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Small Stuff, Big Stuff

June 3, 2013 By gwynn

When my daughter was a baby I was in overdrive. I worked outside the home, in a job that required 50 hours of time on a slow week and up to 70 hours of my time during crunch weeks. While I was being Super Career Woman, I was also determined that I would be Super Mom too. The problem was, I didn’t quite understand what being Super Mom truly meant.

For the first couple years of my daughter’s life, being Super Mom equated to what I now consider incredibly superficial and ultimately irrelevant things. Things that in the big picture absolutely don’t matter. Things that my daughter won’t remember or know unless I tell her. Things like being determined to cloth diaper, making *all* of her baby food from scratch, only allowing organic foods to enter her body and dear gosh there would never be sugar anywhere near her. No TV either. And all her toys would be wooden and there wouldn’t be a commercial character anywhere in sight. And of course all her clothes would be made of organic cotton or bamboo.

I laugh now at how much I just did.not.get.it. How I put such emphasis on these things that have nothing to do with our relationship or connection. I overwhelmed myself doing all the “right” things, when perhaps allowing myself to be human and having faith that my child would survive to see her next birthday, even if she did play with a plastic Disney Princess tea set. I focused on the outside things, not the inside things. I lost myself a bit, thinking that if I controlled all these outside things *that* would mean I was good mama. And dear god, I so desperately wanted to be a good mama.

Fast forward to today. This morning my daughter ate Oreos for breakfast (hey, she had organic milk with them, so it’s okay). She was outside in her pool before 10am and before the temperature had reached 65F. I did manage to get some apples and sunflower seed butter in her before she snacked on a cupcake. Lunch consisted of chili cheese fritos, a hamburger patty, three green beans and then some more cookies and milk. Yep, I’m going for that Mother of Year award, Nutrition division.

I played Barbies with her today. We did some painting together. We snuggled and watched a couple of TV shows. We cleaned our living room, dining room and kitchen today, without tears or screaming. I gave her lots of hugs and asked her for help and mentioned how she always makes the shoe rack look extra awesome when she organizes it.

We had a great day.

I finally have it (mostly) right. It’s not the outside stuff, like whether every meal is fully nutritionally balanced or whether she has branded character toys, it’s the inside stuff – the fact that we played together, that we created together, that we worked as a team cleaning our home – that matters.

It was quite a process of letting go and realizing what truly matters and what doesn’t. I was guided by not only my own instinct, but also by great mama writers and bloggers. Women who have been there and done that. Women like those in the Mindful Parenting eBundle (note this is an affiliate link – I appreciate your support). Parents and organizations who know what is important for us to focus on our relationship and connection to our children and all the rest is truly small stuff that ultimately doesn’t matter.

Filed Under: Attachment, Connection, Family, Gratitude, Grounding, healing, Joy, Mamahood, Mindfulness, Repair, Surrender, Transformation, Vulnerability Tagged With: healing, mamahood, motherhood, surrender, transformation, vulnerability

This life now

May 28, 2013 By gwynn

I’ve spent the last few days consumed by tears. Tears of frustration. Tears of disappointment.

Tears of grief.

Grieving a plan that refuses to come into fruition.

Grieving a dream of what my life would be like.

The Warrior in me rages against this grief. Fight! she screams. We have a battle plan, she insists.

I’m tired from the seemingly endless battles in this war against What Is. In these battles I have raged and fought against Truth and Reality for so many years now. I don’t have much fight left in me. I want peace. I want to Be.

To Be, I will need to walk away from this War, stop engaging in the battles. It’s time to release these thoughtfully constructed plans, these dreams, these expectations of what my life “should” look like and time to surrender wholly to what is. It is time to release what isn’t and allow what Is to be my Dream.

This release, this surrender will not come easily. I have held onto these plans, this dream, this vision of my life, for most of my adult years. This fight has consumed me and has prevented me from enjoying and being whole in what Is.

Many prayers will still be sent. I feel them in my heart, in my Soul, in my womb. I know the bargaining with the Universe is not quite over. This release, this surrender will be slow and at times over-whelming. I feel the Fight still strong within me. And yet, it is time. My longing for peace is becoming stronger than my longing for completed plans, accomplished dreams, plans and dreams that are clearly not meant to be.

