The Menstruality Podcast - 75. How to Heal The Mother Wound Through Cycle Awareness (Bethany Webster)

Episode Date: February 16, 2023

We’re welcoming back Bethany Webster, the author of “Discovering The Inner Mother”.  She’s considered to be the global expert on healing the “Mother Wound” - something we all inherit to varying degrees living in a patriarchal society. Bethany was a guest at our Wise Power Retreat, where she spoke about healing the Mother Wound during menopause.In our conversation today, we look at the Mother Wound through a menstrual cycle awareness lens, exploring how it shows up throughout our inner seasons, and how each phase of the cycle can support specific aspects of healing.We explore:Why it’s so hard for us to take care of ourselves, the role the Mother Wound plays in this, and how inner spring (pre-ovulation) teaches us to mother ourselves and build trust with our inner child.What we learned from our mothers about whether it’s ok to shine and how inner summer (ovulation) can help us unravel our capacity to be seen and loved for who we really are. The power of boundaries when it comes to healing the Mother Wound, and how our premenstrual power can support us to claim the honest truth about our limits and what we need. ---Join the waiting list for our 2023 Menstruality Leadership Programme - you can apply here: www.menstrualityleadership.com---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolBethany Webster: @themotherwound - https://www.instagram.com/themotherwound

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, thank you for tuning in to the Menstruality Podcast today. We are welcoming back Bethany Webster, who's the author of Discovering the Inner Mother, and she's considered to be the global expert on healing the mother wound, something we all inherit to varying degrees living in a patriarchal society.

Bethany was a guest, you might remember, at our Wise Power retreat last year, where she spoke about healing the mother wound during menopause. And in our conversation today, we look at this mother wound, which we'll define and explore in the conversation through a menstrual cycle awareness lens looking at how it shows up through our inner seasons and how each phase of our menstrual cycles can support different aspects of mother wound healing. So let's get started with how to heal the mother wound through cycle awareness with Bethany Webster. So welcome to our podcast, Bethany. I'm really, really grateful to have you with us. Thank you

for joining us today. Thanks for having me, Sophie. I'm still looking forward to our conversation today. In preparation for our chat, I listened to your conversation again with Alexandra and Sharni that you recorded for the Wise Power Retreat, where you looked at the mother wound and menopause and perimenopause. And one of the things that struck me in the conversation was your maturity, your emotional maturity. And as I heard more of your story through the conversation, your 25 years of depth psychotherapy and how much you've lived and worked this material. And because this is the menstruality podcast, I would actually love us to explore the mother wound through the lens of the four inner seasons or the four phases of the menstrual cycle. Because I think it's going to be an interesting lens for how the mother wound can show up and how it can hold us back.

And also it could offer some portals for us for look at, for us to look at how we can actually work with it. Great. Yeah. Sound good. Sounds great. Let's do it. Amazing. Before we get into the inner seasons of phases, I think it would be great if we could first hear your story with this, how this work emerged, you know, this unique body of work that you've created, that's now helped so many thousands of people. Can you share your personal story with this? Yeah, absolutely. This, I didn't plan on doing this work. It just sort of happened. What did you plan on? Well, it changed a bunch. I just always thought I would like get married and work at maybe a

university as an administrator. I always had dreams of writing a book for women, but my sights were kind of low. I was just like, I just want to chill, kind of happy, quiet life. And it kind of started out that way. But it's funny, you know, looking back how everything kind of works out. There's like this choreography that's happened from the universe to get me here. But long story short, as you mentioned, I got into therapy super early while I was 19. I grew up as a parentified daughter. So I basically had this dynamic with my mother where I played the role of her emotional support, kind of like her therapist type of role from a young

age. So I thought my mom and I were best friends. I had a really idealized view of my mom and our family. And I just thought I was a normal kid, a normal young woman. And then in college is when I really hit a wall and experienced a lot of symptoms like depression, eating disorders, panic attacks. And I just realized, wow, my symptoms are telling me a different story. Something is off here. So I got into therapy at 19 and started to uncover things. Can I ask about that, Bethany? Yeah. You know, when you said that you could see that something was going on more deeply, did

it take you a while to see that? How did you get the space from the depression and from the anxiety and the symptoms to know that you needed to work on yourself? Yeah, well, I think the biggest part, and I skipped over some details, but the biggest thing, and I think this time of my life was a wake up call was I had a one night stand. Only one I've ever had in my life as a 19 year old in college. And I accidentally got pregnant, condom broke. And I had an abortion because I was like, you know, I don't want to be a mother yet. And went through that, did some healing with that, made peace with that.

