powerful courses I have designed. We will be looking at the core activities of mothering and fathering and how we internalize them or self-mother and self-father our sense of self. We will look at the mothering and fathering we received from a new perspective. The description of the course will be posted in a couple of days.
Inner Mother Inner Father will be eight 90 minute live interactive webinars. It will begin the week of May 28th. As usual I will be offering the program on two different days and times - one evening and one early afternoon Eastern time allowing people from all over the world to participate. It will cost $280 and include recordings of the sessions, great materials, and a 20 minute private session with me.
For Mother's Day, I want to offer a discount of $60 ($220 for the program) to all those who email me they are interested in taking the course and let me know what evening (Monday or Thursday at 8PM Eastern) or day (Saturday, Sunday or Tuesday at 1PM Eastern) works best for you. You must email me before 11:55 PM, Wednesday, May 16th to get the discount. I will send all those who have emailed me about their interest a discount code.
You will not be making any commitment. I will be posting the description on Thursday, May 17. If after reading the description you change your mind -- I don't think you will -- you are under no obligation.
For those who want to take the course but cannot afford even the discounted cost of $220, please email me and let me know what kind of discount or payment plan you would need to participate. I want everyone to take this course as it will be so healing, liberating and empowering. I promise!
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