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This blog is the first of a five part series on The Mysterial Sequence. To receive insight and support, join us here.

My work is dedicated to supporting women in the awakening of their Mysterial potential and urging them to the edge of their own evolution. In the 15 years of research through our Women’s University Certificate Leadership Programs, we were asking questions like,

“What does it take for women to realize their full potential, to flourish, to be deeply fulfilled inside and out and become leaders who are able to shape a positive future for all beings?”

What we discovered was a clear developmental pathway for women and how different that pathway is from men’s. We saw how women have exhausted themselves trying to fit into the masculine culture, especially in the workplace—trying to ‘be one of the boys.’ This masculine paradigm has leaked into other areas of women’s lives, leaving them feeling unfulfilled and disconnected.

Thankfully we saw a new path reveal itself—one that integrates women’s Feminine and Masculine leadership qualities, embraces women’s wholeness and addresses all the domains of her unique experience.

We call this developmental path ‘The Mysterial Sequence’ and I’m ecstatic to be giving you a glimpse of it in these following posts.

The first of the five gates in this sequence is ‘The Mother’. Since it’s so foundational, it’s even finding it’s way into the mainstream now, through articles like Healing the Mother Wound, featured on Goop.com.

The Mother Archetype

The Mother Archetype addresses the relationship with the very core of our being; of how we relate to ourselves. We all begin in the womb of the mother. It’s the most ancient and universally recognized of all archetypes.

When we are still holding trauma and suffering around The Mother Archetype, our fundamental value and worth is unstable. We question our own rights, freedom and value. We don’t feel that we matter or are worth of taking up space.

We encountered the Mother Wound within so many of the women in our research. It primarily lives as a strong limiting belief, and although sometimes consciously know, it’s typically embedded in the unconscious as:

The core limiting belief of The Mother

“I am not enough.”

You may identify with this core limiting belief.

Examples of how this often expresses in our thoughts, words or actions include evaluation and disapproval of many things, and especially of:

  • Our physical body: breasts not big enough, waist not small enough, hair not smooth enough, body not sexy enough (ultimately measuring the sufficiency of our body against an old masculine view of beauty and how it should look in order to give pleasure to men).
  • Our emotional experience: not valuing emotional intelligence, don’t know feelings or how to discern their meaning, think feelings are wrong, medicate them away or numb them through addiction.
  • Our intelligence: not smart enough, don’t think like others (especially men, especially at work).

This unhealthy pattern of sufficiency / value needs to be unhooked from an outdated view of the feminine. We’re standing on the edge of evolution, with the potential to transcend old world views. We can include all the women before us, and we can move beyond.

But first we need to find our own inner mother—to take care of the parts of ourselves that got left behind. When we know how to be self-loving, we can move forward. We can care for ourselves, other beings, the planet, and see the universe as friendly. We can be one with all, heart open to self and others and the world.

The deep work here is to go into the body and decode the ‘not enough’.  What arises is the liberating belief in the body (not just mind):

The liberating belief of The Mother

“I am enough just as I am.”

A healthy mother archetype allows us to experience a sense of love, security, nourishment, containment, and being provided for.

The healing of the mother wound is where we begin. If we cannot embrace ourselves and our suffering more fully, we will not be able to do the same with others. We need to be able to have a compassionate heart for others and the world—we cannot hold the global heart if we cannot hold our own heart.

I invite you to take in these words from the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, to inspire the healing of your Mother Wound:

Go back and take care of yourself.
Your body needs you,
your feelings need you,
your perceptions need you.
Your suffering needs you to acknowledge it.
Go home and be there for all these things.

As always, thank you for exploring with me. I invite you to explore the next gate in The Mysterial Sequence: The Hero Wound.

For more in depth exploration read:

You Make Your Path by Walking
A Transformational Field Guide through Trauma and Loss
Buy on AmazonBuy on Bookshop
The Way of the Mysterial Woman
Upgrading How You Live, Love and Lead
Buy on AmazonBuy on Bookshop

2 Comments

  • Beth says:

    Thank you, Suzanne- for this timely gift and reminder of the need to ground in the healthy mother.
    Currently, the mother wound is experienced in my struggle to hold what is going on in the world. There is the guilt for looking away, the shame of not having the answers, and the fear of not being able to create something better for my children.
    However, one of the things that brings me most joy is witnessing others bring their gifts to the world. The gifts of the feminine have been suppressed for so long, but there is no denying they are coming forth in irrepressible ways now. I’m not only hopeful, but inspired and excited by the way things align so that what needs to arise next is able.
    We are enough just the way we are.
    Beth D.

    • Suzanne Anderson says:

      Beth…thank you for your beautiful words. It all begins here with the Mother…the deep capacity to rest into our own sufficiency and to be with ‘what is’ without turning away. This is true at the global level and in our own very personal lives. It is without question time for the Deep Feminine to arise and she is coming forward now through so many women and men. And this emergence is kicking up the shadows of the patriarchy as well – so it becomes even more important to be deeply grounded in BEING. Building practices into our lives to cultivate this is essential and finding the communities of support to nourish us has never been more important. We are needed now…and we will need each other!

      With love, Suzanne

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