This morning I am pausing amidst the chaos of new motherhood to feel gratitude and wonder – as in “how did I get here?”
When my baby was two I decided to leave the “regular” yoga world for good, and instead focus on supporting, guiding and inspiring moms and moms-to-be with Ma Yoga. It just felt like where my heart wanted to go, and I had been through so much change the going back to my old ways just didn’t feel right.
That choice allowed me to spend exciting, creating time with wonderful yogis and teachers who are open to the possibilities of co-creating our lives in authentic, meaningful ways.
It was the opportunity of new motherhood that brought me to where I am.
It was recognizing that all the beauty and challenge, the fear and the love that are more profound feelings than we’ve ever felt – even the regret and sorrow as well as awe and gratitude – change us.
We’re different. We know ourselves on our deeper level.
And if we allow this difference to guide who we are becoming – our levels are definitely going to change.
When I graduated from my first regular yoga teacher training 15 years ago and my teacher asked me to take over a prenatal yoga class, I never imagined I would get to have this experience of being part of a tribe of teachers who share such similar world views.
I realize how I got here started with a question.
We all know postpartum is a beautiful time – babies open our hearts and remind us of the magic of being alive. And if you’ve been through it, or you know someone who has, you also know it’s a difficult time.
In addition to sleep deprivation, stress, and isolation, we also lose many of the elements that have helped us know who we are: work, friends, even our identity as a productive person falls away for a time.
But it was when I asked this question – what is the opportunity new motherhood brings us – that I started to understand.
I began to ask my students: when the forms of our lives dissolve into pieces, can we choose to focus on our essence, our gifts, our desires, our value? As we put the pieces together, can we find a new and better way to live each day that makes more sense to our most authentic and wisest Self?
And when we take this kind of evolutionary perspective, recognizing that the intelligence of the universe is us and arises in us as an impulse toward goodness, truth and beauty, and we pay attention and lean into it we then begin to discover ways to make our own unique contribution to the world.
I had to learn this for myself and I re-learn it all the time. It’s ok to let this old job go. It’s ok that that relationship has really changed.’
Once we take this kind of perspective, life becomes less a burden and more an exciting mystery unfolding. Who am I now? What do I want at this point? How can I lean into that uncompromisingly?
The HOW is, of course, the next question. Things are crazy, sleep is hard to find, and we are in charge of keeping another human being alive who can’t even lift their own head up. It isn’t the time to start doing daily contemplation, meditation and journaling practices.
Or is it? The practices I have found to be essential to accessing the power, wisdom and love of my feminine side each day do not take long.
They’ve been adjusted for new new motherhood.
They do not have to be done in a beautiful yoga studio, or when we have an hour to ourselves, or even when there is silence.
They can be done on the living room floor in between the toys we haven’t cleaned up yet, while baby is distracted by the ceiling fan.
The practices of new motherhood
Ma Yoga practices connect us to our hearts through breath, alignment, and meditation.
They can be squeezed in between doing dishes. And they’re also not just on the mat practices – the yoga lifestyle anchor practices have to do with eating, drinking, daily rhythms, and giving your body access to prana in every way possible.
Once we’ve gotten a sense of what’s exciting us, drawing us, inspiring us – we can take baby steps. Just like our little ones. Nothing major.
For instance, when my baby was born something else was gestating in me as well: a community of yoga teachers that would create a “Ma Circle” in every neighborhood.
I didn’t know where to start, but I knew I’d need a website.
So while baby napped, and when I found myself with 5 blissful minutes, I started watching youtube videos… and the rest is history.
Once you come up for air, take a yoga class, do my 5-Day Activate Challenge, or just journal.
What parts of you do you want to explore more? What qualities feel like they need expression with you? What path would be most meaningful? Then… exhale nice and long. Inhale fully.
Take one baby step.
- If you want to start a new career, think about a skill you might need to be successful in it and take an online course to hone it.
- If you want to get healthier, plan a visit this week to a farmer’s market and try green smoothies for breakfast.
- If you want to deepen your relationship, plan a fun date for a few weeks out so there’s time to get your energy up and find a babysitter.
- If you just want to feel less alone, look up breastfeeding support group, mom yoga classes or your local Moms Club, and put the next meeting into your calendar.
- Don’t have a calendar? Don’t have any clue what to do next?Go to www.google.com/calendar, click the plus and name a new Calendar. Dreams? Visions? Desires? Whatever feels right. Start by adding in the days you’ll find 10 minutes to sit, close your eyes and begin to envision the life you want.
Even if things feel really hard, we can always ask ourselves: what’s my next step toward experiencing more goodness, beauty and truth?
Remembering the 3 R’s of being in your feminine Self – receptivity, relationality, and reversiblity – can help us receive the guidance we seek, and find clarity.
Letting go of how things used to be can be hard. Letting go of how you thought things would be can be even harder.
But it’s not that hard to imagine how things could be – when we let ourselves.
Take that one step this week mama – don’t worry if you don’t know what you’re doing. You are navigating to a place that doesn’t exist yet as you find yourself waking up on this road of new motherhood.
As a Shaman/ massage therapist who encouraged me to start yoga almost 20 years ago once told me: if it feels like you’re walking in the dark, feeling your way along, and you have no idea where you’re going except for a sense that there’s something exciting in that direction, then you’re on the right path. Just take that one baby step.
My wish for us is that someday we will all be grateful and full of wonder, asking that question, “how did I get there?” and we will remember back to the very week when we took our first baby step toward co-creating the life we want to live.
