The mother’s face can be called the prototype of a mirror, said the outstanding psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott. In this face, the child sees himself: beloved and desired. Such early impressions are the basis of his future well-being. But what if the child looks into a dim, dirty “mirror”?
When a child sees the light of love and pride in his mother’s eyes, he feels inside himself: I am needed, I am in my place, I am safe, I can relax, my needs will be satisfied. Neuroscience research confirms that love in the eyes of a mother is essential for a child’s well-being and proper bonding with others.
Ideally, as the child grows, he hears more and more praise from his mother, she talks about him, presenting him to others in a favorable light; she guides him and demonstrates patience in doing so. The child literally absorbs the message addressed to him: “You are all right. You are a good person. You have the right to express your needs. You are in the right place. I will help you. I’ll take care of you.”
But it happens, writes the famous Swiss psychotherapist Alice Miller, provided that the mother sees in the child “a small, helpless, one and only creature, and not her own expectations, fears,” which she projects onto the child. There are many reasons why a woman fails to be a “good enough mother,” and they are not always obvious, says British psychotherapist Maxine Harley. Here are some of them:
- She is infatuated or preoccupied with something and cannot satisfy our needs for a sense of security and love.
- It’s about narcissism and her thirst for attention.
- She is loaded with responsibilities at work or in the family.
- She has an unhappy marriage and constant quarrels with her husband.
- She has mental problems, with alcohol or drugs.
- She just doesn’t understand what a child really needs.
- She is pestered and tormented by her own painful childhood memories that she projects onto the child, and therefore she is annoyed by his dependence on her and helplessness.
- There are also many mothers who act from the best of intentions, but at the same time they are emotionally closed, unavailable – simply because they do not know how to be different. They had no emotional connection with their own mother. And they pass on this lack of emotions to their children.
- Or perhaps the mother gave the child up for adoption, alone or with other children. She abandoned him in the hope that she would be able to start a new life. And the feeling of rejection prevents the child from believing that he is worthy of love.
In these and other cases, that same metaphorical mirror becomes cloudy and dirty, and the child will not be able to see himself in it and enjoy the beauty of his reflection.
How do we feel when we lack maternal approval, support, and patience? Badly. We feel emptiness inside, aching pain, we feel that not everything is in order with us, that we do not deserve anything good.
No one will fill this void with words, gifts or other material incentives. The only one who will fill the void is ourselves. And it is desirable that on this path we have an assistant – not our relative or acquaintance, but an outsider who will be able to maintain objectivity and at the same time show empathy for us. Best of all – survived a similar trauma, but managed to cope with it and establish a prosperous life.
So, to fill this void, we need:
- Realize that it exists, allow yourself to feel its depth, its color, see how it determined the course of our lives through the fear of loss, failure, rejection.
- To understand that no one specifically sought to hurt us; most likely, the mother herself did not know how to behave correctly, or suffered from her own unhealed emotional wounds, from the fact that in her childhood there was also no clean, unclouded mirror in front of her.
- To learn to look sensibly from our current positions to the events of the past: then we behaved in the best way, as we understood it, and at that time it was optimal.
- Determine to be self-care, self-compassion, and tune in to self-healing and all that our inner child wants.
- Listen to your inner child, its feelings and needs. Promise yourself to give him whatever he wants, to the best of your ability.
- Create a new mirror that you can use yourself and pass on to your children. Let it be beautiful, clean, radiant and be able to show everything around in the best possible light.
So we can heal the wounds and make up for the lack of parental love. Then the past will no longer slow us down and we can enjoy the future.