The Collapsed Mother and Cultivating Inner Resilience
Recently, I wrote a short piece about my first ever backpacking trip. I called the piece Indecision is a Decoy, because on the last day of the trip, my travel companion asked if I wanted to jump in the lake or not. This simple question sent me into a tailspin. I could not decide. My thoughts showed up quickly and overlapping, then circling back on themselves. The tension in my shoulders and chest began to increase exponentially. I felt stuck and tangled up around myself. It was angsty and terrible and so very sadly familiar.
In the Wild Within series that we are releasing soon, I tell this story to illustrate Dr Estes’ concept of “the collapsed mother.” Dr. Estes presents this concept in her analysis of The Ugly Duckling story - when the mother of the unusual and different duckling tries to defend and protect her child from the community’s taunting and ridicule, but ultimately collapses and abandons her child to deal with the harsh world on its own.
As we do in each episode of the Wild Within series, we can explore this concept at multiple levels. In a literal way, many of us have or had under-resourced mothers. To be able to be a self-aware, compassionate, firm-but-loving parent takes a lot of resources both internal and external. However, historically, parenting, and mothering in particular, has been unrecognized, unsupported, and extremely vulnerable to attack from the overculture. This is a recipe for a collapsed mother. It would not be unfair to say that we live in a culture that has bred collapsed mothers. (Note: The helicopter parent or “Tiger mom” trends that we have seen in recent years might be thought of as reactions or compensations for an epidemic of collapsed mothering. I would suggest that these are not balanced responses but overcompensated responses from a place of reactivity.)
So when we grow up with a collapsed mother and the overculture offers little compassion or wise guidance, from where are we supposed to draw the resources to be otherwise? Most parents try to correct the mistakes they perceive that their parents made, but this takes resources and a level of devotion to personal growth that most parents simply cannot afford. So at the social level, we can think of collapsed mothering as an ancestral wound that has been culturally bound and perpetuated over centuries.
When we have an actual real life mother who does not have the internal resources to support and defend us, we develop an internal mother who cannot support us. And when we are teased and criticized and not effectively protected by the love of a resourced parent, we develop a stronger inner critic.
In our Wild Within series, we explore the social and familial implications of the stories of Women Who Run With the Wolves, but we also discuss these tales as the Jungians do - where every character portrays a part of one person’s psyche. In the Ugly Duckling, we could imagine that there is an aspect of ourselves that is perceived as “different” or “other” (the duckling). And there are parts of us that bully that part, tease it and make fun of it (the community). Another part that tries to defend this different or usual part but cannot hold its ground (the collapsed mother). She tries, she wants to, but she feels shaky and weak. She gives up and lets the bully hurt the vulnerable part. And as a whole, we are weakened as a result. Perhaps the different or other part has to flee, as the duckling in The Ugly Duckling does, and is exiled from the psyche: alone and without the relational safety of other parts of ourselves.
For those of us who struggle with self-criticism, the story of the internal collapsed mother may ring a painful bell. It can feel like any part of the self that does not comply perfectly can be subject to unrelenting torment and that the only solution is annihilation of that part. And as a secondary response, it can lead to pervasive indecision. You see, an internal collapsed mother can’t have your back. Not for long. She tries but quickly succumbs to the pressure of the internal critic. And if we know that we won’t have our own back if we choose “wrongly,” we can feel paralyzed when it comes to making a decision. We torture ourselves sideways, building up energy around both sides and feeling this sometimes trivial decision become a tower of excruciating importance from which a fall would be devastating if the correct choice is not made.
This is what happened to me on my backpacking trip at the lake. I could not decide whether to jump in the lake or not. This may seem like a trivial decision, but in my internal world it was of grave importance, because I could not trust myself to have my own back. I was afraid that if I chose wrongly I would criticize myself endlessly. My efforts to “get it right” were paralyzing and so I froze. But truly I had focused on the wrong problem. The problem was not that I didn’t know the “right” answer, but rather that I couldn’t let myself learn and grow and be kind to myself while doing so.
