Photo by Daniel Cosma

I recently sat down for an interview on the Can We Say That Out Loud podcast with Karen Greer, and the conversation went somewhere I wasn’t fully expecting. We talked about estrangement, mental health, and my own relationship with my mom — and by the end, I knew I needed to come back here and share it with you too, because if you have a strained or nonexistent relationship with your mother, this might be exactly what you need to hear. Maybe even a few times.

The Hope Cycle That Keeps Us Stuck

If you’re waiting for your mom to change — to finally show up the way you need her to, to respond the way you wish she would, to become the resource you’ve always wanted her to be — I want to gently name something: that waiting has a name. I call it the hope cycle, and it keeps so many of us stuck in resentment, frustration, and disappointment.

Here’s the thing about hope when it’s rooted in something unrealistic: it prevents us from doing the one thing that could actually set us free. It prevents us from grieving.

We’re used to thinking about grief in the context of death. But grief for a mother who is still alive — grieving the mother we don’t have, even while she’s still living — is just as real, just as potent, and honestly, just as necessary. Accepting the mother we have, and grieving the one we don’t, is where the real shift begins.

What Happens When We Release the Hope Cycle

Letting go of that hope cycle does more than free us from resentment. It opens up space — space to awaken and cultivate what I call the flourished mother within ourselves. This is the part of you that lives in a grounded, expansive nervous system state. She’s not afraid of your anger, your anxiety, or your sadness. She can hold your full human experience with compassion and presence.

That’s the heart of mothering ourselves mindfully: learning to become that resource for ourselves, rather than continuing to seek it from someone who may not be able to give it.

Because here’s a truth I shared at the end of that interview, when Karen asked what I’d want every mom to know: before she was a mom, she was a daughter. And she’s a forever daughter — no matter how old she gets. All of us are carrying a young, inner version of ourselves who deserves attuned, unconditional love. Not because we’ve earned it, but because we’re worthy of it, exactly as we are.

A Story I Haven’t Fully Shared Before

I want to tell you about a hypnotherapy session that changed everything for me. I went in thinking I was pretty healed, honestly. The session was meant to focus on my second birth — but the practitioner stopped me early on and said she felt we needed to focus on my mom instead.

At one point, she guided me to imagine myself as a baby on my mother’s lap, and asked me to reach out and take that baby into my own arms. I froze. I couldn’t do it. It felt like I was taking someone else’s child — even though that baby was me.

Soon after, she guided me to switch places, to feel what it was like to be in my mother’s body, trying and failing to give this child what she needed. I felt the ache of wanting to but being unable to. And in that moment, something shifted. My mom, in this visualization, gave me permission. And I gave myself permission to take that inner daughter into my own arms — because my mom, in her own limitations, couldn’t.

It wasn’t her fault. It was simply true. And it was, as a friend later told me, heartbreakingly beautiful.

The Three Layers of This Grief Work

I’ve come to understand this grief on three levels:

First, it gets us out of the hope cycle that keeps us stuck and unwell.

Second, it creates the space for us to become the mother we’ve always needed — for ourselves.

Third, in becoming that mother for ourselves, we become the mother our daughters need too. We model what it looks like to be with our full human experience — all our emotions, all our states — with curiosity, discernment, and compassion.

That’s the real work here. We’re not just healing for ourselves. We’re changing what gets handed down the line. We’re actively rewiring the blueprint.

What’s Next

Since I last talked about Mothering Ourselves Mindfully a couple episodes ago, things have been evolving. The program is shifting into a new form, opening this fall, and I’m working closely with my business strategist to shape what’s next. If today’s episode resonated with you, this is the community and the container for you.

Join the waitlist — we’re in the process of transitioning to The Home of Mom, so please bear with us while the links catch up.