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I have recently worked with women who were feeling totally suffocated by the time and attention required to appease their controlling and invasive mothers. Understand that these mothers, in their own minds, did not understand that their lack of boundaries was causing ill feelings or issues for their daughters, even though the daughters had tried hard to tell their mothers to back off. From the mothers’ perspective, they were just trying to help out in ways that they thought would be useful.
One case involved a woman who really enjoyed her mother’s company so long as there were other people around; the problem came when she was alone with her mother and would get the negative, hurtful comments. Other invasive actions came when the mother wanted to help to decorate her daughter’s new house without being asked, such as choosing and purchasing fabric for the dining room chairs when her daughter had not even considered having this done. There were many times when the mother went out of her way to purchase things that were not in line with her daughter’s taste and that her daughter could afford to purchase if she so desired.
During the sessions it came out that her mother did not believe she could have a biological child; five years before my client was born, a son was adopted; unknown to her mother, the son was mentally retarded and needed a lot of extra care. After (my client) was born, the mother focused her loving attention on her biological daughter for she was able to relate to her in a more normal fashion. The end result was that my client never felt she had any time to herself when all of her waking hours seemed to go into taking care of her family. She never took time out to care for herself, and she did not have any energy to really give her husband the attention that he desired.
The work that we did centered on my client being able to communicate with her mother in a way that reclaimed her home and her own space so that she was better able to focus on the things that are important to her. She needed to let go of any anger that was present in her relationship with her mother and to forgive her mother for the behavior that she demonstrated. Next she needed to understand that she was a role model for her two young daughters and the last message she wanted to give them was that a woman’s job is never done and that there is no time for your own individual and marital needs to be taken care of. She needed to put herself back into her life so that she could feel whole again.
Another case involved a woman whose mother could be very insulting in many ways. My client has actually had some wonderful professional achievements, yet her mother was not able to ever validate them for her. My client felt insecure about herself and her capacity to form intimate relationships. She started pulling her hair out of her head to the point where there were some bald spots that formed.
Again the sessions focused on first on letting go of the anger my client felt toward her mother and forgiving her mother for her inability to communicate in a more positive manner. From there she needed to learn how to create safer boundaries for herself when she was interacting with her mother so she would not have to feel hurt by her mother every time they would talk.
I got a call from another woman who had some mother issues as well, and the way she dealt with it was to be professionally unsuccessful and overweight because she knew that would upset her mother. I have not worked with her yet, but it speaks to the lengths that some people will go to in order to deal with the anger and upset that negative relationships can create.
Using hypnosis makes it relatively easy to understand the self-damaging behavior that is going on and to arrest it so that a better quality of life can be had by all. If you feel suffocated by your mother (or anyone, for that matter), you do not want to damage yourself to get even with her. What you want to do is to be the best you that you can be and effectively deal with the person who is the problem, so that her issues do not become yours.
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