The Mother Wound

The phrase mother wound gets thrown around online like a dramatic plot twist. But in the therapy room it is usually quieter than that.

It shows up as a tight chest when your phone pings. A throat that closes when you try to ask for help. A lifelong sense that love must be earned through being good, useful, easy, impressive, married, successful, thin, thick skinned, not too much, not too needy… you get the idea.

From an Islamic somatic relational psychotherapy perspective, the mother wound is not about blaming your mum. It is about naming what happened in your body and your relationships, so you can stop living inside an old survival strategy and start living with more choice, softness, and Allah centred security.

What is the mother wound

In relational therapy language, the mother wound is the imprint left when the primary caregiving relationship did not consistently offer safety, warmth, attunement, or protection.

Sometimes it is obvious: criticism, emotional absence, volatility, harshness, control, or neglect.

Sometimes it is subtle: a loving mother who was overwhelmed, depressed, traumatised, unsupported, or trapped in her own pain. Many mothers did not have the luxury of regulation. They were surviving. And children, being deeply intelligent little creatures, adapt.

The wound is rarely “my mother was bad.” More often it is “I learned I have to be a certain way to be loved.”

A somatic view: your nervous system remembers first

Somatic therapy starts with a simple truth: your body learned the rules of love before you had words for them.

If closeness felt unpredictable, your nervous system may now scan for danger in relationships. If affection came with strings attached, your body may tense up when someone is kind. If you were parentified, you may feel responsible for everyone’s emotions and strangely empty when nobody needs you.

Common mother wound patterns in the body include:

• chronic tightness in chest, jaw, throat, or belly

• over functioning (doing, fixing, managing)

• shut down, numbness, procrastination, freeze

• anxiety around disappointment, conflict, or boundaries

• shame that arrives instantly, before you even know why

Your nervous system is not being dramatic. It is being loyal to the first map it was given.

An Islamic lens: honour, truth, and boundaries can coexist

For many Muslims, this topic is loaded because we are rightly taught the status of mothers is immense. There is huge reward in honouring parents. There is also deep healing in telling the truth.

Islam does not ask you to pretend harm was care. It asks you to be just, to be compassionate, and to avoid harm, including the harm you do to yourself when you silence your pain.

Honouring your mother can look like making duaa for her, maintaining respect, and still acknowledging the impact of what you lived through.

And for anyone thinking, “But I feel guilty even reading this,” yes. Of course you do. That guilt is often part of the wound.

How the mother wound shows up in adult life

The mother wound tends to repeat itself in three main areas:

1) Relationships

You may chase emotionally unavailable people, fear intimacy, struggle to receive, or confuse intensity with love. You might become the caretaker, the peacemaker, or the one who never needs anything.

2) Self worth

You may feel you are only safe when you are achieving. Rest can feel sinful. Needs can feel embarrassing. You might carry a constant background feeling of “I am not quite enough.”

3) Faith and spirituality

Some people internalise Allah as harsh because love felt conditional early on. Others become perfectionistic in religious practice, not from devotion, but from fear. Healing the mother wound can soften your relationship with Allah, because your system becomes able to experience mercy as real, not theoretical.

Healing: what actually helps

This is where a somatic relational approach becomes powerful, because insight alone is rarely enough. You can understand your story and still panic when someone is disappointed in you.

In therapy we work on:

• Safety in the body: building regulation skills so your system can settle, not just cope

• Relational repair: experiencing a consistent, boundaried relationship where your emotions are welcomed and made sense of

• Grief work: mourning what you did not receive, without getting stuck in bitterness

• Repatterning: practising new responses to closeness, conflict, and needs

• Islamically integrated meaning: bringing your healing into your relationship with Allah through compassion, responsibility, and hope

Healing is not becoming someone who never feels triggered. It is becoming someone who can notice the trigger, stay with your body, and choose a response that matches your values.

How my therapy can help

If you are a Muslim woman (or man) carrying a mother wound, you may be tired of advice that feels either too spiritual to be practical or too psychological to feel culturally safe.

My work blends somatic relational psychotherapy with an Islamic frame, which means we pay attention to:

• your nervous system responses, not just your thoughts

• attachment patterns and family dynamics, without parent bashing

• boundaries that respect both your wellbeing and your deen

• shame, grief, anger, and tenderness, all held with care

Therapy becomes a place where you do not have to perform being fine. You get to be honest. And slowly, your body learns something new: connection can be safe.

If this is landing in your chest as a quiet “oh… that’s me,” that is your system recognising itself. You do not have to carry it alone.

Gentle next step

If you are ready, book an initial session with me and we will explore what your mother wound looks like in your body, your relationships, and your faith, then build a healing plan that is paced, grounded, and realistic.