Author: gwynn

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A mama’s life: the inbetween spaces

It’s sometime between six and seven a.m. and my son starts to root for his early morning snack. I groggily roll over, find his little mouth and feed him milk. As I nurse him, I slowly start to come full awake, taking inventory of my body, allowing my mind to take the slow process it needs to come into being in the world fully.

When the little one finishes nursing, I change his diaper as he sleeps and tuck him in close to his papa. I go to our office and pump a bottle of milk for him, as I start to check into my online world on my phone. Once the bottle of milk is hand-delivered to my husband’s nightstand, I go back to the office and come more into my body through some basic yoga and breathing. Next coffee is to be made as the laptop and wireless warm up.

Coffee in hand, I sit down to the laptop and start to work. Shortly after my daughter wakes and I stop my work to give her snuggles and then set her up to watch some videos on the other computer in our office. I settle back into work for a while and then it is time to feed her, start some dishes, feed myself. And eventually we both make our way back to the office.

I read or write as she giggles at what she is watching. I don’t know what is making her laugh, she wears headphones to try to not disturb my thoughts and process. Her giggles and bursts of laughter seem loud however in contrast to the whispering hum of the computers and each time I need to stop and smile and regroup a bit, biting back that initial response to tell her to quiet down, to shush; instead allowing her to enjoy her moments and thereby allowing myself to enjoy them too, watching her without her knowing, wondering at her beauty (outer and inner) and being amazed that we have journeyed almost eight years together, starting with her conception, and that she is such a gorgeous person after being on this journey of motherhood, despite my stumbles and falls and failings along the way.

I hear the baby crying and wait to go to him, allowing him and his father to create their own relationship of trust, of caring. Sometimes I go and “help” and other times I wait, giving them space to learn more of each other. It is a practice in letting go of the notion that I need to do it all, that it is always my job to fix things. It is knowing in my core that whether I go and help or not, everyone will be okay.

This journey as a creative, as a guide, as a mama and wife and friend and sister, can be hard. Finding time to write or read or work or play inbetween the needs of family life is a practice in patience, perseverance and passion. Creating the space to do all that I love is no easy feat some days and others it flows naturally and makes me question what makes the hard days so hard.

And of course, just as I think I have it all figured out, something comes along to change things.

This is the ebb and flow of life, isn’t it? Once we think we know something, the Universe shakes things up for us, to show us that we don’t really  know much of anything beyond the fact that we don’t really know much of anything.

I’ve been coming into this quiet acceptance of this knowing there is so much that I don’t know. Beyond the acceptance I am finding a peace in it, in the not knowing. There is comfort in being in the here and now and releasing the need to know or expectations of the future. It is where I am in my own being and becoming.

Fall is settling into our lives now. The weather and light are shifting and our classes and fall routines are starting to taking root. As the chaos of summer drifts away I find myself feeling cozy and grateful for the more predictable pace of fall. I wonder how our little guy will shake that up for us, and I don’t worry about and allow it to happen in its own time.

I am preparing to guide a beautiful circle of women through the fall season, creating space for each of them to excavate, unearth, release, unfold. I look forward to the journey and wonder how those who are returning will go deeper and how those who are joining us for the first time will add to our circle; how we will guide each other into this new iteration of our own being and becoming.

And all this will happen between the dishes and the breastfeeding. Between the making of meals and folding of laundry. In the hours my husband is home from work and the moments when neither child needs my focus. It will happen because it is my love: to write, to guide, to dig deep, to explore.

Our lives ebb and flow and there are smaller waves within the larger ones. This wave of motherhood will last until my ending day, however what it looks like and how my other waves of being will be influenced by it will change and transform and become something different. I won’t always have office mates who are under the age of ten. I won’t always need to stop writing mid-sentence, mid-thought to feed a child. It won’t always be fall; winter will come, followed by spring and then summer and eventually in it’s time fall will come again.

So for now I work in the between spaces, allowing myself to feel my frustrations with this truth and then letting it drop away like the changing leaves on the trees outside our window. Finding pleasure and joy in moments of distraction, allowing them to feed me instead of starve me. Allowing for the truth, that whether I will it or not, this moment too shall pass.

(Did you enjoy reading this? If so, then I invite you to subscribe to my weekly love letter right over here.)

As posted on IG: My office mate this morning. #gelamarie woke up earlier than normal and wanted to watch videos as I work. Another lesson from my children to go with ebb and flow, to shift my (unrealistic?) expectations and allow the what is to be. #becoming43 #myheart #officemates #raimondisummer2014
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The dark times

Our son was born almost three months ago. He’s so different from his sister and our experience as parents of a newborn has been so different from what we remember it was like seven years ago. He’s more sensitive than she was and more demanding than we remember. I’m physically and emotionally more drained at the end of the day now than I was with our girl. He screams and cries louder than we remember his sister doing. And he fully expects all eyes to be on him at all hours of the day.

