The Mama Trauma Care Kit
Being estranged or distanced from our mothers can be incredibly painful. Whether your relationship with your Mom is complicated, tense, destructive, or non-existent, I believe there is a tool for you in this kit that will help you to find some comfort and healing.
If you do everything in this kit, you will have a FULL day of ceremony, but you can also spread it out over time, and you can definitely use these practices over and over again.
I sincerely hope this kit will be a balm for you. I’m so proud of you for going on this journey, for committing to yourself and your healing, and I’m so grateful you’re allowing me to accompany you on the way!
Please understand that this work carries potentially re-traumatizing heaviness. The goal of this is NOT to send you into a traumatized state. If you feel you will need extra support from a trauma-informed specialist, I encourage you to complete this work with the help of your therapist, or contact me and we can set up a Life Coaching session during which I can walk you through some Nervous System re-regulation techniques to help you cope.
Set the Ceremony Space + Cleanse
Before you enter the space, shower or bathe. Water is incredibly helpful for diffusing tense energy, just ask any empath you know! You want to enter into this with a calm and open heart. Bathing also adds a little of the water element to what will be a very emotional day of ceremony. This is to energetically keep yourself feeling flowy and flexible, which will be necessary as you flow through different feelings and unfamiliar practices.
Cleanse with smoke. Smoke adds a little fire and a little air, ensuring that you are in the energy of fortitude and expression.
I recommend a Rosemary smudge stick. I do NOT recommend White Sage or Palo Santo, as their high demand has resulted in the over-farming of these plants and the ecological destruction of their environments. Additionally, White Sage has ceremonial importance to many Indigenous tribes, so if you’re not Indigenous and you want to be in respectful relationship with this culture, I’d stay away from using White Sage unless invited into the practice by someone of Indigenous descent.
You can set out flowers and pictures of yourself as a child, your mom if it’s not too triggering, and even pictures of the two of you together.
Dress yourself in comfortable clothes that help you feel peaceful (for example, I have a pink sweater that is basically my adult security blanket. I always wear it when I’m sitting in ceremony or doing hard Shadow Work).
Have plenty of water, facial tissues, a pen and journal, a meditation cushion or seat, and snacks that your inner child might like as a reward (I like popcorn) available.
Include anything else you think you might like, particularly focusing on textures and scents that make you feel comforted and safe.
If you choose to use sacred medicine like Cacao, THC, CBD, Psilocybin, MDMA, Ayahuasca, Peyote, Kambo, etc., please use sparingly and with an understanding of what your tolerance levels are, and if applicable, please recruit the help of a “trip sitter” or sober companion.
Please do NOT use alcohol with this Kit. Alcohol is a depressant that damages neural plasticity, so it’s use is antithetical to this work.
The Breath + The Mirror
Look into the mirror, into your own eyes. Breathe.
Notice the features in your face that resemble your mother’s features, and try, without judgement, to observe what feelings are coming up for you.
Breathe intentionally and slowly, making sure your exhale is longer than your inhale.
Allow yourself to fully feel, but try not to break eye contact, and don’t stop breathing.
If you need to hold yourself and rock, this a beautiful way to calm the nervous system and comfort your inner child.
Journal Prompts
You may choose to do these all at once, or spread them out, as you see fit. Please take your time to feel into these, write intentionally and with curiosity. What you put in is what you’ll get out.
What sensations am I feeling in my body after that first exercise? Any aches and pains? What do those physical experiences bring up for me emotionally?
What do I wish my relationship with my mom was?
If I could say anything to my mom, what would it be?
What might my mother have been going through that made her treat me the way she did?
What can I / do I want to let go of when it comes to my mom? What can’t I / do I not want to let go of?
In what ways do I find myself distrusting of women that might tie back to my relationship with my mother? Are there any other toxic behaviors I have towards women that can possibly reflect my relationship with my mom?
Do I know any mothers who I really admire? List them and why they inspire.
This next section of questions is for those who are parents or who plan to become parents:
What were some of the things I liked about the way my mom interacted with me / raised me as a child? What about things I didn’t like?
How might those behaviors or patterns affect the way I choose to raise my kids?
Putting myself in my younger-self’s shoes, how would I have preferred to have been comforted? Supported? Communicated with? Listened to? Disciplined?
Now how can I apply those preferences to how I parent my children / future children?
