Memories of Mothers - A reflection of the impact and imprints our mothers make on us

Happy Mother's Day!  What a perfect opportunity to reflect on the impact and imprints our mothers have made on our lives.  Whether you are close or estranged with your mother, this month is about healing the dynamic of your relationship with mother figures, motherhood and your own sense of self nurturing.

ENJOYING THE PODCAST?
Subscribe and write a review to let listeners know what you think!  Email me to let me know you reviewed me (rainbowraaja@gmail.com)  As a thank you for your feedback, you will get a free 15 minute virtual session!

Connect to Rainbow Raaja:
🙂 📘Facebook
📷Instagram

🎶Music Credit:
Intro/Outro - Traveler and Believe by Alexander Nakarada
(www.serpentsoundstudios.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License

Take a moment and support the show!

• Share the show with friends and family!
• Share this episode on social media
• Write a review and tell people what you like about the show
• Join a tier on Patreon!
• Get a virtual session with Rainbow Raaja
• Donate a little bit to help with show expenses!

Transcript

Rainbow Raaja: 0:09

Hello, hello, hello and welcome to rainbows rising, where we ascend together, I'm your host, Rainbow Raaja. And this month is Mother's Day month, for all of those who are listening who may have forgotten, I'd be a good idea to start planning those cards and flowers at this time. But, um, you know, this this week started pretty harsh for me as my, my grandmother had actually passed away. And I'm still kind of in the process of, of processing all of that. So I'm not going to talk too much about that. But while thinking about how my aunts and uncles had interacted with my grandmother, and how my my father himself had interacted with my grandmother, the last few years, I really want to touch on the the power of influence that our mothers have, over our lives, and over who we become, how we see ourselves. So I know for me, my own mother, I being an only child, I had no other siblings to be inspired by, to, to lean on for, for approval or appraisal or recognition. So my mother, to me, was the center of the universe. In regards to recognizing my own self worth. That's a lot of power for one person to have. And don't get me wrong. My mom is a remarkable, remarkable mother. I can only hope that someday my children, look at the way I raised them with an ounce of, you know, the the admiration that I have for my mom. But she had a hard job. She had me when when she was 40. So it was a really late age to have one child and only one child. And somehow, she kept up with a child, like, I'm 30, my body hurts, I have two kids, my body hurts. I had no idea how my mom kept up with me at her age. But there was so many things that she did that I deemed detrimental, to my development, to my sense of self, to my sense of whatever. You know that that revisiting, doing a lot of reflection work, I've recognized that that's a lot of pressure to put on my mom. And this month is all about mothers. It's about recognizing their flaws, about recognizing the forgiveness that is necessary, because we are human. I think we put our moms on pedestals. They made us we expect a lot out of that. But it's important to recognize that they're just people. And that they had their own world going on outside of, you know, our, our awareness as children. They had marital issues and work problems and friendship dynamics and stressors at work. And, you know, God knows what kind of emotional issues they were having. Or, you know, it's it's important that we as adults, grown adults, we look back at the mistakes and the choices and the accomplishments that our parents were able to bestow on us. We go wow, like they had such like such a full schedule, they had so much on their shoulders to carry. Maybe they didn't maybe your parents like, you know, abandoned you and added like a grocery store and you never saw them again and they just were not the best parents ever. In which case I am so sad. Sorry, I'm sorry, you don't get to experience a mother to love you in that way. But let me just paint a little picture of my childhood my mom would get get me up with a song every single morning she'd open my windows and let in beautiful prismatic rainbows because she would hang little prisons in my windows. And so with the sunlight at 7am, In came the rainbows and she would wake me up with Wake up, wake up, wake up the sleepy head, get up, get up, get up the sun is read, and zippity doo da and all all so many little songs, so many songs I carried into. Now me being a mom and I sing these songs to my children. And I was not a morning person. I have never been a morning person. And I don't know if I ever will be. But I I know that as much as I did not like getting up in the morning. I did like those songs and I loved seeing those rainbows pour into my room. My mom would put out my clothes every day. Despite me fighting her. She was a little micromanaging in the sense that she wanted me to look my best. She really wanted to, to show me her sense of style so that I might begin to develop my own sense of style. I know she put my clothes out and I get dressed in them because it's it's much easier to put on clothes that somebody put out for you than it is to make your own outfit, you know. And I'd go downstairs and at the table there'd be a full breakfast like we're talking. You know, like