Prana Shakti, Partnership, Pregnancy, Parenthood, Preparation, Power and Pranams.

My personal Path of Practice:
Prana Shakti
(the creative & pulsating life force within me), Partnership (a love story of two people who consciously choose one another every day), Pregnancy (Grace in my belly revealing herself through this growing baby boy who lives in my womb), Parenthood (The highest calling of them all), Purification (of all self-defining labels accumulated along the way) Preparation (for a new life, a new calling and for the birthing of all this woman has yet to become, experience, learn and know), Power (to fully stand in mine as a wife, mother and creative woman) Pranams (daily gratitude and humble thanks for my beautiful life and blessings along the way).

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Letting Go


"The journey into Motherhood can be seen as 'breaking open'. We have to be willing to go through the pain and struggle of the changes that Motherhood brings with it in order to be able to break through and show our fullest potential and our hidden splendour, like a butterfly coming out of its cocoon."
I've been trying to write this for for a few weeks now. Each time I have a moment to come back to it, I have to modify it as things continue to evolve. That said, I've grown with some of this as it has evolved, or shall I say as *I* have evolved. After all, I'm a Mom now. I'm an entirely different person on an honest to goodness cellular level. 

This whole thing that is Motherhood continues to school, open and humble me in ways I could have never, ever planned on or imagined. Pregnancy was one thing. Being a mother to a living, breathing baby outside of one's body is an entirely different thing. Wow.

Here's to my new calling. I bow to you, Motherhood. I'm on my knees...bowing to you...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If pregnancy was about the ultimate practice of surrender, then being a mom and actually having my son outside of my body is the most intense act of letting go I've ever experienced in my life.

For me, if there's a heart break to any of this, it's this part.

Obviously I absolutely love having him here outside of me to love, hold, nurse and to nurture, yet its also heartbreaking as I endure what's sure to be the first of many moments of letting go.

THE GRIEF.

Within days of giving birth, I became very weepy. It wasn't a normal weepy nor was it a postpartum depression or "hormonal" kind of weepy. My husband put a call in to our midwife realizing that he didn't know how to help me and when he would ask me, I couldn't tell him what I needed either. Our midwife recommended before all else, that he feed me then put me to bed immediately suggesting he take the baby out of the room so that I could get some sleep. She instructed that he wake me only to nurse. The night we did this allowed me my first 3.5 hour stretch of sleep which was most needed, but I wasn't "all better" even so.

GB called us a day or two later to check in on me and to see how I was feeling. I'm usually pretty good at expressing myself but this postpartum experience-my changed heart that is-has trumped any prior experience and all previous knowing altogether.

What it came down to was this:
I was grieving.

I was in a serious state of grief knowing that never again, would I be able to protect my child in the same way as I was able to do while he was in my womb.

Nature didn't intend for him to stay there and I was saddened by this in a way. This not only troubled me deeply, but gave me one serious case of anxiety. I have been grieving the suffering in the world, my contribution to its current state and the affects it will have on my son in the likely, almost guaranteed event that he too, will come to know this suffering within our world in some way, shape or form.

How can I protect my son from the suffering in the world, yet make him aware that it exists so that he may do his part and add healing where his life and karma calls him to?


I have grieved his vulnerability and I have even grieved the loss of my carelessness, ignorance and all that has been dormant inside of me up until this point. The ignorance truly was bliss...

But now I have a son.
I have a child
and
I have a responsibility to my child 
that has pulled something out of me...
Something that I didn't even know was there.

I'm sure this too will become a little easier but for now, it is what it is. I know that in time, I can find more peace with the world that circumbobulates around my son a little more than what I feel capable of at the moment.

This reminds me of the story of Prince Siddhartha before he became a Buddha. He lived much of his life unaware of the suffering in the world. One night he escaped the walls of his palace and went out into the world looking for it. It took his witnessing this suffering to change his life so that he could desperately answer the call of how to end it…

THE GREAT PROTETCOR.


Since all of this started, I've expressed to my husband (and have asked for his help and support in expressing to those closest to us) that what I need most isn't to have my home cleaned or a meal made. What I am in need of is space for my new family so that I can recover from the intensity and deep emotion of bringing my son into the world and learning to be his mother. What I need is understanding and support in my following my intuitive mother-guide no matter how much or little sense she makes to anyone else. She will serve her purpose in the highest when it matters most. This I know more than anything else.

In my anxiety it comes to me…

People in our society seem to forget the strong need for a mother to tend to and be protective of her child after birth has been given. It's really quite primordial and there are cultures in our world today that still honor this something fierce. They honor that the way to the infant and the way one cares for it is through the mother first and foremost. As my dear friend reminded me, my vagina totally broke open as did my heart...only the vagina has worked its way back together, but not the heart.

