How Mother Wounds And Father Wounds Shape Your Nervous System

We close season one with a clear look at parental wounds and how your nervous system learned what love, safety, and connection feel like. We connect those early patterns to freezing, fawning, people pleasing, and boundary struggles, then share simple somatic tools to help you come back to yourself with less shame.

• defining parental wounds
• explaining how the nervous system adapts
• naming mother wound patterns
• naming father wound patterns
• practicing awareness without judgment as the foundation for nervous system healing
• using GLOW to calm activation
• using HALT to check hunger, anger, loneliness, and tiredness before responding

Ready for Deeper Support?

Somatic Healing Group (JOIN THE WAITLIST NOW!)

If you’re ready to move beyond insight and into embodied healing, I’m opening one small Somatic Healing Group this spring.

This 6-week women’s healing group is designed for high-functioning women who:

• Feel chronically on edge or emotionally shut down
• Understand their trauma cognitively but still feel dysregulated
• Want practical nervous system regulation tools
• Are ready for deeper somatic integration

Group Details:

• 6 weeks

• 90 minutes weekly

• Limited to 5 women

• Tuesdays, 6:00–7:30 PM

• Begins April 21st

Investment: $300 total
Payment is due in full at enrollment to reserve your spot.

Spots are intentionally limited to maintain safety and depth.

→ Join the Somatic Healing Group waitlist here:
http://linktr.ee/EmpoweringWellnessHub

Work With Me Individually (Texas Residents)

I offer trauma-informed therapy for high-achieving women navigating:

• Complex trauma
• Late-diagnosed ADHD or autism
• Nervous system dysregulation
• Relational pattern healing

If you’d prefer one-on-one support, book a free 15-minute consultation here:
http://linktr.ee/EmpoweringWellnessHub

Good Music for Healing

🎵 **Divine Woman Playlist (Apple Music):** https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/divine-woman/pl.u-leyl096uMoD885j

You’re not alone. 

We’re healing together.

