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“Whenever a man is obliged to be a good boy, or conversely when he feels he must be a bad boy, he is still compensating for the power of the Mother Complex.”(Hollis)
In James Hollis’ book Under Saturn’s Shadow: The Wounds and Healing of Men, he identifies three areas that relate to Mothers:
- The power of the feminine is immense in the psychic economy of men.
- Because men must leave Mother, and transcend the Mother Complex, wounding is necessary.
- If men are to heal, they must activate within what they did not receive without.
Many men still carry a little boy inside. They often look for ways to fulfill the little boy’s needs in a surrogate (or real) mother. When a man realizes that he cannot go back in time to fulfill these needs he reaches a turning point in his life. He now must learn how to draw on his inner resources. If he does not do this, he can never fully grow up, because he will be forever caught in the Mother Complex.
Q. What is a Complex?
A. A complex is an emotionally charged cluster of energy in the psyche that comes out of the unconscious (shadow) and takes over the personality.
Q. What is the Mother Complex?
A. Simply put, the Mother Complex is that part of a man that gets ‘hooked’ by women. It may be a nurturing woman whose actions create the need to be dependent once again on Mother’s breast for comfort and sustenance. The Mother Complex can also be activated by a ‘ball busting’ woman. This can create the need to rage at or abuse a woman in an attempt to separate from the shadow of Mother. The Mother complex not only holds an archetypal image of the ‘Great, Good Mother,’ but the also an aggregate of all interactions with mother over time. Because these two are intertwined, the Mother Complex can skew the early memories of childhood.
Q. How can I ‘unhook’ from the Mother Complex?
A. The first step is to work with the shadow of Mother. This will allow you to see how her behaviors wounded you. It will also help you to become aware of the power of her actions on your psyche. After awareness comes the action step of integrating the shadows that you still carry. What is not integrated becomes projected out onto others and leaks out in dangerous behaviors. What you do not understand in yourself, you will project on to others. What you do not know will control you.
Q. Why Mother?
A. Of all the early experiences of life, the most important influence on your personality and emotional well-being was your mother.
Q. I have a good relationship with my mother, why would I need this workshop?
A. Idealizing Mother is as dangerous as demonizing her. If this kind of relationship is not explored, you may find yourself never satisfied with any woman because you will always be looking for someone to measure up to your image of the ‘ideal’ mother.
The devoted “good” mother can be a curse because many mothers live their unlived dreams and passions through their sons. When a mother does not develop her inner masculine, her son will attempt to achieve in order to compensate for his mother’s masculine shadow. An interesting statistic is that a high percentage of priests leave the priesthood two years after their Mothers die.
Q. How does my Mother’s Shadow affect my relationship with my wife, partner, or other women and men in my life?
A. Your deep need for mothering spills over into your close relationships with women, or men, who carry your projection of the Good Mother. Because you may have such a deep hunger for unconditional love and acceptance and body contact, you may never form a healthy relationship. You will tend to get caught in trying to get your little boy’s needs met by the shadow of the Mother you never had. You may come to expect all women/men to mother you, thus setting up an unhealthy relationship. If you still blame mother for your problems, you have not grown up. Men will experience either too much of mother or not enough. In the first case, he will experience powerlessness around women. In the latter, he will experience abandonment.
Q. I am a gay man. Is this workshop for me?
A. Yes, it is absolutely appropriate for gay men because your mother may have wounded you in your lover quadrant, which will affect all your relationships. Plus, this will help you understand your relationships with women—whether they are sisters, bosses, friends, etc. Women can still invade your space, shame you, etc., even if you are not in a romantic relationship with them. Even though your partner is a man, you can still project unmet Mother needs onto him.
Q. Can men who have not gone through the New Warrior Training attend this workshop?
A. Yes, as long as they have done some sort of experiential work, such as Shadow Work.
“The greatest cost of the unexamined Mother Complex is not the damage it does to relationships but what it does to a man’s relationship with himself.” (Hollis)
Q. What will I gain from examining my Mother’s Shadow (Complex)?
A. Through awareness and ‘getting’ the Shadow in your body, you will be able to integrate the gold and gifts and truly step into your wholeness as a king. Without a capacity for looking within, you will live in a world created by your projections. The shadow of your mother will be projected onto other women until the shadow is owned within.
Q. What are some behaviors that alert me that I need to look at my Mother’s Shadow?
A. There are many behaviors which could signal a need to examine the Mother source of your wounding. A few examples are:
- Are you ‘fantazing’ that your wife, partner, girlfriend is unfaithful?
- Do you act out your rage at your partner?
- Are you impotent with your partner or feel you can never get enough sex?
- Do you complain that your partner is not affectionate enough?
- Do you call your partner many times throughout the day?
- Do you have an incessant need to please your partner at your own expense?
If you answer yes to some of these, you are possibly still attached to your Mother’s shadow.
Q. What’s sex got to do with it?
A. Because you yearn to connect to the primal, archetypal mother, you may use sex as a way to fill the vast emptiness caused by lack of touch. This is often seen in the virgin-whore complex and the “playboy” is literally a boy at play because your mother still has the lover part of you under her spell. Realizing the difference between your need for nurturing and your need for sex will expand your ability to understand that the care and feeding of yourself is your own responsibility?
Q. How is this the same or different that Your Mother’s Pillow (YMP) Workshop?
A. Your Mother’s Pillow was a weekend workshop that was led by Char Tosi and Marlene Nappa. In 2004 the YMP workshop was dissolved. The differences between Your Mother’s Pillow workshop and the Mother’s Shadow workshop are the length of time (24 hours compared to 9 hours) and the cost ($425 compared to $150) plus the difference in design. Mother’s Shadow is designed to address how you may have experienced the wounding of Mother in one of your four masculine archetypes: King, Warrior, Magician, and Lover. Some of the content that will be presented is the same; however, the design is totally different... You will be getting a new and different perspective of the Iron John Story, and you will also be exploring how the shadow behaviors of Mother have cast a spell on you. If you have taken the YMP workshop, you may find the Mother’s Shadow workshop very valuable as a tune-up and an opportunity to go deeper into yourself.
The focus of this workshop is to look at all aspects of yourself as a man and learn how to process yourself in the moment so you can remain present to the women and men in your life without succumbing to the power of the Mother Complex. Some of these processes are counter-intuitive and you will be answering some of the following questions:
- Can you see the gold and the gifts in your Mother’s Shadow?
- Have you become your Mother’s Shadow in order to protect her, yourself, and other women?
- Can you love your mother from the grown up King instead of from a needy, resentful little boy?
- Are you ready to reclaim your ability to love yourself as you wanted your Mother to love you?
- Having faced the wounds of your mother, can you forgive her?
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