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The person who loves you just because you exist

Luba Kassova | November 23, 2021
The person who loves you just because you exist The person who loves you just because you exist

Finding respite in a polarised world

This blog was first published in Bulgarian in Maiko Mila website on the 17th November 2021

Warm green eyes. Soft ageing skin. A wise unassuming smile. An enveloping embrace. A smell of home, a feeling of acceptance, cosiness, safety, harmony, and tranquillity. This is what fills my senses as I feel my mother’s arms around me, holding me tight. I relax completely in a trusting surrender. A child connecting with her mother. But I am also a grown woman connecting with love. I feel safe and deeply loved, freed from responsibility and judgement. I know that this is the best visualisation meditation l will ever experience.

I grew up in vastly different, often colliding worlds - the world of communist Bulgaria, modern capitalist Switzerland, conflict-ridden Afghanistan, hungry Ethiopia, and rapidly developing Ghana. My own world was one of equally colliding narratives I heard about myself, created by two loving parents who perceived me very differently. A father who wanted nothing but happiness for me but who worried about my fiery outspoken personality that for him did not sit well with a girl. He did not see an easy route to happiness for me with the lot I’d been given. He was the person who taught me how to earn love. My mother, on the other hand, saw light in me where others saw darkness. She had higher hopes for me than I had for myself. She loved me just because I was. She taught me unconditional love.

A year ago, I attended “Inherited Family Trauma” training, designed and delivered by the acclaimed inherited family trauma expert Mark Wolynn. One evening during the training, Mark asked all the attendees to close their eyes and imagine their mothers taking three assertive steps towards them, ending up facing them at very close quarters. To my surprise, it transpired that most of the 200+ course participants from all around the world felt physical and emotional discomfort when faced with that sudden closeness of their mothers. Wolynn’s decades-long research has concluded that at some point(s) in our childhoods, most of us experience a break in the bond with our mothers which triggers a fear of intimacy. When I closed my eyes and imagined my mother entering my personal space, I felt like an excited child, exhilarated at the thought of a long-awaited reunion. In my imagination I started jumping up and down with joy when I saw my mother so close. Her love filled my whole body with a warm energy, as the sun rising at dawn slowly fills a room with light. This warm feeling, however, soon gave way to a feeling of deep sadness, born of the realisation that my mum was forever confined to the realms of my imagination, that it was only there that she was going to remain vividly alive. I have lived longer without my mother in my life than with her, since she lost her battle with cancer when I was in my late teens. Tears welled up in my eyes and I welcomed them. I am familiar with grief’s unannounced visits, less frequent as the years go by, but always assured and demanding my full attention. I surrendered to this close acquaintance, waiting for her to move forward, to pass. And pass she did, as always. I have learned to find comfort in the certainty of this powerful yet transient feeling - the feeling of grief.

Since this training I no longer take my soothing bond with my long-deceased mother for granted. I realise that many people never develop strong intimate bonds with their mothers. It strikes me that I had more time with my mother in 19 years than many do in a lifetime. Amidst all the values, clashing expectations, narratives, colliding worlds, and systems that I grew up in, I can always find refuge and respite in my mother’s safe embrace. To this very day, so many years after her passing, I can rest in her love and kindness. All I need to do is close my eyes.

In memory of my mother Tatyana Kolarova Kassova (20.05.1936 – 27.08.1991)

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