Exploring Mothering Myself

Exploration:  Is how I Mother myself the same as how I Mother my child?  I can ask it the other way:  Is how I Mother my child the same as how I Mother myself?

Today I was at a meeting with several woman.  During a conversation about the business, one woman, a mother, said to me "Your problem is....".  I nearly gasped out loud.

Did she really say that?

I could feel my body contract as the words came out her mouth.

"I wonder if that is how she talks to herself?" I asked myself.  I bet it is.

I am offering myself a whole new door for understanding people and how they "mother" themselves and their children.  Simply listen to how they talk to me.

As for me, I am trying to be very conscious of how I talk to myself.  Sometimes it is easy, sometimes it isn't.  Most of the time it isn't.  Here's a gem:  if I am struggling to hear my own self-talk, I can listen to how I talk to my son.  That will tell me a lot about how I am feeling about myself in that moment.

And it will, perhaps, tell me a little bit about how I am doing at being a loving mother...to myself.