***I acknowledge that I work, play, dance, heal and create this newsletter on the unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Peoples***

*this newsletter was written and edited by a human, not AI*

Hello, Beautiful Soul!

This is a big weekend energetically, and it’s bringing a lot of things to the surface around the collective Mother Wound. We have Mother’s Day tomorrow, as well as a full moon on Monday. So before I begin- I want to say Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers, grandmothers, pet mothers, step moms, adoptive moms, foster moms and anyone else who carries mother energy and sends it out into the world as medicine. You are amazing, and if you don’t feel recognized in the way you deserve- please hear this:

‘Your love is a necessary and vital salve for our World- and it doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, it is the imperfection of your Love that gives others courage to be loving in their own way. May this Mother’s Day honour you, and if you are not appreciated by those around you, may you remember just how incredible you are and find it within you to celebrate yourself however necessary to honour your brilliant Light.’

I wasn’t sure how to approach this newsletter. I am currently feeling broken hearted after my plans fell through to celebrate my own mom for Mother’s Day, and this was a double whammy with another family event that also fell through. I had this vision of what celebrating her looked like, and it was denied.

Shit happens. People make mistakes, plans change. I know this. However, I have been going through such intense transformation over the last few months that I actually thought it might create space and a new dynamic within my own mother wound.

It did not.

What it has done is make me realize that within the collective mother wound we all share is the responsibility to heal our own internal mother wound outside of the actual dynamic with our mothers. We think reparations in a maternal relationship may involve creating a healthier or more communicative relationship with our moms, saying sorry or calling more often, but the truth is not everyone wants to heal. Some people are so deeply stuck in overwhelm and busy-ness that their capacity rests far below what is necessary to create and sustain familial bonds. This is ok, we are all on our own journey. I have certainly been there in the past. The first step in healing this wound is to recognize this and find compassion. Even when it breaks your heart.

In meditation the other morning I heard this:

“The mother wound is a tear in the fabric of Love that turns itself against us and makes us desperate for a wholeness that we believe can only come from a mother energy.”

Oof. I really sat with that and tried to understand how to work with such information.

Key aspects of the collective mother wound include:

1. Internalized patriarchy: Mothers, often unconsciously, pass on beliefs that women must suppress their needs, emotions, or ambitions to be acceptable or safe.

2. Generational trauma: Pain, neglect, or emotional unavailability passed from grandmother to mother to daughter, often stemming from historical and cultural disempowerment.

3. Shame and guilt: Women may feel guilt for wanting more than traditional roles allow or for resenting the expectations placed on them by their mothers or society.

4. Disconnection: A sense of emotional disconnection from one’s mother or from one’s own feminine essence due to survival adaptations.

   KEY’S KEY

   “Healing the collective mother wound involves both individual and communal work—acknowledging pain, reclaiming voice and worth, and reimagining what it means to mother and be mothered.”

THIS: ‘Re-imagining what it means to mother and be mothered.’ ***Please know that mother wound energy penetrates many facets of human interaction, it is not reserved solely for the mother-daughter relationship.***

I am still deep in process so I can only attest to where I currently am with this. What I understand for myself which might be relatable for you is that I have masked my true being for the near entirety of my life. As an adopted child, I was always told stories of how I never cried, was often happy, easy to love, loved to share.

It was ‘good’ to be ‘good’.

An ‘old soul’ they said. Now I am sure I was also incredibly naughty and stubborn as I am an Aquarius through and through but the truth is that by being good and smart and talented in many areas I understood that by amplifying all of those aspects of myself I could make people love me, keep the peace, and allow others to experience themselves through me. I remember strategically lying to avoid disappointing people at a very young age. By my teenage years I truly believed I was void of all natural creativity and felt like a carefully curated version of myself. I was desperate to be ‘normal’. What I didn’t understand when I was laughed at for wishing this is that I had been holding up a facade to be something I didn’t actually want to be. It was someone else’s dream that I had embraced with all my might because I had no idea who I was. It wasn’t authentic. It wasn’t what I wanted. Yet I fought for it tooth and nail because it gave me purpose, respect, attention, and meaning to my life. It created love through accomplishment and it also destroyed my ability to get to know who I was deep inside and led to a life of trying on different masks over and over until I found one that fit. All of this was critical for my life to unfold the way it has and to become exactly who I am today.

I have never found a mask that fit. Decades later I am still unwinding this. I no longer wear masks of any kind unless I choose to.

What I have been writing about in these newsletters is part of my process of commitment to ‘becoming’, and a commitment to return to Love. Above I wrote that ‘healing the mother wound must include re-imagining what it means to mother and be mothered.’ This is where the work begins. It begins when we drop the story we carry deep in our ancestral bones about how a mother should be, and stop carrying it like a weapon against both ourselves and those that mother us. Healing begins when we look at our life and understand that every single mother on this planet has done the very best she could at the time. That includes all the mother’s out there reading this- you have done the very best you could and THAT IS WORTHY OF GREAT CELEBRATION! YOU ARE AMAZING!

We heal when we don’t expect anything more than the raw love that our mom’s can offer us- we don’t try to change it, amplify it, demand it, or use it as a reflection of the Love that we deem we are worthy of. We heal when we realize that the final step in freedom and self love is in holding our mother’s love as reverent regardless of how it was offered to us. We acknowledge that a mother’s love is rooted in unconditionality but is stripped of such attributes when overwhelmed and unsupported mothers can barely survive raising a family in often severely sub standard environments (emotional, physical and psychological negligence). Without the personal support they require to remain in balance and stay rooted in love, not fear, mothers self sacrifice over and over and over again until they are unrecognizable to themselves. In turn, we learn this as it is demonstrated, one of nature’s cruelest ironies. This cycle of self sacrifice only ends when we decide enough is enough. When we step up to break the chains.

