Many years ago when I was sidelined with bronchitis, I started watching Judging Amy reruns every day and immediately got hooked. If you’re not familiar with this show, it's about a Juvenile Court judge (Amy) who is in her thirties and lives at home with her mother (Maxine), a social worker. Amy has a 10-year-old daughter named Lauren. While I found the courtroom scenes, the social work stories, and the love triangles intriguing, I still wasn't quite sure why I was so drawn to this show.

A few of my inner voices were intent on judging me for this “prime time obsession.” Can't you find something better to do with your time? This is ridiculous. You’re becoming a TV junkie!  

In spite of this, somewhere deep within me I felt the need to keep watching. It felt like something more than just a television show, so I decided to trust the other inner voices who were nudging me to continue watching. I chose to trust my intuition, and developed a “wait and see” attitude as I continued to watch episode after episode, season after season.

While all of this was happening, I did a SoulCollage® reading where I asked a question of my deck, and then drew four random cards. Sacredness, Surprise, and Synchronicity were afoot as THREE of those four cards had something to do with the topic of mothering.

As I continued with this reading, I discovered something wonderful!

Here is part of what my Divine Mother card (see image above) said to me as part of this reading:

Truly deep mothering is not something that you received, although your mom's intentions were good. You are now struggling with the process of inner mothering. I can help you with this. Watching Judging Amy is helping you too. Do not brush it aside as “just another TV show . . .” You are receiving much wisdom and insight from watching Maxine with Amy, and Amy with Lauren. Embrace what you are learning there. Be glad of it and grateful for it as well.

I was completely startled to see those words flow from my heart to my hand to the paper! Everything became clear to me as soon as I wrote those words. Crystal clear. From then on, whenever I watched the show, I had a focus, and the lessons I learned about what it means to lovingly mother myself came faster than I could write them down.

As a result of these insights, I pulled my inner Good Mother card out from my deck and added an image of Amy and Maxine. Whenever this card appears in a reading, I am instantly reminded of the mothering lessons I learned from watching this drama so many years ago.

I love telling this story about myself because it's a clear reminder of how I should always trust my intuition. I’ve also learned not to judge myself for wherever my soul is leading me, even if it's guiding me to watch a certain television show! My soul truly does know what will serve me best. All I have to do is listen and follow.

Editor’s Note: The above essay is from Anne Marie’s book, Into the Heart of SoulCollage® on sale on Amazon now (and fr*ee to read with Kindle Unlimited!). 

Date: Sunday December 13, 2020

Time: 3pm Eastern

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It’s been seventeen years since my mom’s final annual Christmas visit. Holiday times still find me tearful when seeing mothers and daughters strolling, lists in hand, down the grocery aisles, or wandering arm in arm around the mall. I continue to miss my mother so much despite the fact that I often dreaded her ten-day visits where we’d get on each other’s last nerve every single day!

To say we had a complicated relationship is an understatement. I imagine many daughters would say the same thing about their relationship with their mothers. Why is that? 

Wowee! If ever there is a shadow magnet, it is the Neter of Mother. We often hold the unrealistic (and perhaps unconscious) expectation that a good mother should have met all our needs. No wonder our mothers come up short and are blamed as the prime source of adult angst. No wonder we need a Soul Songs column on mothering ourselves!

Given so many shadowy projections around Mother, I’d like to pause here and suggest that “nurture myself” is a more accurate term than “mother myself.”

Self-nurture means to supply oneself with vital nourishment so one may grow and thrive. Self-nurture is not simply a matter of more bubble baths, mugs of hot chocolate, and naps under a cozy throw—though they certainly can help!

Self-nurture is a life and death matter for the soul. Self-nurture is a matter of tending and befriending one’s soul. Studies show that women excel at this. We just need to step back and look at the complex picture of mothering/nurturing. Then we can develop skills to respond in the moment to our unique needs for nurture.

It is vital to understand the Mother Neter in the context of our patriarchal society. As a resentful daughter and a shame-filled mother, I found healing insight by carefully studying Sue Monk Kidd’s spiritual autobiography, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter. It transformed my understanding of the Neter of Mother and put me on the road to being at peace with June’s human mothering and, most importantly, with my own human mothering of two sons.

Monk’s realization that her religious training—if God is male, then male is God—explained the insidious ancient nature of misogyny in a brand new way to me. I also woke up to cultural beliefs around the Neter of Mother, often seen as the Many-Breasted-Mother who is expected to graciously and competently meet all her family’s needs while placing her own needs last.

My wise friend Millie, the serene matriarch of a large family, has mothered/nurtured me over two decades. I asked her for her thoughts about mothering/nurturing herself. Millie said that the key to navigating her motherhood was to do her shadow work about her own mother-daughter history. That work helped her to understand and heal her own wounds and to not unconsciously project her neediness onto her children. Millie knows it’s not possible to give others what we do not have.

Shadow work also allowed Millie to honor her own needs as an introverted mother of four. She has fiercely pursued solitary quiet time so that her soul could be nourished and so that she could enjoy her children. Millie has used Susan Cain’s book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking to help her family respect her unique needs.

—Source Unknown 

At one end of this spectrum is Functioning-Yet-Often-Depleted-Adult and at the other end is Barely-Functioning-Adult-with-Anguished-Wounded-Inner-Child.

If you have a Wounded Inner Child whose unmet, unhealed needs are clamoring for attention, I urge you to look for a professional therapist experienced in healing childhood trauma. Research the many available healing modalities and choose the approach and therapist that’s a good, trustworthy match for you. My beloved Internal Family Systems therapist Annette helped me learn how to identify and respond to my wounded inner child’s needs. Serendipitously and simultaneously, SoulCollage® showed up as an excellent complementary practice that accelerated our healing work.

If your Functioning-Yet-Often-Depleted-Adult needs tending, ask yourself what you need in the moment and take small steps to nurture yourself. If you need to develop stronger skills, closely observe those who seem to have mastered Self-Nurturing. Ask them how and what they do to meet their own needs.

a. Any Neters of Mothering or Self-Nurture.

b. Any Neters of Wounded Inner Child.

a. Each pile’s patterns, colors, symbols, creatures,

settings, etc.

b. Similarities between the two piles—patterns, colors,

symbols, creatures, settings, etc.

c. Surprises, synchronicities, or the Sacred.

a. Who are you? (“I Am One Who…”)

b. What are your earliest memories of each other?

c. What has been lacking in your healing and growth?

d. What do you need from each other?

e. What guidance do you have about Self-Nurture?

f. How will I remember that guidance? (Specific cues

such as symbols, colors, sounds, tastes, smells.)

Dear friends, remember that it is not too late to nurture your capacity to meet your own needs!

Be vigilant during the holidays and nurture yourself lavishly!

P.S. Mystics say before the soul comes back into this world, it chooses first a mother and then a father who are best suited to assist its growth. Remember that and smile if/when your own child shouts, “I didn’t ask to be born!”

Marti Beddoe has been a SoulCollage® Facilitator and meditation teacher in the Kriya Yoga lineage since 2007. She is Founder of Designs for Peace, a service offering practices to support lives of Meaning, Joy, and Beauty. Marti has been nurtured by her work guiding the first online Walking the Beauty Way Circle. Marti's monthly “Contemplating the Beauty of..." essays explore the mysterious Beauty of various Neters. Visit this page and scroll to the bottom to subscribe. You'll receive a fr*ee Harmony Self-Assessment. If you find these reflections are useful, I’d love to hear from you at marti@martibeddoe.com.

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