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Discovering the Inner Mother: A Guide to Healing the Mother Wound and Claiming Your Personal Power
Sure to become a classic on female empowerment, a groundbreaking exploration of the personal, cultural, and global implications of intergenerational trauma created by patriarchy, how it is passed down from mothers to daughters, and how we can break this destructive cycle.
Why do women keep themselves small and quiet? Why do they hold back professionally and personally? What fuels the uncertainty and lack of confidence so many women often feel? In this paradigm-shifting book, leading feminist thinker Bethany Webster identifies the source of women’s trauma. She calls it the Mother Wound - the systemic disenfranchisement of women by the patriarchy - and reveals how this cycle is perpetuated by wounded mothers who unconsciously pass on damaging beliefs and behaviors to their daughters.
In her workshops, online courses, and talks, Webster has helped countless women re-examine their lives and their relationships with their mothers, giving them the vocabulary to voice their pain, and encouraging them to share their experiences. In this manifesto and self-help guide, she offers practical tools for identifying the manifestations of the Mother Wound in our daily life and strategies we can use to heal ourselves and prevent our daughters from enduring the same pain. In addition, she offers step-by-step advice on how to reconnect with our inner child, grieve the mother we didn’t have, stop people-pleasing, and, ultimately, transform our heartache and anger into healing and self-love.
Revealing how both women and men are affected by the Mother Wound, even if they don’t personally identify as survivors, 'DISCOVERING THE INNER MOTHER' revolutionizes how we view mother-daughter relationships and gives us the inspiration and guidance we need to improve our lives and ultimately create a more equitable society for all.
RUNNING TIME => 8hrs. and 45mins.
©2020 Bethany Webster (P)2020 HarperAudio
Audible Audio
First published January 5, 2021
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May 20, 2022I had many conflicting reactions to this book. I believe all in all, the concepts she discusses are deeply important for both women and men (though she writes solely to women). I would recommend this book to others WITH CAVEATS.
WEAKNESSES
-----------------------------------------------------
Webster pervasively blames "what's wrong in the world" on some concept called "patriarchy", the buzzword that's supposed to win applause in most circles. To me, it just comes off as very narrowly focused and oversimplified.
-----------------------------------------------------
Introduction includes the obligatory qualifier of being "an educated, white person of privilege" because...what, is your audience the type of people who won't listen to what you have to say until you've thoroughly groveled? I can't gauge the genuineness of these types of speeches, but they come across as scripted to me, and I dislike them.
-----------------------------------------------------
Webster frequently makes sweeping statements such as:
"For every human being, the very first wound of the heart was at the site of the mother, the feminine." Um, no, it wasn't.
-----------------------------------------------------
She attributes all wounds to the Mother Wound, yet gives no credence to the role of Father Wounds. This seems like because that wasn't HER experience, it doesn't matter.
-----------------------------------------------------
"I'm increasingly convinced that the world will be healed by women's ability to feel the full scope of their own feelings."
Well, you're half there. Women cannot and should not have the responsibility of HEALING THE WORLD. No one can do another's healing for them. If women heal, but men are not involved in this, nothing will get better. It's very strange that she places women in this Savior role, which is the very role she accuses...um, the patriarchy of instilling (caring for others' needs ahead of your own, emotional laboring, etc.) Funny that she also says later,
"when we refuse to toil emotionally for others...we are correcting an ancient imbalance....responsible for so much human suffering."
-----------------------------------------------------
A word on Christianity: she states that,
"Women's capacity for empathy has been exploited in our culture, distorted into guilt, a sense of obligation, emotional caretaking, codependency, and self-recrimination."
I personally experienced this more in a religious context, rather than a gender context.
-----------------------------------------------------
Her views on unhealthy mother-daughter dynamics were very narrow, really just a description of her own relationship of enmeshment with her mother. There is so much pain between mothers and daughters that has nothing to do with enmeshment.
"Because of the daughter's sympathy for her mother's plight, she is more likely to absorb her mother's pain as her own, creating a toxic enmeshment that directly prevents her ability to flourish in life."
This is a very specific type of dynamic. Not all women can relate to HER experience of being enmeshed, though she talks about this as though this is some scientific law about how things work. What if you just had a shitty mom for reasons a, b, and c, and are struggling to flourish in life because of it?
More universalizing her experiences:
"As little girls, we were rewarded for being relational, compliant, quiet, and invisible."
No, not all of us. I was indirectly "rewarded" by peers and parents for being smart, funny, kind, literate, and creative. And I know I ain't the only one.
-------------------------------------------------
The thing that bothered me the most was how frequently she offloads any responsibility that women may take for the pain they cause others (e.g. their daughters) as nothing more than patriarchal imprinting.
"...mothers who use their daughters in these ways are also exploiting their daughters' empathy in a patriarchal fashion."
"The fear of 'being a bad daughter/person' keeps so many women silent about the truth of their feelings, truth that if spoken could set them free in many ways. In actuality, this guilt is an artifact of control, the larger patriarchal control of women's voices and feelings."
No, this guilt is also perpetuated BY women, AS women.
I got tired of counting how many times she attributed all harmful behavior by women to patriarchal patterning. Women need to own the hand they have in wounding the world. They don't get to cop out with "the devil made me do it" argument. This type of thinking makes it impossible for women to be culpable for their actions because "it was never really their fault." It's always someone else's fault. In doing this over and over again, Webster insinuates that what is masculine is ultimately bad, and what is feminine is ultimately good. She even uses the phrase "patriarchal mothers", somehow not seeing that that is an oxymoron. She exonerates mothers for the conniving, controlling, manipulative, selfish, narcissistic behaviors they exhibit because THEIR BEHAVIOR isn't bad, they have only been influenced by the evil Masculine called patriarchy. This idea also insinuates that only men influence women--women don't influence men. And to me, this seems like an infantilization of women.
If we're going to say that no one can be blamed for their behaviors because it is the result of their unresolved pain...okay, maybe? But it needs to be universal. Bad behavior from women does not get a "get out of jail free" card. And furthermore, tipping the scales so that the Masculine is intrinsically bad is not the healing the world needs. It only stirs the pot of animosity between the sexes.
-------------------------------------------------
"Patriarchy is about power at all costs."
