Healing the Matriarch

Women journeying through life

Doing Life with our Adult Children

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We have recently spent time over Christmas with our adult children and their families. It’s a cherished time as we live geographically away from each other and so time spent together is definitely focused on quality over quantity. In between we rely on communication through a family WhatsApp group which keeps us updated on the small, yet significant things in each other’s lives.  Whether your relationship with your adult children is like ours or you live in close proximity there are some delicate dynamics to navigate with each other.

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash

Transitions aren’t easy –

When our children reach young adulthood, as parents and particularly mothers, we carry a host of expectations created over the decades in this role. We’ve handpicked parenting inspiration from our childhood experiences, parenting books and the advice of others. We’ve nurtured, disciplined, comforted and generally picked up after our children. It’s an intimate connection from carrying them for nine months within our body to navigating babyhood, toddlerhood, childhood and then the teenage years.

 Motherhood is a role that has given us purpose, it’s fulfilling while at times exhausting. We’ve become comfortable with the tasks of being mothers which makes it difficult letting go of that role when they become adults. We are so used to stepping in to support our children physically and emotionally that it’s like an automatic reflex. The art of stepping back and allowing them to live and make choices independently from us can at times feel painful and it’s one we need to be more deliberate about.

Mel Robbins in her book ‘The Let Them Theory’ shares a story of her son’s prom choices and how difficult it was for her to allow him to face the consequences of his tardiness to select an outfit to wear, restaurant to book and corsage choice for his prom date. She confessed her overwhelming need to micromanage proceedings rather than let her son sort out his evening and deal with any unforeseen consequences. It was only when her daughter interjected with the words ‘just let them sort it out’ that Mel was stopped in her tracks. It became a moment that inspired her book and theory about releasing our desire to orchestrate other people’s lives.

No matter what age our children are, we still look at them and remember a younger, more vulnerable version in front of us. We want to keep them safe and protect them from the more difficult challenges of life. Yet is it in their best interests or the healthiest option for our changing relationship with them?

There is no magic age but sometime around the late teens to early twenties is an important time to allow our young adults to assume responsibility for their lives. Hopefully we’ve been doing this as a gradual process particularly in the latter stages of the teenage years. Even though the process of independence and living life separately from us begins at this time there will continue to be moments where we are challenged to want to step in and rescue them.

Their choices on work, life and relationships

Once our offspring begin working it’s important to encourage their financial independence. With the current climate of high interest rates and cost of living it can be more difficult to live away from the family home. If you have young adults under your roof, it is important to discuss how that will look both physically and financially. Each member of the family expects more privacy and personal space, yet communal spaces are shared. Get clear on what you expect from them as far as household chores and meal preparation are concerned. Decide if rent or other ways of contributing financially are expected. It is a big change seeing them now as an adult and requires a renegotiation of the parent: child relationship.

Encourage them to build financial literacy. As parents, we may occasionally help them out financially but it’s important they know how to save, invest, pay bills and manage credit and their spending habits.  Answer questions they ask and share ways you manage your own finances. Also point them in the direction of professional advice and relevant information and courses. Seeing your children struggle financially is hard yet resist the temptation to immediately step in and rescue them. This allows them time to sit in their discomfort for a while and consider alternative solutions.

Moving Out

When your young adult moves into a rental property or buys their own home a new dynamic is created. Remember that their home is a personal boundary so respect their privacy by not arriving unannounced. While they have lived a certain way in your home their own home is their personal space. It represents an extension of their emerging self. Avoid commenting about its tidiness, location and furnishing choices.

Your adult children also need to know you are okay with the location of where they live. Often their life and work takes them to a new community whether that’s not far away or perhaps even on the other side of the world. While this is tough it’s a choice that could cause angst for both parties if it’s not accepted well and seen as part of the larger picture of their lives. It gets complicated when grandchildren arrive, yet there are always ways to stay in touch with them and mutually plan the best time to visit each other or holiday together.

Relationships

Although we had more awareness of who our children’s friends were when they were young that’s not something we control when they are adults. Just like us they choose relationships based on attraction, common interests and enjoyment of the connection between each other. It is important to respect their choices and avoid making judgements. Enjoy hearing about budding friendships and romances. If a relationship goes sour our job is to listen, empathize and only give advice if it’s asked for.

