Remothering the Self: Feeding the Body, Healing the Mother-Wound

by Dr. Denise Renye

Note: For the purposes of this article, I have used language that may imply certain binaries, but I invite you to look beyond these labels and honor your own experience in whatever form it takes.

In the gentle, often hidden spaces of our inner lives we carry wounds of nurturance, of belonging, of mothering, and of not being mothered. The journey of remothering the self invites us to care for our bodies, listen to our hunger (in every sense), and reclaim what was lost or withheld. With food, with bodily awareness, and with emotional attunement, we begin to mother ourselves in those places where community, compassion or containment may have been missing.

1. Food as symbol, body as home
Food is not merely biochemical fuel, it carries meaning, memory, longing. Marion Woodman writes:

“Food embodies the false values that their own bodies refuse to assimilate… The unconscious body, and certainly the conscious body, will not tolerate the negative mother.” -Marion Woodman

What does it mean when the “negative mother” is invoked? In many of us, the archetypal maternal presence may have been insufficient, conditional, overwhelmed, absent or wounding. The body knows: when the “mother” principle is not reliably available (nurture, containment, attunement), the body becomes the holding place of that longing, hunger that cannot only be fed with food, craving that cannot only be satiated with sweets, eating that becomes emotional eating. As Woodman observed:

“The great mother, who we all long for, becomes food. As much food as you can put into your body because the hole is so big.” -Marion Woodman

When we eat,…or when we eat in the absence of recognition, love, attunement…we may be seeking the mother. That means our relationship to food becomes an emotional relationship. It becomes a doorway into the wound and the healing of the wound.

2. Caring for the body as a remothering act
In healing the mother-wound we have to mother the body. The body is our first home, our ongoing experience, our vessel. Woodman reminds us:

“The confusion of spirit and body is quite understandable in a culture … Dieting with fierce will-power is the masculine route; dieting with love of her own nature is the feminine. Her only real hope is to care for her own body and experience it as the vessel through which her Self may be born.” -Marion Woodman

To care for the body: to listen when it sighs or tightens, to nourish it when it’s depleted, to let it move, rest, breathe, receive. This is not about perfectionism or self-punishment. It is about loving the body, trusting it, partnering with it. This is remothering: giving your body what your inner child, and your inner remothering self, needed. It’s making the body a safe container, not a battleground.

3. Emotional eating as message and metaphor
When food becomes a substitute for what is missing, love, safety, attunement, recognition, then eating becomes more than a behavior: it becomes a metaphor. Emotional eating arises when the body/body-mind tries to fill a relational, emotional or soul-level void with what the culture offers: sweets, carbs, bingeing, etc. The wound of the mother (inner or outer) may be masquerading as hunger. Recognizing this allows for deeper inquiry: What am I really hungry for? What is the body telling me? What was I never allowed to receive?

In this way, emotional eating becomes a signal: the body is shouting a truth. Remothering the self means listening to that truth, receiving the unmet need, comforting the wounded part—instead of automatically numbing or shaming it.

4. Increasing awareness: from unconscious habit to conscious care
Awareness is the turning point. When I begin to notice: the habitual reach for food when I am anxious, the desire to eat something “comforting” when I feel unseen, the tightening in my belly when I remember a maternal absence—then I am doing the work of remothering. I steer the habitual reactivity into mindful response. I invite curiosity:

• What do I feel right now?

• What is the body asking for?

• What image of mother (inner or outer) is alive in me right now?

• What nourishing act might substitute for the reaching into food?

This doesn’t mean rigid “good/bad” food morality. It means bringing tender curiosity to what is happening. It means choosing to treat the body kindly: maybe a slower meal, maybe hydration, maybe movement, maybe rest, maybe speaking softly to the inner child.

5. Healing the mother-wound through body/practice/integration
Remothering the self in the context of the mother-wound means reclaiming a story: the story that I am worth care. The story that my body deserves nourishment not just of food but of love. The story that my emotional state matters. For someone in your practice as a sex therapist and psychedelic integrator, you know that the body and soul are deeply allied. To heal the mother-wound we need embodiment: returning the soul to the body, returning the body to love. Woodman writes:

“Instead of transcending ourselves, we must move into ourselves.” -Marion Woodman

That inward journey—through the body, through food, through emotional awareness—is the path of remothering. It means saying yes to yourself, yes to your body, yes to your needing and your longing. It means anchoring your self-therapy in nourishment, attunement, presence.

Practical suggestions to weave into your life or share with clients

• Before eating, pause and ask: “What am I feeling right now? What is my body asking for?”

• Cultivate a ritual: e.g., a few mindful breaths, placing a hand on the belly, acknowledging the inner child.

• Journal the connection: “Today when I wanted to eat X, I notice I was… [lonely/bored/anxious/unseen].”

• Develop an alternate nurturing act: e.g., a warm drink, a gentle stretch, reaching for texture (hugging self), a comfort object.

• Honour your body: lean into movement you love, rest when you need it, choose foods that feel like love not punishment.

• Explore the inner mother image: What was missing? What did I long for? How can I be that mother now (in healthier ways) for myself?

• Use your body awareness in therapeutic sessions (for yourself and clients): the body’s signals are wisdom.

When you turn toward your body, when you feed it with awareness and attunement, you begin to remother the self. You become the mother your inner child needed. And in doing so, you begin to heal the mother-wound, not by seeking external perfection or demanding a flawless mother figure, but by reclaiming the mother-principle within: care, presence, nourishment, tenderness. As Marion Woodman invites: care for your body; treat it as the vessel through which your Self may be born.

When we begin to care for our bodies with tenderness, feeding ourselves with awareness, rest, and love, we become the mother we always needed. Remothering is not about recreating the past but reclaiming the power to nourish ourselves now. Each mindful meal and moment of body-listening becomes a quiet act of devotion that transforms old patterns of deprivation into presence and self-trust. In honoring the body as sacred, we restore the bond between love and sustenance, and as Marion Woodman reminds us, we allow the Self to be born through the body that we finally choose to cherish. If this reflection resonates with you, take a moment today to pause before your next meal, place a hand on your heart, and ask your body what it truly needs.

If you are ready to explore your relationship with nourishment, embodiment, and healing the mother wound more deeply, therapy can offer a supportive space to begin that journey.