This example illustrates the relationship between chronic indecision and internal resourced support. This pattern had played out for me (without the epiphany) in so many other contexts prior to this example: which college to go to, whether to take a trip or not, class selection, jobs, what to have for dinner. It permeated so many aspects of my life and spanned over most of my adulthood. The lake example I shared was just one moment in a prolonged series of habitual painful experiences.
But struggling with an internal collapsed mother can show up in a lot of ways. It can look like collapsing in the face of challenging tasks or those that require self-trust and persistence. It can be the experience of falling into a pit of self-doubt when someone treats you poorly or there is an interpersonal conflict. It can look like adapting yourself so that you feel everyone “likes” you - even if you don’t like them and even if it means going against your deepest values. The mothering function of the psyche is such a powerful and vital force, when she cannot have our back, we experience great turmoil and despair.
So all this begs the question, if we struggle with an internal collapsed mother, how do we resource ourselves so that we can have more epiphany moments and learn to have our own back? Luckily, we are living in a time where we know so much more about self-nurturance and caring for our nervous systems than ever before. This is the work we tackle directly in our Wild Within series. We focus on how to engage with story, self-reflection, and cultural and social pressures in order to heal our own nervous systems, and to be an emotionally-regulated, healing force in our relationships, our lineage, and our communities. Here are some reflection questions to get you started:
Do you struggle with indecision? If so, what types of situations make you more likely to get stuck in indecision?
What are the characteristics of your inner critic?
What do you know of your inner nurturer - the one who loves and supports you no matter what?
What parts of you are “unusual” or “different” and vulnerable because of their uniqueness?
Also a quick note on Fathers: I am not saying that fathers are less important than mothers or that they can’t be collapsed - they are just as vital, and they can collapse. However, that is a slightly different exploration. We discuss the role of the external and internal father in our analyses of other tales in this series and hope you will join us there!
Some things take their own time: Sowing the Seeds
In early Spring of 2023 I had grand plans to grow a pollinator paradise in my yard. I envisioned our pond surrounded by wildflowers bursting with color and teaming with bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies.
And so, I began…
I diligently selected a native rocky mountain wildflower seed mix.
I eagerly cleared the tall tangled weeds from a sloping patch in my front yard.
I gently combed the soil and added just the right amount of compost.
When it was time to plant the seeds, I excitedly scattered them over the soil and then gently sprinkled the tiniest layer of soil over them. I said a little blessing and watered them in.
And then I faithfully watered.
Daily.
All summer I returned to this patch waiting for the wildflowers to grow.
And watered and waited.
Despite my best efforts only 3 little seedlings poked through bearing the tiniest-tiniest, itiest-bitiest little flowers.
The following summer, something curious happened. I started to see these brilliant yellow red flowers with giant cones in the middle. And a month later the whole patch was blossoming with an array of yellows, oranges, reds, pinks, and purples.
So once again nature showed me that the world is not on my schedule, or the schedule of the seed packet, or the overculture’s schedule. Some things, like these beautiful wildflowers, take their own time.
In a similar way, we have been tending to our work at tendrils; planting the seeds and faithfully watering. And, as always, we are being taught about how good things take their time. But like a beautiful raging rainbow of wildflowers, we are so excited to announce that our Wild Within Course will (finally) be available this autumn!
In our Wild Within Course, you will:
Use the book Women Who Run With the Wolves as a mythic frame
Learn about how to use myth and story as medicine
Learn to discern and disconnect from that which no longer serves
Recover your innate wisdom
Explore your own personal myth
Leading up to the release of our course we will be posting writing related to the themes that you will learn more in depth about in the course. And offering some reflection questions for your pondering. For this week:
What are some things in your life that you planted and have been watering?
What seems like it should have bloomed already but may be taking its own time?
Might there be a gift in the slower timing, either by allowing something to take its ripest form or by making space for other things that needed to come through first?