The Mother Wound and Generational Cycles: Becoming the Catalyst for Change

‘A cycle breaker is one who grew up without any example of the life they wanted or needed, and fought like hell to build that life later.’ ~ Nate Postlethwait

Every year, a phenomenon occurs across the Great Australian Bight known as the Great South Australian Coastal Upwelling System. This system extends approximately 800 kilometres, from Ceduna in South Australia to Portland in Victoria, and takes place during the austral summer, between November and May. During the upwelling, south-easterly winds blow parallel to the shoreline, forcing coastal waters offshore and drawing cold water from the ocean floor to the surface. As a result, the sea surface temperature can drop by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius.

Upwelling centres form in three key locations. Where I live in South Australia is known as the Bonney Upwelling, the largest and most predictable in the system. The cold water that surfaces during these periods is nutrient-rich, and when those nutrients meet sunlight near the surface, plankton blooms, turning the ocean green and creating a vital food source for marine life. These plankton blooms attract swarms of krill, which in turn draw blue whales—most prominently in the Bonney Upwelling region, one of only 12 identified blue whale feeding sites worldwide.

I think about this phenomenon on a late February afternoon—the ocean is a luminous aqua-green, and as I dive beneath, the frigidness triggers a cold-shock response: a tightening of the chest, constriction of blood vessels, quickening of heart rate, breath turning rapid and shallow. It is momentarily paralysing, yet utterly exhilarating—a moment of total aliveness, a reawakening of every sense within me.

When I surface, a thought rises within me: it is cycles, all of it. The upwellings, the equinoxes, the perigees, the phases of the moon, El Niño and La Niña, the tides, the astrological shifts, the sun’s rising, autumn’s closing, birth and death, love and grief. I see how deeply we are entwined in these cycles, how our lives are shaped by them, just as we are shaped by the cycles of generations that came before. Unconsciously, we are carried along by narratives of genetics, patterns, traumas, and systems—until someone plants their feet on new ground and says: this is where it runs the fuck out.

Because here’s the thing: unlike the natural world—whose forces we live at the mercy of—we carry the privilege of power. We can influence change not only in our own lives, but in the lives of the generations to come. Simply by existing, we hold the authority to shape outcomes; our birthright grants us the choice of what ripple effect we will set in motion—for our children, and for theirs.

I think of the word catalyst—its original meaning: to dissolve, to loosen, to divide, to cut apart. This is the role for those of us who choose to become the catalyst for change: to dissolve oppressive beliefs, perceptions, and survival strategies carried down through the matrilineal line. To loosen the grip of ancestral trauma upon us. To divide the line between what we once accepted for ourselves and our children, and what we will accept no more. To cut apart the seams of the structures that have held us here for too long.

The work is hard. It asks us to carry the responsibility of change in arms already weary from years of survival. It asks us to tend to the Mother Wound within ourselves while trying not to pass it down to our children. To recognise and release toxic patterns. To learn boundaries we were never shown. To forgive ourselves for the ways we adapted to survive. To resist, to overcome, to struggle, to hope.

It is exhausting work. Lonely work. It wears at the spirit and unsettles the heart. It stirs old grief and awakens old fears. And always, always, we are left asking the question: are we enough? Enough to do this. Enough to be the ones who end that which harmed us and begin something new for our children.

Yet as Richard Rohr reminds us, 'If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it—usually to those closest to us: our family, our neighbours, our co-workers, and, invariably, the most vulnerable, our children.' This is why the work matters. There is no work more urgent than healing the Mother Wound—recognising these cycles and choosing to break them.

And yet, it isn’t only about us, or even our children.

It is about moving from individual healing to collective healing—realising that our personal transformations are bound to the healing of others through our shared experience. Every woman who heals herself also heals those who came before and those who will come after. This collective healing is a kind of alchemy: the power of women to turn pain into wisdom, brokenness into wholeness, and struggle into collective liberation. To heal the individual Mother Wound is to participate in the healing of the collective—something that is as much a profound privilege as it is a responsibility.

'Survivors are often underestimated. We walk far and long carrying the brunt of generational pain until we stop and see, then know: we have walked strong. We have walked tall. We have expanded the path in order for those behind us to know they will never break these cycles alone. We do this for all survivors—namely the ones who live within us, who have longed for their stories to be told.' ~ Nate Postlethwait

It is one thing to talk about cycle-breaking, but in a practical sense, what does it look like?

It begins with acknowledgement—seeing our own trauma and the ways it has shaped our lives, and recognising how that may have influenced our parenting. It asks for honesty with ourselves and our children: apologising for what we didn’t know then, for the moments they were hurt, and for the patterns we now choose to change.

It is the slow unlearning of beliefs and behaviours that no longer serve us, the conscious practice of noticing our triggers and finding new ways to respond. It is getting the help and support we need. It is learning to set boundaries, to honour our own worth, to care for ourselves in body, mind, and spirit. It is time spent in stillness, in nature, in listening to and honouring what our nervous system needs to heal.

Cycle-breaking is not a single act—it is a sustained, intentional practice. It is noticing old patterns as they rise, naming them, and gently guiding ourselves toward a different response. It is learning to pause where once we would have reacted, to breathe where once we would have snapped, to speak where once we might have remained silent.

Every small choice compounds over time: the way we respond to our children, the words we speak to ourselves, the habits we carry forward or release. It is stepping into the weight of responsibility and the tenderness of possibility at the same time as we inherit both the pain of the past and the promise of the future. It is learning to hold our own wounds with compassion while consciously refusing to pass them along.

These moments, quiet and unseen, are the true work of change.

In choosing to be the catalyst, we also become witnesses to our own resilience. We learn to recognise the small victories, the subtle shifts in ourselves and in others, and to trust that consistent, deliberate effort transforms the inherited narrative of suffering into one of possibility and liberation.

The work is not linear: there are setbacks, frustrations, and moments of doubt. But each time we choose differently—each time we refuse the old patterns—we plant seeds of change that extend far beyond what we can immediately see. Over time, these seeds grow into a legacy of consciousness, compassion, and care that continues to evolve long after the work of our own hands is done. As Edmund de Waal writes, 'there is no easy story in legacy,'1 yet it is precisely this challenging, unyielding work that shapes the quiet revolution of becoming the first in a line to choose differently.

In walking this path—in learning the work of breaking cycles, tending the Mother Wound, and becoming a catalyst for change—I now understand that this work is as demanding as it is profound. It asks for courage, persistence, and determination, yet it offers the extraordinary gift of witnessing transformation, both in myself and in the generations to come. It asks me to continue forward, even when the path is hard. It asks me to choose differently than those who came before, even when the road ahead is unfamiliar and uncertain.

And in the quiet acceptance of this path—messy, unknown, and fully mine—I feel again the pulse of the water, the rise and fall of tides, the cycles that have carried me from fear to courage, from patterns of inherited pain to conscious choice. It is in these rhythms, mirrored in the ocean’s depths, that I recognise my own voice emerging, steady and true, guiding me forward, deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do—determined to save the only life you could save.2

Next week: Chapter Twenty-Five ~ Epilogue

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