In this process I, and many of my cohort, became fiercely independent well before that was developmentally appropriate. (Or, even socially prescribed.) We became highly empathic: sensitive to and committed to nurturing our supposed nurturer’s unnamed neediness. From the shape of our own unacknowledged starvation we understood what these hungry women might need. As remarkably good babies, girls and women we’ve spent and spend much of our lives being tuned to the unspoken neediness not only in them but, as well, in anyone else who might cross our path. Often we are particularly tuned and responsive to the needs of those who are in roles of presumably providing for us: teachers, mentors, boyfriends, husbands, mates, etc.

We’ve developed the capacity to intuit, anticipate and subtly respond to, attend, comfort and nurture others without their ever having to recognize either their own neediness or our tending to it. In our secret hearts, well below our conscious awareness, we keep believing that our loving will heal the other into wholeness. A wholeness that we believe will allow them to then nurture us, to love us back in this same consciously unacknowledged way. The sad truth is that this never comes to pass.

Many of us become chronic, knee jerk nurturers. Everywhere we go, we are known and recognized as sensitive, caring, giving Mommies. In the disconnected and self-serving world in which we all live, this endears us to a great many people. Those whom we nurture usually see us as sources of bountiful caring, complete unto ourselves, unlikely to need anything from folks such as they are. They do not intuit back. They rarely give us much of anything save the gift of their receiving from us and (occasionally) their gratitude. This rarely deters us from our ministrations.

Over the years, I’ve come to see that this driven and relentless giving away of what we’ve never gotten is a secret process by which we try vicariously to nourish our own less than conscious hungers. By secretly identifying with the recipient of our bounty, the little hungry parts of us can have the illusion of being bountifully fed. We can remain unaware of our own suppressed neediness by focusing on the neediness in others.

In the end, it’s a poor bargain. The hungers we attend to in the other are most often based in their early deprivations. These ancient unmet yearnings are locked behind the shield of time, inaccessible to ministrations from anyone outside of the person in whom they live. Always, satisfying these needs can only be an inside job.

Yet, from early on in our lives it was not safe for us to recognize that we had/have yearnings of our own that needed/need tending. As a consequence, we often stay trapped in this unsatisfying, frustrating vicious circling. When feelings of sadness, fear, loneliness, yearning push up toward consciousness, we throw ourselves into finding someone else to whom we might tend.

What we are continually drawn to do for others can neither fill us up nor fix what’s broken in them. When it doesn’t, they sometimes get angry with us. They believe that our nurturing isn’t making them feel better because either we’re not doing enough or we’re not doing it right. We, on the other side of it, throw ourselves more avidly into the tending until or unless we begin to feel resentful about what appears to be the insatiability of their hunger. The little less-than-conscious part of us believes that we would use such nurturing to much better advantage – were it being given to us by someone as loving as we are being. We get resentful that it is always still the other person’s turn; that they never get whole enough to reciprocate, to give to us.

When I dropped out of my complex and successful life in New York City taking to the road westward in my house-on-my-back womb of a van just after my 32nd birthday, I inadvertently broke out of the vicious circling. (See Pirouettes for more about that transition.) With only myself to be with and take care of and little else to distract me, I gradually became conscious of the hungers that had been disowned and locked away, stored in my body. As I began to listen to my body, a whole new emotional landscape emerged into my consciousness.

In this new terrain unfamiliar longings surfaced: a profound hunger for the mothering I’d never received and till then did not consciously miss; an aching for the comfort of caring, accepting touch that till then had not been a particular yearning; a longing for someone outside of me to love me into loving myself in ways I seemed so incapable of doing all by myself – this last a possibility that, till then, had never even entered my mind.

I wrote in my journal and spent endless hours with these newly conscious and uncomfortable hungers, learning painfully how to live in the middle of them. In those first days, I believed that only the unconditional love, care and touch of someone outside myself could ever bring me true healing. At the same time, I couldn’t imagine how I would ever find such a person. Or, how I could ever trust such a person were I to find one.

So, I learned to live with these now conscious yearnings without having much hope of ever having them met. I muddled along making room to immerse myself in feeling the feelings when they rose up. In less fraught moments, I continued exploring the other newnesses that were emerging in my on-the-road journeying life. Now that I was consciously owning my hungers and being with them, I no longer seemed inclined to get involved with people in the old let-me-take-care-of-your-wounds way.

