You say something harmless—but meaningful— to your mother. Something like, “I’d rather not talk about politics today,” or “I don’t want to discuss my parenting choices.”

For my client, it was, “Please don’t discuss my weight, Mom.”

And in a split second, the shift happened.

• The sigh: “You’re so sensitive!”
• The guilt trip: “I love you, that’s all.”
• The defensiveness: “I guess I can never say anything, then!”
• The subtle (or not so subtle) critique: “You know, you’re just like your father.”

Like my client, you probably feel your stomach tighten. Your whole body braces.

You notice the familiar pressure to appease her, soften your edges, abandon your own feelings, or make her comfortable—despite your discomfort.

It is a pattern so old it feels automatic.

Later, you replay the moment, wondering why setting such a simple limit consistently leaves you feeling like you did something wrong.

This is often where the Mother Wound reveals itself.

Recently, the topic has been everywhere. You may have seen Oprah’s new conversation on the “trend” of adult children going “no contact” with their family members.

I felt the discussion left out an important point: adult children usually spend years (decades, even) trying to engage their emotionally immature parents in repair, reflection, or accountability before they consider such a drastic step like going no contact. The episode focused on the no contact decision, but not the decades of emotional immaturity, emotional neglect, and unmet childhood attachment needs that often lead up to it.

The Mother Wound lives in that gap.

If we spent more time examining the Mother Wound, maybe we could prevent going no contact down the line.

The Mother Wound begins in childhood, when you learned to silence your emotions just to stay connected.

Or, when your mother’s immaturity left you feeling responsible for her reactions.

And now, even as an adult raising children of your own, her voice still echoes inside you.

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If You Have the Mother Wound

Healing this wound is not about blaming your mother. It is not even about waiting for her acknowledgement. The first step toward healing is learning how to name the emotional neglect, understand its impact, and finally stop living as the child who absorbs everything but you.

I invite you to expand your healing with me inside the Conscious Mommy Community, where you'll find my new class, Healing the Mother Wound.

In this class, you’ll learn how the mother wound shapes your nervous system, boundaries, and relationships and begin practicing the internal shifts that free you from guilt, self-silencing, and the need for your mother’s approval. You’ll walk away with grounded tools to understand your story, reparent yourself, and protect your children from inheriting the same wound. Enroll here.

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When you enroll in the Conscious Mommy Community, you receive:

⭐️ Weekly live classes with Bryana Kappadakunnel, LMFT—designed to help you understand your emotional patterns and strengthen your capacity to respond to your children with a calm and grounded presence.

⭐️ Full on-demand access to the class library—revisit lessons on boundaries, reparenting yourself, emotional regulation, and healing from childhood emotional neglect whenever you need support.

⭐️ A supportive community of parents who get it—ask real questions, work through triggers, and receive grounded reflections from others who are unpacking similar intergenerational patterns.

⭐️ Evidence-based strategies for breaking old cycles—learn how to interrupt the patterns that come from emotionally immature parenting, so you can raise emotionally aware, securely attached children who do not inherit the wounds you’ve spent your life carrying.

⭐️ Direct access to Bryana for coaching and guidance—through live Q&As, somatic reflections, and interactive teaching, you receive expert support that meets you exactly where you are in your healing.

⭐️ Ongoing clarity and inspiration—build a lasting legacy of self-trust, repair, and relational safety rather than guilt, confusion, or walking on eggshells.

If this kind of support feels like the next right step in your healing, now is the best moment to join and see how transformative this work can be for you and your family. Enroll here! (And don’t forget to use HOLIDAY at check-out to save 50 percent off your annual membership. Offer expires 12/31/25.)

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What Is the Mother Wound?

The concept of the Mother Wound emerged in therapy circles in the late 20th century, and refers to the emotional, relational, and attachment injuries passed down when a mother cannot offer her emotional presence consistently and/or safely. It often develops when mothers are emotionally immature, unavailable, or unable to meet the emotional or developmental needs of their children.

