Motherhood as an Awakening

reflections on motherhood, wholeness and tending to what matters most

No one told me that becoming a mother would split me open in such an irreversible, sacred way.

I expected sleepless nights, a body that didn’t quite feel like mine, the learning curve of swaddles and car seats. But no one prepared me for the kind of love that drops you to your knees—a love so vast it eclipses your sense of self and then, quietly, begins to reshape it.

I didn’t know it was possible to love something so deeply—something that lives outside of your body, something that does not belong to you. That’s the paradox no one talks about: you spend your days holding them close while teaching them how to leave you, how to grow far beyond your grasp. You are both their anchor and their launchpad. The ache of that truth still catches me off guard.

Motherhood has changed my relationship with myself more than any other role I’ve ever held. To truly show up for my sons, I’ve had to get radically honest with who I am. The mask I wore for most of my life—the one molded by belonging, performance, expectation—was ripped away. I couldn’t perform my way through mothering. There was no space for pretense, only presence. Authenticity became the only thing that mattered.

In the loss of that performative self, something far more sacred emerged. I lost the versions of me who tried so hard to fit in. I reclaimed the part of me that finds peace in doing things differently. The part that questions, resists, rewrites. The part that believes there is no single blueprint for motherhood—and that my way, even when it’s messy, is still worthy.

But motherhood didn’t just show me who I was—it revealed the tensions I carry. The way society carves us into fragments. The way wholeness is positioned as something we must sacrifice at the altar of caregiving.

There is always tension. Always that tug-of-war between the self I know I am and the self the world tells me I should be. I’ve been told in a thousand subtle ways that honoring myself—my needs, my voice, my desire for rest or solitude—is somehow in conflict with being a “good” mother. That to be a full person is to risk being perceived as insufficiently devoted. That the maternal must be selfless to the point of erasure.

But I don’t believe that anymore.

What I’ve learned, through trial, through grief, through the sacred rebellion of listening inward, is that I am a whole person. I was whole before I became a mother. I would remain whole even if I had never been granted this role. But motherhood, for me, has become part of that wholeness. Not because it completes me, but because it expands me. It has made my selfhood more complex, more alive. My wholeness is not defined by motherhood, but it is, undoubtedly, richer because of it.

So much of how I parent has been shaped by the women who came before me. Everything I know about motherhood, I first learned from my own mother. She mothered from a place of deep tenderness, never from performance. She created a home that felt like a sanctuary—a place where we were safe, where warmth lingered in the walls and in the scent of her cooking, where love was woven into the quiet, daily rituals of care.

finding home within myself while creating a home within my body for my firstborn

That’s what I want to offer my children—not perfection, but presence. A home that smells like something they’ll miss when they’re older. A space where they always feel they belong. A memory they can carry in their bones. There is something deeply ancestral about this—a desire to pass on not just traditions, but a feeling.

And yet, I also find myself pushing back against the dominant cultural narrative of “good mothering.” The version that is endlessly patient, perpetually selfless, always composed. The version that erases complexity, anger, desire, and exhaustion. I resist that model. I rewrite it. Because while I deeply admire the softness I inherited, I also want my sons to see the full spectrum of who I am. I want them to know a mother who sometimes raises her voice, who gets overwhelmed, who needs time alone, who says “no,” who models boundaries, repair, and truth. I want them to witness not a perfect mother, but a real one.

Still, the roles creep in. I catch myself performing even when I don’t mean to—the accessible one, the calm one, the emotionally fluent one. Sometimes I wear the mask of certainty, even when I’m full of doubt. Sometimes I parent like I’m being watched, graded, measured. I slip into the role of the woman who has it together because I’m afraid of what it means to come undone.

I wish I could shed the mask that says I need to do it all gracefully. I’m learning that grace doesn’t always look graceful. Sometimes it looks like honesty. Sometimes it looks like asking for help. Sometimes it looks like not knowing, and saying so out loud.

There are quiet moments in motherhood that feel almost holy. The sound of my sons breathing as they slept on my chest when they were babies. The way their bodies melted into mine, as if we still hadn’t learned how to be separate. The smell of the tops of their heads—still sweet, still sacred. A tight embrace after school, their bodies pressed against mine, their energy softening. The excitement in their voices when they bring friends over, eager to share our home, our rituals, our family. These are the moments I tuck into the folds of memory. These are the moments that matter most.

But even within the beauty, there is grief.

I sometimes miss living only for myself. The freedom of sleeping in on a whim, the spontaneity of last-minute flights or unplanned dinners with friends. I miss the ease of relationships that didn’t require syncing calendars or negotiating bedtime. I miss the friendships where our lives ran parallel instead of drifting apart—not because we stopped caring, but because the roads we chose carried us in different directions. There is mourning in motherhood, even when joy lives beside it.

And yet, motherhood has given me a chance to care for my own inner child in a way I never expected. When I give my kids space to have their feelings, to be messy and loud and full of contradiction, I am also giving that same permission to myself. I don’t need to be the parent I didn’t have. I need to be the parent I want to be, which means tending to myself, too. I ask myself if I’m okay. I try to make room for both of us—my children and the younger version of me still learning what safety feels like.

In the hardest moments—the ones where I feel like I’m failing, or falling apart—I hold on to a quiet mantra: It’s not supposed to be perfect in order for it to matter.

Because it isn’t. The love is real, even in the chaos. The connection is deep, even on the days I yell or cry or forget to pack the snack. This isn’t about getting it right. This is about staying in it—honestly, humanly, fully.

If my children remember anything about their childhood, I hope they remember me. I hope they remember that I was there. That I was a soft place to land. That their home was filled with warmth, and their hearts with certainty that they were loved. I hope they remember that they were prioritized, that their well-being was sacred to me. That I am—and always will be—grateful to be their mama.