Healing Mother Wounds: Forgiving Your Mother and YourselfHealing Mother Wounds: Forgiving Your Mother and Yourself
Recover Your Soul: A Spiritual Path to a Happy and Healthy Life
Rev. Rachel Harrison reflects on the complicated emotions around Mother’s Day and how early mother wounds shape patterns in adulthood. She talks about validating your own experience, forgiving your mother and, crucially, forgiving yourself as a parent on a spiritual recovery path.
41:54•11 May 2026
Healing Mother Wounds and Letting Yourself Off the Hook
Episode Overview
- Mother’s Day can highlight unresolved grief, anger and longing around how someone was mothered or how they have mothered.
- Acknowledging and validating your own childhood feelings is essential, even if others don’t remember events the same way.
- Mother wounds often shape patterns like people-pleasing, control and codependency that later fuel addiction and emotional struggle.
- Spiritual forgiveness begins with releasing self-blame as a parent; each person is responsible for their own healing and perspective.
- Shifting to a new paradigm of relationship means seeing parents and children as souls on individual paths, rather than staying stuck in blame and rigid roles.
“We have to forgive ourselves first. Their forgiving is their work.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This conversation with Rev. Rachel Harrison looks straight at one of the most tender places for many people in recovery: their relationship with their mother, and their own role as a parent. Speaking the day after Mother’s Day, Rachel talks honestly about how the holiday can stir up grief, anger, resentment and confusion, as well as love and gratitude.
She keeps returning to one core idea: your feelings are valid and “feelings are giving us information,” even if no one else remembers events the way you do. She explains how early experiences with a mother who couldn’t meet your needs can shape nervous-system responses, beliefs and patterns that later show up as addiction, codependency and people-pleasing. You’ll hear her describe mother wounds through the lens of the Recover Your Soul process, with a strong emphasis on spiritual forgiveness.
She invites you to first acknowledge: what did it really feel like to be that child? Then, she flips the perspective to those who are mothers themselves, especially parents of adult children who are struggling. The instinct to blame yourself is powerful, yet Rachel reminds you, “We have to forgive ourselves first.
Their forgiving is their work.” The episode blends personal reflection, spiritual teaching and gentle humour, touching on inner child work, internal family systems ideas, and the messy reality of family systems affected by addiction and mental health issues. Rather than chasing a picture-perfect Mother’s Day, Rachel points towards a new paradigm of relationship where adult children and parents are seen as souls on their own journeys.
If your chest tightens at the words ‘Mother’s Day’ or you’re wrestling with guilt about your kids, this is a space to feel seen, soften a little, and ask yourself: what if you stopped blaming yourself and let healing begin from the inside out?
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