What If They’re Not Your Words

Sometimes the harshest words you tell yourself were never yours to begin with. I’ve seen how inherited stories slip into your inner voice and shape your choices without you even noticing. This post explores how those borrowed narratives form through the mother wound—and how healing helps you finally hear your own voice again.

Have you ever realised that some of the most painful things you tell yourself… aren’t actually yours?

In a recent session, my client paused mid-sentence and said,

“I want to be better.”

When I gently asked what ‘better’ meant to her, she suddenly stopped, then said with enthusiasm:

“These are not my words”

When we adopt words that aren’t ours, we're not only straying away from finding the support, healing and inspiration that is meant to be ours–we also create unnecessary stress and unnecessary suffering to existing inner ruptures.

When we work 1:1, we engage the places where your story has been shaped, interrupted or taken over—often long before you had the chance to speak for yourself.

Because if the stories you carry didn’t matter, you wouldn’t feel the emotional, mental, physical, social or financial pain you feel today.

Maybe you heard that:

🍁 “Why do you have to be so different?!”

🍁 "You should take care of your mother”

🍁 “Your mother had a very tough life”

🍁 “You’re such a good girl"

🍁 “Shame you don’t have your mother’s figure”

🍁 “You need to grow a thicker skin”

🍁 “Look how well your sister is doing in school”

It doesn’t matter whether these statements were true or not!—who cares if you had lower school marks than your sister’s when that comment humiliated you and planted a story that now repeats in your mind saying, “I’m not good enough”?!

The mother wound creates a rupture in our relationship with ourselves, with others, and with life itself — a rupture that starts in our relationship with our mother.

If you were undermothered, you begin piecing together a story to explain the pain, to make sense of these ruptures.

This didn’t start with you.

Your mother once heard stories about herself too, passed down from her mother, and her mother before that.

But you can choose to stop.

You can listen to something else—something that wants to rise from within you.

When I notice a rupture in a 1:1 healing space—a misalignment between what you say and what you feel—I invite you to pause with it.

Some of the words we repeat are not only voices we heard in childhood. They can also be well-meaning, even professional yet still an external advice.

Whether it’s “take care of yourself” or “find your own belonging,” even the most well-meaning advice can become confusing when it isn’t rooted in your lived experience. When we slow down and include your physical, emotional, and energetic responses—not just your mind agreeing that something “sounds good”—you can begin to sense:

🍁 Whether that advice is truly aligned for you

🍁 Whether it’s covering over a charged emotion that actually needs tending

🍁 Whether these are the words you would choose to express your real needs and heart’s wishes

With somatic listening it’s possible to notice where ruptures are embedded into your narrative—almost as if they didn’t matter, almost as if they didn’t exist.

In a safe, compassionate and somatically attuned space, your true story starts to reveal itself, so you can stop repeating to yourself hurtful things you unconsciously adopted as a survival strategy.

These are some of the women who worked with me 1:1 and broke through the old stories that held them back:

🍁 A. realised she kept saying she wasn’t looking for commitment because her mother never protected her from sexual abuse.

She found her true words and began telling dates—from the start—that she wanted real love and a deep relationship.

🍁 Su. stopped telling herself she “didn’t matter.”

Her mother had never prioritised her, so she stayed small for years.

During our work she made decisions she’d postponed for years—divorcing, changing vocation, and finally moving into the flat she’d secretly longed for.

🍁 Mi. stopped telling herself she didn’t belong among successful perfumers because she had been adopted.

She found an agent, stepped into her artistry, and began performing on international stages.

Each of these women discovered the same thing:

The voices inside telling you hurtful things inside are a starting story.

The story that truly matters is revealed through healing the emotional pain of the mother wound.

Your story matters—not because of its dramatic details, but because it’s yours.

And I want to help you find it. So you can tell it—whether to yourself or others.

My 1:1 healing process is your space to rediscover what it’s like to live up to your own words, guilt-free and shame-free.

We’ll see together where your relationship with your mother conditioned within you ruptures that limit they way you express your needs today and how to move beyond this.

We always start with a free call—which you can book by Friday, December 12th, if you want to take advantage of my current 1:1 rates, before they increase on the 15th.

On our call we’ll explore where the mother wound may still be shaping your life today—and I’ll help you notice the places where an old rupture was quietly covered over with words that were never truly yours. Together, we’ll begin tracing the thread back to where that story started.

This free call is often a relief in itself, because you get to experience what it’s like to be heard, attuned to, and supported in a way that honours your truth—not the stories you were taught to carry.

YOUR NEXT STEPS:

🍁 Schedule a free call via the link below & receive a confirmation email in your inbox

🍁 Reserve 40-60 minutes so we can create a safe space for sharing and exploring your immediate next steps

🍁 If we’re a good fit: I’ll invite you to purchase your package by December 14 to lock in current rates

🍁 Book your first session: right away or by end of January 2026

INQUIRE NOW

P.S. Ready to stop repeating stories that were never yours? Book your free call and take advantage of current 1:1 rates before December 15.

P.P.S. My free private podcast, BirthRite will show you how to strip away mother wound narratives you’ve inherited—so you can move beyond them👉 Download here.

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Shelly's 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