Transcript

Welcome And Host Background

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Awaken Heart, a podcast for healing women. This is a space where your voice matters, your body is sacred, and your healing is never rushed nor will it ever be minimized. I'm Audda Moran, licensed professional counselor, yoga instructor, and neurodivergent woman specializing in trauma and nervous system healing for high-functioning women who look successful on the outside but feel dysregulated, exhausted, or maybe even disconnected on the inside. If you've experienced trauma, late diagnosed neurodivergence, or chronic relational stress, and you're ready to move beyond coping into deep healing, you're in the right place. Today's episode is the season one finale. Season two starts next week. Healing after sexual tra sexual trauma will be the topic for season two. It will uh it will be honest, it will be raw, it will be educational. I will provide plenty of ways and means of healing and coping and processing. I think it is something that we need as a society to talk about out loud. Like nothing's being done but the Epstein files, and anyone that has any sort of sexual trauma is probably kind of dysregulated right now, kind of probably triggered in some way. And I want to put a voice to that. I want to have a space for us to talk, to heal, to cry, to grieve, to rage, to soften. But before we move into healing sexual trauma, I want one last topic to be covered. I want to close this season up with an honest conversation about parental wounds. I'm not here to blame your parents. I'm not here to blame you. I'm not here to blame anyone. This is not about saying something was wrong with you. I want to spend time today talking about understanding how your body learned what love feels like, what safety feels like, and your body learned what to do when those things were missing. Because your nervous system didn't start learning and start behaving the day of your trauma. It was already learning. It had already learned long before you experienced trauma. A parental wound is when you're not being fully seen. A parental wound is when you're not fully being emotionally, like your emotional needs aren't being met. A parental wound comes from having an inconsistent parent. Like you don't know which mood you're gonna have. You don't know if they're gonna be Jekyll or hide, if they're gonna be happy, mad, angry, sad. It was inconsistent. And a parental wound can feel like your needs were too much, are just not important. And when that happens, your body adapted, not consciously, but somatically. It learned how to stay connected, it learned how to avoid a rejection, and it learned how to stay safe in those relationships you so heavily relied on for survival. Your nervous system simply was asking, what do I need to do to stay safe here? And some of those answers might have been staying quiet, not asking for too much, being small, being agreeable, not saying no, being easy or good, well-behaved, doing things harder. I mean, not doing things harder, but like doing things to like prove your worth, going above and beyond to try to get the affection, the love, the emotional needs met. Or maybe you learn to just not make things harder. You know, stay out of the way, don't ruffle any feathers, don't say anything, just suffer in silence. And if those strategies worked, even the slightest bit, your body kept them. That was your that was your survival language. Your body learned that speaking up didn't change anything, that your needs weren't prioritized, and that connection required silence, agreeableness, performance. So it makes sense that in moments where you needed to say, no, stop, I don't want this. Your body didn't go there. Not because you didn't know, but because your nervous system had already learned staying quiet is safer. Again, I'm not here to blame. Nothing about your childhood caused trauma. I'm just here for the awareness because awareness is key to healing, to action, to learning, to pivoting, to making new decisions, different choices. Most women don't walk around saying, I have a mother wound, I have a father wound. It shows up in ways when you hear like, I don't know why I feel this way, or I don't know why this keeps happening. Oh, or like, I don't, I don't know why I can't just dot dot dot. Like I can't just figure it out. I can't just solve the problem. I can't finish my to-do list. I can't get my finances in order. I don't know why I can't do something different. So mother wound isn't about whether your mother loved you. It's about whether your nervous system felt emotionally met. So, like if it wasn't emotionally met, you might have been dismissed when you were upset. Go to your room, figure it out, don't cry. Maybe you were told you were too sensitive, too loud, too much, too needy, too dramatic, a drama queen. Maybe you had to take care of your mother's emotions. You had to talk her down, talk her through a hard time, be the wiser one. And maybe you just didn't have space for your own. Maybe what was yours was hers, and you had no privacy, you had no boundaries. She could do and say and be whoever she wanted, regardless of what you needed. Over time, that means your body learned to minimize your needs, to disconnect from your feelings. It definitely taught you to take care of others first. Hello, people pleasing as a trauma response. And it taught you to feel guilty when you need support. Oof. That gets us into some sticky situations when we feel guilty when needing support. Keeps us stuck in some shitty situations when we have a hard time asking for support, feeling safe asking for support. So as an adult, how does this show up? Maybe it's not knowing what you need until you're just overwhelmed, until the pressure cooker explodes. Maybe it's overgiving, helping, performing, serving, choring, responsibilitying, then feeling resentful, then blowing up. Maybe you struggle to receive care without discomfort. And maybe you feel like you are too much, too needy, too loud, too dramatic, too crazy, all that. So your core body belief were that your needs created disconnection. For the father wound, it's not about whether your father was present, it's about whether you felt protected, seen, valued, and chosen. And this can look like emotional distance, inconsistency. This goes back to that inconsistent parent. Maybe a lot of the times I hear this happen a lot. And I don't know, I haven't done any research into it, but it is curious to me. And I've read a little blips, just blips on social media, but not real research. But like for women, if their father was around or if their father was in their life, their father figure was like their best pal up until like puberty hit. And then something shifted. And then it was all weird and awkward and silent and distant and inconsistent, absent physically and emotionally, are emotionally absent. Maybe they criticized you or they lacked affirmation for you and your acts. So your body learned to seek validation externally. Your body learned to work for approval, to tolerate inconsistency, and to overperform to feel worthy. So this might show up as chasing unavailable partners. Hello, staying in relationships where you're not fully chosen. Maybe you feel deeply impacted by rejection. Maybe you're an overachiever, but never really feel like you are enough. So your core body belief from the father wound is I have to earn love or I'll lose it. And most women carry both in some way. And this isn't about labeling your parents, it's about understanding that your body learned how to respond in order to feel love, to feel safe, and to feel connected. Your responses make sense, especially if your body learned that speaking up didn't change anything. Especially if your body learned that your needs caused tension or withdrawal, or that your needs were some sort of an issue in some way, maybe inconvenient, or they made you feel like you were a burden in some way for having human needs. And your responses make sense, especially if your body learned maybe that connection required silence, compliance, or straight shrinking, shrinking. Let's shrink, shrinking. So then, of course, in moments where you needed to say no, to push back, to leave, to protect yourself, your body didn't automatically go there. Because this isn't just a thought pattern. This is physiological. In those moments, you maybe froze, you maybe went quiet, maybe you even dissociated, disconnected. Maybe you complied, went along with it to stay safe, because you knew that's the way to stay safe. Maybe you did it just to keep the peace. Not because you necessarily chose that, but because your nervous system said, this is how we survive connection. This is how we stay safe. Nothing about your childhood caused your trauma, but it may have shaped your sense of safety, your access to your voice, and it might have shaped your ability to feel and act and place and create and uphold boundaries. So if you've ever thought, why didn't I say something? Why did I freeze? Why didn't I leave sooner? You're not broken. Your body was following a pattern that once kept you safe. I say this often and I mean it. We are not rewiring our nervous systems overnight. This is not about taking this information in and being a whole different person and changing things overnight. This information is meant to bring awareness so that you can have time to think, then have time to plan, then have time to act. And then you get to dance the dance of healing, which can feel up and down, back and forth. Honestly, it's hard as hell at times. Right now, this information is for you to feel like, hey, I have a little more space and a little more choice now. And there's only one thing I ask of you when you are bringing awareness to your thoughts, to your patterns, to your conditioning, is that you practice your awareness without judgment. I want you to just start noticing when you go quiet, when you override your needs for someone or something else, or when you feel small and unsure, like you need to stay quiet, you need to not use your voice. You tell yourself to be quiet. Not to fix it, but to recognize that in those moments, that is your body trying to protect you. Just be aware how often you go into protective mode. Not to fix it, but just be aware. Because when these patterns activate, you are not in clarity. You are in protective mode. This is where you need to create a system to calm yourself when you're activated. It goes to my method of glow. I want you to glow when you feel activated. G-L-O-W. G, first off, ground yourself. Look around your space, name some things you see, name some colors that you see, put your feet on the floor, wiggle your toes, get into the body. L, lengthen the exhale. Take a breath in and let that exhale be longer than the inhale. Oh, that's when you need to offer yourself some kindness.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Offer yourself some steadiness. This is hard, but we can do it.

