Unqualified worth.

I realise when I hung up the pins. Got off the table. Handed over the tools. Turned in my badge. I could continue but I won’t. Ha

This day was recent, and in the moment that I had a full body decision to just be mum I felt so many identities disintegrate and my life shuffled. Quantum leap type stuff.

I felt naked in a way I hadn’t felt, probably ever. As a nudist at the best of times it was a strange vulnerable nakedness I hadn’t really known.

As anyone reading this may know or have felt, it is natural for me to become a master knower of intricate details. I enjoy going deep on all topics I find. Exploring them, teasing them out, categorizing and logging them into my memory ready for that moment you ask a simple mundane question expecting a simple yes/no answer. “but had you considered the ethics of that choice?”. Puzzling and peculiar, odd even (I know) but it seems to be the way I like to do things. To squeeze every last drop of juice from it, so it’s all received and internally perceived, and ready for use. (In the end I am a zero wastage kinda gal.)

The learning I do seems to just pack on in, like a donkey climbing Everest, nothing is lost and nothing is missing. So at just the right moment I can whip it all out and dance around all the different tabs in my mind that may be just fluffy enough to create a bit of a red thread and I can hold it all together like the conductor of some wild mystical orchestra of information. And maybe for you, you weren’t too perplexed and you found the joy and felt the resonance I felt in sharing.

But this sole mothering gig had me naked and nervous.

Don’t get me wrong I’ve read a good amount of content on instagram university and I’ve absolutely mummed for 6 solid years. But I hadn’t fulled immersed in the practice of mumming. I didn’t listen when Christa mum shared her secret stain removing recipe, or the best way to make mum toast (for her not for the littles). Or the home made baby wipes that Sarah mum tells me are just so simple to make as she easily gives me two before I’ve even open my own broken reusable container of pre bought wipes. Or the mum hack for keeping clothes clean. (Note: keen for tips on that because once a garment is soiled in my home it probably should be binned, don’t worry it’s not, it’s just a little loved). Or the crafts and sewing and sensory play space bonanzas.

But most of all, my most naked self absolutely felt like a fish out of water in the kitchen. A place most 6year deep mothers have made their domain. They are well and truly into their domination era.

I have admired these mothers over the years.

The way their hands just slip and slide around their kitchens. Dancing and prancing in their element. Making tasty magic. Snacks galore. Space for hunger in these homes can’t exist. Because there is a potential 3 month old dump bag ready and rearing to jump into a slow cooker at any given moment. The ease with which they flow is equal parts freedom and equal parts weakening for me at this point.

As here I am now laying down the vulnerability and fear and walking away from the highly qualified comfort of my healing woman identity and committing to the unqualified waters of the fully embodied mother. Facing the depths of this unknown woman and learning that it’s totally ok to be unversed in this. To not know what I’m doing. To wing it from a place of fake it till you make it and deeply trust the innate wisdom that’s in those DNA codes somewhere.
But please don’t misinterpret me as feeling low or needing to be reminded you are doing great. I’m confident enough to know that 2 apples for 3 kids as a snack and one shared drink bottle will suffice the truly hungry and thirsty.

There is a cracked open feeling that whilst scary has provided a new freedom and I’m trying not to fill it with too much learning/ mastery. Rather I’m trying to remember what is innately inside of me and bring that to the surface of my knowing.

So cheers to that and cheers to all the embodied mothers candidly giving this thing a red hot crack and hoping they figure it the f#%^ out before their kids are too big to notice. (I’m guessing the seasoned mothers will be here to remind me, you never do, figure it out).

Writing notes.

I lay in my bed squished between love and more love. Little limbs, soft breaths,

I’ve read all the things. The dos and don’ts of a life lived well with a romantic partner. Julia says NO to making a habit of sleeping in different rooms when babies are young. Heather says make sure you create the routine of early bedtimes so as you get your couple time. Mike says make sure you commit to your relationship more than ever now, love on each other like you’ve never loved before. This demonstrates to the kids they’re worthy of the best love. Show them commitment to each other above all else, it will shape them. It will be what they seek.
Kim says you better “f#!3” daily, the more and the longer, the better, and Sasha says you best not criticise because you’ll make a woman out of him and kill all intimacy.

I love it, all of it and I agree.

But, we made it a habit. The past 6 years have been a dance of beds. Mostly with us dancing in other rooms. Bed sharing with little people and late nights with 1 or 2 but mostly 3 babes in toe. Minimal alone time let alone couple time.