But I was like, you know, my life isn't on the right trajectory. It was a real wake up call for me that if I'm not aware, I can go down a road and make different choices that can have really big consequences at this point in my life. So. Wow. Massive wake up moment. It was a big wake up moment. I'm like, I want to change. Like I want to change what I'm doing. So I actually quit college at that time. And I was

going to be a teacher, which was what my mother was doing, you know? So I was like, I was just going to follow in her footstep. But I was like, wait, once the abortion happened, I got really on a spiritual path and I took some time off and I was like, I want to go into psychology. I want to understand why people are the way they are, why I am the way I am. And so that's kind of when I got onto this path. And I found a therapist. It's such a miracle. I found her. She had a card at a health food store that had like a goddess symbol on it. And I was like, okay, this is, I'm calling this one. And she was, you know, holistic, integrative therapist, brilliant woman, feminist. And I, you know, I've been with her every, ever since. So I'm 44 now. I've been with her weekly since then. And so, and I didn't expect to be in therapy that long, but depth psychotherapy is specifically

that kind of therapy where you are expected to be in therapy for many years. And in that process, you can rework your attachment bond with another human. It's an amazing thing. But yeah, so I got on that path and then I just kept uncovering more layers. You know, initially it was the layers of, I want to be in relationship. I want to have a good relationship. I want to have a good career as a young adult. But then I started realizing, oh, everything I'm dealing with, there's actually themes

here, like people pleasing, not feeling good enough, feeling a lot of shame. It was pervasive. And I realized, oh, wow, I actually do need to look at my relationship with my mother because I'm seeing that I'm actually playing out things that she modeled and taught me. And by being loyal to her, I'm actually betraying myself and what I want out of life. That's big, eh? That's a big moment, isn't it? Yeah.

It was a really big, almost like the tectonic plates of my being were shifting and and so seriously because like you said in another interview I heard um you say the reason why this mother wound stuff is so core is because we were one with our mothers when we were growing inside them. So it really is tectonic on that metaphorical level to say, hang on, no to you, yes to me, is a massive individuation move, isn't it? It is. Yes. Thank you for highlighting that. It is so true. It's like, it's the one relationship where we do share a body temporarily, we do share a psyche. And then so that individuation process, the self-actualization,

especially with the outer atmosphere of the patriarchy, which tells us that women are less than. And so that individuation process is even harder because of that cultural mandate that says, oh, women shouldn't be fully actualized. They shouldn't have their own voice. They shouldn't have this or that. And my mother came from that kind of old school mentality of, well, you know, it's noble to do what your parents want you to do. That's your duty is to make your parents happy. Don't kind of squash yourself. That's loyalty. That's being a good daughter is not wanting too much, not saying too much, not revealing too much. So when I, at a certain point, you know, this was now I'm moving forward in time. So around the time when I was 30, I was married at that point. And another tectonic plate shift happened because I had been in therapy for so much longer.

And I started to just not feel like part of the family. I started to see that I can't be my full potential while in connection with this family. And I became more of a threat actively to my mother, to my father. So I became more of a black sheep, more of a target. And so it kind of blew up at a certain point where my mother very quickly said, oh, you're not my daughter. You're not my daughter anymore. This was like email three out of three emails correspond. And it was like, wow, there really isn't a bond. You know, there wasn't a bond there as much as I thought. And I started to learn, wow, I really projected benevolence onto things that were actually quite virulent.

So it was really a battlefield, I guess is what I'm trying to say. It was a battlefield to start to own myself and also feel like, where do you get that belonging when your family of origin exiles you? So it's been a journey of like, not seeing it as exile, but more as liberation and living more of an impersonal life where it's like having to let go of so much of the identities. It's like being a snake. I love how in goddess culture, the snake is such a symbol of the female, the feminine power, because it is, as we evolve, we do have to shed so many layers of what we thought was ourselves, what symbolized family and belonging and kind of boil down now with another metaphor into a more potent manifestation

of our soul in a body. And like, that's kind of the question I'm living now is how do I live as this more open, fluid, spacious, impersonal self? How do I show up moment to moment where it's not about the future? It's not about being some identity. It's not about producing and creating and being someone. It's more about showing up in each moment fresh. What wants to happen now? Who am I now? So with you, I'm so with you in that. I'm noticing I just turned 40 hang on I just turned 41 happy birthday thank you it's a great age and I'm I mean I'm also in the young part of motherhood you know my son is too

so there's been a great dismantling that's gone on inside me and I'm not quite in the reconstruction place yet which is an uncomfortable state to show up in you know but luckily the community gathered around this podcast all totally get this so we can be like unraveling and reforming together all the time but I'm one of the things I'm noticing is the thread of which which might continue into my 40s wow, it's not about projecting into the future anymore. It's a little bit about digging into the past more deeply to the fundamental healing level, but mostly it's about how am I showing up right now and how can I show up more fully right now? That's one true thing that I know right now. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm

sure the people in your community must feel, it just must feel refreshing for me. I find it so refreshing when someone owns that they're in that open-ended place and it's such a courageous thing to show up there and be seen in that place rather than quickly try to cop cobble something together together. And it just, so I just want to thank you for, for showing up as you are. Thank you. You know, I was listening to this interview with Brene Brown and Bono. She's got a podcast called unlocking us. I think it's called, and they were both talking about how they like untidy people,

