September 12, 2025 • 32 mins
Message me at briony@thesomatherapycollective.com
The wound is not just ours — it lives in our lineage, our bodies, and our world. Healing it is the revolution.
Have you ever felt like the ache inside you wasn’t just yours? That your grief, rage, or silence carried the weight of generations before you?
In this raw and soulful episode, I dive into the Ancestral Mother Wound — the imprint of patriarchy, colonisation, and hierarchical systems that fracture our bonds to self, to mother, to community, and to the earth.
Through my personal story and the lenses of IFS (parts work), attachment theory, epigenetics, and somatic healing, we’ll explore:
💔 How trauma is passed through lineage and DNA.
💔 Why so many women feel unseen, exhausted, and disconnected.
💔 How grief and rage live in our nervous systems as survival strategies.
🌿 And how tending to this wound — for ourselves and our children — becomes medicine for our times.
The ancestral mother wound isn’t just personal. It’s the root of cultural disconnection, ecocide, genocide, and the polycrisis we face. And yet, within it is also our liberation. When we tend to it now, we shift the inheritance we pass on — from rupture to resilience, from silence to belonging.
This is lineage work. This is revolution. This is the heart of The MotherWay — a 16-week somatic, decolonised pathway back to your body, your belonging, and the primordial mother within.
✨ Listen now to Episode 4 of The Unfuckwithable Woman Podcast.
👉 Ready to tend your own mother wound? Join me inside The MotherWay: http://www.thesomtherapycollective.com
🌿 Join the Unfuckwithable Movement 🌿
Stay connected and empowered with The Unfuckwithable Woman. Subscribe, share, and continue your healing journey with us.
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Music by Finn Holleman
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🔗 Want More?
Check out our resources:
🌍 Empowerment. Healing. Liberation.
We’re here to dismantle oppression, heal trauma, and honor the feminine. The revolution starts within—let’s reclaim, reawaken, and rise together. #yourbodyremembers
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
UNKNOWN (00:00):
you
SPEAKER_00 (00:50):
to the unfuckwithable woman.
I'm Bryony Montgomery and todaywe're embarking on a deeply
soulful exploration, theancestral mother wound.
This isn't simply a woundbetween mothers and daughters.
It is a tapestry woven throughculture, lineage, DNA, the way
(01:13):
we move in relationships, incommunity, internally, and how
we connect to earth and to eachother.
It's the imprint of patriarchy,colonization, and the hierarchy
systems that have passed downgenerationally through trauma,
silence, rage, grief andresilience throughout the
(01:37):
generations.
And yet it's also our healingwhen we tend to it now for
ourselves, for our children, forthe world, we begin to dissolve
oppressive systems, return toearth, community, connection and
embrace mattresses.
(01:59):
Today through the lens of partswork, informed IFS, attachment
theory, epigenetics and somaticnervous system healing, we'll
unpack how this work is not justpersonal, it's the work for our
times.
My own story in and around how Icame to this work and
(02:24):
particularly discovering my ownancestral mother wound that was
coming down through my lineagewas the death of my mother.
And it was when she had thecervical cancer and she got the
cervical cancer diagnosis andshe went through surgery and
(02:50):
cancer treatment and intoremission and through that
process I came to understandthat my own maternal grandmother
who had died when I was aboutfive or six had also had
cervical cancer at the time ofher death and I remember feeling
especially after she died thisreally deep primordial sense of
(03:16):
that there was somethinghappening in my mother maternal
mother line that was rupturingconnection rupturing the
connection that the women hadwith their own emotions with the
reality of where they'd comefrom and what they were
subjected to throughout thehistorical dynamic of the family
relationships you know the abusethe stuff that wasn't spoken
(03:38):
about there was a lot of thingsthat my own mother took to the
grave that I still don't stillcannot clarify to this day with
any accuracy and She hadexperiences that really impacted
and fractured her own connectionwith her mother, with women,
with connection.
She had this huge abandonmentwound that was passed down to me
(04:03):
and she just had this very stoicmartyr, I will do it on my own,
I don't need help from anybody,I can work through this, I know
what to do and I need to remainstrong and I need to have it all
together and there was lots ofnuances and lays in that in the
way that she mothered in the waythat she was in the relationship
(04:28):
with my father as well as incommunity and her friendships
and she really kept a lot toherself and after her death what
I started to see and through myown experience that was
confirmed shortly after herdeath because I had abnormal
cells in my cervix that had tobe surgically removed moved that
(04:50):
could have developed into cancerand when I went to the doctor I
remember so clearly I went tothe doctor I'd had this really
abnormal cycle actually a coupleof cycles that were really
obscure and I just innately andprimordial felt something wasn't
right and I went to the doctorthat had taken care of my mother
(05:11):
when she had the cancer and Isaid I need a pap smear and she
said you're not due for one andwe really volleyed backwards and
forwards with me giving her somany reasons as to why I wanted
it and in the end she concededjust because I was not going to
let it drop and she gave me thepap smear and it came back with
(05:31):
these abnormal cells and I hadthem taken out with loop
incision not long after and thiswas before I had my children.
Now if I hadn't have listened tomy body and I had have carried
that wounding and that narrativein and around this kind of I can
do it on my own I'm you know anisland I'm a martyr and if I had
(05:53):
to follow the same pathway as mymother and my maternal
grandmother and the other womenin my family mother line and
particularly in my paternal lineto this kind of stoic you know I
can do it all I can do it myselfthis super woman super mother
status that is quite culturallyencouraged and accepted and part
(06:17):
of that patriarchal colonizedway of mothering and womaning,
then I could have potentiallybeen in a very similar position
to my mother and had cervicalcancer.
