“The greatest wisdom is the insights experienced in our own hearts. This is the wisdom we can not deny. The more we trust and honor it, the more it guides us.”
– Naschala Joy Devi
The profound shifts in consciousness birthed with the arrival of motherhood continue to unfold with each passing day. As I move through time, a quiet omnipresent awareness is being born. I’m learning to embody the innate wisdom that runs through all of us who devote our days to tending, teaching, witnessing, celebrating and morphing along with the new paradigm of demand that comes with the selfless service of motherhood. With practice, patience and a shift in perspective, mothering has given me the playground to experiment with what it means to surrender with devotion, find a dharmic path that feels fulfilling, and observe the sacred within all things.
As a little reminder to myself, I’ve documented the three most powerful awareness shifts that have taken place during the first three years of motherhood in hopes that they continue to inspire a heightened awareness of the beautiful subtleties only found in motherhood. If you’re tuning in, please know that I’ve not reached a mastery in these areas and fully appreciate motherhood as my custom-designed daily, personal practice.
There is a difference between “letting go” and surrendering with devotion
As we mother our children and ourselves, we discover that the art of surrender does not lie within the simple sentiment of letting go. When we are asked to “let go”, we’re often faced with internal battles, bubbling resentments, and angst that runs deep. Surrendering often feels like loss and we gutturally throw our hands up in disapproval. Instead, there is a way to redirect ourselves towards a place with less resistance. Here, at this alternative viewpoint, parenting and partnering feel like an art form you can master.
I’ve discovered that the art of surrendering is to do so with devotion. It calls for a loosened grip, softer edges, and the willingness to leave effort and force on the sidelines. When I choose a path of surrendering with an extra layer of grace, I’m choosing a path that is no longer dictated solely by the whiplash musings of my own free will, and rather a path designed by nature with the intention of serving the highest good. The big picture becomes clearer, mistakes of my intellect (prajnaparadha) suddenly create less daily hurdles, and there is an allowance for my inner guidance to reveal it’s most authentic self. With practice, surrendering with devotion takes me directly to the place where expectations are more practical, outcomes are more kismet, and heart-centered awareness flows with more ease.
Surrender & Devotion Community Favorites:
❊ 025 – The Bhakti Heart
❊ Dillon Tisdel On Living A Personal Practice with Devotion
❊ 020 – Why We Practice
❊ Dani Escobar on Heart-Centered Wellness & Devotion
❊ 018 – The Seeker of Inner Retreat
It’s not the WHAT or WHEN, but the HOW when it comes to fulfilling our dharma
As we mother our children and ourselves, we understand the pressure to keep up, to adapt, to flourish, to become more than we currently are. We are forced to reconcile with those things necessarily put on pause and we grapple with our envisioned purpose on a daily basis. Our pre-mother conceptions become poor indicators of true success and the self-imposed expectations we place on our roles toil with the desire for immediate gratification. Our dharma (individual purpose) gets put on a pedestal for questioning and our clarity for the highest action appears foggy.
My understanding of dharma has been redefined by the pressure cooker experience of motherhood. Upon the threshold of my new role, I needed a new definition of what it meant to be productive and I needed to disengage from the shoulds imposed by our fast-paced, “keep going” culture. I needed to find ways in which I could feel fulfilled throughout the journey and while experimenting with what it meant to actually follow charm. Settling into a redefined dharmic path means that I’m now in close contact with the guidance emanating from my heart. With patience, defining and fulfilling my dharma has become a daily practice in tuning in, pivoting, welcoming a slower pace, and of course…offering all the grace I can muster.
Dharma, Purpose & Balance Community Favorites:
❊ 014 – Tending To Our Hearts
❊ 016 – Living In Between & The Urgency to Transform
❊ 017 – Passing Through Center
❊ 019 – Beyond The Ripples
❊ 021 – The In & Out Breath
You can find the sacred within almost anything, especially the mundane
As we mother our children and ourselves, we perceive the rigamarole of our daily lives to be just one more step forward, one more negotiation, and one more mundane Monday. The rhythmic nature of our comings and goings dull the service of our role as mothers. We start to believe that it’s only those with athletic endurance or those with a blissfully unaware demeanor who will be cut out for this level of selflessness. The sacredness, the depth, and the awe are hidden in plain sight, leaving us in a constant search for something with deeper roots.
Over time, my perception of what is deemed sacred has grown to include almost everything; a nap longer than thirty minutes, freshly washed sheets, a fresh start with the changing of a season, a prepared meal eaten fully and slowly or a solo shower when it’s needed most. There has been a fine tuning to the subtleties that turn the mundane into magic. The Wabi Sabi imperfectness of my days bring about a reverence for not only what is, but my role in guiding my child through the larger cosmic orchestra while keeping the magic alive. With heightened awareness and an attunement to the full spectrum of shock and awe, I now view motherhood as the most tangible expression of that which is full of depth, completely visceral and most certainly sacred.
Sacred Mundane & Present Moment Community Favorites:
❊ Jess Osie on Parenting From The Present
❊ 022 – An Unseen Magic
❊ Eva Maria Smith on Loving Awareness, Intuition & Motherhood
❊ 015 – Awakening The Wise Women Within
❊ 013 – The Pursuit of Fully Arriving
This week’s journal prompt: What have been the underlying themes to your motherhood experience and how can those themes provide you with guidance to navigate you towards softness, awe, and a calm heart?
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Each week, expect a bite-sized personal reflection with accompanying journal prompt. My hope is that by sharing these reflections and prompts, you’ll be inspired into purposeful action and we’ll both be reassured that we are not alone in this process of unraveling.
Once a month, expect a curation of resources intended to inspire a deeper personal practice. There will be Q&A interviews to showcase how other women in this community navigate transformation, articles and podcasts that have made a lasting impression and practical mindfulness exercises to bring about sustainable change. If you’re a fan of mantra…there will be some of that too.