Becoming Mom Series Part 2

The talk that I gave at the National Mom Conference was titled  “becoming mom”. What does “becoming mom” mean to you?

Think about your “becoming mom” story. Maybe you have an “ooops”, or maybe you spent years going through fertility treatments, maybe you adopted, maybe your pregnancy was meticulously planned… Or maybe you have one of each! Whatever your story is of “becoming mom”, it is as special and unique as you are.

As unique as we all are as women and moms, we are also very similar. We have the same worries, joys, excitement, annoyances, fears and the list goes on and on.

After having my first baby, I remember looking at her and thinking she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. My heart was so full of love. In the next moment, I thought how can I ever close my eyes again? How will I ever sleep again? The fear for her safety and well-being overwhelmed me. As moms we can have two or more contradictory feelings going on all at the same time. It’s one of the many challenges of motherhood.

 

Some Challenges of Motherhood

As yourself, What are your biggest mom challenges? Mom-guilt. Overwhelm. Feeling tired. Maybe feeling alone sometimes.  But you already know all about those things, right? What you want to know, is what to do about it.

We’re going to talk about three of the most common and challenging aspects of momyhood and how we can best support ourselves and our families through the challenges. How we can determine what we need to support us the most and then  what can we do to bring more of that into our lives.

One thing, one important thing I want to mention is not to allow all that you learn to overwhelm you further. Listen, learn, get excited, get inspired- and be present to the feelings- leave the idea that there are more “things I must do in order to be a good mom”. We are all here to support one another- we’re not up here- like “I’ve got my life together” you should do what I do. No! Not at all! First of I’ll I, I can’t speak for everyone, but I definitely don’t have my life together.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again- WE ARE ALL IN THIS MESSY LIFE CALLED MOM LIFE TOGETHER.

Sometimes I get caught up in this idea of perfect balance and having everyone in my family being calm, content and happy all the time. But that is NOT how life works and we have to give ourselves some room to breathe, and just like our children, some room to make mistakes, have bad days, have a messy house and feel angry and annoyed. It’s all part of the package. Even when social media would leave you believing otherwise.

In the next post of the series, we’ll dive into 3 big challenges of MOM LIFE and how we can best support ourselves through the challenges. Notice I didn’t say “fix the challenges” or “remove the challenges”. Being a mom is like surfing- 24/7. Sometimes you catch a great wave and you ride it for a really long time feeling strong, happy, and excited- wind in your hair! Other times, you wipe out, then the next wave hits you before you can get up again- choking on salt water, eyes burning and sand stuck in your bathing suit. And then everything in between. Life is kinda like that, right? And this happens to everyone! Everyone.  So we’ll talk through the challenges, the big waves that are hard to navigate. Then we’ll learn about surfing- not literally- but hypothetically- riding the waves of life and mommyhood.

Looking forward to riding the waves with you in the upcoming blog post of this “becoming mom” series.

 

 

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