05: Christine Erickson - The Mother Within

Christine Erickson believes in reflective
learning through connecting with nature and works with horses as
teaching partners for executive education and individual
development and healing. She is the founder of One Legacy Coaching,
LLC and The Mother Within initiative.
Christine has facilitated learning programs for incredibly diverse
individuals, executive leadership teams and social businesses
internationally. As a coach and entrepreneur she enjoys working
with clients who want to practice and embody intentional and
creative living, self-leadership that inspires, and the heart space
to serve others. It is her intention to connect with and serve
other women through The Mother
Within initiative in order to create an
expressive and representative space for women without children and
to breach cultural and social conversations that ultimately affect
all women. Christine considers that for her, not having a
child was circumstantial. At a time when having a
child may have been possible, she was  in an unhealthy marital
relationship and didn’t feel it would be right to bring a child
into that situation. By the time she had healed and moved on, her
next partner already had children and did not want more. By this
time, she was in her 40′s and had come to terms with the fact that
having a child was not going to happen. It was a gradual
realisation for herself and her life. A time of acceptance came
slowly and with deep awareness. What helped Christine feel
clearer about not having a child, was getting quiet and observing
the pain and the process of going through it. This is
the point in time when she wrote her book The Mother
Within.  She used many coaching tools and mindset work, but
what really helped her heal was being quiet. She realised that she
is a maternal Being. Owning and accepting this allowed her maternal
sense to show itself in her relationships with others. She realises
that this will be within her in various ways in different stages of
her life. In her relationships with family and friends, Christine
didn’t feel particularly supported about this issue, mainly because
she wasn’t completely open about it. Her experience was more about
the silence around the issue of not having a child. Once she became
more comfortable about responding to things it opened up a gateway
for communication with others. There has been awkwardness around
the issue. Some people in our society have been not been
conditioned to accept the possibility of not having children. In
the US, almost 50% of women of a childbearing age do not have
children at all.  This number is much larger when you consider
men who are also childfree. One point that Christine
discusses in her book: if you look at things
systemically, taxation or different regulations in our society;
they feed the need to have children or get married. This is a
paradigm that needs to shift and consider what we are and who we
are right now. We are a rapidly ageing population and increasingly
more are without children.  There needs to be much more open
conversation around this topic. With her work with women and the
horses, Christine has integrated the work of women as coaches and
healing professionals. This allows people to move out of the verbal
mind space and to get back into their bodies in the sensing and
knowing/feeling space with horses. Some of the positives:


Horses are non-judgmental;


A horse’s energy is clean;


They are so present that it draws people into that
presence;


There’s a harmonic exchange between the person and the
horse;


Being around horses allows our minds to release energy
in different ways;


Everyone has a horse story;


We don’t have to be perfect around a horse (it’s about
being authentic);


Horses are very sensitive.

Many people have had a fearful experience with a horse. When
someone has a lot of energy emanating, the response from the horse
is basically trying to meet that energy. How to distill those
fears, which is not necessarily negative, (it’s just information)
can become a damaging experience. The facilitator needs to feel the
honour of helping others come away with a positive experience.
Acknowledging people’s fears is important. It’s better than trying
to pretend that you’re fine, when you’re petrified inside. When you
acknowledge your fears and accept them, the horse will be more
relaxed around you. Christine has been doing this work since 2009.
She has had a coaching practice for many years before she started
incorporating work with horses. Everyone is at a different space
within their journey. This is a great way of leaving a
legacy. The one thing she wanted people who are in her
situation to be conscious of, “We don’t have to leave or create a
profound legacy just because we do not have a genetic legacy.”
Her definition of legacy is more around people tapping into
what is authentic for them, what they love to do, how they interact
with and impact people or their own lives. If you can
share that with others or serve other people, that’s a legacy. It
can be creating a vibration of words every day intentionally that
you send out to building a non-profit that serves girls and
leadership. We’re all here to leave a legacy with or without
children. Name it and do it consciously. There are many myths about
not having a child such as “You can’t experience real love if
you don’t have a child or can’t relate until you’ve experienced
that type of love.” This is part of what drove Christine to
write her book. Reclaim the real space – “Whatever our
greatest experience of love is, IS our greatest experience of
love.” Myths (proposed fact) are there to support
social construct and not necessarily what’s real.
Myths divide the notion of what real parenting is – it
traps women in two different directions When the
language is absolute, “There is no love in the world
like…” “No one except your mother…” – reinforces all those
social constructs. It forces competitiveness when
there’s no right or wrong in this area of life.
The reality of parenthood is something you can’t imagine
until you’re experiencing it. We should never claim
or define someone else’s experience. We may be losing our womanhood
to motherhood. Some women that Christine admires as mothers are so
conscious and work really hard at being themselves, at the same
time as being conscious mothers. They’re living in such a keen
awareness. Christine believes that at times the social
definitions of motherhood or women without children, keeps us in a
space of judgment and separation and also takes our energy and
contribution as women collectively. In creating or
producing meaning for your life – through the grief and
acceptance of not having a child when you wanted one, this is the
space we should re-acknowledge women and to be able to not only
heal but compassionately witness each other and honour and
celebrate each other. The Mother
Within – what we are doing and who we are being is
the expression. As for her greatest work, Christine feels that is
“who are we being and what we are becoming in life”. She is working
to continuously live a very conscientious life. As for role models,
Christine doesn’t look at someone or would name anyone based on
whether they have a child or not, what she considers as someone
she’s inspired by is Jody Day, of Gateway
Women. It’s the people who are becoming visible to create
a conversation for a more feasible, creative and spiritual life for
those who are maternal Beings and acknowledgment for women as a
whole. Be our best selves…no matter what it looks like. Get
Christine’s book here and find out more
about The Mother Within here.