Inner Mother Loving
I spent the last three years working closely with my inner mother. Tending, nurturing, caring for myself. Nourishing myself with daily self-care. Practicing the ritual of self-care every day. Making that a priority and now a habit.
- What do I need?
- What nourishes me?
- How can I get filled up?
- What do I need in this moment?
- How can I resource myself?
- Do I need to ground?
- Do I need to breathe?
- Maybe I need to go outside?
- Is being quiet with my body what is most desired in this moment?
- How can I meet my own needs?
I learned how to listen to myself, listen to my body, and listen to my intuition. I learned (am learning) to listen to what I really need and desire, on a body level.
But what I am realizing is that now that I am more resourced and nourished, my soul wants more. I want to do things in the world, accomplish things, and go places! But it feels hard. I don’t know how to get from A to Z. That’s too big of a jump. It looks like I need to take steps B all the way through Y and it seems like an insurmountable task and I feel completely overwhelmed. So I shut down and avoid.
Cue inner father
What I am being called to develop is a relationship with my inner father.
I don’t hear as much about inner father as I do about inner mother. Which seems odd. Look around. We are looking at a broken patriarchal society. Masculinity is often dominating, oppressing, and forcing. Femininity is portrayed as weak, subjugated, and subverted. It’s in the folds of the fabric of our society. We are taught this insidiously through parental modeling, community, institutions, media. Healing the whole is more needed than ever before. And it starts with each of us. We each carry masculine and feminine. Men can’t just focus on their masculinity. Women can’t just focus on the feminine qualities of intuition, creativity, self-care. We have to love, care, and tend to both.
I know often when I thought of sacred masculine, I thought of lover. How do I want to be treated by a lover? How can I be more loving to myself and cultivate my inner sacred masculine? But I’m realizing its harder for me to tune into LOVER if I have unfinished business involving father.
So what qualities does your inner father have?
Here’s a list of “father qualities” I came up with:
- Supportive
- Protector and Defender
- Kind
- Loving
- Wants me to succeed and will help me do so.
- Offers safety.
- Offers guidance.
- Gets things done in the world.
- Accumulated wisdom from lived experience.
- Shows me how to DO and is patient.
- Assured. Confident. Assertive.
- Grounded.
- Clear boundaries. Aligned energy.
What qualities do you think a father should have?
Or what would have been nice for you to receive from your father?
What actions or qualities would your inner father take or have?
An important inner father quality for me is being supportive. One way I can start to show myself more support is by noticing my self-talk. Are the thoughts I am thinking about myself lifting me up or tearing me down? I know it would be helpful for me to be my own cheerleader. It’s easier to take action and steps forward when I feel supported. So I can do that for myself! I can cheer myself on!
How can we, right now, feel more of the qualities we wished we received from father?
How can we give ourselves more of these qualities? How can we embody these qualities?
What does inner father feel or look like?
We can also look at physical and energetic qualities of inner father.
Close your eyes. Breathe into your body. Connect to the earth. When you’re ready feel into to the highest vibration of your inner father. Or you can even use other words like inner guide, inner mentor.
- Where do you feel inner father?
- What does he feel like?
- What color is he?
- What does the energy feel like?
Be patient. It may take time to tap into this. Go slow and be compassionate with yourself. You may even feel nothing. I couldn’t connect to this part of me at first. You may need support from another when just starting out to help hold space for this. (I know I did!)
Currently my inner father feels like a large, golden, structured energy. This visualization helps make this part more real and helps me want to come into relationship with it more.
What things can you do to support your relationship with father?
Take some time to tune into that. Strengthening your relationship with inner father may help you feel more supported.
I know my inner father wants to move my body more in ways which I can feel my strength. He would love to get outside more and connect to the earth barefoot.
What does your inner father want?
Taking time to tune into inner father and work with him.
Let yourself feel the love of your own inner father’s guidance and support.
Strengthen the relationship to the inner encouraging part of you and let yourself receive that support.
What is possible when we finally give ourselves permission to receive the love of Father?
I’d love to hear about your inner father and his qualities. Email me at leah@leahautumn.com