When I was a child and either frightened or sad, my mother would cradle me in her arms and say, “Mummy knows, mummy knows.” At the deepest level possible for me at the time, I knew she meant that she understood and that everything was going to be all right. It was the most comforting feeling I ever had, ever. Since she passed away more than twelve years ago, whenever I am in need of comfort and no one is around, I can go to that place inside and call upon the memory and the feeling it gave me.
Our mother is the first connection we have to life. It is how we judge the world when we are very young. Is it a friendly, warm and loving place or is it a cold and frightening one? Not everyone is blessed with a nurturing, loving mother as my sister and I were. There are many kinds of mothers. It cannot be said that they are either warm and loving or cold and cruel. There are mothers all across the spectrum.
Your mother may be your fist connection to the world but she is certainly not the only source of comfort or nourishment. In the case of adoption, your birth mother is not someone you stay with, rather an adoptive mother. Whether you were adopted or not, let’s say that your mother was not a warm or nurturing person. Unless these children form bonds with another human being or beings, they will not have the experiences that a loving parent might have given to them. That being the case, what do they do as children or later as adults when they are troubled or hurting?
Some find comfort in drugs or alcohol, food or the intimacy of sex. Some look for it in every person they meet, and they spend their lives going from one person to the next until they find it. Some find it in God or Jesus or Mohammed or Buddha or.. Some of these people marry someone who provides that missing ingredient in their lives. There are many ways we can eventually get the comforting feelings we might have missed as children. Some are obviously healthier than others.
When I was single, which was for many years, I dated several men who did not have loving relationships with their mothers. Their mothers were either emotionally unavailable, abusive or gone. I wondered if part of the attraction they had for me was the fact that I was a warm and loving, nurturing woman. I believe so.
If you no longer have a mother, like me, then you each have your own way of finding the comfort and solace that you need as a flawed human. The “mother” qualities of nurturing, caring, loving, patient and empathetic can be found in other places, in other humans, and perhaps most importantly, within ourselves. If you did not grow up with a first hand knowledge of these attributes, then you may need to learn them in order to become your own source.
Mother Earth, Mother Nature, the genesis of life. Look inside yourself to find yours. And on Sunday, celebrate with gratitude, the mother within.
