Expecting a child and giving birth is a unique time when a woman meets her big lessons: anxiety, fears, dependency.
It can be a time of self-discovery and gaining strength, or a time when all energy goes into negativity and powerlessness.
What challenges can be expected during this time? What hints from the subconscious can be received?
How to make the expectation and birth of a child pass in calmness and confidence is what this article will discuss.
A huge number of articles and books have been written about pregnancy and parenthood. It is a popular topic.
I understand that entire magazines are dedicated to it, and yet I wanted to write this article, reflecting on my experience of spiritual development in motherhood, highlighting the lessons that I have gone through and continue to go through myself.
Here are these lessons:
8 Lessons of Motherhood
Lesson 1. Awareness of Fears and Liberation from Them
Motherhood is a unique experience in life that helps illuminate a huge number of your fears, complexes, and programs.
This experience can also be gained in other situations, but it is parenthood that provides an extremely high concentration of emerging hints from all sides.
Fears and anxiety about having children often arise from the very beginning — the health of mother and child, financial aspects, attitudes towards vaccinations, how to feed, where to educate, and so on.
Through the unconditional love that we are given to experience for our children, we can untangle many knots of problems and tasks that have been dragging on in our lives for a long time.
I recommend the most eco-friendly way to work with such challenges in life:
- Take responsibility for what is happening upon yourself. Remember that you are the creator of your life. You came into this life with your own tasks. You have the power to solve them.
- Perceive everything that happens as lessons and experience. Remember the aphorism of Friedrich Nietzsche: “What does not kill us makes us stronger.”
I have two very different experiences of giving birth to children.
With my first child, I registered at the women’s clinic in the first weeks and went there as instructed.
I sobbed in the middle of the term when I was promised a high probability of having a child with Down syndrome.
And in the last weeks, I was constantly on the internet, reading reviews and worrying — which maternity hospital to give birth in, with which doctor, how best to prepare for it.
And still, in the end, everything did not go as I planned.
With my second child, I saw the doctor only once during the entire term, just to get medical confirmation of my pregnancy.
Throughout the pregnancy, I ran around with my older daughter to various interesting places to shower her with attention and care before the baby arrived.
I gave birth at home with my husband. And within a couple of hours, we were sitting on the veranda under the stars with the little one asleep, drinking tea.
A few months later, I turned forty.
Two completely different experiences, and I am grateful for them, because without the first, there would not have been the second.
I am not calling on anyone to follow my path, I just want to say that the first time I relied not on myself, but on those around me and on the doctors, and in the end I was helpless and exhausted.
And the second time, I took responsibility upon myself and received enormous strength and energy.
The transformation seminar “Dance with the Shadow” will help you get to know your fears and shadow aspects.
The practices from this course work well on the fears and anxiety that arise during this time.
Additionally, the number of doulas is growing — women who provide psychological, physical, and informational support to mothers throughout pregnancy and childbirth.
Having an experienced, calm, caring, and competent female friend whom you can call and consult on any troubling topic is invaluable.
See also How to Cope with Anxiety
If you are experiencing confusion and anxiety, this material will come in handy.
Lesson 2. Overcoming Anxiety About Children’s Health and Safety
A separate item in our lives is the issue of children’s health. Even the calmest and most mindful mothers can feel lost during moments of their little ones’ illnesses.
For both the child’s health and the peace of the whole family, it is important that the mother herself is confident that she is doing everything right and that health will be restored in the shortest possible time.
To support your efforts, I suggest turning to angels and higher powers for support and help.
Read how to do this in the article “Rules for Addressing Higher Powers.”
I also recommend heeding the advice that Olga Lyudera gave in her articles and comments on them:
“Express an intention based on your feelings that will bring health to your loved ones. ‘I am happy that my children, parents… are absolutely healthy!’
I always use the phrase ‘How Happy I Am that…’. The phrase has been tested many times and works 100%.
Say out loud: ‘How happy I am that my son (daughter) is happy.’ This reliably protects children from mistakes and troubles. Because a person who has gotten into an unpleasant situation cannot be happy.”
Lesson 3. Releasing Guilt
Responsibilities increase, time is lacking, the child cries, the husband gets angry, a tired version of you stares back from the mirror — from here it’s not far to the next lesson: guilt.
You blame yourself for not coping, begin to feel like a bad mother, a bad wife, a worthless homemaker.
Against this backdrop, you blame those around you for not helping enough, not sensing your fatigue, not understanding your state.
Thus, you make claims against your life and the world.
The emergence of guilt means you are falling into a victim state. It is not so easy to climb out of it, especially if your energy is at zero.
If guilt overwhelms you and you have no strength to get out of it, breathe.
Focus on your breath, inhaling and exhaling forgiveness for yourself and the world. Find something for which you can thank yourself, life, and those around you.
Gratitude is a powerful feeling that will help you exit the victim state and will stop guilt.
See also How to Get Out of the Victim State
Understand, it’s not that you are being offended, but that you allow yourself to be offended. And don’t expect people to live up to your expectations.
If you feel like a bad mother, worry that you are doing something wrong, I suggest googling and reading the short text by Svetlana Khmel, “Someday I Will Have a Son.”
It debunks the illusions of maternal perfectionism with great humor.
Lesson 4. Transforming Relationships with Mom and Mother-in-Law
Mom and mother-in-law are in a more advantageous position than you at the start of your parenting career.
They have definitely already raised and brought up at least one child, while you are just beginning this path.
Often during this time, your relationship with your mom gets tested. Simply because they worry about you.
To them, you are still little girls, and they want you to listen to their advice, which may seem outdated to you, and this leads to disagreements and friction.
