Gwynn Raimondi, MA

On Grief, Mother-Wounds, and Self-Love

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It’s Halloween morning.  As I sit down to write this, the rest of the family is still in bed, sleeping peacefully. My coffee has brewed and I have finished my first cup, along with a couple of peanut-butter Snickers (oh so good!). The wind is blowing like mad and the rain is coming down in ways it doesn’t usually here in Seattle: hard, heavy, filled with sadness and melancholy and grief.

We have been talking about the Mother-Wound in the (Un)Becoming circle, and the grief work that is involved in this healing. The grief of not having the mother we wanted or deserved. The grief of our mothers not having the mother they wanted or deserved. The grief of our grandmothers and our daughters. We have been talking of healing and empathy and finding ways to repair our Self.

It is heavy work. I feel the weight of the grief of the circle as surely as I feel my own. My grief of not having the mother I needed or deserved as a young child. The grief of just when our relationship was becoming what I had always dreamed of, she died. The grief of not always being able to be the mother my daughter (or son) need and deserve. The grief of being human and therefor flawed, imperfect.

In this healing, we learn that our flaws are yes, what make us human, but they do not make us unworthy. They do not make us undeserving of love or nurturing. They do not make us tainted or valueless.

These flaws simply make us human. Just like our mothers, and grandmothers, and sisters and best friends. Just like our husbands and bosses and teachers. Just like our children. We each do things we may not be proud of at times. We each have the capacity for cruelty, even when not intentional. And we each have the capacity for deep love and vulnerability.

I told the circle in my video this week that sometimes I think our fear of love is what makes us do crazy things. It was in reference to the truth that our mothers have to had, or have to currently, love us with the same fire we love our own children, they simply may not be able to show it in healthy ways, in ways we can feel it. I shared a bit of my experience as a mother when my daughter was very young, and the absolute terror I felt at the love I felt for her. My love for her, and hers for me, terrified me to my core. It was too raw, too pure, too unconditional. I was unable to feel or process this love and so in my own ways I distanced myself from her, from us.

Eventually I was able to come back, do the work I needed so that I could be closer to the mother she needed, the mother I needed and wanted to be. This is a slow and ever evolving process. I have my own wounds to heal, as each of us do, and I know she will have hers to heal one day too.

We each have days of not being the people we hope to be, for ourselves or for our children. We each have times of too much yelling, too much distancing. The vulnerability of the love we feel for our children, and they for us, can be overwhelming even in the best of times. And so we screw up and we come back and repair as best we can and we move on to the next moment and the next and sooner or later we will screw up again and come back and repair again. It is the truth of our human experience. It is what makes us human.  It is also what makes us divine, sacred, holy and yes, magical.

In the repair is where our magic lies, where the holy lives. When we are able to come back to another we have knowingly hurt and say “I am sorry. I will try to do better next time” — that is where the sacred comes through. When we are able to admit our own humanity, and show others that it is okay to be human, this is when the Divine flows through us and into the world.

When we are able to not only repair with our children, spouses, and friends, but can also come to our Self and say “I’m sorry, I will do better next time” that is healing. When we can look to our own mothers and grandmothers and on down the line and recognize they were only doing the best they could with what they had — not excusing their behaviors, not saying it didn’t or doesn’t hurt— simply acknowledging their experience, the wounds are able to be cleaned. In this acknowledging the humanity of others around us, in finding our empathy for them and their experience, we start to have empathy for ourselves. We can start to see how while we are flawed, we are worthy of love, of nurturing, of respect.

And here’s where the magic comes in: We start to love, nurture and respect our Self. We start to do the little things each day that allow us to show our Self that we love her. We start to breathe a bit easier. We start to feel the ground beneath us. We start to sense the sacred, holy and Divine within us. This is self-love. This is healing. This is magic.

