Emotional mother
Is your mother cold? Is your mother unable to express her feelings? Do you feel like you grew up in a refrigerator? Is your mother emotionally frozen? An emotionally cold mother is perceived as emotionally distant. You did not get a warm embrace, a loving touch, physical closeness, warmth of heart, emotional sympathy, comfort, real empathy for what you experienced as a child? Even if you lacked nothing materially as a child, holidays, sports club, music lessons, etc., you lacked security, safety and protection, emotional closeness? Your upbringing was functional, but not emotional? Your mother was physically present but emotionally unavailable to you?
On the adult level, the conversations with your mother are superficial, house, car, garden, job and neighbours? You don't know anything personal about your mother and she doesn't know anything about you? Your relationship is characterised by coldness and distance?
If a mother is emotionally cold, this does not mean that she does not love her child and does not take good care of it, but she is - the reasons for this can be very different - unable to establish an emotional bond with the child. She is surrounded by a wall of ice through which nothing can get out, but also nothing can get in from the outside.
If the emotional bond is missing, this has far-reaching consequences in the child's life and permanently damages the mother-child relationship.
How did you try to be so that you felt loved by your mother?
Who did you try to be so that you felt loved by your mother?
What causes a lack of motherly love?
Feeling loved, safe and protected are basic needs of a child. Unconditional love and care strengthen a child's self-confidence. If a child does not feel this unconditional motherly love, the child draws the conclusion that something must be wrong with him. That it is not right the way it is, that it is not lovable or it comes to the conclusion that it has to "work" for love. Children who grow up in an emotionally alienated family "learn" and adapt these unhealthy patterns of interpersonal interaction. If these patterns are not resolved, they continue as adults, at work, with friends, in relationships, even with their own children.
The consequences of an emotionally cold mother
Children who have experienced a cold mother or father often describe themselves with the following attributes:
- no self love
- low self-esteem
- Feel rejected
- No access to one's own emotions
- Feel "wrong" or lost
- Perceive themselves as not good enough
- Feel unlovable
- Low self-confidence
- Low self-confidence
- No basic trust
- Feel insecure in dealing with other people
- Have lost their intuition/inner voice
- You constantly wonder what others think of you
Survival strategies as consequences of an emotionally cold mother
Here are examples of survival strategies you may have adopted as the daughter or son of a cold mother.
- Helper syndrome (you try to "work out" love)
- You engage in food, alcohol, work, smoking, sports, sex, shopping, computer games or other excessive activities.
- You are a head person
- You are easily irritated
- You become aggressiveeasily
- You are incapable of relationships
- You are attachment disordered
- Perfectionism
- You cannot ask for help
- You withdraw
- You exercise power and control
- Compulsive behaviour
- Submissiveness
- Want to please
- Shyness
- You adapt in order not to cause offence or to be liked.
Do you recognise yourself?
These are survival strategies that you established as a child to deal with family alienation, to survive emotionally. These strategies do not all have to apply to you, the survival strategy depends on what type of person you are.
As the name says, they are "survival strategies". You used them to survive emotionally, not to have a good life.
Your nervous system is in a permanent state of alarm because the emotional injuries are still there.
The survival strategies were helpful as a child, now as an adult you no longer need them. However, they are still running as a programme in your subconscious if you do not dissolve them and replace them with helpful behaviour patterns.
Are you suffering the consequences of an emotionally cold mother?
As a child, you think it must be you, that there is something wrong with you, you conform to the point of self-sacrifice. Just to get a little love. There is nothing wrong with you! In my emotional release sessions you let go of the old pain that is stored inside you.
The emotional consequences of an emotionally cold mother
Emotionless parents cannot model a healthy way of dealing with emotions for their child. Emotions flow through small children in a matter of seconds - you have probably seen small children crying heartbreakingly one moment and laughing again the next. This is how emotions are felt in a healthy way.
However, when children experience that no emotional response comes from their mother, they learn that feeling emotions is wrong, undesirable.
