The Mother I AM...

This piece of writing has been on my heart for several months, and unlike most of my other posts, coming quick and fast in a flurry of excitement, this one has been a slowly crafted piece of work… a bit like my motherhood journey if I am honest…

In September I will have been a Mother for seven years.

Seven years of learning more about myself than I did in the entire 35 years previous to that monumental threshold crossing.

Seven years of making me and breaking me, over and over, and over again.

Seven years of growing into a love that is far more complex than any other love I have ever felt.

It is fair to say that, for me, Motherhood has been the initiation I didn’t know I needed.

A lot can change in seven years and the Mother — and human — that I am now is very different to the one I was at the start… and monumentally different to the one I thought I was going to be when I was pregnant with my first daughter.

I’m laying with my littlest as she falls asleep. A ritual that has become an important part of my day and actually something I miss when I don’t get to do (I don’t miss the multiple avoidance tactics that surface in the lead up to bedtime mind you!)

This time is a pause to mark the shift from care-taking my little ones, into the small window of time I get where I’m free to care-take myself.

I would love to say that I’m fully present as I lay there and she chatters away to me, processing her day, winding down until her eyelids droop and she meets sleep. I often lay there for at least ten minutes after her breathing has shifted into that dreamlike steadiness that tells me sleep has come, just because it is so peaceful and there is something so calming about a sleeping child breathing next to you.

The truth is, I often find myself reaching for my phone.

Scrolling Instagram to numb out from the demands of the day and get a quick hit of dopamine when I spot another recipe I might (never) try.

Self-diagnosing myself with any number of illnesses thanks to a carousel of symptoms that seem to fit my own.

Or, often trying to get that quick and dirty satisfaction ‘hit’ from getting a few more tasks ticked off my ‘to do’ list.

I try to leave my phone in another room. Out of sight out of mind genuinely does work for a small period of time. But when I don’t have my phone I find myself restlessly replaying all of the ways in the day that I have ‘messed up’ or ‘failed’ my children on that day.

The snappy words. The moments I could have been more present but wasn’t (because I was likely trying to dance with multiple things). The times when I lost my patience and shouted. The constant work to regulate myself after being touched too much/screamed at/demanded of for the fifty thousandth time, or my littlest’s current favourite phrase ‘I hate you’ every time I enforce a boundary.

My self criticism when it comes to being a Mother is high.

I often find myself running through all of the ways I ‘will try and do better tomorrow’ and yet of course barely give a second thought to all of the wonderful ways I have shown up in that day.

In January I was diagnosed with AuADHD. In the online assessment, my father was an observer for me.

Some of the words that he spoke to the assessor have stayed with me.

Sometimes we can hear words over and over again and they don’t land, and then one day, something just… clicks. This was one of those moments, and the words have provided me with a really powerful turning point in my own self awareness.

When I was asked what my strengths were I struggled to answer — still deeply conditioned to be blind to the positive attributes that I have, yet deeply aware of all the negative ones.

My Dad stepped in and shared a few insights, including telling the assessor that I was a really good Mum but that I didn’t see that for myself and that I was very ‘hard on myself’ and that, my own self criticism sometimes made me critical of others.

Of course this was not new information to me (the self-critical part anyway) but I think that hearing it mirrored to me really illuminated it as the harmful pattern it is. With the understanding of how my unique brain operates now, and how sensitive to any form of criticism or rejection I am, it has given me permission to question this story and its motives.

Awareness really does precede change.

I am, and have always been extremely self critical and those high expectations of myself often ripple out onto others. This trait has lead me to believe over the years that I’m not a very nice person. It’s prevented me from truly receiving praise of complements because a part of me still believes that deep down, no matter how ‘nice’ I appear on the surface… I’m a bitch.

When my mothering is anything less than the ‘perfect picture’ I think I’m supposed to be, my critical self is reinforced.

I’ve lost count of the time I’ve thought, and said, that ‘my children deserve a different Mum, they have chosen the wrong mother’.

Now, with the help of a deeper understanding of my self, knowing my own individual needs better and devoting myself to the constant practice of self compassion — all forced upon me by the initiatory experience of Motherhood — I have started to accept the Mother I am and let go of the Mother I thought I should be.

It’s not easy. That inner critic is a strong part that has kept me safe in many ways but I understand her motivation now and can see her through a loving lens instead of constantly wishing she wouldn’t exist.

Even writing these words I can sense a softness coming from the gentle parts of me, parts that over the last few years have been unearthed and actually now stay close to the surface, most of the time.

I thought for so long, perhaps most of my life, that all of my ‘nice’ attributes were performative and part of a mask. That I was faking it, but deep down I was ‘bad’. But, I am actually starting to see they are just as true, if not truer, than the harder, harsher parts.

It’s taken nearly seven years of motherhood for me to slowly unravel and accept the Mother I am versus the Mother that I thought I should be, or wanted to be. It’s therapy. It’s practice. It’s compassionate enquiry and awareness. It’s Mothering myself and Mothering the parts of me that needed to be nurtured.

