I wrote the lower part of this quickly on my instagram stories yesterday during the times I had to wait for the dentist to come in and check me at my appointment.
I like to share how real-life my expression is. I am deeply committed to cultivating my creativity daily. I journal pages and pages. I record voice notes to myself in the car. I write plenty of things that never get published. I am always reading at least three books at a time (mostly fiction these days).
I sing. I color and paint with my kids. I dance. I walk. I spend a lot of time in nature. I do a lot of creative things for no reason other than I enjoy them and they feel good.
I think of creativity as an internal fire that needs to be stoked and tended. It needs to have kindling, small sticks, and sometimes a big log that burns slow for a long time, put on it.
You don’t have to force yourself to write every day, but you do have to be tending to the fire in some way. Blowing some air on it. Observing it and feeling into what it needs.
I am pretty much willing to write and express most days and always being in process and practice with my path, I have a good burning fire of creation that I am always tending to.
Most of what actually gets shared publicly comes from a big flare of that fire and something just comes through like a lightening bolt and needs to be written down and shared at that moment. A lot of times if I wait and try to come back to it later; it won’t land.
If you don’t have these lightening bolt moments I think this means your creative fire may need some tending. You can’t have a roaring fire without some small burning twigs initially.
I also have pieces I work on for months that need to simmer and bake.
So I am always writing on my phone in between appointments, squeezing it in while my kids are entertained for a few minutes, or asking my husband if he can be with the girls while I pop up to my computer to get something out.
I never have glamorous or perfect conditions to write. Ever.
So this is just an intro to what I wrote while at the dentist yesterday that just felt like it needed to be put out and shared immediately. I have spent a few moments with it to flesh it out a bit more.
I want to talk about the victimized mother. She is the mother who feels resentful of her partner or other people because she feels they don’t support her or help her.
She is the mother who constantly feels bitter, spiteful, annoyed, and dissatisfied with her partner’s ability to show up for fatherhood or partnership.
The Victimized Mother and the Martyr Mother are actually the same.
You cannot be victimized if there is a choice. And there is always a choice.
[I wrote about this in this piece: The Victimized Mother and the Well Used Mother]
Believe me, one of my core stories is that I have to do everything, that other people won’t do it so I’ll just do it.
And this story took me to full on burn out in early motherhood.
I know the story of “I have to do it all..” very, very well.
I am also well aware that we live in a time when mothers are expected to be super human.
But that’s actually the place where we have a choice and a responsibility to choose another way.
If we want to change the way mothers are seen in the collective we have to hold the pole in our very personal lives of the full and fed mother.
We, in our very personal lives, have to be committed to not perpetuating the story that women have to do the lion’s share of the parenting, have impressive careers, be super hot, take great care of themselves, be perfect attuned gentle-parenting mothers and and and and….
We get to create our own experience of Motherhood.
You can create whatever motherhood experience you would like to have.
For me to have the experience of being a full, fed, and revered mother, which is the experience I want to have, I have to take responsibility when it comes to knowing what I need, asking for help with I need, being clear on my priorities, and valuing myself.
It requires me to back the story that I am a creator and that I have influence over how my reality arranges around me.
Being able to create our own experience of motherhood requires us to value our role as Mother enough to not play into collective narratives about what a mother should be or the collective narrative that mothers are undervalued.
Mothers are not undervalued in my home.
In my home the mother is revered and respected and treasured for the shepherd of life and the future she is.
I have invited my husband into his role as co-parent and papa since day one.
I have played the long game and thought about how each time I soothed the baby for him or took over to keep him more “comfortable” in regards to parenting, I would be taking his experience of becoming a father away from him.
So I chose to do that only minimally.
I let him struggle with the babies. I trusted his journey into fatherhood.. and he has shown up with flying colors.
So many men don’t even get a chance to ripen into a good father because of the martyr mother and the programming that men can’t or shouldn’t be with babies.
So before you’re quick to assume your man can’t handle it.. ask yourself if it’s really that you can’t handle his discomfort and struggle?
Ask yourself if you’d rather have the fake power of the martyr, the power that resentment makes you feel like you have, instead of allowing yourself to take up the space you take up and being responsible to figure out and ask for what you need that would make mothering less depleting.
This goes with parenting and it goes with telling our men the Truth.
We are the oracles.
Say the thing you Know that he needs to hear with a lot of love. This is what real partnership looks like. Invite him into his power.
This is what real Divine Union means, trusting each other and trusting your path.
You don’t get a King if you’re not willing to hold what a Queen holds.
And we don’t get a society that values mothers until mothers value their fullness as mothers.
One last thing: do not emasculate your men.
Assuming they cannot handle the Truth you see or the portal of fatherhood or your feelings or tough love is emasculation.
Assuming they only care about physical looks and sex or that they are incapable of controlling themselves around their physical urges is also emasculation.
Men are just as multifaceted as women. They want so much more. They are so much more.
Invite your men into their power.
Mothers, Fathers, and Creation