Okay, we get it. Patriarchy may be the need for power, yet patriarchy is not the only effect of the human lust for power!!! I would like to suggest that the lust for power or control exists within every human heart. Yeah, even in women. And the language we give to it--labeling it as "patriarchy"--uses men (or perhaps, the divine Masculine) as a scapegoat for evil. In fact, most of what she describes as patriarchy is actually misogyny.
--------------------------------------------------
"When a mother doesn't have access to her own feelings, she may see her daughter as an extension of herself and view her own negative feelings as having come from her daughter rather than from her own pain, which has been deeply suppressed in her unconscious. In this way, she may isolate and abuse her daughter, repeating the same abuse that she herself experienced, all while being in denial or unaware that she is doing this."
It's interesting that even having experienced this dynamic herself, Webster still places no culpability on the mother; it is somehow all the fault of the patriarchy. (Again, men bad, women completely innocent.) Also, she seems to place too much emphasis on the generational perpetuation of the Mother Wound, and not enough emphasis on the simple fact of motherhood being stressful, and causing mothers to hurt their children due to constant stress. While unresolved trauma is often taken out on children by parents, there is a huge situational component she ignores.
--------------------------------------------------
There is hardly a single page in this book that doesn't blame the patriarchy for all noxious mother-daughter relationships, and yet here is an example she gives that actually shows evidence to this being a more complex issue (though of course she never admits it). She discusses a video she saw about how mothers should seek the validation of their children in stressful times and she says,
"it perpetuates the illusion that the approval of one's children should be compensation enough for brutally unending thankless, isolating work of motherhood."
I really do agree with this. And I believe it is a million indirect or direct messages women receive from the culture at large--which involves more than just patriarchal influences--that can set them up for unhealthy patterns. Blaming the complexity of this issue on a single idea will prolong fixing it.
-------------------------------------------------
"Society tells mothers that their children should be enough of a reward and shames them when they feel anything less than total satisfaction."
Yeah, probably. What exactly is society, though? Is society not influenced by more than just patriarchy?
-------------------------------------------------
Unsupported claims that we're just supposed to run with: "...diminishing access to reproductive healthcare." Really, it's diminishing? Said who? Shouldn't this be cited?
-------------------------------------------------
"Perhaps the very definition of 'family' will change and expand. People who call themselves family may not be linked by blood but by soulful connections that mutually nourish their journey to discover and live their authentic truth."
I guess I get what's she's getting at. Like, later in life if one's family has been more harmful than good, we can surround ourselves with people who lift us up. But the nuclear family will never and should never cease to exist. It is through the nuclear family that infants, children, adolescents, and even teens develop their sense of belonging and identity. It's ridiculous to state that the nuclear family isn't a need.
-------------------------------------------------
She places a lot of emphasis on the manipulation mothers employ with their daughters, and not enough on "mom rage", which I believe is more common.
-------------------------------------------------
"This belief in a 'female defect' keeps women on a never-ending wheel of self-improvement, constantly working to meet an impossible standard of what a 'desirable woman' ought to be."
I believe the constant striving for self-improvement has more to do with individual personality than sex.
"...these things [excuses made for bad mothering], even if true, shouldn't be cause for you to swallow your pain, stop seeking healing, and silence yourself. This silencing is in accordance with the silencing of women as a whole."
Regarding taboos: "The taboo of focusing on self-exploration (labeled 'selfish,' especially for women."
This may be true in some circles, but if it is selfish for women, it is also seen as unsafe or effeminate for men.
"We all desire to be real, to be seen accurately, to be recognized, and to be loved for who we really are in our full authenticity. This is a human need. The process of becoming our real selves involves making peace with our capacities to be messy, intense, assertive, and complex--the very things patriarchy portrays as unattractive in women."
Of course it's true that every person wants to be seen and loved for their authentic self. She constantly victimizes women as being put upon by the male standard, yet ignores the reality of men needing to be their real selves in spite of societal expectations from the feminine. Is this to say only men have expectations for how the sexes should present, and women don't?
These types of beliefs above seem very self-focused to me. They unnecessarily isolate the self, assuming "only I experience this problem", when in reality, -->only you experience YOUR own problems.<-- We know what we experience better than we will ever know what others experience. I can see how this kind of thinking can give birth to this ideology that women are victims, and men are either blissfully living without these issues (e.g. societal expectations of their sex, feeling silenced) or are perpetrators of them.
--------------------------------------------------
"The most insidious forms of patriarchy pass through the mother."
This is probably the most ridiculous statement in the entire book. I am amazed that a logical person could come up with something so nonsensical, and that the editor was like, "Yeah, makes perfect sense." If the worst forms of "patriarchy" pass through women, THEN IT ISN'T PATRIARCHY!! By this logic, women are the biggest perpetrators OF patriarchy, and yet they're still not ultimately to blame??? This is where I actually bring out my bullshit-colored highlighter.
-------------------------------------------------
She describes the The Faces of Mother, which are the roles a mother is supposed to be for her child such as source, attachment, responder, modulator, etc. It makes me wonder: if a father who shirks or goes against his paternal tenets is part of patriarchy, what is it called when a mother does not live up to her tenets? (Let me guess, patriarchy?)
------------------------------------------------
"In response to the mother gap, the mask of a 'false self'...is formed."
Why does she assume that every person even HAS a mother gap/wound? They don't. And yet, we are all egoically programmed to have a false self.
------------------------------------------------
"'I can't be happy if my mother is unhappy...' Usually this belief comes from the pain of seeing your mother suffer from her own inner deprivation and your compassion for her struggle under the weight of patriarchal demands."
What if motherhood IN AND OF ITSELF is a demand that requires women to forget themselves? These issues are far more practical, and far less philosophical, than she makes them.
------------------------------------------------
"On a deeper level, the Mother Wound is a wound with life itself."
This may be one of the most important lines in the book, and one I think not even Webster realizes the truth of. After almost an entire book about how every wound is from the mother, and that all of the wounding is just patriarchal imprinting, she finally gets to the truth of it: we are all wounded, and it is part of being alive. These wounds can come from anywhere, and may be the result of real abuse, or a child-brain misinterpretation of reality. They may indeed come from a bad mother, bad father, or from just...being a person.
------------------------------------------------
TRUTH BOMBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
------------------------------------------------
"The deprived child within a mother may be looking to her daughter for the emotional nourishment that she never received from her own mother."
