Louise has been happily married for over 30 years, has 3
grown-up children and runs a very successful online business. She and her
husband are in the midst of building their own Oak Framed home; they adore
walking their little schnauzer Bella, cycling, sailing and skiing together.
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| Louise Armstrong |
Louise is a qualified Psychotherapist, Clinical Hypnotherapist,
BWRT Specialist, councillor and NLP Master Coach helping people with emotional
healing. She helps people to stop living in the past - so they can transform
unwanted thoughts and behaviours into positive changes.
Louise offers private one-on-one therapy, group Coaching sessions and Online Courses so there is a way of learning and healing for everyone.
Louise offers private one-on-one therapy, group Coaching sessions and Online Courses so there is a way of learning and healing for everyone.
The Mother-Daughter Relationship is THE Most Important
Relationship…………WHY?
Because it is the most intense, powerful
relationship you will ever have in your entire life and shapes every single
other relationship you create.
To be able to care for and love yourself you
need to know that you are loved unconditionally and nurtured by your mother, on
the inside. If you don’t feel this way you then seek these feelings outside of
yourself so that your needs are met; you can show the outside world that you
are a worthy creature.
And this was me for most of my life; feeling
unloved, undernourished and deprived so I had absolutely nothing to relate to
internally leaving me in a constant state of need and acceptance from others.
The relationship you have with your mother is the very first one you form an
attachment to, affecting your sense of self-worth, self-esteem, your sense of
identity, your feminine power, your sexuality and your feelings of whether or
not you are acceptable in this world.
How might this poor relationship affect you?
Growing anger – as you try so hard to get your needs met and fail time and time again; as a little girl, you perhaps learnt to push anger deep inside of you so your mother didn’t leave you altogether.
Relationships – you don’t know how to ask for
what you need and put other peoples needs before your own becoming a ‘people
pleaser’.
Feelings of being unworthy – deep inside of
yourself you just don’t feel good enough so you constantly look outside for
reassurance that your love and needs will be met.
Doing too much – you push yourself to
extremes as you don’t have a healthy balance between your feminine and
masculine qualities – as you are continually searching for your needs to be
met. The harder you are to yourself the more you believe your needs will be
met.
Exceptionally high expectations – you create
unrealistic expectations of yourself in all areas of you life, these are often
your mother’s unlived dreams subconsciously being projected onto you.
Nurturing others – you give more than you are
able to by rescuing others and pleasing them to the detriment of your own
health; often this is learnt behaviour from watching your mother trying to get
her own needs met.
Mirroring lack of self-esteem – because your
mother lacked self-acceptance and compassion you mirrored this behaviour taking
on these feelings.
Being controlling of others – do you teach
others by trying to control them, are you over critical of people? Again often
this is learnt behaviour driven by your mother’s inner critic.
As I started my own therapy and healing
journey one question that came to mind again and again was, ‘Who am I if I am
not the person my mother told me I am?’ I felt numb and at a complete loss as I
started the long painful journey of ‘letting go’ of all the false identities I
had built up over the years, and was left with the realization that I would
never have the mother I longed for.
The mother who would scoop me up and dry my
tears when I was upset, the mother who was there for me when things went wrong,
the mother who hugged you so tightly I felt I could burst, the mother who
praised and accepted me no matter what.
So I had to grow up pretty quickly as I
started the process of nurturing and mothering myself, fulfilling my needs,
discovering my soul, owning my feminine aspects in a kind and loving way.
I believe that many of us have a very complex
relationship with our mother that we keep from the outside world; it’s become a
taboo topic and not openly discussed. But anyone can heal from this and my
mother who told me very clearly to my face that she didn’t love me and at this
very same time my eldest daughter walked out of my life I have learnt a
miraculous process of healing and hope which results in complete
transformation.
Looking back now on my journey these were
some of the questions I asked myself which you can start focusing on right now
–
Is your mother controlling rather than
supportive?
Does she like to show you off to her friends
(like a trophy?) to gain satisfaction and praise?
Does she have unrealistic expectations of
you?
Does she want to satisfy her needs through
your achievements and success?
Do you think she resents you and is envious
of your looks and behaviour?
Do you feel she’s jealous of the life you
lead and perhaps tries to sabotage this?
Does she constantly neglect your needs?
My mother ticked all of these boxes along
with many more but above all I longed to be emotionally loved, but my mother
was totally incapable of this so I created ways of getting my own needs met –
through being very rebellious and becoming a people pleaser; these behavioural
patterns stayed with me for around 35 years until I decided I had to change
myself.