people who are just fundamentally untidy. They just don't have it all together. And I always feel very relaxed around people who are actually, you know, showing up in whatever state of unravelment they're in in that part of their life. Yeah, it's relaxing. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's more real. So yeah, that's kind of been my journey. And it was around the time that things started to blow up with my mother. I started really doing a lot of writing. And then shortly after that, I started a blog because I just wanted to share with other people kind of what I was cobbling together in my mind, what I was learning and integrating

and wanting to just kind of share that and put it out there. And it was scary initially because I know the mother wound is a taboo topic still for many people because it's just not openly talked about still. But it was amazing to see people from all around the world say, oh my gosh, I'm going through the same thing. We're like, thank you for putting this out there. Like I thought I was the only one. And this was, I think around 2012. And then people started asking me, you know, will you be my coach or will you teach a workshop? So it all just kind of came together. And it's amazing how life kind of happens. And now I look back and I'm like, wow, all those years of therapy, I thought that was like gearing up for something else, but really that was the core. That was kind of my,

that's been my core soul work is my own healing, my own trauma healing. And even now as a business owner, you know, I have a, you know, I teach a course and I have a book and all that, but really my, my main challenge and my main passion is my own healing. It's not the business. It's not the, you know, that's not primary for me. It's still been this kind of like thread throughout my life of, you know, I have more to offer the more I do my own work. And it's been so empowering to put everything around that core thing and watch things blossom and grow from there it's so beautiful to hear you speak and to to track how your calling has been working you and growing through you and all of these wonderful synchronicities that have allowed because there was there was a big moment wasn't there in i don't

know 2013 14 15 where you had an article go viral. That must've been a big piece. Was it called how, why we need to heal the mother wound? Yeah, it was called why it's crucial for women to heal the mother wound. And I just put that out because I started to feel, I actually was in a place of anger a little bit because I saw women all around me, including my beloved friends and people that I admire, misattributing a lot of our struggles as women to other very surface level things like, oh, I just need to get another degree, or I just need to work harder, or I just need more confidence, or I just need to push. And it all was very capitalistic, patriarchal,

motivational messaging. And I was just like, no, it's so much deeper than that. And so I just wanted to get really clear with what I saw was the mother wound, you know, how it's this underground thing we struggle with that's still not talked about. And so that just kind of changed my whole life, actually. When that article went out, it was like everybody a lot of people resonated with it and that was really cool to see that wow yeah women are ready for this this is part of a not just a personal thing this is part of a collective dismantling and healing that's happening and so kind of riding that wave was has been very exhilarating I bet what a wave to serve

I'd love us to start to really get into what the mother wound is and how we can see it in ourselves how it shows up and how we can work work with it to heal it And I'd love us to start with the inner spring, which is the pre-ovulation phase of the menstrual cycle. So this is, we finished bleeding and now we start to feel a bit of an upsurge of energy again. For most people, I'm going to track a kind of archetypal cycle here, but it looks different for different people, but this is often a common pattern. So just like the little shoots coming up, our energy can start to come back. But there's also a tenderness with that and a real need for us to cherish ourselves and tend ourselves and move tenderly as we come out of this sacredness of the bleed and back into the world again. And the theme I think that could be good to explore here is the connection between the mother wound and a lack of capacity to take care of ourselves. Because there is a self-care crisis,

you know, and has been for a long time. So could you draw, draw some lines between those two, the mother wind and the lack of self-care? Absolutely. Yeah. I you're right. There is a real kind of epidemic of people. So many of us don't, it's not natural to care for ourselves regularly. It feels foreign. It feels uncomfortable. Part of that's cultural. And I think part of it is having a lack of a model, like maybe even watching our own mothers struggle with their own self-care, like valuing themselves and putting time and care into their own bodies or their own psyches. So a lot of what we witnessed as women now, I think just looking back, the women that I speak to is really the pain of watching our moms neglect themselves or feel unworthy.

And so what that can do is it can create for us a kind of conflict when it's like, oh, I want to take better care of myself. I want to maybe eat better or sleep better, maybe just take a step back from things and be less busy. With the mother wound, it's interesting. I find that these early loyalties, not even to our mothers per se, that's the primary is we're loyal to our mothers. That's a biological imperative, but her own beliefs and what she models for us are what we bond with too. Yeah. Right. So we bond not just with her as a person, but also with the beliefs and the patterning that she modeled for us. So when we do things differently, even if it's for our own good and to better ourselves, it can still create this conflict

of like, am I betraying my mom by being better to myself? Am I leaving her behind in some way? Am I implicitly rejecting my mother by healing myself? Yeah. There's a sense of why do I deserve to do that when she didn't get to do that? Exactly. Exactly. And part of that's love. Like we love our moms. You know, we, a lot of us witnessed them go through deprivation or hardship of some degree. So that was painful. But there is this, like, I find that at least where humanity is now that there's a kind of codependency with our moms that just happens by nature of the world we live in and that women have had less for so long. So it takes a lot of fortitude and kind of courage to do the inner work, to be okay with giving, receiving more than your mom did.

