Breaking the Chains of Pain: The Power of Forgiving the Mother Who Emotionally Abandoned and Rejected You
Mar 10, 2023
My mom and I had a very difficult relationship. By the time I was seven, she was telling her friends that we had a personality conflict. When I overheard her saying that for the first time, all I could feel was suffocating shame.
"There must be something wrong with me," was the sentiment that seared into the heart of my inner child.
For most of my life, I fawned after her approval, and when I was about nine or ten years old, and presented her with a shoebox with a pair of sneakers in it, hoping she'd know how much I cared for her, her words were as cold as ice and as sharp as a razor.
"What, do you think you can buy my love, Lisa?" she snipped at me, with her nose high in the air and her spine straight.
Time and time again, the heart of my inner child was shredded by the woman I loved more than life itself. Her inability to express love, compassion, and empathy for me, made me feel like a fish that was doomed to live outside of her family's aquarium.
Eating disorders, romantic obsession, limerance, codependency, panic attacks, and depression were the effects of my mother's rejection of me.
Feeling abandoned and rejected was the cause.
However, this story has a happy ending, despite its hollow beginning.
And like most people who eventually find mental clarity, peace of mind, and contentment in their lives, it was because of my sheer determination to resuscitate my soul that paved the way to the life I live today.
Emotional Abandonment and Rejection Changes Your Brain
If you are reading this, and you experienced emotional abandonment and rejection, you need to understand a few things.
As a child, your inner child's impressionable mind may have made a decision that has haunted you and impacted every area of your life, as it did mine when I married a man who mirrored my mother's energy.
And that's the way it is for all of us.
As it is below, so shall it be above.
On my inner child healing journey, I learned to honor the little girl who used to eavesdrop on those sticky summer nights in Queens, New York, from her bedroom window, who listened for a clue about how to be good enough for her mother's love.
Despite feeling under attack by her mother's rationalizations, somehow the little girl in me held her nose above the waterline, hoping to sniff out some hint of how to be good enough.
***I have learned that you cannot fawn, fight, flee, or freeze enough to gain love and validation from someone who is stuck in their own pain.
***You can never be enough for someone who is absent of the desire to love you in a healthy way.
***You can never change enough for someone who does not care if their inability to love affects you in a negative way.
***You can never love someone enough, to get them to love you in return.
It wasn't until my heart space nearly collapsed during a severe asthma attack that my mind blew beyond its faulty, negative parameters. For most of my life, my awareness was limited, and lived inside the box those steamy summer nights built.
But when I faced the reality of my own death and the potential of leaving my three innocent Dear Ones behind, something higher within me sprang into action.
It used to make me sad to think it took me becoming physically ill to the point of near death to awaken and begin living my authentic truth, but not anymore.
Like learning to walk, one must learn to sit up, roll over, crawl, and fall many times before one gains the ability to stand tall.
And that is what the codependency-abandonment recovery journey is all about.
Like a child learning to walk, that clings to their mother's grip for stability, I attached myself to others in a codependent way, and tolerated the intolerable, believing that I was unworthy of letting go unless given permission to do so.
Life has taught me that letting go is a must if one is ever going to be liberated from generational trauma and that healing is always a potential for the one who is on fire for emotional freedom and self-mastery.
I am grateful, that I learned to heal from abandonment trauma and recovered from codependency before my mom passed away.
In time, as I healed my inner child and merged with my higher self, through the eyes of the divine all I could see was my mother's wounded inner child.
On the healing journey, she was no longer the mother that rejected me. She was a little girl who was stuck in the emotional, quantum, invisible, nonphysical goop of her mother's alcohol addiction; my mother was denied her mother's love too.
Forgiveness for me meant I could no longer hold resentment, frustration, hurt, or grief for my mother. From a higher state of awareness, all I could see were generational patterns, unconsciousness, pain, addiction, grief, sadness, loss, and unknowingness.
Letting go became a gift to my inner child. Freeing her from the chains of the past allowed her soul to fly and merge with her passion for writing, and inspiring others to strive for an authentic life, by way of learning to heal the subconscious beliefs responsible for all emotions and behaviors.
Oddly enough, dementia loosened my mother from the stories she told herself and her friends about me, and as she slipped away, the love that was her divine inner being shined through. In the months and weeks up to my mother's death, she was only love.
It is my hope that you strive for an authentic and emotionally free life, rooted in mental clarity, self-confidence, and love despite the traumatic moments that shape life.
You are more than the sum of your trauma, responses, memories, and faulty beliefs.
Dear One, you are enough...you were born enough...and forever you shall be enough...
May you find your way back to the divine inner child and learn to integrate the past, into the now, so as to create the future you desire and deserve.
And thank you to my mom, who loved me by deciding she'd never raise her children in a home wrought with alcohol. Her inner child did the best she could...and from where I stand today, that is enough...
Until we meet again mama...
Lisa A. Romano is a renowned life coach, bestselling author, and speaker who has dedicated her life to helping people heal from emotional trauma and find their true purpose. Her own journey of healing from childhood trauma and codependency has inspired her to create a unique coaching program that combines psychology, spirituality, and personal development. Lisa's bestselling books, including "Codependent - Now What?" and "The Road Back to Me," have helped thousands of people around the world to break free from toxic relationships, overcome self-doubt, and live a life of purpose and fulfillment. With her compassionate and empowering approach, Lisa has become a trusted mentor and guide for anyone seeking to transform their lives and create a brighter future.
https://www.lisaaromano.com/12wbcp
