As a mother of two little girls, I have had two very different postpartum experiences. As I write this, I am currently in my 4th Trimester after my second daughter’s birth and am feeling all of the pressures (both internal and external) to ‘bounce back’ from having a baby. These pressures or expectations are both things we put on ourselves as mothers as well as external messages we receive from others. I know I am not alone in feeling this.

Unrealistic Expectations

For many mom’s, we experience unrealistic expectations that we will ‘bounce back’ after having a baby. We are surrounded by images of celebrities that are bikini ready 8 weeks after giving birth, hear of women who are running marathons weeks or months later, or are expected to return to work often much too soon. ‘Bouncing back’ is often seen as getting our bodies and our lives back to where they were before baby. When we have this expectation, we start to wonder what is wrong with us when the 8 week bikini bod and having life in check isn’t our experience. 

In my experience with motherhood, there is no such thing as ‘bouncing back’.

Every Pregnancy, Birth, and Baby are Different

I am blessed to be a mother of two beautiful, yet very different little girls. Both pregnancy and birth experiences were as different as my daughters. I had no clue going into motherhood how I would change, not only physically, but mentally, emotionally and spiritually in this immense and beautiful transformation that takes place.

I went into motherhood with this unrealistic expectation that I would ‘bounce back’ and have the time, energy, and space to do everything with the same gusto that I did pre-baby. I am a super driven person and put a lot of pressure on myself, and ultimately felt a lot of failure when my post-baby experience didn’t turn out the way I thought it would. I didn’t realize the post-baby experience is determined not just by you, but by your support system and most importantly your baby. Even though I had a supportive partner, we experienced unforeseen challenges in addition to having a more challenging baby. All of these things contributed to the overall experience, and many of these things were out of my immediate control. We had to adapt, grow, and learn along the way.

Letting Go & Looking Within

While this didn’t mean I had less love for my child, it did mean I was harder on myself. It also meant that I had to do some major accepting and pausing in certain areas of my life to put my energy where it was most important – the care of my child. I had to momentarily let go and look within at all of the things that were coming up. I had to get reacquainted with myself. I was a new person. I needed to get to know the new-mom me.

When I did this, I realized that there were still pieces of myself in there, they just looked a little bit different. As I got to know the new me, I had to do the work of accepting and loving the new me so that I could live differently and ultimately be the best version of myself while expanding into this new role of motherhood. 

I realized self-care is super important as a new mom. We are starting to hear more of this message, and I am so glad. We need to give ourselves space from our children to be individuals and care for ourselves and our needs. When we lose ourselves in motherhood it does not serve our children, or our families. Self-care looks different for everyone and if we want to be supportive mamas, we need to realize that and not judge ourselves or others. For me, self-care meant looking within and reclaiming core aspects of myself that I loved before becoming a mom. It meant carving out intentional time for doing those things (working out, teaching meditation classes, and taking voice lessons) as well as carving out intentional time for my family. 

Self-care may mean working out, eating right, leaning in (or out) at work, getting a pedicure or massage, escaping to your room for some alone time, reading a book, taking a class (like meditation or art lessons), or getting a healing. If you are looking for some great classes or healings to help you increase your energy and capacity for joy, there are many MMS modalities and classes that have helped me. I have especially found great relief from Max Meditation System™  (which helps with staying calm and having patience with my kids), Ensofic Ray (which helped with postpartum physical recovery), as well as the Life Activation and Full Spirit Activation (which helped me feel more positive, energized, and connected to my purpose). If you are interested, you can reach out to a certified healer or guide in your area. 

Self-care isn’t only about healing or the things you can do for yourself, it may also look like re-arranging different aspects of your life, schedule, and responsibilities to make it work for you and your family. Whatever it looks like for you, the most important thing is to do it and to ask for help along the way when you need it.

Reframing Motherhood for YOU

As moms we hear from experts, family members, friends (and more) what being a ‘good mom’ looks like. This may be helpful in some cases, but often isn’t. When we look externally for what it means to be a mom, we end up ignoring our inner voice and defining what it means to us.  