When I discovered that theabnormal cells were in my cervix
and I had absolutely, I've hadtrauma, sexual trauma in my past
(06:39):
and I knew this and I hadunpacked it a little bit.
So I knew there was definitelyDNA, there was definitely things
happening internally within mebecause I hadn't faced it and
dealt with it and I just startedto really explore and think
about epigenetics and DNA andhow these stored stories and
(07:00):
experiences and trauma that arein our body that don't get
resolved and how those thingsmanifest in the body so when I
started training in naturaltherapies and aromatherapy and
energy healing I started toexplore how there was a a
blueprint of ancestral legacywithin the DNA, but also within
(07:26):
the stories, also in thebehavior, also in the energetics
of the family line that camethrough into the child that was
transposed, transposed onto thechild.
And then the child, if notmeeting that in a different way,
would often have, andparticularly in my line, would
have a very similar experienceor touch on a very similar
(07:48):
context and deal with it in avery similar way to what the
ancestors had done and sometimescarrying legacies that are not
their own and having thingshappen to them and within their
bodies without actually having aphysical earthly experience in
this lifetime and so when Istarted to study I started to
explore that these thesepatterns not just ancestrally
(08:13):
but also with experiences thathave happened in our life that
get lodged in the body and theythey manifest or they come about
in this dis-ease they theycreate this they knock out the
equilibrium inside the body andyou can also take this too with
death mother culture and havinga death mother or a death father
this internalized wanting andlonging to die this internalized
(08:38):
critic that just constantly andpersistently just kind of tells
this narrative of that you're nogood and that things will never
go your way and that you'reworthless and and you can't do
that and all this kind of allthis kind of energy that's that
your system is feeding oncreates dis-ease which you know
(08:58):
creates end disease so I startedto explore this and started to
really focus and look at my ownmaternal line and the fractures
and things and experiences thatI'd had that I had not released
the charge from or metabolizedthat were in impacting me in
(09:20):
other areas and in my life in myrelationships in my story and
when I started to metabolize andprocess them I saw so much
difference in how I showed upand how I process things but
also too I started to relatevery differently to the
experiences from my past andalso too in relation to my
(09:42):
ancestors in relation to mymother in relation to my father
and then when I became became amother myself in relation to my
own children and in my ownintimate relationships.
So through this you know thishas continued on for me through
you know it started withepigenetics, it started with
(10:02):
building up the foundations ofmy own system energetically,
physiologically, cell by cellrebuilding myself back and then
moving into embodied work andexpressing the sensations in my
body and from experiences andthe ancestral lineage through
the felt sense of the bodythrough the soma and then
(10:24):
through the nervous systemthrough somatic healing and also
to alongside of that parts workin a critic work and attachment
theory which have been all beenextremely pivotal in actually
healing processing releasingcharge and being with not just
(10:46):
my personal story but thecultural story my ancestral
story legacies and unpacking allof that in order to really show
up to the world and show up inthe day-to-day in a really
present grounded and veryfocused on humanity connection
community and tending to thiswounding tending to this
(11:09):
separation within myself andwithin the culture in relation
to community relationships andthe earth and also my ancestral
It's really important withMother Wound that we really move
directly with uncovering anddiscovering who we are
ancestrally, colonisation and wedecolonise that whole process
(11:32):
and decolonise where we've comefrom and start to own our own
wounding, our own stories aswell as our ancestral lineage
and their stories and start tounderstand where we come from
and really place that that onand have a place that in our own
healing and in our own day today and in our own presence in
(11:54):
how we actually show up inrelationship, in the world, in
community and actually what wesow the seeds for in relation to
servicing and being of serviceto something greater than just
ourselves and our own individualwound with our mother or our own
lineage that we start to connectwith a wider web of how we can
(12:17):
actually best serve and how wecan actually show up for
humanity and for the world.
So our first step is naming whatis the ancestral mother wound.
The ancestral mother wound isthe trance migration of wounds,
(12:37):
grief, shame, fear, evenresilience passed down through
our culture, through family,through DNA itself.
Modern science shows us thattrauma doesn't vanish it is
carried sometimes unconsciouslythrough epigenetic inheritance
and I want to really insertthere too that this is also
(13:00):
including neurodiversity if youhave a trauma in your if you've
had a trauma or there's been atrauma a big trauma in the
epigenetic line in the in theancestral lineage then often
you're going to have people thatare going to come into the
lineage that are going to beborn that are going to be
diverse that are going to be ona kind of spectrum because of
(13:22):
the impact of that trauma thatdoes really shape not just your
experience but actually yourphysiology actually how you
connect actually your epigeneticmakeup as well as how you relate
to earth how you relate tohumans and how you relate to
yourself and how you relate tofamily and the family lineage so
(13:42):
I really want you to understandthat that also has an impact as
well Attachment theory tells usthat our earliest bonds sculpt
our internal working models, howwe learn often unconsciously to
love, to trust, to feel, to feelsafe or not.
(14:04):
These models become the lensthrough which we see ourselves
and others, shaping ourrelationships and community.
And there's the internal familysystems model, IFS model, which
I'm in formed in is atherapeutic model that sees us
not as a single self, but as aconstellation of parts.
(14:27):
And this is what I refer to asparts work.
These parts, the exiles that arecarrying old pain, managers
trying to protect, firefightersreacting when overwhelmed, play
out in our inner worlds.