Those early days of experiencing what had been buried below the level of my conscious life came almost ten years before I first connected with the Little One(s) inside. Here and there along the way of those earlier years and even afterward, I would occasionally meet someone who seemed to offer me some of that for which I was longing. In those times, I would quite quickly discover how nearly impossible it was for me to trust that what was being offered was real or safe or okay or even healthy to let it in.

For example, someone might offer to hold me while I sobbed. Once in their arms, I’d feel as though I had to hurry up and feel better: so that they would feel that they were being effective; so that they wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by my neediness; so that they wouldn’t be done with giving to me before I was ready to be on my own with my feelings again. And, I’d have to deal with whether they’d offered only because they assumed I’d say no. If I wasn’t really supposed to take them up on the offer and still did, would there be a price to pay? Would they be furious with me? Would they humiliate and ridicule me later for needing to be held? What would I have to do to redeem myself in their eyes? How often would I be reminded of “all they did for me?” What would I have to do to make us even again? How would they use this against me? How might they use this to manipulate me? How withholding would they become once I’d allowed myself to lean on them? Or, I might wonder what it was they really wanted from me while they appeared to be giving to me? What were they needing or getting out of this giving?

These were the worries and fears I had learned to have about my mother’s so-called nurturing behaviors. Nothing from anyone else felt any safer. And, the prospect of adding all this worried obsessing to my already upset self made it much easier to refuse all offers. Being with my own upset by myself, just muddling through, was the only safe, if not fully satisfying alternative.

When I began the process of connecting with and re-mothering the Little One(s) inside, everything about this changed. (The Little Ones Journey and Coming Home tell that story in more depth.) As soon as I’d met the Little One, I was filled with intense, protective, and unconditional love for her. Suddenly, I had unquestioned permission to give to my little inner self all the tender, loving nurture that I’d only been allowed to give to everyone else. Day by day I practiced and grew more fully able to be a safe and loving harbor for my starving Little One. I became the dependable mommy for whom she had secretly ached for so long. Being with my own upset became fully satisfying.

Over the years since I began mommying myself, I am sometimes able to allow my dearest friends to be there to support the Mommy in me as she cares for the Little One. I have come to see that it is never safe to let anyone but the inner Mommy relate directly to the Little One. And, in truth, nothing anyone else has to give can ever reach across time to where the Little One inside lives except by going through the Mommy.

In the larger context, we as women have so much cultural training (on top of whatever familial nurturing history we also have) that pushes us to give nurture to everyone but ourselves and to look for nurture from anyone but ourselves. Practicing and developing our capacity to nurture ourselves whenever we need nurturing is an urgent part of our process of becoming more whole. Nurture from others can add on to and amplify what we do for ourselves. But to take the very best care of our selves, self-nurturing is the essential (and safest) baseline from which we must start.

As I watch my own unfolding, and as I write this tale, I’m aware that I am still less than comfortable with others’ ministrations when I am going through tense or difficult times. Though I no longer get caught in the elaborated obsessive worrying about such help, I generally find it either not relevant or even distracting for the Mommy. At this moment, I’m not sure that I care about that becoming any different for me. Yet, I suspect that as I continue in this process of aging, change in this realm may come organically from necessity. It feels like that will be okay with me, too.

Consider bringing your gentle loving patience and attention to your own wounded parts.

P.S. So many of your delicious e-mails send appreciations for the affirmation, support and nourishment you receive from the site. When I answer them, I don’t always remember to let you know that having your own deck of the Rememberings and Celebrations cards is a way to bring this same loving voice into your everyday world, to have it at hand as you need to remind yourself of the "real" truth moment to moment in the crazimakingness of the so-called real world!

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The card on this page is part of a set of 64 bookmark-size cards called the Rememberings and Celebrations deck. They can be used as an oracle, a meditation focus or a "book-in-pieces" to kindle and grow a compassionate, gentle, unconditionally loving, fiercely protective inner-Mother to help you carve safe healing space for your emerging self and for the wounded little ones inside.

If you'd like a deck of your very own to support you in your journey, click here to download Order Form.

Please feel free to e-mail me at rposin@hotmail.com. to share your reflections and responses to any or all of what you find here . I'd really like to hear what touches and nourishes you!