About every six months, I go to the spa with one of my best friends. I love it. We have such a good time and I'm a massive introvert. So I need to be away from all humans apart from her, you know, so it's okay to have one person I'm close to, but you know, to be in the sauna too, we just talk and relax and eat and sleep.

And especially since I became a mum, it's like, it's so massively restoring. And every time I talk to my mum about it, you know, she wants to want me to go. I see it in her. But she also is confused because she didn't ever do that. So I can see there's a little bit of an unspoken battle going on between us. And I'm, what I'm trying to do is actually tell, be honest with her and say, I'm going to the spa rather than hide it from her. Yeah. I can imagine your mom, you know, from the mom's side, we're talking about the adult daughter here most of the time we've been

talking, but from the mom's side, I could see it's like their identities are formed. And many of the time we've been talking, but from the imam set, I could see, it's like their identities are formed and many of the older generations of women, there's a virtuous identity formed around self-neglect. So it's like, it's like they were taught, Oh, I'm a good woman. When I do, when I sacrifice myself, like that's a good mother. That's, that was the kind of, you know, brainwashing that the culture does, but also how people cope with hardship is we often have to find some kind of silver lining to get through it. And so for many women, I think that virtuous identity, including the self-neglect can make it really difficult when one's daughter, which you want her to have everything, but it can be very confronting because it's like, well, I didn't have that. Why didn't I get that?

Or what does that mean that she's doing it and I didn't? But you really gave your mom a gift in a way because she can do a lot of great deep inner work around that. I know, I think that's, things can go multiple ways in that scenario because you give a great example. It could be about any number of things from child rearing to, you know, maybe choosing not to have children. You know, there's a whole range of things that can cause this little friction that you describe. And some moms will do the work, you know, they'll be like, Ooh, this is bringing up something for me. I got to look at this. And some moms actually see the kind of project the daughter as a kind of enemy or, or that the daughter's rejecting her personally, you know, can take it as a personal attack. And that's sad that when that happens, you know, one of the things I really wanted to do through my work is to really

paint all of this is it's not easy. It's kind of hard, unglamorous, long-term healing work, but it has some amazing, it has so many gifts to offer if we do the work. Yeah. Yeah. I really feel it. And a big part of the work that you teach and it's the title of your book, Discover Your Inner Mother, right? Yes, yes, exactly. So a lot of what you teach is this inner mothering, which feels really important when it comes to being able to actually tend to ourselves when we're feeling vulnerable and when we need our own love. Yes, I'm so glad you brought that up. Yeah. So the way to resolve that kind of conflict we've been talking about is to help the little girl inside of us to number one, validate those fears of like, I might be a bad girl if I do something mom didn't do, or am I selfish or ungrateful if I move beyond what she wanted or did. So we need to validate, like that's real, those feelings, but then differentiate and basically cultivate enough trust with that

inner child to the point where the child inside of us trusts the adult self more than the mother. It's huge. That's a very short, oversimimplified explanation but really that's what needs to happen because otherwise our mother's beliefs act as a powerful default in our psyche and we will always remain in a push-pull tension with it so part of resolving that tension is like cultivating trust with the inner child where we say, I'm going to show up for you now in the ways that mom couldn't, you know, I'm going to be the mother you needed. I'm going to fill that, what I call the mother gap of what you didn't get. And I'm going to start to give that to you.

So it's about kind of consistent. It's like a real relationship, right? With a child inside of you. And so as you do that, showing up consistently, the child starts to trust you more and has more evidence that, wow, it is safe to do what we were taught not to do. So there's more lived experience. And basically what this is, is building new pathways in our brain that through neuroplasticity, if you could think of it like the amygdala is kind of like the inner child and the prefrontal cortex is like the inner mother. And we're just kind of building more

pathways and letting go of the old super highway in our brain, which was more whatever our parents taught us, which we might want to take on some of those still, they might still be true for us, but there are other things that we also want to do that are not, that are different from what they taught. So the inner child, it really needs connection before correction. We can't just say to the inner child, oh, that's not true anymore. It's safe to do self-care. That kind of conceptual, it doesn't matter. It won't work.

We really need that kind of deep, sincere, you know, just really loving that child for herself. So many of us felt like our parents were just kind of like rushing us through childhood, maybe, or just wanting us to be seen and not heard, not really feeling known and seen. But it's precisely in taking that time to know and see the child in us that creates this kind of incredible magical blossoming inside where as we do the work, new possibilities open up, where we feel finally safe enough to do things that maybe before would have felt like, oh my gosh, no way could I ever do that. So as we get more sovereign, we feel more empowered to self-actualize and go beyond where our moms have gone before. Not out of betrayal or rejection, but out of just really honoring our life path.