For the first time in my life I took
responsibility for myself, I stopped the blame; I stopped the neediness and
focused on my needs.
I’d like to share with you some of the things
I focused on as I started to heal myself.
I gave myself time and space to really get to
know who I was having said ‘good bye’ to the version of ‘the me’ I thought I
was. I set clear boundaries for my mother, and myself whilst I felt empathy
towards her and compassion for myself.
I began to understand that my anger was pain
and as my compassion grew towards myself the anger lessened.
I stopped seeking the acceptance, the
approval, the kindness and the love that my mother could never give me so my
wound began to heal as the frustration and disappointment faded.
I became aware of all the negative messages
my mother had projected onto me which in time had become part of me; I let
these go as I realised that these were actually my mother’s sufferings.
As I grew older and produced three of my own
children I did feel more empathy towards her, as mothering is not an easy job.
I am now in a space of peace and calm having forgiven myself and my mother for
the suffering we have both endured from the deepest of wounds that were carved
out over many years. The wounds are now healed over; the scars are now distant
memories, which are no longer part of my being.
The greatest gift to my three children is the
paradigm, the patterns and the learnt behaviour have changed – these children
will continue to grow up feeling nurtured, nourished, and loved – a brand new
way of living.
It’s because of this miraculous profound
healing I am now driven to help other women with their relationships having
gained BWRT, Psychotherapy, Coaching, Counselling, Clinical Hypnotherapy, CBT
and NLP qualifications I can professionally guide women through the greatest
healing journey of their life.
2020 marks a milestone in my own personal
life – having lived for over 16 years in Dubai my husband Ian and I returned
back to the UK last November and building our own home which we plan to move
into next May.
But for the last 18 months we have been
living just down the road from Mum and Dad – to spend much-needed quality time
with them whilst they are still both here with us. To go from deep anger,
upset, shame and resentment, not being able to speak to Mum or even send a text
for years to building a relationship day by day really is a miracle.
This is my story and everyone’s is different
- it may well be right for you not to have your mother in your life - as long
as you are healed this won’t affect you and or future.
Never give up, there is always hope for each
and every one of you.
I’d love
to hear from you about the relationship you have with your mother or your children.
Links
Book a friendly chat here - https://calendly.com/louisearmstrong
www.facebook.com/groups/relationshipsandlife -
FB Group for Women Only
4 comments:
Louise, thank you for joining us this weekend at Romancing The Genres. You've shared your personal and professional experiences and expertise in such a way that ideas for enhancing relationships in my books and my life flow. My mother and I also made peace before she died. Who knew that she was proud of me all those years of criticism? I was stunned when she told me. I've had frank conversations with my son about parenting (mine of him and he of his daughters). My relationship with both my granddaughters brings joy to my life and from what they've told me, I bring joy to theirs.
I enjoyed your enlightening post, Louise. Thank you for sharing your journey to healing and for showing me I should never take for granted the mother I was lucky enough to have, the kind you longed for growing up.
The insights you shared about the mother-daughter relationship will help inform my writing. Thank you for Guesting at RTG.
It is hard for me to imagine the feeling of loss and anger from a mother like you describe because my mother was always supportive, even when I failed in something. However, I do see how not having that shapes a life with negative energy. In the end, we do tend to pass on those deep lessons from childhood whether we want to or not. It takes a lot of self-insight and courage to change those paths.
I do write a lot about past wounds in my fiction and my characters do a lot of personal work to overcome those and become whole. I think that is what makes a story good. There are so many ways we are wounded in our life both in the parental relationships, but then in other relationships.
I believe that a child looks for love and acceptance wherever she can find it. And if it is betrayed, at whatever stage of life, it leaves a wound. How one deals with that is the story of our lives.
I really enjoyed reading your blog post. Thank you for being so open about your own relationship with your mother. The list for the daughters feelings I could check off four things that applied to me. On the mother's list there was only one thing I could attribute to my mom.
Retrospect my parents had me as a single child for five years. Then my brother was born and two years later my sister. Instead of preparing me for my brothers birth, I came home from school and there he was. The NEW baby. The new center of attention.
Anyway it took more than a decade to overcome those feelings of jealousy and loss. Today my Sister is my best friend and I love both my brother and sister dearly.
Thanks again for an insightful blog post.
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