Over Mothering

This is a concept that came into my consciousness this summer.  I had a very stressful period this summer, in my professional life, that all started because I spoke up and said, you know, "this situation is not working for me anymore."


At the same time that was going on, the urge to night wean my almost 2 year old daughter, Penelope, and the desire to start creating some boundaries was beginning to peak.  It was the same feeling of "this is not working for me anymore" but like with the other situation, it was taking me a long time for me to articulate my thoughts and have the courage to speak up and follow through.


I have a hard time, sometimes, when I am listening to messages from my intuition/higher self, or whatever you want to call it, deciding whether they are coming from a victim/fear place or healthy/whole place. 


So sometimes it takes me a long time to act till I am clear.  And when I am really unclear about what is going on, why I am feeling the way I am or why things are happening a certain way in my life, I make an appointment with an energy healer.  A lot of energy healers are also intuitives or psychics and can give a little guidance on the situation.


I think it is really interesting, when you are going through some sort of Journey or Ordeal , you can see it manifested or playing out in multi-dimensional ways or layers in your life.


Anyway, after I finally got up the courage to night wean Penelope, with the help of an energy healer to make it all clear, I realized I had been the realm of over mothering and my hesitation about night weaning her was my resistance to change and let go. 


I was also resentful of having to nurse her at night and get up so many times for the last two years.  I was exhausted and not taking care of myself.  I knew things were out of balance but I wasn't sure how to get them back on track without loosing my foundation of attachment parenting values.

Before this summer, I didn't think it was possible to over mother.  But after re-reading Louise Hay's book, You Can Heal Your Life, and paying attention to where she believes that breast cancer is a physical manifestation of resentment and anger at yourself for over mothering your children, I realize that over mothering is very possible, especially if you are devoted, attached parent. 


I have been and still am, a huge supporter of attachment parenting, but now that Penelope is almost two, I am in the process of bringing my mothering energy back into balance and creating a more healthy and age appropriate boundaries with her.  


She has been sleeping by herself for a couple of weeks now.  It has been ah. mazing.  She was totally ready and did not cry or wake up once.  I will do a post next week about the logistics, but it was a smooth process.


I am very proud of myself for allowing her some independence and letting her go a bit.   I think that part of being a good mother is knowing when to step back, give them space and let them grow up.


So I guess the other moral of the story is, that it is ok to stand up for yourself, and say "this is not working for me" and do whatever you need to do to be happy, take care of yourself and make yourself more of a priority. There is a way to do that and still honor your children and be an attached and authentic parent.


Have you ever noticed yourself in the over mothering realm?  What did you do to put things back into a healthy balance?




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Perfectionism and Yoga

I just finished reading the book, Poser: My Life in 23 Yoga Poses.  My friend Lia, over at The Little Cafe at the End of the World was doing a virtual book club on it.  I can't rave about it enough!  It is full of magical personal insights, so it reads like a self-help book, but it's as entertaining as the best non-fiction.  That is probably the definition of a memoir, now that I think about it, ha!

I was talking to my friend Lindsey, the other day about self-help books and she said she is not the kind of person that likes to sit down with that kind of book,  that it is laborious for her to get through them.  For me, reading self-help and health books is like popping candy in my mouth.  I love it, it's relaxing for me, and I barrel through them.  In fact, I was talking to another friend of mine recently, Molly, telling her about some new fact I had just read, and she turned to me and said, "where do you find this information?!  You just know so much!"  I thought about it for a moment, and realized, I just really love to read.  And I am a fast reader, always have been.

But if you are not like me, Poser, is an easy, fun read. It's one of those books, where because you bought it to be a relaxing, read-in-the-tub kind of book, you sort of feel like a train hit you, because it starts unraveling some deep seated beliefs about yourself.  It is also the best introductory explanation of yoga poses and history I have ever read.

The book is a classic female hero's journey.  If you don't know what a hero's journey is, I highly recommend devouring Pam England's blog.  She will blow your mind.  Read it all, every single post.  Her blog is like my weekly multi-vitamin for my scattered and mended heart, my Sunday Service.

