Your Motherhood Journal Prompts:
What is my expectation of motherhood, or motherly energy, based on my childhood experience?
What does society say motherhood, or mother energy, should look like and feel?
What do I want my experience of motherhood, or mother energy, to be? And what can I do to pivot my current routines and rituals to get there? What do I need?
What is at its fullest that I am harvesting and celebrating now? What is no longer serving me, or that didn’t come to fruition, that I need to release?
Hello, Soul Journalers!
I am excited to welcome another guest host to the podcast, Amanda Aaron.
In this essay and episode, Amanda shares her experience with motherhood—what she thought it meant and what she thought it was taught to look like and how she has been discovering what it really means to her over the years. She has given us four journal prompts to work with to help us explore our own thoughts and feelings around motherhood and mother energy.
This is a topic I obviously can very much relate to as a mother, but I know not all of you are mothers. As Amanda explains, we can all benefit from exploring mother energy, even if we aren’t mothers ourselves. Plus, I believe listening to stories like these helps us better understand the mothers in our lives.
After reading or listening, share with us what your experience has been like working with mother energy and with understanding and defining motherhood. What have you learned from your own experiences? What from Amanda’s story stands out to you, and how can you relate?
About Amanda
Amanda is a mother, storyteller and modern witch. She weaves slow, seasonal living and ritual into the everyday experiences of motherhood. Her influences include indigenous spirituality, earth-based pagan ceremonies and Christianity. Amanda's writing walks the reader through difficult emotions and personal evolution. Her passion is journeying with women to embody their divine feminine. Follow along with her writing and podcast through Soul Musings, a Soul Yoga Retreat Newsletter on Substack.
Amanda lives with her 4-year old son, Forryst, and her husband in Port Moody, BC, Canada. They enjoy long road trips and hiking through the pacific northwest rainforests.
Hello and welcome. My name is Amanda Aaron. I am a mother and storyteller.
I guide the modern mystic mama to reconnect with Mother Earth. We break old belief systems to move towards soul-level transformation. By uniting body, mind, and spirit, we become present, enjoying each moment fully and embodying our highest selves which is our divine feminine. Modalities used include Yoga, Journaling, Ayurveda, Astrology, Herbalism & Foraging, Homeopathy, Pagan Ceremony, Kundalini, Prenatal & Postpartum Support, and Village Events.
My Substack (Soul Musings, a Soul Yoga Retreat Newsletter) includes excerpts from my first book which features commentary and private journal entries from 2016-2019 when I learned to embody the Divine Feminine. I write on taboo topics in the category of spirituality and holistic wellness for women.
While today’s topic is on Motherhood, you can still engage even if you haven’t birthed children. The full moon is a powerful time to plug into mother energy, and during a woman’s cycle, the fertile or ovulation phase is also a powerful time to plug into mother-themes.
The full moon is considered the peak of the cycle where the moon is at her fullest. This is a great time to celebrate your accomplishments and release whatever did not come into fruition.
If you’re a woman who bleeds, you may notice a shift in your energy anywhere from day 5 of your cycle to day 16 or so. Typically, women are most fertile on day 14 of their cycle. This shift in energy looks like a transition from inner focus to outer focus. There will be a strong desire to serve others and exercise your loving and nurturing ways. You may feel more sensual in a mature and confident way, desiring to ravish or be ravished and languishing in the enjoyment of being pleased. You may have energy to create things such as creating art, sound or music, create space for yourself, create decorations around your house, or you may be creating life with the birth of a baby. You may feel called to celebrate what is working well and honor and release what is no longer working.
Like any theme, motherhood can look like it’s full, glorious, healthy self, and motherhood can also show up in our lives as depleted and exhausted, seemingly void of life.
By vulnerably sharing my own story, I invite you to investigate your own experience with motherhood and pause with the journal questions.
Before I birthed my baby, I was a self-care queen. I assumed this would carry into motherhood and serve me well. It did not. Instead, I started to carry out the example I was given. I was lonely, isolated, and I put others first. A lot of the loneliness was due to the pandemic in 2020, but even after restrictions were lifted, it took a lot for me to work myself out of that rut.
Expectation of Motherhood
My expectation of motherhood was shaped partly from what I saw in my mom. My mom raised me and my sister as a single-parent, while my dad worked many days in a row as a long-haul truck driver. My observation of motherhood is that it is often lonely, requires a lot of driving, puts others’ needs first, does not express own needs, does not have an intimate marriage, does not co-parent, does not play with kids, expects kids to entertain themselves while doing all the cooking, cleaning and household chores. I never connected my mom’s depression to social isolation but this is exactly what happened to me. I would describe my expectation of motherhood to align with the cultural norm - putting others' needs in front of your own.