"One of the most powerful things we can embody is: 'I don't owe you a version of me that distracts you from your responsibility to face your own pain.'"
"Siblings may feel emotionally close as they lived the same experiences, and yet because their roles may be different in the family system, there may be tension about how their perceptions differ or contrast with one another."
Within "The Longing to Be Real and the Longing for Mother" section: page 126 "Refraining from emotional caretaking and letting people have their lessons is a form of respect for self and other...Contrary to what we've been taught, we don't have to heal our entire families. We only have to heal ourselves."
page 129-130: "Detach from the need for 'peace' at all costs...Detach from the need to be liked, understood, and approved of...If that bond [being approved by our parents as children] was compromised when we were children, as adults we may conflate being liked with being safe, placing our source of emotional safety outside ourselves as we did when we were children. Healing involves cultivating the primary source of our approval within ourselves."
"As she validated the hunger for approval from her inner child and affirmed the goodness and lovability of her wild, creative side, she began to see how often she had tolerated being overlooked and undervalued."
"YOU are worth every bit of discomfort it takes to embody and express more of who you truly are in this world. It's worth it for you in terms of how it creates a powerful inner environment of self-love and because what you offer the world as you radiate from that place of realness is pure gold."
"Each 'no' is a doorway into your greater 'yes'."
Quote from Marion Woodman on the Apocalyptic Mother and the Death Mother is on fire:
"'A life that is truly being lived is constantly burning away the veils of illusion, gradually revealing the essence of who we are. Apocalyptic Mother burns us in her hottest flames to purify us of all that is not authentic. Her energy is impersonal. She doesn't care how painful or terrifying the process is. Her only purpose is to serve life.'"
"The Death Mother archetype could be seen as the gatekeeper of our true power that lies beyond the taboo of confronting mother, keeping us trapped in shame, guilt, or fear."
Chapter 10: Giving Up the Impossible Dream
This motivates a person to perform to earn the acceptance and admiration he/she never received from their primary caregiver. This impossible task keeps us running in our own mental rat race, with a carrot that can never be reached through external reward.
"It gives a false sense of control and a false sense of hope that often gets projected onto other areas of our adult life."
Lesson: Acknowledging how childhood strategies did not work (or accomplish what we sought to receive.)
This whole chapter is pure gold.
Chapter 11: Accountability. This is where the work is truly done. Taking accountability for our pain (not placing blame, but providing for ourselves what our caregivers did not give us) is where we experience our own healing and stop cycles of harm.
"Feeling our pain is what allows us to become liberated from it."
I would change this to say, "attending to our pain".
"Through that primary, holy wound, we are called to become that loving mother to ourselves...and to all of life."
Chapter 12: Grieving
"The healing comes from mending this split [internal dichotomy between authenticity and attachment] so that both authenticity needs and attachment needs can be abundantly met within ourselves...and our relationships."
"This reunion in the self opens us up to the possibility of perceiving an even larger 'and,' the larger bond of love and belonging that pervades all life."
THIS IS WORTHY OF BEING TATTOOED: "Despair...is the pain of the inner child without a loving adult witness...Grief transpires when a loving adult consciousness is present alongside the pain...a feeling of 'I'm with you in this pain."
More hard truth bombs: "the true gift of being unseen is having no choice but to find and claim one's worth within oneself first, without getting the approval or validation of others."
-----------------------
Overall, an essential book about healing from our subconscious childhood wounds.
Obviously, she takes a different worldview than I do.
WEAKNESSES
-----------------------------------------------------
Webster pervasively blames "what's wrong in the world" on some concept called "patriarchy", the buzzword that's supposed to win applause in most circles. To me, it just comes off as very narrowly focused and oversimplified.
-----------------------------------------------------
Introduction includes the obligatory qualifier of being "an educated, white person of privilege" because...what, is your audience the type of people who won't listen to what you have to say until you've thoroughly groveled? I can't gauge the genuineness of these types of speeches, but they come across as scripted to me, and I dislike them.
-----------------------------------------------------
Webster frequently makes sweeping statements such as:
"For every human being, the very first wound of the heart was at the site of the mother, the feminine." Um, no, it wasn't.
-----------------------------------------------------
She attributes all wounds to the Mother Wound, yet gives no credence to the role of Father Wounds. This seems like because that wasn't HER experience, it doesn't matter.
-----------------------------------------------------
"I'm increasingly convinced that the world will be healed by women's ability to feel the full scope of their own feelings."
Well, you're half there. Women cannot and should not have the responsibility of HEALING THE WORLD. No one can do another's healing for them. If women heal, but men are not involved in this, nothing will get better. It's very strange that she places women in this Savior role, which is the very role she accuses...um, the patriarchy of instilling (caring for others' needs ahead of your own, emotional laboring, etc.) Funny that she also says later,
"when we refuse to toil emotionally for others...we are correcting an ancient imbalance....responsible for so much human suffering."
-----------------------------------------------------
A word on Christianity: she states that,
"Women's capacity for empathy has been exploited in our culture, distorted into guilt, a sense of obligation, emotional caretaking, codependency, and self-recrimination."
I personally experienced this more in a religious context, rather than a gender context.
-----------------------------------------------------
Her views on unhealthy mother-daughter dynamics were very narrow, really just a description of her own relationship of enmeshment with her mother. There is so much pain between mothers and daughters that has nothing to do with enmeshment.
"Because of the daughter's sympathy for her mother's plight, she is more likely to absorb her mother's pain as her own, creating a toxic enmeshment that directly prevents her ability to flourish in life."
This is a very specific type of dynamic. Not all women can relate to HER experience of being enmeshed, though she talks about this as though this is some scientific law about how things work. What if you just had a shitty mom for reasons a, b, and c, and are struggling to flourish in life because of it?
More universalizing her experiences:
"As little girls, we were rewarded for being relational, compliant, quiet, and invisible."
No, not all of us. I was indirectly "rewarded" by peers and parents for being smart, funny, kind, literate, and creative. And I know I ain't the only one.
-------------------------------------------------
The thing that bothered me the most was how frequently she offloads any responsibility that women may take for the pain they cause others (e.g. their daughters) as nothing more than patriarchal imprinting.
"...mothers who use their daughters in these ways are also exploiting their daughters' empathy in a patriarchal fashion."