Time to release the anger. Time to release the frustration. Time to release the blame.

Time to release the plans, the dream.

Time to Surrender to what Is.

Time to know in my bones, that this beautiful life of mine, that I have right now, is enough. In this beautiful life of mine, right now, I can be whole and happy.

I love this beautiful life of mine. As it is. Right now.

 

Filed Under: healing, Infertility, Surrender Tagged With: change, growth, healing, release, surrender, transformation, transition

Surrender to Hope

February 11, 2013 By gwynn

I carry a pain with me that I haven’t shared here before. It’s private, it’s been a personal struggle for me and my family. It has caused many tears. Many tears. My heart aches and yearns. Several OBs, a midwife, an acupuncturist, friends, family have been through this trial with us.

It’s the trial of infertility.

We’ve been trying to grow our family for over three years now. I had a dream of having three children, each two to three years apart. We have one child who will be turning six soon. She is beautiful and precious and truly a gift. My heart aches for another.

When I hear people complaining about their children, my heart breaks. It breaks because of my longing and because these others in those moments are unable to see the beauty they have.

It can be hard to be joyful when yet another friend becomes pregnant with her second, third or fourth child. It can be hard not to grieve for myself and for the loss of the life I had envisioned.

I’ve  heard stories of women who tried for ten years to conceive and then finally did. I’ve heard stories of families who gave up and adopted and while in the adoption process became pregnant.

These stories do not bring me solace or hope. They bring up more pain and more questions of Why Me? I look at people on the street screaming at their children or at the library when I father tells his son he can’t play on *that* computer because it’s too “girlie” and I wonder why the Universe has deemed them fortunate to  have that child, but not me.

Not me who puts all my heart and soul into being the best mama I possibly can. Me who every day searches for opportunities to grow, to become a better person – all so that my child will have a healthy family, a healthy childhood.

Why me?

I had an ultrasound last week to look at my uterus and to see if the surgery I had in September and the hormone treatments I’ve been doing since then have shrunk it enough so that an egg could implant.

The answer was yes. My uterus is back to a “normal” size. My body has healed this part, and now to move on to step two of what feels like a million step process to get us to the point to make a decision about conceiving.

I’ll turn 42 at the end of this year. Statistically this is not a great age to be birthing healthy babies. I know the odds are not in my favor. I know I have other health issues that may play a role in making it even more not in my favor.

And yet.

I have hope. It’s hard to surrender to this hope. It’s hard to dive into it and open my heart to the possibility of even more loss, even more heartache. I don’t know if I can manage to tell my daughter again that her baby brother or sister has died inside mommy. I don’t know if I can explain again how I don’t know why the babies keep dying. I don’t know if my heart can take the pain of losing another child.

And yet.

Today I looked at due date calculators and thought about baby names, even though the “trying” process hasn’t even started. I have hope.

I’m scared. Scared to release my fears. Scared to dive into Hope. Terrified to surrender to Trust and Faith. Knowing it will all be okay.

Knowing our family will expand. As it is meant to. In it’s own time.

Letting go of the illusion of control. The tears flow. My body shakes.

I can breathe deeply into my pelvis now. This is something I couldn’t do a year ago. I can live in my body. I am able to focus on my present moments more and more. I see the beauty that is my life and sometimes, for a moment or two, I feel at peace with the way our life is, with no longing or yearning for what it isn’t.

And yet.

I had a vision over a year ago of our second child. Beautiful little toddler, standing next to my daughter. I hold that vision in my heart. I hold it knowing that other child is meant to be with us.

I’m in this process of surrendering to Hope. To Faith. To Trust. 

A practice. It is all a practice.

And when our second (and third?) child comes to us, it will be in her or his own time. A lesson taught to me by our daughter, that I didn’t quite learn.

Now I release the fear. I surrender to Hope. 

Filed Under: Family, healing, Infertility, Surrender, Uncategorized Tagged With: healing, health, heartache, hope, infertility, loss, miscarriage, motherhood, surrender, telling my truth, vulnerability

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