Like all mom entrepreneurs, finding time is my biggest challenge.
Part of my dream is to help mamas figure out how to get raw, whole foods into their bodies quickly so they don’t have to spend all day in the kitchen.
Today’s blog is about what I learned from the experience of writing it. But first, I had to learn something else. It all started 17 years ago in Seattle…
I had refused to go to yoga because I was committed to my identity as someone who had a lot of aches and pains. A friend ordered me to turn my head, because she knew how much neck tension I was living with. I couldn’t move my head more than a couple inches to the side and I started to cry.
Yet, after yoga class I couldn’t believe how free my neck felt. I walked out feeling tall and light and SO happy. Each week, on Monday night, I went back to get that feeling again.
But, by the time I walked up to my 4th floor apartment the feeling began to diminish.
Once I’d eaten some chips or a poptart, had a cigarette, and started thinking about the project I was working on, I could no longer access that tall, light feeling.
And by the next day, I had forgotten I ever did yoga. It took about a year of weekly classes for me to even remember to do a down dog at home. It wasn’t until the day I remembered to pull out my mat, that the feeling actually started to take hold and change my neutral state of being.
The point is, for yoga to be a full experience, we also have to do it between the yoga. The yoga between the yoga, as my friend and excellent yoga teacher Tad Robichaux puts it, is what makes it whole.
Of course, this being Ma Yoga – or the yoga of nurturing feminine power, wisdom, and co-creativity – plays out the same when we’re a mom. Once baby is born, we no longer can look back at our day and determine how productive it was by which tasks we finished or we’ll go nuts. Personally, I cross out a LOT fewer tasks on my list than I did pre-baby.
I eventually applied the yoga I had learned and realized that we need to learn to see ourselves as a wave of feminine, evolutionary, powerful creative energy, not just a more masculine particle: the question is not “what did I get done today?”, but rather, am I moving forward toward my desires for my life? Did I do a little bit of what I value today, in addition to being with my child? Did I cover the spectrum of all that I value this week?
And this happens – you guessed it – in between. In the spaces between feeds and naps and eventually, play dates and carpools.
So if you do yoga, here are some ways to start practicing in between classes:
– Hold yourself at your desk the way you would in the opening meditation.
– Stand at the sink pressing your thighs back and grounding down through your hips.
– If you’re breastfeeding, make sure baby’s ALWAYS lifted up on a cushion so your shoulders aren’t rounded forward and your heart is open.
– Use carrying baby as if it were a core strengthening pose, drawing ribs in and taking your shoulders back.
– Drive while squeezing a big water bottle between your legs and pressing your head back into the car seat to strengthen your neck muscles.
And maybe, most importantly, remember that you are not just a particle, but also part of a big ocean of energy.
So finally, at last, here is what I learned from finishing my eBook: not only do we feel SO much better when we are doing bits of what we value in all our in-between moments, but IT DOES EVENTUALLY GET DONE. Bit by bit, we move forward. If we follow what is arising within us and nurture it, if we keep moving – however slowly – forward in our own evolution, then one day, we wake up, and whatever we’ve been working on is done.
And then on to the next thing…
Full, complete, divine Ma mothering is in the moments of connection with our baby. But it’s also in the in-between moments: are you leaning into the desires arising within you? Are you working on pursuing your life vision bit by bit?
Are you doing a 10 minute walk or watching a YouTube video about something you want to learn about? Are you spending a little time with a friend and at the end of the week saying “Wow, nice work!”
If not, I’ll say it: nice work mama! For all that you do in between being a mama, to become your most authentic, divine Mama Self.