It’s been a very hard adjustment for me. I’ve questioned my competency as a mother; I’ve questioned if having a second child was really a very good idea; I’ve questioned my sanity. I’ve cried countless tears and had more moments than I care to admit where I just want to scream and walk away. I’ve tackled postpartum depression; dealt with sleep deprivation and struggled through figuring out breastfeeding, which included literal blood, sweat and tears.

These first three months, in a brief phrase, have sucked.

But now, now. Now my sweet boy seems to be over his colic; now he is starting to laugh; he’s beginning to roll and trying so hard to sit up. He “talks” to us almost nonstop and smiles. Oh that smile. And yes, he’s still sensitive and tells us (loudly) when he is displeased and yet it doesn’t seem as hard as it was even a few weeks ago. I feel like I can breathe again, I can see how quickly it all passes and am starting to appreciate these early months. I can repeat the mantra “This too shall pass” during those trying moments and remember the same in the sweet ones.

When we’re in the trenches, the dark times, we can feel like they will never ever pass. In those times when the world feels like it’s caving in on us, it’s hard to imagine life could be any other way, ever. When we are feeling our moments of deepest despair, the thought of ever laughing or smiling or enjoying life seems impossible. And yet, this too passes.

When my mom died six years ago, grief overtook me in many ways. I felt so raw. If a person even mentioned my mother I would burst into uncontrollable tears. I was angry and sad and wanted to lash out but wasn’t sure how. I felt lost and desolate.

Six years later I still miss her. I still cry sometimes. There are moments of anger about her passing, but mostly I’m sad. I look at my little boy and acknowledge he will never know the feeling of sitting on my mom’s lap. I look at our girl and mourn the relationship she and my mom will never have.

Yes there is still sadness, but it’s not all consuming. I don’t feel so raw and exposed. I can see how life just goes on and while I mourn the missed relationships of my children with her, the reality is, they know no different.

And so it goes. The ebb and flow of life. When we are deep in it there can certainly seem to be no way out. Yet, life marches on, and this too passes, and one day we find we are able to breathe again. Not right now, perhaps not tomorrow, but one day. We start to see the lightness and beauty in our lives, with new eyes, and learn to appreciate it in new ways. And eventually, eventually, we even start to look back fondly on the dark times, seeing our transformation and strength from the other side.

My heart reaches out to those who are struggling, in their dark times right now. Those who have recently lost a loved one. Those in the throes of their own depression. Those who can’t see the light in this moment. I ask you take a moment, put your hand on your heart, take a deep breath, and allow whatever needs to come out, to do so: be that tears or screams or a deep sign. And then, feel your heart, feel how strong it is, how strong you are, and know that while you are in the depths of darkness at this moment, the light will come.

 

This post was inspired not only by my own struggles, but also by a beautiful woman I have had the privilege have become my friend through Facebook. Last weekend her husband completed suicide. She has set up a memorial fund through the Black Dog Institute, whose mission is “to advance the understanding, diagnosis and management of the mood disorders by continuously raising clinical, research, education and training standards. In so doing, the Institute aims to improve the lives of those affected – and in turn – the lives of their families and friends.” Please consider donating to the Dan McAuliffe fund by clicking here. 

 

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Here and There

This month I’m facilitating a discussion in the Mama Scout Readers and Writers Tribe of the book Composing a Life by Mary Catherine Bateson. I’m only three chapters in (reading is slow going for me right now), however I’m finding myself nodding and underlining and resonating with the experiences of these women who came before me.

In the last six months I’ve found myself having time (and energy) to devote to my writing. As my daughter has grown older, her independent play has increased and it has left me at times wondering what the hell to do with myself. I found my way back to writing and was spending more than an hour a day (sometimes up to three or four hours a day) journalling, blogging, writing academic papers, and waxing poetically about life via the written word on social media. It was certainly a taste of heaven.*

(The asterisk are the times I had to stop writing this very post to meet the needs of our family or more accurately, our new little tyrant 😉 )

That has all changed of course since our son was born a little over a month ago.  We have each had a lot of adjusting to do, and I’ve had the physical recovery from the birth to contend with as well as nipping postpartum depression in the bud. This has meant no time to write in over a month and it has been frustrating and heartbreaking for me. I have yet to write out our son’s birth story–with our daughter I had her birth story written out within a few days–** or write about how we came to his name or about how amazing his big sister is and has been since his arrival or really about anything that is important to me and that I want to get down on paper or screen.

