The other story of motherhood

This is not every mother’s story. It is mine.

One of the greatest gifts my son gave me in my birth ( I mean his birth) is showing me how overpowering my existence was no longer what worked. The hustle. The I can. The lemme just squeeze that in …because kids need non-linear space. Space to dawdle and find entertainment. Most of you know this apparently, so if you did, maybe hop over to another article. I didn’t. 

I mean – intellectually I knew that. Duh. But it was not embodied wisdom and it showed.

See I was great with adults, leading them into unforgotten places in their minds and bodies and helping them reclaim wholeness. I was the mystically minded that could extrapolate and understand the cross points in differing cultures and belief structures. I was the high school teacher that could lead teenagers to inquiry and understanding. I could do all of these amazing things, but kids — that was not my realm of understanding let alone expertise.

What you see in this picture is a woman drowning. She booked headshots to launch an executive tour of speaking in a five dollar old Navy shirt because there was no money at home. The night before the shoot there was also no sleep because the baby was teething.  For said woman (yes, me) there was also no styling happening because this picture was taken in the throes of postpartum hair-loss in a race against the clock.

What clock you ask? One that I had imagined.

The reality was that I was not going fully back to work because primarily, I didn’t want to leave my son and secondarily my partner at the the time was not making the money that would make any sense in me going back to work. 

Now, what is glaringly obvious to me now, was illusive then: I had choices. At the time, I couldn’t perceive any. I was exhausted, confused and in love with my child (my partnership was already dissolving even if I did not consciously choose to see it).  In so many of the photos, when I look into the eyes of this new Mom, I see how deeply out of body she was.

The kicker? I am a bodyworker. For the past decade I have worked to help women reengage their strength emotionally, physically and spiritually. I had locked in to a really great life and I loved it.  

Then I became a mother and life lead me back into my learning, into the spaces left unattended and away from the strengths I knew and understood.

It’s a big statement to leave there hanging. The reason it is hanging out there like that – was because that is how I entered motherhood: hanging out on a limb of my own consciousness, and I spent the second year of my son’s life trying to get back to a place that no longer existed. Even though, I knew it and wrote about it here.

Let me jump forward to the punchline for you – even when we are fully onboard to a change in our lives many of us lose a little piece of ourselves along the way, and we may not initially notice because we are so darn busy, or ecstatically grateful that how dare we complain or begrudge; unfortunately, unintegrated, undigested emotions, hang out taking space in our unconscious causing a raucous until we notice. They can wait years. Or longer.

So anyway, there I was in a rushed ensemble (there were shots in professional attire), and the places and lighting were fabulous, but all I could see when the photos came back were the vacancy in my eyes – confusion and a very obvious being stretched too thinnedness. Those pictures were worth their weight in gold because they served to wake me up to myself.  I was in a bit of a vacuum and those pictures said, “Hey life is hard because you aren’t really here. You need help.”

Now, mind you at the same time I was loving my son and snuggling, breastfeeding, and walking in the woods with him, but I didn’t understand how to do life. How was I supposed to leave him and go to work? What were we going to do as a family? What is this dynamic field that is Mother?

So many questions. I also had a 36 hour labor that ended in an emergency C-section so my body was also deeply in recovery. (There is so much more to that, and we can discuss it at another time, or you can listen to a podcast I did with my midwife, called “Peace starts with birth” here).

You know what happened? I did. I happened. I slowed down and started seeking out practitioners that could help me get back into my body more deeply. I started doing the emotional work of integrating my son’s birth, which I think is some of the most powerful, unspoken work, mothers can do – and I began to awaken to the truth that I could not live life the way I previously had.  

Why?

It wasn’t sustainable.

It had run its course.  

I was leaving the early summer of life – where you can run around endlessly expending energy, and was being tugged into my expansion of life, turning from what can I learn to what can I give. I was being slowed down to become more fully myself. 

But all I saw was failing. Not keeping up, and wondering how I had landed in a place that was so foreign to me – a place of frailty and dependency when I was the one that made dreams happen and flitted all over the world to teach and to heal, to learn and to love, now Life had sat me down and filled my arms with a miracle and where I thought I had to give (and you do you have to give a lot) what I really needed to learn was to receive. That I was worthy of this precious one and that he was in good hands – mine.