Above all, the messages came through to you:
- I am not right the way I am
- There must be something wrong with me
otherwise my mother would show me her love.
If you had a mother who was cold to emotion, it may be that you have
- You often feel insecure
- You feel left alone
- Feel helpless or powerless
- Feel isolated
- Areafraid of rejection
- you are afraid of being abandoned
- you have developedfears
- Feel guilty
- Suppressyour feelings
- You feel empty inside
- feel that you have been deprived of something in life
- Feel grief
- Feel anger
- have a fear of loss
- Feel shame
Suppression of emotions as a result of an emotionally cold mother
If, as a child, you were told by your cold mother that it was wrong to feel emotions, you automatically began to suppress your feelings little by little. As a child, you do not know that your cold mother is simply not capable of being empathetic, but you interpret this as a rejection of the way you are.
For example, if you are sad and cry as a child and you have not received an empathic response, such as being comforted, being held, you conclude that being sad is not right. You start to suppress sadness. Since emotions cannot be selectively suppressed, you automatically begin to unconsciously suppress other emotions as well. When you have suppressed sadness, you can no longer feel joy. A veil covers everything. Everything becomes somehow numb.
Emotionally left alone
Because your mother was emotionally unavailable to you when you needed her, this may have caused you anxiety, despair and a sense of being left alone. You had no guidance as a child on how to feel emotions in a healthy way and may have been overwhelmed by emotions, isolated in the family coldness. This can also unconsciously lead to suppression of feelings when you are afraid of being overwhelmed by emotions.
The role of beliefs and convictions
Because of what they have experienced, the children of an emotionally cold mother form limiting beliefs and convictions such as:
- I am not lovable
- I am not good enough
- I am not right
- Love does not come by itself, I have to do something for it
- I do not deserve love
- I cannot trust other people
- I am not important
- I have to adapt
- And many more
These beliefs and convictions can affect the whole life of the affected children, because they continue to work in the subconscious for the whole life if they are not transformed.
Is an unemotional mother a narcissistic mother?
An emotionally cold mother is not necessarily narcissistic, but it can be an indication of narcissism. Narcissistic mothers are not very empathic and are cold, but they also have certain classic behaviours that together make up narcissism or narcissistic personality disorder. Here you can find detailed information on whether you might have a narcissistic personality disorder. Narcissistic mother have one. Be sure to read this to clarify this for yourself, as coldness of feeling can often be a first indication of narcissism, especially covert narcissism is difficult to recognise.
When you are afraid of your own mother
It seems outrageous to be afraid of the person who gave birth to you, who you believe protects and shelters you. It is hard to think this and even harder to say it. But coldness in one's own mother can be frightening, yes.
Do you want regular valuable impulses on how to free yourself emotionally?
I send you short impulses and tools for your emotional everyday life, how you can start to help yourself in small steps. There you will also find the dates for my trauma-sensitive online group coaching.
What to do when you are afraid of your own mother?
When you realise that this uneasy feeling you have when dealing with your mother, this stone on your chest, is fear, ask yourself:
Inwhich situations were you afraid of your mother as a child?
This fear is still sitting in your body, since childhood. It is not your adult self that is afraid of its mother, it is the emotionally neglected and hurt little child inside you, your younger version of yourself, that has this fear. If you dissolve the fear of your inner child, you will no longer be afraid of her as an adult.
Working with the inner child is the focus of my sessions. I work with different kinds of deep, powerful inner journeys to transform the emotional wounds of the inner child.
You as an adult can now take care of your inner child, your younger self, and give it what it needs. Love. Protection. Safety. Security. Closeness.
Take back the power over your life!
How can I forgive my mother?
You do not have to forgive her actions or her behaviour or her personality, because this may not be forgivable. But try to see if it is possible for you to forgive your mother's soul or that part of your mother's heart that is still whole, that is untouched by her personality. You need to know that forgiveness is an important process in your healing, and that you are doing this for yourself and not for your mother. Forgiveness means letting go. You don't have to do the forgiveness in the presence of your mother, it is enough to imagine it and say it out loud.