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Ebb & Flow: the Ritual of Self-Care

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The last two nights my daughter and I have settled down before bed with a cup of ginger tea, some light snacks and watched an episode of Gilmore Girls. We’ve been watching GG for a while now (we’re on season 5) and she loves it (I watched it when it originally ran and loved it then too). It’s become our quiet girl time at the end of hectic toddler-centric chaotic days. Being in our new home, with it’s new set up, is giving us permission to start new routines and rituals; new ways of caring for ourselves and each other; new ways of being together.

As we settle more into our new home, we are settling back into some of our old routines and rituals, too. This weekend the office got more unpacked and out came the magazines and scissors and glue sticks and pushpins, along with the bulletin boards and blank journals. My girl and I each started new intuitive collage boards and she has been filling up her new “inspiration journal” with magazine cuttings and her own sketches.

I have been trying, and floundering a bit, to find my own ritual again with writing. Writing is my main form of self-care. Getting my thoughts out on the screen or page is so fulfilling for me and grounds me in a way that nothing else can. It allows me to empty my head so I can be more present and in my body. Stream of conscious writing allows me the space for insights and understanding, of myself, my children, and others.  I have tried many times, even before the move, to write at the end of the day, to empty my head so I can settle into sleep. And the truth is I am so depleted by the time I can get a few moments of quiet to gather my thoughts, that what I really need to simply zone out a bit: watch some TV, read a book, catch up on some blogs, text with friends. Each of those is also a form of self-care and each one helps to center and ground me in its own way, helping me to replenish and relax. They are my real end-of-day grounding, giving me that small break between the chaos of the day that has been and the chaos of bedtime that is to come. It gives me that needed time to replenish so that bedtime doesn’t end in meltdowns (mine) or screaming (mine) or tears (mine).  (It doesn’t guarantee they won’t meltdown or scream or cry, but it gives me the reserves to manage their emotions calmly and lovingly).

This morning the stars aligned and I am up before the toddler and sitting at the laptop and writing. As I was making my coffee my daughter awoke, came downstairs and got her own breakfast. We said our good-mornings and I came up to the office and started to write and then a few moments later she came in and grabbed her inspiration journal to draw in while she watches a YouTube video (or five). I am feeling this new ritual, of up before my toddler, being born and am thinking it may be time to start going to bed earlier so I can have these quiet mornings I so desperately need to start my days.

I am not a morning person, or really a night person either. I have always needed to come into the world slowly as I wake. At various points in my life I have been able to honor this, and at other times not so much. The last few days have been filled with intensity and meltdowns (mine and theirs) and exhaustion (mine and theirs) as we figure out how to function without naps during the day (over-tired toddler, over-wrought mama, over-stimulated almost-preteen). Yesterday, as I took little breaks to breathe, and then once my husband was home, a slightly longer break to replenish, I remembered again my desperate need to start the mornings on my terms, and not theirs.

I don’t have much control in the chaos of toddler and preteen life. The oddest things (to me) set either of them off into tears and frustration. I, of course, do my best to create an interesting life for the two of them, always playing with the ebb and flow of activity and downtime to meet their ever-changing needs. I can find myself so focused on creating a good life for them that I forget to create the pockets I need for my own well-being. As mamas this happens often, we get so hyper focused on creating the “perfect” (ha!) life for our children that we deplete ourselves and find ourselves unsatisfied and frustrated. This is what it is to be a parent in this modern age.

Yet, we need to remember to care for ourselves. The ebb and flow of focus on them and then on us is healthy and natural. Our children need to see us caring for ourselves so they can learn to do the same. They need to see us pursuing our passions so they will have the courage to do the same. They need to watch us set boundaries and give space for us to replenish ourselves, so as they grow older they know it is okay for them to do the same.

This is how we model self-care: not by taking care of them every moment of the day, but by slowing down and sometimes even stopping and taking care of ourselves, and allowing them to witness this ritual. It is in modeling for them this natural ebb and flow (sometimes I am focused on you and sometimes I need to be focused on me) that they learn it for themselves.

