Saying “Yes!” to Myself.
In some ways it seems that you must have imagined how difficult and confusing it was. You can’t really imagine that you went through it. It must not have been horrible, you remember distinctly how much joy and love you felt through it all…
No, I’m not referring to labor and birthing, I’m talking about handling your newborn’s first year. A dedicated, loving, conscious mother, I chose to give my first born daughter all of me that first year. I thought for sure that complete maternal sacrifice was positively necessary for my daughter’s wellbeing. And I don’t doubt that she thrived while I learned so much that first year. However, having parented two more children through this stage since then I now know something else: I am still a woman, I still have a whole person in myself to care for in order to be the whole parent my children need.
She came into the world tiny and helpless, a perfect being put on this earth to be cared for my husband and me. Momentous does not even begin to describe those feelings when you lift your baby to your heart and look into her eyes. Slowly or quickly depending on the parents… it dawns on you. I might make a mistake! I might pass along my worst traits to this innocent little person! PANIC!
I know I heard plenty of advice in that first year of motherhood. I’m sure I took some of it, and just as sure I muttered endlessly that I wish it would all stop. But the truth is, I still sought it out- consciously at LLL meetings and playgroups, unconsciously at family gatherings and doctor appointments… searching book after book, website after website. Always searching, never realizing that I was seeking something that didn’t exist: the one Right way to raise my child. The perfect child, happy, mellow, content with herself, strong yet pleasant and friendly and of course with no fingerprints of my lack of skills in parenting left on her.
It is said often that a child’s personality and the lens which they will view the world through is set by age six. It only took one time of hearing that to be sure that I was in constant search for the external set of rules which would teach me how to raise healthy, whole children. Of course at the time I didn’t realize that it was only within my self that I could find my own personal parenting Truth. I have a library full of books, a web browser full of bookmarks and a head full of parenting tools and techniques. And I do not regret one single hour of time devoted to my parenting research; every bit of it is a part of who I am as a person.
The only real drawback to this journey was the complete and total lack of emphasis on growing me and nourishing my body and soul in order to care for my children and love my husband. In the 15th century writings of a profound philosopher the forth stage of love, the purest form of all, is “I love myself so that I may fully love you.” I may have even read this with my eyes, but this was the lesson undiscovered by my soul, the path missing from my journey as a mother. I gave all of myself to my child, my husband, and my friends. This was not because I was a practiced hand at devotion to others… it was simply a form of self-hate. I didn’t show myself the care that I would require anyone to show my own child.
And so I traveled my path that first year, giving all and fostering an unfortunate mix of overwhelming love for my child and loathing of myself.
I know I heard the phrases; advice to put on my own oxygen mask first or to fill up my well so that I would not be dry for those who would seek water from me. Perhaps if I had been a different woman this lesson would not have been so hard earned. But I sit here now reflecting on my size year journey of motherhood, knowing that as a woman, a human, a lover, a daughter, each part of me must be not only fed, but honored.
The practicality of practicing conscious parenting while growing my true self as a person still hits me hard every day. Now I am mother to three unique souls, three times the joy, the rapture, the heartache, the energy to keep up. I am a big fan of the prioritizing game: you can have three priorities that are absolute “yeses” and three more that are close behind but can be maneuvered. More than that is truly more than I need to have at any one time. Every day I try to begin with a deep breath, a calm center even for just a moment and think to myself, “What are my three yeses?” And the life stuff that tumbles into my path has a little bit larger speed bump in its way before it can run me over.
What are your three yeses? Mine have been many a thing over the past few years, and they change daily, weekly or maybe not at all for many years. The thing that cannot change is my devotion to making myself one of those yeses on a regular and sustained basis. Every time that falls by the wayside, even under the guise of serving others, I find myself falling again into a place where nothing is quite right though everything seems fine from the outside. So I start again this moment… a deep breath… a list for myself: what are my three yeses?
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