"The fear of 'being a bad daughter/person' keeps so many women silent about the truth of their feelings, truth that if spoken could set them free in many ways. In actuality, this guilt is an artifact of control, the larger patriarchal control of women's voices and feelings."
No, this guilt is also perpetuated BY women, AS women.
I got tired of counting how many times she attributed all harmful behavior by women to patriarchal patterning. Women need to own the hand they have in wounding the world. They don't get to cop out with "the devil made me do it" argument. This type of thinking makes it impossible for women to be culpable for their actions because "it was never really their fault." It's always someone else's fault. In doing this over and over again, Webster insinuates that what is masculine is ultimately bad, and what is feminine is ultimately good. She even uses the phrase "patriarchal mothers", somehow not seeing that that is an oxymoron. She exonerates mothers for the conniving, controlling, manipulative, selfish, narcissistic behaviors they exhibit because THEIR BEHAVIOR isn't bad, they have only been influenced by the evil Masculine called patriarchy. This idea also insinuates that only men influence women--women don't influence men. And to me, this seems like an infantilization of women.
If we're going to say that no one can be blamed for their behaviors because it is the result of their unresolved pain...okay, maybe? But it needs to be universal. Bad behavior from women does not get a "get out of jail free" card. And furthermore, tipping the scales so that the Masculine is intrinsically bad is not the healing the world needs. It only stirs the pot of animosity between the sexes.
-------------------------------------------------
"Patriarchy is about power at all costs."
Okay, we get it. Patriarchy may be the need for power, yet patriarchy is not the only effect of the human lust for power!!! I would like to suggest that the lust for power or control exists within every human heart. Yeah, even in women. And the language we give to it--labeling it as "patriarchy"--uses men (or perhaps, the divine Masculine) as a scapegoat for evil. In fact, most of what she describes as patriarchy is actually misogyny.
--------------------------------------------------
"When a mother doesn't have access to her own feelings, she may see her daughter as an extension of herself and view her own negative feelings as having come from her daughter rather than from her own pain, which has been deeply suppressed in her unconscious. In this way, she may isolate and abuse her daughter, repeating the same abuse that she herself experienced, all while being in denial or unaware that she is doing this."
It's interesting that even having experienced this dynamic herself, Webster still places no culpability on the mother; it is somehow all the fault of the patriarchy. (Again, men bad, women completely innocent.) Also, she seems to place too much emphasis on the generational perpetuation of the Mother Wound, and not enough emphasis on the simple fact of motherhood being stressful, and causing mothers to hurt their children due to constant stress. While unresolved trauma is often taken out on children by parents, there is a huge situational component she ignores.
--------------------------------------------------
There is hardly a single page in this book that doesn't blame the patriarchy for all noxious mother-daughter relationships, and yet here is an example she gives that actually shows evidence to this being a more complex issue (though of course she never admits it). She discusses a video she saw about how mothers should seek the validation of their children in stressful times and she says,
"it perpetuates the illusion that the approval of one's children should be compensation enough for brutally unending thankless, isolating work of motherhood."
I really do agree with this. And I believe it is a million indirect or direct messages women receive from the culture at large--which involves more than just patriarchal influences--that can set them up for unhealthy patterns. Blaming the complexity of this issue on a single idea will prolong fixing it.
-------------------------------------------------
"Society tells mothers that their children should be enough of a reward and shames them when they feel anything less than total satisfaction."
Yeah, probably. What exactly is society, though? Is society not influenced by more than just patriarchy?
-------------------------------------------------
Unsupported claims that we're just supposed to run with: "...diminishing access to reproductive healthcare." Really, it's diminishing? Said who? Shouldn't this be cited?
-------------------------------------------------
"Perhaps the very definition of 'family' will change and expand. People who call themselves family may not be linked by blood but by soulful connections that mutually nourish their journey to discover and live their authentic truth."
I guess I get what's she's getting at. Like, later in life if one's family has been more harmful than good, we can surround ourselves with people who lift us up. But the nuclear family will never and should never cease to exist. It is through the nuclear family that infants, children, adolescents, and even teens develop their sense of belonging and identity. It's ridiculous to state that the nuclear family isn't a need.
-------------------------------------------------
She places a lot of emphasis on the manipulation mothers employ with their daughters, and not enough on "mom rage", which I believe is more common.
-------------------------------------------------
"This belief in a 'female defect' keeps women on a never-ending wheel of self-improvement, constantly working to meet an impossible standard of what a 'desirable woman' ought to be."
I believe the constant striving for self-improvement has more to do with individual personality than sex.
"...these things [excuses made for bad mothering], even if true, shouldn't be cause for you to swallow your pain, stop seeking healing, and silence yourself. This silencing is in accordance with the silencing of women as a whole."
Regarding taboos: "The taboo of focusing on self-exploration (labeled 'selfish,' especially for women."
This may be true in some circles, but if it is selfish for women, it is also seen as unsafe or effeminate for men.
"We all desire to be real, to be seen accurately, to be recognized, and to be loved for who we really are in our full authenticity. This is a human need. The process of becoming our real selves involves making peace with our capacities to be messy, intense, assertive, and complex--the very things patriarchy portrays as unattractive in women."
Of course it's true that every person wants to be seen and loved for their authentic self. She constantly victimizes women as being put upon by the male standard, yet ignores the reality of men needing to be their real selves in spite of societal expectations from the feminine. Is this to say only men have expectations for how the sexes should present, and women don't?
These types of beliefs above seem very self-focused to me. They unnecessarily isolate the self, assuming "only I experience this problem", when in reality, -->only you experience YOUR own problems.<-- We know what we experience better than we will ever know what others experience. I can see how this kind of thinking can give birth to this ideology that women are victims, and men are either blissfully living without these issues (e.g. societal expectations of their sex, feeling silenced) or are perpetrators of them.
--------------------------------------------------
"The most insidious forms of patriarchy pass through the mother."
This is probably the most ridiculous statement in the entire book. I am amazed that a logical person could come up with something so nonsensical, and that the editor was like, "Yeah, makes perfect sense." If the worst forms of "patriarchy" pass through women, THEN IT ISN'T PATRIARCHY!! By this logic, women are the biggest perpetrators OF patriarchy, and yet they're still not ultimately to blame??? This is where I actually bring out my bullshit-colored highlighter.
