Stripping Away Identities
On what our children need most.
When I think back to my early months as a new mother, I feel so much compassion for the one in me who wanted so badly to do a good job. My heart was cracked wide open with the birth of my daughter. Looking down at her little body in my arms, I would feel the eternal love of the universe pouring through her. A love so pure, so expansive, so all encompassing. A love that I would do anything for.
Like so many women, I spent much of my life plagued by perfectionism. Unconsciously orienting my life around doing a good job, receiving external validation, and being someone I thought others would approve of. There was an underlying belief that I needed to prove myself to be loved, and a disconnect with my inherent worthiness.
Just like everything else in my life up until that point, I went into motherhood trying to be perfect. And on some distorted level, actually believing that “perfect” was an achievable and measurable destination. I spent hours fixating on the best organic, non-toxic, zero-emf baby gear that we absolutely must have. I read all the books I could find on attachment, sleep, play, and healthy child development. I got into a pattern of looking outside of myself to for what was important to me as a mom. I deferred to sleep consultants, blogs and books for what to do in my parenting. And although I wasn’t doing this all of the time, it was certainly a pervasive pattern, especially when fear and uncertainty would creep in.
There is nothing inherently wrong with anything I was doing. (I do believe a non-toxic environment is extremely important for children). The distortion for me was happening in how I was doing these things. I was being unconsciously motivated by fear, unworthiness and uncertainty, and an overarching need to prove myself as a “perfect mom.”
Fear and lack get us into our ego, causing us to overcompensate and look to the external world for approval and validation. We construct identities for ourselves out of an energy of separation—feeling disconnected from what we most want and thinking that acting or being some particular way will help us to achieve what we are longing for. The irony in it all is that these identities keep us stuck in the separation; the real work happens within.
In the disillusion of early motherhood, I found myself dissolving in the unknown and grasping for anything that might give me a sense of stability when my entire life had been flipped upside over. My identity of “career woman” was falling away with the birth of my daughter, and in my discomfort I grasped onto a new identity centered around being a perfect attachment-informed, fully engaged, heath-conscious mom.
When we don’t heal our discordant patterns at their root, they just mutate into another expression. I went from a need for perfectionism, control and proving myself at work to perfectionism, control and proving myself at home. And all the tools and practices for presence and awareness that I’d spent years cultivating stopped working in the way they once had. I was using them as excuses to escape my life rather than be fully IN my life, and I was using them to bypass my own traumas that were bubbling up to the surface.
Parenting young kids is constant, and there’s little or no space to disengage or escape the moments of discomfort. It’s not something you get to turn off at the end of the day, or take a break from when you’re feeling over it. Which continues to be one of my biggest challenges with motherhood, and it’s been my greatest opportunity for growth.
When the frustration, bitterness or anger arises, it’s a sign something is out of alignment in life. For a long time I thought my anger and dysregulation was something I had to control and learn to manage. I wasn’t seeing it as a red flag that something wasn’t working. It’s taken me years to listen to and trust the intelligence of my feelings, and to create a new experience in my life as a mother.
Parenting brought up all of my scariest fears and insecurities—fears of failure, of incompetence, of not being good enough. Out of fear, I held on tooth and nail to my new “mom identities”. If I could just enact the ideal, be the mom I thought I was supposed to be, then everything would be okay. Instead of going inward and uncovering what was true for ME, I believed all kinds of thoughts like “to be a good mom I need to be with my kids all the time.” “To be a good mom I need to co-sleep.” “To be a good mom I need to make all of our food from scratch, and never get frustrated.” There were so many ideals running the show.
I was making myself miserable, thinking I had to be something I simply was not. As the discomfort continued to build, it finally became clear that the identities weren’t working, what was being called forward was real and true authenticity.
My ideal of what motherhood “should be” needed to die, to make space for my own version of authentic motherhood to emerge.
My invitation was to go inward, beyond the noise and conditioning of what society, mentors, friends, family or social media was telling me. To embrace the needs of my children without sacrificing my own needs and desires, to prioritize my wellbeing as a leader within our family. Breaking down the ideals and identities was a process of getting honest and truthful with myself: why do I believe I need to be this way? Whose approval am I seeking? And most importantly: who am I beyond my identities?
I am a wildly freedom loving and independent woman, I always have been. I was the kid who was telling my parents what I was going to do instead of asking for permission, and bless them for giving me so much space to just be myself in this way. I created plenty of tension for myself in my early years of parenting because of this need for freedom, for independence and alone time. The two have often been at odds. I was rejecting my nature, my needs, my truth—making it wrong that I wanted some time and space away from my kids each day. But the more I’ve embraced this part of me, the more joy and connection has opened up in parenting.
My own journey of embracing authentic motherhood has been one of accepting my needs and desires in the present, while also trusting in something much greater. I believe in the eternal nature of our souls, and that this human experience is a very narrow sliver of reality. We are dimensional beings having an experience on Earth in bodies, but there is so much more at play in the fabric of existence.
I believe my children choose me; that my children are a match for me in this life.
They selected me as a soul who is striving to deepen in her authenticity and freedom—that’s the experience they want to have in a parent, so they chose me. They didn’t pick me to be inauthentic and restrict myself and parent out of identities or obligation.
They picked me for a reason—and on some level, I believe they knew what I’d be going through even before I did.
Our children don’t need a “perfect” parent. They need us to be as fully ourselves as possible, striving to live in alignment with our unique energy and purpose. When I step into my authenticity, I ignite myself and my energy and I radiate that light into my children’s lives. A light that will sustain and influence them far more than any ideal ever could.
When I align with my own needs and truth, it puts me into integrity—into my energetic wholeness. Modeling energetic integrity with myself, for my kids to see and feel, is one of the greatest gifts I can give them.
I certainly don’t have it all figured out, but what I can say is that I’m finally parenting more and more in a way that emerges from the inside out, tuning into the intelligence of my body, taking care of my energy and needs first. And I’m finding joy and connection in mothering that didn’t feel accessible a few years ago.
The most important thing we can do to nurture our children is figure out a way to be our absolute best self. And there are no rules for what that looks like. We are all brilliantly unique beings, with our own soul journeys and energetic signatures—and what worked for someone else won’t necessarily work for me. When I figure out what works for me, when I align my life with my own authentic truth, I open myself up for more and more life force energy to shine through me, and into my children’s lives.
As I strip away the identities, I’m still discovering who is underneath. Who am I as a mother? If you are doing transformational work in a sincere and effective way, you shouldn’t recognize yourself from one year to the next even day-to-day. That is the experiencing I’m finding myself in these days—unrecognizable to myself as a mom, reinventing who I am for my children and within my family. And along the way, finding more ease, excitement and joy…shining more of my own light.
Here’s to the unknown ✨
