Photo by David Kanigan

There’s a particular kind of grief that doesn’t have a lot of airtime. It’s the grief of wanting your mom — really wanting her — while also being done. Done trying. Done being disappointed. Done explaining yourself to people who just don’t get it.

If you know, you know.

This episode came straight out of a session with our Untethered alum group — a community of women I affectionately call the Apples. Women who are navigating dysfunctional, estranged, or deeply complicated relationships with their moms. And as Mother’s Day approaches, I felt called to bring this conversation out into the open, because too many of you are sitting with this grief alone.

You Are Not Alone in This

One of the things I said to open our call was: this is your time to be understood without having to explain yourself. And I watched what happened in that room — the exhale, the nodding, the relief of being with people who just get it.

Because here’s the thing. Even your closest friends — the ones who love you most — can leave you feeling like you’re on two different planets if they have a healthy relationship with their mom. It’s not their fault. It’s just that your experience of motherhood, of your own mother, is so profoundly foundational that it shapes everything: how you mother, how you relate to yourself, how you move through the world. It creeps into all of it.

And when someone casually says but you have my mom — even with the best intentions — it can feel like a reminder of everything you don’t have, and proof that you are deeply, fundamentally unseen.

That’s what this community is for. That’s what the work is for.

The Bucket Only Your Mother Can Fill

There is a bucket — and I’ve come to understand this through years of mindfulness practice and self-compassion training — that only your mother can fill. It holds unconditional witnessing, love, acceptance, and being truly seen. This isn’t sentimentality. It’s biological. It’s evolutionary.

And for those of us whose moms couldn’t, wouldn’t, or can’t fill that bucket — the absence is real. You’re not dramatic. You’re not stuck. You’re experiencing something genuinely painful.

The next best resource, ultimately, is you. That’s what we do at the School of MOM. We cultivate the inner resource of the mother we never had — one who offers tender self-compassion, permission to rest, permission to play, discernment, and care. We learn to insource what we’ve been seeking externally, sometimes for decades.

But when you’re in the thick of a hard moment — when it’s acute and raw — that inner resource can feel completely out of reach. So here’s what I offered our community, and what I want to offer you.

Three Things to Reach For When You’re in a Hard Moment

1. Find someone who gets it.

If you have a friend, a therapist, someone in your life who truly understands — tell them you’re struggling. Be specific. Ask for what you need: a weekly walk, a daily hug, a check-in text. And if you don’t have that person? That’s exactly what our community exists for. A space where you don’t have to translate your experience or manage someone else’s discomfort about it. You can just be known.

2. Start with the mindfulness of struggle.

Before you numb out, scroll, or push it down — just pause. Hand on heart. Say it out loud or just think it: This is really hard. That’s it. That’s the practice. It sounds almost too simple, but this is the first element of self-compassion, and it matters enormously. Naming the struggle brings your prefrontal cortex online. It opens the door to curiosity, to your nervous system’s safety and connection state. It creates just enough space to be with yourself instead of running from yourself.

3. Have an FMF moment.

Feel My Feelings. I’ve been playing around with this as a framework, and our group loved it. The invitation is simple: carve out intentional time to be with your feelings — but not alone. Find a resource to accompany you. A big tree. A candle. A body of water. A rock. A pet.

These non-human resources have something we often can’t find from people in these moments: they’re steady. They hold their ground. They don’t say the wrong thing. They don’t remind you of what you’re missing. They just are, and they let you be too.

Expect it to be uncomfortable. Plan for that. And then go anyway.

What We Practice, We Get Good At

That’s the line I come back to over and over. The capacity to feel your feelings, to meet yourself in hard moments, to be your own inner mother — it’s not something you either have or you don’t. It’s a practice. A skill. Something that builds over time, with repetition, with support, with the right community around you.

As we move into Mother’s Day, I want you to know: if this holiday is hard for you, that is a completely valid response to a real loss. The loss of the mom you deserved. The loss of the relationship you still wish you could have. The grief of a mother who’s still alive.

You don’t have to perform okay-ness. You don’t have to explain yourself. You just have to start with this is really hard — and let that be enough.

If you know a mom who struggles this time of year, please share this episode with her. She needs to know she’s not alone.And if you’re ready to stop navigating this alone, the Flourished Mother Map is a great first step — a personalized reflection experience designed to help you get clear on where you are and what your path forward looks like. Find it HERE.