Is your Mother’s voice running your business decisions?
How inherited protection shapes your ambition, visibility and self-trust
At the Crossroads Session I held in person last week in Dublin, 8 female business owners joined me in person to explore their next steps in business and what might be holding them back.
Part of the evening was a visualisation. A short but powerful walk in your minds eye to visit the crossroads and see/feel/experience the protective part and the self-trusting part of yourself to see what messages they had to help you move forward (if you’d like to give it a go I recorded it, let me know and I’ll send you a link).
And the fascinating thing was that when we shared afterwards, so many of us could see that the protective voice was that of our mothers.
Standing at this decision point in their work, the protector in them was their mum saying familiar words they’d heard all their lives.
Things like:
‘Are you sure? That’s a bit risky, isn’t it?’
‘But it could all go wrong…’
‘Aren’t you just happy with what you have?’
This was fascinating to me, particularly having become a mother in the last 5 years as well as knowing that much of my own inner work is often untangling what are my beliefs and what are the beliefs passed on to me from my own mum.
I remember vividly one really honest conversation I had with my mum about work that show how risk averse she was… well two now, come to think of it.
The first was when I got my first job at age 21. It had a whopping starting salary of…. £18,000 (this was 2007, although I don’t think starting salaries in the arts have much increased since then to be honest, but I digress!).
When I told my mum she said “well, that’s more money than I’ve ever earned in a year.”
Which surprised me at the time, stood on the cusp of my new career, but made sense of a lot of my childhood experiences and her approach around money in hindsight.
The second was another conversation for which I can’t remember the exact context of.
In truth, it’s rare that my mother and I have frank and honest conversations about things that are deep and meaningful, like our work and life decisions. But for some reason, perhaps in the context of my own parenthood and choices, we managed to venture into this territory one day and she shared with me:
“Now I look back, when your dad left I think I probably should have done a proper teacher training.”
But she didn’t. She was at home for us a lot instead, and did small bits of training in ultimately lower paid positions - Kindermusik teaching, training as a florist, and always running the local choir, playing for the church and teaching children trumpet.
What influence then, does a risk-averse mother (or parent figure) have on how women experience ambition, visibility and self-trust?
When we hear “oooh that sounds risky” or “just be careful love” or “ahh sure you wouldn’t give up what you’re doing now though would you?” - what do we make it mean?
Are the “be careful” messages, delivered with love and protection at their heart, internalised as “don’t try”…?
Writing this has made me have a rather horrid realisation about my own parenting.
Because naturally I am one of those parents that feels completely unable to stop saying “be careful!” when I watch my daughter scooting around in the mud and leaves because I just know what will happen….
And when she slipped the other day on our way to the school Christmas Fair, with huge grazes to her knees, mud all up her leggings and squelched into her gloves, hot tears pouring down her face and frustration with me for not having plasters in my bag to fix things immediately, I was so angry she hasn’t listened to my constant warnings.
Yet….. I want her to be brave and try new things. To experiment. To see what happens. To learn from doing.
So relentless “be careful!” messages aren’t going to cut it here.
My need for her to be safe and unhurt in the world is more about me than it is about giving her the childhood and lessons she needs to be a brave and trusting woman in the world who is curious and can handle what comes to her because of her decisions.
The tension of safety vs fulfilment
Many women in that room last week struggled with the pull in what felt like two directions - the security and safety of staying as they are and accepting what already exists. Appreciating it and not changing anything. And the tug in the other direction of knowing they’re meant for more, they have more ideas that overflow and demand action and the fizz of excitement at the unknown of what’s on the other side of trying.
How does this shows up in business?
Sitting on ideas, not launching, not raising prices, staying small, feelings of imposter syndrome, of not enoughness and “just one more course” compulsion.
Watching others be bold and grow, but feeling unable to do the same, for a reason you can’t quite put your finger on.
And by the way, this isn’t about blaming mothers. In the same way I welcome the work of people like Alex Light on the messages we inherited from our mothers about diet and body image, I do accept parents were (and still are) doing the best job they could with the tools they had at the time.
I’m not angry this is what I’m left with. I’m curious. I’m observant of what I carry and I question what is mine and what I want to loosen up.
I’m grateful I get to understand the nervous system inheritance we carry — especially as women — and gently do the work to separate their fears from my desires.
I wonder if any of this (if you’ve stuck with me this far!) has resonated with you, and whether you stop to notice:
• Whose voice do I hear when I hesitate?
• Who taught me that being visible or bold was dangerous?
• What beliefs about money, success or risk am I carrying that might not be mine?
What happens if you show compassion?
It seems radical in a world that tells you to “just do it” - but the key to building a relationship with that protective part of you that sounds like your mother - is to show it compassion.
That doesn’t mean weakness. That doesn’t mean staying stuck. That means leading alongside an understanding of why you hold these fears and tendency for risk aversion.
Your mother may have needed safety to survive. You might be here to create something different. You get to take risks she couldn’t imagine — not to rebel, but to expand.
A gentle invitation to rewrite
A great question to ask yourself is “what else could be true?” when it comes to feeling that sense of a voice or presence that tries to get you to avoid taking risks and getting hurt.
Yes, one ‘truth’ is that your mother was risk averse and now you’re carrying those fears and habits too and you’ll never be able to change.
But what else could be true?
That knowing your mum wants to protect you gives you the safety to try things and know you’ll still be loved, no matter what.
That your mum actually believes in you more than you believe in yourself and trusts you can make what you want happen (maybe she contributes to the self-trusting part of you, she just doesn’t articulate it!)
That you are not your mother.
That it’s safe to want more than just safety.
What else could be true for you?
If you want to go deeper on this with some support, this is the self-trust work I do. Not pushing past fear with false confidence, but tuning in, understanding where it came from, and learning how to move in your business anyway.
You can find out more about working with me here.
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