For many of us, May is the month of mothers. In a few days, it will be this year’s Mother’s Day celebration on May 12. Last week, April 29 to May 3, was Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week. The theme for this year’s campaign was “Making Over Motherhood.”
I love being a mother. It is one of the greatest privileges and blessings I have. It’s a beautiful and bittersweet journey that has defined most of my adult life. It’s a proud badge and a permanent scar that I wear – once a mother, always a mother.
Still, I asked myself how I would make over my motherhood journey. Is there anything I would change? Is there anything I should change, not in the past, but in the present? My life is good and I am grateful for who I am and what I have. But asking myself this question has made me realize what I need to make over. Almost paralyzed by fear, I am secretly stuck, quietly wilting in my own head. In some important aspects of my life, I have been subconsciously choosing to act out of fear.
Because I’m afraid to fail, I undermine myself . My blog has been a series of stops and starts because I get analysis paralysis from thinking about whether or not anyone will want to read what I want to write. My dream of writing a novel is still only a dream because I tell myself that I don’t know where to start, that I’m not good at writing fiction, and that I need Neil Gaiman to teach me how to do it.
Because I’m afraid to be rejected, I keep dirty little secrets. After almost three years of trying, I’m still not a good enough cook. My dishes are few, basic and not healthy (I usually fry stuff; I rarely cook vegetables; I stock Spam Lite). My house isn’t a mess, but it isn’t the cleanest it can be. My homeschooling efforts aren’t great right now and despite doing it for almost twelve years now, I still struggle. My at-home yoga practice has been helping me become stronger in mind and body, but I don’t share any of my small wins or my struggles with my fellow Bad Yogis in our online community because I’m ashamed that after having completed two programs, I still don’t have a more toned belly and I still can’t do Crow Pose.
So how can I make over my motherhood journey? By choosing to act out of love instead of fear. I’m reminded of this by three people: Jim Carrey, Elisabeth Kübler Ross and the Blessed Mother Mary. In actor Jim Carrey’s commencement speech to the 2014 graduating class of the Maharishi University of Management, he said that “…the decisions we make in this moment,…are based in either love or fear.” Psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross said in her book entitled “Life Lessons: Two Experts on Death and Dying Teach Us About the Mysteries of Life and Living” and co-authored with David Kessler that “…there is only love or fear…If we’re in fear, we’re not in a place of love. When we’re in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.” I’m Catholic, and I’ve always seen the Blessed Mother Mary as my best role model for motherhood. From accepting the call to bear the Son of God in her womb, to raising Jesus as a human child, to seeing Him leave home so He can perform His ministry, and to ultimately staying by His side and witnessing the painful death of her only son, Mary had always chosen to act out of faith, humility and love. I can imagine being filled with such fear of pain, suffering and heartache if I were in her shoes, and I am in awe of how she always chose to act out of love.
If I start choosing out of love, I will write every single day, be it a blog post, a few paragraphs or sentences of fiction, a personal journal entry or a haiku. I will continue to write about my experiences as a homeschooling mother, as a college parent, as an expat wife and mom, as an introverted mom, as a mental health advocate, as a logophile and writer. I will write as much and as often as I can, regardless of whether or not I will push the “Publish” button. I will write out of love because it will make me truer to myself and help me become a better custodian of my gift.
If I start choosing out of love, I will let go of shame and guilt and I will embrace my present self with all of its strengths and flaws. I will stop beating myself up inside for not cooking better for my family, for not keeping a prettier home, for not guiding my child into what others would see as diligent and “proper” homeschooling, for not being fitter despite all of this yoga, for not yet succeeding in finding paid work as a freelancer, for thinking that I don’t do enough, for believing that I’m still not enough.
When I choose to act out of fear, I am choosing to focus on the future – on how I might be measured and judged. When I choose to act out of love, I am choosing to live in the present – to honor these moments by living in them with gratitude and purpose.