On Mother’s Day I was fortunate enough to have a conversation with my mother from whom I am separated by time and space: she is miles and miles and many, many time zones away.  Since Guam (the place I was born and raised) is on the other side of the International Date Line, Mother’s Day (as all other days) arrives a day before it does here. I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around that!  Traveling to see my mom requires a 7-8 hour and rather expensive plane flight so I am grateful for the technology that assists us in staying connected.  But what really sustains me when I long to be with my mother is the deep knowing that I have my mother in my bones – literally and figuratively.

One of the greatest gifts my mother gave me was the understanding that mothering can come from many sources.  By raising me in an extended family of “mother figures” she generously allowed me to find mothering when she wasn’t available (freeing her to tend to her needs and those of my other six siblings): There was Doja, the ancient, mysterious Chamorro woman who carried me as an infant, spoke to me another language, and lived in the bedroom across from mine – blind and bedridden -- until she died when I was a teenager.  There was Candida, the compassionate Filipina woman and unrivaled baby expert, who coo’d over my tears, lamented my struggles, and later showed me how to soothe my colicky daughter.  She lived with my family from the time I was a year old until shortly before her death when I was in my 40’s.  There was my grandmother, Mom Agueda, the wise matriarch of the family and beloved leader of the Chamorro people who lived next door and taught me, by her extraordinary example, the value of being in service and mothering whole communities.  Most of all, however, my mother encouraged me to find and receive mothering from the greatest mother of all -- Mother Nature – as she taught me to find nurture, peace, and comfort by exploring the jungle, gardens, and reefs on the island.

So, at an early age I started to see mothering, the act of providing nurture and comfort, as a huge energetic that was widely available rather than simply a form of love and connection that could only be obtained from one’s biological mother.  As a psychologist specializing in eating disorders, I began to view mothering as an archetypal force and to see how those who struggled with eating and food were actually starving for mothering.  They were hungry for nurture and longing for comfort, but did not know how or where to find it, let alone give it to themselves. Frustrated by their attempts to get it from their own mothers or caregivers -- exactly when they wanted, as much as they wanted, just the way they wanted -- they sought for it compulsively in “comfort” foods or rejected the physical sustenance food could give because it did not soothe them in the way they really wanted or needed.

Once they could understand they had confused food, which is the physical symbol of mothering (not mothering, itself), with the energetic of mothering, and were able to identify what the desire for mothering felt like, they were able to recognize that the mothering they craved could – and needed to -- come from a wide variety of sources: from their dog, their husband, from music, their best friend, the lady next door, themselves, the Divine Mother, or Mother Nature, herself.  By connecting with the sensation of being soothed and comforted, they could begin to develop an Inner Mother that could always be there to nurture them exactly the way they wanted and needed; to feed and sustain them emotionally as well as physically.  And they discovered that as this Inner Mother grew stronger, she could function as an antenna, drawing them towards more sources of mothering and drawing more sources of mothering towards them.

All of us could benefit from a strong Inner Mother.  My dear friend and colleague, Sil Reynolds,  who does mother/daughter workshops with her daughter, Eliza,  www.motheringdaughtering.com defines mothering as "raising your daughter to become herself."  Imagine if, through what she calls "conscious mothering" of yourself, you could become your true self and live the life you were meant to live? How might your life be different?