A Guided Somatic Check In

SPEAKER_01 14:29

But I'm doing it. And then wiggle, shake out the tension, finish it like a just a wild animal. Boo, boo, boo, boo, shaking legs, shaking arms, shaking everything. You don't need to feel calm. You just need enough steadiness to create space to practice awareness. And if you've been disconnected from your needs, you won't suddenly know them. So start small. Ask yourself like what would feel supportive right now? Maybe you can ask yourself, like, do I need well, how about this? Check in with yourself with HALT. Here's another anachronym, H-A-L-T. Before you react, before you respond, before you perform, before you do anything, after you've calmed down, am I hungry? Hungry or thirsty? When was the last time you had a glass of water or a good meal? Protein, carbs, fiber, fats, good things. Am I angry? Yes, I'm angry. So what do I need to do? Do I need to self-soothe? Do I need to take a walk? Do I need to take a breath? Like self-soothe. Lonely? Are you lonely in this moment? Or do you feel alone? Is there a way you can self-soothe or phone someone in your support system? Reach out to a therapist, a life coach, someone in the community? And tired. Are you tired? Are you exhausted? Have you used all your spoons? If you have, leave this conversation for another time when you have spoons. Reschedule. I'm not available. And then just check in with your body. Is this a yes? Does my body feel like yes, this is exciting? Or does it feel like no, please don't? I'd rather be in bed or at home or gouging my eyes out. Or maybe not yet. It sounds good, but I'm not there yet. Even if you don't act on it immediately, naming these things matter. Because this is not about big confrontations. I'm always, always about baby steps, not giant leaps. Practice small, safe expressions like asking for a minute before responding or performing. Embrace the phrase, let me think about that. And maybe make it your mantra to say, that doesn't feel right for me right now, when something doesn't feel right for you. This is how your body learns that your voice does not equal disconnection. I said it a little earlier and I will say it again. Healing this kind of healing is uncomfortable and it's hard work. I'm not going to lie to you. It can feel unfamiliar and even unsafe at times, especially when you're setting new boundaries. But this discomfort is not danger. So instead of escaping it, please remind yourself glow and affirm, I don't like this, but I can stay with it. I don't like the guilt from setting that boundary, but I'm going to stay with it because that boundary is there to protect myself. The biggest shift is not just speaking or choosing differently, it's that you don't leave yourself in the process. You've got to stay with yourself. And this can sometimes be the hardest part. You can't abandon your feelings for someone else. You can't override your body to please someone else. And you can't shame yourself afterward for doing something that is for your greater good. Please understand that you will have initial guilt and fear, but that initial guilt and fear will subside the more you practice protecting your peace, your energy, and your sanity. This is not about becoming a completely different person. I want you to just simply notice, pause, choose, and slowly teach the body that you're allowed to exist fully now. I want you to take up spaces, like take it. If you're with me, I like let's do a somatic moment. Wherever you are, if you can pause for a moment and check in with me. Wherever your arms want to be, they can be on your lap, by your side, on your heart, on your belly, a little bit of both, whatever feels good. Maybe hands on your head. It's okay. Wherever your hands want to be.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