Perspective is everything. And I don’t know. I feel pretty grateful for the flow and ease we’ve found. It’s absolutely not ideal but there has been more good than bad and as of last week there is ease. Over the last 6 years we have had a lot of flow, but not always or often was there ease. I am hopeful though now the ease is here to stay.

Because the thing is nothing sends you into a spiritual, self help spin, with a deep need to peel the onion layer, after painstaking layer, over and over and over again like having a child does.

But here’s the thing Julia, Heather and Mike haven’t noted. You won’t know who you are anymore once you’ve had the baby. I mean you might, and you might try hard to keep going on like they will just slot into your lives. But I think deep down you’ll feel the shift. It’s chemical for both partners, so just because you’re pretending you’re not a piece of magical star dust morphed into human form floating around on the rock you formed from, you likely won’t know who the man or lady next to you is either. And if they’re anything like me (unlikely, but do continue) they’re diving into a kettle of fish trying to dissect it all too.

Coming back… the ease.. the ease and the peace that I’ve found recently, it comes from a softening. I told my friend the other week after she asked “why do you think you’re so much softer?” And before I could even think I blurted out “I give less fucks”. In other words I found the clarity that everything is just as it is because, well, it is. Peter Crone articulates this seamlessly, and is worth spending countless hours watching in awe.

To me it’s realising that we may not have as much control over our lives as we’d like and maybe the soul contract is really the thing. Tiziano Sgeurso shared on a podcast I listened to recently. That (poor paraphrasing coming right up) the more we do what feels good the more we feel good and more life experience comes in to our lives.
But what is that nudge? Where does that urge come from? Is it free will? or is it the all encompassing power of the next phase, cycle on the contract?

I don’t know for sure but it feels pretty contract followy to me. For a deeper dive listen to this episode of my pod.

So, on the winter solstice in reflection of the past 6 months. I recognized the clarity I have had during this disillusionment phase. Where the facades broke inside and out. And the soft and easeful flow began again.

And I realise that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

Somewhere in the middle of something. Exploring a new patch. Trusting this process and for the first time really truly believing that everything up until this point has been exactly as it was meant to be.

As for Hampus and I, sleeping in different rooms may or may not have tainted the relationship we formed in. What I do believe though is not prioritizing each other has absolutely been our down fall. And I mean we’re doing ok over here (for the most part) I mean we’re doing incredibly ok considering the darkening half of the year we’ve had.
For now I focus on attuning more to my feminine. Allowing its pivotal adjustments to nourish the inside of me and the cosmic womb within our relationship.

For now, I will stay wedged in between little feet and little bodies until such time as that needs to shift.

I’m sure I’ll get the nudge!

Greener Pastures.

Who knows if the grass is greener? Where does this come from? Are we meant to concern ourselves there? But really is it greener or is it not? I mean I’m watching the grass turn brown for many and watching them transform in order to build what they’d innately hoped and dreamed of. And yes, it looks slightly greener, but it doesn’t come without an almighty slap of hardship, but at least one aspect is greener. Right?

Could they have dug deeper? Fertilized the soil at the beginning, middle or end more? Ensured at least a few of the kinks and mounds had been tended to, removed the hard stones and softened some of the edges? Instead of layering Astro turf over the top of a tip, pretending that the bump from the rusty old bike wasn’t going to be uncomfortable to lay on, I think not.

But is it to be greener on the other patch of grass? or could you continue to use round up when a weed springs up from seemingly no where? Will it eventually overcome the blight and lay down to the king of all poison. For a person who watched my brother and mother try the whole astroturf around a pool thing. Throwing every possible tool at it, petrol, plastic, cement, blue metal, sweat, tears. It is affirmatively true that Mother Earth always wins and of course she doesn’t need us, she can literally sprout through seemingly sealed concrete with ease. She just does. 

Right now the rich green grass that I sit upon is lush and beautiful. It’s much greener, softer and lighter. It makes me wonder why I held on for so long to the city life with its AstroTurf and concrete loving inhabitants. Gosh guys. You’ve forgotten the essence of you (if I do say so myself). This me, as I sip tea overlooking a neighbor’s sheep eat the rest of the spriggly orange tree. Sigh. 

I aspire to be like my new/old friend Esther* (Esther* - may not be her real name) who tends to her grass with a sharp focus. Attuned to pick out the Bindi eyes as they pop up. Quick. Swift. And in good time to bake treats, create games, bathe the vermin in buckets and flirt with “hubby”. A lusher grass patch I have not known.

So yes, the grass is greener and right now I think it always will be. But you’d best think about whose grass it is you’re stepping on?  Oh there’s more grass idioms than I thought. For another time. For now enjoying said lushness.

Bye for now.