The Invisible Scars of Childhood: Recognizing and Healing the Mother and Father Wound

If you read my recent posts on the common family roles we become bound by and the sibling triggers I got reacquainted with in Mexico recently, you’ll have a pretty solid understanding of how and why these invisible prisons get built around us.

Here, we’ll dive a layer deeper to reveal how these dynamics don’t just affect how we interact with our parents and siblings—they shape our ability to embody healthy and mature feminine and masculine energies within, which affects how we show up in ALL relationships.

Kelly Brogan describes the Father/Brother Wound in her book The Reclaimed Woman, which we’re currently reading in Book Dommes. She says:

Your relationship to your inner father is the relationship you have to attention, presence, and wise action, both in yourself and others.

Having an emotionally unattuned, absent, or abusive father, for instance, leads to feeling unsafe, or like we don’t belong.

In men, the Immature Masculine  (unhealed Father Wound) presents as:

✔ A know it all (insecure); threatened by the idea of being wrong

✔ Avoids his own masculine self-actualization

✔ Relates to responsibility with overwhelm; wants everyone to get off his back

✔ Can’t sit still or hold his own emotions (self-contain)

✔ Unreliable and passive

✔ Seeks female nurturance (mothering) while distrusting men

✔ Reactive, defensive, and avoidant; needs to dominate (nonconsensual domination)

✔ Dismissive of emotions (his and others’)

✔ Needs external power

The Mature Masculine (healed Father Wound) in men looks like:

✔ Protective, provides structure

✔ Clear on commitments

✔ Emotionally attuned and grounded (calm in the storm)

✔ Collaborative and confident in his strength

✔ Holds supportive space for others with presence and patience

✔ Feels secure within himself

In women, the Immature Masculine (unhealed Father Wound)  presents as:

✔ Hyper-independence; lone wolf mentality; doesn’t need anyone; won’t ask for help

✔ Doesn’t listen to her body’s signals; pushes and powers through

✔ Blames and shames herself and others harshly

✔ No tolerance for uncomfortable feelings; they are problems to be fixed

✔ Has a hard time receiving and letting go

✔ Vigilant productivity; must always be doing

✔ Impatient, rigid, or controlling

✔ Perpetual man bashing

✔ Needs to prove herself as right (can’t hold differences and paradox)

The Mature Masculine (healed Father Wound) in women looks like:

✔ Confident direction and self-trust; enjoys challenges, holding her center throughout the navigation of them

✔ Easeful to-do list

✔ Her own masculine self-containment enables her to be soft and open-hearted but with clear and consistent boundaries

✔ Creates healthy containers for others as well

✔ Having a mature inner masculine gives her feminine space to flow and create

✔ Integrity in her words and actions

✔ Comfortable with silence and stillness

Brogan also explains the Mother/Sister Wound:

Your relationship to your inner mother is also your relationship to your creativity, emotions, desire, appetites, and sense of satiety.

In women, the Immature Feminine (unhealed Mother Wound) looks like:

✔ Doesn’t feel loved or worthy

✔ Makes herself small so other women will more easily connect with, and not be threatened by her

✔ Self-betrays to secure approval and connection

✔ Afraid to be beautiful, radiant, and fully self-expressed (too worried about others’ judgments)

✔ Constantly comparing herself to other women

✔ Paralyzing self-consciousness

✔ Fear of being consumed/swallowed up

✔ Repeating cycles of outbursts and suppression; can’t self-contain

✔ Emotional numbness and overwhelm

✔ Body shame

✔ Can’t receive feedback or soften into true, open vulnerability

✔ Weak connection to her power; disconnected from her own predator energy; no sense of agency

✔ Victim mentality; helplessness

✔ Tends to become codependent and enmeshed (*hint: resentment is a sure sign of this)

✔ Seeks external validation    

The Mature Feminine (healed Mother Wound) in women looks like:

✔ Emotional intelligence, self-possession, and embodied freedom (has the courage and ability to be her true self)

✔ Interdependent

✔ Curious and open with a soft, receptive body

✔ Unapologetic about who she is

✔ Loving, honoring, and respectful relationship to men in general

✔ Honors her own impulses and desires

✔ Tends to her child parts and her whole self

✔ Holds space for emotions (others’ and her own) while remaining empowered

✔ Direct, clear, and receptive

✔ Loving, self-sustaining, and secure

✔ Rooted in self-worth

✔ Deeply attuned to her own body

✔ Natural caretaker, but tends to her own needs as well

✔ Doesn’t need her partner (or children, siblings, or parents) to change in order to feel okay

In men, the Immature Feminine (unhealed Mother Wound) looks like:

✔ Experiencing all upset as personal rejection and failure

✔ The “beta male” or “nice guy” persona (he secretly resents the women he constantly appeases)

✔ Habitually makes himself small (and resents others for doing it to him)

✔ Disconnected from his inner predator; lack of healthy masculine aggression

✔ Cannot attune to, and make space for, his own body and feelings

✔ Passive-aggressive and manipulative    

✔ Tends toward codependency and enmeshment (resentment is a dead giveaway this is happening)

✔ Seeks external validation    

The Mature Feminine in men looks like:

✔ Caring and providing from the heart

✔ Curiosity and openness

✔ Can offer containment and self-soothe

✔ Being direct, clear, and receptive

✔ Being loving, self-sustaining, and secure

✔ Being rooted in self-worth

So many of us were raised by parents who were stuck in immaturity, modeling behaviors that felt unstable, unreliable, or conditional. Recognizing this is the first step toward breaking the cycle and creating something sustainable and healthy.

So what now? Where do you go from here?

1. Stop minimizing what hurt you. You don’t have to hate your parents, and hanging out in victimland won’t help. But you do have to acknowledge the impact.

2. Learn to regulate your own emotions. Emotional maturity is a skill that can be learned.

3. Instead of trying to “fix” relationships that keep wounding you, set boundaries that protect your energy. As you uphold them, you rebuild self-trust. Even better if you acknowledge to yourself regularly, “I’ve got you. I’m doing this to take better care of you. I won’t leave your side.”

4. Put yourself in spaces and environments where your whole self is welcome.

That’s exactly what we offer at Slow & Wild. In fact, we support and help facilitate ALL of the above.

You’re not crazy. You’re not too sensitive or too much. You’re just waking up.

📚 Join us in Book Dommes if you want the very best skill-building, company, and containment on your waking up journey.

Our last meeting cracked us wide open. We explored how good girl conditioning teaches us to prioritize being chosen over being whole. We’re dismantling that and all that binds us—one fearless conversation at a time.

If this resonated, if you felt even a flicker of recognition—don’t ignore it. Come move. Come be seen. Come remember.

We’ve got you,

💋 Kris (aka Venus)