On January 6th, 2021, my book Discovering the Inner Mother was published, which was the same day that the violent insurrection was unfolding at the U.S. Capitol
All of it. All of these beautiful words resonate with me and opened up a deeper sense of what’s next. I have been caring for my mother as she goes thru chemo and radiation and it’s deeply depleting emotionally and mentally. I’ve kept her at arms length since I did the mother wound work with you almost 4 years ago. I KNEW something has been burning within me and words haven’t been forthcoming. Until I read this. Thank you. It emits a depth of being my soul has quietly been whispering, and you turned the volume up and precisely tuned the frequency for me to hear and feel it all. 💞💗💞
Thank you so much for reading the essay and for taking the time to share such a thoughtful comment. It's deeply moving to hear how it landed for you during such a tender season of caring for your mom.
I especially loved what you wrote about your soul quietly whispering to you. I'm so curious to see what continues to unfold for you in the months ahead. One of the greatest things this journey has taught me is that each of us has our own unique and organic way of unfolding—and that it really can be trusted.
Thank you again for sharing this. It's wonderful to connect with you here. ❤️
Bethany, thank you for sharing your Journey with us. I also believe and feel that you were sent on this path for a bigger purpose. Your existence and life is a huge significance to all of us. Your words and your bravery have sent ripples to women all over the world.
I can’t tell you how much your words mean to me today. As I continue to navigate the difficulty of being in relation to my own mom, I have been pulled into the depths of emotional struggle and pain over the past year. Over the past year, I have been drawn in to a new way of being in the world, a way that I don’t have a map for and one that I don’t have any guidance for. I’ve cried a lot about it. I know that I need to continue to love myself through the dark emotional places and it has made me feel as though I am trusting life more - trusting what I cannot see. The pain of navigating my relationship with my mom is no longer centre stage in my life, my own life and healing has become at the centre. I have so many feelings about all of it and I know that I can hold myself through it. Just as you’ve written here, I am learning to trust the unknown and know that I am always being held and guided. I don’t feel as afraid anymore and your work has been a big part of that. Thank you. ❤️
Dear Kim, You're doing really brave work. When we have emotionally immature mothers, the struggle to claim the right to be the authority of your own life can feel like a true battle. I'm hearing you having moved your center off your mom and onto yourself. That is HUGE. I am so happy to hear you are learning to trust the unknown and that you are guided. Thank you so much for being here, for reading the essay and leaving such a powerful comment. It's wonderful to be connected here!
Thank you, Bethany. I followed your work/course in those early pandemic years when I was first no contact with my family and doing my own mother wound healing. Your work was a road map for me and gave me the courage to start doing my own inner work. You spent time with me on coaching calls and helped me rewire my brain for safety. I've been so grateful that I found you when I needed that support the most. I've kept working on my own healing and feel like I'm such a different woman than I was even 5 years ago. I've thought about you over the last couple years and wondered how you were doing. Since I diligently read your blog, I had noticed less content and hoped you were okay. This was an absolutely beautiful and deep essay and I loved reading about your story, growth, and journey over the last few years. Thank you for sharing and thank you for being my example. Empowerment is contagious and I'm inspired by you!
Dear Emily, it's so great to hear from you! Thanks for updating me on how your growth has been evolving since you took the course. I'm so glad those Q&A coaching calls were helpful to you. It's wonderful to hear this essay helps you feel empowered to read. Thank you for reading it and taking the time to share your feedback with me. I really appreciate it. Cheers to the next phase of the journey!
Though I am 9 years into a deep healing journey and have not come out on the other side yet, your She Who Speaks piece is VERY ENCOURAGING and illuminating. I am often impatient with the slow pace of deep inner work, but hearing from another courageous, soulful, healing warrior about where this process can take us if we meet it curiosity and tenderness, is immensely helpful. Those of us in the middle of the darkest phases of healing need to be reminded of why we're doing it -- there is a life down the road "no longer organized around the wound", marked by learning to embody joy, freedom and peace after many years of deep struggle. Thank you for that. Truly. Thank you.
