It's Time to Feel

One of the hardest things about being a new mother is the lack of sleep. The reasons are many- soothing your baby’s cries, still nursing at night, or the myriad of unexpected turbulences that result from a new human “growing a body” in this world. In other words, it’s not easy.

As so as I pick my daughter up for what seems like the tenth time last night, my brain quickly went to places of trying to figure it out. Did she not nap enough today? Is she teething again? Or is it stomach pains? The questions come and come, round and round again. I’ve heard them before. It’s really nothing new, and in those moments of sheer exhaustion I know my “trying to figure it out” is in part wanting to help my daughter, but also wanting to do away with the pain. 

My partner gently pointed this out to me this morning as we breakfasted on the front lawn. In a sarcastic reply I asked: “What’s the alternative then? To Feel?” Silence ensued. I had answered my own question. I knew at that moment that part of the reason I was so exhausted was that I was pushing my feelings away. My heart was being overridden by my mind (at no fault of its own), but at the expense of feeling what was really there. Why was it so hard to feel?

As I nursed Ixchel down for her morning nap I asked myself what was I not wanting to feel. Grief came up. Of what, I’m still not sure. Sadness- check, also present. A little anger as well of not feeling fully supported in this journey (and not knowing how to always reach out for help). In reality, it was a mélange of emotions, all mixed up as one, which in those moments of hardship felt too overwhelming to embrace.

By not embracing them I was in part “checking out”. Yes, there is a practical dimension of motherhood that is necessary to ensure our babies survive. But there is also a deep feminine wisdom that beckons us not to think so much but to feel. In the feeling we can rest. We can let out emotions wash over us as water and tears bringing waves of new life. We learn not to be so attached to the moment and remember that “this too shall pass”. And we can tap into the innate messages that each “feeling” calls its’ own.

As so eloquently expressed in Rumi’s poem “The Guesthouse”:

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

This morning’s mélange brought me to a place of feeling and surrender. Feelings that I could just allow to be there instead of trying to figure out, and surrender to what’s right there in front of me, at all times.

I saw my daughter struggling with her own sleep, as if still trying to learn a new skill. Oh, it reminded me that it’s not easy being human, not one bit. And yet we incarnate time and time again to give it a new go. My heart began to open again. I connected to the courage it takes to be fully alive and fully human.

So the invitation stands that whatever comes into your “home” today- just let it be there. (Your relationship to money is another great place to start!) Treat whatever comes as an honorable guest and feel what it’s asking you to feel. I promise that underneath the resistance, there is some delight, in the same way that tilling the compost yields new life.