-------------------------------------------------
She describes the The Faces of Mother, which are the roles a mother is supposed to be for her child such as source, attachment, responder, modulator, etc. It makes me wonder: if a father who shirks or goes against his paternal tenets is part of patriarchy, what is it called when a mother does not live up to her tenets? (Let me guess, patriarchy?)
------------------------------------------------
"In response to the mother gap, the mask of a 'false self'...is formed."
Why does she assume that every person even HAS a mother gap/wound? They don't. And yet, we are all egoically programmed to have a false self.
------------------------------------------------
"'I can't be happy if my mother is unhappy...' Usually this belief comes from the pain of seeing your mother suffer from her own inner deprivation and your compassion for her struggle under the weight of patriarchal demands."
What if motherhood IN AND OF ITSELF is a demand that requires women to forget themselves? These issues are far more practical, and far less philosophical, than she makes them.
------------------------------------------------
"On a deeper level, the Mother Wound is a wound with life itself."
This may be one of the most important lines in the book, and one I think not even Webster realizes the truth of. After almost an entire book about how every wound is from the mother, and that all of the wounding is just patriarchal imprinting, she finally gets to the truth of it: we are all wounded, and it is part of being alive. These wounds can come from anywhere, and may be the result of real abuse, or a child-brain misinterpretation of reality. They may indeed come from a bad mother, bad father, or from just...being a person.
------------------------------------------------
TRUTH BOMBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
------------------------------------------------
"The deprived child within a mother may be looking to her daughter for the emotional nourishment that she never received from her own mother."
"One of the most powerful things we can embody is: 'I don't owe you a version of me that distracts you from your responsibility to face your own pain.'"
"Siblings may feel emotionally close as they lived the same experiences, and yet because their roles may be different in the family system, there may be tension about how their perceptions differ or contrast with one another."
Within "The Longing to Be Real and the Longing for Mother" section: page 126 "Refraining from emotional caretaking and letting people have their lessons is a form of respect for self and other...Contrary to what we've been taught, we don't have to heal our entire families. We only have to heal ourselves."
page 129-130: "Detach from the need for 'peace' at all costs...Detach from the need to be liked, understood, and approved of...If that bond [being approved by our parents as children] was compromised when we were children, as adults we may conflate being liked with being safe, placing our source of emotional safety outside ourselves as we did when we were children. Healing involves cultivating the primary source of our approval within ourselves."
"As she validated the hunger for approval from her inner child and affirmed the goodness and lovability of her wild, creative side, she began to see how often she had tolerated being overlooked and undervalued."
"YOU are worth every bit of discomfort it takes to embody and express more of who you truly are in this world. It's worth it for you in terms of how it creates a powerful inner environment of self-love and because what you offer the world as you radiate from that place of realness is pure gold."
"Each 'no' is a doorway into your greater 'yes'."
Quote from Marion Woodman on the Apocalyptic Mother and the Death Mother is on fire:
"'A life that is truly being lived is constantly burning away the veils of illusion, gradually revealing the essence of who we are. Apocalyptic Mother burns us in her hottest flames to purify us of all that is not authentic. Her energy is impersonal. She doesn't care how painful or terrifying the process is. Her only purpose is to serve life.'"
"The Death Mother archetype could be seen as the gatekeeper of our true power that lies beyond the taboo of confronting mother, keeping us trapped in shame, guilt, or fear."
Chapter 10: Giving Up the Impossible Dream
This motivates a person to perform to earn the acceptance and admiration he/she never received from their primary caregiver. This impossible task keeps us running in our own mental rat race, with a carrot that can never be reached through external reward.
"It gives a false sense of control and a false sense of hope that often gets projected onto other areas of our adult life."
Lesson: Acknowledging how childhood strategies did not work (or accomplish what we sought to receive.)
This whole chapter is pure gold.
Chapter 11: Accountability. This is where the work is truly done. Taking accountability for our pain (not placing blame, but providing for ourselves what our caregivers did not give us) is where we experience our own healing and stop cycles of harm.
"Feeling our pain is what allows us to become liberated from it."
I would change this to say, "attending to our pain".
"Through that primary, holy wound, we are called to become that loving mother to ourselves...and to all of life."
Chapter 12: Grieving
"The healing comes from mending this split [internal dichotomy between authenticity and attachment] so that both authenticity needs and attachment needs can be abundantly met within ourselves...and our relationships."
"This reunion in the self opens us up to the possibility of perceiving an even larger 'and,' the larger bond of love and belonging that pervades all life."
THIS IS WORTHY OF BEING TATTOOED: "Despair...is the pain of the inner child without a loving adult witness...Grief transpires when a loving adult consciousness is present alongside the pain...a feeling of 'I'm with you in this pain."
More hard truth bombs: "the true gift of being unseen is having no choice but to find and claim one's worth within oneself first, without getting the approval or validation of others."
-----------------------
Overall, an essential book about healing from our subconscious childhood wounds.
Obviously, she takes a different worldview than I do.
November 9, 2021
Wow, I cannot believe the downright reviews this book has on here. Sounds like those reviewers have not fully delved into their own “mommy issues” and feel smug about saying that this author just can’t get over hers. Sounds suspicious to me.
I cannot speak highly enough about this book. As someone who is currently in therapy doing similar work myself, this was a Godsend. There were SO many passages in this book that spoke straight to my heart and made me feel not so alone. This work is truly transformational and I LOVED reading the author’s experience and her incredible insight.
This is a book I will be referring back to for years to come. It is important. Vital to anyone who had an imperfect mother and wants to do the work to heal and step into their power.
I cannot speak highly enough about this book. As someone who is currently in therapy doing similar work myself, this was a Godsend. There were SO many passages in this book that spoke straight to my heart and made me feel not so alone. This work is truly transformational and I LOVED reading the author’s experience and her incredible insight.
This is a book I will be referring back to for years to come. It is important. Vital to anyone who had an imperfect mother and wants to do the work to heal and step into their power.
January 14, 2021
There's a lot of valuable insight here as to how your relationship with your mother can affect your emotional development and broader coping abilities and resilience. I'm glad I experienced these ideas. I'm glad I'd read Women Who Run With the Wolves previously, as this felt like a natural, every-day applications based extension on that work.
