Decenter your Mother.

The Decenter Series 2

Hi Pumpkin!!

Happy new month. We’re still on our Decenter series where we talk about moving the wrong things out of the middle of your life.

Today, decenter your mother.

This one is complicated. It sits deeper than most things. It is layered with love, history, expectation, memory, things that are not easy to separate or even name.

She gave you life.

And maybe she did an incredible job. Maybe she held you in all the ways that mattered, protected you, poured into you, became your first understanding of what love looks like.

Or maybe she didn’t.

Maybe there are gaps. Maybe there are wounds. Maybe there are things you are still trying to unlearn, still trying to understand, still trying to forgive.

Both of these realities(and everything in between) can exist at the same time.

But regardless of what your relationship with her looks like, there is a truth you have to come back to. You are not her.

And you do not owe your life to her blueprint.

It is so easy to live in reaction to our mothers. To follow their paths because they are familiar, because they feel safe, because they are what we have always known. Or to run in the opposite direction entirely, shaping our lives as a quiet rebellion, anything but that.

But even rebellion can be a form of attachment.

Even doing the exact opposite still means she is at the center.

Decentering your mother is not about disrespect. It is not about erasing her influence or pretending she does not matter. It’s about loosening the grip her life has on yours. It’s about allowing yourself to exist outside of comparison, outside of “be like her” or “never be like her.” It is about making choices that are not rooted in imitation or resistance, but in honesty.

What do you want?

Not what she wanted for you. Not what she would have chosen. Not what would make her proud or keep her comfortable or prove a point.

You.

This can feel uncomfortable. It can feel like guilt. Like betrayal. Like you are stepping out of a story you were always meant to stay inside.

But you are allowed to step out.

You can honor her without becoming her. You can love her without centering her. You can carry the good and still release what does not belong to you.

Your life does not have to revolve around living up to her expectations. It does not have to revolve around distancing yourself from them either.

It can be something quieter than that. Something more yours.

A life that is not constantly referencing her as its starting point or its opposition. A life that is not built on proving anything, neither your loyalty nor your difference.

Just…a life. Your life.

And that’s the most honest way to hold both truth and freedom at once. To acknowledge where you come from, without letting it decide where you are going.

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So, my love, you are allowed to shift the sun. Let the wrong things dim. Let the right things shine. Let yourself take up the middle.

This is your life. Act like it.

With all my love,

Head Pumpkin, Joké💕