Welcome to this new series, In the Coaching Room. This is where I share with you what I’ve been noticing with my coaching clients regarding themes percolating in the zeitgeist. Of course, I won’t share particulars due to my client’s privacy and confidentiality.
My intention here is to share these observations to help you explore something in your life if the topic resonates with you. I will also share my thoughts on themes that I see unfurling at the intersection of the personal and the collective. This is where the lens of astrology will come in handy, illuminating the collective aspects of ‘as above,’ so below’ in the coaching room.
One thing I’ve noticed again and again is that themes come in clusters. Because I’m the ‘common denominator,’ they may also be linked by something I’m navigating in my life or related to a topic I’ve been tapped on the shoulder to check out. However, one thing all themes have in common is RELATIONSHIPS. Relationship to one’s career, sense of meaning, self, and self-care, with a family, partner (or lack thereof), but often the two big kahunas: Mother & Father.
Tell me about your mother.
Even when it may not seem so, a small scratch on the surface of one’s life, and there it is, relationship “issues” with either Mother or Father. Freud said this: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. So, of course, only some things will have their origin in issues with the mother or father. I do witness also a lot that stems from systemic issues due to our cannibalistic capitalist system that’s gone haywire – or, as writer Paul Kingsnorth calls it, the Machine—more on that in later installments. I say this to illustrate that not all of our difficulties stem from our parental imagos, because societal and cultural contexts have much to say.
But recently, I’ve been taken by the cluster of synchronicities around the theme of Mother. Several clients have brought up having issues with their mothers. In contrast, now, they’re exploring the growing edge between learning to set boundaries while also learning to mother themselves and grieve for not having received the nurturing they needed/wanted growing up. Again and again, the image of the parentified child* comes up, especially with clients who struggle with perfectionism (a manifestation of a need to control and feel in control), over-achievers who don’t feel like they’re enough, and the biggest dead giveaway: struggle to set boundaries, especially around tending to their self-nurturing/nourishing, and not sacrificing themselves at the altar of people pleasing.
Usually, this is when I ask the question often used in comedic settings but still relevant: Tell me about your mother.
It’s not that fathers don’t matter in this equation. But what I’ve noticed is that often, the father is ‘missing’ either physically (e.g., divorce, abandonment) or emotionally.
Now, the theme of mother is as big as all of Gaia (the OG!), so in an attempt to narrow it down, I’ll say that when it comes to matters of career, work fulfillment, the Holy Grail of work/life balance, and sense of purpose – the theme of Mother permeates.
How many soulpreneurs/entrepreneurs I’ve worked with have struggled to feel nourished by their business, if not financially, at least in terms of visibility and/or balance between putting too much or too little into the endeavor?
Here, I see a link between how we were nourished/nurtured by the first/central relationship of the early days of our lives. Yes, too much pressure is already added to the role of mother, which isn’t easy. But these expectations reveal how our culture already gives little nourishment to mothers and expects a lot from them. How can one expect to give what one hasn’t received? (This is where I feel that in healing our mother issues, we’re also healing the collective mother issue, including our relationship with Mother Nature. More on this in later installments.)
Whatever we’re struggling with regarding careers, setting up our own business, or clarity around what is fulfilling and purposeful for us, and finding what is nourishing/nurturing to ourselves is FOUNDATIONAL.
This is self-care that goes way beyond Insta influencers and cliches.
This is LUNAR SELF-CARE.
Because MOON is MOTHER.
It’s the womb, our first relationship as we unfurled from seed to human in the belly. The astrological MOON is the psychological representation of what Jungian Analyst Murray Stein calls LUNAR CONSCIOUSNESS—which is earlier than SOLAR CONSCIOUSNESS and is based on attachment values and self-acceptance. It often works through SOMA** (the body), not the rational mind.
As I write this, I realize I’ve snagged a thread that can unravel much further than I can give it justice here. So for now, let’s pause the unraveling, and I’ll leave you with these reflection prompts as a bit of ‘coaching homework’:
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How has your relationship with your mother affected your life?
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What aspect of your mother’s unlived life influenced your career?
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What’s your relationship with self-care/nurturing/nourishment like?
If this resonates with you, drop me a line. I’d love to hear about your experience. I’ll explore this thread in further installments. Cause when it comes to mothers, the rabbit hole is much deeper.
PS- if you are curious about the connection between self-care and your Moon Sign, check out my article here.
* Parentified Child: Emotional parentification occurs when parents impose their emotional needs on their children and seek emotional and mental support from them.
** Body, matter is etymologically related to MOTHER. Our society’s materialistic stance is how ‘issues with mother’ show up on a larger scale.
Photo Credits:
Main image: Dylan Nolte – via Unsplash