I'm going to pause this insightful conversation with Bethany for a moment to share an invitation with you. So menstrual cycle awareness gives us a powerful framework for all kinds of personal healing including the inner child psychological work that we're talking about here with Bethany as well as healing physical and emotional menstrual challenges, negotiating our relationship with our inner critic, creating a new healthy relationship to power. And our menstruality leadership program creates a generative and supportive space to explore this kind of healing

as well as several other layers to the power and the magic of the menstrual cycle. Our final wave of applications for this year's menstruality leadership program is going to open in early March and if you're curious about the program we invite you to join the waiting list at menstrualityleadership.com and you'll be the first to know when applications open again. The MLP is the only leadership training of its kind in the world. We have 360 graduates from a wide range of professional backgrounds and 25 or more countries at this point.

People have described it as nothing short of a miracle, one of the best decisions of my life, and utterly transformative. We're starting our 2023 round on March the 31st and you can join the waiting list at menstrualityleadership.com. That's menstrualityleadership.com. Okay, let's get back to the conversation with Bethany. Let's move on to the next season. So in a summer, the period around ovulation is classically for many people, a time when we can shine more, like show ourselves more, feel more confident, more more collaborative and have more courage and confidence to let ourselves be seen and something that I've heard you speak about is when it comes

to doing our own work around the mother wound is to do some kind of an inventory around the messages that we received from our mothers. And I think a really potent inquiry for inner summer is what did we learn from our mothers about whether we're allowed to show ourselves and to shine or not? Yes, that's such a core question. Well, it's, it's kind of like a misconception that loving that other person means not shining too bright, not outshining. And that by pulling back a little bit, we're preserving the relationship somehow. It's like, how can I be empowered, but how can I be loved? And do I stop being so lovable when I become more powerful? You know? And I think for a lot of us, it has to do with what did our, how did our mothers handle their own desire to be seen, to, to shine in their authenticity and were they punished for that? Because that will directly impact how they responded to us

when we wanted to shine and be seen and be loved for who we are. So I think for all women, that's a really deep, it's a deep one facet of the diamond, right? It's like, can I really be my full self? Can I really be loved as my full self? And while we can't know what other people can, you know, how people are going to show up, we know that people will always let us down or disappoint us in some way. But one thing we can always say to the inner child is that I'm going to show up for you. I love when you shine. I want you to shine as brightly as you can. Right. I love when you shine. I want you to shine as brightly as you can, right?

So there's a healing that we can do with the child inside of us through giving her the opposite message we got, you know, that you make me so happy when you shine. You enhance my happiness the more you shine in your true self. And I'm here to support you in shining as brightly as you want to. That's kind of what every child needs to hear. But of course, our parents are human. And so we didn't get a lot of those messages. So it's something I coach the women I work with to do is to really just say that no matter what, you know, to the inner child and that, and then demonstrate that in different ways in your life to affirm that it's safe now. It might not have been safe in the past to shine. We might've been

shamed or humiliated, but now we're not children anymore. Now you have me as your big Bethany or, you know, your adult self, and I get to protect and support you in really going for it. Your one precious life. Like you get to have these things, even though mom didn't have them, you know, that was her journey. It wasn't her fault. And it's not your fault that she didn't get to shine, but you have a special life. That's purely yours. And you get to shine. You get to step forward. I'm going to take care of you as you do that. I'm going to support you. So that's an example of how you can do some repair with the child inside based on whatever wasn't allowed as a child. Yeah.

So whenever we notice ourselves justifying all those subtle ways that we shrink ourselves, that we make ourselves smaller that we diminish ourselves out of fear of yeah outshining or being too big for our boots I think that's that's one for me is like I can sort of hear a voice in my head sorry mom it's probably yours but yeah don't don't get too big for your boots yeah right right absolutely is so common so when we notice ourselves doing that it's like cultivating that capacity to go oh okay I notice I'm shrinking hey little one you can shine and just is it does that is that what it looks like for you and for the people that you work with just having those micro moments through the day or? Exactly. It's micro moments. It's kind of two components.

One is ongoing, proactive, soothing and reassuring and just enjoying your inner child. And then the other part is more like the micro moments when there's a trigger or something happens, how to kind of triage that with, I teach a method called validate dash differentiate, where you validate, oh, of course you would feel completely scared, you know, because mom's voice during times like this in the past was, don't you dare, you know, be too big for your britches. I'm gonna

have to take you down a notch. So of course you'd be scared. So you validate. And then the differentiate is, but now we're not stuck in the past anymore. We can step forward now. So let's take a little, what little step could we take today to just affirm, like, you're safe. You got this. I'm with you. So it's like, yeah, validating the feeling from the past because we don't want to rush over that.

