Releasing Anger Towards My Mother

This entry is for my mother, who I have fostered a great deal of anger for throughout my life; what I perceived as her shortcomings provided the necessary fuel for leaving the household enraged by her tendency towards criticism and her inability to show warmth. Like many children, I vowed to live my own life. I refused to become her. Hellbent on this preoccupation, I slowly became her. The brain is a remarkable thing. The more we focus on a particular outcome, the more likely we will achieve it.

I didn’t realize the fervent rejection of particular personality traits and patterns would lead to my complete integration of them. Instead, the obsession led to an adulthood filled with anxiety, depression, and the penchant to associate pain with love.

I made the necessary detachment from my mother at age 21. From this point forward, I began the painful experience of psycho-spiritual healing. Identifying inherited trauma and particular patterns became a focus of my educational development, and I began to shed the skin of the past. In reflection, I would never trade the patterns I’ve since released, for these patterns are part of my awakening.

I’ve come to recognize that my parents' experiences are not theirs — they are a collection of the transgenerational collage in which we live. For this, I understand that the healing of wounds is the healing of collectivity. What a powerful gift, isn’t it?

The grit I learned from my mother expresses itself in an unstoppable urge for autonomy and independence. Although her actions might have demonstrated a lack of power, her words taught me the importance of self-reliance. This trait is one that I will walk through hell and back for…, and they say that words are meaningless without action. Not always true (but mostly true, ha).

I often catch myself saying, “I wish I grew up rich” or “I wish my parents were more like x,” but this is a foolish and fleeting desire. I’m still angry, but I’ve realized that my anger is not for my mother. Instead, my anger is for the systematic oppression that occurs on a collective level. The parents are only a reflection of this. The parents are an extension of societal norms.

With this, I forgive my mother. I’ve accepted that she has unconsciously gifted me a capacity to heal the ancestral wounding of our family line.