Personal Reflection, Part 3 – Healing the Mother Wound Healing is never a clean process.

Personal Reflection, Part 3 – Healing the Mother Wound

Healing is never a clean process.

It’s not linear, and it doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes it looks like progress, like moments of clarity and strength. Other times, it looks like lying in bed after surgery, exhausted and vulnerable, realising that no matter how much I had built myself into a man who could handle anything—there were still places inside me that needed care.

When I woke up from surgery, everything felt raw. Not just physically, but emotionally. The reality of my situation had settled in, and for the first time in a long time, I felt small. And in those moments, when I had no choice but to slow down, I started to see things more clearly.

My mother was there. She arrived four days before surgery and stayed for two weeks after. She cooked, she made sure I was resting, she was present. And for the first time in 13 years, I let that be enough.

The Shift: Meeting Her Where She Is

If this had been years ago, I would have been focused on what was missing. I would have been waiting for some deep conversation, some acknowledgment of the past, some moment where she told me everything I had always wanted to hear.

But that’s not who she is.

And this time, I didn’t hold it against her.

Instead, I met her where she was. I let go of the expectation that she would suddenly become a different version of herself, one who fit the idea of a mother I had built in my mind. I accepted the way she loves, the way she expresses care, the fact that she showed up in the way she knew how.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was something. And when I stopped measuring it against what I thought I needed, I realised it was actually enough.

That shift was a turning point. Not just in my relationship with her, but in my healing.

Because the truth is, I had spent years keeping this wound open. Not intentionally, but by holding onto resentment, by replaying old stories, by looking for something she was never going to be able to give me. And I see now that it wasn’t just about her—it was about me.

Taking Responsibility for Healing

It’s a hard truth to face, but at some point, the pain I carried was no longer about what had happened in the past. It was about the way I was choosing to hold onto it.

I had to ask myself:

• Am I still expecting my mother to heal this for me?

• Am I holding onto this wound because I don’t know who I’d be without it?

• Am I keeping this story alive because it justifies the way I move through the world?

The answers weren’t easy. But they were necessary.

Healing doesn’t mean pretending the pain didn’t happen. It doesn’t mean ignoring the gaps, the moments where things should have been different. It means acknowledging them, and then choosing not to let them define who I am.

My mother did the best she could with the tools she had. That doesn’t erase the wounds, but it does mean that continuing to hold her accountable for my healing is no longer fair—to her or to me.

It’s my responsibility now.

What This Means for The Work

A lot of men carry this wound. Some don’t even realise it. It shows up in the way we move through the world, in how we approach relationships, in the way we either avoid vulnerability or chase validation from places that can’t give it to us.

And I see now that the work isn’t about fixing the past. It’s about learning how to nurture ourselves in the ways we were missing.

For me, that has meant:

• Learning to rest without guilt.

• Letting go of the need to prove my worth through achievement.

• Accepting love in the forms it is given, rather than resenting the ways it isn’t.

It’s about recognising that no one is coming to fix this for us. That healing doesn’t come from getting what we always wanted—it comes from learning how to give it to ourselves.

When I lay in that hospital bed, I saw it clearly: The wound existed, but so did the choice to tend to it properly. To clean it, dress it, and let it heal.

Because strength isn’t about carrying pain—it’s about knowing when to put it down.