January 30, 2021
This book may be great if you’re into this sort of thing, but it fell flat for me. It goes in depth to the Mother Wound and ways in which our childhood can affect us later in life. It has some valuable lessons but I found it to be repetitive and singularly focused on a very specific type of mother-daughter relationship. For me, this could’ve been summed up in an article. Much of it was not applicable for my life, and I did not agree with many of the views presented. I could’ve done with this book being about 75% shorter. Once the main point was presented, I didn’t gain much from the remainder of the book. For me to recommend this book, it would have to be to a very specific type of person - maybe someone who is feminist, open-minded, and has a history of complicated family relationships (especially with a mother).
October 30, 2020
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Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Unfortunately, I am DNF'ing this at 50%. The information feels less than accessible from a reading point of view and is tedious to read. Additionally, there is a hyper-focus on one singular form of mother wound it feels- one that I personally have not experienced. This book is probably great for people whose mother's defaulted them to being their best friend and emotional sponge- however, there was not much for me to relate to in this. With that as well as the tediousness of the writing, I had to DNF. I may come back to this at a later time.
Also- this is nitpicky- I don't even know which book I'm supposed to be reviewing on Goodreads for this as there are several different ones with the same cover and a different cover.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Unfortunately, I am DNF'ing this at 50%. The information feels less than accessible from a reading point of view and is tedious to read. Additionally, there is a hyper-focus on one singular form of mother wound it feels- one that I personally have not experienced. This book is probably great for people whose mother's defaulted them to being their best friend and emotional sponge- however, there was not much for me to relate to in this. With that as well as the tediousness of the writing, I had to DNF. I may come back to this at a later time.
Also- this is nitpicky- I don't even know which book I'm supposed to be reviewing on Goodreads for this as there are several different ones with the same cover and a different cover.
June 6, 2021
One of the most empowering books I've read in a long time. My healing journey of my own mother wound began before I read this book, however, the language validated my experience on such a deep level. I read this with pencil in hand and underlined a lot! As a therapist who sees many women struggling with their own mother wounds, this book has equipped me with a deeper sense of understanding, plus many practical applications to implement. On a personal level, as I heal my own mother wound, it is my desire that my own daughters will be empowered to soar into their own freedom and live from their True Authentic Self.
September 19, 2025
Exactly what I needed to read and hear. Healing is not linear, it ebbs and flows like the tide. I knew this but this reminder was necessary.
So for those looking to heal their mother wounds, don’t give up. It gets a lot harder as our capacity to feel grows. But don’t give up. Your inner child needs you and you can do this. I say this to you and to myself 💕
So for those looking to heal their mother wounds, don’t give up. It gets a lot harder as our capacity to feel grows. But don’t give up. Your inner child needs you and you can do this. I say this to you and to myself 💕
March 17, 2021
This book was phenomenal: how to recognize the accommodations we've learned generationally to diminish or devalue ourselves as women, and how important it is for future generations that we be brave enough to address those familial patterns and societal messages NOW. Webster asserts that it's for ALL women, not just those with dramatic childhood trauma; I connected with it enormously, and needed this book. My kids needed me to find this book. Could have used it a while ago, but I'm glad it's here now!
I do understand why some reviewers have called it redundant; the writing style is not the most direct or organized. Some of the chapters in the middle are perhaps less pointed than those at the beginning or end. But stick with it till the final chapters; they're worth it! I scarcely have a page without annotations. The varying nuances of similar-sounding phrases and paragraphs are absolutely worth the space. A lot of the ideas that are repeated in each chapter take on additional meaning and weight in the context of each, and personally I needed to hear these things over and over.
In large part, this book seems to aim to persuade one that there is work to be done, and motivate the audience to do that work. The "how" is necessarily a little more vague, because this issue takes a variety of forms -- but I found the reflection questions at the end of each chapter very helpful. She tells her own story throughout, which I found relatable, and also generalizes and offers bullet-lists to cover a variety of experiences. The format is thus a bit unconventional, but how fitting that it be so in such a book! I think it worked wonderfully.
I want to give this book to every woman I know, along with Untamed, with which it shares MANY themes, concepts, and values.
I do understand why some reviewers have called it redundant; the writing style is not the most direct or organized. Some of the chapters in the middle are perhaps less pointed than those at the beginning or end. But stick with it till the final chapters; they're worth it! I scarcely have a page without annotations. The varying nuances of similar-sounding phrases and paragraphs are absolutely worth the space. A lot of the ideas that are repeated in each chapter take on additional meaning and weight in the context of each, and personally I needed to hear these things over and over.
In large part, this book seems to aim to persuade one that there is work to be done, and motivate the audience to do that work. The "how" is necessarily a little more vague, because this issue takes a variety of forms -- but I found the reflection questions at the end of each chapter very helpful. She tells her own story throughout, which I found relatable, and also generalizes and offers bullet-lists to cover a variety of experiences. The format is thus a bit unconventional, but how fitting that it be so in such a book! I think it worked wonderfully.
I want to give this book to every woman I know, along with Untamed, with which it shares MANY themes, concepts, and values.
August 9, 2021
I read this as recommended by my daughter. I'm a retired mental health therapist. It was not at all helpful, I've spent 40 years studying mental health, and with that comes self examination. I came from a white underprivileged background, so my family had more pertinent issues than this self identified middle class white woman of privilege ( her words, with the appropriate disclaimer of being non- racist). She mentioned her supposed privilege several times. I found the book to be whiney and the author's attitude smug. I suspect she has more problems than her mommy issues. She seems self absorbed, and narcissistic enough to think her personal problems are pertinent to , what, other privileged white women, disclaimer of non racist of course. It is not a self help book, so what is it? A diary of her 23 year journey of self examination. I do not recommend this book. There are some very helpful self help books written by credentialed mental health providers. I've read many of them.
February 15, 2021
I think this book starts strong, with a fantastically unique angle on boundaries, as they start out with our mothers and remain uniquely challenging in this dynamic throughout life.
That said, the book strays waaaay beyond its scope in later chapters, and I found myself not caring much about the author's message by the end. I wish she'd simply trimmed it short and kept more to the message.
That said, I expect this to be a strong seller and a book of great interest, as many of us have difficult relationships and trauma as a result of "the mother wound."
That said, the book strays waaaay beyond its scope in later chapters, and I found myself not caring much about the author's message by the end. I wish she'd simply trimmed it short and kept more to the message.
