A Mother's Strength

Whether we were seeking one or not, we’ve all experienced a transformation these past 3 years. The kind that penetrates deep within our roots and forces us to come out the other side scathed, yet stronger.

It needs to be said as loudly as it needs to be heard: a mother’s strength is undeniable.

We are here because of the grit that’s etched inside the walls of our heart, that lined the hands that gave and gave. 

We are here because of our unwavering love, which bloomed within the spaces begging to be healed. Sometimes tragic, but every day we are the magic. 

We are here tonight because there isn’t a force stronger than our fortitude.  

So let us join in celebration of our togetherness, as we collectively release the longest, most deeply-deserved exhale. 

Transition Tide

We’ve all bore witness to our most monumental transition:

Woman to mother.

Inside these terms, really no other change will ever present as vast.

Still life will continue to present with warring dualities:

Where one foot remains firmly planted in the past

As the other lunges forward to the new and undiscovered.

The undertow alone, my god.

Existing in the in-between can make us feel unanchored--  

Untethered to place or space or identity.

But the comforting truth remains true,

Whether it’s about me or about you,

No matter where you go, there you are.

Existence magnificent in every form.

To shed from one skin--

The honor of aging,

Afterall, transition is the trappings of the tide calling you back home.

Simplify

Why as mothers do we find it more natural to overthink than to oversimplify?

The times I feel most overwhelmed is because I’ve forgotten to live by Confucis’s principle:

“Life is really simple but we insist on making it complicated.”

Possibly the only positive outcome of the pandemic was the stripped-down nature of our day-to-day lives and while now we are grateful for the richness and togetherness, we shouldn’t mistake busyness for purpose.  

Even writing now I want to provide detailed accounts of all the ways in which our to-do lists are too long and our plates are too full.

Instead, I’ll say

So much of what life can be whittled down to is finding your why and drawing everything back towards that singular goal.

Whether it’s love or family or faith challenge yourself to simplify.

Flow

Imagine for a minute the beauty of a river flowing—a meandering stream, consistently in motion.

Now picture yourself floating along with the current.

We are constantly dodging debris, figuring out ways to be more fluid.

We are continuously shifting roles from mother, to partner, to worker, to friend all while maintaining our sense of self.

The switching isn’t seamless, nor should we hold ourselves to such a standard.

But in order to make these changes less jarring, emotionally charged, mentally exhaustive

We should acknowledge and find gratitude for the powers that keep us lifted—

For all of the roles we wear and carry are inspired by the many hands on our backs who supply the love that keeps us afloat.

Reimagine

Many of our great disappointments can be chalked up to unattainable expectations

Being a writer I’ve got a gift of imagination but it can often get me into trouble when I’m planning for the future.

It’s been said that “expectations are premeditated resentments”

When I arrive home from Body Well my house will be clean, my children will be asleep, and I will fall asleep at a responsible hour.

Whomevers shoulders we are placing this responsibility on be it our partners, sitters, or our own we already have a plan in our head for what the evening after this should look like.

Except we need to stop “should-ing” on ourselves

Instead, let’s work to “reimagine” a version of life that sets us up for attainability.

One that can have lofty components, but with carefully measured scaffolded stepping stones along the way to help get us there.

Motherhood is probably the most relatable example of this.

I don’t know about you but my imaginary children were all good eaters, sleepers, and helpers.

In reality, our babies are just as beautifully flawed and human as we are.

There is no perfect way, route, or roadmap towards our goals—only that we allow ourselves to adapt and appreciate the journey as we grow.

Capable

As women, we’ve been conditioned to never give ourselves enough credit.

Remain humble.

Stay small.

Don’t make waves.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that we more often than not, we are riddled with self-doubt.

Maya Angelou said,

"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it."

This is how we can begin to see our own capabilities instead of only our limitations.

On the Body Well Stage, we invite you to honor your body where it is and celebrate our journey along the way.  

I can only do 1 push-up on my knees becomes

My body is capable of doing 1 push-up on my knees!

I can only use 3lb weights during strength training becomes

My body is capable of utilizing 3lbs of additional weight to become that much stronger!

While these mantras may sound simplistic, it is a necessary part of reframing our conversation surrounding our own capabilities.

Let’s own and celebrate our accomplishments.

Take up as much space as we possibly can.

Rephrase our abilities to reveal our tidal wave of power.

In the Solution

Body Well: Winter Session 2023

I wonder if this sounds familiar…

I’m trapped inside psychological, physical, and behavioral habits that are no longer serving what I strive for within the healthiest version of myself.

I’m scared to change because old comforts feel easier than beginning and carrying out brand new ones.

I feel like I’m playing a supporting acting role within the story of own life.

Do any of these ring true for you?

Either way, we’re glad you’re here.

