The mother wound distorts worth.
The Father wound distorts authority.

The mother wound forms in one of
four major relational patterns:

Emotional emeshment
Emotional absence
Conditional Love
Overbearing or anxious control

The father wound forms in one of
four major relational patterns:

Emotional absence
Tyrannical Authority
Passive Leadership
Conditional love

The father wound

1) Emotional Absence

- He was physically there, emotionally
somewhere else.

- No leadership, no affirmation, no
containment.

The result

- You raised yourself.
- You distrust leadership.
- You struggle to respect men.

2) Tyrannical authority

- He was upredictable, dominant or shaming.
- Love came with intimidation and fear.

The result

- You distrust masculine strength.
- Or you compete with all of it.
- Criticism feels humiliating.
- Power feels dangerous.

3) Conditional love

- Approval came trough your performance,
your compliance and your thoughness.

The result

- Weakness feels intolerable.
- You cannot reveal vulnerability to men.
- Discipline becomes identity.
- Rest feels like failure.

4) Passive leadership

- He avoided conflict.
- He appeased and collapsed.
- He never led the family.

The result

- You do not respect softness.
- You overcompensate with force.
- You build identity in opposition.
- You secretly fear becoming him.

Common markers of a father wound.

- Over sensitivity to male disrespect.
- Competitive comparison with other men.
- Difficulty submitting to structure.
- Inconsistent self discipline.
- Oscillating between dominance and withdrawal.
- Confusion arround leadership.
- Fear of being seen as weak.

The mother wound

1) Emotional emeshment

- Mother relies on son for emotional support.
- He becomes her surrogate partner.

The result

- Chronic responsibility for others emotions.
- Separation guilt.
- Difficulty setting boundaries with women.

2) Emotional Absence

- Mother depressed, overwhelmed, addicted or emotionally
unavailable.

The result

- Longing for feminine approval.
- Attraction to avoidant or unavailable women.
- Chronic sense of not being chosen.

3) Conditional Love

- Affection given for performance, compliance, or achievement.

The result

- Identity built on performance.
- Perfectionism.
- Fear of failure in intimacy.

4) Overbearing or anxious control

- Overproctective, anxious, over controlling mother.

The result

- Either passive compliance.
- Or habitually defiant.
- Poor internal authority.

Common markers of a mother wound

- Over sensitivity to female rejection.
- Intense need for validation.
- Difficulty tolerating female disapproval.
- Conflict avoidance.
- Excessive niceness.
- Eroticizing feminine chaos.
- Rage toward women masked as superiority.

@nicwarner
art:Love - by Ukrainian artist Alexander Milov from the 2015 Burning Man festival