At our centre lies the self.
(14:47):
It's a self-energy.
It's embodying calm, compassion,clarity, courage, and the eight
C's of self-energy, which Iwon't refer to in this podcast,
but I'll definitely pop a linkin the call notes for you to
have a look a little bit moreabout IFS work.
(15:10):
A parts work offers us a way tounderstand how parts of us may
be burdened by ancestral orcollective trauma.
Some parts carry messages thataren't even originally ours.
These are unattached burdens.
Through blending andunburdening, we can help these
(15:31):
parts release heavy burdens ofsilence, of grief, shame and of
inherited oppression.
And so the mother wound livesnot only in our hearts but in
the tissue of our being, felt inhow we love, how we protect how
we surrender and also too it isalso through the culture as well
(15:56):
so I have referred to the deathmother culture before and this
is what we're in we're in adeath parent culture and I liken
it to a death mother being thatwe are very segregated and and
violated and oppressed and cutoff from the great mother from
the all life force a life-givingforce that grows the tree the
(16:18):
flowers brings the seasons youknow has the elements grow
working in harmony together aswell as you know the same with
you know it brings death itbrings destruction it brings the
sun the moon the stars the likeeach year rolling you know
rolling cycling this allaffirming primordial force is
(16:40):
what I refer to as the motherand the mother wound is the
separation from her so when wehave this separation from the
Great Mother, we generally havea separation in the lineage, in
the ancestral lineage frompractices in and around
honouring life, honouring theMother, honouring emotions,
(17:03):
honouring these parts ofourselves, honouring the whole
of ourselves, having ritualceremony, having connection and
community and ways that we canserve and collaborate with each
other and we also have thatrupture in the mother line with
our direct mother and so it'slike one feeds into the other
(17:24):
the other feeds into the otherand it's kind of this cycle that
goes round and round and roundand it's not until we actually
start to tend to that wound andstart to bring some awareness
and focus in how we canreconnect with those exiled
parts of ourselves with thoseparts of ourselves that we
pushed away to protect to keepourselves safe in order to serve
(17:47):
the mother in order to to servethe death parent, in order to
serve the culture, colonialism,patriarchy, capitalism, in this
kind of binary slipstreamexperience that's really
watering down our diversity, whowe are, our authenticity, our
rawness, our capacity to connectand to feel and to be with each
(18:10):
other in a raw and authentic,vulnerable and safe and
collaborative way.
And when we move in this kind ofrestricted binary then we don't
know how to recognize safeplaces we don't know how to
regulate our nervous system wedon't know how to collaborate
(18:33):
we're in coming from thisattachment place that's so
wounded and so disjointed and sodisordered or so shut down that
often we when we're maskingwe're moving through life and
we're we're We're armoring up,which I often say, like kind of
stepping into the day.
We're putting all these maskson.
(18:54):
We're putting all these layerson in order to protect ourselves
because we're trying to keepourselves safe.
And what that's doing is that'skeeping us even more separate
from tending to the mother woundand tending to the ancestral
wounds that actually are keepingus separate from who we are and
from life itself.
(19:15):
And this unfulfilled sense thatwe have in life like this kind
of like drudgery this kind ofdogma way this kind of oh you
know like I've just got to getthrough the day which when we
shut down one part of ourselvesor when we shut down the the
lineage the connection withlineage even the ancestral
(19:35):
lineage we shut down all ofourselves we shut we cannot have
we cannot just shut down partswe shut systematically a lot of
other parts at the same time andso when we start to work on
healing this and bring this backand these parts back into the
fold and tending to the motherwound and tending to the
ruptures in our system and inour lineage with repair then we
(19:58):
start to bring all of then westart to tend to the lineage and
we start to bring all of thisback into the wholeness back
into this sense of fulfillmentthis sense of belonging of
community of groundedness ofrootedness of compassion of love
for the self and this deep deepwonderful connection that we
(20:19):
have with life and with eachother and with our lineage and
where we come from and then weplug back into this primordial
force and this is the tending tothe mother wound this is the
tending to ancestral lineagethat's just so crucial for us to
go back into our roots andrepair where it has been severed
either by our ancestorsdeliberately or unconsciously
(20:44):
but also by the culture ofviolence and oppression that we
are all suffering underneath andit's all it's like we take all
of everything back intoourselves like all of it I don't
even like to label good or badparts or good or bad experiences
but we bring it all into thismoment and when we tend to it in
(21:08):
the way it moves and we don'tpush anything in the shadows
because we're human and human ismessy and chaotic and it's the
groundedness it's the centralclarity for focus of who we are
and where we come from thatnobody can take from us not the
culture not the ancestrallineage when we have that really
rooted and intact then we canstart to move with tending to
(21:33):
the mother the mother wound andthe ancestral lineage mother
wound in a way that is reallyhealing and congruent and
extremely liberating this motherwound isn't isolated it is woven
into our patriarchal, colonised,hierarchical structures.
It's the legacy of systems thatdevalue maternal wisdom, sever
(21:57):
our bond to the earth and breedseparation and violence.
That disconnection fuels thepoly-crisis of our time.
Climate collapse, war, genocide,social unrest, mental health
breakdown and culturaldisintegration.
Epigenetics tells us that traumarewires the nervous system,
(22:21):
heightening vigilance,dysregulating emotion, making it
harder to attach.
Descendants of genocide,slavery, war carry cellular
markers of inherited trauma.
And even talking about what'shappening to the Palestinians
right now with what is not evenbeing coined as a genocide now
(22:42):
is being called a holocaust.
