This past week, I read a post that reached into the deepest part of my spirit and didn’t let go…

It was written by a man—raw, poetic, and painfully honest. A tribute to his mother. But not the kind you find in Hallmark cards or Mother’s Day captions. This one was layered in grief, gratitude, and gut-wrenching truth. He spoke of a woman who gave him the love of Jesus and the sting of Jezebel. A mother who fed him, clothed him, defended him—and yet tore down his spirit with her tongue and broke him with her hands.

One line stood out like a spotlight in the dark:

“Men are destroyed by the women who raised them, not the ones they sleep with.”

At first, I paused.
Then I exhaled.
Because I knew… he wasn’t trying to be cruel.
He was telling a truth that most people never dare to say out loud.

In our culture, we often speak of the absent father. We talk about how boys need strong male role models. We talk about men hurting women, and toxic masculinity, and broken relationships. But rarely—rarely—do we talk about the role wounded mothers play in shaping the emotional world of their sons.

We don’t talk about the son who grew up walking on eggshells.
The boy who never knew if today would be kisses or curses.
The child who learned early that love came with conditions—be good, be quiet, be strong, or be punished.

Many mothers love their sons deeply—but love, when unhealed, can come out distorted.
What starts as protection becomes control.
What starts as discipline becomes emotional abuse.
What starts as tough love becomes unresolved trauma passed down.

The result? Boys who grow into men…
Who can’t trust softness.
Who confuse love with performance.
Who either repeat the harm or run from intimacy altogether.
Who carry wounds they don’t have the language to name.

And the tragedy?
They often hurt the women who try to love them, simply because they’ve never experienced love that wasn’t laced with pain.

Well, This isn’t about blame.
It’s not about demonizing mothers or absolving men of responsibility.
It’s about acknowledging that generational pain doesn’t discriminate.
And that the cycle must be interrupted.

Mothers, we are the first mirror. The first definition of love. The first example of safety or the absence of it. When we remain unhealed, we raise children—both sons and daughters—who inherit that pain.

But here’s the hope:
Awareness is the first step toward liberation.

We are not doomed to repeat what broke us.
We don’t have to pass on what we never received.
We can stop mid-cycle, turn around, and choose healing over harm.

To the Woman Doing the Work…

If you are the woman who is choosing to heal,
who is learning to parent with intention,
who is mothering yourself while trying to show up for your children,
I want you to know: you are sacred work in motion.

Every time you pause before reacting.
Every time you apologize and repair.
Every time you choose softness over shame, presence over punishment, grace over generational pain—
You are rewriting a story that has waited far too long for a new ending.

You’re not behind.
You’re not broken.
You’re being rebuilt.

May we raise sons who feel safe in their own skin.
Who don’t have to recover from their childhood before they can enjoy adulthood.
Who don’t fear women because the first one they knew taught them fear instead of love.

May we become the mothers we needed.
And may our children rise—not in resentment, but in reverence.
May they say, “She was not perfect. But she healed. She did the work. She changed everything.”

Let us not settle for surviving motherhood.
Let us pursue transformational motherhood.
One where healing becomes legacy.
One where love is no longer laced with pain.

With gentleness and fire,
Lydia

P.S: if you’re ready to go deeper—to break your own cycles and rewrite your story and the story of your generations —enrollment is now open for ​The Conscious Rebirth.​ This is the work that changes everything. 💫