It is understanding my humanness and that multiple parts can be present and I am not defined by just one of them.

…gets bored easily and finds the daily acts of mothering dull and mundane. My brain needs excitement and spontaneity and a sense of satisfaction.

… often multi-tasks and then gets irritated and overwhelmed when my children demand something of me.

… has a tricky relationship with touch. I never understood what ‘touched out’ meant until I had children. I have to state my boundaries a lot around being climbed on, prodded and poked or even banged into. My eldest is a really touchy child and I worry that she will believe her mother to be cold because sometimes I have to ask her to stop touching me and that I need my space.

… has high aspirations. My expectations of myself and my ambitions are high and that ripples out to others. Sometimes I worry that I expect too much or my children and I would never want them to feel pressure to be perfect, but also I have big dreams and hopes and can’t help but strive for them.

… experiences low energy lulls. Peri-menopause, health challenges, neurodivergence, plus being someone who needs a lot of creative time and doesn’t always get it to feel energised… some days it is all I can do to just lay on the sofa with them at the end of the day watching a movie and heating up baked beans.

… numbs out or shuts down often. It might look like ‘calm’ on the outside but numbing out has become a default coping mechanism at times, particularly when my youngest is going through a challenging phase and her meltdowns are continuous.

… has a very sensitive nervous system. I have perceived this as a problem to fix for so long but recently I’ve been viewing it through a different lens of sensitivity and high attunement. Interestingly my hyper-vigilance has lowered as I’m being kinder to myself.

… adores working and will often choose to sit with my laptop over playing with my children. My work is my sanctuary. It feeds me on so many levels, and the balance of time spent being a Mother AND time getting to do my heart work isn’t quite aligned… yet. (I have another piece coming on this whole topic as I have A LOT of thoughts on this!!)

… finds solo parenting insanely hard on my nervous system. Some mothers appear to be able to sail through parenting alone, but if I know I even have one night without my husband here my nervous system goes into overdrive. I have for years berated myself for this, labeled myself a burden, but knowing what I do about myself now I see it with gentle eyes.

… is maybe absent at times… As I currently try and finish this piece on a bank holiday Monday while my children play around me in the garden I have just noticed that in my absence and presence with my writing, my youngest has drawn all over herself in green felt tip pen.

I am not going to apologise, anymore, for being the Mother that I AM.

Accepting myself for who I am has softened the edges and made me understand that one of the most common narratives in the past seven years of Motherhood has been ‘how come everyone else seems to cope better than me?’… but this does nothing but harm.

I am finally starting to truly accept myself for MY SELF.

Part of this softening has definitely come since understanding myself more. Un-layering the edges one at a time.

• Through deepening in my Human Design experiment.

• Through my AuADHD diagnosis.

• Through understanding my own unique nervous system.

• Through my daughters holding up a crystalline mirror.

• Through being in relationship with the multiple parts that make me whole.

• Through therapy and support.

• Through seeing the picture that I thought I should be, and creating a new image.

Ultimately though, it has come from self compassion and the awareness of the harm I cause myself when I speak harshly to the parts of me that are craving healing and understanding.

And this is very much a practice.

Catching myself when the default patterns arise and NOT considering myself a failure when they inevitably do show up but instead meeting them with curiosity and kindness.

I’ve always been called to study myself and my behaviours. Self development and awareness practices call to me because I am hungry to grow and evolve. I am fascinated by anything that brings me deeper into relationship with myself and I can see that running through my whole life.

But now it’s shifting away from trying to fix my broken parts, or even seeing them as broken at all, and moving into a season of accepting my wholeness, and that includes dancing with the parts and traits I’ve always seen as undesirable or unacceptable.

Before I close I would love to offer you a few reflective questions to explore…

• Are there parts of you that you are still waiting to accept and soften into?

• Where might you be holding yourself rigidly to a standard that was never yours in the first place?

• How would your system — and soul — feel if you stopped trying to fix what was never broken in the first place?

• And perhaps most importantly, what kind of Mother/Woman/Human would you become if you dropped the storyline of who you thought you should be?

I would love to hear what rises up for you when you explore these contemplations. Share in the comments, or reply to me on email if you would prefer to share more intimately.

Until next time, go gently,

Love

Lauren

xxx

If something has stirred within you as you read my words, I would love to invite you a little further into my world.

I am Lauren — mother, business mentor, website artist, human design guide, writer, sacred space holder and multi-faceted creative alchemist. The thread running through everything I do is this… creating powerful yet nurturing containers for women to remember and rise into their own unique medicine.

To explore the fuller landscape of my heart work, come find me at www.laurenbarber.co. There you will find a portal of offerings for the mystics, the dreamers, the visionaries, the mothers, the healers and the heart-centred human beings.

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I am so honoured to hold you here. x