Internal Liberation is the New Powerful Face of Feminism!
THIS is the new face of Feminism.
For yourself and your daughter. This is SOOOOOO not your mother’s Feminism-
While we have made great strides in removing the external barriers to liberation, the internal barriers to liberation remain largely untouched.
Let me propose a radical notion to you.
And at the center of your liberation as a woman is your relationship with mom.
You learned first from her how love felt and who you were as a female. Identity and attachment learned through her treatment of you and her example.
What she experienced is, in some way, handed down to you in your relationship with her. Much of this sticks with you at the unconscious level.
Was mom truly content? Did she feel good about herself, and her choices? What did she have to do to take her place at the table? Did she have to claw and scratch, doing twice as much as her male counterparts, not having any other choice? Did she live with double standards and pass her bitterness, along with her potato salad recipe, down to you?
Many a mom had to fight for her place in a man’s world by running her masculine energy.
And in doing so, lost touch with the most powerful thing about her, her feminine essence.
The culture told her that she had arrived. She could work all day, come home in the evening to make supper and oversee homework. To have it all, she had to do it all. Even if she didn’t work outside the home, birthday parties, holiday celebrations, providing religious and educational opportunities all lay at mom’s feet.
Double standards of almost every kind nipped at mom’s heels.
Baked into this pressure cooker existence, was the expectation that mom be everything to everyone.
For some mothers, severe psychological problems found their foothold resulting in personality disorders, addiction, anxiety, and depression. The mothers who were the most fragile buckled under the pressure.
If you were raised by such a mother, this left you incredibly vulnerable. At a time when being a woman and a mother was difficult at best, being the daughter of a wounded mother left you with emotional wounds and unconscious conflicts.
We all have a pretty straightforward image of the raging or neglectful father. But the mother who knocks herself out on the front end then takes out a pound of flesh in cutting comments or micromanaging hyper control on the backend, is more insidious and harder to decipher.
Yet, you feel the strings attached to everything she says or does for you.
To differing degrees, you bear the collateral damage of a culture that didn’t quite know what to do with the first generation of liberated daughters. They had come some of the way but definitely not all the way.
As the daughters of this first generation of liberation, the legacy you inherited has been difficult to understand.
Getting it back isn’t about bubble baths, or bitchfests, blaming mom. This is about getting real, going deep, and staring down the mixed messages mothers have handed down to daughters.
Messages that say you aren’t enough unless you run yourself ragged trying to please everyone.
Messages that keep you ashamed of your body and your sexuality.
Messages that tell you that you are responsible for your children’s success.
Messages that mom shouldn’t have had to accept in the first place.
Taking Feminine back is about elevating the old and rising up with the new paradigm.
Where being strong is less about acting like a man and more about accessing your feminine power.
Where Kind isn’t pleasing everyone.
Where Compassionate isn’t constantly apologizing and endlessly explaining yourself.
Where Nurturing isn’t being at everyone’s beck-and-call.
The New Face of the Feminine is rooted in deeply-considered action that is based on clarity. The clarity that comes from being thoughtful and compassionate. Liberating your feminine nature rather than overriding it with masculine energy.
This is what has been woefully missing in the liberation debate. Interpersonal liberation is what happens one mother/daughter relationship at a time.
Heal the relationship with your mother and by default, you convey power and liberation to your daughter.
Standing up to your mother, taking your power back as a woman and as a daughter is a feminist act.
Arguably, it is THE most important feminist act in making a real change in consciousness.
If you don’t become aware of the unconscious lies that say you aren’t good enough as a woman and a daughter, you can’t rise above them.
Psychologist know, what you don’t pass back, you are destined to pass on. First to yourself, then to your sisters and finally to your daughters. This cycle of passing down the destructive mixed messages, undercutting self-esteem, disempowering double-speak has had her day.
This is where the daughter, trapped in the role of the “Good Daughter”, breaks free and gets real.
Are you ready to become truly liberated from the inside out?
This article was originally published on https://daughtersrising.info/
This is how we rise.
DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE “GOOD DAUGHTER” SYNDROME?
Do you have a Narcissistic or Difficult Mother?
Are you the “Good Daughter”? The Rebel? or The Lucky One?
Take the quiz and find out!
Bio- Katherine Fabrizio, M.A., L.P.C. has treated Adult Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers, Trapped in the Role of the “Good Daughter” for over 30 years. Dedicated to empowering these women, she now offers online help for clients and training (CE’s) for therapists at Daughtersrising.info. Her book, Daughters Rising: Rising Above the Shame, Guilt and Self-Doubt Mothers Pass Down to Daughters, is now on Amazon. Katherine lives in Raleigh N.C. where she raised two daughters and still speaks regularly with her mother.
DO YOU EXPERIENCE THE “GOOD DAUGHTER” SYNDROME?
Do you have a Narcissistic or Difficult Mother?
Are you the “Good Daughter”? The Rebel? or The Lucky One?
Take the quiz and find out!