We are in uncharted territoryabout how this is going to
impact future generations.
And the impact now is like it'suncharted.
We're in uncharted territory.
And it's actually very scary tothink about down the track and
(23:03):
what the future generations ofthe Palestinians going to be
having in their physiologicalsystems, their emotional
systems, the trauma that thesethese people are going to have
been impacted by is just it'sunknown like like it's
(23:24):
incredibly scary to see atelevised a live genocide and
seeing these people sufferingthis holocaust and not knowing
the impacts of that in futuregenerations attachment isn't
just personal it is systemicwhen our communities and
(23:45):
societies are shaped by fear anddis connection, attachment
ruptures.
Our inner parts, the exiled, themanagers, pick up the cultural
burdens to protect us.
That's why so many women feelexhausted, unseen, unmoored,
because historically we werenever seen, never felt safe, and
(24:07):
right now the world is burning.
And you will see right now, andI'm seeing this mid-wifing my
own mid life is that the griefand the rage at the state of the
world right now has placedhealing in a space of urgency it
(24:29):
is so palatable inside me andinside so many women that I'm
seeing not just in my owncommunity and in my own
connections but in the widercommunity and there is no place
the culture and the ancestrallineage has not created a map
for what we do when the griefand the rage is so front and
(24:52):
center because it has been soit's been stamped and been
really created in this verynegative and binary way of how
we feel how we move with how weexpress it and it is seen as
destructive and being in a timethat we are in a world that is
(25:13):
being destroyed by humans by menby the systems of oppression and
violence and by patriarchalwomen women are not excluded
from this there are womenpropping up the systems of
oppression and violencecolonized white women and and
women from other ethnicbackgrounds too are they
scaffold the patriarchy theyscaffold colonialism and
(25:37):
violence and oppression becauseit's not just in the lineage and
culturally but also to protectthemselves and their own and
right now we are developing andfinding ways to be with and lead
and this is what I'm doingthrough my work women through
their rage and their grief in anembodied present and way that
(25:59):
they can tend to the motherwound and reconnect back into
the primordial source it is soimportant that we metabolize
this in our own systems so wecan also hold space for others
so that we can also metabolizeit for our communities and our
loved ones it is so importantright now it is the medicine of
(26:19):
our times at this particularmoment in history that rage is
front and center and grief andthat we find places to rage and
to be in our grief that are heldthat are safe that are healthy
that are that are feeding backinto humanity feeding back into
the earth restoring connectionand also metabolizing this for
(26:44):
other people and other energiesin the world right now because
we are all tapping into this thehorrors and once we once we hold
on to that charge in our bodythat grief and rage it creates
disease it creates ruptures inthe lineage it creates ruptures
in community in culture and withthe mother wound so this kind of
(27:05):
we need to move out of thiscycle and we start need to start
to move this charge out of ourbodies and start to find maps
and blueprints and move backinto that sacred connection of
ritual and and connection withwhat our bodies and what
humanity and what the primordialforce in collaboration with
(27:25):
community and each other andconnection and the world and
process this and move this outinto a space that is extremely
healing and beneficial when wemove into the rage the fires of
rage and the deep wells of griefit is the only way through these
times of reckoning it is theonly way to heal the deep wounds
(27:51):
of which we're trying to grapplewith and trying to they've been
colonized and been watered downand right through them is this
urgency and is this moving inand out of this kind of this
kind of numbed out frozen stateof being in our nervous system
we need big charges to get itout and get out into our social
(28:14):
engagement and regulated systemin order to find that regulated
system within ourselves, we hada big charge.
Grief and rage, particularlyrage, that's the charge we need
to wake us out of our slumber.
It is so beneficial for us todip into these places and the
colonized patriarchal systems ofoppression and violence that I
(28:35):
want us to do that.
Because if we move back intoconnection with our bodies,
community, the earthcollaboration, and we start to
move in these collaborative waysand we start to have body
autonomy and sovereignty wewon't be putting up with the
shit that they're laying out onthe table for us they're
literally setting the table andwe're eating from the shit that
(28:56):
they're giving us and it's toxicand it's oppressive and violent
and when we start to move intoour social engagement we use
rage and we grieve we move upinto that nervous system healing
and regulation oh we areactivated and then we are really
clear on what we need to do nextthat is the power that is the
(29:16):
liberation That there is therevolution.
And I want you to listen to me.
This is not just your legacy tocarry anymore.
Yet the invitation is to tend toit now so it is healed and not
landed upon our children orgenerations to come.
(29:38):
It's a burden that we all cancarry together.
This is matriessence, the riteof passage into motherhood
extended to us all, birthing amore connected, earth-centered
way of being.
Healing the mother wound is anindulgence it is lineage work
world care revolution and it isfor these times now and by
(30:03):
healing through parts workmeeting our exiled parts the
inner critic offering compassionto the managers inviting self
energy to lead we shift ourattachment patterns from
insecure to secure internallyand relationally intending this
(30:23):
wound now for ourselves and ourchildren we create a different
inheritance one of regulationattachment resilience deep
belonging and you can see thisin if you've ever mothered or
you or you've even reconnectedwith you've connected with
somebody in a relationship andit has had a different
(30:45):
connection has has a differentway of being that is very
different to your own parentageor your grandparents and you can
see that I can see that in myline coming through that even
the way that I've mothered hasbeen a much more conscious way
of actually having secureattachment doing rupture and
repair really well and reallytending to the wounds and not
(31:08):
having anything that is not okayto talk about really bringing
consciousness and attention tothose parts of ourselves that
feel really sticky and difficultand finding a mapping and a way
to move with it where it ishealthy held invite like in
invited it's actually celebratedand it's actually moved through
(31:31):
in a way that's really integraland really inclusive of all
parts of who we are and Iremember doing my healing
journey many years ago whereafter I lost my mother and I
remember hearing that thehealing that you do now really
impacts in real time sevengenerations forward and seven
(31:52):
generations back and I I want tomake it really clear that
legacies are not always yours toheal.
