#7: Matresence, Shifting Identities and Worthiness
In this solo episode, I talk about Matresence, Shifting Identities and Worthiness, which includes:
Top reasons why women struggle with their identities & being productive when they become mothers
My top tips on how to navigate the challenge of feeling "not enough" and changing identities in the season of motherhood
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+ or you can read the transcript by clicking here
You are listening to Making Mama Magic with honest and authentic conversations about all things related to modern motherhood, wholehearted living and peaceful parenting. Join me and my guests in our chats about redefining motherhood and parenting in a way that focuses on purpose, peace and presence while pursuing dreams and live career and business in our unique, magical way. I am your host - Ava, and I empower moms to parent with connection and curiosity and to own their confidence in motherhood.
Hi welcome to making my mom at podcast. In today's solo episode, I'll be talking about the topic on matrices, shifting identities and worthiness. I'll share the top reasons why women struggle when they become mothers and how we can navigate the challenge of feeling not good enough and changing identities in the season of motherhood. So we are very familiar with the term adolensence, which is an emotional, physical and physiological changes that a child go through where they become teenagers. So there's very clear signs like pimples, physical body change and there's a voice breaking for men and menstruation for women and there's a lot of documented changes and things to look out for and things will be mindful about with regards to a dollar sets. There's research being done, very clear understanding of what goes on in the bodies in this youth as they will be after balances. But the term matresence is not as commonly known. So what I did a few weeks back is I ask my community on instagram via insta stories and I asked why either they know the term trances and also a dollar since. And no one has heard about my transplants. They've heard about adolensence, but not matresence. So I thought it's quite interesting because I find this term so empowering and encompasses all the things that have gone through for myself as a mother basically matresence is a term coined by anthropologists donna ruffle and it's the psychology, physiology and emotional changes that a woman goes through when we become mothers and beyond the hormonal changes, body and sleep changes is also the shifting identities. Lifestyle changes to include child in our own lives as well as the mental load and stress in making decisions for the family and for the child. Most mothers want to be good mothers. We want to raise our child to the best of our abilities and resources. We want our child to succeed. Whether is it in academics in learning in growth development and abilities and when we as mothers feel to do what we think we are expected to do. So there's a sense of unworthiness and shame and you know, it makes us feel that we are unworthy because we can't do it. Whether is it our child not sleeping through the night or they are not drinking the recommended levels of milk. Oh, they're not looking by one years old or they're not interested in the food or eating healthily enough.
I've mentioned in my previous episodes about my challenges with my first board in his 1st 2 Years of Life. I really felt that I was a failure because he was so wakeful, waking up up to 10 times each night, over 12 hours of sleep. I did everything I could from environmental changes, to scheduling, to routine, to diet, to visiting doctors, everything that I've done did not work. So here I am trying to be the best mother I can be with sleep, desperation and all. And here's my child who was not able to speak well and independently based on my own expectations and based on what I was told from well meaning family, from social media, from my own perception of what they should be for infants and toddlers. And I type my self words to the ability of my child to be able to sleep well. So in a way that has allowed me to embody this shame within me because I felt that it was my fault, but it was not my fault. It's by Charles temperament and basically sleep is the valid for infants and Children. So I have relieve myself from the pressure of simple sleep for my second bond and I felt the sense of freedom of not tracking any sleep, not tracking any milk drinking sessions duration and it just allowed me the mind space to be present to enjoy my baby. I think a lot of mothers feel that they're feeling because they attach their self worth to what their child can or cannot do. And one of the reasons is because we are so used to feeling good feeling, that we are enough when we achieve our own goals from young, whether is it in school, from our expectations of our parents, we want to make ourselves and others feel proud. So we work hard to achieve these goals. It's like this notion that when I achieve something, I will be happy or when I get something I can do something. So there is some sort of condition to what we do to get something that we desire, whether it is reward recognition or perceived happiness or success. And when we become mothers, we adapt to the same perspective that when we do something our Children will be happy, be successful, be proud of themselves.
But the reality is motherhood is messy. There's no way that we can control our Children's behavior and we need to plan and change whenever the situation allows. But of course, we don't just allow whatever our Children wants in their house and outside there are certain boundaries and certain foundations that we need to make sure safety and health wise and yeah, it's just really being the bigger, stronger wiser and kind which is under security. Physical security until then, which I love and I'm a trained facilitator in it. It's really difficult when we see our child did not achieve a certain levels or certain milestones because we immerse li feel that it is our fault when it doesn't happen. I've realized that we might have learned that motherhood is beautiful and profile from our own observation and our own understanding from what we read probably here. And I think it's really ok to find motherhood difficult and challenging because it simply means that we are human in my training in motherhood sociology with dr Sophie Brooke. We talk about the MIF of a perfect mother and how our own perception and live experience shaped the way we see how we need to parent. Like we need to do like one million one activities with our child saying other mothers do it on social media. We see our mothers being able to do all the chores and not expecting their partners to do any chores. Nor we see our mother's asking for help from there are partners. We see our friends who are mothers sending their Children to classes and think that is unknown because we want the best for our child, right? We hear people discussing about buying this gadget or doing that program so that our Children we'll learn in terms of language development or they will be able to boost their right brain development or you know, this program will help you to prepare nutritious and perfectly curated food that allows our Children to eat healthily and be well. We think being a mother means that we need to do it all and do it perfectly with a smile and never get frustrated or angry. We have this culture that we celebrate achievements. But India what does our Children need most, they want to be loved. They want to be seen and understood. They just want us to be with them and delight in them. Good times and bad times.
According to research on attachment theory. Parents just need to get right and a tool. 30% of the time to be good enough parents. 30 that's three out of 10. We do not need to be 10 out of 10. That is just humanly impossible. We have days that we have limited time and energy. We will mess up as parents and that does not mean we are bad parents. That means that we are learning parents.
