A mother wound isn’t only about losing a mother. According to Gili, it can just as easily be a mother who is alive but can’t be present, steady or safe, and you are left longing for something that never was. She describes it as one of the hardest things there is, and also as something that teaches you to choose yourself instead of waiting for recognition from outside. That wound creates an inner voice that whispers “you’re not enough,” and sometimes it shows up in the body itself.
The wound doesn’t stay in one place. A man with a mother wound subconsciously expects his partner to fill his mother’s place, and when she comes with needs of her own he feels threatened and the frustration he has been holding down comes out at her. A woman with a mother wound tends to choose a man who can’t meet her emotional needs, because she learned that love comes bound up with suffering and with suppressing what she needs. A healthy relationship, the way she sees it, is possible only between two whole individuals.
The point Gili keeps coming back to is that you can’t receive from someone what they themselves never received. If your mother never got love and recognition from her own mother, she has none to give you, no matter how hard you try. Instead of looking for what’s missing in her and being disappointed again and again, she suggests a shift of focus: see what is there. Her parable is about a man who goes to an appliance store every day and asks for milk. It’s a choice about what you give meaning to, not a denial of the pain. And every generation is supposed to be a little better than the one before it. That’s how we grow.
Gili also talks about her son. What he said at 14, “look how hard you try and nothing helps,” was the moment she understood that her effort itself was what made him feel he wasn’t good enough. She draws a line between effort (hishtadlut) and faith (emunah). Effort is the actual doing: the evaluations, the treatments, the lessons. Faith is seeing the thing as though it has already happened and giving thanks for it as something finished. The stronger the faith, the less effort is needed. Clear boundaries alongside love give a child the tools to develop, while judgment, criticism and punishment achieve the opposite, because anything that gets attention, even negative attention, gains momentum.