Dear Holly, I got goosebumps reading your comment. I am so happy to hear this felt very encouraging to you. I completely understand feeling impatient with the slow pace of deep inner work. I have felt that way myself at times and it's so natural, especially in those moments where we feel "squeezed" by the process. I do think we need more models of people coming out of these deep healing phases and able to embrace life in a new, simple, quiet, gentle way. I am so glad this came through and I deeply appreciate your thoughtful feedback and presence in this new space. Thank you!
Thank you for posting about your journey. Having lived in France and spent time in Nice I can say you picked a very nice place to regroup. I have been on a journey for over 20 years being scrambled like a cracked egg in mid life. I have since then chosen to follow the bread crumbs and see the sacred in all things. From my career in DC to Colorado, to Hawaii, to Sweden. Currently living in Mauritius with a view of the Indian Ocean and the beautiful Le Morne peak. I chose to live a life of my own choosing focused on the simple, sacred and sensual. And like your life, mine has led to many estrangements. But choosing the path less well traveled HAS made all of the difference. Bravo for a wonderful piece
Dear John, Thank you so much for sharing the parallels of our journeys. "Following the breadcrumbs" is my favorite metaphor for describing this way of living. Being receptive, listening and following the higher flow, rather than pushing or forcing the mind's agenda. Learning to trust this way of life is not for the faint of heart. For me it was because there seemed no other option and I'm grateful for that brutal clarity!! Your journey to all these beautiful places sounds amazing and I can imagine the many adventures you have had as you follow the "simple, sacred and sensual". (I love alliterations) I appreciate you mentioning that this path less traveled can include the necessity of many estrangements. I do see that creates a kind of inner depth that can be hard to develop otherwise. Thanks again for reading my essay and taking the time to comment. I really appreciate that.
Thank you for so generously sharing your story Bethany, love. You inspire me to live more wide open - yes, undaunted! I absolutely loved our conversation recently and I can't wait to share it with the Red School community.
Hi Sophie! Thank you so much for having me on as part of your upcoming series where we discuss this article and the journey. I can't wait to share it widely when it is released in October. Thanks for walking this journey with me! Much love to you and the Red School community!
I have experienced the connection with what you describe, Love/Life twice both times through intense work with the mother wound, through painfull processing. Both times I experienced a sense of profound support and love from everything around me. Support is something I lack in my usual experience of life. The experience lasted about a week and then faded away, and I went back to experiencing the lack. I know now, that what I need exists and is here now for me but accessing it daily is still somehow beyond me. It's been a few years now that I have experienced that connection.
Dear Sandra, Thank you for sharing that you had a similar experience. I like how you describe it as feeling "profound support and love from everything around me." Like you, it was intermittent and fleeting for me as well, for many years leading up what I describe in the article. It seems to be that way for many people. That opening was real and like you said, showed you the connection is there and available. My sense is that we don't need to push or force it. Just expressing a willingness to be open to more of that support, is the key thing that invites it to be more present, I think. What I find is that living inside it full time is not a perpetual blissful spiritual experience; rather it feels like a deep sense of contentment that is always there in background, sometimes really strong and sometimes very quiet. Pretty ordinary yet deeply peaceful! Thank you so much for being here Sandra
Thank you for sharing your soulful path Bethany. I have been following you for years but not lately, and to read this has touched me deeply, reminding me of my connection to the deeper beloved that has felt lacking in a season of divorce and intense transition. I really feel your share anchoring me to a deeper part that I have been connected to and in love with for most of my life, that feels like a light finally turning back on. Thank you and bless your soul journey 🙏
Dear VSoul, it's wonderful to reconnect! A big smile came over my face as I read about your connection to the Beloved, that you have been in love with most of your life. That is a beautiful thing to re-connect with, especially while going through a time of divorce and intense transition. I think those very difficult times create the perfect conditions for exactly that connection to re-ignite. I deeply appreciate you reading the essay and sharing this gorgeous comment. Lots of love