It seems to you that their tone is too patronizing, and their wishes often feel more like commands.
The closest people can sometimes cause the most pain. This is normal; they are your best teachers, whom you chose yourself.
- If you can see what your loved ones are pressing on, what triggers you have,
- If you can step out of a victim mindset and thank them for sharing their experience with you,
- If you take responsibility for your own life and your children into your own hands,
- If you let go of grievances towards your parents,
Then you will pass these lessons with love and be able to accept the power that stands behind them.
My mom and I were always good friends, but after the birth of my first daughter, it became difficult for me to communicate with her.
My mom had her own vision of how we should care for the newborn, and my husband had his.
And I tried to silence my own opinion and please everyone. Of course, nothing good could come of that.
But over time, passions cooled down, I gained confidence, and forgave myself and my mom.
And at some point, I noticed that we are very similar, we have similar intonations when we talk to our children. So our relationship took on new colors.
See also: If your relationship with your parents is like a minefield — why and what to do
Lesson 5. Acceptance instead of comparison
The next lesson that may come your way begins with comparison.
When moms at the playground start discussing how “we are already crawling,” and “we are already singing songs,” and “we are looking at flashcards and recognizing everything!”
And then your heart clenches — but we aren’t crawling yet, we aren’t reading yet, we…
Breathe in — breathe out! This is your lesson in acceptance.
All children are different, all people are different. Accept it, don’t rush things, don’t pull the carrot by its leaves to make it grow faster.
Then it will be easier for you to accept your own lessons and situations, without comparing your life to someone else’s, where the husband helps more or the kids do their homework faster.
We all came here with different intentions and goals, and our loved ones only help to illuminate our blind spots and life tasks.
Develop yourself. It is much easier for a child to be in the atmosphere of evolving parents than in a situation where all attention is focused on them and their achievements.
Read more on this topic in the article “Good Girl” or The Woman Who Creates. Which one do you choose to be?
Lesson 6. Taming pride
We all get tired of the daily routine. We can blow a fuse, feel our spirits sink, and have our nerves act up.
Especially when sleep is interrupted and short, responsibility is high, and there is very little time for recovery.
With these variables, we enter our next lesson and learn to ask for help.
Ask your older children to watch the younger ones while you cook porridge for everyone.
Ask your husband to take the kids for a walk while you get a manicure or just sleep.
Ask relatives or friends to stay with the kids so you can have an “evening for two.”
For me personally, an hour and a half to two hours of silence in the house, when I can do whatever I want — whether it’s writing an article or scrubbing the kitchen to my favorite music — is a boost of energy for the whole week ahead.
Read Why It’s So Hard to Ask for Help from Others
Lesson 7. Eliminating Negative Feelings Toward Children and Loved Ones
Anger, irritation, disappointment, rage, pain. We can experience different feelings even towards the most beloved and precious beings in our lives.
When you are in the matrix, such negative emotions can hold you captive for a long time.
After your awareness increases, the time spent in emotional imbalance is reduced many times over.
If you feel a wave of negativity washing over you, simply observe yourself.
Allow yourself to have any thoughts and emotions without judging yourself.
We are alive; we all have a huge number of programs, blocks, and prejudices.
With a mindful approach, emotions help you understand where these programs are hiding and how the “red button” of your negativity gets triggered.
By constantly working on yourself and tracking your feelings, you can reduce both the number of negative reactions and their duration.
Create small rituals for yourself throughout the day to take a breath and switch gears.
Short five-minute breaks — drink coffee, do some energy exercises, facial yoga, or take a shower.
Any action that can charge you with energy and positivity.
See also New Children – Who Are They. How to Help Them Adapt to the World
Read how to raise new children.
Lesson 8. Meeting Your Own Childhood
And finally, my favorite section.
Let’s talk about what gifts maternity leave personally brings you.
The birth of a baby helps many to meet their inner child, remember the feeling of childhood, reconnect with favorite toys, books, poems, and activities.
You allow yourself to buy what you wanted as a child and play to your heart’s content with sand pies or toy trains.
Complexes that you carefully hid from yourself and guarded from prying eyes come to the surface.
You remember favorite activities you’ve been longing for for a long time. It’s no wonder so many women radically change their careers after maternity leave.
I was surprised to remember how, as a child, I could sit for hours among the strawberry beds and sing cartoon songs at the top of my lungs across the whole dacha, never repeating myself and never forgetting a single word or intonation.
And when my eldest daughter grew up and the question of drawing came up, I was seized with terror.
Because from a very early age, I had a complex that I absolutely couldn’t draw. After school art lessons, I didn’t pick up a pencil for about twenty years.
And then, after several years of participating in art seminars with other moms like me, my complex evaporated.
Now I’m not only not afraid to draw, but I also do mosaic quite decently, felt wool, bake homemade sourdough bread, and engage in other life embellishments.
I look at my childhood drawings and I like them!
See also Modern Children and Social Adaptation
In the article, we will look at the development models of modern children, as well as your child’s relationship with the older generation.
In general, I could talk about this topic for hours — what motherhood gives, what gifts it reveals.
I can’t even count how much I’ve learned and discovered since I started rediscovering the world together with my children!
So I ask you — turn off your head, allow yourself to play, switch on that little curious girl inside you, don’t crush yourself with perfectionism, and just smear paint on the paper and sculpt whatever comes out.
This is a priceless time of returning to childhood. I am sure that life will sparkle with new colors and new realizations about yourself and about life will appear.
Learn how to befriend your inner child and remember what you loved in childhood from the article “How to Learn to Broadcast Your Uniqueness.”
I understand that this is only the beginning of the list of challenges and lessons that come to us when the question of children arises. For example, relationships with teenagers are a whole different story…