When your adult child chooses a life partner, respect that choice and honour their partnership as a distinct and separate part of your family. They will be navigating different upbringings and expectations of their relationship and if they have children, what parenting looks like. Avoid judgement or advice on how your grandchildren are brought up. Your adult children are paving their own way in a different era and circumstances to you. Be supportive and try to understand their experience.

Study and Work

Lastly allow them to choose their study and profession. While our children were small we had an intimate window into the things they enjoyed and were good at. This often meant we took note and had aspirations for what they would do with their life as adults. Respect the direction and choices they make, particularly if the field of study or work they choose is unexpected or quite different to what you dreamed for them. Allow them to explore the question of who they wish to be both personally and professionally. Be the cheer squad as they accomplish each step along the way. Avoid giving opinions and unsolicited advice when they falter.

The relationship we have with our adult children can be as rewarding as the one we had with them when they were young. This time around they are meeting us more as an equal, recognizing we are all vulnerable and imperfect human beings. They may even gain a greater appreciation of our choices and sacrifices as they experience adult life and commitments for themselves.

 The relationship that evolves needs the same care and attention, yet in a different way. This time around we need to be courageous enough to let our children live their own lives, making their own choices and mistakes. Our role is to stay on the sidelines ready to celebrate their triumphs and empathize with their challenges.

Creating Space for Healing

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When I first started writing my blog ‘Healing the Matriarch’ we were all in the midst of the Covid pandemic. During the isolation of April 2020, I wrote my first few pieces on what living life during the pandemic was like. It was a way to reflect on how this major world event was personally affecting both myself and those around me.

As the blog posts continued, they focused on the stage of life I was in – midlife reset and the emergence of the matriarch. The blogs also became a compilation of what I was learning through study, online courses and copious reading on positive psychology. I delved into mindfulness, self-compassion, emotional intelligence, motivation and manifesting life change.

It’s amazing how the busyness of life can make us internalize rather than fully process what we’ve lived through. Trauma and grief are really good at hiding from us for a while. Yet they eventually surface no longer able to be ignored. We know they are there because we feel directionless, numb and unable to feel and express our emotions fully. They also surface when we have less responsibilities and more time to make sense of our lived experience.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

My own healing journey started in my early 50’s when a lot of the earlier experiences of my life resurfaced ready for review. As a woman, I had read that turning the age your mother died brings on a realisation and reflection of the fragility of life. That year was 52 for me. I continually felt the surreal nature of inhabiting my body at the age of my mother’s death. It brought home strongly how young she was at the time and all the subsequent life events she did not experience in her own life. She was not at our weddings nor met our children and grandchildren. If she were still alive, she would now be a great grandmother and surrounded by her extended family.

That same year I was experiencing the final stages of my father’s life. A difficult cancer journey that meant I made the decision to move back to my childhood community. I also abruptly resigned from my work as an early childhood teacher to provide physical and emotional support to family. When I returned back to my home eighteen months later it was difficult to resume life as normal. I felt enormous guilt for leaving family unsupported in their grief and loss. I also largely grieved alone in a world that resumed quickly back to ‘normal’.

My journey of healing stretched over the next decade, and it wasn’t until I was in my early 60’s that I began writing and sharing about healing, particularly for women entering the latter stages of life. Women that had sufficient life experience stored that were finally ready to process it more fully. It was an obvious progression. It’s said that the last part of a personal healing journey is about sharing and educating on what we’ve learnt along the way. Becoming a guide and mentor for others.

Dr Gabor Mate from his book ‘The Myth of Normal’ introduces four A’s – authenticity, agency, anger and acceptance. Each represents a guiding principle for those following a path to healing. Qualities in ourselves that we need to recapture our lives.

Authenticity – It’s the ability, through the healing process, to discover more of who we are and be able to express that in our interactions with others. It’s about accepting ourselves fully and noticing when we aren’t being true to ourselves in our connections with others. For example, we might notice our people pleasing tendencies rather than setting healthy boundaries in our relationships. This can result in increased anxiety, irritability and fatigue. It may also surface when we fail to call out hurtful comments or share our true feelings with others.

Agency – Where agency exists is when we make some personal choices around who we are and how we exist in life. It might mean renegotiating relationships as we build confidence in our own identity. Stepping outside the box of what we’ve always believed about ourselves or what we think the world expects of us. It may also be in making personal decisions that may not sit comfortably with others. We have to be brave enough to stay with our convictions, even if they are challenged. It may also mean questioning opinions and advice from others and viewing it through our own lens.