Thank you so much Bethany. 💖 I so value and appreciate your incredible ability to put what’s sometimes indescribable into words. I felt deeply supported, moved and soothed hearing your story. Thank you for sharing your next chapter of deep healing and profound spiritual truth. I relate to so much of it even though some of the themes and events have played out in a different order in my life. I’m also emerging from an almost exact 4 year healing period (although it looked different) & suddenly the Universe is truly moving me on in the most aligned way into integration back into life. The trauma 4 years ago made me temporarily lose the trust I had built and regained since my parentified childhood and your words are helping me make sense of why that happened and to remember to let the love hold me again. Deeply and humbly thank you for sharing 💖
Dear Thea, thank you so much for sharing how the essay landed for you. I'm so glad it resonates. I love the similarity of you also emerging from a 4 year healing period and that you are re-gaining trust in life. How inspiring to hear that you are noticing the universe is moving you into deep alignment and integration back into life after this period. Sending you love and many blessings at this tender time on your path. So glad to have you here in this space
Oh, how I relate to this! And love that you moved to France. I feel life ‘forced’ me to stand still from 2000-2024. I thought I was stuck in life and not moving. I did a lot of work with your course, The Mother Wound. I thought my healing would look like rainbows and unicorns, lol. It’s crazy how none of that happened. I’m still finding peace with grieving and letting go of what’s not mine. As of this past year I’ve witnessed so many internal changes and integrations, it’s been wild! Like I’m slowly waking back up to a different version of me.
Hi Daisy! Yes, the healing process has its own organic timeline that is often way slower and deeper than we can imagine at the outset! With so many layers as well! I'm so glad to hear that you are now witnessing so many shifts, changes and integrations this past year. That makes sense. And wow, how exciting to be waking up to a new version of you. That seems so sacred and hopeful. Thank you so much for taking the time to read the essay and being here in this new space with me!
Thank you for the depth and beauty of your writing. I felt like I was there with you in the morning with your coffee, the light and the possible unknown blessing of your isolation at that time. I feel moved to witness your great courage which has also inspired and encouraged me to make similar very bold and courageous moves in my own life in discovering my strengths and feeling the quality of true love. Wishing you a blessed birthday with much gratitude ♥️
Dear Claire, thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. I'm so glad it inspired and also helped you feel you were right there with me, having coffee. That makes my heart smile!
Thank you so much for your soul-deep articulation of your experience and journey. So much of what you shared resonates, and the timing feels like sacred synchronicity.
I felt deeply connected reading this. This path asks so much of us—so much solitude, so much painstaking surrender.
When you wrote, "I'm teaching it from inside the living of it, not in retrospect, but in real time," I felt that in my bones. I understand this deeply. It is devotion. It is soul-creative living. It's sculpture. I have a feeling you'll might feel that too...essentially.
There are so many passages I could quote, but this one especially stayed with me:
"It takes one kind of courage to face your own pain and heal it. Yet it's an entirely different kind of courage to re-enter the world afterwards—to become fully permeable again, permeable to new people, permeable to new situations. To stay open anyway, knowing that pain is inevitable and yet there is a vast love present, always holding you and holding everything within it."
This is where I am.
Your reflection gives me hope and reminds me that I am not walking this path alone. It is soul-first living. Living Light is what has been—and continues to be—born through my own life.
Thank you for living it so honestly and sharing it so generously. Seeing you out there embodying this gives me courage. I am dipping my toe back into the world, slowly re-emerging, still healing, still living it all at once.
Dear Dana, Thank you for this gorgeous comment after reading the essay. I am so glad it resonates with where you also find yourself on the path at this moment. "Soul-first living"..YES!!! Sculpturesses indeed. Big hug and deep gratitude
A perfect read at a perfect time for me. I’ve not found much written about this phase of the process and am navigating it also. I find writing for others in this phase hard as the words are tricky for me to come by. But I’m inspired to write anyway after reading this. As the feeling of being spoken to exactly where I am is a wondrous feeling, truly! Thank you Bethany 🙏🏾
Hi Lola! I'm glad this inspired you to write more about your own experience of this phase of the process. That's really lovely to hear. I totally agree with you: it can be very hard to find words for this phase of the process! I so appreciate you taking the time to read and share how this landed for you. And I will explore your publication as well!
