How To Improve Your Relationship with Your Mother!

Is the relationship with your mother strained?

If you often feel hurt, angry and resentful, you’re not alone!

In The Life Coach School podcast, “What to do about your Mother”. Brooke Castillo mentioned that “many of us have a lot of resentment and anger about how our parents behave and how our mothers should be different than they are. And as long as you have those belief systems, as long as you’re going around thinking that she should behave differently than she does, she should be different than she is, you’re going to be struggling in that relationship”.

When you believe your mother should behave differently than she does, you are trying to control her.

We cannot control others, we can only control ourselves.

The biggest takeaway from the podcast is that we can change our relationships with our mother, without her needing to change at all.

Sounds crazy right?

It’s true.

She gets to be exactly who she is, and we get to accept her the way she is.

We can let go of controlling her and thinking she needs to be something she isn’t.

Mothers believe we should do things a certain way, and we believe they should do things a certain way.

It’s a two way street!

So much suffering happens with each trying to control the other.

Many times we feel we’ve been treated unkindly because our mothers might have been coming from a place we don’t understand.

Perhaps your mother had a rough upbringing or suffered from tragedy, trauma, or loss and hasn’t dealt with it.

Could it be possible that she’s jealous of your life, which seems better than hers?

Maybe she’s suffering from a health condition that you may or may not know anything about.

While your mother may come across as critical or uncaring, and it’s directed toward you, it really has nothing to do with you and has everything do with her!

We Get To Decide!

What’s cool is we get to decide, what kind of relationship we want with our mother.

Instead of expecting her to change, we get to change by coming from a place of love, compassion and curiosity.

There are ways to help improve the relationship, if we are willing to do the work.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t set boundaries.

The podcast mentions that “you can set proper boundaries from a place of love, not anger, and you can communicate from a place of love, not anger. Your work to do on your mom is to find that place of unconditional love”.

To learn more about setting loving boundaries with your mother, I highly recommend that you listen to the podcast What To Do About Your Mother, for valuable and life changing information!

My own mother and I had the typical ups and downs of many strained relationships.

There were good times and a few challenging times.

During the challenging times, I found myself frustrated and wished she’d just act differently and vice versa.

There was definitely some mama drama going on there!

Drop the Frustration, Judgement, and Control!

What’s interesting is that as soon as I chose to drop the frustration, judgement and control and replaced it with love and compassion, it completely transformed our relationship for the better.

I allowed her to just be herself and loved and accepted her for exactly who she was, and she didn’t have to change one thing.

One exercise that you can do with your mother, is to be curious and ask questions.

Here’s an example of 10 fun conversation starters:

You can download and print a copy of the Mom Questions here!

Another exercise I share with clients (and you can do this with anyone, not just your mother) is to write down 10 or more reasons why you love or are grateful for your mom.

Next time you are frustrated with your mom, try to shift your mind and focus on the reasons you love her instead.

It’s pretty powerful and a good habit to start every time you feel frustration setting in!

I took my love list a step further by mailing her a “Thinking of You” card and included it in the card.

When she received it, she called and told me how much she loved it and that it made her cry!