We need to start reframing what motherhood looks like and instead of expecting to ‘bounce back’, we need to expect to transform. Transformation and change is never a smooth process. There are highs, lows, and everything in between. It’s about learning to live life in a new way, which takes being and living differently. It’s about accepting where we are at in each phase, while working towards improvements and goals that matter to us. It’s about celebrating others successes (even if they wouldn’t work for us), and defining for ourselves what success looks like…which ultimately stops the comparison game. 

Embracing the Beauty & Magick

Motherhood is such a beautiful thing. The whole process is pure magick. Our bodies not only grow little humans, but have the ability and power to sustain, comfort, and help them grow once they are here. Women hold a unique power in this ability, and yet during the process we are often only focused on the physical aspects of the transformation/experience and not on the other processes that are taking place.

When you become a mom, there is more than just physical changes that take place. It’s more than just your body that transforms – your mind and spirit also transform which can make you feel like a whole new person. Once you go through this transformation, it is really difficult (almost impossible) to ‘bounce back’ to who you were before this incredible experience. You are expanding into a whole new expression of your spirit. 

It takes a while to figure out who this new person is and how they want to be in the world. You may recognize certain things within her, as some things will not change, but you also need to take the time and give yourself grace and space to get to know the other aspects that did not exist before. It is a time to explore the unknowns within yourself instead of trying to retreat back to who you were before. 

I didn’t understand this after my first baby and really struggled with why I wasn’t doing as well as others. I felt alone and isolated. I didn’t know I could and should ask for help. Asking for help felt like failing. I put so much of my energy into survival and being as good of a mom as I could be that I lost parts of me – the parts of me that made me whole and ultimately a better mom/wife/person.

Shifting the Expectations & Conversations

It took me almost 18 months to understand this, heal and shift so I could look at motherhood and myself differently. Now I want to shift the conversation for other moms (whether just starting out on the journey or traveling the path for a while). I want to help us all start looking at ourselves with the positivity and love that our kids (and partners) do. I want to help us better understand our journeys and provide tools to sustain us and help us grow. Because the more stable, secure, fulfilled and happy we are with ourselves, the better moms and partners we can be.

All love starts with self-love and the more we can practice that and model it for our kids, the better we will be. In order to really love and care for ourselves, that requires a little bit of selfishness. I know some may struggle with that word or concept because we have been conditioned to think that we need to give everything to our families to be good moms. To me selfishness in motherhood just means that sometimes in order to put our kids and family first, we need to put ourselves first. Just as the safety lesson on airplanes suggests, you need to put your own oxygen mask on first to be able to help others. We aren’t being of service to our families or others if we aren’t caring for ourselves. And self-care can take place in MANY different ways. Finding the ways in which it works for you and your family is the first step in reframing motherhood to work for you.

Providing Support for Other Mothers

I am currently ~12 weeks postpartum with baby #2 and having a very different experience than I did the first time around. Some of that could be due to the fact it’s my second time doing this and some of that could be due to the fact that my children are different babies with different needs, but I think a large part of it is due to my understanding of what I need, making myself a priority, and asking for help when I need it. These lessons were learned the hard way, but have made such a difference in my experience with motherhood. I have so much more capacity for joy and being in the moment with both my kids when I am caring for myself, I have more patience and creativity in our play, and I am able to problem solve more effectively.

By doing the introspective and healing work after each of my daughters’ births, I have been able to have very different experiences. That doesn’t mean my work is done, there is always more to learn and grow through. However, from these experiences it is my hope that we as women can start to support each other more. We need to start talking about the ‘transformation’ of motherhood and supporting each other in that process instead of expecting ourselves to ‘bounce back’. The more we can support each other in our motherhood endeavors (whether mothers of children, pets, or passion projects), the more we will be able to transform ourselves, our communities, and the world.