This is the first Mother’s Day I will spend without a living mother. I feel a dull ache around not sending a card or ordering flowers. I feel an empty longing with no one to call. I am breathing open the wafting contractions that clench my chest. And I am profoundly grateful to be able to include all of this in my moment to moment experience. I appreciate beyond description the capacity to feel all of this without denying or becoming it. Since the death of my father in 1982 I have subtly dreaded the loss of my mother. In the early years following his passing I pondered whether or not I could survive her transition. And now it is here and I have and I am. And it leaves a void in my life that only my own enduring presence can heal.
My prayers regarding my mother over the past several years most often included the intention that before she left the planet she would see and realize that the way she felt about herself was at the root of the torment she so often felt. To say that she was plagued with low self esteem doesn’t begin to get at the level that it was true. It was an identity, and in many ways a badge of honor. Her own relentless self scrutiny was consuming. Her inner atmosphere permeated her self talk, and spilled over into the way she frequently interacted with her children and others. She had no idea that what amounted to a toxic self image would become a large part of her legacy. It was a blind spot of epic proportions.
My mother was a smart, attractive, witty, giving woman who took care of others both personally and professionally her entire life. And yet she had been imprinted with a belief that she was somehow faulty and undeserving, ugly and undesirable. It didn’t matter that she had two marriages to men who completely adored her. That was lost in the perceptual prescription she never quite transcended. Life did not turn out the way she wanted and it hardened her and confirmed her suspected unworthiness. She so wanted her children to have something better. Yet what she demonstrated spoke more loudly than what she tried to tangibly provide.
I took on the scrutiny and the unworthiness early in life. I do not fault my mother. I was in close relationship to her mother and so I know from whence the programming came. She fixated on not wanting to be like my grandmother. And yet in many ways she became just that. How could she not? That was the role model of mother she had to learn from. There were certainly ways in which she did better that example. I do not lose sight of her gifts. While ours was an imperfect relationship she was the perfect mother for me. I will love her until my last exhalation. And I am committed to transcending the inherited esteem by dedicating my days to allowing life to love me and then to extend that love as my way of being and as my contribution to the world.
I in no way intend to diminish my mother with my candid sharing. And I ask that you not disparage my mother either. I share this as a way of honoring her and as a request that you my readers look deeply within your own inner atmosphere for any ways you may diminish or dishonor your self. Our inner atmosphere is in reality an energetic mother womb. It is where we dwell and from where we express. We cannot earn worthiness by helping or giving to others. We cannot earn worthiness at all. We are worthy by Source. Though our behaviors, words, and actions so often miss the mark our inherent worthiness goes unscathed. Regardless of what we may have taken on early in life what we are is far more than we realize. Our inner atmosphere is our experience of God. God loves us via our own withinness. Low self esteem is forgetfulness of God. We are here to learn that and to become all we were born to be.
I know my mother loved me. And I know that at the level she could take it in she knew I loved her. I trust that as she has crossed the threshold of this great Mystery she moved into a place where a clearer vision and a broader perspective is soothing her heart and drying her tears. She is a part of me and a part of everything I do. She is a part of this writing. I can feel her Higher Self speaking to me and to you “Love your self and Love your life. Let this be the legacy you leave.”
Thanks, Mom. I am doing just that.