Whatever your relationship is with your mother- I urge you to rewrite your story around it. As we contract our families pre- incarnation, we choose them as they are the BEST CHANCE WE HAVE TO LEARN FROM THE PARTICULAR MATERNAL ENERGY THEY OFFER US TO GROW AND EVOLVE.

For those of you with challenging maternal dynamics and deep wounding, you are not a victim. You chose your mother and she chose you because you were literally perfect for each other. Whatever wounding might have occurred is a sacred opportunity to meet it with the kind of love that you must develop within yourself in order to heal.

You may need better boundaries. Improved communication. Space.

Forgiveness of self and (m)other.

As adults, wholeness doesn’t come from an external form of energy, or an external source of motherly Love. It comes from inside ourselves and is rooted in the kind of loving self care that as an adult is defined as ‘self-mothering’.

We are no longer children, but our inner child is still screaming for attention.

Everything changes when you finally listen to her (him) and step in to care for her (him) in the ways you feel are required to feel safe. To do this we must remind ourselves that we are responsible for our own life and happiness and healing our own heart wounds. As adults, this has nothing to do with how we were raised. There is shadow and light in all familial relationships. This has to do with how we acknowledge our perfectly imperfect mothers and choose to see the Love that was always there, even though we couldn’t always see it when it was masked in fear, even though the actions may not have been aligned with love at times. Those days are long gone, and many of us are mothers ourselves and we alone are responsible for breaking the ancestral chains of unresolved trauma that moves through our maternal and paternal lineages.

The mother wound IS healing. As with anything that requires healing, often a new layer of darkness must arise so it can be met in a new way. So it can be met with true, unconditional love. Figuring out how to do this is messy.

To my mother- I love you. Thank you for agreeing to be mine in this lifetime, you have been, and always will be, enough. I cherish every moment we spend together. Happy Birthday!

To my birth mother- thank you for bringing me into this World. For agreeing in contract to release me to another to care for in the hopes of a better life for me is literally the most selfless act a mother can do. Without you I would have never landed on this beautiful earth. I love you.

To my grandmother and my mother in law- thank you for protecting me. I love you.

To my step mom- thank you for teaching me what true gentleness looks like. Thank you for taking excellent, loving care of my dad. I love you.

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Here is a beautiful conversation I had with the amazing Seryna Myers on her podcast “The Unshakeable Self”. It will not be ready to listen to until Sunday May 11th when it launches, so click on the link below any time starting on Mother’s Day:

Here are the things that have been helping me on my path this week:

MOTHERS THAT WILL DO ANYTHING TO PROTECT THIER BABIES:

Watch this killdeer bird mama do whatever necessary to protect her young:

THE DANGER OF UNUSED CREATIVITY

If you think you aren’t creative, think again. You are a creative being at the most fundamental level of existence. Here’s what happens if you don’t tap into it and start to use your creative gifts:

We are creating contracts in our families with our thoughts and our consciousness:

Ancient tribal wisdom from a beautiful soul:

What happens to our lives when we ask for something new:

Are things falling apart for you? Here’s why:

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FULL MOON GUIDANCE

What’s in store for this powerful full moon on Monday May 12th and how to prepare for the immense opportunity it provides us:

QUOTE I’M PODERING

“Imagine you are walking in the woods and you see a small dog sitting by a tree. As you approach it, it lunges at you, teeth bared. You are frightened and angry. But then you notice that one of its legs is caught in a trap. Immediately your mood shifts from anger to concern: you see that the dog’s aggression is coming from a place of vulnerability and pain. This applies to all of us. When we behave in hurtful ways, it is because we are caught in some kind of trap. The more we look through the eyes of wisdom at ourselves and one another, the more we cultivate a compassionate heart.”

~Tara Brach

Finding value in this newsletter? Here is a link to check out the Key’s Keys Archives for past newsletters for more support on your spiritual path:

UPCOMING FREE EVENTS

COMMUNITY GUIDED MEDITATION

May 24th- 10 am pst

Link to sign up here:

LIGHT LANGUAGE HEALING TRANSMISSION

May 31- 10 am PST

Link to sign up here:

NEW OFFERING!

MID WEEK MINDFULNESS- Wed, May 21st, 7 pm pst

An IN PERSON and ONLINE event!

This is a new offering designed to create community so we can sit in meditation together, fostering connection and healing through the like minded perspective that healing happens when we are held in sacred space. Our first one was SOOOO beautiful and nourishing. Our next wave of healing on this planet will happen in community.

Whether you are on a healing journey, just starting a meditation practise, or are a well seasoned meditator, this community event will be an opportunity to sit quietly together and practise presence. For those new to meditation, I will give an easy suggestion on where to begin.

Format: I will guide us in for about 5 min, then we will sit in meditation together for 30 min, and afterwards I will read a short passage from a spiritual book to provide guidance and insight (Pema Chodron and Breanna Weist). We will end with a short round circle (optional) before we close the practise.

THIS IS AN IN PERSON AND ONLINE EVENT!

PLEASE REGISTER VIA THIS ZOOM LINK WHETHER YOU WISH TO JOIN IN PERSON OR ONLINE.

ADDRESS FOR IN PERSON ATTENDANCE:

THE LIGHT TEMPLE

1138 GREGORY ROAD, WEST KELOWNA

DOORS OPEN AT 6:45 PM BOTH IN PERSON AND VIA ZOOM

This is a free event, if you wish to make a donation that is welcome too.

Register in advance for this meeting:

Thank you for being in this community- I am so grateful for you and your incredible Light.