Thailand 2018 Retreat Day 4: The Mother Wound & Our Relationship to Money

Day 4 was was everyone's favourite day - it was the day of the erotic garden.

We were actually supposed to go and visit elephants and bathe them and everyone was cool with that.

UNTIL they heard about this garden where the woman had sculptures of penises and booties and what not in her garden.

Then everyone's response about the elephants was: "we'll go to the Kruger National Park to see elephants."

So the entire schedule changed to the gardens and having lunch on the lake.

The Erotic Garden, Chiang Mai

Real talk - I can never look at fruit and veg the same way ever again without thinking erotic thoughts.

Lets just accept that because I am seeing it in my daily life now.

My mind has been stretched and it can't go back to innocence. The innocence is gone/ shattered.

Katai, the woman who owns the garden, took us through a tour explaining how nature is naturally sexual and erotic.

It was eye opening actually.

How did I miss this my whole life?

Anyway she is a character and basically makes the tour what it is. And she just LOVED Mizo.

But Mizo was a hit in Thailand, in general.

Also random: we learned that the penis is a symbol of good luck in Thai culture. I'm still digesting this...

And I hope this preps you for the pictures LOL

THE LESSON FOR THIS DAY WAS TAUGHT BY LEBO FROM STRETCH WITH LEBO PULE

She started teaching the lesson on the lake. We had lunch on huts, in the lake and were surrounded by water.

She started by expanding on ease and what ease meant to us. Lebo asked us a series of questions and for some reason, I ended up fixating on "The big Lebowski".

But it turned out no one had seen the movie so that fell flat. 

The more Lebo taught about the ease, the more I got a lump in my throat and eventually just ended up crying on the way back to Mala Dhara because everything was bubbling to the surface.

After that she started teaching about expansion and just as she was about to close the lesson, my mother wound issues came to the surface.

And then the drama started unfolding as I shared the core issues of my guilt and how it connects to my mother wound and then basically dug up everyone's issues as well.

At this point everyone wanted me to s*** up because the lesson was supposed to be over and now we had to deal with our mother wounds and how allowing ourselves to expand can feel like betrayal to our mothers.

Our inner child feels loyal to our mothers's struggles and honours our mothers through our vows of invisibility and self sabotage.

All this shows up as guilt and worthiness issues in our finances and our ability to celebrate ourselves.

How can we allow ourselves to be happy and thriving when our mothers have sacrificed so much for us?

And we know this because some of our mothers remind us of these sacrifices often.

What monstrous daughters can allow themselves joy and happiness when that joy has come at such a high price for our mothers?

This wound runs deep - it shows up as guilt, shame, feeling of not being good enough and so much more.

I really couldn't believe that I was still dealing with the mother wound after so much work on this issue.

And I think everyone else felt the same.

We've been doing this work on the mother wound forever in the #MoneyMagic course and yet here we were going deeper and unpacking.

I don't think I could have come to this realisation and the shifts that came with it, without this retreat and everyone involved, especially Jo and Lebo.

This day humbled me because it showed me the layers and depth of this work - you think you're done and you've got it sorted and then bam, you're back in the pain, only deeper than before.

But luckily day 5 was going to get way better...