mother issues

man wearing a black mask with a middle finger salute on it

How To Overcome Distrust Of Authority

Individualist western cultures traditionally tend to champion our rights as individuals over our responsibility to others in the community. Things are kept in balance by the legal system which dispenses justice by limiting the freedom of those who choose to consistently break the law, and the capitalist economy which rewards us for providing value to other people who we might not even know or otherwise care about. These safeguards prevent most people from focusing too much on themselves to the exclusion of other people.

For the most part, this system works fairly well. When it doesn’t work, the person who suffers most is usually the one who is unwilling or unable to exercise their freedoms constructively within the confines of the legal and economic system. While there is certainly structural inequity in all cultures, this can often be overcome by playing the societal game effectively and reaping sufficient rewards. The key is to exercise personal responsibility at all times and avoid playing victim to our circumstances. Those who choose to do so, despite whatever hand they may have been dealt in life originally, get rewarded. Those who rebel mindlessly get punished either directly by the legal system, or indirectly by their failure to contribute to the economic system. (more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

Why Am I So Anxious All The Time?

Journaling is a great way to release unexpressed emotions that can otherwise accumulate and make us feel anxious. Here is an example of some free-flow journaling that I did last year at a time when I was feeling particularly anxious. It helped me identify and release how I was feeling, so writing it felt very cathartic.

I am so anxious sometimes that it’s literally hard to breathe. Why, why, why, why, why? Or more importantly, what can I do about it? Where is it coming from? I’ve been contemplating this recently, and here are my thoughts: (more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago
Large family having Christmas dinner

Christmas Day With My Parents, And Other Life-Threatening Challenges

Christmas day this year was rather challenging, principally because my dad is dying. He’s 87 and got cancer 3 years ago. The 18 months of radiotherapy and chemotherapy probably saved his life, but now his bone marrow is fucked and he can’t make his own red blood cells, so he’s going to die. He knows it, I know it, everyone in the family knows it. We just don’t know when. I feel absolutely devastated.

Watching his steady decline is all the more painful because it brings up all the unmet needs I still have in my relationship with him, like security and significance, that I now know for sure he will never fulfil for me. I’ve realised this intellectually for a long time but seeing him slowly die real nails it home. My relationship with my dad has always lacked emotional intimacy despite my best efforts to connect with him over the years. He just didn’t have it in him. At the same time, he’s the one person I feel most confident in saying who genuinely loves me… and now he’s going to die. Fortunately, he’s not in any great pain as far as I can see… he just gets tired a lot.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

The Challenge Of Growing Up With A Stoic Mother

I recently had a conversation with my mother that illustrated for me the challenge of growing up with a stoic, critical, emotionally unavailable mother.

My parents are now in their late 80’s and we were headed out to Sunday lunch at their favourite club. On the way my mother starts telling me about an experience that morning in their local church service at the church where I grew up.

“Remember that crazy lady you used to live with?”, my mother says.

“You mean Megan?”, I guess.

“Yes, your friend Megan”.

A minute ago she was a crazy lady, now she’s my friend. Although we haven’t been in touch much since being flatmates years ago, I understand from what my parents tell me that Megan is still part of the ministry team at the church.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Take Your Mother Off The Brake Pedal Of Your Life

Many of my coaching clients grew up with a critical, controlling, domineering mother. They come to me because I’ve experienced this myself and know how challenging it can be to overcome on your own. Despite the challenge they face, I find my clients often make huge breakthroughs in their lives once they start addressing their mother issues both in Skype sessions with me and by taking assertive action towards their goals in the real world. When they stop living to just please their tyrannical mother and silence the inner critic they internalized as a result of their unhealthy emotional attachment to her, they can finally start living their own lives on their own terms.

In one session recently a client summarized his progress by saying:

“I’ve feel like I’ve finally taken my mother off the brake pedal of my life”

I am so inspired by many of my client’s rapid progress that I want to share with you some of the specific things that we’ve all found helpful for taking our mothers off the brake pedal of our lives:

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By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Recover From A Narcissistic Mother

Narcissistic Mothers Turned Their Back On Our Feelings When We Were Upset

Growing up with a narcissistic mother can be a complete disaster for a growing child’s sense of self, self-confidence, and future adult relationships. Narcissists are like emotionally immature children walking around in an adult body, which makes them incredibly challenging to have as a parent. Even if your narcissistic mother does eventually grow up, her emotional unavailability and controlling nature when your infant brain and sense of self were developing can leave deep wounds in your adult psyche.

