Mother’s Day: A Day for Celebration of Our Mothers

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The Gains, Losses, and Inner Mothering of Mother’s Day Reflections

Written By: Volha Shelepava

Today is Mother’s Day in Canada. 

That is why today I have been thinking about how important it is to have an older, experienced, wise woman nearby who could support, console, and guide. 

The Significance of a Mother

It is not true that we only need a mother in childhood to nurture us physically and emotionally; help to survive the first breakup, teach how to take care of yourself and understand others.

We also need a mother in our 20s, when we are looking for the first job and starting our own independent life with partners, friends, travels, bills, cooking, and insurance.

And we need a mother in our 30s, when we have our own children, when our bodies start changing, when we don't get along with our partner, and have to choose between things you can't choose from.

We really need a mother in our 40s, when health problems begin, when menopause is just around the corner, although we still feel like young girls who recently graduated from college. 

We also need a mother in our 50s and beyond, when life really starts to change, when loss is everywhere, when we appreciate the mother we had and didn’t have, and when life starts to look much clearer and more beautiful.

The Absence of a Mother

Not everyone has a mother. Not everyone has a mature, wise, emotionally stable mother. Not everyone has an older woman or mother figure to lean on and cry with.

When such a woman is not there, we can “assemble” the Inner Mother ourselves from the pieces and fragments of our memory – mom brushes my hair before kindergarten, grandma teaches me how to make her signature dish, a teacher consoles me after a fight with classmates, a girlfriend comes to the hospital to cheer me up after a scary procedure, an unfamiliar woman hands over a pack of paper napkins to wipe away tears…

Creating a Mother

Today on Mother's Day, I wish that everyone has in their soul such an image of an older, wiser, warm woman who is always there and always loves us no matter what.

If you don’t have the Inner Mother, therapy is one of the places where you can create her, because therapy is not just about removing bad things that happened to us, therapy is also about good things that we failed to remember.

If this resonated with you, reach out to book a free phone consultation with me to see how you can start to build your Inner Mother and grow into an even stronger woman than you already are.