5 ways how toxic masculinity hijacked motherhood

Motherhood is polarity. The rush of energy and love you feel, when you look into the eyes of your newborn baby. The total exhaustion of the sleepless nights. Infinite joy and deep misery, overwhelm. It’s all in the numbers. In Karam Kriya numerology number 8 represents the mother. Understand what number 8 signifies and you understand motherhood. How we can feel so washed out by motherhood or why we feel like we were thrown into deep water.

If motherhood feels like a permanent prison sentence that you want to run away from that’s a different thing. It is a sign that your mother’s journey has been hijacked by toxic masculinity. We are going to look at, how this happened and how we can take back the power of motherhood.

What does number 8 mean in spirituality?

Number 8 is a feminine number. It is curving like the mother body itself. Do you know those ancient fertility statues? That’s what I mean. Flip the number 8 and suddenly we are looking at the Infinity sign. The infinity symbol represents the infinite flow of energy. Prana, life force. Expansion, contraction. Life-giving polarity and excruciating tension. Number 8 flows like water. The fluidity of the water element and its cleansing, purifying, healing nature. The constantly changing moon energy. The daily cycle of life. The flow of time. Our nurturing nature as mothers and our deep need to be nurtured. Goddess Kali and her rage. Chaos. Power.

What is toxic masculinity?

Masculinity in its own is neither good, nor bad. It’s an essential part of the polarity of life. We could not function without healthy masculinity. We need its protective power, structure and clear boundaries. It is present both in men and women. Toxic masculinity is the narcissistic mind falling in love with its own creation. In numerology terms: the mind domain of number 7 running the show.

Examples of toxic masculinity:

• Placing man made rules above the rules of nature.
• Believing in the superiority of certain people or a group of people.
• Telling stories of fantasy to justify its own existence and wrong doings.
• Use of aggression and anger to maintain its ruling.
• Use of guilt and shame to ensure compliance.

What is so special about motherhood?

When we experience motherhood with awareness, we unlock the power of number 8 in our lives. Its abundance and creative energy. We come into harmony with our own true nature and mother nature around us. Our deep instinctive knowing. We honor the flow of time. We honor its cyclical nature. We honor the fluctuation of our own energy, like the waxing and waning of the moon. We nurture and we are open to receive, to be nurtured. Mother 8 gives us the power to embody Goddess Kali and destroy or sacrifice everything that is untrue.

Do most of us experience motherhood like this? Not quite… When the mind domain is ruling our motherhood experience, the power of number 8 is lost. The feminine energy is not there to balance the out of control masculinity. It has grave consequences on the health of our planet and our society.

How did toxic masculinity hijack motherhood?

1. Myth of motherhood

Society has unrealistic expectations of mothers. Be a child raising expert, a master chef and dietitian, a housekeeping wizard and event planner. Don’t forget trauma psychologist and workout guru. And crush it at your work. And do it all with a smile. And love every moment of it! There is probably only one thing that undermines motherhood even more: the unreasonable expectations we have of motherhood. A fluffy pink image of giggling babies and joyful mothers. No one prepares us for the ambivalent feelings and overwhelming emotions motherhood brings about. The mind is the domain of fantasies, appearance. Number 7 is the surface, what is visible. Number 8 is the undercurrent. What is in between? Deep wisdom and awareness. We can only access its abundance once we start seeing what IS instead of what SHOULD be.

2. Competitive mothering (mompetition) and judgement

Comparison is a function of the mind. It is normal to see differences. It is normal if you want to know, where you stand in the world. How comparison turns toxic? We start comparing ourselves to unrealistic images of fantasy. We start playing a game of ‘better or worse’, ‘win or lose’. We bring ourselves down for not living up to expectations. We put ourselves up on a pedestal of judgement to compensate for our imagined shortcomings. Motherhood is not a competition. When we start competing with other moms, we stop appreciating what is – inducing the unique beauty of our children. We isolate ourselves from the ones who are meant to be our true allies on this journey: other mothers.

3. Mansplaining, the illusion of knowledge and savior complex

Imagine the whole world mansplaining to you. That’s how motherhood often feels like. Everyone has an opinion on child raising. Everyone wants to be the savior. Do they really think it is possible to solve all our problems with one unsolicited advice? We don’t need solutions! We need the empathy of number 8. We need to be seen, reassured and trusted that we are capable and we are doing okay. Illusion of knowledge often masquerades as science or expert advice. Knowledge is used in a toxic culture to create fear instead of creating awareness. It disempowers our insctisntive knowing. When we have the courage to trust our instinctive knowing, we unlock the magic of motherhood.

4. Mom guilt

There is a widespread idea that guilt is useful. It motivates us to do better. I love my children. I love being a mom. It sometimes breaks me open in the best possible way. It sometimes breaks me up into little pieces. I feel mom guilt for getting frustrated sometimes. (And a bunch of other things) I look at my toddler. He has no idea what guilt or shame is. My own conditioned guilt response is enraged by this. I’m learning to let go of my own guilt. I’m learning to celebrate the fact that my toddler is still guilt-free. Guilt doesn’t serve me. The love that I feel is enough motivation for me to do my best. It takes a village to raise a child. Most of us mother with minimal support. We do what we can. I choose to trust it that it is exactly enough. It is exactly what my child needs.

5. Suppressing emotions

Toxic masculinity likes to dismiss emotions as an inconvenience. Number 8 represents the subconscious. The undercurrent of emotions flowing beneath the surface. Motherhood connects us into this flow. It sometimes washes over us, it sometimes overwhelms us. It is sometimes the last thing we want to feel. Our children are our mirrors. Their pure innocence is like the surface of a clear lake. They show us all our past woundings, traumas and pain. This is what we experience as triggers. When we can experience these emotions with awareness, they bring us home to ourselves. There is a deep capacity of healing in motherhood. We don’t just mother our children. We mother ourselves. We reclaim all the fragmented, shattered parts of ourselves. Motherhood has the capacity to make us whole. This is also the abundance of motherhood.

How do you experience motherhood? Do you receive the blessings of number 8 or is number 7 running the show? Do you recognize other masculine elements that hijacked our mother’s journey? Let me know in the comments. I would love to hear about your experience.