“I know you LOVE me mama, but I don’t FEEL loved…”
The pain was searing in my body.
I felt a mix of total awe that a 12 year old could communicate such a refined distinction and horror that she was saying it to ME.
I remember when Calvin was 4… I was dropping him off at his grandmother’s and he held onto me. Through his tears, he said, “Mama, you are always at work… I don’t want you to go.” I was a single mother on welfare working two jobs just trying to put food on the table.
There is a pain that only a parent knows… one where we feel we are letting our children down. There is simply nothing like it… nothing quite as torment-us, and nothing quite as motivating.
As I tore myself away from him that morning and cried the entire way to work… deep anger took over me… and swiftly turned into absolute unshakeable determination.
I would find a way to be with my son, and also feed and house us…
BUT HERE’S THE THING….
I couldn’t accomplish it THAT DAY, that week, or even that month. It took me three months of holding this pain and allowing it to fuel me for me to save every penny I could, working OVERTIME at both jobs as much as possible… to have enough to quit both jobs and go on the hunt for work I could do with him by my side.
And do you know what the HARDEST part of all of it was?
The part where I knew he may be thinking that I worked MORE and didn’t love him. The wondering if his little heart could find a way to trust the process with me and allow the mess to get just a little messier to find our paradise on the other side…
And it’s what I feel again with my daughter but for very different reasons.
And it fkg hurts.
The wondering if she can ride the storm with me as we reach for a better future… where together we break such long-standing generational suffering and claim something new for all.
I don’t have what she is asking for inside of me, to give her yet.
I have done the deep true work to break away from toxic humans, being taken advantage of and allowing abuse… and am in a safe, loving environment… and she walked through that storm with me.
But I’m still the woman who grew up with a mother who hated her, mental, physical, sexual, religious and emotional abuse… for 35 years. 2 suicide attempts and a whole lot of rage, depression and numbing. I used to think I was just spinning excuses to acknowledge this. It took so so much for me to become aware that acknowledging it… is POWER.
I’ve come a longgggg way.
And I’m still healing.
I’m still working to break free of the PTSD symptoms and choose to be worthy of LOVE.
And although I can stand with a clean heart knowing I HAVE ALWAYS GIVEN EVERY SINGLE THING I HAVE… she feels the shortcomings and it fkg hurts.
The voices are loud… Do better, you’re failing… get your sh* together Mandy…
But I’ve been here before.
I know this place.
When I was choosing to break out of poverty everyone told me I was selfish and crazy… who did I think I was… “You care more about your business than your own children…” they said.
What did they know?
They weren’t called to break the lineal torments I was called to do.
They didn’t have my fire, my drive, my patience, my courage…
It was so, soooo easy to make me look like a bad mother…
But my love was so deep, so relentless that I chose again and again to allow others to talk bad about me so I could do the work on the back end and create actual HEALTH. Actual freedom. Actual JOY for us.
I believed we deserved it and I felt called to do it.
And I let my little 4 year old son believe I cared more about work for 3 months so that I could spend the rest of my life by his side.
It hurt but I let the fire burn off my ego.
And here we are again… my bigger than life daughter… telling me she doesn’t FEEL LOVED by me.
And it’s So fkg valid.
How she yearns to be loved? I am not there yet, and it fkg hurts.
I cry it out… I ache and I let the fire burn off all that is still holding me back from LOVE. Feeling worthy of love, KNOWING how to feel love, receive love, deep, profound love and HAVING IT WITHIN ME TO GIVE.
I’m further along than I have ever been, but her powerful self demands more. And hurt as it does… this isn’t the time to waver and fall…
My daughter?
She knows her wants and needs…
But I’m her mother, and it’s my job to know vastly more…
What she needs is for me to be strong and humble enough to accept where I truly am in my healing journey and to not pretend I have more to give than I do, so that I can heal and strengthen to walk with her through her whole life, showing her what LOVE TRULY IS.
I know this place.
Where her father sees me as selfish and choosing myself over her. Many humans would, maybe they do… idk, that is not my concern… “BE a mother.” he says.
I cry, I feel my daughter and I hold the mother fkg vision of something so much greater than anything we have ever known. Every moment of my life has led me here… in this place where I have the courage to know…
> AS I HEAL, SHE HEALS.
Every single day I give all that I have, and every single day it is not enough… Her soul has called her to this experience.
For her to hold such a profound vision for humanity in your little self… and feel such a lack of love… focusing only on what’s not there and not being able to feel the LOVE that surrounds her every moment of the day, from many many humans.
You see?
I am a mother who has walked out of trauma, mothering 2 children who have suffered deep trauma.
THIS IS NOT SOMETHING OTHERS SHOULD HAVE AN OPINION ON.
This is a dance only Source can guide me through… a deep unyielding knowing of what I’m here to create before I die.
If I let societal standards, cultural supposed to’s and other’s criticisms affect me… we’d still be on welfare, and I’d be in a toxic abusive relationship, 250lbs and drinking to get through… or I’d be dead. 100%.
Does it hurt to be in this in-between space where I walked away from what was familiar to everyone and am not yet the full on version of loving me I desire to be?
Omg yes. It hurts all day every day… but the pain is simply the fire burning off all that doesn’t belong.
Can she see me?
Can she trust the process?
Can she hold on while we calibrate to this new life of true safety and an abundance of love???
CAN SHE, will she ever choose to believe she is worthy of love?
Will she break through the illusion that she isn’t loved?
Will she ever choose to LOOK FOR EVIDENCE OF HOW LOVED SHE IS?
Or will she self-destruct, numb, and live in anger and lack?
I love her more than life and yet she cannot FEEL this.
I have no control over this… but I can tell you this much…
MY ABILITY TO BE SEEN AS A SHI* MOTHER IN ORDER TO SEE THIS TRANSITION OUT TIME AND AGAIN… AND TO CHOOSE MYSELF FIRST… TO CHOOSE TO HEAL ME… WILL BE HER BEST CHANCE IN THE WHOLE WORLD.
Children do as we do, not as we say. They become what we ARE.
I am showing her every day what it means to believe I am worthy and deserve love, gentleness, tenderness, care, adoration, wealth, freedom, PURPOSE, adventure, friendship…
She could have the me she wants so badly right now… the mother who overgives and codependently caves to her every complaint… and she would “FEEL LOVED” to her familiar patterns…
I could sacrifice the time I need to ground, connect, be guided and heal… and right now she would feel happy about that having no idea of what it means.
And others would be happier, think of me as a better mother, and I’d get kudos and peace…
But I’m not here to give her what she wants… I’m not here to appease society or family… I’m here to break the MF chains that the women in my lineage have endured for millennia.
And I’m doing extraordinary… and I have to remind myself every single day that it is my JOB to remind myself how amazing I am… because AS I BELIEVE THAT, so does she… SO DO THEY.
AS I AM, so they are.
So here I sit, in the liminal space, allowing the fire to burn. And I breathe. Ask for help. Return home. Stay in the energy of LOVE. Allow. Receive. Relentlessly reminding myself LOUDER THAN ALL THE NOISE… how fkg incredible we are. I AM.
And I will never stop.
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