I have yet to master the fine art of nursing at the keyboard*** (nor do I know if I really want to) and so time to me is both sparse and sporadic. Even though my husband happily feeds our son the expressed milk I supply, there are times our son refuses the bottle, only being satisfied with milk straight from the tap. This of course means I drop everything I’m doing, including writing (or eating or peeing) to feed and calm our baby boy.

I want to note I am not complaining. I love our son, and love that I am a source of both comfort and nourishment for him. I do find joy and fulfillment in motherhood and yet there is more to me than being a mom.  I am giving very real life examples of how our work as women is sidelined for our families. Our children, especially when very young, always come first. Many of us also sacrifice our own needs or desires in order to make life easier or more accommodating for our spouses–often without even discussing with our partner that we have needs or wants or are making any sort of sacrifice.

This sacrificing our self for our family is true for women without children too. Our parents come before our own needs, as do our partners, our nieces or nephews, even our cats and dogs. Or worse, we allow a job or career we find no satisfaction in take precedence over what our souls long to do. We put our own creativity and nourishment on hold, on the back burner and often never get to it.

It is culturally ingrained in us to put our own needs aside as women. Be this as it may, we do have a choice to follow that path or not. There are consequences to any choice and honestly I don’t believe in balance (as in the myth of the work-life balance). We choose our children or parents or spouses over our selves over and over without thinking about it, and we do, as individuals and as a women as a group, suffer for it. How many great memoirs or paintings or architectural or engineering designs have been lost because we have been so accommodating to others?

This is not to say there is not a time and season for everything. I know that I am  in the season of the young child (again) and this means that time for my writing will be limited, but it doesn’t mean it comes to a stand still. I am conscious of where I am in my life and where my family is. I consciously and mindfully find chunks of time here and there, pump out bottles of milk and say a prayer that our little tyrant will accept it so I can do the things that fill my own soul, those things beyond motherhood that I am called to do.

And so the ebb and flow of life continues.

It would be easy to say that I can’t write now. That I can’t focus on school or my clinical training. That I can’t continue to build my business. No one would fault me and many would say, of course, that is how life is. But I’m not willing to accept that. Yes, we have a very young infant and an older child who need my attention and love. Yes, my husband is our main bread-winner and so certain accommodations need to be made so he can work. And none of that means I can’t have time for my own pursuits. Perhaps I don’t get three hours a day at this point, instead perhaps it is three hours spread over a week. But it is still time I take for my own creative and intellectual outlet.

I invite you to do the same. To step away from the convenient excuses that life offers you to not shine, to not glow, to not be and become the person you are called to be. Set aside fifteen minutes a day to write or paint or doodle or daydream. Fifteen minutes every day just for you to do something just for you. Break it into three five minute breaks if you need to. Meditate, stretch, make yourself a yummy nourishing snack, create a quick blackout poem, read a couple paragraphs in a book or write a list of things you’d love to write about later.  Whatever it is that fulfills and replenishes you, make the time for it. Make yourself a priority.

You deserve this time for you. The world deserves to see you glow, to see you nourished and replenished. Take this summer to create the habits to support you becoming the person you want to be. Release the convenient excuses and your fear of your own glow. Step into being and becoming the person you are truly called to be.

Last week I released a program – Mid-Summer Glow – for registration. I have decided not to offer the program this summer after all, instead focusing on my writing and creating my fall program (Being and Becoming Circle). This decision is a step into my own self-care and releasing of some “shoulds” that have been circling in my brain. If you are looking to work with me this summer, you can still register for my free summer-long program Glow Wisdom by clicking here.

If you are interested in joining the discussion of Composing a Life, simply ask to join the Mama Scout Reader + Writer Facebook group here. We’d love to have you as part of our tribe!!

*Stopped to feed our son and then once he was asleep put diaper laundry in the dryer
**Stopped to feed our son and get him back to sleep
***Stopped to change our son, add time to the dryer, pump a bottle and hand son over to Daddy so I can try to focus. (and look, it worked!)
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Frontlines and Trenches

A social worker once said to me that parents are in the trenches until their youngest child has turned seven. We are mostly at the beck and call and whim of these young people, who need us to help them develop emotionally, psychologically, physically. It’s thankless work (mostly) and we get precious little time to ourselves for our own endeavors and loves. We have to fight tooth and nail it seems to get five minutes of downtime to allow our brains to have some quiet and we get little support from the outside world. Yes, being a parent is endlessly rewarding, but let’s be honest, it’s hard fucking work.

