"If you identify with being a mother, this role you play will trap you and can cause you suffering when the child decides to leave you. Then you have to step out of the function of being a mother and become who you truly are." -- Fabian Markl, Unlimited Freedom [1]
An actress has to identify herself with a role to play it well. After the scene is recorded, the actress drops the role, because she knows it's not who she is.
The most common roles people play are that of a mother, father, housewife, husband. Even being man and woman are played in roles. Each role comes with a script that gives you standards that your behavior should meet. You learned these standards from your environment, like society, culture, country, family and friends.
When you identify with a role, you identify with these standards and take each violation as your personal fault. That's when you feel guilty.
Let's take the example of a mother.
One of her standards is "to be there for the child all the time." Hence, you feel guilty when you give it to a nanny so you can work to provide for your child. Another standard is "to do meaningful work in the world." Thus, you feel guilty when the only thing you do is taking care of the child at home.
There is, however, one standard that causes a more intense guilt. It is "your child must be perfect in the eyes of the world. If it's not, it's your fault." Violating this illusive standard can become quite overwhelming to mothers whose child is psychologically or physiologically different from what is considered as "the norm" in society.
Even though the efforts of the mothers who care for such special children often surpass the efforts of mothers of "normal" children, the former feel extreme guilt as their inner narrator whispers in their ear "It's your fault."
These mothers feel that no matter what they do, they can't escape that vicious cycle of guilt. They may be able to escape the cycle in the short time, through meditation or distractions, but it always comes back -- often with more momentum.
Since that cycle runs on certain mental structures, you can't escape it, you can only dissolve it. The structure doesn't care what the content of the guilt is. Yesterday it was the nanny. Today it's staying at home. Tomorrow it's the child's imperfection. The goal of the structure is to keep itself alive. Each violation of the standards activates the structure. When it's no longer activated, it will dissolve.
Now you may think, "Well, when I no longer violate the standards, it will no longer be activated." That is, however, not the case. Even if you don't violate the standards, you still think about them, and your attention is the fuel for that cycle.
Your first step to dissolve the structure is to become aware that it's not you who is the fault, but that the standards are nothing real, but a story in your head. When you get in a situation where you start to feel guilty, you no longer take it personally and blame yourself or deny it, but you become aware of it like, "Ah, the story has been triggered again. Interesting."
Once you practice such awareness, the gap between the activation of the cycle and your awareness of it becomes smaller and the intensity of the guilt cycle is reduced. It will still arise few more times, that is a normal part your disidentification process.
In the end, escaping the vicious cycle of guilt can be a great catalyst for waking up out of the role of being a mother and recognizing it as a function, but not as a part of who you are.
[1] Click here to get your free chapter of Unlimited Freedom from which I have taken the quote in the beginning.
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