Is the Mother Wound a Disability? Like Her Mentor Said
- Jun 10
- 6 min read
Is the mother wound a disability? A woman recently brought this question into our work together after being told that healing was not really possible, only management. I could feel how much weight that idea had placed on her. It made me think of my years as a special education teacher, and of one girl whose body showed me something I have never forgotten about overwhelm, adaptation, and the cost of not being emotionally held. In this post, I’ll share why the mother wound is not a disability, what efforting can look like in the body, and why what was formed in relationship can also be repaired.
BEFORE I get into it, I’ve got news:
On Wednesday, June 24th, I’m offering a FREE workshop:
The Invisible Weight of Undermothered Women
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Did you know that I started out as a special education teacher?
I worked in special education for several years — and for one of them, I was the private inclusion teacher for Tilly*, an eleven-year-old girl who had Down syndrome and went to a mainstream school.
I sat with her in her classes, helped her with her assignments, and made sure she could play with her classmates during the breaks.
She was an intelligent and acutely sensitive girl who gave a lot of love.
Tilly’s mother, on the other hand, was a constantly agitated woman who shouted a lot.
From the time I spent with the family, I got the impression that the mother was overwhelmed by having a child with Down syndrome, something I know she didn’t expect and that surprised her.
I understand her stress. Yet my heart went out to the girl who didn’t have a choice about her mother, either.
What Tilly's Pencil Taught Me About the Mother Wound
After a while with Tilly, I noticed something when I taught her how to write.
Every time her mother had shouted at her, she'd start a letter — say, an N — and instead of lifting her pencil at the end of the stroke, she'd continue straight down, unable to stop.
Tilly internalised her mother’s overwhelm and discharged it through her pencil strokes. I shared this with her mother as a direct, clear window into what the shouting was doing to her daughter's body.
Tilly's pencil couldn't stop. It was an extension of her effort to contain the sadness she carried inside.
That's efforting.
Not a choice but a discharge. The only release valve a body knows when it's never been shown that there’s a safe space to be held and accepted.
Is the Mother Wound a Disability — or a Relational Wound?
Tilly’s pencil strokes were not Down syndrome. They were the manifestation of her mother wound.
So when I spoke with a woman a few weeks ago and she told me that her mentor said, “you can't heal the mother wound — it's like a disability you need to learn to live with” — I was furious. (The mansplaining aside!)
This comment is a reflection of what we get from professionals who know very little about the mother wound.
The mother wound is a rupture in your relationship to yourself, others, and the world, rooted in the rupture in your relationship with your mother.
No one is born with a mother wound. It’s a result of a fractured relationship with your mother.
And relationship wounds, however painful they may be, can be repaired.
When your mother keeps giving you signals that you're not welcome just as you are, you get confused about who you're meant to be.
It's not natural to be forced to choose between who you know yourself to be and who she needs you to be.
So you instinctively organise your whole sense of self around her.
Efforting is an instinctual adaptation to an overwhelming childhood environment. And it can be transformed.
Three Mother Wound Patterns in Adult Women
After working for 15 years with women solely on healing the mother wound, I’ve identified three efforting patterns that walk with undermothered daughters into their adult lives:
🍒 The effort to be: If your mother was disappointed by you repeatedly, told you she wished you were never born, or threatened you, your existence was constantly in question. You were not born feeling isolated or lonely — you learned to prove you’re worthy of attention, confusing that with connection.
🍒The confusion of being: If you had a volatile mother or an enmeshed mother, you were made to choose, again and again, between who you knew yourself to be and the version your mother needed you to be. You were not born hyper-vigilant — you were trained throughout your childhood to lean on other people’s expectations, confusing that with emotional support.
🍒 The effort to hide: If your mother crushed your confidence in your creativity, made you promise to always take care of her, or never touched you, you had to hide your true self. You were not born feeling inadequate — you were made to camouflage your needs and wishes by over-giving, over-explaining, and over-sharing, confusing that with emotional safety.
What You Reclaim When the Efforting Stops
With healing your mother wound, you can repair and reclaim many of the qualities you were not able to develop in your relationship with your mother:
🍒 Reclaiming an inner emotional safety, so no matter whether your mother apologises or not, you’re free from the pain of a mother who didn’t want you or made you her parent surrogate.
🍒 Reclaiming your agency, so no matter the advice your friends offer about shifting careers, you listen to the advice that comes from within yourself.
🍒 Reclaiming a sense of belonging, so you can find solace in closeness and intimacy, and choose the people who will always be ready to cheer you on.
So, you see, healing the mother wound is about digesting the parts of your past that stayed stuck in an endless pencil stroke that couldn’t stop — because you never received the right support.
As a little girl, you had no choice about your mother, but now you have a choice about your healing.
You can reclaim the woman you were meant to be before efforting became an outlet for stress and overwhelm.
That’s what I’d like to share with you in my free workshop:
The Weight of Undermothered Women
Three Mother Wound Efforting Patterns & How to Move Beyond Them
Wednesday, June 24th, 5-5:45 PM CET
(4-4:45 PM BST / 11-11:45 AM EST)
In this workshop, you’ll:
🍒 Discover what the three efforting patterns look like in your life
🍒 Understand what it means to move beyond them
🍒 Receive an efforting-release practice and time for Q&A
P.S. If some part of you still feels like Tilly’s pencil, moving past the point where it wanted to stop, or if you’ve spent years thinking, “this is just how I am,” I want you to consider something else: maybe this is an adaptation your body made when there wasn’t enough safety, support, or room to be yourself. You can repair what was fractured, reclaim what was interrupted, and meet the woman you were meant to become. 👉 Join the FREE workshop.
P.P.S. And if you already know you don’t want to keep circling this alone, Recentre is my 1:1 healing space for women who are ready to work directly on the mother wound and the efforting patterns it created. 👉 Book a free call
Got any questions about the works?
You can reply directly to this email or DM me on IG
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If you need more reassurance that you & I can make a genuine difference to healing your mother wound, here's something you'll enjoy:
Learn how to stop making an effort to fill in a hole in the heart 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 recentre back into the life they're meant to live