a pote like not even a poached egg like a soft boiled egg and a little tiny cup that you have to like ding the top off and she'd have you know, cinnamon toast, and two pieces of bacon. And pancakes a whole works. And it was it was put out on a fancy tablecloth with fancy little note next to it. And like it was it always looked really nice. Like she she had dressed up the table for Easter. There was always fresh flowers in front of my plate. Like Who has time for that? Who has? I don't. I feel like such a failure. But Mom sometimes because I'm like, I don't have time to go out my garden. Like, I don't even have a garden. I don't have time to garden. You know, like, I look back and I go Oh, my goodness gracious. My mom put so much time and effort and love into me. into me. I go to school. I'd open my lunch and I want to see a lunchable there. Lunchables are neat. They're easy. No. My mom would cut up my sandwiches and the cute little shapes. My mom always had healthy choices like hand peeled oranges, and cut apple slices. Never Never a whole apple. Never a whole orange that I had to do myself. Nope. Nope, she had done the work for me. peeled off all those little veins that I did not like maybe even a hand made fruit salad that she had made that morning. I mean sandwiches were like, honey and peanut butter sandwiches. And you know, like bologna sandwiches and in every single meal. I didn't get candy. I didn't get a cookie. I get a little toy and a handwritten note. Every day. She would write a note on my napkin everyday and we're not talking like Hey, sweetie, hope you have a good day. No, no, no, no, my mom would not let that be. My mom wrote the most extensive, incredibly detailed notes. This morning, as I'm writing my note to you, my darling daughter. I'm listening to the birds. I feel the breeze on my skin. And I'm reminded of what a blessing life is and what a blessing you are to me. You're such a little miracle. If it weren't, for me deciding to have a kid at my age, you wouldn't exist, whatever it was whatever but you can get idea I would come home, you know, my mom would pick me up or I'd ride my bike home or however I got home and I'd come home, there would be a meal made for me with like art supplies out next to it. Like this was my every day. I had my own bedroom, I didn't have to share a room with anyone I had my own bathroom. My room was like designer level, you know, beauty right? Despite all of this incredible childhood experience. for 10 years, after, you know, I probably started puberty To be honest, I really resented my mom, I nitpicked every little thing she did. I blamed her for every failure I had. Not because not because she was the actual cause maybe some of it. You know, my mom did get real. Real. I don't know that there were just some difficult years there. I think it was, it was just easier for me to see those faults. And to, to give excuses for why my life was going so poorly. As my parents they didn't, they didn't see all the all the warning signs of all these bad things were happening to me, so it's their fault. I know better now. And hope you guys start to evaluate your own relationships with your mothers, good or bad or indifferent? Whether you have one or not. just recognize what a mother is to you. What makes a good mother to you? What's the most important thing your mom ever did? Was it show up to your softball games? Was it the fact that she put on a play for you on your birthday? Why? What was it because there's so much power in the mistakes that we hold dear on our memories, that that can that can taint our relationships with our mothers. Our memories hold power, even just talking about all those good memories, it really was very humbling for me, because I still have wounds to heal with my mom and I know this month working through mother wounds. I'm going to be doing a lot of work in healing those wounds for my mom and me. But I know that that memories and the power of the emotions connected with those memories have completely distorted some some events in my life and my own relation to those to those events and to my mother. You know, look back on on your you know the most conflicting memories you have with your mom and feel the emotion in your body. What emotion were you feeling? Are you feeling abandoned? Are you feeling not heard? Did you feel like your mom didn't accept you? Maybe your mom was frustrated with you. I just thought thought you weren't doing so good. I made you sad because you you really wanted to do good. Maybe your mom didn't approve of what you were doing was like, Oh, you're not wearing the right clothes. You don't look, you look not good in that. Whatever judgment. Whatever Bandon meant whatever betrayal, you feel just know that I'm sure somewhere under that. Whatever she said whatever she did. It probably stemmed from love probably stemmed from love and other circumstances happening in her life. Our relationships with our mothers reflect on humanity's relationship with our Mother Earth. The relationship If you have with your mom also reflects how we treat our planet and how you treat your planet, you can begin to heal your relationship with your mom or heal your relationship with the planet through this work we're going to be doing this month. And so I just want you to like kind of reflect I know, my relationship with my mom is very tense. Some days, it's really good. I can just call her and kind of