Mothers and Daughters
by Jennifer Hoffman
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I was with family for Thanksgiving and the conversation
turned to mothers and daughters, how challenging our mothers have become as they have aged, what they expect from us and how
they do not honor our boundaries. I have had some interesting conversations on this topic with my own mother lately but from
a perspective that allows me to understand her actions from a different place. One thing I have realized about this most complicated
of relationships, especially with my generation, is that we have lives our mothers don't understand us and never will. And
so we must learn to find a balance between our lives, the one our mothers think we should live and how to handle their fears
around these issues.
The mother/daughter relationship is very complicated
and with my generation in particular, has always been challenging. Many of the clients I speak to describe issues of jealousy,
competition, domination, criticism and judgment with their mothers. If it is our mothers' job to teach us about power, why
weren't they more compassionate teachers? They were but not in the way we expected. Lessons in power, for Indigos and Crystals,
usually begin with being powerless and our mothers are no exception in this process. We wonder why, since they struggled so
much in their lives, they haven't been more supportive or helpful in ours. Many of them had Indigo and Crystal energy too,
why didn't they use it?
Many of the women of our mothers' generation had dreams
they could never create, or not without great struggle and sacrifice. Most accepted the role of wife and mother as their lot
in life and put their dreams aside. They have mixed feelings of fear, jealousy and envy as they see us doing things they may
have wanted to do and never thought they could. Some are afraid for us as they don't want us to experience the pain of disappointment
they felt, so they do all they can to hold us back. Others, especially as they age, are afraid of losing their connection
to us so they become needy and demanding, wanting us to see them as important and valuable. This may be our biggest lesson
in compassion but it's also one of appreciation because through their parenting we had to choose to take Indigo or Crystal
energy in more powerful directions. Often we chose to be ourselves so we would not be like them. And it has been a big struggle
for us.
The challenge for us today is to learn acceptance in
our mother/daughter relationships because our mothers raised a generation of daughters who are independent, powerful and successful
and who are not afraid to follow their dreams. But what do we do with a needy, critical mother who insists on being part of
our life in her own way and disrespects our boundaries? We learn to say 'no' without feeling guilty and don't let ourselves
be shamed or manipulated into allowing our boundaries to be crossed. And we live our dreams with confidence because we are
the generation who, despite many obstacles and challenges, refused to be limited and bravely stepped into our energy knowing
that we learned to use Indigo and Crystal energy in more powerful ways and ensured that our children, the next generation
of Indigos and Crystals, were more empowered, confident and successful, than we were.
Copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Hoffman and Enlightening Life OmniMedia, Inc. All
Rights Reserved. *