For example, I knew as a child whether to approach or avoid my mother just by her footsteps in the morning. I feared her emotional unpredictability and learned to tailor my every step just to be on her good side.

I was rarely successful. I often felt I was on the receiving end of her wrath—which, I later learned, was her unprocessed childhood pain.

Many adult children grow up feeling that the mother they had was not the mother they needed. This is not a judgment of her worth. It is a reflection of how unresolved wounds, emotional immaturity, and attachment injuries pass down from one generation to the next.

The Mother Wound creates deep uncertainty about whether your feelings—or even just you—matter. It shapes your mental health, your relationships, your emotional patterns, and the voice you carry inside your head. It often shows up as self-doubt, perfectionism, guilt, fear of disapproval, or the constant pressure to perform or please.

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Where the Mother Wound Begins

Children depend on their mothers to be emotionally attuned, responsive, and predictable. When mothers are overwhelmed, emotionally neglected themselves, or emotionally immature, their good intentions often result in a negative impact. They fuss over their child's every move because they care so deeply about their child's health and safety, without realizing that the child feels hovered over and begins to believe that mom doesn't trust them. Or, they criticize their child's efforts because they want them to learn and be successful, without realizing that the child feels humiliated and shamed for making normal, expected mistakes.

What helped me in my healing journey is this: the Mother Wound is intergenerational and many moms won't be able to offer what they never received. Certainly not without the will to change.

Unfortunately, unhealed mothers are more likely to blame their children for their overreactions and negative behavior. This is usually the only way they know how to deal with stress and conflict. The ego must dispel anything that causes it pain, even if in the process, more pain is caused.

This is why we believe the Mother Wound is a cycle that's worth the time, effort, and energy to break it. 

Patterns that contribute to the mother wound often include:

• A mother who reacts defensively to a child’s feelings
• A mother who expects the child to stay emotionally small to keep her comfortable
• A mother who relies on the child for validation or emotional support
• A mother who criticizes, shames, or withdraws when the child sets a limit
• A mother whose love feels conditional or unpredictable
• A mother whose reactions are bigger than the situation at hand

In these environments, children learn to minimize their emotions. The child becomes the stabilizer. The child becomes careful. The child becomes responsible for the mother’s emotional well-being.

Sadly, these patterns do not magically disappear in adulthood.

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How Emotional Immaturity Shapes the Mother Wound

Emotionally immature parents often lack the capacity for reflection, empathy, or consistent emotional regulation. They may behave like adults in the world, yet operate like children on an emotional level.

Kids are at risk of developing the Mother Wound when the mother's emotionally immature behavior is chronic. No parent is perfect, and we are all entitled to messing things up along the way. But emotionally immature parents are not receptive to feedback and often lack the ability to appropriately repair.

That's why this dynamic can feel particularly draining for children. Signs of emotional immaturity include:

• Difficulty tolerating uncomfortable feelings
• A strong need to be right
• A tendency to blame others
• Fear of being confronted
• A fragile sense of self
• Low frustration tolerance
• Emotional reactions that outweigh the situation

Adult children of emotionally immature parents often become hyper-attuned to others. They learn to test themselves constantly: Am I being too much? Did I upset her? Will she get hurt if I say this?

These internal patterns form long before adulthood. They are symptoms of emotional neglect, where the child had to abandon their own emotions to protect the mother-child relationship.

Many think that No Contact is the healing step they need to take. And while it may be necessary for some to engage their personal healing journey, I want to caution that estrangement is not a simple, catch-all solution for most. In fact, I find that most people want healthy ways to maintain their relationship with their parents, even if that looks different from how they initially imagined the adult child-mother relationship to look.

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Why Estrangement Is Not the First Step

Because the topic is trending, let’s address it clearly. The conversation around no contact gained renewed attention after Oprah’s recent episode, which framed estrangement as a "new trend", without sufficiently acknowledging the long history of adult children trying to repair the relationship, ask for accountability, or establish boundaries with emotionally immature parents long before considering distance.