Some can be if you want to, butyou really can have discernment
and work with a therapist andwork in space with well
ancestors to not take on theburden of healing the legacy
(32:13):
trauma that has been carriedthrough.
You can actually give that back.
So I want to make that reallyclear distinction that you don't
need to have this overwhelmingsense that I need to fix it all
because I kind of I'm the onethat is coming to the family to
neutralize and to heal thiswounding you can have
(32:33):
discernment and choose not toand that is totally okay and
even just you just tending toyour own system will
you
SPEAKER_00 (00:50):
to the unfuckwithable woman.
I'm Bryony Montgomery and todaywe're embarking on a deeply
soulful exploration, theancestral mother wound.
This isn't simply a woundbetween mothers and daughters.
It is a tapestry woven throughculture, lineage, DNA, the way
(01:13):
we move in relationships, incommunity, internally, and how
we connect to earth and to eachother.
It's the imprint of patriarchy,colonization, and the hierarchy
systems that have passed downgenerationally through trauma,
silence, rage, grief andresilience throughout the
(01:37):
generations.
And yet it's also our healingwhen we tend to it now for
ourselves, for our children, forthe world, we begin to dissolve
oppressive systems, return toearth, community, connection and
embrace mattresses.
(01:59):
Today through the lens of partswork, informed IFS, attachment
theory, epigenetics and somaticnervous system healing, we'll
unpack how this work is not justpersonal, it's the work for our
times.
My own story in and around how Icame to this work and
(02:24):
particularly discovering my ownancestral mother wound that was
coming down through my lineagewas the death of my mother.
And it was when she had thecervical cancer and she got the
cervical cancer diagnosis andshe went through surgery and
(02:50):
cancer treatment and intoremission and through that
process I came to understandthat my own maternal grandmother
who had died when I was aboutfive or six had also had
cervical cancer at the time ofher death and I remember feeling
especially after she died thisreally deep primordial sense of
(03:16):
that there was somethinghappening in my mother maternal
mother line that was rupturingconnection rupturing the
connection that the women hadwith their own emotions with the
reality of where they'd comefrom and what they were
subjected to throughout thehistorical dynamic of the family
relationships you know the abusethe stuff that wasn't spoken
(03:38):
about there was a lot of thingsthat my own mother took to the
grave that I still don't stillcannot clarify to this day with
any accuracy and She hadexperiences that really impacted
and fractured her own connectionwith her mother, with women,
with connection.
She had this huge abandonmentwound that was passed down to me
(04:03):
and she just had this very stoicmartyr, I will do it on my own,
I don't need help from anybody,I can work through this, I know
what to do and I need to remainstrong and I need to have it all
together and there was lots ofnuances and lays in that in the
way that she mothered in the waythat she was in the relationship
(04:28):
with my father as well as incommunity and her friendships
and she really kept a lot toherself and after her death what
I started to see and through myown experience that was
confirmed shortly after herdeath because I had abnormal
cells in my cervix that had tobe surgically removed moved that
(04:50):
could have developed into cancerand when I went to the doctor I
remember so clearly I went tothe doctor I'd had this really
abnormal cycle actually a coupleof cycles that were really
obscure and I just innately andprimordial felt something wasn't
right and I went to the doctorthat had taken care of my mother
(05:11):
when she had the cancer and Isaid I need a pap smear and she
said you're not due for one andwe really volleyed backwards and
forwards with me giving her somany reasons as to why I wanted
it and in the end she concededjust because I was not going to
let it drop and she gave me thepap smear and it came back with
(05:31):
these abnormal cells and I hadthem taken out with loop
incision not long after and thiswas before I had my children.
Now if I hadn't have listened tomy body and I had have carried
that wounding and that narrativein and around this kind of I can
do it on my own I'm you know anisland I'm a martyr and if I had
(05:53):
to follow the same pathway as mymother and my maternal
grandmother and the other womenin my family mother line and
particularly in my paternal lineto this kind of stoic you know I
can do it all I can do it myselfthis super woman super mother
status that is quite culturallyencouraged and accepted and part
(06:17):
of that patriarchal colonizedway of mothering and womaning,
then I could have potentiallybeen in a very similar position
to my mother and had cervicalcancer.
When I discovered that theabnormal cells were in my cervix
and I had absolutely, I've hadtrauma, sexual trauma in my past
(06:39):
and I knew this and I hadunpacked it a little bit.
So I knew there was definitelyDNA, there was definitely things
happening internally within mebecause I hadn't faced it and
dealt with it and I just startedto really explore and think
about epigenetics and DNA andhow these stored stories and
(07:00):
experiences and trauma that arein our body that don't get
resolved and how those thingsmanifest in the body so when I
started training in naturaltherapies and aromatherapy and
energy healing I started toexplore how there was a a
blueprint of ancestral legacywithin the DNA, but also within
(07:26):
the stories, also in thebehavior, also in the energetics
of the family line that camethrough into the child that was
transposed, transposed onto thechild.