Thanks Bethany, this resonates with me on so many levels. Attempts to address my thoughts with my mother met with deflection, dismissal, denial. I was the problem - I was angry and unhappy, doubted her love for me but in recent years, staying focused, gaining strength and clarity, I’ve no longer played my part which has solidified those thoughts for her. Most recently, I’ve confronted, and am living with, my inner child’s ultimate fear: abandonment. While I grieve for the mother I so needed and wanted, I am that mother for my own daughters and rejoice in those relationships, which are not without their challenges.
My journey that began when I found your book, began therapy and simultaneously started training in counselling, which helped me grasp that my feelings were based in actual theory rather than intangible emotion that I couldn’t fully explain, has plateaued. Understanding that I wasn’t alone in my thoughts and struggle with the mother wound has been profound however, I’m in a different place from when I started and realised recently that I needed guidance on assimilation, moving forward and holding my strength. Your essay is so timely, not least because I’m in the south of France (the heat and wind are crazy!) but because it provides a path to acknowledging change, that assimilation is happening and to trust the process (and myself).
Dear Kirsty, Thank you so much for sharing a bit of your journey. I know how much strength it takes to have the courage to confront the dynamic with our mothers, to be met with the the dismissal and denial. And then on the other hand have to pour out so much to one's own children at the same time. That is an immense amount to hold. It sounds like you've done a ton of inner work and coming into a deeper place now. I'm so glad this essay met you in a moment of resonance with where you are moving in your own journey. I appreciate you taking the time to read the essay and share your thoughts. Very cool you are also in the SoF (yes the wind and heat are crazy!)
All of it. All of these beautiful words resonate with me and opened up a deeper sense of what’s next. I have been caring for my mother as she goes thru chemo and radiation and it’s deeply depleting emotionally and mentally. I’ve kept her at arms length since I did the mother wound work with you almost 4 years ago. I KNEW something has been burning within me and words haven’t been forthcoming. Until I read this. Thank you. It emits a depth of being my soul has quietly been whispering, and you turned the volume up and precisely tuned the frequency for me to hear and feel it all. 💞💗💞
Dear Anne,
Thank you so much for reading the essay and for taking the time to share such a thoughtful comment. It's deeply moving to hear how it landed for you during such a tender season of caring for your mom.
I especially loved what you wrote about your soul quietly whispering to you. I'm so curious to see what continues to unfold for you in the months ahead. One of the greatest things this journey has taught me is that each of us has our own unique and organic way of unfolding—and that it really can be trusted.
Thank you again for sharing this. It's wonderful to connect with you here. ❤️
Bethany, thank you for sharing your Journey with us. I also believe and feel that you were sent on this path for a bigger purpose. Your existence and life is a huge significance to all of us. Your words and your bravery have sent ripples to women all over the world.
Dear Melissa, Thank you for your generous words. They touched me deeply.
I can’t tell you how much your words mean to me today. As I continue to navigate the difficulty of being in relation to my own mom, I have been pulled into the depths of emotional struggle and pain over the past year. Over the past year, I have been drawn in to a new way of being in the world, a way that I don’t have a map for and one that I don’t have any guidance for. I’ve cried a lot about it. I know that I need to continue to love myself through the dark emotional places and it has made me feel as though I am trusting life more - trusting what I cannot see. The pain of navigating my relationship with my mom is no longer centre stage in my life, my own life and healing has become at the centre. I have so many feelings about all of it and I know that I can hold myself through it. Just as you’ve written here, I am learning to trust the unknown and know that I am always being held and guided. I don’t feel as afraid anymore and your work has been a big part of that. Thank you. ❤️
Dear Kim, You're doing really brave work. When we have emotionally immature mothers, the struggle to claim the right to be the authority of your own life can feel like a true battle. I'm hearing you having moved your center off your mom and onto yourself. That is HUGE. I am so happy to hear you are learning to trust the unknown and that you are guided. Thank you so much for being here, for reading the essay and leaving such a powerful comment. It's wonderful to be connected here!
