my inner critic and the mother wound
and our first scorpio moon together
hello my favourite people!
i hope the new moon in libra yesterday made you feel a sense of renewal.
when you’re reading this, the moon will be in scorpio.
this is the first pitter patter that i get to write about scorpio energy, and, of course, as a scorpio sun, i am fucking PUMPED about it.
my fave scorpio moon?
scorpio energy is bold… in a mysterious way. if you have a scorpio moon, you might feel like people don’t really know you, but that any secrets or gossip always get back to you (bold of jay-z to think beyoncé wouldn’t make an album about him cheating).
if you feel like hermitting today, lean into that energy. spend time with yourself and your secrets. i have a feel that with mercury retrograde and this scorpio moon, everyone’s secrets could be coming out over the next few days 👀
discovering the inner mother
if you watch my insta stories, you know that i read discovering the inner mother by bethany webster this week.
first of all, if you’re a woman or were socialized as female, i 100% recommend reading this. it’s the kind of book that can change your life.
before i even opened this book, i was thinking about writing about my inner critic based on the last therapy session i had, and this brought it full circle.
enough prefacing, lemme get into it.
my inner critic and the mother wound
“we are unconsciously waiting for our mother’s permission or approval before claiming our own lives.”
bethany webster, discovering the inner mother
for most of my life, i catered to my mom’s expectations of me. making her happy and proud was how i operated. now that i have more space from her, i’ve been making room for my own wants, but it’s bonkers how engrained her expectations are.
i was talking to my therapist about how whenever something good happens, i immediately find a flaw in it, and in a sense, rob myself of joy. the examples i used were seeing a real life copy of please love me at my worst for the first time and getting my upstairs floors done. in both instances, instead of being excited that things were finished, i immediately nitpicked.
for my book:
i wish the margins were bigger. i should’ve formatted this poem differently. should the section headers have been more centered?
for my floors:
why does the quarter round look like that? i should have gotten them to take the baseboards off instead. should i have waited for a different colour floor? is too grey?
i sat with these critiques for a bit, and my therapist tried to tap into where they were coming from, but it was SO protective of it.
i kept pausing and trying to listen to my inner voice, but i heard absolutely nothing. i was the human embodiment of the 🙅🏻♀️ emoji in that moment–i didn’t want to let it out. where did this inner critic come from? why was i robbing myself of joy?
and then i remembered, shortly after i stopped talking to my mom last year, i got curtain bangs. i was very happy with them and pretty excited that i wouldn’t have to see my mom or experience her reaction (it would’ve gone something like, “wow, i didn’t realize those were in style again” while she flicked them with her fingers).
that’s when i had an aha! moment. the obvious ways in which my mom critiqued me, like my appearance, were things i had experienced in the past, things i could catch, things i expected. i felt free from them, and i was able to distinguish them from my own voice.
but getting a book traditionally published without having full control of the formatting and having flooring installed were entirely new experiences to me. experiences that i didn’t have past data to look back at to know what her reaction would be. so instead of being relieved that my mom wasn’t there to flick my bangs, i took the critiques of my book’s formatting and my floors to be my own.
after further discussion with my therapist, i realized that having a critical reaction is the only way i know how to react to good things, because that was one of the main ways my mom showed she cared. critique and negativity are the forms of love i am most familiar with. OF COURSE that’s how i learned to show myself i cared, too.
and i think i was unable to realize the source of these critiques upfront because my inner child was protecting my mom.
i was not surprised to read this in discovering the inner mother:
so what? who cares that i can’t have a good experience without seeing the bad in it (kidding).
one of the most harmful parts of this conditioning was that i stopped myself from doing a lot of things, because that inner critic was loud before i even began.
now that i’ve had almost two years of space from my mom and am starting to have these realizations around where my hesitations or perfectionist tendencies come from, they aren’t preventing me from doing things as much.
i had another aha! moment about all the things i’ve done in the past two years: coming out as bisexual, quitting my job, buying a house. even if my inner critic did come through, even if i questioned myself, having that separation from my biggest critic (my mom), let me take the leap.
though i didn’t realize it, i was freeing myself from my mother’s expectations.
if you want more insight into how to separate yourself from your mother’s expectations and discover the inner mother that your inner child needs… read the book!
i’ll leave you with one last excerpt:
poetry prompt
it’s that time again! let’s write a poem on the spot. though i don’t think i talked about crying once in this letter so far (shocker), writing to this prompt made me sob. enjoy!
prompt: in what ways are you similar to your parent(s)? in what ways are you different?
some days i cannot see
where my mother ends
and i begin
i am her thick hair
her knowing eyes
her grin
before you get the joke
but though i am mother
i am learning to make room
for me too
i am the freckle on my nose
my crooked toe
the way my words
having feelings
i am her
and i am everything she gave up
tiktok time
a huge lesson for me in therapy and in reading discovering the inner mother was that i need to let myself sit with and feel my feelings. i literally cried, held myself, and reassured my inner child while reading this book.
before, the most common feeling i would try to avoid is sadness. but, again, SHOCKER (i think shocker is my word of the week), sadness is unavoidable! and the more you avoid it, the more it builds up, and the more it seeps out in ways you don’t want it to.
i love this perspective from a therapist about intellectualizing vs. feeling your feels.
that’s it for this week, my loves!
i hope the new moon brings love and light™ to the rest of your october.
just a friendly reminder that my new book, please love me at my worst, comes out next week! if you want it asap, you can preorder here (i got my preordered copy early and have been getting messages that other people have as well!):
if you want to share your poem or have your own reflections about the mother wound, leave me a comment:
if you want to access to this week’s new moon post and to get the next full moon update in your inbox on october 20, you can see paid subscription options here:
and as per usual, if you know someone with mommy issues who would enjoy this letter, why not share it with them!
xoxo
m