Musings of the Day
Reflections on Motherhood
Since Mother’s Day is coming up I suppose it’s natural for me to be reflecting upon what it means to me to be a mom. My son is far away on his adventures, traveling the world so I won’t have the joy of being with him this year. He is no longer the child I see in my mind’s eye, running up to me with his wild spirit and jumping into my arms with joy. He is a grown man living his dreams, the dreams I supported and nurtured, the ones that would take him far from me one day.
Being a mom is truly one of the most joyful, painful, heartwarming and heartbreaking experiences of my life. It involves every high and every conceivable low available to us as human beings. Though my days as a mother to a young child are over, the cycle of what it truly means to be a mother has never ceased for me. The cycle I am referring to is one of planting a seed, protecting and nurturing that seed with my very own life force, giving birth to it at the time it is ready to enter the world and then supporting it and loving it through its growing pains as it finds its way to a life of it’s own.
I give birth every day to my vision for my health, my life, and my work and I will do so until I take my last breath. We are all mothers to something or someone in our lives whether it be our beloved animal family or a home created out of love.
Men, as well as women, can birth and nurture in their own way. The joy of motherhood, coupled with the heartache and challenges inherent in it, is felt with each new creation in my life. As in sharing this story about my son and the joy that I have experienced as his mom, I also feel tremendous joy in sharing ALL that I give birth to. I am sending each out into the world with the full realization that I am but the vehicle, the conduit for their birth and not the final home for any of them.
Sometimes as mothers we hold on too long because we are afraid for our children. We don’t want them to experience the pain, the challenges and the failures that we have had to endure. This can also be true of anything we create.
I find myself wanting to protect my creations until they can find a home where they are truly seen and appreciated and loved. I do my best to nurture my inspirations deep within me, keeping them to myself until they are fully formed and ready to share. I don’t want them to be misunderstood. However, like my grown son traveling the world by himself, living out his own dreams, I have to let go of what I create so that it can find its own way in the world and trust that wherever it lands will be exactly where it needs to be to fulfill its own destiny.
P.S.
This was written a year ago when my son was still on his adventures around the world. He is still out of the country, far away from me, and most likely will be for a very long time. His dream is to live a large life, one that takes him to faraway places. I am learning to let go. As with anything that I nurture into it's own fullness, my creations have to breathe, soar and find lives of their own. They are my past, but not my future.
What I have learned since this last writing is that holding onto the past, in any form, only keeps me stuck in it, unable to create myself anew. There is no room for possibility to blossom when I am carrying my past with me. That isn't to say that our past doesn't teach us and inform our future choices. It does.
I have learned to fully acknowledge my past, with all of it's joys and heartbreaks, failures and wins. I have learned to experience them and let them go. Carrying any of that into my present only prevents me from creating myself anew, not as a product of what has been, but as the dream I came here to fulfill.
I urge you to look deeply within and make a choice. What are you still holding onto for good or for bad? Is it a success that you still believe defines you or the memory of something that hurt you? And is it worth carrying if it is preventing you from living the life you dream of? Make the choice to live from the adventure of something brand new. The past cannot be changed, but the present holds all possibility.
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