Understanding the Impact of Mother and Father Wound on your Well-Being and Relationships
Like so many people I’ve worked with, do you struggle with the relationship you have with your parents? Maybe you’ve heard of the Mother Wound and Father Wound but don’t know what these wounds actually look like? This article will help explain where these wounds originate, and how they impact your well-being.
The Mother and Father Wounds have an impact on identity, ability to regulate your emotions, and of course, your ability to have healthy relationships. We explore how an emotional absence or neglectful parent can affect one's sense of self and emotional safety. The good news? You can cultivate self-compassion, forgiveness and belief work to heal from these wounds.
Let’s explore the Mother Wound. This wound is more about emotional safety and the ability to go inward, the ability to feel safe within yourself and to experience your emotions and feel overall, emotionally safe. And this wounding can come from an emotionally unavailable mother, a completely neglectful, unavailable mother, or a highly critical mother. I tend to see with a lot of clients that I help, that maybe they did have a very present mom, but they had a highly critical mom, right? And that can create a wounding with emotional safety. It makes sense if you're going to your parent for support and you're being met with criticism when you're struggling, your emotions will no longer feel safe.
To sum it up, with the Mother Wound, we're lacking safety within ourselves. We don't learn how to self-soothe. We don't learn how to validate our own emotions. We're not experiencing self compassion.
As a result, we may experience toxic relationships. We may experience emotional dysregulation frequently. Without that mother, the grounding emotional stability in our lives, without that, it can create a lot of pain and a lot of suffering.
Now to discuss the Father Wound. With the Father Wound, the father archetype really represents independence, identity, and individuation. Love and support from the father supports us in going out into the world with healthy ego strength, healthy independence and self efficacy.
Confidence comes from the father. Self confidence, self esteem, knowing one's value — these can be impacted if the father is absent. An absent father can be a father who worked 80 hours a week or a father who simply wasn't present due to a divorce. Or maybe there was a father in your life who passed away when you were young.
For a lot of individuals who experience the Father Wound, they're lacking self confidence, they're lacking a sense of independence. They struggle with identity and knowing who they are. And they will oftentimes struggle in relationships, because they struggle to maintain their sense of identity while being in relationship with others; their sense of self is greatly impacted. And sometimes this looks like the person that you meet who's 40 years old and they don't have a career path yet and they're highly anxious.
Now that we have looked at understanding the Mother and Father Wounds, let’s talk about healing them.
Below is a framework for moving through these wounds:
- Examine how the effects of parental setbacks shape your identity and your relationships with others.
- Foster self-kindness and embrace healthy, constructive belief systems.
- Adopt forgiveness, free yourself from the past, and acknowledge the transformative power of grief as a healing force.
- You may try writing a letter to your parent, or if your parent is open to this, you may even have a conversation that explains how you feel.
- Learn to show up for yourself as your ideal parent. This includes learning to self-soothe, focusing on identity, and creating deep levels of self-trust.
I encourage anyone healing their parent wounds to take action by recognizing their wounds, grieving their loss and giving themselves what they need to become their own ideal parent.
It is never too late to take control of your life, confront the wounds that hold you back, and ultimately find strength in vulnerability, greater self-awareness and more meaningful connections with others.
*A Note on Generational Impact
It is likely that if you are experiencing a parent wound, your parents experienced parent wounds as well. These ways of being are passed down.The impact of Father and Mother Wounds can extend far beyond the life of the affected individual. These wounds can be passed down to future generations, creating a cycle of dysfunction and unhealthy relationship patterns. It is vital for those with parental wounds to break this cycle by addressing and healing their own unresolved issues in order to pave the way for greater emotional wellbeing in the generations to come. By facing your unresolved emotional burdens, adults can create an environment in which their own children can thrive and develop healthier relationship habits, ultimately breaking the cycle of intergenerational pain and trauma.
Ready to break the cycle? You may be interested in doing the healing work inside of my 8-Week Empowered.Secure.Loved. Relationship Program. In 8 Weeks you will release the past, learn to embody a secure attachment style, and rewire your brain for healthy love. It is everything you need to heal the relationship with yourself and attract the romantic partner you’ve always wanted.