Thank you, Bethany. I followed your work/course in those early pandemic years when I was first no contact with my family and doing my own mother wound healing. Your work was a road map for me and gave me the courage to start doing my own inner work. You spent time with me on coaching calls and helped me rewire my brain for safety. I've been so grateful that I found you when I needed that support the most. I've kept working on my own healing and feel like I'm such a different woman than I was even 5 years ago. I've thought about you over the last couple years and wondered how you were doing. Since I diligently read your blog, I had noticed less content and hoped you were okay. This was an absolutely beautiful and deep essay and I loved reading about your story, growth, and journey over the last few years. Thank you for sharing and thank you for being my example. Empowerment is contagious and I'm inspired by you!
Dear Emily, it's so great to hear from you! Thanks for updating me on how your growth has been evolving since you took the course. I'm so glad those Q&A coaching calls were helpful to you. It's wonderful to hear this essay helps you feel empowered to read. Thank you for reading it and taking the time to share your feedback with me. I really appreciate it. Cheers to the next phase of the journey!
Though I am 9 years into a deep healing journey and have not come out on the other side yet, your She Who Speaks piece is VERY ENCOURAGING and illuminating. I am often impatient with the slow pace of deep inner work, but hearing from another courageous, soulful, healing warrior about where this process can take us if we meet it curiosity and tenderness, is immensely helpful. Those of us in the middle of the darkest phases of healing need to be reminded of why we're doing it -- there is a life down the road "no longer organized around the wound", marked by learning to embody joy, freedom and peace after many years of deep struggle. Thank you for that. Truly. Thank you.
Dear Holly, I got goosebumps reading your comment. I am so happy to hear this felt very encouraging to you. I completely understand feeling impatient with the slow pace of deep inner work. I have felt that way myself at times and it's so natural, especially in those moments where we feel "squeezed" by the process. I do think we need more models of people coming out of these deep healing phases and able to embrace life in a new, simple, quiet, gentle way. I am so glad this came through and I deeply appreciate your thoughtful feedback and presence in this new space. Thank you!
Thank you for posting about your journey. Having lived in France and spent time in Nice I can say you picked a very nice place to regroup. I have been on a journey for over 20 years being scrambled like a cracked egg in mid life. I have since then chosen to follow the bread crumbs and see the sacred in all things. From my career in DC to Colorado, to Hawaii, to Sweden. Currently living in Mauritius with a view of the Indian Ocean and the beautiful Le Morne peak. I chose to live a life of my own choosing focused on the simple, sacred and sensual. And like your life, mine has led to many estrangements. But choosing the path less well traveled HAS made all of the difference. Bravo for a wonderful piece
Dear John, Thank you so much for sharing the parallels of our journeys. "Following the breadcrumbs" is my favorite metaphor for describing this way of living. Being receptive, listening and following the higher flow, rather than pushing or forcing the mind's agenda. Learning to trust this way of life is not for the faint of heart. For me it was because there seemed no other option and I'm grateful for that brutal clarity!! Your journey to all these beautiful places sounds amazing and I can imagine the many adventures you have had as you follow the "simple, sacred and sensual". (I love alliterations) I appreciate you mentioning that this path less traveled can include the necessity of many estrangements. I do see that creates a kind of inner depth that can be hard to develop otherwise. Thanks again for reading my essay and taking the time to comment. I really appreciate that.
Thank you for so generously sharing your story Bethany, love. You inspire me to live more wide open - yes, undaunted! I absolutely loved our conversation recently and I can't wait to share it with the Red School community.
Hi Sophie! Thank you so much for having me on as part of your upcoming series where we discuss this article and the journey. I can't wait to share it widely when it is released in October. Thanks for walking this journey with me! Much love to you and the Red School community!
