An Ode To Mothering Our Self
An Ode to the Mothers Within Us. An Ode To Mothering Our Self
Many moons ago,
I suffered a miscarriage right before Mother’s Day.
(Alert: This is not a pretty picture. You may want to skip my pain-in-that-moment. Or, know that I knew it as it was then and while I still hold the memory, it is now part of something much larger.)
To honor MY Mother,
my husband and I drove to my parents’ home to share time with her on Mother’s Day.
She gave a rose to each of my sisters and my sisters-in-law,
turned to me and said,
“You’re not a mother yet.”
Let’s pause here.
For all her gifts,
sensitivity to her daughters was not one.
Fast forward to when my sons had been born and I began teaching yoga
each Mother’s Day. It became my tradition.
My theme was always the same:
Honor the mother in each of our heart of hearts.
Make space in you for you to offer yourself and feel
the grace and love that you may not have received along the way.
Build and fortify the foundation within you so that you feel seen,
felt, understood, appreciated…
loved as you are.
Do all that you can for yourself
so that the little person within your body and soul sits comfortably
in your arms and you can move outward and forward and upward
and even backwards
with the degree of peace within you
that, truly, can only come from you.
No matter what you lived before,
today, you have the choice to be the mother you want and need to yourself.
I believe that I’ve been teaching for all these years
so that I could begin to hear myself speak the words I deeply needed to hear
and feel.
I believe that all those Mother’s Days where I brought my voice to the studio
to exhort, encourage, inspire people to seek and sit within
in order to embody the mother they wanted and needed in their lifetime
were designed for me to take in and embody those messages as well.
In fact,
I believe those Mother’s Days made it possible for me to sift through an awful lot of
uncomfortable, disappointing, disheartening life moments where I felt
so abandoned and alone…and find release and relief within myself,
freeing me to love myself and therefore, my sons and all others
with far greater presence, awareness and intention than if I hadn’t looked within
for the Mother within my own self.
I encourage you to do a practice—any practice—with the intention of opening your body,
mind, and spirit to receive love from yourself, from your Inner Mother.
Female, male, non-binary, genderqueer, fluid/a-/bi, transgender…
Old, young, middle-aged…
We each and all of us have within us a place and space where we can soothe ourself, calm ourself, support ourself, love ourself.
On this Mother’s Day and forevermore,
honor the Mother within you.
Because what we all need is the refuge of an ageless, timeless memory…
and we can make our own.
We can choose to mother our self.
blessings,
paula.
p.s. The accompanying images are AI-generated of me holding me as a little girl.
I look at them and I weep. And then, I feel a swell of love.
Sending YOU so much love.
About Paula
