Mothering Monday
While taking just one day to honor who and where we come from may be the cultural norm today, it's antithetical to remembering why we're here and where we're going.
Exactly 20 years after my mother opted out of my life, I published a book on trauma’s impact on leadership—and I dedicated it to my grandmother, Ann Shirley Burns, as a way to pay homage to her and the wisdom of innate leadership.
Now that HEAL to LEAD is officially out in the world and no longer mine to hold, I feel ready to uncover the next layer of myself that’s asking to be reincorporated. To set some context, I’m sharing the last paragraph from the book’s Chapter 12: Doing the Work, which was written in my journal during the first week of integration, post-Ayahuasca (indigenous plant medicine) in Peru.
Dear Mom,
I have the utmost compassion for the conditions in your life that have led you to where you now exist. When I was shown writing you a letter in my journey, I questioned why because I’ve tried that before. Now, I understand. Mom, I love you. I don’t know if I’ve ever written those words. I’ll never know how you feel when no one is around, but I hope you feel comfort and peace, knowing that if I could, I would purge your pain for you. My heart is pure, and my love is infinite. And, if part of my lesson in this life is to speak up, hear me when I say how much I love you—for giving me life and for knowing what I needed by walking away.
Love,
Kelly
How Deep is Your Love?
Physical and emotional abuse, rejection, and eventual abandonment by any caregiver require a lifelong commitment to healing. For me, the combination of Buddhist psychology, training in compassion and mindfulness, and shadow work really moved the needle. The practitioners I worked with helped me to understand how I was contributing to my own suffering—and how I could live, lead, and love with compassion for others, regardless of how their own wounding showed up. In 2022, Ayahuasca gave me the gift of clarity and insight, but only after years of trauma integration work.
Recently, I’ve discovered what now needs my attention. It’s the grief of being unable to love with the fullness of an open heart for 40 years. Those of us who had to protect ourselves from feeling continuous pain also closed ourselves off from giving (and receiving) love to our greatest capacity. It was a brilliant design that once worked well until it was the very thing that held me back from living.
I was born with the ability and capacity to love big—I mean universally big!—but I shut off that heart valve to survive. Why? Because when we try to earn love by proving how much we matter, we’ve already set ourselves up to suffer. And it’s taken me four decades to realize and come to terms with all the opportunities I’ve lost in the process.
It wasn’t until curating a life full of conscious, meaningful, and profoundly loving relationships that I could recognize the discomfort in my body as it began adjusting to this different way of being. From my puppy (who was recently diagnosed with epilepsy) to my partner, my best friend, and my chosen family, the love that I feel and am invited to give and receive in so many ways feels like coming home.
Naturally, because it’s new and I’m encountering some grief around stifling my heartsong for so long, it also feels a bit overwhelming. I’m a human with emotions!
Why Are We Here?
Just like honoring the woman and earth that birthed each of us, healing is an ongoing practice. One that requires a lot of rest and intentionality. This remembering of who I am directly correlates to why I’m here. And I wouldn’t be here if my biological mother didn’t carry me in her womb for nine months. And none of us would be here if it weren’t for the generosity of Mother Earth.
We are here to honor, restore, and regenerate the land itself and all of our relationships—with ourselves, each other, and the earth. This is where we are going.
Some of us have arrived explicitly to do this work, and others will take a longer journey, but little by little, we are returning to love. Even though it literally looks like the opposite is happening in the world right now, we have to remember that the media depicts the most wounded parts of our humanity because the shadow gets ratings.
We are drawn to the darkness in others because we’re subconsciously curious about how it compares to our own darkness.
Honoring Maternal Energy
A play on the UK’s Mothering Sunday (instead of Mother’s Day in the US), “Mothering Monday” is a call to remember that honoring maternal energy is how we should begin all of our work week after week.
Isn’t it fitting that I would choose a biological mother who was unable to love me so that I could learn to love the wholeness of myself—and then generate more maternal energy in the world (by which I mean creative, generative, kind, and compassionate)?
Many of us have historically complicated relationships with Mother’s Day—well, mothers, actually. My hope is that by zooming out to explore how you honor your own maternal energy, you’ll connect with a buried part of you that wants to be seen and expressed, too.