I have experienced the connection with what you describe, Love/Life twice both times through intense work with the mother wound, through painfull processing. Both times I experienced a sense of profound support and love from everything around me. Support is something I lack in my usual experience of life. The experience lasted about a week and then faded away, and I went back to experiencing the lack. I know now, that what I need exists and is here now for me but accessing it daily is still somehow beyond me. It's been a few years now that I have experienced that connection.
Dear Sandra, Thank you for sharing that you had a similar experience. I like how you describe it as feeling "profound support and love from everything around me." Like you, it was intermittent and fleeting for me as well, for many years leading up what I describe in the article. It seems to be that way for many people. That opening was real and like you said, showed you the connection is there and available. My sense is that we don't need to push or force it. Just expressing a willingness to be open to more of that support, is the key thing that invites it to be more present, I think. What I find is that living inside it full time is not a perpetual blissful spiritual experience; rather it feels like a deep sense of contentment that is always there in background, sometimes really strong and sometimes very quiet. Pretty ordinary yet deeply peaceful! Thank you so much for being here Sandra
Thank you for sharing your soulful path Bethany. I have been following you for years but not lately, and to read this has touched me deeply, reminding me of my connection to the deeper beloved that has felt lacking in a season of divorce and intense transition. I really feel your share anchoring me to a deeper part that I have been connected to and in love with for most of my life, that feels like a light finally turning back on. Thank you and bless your soul journey 🙏
Dear VSoul, it's wonderful to reconnect! A big smile came over my face as I read about your connection to the Beloved, that you have been in love with most of your life. That is a beautiful thing to re-connect with, especially while going through a time of divorce and intense transition. I think those very difficult times create the perfect conditions for exactly that connection to re-ignite. I deeply appreciate you reading the essay and sharing this gorgeous comment. Lots of love
What a gift you are Bethany 🙏❤️
Thank you Gen! As are you! Appreciate you reading this.
Thank you for sharing this, Bethany. Reading your essay was like a balm for my soul, bringing light where it was needed; it was truly nourishing.
Many blessings to you 🌹
So glad to hear this, Marisol! Thank you so much for reading it
Thank you so much Bethany. 💖 I so value and appreciate your incredible ability to put what’s sometimes indescribable into words. I felt deeply supported, moved and soothed hearing your story. Thank you for sharing your next chapter of deep healing and profound spiritual truth. I relate to so much of it even though some of the themes and events have played out in a different order in my life. I’m also emerging from an almost exact 4 year healing period (although it looked different) & suddenly the Universe is truly moving me on in the most aligned way into integration back into life. The trauma 4 years ago made me temporarily lose the trust I had built and regained since my parentified childhood and your words are helping me make sense of why that happened and to remember to let the love hold me again. Deeply and humbly thank you for sharing 💖
Dear Thea, thank you so much for sharing how the essay landed for you. I'm so glad it resonates. I love the similarity of you also emerging from a 4 year healing period and that you are re-gaining trust in life. How inspiring to hear that you are noticing the universe is moving you into deep alignment and integration back into life after this period. Sending you love and many blessings at this tender time on your path. So glad to have you here in this space
Thank you Bethany for taking the time to write such a lovely response, it brought tears to my eyes. Sending much love back ❤️
Oh, how I relate to this! And love that you moved to France. I feel life ‘forced’ me to stand still from 2000-2024. I thought I was stuck in life and not moving. I did a lot of work with your course, The Mother Wound. I thought my healing would look like rainbows and unicorns, lol. It’s crazy how none of that happened. I’m still finding peace with grieving and letting go of what’s not mine. As of this past year I’ve witnessed so many internal changes and integrations, it’s been wild! Like I’m slowly waking back up to a different version of me.
Hi Daisy! Yes, the healing process has its own organic timeline that is often way slower and deeper than we can imagine at the outset! With so many layers as well! I'm so glad to hear that you are now witnessing so many shifts, changes and integrations this past year. That makes sense. And wow, how exciting to be waking up to a new version of you. That seems so sacred and hopeful. Thank you so much for taking the time to read the essay and being here in this new space with me!