Most adult children do not want estrangement. They want a relationship grounded in mutual respect.

Sadly, those of us with the Mother Wound will have to liberate our mothers from our expectations. If your healing hinges on your mother acknowledging the pain she caused you, you will probably remain in pain for longer than you'd like. Your healing begins the moment you no longer need their acknowledgment to find peace within.

This does not mean that you tolerate inappropriate, toxic behavior. But this is how you start to envision what your relationship could look like.

Unfortunately, my mother died before I became a mother, but there have been times when I've contemplated estranging from my father. However, at least for now, I've decided that I'm still deciding what our relationship—if you can even call it that—even is.

I'm also reflecting on what matters to him about our relationship. Rather than focusing on what's lacking between us, I'm instead focusing on what we share, and I'm leaning on that. Do I wish it could be better, more fulfilling? Of course. Have I accepted that I do not have control over how he shows up in the world? I've had to, and it's positively benefited my mental health by doing so.

While no contact is sometimes a necessary—but painful—step for safety, but it should not be the starting point. Healing begins with being honest with yourself about what you need and setting boundaries that build bridges, not walls.

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What Happens When Adult Children Set Boundaries With Emotionally Immature Parents

It takes a high degree of confidence, self-reflection, and even empathy to respond in a supportive, kind, and loving way to someone else's boundaries, especially if you feel the boundaries are undermining you in any way.

This is why it can be exceptionally challenging for immature parents to accept your boundaries. They are not used to you having limits with them; it was always their role as the parent to set limits for you.

Many mothers, especially, can struggle to evolve how they parent you as you grow into adulthood. They still refer to you as the "kids," even though you're no longer children. They question your decisions or make you feel judged when you don't do things like how they've done it.

Understanding how your mother may feel when you set a boundary with her can help you stay grounded, rather than repeat what's been conditioned within. When emotionally immature parents are faced with their adult children's boundaries:

• They often feel criticized
• They may experience the limit as rejection
• They may interpret it as disrespect
• They may believe they are losing control
• They may feel exposed or ashamed

Their emotional reactions have far more to do with their own internal wounds than with you. Knowing this helps you stay grounded instead of collapsing into the old role of caretaker.

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Signs You May Carry a Mother Wound

The Mother Wound feels like a hole inside of you that's longing to be filled, but never will be. Most of us spend years trying to fill the gap, only to wind up feeling empty and a chronic sense of lack.

What I've discovered in my personal journey and in my work with women is this: we don't fill the gap; we grow around it. We make art from the pain it causes us. We eventually discover self-compassion and inner gentleness. And we finally learn how to take care of ourselves.

You likely have the Mother Wound if you:

• Feel responsible for others’ emotions
• Have difficulty trusting your own feelings
• Avoid conflict at all costs
• Feel smaller in the presence of your mother
• Have a tendency to overfunction in relationships
• Feel deep guilt when prioritizing your needs
• Often feel unseen or misunderstood
• Struggle with emotional regulation
• Have an inner critic that sounds like her voice
• Fear that you are “too much” or “not enough”
• Are extremely self-reliant
• Default to people-pleasing more than you'd like
• Are a perfectionist

Many people blame themselves for possessing these characteristics. While you may feel this is "just your personality", it isn't.

The Mother Wound conditions us to behave this way by threatening relational safety. You deserved safety, love, and support regardless of whether or not you "earned" it. There's nothing wrong with needing the safety of our parents. Humans are, after all, relational creatures.

The wound also affects how adult children parent their children. You may find yourself over-correcting, trying to give your children everything you never had, or feeling triggered by your child’s normal emotional needs because they activate the unresolved parts of your past. I share how dozens of clients—as well as myself—have healed our childhood wounds in my book, Parent Yourself First, along with practical tools for caring for both the child within you and in front of you.

