Our first relationship is usually with our mother. We love her. We adore her. We don’t like her. We fear her. We feel judged by her. We do things to spite her. We make decisions despite her advice. She is that voice in our minds — good and not so good. If not for her, we wouldn’t be here.
On some level, we are always trying to get the mothering or nurturing we need. We all want acceptance. Many of us have a mythical model of love and nurturing and spend much time, effort, and visioning seeking out what we think we need to be whole. I believe the lyric that best describes mothering is “you can’t always get what you want, but … you get what we need” [the Rolling Stones, 1969].