On Feeling Like We Owe Our Mothers For Giving To Us Or Helping Us
One of the things I’ve had to stop myself from doing is mothering my mother as both of us get older.
I’ve had to sit with my guilt about how my life is evolving and this feeling that I need to pay my mother back for all the sacrifices she made so I live this life.
My mother never asked me to pay her back.
And part of me knows that this wouldn't be giving, it would be paying my mother back.
Sometimes, we take on financial responsibility no one asked us to take on.
We take it on ourselves and usually it's linked to our mothers and it's tied to the mother wound.
We can sometimes find ourselves feeling guilty the more successful we get and we don't know how to handle that guilt, so we give financially to our mothers.
We give financially, not because we want to, but because we feel guilty.
We find ourselves feeling guilty the about all that we're given by the universe because deep down we want to remain our mothers' little girls. We don't want to outshine our mothers and make them to question their lives or who they are.
We're scared that our mothers may disapprove of our success or even envy us that success and freedom because: patriarchy.
We know deep down we have a privilege our mothers never had because they were living in a different time.
And so we feel obligated to over give so we make up for that and all our mothers gave up for us to have this life.
And we may feel resentment for having to give more than we really want, which makes us feel even guiltier so we give even more out of guilt and shame.
Because how dare we feel that way about our mothers?
We try to pay our mothers back for all that patriarchy robbed them of.
We move back home so we can be closer to our mothers (and we don't like it) or we leave our kids with our mothers so our mothers always have someone with them.
And the more we give financially and emotionally, the more complex our feelings get and we find ourselves mothering our mothers out of obligation, love, guilt, shame, gratitude and/or resentment.
And often we don't know how to be honest about it so it festers and affects our finances and our relationship with our mothers.
THE MOTHER WOUND, GUILT & ITS IMPACT ON OUR FINANCES
Guilt and shame are two of the most complex emotions and can destroy our finances.
Anxiety and fear are pretty easy to recognise, but guilt and shame are more subtle and more layered.
One way to recognise guilt and/or shame around the mother wound is to observe what happens to your relationship with money when you're around your mom.
How do you use money - are you overspending? Are you taking care of all household expenses?
Do you suddenly get emergencies out of the blue when you're around your mom or have to leave your mom?
Or maybe your finances just get stuck, the flow of money to you, slows way down?
Why am I asking this?
Because guilt and shame are emotional responses to a deep belief that we're doing something wrong and when we feel like this we have to correct it.
And when it comes to money, we correct it by getting rid of money or blocking money.
OUR MOTHER WOUND CAN SHOW UP AS A BLOCK TO RECEIVING BECAUSE WE DONT WANT TO FEEL LIKE WE OWE OTHERS
Our relationship with our mothers affect our overall relationships, including romantic relationships.
If at a young age we saw our mothers gifts to us as a sacrifice on their part or were told that it was a sacrifice, it may give us the impression that receiving something from someone leaves them with less than, we may feel guilty about receiving.
Or we may feel like we owe people for giving to us; every time we receive, we may feel this need to pay people back, like we owe them.
Click on the video below to learn more about this topic
Does any of this resonate?
Lets discuss in the comments section below....
