💖Mother: This is something I’ve been told my whole life would be my greatest gift and is my greatest role, and for the longest time I didn’t fully feel that.

💖I love my children, of course. I have ALWAYS felt that they were, and are, my “treasure.” I have enjoyed caring for them, connecting with them, and being here for them. I love being a mother. And I did and do see beauty in this role.

💖But I also experienced so much guilt for how often I didn’t like being a mother too. It isn’t always fulfilling, sometimes it sucks. Sometimes it’s ridiculous. Sometimes it is hard and tiring and impossible. Sometimes I don’t like it at all.

💖And for a long time I was told it was my greatest role, and in the background of my being I felt so guilty for sometimes hating it. I felt like maybe I wasn’t doing it right, or doing enough, or maybe I wasn’t loving enough or kind enough or strict enough or maybe I wasn’t throwing my whole heart into it and that is why I felt so drained. Maybe I was not right for the job.

💖And then one day (it wasn’t one day, it was “one day” … A thousand days connected into one) I started seeing it differently. I began to understand that there isn’t a perfect way to be a mother, there’s just “being a mother.” I don’t have to have it all figured out. In fact, nobody ever does. I don’t have to do it exactly right. In fact, there’s no exact right way to do it.

💖The guilt I was feeling was unnecessary, it came from a place of misunderstanding. It wasn’t mine to carry. And so I got to look at it, breathe with it, and I got to release that bit to make room for more love. The love IS mine to carry. And in the presence of Love, there isn’t much else to do. I get to just be love.

💖So, I’m actually seeing now that motherhood has been and is an incredible gift in so many ways. The perfect gift, sometimes wrapped in really ugly paper, but lovely and amazing on the inside when you turn it around and look at it from a new angle.

💖It’s such an interesting position to be in, that of a mother. It’s an all encompassing experience. I am ultimately responsible for these human lives?! They look to me for their nourishment and safety. I am the one who fills their needs. Which is why motherhood brings the highest highs and the lowest lows. It is all things. It is a fullness of experience.

💖It brings the greatest joys, the greatest love and it opens your heart to a level of connection that you didn’t know was possible. And it just keeps expanding. It is life-altering every single time you bear new life into this world and in so many ways every day is another birth. Many moments throughout each of my children’s existence has brought me to my knees in awe and wonder at the beauty and impossibility and depth this sacred role brings.

💖But the interesting thing about it is that as it carries with it this beautiful love and heart expanding energy, it also brings the hardest most difficult moments too.

💖I have experienced the greatest sadness, the most challenging lessons, enormous triggering and the biggest heart wrenching ache in this “mother” arena. It has brought me to my knees in utter exhaustion and “not knowingness.”

💖It has been everything. All the things, all the emotions, all the feelings, all the experiences wrapped up in this one space; which is why I have learned so much.

💖Like, that each child is unique and different and there isn’t one way to mother; each child requires you to show up in a new way everyday. It takes openness. And it takes learning that you need to be (you get to be!) open. And that sometimes requires you to step down from what you thought it would be and allow it to just be.

💖I have learned over the course of my 19 years of being a mother, and 7 children, that my role is not to tell my children how they should live, what they should do, and who they should be. My role is not to show them exactly where i think they should go and make sure they get there. My role is not to dictate every step or to push them in the direction my heart wants for them.

💖My role is to create a safe space for them to learn how to live with an open heart and to allow them the opportunity to find where their heart leads THEM. It doesn’t matter where that is, I see that I am the one who gets to support their journey in connecting to and finding themselves. I don’t know what they need exactly, but they know! They get to show me.

💖I get to be the love that is poured out. I get to be the shoulder to cry on. I get to be the hand that lifts them when they fall. I get to brush them off when they’re dirty. I get to kiss their wounds when they’re hurt. I get to celebrate their joys and breathe with them when they just don’t know.

💖It’s a lot, and yet it naturally flows from love. It’s not a list of things I have to do, it’s the natural expression of the love that exists here in this space.

💖I have learned that I GET to do all of this, and I get to do it all in a space that allows them (and me!) the freedom to understand they are the ones blazing their own trail. I’m not telling them who to be and what to do, I’m allowing them the opportunity to do and be whatever they choose to do and be. It is openness. It is potential. It is the beautiful unknown.

💖So as a mother, this takes dropping all notion or expectation of what it SHOULD be, and allowing it to just BE.

💖This lesson has been a gift to me in so many ways. It has brought in an energy of peace into our space, into our lives, into our hearts. And it has brought me so much joy to understand that I just get to watch and witness them BECOME. What greater gift and spot to be in, than having a front row seat to witnessing magic.

💖There is no greater gift and magic than that of unearthing and illuminating one’s purpose in life; it is the trail of discovery, the adventure of becoming. I love it. I honor it. I appreciate it. And i see that it is what motherhood has been for me as well. I have expanded here.

💖It has brought me the understanding that I get to love and support. That is my role here. My role is to put that love and support out to anyone who desires it, to anyone who needs it, to anyone who is suffering, to anyone who is near me. Not only my womb children, but ALL children, all people, all beings.

💖I have loved experiencing this remarkable, extraordinary, astonishing, marvelous, phenomenal gift … This role of mother. It is truly an honor.

💖Today I breathe in this energy; this delicious heart centered contribution that is mine to bring to this world. I embody this role, this title of “Mother.” And I see it today for what it is; the most beautifully wrapped perfect endowment, given to me as a playground of discovery and magic. Yes, I see it. It is a divine offering.

💖It is the universe saying to me, “Here is what you wanted. Here is the connection. Here is the magic. Here is the space for growth. Do you see it? Ah! Yes, you do. You are here and you are perfect. This is exactly right.”

💖I receive this gift today. And I offer my vision to you as well, if you choose to receive it. May it serve you, may it fill you, may you see the perfection of this delicious harmony that is here to align with.

💖May it be so. Happy Mother’s Day.

~Honor, this moment.