If forgiveness is not yet possible for you, it means that there is still too much emotional pain in you that prevents forgiveness. Then it can be useful to transform the emotional injuries with inner child work and emotional release therapy. You as an adult can now take care of the little you inside you.
It may help you to imagine that your mother probably never experienced love and warmth and closeness as a child herself, she probably has no idea what it is and how it works. She did the best she could with her limited resources.
What if your mother had loved you all along, but had no idea how to express it?
What if your mother put up walls as a child to protect herself from being hurt by her parents and she doesn't know how to break down the walls again?
Only what is in your mother can come out of her.
When there is coldness in it, coldness comes out of it.
When there is emptiness in it, emptiness comes out of it.
When there is worthlessness in it, worthlessness comes out of it.
When there is injury in it, injury comes out of it.
No love can come out.
Your mother can only communicate emptiness, coldness and worthlessness. Because she knows nothing else.
Let that sink in.
Your mother has projected everything that is inside her onto you. She gave you everything she could. She could not do more.
You have tried all your life to get a little love out of your mother.
She can't. Full stop.
It has nothing to do with you.
Dealing with emotionally cold people
Dealing with emotionally cold people can be very challenging.
1. do not take it personally
Become aware that the behaviour of a cold person has nothing to do with you, but everything to do with him or her. Only what is in a person can come out of him or her.
2. learn and practice self-love
Very important! If you love yourself, you are emotionally independent of proofs of love and testimonies of love from your environment.
In my sessions I show you how you can learn self-love and implement it in your everyday life.
3. understand that emotionally cold people are traumatised
Understand that emotionally cold people have experienced trauma or deep emotional hurts that they have unconsciously closed deep inside themselves in order not to have to feel the emotional pain associated with them. Often this has its roots in childhood. It is an unconscious protective mechanism.
Emotionally cold people are very afraid offeeling this (early childhood) emotional pain. That is why they have built thick protective walls around themselves behind which they keep their emotions hidden. If you hide fear, anger, sadness, i.e. suppress them, you automatically suppress love, joy, trust, confidence, bliss. If someone starts suppressing one emotion, he automatically suppresses all emotions. You cannot suppress emotions selectively. You have to know that.
4. be empathetic
Be empathetic, but make sure that you stay with yourself and don't bend yourself to get love or proof of love out of a cold person. This will not work and you will harm yourself.
5. do not press
Don't pressure a cold person to talk about his or her emotional state or to go to therapy or coaching, because you will tell him or her that there is something wrong with him or her. The deep desire to work on one's own coldness must come from the person concerned. And yes, you can work on suppressed emotions in order to free them again. But the person concerned must want to do it of his or her own accord.
6. be patient
If you have an emotionally cold partner, after a while - when he or she has learned to trust you - he or she may be able to open up a little more emotionally or may be open to the possibility of getting support to work on releasing his or her repressed emotions. Patience is the key here.
Do you want to free yourself from the old pain that is inside you?
You feel rejected, not right, not good enough, not lovable? It never had anything to do with you, but everything to do with your emotionally cold mother. In the Emotional Release sessions you process this old pain in depth.
What you can do with a cold mother
As much as you want to, you cannot change other people, not even your mother. You will probably never hear the words you always wanted to hear. You will never get the motherly warmth from her that you have always wished for.
1. become aware
Become aware that your mother's coldness has nothing to do with you.
2. develop understanding of the cause
Understand that your mother's coldness is due to an emotional injury in her childhood and that this is an unconscious protective mechanism of hers. It never had anything to do with you, but only with her.
3. let go of your emotional hurts and limiting beliefs
Let go of the emotional hurts and limiting beliefs that your cold mother has caused you. Free yourself from them and move forward. Don't wait for something that will never come. You misinterpreted your mother's behaviour as a child, you thought there was something wrong with you, that you were unlovable. You can let go of that. It is not true!
