January 26th, 2022: Awaken The Mother In YOU 

Entry #14

1:38pm

Dear Aspiring Mama, 

Can I be real with you a minute? 

I’m feeling tender today. Like I could cry but the tears aren’t quite ready to flow—kind of like a whitehead that isn’t quite ready to pop, but when it is, pops oh so easily. Gross, I know, yet satisfying. That’s how that cry will feel once it comes, if at all. Sometimes those white heads take care of themselves too 😉

I’ve been feeling a little tired the last few days. And despite napping as I can, there is something brewing inside. Part is resistance coming up around what’s next for me. Part is discomfort of the unknown as I step more fully into this work of sharing what I have inside for Aspiring Mamas. 

The Aspiring Mama Conversation Is Just Beginning

Truthfully, sometimes it feels like it’s gonna be a challenging climb. And I just needed a few days to catch my breath. This is a new path, one that has been there but has been ignored for a long time, and so, I have a lot of clearing to do.

It seems that speaking to the woman who is feeling called to becoming a mom isn’t something people have done—unless she is actively “trying” or a candidate for egg freezing or fertility treatments, it seems that the woman who dreams of becoming a mom is supposed to be ignored or meant to be silenced. 

But that’s not what I feel at all. 

I feel that women should embrace their truest desires—whether that be to start her own business or have babies or both or something entirely different. Your desires are divine. And being supported and held on your journey is beautiful. 

That’s why I’m here. 

So yeah, I feel inspired by what I feel called to do and also challenged by how much there is to do. However, right now, in this moment, what I can do is introduce one of the most powerful concepts of the Create Your Motherhood process. One that shifted how I viewed myself, the world, and my desire for becoming a mom and contributed to some massive shifts in my life years ago, it is this: Awaken The Mother In YOU. 

Every Woman Is A Mother

I believe that every woman is inherently a mother. And although I write with the assumption that most women here desire to become mothers in the traditional sense of conceiving, carrying, birthing, and raising humans, how women create, express, and experience their motherhood varies greatly. 

A woman who cannot or choses not to have children is no less of a mother than one who does.

Being a mother may look like:

• Birthing creative projects,
• Raising thriving plant babies,
• Nurturing a soccer team such that they believe in themselves,
• Fighting for a cause,
• Sharing your voice for those who can’t,
• Volunteering at an orphanage,
• Choosing not to have children,
• Being a badass aunt,
• Opening an animal shelter,
• And on and on and on.

Mother Teresa never had children yet she embodied motherhood in ways that continue to light up the world. 

Oprah chose not to have children but is the mama of our generation in so many ways.

I met a cashier at the grocery store who told me her dream was to adopt one day. She is a mother.

A former client used to prepare meals for Chimpanzees at the Fauna Foundation in Québec, she took care of her Bernese Mountain Dog who could no longer walk for years, and she recently started a beautiful flower farm. She is a mother. 

Walrus calfs are primarily taken care of by their mother and another female Walrus “Aunt” who will literally give up her life to save the calf. She is a mother. 

And you, YOU, are already a mother. 

But do you see this about yourself? 

Or are you tightly focusing on all the ways that you are not (yet) a mother?

Will I ever be a mom?

If you’ve ever found yourself crying in a lukewarm bathtub, hair in a messy bun with strands floating in the water while sipping on a glass of Cabernet with soap suds on it and wondered: Will I ever become a mom?

You are not alone. 

I’ve been there—many times. 

Felt the internal wave of energy saying “YES, I will be a mom one day” quickly followed by feelings of doubt and disappointment as thoughts of past failures poured in, judgement that it had not happened yet, and defeat as I took my last sip of that mediocre Cabernet while I allowed the voices in my mind to convince me that it was out of reach or too late. 

Celebrated friend’s and family’s pregnancy announcements only to tearfully (and timidly) admit to my best friend that it was hard to do so.

I know what it’s like to put on a brave face come Monday, work hard, and pretend that the goals you are focusing on are the ones that keep you up at night. When the truth is you would leave it all behind if it meant that you would have the chance to fulfill what you have felt called to all this time: to become a mom and create a family of your own. 

And I’ve come back to my trustee tears in the tub—as a mom—wondering if having another child was in the cards for us as we struggled to keep ourselves together during the winter months of a pandemic stricken world both in 2021 and recently.