But then also differentiating, we're not stuck in the past and we're not alone. Like in the past, like in the past, we're not alone like in the past. Like in the past, we might have been very much alone in a family without enough support. But now we have this, the child has this adult self that's there forever. And one of the things we can say to the inner child too is I'm going to make mistakes. I'm going to, as your adult self, your inner mother, I'll disappoint you sometimes, but I'm committed to being on the path and doing what it takes to earn your trust. You don't have to be perfect.

If someone's listening and they're like, oh man, this sounds like a lot of work and like, ah, but you get to be your imperfect self, you know, even as inner mother. And it's really about that commitment to sticking to it, right? That comes with love and commitment falling down and getting back up again. Yeah. Or that repair, the conflict isn't a big deal as long as the repair comes afterwards. That's what I'm really focusing on with my toddler because it's raising a toddler with big opinions and big feelings all the time all day long and you know and I lose it frequently and then I oh okay mummy got angry that's you know that's my that's for me to figure out mummy loves you what's happening now you know just like let's

move on to this moment yeah totally so moving on to the next season which is probably possibly a time when most people might recognize the mother wound coming up which is the inner autumn the pre-monstrum when we're hopefully being able to practice our capacity to say no to others and to the world and to say yes to ourselves but that can be so messy in our world because of everything we've been talking about today, because of how hard it is to come home to our authentic selves, because of how challenging it is to put boundaries up. But in the fire of the inner autumn, what I think about most is boundaries and especially the kind of inner teenager so many of us feel I definitely feel a very strong outraged teenage voice throughout my

whole premenstruum and I have to take so much care of her to not just let her voice roar out into the world for a whole week every month. Absolutely. Yeah. How has this been for you? The pre-menstruum and the mother wound? Oh yeah. The pre-menstruum I've always loved, I don't want to say it's a kind of a strong word loved, but you know, getting cramps, feeling that coming on has always been like a time, like a kind of a cherished time because it's like, oh, my body is saying to slow down. And I've always been as much as I can in different circumstances honoring that. That's always paid off for me to really listen to that and to let myself be messy and let myself do nothing. And like one of the things that I did in a practice is create a

nest day where plan for this always around it, but like a day in bed, nothing, don't clean a dish, just get in bed with food, have the food prepared. And that's, that helped me so much psychologically. Huge, because if I can go deep enough into rest and in that kind of like messy time, I come out of it so clear, so clear. And it started to become like, wow, this is actually a dependable kind of pattern. If I set this up, I can reap kind of the rewards of it. So that's been a huge part of my journey is to, yeah, journal during that time, do nothing, rest and set the boundaries. But again, this is a place in terms of the mother wound with boundaries where as an empowered woman who's done a lot of work on ourselves, I'm sure many of your listeners are in this category, have done a lot of work. Maybe your mom hasn't. And so her understanding are as much. So maybe

her understanding of what boundaries are, like reasonable air quotes can differ. And so this can create the other friction of how do I show up owning my boundaries in an empowered way, but without apologizing, without feeling guilty? I do a lot of work with that, with helping women to understand, to feel really legitimate inside of what boundaries they need. And a lot of times that has to do with honoring what you want to do versus what you should do. And I think a lot of our moms come from that generation where it was like, should is king. That's how you get the recognition. That's how you get seen as a good person is you do those shoulds. And I think we're just evolving and

these younger generations especially do not live by that, where it's like, I want to do what I want to do. And so it can be really's like, I want to do what I want to do. And so it can be really liberating, especially for the inner teen, as you mentioned, to get in touch with what do I want? Because sometimes that rage comes from too much pressure on what we should do. So what I like to tell women about boundaries is it's about being honest. This is the new kind of way of seeing it is we, we love people. We can love people when we're honest with them and being honest about our limits. And if we can see boundaries as part of love, then we can feel really good about it.

And there might be people in our lives who don't agree with that. And maybe we just limit our time with them or we let them go. Yeah. Big boundary. Yeah. Big boundary. Yeah. My circle has gotten smaller over the years, but it's quality and a small amount feels abundant when it's the right people. I'm an introvert like you. I don't want a ton of people in my life. I want a small circle. And that's been really refreshing to just, wow. It's like, I don't need to have all of that going on. Boundaries are like the way, and they really are loving because it's like, this is how this is going to work for me. This is what I need

to love you as best as I can. Yeah. It's life affirming all around for everybody. Yes, exactly. You're loving other people. You're loving yourself when you're honest about what you want to do. And we're not loving people when we should ourselves into hanging out with them or being with them. That's not loving. No, no. So true. You wrote something really beautiful about limits actually on Instagram. Embracing your sovereignty involves rebuilding a keen sensitivity to the inner signals that indicate when you're approaching a limit of some kind. And what I thought of there was how powerful menstrual cycle awareness is for people who have menstrual cycles when it comes to listening for all inner signals you know inner signals of for health inner signals of desire inner signals of you know what