And then the child, if notmeeting that in a different way,
would often have, andparticularly in my line, would
have a very similar experienceor touch on a very similar
(07:48):
context and deal with it in avery similar way to what the
ancestors had done and sometimescarrying legacies that are not
their own and having thingshappen to them and within their
bodies without actually having aphysical earthly experience in
this lifetime and so when Istarted to study I started to
explore that these thesepatterns not just ancestrally
(08:13):
but also with experiences thathave happened in our life that
get lodged in the body and theythey manifest or they come about
in this dis-ease they theycreate this they knock out the
equilibrium inside the body andyou can also take this too with
death mother culture and havinga death mother or a death father
this internalized wanting andlonging to die this internalized
(08:38):
critic that just constantly andpersistently just kind of tells
this narrative of that you're nogood and that things will never
go your way and that you'reworthless and and you can't do
that and all this kind of allthis kind of energy that's that
your system is feeding oncreates dis-ease which you know
(08:58):
creates end disease so I startedto explore this and started to
really focus and look at my ownmaternal line and the fractures
and things and experiences thatI'd had that I had not released
the charge from or metabolizedthat were in impacting me in
(09:20):
other areas and in my life in myrelationships in my story and
when I started to metabolize andprocess them I saw so much
difference in how I showed upand how I process things but
also too I started to relatevery differently to the
experiences from my past andalso too in relation to my
(09:42):
ancestors in relation to mymother in relation to my father
and then when I became became amother myself in relation to my
own children and in my ownintimate relationships.
So through this you know thishas continued on for me through
you know it started withepigenetics, it started with
(10:02):
building up the foundations ofmy own system energetically,
physiologically, cell by cellrebuilding myself back and then
moving into embodied work andexpressing the sensations in my
body and from experiences andthe ancestral lineage through
the felt sense of the bodythrough the soma and then
(10:24):
through the nervous systemthrough somatic healing and also
to alongside of that parts workin a critic work and attachment
theory which have been all beenextremely pivotal in actually
healing processing releasingcharge and being with not just
(10:46):
my personal story but thecultural story my ancestral
story legacies and unpacking allof that in order to really show
up to the world and show up inthe day-to-day in a really
present grounded and veryfocused on humanity connection
community and tending to thiswounding tending to this
(11:09):
separation within myself andwithin the culture in relation
to community relationships andthe earth and also my ancestral
It's really important withMother Wound that we really move
directly with uncovering anddiscovering who we are
ancestrally, colonisation and wedecolonise that whole process
(11:32):
and decolonise where we've comefrom and start to own our own
wounding, our own stories aswell as our ancestral lineage
and their stories and start tounderstand where we come from
and really place that that onand have a place that in our own
healing and in our own day today and in our own presence in
(11:54):
how we actually show up inrelationship, in the world, in
community and actually what wesow the seeds for in relation to
servicing and being of serviceto something greater than just
ourselves and our own individualwound with our mother or our own
lineage that we start to connectwith a wider web of how we can
(12:17):
actually best serve and how wecan actually show up for
humanity and for the world.
So our first step is naming whatis the ancestral mother wound.
The ancestral mother wound isthe trance migration of wounds,
(12:37):
grief, shame, fear, evenresilience passed down through
our culture, through family,through DNA itself.
Modern science shows us thattrauma doesn't vanish it is
carried sometimes unconsciouslythrough epigenetic inheritance
and I want to really insertthere too that this is also
(13:00):
including neurodiversity if youhave a trauma in your if you've
had a trauma or there's been atrauma a big trauma in the
epigenetic line in the in theancestral lineage then often
you're going to have people thatare going to come into the
lineage that are going to beborn that are going to be
diverse that are going to be ona kind of spectrum because of
(13:22):
the impact of that trauma thatdoes really shape not just your
experience but actually yourphysiology actually how you
connect actually your epigeneticmakeup as well as how you relate
to earth how you relate tohumans and how you relate to
yourself and how you relate tofamily and the family lineage so
(13:42):
I really want you to understandthat that also has an impact as
well Attachment theory tells usthat our earliest bonds sculpt
our internal working models, howwe learn often unconsciously to
love, to trust, to feel, to feelsafe or not.
(14:04):
These models become the lensthrough which we see ourselves
and others, shaping ourrelationships and community.
And there's the internal familysystems model, IFS model, which
I'm in formed in is atherapeutic model that sees us
not as a single self, but as aconstellation of parts.
(14:27):
And this is what I refer to asparts work.
These parts, the exiles that arecarrying old pain, managers
trying to protect, firefightersreacting when overwhelmed, play
out in our inner worlds.
At our centre lies the self.
(14:47):
It's a self-energy.
It's embodying calm, compassion,clarity, courage, and the eight
C's of self-energy, which Iwon't refer to in this podcast,
but I'll definitely pop a linkin the call notes for you to
have a look a little bit moreabout IFS work.
(15:10):
A parts work offers us a way tounderstand how parts of us may
be burdened by ancestral orcollective trauma.
Some parts carry messages thataren't even originally ours.
These are unattached burdens.
Through blending andunburdening, we can help these
(15:31):
parts release heavy burdens ofsilence, of grief, shame and of
inherited oppression.