No one else can give us our agency. It’s something we give to ourselves as we evaluate our life fully and freely. Then we can make decisions based on our authentic gut feelings, clarity and understanding of what is best for us.

The interesting thing is once we take steps to make good personal choices, to give ourselves agency, we become more accepting and appreciative of the need to allow others to do the same.

“ When we heal, we are engaged in recovering our lost parts of self, not trying to change or better them. We are coming to wholeness“

Dr Gabor Mate

Acceptance – is a powerful understanding as we recognise that resisting reality creates a stumbling block to moving forward. Instead, we can find ourselves sitting in bitterness, sadness and anger believing life is unfair and shouldn’t be this way.

In accepting life as it is, we allow the floodgate to open to the other important attributes of healing –

  • permission to feel anger and other emotions that are present.
  • permission for agency to make valid choices around life. Acceptance is not about tolerating a situation particularly if it involves abuse or neglect. If we want to make changes in our life, it’s important to know that also carries an element of risk. It can mean impacting some relationships, life stability and our comfort zone as we move forward.
  • permission for ourselves to become more authentic.

Anger – We can be afraid of expressing it, seeing others flying into a blind rage of energy and spite. It looks and feels scary. We can also be shamed for expressing anger and told we are hysterical or hostile or hearing ‘Don’t take it so personally’. As a consequence it can be difficult recognising our own need to express anger in a productive way.

Yet anger is both normal and healthy. It is one of our three primary emotions. It helps protect us from physical and emotional threats. It is situational – meaning when the threat is over our anger usually subsides. It helps us advocate for both ourselves and others. It can also be a catalyst for change.

It’s important when we express anger to get curious about any underlying causes. Anger can mask a multitude of harder to recognise emotions. If we are willing to explore our anger, we can heal emotional scars and stop suppressing emotions internally which can lead to physical illness.

Part of our life experience is to recognise and heal the difficult moments we have been through. We owe it to our physical and emotional health to find ways to process the impact they have had on us. It’s a lesson I learnt later in life and a healing journey that has brought me both wisdom and understanding.

I look back on my younger self with more compassion and empathy. I also forgive my younger self for not having the maturity and ability to be there for others in their grief and loss. It was mainly due to the fact I couldn’t find my way to my own grief experience at the time. Yet I’m proud of who I have become and my ability to venture toward healing and wholeness.

What makes a Woman a Matriarch?

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On a recent trip to the Cook Islands, I met three beautiful older women – Aunty Nono, Aunty Mona and Sisi. Each inspired others with the qualities of a matriarch. They were so caring and generous with their presence. Their influence both within their families and beyond in their workplaces and community was obvious to observe.

You are likely to see Aunty Nono at the Rarotonga International Airport as she welcomes and supports passengers travelling between the islands. If someone needs a bed for the night after missing a flight connection she has available accommodation on her property. Her multigenerational family live in the one simple yet comfortable home. As Cook Island land is passed down through the generations the flower adorned graves of her parents and husband are centrally located in full view from her back door. It’s a beautiful connection to the family’s ancestors and a constant reminder of family values and deep religious faith. The family grow a variety of fruit and vegetables on their land and serve the first course of the Progressive Dinner Experience offered through several local homes on the main island.

Aunty Mona is the heart of the hospitality area of the Pacific Resort Rarotonga. She greets all the guests as they make their way to breakfast. Asking about their stay and plans for the day. Aunty Mona is a wonderful multitasker. Able to spot an empty table to be cleared by her young staff while also speaking to guests and helping them make dinner reservations. She ensures the smooth operation of the restaurant each day with ease and mastery. Something I’m sure she has gained from years of experience. Aunty Mona is the type of woman that leaves a lasting impression on people. We left with some lovely hugs on the final morning of our stay and a photo together to remember her.

Sisi, is just the embodiment of fun. She heralds Happy Hour at the Barefoot Bar at the resort with a long blow of the conch across the beach front of the Muri Lagoon. Then with a smile she calls a loud ‘Happy Hour’ to make sure the guests know the magic 4.00pm reduced beer and cocktail prices have begun. Her personality is infectious.

What makes a woman a Matriarch?

By definition, a matriarch is a woman who rules a family, group or state. Particularly a mother who is the head of her family and descendants. It’s a powerful feminine role.