decompress about my life and tell her a bunch of things. I would never tell another person. Yeah, I'm so open with her. And vulnerable sometimes that bites me in the butt. But sometimes it's really good, because she's very supportive. You know, and sometimes I sit outside and I talked to the earth the same way. But do I send my mom flowers when I should? And probably not. Am I planting flowers when I should? Definitely not. Am I watering my relationship with my mom would love? No, not really. Back sometimes I'm actually kind of mean, not on purpose. Just wounds are raw, you know, there's been, there's been some raw moments with my mom. So how can I start to water that relationship? Maybe if I go water, the plants that I have in my house, I can start to water my relationship with my mom. I plan to plant maybe I can plant that seed of hope. So many people are estranged from their own mothers due to trauma, feelings of neglect, rejection or abandonment. So too, are we estranged from our own Earth. We build these giant steel traps along her spine. We sell her bounty and claim it as mine. But we have to remember that our world and our own mothers created us. nurtured us, provided in the only ways they knew how. from a place of love. And they they had to do what they needed to do to to give us the best chance that we have in this life. They focused on what we will what they thought we need it. Maybe you didn't like that your mom only focused on, you know, pageants. Maybe you didn't like that your mom only made you work on math. But maybe she saw that there was a weak point in math. And now you you're an accountant. Now you're doing math every day. But when you were younger, you were really weak in the in math. And it's because she saw that weakness. And she wanted to make you stronger that she pushed so hard. But now you resent her for it. Little Do you know that that that push was what you needed to become who you are today. You can resent her all you want. But she set the foundation for you to build. And speaking of foundation, and speaking of origin stories of how our mothers build who we are, if it weren't for my mom, being so stressed, coming home, you know, after a long, hard day of working because my mom worked she would commute over an hour into the city into la every day. And we got two days off a week and it was the weekend. She would go all the way down to LA. She will really, really long day moving furniture on a showroom by herself. I mean, she sometimes had some help. But she would move furniture on the showroom and design the showroom and do consultations for design, and she would come home she'd be exhausted but she'd have to make food for me. And then we'd go to bed. And at the time my mom was like you know really sad So I lay it with her in bed, and I give her a back massage. Because when I would rub her back would made her, make her feel better. And she would cry in relief, cry in relief, because the stress would roll off of her, just to get someone to rub her back, tell her that they loved her in some way. And those moments of my job and my mom's vulnerability, my mom's willingness to open her arms and let me into this, this space. It's a fragile space for any woman, mom or not to cry. In a moment of releasing stress, like it's powerful, it built who I am, because from that moment where I saw how much good massage did for my mom, I decided that I wanted to help people, the way it was helping my mom, I want to be able to help my mom forever, I want to be able to help people that way forever, because it made such a big impact on me. And I never stopped wanting to be a massage therapist. I'd go to school, I pretend to be a massage therapist, and play pretend massage spa charge five wood chips for five minutes. But it was that moment, my mom just cried in relief. It shaped my career path. I still am a massage therapist. I'm now a podcaster too, but we'll talk about my dad next month. Because I'm sure he played a big role in, in me becoming a podcaster. But, you know, I just I just want you guys to kind of recognize the the crossover of, of our relationship with our own mothers, and the crossover of our relationship with Mother Earth. And how our mothers play such an integral role in who we become. And that no matter what your mother has done, because I can tell you, my mother has slighted me in some really deeply painful ways. Like I will not expose that. But just know, there, there's very, very little that could could top what what my mom has done. But I forgive her. And I recognize that every single step of our path together has been her trying her best in whatever way that she knew how, when those moments were happening, she made mistakes. We all do. We have to recognize the power in the wisdom of why our mothers do as they do. Now the power of forgiveness can really liberate an entire family from a crushing weight of blame and resentment. And I'm going to be practicing that with my own family. And I really deeply encourage that over this month that we all work together to heal any mother wounds that we have to recognize the power of working with our mothers the power of of recognizing the nurturing moments our mothers have given us so we can start to incorporate that in taking care of ourselves to Well, I'm so excited for the rest of this month. I hope you guys have a great rest of your week. All right. Bye My mom just texted me talk about serendipity