And so the mother wound livesnot only in our hearts but in
the tissue of our being, felt inhow we love, how we protect how
we surrender and also too it isalso through the culture as well
(15:56):
so I have referred to the deathmother culture before and this
is what we're in we're in adeath parent culture and I liken
it to a death mother being thatwe are very segregated and and
violated and oppressed and cutoff from the great mother from
the all life force a life-givingforce that grows the tree the
(16:18):
flowers brings the seasons youknow has the elements grow
working in harmony together aswell as you know the same with
you know it brings death itbrings destruction it brings the
sun the moon the stars the likeeach year rolling you know
rolling cycling this allaffirming primordial force is
(16:40):
what I refer to as the motherand the mother wound is the
separation from her so when wehave this separation from the
Great Mother, we generally havea separation in the lineage, in
the ancestral lineage frompractices in and around
honouring life, honouring theMother, honouring emotions,
(17:03):
honouring these parts ofourselves, honouring the whole
of ourselves, having ritualceremony, having connection and
community and ways that we canserve and collaborate with each
other and we also have thatrupture in the mother line with
our direct mother and so it'slike one feeds into the other
(17:24):
the other feeds into the otherand it's kind of this cycle that
goes round and round and roundand it's not until we actually
start to tend to that wound andstart to bring some awareness
and focus in how we canreconnect with those exiled
parts of ourselves with thoseparts of ourselves that we
pushed away to protect to keepourselves safe in order to serve
(17:47):
the mother in order to to servethe death parent, in order to
serve the culture, colonialism,patriarchy, capitalism, in this
kind of binary slipstreamexperience that's really
watering down our diversity, whowe are, our authenticity, our
rawness, our capacity to connectand to feel and to be with each
(18:10):
other in a raw and authentic,vulnerable and safe and
collaborative way.
And when we move in this kind ofrestricted binary then we don't
know how to recognize safeplaces we don't know how to
regulate our nervous system wedon't know how to collaborate
(18:33):
we're in coming from thisattachment place that's so
wounded and so disjointed and sodisordered or so shut down that
often we when we're maskingwe're moving through life and
we're we're We're armoring up,which I often say, like kind of
stepping into the day.
We're putting all these maskson.
(18:54):
We're putting all these layerson in order to protect ourselves
because we're trying to keepourselves safe.
And what that's doing is that'skeeping us even more separate
from tending to the mother woundand tending to the ancestral
wounds that actually are keepingus separate from who we are and
from life itself.
(19:15):
And this unfulfilled sense thatwe have in life like this kind
of like drudgery this kind ofdogma way this kind of oh you
know like I've just got to getthrough the day which when we
shut down one part of ourselvesor when we shut down the the
lineage the connection withlineage even the ancestral
(19:35):
lineage we shut down all ofourselves we shut we cannot have
we cannot just shut down partswe shut systematically a lot of
other parts at the same time andso when we start to work on
healing this and bring this backand these parts back into the
fold and tending to the motherwound and tending to the
ruptures in our system and inour lineage with repair then we
(19:58):
start to bring all of then westart to tend to the lineage and
we start to bring all of thisback into the wholeness back
into this sense of fulfillmentthis sense of belonging of
community of groundedness ofrootedness of compassion of love
for the self and this deep deepwonderful connection that we
(20:19):
have with life and with eachother and with our lineage and
where we come from and then weplug back into this primordial
force and this is the tending tothe mother wound this is the
tending to ancestral lineagethat's just so crucial for us to
go back into our roots andrepair where it has been severed
either by our ancestorsdeliberately or unconsciously
(20:44):
but also by the culture ofviolence and oppression that we
are all suffering underneath andit's all it's like we take all
of everything back intoourselves like all of it I don't
even like to label good or badparts or good or bad experiences
but we bring it all into thismoment and when we tend to it in
(21:08):
the way it moves and we don'tpush anything in the shadows
because we're human and human ismessy and chaotic and it's the
groundedness it's the centralclarity for focus of who we are
and where we come from thatnobody can take from us not the
culture not the ancestrallineage when we have that really
rooted and intact then we canstart to move with tending to
(21:33):
the mother the mother wound andthe ancestral lineage mother
wound in a way that is reallyhealing and congruent and
extremely liberating this motherwound isn't isolated it is woven
into our patriarchal, colonised,hierarchical structures.
It's the legacy of systems thatdevalue maternal wisdom, sever
(21:57):
our bond to the earth and breedseparation and violence.
That disconnection fuels thepoly-crisis of our time.
Climate collapse, war, genocide,social unrest, mental health
breakdown and culturaldisintegration.
Epigenetics tells us that traumarewires the nervous system,
(22:21):
heightening vigilance,dysregulating emotion, making it
harder to attach.
Descendants of genocide,slavery, war carry cellular
markers of inherited trauma.
And even talking about what'shappening to the Palestinians
right now with what is not evenbeing coined as a genocide now
(22:42):
is being called a holocaust.
We are in uncharted territoryabout how this is going to
impact future generations.
And the impact now is like it'suncharted.
We're in uncharted territory.
And it's actually very scary tothink about down the track and
(23:03):
what the future generations ofthe Palestinians going to be
having in their physiologicalsystems, their emotional
systems, the trauma that thesethese people are going to have
been impacted by is just it'sunknown like like it's
(23:24):
incredibly scary to see atelevised a live genocide and
seeing these people sufferingthis holocaust and not knowing
the impacts of that in futuregenerations attachment isn't
just personal it is systemicwhen our communities and
(23:45):
societies are shaped by fear anddis connection, attachment
ruptures.
Our inner parts, the exiled, themanagers, pick up the cultural
burdens to protect us.
That's why so many women feelexhausted, unseen, unmoored,
because historically we werenever seen, never felt safe, and
(24:07):
right now the world is burning.