We are good enough and that is what I want to share more. How do we navigate the feelings of not good enough and embrace the magic of good enough. These are a few things that I have found really helpful in my own journey and journey with other mothers as well.
Number one, knowing that mothering is valuable work. We are working to nurture our Children. It's not so called paid by money work. It's hard work as in H E A R. T. Hard work on Sundays. It may not feel like you're getting the R. I. Or return on investment in putting your heart and soul into murdering. But the relationship with our Children is nothing like other relationships that we will have in our life and productivity might look also different in different seasons of motherhood in the early days of motherhood, it may feel like you're not achieving anything, but you're doing the best that you can in early motherhood bonding with your newborn and snuggling with them. It's just so sweet. I'm just thinking about those wonderful newborn days with my babies, especially my recent Time, we find 2nd board, those cuddling, snuggling breastfeeding woman's are the best and they sleep, they treat at the they just up to present and so wonderful to just be in that moment. So yeah, moderate is valuable work and we are really putting the foundations of raising our Children to be people to be human too, be themselves in whatever the will be, choose to be.
Number two is knowing that you can redefine your own motherhood experience. So I personally strongly believe that sacrifice and work life balance and juggling need not to be part of our own experience, We deserve nourishment connection and alignment in life. We do not need to have it all and all this nourishment and connection alignment in life looks differently to different people. Some people love being a stay home mom because raising Children is what they find joy in life, Some love being a full time model part time, working mother or business owner because having fulfilling work and career lights them up so you do you in any way that you do find that joy and fulfillment bigger mother does not mean that you give up all our needs and dreams we can have our own needs and dreams fulfilled. We just need to make sure that we make time and manage our energy and lean on to support. Whether is it paid support in terms of money? Our child care center for nannies for helpers, or is it support from family members and they may not do it perfectly, but I think we all have our ways to communicate to these support systems and if it doesn't work out, then really to find someone and really supports, allows you to trust them and know that they are in good hands, whether is it, it's safety, it health. Um yeah, so that's that's really about allowing that to happen.
Number three. Getting clear on our own value system. So what that means is knowing very clearly what is important to you and the family in this season of life. What is our needs, our dreams of goals and what do we need to have to get support from different people, whether is it from our own company, whether is it in our own work and business along the space to have flexible work hours, uh allowing you to choose work and business that fits around your own family requirements and needs all just focusing on family in this season of life. I think it's really important to know what kind of relationship that you want to have with a child and that helps and shapes the choices that we make and the values and priorities that we make. Some people feel that I don't want to feel that I Work from 9-7 and I have five minutes to see my child before he sleeps. Some people feel that weekends are wonderful to reconnect and be present with my child. I will work hard on weekdays and be present with my Children on the ends and that's perfectly great.
Number four is knowing that it is okay to have conflicting emotions being a mother. It is okay to miss your freedom and can't imagine not having your Children in your life. It is okay to love your child and not enjoy every single moment being a mother. It is okay to feel tired from the net like leaps and rent to your friends about how challenging it is not having full or a decent number of sleep because their child is not feeling well, embracing this duality of emotions make us human. It allows us to let go of the guilt and the shame that we need to love being a mother all the time.
Number five is taking care of our health. It's hard to be our best selves when we are stressed physically and emotionally, not healthy. I define our triggers and knowing ways that we can relax and calm our nervous systems to reconnect within ourselves is important. Finding ways to nourish ourselves is also very important because I believe that having mommy brain is not a badge of honor. It is an indicator that there's something off. And for me, I've gone through posted the depletion after my first born and I have seen difference for this time around after my second both because I have been taking proactive steps to optimize the quality of my sleep and being more intentional eaters of looking at nutritional levels Number six, which is the last one is knowing that we are the facilitators of our children's life.
So one thing I love to talk about in empowered parenting is that we cannot control everything about our Children. We can honor our uniqueness, understand them, nurture them. And the most beautiful thing about parenting is we allow them to flourish in their own time and in their own ways. And it's hard because we want to make sure our Children turn out right and successful and be happy. But our attachment and relationship with our childhood so much everything is really long games. Working on the relationship helps really a long way because when they grow up, they will see the family at home and us as a safe haven and we as someone that they respect and love no matter what happens in their life, good things or bad and they trust us and they know that we are the anchor of the lights and they'll share all these good and bad things that they have in their lives. One of my favorite points about raising Children is called Children. I will put the play um in the description in the show notes, but I want to see that this is just beautiful. So I will read out this for you and here he goes. Your Children are not your Children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you, but not from you. And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You will give them your love but not your thoughts for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies, their souls for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit not even in your dreams. You will strive to be like there but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backwards nor Terry's with yesterday you are the bows from which your Children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer system mark upon the path of infinite and he bends you with his might that his arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand before blackness. For even as he loves the arrow that flies. So he loves also the bow that is stable. I can talk about matrices, identity and worthiness for hours. And I do share some of my thoughts on instagram as well as my online newsletter where I talk about these topics that can support you in ditching the guilt, defining your own version of monitoring and parenting from the heart. I just want to say that all mothers are good mothers. The fact that you are thinking if you are a good mother, means that you deeply care for your child, you are amazing. Keep on doing the work they are doing to raise your wonderful Children in your own unique way.
If you'd like to further the conversation with me to connect me at Instagram @thecuriousmomma or subscribe to my newsletter where I will share a bit more about resources relating to this topic, And if you'd like to show your love for this podcast, please leave a rating on Apple Podcasts. This will really mean a lot to me. Til then, take care and remember that you are enough and keep on making magic in your unique way.
Note: at this time transcripts are automated and unedited, which means errors may occur. But we hope you find them helpful!
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