The Alchemy in Acceptance: Motherhood’s Transformative Call

Lessons from birthing and mothering

Motherhood is an initiation into surrender—one that has transformed me, leaving me both in awe of and deeply present with the woman I have become.

Surrender & Orientation to Service

In the last piece i spoke about how i understand now that feeling the full spectrum of labour and birth is an integral part of stretching and expanding our capacity as we enter motherhood. I find myself really in awe of, and reflecting often on, the woman i am today and all that i hold. Things i worried about being able to handle as a mother have melted away.

I just meet every truth that is presented in front of me.

With the capacity growth comes a new erectness, an elongated spine that stands taller than before. For me personally a big spiritual theme in the initiation of birth was touching the bottom of the belief that ‘im not capable…’ (insert so many different beliefs in there). It impacted some of my decisions within the progression of our labour and it felt like touching the bottom of the Sea and then catapulting upwards.

I felt a knowing inside me that i would never allow myself to sink into the spot of ‘i can’t’ again.

Maybe i can’t right now.

Maybe i need to find another way.

Maybe i need to learn something before i do that.

Anything other than…”i can’t….”

Because birth shows you that you can. Because you’re in it, the sensations are the truth of the matter and you cannot change it, you just meet it for what it is and melt into, let it take you, and one step at a time you make it to the other side.

Sometimes its smooth, sometimes its tumultuous.

The Big Lesson Mirrored in Birth & Mothering

And so i have found that in this initiation one of the greatest lesson has been in surrender and acceptance of what is, of the truth in every moment and scenario.

Pregnancy, birthing and mothering are a mirroring experience of this otherwise deep spiritual lesson for life.

I have been tracking and watching myself in this experience for the last year and a half and i see the lessons over and over.

I see each spot where the truth of what was clashed with my preferences.

I see how birth mirrored that experience and from onset of labour to birth i was asked to release layer upon layer of preference and illusion.

And i see especially how i struggle, and can even say suffer (a synthetic mentally created suffering), in mothering, when i am not in acceptance of the truth in front of me but am rather chasing my preferences.

This particular thread continues to be a teacher to me and i am truly devoted to the shedding of these layers and attachments.

Sometimes it is something mundane like i want to write because im inspired, but my baby has decided they will nap later today.

Sometimes it is indicative of how well i am surrendered to service and to the realities of sacrifice in parenthood, like when i want to go on vacation and lay in the sun for hours and swim when i want, but i am a mother and my child’s needs don’t go on vacation.

Surrender & Orientation to Service

This piece about surrender and service in parenthood is one I’ve been thinking about in the context of Men vs. Women lately. I see on my own experience how ready to surrender to the changes i have been since the birth of our son, and how much my husband has struggled with it.

The loss of alone time and therefore how much attention we can give each other.

The loss of spontaneity to a degree.

Limitations on when and how we can rest.

Sleep.

Sex.

Everything rearranged (we are also in a unique situation as we do not have any day to day help).

Initiation into Sacrifice

I have reflected on how the initiated woman is really ripe and ready for the surrender and for the sacrifice for a child that is inevitably asked of you. I feel i have not even flinched but have merely stepped up to the plate. And even though my birth was so unlike how i imagined or even wanted, i see how it was the perfect final ceremony to initiate me for this most holy of roles.

It is truly the most on service of roles. It actually requires deep sacrifice. Not victimized sacrifice.

True, factual, matter of fact sacrifice.

Different to martyrdom, which is important to note, because it is also actually our responsibility to be nourished and cared for by ourselves and others (and to ask and be ready to receive).

Or, if we are not able to ask and receive (yet), i believe it is our responsibility to be able to hold the consequences of that in full emotional sobriety and responsibility. (Asking and receiving help is a huge portal for me that i am still unwinding which is why i feel i can speak to this- i have written on this pattern work in the piece “Practicing Reception”).

Having said all that, i dont see Men initiated into service in this same way. And i am seeing, at least with my own husband, some of the struggle to fully surrender to the changes. To the facets of life that will never be the same as before, at least not for some years. And i see how part od that is because their role is inherently different and it is not the same call to utter, raw, service, and part that Men have even less opportunity for initiation and preparation than Women (Women have done a lot more work to ressurect community in these ways which is helping us initiate each other, however this is no longer built into our communities).

The Call to Presence

As I have been sitting more with this though i realize in my practice i saw many (majority) of Women struggle with these exact changes as well. And even resent their partners for the fact that they were not being called in service and in surrender in the same way as them.

On top of that, as i loosely spoke to in my piece BODY, we have mainstream collective that encourages bodily disassociation and disembodiment of women, and propagates narratives that speak to the inconvenience of integral aspects of mothering (we want to augment birth, breastfeeding, sleeping practices etc).

I saw this play out day in and day out as an unwillingness to hold the role of mother in all its facets without fighting it in some way, shape or form. And this truly led to a lot of suffering within mothering (and life- because how you do one thing, you do everything…)

Motherhood as Mirror

And i reflect now on the areas where i am fighting and resisting and how i can show greater faith and presence with,

What Is.

Because i do believe that is a big initiation of motherhood and fatherhood. Which is actually a major skill within life, and certainly of a spiritual life, which is the ability to be with truth in this exact moment right now.

And as we will learn, when we are able to truly be with the truth of every moment, truly presencing it, whether we like it or not, is the first potential point of transformation or change.

You cannot shift what you cannot truly see.

And you cannot shift what you cannot truly accept and be in surrender to.

That is what I will leave you with today.

In Deepest Service,

A.

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