Trapped Outside Your Power
When I meet a powerful woman I feel freed.
It’s magical to be able to become liberated just by being in the presence of another woman who embodies her power confidently, elegantly, unapologetically.
That’s how I felt when I met Radha, an Australian senior meditation teacher with whom I spent a few days in the villa of rich connections in New Delhi.
When in India, Radha wears exuberant saris and red lipstick. At home, mini-skirts and high hills. She doesn’t need a baggy white gown to send the message: ‘Here comes a spiritual master'. Her wisdom shines through her presence effortlessly.
It’s also how I felt when I stood in front of Clarissa Pinkola Estes, a broad headband around her head and a shamanic drum in her hand. She exorcised my self-doubts about my writing, sent them to be eaten by the snakes of the Colorado High Desert.
That’s also how I feel when I’m with a client who, after a process of coaching, steps into her power confidently, elegantly, unapologetically.
Imagine having many women around you who don’t have a complicated relationship with their power. How liberated we would all feel. How it will change the power dynamics in the world. How at home we would feel in the world.
Imagine being one
Over the past seven years I have focused on Life Alignment coaching, helping people who yearn for a greater presence in the world heal from old wounds so they can deepen their self-trust and find their true belonging.
With time I realised that the source of difficulties for 95% of my clients was dealing with a mother wound.
Some women were very much aware that the difficulty to assert themselves, their trust issues or the limitations they face in their careers germinated on the shaky ground of a disturbing relationship with their mother.
Others were somehow aware of a potential connection but they thought they’d given this matter enough time, money and attention, and didn’t think more healing and growth was possible. Some women were totally unaware that the depression they had been dragging around for years or the destructive relationships they were getting involved in over and over again had anything to do with their mothers.
What became possible for all these women led me to writing a book about the mother wound.
The mother wound has many dimensions, from the collective mother wound to the planetary mother wound to the individual mother wound.
If your mother kept on making decisions for you, if she abused you, lied to you, if she suffocated your true nature in order to feel alive herself; if she gave you away or neglected you, kept silent when you were being abused or suffered from mental health problems that made her absent, your wound will become a hub for all the dimensions of the mother wound.
Growing up with a mentally ill mother, I too suffered from the mother wound. I could never before have imagined how much the healing process would make possible, where it would lead me, what amazing women it would bring into my life.
Life wants to show us where and how we're gifted
Imagine a twig falling into a river, being carried by the gushing waters until it meets a large stone that stops it dead in its free-flowing downstream rush. While the twig laments this dreadful destiny of being held back by a giant, robust obstacle, seeing all its dreams fulfilled by all the twigs still hanging on trees or others who’ve already reached the ocean, a pristine white swan comes to rest by the stone, picks up the twig and builds a nest for a new generation of majestic birds.
Wherever we feel stuck, that is where our power is trapped in a perception that says “you don’t have power”, “you’re not good enough”, “you don’t have what’s needed in order to achieve your needs.” The possible variations on this theme are endless.
The only power that I consider to be true is the one within ourselves. All other forms of power are empty, conditioned, unstable structures. It takes but a pandemic, a political trend, a flood, a marital crisis, a stubborn question prodding you in your routines to see that the only power we can ever rely on is within.
Tell me, does any of this feel familiar? Do you have your own story of a difficult relationship with your mother, of how it affects you? Hit reply and tell me. I’d love to hear.
Or maybe you just want to talk about it because you’re curious, or sense that something here rings true and you’re tempted to open it up a little. I invite you to have a chat about it.
Shelly’s helping women who’ve had a difficult relationship with their mother and want to overcome the way it still affects their relationships or career so they can feel step into their wholeness
Learn more about Life Alignment
Photo by Massimiliano Sarno on Unsplash