My reality was very different from the dynamic I grew up in and it was confusing for a long time as to how I could reconcile the differences. Unlike my mom, previous to motherhood, I had worked hard to deconstruct my patriarchal programming and capitalist values to create a life of self-care, emotional regulation, healthy relational boundaries and slow living. My husband quit his job when I went back to work after maternity leave, and he became a full-time dad. At first it felt like he was in my hair. I never got a moment with the house to myself. He also does all the cooking and cleaning. I work and drive. We co-parent. We actively work on our marriage and enjoy a lot of intimacy. I worked hard to embody feminine mothering such as having organic expectations, going with the flow of things and not trying to force or overly plan or strategize life for my family.
This is very different from what I experienced growing up. My mom cooked and cleaned while my sister and I were left to entertain ourselves. Part of my expectation of motherhood was that I wouldn’t be a constant playmate of my child and that I would have space to do my own things.
I ask for what I need
When my son was 2-years old, I finally built up the awareness and looked inward and didn’t like what I saw. I put others' needs first and did not take care of my own needs. I didn’t ask for what I needed. I didn’t even know what I needed. I couldn’t put it into words. And when I had words, they wouldn’t come out. I hid my light. I oppressed myself.
I assumed that because I didn’t have a passionate, articulate opinion about some of the child-rearing and household duty things, that I had nothing to say on the matter. I stayed quiet. I changed my habits and behaviors because I didn’t spend the time listening to myself.
It ended up sucking my soul dry.
I dug deep to define what my expectations of motherhood was. I acknowledged the enormous influence that the pandemic had on setting the cultural norm for what mother’s experienced. Now it was my turn to define what I want motherhood to look like for me.
When I brought some self-care back into my routine, I still wasn’t feeling filled up. I realized that self-care doesn’t replace community. Self-care does not replace socialization. Self-care does not replace quality, soul-level conversation. It does not replace people. I needed to get out there and see my people again.
I read through Beth Berry’s book “Motherwhelmed” and was deeply impacted by her suggestion: courageous and creative connection. I called my friend, Kelly, that day, out of the blue, after 5 years of falling out of touch. It was magic to my soul. I researched eco-villages. For the last year, I co-lead a Family Nature group and we would gather at parks and do hikes together with our kids. I brought Forryst, my son, with me when I went to visit my friends. We shifted our household tasks to shop for groceries and clean the house during the week so we could free up our weekends. We prioritize Sunday as a family day. We’ve done a lot of work to get out of our rut and we’re still working on it.
After I brought self-care back into my routine, and after I started reaching out and visiting my friends again, I realized I still wasn’t quite asking for what I needed. And spending money on myself felt squanderous.
Before my son was 1-year old, I started reading “Women Who Run With the Wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. It ignited my heart. It asked me what my home base was for my soul and how often do I allow myself to languish in my home base. Do I need to dance more or create more? The book called me to define my inner landscape. Who am I really and what do I need to do to return to this true state? It called me to revel in awe at the world around me and feel no guilt when I need to retreat and be by myself. I needed to show up and shine my light and be seen, but seen by myself first.
Ministering to myself first
My sun-sign is Leo. Oftentimes Leo can be found as a performer or they can be very charismatic, but I have a lot of other earth-sign planets in my birth chart which makes me grounded so my fire-sign Leo doesn’t always burn that brightly. Still, I feel crushed when no one shows up for an event or when I hear crickets on social media. I feel like I’m not seen.
Through a sacral chakra meditation, my insight was “I feel secure when I feel seen when people show up to be ministered to by me so I can serve them and nurture them.” It struck me - if I’m not willing to first be that community for myself; if I’m not willing to first set those rituals for myself only; if I’m not willing to first nurture, first minister to myself, to be my own community when I am only one woman; if I’m not willing to do that then why do I think other women will show up and let me minister to their soul when I haven’t first ministered to my own soul?
The real ministering, the real ritual, the real community happens with me and me alone; me by myself, not being needed by my son and not being needed by my husband; not being needed by work or anything else. Just me being needed by me and ministering to myself, nurturing myself, creating those rituals when it’s only me to attend them and I am the only one that is being ministered to. I hate it because it makes me responsible and I’m not able to put the blame on something outside of me.
My desire to be seen starts with ministering to myself first. I give myself permission to change my mind, and make plans “as life allows” (sometimes canceling, sometimes rescheduling). I trust my intuition. When something doesn’t feel good, I pivot.
And now I find myself in a new phase again. My son is making his own friends, and he’s asked not to come for playdates with my friends' kids anymore. I am yearning for adult activities and kid-play is becoming exhausting to me. I need solo time, by myself. I need more massages and time at a sauna. I need time to sew. All of these things are now coming into place, and I know one day this will change too.
Thank you again so much to Amanda for being a guest host of the podcast, and I hope that you enjoy exploring motherhood with the journal prompts she provided for us (see the top of this post).
Again, we’d love to hear from you. What thoughts, feelings, and stories did this episode bring up for you?
And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with anyone else who could benefit from it.
With much love and gratitude,
Marcy
Share this post