Unmothered
The next generation will know their value & worth through humans, mothers, and others who claim their own, dearest soul.
“The song you heard singing in the leaf when you / were a child / is singing still.” - Mary Oliver
The last two months have been a whirlwind. A blend of recovery and reunification. It’s taken me much longer to recover from the plague than I expected - my first and only bout of it - sending my mind tearing through old fields of anxiety and panic. And then, my allergies flared. Allergies meaning whole-body, no-systems-go. I can barely get outside without every organ system singing sad songs of lament for days thereafter. I’m suddenly allergic to everything. All of it. Though not life…
This is the reunification I speak of. In 2015 when Dengue Fever came along, so did 23 different food allergies. And then in 2017, in the midst of fighting melanoma, my body took a new turn. Eosinophilic (allergic) asthma. At home, we have jokingly suggested I might be allergic to life.
But I’m not.
I’m not allergic to the beauty that still exists. Even if I only get to be in it with the aid of steroids and inhalers and four different allergy medications (maybe five, but who’s counting?). Never have I needed so much support to just breathe in my life.
How do you respond to needing support, dear soul?
How does it rock you or wreck you when the walls come crumbling down and there is nothing you can do for you?
It has taken me over a decade of burning the candle at both ends to realize that this is no way to live. Yet, until we began new interventions with my daughter this summer - and my walls came crumbling down, it’s how I lived. It’s how a lot of us live. You who mother unmothered. Who parent without a fiercely rooted human or village (with elders, please, please!) to oversee the whole ordeal. We who do life without an interior or exterior force to love us well.
To be honest, I don’t have any cut and dry answers for us. I don’t have any this-is-the-right-path idea that has been fully and clearly right. Also, I do see clearly that for any of us to thrive we must have some sort of togetherness… a safety net holding each and all of us in it. And lately, for me, that safety net has been me.
Strange right?
I’ve gone all this time “taking care of me” and yet, I haven’t at all.
Because my heart pulled me in too many different directions to do any one justice. I’m not allowing this anymore, though. I can’t. I won’t. Sometimes we are the mother and sometimes we are the one who needs mothering, beloved. (And if mother/mothering doesn’t resonate pick words that do, of course.) That mothering… it’s critical. And, I am learning too… it doesn’t necessarily need to come from an outside source in some seasons.
So, might I ask…
When is the last time you mothered you?
Spoke to yourself in a voice igniting within you recognition of your own value and worth?
Darling, for countless years I have said “if I can’t save the world, I’ll at least die trying” with my body and mind and soul. And dying I was. All of me at odds and at war with the world.
I’m not anymore though.
I want this for you too.
Imagine this…
Imagine for me right now… that some beautiful and brave soul wants to take care of you. She’s stretched out her arms to you in the darkest night. Holding you through daybreak. You’re safe. Alone yet together - and safe.
What does that feel like? taste like? smell like? What happens in the safest of safe spaces for you? Do you get to play a bit? Have you dusted off your hiking boots? Are you knee deep in open water? Is there a paintbrush in your hand?
Everything I lost is being found when I listen to what makes me feel most safe and present in my own precious life, beloved.
And, I think this might just work for all of us.
Last month, I wrote about our stories and our communities. I hope this post empowers you to mother you, too. Sometimes we wait all the months and seasons and years waiting for someone else to step in. Yet, we were there all along. A safe space.
As always, I love you and I am cheering you on.
J. 🌻 @thebarefootpreacher
P.S. feel free to share this message on Unmothered. There is someone out who needs permission to honor themselves right where they are at, my friend. I know this - because I was her.
If today’s words have been some sort of shining light in dark spaces and places, please feel free to email me back. You can also click subscribe below for one or two emails a month - most of them just like this.
Need more love and support? One of my most dear sisters in life is circling up virtually with like hearts this fall. This group is a guided space to encounter compassion, grief, gratitude and all the things in between. Gina is a gifted facilitator, and if I can make it work - I might just be in attendance too!
I resonate with this so deeply! A few years ago, I got SO sick and was laid up for months. My body fell apart, and it took years to recover. The necessity of being mothered - I would argue even by Father God - is everything to me now.