I saw the truth in these words, how we parents are in the trenches for the first seven years of our children’s lives, with my own daughter. In the last year as she approached and became seven her independence expanded exponentially, to the point of me finding myself on several occasions staring blankly at a wall having no idea what to do with myself: she was contently playing on her own and didn’t need or want me to join her. In the last year I’ve had the space to reconnect to my love of writing and to develop my business in a way I didn’t know would ever be possible being a homeschooling mom. I have to say it’s been bittersweet, watching her grow and not need me or want me as much as, or in the same ways, she once did.

I’ve had time to find me again, and dear gosh, it has been amazing.

And while those first seven years I would agree we as parents are definitely in the trenches, I have to say that for the first month of their lives we are on the effing war-torn front lines.

I hadn’t remembered how hard that first month with our daughter was. It was over seven years ago, and after that first month passed she became the propaganda baby we all remember and talk about: totally zen and calm, easy to soothe, a great sleeper, etc. What followed her first month of life erased the horror of those first four weeks. Four weeks where I was sure we should just give her up for adoption because we were the most unfit parents on the planet and where I questioned myself every moment and constantly had a critical voice telling me how I was screwing her up.

The last month with our son, his first four weeks of life, have brought back some of those traumatic memories. We have relived the sleep deprivation and I had several moments of deeply regretting having a second child. I’ve been in tears and felt like a total failure as a mother, not only to our little guy but also to our daughter who has been truly a young saint in the making as we adjust to life as a family of four. I have snapped and yelled and cried and screamed more than I care to admit and I have felt such deep guilt for all the change in our family. The critical voices came back, along with the intense anxiety and depression and I felt myself slipping into the downward spiral I lived through with our girl.

We seem to be at a turning point now. In part because our little guy’s brain is forming the pathways it needs; he’s becoming more interactive and awake during the day, allowing us more sleep at night. And we’re all figuring out his cues and cries and are able to get his needs met a little faster. He’s becoming the zen propaganda baby his sister was and let me tell you, this is a great relief for everyone in this house.

And while his growing and changing and developing is a part of it all, I believe a major part of the turning point is I recognized I needed help and with the support of my husband and some close friends, I got it.

You see I experienced postpartum depression with my daughter. For over two and a half years. At first I didn’t recognize the symptoms and signs, but eventually I did and then became too proud and stubborn to do anything about it. I also was suffering from hypothyroidism and my adrenal system had all but stopped working, which I found out when I finally did go to my doctor. But it was over two and half years of suffering: mine and my family’s, before I started seeking help and then it was at least another six months before we were able to really start seeing any changes as my body and mind started to heal.

At the beginning of our little guy’s third week of life I knew that I was back on that path of suffering. I had promised my husband before we even got married that I would seek help immediately if the postpartum depression symptoms came back and so after a couple days of feeling the depression and anxiety seep into my core, I told him I needed to get help. He supported me in calling my midwife and last week I started medication and supplementation to alleviate the symptoms.

I’m not 100% yet but I’m sure a hell of a lot better than I was a week ago.

I’m sharing this for a few reasons. The greatest being the shame that surrounds postpartum depression. I had so much shame with my daughter and a desperate need to prove that I could do it all and handle everything. I’ve stated before how this lead to me having a near psychotic break. My husband almost lost his wife, my daughter almost lost her mother. It was the darkest time of my life and while living it I would never admit to anyone what was happening inside my head and body, now I feel the need to share the story.

One of the greatest lessons my daughter has taught me is the importance of self-care, self-love; the necessity to take the time for my own replenishment and renewal. Or more to the point, that my survival depends on the ability to care for myself, to seek help when I need it and to release any misplaced shame around our need for help. That I don’t need to be “super mom” or to “do it all” and that I need to care for myself and allow others to help me with that care. That taking five, ten, twenty minutes to myself is not selfish, it is necessary for me to live.

Babyboy  is giving me the opportunity to practice this lesson. It has been a hard month, not only because of sleep deprivation and learning the nuances of a new little person and stepping into caring for him regardless of what I think I need to be doing in the moment; but also because I am stepping into the practice of lessons learned and allowing the space for me to need, ask for, and receive help and remembering that even little bubbles of five to fifteen minutes for me can offer a world of renewal. Taking five minutes to make a phone call for a doctor appointment or to stare out the window daydreaming; or ten minutes to make a yummy refreshing summer drink;  or twenty minutes to make a replenishing and nourishing easy meal.

This in-my-face reminder of the need for self-care inspired me to remind everyone of the importance of a self-love practice:  the little things we can do to refresh, renew, and replenish, everyday. Self-care is recognizing the importance of giving time to ourselves and knowing that by taking this time we are able to become and be the people we want to be and allowing our own inner glow to burst through.