That said, I expect this to be a strong seller and a book of great interest, as many of us have difficult relationships and trauma as a result of "the mother wound."
July 14, 2021
When I first started reading this book I thought it echoed similar sentiments from other trauma/'self-help' genre books I've read; however, the further I got into the book the more it resonated on a deeper level. Webster offers a subtle shift in lens that channels trauma and suffering through the initial wound of the mother, the lack of protection for the inner child who was hurt and/or harmed. This shift in perspective seemed slight at first but was extremely powerful in reframing my own understanding of childhood trauma. I appreciated her emphasis on grief and acceptance as imperative in the healing journey - accepting that our childhood is over and we cannot claim what we never had. Instead, it is now our opportunity to hold space for ourselves and the emotions we could not safely express as children. Webster does not bypass how painful this process can be, while still keeping her eye on the benefits that await us on the other side of the difficult, painful work. This book lends itself to further investigation of how to hold and process anger as well as other 'difficult,' stigmatized emotions. I have wanted to read The Courage to Be Disliked, which feels like a complementary follow-up read to Discovering the Inner Mother. I highly recommend this book, especially for anyone who's experienced complex PTSD stemming from the family system and is estranged or considering estrangement in their healing journey.
June 19, 2023
Tiene conceptos interesantes, pero quedé harta de leer sobre el patriarcado.
December 31, 2023
I don’t read many self help because I feel they are almost always a let down. The first 2 chapters were pretty good but after that got redundant and winey. I guess I just wish for more practical help if I’m going to reach for a book in this category.
May 2, 2021
This book helped me recognise a lot of my friends who have mother wounds and how they have shown up in my life *with* their wounds, and how that has affected me.
I couldn't relate to it a 100%, because a lot of what she says she didn't get as a child, are things I was bestowed with in my childhood. Nurturing talks, encouragement, kindness, love, confidence and the fact that I'm valid. If anything, it made me aware of how abundant my childhood had been, and how wonderful my relationship with my mother is, despite patriarchy having a horrible effect on my mother herself. It was eye-opening. I can also see what a huge privilege it is to have been brought up like that.
This book is for every woman to recognise, realise and know how much effect patriarchy has in viewing themselves. I learnt a few things too. A lot of effort has gone into this book, and that's evident. It's dense and in fact loses essence towards the end.
At some point the book got extremely repetitive, which hindered my ability to stay focused and be fascinated by the issues she brought up. I redacted a couple of stars for that.
I couldn't relate to it a 100%, because a lot of what she says she didn't get as a child, are things I was bestowed with in my childhood. Nurturing talks, encouragement, kindness, love, confidence and the fact that I'm valid. If anything, it made me aware of how abundant my childhood had been, and how wonderful my relationship with my mother is, despite patriarchy having a horrible effect on my mother herself. It was eye-opening. I can also see what a huge privilege it is to have been brought up like that.
This book is for every woman to recognise, realise and know how much effect patriarchy has in viewing themselves. I learnt a few things too. A lot of effort has gone into this book, and that's evident. It's dense and in fact loses essence towards the end.
At some point the book got extremely repetitive, which hindered my ability to stay focused and be fascinated by the issues she brought up. I redacted a couple of stars for that.
April 19, 2021
This book presented some fresh ideas for me and helped me grapple with some familial and societal issues I wasn’t fully aware of yet and couldn’t name. It starts strong, with a solid scope and message, which is supported by anecdotes from the author’s life and some from her patients’ lives.
After the first half, the message starts to broaden and eventually gets buried under increasingly vague and repetitive verbiage about female power and divinity. Not that these are bad concepts, but they don’t seem to fit with the first half of the book. They also become less of a guiding light and more of a cliche.
The author’s childhood was quite traumatic, so maybe that’s why she seems convinced that life-long therapy for everyone is the only way to tackle these issues, which seems like a long shot.
I’m glad I read the book, but probably won’t recommend it to others in my life after struggling through the back half.
After the first half, the message starts to broaden and eventually gets buried under increasingly vague and repetitive verbiage about female power and divinity. Not that these are bad concepts, but they don’t seem to fit with the first half of the book. They also become less of a guiding light and more of a cliche.
The author’s childhood was quite traumatic, so maybe that’s why she seems convinced that life-long therapy for everyone is the only way to tackle these issues, which seems like a long shot.
I’m glad I read the book, but probably won’t recommend it to others in my life after struggling through the back half.
September 29, 2021
I can see this book being useful for some people but it was not for me. The final chapters about questioning your conditioning and “reparenting” yourself were worth while. The rest I found repetitive, lacking depth, and not universally accessible. The author states several times that this isn’t about blaming mothers but yet her tone and word choice suggest otherwise. There was a lot of “your mother did this to keep you small” or “bc she was threatened by you” - there is little grace for mothers in this book. There are certainly women - and men- that this is true for but to make it a blanket statement seemed a bit much. I also didn’t really like that the book didn’t really deliver on the title until the very end. The book was mostly railing against mothers and showing the mother wound but very little of actually pulling your own inner mother out of yourself. There were reflection questions but those seemed to focus on the wounding and less on the discovery of a new modality.
August 11, 2021
Boring
This woman spent over 23 years of her life in therapy working on her mommy issues, apparently instead of just facing reality and living her life. What a waste. This book is a diary of the author working though personal problems using well known therapy techniques. The entire book screams Karen, whining about her “wound”. I am a retired therapist. I sincerely hope that none of my clients wallowed in their issues as this woman does. I suspect that the author has other problems as well, in particular narcissistic personality disorder and attachment disorder.
This woman spent over 23 years of her life in therapy working on her mommy issues, apparently instead of just facing reality and living her life. What a waste. This book is a diary of the author working though personal problems using well known therapy techniques. The entire book screams Karen, whining about her “wound”. I am a retired therapist. I sincerely hope that none of my clients wallowed in their issues as this woman does. I suspect that the author has other problems as well, in particular narcissistic personality disorder and attachment disorder.
June 20, 2021
This book discusses the effects of the Mother Wound in great depth. At the end of each chapter are questions for reflection and I think that was my favorite part. This is a great step into the root cause of some of our struggles.
May 14, 2023
Basically it felt like a long memoir about her struggle against an obscure villain, the “patriarchy”. It was a good reflection on her experience and journey but not productive if you’re looking for something to guide your own healing. Not many resources or advice.
