Here, in America, we’re celebrating Mothers’ Day.

It’s a complicated holiday. For some of us, it’s a lovely way to honor the relationship we have or have had with the women who birthed and/or raised us. For others, it’s an opportunity to receive appreciation and respect for the commitment and sacrifices that come with being a mother to others. But for a lot of us it’s a painful reminder of mothers we lost too soon or relationships that felt abusive or neglectful.

There is this idea that a mother should provide love, acceptance, comfort, nurture — and soothe us whenever needed. And if we didn’t get it from our actual mother, we’re screwed. For life. Many of us have a deep longing for the kind of mothering we wished we had received – and didn’t – or never will again.

At the Light of the Moon Café, we exploring “mothering” as an archetypal force and look at how often the struggle with eating and food can arise out of a hunger for nurture and a deep longing for comfort that we don’t know how or where to find, let alone give to ourselves.

We are often starving for mother-ing — mother, as a verb.
Frustrated by attempts to get it from our own mothers or caregivers exactly when we want it, as much as we want, and just the way we want — we might compulsively seek it in “comfort” foods. Or maybe we reject the physical sustenance food can give because it doesn’t soothe us in the ways we really want or need.

We might try to stuff down or restrict this longing through eating behaviors because the mothering we hunger for doesn’t feel available to us, for one reason or another.

Maybe we are afraid to ask for and receive mothering out of a fear of being unbearably disappointed if it isn’t forthcoming when we need it most. Maybe we think we don’t deserve to be nurtured or feel guilty for wanting it too much, too often.

This is not about blaming mothers for disordered eating behaviors. It’s about looking at mothering energy through an archetypal lens, rather than a literal one, so we can begin to see it as a particular energetic constellation that is ever available to us.

In the Light of the Moon Café community, we explore how we often confuse the physical symbol of mothering (food) with the energy of mothering itself. Or how we mistakenly think the only place we can get mothering is from our mothers. This confusion is understandable since we are hard-wired to use food for nurture and comfort, and to get it from our mothers.

That’s where the Inner Mother comes in.

Here’s a 5 min video I made a while ago. I know, it looks like my younger sister 😊 But some concepts are timeless, so I thought I would share it.

Here’s a gift to and from your Inner Mother.

You can watch it here.

With Love-
Anita