I was raised by a bright, beautiful and very damaged mother. Her pain, frustration and deep sense of inadequacy complicated our relationship from its earliest days. (See Loving Acceptance for more about her.) She was, from the beginning, intensely critical and competitive with me. She rarely, if ever, could praise or acknowledge any of my accomplishments. Rather, she invariably found much to criticize in anything I did. In fact, the more I did to seek her acknowledgement, the more virulent and dismissive was her criticism.
I responded to this ceaseless criticism with ever more agitated efforts to do better (See Do Better for more about this). And, living with such ceaseless criticalness spawned in me a ferociously critical inner voice that became my constant companion for the first 40-odd years of my life. This voice, the
Whatever project or enterprise I worked at, the Hatchet Lady watched over my shoulder. She always had something mean and nasty to say about what I wasn’t doing right or acceptably enough for her unreachable standards. Any time I’d accomplish something that might seem of value, she would point out its triviality compared to what I hadn’t yet done or mastered. Her most typical responses were "Big deal!" "So what!" and "So what’s the big deal!"
One day (in my early-mid forties) I was at the Laundromat with my just washed, fairly new, originally 81/2 by 11 foot Flokati rug. (A very shaggy rug made from loosely woven sheep’s wool). I already knew I was in trouble. When I’d taken the rug from the washer, it’d felt very hot. I was baffled and upset because I thought I’d carefully set the dial to cold-wash. Then, when I (after the fact) looked more closely, I noticed that the little raised marker on the dial was actually on its opposite side. The dial I’d set so carefully was clearly pointing to hot-wash. I could feel the Hatchet Lady starting her railing at me. I suggested we wait till we got home to see how much "damage" had been done.
When I laid the rug in its place, the shrinkage was evident and significant. The Hatchet Lady voice came on in full roar about my carelessness, my stupidity, and on and on. Suddenly, my still-new Mommy-Inside voice rose up. She spoke with love and authority to the furious Hatchet Lady. There was no great harm done, she said. We could use the rug just as well in its diminished size. If it felt too wrong this small, we were incredibly fortunate, at this moment in our journey, to have enough money to be able to replace it. We could use this one somewhere else in the house. It wasn’t such a terrible mistake, she said. We had paid close attention, even though we had missed the little raised mark. There was no reason, she said, for the Hatchet Lady to be beating us up for this–it was simply an unfortunate, not a catastrophic, mistake. Surprisingly, the Hatchet Lady backed down, seemingly mollified by the Mommy’s words.
I felt suddenly overwhelmed with a towering rage. I screamed and stomped and roared around the house. And, in the middle of that raging, I cried and cried and cried. I felt so outraged at how long the constant, merciless criticisms of the Hatchet Lady had been overwhelming me and running my life. I’d spent my whole life quaking under the lash of her acid tongue. I could see, in just this moment, that all those criticisms (like these about the rug) were always way beyond any reasonable response to the situations that had called them forth.
I raged and cried for all the pain and anguish I’d suffered so needlessly and so long. I curled up with my teddy bear and rocked my little one selves. I felt filled with gratitude to the Mommy-Inside who’d taken such good care of us and who’d calmed the fury of the Hatchet Lady.
Until this experience, my response to the Hatchet Lady’s fierce attacks had been agitation and anxiety. I’d frantically scramble around trying to make things right. The Mommy-Inside voice showed me that I could respond differently. I could calm and reassure the critical voice. I could comfort her rather than be cowed and made frantic by her.
This was a moment of illumination. I could see beyond the larger-than-life, Wizard of Oz presence of the Hatchet Lady and her nastiness. Hidden beneath her fierceness was a tiny, terrified and vulnerable little being whose scared voice had never before reached me.
I could suddenly see that the Hatchet Lady had grown in me as an inner policing/guardian person to protect this terrified little one whose voice I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) hear. With her ferocious criticalness, the Hatchet Lady had been desperately trying to protect those frightened, vulnerable parts of me. Her searing criticisms were her way to keep me from being or doing what she feared would bring critical attacks from those outside of us. She was convinced that such outside attacks would be even scarier, more virulent and damaging to the tiny, vulnerable parts. (That her criticisms were themselves devastating and demoralizing to me didn’t seem to be taken into account in her reasoning process.)
This moment of realization/illumination was an enormous mountain-moving, turning time. From it began a practice that has profoundly changed my life. Rather than continuing to be terrorized by her nastiness, I started meeting and embracing the Hatchet Lady.
Each time the Hatchet Lady started belittling or criticizing me, I would tell her that she didn’t any longer have to hit me over the head that way to get my attention. I would tell her that I understood that she was trying to let me know that some little part inside me was feeling scared. I would tell her it wasn’t okay for her to talk that meanly to me anymore.
I would call to the hidden, vulnerable little one whose terrors were propelling the Hatchet Lady’s vitriolic condemnations. I talked gently and lovingly to that terrified self. I invited her to let me know what was scaring and upsetting her. I promised I would keep working to hear her. I encouraged her to call directly to me. I promised I would always respect her fears. I promised I would always do what I could to address her fears. I committed myself to working with her to choose paths that wouldn’t frighten her so much, or to find ways to help her feel less frightened with the paths that I was choosing.
Sometimes, just my hearing that it was being scary for her was enough for her to risk moving forward with me into new ways of being. Most of the time, what she needed was for me to slow down and reassure her that I would stay in touch with her every step of the way. She had suffered for so long because I wouldn’t allow myself to acknowledge her fears and her sense of overwhelm. She’d always felt so pushed beyond what she could handle. She understood that I had always, before, felt afraid of her fears. this had frightened her more than anything.
I have been becoming, over the years, a better and better Mommy for all the little and big scared parts of me. I’m so much less frightened of being frightened. I’m so much more willing to go only as fast as the slowest part of me feels safe to go.
And, I’m also becoming a better Mommy for what’s left of the Hatchet Lady. She still occasionally pipes up, (though more and more rarely with each passing year). Most of the time it’s a bleat of, "Well, you’re only doing that because you’re crazy/sick/screwed up/damaged/unable to do it the way normal people do!" While I still call behind her for the little one, I also have come to put my arms around her snarly old self and say, "Honey, so what if that’s true? All the more reason to do it just this way." She lets go of the snarliness every time. Sometimes, it even makes her giggle!
Next time you find yourself talking critically and meanly to yourself, consider the possibility of listening deeper to hear who might really be trying to get your attention. If you can hear that scared, overwhelmed part, consider the possibility of helping that scared part feel more safe.
And, consider treating that scared part with great tenderness.
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 handcolored 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.
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