If you’re wondering whether you had a narcissistic mother, check out my previous article Ten Signs That You Had A Narcissistic Mother.

Here’s how to recover: (more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

Ten Signs That You Had A Narcissistic Mother

I had a narcissistic mother and it was a complete disaster for my boyhood sense of self-confidence and the way I saw myself as I grew into a man. A narcissistic mother can leave deep emotional and psychological wounds that get triggered in our daily adult lives, undermining our self-confidence and making life extremely stressful. The impact is most pronounced in our relationships with women, leaving us feeling disempowered and emasculated around women until we get our narcissistic mother wound healed.

Narcissistic Mothers Are Emotionally Unavailable

Narcissists carry a lot of internalized shame and project their own unhealed emotional wounds onto everyone around them, especially their children. As a boy we were powerless to deal with our narcissistic mother and may still carry this sense of powerlessness along with her paranoid world view unconsciously into adulthood.

It’s easy to recognize a narcissistic mother because they typically: (more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Put Your Mother In Her Rightful Place

I was visiting my parent’s place on the weekend and seeing some relatives from interstate who I don’t often get the chance to hang out with. At one point we were all sitting in the lounge room listening to my father describe the apocalyptic nightmares he’s been having lately, while my controlling mother kept interrupting, talking over him, “correcting” him and just generally dominating the conversation.

Take Your Mother Off The Power Pedestal

I’ve always found my mother’s domineering behavior annoying, but I used to be far too scared of her to stand up to it. This time though I casually lent towards her, put my hand on her arm and said “Mum, could you be quiet please. I want to hear what my father is saying”.

She moved her arm to brush me off dismissively in a way I’ve always found infuriating. This time though rather than feeling powerless and simply capitulating, I [intlink id=”2809″ type=”post”]channeled my anger into assertiveness[/intlink]: “Don’t just brush me off!”, I said, “I want to hear what he’s saying.”

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By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Heal Your Mother Issues

Many men have mother issues that undermine our self-confidence by stopping us from really growing up and fulfilling our true potential. Unresolved mother issues cause us to remain emotionally and developmentally immature; a boy in a man’s body. If we had a critical or controlling mother we’re particularly prone to having mother issues. Add in a passive father and a lack of tribal structure with initiation rituals in modern society to force us from the cozy comfort of our mother’s breast, and it’s easy to slip from childhood into adulthood without ever actually growing up.

Unresolved mother issues can leave you stuck in a permanent state of adolescence.

Unresolved mother issues can leave you stuck in a permanent state of adolescence.

This leaves us forever unconsciously seeking comfort and reassurance from our mother, and our neediness ends up projected onto any woman we come across; which is a disaster for our relationships with women.

In normal human development, we individuate from our mothers during adolescence as we grow into being our own man with our own set of values different from hers. This is a time of rapid brain rewiring and emotional upheaval as we alternate between feeling emotionally connected with our mother, and separating from her to explore the world and our place in it.

If our mother wasn’t emotionally available to connect to, or tried to control our excursions into the world in order to prevent her feeling upset in case we got hurt, then everything can go horribly wrong. Nice Guy Syndrome and the associated approval seeking are classic symptoms of mother issues. Insecurity resulting from unresolved mother issues ends up being unconsciously projected onto everyone and everything around us, having a serious negative impact on our whole life.

Here’s how to heal your mother issues: (more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Cut The Emotional Umbilical Cord With Your Mother

G’day, guys. Today I want to talk about how to cut the emotional umbilical cord with your mother. Now, you may wonder why you want to do this or what I’m talking about. So the emotional umbilical cord is a metaphor to refer to that ability that your mother has to control or dominate you or influence you in ways that you may not like.

Now, the origin of the emotional umbilical cord goes back to when you were an infant, when your ability to comply with what your mother wanted was kind of essential to your survival since you were totally dependent on her to feed and clothe and house you. And at some point during your development, you need to cut this emotional umbilical cord if you want to grow up from being a boy into being a man.

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By Graham Stoney, ago