Isolation – the invisible prison of shame 6 June 2025 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Mother wound , Shame , No Comments Isolation. This single word has been staring at me from a yellow Post-it note I scribbled during a webinar a couple of weeks ago. I can no longer remember why I wrote […]

Healing the mother wound – from transactional to relational living 20 May 2025 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Mother wound , No Comments One of the most damaging aspects of the mother wound is that it changes our way of interacting with others from relational to transactional. Instead of our interactions being led by […]

Why releasing trauma causes a loss of identity 7 June 2023 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Generational trauma , No Comments Releasing trauma is a process. As a process it undergoes identifiable and repeatable stages. The phrase ‘releasing trauma’ can be understood as referring to the overall process, as well as to the stage […]

Into the unconscious in search of the miraculous 27 April 2023 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Arts , No Comments In the opening to his classic spiritual text In Search of the Miraculous, Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky writes: “I already knew then as an undoubted fact that beyond the thin film of false […]

Libido disappears when shame is absent 28 November 2022 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Sexuality , Shame , No Comments “My libido is strong. I have a high sex drive.” How often are such phrases used to justify inappropriate, disrespectful, and unhealthy sexual behaviour? How often do politicians, actors and other celebrities make the […]

In patriarchy, everything is toxic 2 September 2022 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Cornerstones , Patriarchy , No Comments The word ‘patriarchy’ is mostly understood in simplistic terms. Patriarchies are societies where men rule, and women get bashed down. The problem with this view is that it clouds the extent to which such societies […]

Keira Knightley – no more patriarchal sex scenes 4 February 2021 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Arts , News , Patriarchy , 2 Comments British actress Keira Knightley, star of Misbehaviour, Atonement and Bend It Like Beckham, recently said she won’t participate in any more male-directed “horrible sex scenes where you’re all greased up […]

Humanity runs on a Patriarchal Operating System 18 December 2020 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Cornerstones , Patriarchy , 4 Comments For the past 6,000 years, ever since the dawn of patriarchy, humanity has been running on a specific psychological paradigm—the Patriarchal Operating System. What do I mean by ‘running’? I mean breathing, feeling, thinking, eating, […]

The mother wound = lack of emotional nurturing 4 December 2020 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Cornerstones , Mother wound , No Comments In What is the mother wound? I describe the way that the wound at the core of humanity causes six key separations (or fragmentations). Of these, however, there is only one […]

The mother wound – “The dreadful has already happened” 22 October 2020 Posted by: Michael H Hallett Category: Cornerstones , Mother wound , 2 Comments In a lecture a few years after the atomic bomb ended World War II, German philosopher Martin Heidegger asserted that “the dreadful has already happened.” The lecture, titled ‘The Thing’, was […]