Thank you for the depth and beauty of your writing. I felt like I was there with you in the morning with your coffee, the light and the possible unknown blessing of your isolation at that time. I feel moved to witness your great courage which has also inspired and encouraged me to make similar very bold and courageous moves in my own life in discovering my strengths and feeling the quality of true love. Wishing you a blessed birthday with much gratitude ♥️
Dear Claire, thank you so much for your thoughtful comment. I'm so glad it inspired and also helped you feel you were right there with me, having coffee. That makes my heart smile!
Thank you so much for your soul-deep articulation of your experience and journey. So much of what you shared resonates, and the timing feels like sacred synchronicity.
I felt deeply connected reading this. This path asks so much of us—so much solitude, so much painstaking surrender.
When you wrote, "I'm teaching it from inside the living of it, not in retrospect, but in real time," I felt that in my bones. I understand this deeply. It is devotion. It is soul-creative living. It's sculpture. I have a feeling you'll might feel that too...essentially.
There are so many passages I could quote, but this one especially stayed with me:
"It takes one kind of courage to face your own pain and heal it. Yet it's an entirely different kind of courage to re-enter the world afterwards—to become fully permeable again, permeable to new people, permeable to new situations. To stay open anyway, knowing that pain is inevitable and yet there is a vast love present, always holding you and holding everything within it."
This is where I am.
Your reflection gives me hope and reminds me that I am not walking this path alone. It is soul-first living. Living Light is what has been—and continues to be—born through my own life.
Thank you for living it so honestly and sharing it so generously. Seeing you out there embodying this gives me courage. I am dipping my toe back into the world, slowly re-emerging, still healing, still living it all at once.
We are sculptresses. ✨
Dear Dana, Thank you for this gorgeous comment after reading the essay. I am so glad it resonates with where you also find yourself on the path at this moment. "Soul-first living"..YES!!! Sculpturesses indeed. Big hug and deep gratitude
A perfect read at a perfect time for me. I’ve not found much written about this phase of the process and am navigating it also. I find writing for others in this phase hard as the words are tricky for me to come by. But I’m inspired to write anyway after reading this. As the feeling of being spoken to exactly where I am is a wondrous feeling, truly! Thank you Bethany 🙏🏾
Hi Lola! I'm glad this inspired you to write more about your own experience of this phase of the process. That's really lovely to hear. I totally agree with you: it can be very hard to find words for this phase of the process! I so appreciate you taking the time to read and share how this landed for you. And I will explore your publication as well!
Thanks Bethany, this resonates with me on so many levels. Attempts to address my thoughts with my mother met with deflection, dismissal, denial. I was the problem - I was angry and unhappy, doubted her love for me but in recent years, staying focused, gaining strength and clarity, I’ve no longer played my part which has solidified those thoughts for her. Most recently, I’ve confronted, and am living with, my inner child’s ultimate fear: abandonment. While I grieve for the mother I so needed and wanted, I am that mother for my own daughters and rejoice in those relationships, which are not without their challenges.
My journey that began when I found your book, began therapy and simultaneously started training in counselling, which helped me grasp that my feelings were based in actual theory rather than intangible emotion that I couldn’t fully explain, has plateaued. Understanding that I wasn’t alone in my thoughts and struggle with the mother wound has been profound however, I’m in a different place from when I started and realised recently that I needed guidance on assimilation, moving forward and holding my strength. Your essay is so timely, not least because I’m in the south of France (the heat and wind are crazy!) but because it provides a path to acknowledging change, that assimilation is happening and to trust the process (and myself).
Dear Kirsty, Thank you so much for sharing a bit of your journey. I know how much strength it takes to have the courage to confront the dynamic with our mothers, to be met with the the dismissal and denial. And then on the other hand have to pour out so much to one's own children at the same time. That is an immense amount to hold. It sounds like you've done a ton of inner work and coming into a deeper place now. I'm so glad this essay met you in a moment of resonance with where you are moving in your own journey. I appreciate you taking the time to read the essay and share your thoughts. Very cool you are also in the SoF (yes the wind and heat are crazy!)