How do you take little breaks in your day to replenish and nourish yourself? How do you model self-care and self-love for your children? How do you create a fulfilling life for yourself?

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Wishes and Prayers Answered and Becoming

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When my daughter was younger she used to wish upon the sun, using the logic that our sun is a star. She would alter the well-known rhyme to “Starlight, star bright, first star I see alright. I wish I may I wish I might have the wish I wish in daylight” and she would make whatever wish her heart called in that moment.

She also prays to the Tooth Fairy. After each tooth lost, all eight now, before we start to read our story for the night, she will quietly lay down on her bed, fold her hands together at her chest, close her eyes and send a prayer to the Tooth Fairy that she not take her tooth, that she understand her unwillingness to let this literal piece of herself go just yet, and could she please go ahead and leave the money anyhow. (If you were wondering, of course the Tooth Fairy always answered by complying).

To date, this sweet girl always asks before she gets a piece of candy or sits down at the computer or to watch TV. She makes sure she is “allowed” and at closing in on eight, I wonder how much longer this will last. How will her way of checking in with us change? When will she stop asking permission and instead choose to ask for forgiveness? How did we ever raise a girl concerned with rules?

Curled up close at the end of the day, or as we are at the sink brushing our teeth or at the breakfast table or randomly in the car she will say “Thank you for being the best mommy in the whole world!”  I’m never sure what I have done to deserve those words, and certainly could give you a long list of things I have done to prove I do NOT deserve those words, and yet she gives them to me, a gift straight from her soul into mine.

I am in awe of this girl child growing into a young woman. I’m not always sure where she came from, and the joke in our family for a long time was we didn’t know who her mother was. Despite all my foibles and outright failures she is a beautiful person, shining brightly every day. I’m honored to be her mama, and I hope as she grows and our relationship has its storms, we both always remember this: She is her own Self—she is not mine even though she came from me, both my body and my heart, and I will always love her and be proud of her, even when I don’t agree with her or her choices.

Because there will likely come a day when she makes a choice that worries me or scares me or worse: reminds  me too much of myself. I pray that I enter those times with grace, allowing her to be her own person, make her own mistakes or even prove me wrong with my worry or fear. I pray I don’t get lost in my own ego and judgement and that I am gentle with her, even more so than when she was an infant, even more so than I am now. I pray I always let her know that no matter what, I am her mama, I love her, and she always has a place in our home.

I pray for a life for her I did not know. I pray for a relationship between us to be one I did not have with my own mother until it was almost too late.

I know in my heart, it will be different, she and I will be different, our relationship has already been different these first seven plus years. And I breathe in the truth that I let go of the stories of how children should be raised and how girls should act and held onto my own truth of what it means to be a mama, what it is to raise a child with love and respect and compassion, what it means to raise a girl into a woman.

And so my prayers may already be answered as I look over at this beautiful girl, engrossed in a game of creation. Her gangly legs bent and her posture that of a teen already. I say another silent prayer: please slow down, please let me savor these between moments a bit longer.  Because the truth is,  it all goes too fast, even when we are paying attention.

her own self

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A Winter’s Day

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Standing in the sunbeam that forced its way through our slider door, I know the warmth of winter, hibernation and family. My boy crawling along the floor, exploring, examining, experimenting with each of his toys as he pulls them from his orange and white toy basket, wrapped in his own world of play and understanding of his world around him. My girl, curled up on the futon, exploring, experimenting, creating in Minecraft, wrapped in her own world of play and understanding of this world she is growing into.

And then there is me. Sitting, watching. In awe of their curiosity and determination. Breathing in this lesson of theirs to dig in, to examine, explore and find deeper understanding. To allow my own curiosity to take over and to seek and find what is me and mine.

I watch my son throw a toy to the wayside and pick up another. His endless exploration, wanting to taste, touch, know each object in his little basket. I laugh as he shakes one toy and as it makes noise it looks like he starts to dance. He hears his own music and I am grateful for my own cracking open so I can hear the music that bubbles up from within me.