Traditionally the matriarch role may have had rather negative connotations of someone matronly, the dowager or queen mother. If pictured, she may have looked older than what we imagine in contemporary times. Her influence was felt mainly in the sphere of the family home. Her advice perhaps viewed as irrelevant or outdated.

The matriarchs of today are more likely to be vibrant older women who have had full lives both inside and outside their home. They have lived experience, life lessons and wisdom to share. They cultivate their vitality by staying active and by this stage in their lives are more genuine and authentic as they interact with others. They have a good sense of who they are.

With wider access to news and social media they are more aware of issues in their wider community and the world. This may lead them to take on the role of advocacy in regard to concerns that impact both women and men. In contemporary times, we travel more widely and live beside different ethnic groups giving us greater exposure to ways of ‘doing’ life. This provides valuable information for increasing tolerance and understanding, something matriarchs can reinforce in their families and communities.

Matriarchs support, care for and hold the emotional connections in interpersonal relationships. They keep family values intact and act as the glue that holds extended family relationships together. With greater awareness of mental health, these older women have the time and opportunity to listen and observe those subtle behavioural changes in others and provide the compassion and loving support needed.

A matriarch need not have had children of their own.  All matriarchs have opportunities to provide nurturing and wisdom toward co-workers in their workplaces, in volunteer roles with community organisations, as a special aunt in their extended family and as a loving and caring friend.

The role of matriarch is an earnt one. It’s not automatically bestowed upon us as an older woman. For some women, the later stages of life and the end of motherhood is an opportunity to pursue their own personal dreams. They neither desire nor gravitate to the matriarch role.

Other women use the opportunity in later life to use the skills and characteristics of the motherhood role in a more expanded way. For these women the matriarch role is worth aspiring to. It can offer them a sense of personal gratification and purpose in the later stages of their life. 

A Trip through Time

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Do you remember the first time you visited a new travel destination?  Your senses feeling overwhelmed by all the different sights, sounds and smells. You could barely take everything in. As your emotions swelled the part of your brain making strong memory connections was activated. Storing snippets of impressions and words to make associations with your experience.

Years later, as you look back on that time, you rely on the faded pictures of a photo album as you reminisce. Yet how you remember things is not of the actual experience. Instead it’s a personal lens of the past that you create from the position of who you are in the present moment.

My husband and I are about to embark on a return journey to a place we once visited. We had our honeymoon in Tahiti and now 43 years later we are taking the journey again.

Photo by Nico Smit on Unsplash

At the time we were young newlyweds and the islands of Tahiti were relatively undeveloped and naturally beautiful.  Our time was spent at Club Med Moorea where the currency for buying drinks at the bar were small orange beads and during the day the activities director’s call of ‘volleyball’ could be heard all around the central area of the resort. Our accommodation was a simple bure hut which was occasionally frequented by the local wildlife. When we ventured outside the resort the roads were quiet and the local villagers friendly.

As we now recall our first trip we rely on the faded physical photos found in that old album. Snippets of experiences of much younger versions of ourselves. Me, waving to the camera as we prepared to board our flight to Papeete. Photos of the hotels, food buffets and entertainment. Our smiling faces either lounging on the sand, playing group games of tag in the shallow, crystal clear waters or gazing wistfully at one of Moorea’s beautiful sunsets.

This time we return to Tahiti we know will be different.

We are different – with decades of marriage and life experience that separate us from our youthful experience. The locations of mainland Tahiti and its islands will have changed. We expect more development and tourism will make for a different landscape.

We are experiencing Tahiti with a wonderful group of fellow travellers. Meeting on a previous group tour, the friendships we forged on that trip became the catalyst for planning more adventures together. There are so many places to explore in the world that Tahiti was only slightly on our radar for a return visit. Yet when this location was suggested our response was ‘why not’. It wasn’t a lengthy decision.

This time our holiday is more luxurious. We will be travelling in style cruising the Society Islands of Tahiti, Bora Bora and Moorea. Our shore excursions will take us to places we haven’t seen before and provide a multitude of new experiences. We will be freshly baking new memories. Making comparisons with our previous trip while also deepening our impressions as we experience the new.

Revisiting a place from the past can provide a unique experience. On the one hand it holds memories and a sense of familiarity. On the other, it’s an opportunity to experience something differently. The key is to go without expectations of what you will find. Instead allowing things to unfold and new memories to form along the way.

January 2025
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