annie mueller

There’s a certain type of energy I want to talk about: the mother energy.

There’s a shadow side to this mother energy and it is deep and it is strong and it is destructive.

This is a tough thing to look at, in yourself. Tough to see it.

We have this ability and energy and drive in us to nurture, to teach, to protect. We use this energy to bring our babies (our creations of all kinds) into our world, and to keep them safe until they are ready to go form their own worlds.

I’m a 38-year-old menopausal woman. Two years ago, I had a complete hysterectomy during surgery for an ovarian cyst. I went from being a young-ish, healthy, energetic woman with predictable cycles and a decent sex drive and no shortage of natural lubrication to…

Well, something entirely different.

Let’s do a little imagination exercise and see where it takes us.

Pretend with me, for a moment, that nobody owes you anything.

Are you clear on those words, though?

You can’t come up with caveats or loopholes.

To be honest, still learning.

1: Everything is okay, even when it’s not okay.

We are okay. We are better than okay. We can breathe in, we can let go, we can live, we can let ourselves be not okay or okay. We can move through it all flowing or resisting. We can get through the expected and unexpected. All of it is life. All of it is a gift, maybe even a blessing.

What’s the opposite of gratitude?  

Ingratitude, thanklessness, or unappreciation?  

Those states are defined by what they are not: INgratitude, thankLESSness, UNappreciation. They indicate a lack: what’s missing is gratitude. Ingratitude is not the opposite of gratitude, but a state caused by the lack of it. (As thirst is not the opposite of water, but a state indicating the lack of water.)  

My mom used to have muscle pain in her shoulders. Usually one shoulder at a time.

She’d walk around rolling her neck and shrugging and getting us to massage the crunchy spot.

Finally it would work itself out.

It took hours or it took days.