So often I find myself in a battle of wills with my 3 daughters. A list of complaints a mile long: they misplaced the microscopic toy from two Christmases ago, I overtoasted the bagel, and for the love of unmatching socks put your mother-forking shoes on! I perpetuate the cycle of frustration by solving any of these without input and participation from them—because ultimately we are fighting against my will. The reality: short term it feels easier to quickly fix the problem, long term it’s best to participate in the solution.

The same is true for us here.

We understand by now the importance of showing up for ourselves in ways such as our this 8-week Body Well Program. But perhaps we are still mastering the art of experiencing real, and dramatic changes within our bodies and minds.

This year I’ll be celebrating a decade of sobriety because I have been an active participant in what it truly means to change. Recovery didn’t just happen to me because I stumbled blindly into not drinking. It’s been a conscious, methodical, and incredible journey every step of the way. I share this with you to prove that we are not stagnant in our evolution within ourselves. We know this to be true because we’ve witnessed our own transform from girls, to women, to mothers.

Change is possible.

Every week I will call upon the words you’ve chosen for guidance and inspiration as a means of motivating us to remain focused on our journey toward the solution together.

The Well

Imagine a mother as a well:

The brick and mortar, small or large, cracked or smooth.

Outside is a work of art.

But inside holds the water.

Our physical bodies

While a celebration of beauty and power,

Magnificent to behold

Are merely the container of our very best things.

Within our walls exists the divinity between a mother and child.

They seek water from our well, not the outer bricks of our bones—

Because love serves as the light for our soul’s recognition in the dark.

Let us use this logic whenever we need to come back to ourselves.

Remember that we are both the creator and the source of our own peace.

We’ve been given the knowledge of what it takes to make our body’s well:

Gifted the tools to fill our pools with hopes of sustaining infinite replenishment—

The methods and practices suggested to obtain a mother’s purest equilibrium.

Our bodies are the vessels for the magic residing within, and should be handled with care.

But fulfillment,

That is an inside job.

The Keepers

As mothers, we are the timekeepers, the peacekeepers, the secret and memory keepers, and the keepers of the fruit snacks.

As the internal metronome of our entire family’s clock—we are the only ones responsible for pressing the pause button. Our reality is such that we will often only recognize our own burnout by the time it’s too late—the most ineffective means of a recharge or a reset is when we’ve already tapped out.

We cannot pour from an empty cup as they say.

Before I became a mom and a writer, I was a special education teacher and would spend my career writing support plans for children with dangerous, worrisome, or maladaptive behaviors. The most effective means to mapping out a plan to create an appropriate alternative response had to do with understanding and recognizing a child’s antecedent behaviors prior to the explosive one as well as the function or the need that that behavior served for the child.

There was a formula that went (A) Antecedent + (B) Behavior= (C) Consequence

Let’s apply this same logic to our current lives.

A relatable example: The Sunday Scaries: where we spend the hours of 6pm-8pm every Sunday evening raging, drinking, and disappointed that the weekend wasn’t actually a reset at all but a shitshow of sports, laundry, and children’s birthday parties. Now it’s almost Monday again, and someone has to make the lunches and wash the backpacks that smell like rotting bananas. A+B=C

Why do my Thursday days run the most smoothly out of any other day during the week? Because I know I have this to look forward to in the evenings, and therefore my mood is better, my mothering is more patient…  I have plenty to pour out over my family because I have plenty for myself. The Body Well Program is so effective because it serves to change our patterns to make sure our wellness is being prioritized.

The nature of modern motherhood is such that essentially our lives our just one never-ending-antecedent behavior to the explosive behavior. Therefore, the only predictor of not feeling overwhelmed is to make sure our own cups are always full.

There I solved all of our problems with words.

Except you know as well as I do that actions are what counts and that, my dear friends, only you are the keepers of.

The Ripple Effect

A lot of times, we think positivity needs to be forced. We can be quite literally drowning in the responsibilities of motherhood and people are always shouting from the sidelines “remember to enjoy every minute”.

Rather than promoting inauthenticity, we can make a conscious choice to shift our mindset to focus on what’s good.

Take this moment for instance:

We just completed a killer workout, among friends, on this glorious fall evening while our children are cared for by people other than us. No matter how you examine what transpired tonight, we set in motion a ripple effect of positivity. What’s good for us, is good for our children, is good for our communities, and so on.

No one here is telling you to be the strongest, fastest, or the best at anything. Or saying “suck it up buttercup”. Sometimes its easier to find admiration in other people rather than positive attributes within ourselves. Body Well is the perfect example of how each woman supplies building blocks of support as a foundation for growth. Your unique strength inspires someone else’s and becomes the catalyst as we contribute to the ripple effect of positivity that surrounds us.

The Experience of Fall

If this time of year had a smell it would be pumpkin spice and wet leaves. The kind of fragrance that makes you want to start a fire and cozy up with your children under soft flannel.

The taste would be apples. Crisp and crunchy as the act of that first bite is nature’s version of poetry.

If this season were a sensation it would be the weight a king-sized candy bar contributes to an open pillowcase. If childhood nostalgia were a place, it would live here in the soft hum of family on a sugar high.

