Bring your whole self to the experience

In one of my favourite books (and less conventional pre-baby maternity leave reads) "The Five Invitations", author Frank Ostaseski invites us to bring our whole selves to the experience of life so we can approach death without fear and regret.

If we strive to the patriarchal, capitalist mantles of womanhood and motherhood as pure selflessness, sacrificing of our own needs to meet the needs of others, we repress our experience of life and risk approaching those breaths unfulfilled.

How would it feel, Mama, if you...

Called back the parts of you that have withered without sunlight?
The sense of adventure.
The unbridled joy.
The body self-compassion.

It is not selfish to love life and the body you do this life in.

Ushered in the parts the slink around in the shadows?
The anger.
The resentment.
The guilt.

These feelings are here to show us where change is needed to live in alignment with our values.

Brought forth the parts that might be "too much" for someone else?
The ambition.
The opinions.
The pride.

How can we ask our children to follow their dreams if we repress our own?

Illuminate the flowy waves of the feminine that get stamped out by responsibility and structure and doing?
Your playfulness.
Your peace.
Your desire for deep self-love.

Sensible, responsible mothering leaves more time for worry and less time for calm and play. Can you permit to unwind a little more?

I am working to bring all of myself to every day, with awareness that (whether it is today or in 60 years) my final breaths will come. I invite you to do the same.

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Maybe you'd like to join in my quest to live without regret, to open to exploring the edges of your motherhood experience. I invite you to join my next mama retreat, or sink into mama mentoring with me here x