feels like our calling and what doesn't and you know all of the different inner signals but particularly when it comes to the inner autumn being able to hear our limits and then honor that limit because boy like does our world not encourage that you know it's like do do do push push push bigger better faster go patriarchy capitalism white supremacy it's all there menstrual cycle awareness for me has helped me get vulnerably honest about I can't do that anymore I can't do that now and I you know I with aid and I it's tough because he doesn't have a menstrual cycle he doesn't have that capacity to hear his own limits and he keeps going and pushing and I have to so often say well I have to champion myself and say love I'm sensitive I need to stop now yeah we're

renovating our house at the moment so you know I just have to say I need to stop now you know he would keep going for another 10 hours I think he needs to stop too but you know that's his business I just take care of me but that menstrual cycle awareness has really helped me to cultivate that capacity, particularly in inner autumn of what I can do and what I can't do and just be okay with that. Let the chips fall where they may. Yes. Yes. That's beautiful. I love that. Yes. Listening to our signals and then acting on them as soon as possible. I used to do that too. I would say yes to everything. I used to say, people would be like, want to hang out? I would say, like high pitched. It was like automatic. I couldn't even stop it. It was involuntary. I would

just say, sure. And then I would disappoint people. I'd cancel, I'd flake out, you know, and it was just this pattern. And then I remember my therapist said, she helped me to just, I would have to say, I'd have to make myself say, I'll have to think about that and get back to you. So I, I definitely, that was like really hard for me to just say, every time someone asked me, I'll have to think about that and get back to you. Thanks for the invite. I'll think about it, get back to you. And it was so empowering to just give myself that half step where it's like, let me be alone and think about, do I really want to do this activity with these people or not? And then I would just, I would feel, it was always actually a clear yes or no, but that was like that conditioning from my childhood of the people pleaser who would just say yes to everything because that's how I got love.

So as a child, so it's been really empowering to just like rewire that and see no as love. See no as love. That's so beautiful. And it, that I will think about that gives you that buffer of a minute, an hour a day to actually hear what's going on. Yeah. And that's so practical and so useful. Yes. I highly recommend it. And you're not being a bad person by saying that. Yeah. You know, I think that some of the times the voice in our head from our childhood is like, oh, you're selfish if you say no, but I'll think about it is just a really diplomatic kind way to honor yourself yeah so helpful great inner autumn advice I'll think about it yeah so moving on to menstruation to inner winter yeah you know you already named the power of rest as we approach that phase and the gold that can come from the rest that we

give ourselves then which has absolutely changed my life as I was reflecting on this and thinking about this conversation I was thinking about safety and how to be able to rest and to really do the kind of steep surrender that can yield so much gold at menstruation. We need to have safety. We need to feel a sense of safety and belonging. And could you speak to how the mother wound can really prevent that sense of fundamental safety? Absolutely. That's really the core work of the inner mothering work, I would say, is what we're trying to do is cultivate inner this. Because the opposite was true for so long for so many of us that we got safety through either pleasing or betraying ourselves to the outside. And so a lot of our safety algorithms involve self-betrayal. So it's a totally new paradigm of honoring the self and the inner child and even some of the little things that maybe we haven't even admitted to ourselves feel unsafe.

So cultivating that inner safety is so crucial because otherwise what happens is if the inner child doesn't feel safe, she'll hijack the system. So it's like a teenager or a two-year-old getting behind the wheel of a car. That's kind of what happens in a trigger, right? If we're not too aware, we can easily just get hijacked in a moment by a child in us that's like, oh my gosh, I'm not safe. And so I have to do, you know, maybe you have to attack the other person, or maybe I have to flee, or maybe I have to just hide. So that inner safety is what kind of slows down that stimulus response time so that there's an adult at the wheel of our system and the child can feel safe and tucked in even amidst a trigger. But we still have our empowered adult witnessing online.

So it can take practice to do this depending upon how much trauma we've had in our lives. But I think the winter time and menstruation time is so crucial psychologically because it can be a time where we can repair whatever pain is there from feeling unsafe. And then we can also gather strength to and kind of a fierce commitment to like showing up. I think that's one of the powerful moments I witnessed with women I work with is when we start to see that by these methods of self-betrayal that we've been conditioned to believe we need to get love and approval from the outside. When we see that there's no payoff for that, that doesn't ever come. I remember literally believing like one day I'm going to please my mother enough that she's finally going

to see me, you know, like those kinds of fantasy things we develop in childhood. But once we see that those are a dead end truly, then we can start to really have this kind of fierce love for that child in us. And that fierce love, it's like about protection. It's about, you get to have what you want in life. I'm going to be with you no matter what. That kind of fierce mother energy, it's like a combination of fierceness and tenderness can really help us after the winter, as we go into spring again, like I'm, I'm going to show up for myself in ways that are the ways that society or my family has taught me to abandon myself. I'm going to, I'm not going to do that. We can develop some of that raw power. I think in the menstrual time to show up in the spring with more gusto. Does that make sense?

