Today I treated two mamas who have young children. Ages 6 months and 3 years or so. One had to bring her kids to her hour long appointment with me because she has them full time while her husband works. As she started through her history she explained how she has not lost her baby weight, feels anxious and depressed, feels overwhelmed and feels like she is a bad mom for all of it. I am listening and watching her beautiful boys play contentedly in my room and noting their bright eyes and healthy skin. She further explains that they are trying to sell their house, trying to buy a new house, may be homeless in the interim between the two and still, she can't understand why she can't just get out to exercise. And then she explains how her son is waking her every two hours to nurse and she can't sleep train as they are moving so soon and also that when her back hurts she can't even get around to stretch. LIKE IT IS HER FAULT!!!
I so remember being here. I had three sons in five years. By the third many a day went by when I looked on and thought how this was not so fun anymore, that I should be feeling joy but all I felt was overwhelm, overstimulation and dread. And then my youngest son turned four and things got a lot more fun and easy. Then he turned five and I felt myself again. Finally. I could exercise, eat better, lose the baby weight (well, almost) and mostly I could feel the stoke return.
After taking the history of this awesome mama I just gave her a big hug. I said,"I think you are doing amazing. You have a lot of really hard things going on in your life. Plus COVID-19! You aren't even complaining. But please do not be hard on yourself. These are the hardest years, I promise it gets better! In 5 years you will see you birthed your best friends. And when you start to sleep and wean, etc you will get your energy back and be able to want to exercise, want to eat healthier, you will start to feel yourself again."
But what I realized is that I don't feel "myself" even still after having kids. Not my historical self. I am different after becoming a mom. A few years ago I realized a lot of what I was going through was really an identity crisis. I was not who I was before I had kids and I did not have a firm new identity because of the empathic expansion driven by motherhood. My heart grew exponentially becoming a mom and it took me time to fill the new territory of my heart with more than anxiety, dread, overwhelm and lots of love of course also. (People say agony and ecstasy share the same vibration. After becoming a mom, I get that!).
When my youngest son was five I decided I needed to feel settled in my new identity. I fortunately kept journals daily from when I was 12 years old till 25 years old. So I started reading the journals to remember who I was. I remembered these aspects of myself that I wanted to bring into my new identity and felt like I literally pulled the threads forward and established them into myself now. Then I took what I have learned in motherhood that I wanted to keep/strengthen into my identity and pulled those threads and I wound myself into a new nest of Self that is old and new and physically different than before but beautiful and WHOLE.
My favorite definition of healing is "establishment in Self." I want all you mamas out there to remember that you are in a huge identity shift and heart shift and being shift. You live in a society that does not support mothers and families and children. You have to work hard to stay balanced within that and none of this is your fault. You are doing the best you can and you are AMAZING! And none of us can be perfect all the time in our day to day moment to moment. But you are PERFECT underneath it all and your children chose you. And the grace is that your kids only know you, you are their normal. So even if you lose it once in awhile and are not your best most patient self, they will not know any different. And just stay open and transparent with them as they get older that you are trying your best and that you love them. But you also need to love yourself. Because you are worth it. And you are Amazing. And we are all on our own healing path as we establish ourselves into our most whole beautiful vital selves. Be gentle with yourself. Treat yourself as well (if not better!) then you care for your children, because mothers are the keystone of the family, and your happiness and wellness matters.
And remember, this too shall pass. I got to mountain bike for 12 miles yesterday with my three sons. Who would have guessed that in not too many years it would be so fun?