“M” is for the million things she gave me,
“O” means only that she's growing old,
“T” is for the tears she shed to save me,
“H” is for her heart of purest gold;
“E” is for her eyes, with love-light shining,
“R” means right, and right she'll always be,
Put them all together, they spell “MOTHER,”
A word that means the world to me.
Howard Johnson’s famous song, written in November 1915, illustrates the kind of idealism that has made it difficult for many people to overcome their most entrenched personal problems. Mothers play a pivotal role in every child’s life – as do fathers. But in the real world, not all moms conform to Mr. Johnson’s rosy image. In fact, many of the things your mother gave you may have upended any possibility that you will achieve your goals and enjoy a satisfying relationship, with an appropriate life-partner.
The why is simple: your mother, like the other people you’re closest to, probably had a karmic relationship with you in one or more of your past lives, which explains why you have unresolved relationship issues in this life. What that means should be abundantly clear; your mother’s personal investment in sharing life-affirming consciousness, energy and etheric matter with you in this life may be weak or non-existent. Mom could even have karmic patterns that compel her to compete with you, disrupt your polarity and authentic identity or, in extreme cases, violate you in both overt and covert ways.
If your experiences with your mother in a past life were positive and you shared the same life vibrations and core values, then it’s quite likely that you will experience much of the same in this life. But if you had negative karmic attachments to one another, your life vibrations were incompatible, and your relationship issues weren’t resolved before you incarnated in this life, then you will have ongoing problems in your current relationship.
An ancient Yogic adage declares, “You get what you want most.” That means, if a woman desperately desired something from you or was obsessively attached to you in a past life, it’s possible for her to incarnate as your mother in this life. The possibilities are fraught; the woman in question could have been a jealous friend, a romantic rival who wants to punish you, a hateful family member or even an evil stepmother.
Of course, these are worst-case scenarios. It’s more likely that the woman who became your mother in this life had a mixture of both good and bad karma and mixed feelings about you. In that case, there would be attachments, but they would not necessarily be as destructive as in the worst-case scenarios described above, nor would they preclude love, affection and support on both the physical-material and subtle levels of consciousness, energy and etheric matter.
Socio-biologists and primatologists, such as Sarah Blaffer Hardy, maintain that “loving motherhood is not automatically programmed into the female of our species, but is an extremely complex equation of genetic, evolutionary, emotional, and social factors aided by powerful hormonal influences.” In her book ‘The Woman That Never Evolved,’ she explains that the “sexually passive, noncompetitive, all-nurturing woman of prevailing myth never could have evolved within the primate order.” This means that the mother Howard Johnson idealized in his absurd song doesn’t normally exist.
However, in patriarchal societies, we often find women who appear on the surface to embrace these qualities. More often than not, these women are faking it, often quite successfully. Unfortunately, these fakers end up even deceiving themselves and, like Stepford wives, they go through the motions without feeling or empathizing with their children or themselves.
In spite of their best attempts to cover up who they really are, the truth is that most of these women have had their subtle fields disrupted by projections of distorted consciousness, energy and etheric matter – or even the intrusion of non-physical beings with a self-limiting agenda. Any of these factors can have unintended consequences. They may reverse a mother’s polarity or create a woman that loves her male offspring, but hates male energy. It could create blind spots that take control of mommy when she’s stressed or her expectations aren’t met.
You may think that at least such a mother will love her female offspring. I’m not disputing that moms feel love, but relationships are much more complex – and a mother’s love doesn’t heal everything.
The Influence of Patriarchy
If a woman has been raised in a patriarchal society, her natural development will be disrupted, and she will find it difficult to manifest her authentic femininity. This will influence the condition of her subtle field and her ability to nourish her offspring or even empathize with them.
Additional problems include karmic baggage and the attachments they create as well as the poisons of the ancestors that mom has carried into her present incarnation. She may have attachments to her offspring that disrupt their subtle fields or life vibrations that are in opposition to theirs. These issues, which are ubiquitous in contemporary families, will muddy the water and make it difficult for family members to communicate and/or empathize with one another.
There is also the condition of your mother’s other significant relationships as well as inappropriate decisions that she’s made in this life that forced her to deviate from her dharma. If your mom has a dysfunctional relationship with her parents or husband, if she is intimately involved with non-physical beings, is addicted to drugs, sex, food, etc., or if she has been sexually abused, she may not be able to express her authentic feelings and emotions freely or establish a strong, stable identity.
The truth is that any form of trauma that remains untreated as well as blind spots and ancestoral poisons that trap mom in distorted patterns will disrupt her relationship to her children. According to an article published in ‘Frontiers in Psychology’ in September 2014, ‘A mother's unresolved trauma may interfere with her ability to sensitively respond to her infant … potentially contributing to the intergenerational transmission of trauma.’
So, what does that mean? Simply that the role of mother has been distorted by the core values of patriarchy and mom’s relationship to her kids can be based on core values that are self-limiting and, in extreme cases, self-destructive. Mothers who adhere to the core values of patriarchy or whose subtle fields have been blocked by projections of distorted consciousness, energy and etheric matter will lack empathy and the ability to sense the feelings, needs and fears of their children.
In contrast, children with mothers who are sensitive, empathetic and who express authentic emotions and feelings will grow up with an ability to engage in intimate relationships and successfully pursue their dharma.
The Same Old Same Old
Unfortunately, society in general expects women to be the primary care givers and lays the burden of caring for children (and family) on them. By doing that, it continues to subvert motherhood by making it difficult for women to experience their personal power and to achieve their personal goals at home and in the workplace.
Although women and men are experiencing a Renaissance of freedom and self-awareness in the twenty-first century, if you look behind the curtain, you will find a legacy of archetypes, expectations and karmic attachments that have prevented mothers from becoming the radiant, dynamic women they are capable of being.
To overcome the patriarchal archetypes and subtle manipulation represented by Howard Johnson, every woman – especially mothers – must recognize that the universal qualities of the feminine include healing and the power, creativity and radiance that support it. They also include pleasure, love, intimacy, joy and the qualities of good character, which for millennia have been traditionally embraced by women in matriarchal cultures. These qualities include non-harming, loyalty, perseverance, discipline, patience, long-suffering and courage. By knowing themselves as an expression of the universal feminine, women will empower themselves to be them “Selves” and share themselves in their fullness with their partners and children. In fact, by celebrating the universal qualities of the feminine, alone or with their partner, women will affirm the truth that “Women are Gods; women are life; women are adornment.” These words of Dr. John Mumford in ‘Ecstasy Through Tantra’ were attributed to the Buddha.