Recently I walked along the beautiful Point Ruston and listened to such an honest conversation on the pillars of true wellness and it did something inside of me. Katy Rexing (from Within Podcast) managed to put words to all the things that have been kicking around in my heart these past few months. There were so many different points that she shared where I felt so seen and I couldn’t help but mourn a bit that I didn’t have someone saying these things into my ear 12 years ago when I first became a mom.
Here’s the thing about motherhood: It’s a lot. It’s all consuming and overwhelming and also somehow goes by too fast. When you’re in the thick of it, you truly feel like this season has no actual ending, and you will be stuck in a loop of insomnia and crushing overwhelm for all of your days (just me?)
And somewhere in the subliminal messaging that women get, we learn to feel shame as a default. We feel shame if we wish the days would pass by more quickly, and also feel shame if we aren’t doing enough to soak in every single second of these fleeting moments we get with our kids. We feel shame if we have careers that pull us away from our kids, and shame if we are at home, that we aren’t doing more to help financially provide for our family.
What the actual heck? I think when we can step back even just a little bit, we gain perspective on how this narrative isn’t helping us. What if we begin to rewrite the story? To let go of shame or to very least, see it for what it is, and not let it have the last word. To embrace our emotions without trying to ignore them (oof. This one, friends…if I had learned to do this earlier, it would have spared my nervous system in insignificant ways).
If I’m going to be really honest with you, and clearly I am, I look back at that mom to toddlers and cringe a bit at how I didn’t always deal with my overwhelm in the best of ways. I beat myself up that I wasn’t as present with them, that I wasn’t always the mom they needed. And while I think it’s really easy to look back and see all the ways that we could have done better, I also feel empathy for the mom that was trying so damn hard to hold it together.
So today I’m letting go of the shame around all the ways I’ve failed my kids, myself, and people I love, and am celebrating the fact that I get to keep learning and growing. The practices Katy shares are a really good place to start, in my opinion. I know for myself I’ll start practicing the 60 second wave practice. Who’s with me?
So here’s to letting go of all the things that have been pulling our gaze back towards shame and regret, and to move forward with clarity. To practicing things that will allow us to step into a new chapter with love and a little bit of grit in order to show up for ourselves and our people in profound ways.
*Picture taken by Kami Shaw Photography