And you will see right now, andI'm seeing this mid-wifing my
own mid life is that the griefand the rage at the state of the
world right now has placedhealing in a space of urgency it
(24:29):
is so palatable inside me andinside so many women that I'm
seeing not just in my owncommunity and in my own
connections but in the widercommunity and there is no place
the culture and the ancestrallineage has not created a map
for what we do when the griefand the rage is so front and
(24:52):
center because it has been soit's been stamped and been
really created in this verynegative and binary way of how
we feel how we move with how weexpress it and it is seen as
destructive and being in a timethat we are in a world that is
(25:13):
being destroyed by humans by menby the systems of oppression and
violence and by patriarchalwomen women are not excluded
from this there are womenpropping up the systems of
oppression and violencecolonized white women and and
women from other ethnicbackgrounds too are they
scaffold the patriarchy theyscaffold colonialism and
(25:37):
violence and oppression becauseit's not just in the lineage and
culturally but also to protectthemselves and their own and
right now we are developing andfinding ways to be with and lead
and this is what I'm doingthrough my work women through
their rage and their grief in anembodied present and way that
(25:59):
they can tend to the motherwound and reconnect back into
the primordial source it is soimportant that we metabolize
this in our own systems so wecan also hold space for others
so that we can also metabolizeit for our communities and our
loved ones it is so importantright now it is the medicine of
(26:19):
our times at this particularmoment in history that rage is
front and center and grief andthat we find places to rage and
to be in our grief that are heldthat are safe that are healthy
that are that are feeding backinto humanity feeding back into
the earth restoring connectionand also metabolizing this for
(26:44):
other people and other energiesin the world right now because
we are all tapping into this thehorrors and once we once we hold
on to that charge in our bodythat grief and rage it creates
disease it creates ruptures inthe lineage it creates ruptures
in community in culture and withthe mother wound so this kind of
(27:05):
we need to move out of thiscycle and we start need to start
to move this charge out of ourbodies and start to find maps
and blueprints and move backinto that sacred connection of
ritual and and connection withwhat our bodies and what
humanity and what the primordialforce in collaboration with
(27:25):
community and each other andconnection and the world and
process this and move this outinto a space that is extremely
healing and beneficial when wemove into the rage the fires of
rage and the deep wells of griefit is the only way through these
times of reckoning it is theonly way to heal the deep wounds
(27:51):
of which we're trying to grapplewith and trying to they've been
colonized and been watered downand right through them is this
urgency and is this moving inand out of this kind of this
kind of numbed out frozen stateof being in our nervous system
we need big charges to get itout and get out into our social
(28:14):
engagement and regulated systemin order to find that regulated
system within ourselves, we hada big charge.
Grief and rage, particularlyrage, that's the charge we need
to wake us out of our slumber.
It is so beneficial for us todip into these places and the
colonized patriarchal systems ofoppression and violence that I
(28:35):
want us to do that.
Because if we move back intoconnection with our bodies,
community, the earthcollaboration, and we start to
move in these collaborative waysand we start to have body
autonomy and sovereignty wewon't be putting up with the
shit that they're laying out onthe table for us they're
literally setting the table andwe're eating from the shit that
(28:56):
they're giving us and it's toxicand it's oppressive and violent
and when we start to move intoour social engagement we use
rage and we grieve we move upinto that nervous system healing
and regulation oh we areactivated and then we are really
clear on what we need to do nextthat is the power that is the
(29:16):
liberation That there is therevolution.
And I want you to listen to me.
This is not just your legacy tocarry anymore.
Yet the invitation is to tend toit now so it is healed and not
landed upon our children orgenerations to come.
(29:38):
It's a burden that we all cancarry together.
This is matriessence, the riteof passage into motherhood
extended to us all, birthing amore connected, earth-centered
way of being.
Healing the mother wound is anindulgence it is lineage work
world care revolution and it isfor these times now and by
(30:03):
healing through parts workmeeting our exiled parts the
inner critic offering compassionto the managers inviting self
energy to lead we shift ourattachment patterns from
insecure to secure internallyand relationally intending this
(30:23):
wound now for ourselves and ourchildren we create a different
inheritance one of regulationattachment resilience deep
belonging and you can see thisin if you've ever mothered or
you or you've even reconnectedwith you've connected with
somebody in a relationship andit has had a different
(30:45):
connection has has a differentway of being that is very
different to your own parentageor your grandparents and you can
see that I can see that in myline coming through that even
the way that I've mothered hasbeen a much more conscious way
of actually having secureattachment doing rupture and
repair really well and reallytending to the wounds and not
(31:08):
having anything that is not okayto talk about really bringing
consciousness and attention tothose parts of ourselves that
feel really sticky and difficultand finding a mapping and a way
to move with it where it ishealthy held invite like in
invited it's actually celebratedand it's actually moved through
(31:31):
in a way that's really integraland really inclusive of all
parts of who we are and Iremember doing my healing
journey many years ago whereafter I lost my mother and I
remember hearing that thehealing that you do now really
impacts in real time sevengenerations forward and seven
(31:52):
generations back and I I want tomake it really clear that
legacies are not always yours toheal.
Some can be if you want to, butyou really can have discernment
and work with a therapist andwork in space with well
ancestors to not take on theburden of healing the legacy
(32:13):
trauma that has been carriedthrough.
You can actually give that back.
So I want to make that reallyclear distinction that you don't
need to have this overwhelmingsense that I need to fix it all
because I kind of I'm the onethat is coming to the family to
neutralize and to heal thiswounding you can have
(32:33):
discernment and choose not toand that is totally okay and
even just you just tending toyour own system will
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