Quotes from Jasmin Lee Cori

To feel that you aren't important to your mother leaves a hole. Most often it is felt as a hole in the heart. It's the hole where Mother was supposed to be.

Yes, you got enough mothering to survive, but not enough for the kind of foundation that supports healthy self-confidence, initiative, resilience, trust, healthy entitlement, self-esteem, and the many other qualities we need to thrive in this challenging world.

In the pairs of mothers and their adult children that I have seen, mothers who cared for their children out of obligation are then cared for in their elderly years by their adult children out of a similar obligation.

Of women who choose not to have children, most are undermothered and fear they won't know how. Sometimes they fear they will "mess up" their kids like they feel they have been messed up. (Although let's not forget that there are other important reasons someone may choose not to become a parent.)

Feeling valued and known are also part of this belonging. If a family claims you as their own but you don't really feel that they know you or see you for who you are, you'll feel like an outsider within your own family.

What happened to you as an infant and young child powerfully shapes how you see yourself and other people, what expectations you have for relationships, how you feel about yourself, and what defensive (and healthy!) habits you've learned.

In a happy home, there aren't continuing crises you need to solve (or wonder how to endure when you're too young to solve anything). People aren't stuck in power struggles. There aren't silent or not-so-silent wars between family members. In a happy home you're not all holding your breath. You can relax and be yourself.

When you feel that you aren't like everyone else or feel tainted by what has happened to you, it's hard to be optimistic about the future. In fact, for many survivors, it's nearly impossible to imagine the future at all. Many of us are caught in a state where we're still just trying to survive (our sole focus during trauma) and can't think much beyond that. Time for us is frozen and the future feels hazy at best.

in a happy home Mother seems to have enough to provide for everyone without resentment. She seems to enjoy giving! (This may be a shock for those whose experience has been quite different.)

If the child's unique qualities are not mirrored or supported, they are not available for her as a foundation. Instead of becoming grounded in her own nature, she adapts to what she thinks she is supposed to be, taking on a false self. For some people, this false self (which we all have to some degree) so obscures everything else that it's all they know.

Children who are emotionally abused and neglected face similar and sometimes worse mental health problems as children who are physically or sexually abused.

It is as if, even within the privacy of our own minds, we are afraid to criticize her. We are protecting the image of mother inside, protecting our fragile relationship with her by denying anything that might unsettle it, and protecting ourselves from the disappointment, anger, and pain that we've kept out of consciousness.

Verbal mirroring involves saying things like "You're really angry!" or "You're sad right now." Verbal mirroring helps a young child identify feelings and helps people of all ages feel heard. The process isn't limited to feelings; qualities are mirrored as well. "You're a pretty girl" and "My, aren't you smart!" are other examples.

Despite these many factors, the impact of Mother is unparalleled. An attentive, capable, caring mother can help make up for many other handicaps, and the absence of such mothering is perhaps the greatest handicap of all, because when Mother is not doing her larger-than-life job as it needs to be done, children have significant deficits in their foundations.

I apparently held a belief that if I expressed my anger, I would destroy our bond forever. The relationship was not ruined; in fact, it was strengthened. But I had no reference, no previous experience to tell me this could be so. I had never dared express my anger at my family and had a marked lack of experience in this process of rupture and repair.

Without our caretaker's protection, our only protection is to stay small and build defensive structures into our personality.

Their interactions are like passing a shuttle of yarn back and forth, weaving a connection between their hearts.

A good mentor does not simply go through her life hoping that others will pick up what she knows, but is actively engaged in helping others learn. She is tuned in enough to notice what skills are needed and is patient enough to teach them.

the mother "holds the child's bits together." She is his glue, his container. When the mother is really there, lovingly holding the child, it gives the child something to hold on to. Ultimately, that is the mother's heart.

In a happy home, there aren't continuing crises you need to solve (or wonder how to endure when you're too young to solve anything). People aren't stuck in power struggles. There aren't silent or not-so-silent wars between family members. In a happy home you're not all holding your breath. You can relax and be yourself. A

The sense of being connected somewhere is an important anchor in our lives. Without it, we can feel disconnected, lost, and ungrounded in the world. This is sometimes reflected in images of floating in a dark space, like an astronaut whose connecting cord is broken. Others describe it as drifting at sea, like a piece of flotsam. This feeling is often carried throughout life unless efforts are made to change the situation.

Learning to modulate our internal states is called self-regulation or self-modulation. It is something the nervous system for the most part controls, but it is learned initially by the mother standing in for the developing nervous system and by meeting the child's needs before he gets totally overwhelmed.

Just by gazing into the child's eyes, the mother communicates brain to brain with her child, bringing the child's limbic system into coherence with hers. (This is helpful when Mother is in a positive, regulated state but not when she is fussy and upset herself.)

When children are not shamed for undeveloped skills but rather are loved quite fully just for being who they are, then competence becomes less important.