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How the Mother Wound Affects Your Children

What gets repressed, gets expressed.

If we choose to ignore the Mother Wound, it will fester and will be passed down to our children.

Children absorb the emotional content of their home environment. They sense everything about you: when you're overwhelmed, triggered, overworked, etc. They don't inherently know what to do with what they observe: Do I try to rescue Mom? Should I feel scared, too? 

Then, they act on what they're experiencing: they cling, throw tantrums, fight with their siblings, and defy you to try to gain some semblance of personal control.

This is where you can either repeat the cycle or change the emotional script your children inherit.

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Healing the Mother Wound: The First Step

Healing begins with acknowledgment. You cannot change what you refuse to name. The first step is recognizing that your experiences shaped your nervous system, your attachment patterns, and your emotional life.

This step includes:

• Naming the emotional immaturity you experienced
• Understanding its impact on your mental health
• Recognizing your emotional patterns
• Allowing your own feelings to be valid
• Separating your identity from the role you played in childhood

Insight leads to in-the-moment awareness. Awareness leads to change.

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How to Heal the Mother Wound: Practical Steps

1. Learn to separate past from present

When your child cries, or when your mother criticizes your parenting, old wounds react as if you are still the child seeking approval. Your nervous system is remembering. Not failing. Recognizing this helps you pause instead of react.

2. Set internal boundaries before relational ones

Internal boundaries sound like:

• “I no longer abandon myself to make her comfortable.”
• “I am allowed to have a different opinion.”
• “I do not need her approval to trust myself.”

These internal boundaries make external limits far easier to hold.

3. Limit topics or environments that activate old wounds

Common boundaries include:

• “I don’t talk about my parenting.”
• “I don’t discuss my body.”
• “I choose not to engage in political arguments.”

When you hold these limits consistently, your emotional safety expands.

4. Let go of waiting for her accountability

You can always invite repair. You can ask for acknowledgement. You can name how her actions shaped your experience. But your healing cannot depend on her capacity to respond in the way you'd desire. When you stop seeking validation from an emotionally immature parent, you stop reliving the wound.

5. Reparent yourself through emotional attunement

Talk to yourself the way a grounded parent would talk to a struggling child.

• “I hear you.”
• “It makes sense you feel this way.”
• “I am here with you.”

This is the deeper work of parenting yourself first.

6. Build relationships where your needs matter

Healing the mother wound means learning to choose relationships where your emotions are welcome, your boundaries are respected, and your presence is valued.

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Moving Forward Without Passing Down the Mother Wound

The goal is not perfection. The goal is awareness. When you understand your emotional patterns, you become capable of far more than your mother could offer. You learn how to create relationships with your children that feel secure, connected, and grounded.

Healing the Mother Wound does not erase your past. It frees you from repeating it.

If you are ready to move from understanding into action, join us inside the Conscious Mommy Community for Healing the Mother Wound.

In this class, you will:

• Understand how the mother wound formed and how it still shapes your nervous system, boundaries, and relationships today
• Learn why emotionally immature parents struggle with accountability and why their reactions trigger guilt, smallness, or self-doubt in you
• Practice the internal boundaries, reflective tools, and self-attunement skills that help you stop collapsing into old roles
• Walk away knowing how to protect your children from inheriting the same emotional patterns

You deserve relationships where your feelings are allowed to exist. You deserve to feel like an adult in your own life, not a child walking on eggshells. Healing the mother wound is not easy work, but it is powerful, life-changing work. And you do not have to figure it out alone.

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Relevant Resources:

🔗 Let Go of Your Inner People Pleaser Exclusive Access inside the Conscious Mommy Community

📘Parent Yourself First: In stores now – order your copy and learn how to Raise Confident, Compassionate Kids By Becoming the Parent You Wish You’d Had. The guidance is practical, actionable, and straightforward. Your path to healing starts now.

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