How? Read on!
4. realign yourself
Realign yourself with new positive beliefs, reconnect with what you really are. You are love. Learn to tap into this love. This will make you emotionally independent of other people. No matter how someone behaves or does not behave towards you. Take care of your inner child. As an adult, give it what it did not get as a child.
5. practise self-love
Practice self-love in your everyday life. If you love yourself, if you give your emotionally neglected inner child the love it longs for as an adult, you will no longer need your mother's love as an adult.
What is the inner child?
Your inner child is one or usually several younger versions of you that have experienced all the emotional injuries. This younger, emotionally wounded version of you sits in your adult body and determines your feelings, thoughts and actions, ultimately your life.
You are an adult, but your life is ruled by your emotionally wounded inner child. If you have not healed the emotional wounds of your inner child and you suppress them, you may often find yourself
- gettriggered
- feel undefined fears
- you do or say something and afterwards you realise that you didn't really want to do it.
- areaggressive
- areshy
- Putting things off
- Distracting yourself very often (eating, drinking, exercising, excessive working, Facebook, Netflix and other activities).
- Feel like you are on autopilot
- You take refuge in your head, you're a man of reason
- Sleep
- Not good at being alone
- Certain life themes come up again and again in your life
- Exercisingcontrol and power
- Can't set boundaries/can't say no
- Want to do things but just can't
- Pressing your jaws together
- have psychosomatic complaints
- have a depressed mood
- Your nervous system is in a permanent state of stress
- And much more
Learning to feel again with emotional release therapy
The key is to learn to feel again the repressed emotions, the anger, grief, sadness, helplessness, despair, feeling unlovable, rejection, insecurity and emotional injuries. The emotions and emotional hurts that are not felt are stored in the body as cell memories. By suppressing the emotions and feelings, they do not disappear, but are still in the body under the surface, fermenting away.
We also transform your negative limiting beliefs that you may have established due to your mother's callousness as a child, such as.
- I am not lovable
- I am wrong
- I am not good enough
- And many more
When you regain access to your emotions and feelings stored in your body, you reconnect with yourself.
Here you will find even more information about Emotional Release Therapy, my trauma therapy methods and how you can begin to release your repressed emotions.
Get to know your inner child and transform its pain
With the deep and powerful journeys into your subconscious, with which I accompany children of an emotionally cold mother, you regain access to your inner child. Your inner child gets a voice, it can say everything that needs to be said, everything that could never be said, in a protected setting. Everything. It can say what it needs. It can say how it has felt, let go of its pain. Reconnecting with your own inner child is a powerful, deep experience.
As an adult you can now care for your inner child, give it what it really needs. Affection, love, empathy, understanding, attention, security, warmth, closeness. In the deep inner journeys you take your inner child by the hand and are there for it.
Emotional Release Therapy is not talk therapy, but powerful and deep journeys into your subconscious. Because the emotional pain and the limiting convictions and beliefs that you have stored in yourself because of your emotionally cold mother are located in the subconscious, and that is where they have to be dissolved. This is exactly where my work with you begins.
My Special: My Therapy Programme for Narcissism Victims
If you have a cold mother and want to break the cycle of hurt that is passed down from generation to generation- especially if you have children - my therapy programme for narcissism victims is also right for you.
We work with deep, powerful inner journeys in your subconscious in different areas:
- Transformation of your emotional injuries
- We realign your mindset
- We work with your inner child
- You learn how to build self-love and self-worth
Here you will find detailed information about my therapy programme for narcissism victims.
Stefanie Heinlein
I am an expert on narcissism, healing practitioner & mentor. My mission: emotional release & working with the subconscious mind. I supported people to free themselves from the shackles of their emotional hurts and traumas, and related repressed emotions and patterns, regardless of the cause. My particular area of heart and specialization is supporting women in releasing their narcissistic trauma so that they can once again live a self-determined life with self-love, self-worth and self-confidence.