And just take this moment without judgment to just notice your body. Notice your breath. Notice if anything in you feels tight, guarded, activated. Even notice the parts of you that are quiet. Just gently say I see you.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Not to change, not to change, just simply see you.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

The body. The breath. Just as it is.

Season Two Preview And Support Options

SPEAKER_01 19:51

From this moment forward, I want you to know that what happened to you matters, but so does what your body had already learned about safety, voice, and connection. So your trauma fucking matters, but so does everything that came before that. Because you were not weak, you were not naive, you were patterned, you were conditioned to behave a certain way to survive in your household. Your body learned how to stay safe and in the environments it was given. And when something happened, when your body needed to respond, it didn't fail, it followed what it knew. And now we're not here to blame that version of you. We're here to understand her, to meet her, to gently teach your body something new. Because healing sexual trauma is not just about what happened in that moment. It's about your voice, your boundaries, your sense of safety, and your ability to feel and respond from clarity. And all of that has a history. Next week, we begin a new lesson. A new lesson, a new season, season two. It's a deeper one, a more vulnerable one. I've been doing some planning and I really enjoy it. I really think it's gonna be good. I think it's gonna be deep, and you know, it's a hard topic, and I'm not here to scare anyone away. I want everyone to listen that that resonates with it. I feel like someone needs to talk about it. You know, I don't I don't know what else to say about that. I want to bring things to the surface, but I also want to like bring you to yourself, to your sense of self and to feel good about who you are. We're gonna talk about what happens in the body during trauma, why you froze, why you disconnected, and why it still lives in you. And most importantly, how to begin healing all of it gently, safely, and at your pace. You don't have to rush this or force anything. I want you to stay with yourself, and I'll be right here with you every Wednesday helping you heal. If this episode resonated with you, the best way to support this podcast is to follow, leave a review, hit a thumbs up or a heart or whatever it is on your platform, or please share it with someone who you think would benefit from hearing this. This helps this work reach more women who are quietly healing, and I really appreciate all the love, all the listens, all the likes, all the comments. If you're ready for a deeper support, I have a small somatic healing group this spring. It is starting next week. It is five women, six weeks, 90 minutes a week. This group is for women who are insightful and capable but find themselves freezing, overexplaining, or second guessing when something feels off. Over six weeks, we'll focus on nervous system regulation so you can access clarity and confidence from a steady place. Because when your body feels safe, your voice becomes clearer. This is about building confidence from the inside out. The full investment is$300 due an enrollment to secure your spot. And you can join at the link in the show notes. Spots are limited to five women and filling up fast. Like I said, group starts next week, April 21st, which is next Tuesday at 6 p.m. Central Standard Time. Enroll now if you are interested. If you prefer to work with me individually, you can book a free 15-minute consultation. Everything you need is in the show notes. If you want to click on my link in the show notes, you can also find some good resources there. And you can find some links to some playlist called Divine Woman that I make that's for all healing purposes, for good listening without all the bullshit. Until next time, my dears, I want you to know that you are never too much, never too late, and you don't have to figure it out all alone. I am here every Wednesday, sometimes Fridays, haven't decided, might have every Friday bonus episode in season two as a supportive. Planning is still out on that. We'll have it all secured by this weekend. All right, my dears. May you be happy and free. May our healing ripple outward to bless the world with happiness and freedom. Take care of your awakened heart, and I'll see you soon.