Dancing to my own beat and shedding the story of not making a spectacle of myself. Allowing the music, my music, to fill my soul and push out the voices that tell me to calm down, sit down, be quiet, don’t move, don’t feel, don’t experience my own body, my own inner music, my own innate wisdom.

I was never good at listening to those voices for too long, though I would obey for periods of time. Just long enough to allow the volcano to build up and eventually I would crack and explode, gaining disapproving looks from my grandmother. At times my mother would encourage me, when she felt strong in her own dance and at others, when she was filled with her own fears of loss and abandonment and good enoughness, she would put all her energy in silencing me. And the cycle would begin again.

I look over at my girl, sitting quietly on her tablet, and I know the pattern I have adopted from my mother: at times encouraging my girl’s voice to be loud and bold and at others, in my weaker moments, demanding her silence and even giving the same disapproving looks of my grandmother. My hope as I sit here in this winter sunbeam is that the encouragement outweighs the demands, that she keeps her voice and dances to her own music always, regardless of my parenting failures.

As I sit and observe and reflect, I know the stories handed to me by my ancestors, and I know the ones I am passing on to my girl.  And while I am sad at what I am passing on, I also know what I am not passing to her, and I dream of the day, in thirty years or so, when she sits in a winter sunbeam and reflects on what she is passing on to her children and what lessons she is allowing them to teach her.

snapshot of a winters day

Tranquil

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Sitting in the quiet of the morning, before the babes and husband have awoken, I find my breath. Multicolored twinkle lights glowing above my head and reflecting in the slider door, I look outside to our fairy forest, the first bits of light allowing it to be seen through the dense fog.

I feel tired, annoyed in this moment. These are the only quiet moments in my day and they are all to brief. Already I hear my girl starting to stir and I feel my body clench knowing at any moment she will enter my sanctuary and I will need to be mom, warm and loving, inviting.

It is not that I do not want to invite her into my quiet circle. I love the bubble of love and life that she and I create, that we have. Our secrets whispered, our bonds strengthened. It is that I feel I am losing me in this process of being a mother of two. Her brother more demanding than she ever was as an infant and not allowing any space for me (or her) to exist outside of him. Naps I am chained to his side, unable to do anything more than lay there, which brings its own set of frustrations into our world twice a day.

Try as I might to “take advantage” of that quiet time he demands and enforces I feel trapped, claustrophobic. I want to escape. I want quiet and tranquility on my own terms, not his. I want to have control of my being and not feel so imprisoned.  They say, hell I say, to savor these moments as they will pass too quickly, yet in the day to day I cannot wait for this phase to pass, for me to be able to get up to pee without him yowling and screaming awake.

I have no quiet, no rest, except in these first moments of the day. And they are not long enough. I crave to have the quiet stretch further out, so I can ease into life. No chattering, not cries. No need to feed any other body than my own. How in these moments I long for the days I didn’t appreciate before the babies came.

Yet even in that desperate longing I know I wouldn’t go back, even if I could. Despite the loss of a me I once knew and loved, they have truly given me life. They probe me and encourage me and expand me in ways I could have never imagined before them. And while I crave for solitude and tranquility in this moment, I would not have it at the loss of the chaos and noise that is my life now. I know, even though I protest and resist and whine, that these few moments in the morning will be enough for now, enough to recharge, to allow me to be. It is the time for the words to flow and my brain and soul and body to come into the world.

And soon enough this time will be gone too and the morning writing will be replaced by morning snuggles as my husband’s work schedule changes again. My quiet won’t come until the end of the day, when I am tired and words don’t always flow as easily. And this phase will pass too, as each before it did. I will find time for my words and for my family and for me in the constant ebb and flow that is our life.

This will pass too

Inspired by a prompt from Corinne Cunningham‘s Writing Naturally : Winter online workshop.