Learning To Mother Ourselves
Why is it difficult for many of us to mother ourselves? Over-giving to others, deflecting compliments and praise seem to be more of the norm, than deep care for our physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. When our energy is always being pouring outward, or we dismiss receiving help, support and love we lower our energetic vibration.
If I was to guess there are many reasons for our lack of self-mothering. Here are just a few that popped into my head. We observed growing up, our own mother’s putting the needs of others before their own; we didn’t receive the proper mothering we needed as a child; and society puts pressure on us to get too much accomplished, leaving us too exhausted and depleted to find time to attend to our own internal landscape.
In a few weeks we will celebrate “Mother’s Day”. Where in your life do you need to mother yourself? What area of your life needs care and tending to? What is fragile or frightened? Where to you feel depleted? Even if we can identify the area of our life that is crying out, then what do we do to repair it? I wish I had an easy answer, but this work is an ongoing job. I feel like I’m continually excavating another part of me that needs addressing. Yet, I forge forward because going back, or being stuck is no longer acceptable to me. For too many years I found solace in looking outward for worthiness, love, attention, adoration, but in the end that also left me lonely, depleted and many times resentful.
I have tried several practices over the years, and I have no doubt I will try several more, but there is one simple practice that has had a profound impact on my life, and that is a daily gratitude practice. It’s free, it’s simple and done consistently can provide you with significant shifts.
How to start? Grab a journal or several pieces of paper and staple them together and have it next to your bedside with a pen. Either first thing in the morning, or right before you go to sleep write 1 thing that you are grateful for. Do NOT write your upcoming trip to Disney or Tahiti! The goal of a gratitude practice is to find greatness & gratitude in the simple and mundane. To see what you have, versus what you have not. Many of us take for granted our cup of coffee, tea, chai, matcha in the morning. Our vision, hearing, sense of smell, taste and touch are all GIFTS that allow us to delight in this life, but do we take the time to say thank you for these gifts, as without even one of them our world would look and feel very different. The feeling of the warm sun on bare shoulders, sloppy doggy kisses, warm covers, cooling AC, text messages from a dear friend, these are all simple yet important examples to witness and pay homage to.
How does gratitude become a way of mothering ourselves? When we become more conscious of the little daily gifts we have and receive, we then begin to tune in a bit more to ourselves because we are living MORE in the present moment. You can’t have a gratitude practice unless you are paying attention to what floats by you each day. If you implement this practice daily, and you add one item onto your list each day, things will begin to shift. We soften when we look for simplicity, and when we soften, we are mothering ourself and raising our energetic vibration. Softening is YIN and feminine energy.
In addition to softening and slowing down, a gratitude practice also lends itself to becoming more resilient when the shit hits the fan and there will be times in all of our lives when it does. It allows us to see slivers of goodness, amongst the chaos or turmoil. Another gift that a gratitude practice gives is when something AMAZING happens (like the trip to Tahiti) it will feel amplified, like greatness on steroids and who the hell doesn’t want that!
So, please share with me what are you grateful for today, I would love to go on this journey with you? For me today I’m grateful for the wind ruffling the leaves, the sun peeking through the trees, my pup sleeping in my office, my computer, my brain that allows me to think, type and compile thoughts, my friends that text me funny things, and share helpful tips with me. I now go through my days witnessing all the little things, and they make me smile which in turn is a gift to me and it’s me mothering my spiritual and emotional self.
Be well & remember YOU ARE SO WORTHY of mothering yourself!
