The mother figure plays an essential role in almost every culture, yet the female energy has often been suppressed. On this Mother's Day, how about we take a moment to honour our Mother and the women from our long ancestral lineage for all they had done for us and step into our own feminine energy.
Photographs: Unsplash
Text: Ophelia Wu
There is no bond like a mother carrying her baby for nine months, and no greater love has been able to replace it. Motherly love is naturally a nurturing love. It's instinctive, survival, and can only be felt and experienced. We always forget and take it for granted that our mothers became mothers because it's part of life's journey, their duties. No, it sounds like one, but it is not; most of the time, it's a choice. We grew up looking up to our mothers for advice, role models, friends, and guardians, and we forgot our mothers also needed to be loved, nurtured, and looked after. They were once the little child we were, seeking approval, waiting for their parents to come home, hug them, and read them a bedtime story. A mother's love is passed along our long lineage- it's the will to keep their children safe and protected, nourish them and make sure they grow up healthily.
Our relationship with our mother and our feminine energy
In many religions and spiritual realms, even in psychology and the family constellation system, it's believed that our relationship with our parents heavily affects our relationship with almost everything in life. We don't need to dive into all of these, but we just need to remember and understand that there's an inner child and an inner Mother within us. Many of our frustrations and life lessons come from our frustrations toward our parents. Suppose we had not been validated or given enough attention as a child. In that case, we easily fall into the lower self-value side of the spectrum, constantly being a people-pleaser and overcompensating, all because we seek the approval we desperately wanted but didn't get from our parents. We can take a step back and try to understand that our parents probably gave us everything they had and could within their knowledge and experiences from their upbringing. It came from generations of habits. The patriarchal society and pressure are not helping either, especially back in the day's women were heavily deprived of many opportunities.
When we are feeling guilty for taking time for ourselves, feeling shameful for resting, that's when we are disconnected from our feminine energy. Not being able to fully step into it (i.e. feeling unattractive, body-conscious, not appreciated, etc.), and unleashing the inner goddess because what we had been taught by generations of motherly figures that we were more on the survival level, duty before self. So there simply wasn't time to feel. Once we realise this suppressed feminine energy, we might be able to unlock our own and be connected to it, slowly becoming our own women.
Some might decide to embark on an ancestral healing journey, some form of psychotherapy to heal that. Whatever method suits you is of no one else's business, but on Mother's Day, let's take a moment to honour all that had been passed down from our great-great-great-great grandmother's generation or further back. We are their living legacy; they did all they could so we can be here living our dream lives now. It's not just our mothers we need to honour; it's all the female figures in our family, their wisdom, protection, love, scarification, or even their mistakes. So own it, honour it, and be thankful to all of them, for they had proved to be these resilient women with incredible strength even during wars when resources and education were limited. When we honour this legacy, we favour our future generations by freeing them from suppressing their feminine energy - it is powerful. So looking after ourselves and being consciously aware of this is already a great way to honour them.
Those who are blessed to still have their mothers and grandmothers alive and around, take the chance to express your love and gratitude; for those who sadly don't have them around, may you continue feeling the love and blessings while remembering them. May all mothers be honoured, remembered, appreciated and loved.