My Mother’s Hummer

My mother pointed to a Hummer that passed by as we were having lunch at an outside cafe one day and said calmly ‘That’s the car I want and if I was twenty years younger, I would buy it.” Although I was surprised to hear that my dignified, petite mother would want an oversize, flashy, bright yellow Hummer, I told her that she should buy one now,  if that would make her happy. But she said no, she was ‘too old’ and she was OK with the car she had, a conservative sedan. I thought about this conversation later and wondered how long she had hidden her desire for a Hummer, or any other dreams, from herself and the world? What other goals did she have buried within her that she never acted on because she was afraid of criticism, of going against the flow, or unsure of how to begin? Our mothers also carried Indigo energy, so why didn’t they use it more powerfully and share it with us instead of trying so hard to block ours? Or did they have a different intention? I have pondered this question for a long time and the answer gave me a new perspective on what has been a challenging situation in my life.

In her place, I would go out and buy the Hummer, even at age 75, but that’s me. And it’s also the product of years of showing my mother that I could do whatever I wanted to do, to be successful and have what I wanted, no matter how much she tried to stop me.  Or did she? That’s how I have always interpreted her actions but is that what she was really trying to do? Since I have lived close by I have learned a lot about her life and found new reasons for her inability to support and guide me towards the fulfillment of my dreams, the first being that she never had anyone to support her. And the second was in the disappointment and pain that she has had in her life because while she had dreams, she never learned how to fight for them.


I know very few women of my generation who had supportive, positive, life affirming relationships with their mothers. Instead, we have had to fight for every gain, with our mothers seemingly holding us back every step of the way. But what were they holding us back from? In my case, my mother lived with the disappointment of her unmet dreams and she was raised by a mother who also lived with this disappointment, and so did her mother before that. Was my mother protecting me from experiencing her pain by ensuring that I didn’t expect too much from life? Or was she awakening the Indigo spirit within me that was going to succeed in life, no matter what?

Indigo energy is not new, it has been around for generations but with a few exceptions, we have not been able to express it in powerful ways. Especially for women, the Indigo drive to live, dream big, express themselves and bring new ideas to the world has been blocked by many things. Many generations before us learned this painful lesson and brought it forward. Now we have a chance to either place our own dreams in mothballs or do what we have done with our children, provide encouragement and support, to help them avoid living unfulfilled, frustrating lives, knowing that something else is possible but not having the energy, ability, vision or guidance to see it through.

And we can do this for ourselves too, it’s not too late for any of us to look at the Hummer driving down the street and say ‘I want that’ and then go out and get it. That’s Indigo energy in its best and highest expression. The limitations of our parents may have been intended to protect us from their pain and it either convinced us that our dreams had no value or it compelled us to strive forward, or a little of both.

We are at a powerful crossroads now and it will take every bit of our ingenuity, creativity and strength to see beyond our history (and our mother’s) to find a new vision for the present and use our Indigo energy to create powerful, fulfilling and expansive new ways of being. Whatever it is that you want to express in your life, the Indigo in you has the desire, willingness and power to create it, all you have to do is to be willing to stop letting the multi-generational past hold you back so you can press forward. And in their own way, is this how our mothers were using their Indigo energy? Making it so obvious to us what not living our dreams looked like so we would do anything possible to use our Indigo energy in different ways, to ensure that we lived life our way?



Copyright (c)2012 by Jennifer Hoffman. All rights reserved. You may translate, quote, share or link to this article, in its entirety, as long as you include the author name and a working link back to this website.