This is One of the Hallmarks of a Mother Wound

I define a mother wound as:

A rupture of attunement where a mother, due to her own unmet needs, lack of fulfillment/sense of self, and/or narcissistic and judgmental tendencies is unable to meet the emotional needs of her child. The mother’s expectations and needs become paramount and the daughter learns to orient around those needs.

As the center of being raised by a mother who can’t attune to her daughter’s needs lives a variety of “contracts”, which are unwritten and unspoken rules that the daughter must abide by if she’s going to remain in her mother’s good graces. Here are a few (I list many more in my Healing the Mother Wound course). The contract goes like this: As a “good daughter” it’s my job/I’m supposed to:

be the peacemaker.
hold all of the emotional baggage. This might sound like, “I’ll feel sad so that my mother doesn’t have to.”
make my mother feel better.
make sure she’s not lonely.
not hurt her in any way.
give up what I want so that she’ll be happy.
not complain.
not have difficult feelings or big feelings.
take care of my younger siblings.
not have needs.
not be difficult.
not be a child (this is the parentified child whose job it is to take care of her mother).
raise myself.
support all of my mother’s choices, even if I don’t agree with them.
be happy

The Core Hallmark

At the core of these contracts is a common thread, which is one of the key hallmarks of a mother wound: you must never say NO to your mother, and if you do say no you will be punished. In this sense, there is a cult-like quality to a being raised by a wounded mother: as long as you drink her Kool-Aid, she’ll give you the world. But as soon as you say no, you’re kicked to the curb.

You’re either in or out.

You’re either in favor or out of favor.

A narcissistic mother cannot tolerate being challenged.

She cannot tolerate a difference of opinion.

She cannot tolerate when her daughter begins to individuate, often between the ages of 8-12 years old.

When we learn that we cannot say no to our primary caregiver, we carry that belief into other relationships. We lose our voice. We pretzel and people-please. We become afraid of our anger, which is often a prelude to NO. We have a difficult time setting boundaries and trusting that someone’s reaction is not our fault.

The effects of being raised by a wounded mother are far-reaching, but if you are an adult daughter carrying a mother wound, there is a pathway to healing.

Healing the Mother Wound

The pathway requires grieving the mother that you never had so that you can open to the loving mothers who are all around you.

For the truth is that mothering is too vast of a job for one person. Even if you had a loving mother, it’s not enough to fill the need for mothering that we all have.

Once we grieve what never was nor could be, we can open to what is.

The woman who birthed me
is not my true mother,
just as I am not the true mother of
the sons I birthed.
The true mother is the one
who rocks us in her salty waters,
who whispers to us in the twilight hour when
she spreads her golden light across the
fields like a picnic blanket and
invites us to sit down.

Every time we notice an insect climbing up
a stalk of grass;
Every time we cry out to the moon and
allow her to catch our tears;
Every time we remember to pay homage at the
temple of our bodies,
we are being held by a mother who
knows us,
see us,
loves us.

How easy it is to forget that
we are not alone,
and to believe that
the one who birthed us
should heal our pain.
It is so much bigger than we imagine.
It is as a big as the stars and the galaxies –
this love from the mother who
waits for us to call to her and
ask to lie down in her arms.

Healing in Community

The 5th round of Healing the Mother Wound: A 40-day course for daughters will begin on April 25, 2026, and I only run this course every two years. The course includes three group coaching calls, support on a highly moderated forum, and, most importantly, connecting with other like-minded women worldwide who struggle with this same wound. I only run this course live (there’s no self-paced option) because I deeply believe that we need the support of a guide and other women while addressing this most tender pain. As always, we’re not meant to heal alone, and this is particularly true when it comes to healing from the mother wound.

Here are the dates and times for the Zoom calls. Please note that only about 1/4 of the participants are typically able to make the live meetings for my courses. As always, if you can’t make the meeting, you’ll receive the recording afterwards.

Call 1: Thursday April 30 at 4pm ET / 1pm PT
Call 2: Thursday May 14th at 4pm ET /1pm PT
Call 3: Thursday May 28th at 11am ET / 8am PT

I look forward to seeing you there.

P.S. To listen to our Gathering Gold episode on the mother wound, click here.