Everything as a practice

Navigating monotony in motherhood.

Welcome to Being in Motherhood I hope this writing finds you when you need it.

Thank you for being here. In this publication, I explore mothering, healing, breaking cycles, and learning what it means to be ourselves in motherhood.

If you are new here and joined after my recent post - Transition: Being in Motherhood, welcome. I am happy to have you join me on this journey. If you have been here and are curious about the name change, click the link above to learn more.

Thank you for your support in changing the name of this publication. I am excited to diver deeper into exploring topics related to motherhood, healing and being. I am looking forward to seeing what this year brings. Let’s dive into this week’s reflections.

I sat with my son for 45 minutes yesterday and read two books. One was a book of colors and the second book was about Halloween…each page was a letter and an item associate with the later in connection to Halloween.

We sat together for 45 minutes, I read those two books over and over again. By the time my husband finished his work call and joined us, my eyes had glazed over and I thought I may pass out.

It was draining but it was eye opening because it brought up thoughts and feelings.

I have been sitting with how everything is a practice and the practice. A practice meaning I am still figuring out how to do it, nothing is settle, it is in progress, not finite. The practice meaning my meditation practice, the practice of stillness, how everything is an invitation to come back to center.

Reading those books could have gone a lot of different ways. I could have determined we were done after a few reads, I could have scolded my son because that was what he wanted to do, I could have complained to him, etc.

But I sat with him, in my discomfort and I read. Because life is a practice, motherhood is a practice and I am practicing being present, I am practicing not reacting, I am practicing giving him autonomy.

This idea of everything being a practice or in practice makes senses to me. Nothing is stagnant or ever completed, everything is in flux and even in the midst of monotonous reading, I can find my center, I can access my being…if I choose to, if that is my practice.

Practice has a lot to do with values, priorities, or whatever I am centering in my life and my day to day experiences. If I value supporting my son’s autonomy, then I need to let him make his own decisions when it is feasible. If I value listening to my body, then I need to move when I feel called.

This idea had led me to ask myself what is central right now to me, in this season, because that is about as far as I am trying to plan or exist these days.

Slowness, writing, listening to my body.

When it comes to motherhood…what is central is compassion, space giving, and holding space for my son to be autonomous.

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I was talking to a friend the other day about how hard it is to put values into practice and how you can know what is important to you but it can take time to figure out how to live out what matters most to you.

It has taken years, and a lot of therapy and healing, to drop into slowness in this season. It was not a simple decision and boom, I could move through life slowly. It has been a process year after year of refining and stripping things away. I am still in practice with figuring out how to practice slowness.

It can take time to figure out how to be, how to live in values or what our values even are. Something I have also been sitting with, in the name of stillness, is there is no rush.

There is no rush, everything arises in time. I am learning to worry less about what is to come because it will come. The bills, the dishes, the plans I need to make, I do not have to force them into existence because everything has its own natural cycle.

I am trying to communicate something bigger than me that has been moving through me. I have been sitting with questions of…

What is the rush?

What is in practice?

What matters most to me?

What are my values?

How do I live them in my day to day?

These questions feel massive but the answers are often simple, I come back to my center and back to my being. I locate myself in my body and I know, everything will arise in its own time.

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Let us go back to me sitting on the floor with my son, reading those two books over and over again and all the options of what I could have done.

This is where my values, what matters to me comes into practice. I am not a yeller, I try my best to not react, I try to slow everything down as much as I can to respond to what is happening in front of me. Instead of trying to change what was happening, because my son can get into spaces where he wants something and he will happily do it for 45 minutes if allowed, I sat in it.

I was uncomfortable, I got up at one point and told him I was getting a drink, but I went to check what time it was and look at my phone. I hoped this would shake him from his determination, but it did not. We resumed reading, and I resumed sitting in the discomfort of monotony.

I wanted to be elsewhere, I could have been outside, I could be cleaning the house or answering a text or literally anything at all that would have been more stimulating. But I was not and I sat there.

I tried to find the magic in the moment. This kid was not bored, he was fascinated, he was memorizing the books, skipping to certain pages, repeating things after me as best he could. He was having a really good time!

Discomfort is the practice, the waiting is the practice, the monotony of motherhood is the practice. This raises the question in me of…how am I going to show up to that? Am I going to react and hate what is in front of me or respond gently and embrace it?

It depends on my values and what I am centering in this season. It depends on how I want to be in this life, in motherhood, in my practice.

I was talking with a friend who wants to work on yelling less at her kids. I was trying to explain the difference between reacting and responding. A reaction is automatic, and a response is a choice. Responding is possible when we tend to what is alive in our bodies that is causing us to react.

I asked her to sit with what caused her to yell, what was she feeling in those moments, what was she needing. We cannot do differently without the awareness of what is happening for us in the first place. We cannot access being and responding without sitting in the discomfort of our edges.

For me, that was reading for 45 minutes yesterday (that is like 12 years in toddler time). For my friend, it is when her kids won’t stop climbing all over her.

When we know what is happening in our bodies when we react, we can begin to shift our relationships to the reactions. We create space to respond. The response is rooted in what we value, what matters, what we are prioritizing in this season.

What are you prioritizing in motherhood right now?

What are you creating space for with your child(ren)?

What are you feeling in those moments when you want to crawl out of your skin?

How can you begin to do things a little differently to bridge the path to responding?

Whatever season you are in, whatever is in practice for you, take a moment and place your hand on your heart…tell yourself you are doing great, because you are.

Love,

Emma

Thank you for reading!

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