– On Motherhood with Nashville Individual Therapy

Last Updated on November 5, 2024 by Chris Roberts

From: How to Love the World.  Poems of Gratitude and Hope.  Edited by James Crews.  2021.  Storey Publishing.

MOTHERHOOD

By: Chris Roberts, MACP, LPC-MHSP (Masters of Arts in Counseling and Psychology.  Licensed Professional Counselor with Mental Health Service Provider designation) Two Trees Counseling Nashville.  Relational Psychodynamic Therapy Certified Therapist Trainer and Consultant.

As a male, I will never fully know what it’s like to be a mother, and therefore all the experiences that interwoven into the idea of motherhood.  So, in that sense, I have no right to talk about anything in this area.  And yet, I do know what it’s like to have a mother.  And I know what it’s like to be a son that has a mother.  And I’ve listened over the past 15 years to clients who are both mothers and have mothers.  Motherhood is inextricably linked to what it means to be human, whether we actually are one, or not.  This short little poem captures something quite profound, even in its brevity, of motherhood, from both sides of the experience.  Like, I’ve spoken about in previous articles, the essence of poetry is to create word pictures that go far beyond the simple words on a page.

MOTHERHOOD IN COUNSELING IN NASHVILLE, TN

Freud was the originator of articulating, although it had been articulated for millennia before Freud, the profound and infinite impact that motherhood has on all of our lives.  Therapy can get a bad rap sometimes about how everything ultimately goes back to our mothers, all that is all therapy is aimed at and moving towards.  And while I don’t believe “everything” goes back to our mothers, I do believe the sentiment is accurate that our mothers have such a deep and lasting imprint on what it means to be human.  In essence, for most of us (with a huge caveat for all of us who did not have a mother growing up, or we had more consistent and attentive caregivers other than a mother) our mother was our first and most consistent contact with another human being.  Without understanding any of the dance and care and relationship and neurobiological hardwiring that is formed with our mothers, we all intuitively know something about the impact and importance our mothers had on our lives. Thank goodness, in fact, that most of don’t know all the details of the impact of motherhood, or we would be overwhelmed and depressed about the significance of that person in our lives!

UNPACKING BEING A MOTHER AND BEING MOTHERED IN THERAPY

Even the beautiful and heartbreaking act of counting our babies toes, we feel an intimacy and a connection that can only occur through the nonverbal, felt experience of being known in this way.  Of having someone’s full attention, of being delighted in through the soft, intimate touch, and of being so vulnerably in someone else’s care that the only thing we know how to do, in that moment, is to be relaxed and fully taken care of.  For many of us, our mothers were not like this to us.  Our mothers, like every normal person on this planet, were full of their own anxieties and stresses and dreads and busyness of life.  Some of our mothers were depressed to the extent that they were barely able to care for themselves.  Even the best of our mothers were distracted by all the everyday events of our lives: chores, budgets, work, friendships, extended family (drama), planning vacations, helping with homework, and organizing calendars.   Motherhood is a delicate and never-ending responsibility.  Even when we are 60 years old and our mother is 85 years old, there is still an implicit and unconscious bond with our mother, that most of us never stop to reflect on our needs and wishes and disappointments towards our mother that we, nor her, would ever even know about.

CAN INDIVIDUAL COUNSELING IN NASHVILLE HELP WITH BEING A MOTHER, OR OUR STRUGGLES WITH OUR OWN MOTHER?

Like I mentioned before, our mothers are not the end-all-be-all of all of our life’s dilemmas and dramas and pains and woundings.  But, as Freud pointed out, mothers were our first physical and emotional relationship, and so they do affect us in very significant ways.  The ways we were known and loved and cared for by our mothers, but also the ways we were disappointed and hurt and left longing in our needs from them, our mothers play an important role in understanding how we navigate the world today.  If you are struggling with being a mom, or recognize that you have anger or hurt or resentment towards your mom, then counseling in Nashville, Tennessee can be a very helpful place to begin unpacking, and acknowledging, and therefore healing of these hurt or stuck places within ourselves.  We must first be able to recognize and own the places within ourselves where we have been let down by our mothers, or we suffer with guilt and self-condemnation about the ways, as a mother, we have let down our children.

An individual therapist in Nashville, TN can be a container to express these scary or overwhelming feelings that we’ve held internally for so many years.  A good therapist can hold the intensity of these overwhelming feelings, and then help process with you ways of understanding and then integrating these experiences in your life so that they don’t dominate your daily living.

CHRIS ROBERTS AT TWO TREES COUNSELING NASHVILLE

If you are looking for an individual counselor in Nashville, or anywhere in the state of Tennessee, then Chris Roberts at Two Trees Counseling Nashville would love to speak with you more about your concerns and questions.  Chris has over 15 years working with individuals in the state of Tennessee to help them quell the intensity or overwhelmedness that life can sometimes bring.  Chris can be reached at: chris@nashvillecounselor.net, or at (615) 800-9260.