Motherhood As a Spiritual Journey
It is only now that I have started to come across other new mummy blogs that actually tell me how it really is after giving birth to your first child. A recent article called 10 True Things About the First Year of Parenthood had me nodding all the way through. It must also have resonated with other readers as nearly 260,000 people `liked it on Facebook.
Perhaps it was just sheer good luck I hadn`t read this while trying to get pregnant, as I may have stopped trying there and then. One of the most valuable insights shared by mummy blogger Karyn Thurston was the reminder that we are likely to be quite terrible as new mothers. She argues how could we possibly be competent and on top of our game when we have never done this before. From my own experience, I totally agree that it is unreasonable to expect that we`ll know what to do in every moment.
I have heard from friends with teenagers that this struggle with finding the `right` course of action never really goes away but continues throughout a parent` s life. So it sounds like it`s best to just get over this strive for perfection and simply let go into the unknown. Karyn Thurston did me a great service with her words: “you will do some things, probably a lot of things, wrong. Be gentle with yourself, because you are wildly loved and incredibly needed. You are climbing Mt. Everest with basically zero conditioning — expect to be kind of terrible at it for a while.”
This need to get things `right` and the thirst for absolute certainty can be a terrible burden for a sleep deprived and anxious new mother to carry. A friend who is struggling to make a decision about testing her foetus for Down Syndrome reminded me how we can tie ourselves up in knots with the need for certainty. I am not sure if I helped or not when I said, “wait till your baby is born, and then you really will face the abyss of unknowns.”
Motherhood is a spiritual journey at many levels. It teaches us compassion and love for ourselves and another little being who is entirely dependent on us. Importantly, it is a lesson in humility and the need to surrender. By holding on too tightly to the way things `should` be, particularly according to the latest baby guru only causes us more stress. When we let go and trust that everything will be ok, it relieves us of the need to try and control every little thing.
Motherhood is messy, unpredictable, exhausting and relentless. It is also one of the most deeply fulfilling and enriching experiences a human being can go through. Yes, it is a bit like being inside a washing machine on the extended cycle, but when we take each minute as it comes, everything else falls away. Our job is to simply love these little beings who think we are superstars.
By Melissa Birchler
Melissa left behind the shores of sunny Sydney in 2011 and now lives with her Swiss man, his four children and their new baby outside Zurich. She is a freelance journalist and writer who is currently muddling her way through motherhood and its challenges in a foreign country.
Illustration by Albina Nogueira. Albina has been a primary school teacher since 1992, and a writer and illustrator since 2006. She currently lives in Switzerland, but her homeland is Portugal. She is also the author ofLetters to Grandparents and Hairdresser. To find out more: like her on Facebook or see her books in Amazon.