The sight of foliage’s cascading colors as trees ignite greens into red, brown, and gold.

If fall were a sound it’d be our children’s spooked giggles. When we encourage them to travel safely along the boundaries of fear with the celebration of weirdness, imagination, and creativity.

There is something about this season that sparks comfort—gratitude that invites you to lean closer in towards one another. Perhaps it’s the beginning of the holidays, but I think it has everything to do with what’s happening inside our minds. We witness fall as a temporal landmark where we prioritize all the things that immersing ourselves in nature does for our spirit.

When in reality fall, just like our own happiness is not a place, a thing we can reach out and touch, it’s a state of mind that we can allow ourselves to visit, during any season of life.

A Mother's Resolve

My oldest daughter has taken up an interest in wanting to walk on the moon. While we’ve explored the path to becoming an astronaut and she recognizes the hurdles as much as an 8-year-old can grasp such things, she believes that one day she will quite literally be up among the stars. Do I think this will be her ultimate career choice, I don’t know. But do I think she has the potential to one day travel to space, absolutely.

Then I had a thought… why would we teach our children they can be anything they want to be, if we don’t believe this for ourselves?

Here is a reminder I needed to hear exactly on this day, exactly at this moment: I am actually capable of anything, because I transformed myself from a woman into a mother. And I do mean transformed. I think back 10 years ago over what I believed to be hard, compared to what my body and my mind has endured now, and that’s how I know, our potential is limitless. I can still want things for myself, what’s good for me is good for my children. A family’s road can be paved by individual achievements and a mother’s resolve.

The Floor at Our Feet

It’s here I can whisper to you the secrets from this year that only mothers know. 

Somedays lately I find myself crawling on all fours just to make sure the Earth below is safe for my children to walk on. 

It feels dangerous to trust in the promise of normal, when we saw how quickly and without warning it felt like the floor could be stolen from beneath us. 

Trusting any good feelings is especially baffling since we were never granted the opportunity to process for ourselves what it was exactly that we survived. 

During COVID no one offered us anything resembling a “Feelings Stick” and if they had, at the time, it would have felt like another thing we were being asked to carry.

In order to move forward and feel our deeply earned joy, there must first be an awareness brought to the truth: the truth that mothers were asked to sweep our pain beneath a rug on a bottomless floor. 

If we’re looking for an acknowledgement of the disproportionate-lode we shouldered, this, right now, may be our only chance. 

So hear me:

From one mother to another I didn’t have to witness your hurt to know that it existed. We can look around and nod and know and in the knowing, take comfort that you are seen.

Take solice in the recognition that within each of us, exists the stones to make our own solid ground.

We don’t have to fear the unknown, so long as we’ve planted our faith firmly within ourselves. Have confidence that we can withstand anything, because here we sit.

Mothers have and will always be the groundskeepers for humanity. 

And so, when uncertainty undoubtably arises—

Remember mothers, the floor is ours. 

What We Need

We need less fear and more faith

More connection with less contradiction

We need less ache and more answers

More unity with less unimaginable

We need less wounds and more wonder

More healing with less hurt

We need less sorrow and more serenity

More heart with less heartache

We need less me and more us

With more light and more love.

Humanity

We exist in a time that doesn’t come with any degree of sugar-coating.

There is no “easy” button to speak of or delusions about how difficult this time has been.

We are just here, playing out every emotion within the human experience.

Glennon Doyle says, “Being human is not hard because you’re doing it wrong, it’s hard because you’re doing it right.”

But within the struggle, a new doorway has appeared: a celebration of acknowledging shared vulnerabilities.

It’s hard for you? It’s hard for me too.

A means of creating connection during a time of disconnection:  

A signal flare in the darkness, as a reminder of our humanity.

Within this space; this village--

When we reach out, there has and will always be someone to reach back. 

And that knowing, has been a deep exhale. 

Yes the world is heavy, but sharing hope is weightless. 

On the days you feel like the sky is falling;

When you find yourself counting clouds--

Know that someone here will be there shielding the storm, 

So you can find your way back to the light.  

Choose Joy

So much in 2020 reminded us we are not always in control. Small things, big things, and some really monumental history changing things that will be written about in our children's history textbooks for the next 100 years.

Already we are placing tremendous expectation on 2021; bound and determined to make it better than last year. But already with that thought we are placing an expectation on something that lies outside our control.

After the insurrection at the Capitol people were quick to write off this year--to keep spirits light someone even said, “So far 2021 is just 2020 with bangs.” We all want a smooth transition of power tomorrow We all want the pandemic to be over. We want every part of this year to be overflowing with good feelings. And there’s where we have a decision to make: we can choose to release internal negativity and accept joy into our lives and hearts.

Brene Brown says, “Joy is the most vulnerable emotion we experience. And if you cannot tolerate joy, what you do is you start dress rehearsing tragedy.”

We may not be able to control what happens next, but what if today we simply choose joy.