Get out of the Rabbit Hole

If you’ve ever gone down the rabbit hole with questions such as:

“Where did I go wrong?”

“Why hasn’t it happened yet?”

“What if it just isn’t in the cards for me?”

STOP.

Stop going down the rabbit hole of fear and doubt. The time has come to ask better questions and feeling fucking awesome already!

Fasten your seatbelt. We are about to turn “Will I ever be a mom?” upside down. It has become soaked with doubt, fear, and disappointments over the years. It is like a mucky sponge. It’s time to ring it out and toss it out. 

In what ways am I already a mother?

The question I invite you to live into is: “In what ways am I already a mother?” 

If you focus on all the ways that you are not a mother, you will experience all the ways that you are not a mother. 

However, if you open up and start seeing all the ways that you already are a mother, your world will expand. And as you expand, more of what you focus on will come to you. The more that you focus on all the ways that you are already a mother, you will start to notice (and experience) new ways of being one. 

I remember when my mentor, Ellie Ballentine, invited me to think of all the ways I was already expressing my motherly energy in my life. 

I had left our session feeling buzzed. 

My entirely worldview had shifted as I started to acknowledge all the ways I had been and was being a mother in my life:

• My nickname was Mother Teresa in high school as I was always there for my friends when they needed me.
• I was a loving aunt to four magical humans.
• I had recently adopted Bali, my Portuguese Water Dog.
• And I nurtured clients’ dreams as if they were my own.
• The list went on. 

Don’t Just Take It From Me

When I introduced this to a client a few years ago, her worldview changed as well.

After several failed rounds of IVF, she felt defeated. She was bathing in the murky “Will I ever be a mother” question.

Hope reappeared when she started expanding how she looked at what it meant to be a mother. She started to relax. To slowly have fun again. Here is what she sent me a while back. Her words have deeply inspired why I am showing up for you and all aspiring mamas today.

I’ve been thinking more about your Instagram questions and had a few thoughts to pass along – our work together was life changing for me and I truly think it was exactly what I needed to help me achieve our baby dreams!

For Aspiring Moms

When we were going through fertility treatments and it seemed that we might not ever be parents (and through working with you) I came to realize that being a “mom” meant that I had amazing qualities within me and that the feeling of being a “mom” can be met in so many other ways: living next to family / friends with small children and helping raise them, being an aunt, being a dog mom.  

I was so laser focused on getting pregnant and having a baby that when I stepped back, started to enjoy life again (outside of the fertility cloud) I changed the goal from the title “mom” to sharing my “mom” qualities and that gave me so much peace.  Little did I know that peace would be exactly what I needed to get pregnant and physically become a mom!

Insights for my Pre Mom Self (so many!)

Society tells us so many things: how big our baby is each month as it’s growing, take all the classes about swaddling, feeding etc.  What it lacks to tell aspiring or new moms is not forget who they are through this process. You’re no less than because you’re having fertility problems, you have children later in life, or you’re having a difficult postpartum period. All the amazing things that make you … YOU…  are what will / do make you someone’s amazing mom.  

The best work you can do leading up to becoming a mom actually has little to do with knowing what type of diapers to buy, instead do the work that’s needed for you to become the person you’ve dreamed of.  Set intentions, goals, visions… get that dream job.  Get to know yourself, settle into “you” – who you are truly are / who you’re meant to be.  

As a mom when you’re having a tough day, knowing what fills you up – that hot cup of tea, that yoga session, that mediation (it may look much different now and be 10 short minutes a day) will help you stay connected to yourself. Motherhood and all its ups and downs can sometimes bring you very far away from yourself, so knowing who you are / being solid in your skin heading into motherhood is key.

The hope is that you will become pregnant, have a baby and family but the reality is that it doesn’t happen for everyone. If it doesn’t happen for you, knowing you’re the best version of yourself, living a life that aligns with your soul, using those “mom” qualities in other ways can lead to a fulfilling life.    

– C.C. Halifax

The Mother Has Awakened

Take a deep breath. 

Let this sink in.

Pour yourself a bath tonight and soak in all the ways that you already are a mother. Skip the mediocre Cabernet.

I’ll share more with you on awakening the mother in you another day. Although I get the sense that she has awakened. Eyes wide open yet she needs a minute to get her footing.

With so much love,

Melissa