Finding Emotional Closure from a Mother Wound
- Shelly Sharon
- Oct 3
- 6 min read
When a relationship with a mother is complicated, painful, or unresolved, the absence of emotional closure can leave a nagging pang of desire to somehow move on. Whether your mother is present, absent, estranged, or has passed away, finding an emotion closure from a mother wound is possible. Emotional closure is not about erasing the past but about finding a sense of completion, with greater meaning with regard to the past leading to a greater self-trust and forward momentum.
The on-going Bond
A relationship with a mother is a on-going emotional connection. Even after she had passed away, that relationship continues to play a central role in who we are. Unresolved, lingering issues often move us toward finding emotional closure from a mother wound.
As humans, we don’t take uncertainty and unfinished life-chapters easily. We may feel greater urgency to find a closure for a relationship that never reached enough intimacy, openness of communication, reciprocity and trust.
Regardless of the many obstacles, closure is possible.
No matter the circumstance—whether you’re not speaking to your mother at all, communication has been sporadic, or she has already passed away, or you’re involved in an enmeshed relationship with her—it is possible to find emotional closure with any relationship.
What is an emotional closure
Closure means to bring an emotional experience or an emotional bond to a close.
I find it interesting that you can voice the word ‘close’ in two ways: With a z sound, meaning to end, or with a soft ’s' sound, which means ‘to be near.’ Both parts play a role in emotional closure.
To bring a relational bond to an end, we need to hold it both far enough and yet near enough.
This inherent contradiction of a closure is the reason why it can feel so difficult in a mother-daughter relationship
Closure as completion
Rather than looking at closure as coming to an end, I suggest seeing it as finding a sense of completion.
We often look at a relationship in need of closure through the lens of the unfulfilled potential—what it could have potentially been, how it could have potentially developed, what it could have potentially given you. Pining for the potential is one of the biggest obstacles to completion.
Our mother sets the stage for our emotional inheritance and by design she IS the biggest source of potential to forming an emotional bond. It starts with her but she also serves as the blueprint for everything we believe about relationships—what we deserve to feel and get in a relationship, what kind of relationship we’ll be attracted to, how we’ll show up to a relationship and so much more.
Because of this primal design-feature in human relations, we can easily get stuck on the apology ache, yearning for a closure in the form of apology for the hurts she’s inflicted and the childhood experiences she was unable to provide. The apology ache may keep us away from a sense of completion.
Every step you’re taking closer to the way things really are brings you closer to a sense of completion.
Only when we fully see both the fulfilled and the unfulfilled aspects of a relationship that we can find a sense of completion.
What stands in the way of closure
Completion requires two people, but too often for women with a mother wound it can be like finding a closure with a ghost.
The absence of willingness or the lack of capacity to be in the mutual place for a closure intensifies an undermothered daughter’s pain.
Here are common examples I often witness in my clients’ experiences, that stand in the way of finding a closure from a mother wound:
Deflection: Honest conversation are met with an immediate attack and blame. For example, when you express your feelings or needs or when you set a boundary you’re not taken seriously, there’e no listening and the responses could be: “you’re too sensitive”, “I was just joking”, or “I’m your mother!” Which implies many unspoken and at the same time unwarranted consensus in her way of treating you.
Claiming you in a familiar role: Your attempts to communicate in a way that’s aligned with your needs for acknowledged and recognition are met with your mother’s insistence to rtieein you back into old dynamics, saying things that imply that you owe her this role, such as: “You’re all I’ve got”, “You’re my daughter”.
Flat No: A refusal to talk about the past, often accompanied by dismissiveness, as in: “I don’t want to talk about it” or “this has happened a long time ago”.
Victimhood: Diverting attention from what you share to bring herself back into the spotlight, sometimes with a tantrum. For example, “what did I ever did to you?”, or, with an attitude of self-pity “I’m ill now, it’s not a good time.”
Threats to cut you off: Attempts to control you and your intention through financial, psychological or emotional extortion.
With the acknowledgment of the pain these challenges cause, completion can still be found through your healing process.
Three points to consider in finding a closure
The following are the key to finding a sense of completion. They offer you a way to start processing some commonly recurring aspects of the mother wound.
These sacred invitations, which I’ve offered to many women over the years, will reward you with the peace of mind and the completion of the heart you’re yearning for as well as opening you up to the reservoir of your inner wisdom and inner authority:
Concise grief
Acknowledging and then processing the hurts you’ve experienced in your relationship with you mother is to see the ambiguous loss inherent to the mother wound.
Ambiguous loss is the confusion that comes from “something that’s not there (physical, emotionally or psychologically) while something that is still there,” as Paulin Boss describes it. This mix of absence and presence is confusing and creates the ambiguity.
Both closure and grieving are forms of a ritual that help us close a chapter and with it release the pain that was attached to that chapter.
Grieving an ambiguous loss is to sort emotionally sort out what’s present and what’s absence in the relationship, to name it, acknowledge and find the way to come to a completion with it.
Like all grieving rituals in any culture that take place in the community, having the support and witnessing of a company that can offer guidance make an immense difference.
2. Clarify your meaning for an emotional closure
Each of us has inherent meaning and perspectives to the concept ‘emotional closure’. by engaging with questions such as the following you’re fleshing out more clearly your needs and expectations:
How do I perceive closure?
How would I know that closure has taken place?
What deep meaning do I attribute to a closure?
What is the nearest step I can take toward closure?
What is the gap between what I need from a closure and what is most likely to happen?
What opportunities I sense would be possible with a closure, that don’t seem to be possible for you now?
You can use these questions as journaling prompts, as guidelines for your meditation practice or bring them to your therapist/coach.
3. Identify your inclinations for completion
We all have different tendencies that make some aspects of a relationship easier for us. Some of us can open up quickly in a relationship, others need some time to feel safe.
Some are better at maintaining a relationship, others need their other to initiate. And some would find it more intuitive to find a completion to an emotional bond while for others it is more challenging to let go.
These are natural differences we have as our core strengths and gifts. When we’re able to identify what our strengths are we’re also able to identify the parts in us that would benefit from more support to find a completion.
In some cultures, where family values are very strong and the girl/woman is perceived to be the bearer of her parent’s well-being, these individual inclinations are mixed with a life-long cultural input that needs to be included.
Finding emotional closure from a mother wound is less about repairing the past and more about reaching a sense of inner completion. Closure may not come from your mother herself (or a significant other) but from your willingness to grieve, reflect, and accept both the fulfilled potential of the relationship and the loss in the relationship. By honouring your pain, clarifying your needs, and embracing your own healing process, you create space for peace, resilience, and self-trust. Emotional closure, then, becomes not the end of a story, but the beginning of a freer, more grounded chapter in your life.
If you want someone like me beside you, someone who can deeply understand the need for closure and know how to create a bespoke journey that alighns with your specific needs, reach out to set up a free get-together call:
Want to learn about my bespoke healing the mother wound practice?
Listen to my privet podcast BirthRite:
Shelly's is a CPTSD-informed, certified Hakomi therapist helping women who've had a complex relationship with their mother discover the hidden impacts on their adult life so they can thrive in their lives & careers
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