If you are an adoptee, this is for you… Do you experience any of the following dilemmas? •Gratitude for an adoptive parent but grief for the loss of the original one? •Do you feel rejected even if no one is rejecting you? •Difficulty talking to friends or family about what it’s like to be adopted? […]
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Women raising children are warriors. How do you fight for your child(ren)? How did your mother fight for you? If you were not protected by your mother, this day can feel heartbreaking. Maybe you can find a different way to acknowledge Mother’s Day, a way that feels safe and comforting for you. Be the mother
As Mother’s Day approaches, so many injured voices echo in my brain. Women living with the heartbreak of Mother Hunger struggle to find appropriate, authentic ways to recognize this day. Through hurt, anger, or disgust, the pressure to “honor thy mother” is a heavy task this week. Both wounded daughters and regretful mothers face terrible
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Outlined in my book Ready to Heal are four beliefs about love and sex that women inherit from Disney land culture (McDaniel, 2008, pp. 29-40). In chapter two, I explain how fantasy images of women create an “inescapable” impasse, a sexual double bind. When conflicting rules collide, and choice A or choice B is wrong,
The concept of a “self” is foreign country for women healing from Mother Hunger. Without a safe early attachment relationship, forming a “self” is congested with survival strategies. As a result, many women are without an “inner compass” to direct life choices. We flounder through life responding to the needs of others, addictively chasing happiness
On the journey to heal heartache, a moment of beauty is sometimes impossible to find. But if you stumble upon it, soak up the glimmer of warmth.
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ASH Strange house we must keep and fill. House that eats and pleads and kills. House on legs. House on fire. House infested With desire. Haunted house. Lonely house. House of trick and suck and shrug. Give-it-to-me house. I-need-you-baby house. House whose rooms are pooled with blood. House with hands. House of guilt. House That other houses built.
“Mother Hunger® is part Mythology, part Biology” – Kelly McDaniel
What is Mother Hunger? Read More »
Chapter Two of my book Ready to Heal discusses a confining, cultural impasse that exists in our culture for women. If your romantic and relational choices regularly leave you cold and empty, exploring the inherited cultural/sexual double bind that sets you up to feel this way will help unravel unwanted beliefs driving your choices. You
Be still…what do you find inside your heart? Is there fear? Restlessness? Anger? Hurt? These emotions can be intolerable to “sit” with. Emotional pain is physical: our body resists it. It’s challenging to find the sweet spot deep inside us, the silence that comforts our being. Can you sit with yourself and invite your deepest