Avoid Falling (Again) Into a Hole: The Mother Wound Pattern You Keep Repeating
- Feb 27
- 7 min read
The mother wound doesn’t only hurt. It recruits you. Into coping that looks impressive. Into habits that keep you functional while quietly costing you joy. Autobiography in Five Short Chapters by Portia Nelson names that cycle with startling clarity. I’m quoting it below, and then I’ll share an important update about Reset and what support is available if you don’t want to keep doing this alone.
There’s a poem I kept coming back to over the years called Autobiography in Five Chapters, by Portia Nelson (quoted below).
Ironically, it came up as a poignant reference in so many of the past week’s sessions—as well as in my own life.
The metaphorical “hole” we can fall into when we’re caught in a habit or get into a trance of automatic behaviour as a coping mechanism, is not just a poem—it’s real life.
The past week, I’ve noticed that I’m about to fall into a familiar pattern: pushing through an idea that had already shown signs that—it’s a good idea, just not right now!
With two big projects still running from last year, my 1:1 clients (who I always prioritise and want to show up for at my best), training to become a Hakomi teacher, and setting up Reset as a new group for women, I began to feel depleted, scattered, and joyless.
I’m familiar with this tiredness, which is unique to the under-mothered daughter.
It made me realise that Reset will need more space and time, so I can infuse it with the life it deserves.
My idea of holding a 4-week group for women who want to reclaim self-trust and a trusted relationship with themselves and others will be put on hold.
I appreciate that this news might meet each of you in a different place:
🦩 If you’ve already put your name on the pre-registration list, I imagine you might be disappointed to some degree.
So, you’ll get an email from me with a special offer, which I’m certain will sweeten your day.
(And if you're not on the pre-list, you still can be: sign up over the next 48h, by March 1st, just to enjoy the treat—why not!)
🦩 If it’s the first time you’re hearing about Reset (because some 40 of you joined here only in the past couple of days), then welcome!
I’m so happy to have you here, and you’ll learn in a moment why and how I walk my talk and get off the hamster wheel.
(And you too, can get on the pre-list to enjoy the special offer)
🦩 Maybe you weren’t interested in the group anyway and are curious to learn more about Recentre—and how women move beyond familiar mother wound patterns to a life they love.
You’re in the right place.
Over the past decade of working with women on healing the mother wound, I’ve noticed one recurring theme showing up for every single woman I’ve worked with:
Working hard just to exist is woven seamlessly into your personality, everyday life, choices, your interactions and relationships, and even into healing.
Being unmet by your mother as a young daughter triggered an automatic survival trance to try harder to earn what you desire—and deserve.
Repeated efforts to be met, acknowledged or loved enough times—to show up as the good girl who doesn’t challenge anyone, keep your mouth shut to avoid a shit-storm from your mum, lie about your feelings to avoid the pain of no reaction—become an integrated part of you.
The poem has lots of compassion as it speaks about the sidewalk—a path we all use in life no matter where we live in the world, no matter what family we were born into.
But there’s one part of it which I no longer agree with (I probably never have but haven’t noticed it so much).
Your habits are not your fault.
When Portia writes that it IS our fault when we fall once again into a familiar or known hole in our path, it’s as if she’s ignoring the very natural, unconscious mechanism that keeps working in spite of very unfavourable conditions which no child should have experienced.
Many of the women I’ve been working with have had a fair share of therapy, especially talk-focused therapy, which was the main practice advocated (and is still reinforced by established systems) as the best option for healing childhood trauma.
But habitual emotional and mental efforts are unconscious events.
I’ve never met a woman who consciously chose to:
🦩 Make herself small in meeting with friends—it was her unconscious belief that her words don’t matter that was the choosing factor.
🦩 Go on another date with a person she’s already felt unsafe with many times before—it was the habit to overwrite her inner signs that was the choosing factor.
🦩Drive herself into exhaustion at work or in her family life—it was the habitual role of the caregiver that was the choosing factor.
Your habits are not your fault, . Yet you do have the option to change your choosing factors with healing the mother wound.
I’ve helped many women get off the hamster wheel: stop trying to impress those who are not able to appreciate you, let go of false hopes for forgiveness that has never come, or keep pushing for personality change their mother will never make—all efforts that accumulate into emotional and physical tiredness.
This is why I’ve created BirthRite as a private podcast that shows you how to move beyond emotional tiredness with healing the mother wound.
And if you’re ready to make lasting shifts in familiar mother wound patterns and habits, I want to help you do this, too.
I’m now welcoming new women into Recentre, healing their mother wound 1:1.
And we always start with a free call. It gives you the opportunity to make an informed decision, and on the call, you can learn about the way I’ll engage personally with your personal needs and desires.
HERE’S HOW IT’LL HAPPEN:
🦩 Click below and choose your best time for the free call
🦩 Fill out the form to tell me about yourself and what you’d like to make happen
🦩 Receive a confirmation to your inbox, and we’re good to go
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters/Portia Nelson
I.
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in. I am lost. I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
When this memory from India resurfaced, I felt no regret or thought that I had made a mistake.
II.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I still don't see it. I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
It isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
III.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there, I still fall in.
It's a habit. My eyes are open
It's my fault. I know where I am.
I get out immediately.
IV.
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
V.
I walk down a different street.
Which chapter do you find yourself in right now?
Most women who come to work 1:1 with me in Recentre are on Chapter II and/or III. They’re tired of this repetitive cycle and ask:
🦩 How do I step out of the caregiver role my mother put me in?
🦩 How do I get rid of the familiar fear of disappointing friends when I choose not to join them in our planned dinner?
🦩 How do I listen more consistently to my intuition rather than to my well-meaning friends and their advice?
🦩 How can I stop the push and pull between guilt for taking time for myself and not responding to my mother’s requests?
Repetitions are the placeholders of both habits and healing.
As much as you’ve repeated each one of those responses, actions, feelings, and thoughts, you need to repeat new ways of being, new states of mind, new beliefs put into action.
Recentre is a creative, somatic process which responds to the very real, everyday-life questions, needs, confusions or challenges in a way that suits you in the moment.
Without the heaviness of talking about the same stories over and over, a body-based exploration allows us to explore familiar habits in different ways, because:
🦩 You might dissociate when you go to your music club, but it also happened during our session or when your mum called last night—each gives us a different relationship to look at, a different dynamic to step away from, and new shifts to discover.
🦩 Maybe you’re caught in the fear of disappointing a friend, which will be a different fear of disappointing your partner, and different again from fearing disappointing a client or your daughter—each provides a different setting because it’s a different relationship
All these different scenarios lead to the same place from which habits operate in different events and relationships, offering new possibilities and choices to engage with familiar dynamics in a different way.
If you want to avoid falling into a familiar hole in your life-path, you need these repetitive discoveries of more new choices and possibilities.
The best way I’ve discovered to offer this to my clients is by carving out enough space for us to grow into a relationship that reinforces these newly realised options to living your life.
I’d love to help you find new routes in your life-path—so you feel satisfied with your choices and empowered by your life direction.
On your free call, we explore which habits you’d like to let go of, perhaps map a few you haven’t been aware of, and catch the unfolding of your new choices and possibilities.
P.S. Habits don’t change through willpower. They change when your body finally believes it has options. If you’re ready for that kind of shift, book your free call—and we’ll explore what your system reaches for automatically, and what it’s ready to reach for next.
P.P.S. And if you want support between now and then, my free private podcast BirthRite will guide you through the mother wound lens in a way that’s grounded, real, and usable. 👉 Download here.
Learn how coming back to love becomes possible with healing the mother wound in my private podcast BirthRite. Add your details below and you'll get immediate access to your free episodes 👇
Shelly is a trauma-informed, certified Hakomi therapist helping women who've had a complex relationship with their mother discover the hidden impacts of the mother wound 👉 so they can thrive in their lives & careers
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