Totally makes sense. And I'm thinking of language that Alexandra might use. She often talks about how winter puts chi in your tank. And Shani often speaks about how she experiences, she calls it the mother hug of menstruation, where she feels feels life she feels her belonging to life her deep fundamental belonging in this web of sacred aliveness that we're all part of just got goosebumps and it's so I never feel it more than that that bleed time yeah one of the parts of your mother wound work that really fascinates me the most is when you talk about the planetary mother wound that this personal level of how the patriarchy has got inside us from the very beginning and has informed our psyches and our ways of being via the connection with our mothers and how that

expands out and or how we see it playing out on a planetary level in terms of the relationship we have with the planet and how we've seen it to be okay to betray her or to to keep taking and taking and taking without any restoring and one of the things we speak about in med school a lot is how menstrual cycle awareness restores our inner ecology and that restoration of the inner ecology allows us to have a different kind of relationship with the natural world outside us oh i love that yeah where we understand that we're part of it. Yeah. Could you speak to just, just a couple of headlines about that planetary level of the mother wound? I know it's almost like that kind of deserves a whole hour, doesn't it? Let's do a part two. I know. I'm like, wow, with that lead in, yeah, there's so much we can talk about, but yeah,

what I would say is on a personal level, the more that I've worked through the layers of my own mother wound, and this has really peaked for me recently, like I would say the past year is I've noticed like there's a, almost like my senses have become really acute. So it almost like, wow, like I've had moments where I feel like I almost feel like I'm on drugs or something because it's so everything feels really vivid as we heal. And I think this is something that happens, especially with the mother wound is because the mother wound is about life itself. Our connection.

I like to say that the spiritual is like belonging. Like we belong, like you said, as part of all of life. And in the planetary context, it's almost like we can reach a point where we can feel that embrace. We can feel that we're part of the earth, that we're not separate, that our breath, that what we see, that what we hear, there are no boundaries and they're almost all conceptual really. So it's become like, how do we become loyal to that? Once we become, this is something I question, how can I be loyal to what I know is really true and live proactively from that place, which is that this is all one.

This is all one thing that's happening. And everything is alive. Everything is conscious. And we're just like my physical being is just, it's not limited to the body. So how can, what does it mean to be a human and live with that awareness, live from that and embody that and what we do. And because from that, the earth itself is our body. So how it's almost shattering. It's I've had moments where it's like, I can almost feel if I take in my full capacity of what's really happening, the beauty is almost so intense that it could

shatter me. Things that I thought were ordinary, like the sound of a bird or what the sky is doing over there. We just take it for granted, but it's, it's, everything is such a miracle. And so it feels like maybe as we heal, we open up, we crack open to be able to hold more of the immensity of what's really going on right now. What's really happening is so much more magnificent than our, and benevolent than our minds. And I think that's maybe what the earth is helping us do and what we can help the earth. And so doing to see her true magnificence, it's like a mirror. It's like, we're seeing one thing,

which is ourself. We're all the same. now language is breaking down and it doesn't I'm with you though I know you're with me and what an incentive to do the work I have glimpses of that I had several glimpses of what you're speaking about when I was pregnant and just in the very liminal time after Artie was born. And I've forgotten it at the moment because the furniture of my life, quite literally, is just crowding in. But wow, what an incentive. Bethany, I really want to honor your time

and let's do a part two sometime in 2023. I would love that. I would love that. Thank you. This has been so much fun. I've enjoyed every moment. Thank you for your amazing questions. And it's an honor for me to share space with your community. And thank you for the amazing work that you do. Thank you. Can you just name one next step for people who want to

work with you to continue to work with you? Yeah, I would head over to my website. It's bethanywebster.com. And there's a course that's kind of like a course all about healing the mother wound and that there's also a ton of free stuff like resources, tons of blog articles, podcast interviews like this one. And I'm developing a bunch of little courses, mini courses. Right now we have one on the holiday empowerment toolkit. So how to feel empowered around your family around the holidays. So yeah, just the website is really the best place to play around and find whatever strikes your fancy. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Bethany. Take care. Thank you, Sophie.

Thanks for joining Bethany and i today thank you so much for being in this community gathered around this podcast gathered around this work if you haven't yet please subscribe to the podcast on either on apple podcasts or spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts and it really helps us to reach more people if you could leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. And as I mentioned in the middle of the episode, applications will open again for our menstruality leadership program in March. And if you're curious, please come over to menstrualityleadership.com and you can join the waiting list so you'll be the first to know when applications open again. We're starting on March the 31st. All right then, that's it for this week. See you next time, I hope, and until then, keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm.