The Emotionally Absent Mother: A Guide to Self-Healing and Getting the Love You Missed

How we are put together, how we see ourselves, our sense of self-esteem, our unconscious beliefs about relationship—all of these are strongly imprinted by our mother.

We can give ourselves a new experience, creating new options, just by working deeply with imagination. To do this, select a quality that was not supported, and then imagine someone important to you recognizing this quality in you and really celebrating it. Imagine this person saying that it is one of the things he or she likes most about you. Notic

I believe our basic security or insecurity also gets reflected by our response to disappointment and hurt in important relationships.

hypervigilance about…

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Using this list as a jumping-off point, make a list of emotions that you want to add to your emotional palette.

Finding situations where you can make a difference and minimizing situations where you can’t. Some situations are inherently disempowering.

It is important that they not be perceived as manipulative and not paired with requiring something of the child.

but it can be more than that, too. It can be an internalization of the person’s love and support.

You may have heard the phrase The child is father to the man,75 which means the child is the foundation upon which adult life is built. What kind of foundation we have is critical. A resilient child serves as the foundation for a resilient adult.