My intuition is at an all time high and I sense everything around me much more deeply than I had previously.  In relation to my son, I am sensitive to over-excitement (as is his tiny nervous system), uncontrolled and unmanaged excess energy of others and other people coo-ing over my child up close in his face. Much more than I can express, it's all quite anxiety provoking for me which affects my entire foundation and by default, that of my son. Crazy? Perhaps. But it is what it is...and it's Nature. I’m certain this is something that I’ll be able to soften into as time goes by but he’s still brand new and I’m still a brand new mommy.

What I know now is that the biology of a woman changes once she gives birth. Her radar and biological hardwiring in respect to her infant is one of the strongest forces on the planet and should be regarded and honored with the upmost respect. I cannot even begin to get into all that Science has and has not been able to document as far as what forces are taking place in my heart field right now. There are pulls and forces within me that I am not qualified to explain but am more than qualified, by laws of Nature, to have unwavering confidence of and in their Truth.

I understand that not everyone can relate or understand what I’m trying to express here but it goes beyond reason, ration, logic or explanation. It's all I know to protect and guard my child and right now, everything and everyone is a perceived threat in a way. It’s got nothing to do with anyone or anything…it’s biological. It’s undefinable. This goes back to the fact that I carried him inside of me for so long, the outside world in *general is a threat. It's all I know to tend to his needs and to keep his environment energetically sterile and pure. It's not for others to get or to understand try as I might, but it IS for me to tend to at any cost and at any price necessary.

I've avoided with great caution the modern medical model up to this point... why would my approach post birth be any different just because he's outside of my body? I'm still the sole provider/life-giver to my child right now and I am extremely protective in the newness of it all. It's my job to be.

Really what I need is little expectation outside of all of this right now so that I can be given the time and space to learn how to breathe again being Keyhan's mother, a wife and my new self now.

SINKING and SELF-LOVE.

As I learn to sink into the grief, I learn to breathe through the self-judgment of not always being the giddy, shiny new mother. I remember to be compassionate towards myself and to remember that he must need my sensitivity to help facilitate and support his own karmic path. Without these aspects of myself, without my cracked open heart, I could not be all that he needs of me. This being so very AWAKE, so raw and tender right now is a glimpse into a purity I've never experienced. There is so much beauty in the intensity of it all yet feeling everything so deeply can take my breath away at times.

I'm still visited by this grief and I'm sure it will always walk beside me in a way. But now, I'm learning to "be" with it. I'm learning how to adapt in/to the world and how I relate to it now. So now I sink into it. I feel it in my belly, throat and heart...but I continue to sink...

When I look back on labor, during specific parts in particular, I felt an all encompassing surrender and that the gate of that surrender was the Mystery; The Feminine and ultimate of all love. God. In the eye of that Love was Me. I was there, I was all of these aspects, not separate from them. For the first time in my life, I experienced true non-dualism in the way of all that is. 

As I remind myself of this I remind myself that my child too, is not separate from this Love Light. 

There's a surrender that continues, a surrender to the Universe that my child will be held in this Light and will be supported, protected and loved beyond that of my human and motherly control and comprehension.


Dear Self,

In his perfection, his innocence, his contentment and his smiles, I am full.
In his drinking in the nectar of life at my breast, I am Mother Goddess.
In his curiosity, I too, can be curious as I learn and learn and learn.
And
In his trust, I can trust that I am still supported 
and so intimately carried 
and connected, 
as is my child 
by all that is Love.

I am at peace with my world.
My child chose me and needs my sensitivity.
I am so strong that nothing can disturb my peace of mind.
I am a powerful, confident and an incredible mother to my child.


Amen.
"There is no force more powerful than the Love of a mother to her child.....not even God can match it." Yogi Bhajan 

2 comments:

  1. thank you for sharing Sanieh, so wonderfully expressed. so much here on paper and so much you are experiencing. I am not a mother, yet as a woman, I feel your words so true. My sister has a 13 month old and just having that energy on my field has been alot of opening and new realizations for Auntie Me :) thank you again for such wonderfully expressed honesty and your outline and path. Happy to know you and that you are out there in this world <3

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your ability to express such intimate feelings so beautifully and acurately constantly amazes me. The protectiveness and need for private space is such a primal thing. The "letting go" should proceed at a pace comfortable for all of you, and you will know the proper times and places for his universe to expand. Love you all.

    ReplyDelete