The funny thing about how the shoot ended – was this photo. The photographer took me to a place in the woods that I loved and walked for decades. When we arrived a man was serendipitously playing a digeridoo to the water. I kicked off my shoes and let my feet sink into the Earth.

“There you are,” the photographer said.

And it was true, for all the confusion and even the rhetoric of this writing, I had never been lost, I had always been here waiting for my own presence to catch up to me.  We can be lost and found at the same time. We can be complete and broken down (or open). We can be masterful and have worlds to learn, thankfully, that option of growth and presence is always with us, underneath our feet, and holy intact in our next breath.

Some mothering stories are easy. Some are not. What I have learned to embrace is that the sacred bond between my son and I is a fluctuating one of student and teacher. Yes, indeed it is the role of parent to hold the space and the responsibility, but the soul growth between a parent and child is a dynamic all on its own, dancing so that the growth is exponential. I recently read Edward Bach speak of parenting:

“Fundamentally, the office of parenthood is to be the privileged means (and indeed it should be considered as divinely privileged) of enabling a soul to contract this world for the sake of evolution. If properly understood, there is probably no greater opportunity offered to mankind than this, to be the agent of the physical birth of a soul and to have the care of the young personality during the first few years of its existence on earth…ever remembering that the wee one is an individual soul come down to gain his own experience and knowledge in his own way according to the dictates of his Higher Self, an every possible freedom should be given for unhampered development.”

Even the unexpected lessons.

This is why to know ourselves, to care for ourselves and to seek out the support so we may rise to the call is a process never-ending. This is why being broken open — or in my case falling deeply into an understanding of a whole new way was necessary for both of us.

If you are gifted with the care of another, by birth or by life, I bow to you. If you are sitting with a mistake you have recently made, may I offer you the permission to apply a lense of learning, a scent of compassion, and large cup of release with a deep cry for grace, so that you may once again feel the presence of you in all of your brilliance.

To you, thanks for being here,

Kate

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If you were reading and thinking — wait, where do I get this reflection in my own life? Maybe we can help. We have a 6 week intimate program called Root to Rise to clear confusion, define your focus and stabilize your vision for what you want to create in your life — and creating calm or peace counts, feeling strong in your body counts.

How to listen: Stories of a Hawaiian student

A story about listening, from the archives of my teaching in the middle of the Pacific. We often say that children have so much to teach us; however, talking is not what creates change: it is listening and learning. This excerpt from my role as an educator will be included in Start Now, Love, a little guide to keep going.

I hope this brings you some inspiration + enjoyment,

Kate

______

Brains storming.  A component of writing that is essential, whether acknowledged, or not. For some it happens easily, for some a struggle.  Huddled over their work, in a fluorescently lit, tan cinder-block room, the none-too convinced class of community-college writers awaited their next wrestling match.

            I had been teaching writing, in one form or another, for a decade. I was still adjusting to the fact that I had been doing anything for a decade, professionally, but that’s another story. On the Mainland, as the contiguous United States are called in Hawai’i, I had wrangled minds into the finer arts of language and writing. The concepts were the same; now, however, my playing field contained coconut trees and luscious greenery.

“Okay, so  the important part is not to censor yourself,” I scanned the eyes that peered back at me. “Just write whatever comes to mind, and keep writing. Good, bad, ugly, makes-no-sense,” a couple threw me some chuckles, “just keep writing.     Your topic to brainstorm, both sides of the argument: Taking Art Out of the Schools.”

            A few groans escaped, as I continued, “What would someone say that would advocate the schools saying. And advocate means…?”

            “Argue for,” a voice offered.

            “Right. Who would argue for, or advocate, to keep the Art in schools. And then, who or – what would the reasons be – to argue that art doesn’t need to stay in schools?” Then heads went down, the pencils started, and I began making my laps of paper-peering.

            Heated scribbles, waning sighs, and labored breathing were among the indications that the students had begun. One student, I shall call him Koa, was clearly thinking, but nothing was moving into form. It was only the second week of classes, but I had already come to admire this student: strong, intelligent, independent and kind.

