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Merging Souls All of us are daughters, some are mothers, and some are both. As a daughter, your mother is with you now and always. You can't escape it, but you can learn to co-exist with it. And if you fight it or deny her influence, you're probably deluding yourself and you're almost certainly struggling with your inner self. At some point in your life as a mother or a daughter you may gently (or perhaps not so gently) move from a close-merged attachment to one of struggling to forge your own path. During life's many stages, our needs evolve and the relationship between mother and daughter changes. At times we need the attachment, particularly when we are small children with only our parents to protect us, feed us and keep us warm and healthy. As we grow up, we begin to form our own opinions, and the mother-daughter relationship evolves to a new level. As daughters, we may look at our relationship with our mother as a competition. Which one of us will win? Sometimes it becomes test of wills. As a teenager, you want to be your own person, but your life experience isn't adequate to deal with some situations in your life. So your mother steps in to help you assess these challenges and persuade you to handle the situation according to her rules and standards. That's where the competition occurs, because you want to make the decision as a young woman feeling and experiencing your new world and yes, your mother wants to protect you. "Developing the muscles of the soul demands no competitive spirit, no killer instinct, although it may erect pain barriers that the spiritual athlete must crash through." Germaine Greer The Change: Women, Aging and the Menopause. As we grow into young adulthood, the competition can become even more fierce between mother and daughter. As the daughter grows older and begins to experience her sexuality, the mother is also growing older and her sexuality may be waning. The mother's experiences and mistakes influence how she deals with her daughters growing sexuality. You can trace your views regarding sexuality back to your experiences during this sensitive time in your life. Before I move on, I think it is important that all women understand the effect of the most basic bond in life, so we can find a way to enrich our spiritual soul to deal with our relationships with other women. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to eliminate competition from relationships with women, but I have certainly spent a large part of my life trying to keep it in check. Competition often feeds jealousy, which erodes relationships and self-confidence. It is a wasted emotion that keeps you from doing the important things in your life. It says that you want to conform to the way other people do things rather than how you might handle the same situation if jealousy hadn't gotten in the way. Think about this quote from Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader, "Montaigne" (First Series, 1925). "Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She [the soul] becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent." I think I'd rather find a way to overcome the destructive jealousies in my life instead of becoming someone who is always questioning what is inside. But most importantly, look back to your relationship with your mother to understand how that made you who you are today. If you have the courage, delve more deeply into those times when you struggled to move in one direction and she struggled to move you in another direction. Those times caused your competitive spirit to grow, and now you are transferring them to your relationships with other women. And finally, be happy with who you are. And if you're not, find out why.
Andrea Brandt, Ph.D, MFCC [Sidebar] Dr. Brandt has a private psychotherapy practice in Santa Monica and is a recognized expert on the subject of Anger and how that emotion can disrupt your life. She offers five Anger Workshops each year and Anger Management Classes, lasting six weeks, at various times during the year. The next Anger Workshop is April 30, May 1 & 2 and also in July 1999. Call LifeWorks at 310-828-2021 for more information on her Workshops and Classes.
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