The Nature of Nurture: Recovery
Under the real-world conditions where both myself and my mother were powerless to control the situation, my needs at that moment were severely malnourished. The disease had left me incapacitated and grasping dearly for life, and even after recovering from the virus, the emotional consequences were drastic. I’m told that I failed to respond with joy or delight to anything in ways that I had before, that ‘the light had gone from my eyes.’
To whatever extent the experience of dying and of complete helplessness had affected my spirit, I have little doubt that much of the later traumas of my life were intimately connected at a subconscious level to that experience, the experience of how fragile and even flitting life could be and how powerless I or others could be to save it.
As the rest of my life has so far continued its course, it has become necessary for me to draw on the power of the Nurturer within in returning to this painful experience of such deeply unmet needs. For connected to this experience is, too, so many of my perceptions that make up the world, the evaluations by which I might tell myself that the world is a cruel place, that despite becoming an adult I am still a powerless and fragile individual.
The modality of Nurturing that I am putting my finger on is a careful (“care-full”) presence, a beautiful practice of “sitting-with,” of “power-with” (instead of “power-over”) myself and others, a tender reaching out and touching of the essential me that I may still mistakenly build protective walls around to prevent the world from hurting me again. It’s the underlying, awesome healing power of an inner mother, father, or guardian, who does not make demands of us but gentle, mindful requests with our deepest needs in mind. This power is innate to us all, embedded in us by our very nature which is empathic at its core.
In this way, even as adults (or maturing adolescents), we begin to claim that full responsibility that is ours in our well-being and self-care, and approach others with the presence and empathy that we find contributes to each our deepest needs (tasks which will continue in their work as we begin to develop later aspects of Warriorship in our lives…).
Great Kelsey, I think the repression of the nurturer or Great Mother archetype is the root of the world’s problem now and for the last 6000 years or so. ‘Power with’ is a characteristic of matrifocal society, patriarchal being the ‘power over’ gang. The shadows that emerge due to the repression of the Great Mother archetype are fear and scarcity. Awareness of this is important so we can change it.
Hey, Howard! It sounds to me like we really resonate around a lot of the same principles concerning power and scarcity. I’d love to continue to hear more about your philosophy on these topics. Thank you, and hope you keep postin’!
As we grow we put more and more all the nurturing pieces together we received through life and the result is a complete new shine nurturer version that would only glow if we are able to be empathic with the ones that need from us. But there is always the moment of fail and there another story begins.
Thank you for your comment, sister Brenda ^_^
I want to make sure I understand you. Are you saying that we combine all our experiences of nurturing (being nurtured) over the course of our lives, into a nurturing energy that we have the potential of experiencing in wholeness and expressing (“glowing” from) if we’re willing to have empathy with ourselves over it? Also, would you say more about the idea of another story beginning where the one before it fails?
I wish I understood, but I do not.
Mom — I feel some sadness around the lack of clarity in this post for you. Would you let me know what parts were difficult for you to understand? Your feedback could potentially help me rewrite parts of the post that could bring greater clarity for others as well!