Claiming More of Ourselves in Motherhood with Cayley Benjamin

Cayley is a regular guest at The Nook and you can read a full blog post from an earlier visit here. Today she offers two quick, but meaningful ideas on how we can claim more of ourselves in our experience of motherhood.

What came up strongly for many of the mothers present was the ever present guilt they felt at taking any time for themselves - at even acknowledging that motherhood is hard, all-encompassing and even suffocating at times. In expressing these feelings they were almost always met with comments like, "But it goes so fast. Just enjoy it!" so that we almost always reflexively add "but, of course, I love it!" to balance or almost negate those difficult and often contradictory feelings. That you can love being a mother, love your child and really NOT love some parts of the experience.

The reflection Cayley offers is what if when we said, "This is really hard...this was a really tough day," we stopped feeling the need to add, "but, I love it....but it's wonderful, of course!" How would start to change the culture of motherhood?

One of the things Cayley believes in, when it comes to caring for ourselves as mothers, is that we can add it in, rather than add on.

Self-care is often thought of or spoken of as time away from our kids and she thinks that is important, but she also thinks it's important to claim ourself within our experience of motherhood, when we're with our children. 

Think about ways you can integrate things that you love into your daily experience of motherhood.

Some of Cayley's examples:

• I play the music I want, sometimes
• I went through a phase when I made my lunch first, then I made my son's lunch and I had at least a little bit of my food before I gave him his
• I make the lunch I want
• I light a candle everyday and a diffuser with really nice essential oils - just for me

Mothers brainstormed their own examples - everything from dancing to having a piece of chocolate - of how they could inject little bursts of joy into their day.

What will yours be?

Contributed by Shauna Farrell