A Compassion Practice
This is a meditation I have been doing for 6 years, every day. NOTHING has influenced my healing journey more than this meditation: Metta Bhavana. “Metta Bhavana” means, “Lovingkindness” in Sanskrit, and it begins with a benevolent, loving wish for yourself, and then moves to include others. For the purposes of this Care Kit, you may find it particularly helpful to focus on your mother and her family line in the fourth chapter (you’ll see what I mean when you get there).
A note about compassion: Compassion is NOT forgiveness. If you have been deeply hurt by someone or deeply traumatized by your father, offering compassion in the fourth chapter is NOT the same as offering forgiveness. Compassion is a path to forgiveness, but they are not one and the same. You may be able to offer compassion to your father now for his hurtful actions, but it may take you years to forgive. Or you may never find it possible to forgive—and that’s ok. You don’t have to
This meditation is 20 minutes.
Write A Letter
Get your paper and pen ready, stretch out your hands, take a few healing, intentional breaths, and write your mom a letter. This can be a 40 page letter if you need it to be—let it ALL out. Nobody is going to read this, and you’re not going to send it, so you can write anything you want, don’t hold back. After you’re finished with this letter, you can burn it ceremoniously, bury it, tear it into a million pieces, or dispose of it in any other way that feels appropriate for you.
If you’re not sure where to start, you can follow this template:
Dear Mom,
Here’s what I’m feeling towards you right now:
I am angry about:
I am sad about:
I forgive you for:
I don’t forgive you for:
I wish:
I release:
Then sign off in whatever way you feel is appropriate.
A Sacred Rage Practice
This is a great practice for when your feelings of anger or fear are already activated. If you’re feeling calm, you may want to save this practice for another time, but you can also imagine previous scenarios in which you were hurt in order to activate the nervous system into anger/fear.
You’ll need a pillow and a good amount of floor space for this one.
Sit on the floor with your pillow within arm’s reach. I prefer to sit on my knees, but you can sit in whatever way is most comfortable for you.
Begin breathing, making sure your breaths are deep and semi-quick (not fast, not slow). The point of this type of breath is to increase your heart rate and activate your parasympathetic nervous system, simulating Fight/Flight response. If you begin to feel faint, you can slow your breathing a bit until you feel more stabilized. DO NOT HYPERVENTILATE. That is not helpful and is potentially dangerous.
As you get into the rhythm of the breath, rock back and forth on your knees or sit-bones, increasing the speed with which you rock as you go, until your body feels fairly agitated, and you begin to sense emotions rising in you.
Allow the feelings to come. You may feel frustration, fear, anger, rage, melancholy….let them in, let them build.
Don’t feel like you have to understand them, intellectualize them, or even name them. That’s not the purpose of this exercise. The purpose is just to feel.
Once the feelings have reached their peak, grab your pillow, hold it to your face, and SCREAM. Cry into the pillow. Hit the pillow as hard as you can. Knee the pillow, punch it, slam it on the floor over and over again—the point is to HURT the pillow. Let the pillow receive ALL of your feelings in whichever way you want to give them. Don’t hold back.
When you feel like you have nothing left to give or feel, you can release the pillow and slow your breathing back down. Breathe slowly, making sure your exhale is longer than your inhale (this helps to lower cortisol levels, heart rate, and blood pressure, and bring the Nervous System back to a state of calm).
Take a nap after this. You’ll need the rest for integration.
A Heart Opening Exercise
Look into the mirror, into your non-dominant eye (so if you’re right-handed, your left eye).
Place your hands on your heart and breathe slowly.
Say to yourself,
“I love you for…” and then list all the things you love yourself for.
“I forgive you for…”
“If I really loved you I would…”
“Because I really love you I will…”
Keep breathing, feeling the breath expand your heart space.
When the loving feelings come, as they inevitably will, open your arms wide, pushing your chest out, and allow all the love within you to begin to flow outward as well.
An Inner Child Regression
This guided meditation will help you to heal and integrate a painful childhood experience. Try to come up with a memory that you would like to work with before you press play.
Please do not choose your most traumatizing childhood memory for this meditation, as Inner Child Regression through deep trauma should be facilitated by a trauma-informed specialist.
This meditation is 60 minutes.
A Cord Cutting
This 8 minute long energetic cord cutting can be incredibly effective when you’re ready to release your codependent attachments to your mother.
Feel free to create a physical cord for yourself as well by tying a ribbon around your waist and then tying the other end around a candle or a picture of your mother.
If you create a physical cord for yourself, you’ll need a pair of scissors too.
I hope this Kit has been healing and soothing for you, and I’m sending you so much love. Should you need additional support, you can book a session with me by clicking the link below.
All my Metta, Maria
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