By: Carolyn Berghuis, MA, CTN, ND, MS

“Sometimes a mother can give much, and this is beautiful for her relationship with her child—they are blessed indeed. However, there is much pain and heartache in the world, and many mothers cannot give their children the love, comfort, and nurture they desire from her for many reasons. Often transgenerational entanglements are found to be the core reason for such pain and heartache. Regardless of what your mother was able or not able to give you, you can become free to fully live the life your heart desires. In this lifetime you must face the painful spaces in your body, heart, and soul in order to transcend them and become happy and at peace. This includes facing the pain you experienced with your mother.” – Excerpt from chapter 14 of Understanding The Jesus Code

YOUR FIRST LOVE

You were created to love and to be loved in return; however, sadly, you may have lost the ability to fully realize this truth due to heartache, pain, and trauma. Loving self and others is the natural state for your human heart and the first human love relationship where you experienced love is your relationship with your mother. You began your life in your mother’s womb and for nine months you experienced the world through her. Half of your DNA is from her and your experience with feminine love is intertwined with this relationship. You only have one human mother and she is the one whose body was intimately offered to participate in the creation of your life. When she experienced joy during her pregnancy with you your little body experienced joy, when she experienced heartache your little body experienced heartache as well. Her life experiences left an imprint in you that you will carry throughout your lifetime.

As a human being created in the image of our Triune God you are created to live in community and prior to your birth you were completely dependent on your mother. There were two people in your initial community – you and your mom. After your birth you continued to grow and turn to her for love, nourishment, and comfort. However she was able to fulfill these needs has left an imprint on your subconscious mind. The trials and life experiences she walked through before your conception played a part in molding her into the woman she was at the moment of your conception – the moment she became your mother. The life experiences she had during her pregnancy with you also shaped the life-long relationship you two share. The two of you have been placed together and together, you will experience life. Her story lives in the foundation for your story.

Sometimes a mother can give much and this is beautiful for her relationship with her child, they are blessed indeed. However, there is significant pain and heartache in the world and many mothers cannot give to their children for many reasons. Even if all your mother was able to give you was life itself, this is enough for you to be happy and experience a life full of abundance and blessings – it’s more than enough because life is precious. As it is in this lifetime, you must face the painful spaces in your body, heart and soul before you can live the abundance your heart and soul cry out for.

INTRAUTERINE BONDING

As an unborn baby you developed inside a milieu of your mother’s emotions and the life experiences she experienced during her pregnancy with you. If she experienced emotions such as anxiety, depression, fear, or anger then many of the hormones flowing through her body that contributed to these emotions also ran through your body. As a result, your brain became entrained to these types of emotions, they became “comfortable” and “familiar”. Sadly, an attempt to recreate similar patterns of painful emotions later in life becomes a distinct possibility. Fortunately, the same is true if your mom experienced love, joy, peace, and safety. If this was the case then you will naturally seek loving, supportive relationships during your life.

During the first nine months of life in your mother’s womb you frequently sought to bond with her. Remember, you are created in the image of the Holy Trinity – in the image of perfect love. Given this it was natural for you to reach out in love – it still is. However, her wounds may have thwarted her ability to bond fully in return. If your mother experienced emotional pain in her lifetime then it is very possible that she developed “heart walls” to protect herself from pain. Think of a heart wall as an emotional barrier she created to keep hurt outside her heart. She did this to protect herself from possible future hurts. Heart walls often begin their development in early childhood – remember, her life story becomes a foundational piece of your life story… Sadly, heart walls also wall your mom off from love, even your love.

In turn, you were left with a heart wound and a sense of isolation may have begun to fester. Given that your mother is your first human love, the loss of her love cuts deep into your heart – hers too. God created both you and your mom to love and to be loved in return. Anything counter to this causes pain in both of your hearts. Unrequited mother love can be more painful than your heart can bear. In an attempt to protect yourself from this pain you can unconsciously create walls around your heart. The cycle of heart walls continues down into yet another generation. Unfortunately, these walls will eventually serve to interfere with the giving and receiving of love in all relationships in your life – whether you are aware of it or not.

However, such a pattern can be interrupted and a new pattern established if you are willing to do the work necessary. It can only be done with the aid of Holy Trinity. I like to call it “divine pattern interruption”. Divine pattern interruption opens you to the love God has for you as his child – including all the mother love your heart could ever desire. Once your heart opens, God’s love then heals as only his love can and what God had originally intended for you begins to unfold. A woman more fully connects with the divine feminine love God has for her and a man more fully draws near him a woman who embodies this type of love. The journey will lead you towards acceptance of your mother for who she is and an honoring of what she has carried – the good and the bad. Additionally, it will also call you to release the false belief patterns you took on that are not in alignment with God’s plan for your life – false beliefs that interfere with your giving and receiving of love and forgiveness. The love Jesus Christ modeled on the cross.

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! – 2 Corinthians 5:17

MOTHERING WITH GOD

While many suffer heart pain when their mothers cannot love easily, not all pregnant women are unable to bond with their unborn child! Like I mentioned earlier, if your mother experienced life giving emotions of love, hope, joy, and forgiveness during her pregnancy with you then your brain received the biochemicals associated with these emotions. If she felt safe and secure in her life, if she was protected and provided for by your father and her extended family, then her body beautifully created the biochemical picture congruent with well-being and you became the beneficiary of the goodness in her life. As a result of loving maternal experiences, your brain will likely seek subsequent relationships that match these emotions throughout your lifetime. Your mother’s feelings toward her pregnancy, towards your father, towards her own mother, towards her friends and towards God all play a part in your ability to give and receive love. If she was free to give and receive love then she, in return, passed this pattern on to you. A child who is born into this type of family environment has learned it is safe to offer love to his or her mother, their first love, and from here they find themselves offering love towards others in the world.

It is quite probable that your mother was somewhere in the middle when she was carrying you. Undoubtedly, she had heartaches that interfered with her ability to fully share love and this left a painful imprint on your heart; however, it is also likely that a part of her heart deeply desired to love you and she easily expressed this. Whatever love she was able to give it is important to know that there is more fullness of life available to you – God always has more. I like to tell my children that until we love every human being 24/7 we still have healing to do. Freedom is found in our ability to love and be loved in return. On the cross Jesus revealed the power of this freedom.

In order to heal from the wounds that limit love and find the fullness of love God has for us we must surrender to Jesus and follow his ways – we must participate in the redemptive suffering of the cross. Remember, Easter Sunday follows Good Friday. We are a part of Jesus and we exist inside of him, he will carry us into the promises of the cross.

For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ (Acts 17:28)

All life, yours and your mothers included, came into being through the Second Peron of the Trinity – the Son. The Son is the part of the Godhead that, in divine wisdom, became man so we could access God’s pathway into joy. Being fully human and fully divine Jesus Christ is our way, our truth, and our life.

Following Jesus Christ you will find a new way, a way to heal and allow the expansion of feminine love, of mother love in your life so that a new pattern can be established for yourself, for your mother, for your children, and for the generations that follow. A pattern where love flows easily and where brokenheartedness is transformed. A pattern where you allow God to nourish and comfort you with all the mother love your heart desire –  a love that heals the wounds and tears down the heart walls around your heart.

Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. – Isaiah 49:15

If you would like to schedule a session with Carolyn or inquire about inviting her to speak at an upcoming event or retreat of yours we invite you to click here: Carolyn Berghuis, MS, ND, CTN

1 Julian. The Showings of Julian of Norwich: A New Translation, ed. trans. by Mirabai Starr. (Charlottesville: Hampton Roads Publishing, 2013) Ch. 24, p. 60.