Read
November 18, 2024Good enough for what I'm working on right now but organizationally leaves a lot to be desired. This is a book that was very repetitive with not a lot of structure. More of a pep talk than anything actionable.
February 5, 2021
Life changing book with room to help with radical healing. Should come with a trigger warning as it does bring up deep wounds and trauma. Well written. 💜
February 7, 2024
I thought this book was well-written and covered a big and important topic that is all too often ignored: the mother wound. With a unique focus on the relationship between our patriarchal society and the toxic effects it has on mother daughter relationships and therefore our wellbeing. I especially liked the reflective questions at the end of each chapter
August 9, 2024
I am so grateful to have found this book. It validated me immensely and made me feel seen and worthy in a way I had never felt before.
Not everyone can relate to the authors story, and that is a good thing, but I could relate a lot. This book made me realize that I am, in fact, not alone and that there is actually nothing wrong with me as I had always thought.
This book helped me dare to change my perspective, and it's been deeply empowering.
Not everyone can relate to the authors story, and that is a good thing, but I could relate a lot. This book made me realize that I am, in fact, not alone and that there is actually nothing wrong with me as I had always thought.
This book helped me dare to change my perspective, and it's been deeply empowering.
November 13, 2025
Helpful, but sometimes a bit repetitive which made me skip ahead, especially in the second half.
As other resources around this topic it focused on the experience of an adult child of a mother who is still around.
As someone whose mother passed away before I became an adult it can be a bit frustrating that that experience is rarely acknowledged. Since dealing with what the book called the "mother wound" isn't limited to people whose mother is still physically around. (Maybe this experience was acknowledged in a later part where I skipped ahead. I wouldn't know that.)
As other resources around this topic it focused on the experience of an adult child of a mother who is still around.
As someone whose mother passed away before I became an adult it can be a bit frustrating that that experience is rarely acknowledged. Since dealing with what the book called the "mother wound" isn't limited to people whose mother is still physically around. (Maybe this experience was acknowledged in a later part where I skipped ahead. I wouldn't know that.)
December 12, 2021
Great book, insightful, although I am rating 4, because the books targets only Mom& daughter relations, but could bring way more insights to everyone (sons and daughters of moms and dads) who had to deal with consequences of depressive parents
August 23, 2025
nie w porządku jednostronne, wąskie, wycinające istnienie nie tylko innych zmiennych poza patriarchatem, ale też innych dynamik matka-córka, nie znoszę takich zapędów uniwersalistycznych.
a no i redakcyjnie ktoś to powinien był skondensować, za długie, powtarzające się
a no i redakcyjnie ktoś to powinien był skondensować, za długie, powtarzające się
Read
November 8, 2025DNF
January 4, 2026
Not even done reading it yet but had to make sure I didn’t forget to review it. This book is great, worth getting the physical copy to reference back as you go.
February 5, 2021
Life changing, eye opening, healing, and transformative. Everything I needed to hear coming from a toxic family. Incredible insights. Anyone with a strained relationship with their mother needs this in their life. Loved loved loved it. Thank you, Bethany. From the bottom of my heart, thank YOU.
April 9, 2023
Jót hallottam erről a könyvről, olyantól, akitől már máskor is kaptam jó tippet, mit érdemes elolvasni. Ezzel totálisan mellényúltam. Én így könyvet ritkán vetek meg mint ezt. Gond van otthon, a nőiségeddel, a lányoddal, a mindennel? Akkor az egy anyaseb, anyád, meg az ő anyja előtte tehet róla, ő felel érte, de ez sem igaz, mert inkább a patriarchátus, az átkozott, mindent megrontó.
Egyszerű, erőteljes válasznak szánták, és ettől válik sarkítássá.
A transzgenerációs örökség ma nagy hívószó, hellingeres eszme, és mint ilyen vaskos áltudomány, de zabálják. De ez csak az egyik bajom. A másik, ha ilyennek képzelik a progresszív feminista felfogást és választ, akkor felrakták a szemellenzőt, de közben a gyeplő maradt a régi. Túrjunk minden felelősséget a nőkre, és egy enyhe elnéző szemhéjrezdüléssel azért maszatoljuk oda, minden kínjukért a férfi uralta világ a hunyó, ne érezzék magukat annyira szarul, és mentsük fel őket gyorsan, ha már a fejükre szartunk.
Hánynom kell. Amíg ilyen üzenettel és magyarázattal házalnak, minden marad a régiben. Köldöknézés, dolgozok magamon, az anyámmal való viszonyomon, a családi mintákon, és a többi ezospiri önreflexiós maszlag. Az elveszi a nőktől az erőt, nem felszítja. Mikor értik meg, hogy elsősorban emberek vagyunk, és aztán nők vagy férfiak? Mikor értik meg, először az ember bánjon emberül a másik emberrel? Valahogy ez nehezebb, bezzeg a nő-férfi szekértábor sulykolása az jön zsigerből.
Egyszerű, erőteljes válasznak szánták, és ettől válik sarkítássá.
A transzgenerációs örökség ma nagy hívószó, hellingeres eszme, és mint ilyen vaskos áltudomány, de zabálják. De ez csak az egyik bajom. A másik, ha ilyennek képzelik a progresszív feminista felfogást és választ, akkor felrakták a szemellenzőt, de közben a gyeplő maradt a régi. Túrjunk minden felelősséget a nőkre, és egy enyhe elnéző szemhéjrezdüléssel azért maszatoljuk oda, minden kínjukért a férfi uralta világ a hunyó, ne érezzék magukat annyira szarul, és mentsük fel őket gyorsan, ha már a fejükre szartunk.
Hánynom kell. Amíg ilyen üzenettel és magyarázattal házalnak, minden marad a régiben. Köldöknézés, dolgozok magamon, az anyámmal való viszonyomon, a családi mintákon, és a többi ezospiri önreflexiós maszlag. Az elveszi a nőktől az erőt, nem felszítja. Mikor értik meg, hogy elsősorban emberek vagyunk, és aztán nők vagy férfiak? Mikor értik meg, először az ember bánjon emberül a másik emberrel? Valahogy ez nehezebb, bezzeg a nő-férfi szekértábor sulykolása az jön zsigerből.
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