Claire Dederer, is a crunchy, AP, Seattle, new mom trying to do everything absolutely perfect, in order to consider her self good.

This book made me self reflect on so many things and one of them is this concept of what exactly it means to be a good mother.  I have visited this concept before, when I was doing my advanced Birthing From Within training but that was over 5 years ago and I wasn't a mother yet.

I grew up with what I consider to be a bad mother, she is a good person, just not a good mother.  And I know that much of the choices I have made in my parenting style, have been to live up to the internal guidelines I have set up for myself of what makes a good mother, based on everything she was not.

For example, for me and my awesomely loud inner judge, a good mother nurses her baby on demand and self weans.  Can you imagine my inner turmoil when I was not given the opportunity to do that?  I had a personal belief system that if I did not nurse, I was a Fuck. Up.   And thus, I had to re-shift my thinking of what constitutes being a good mother for me.  I am reiterating the for me part, because I am talking about how I judge myself, not other mothers.

I learned long ago it's not a good idea to judge other mothers for their choices, or judge anyone for that matter.  I always say that the specific way in which we parent our children does not matter, only that we bring unconditional love to each moment with them. 

So since I couldn't nurse, the next best thing for a "good mother" to do,  is do everything she possibly can to get her baby to nurse. A good mother does not give up and throw in the towel, a good mother pumps her brains out and does not supplement with formula.  The list went on and on and on.  And I did not deviate.  I stayed on the course, the inner judge whipping me back in line whenever needed, and dammit, by 5 months I got Penelope to nurse.

Then I realized that my list of what makes a good mother is much longer than my birthing and feeding choices.  A good mother makes clothes from scratch!  She makes food from things she grew herself in her garden and then makes a meal from scratch! Hell, even makes laundry detergent from scratch!  She also works out 5 days a week AND does yoga.  She does yoga with her child too.  She cloth diapers and makes chicken stock from bones from a $30 chicken that she drove 4 hours round trip to go buy straight from a farmer because organic chicken from the natural food store is not good enough. 

After reading this book, I began to take stock of how much I do, not only because it's healthy or the right thing to do, but because it makes me feel like I am GOOD.  The energy it takes to try and be good is EXHAUSTING.

Now, I am not saying that I am going to change anything about what I am doing (because then what the hell would I blog about?) but from here on out, I am giving myself a little break if I don't meet my perfect internal standards.

As Claire wrote in her book:
FUCK IT.  Get over yourself.  You are going to fuck up.  And it will be OK.

What a breath of fresh air.  It was like she just gave me a hall pass for motherhood.  And so I give it you.  Give yourself a pat on the back, you are doing great! Even if you are not growing your own damn food and making your own damn laundry detergent and nursing your baby 24/7.  You are awesome and good just as you are.

How To Draw A Labyrinth

Yesterday, I talked about Labyrinth's and how awesome they are, and today I will show you how to draw one.

You can draw one on anything; paper, sidewalk, paint one on a bed sheet (so you could walk it), you can even sew one, or make one in your back yard with river rocks.

First, you start with a cross.  If you are drawing one on a piece paper, you will want the cross to be on the bottom half of the page, not right in the middle.

Then add dots into each outer corner  to make the shape of a square.

If you want to do a Labyrinth with more paths, your starting point would look like this instead.

Then you start at the top of the cross, draw an arch and land at the first dot.

You always start at the left side and finish at the right for this type of labyrinth. Or you could change it up and do the opposite going right to left.


If it still does not make sense, take a look at these directions for the added visual of arrows showing you where the line begins and ends.

Then just keep going, until all the dots and lines are connected.

And Ta Da! You are done!

 The arrow marks the threshold and where you would enter.  Trace your finger to the center and back out again.  There is only one way in and one way out.

Have fun tracing!  Penelope is still a little too young to trace her finger, but she had fun drawing on the step next to me.  When she is older, this will be a fantastic activity to do, if we need to take a break from something and calm down.

Let me know if you have any questions.