           I slipped into a chair next to him and asked,   “So--?” with a my leading pause.

            “I can’t think of anything, Miss.”

            “No?” I thought of the countless times that I had given this prompt on the Mainland, and students promptly spit back their utilitarian answers.

            “No – I mean, I know that you are asking, and I know why you would want me to think of something, but I don’t agree…”

            Intrigued, I cocked my head to the side.

            “I mean, you want me to say why someone would want to pull art out – right?”

            “Yes,” I answered. “Now, Koa..I am not asking you to agree with art being taken out – “

            “Yeah, but you are asking me to imagine why someone would tell you that it is ok to take art out?”

            “Yes.”

           “Yeah, see that’s the problem.  I know,” Koa continued, “that you want me to say, that it saves money and that everyone is not an artist, and stuff like that…”

           “Yesssss,” I repeated, hearing my own predictability. “But – you don’t have to believe the reasons; it’s just a way to see what the other side would say, so you can predict their argument. See it from both sides, and understand…”

          “That’s it, Miss,” Koa switched gears, to explain to his teacher. “Ok, so someone would say, ‘Take art out of schools, because not everyone is an artist.’”

          I shook my head.

          “See, I don’t think that is true. I think everyone is an artist. And people think they aren’t good at art because they sat next to some kid that was better than them, or someone told them they were bad.”

           I exhaled.

          “See, there is always going to be someone that is better than you, but it doesn’t mean that you aren’t good at Art. You could play ukulele, do ceramics, draw – everyone can create something.”

           I listened.

          “And, maybe the teacher thought there was only one way, or they liked one style better than another, so then the kid thinks he’s crap – Sorry, Miss – but it’s not true. It’s just one teacher’s opinion.”

          I drank Koa’s every word.

         “And because this kid thinks he’s no good, then he just decides that art isn’t needed. Or maybe that art doesn’t make money, but art helps everything. If you sing, you dance, you draw, whatevah (his Pidgin slipped in) -- then that makes you a more well rounded person, and that leads to things, too. It’s not just the one step of money, or whatevah, like Math or writing…it’s not just one thing.. I just don’t agree --”

        This, to me is the practically imperceptible difference of Hawaii: When tourists land here, they breath in the air; they soak in the sun; they pull in the beauty, but they can’t pinpoint the one thing that is unmistakably, Hawaiian.  And this twenty-something who was returning to school, after being out for ten years and waitering-car-parking-tourist-catering service jobs, until realizing he would need his own business to afford a home on the island that me loved, served up to me, the aloha difference. Just a sliver. I, in reality, was a tourist, too, although I lived here, and  am sure there is a depth that I may never access. But in this moment, I was listening.

       Life was not just about the creation for consumption. Life was more. There is value in beauty – look out the window – there is value in song – listen to the pules- there is value in who you are, as you, for you. Just being you. Expression is a product of living; creating beauty was what the island of Kauai was all about. Beauty around. Beauty within. Respect for all. Hō‘ihi.

       I wanted to rush this man, with the brilliance and innocence of a loved child, and hold him in gratefulness, then clone him, and send him all over the Mainland, and plead and pray that people would actually hear what it was that he was saying.

      What I did: was smile. What else could I do? I smiled. I shook my head and gratefully, graciously, accepted “defeat.”

     “You don’t have to.”

     “What, Miss?” Koa asked.

“Just  - you don’t have to. You don’t have to bother with the other side. I hear you.”

“No, Miss, I can if you want I just was saying--”

And our eyes met, and I hope - although I will never know-  that Koa saw my gratitude and admiration. I hoped,  and still do, that he will be heard, in the quiet way he will live his life on this beautiful Kaua`i, land of boundless gifts, by anyone who is able to listen.

The moment broke, and I muttered, “Just, just go ahead with your thesis. You’re done brainstorming.”

“Alright Miss,” he chuckled. “Whatevah you say.”

Dear reader, when was the last time you had to place down your plans so that you could reach your goal of learning? I’d love to know. We can grow, together.