It is my honor to welcome “The Mama Bliss Is…” Blog Tour to Full Circle Wellness. This creative ripple of love, insight and support is the brilliant creation of Kathy Stowell of Bliss Beyond Naptime. The “Mama Bliss Is…” Blog Tour is shining a much needed beacon of light on the importance of self-care and creative wellness practices to help mom’s contend with stress & overwhelm.
It seems no coincidence that I am writing this on the eve of my eldest child starting high-school.
Like some kind of wonky reverse-rite of passage, all day I have found myself bouncing around in my mind’s eye between him as a newborn, then him already graduating, then as a four-year old, even him leaving home.
I’m pretty sure it’s even worse than the kindergartner thing. Because when they are five – the whole future seems to stretch out before us. And though we are tossed under by the awareness of how fast it all goes – there is still the promise of so many years ahead.
High-school is a whole different matter. By this point we’ve been on the journey long enough to REALLY know how fast it is all going to go. Parenting is this crazy contrast between sometimes seemingly endless moments… all wrapped into seemingly fleeting years. It’s the craziest thing ever. And so, it seems a fitting time to lay it all out here. That the time is almost passed to finally figure out this whole “mama bliss” thing once and for all.
For starters…I think I know what Mama Bliss isn’t…even though these are so often the things we are sold and promised as we naively enter into mama-dom.
Mama-Bliss Isn’t…
~ having the perfect crib, nursery or kinder-gym
~ it isn’t darling matching strollers and sippy cups
~ it isn’t never missing a page in the baby book
~ or a sparkly clean den and Martha Stewart floors
In fact. It turns out I found Mama Bliss in the strangest of unexpected places.
Mama Bliss was hiding….
~ in 9 months of colic (times 3) that showed me the depths of sleep deprivation two parents can endure and taught me how to nap in the blink of an eye (“whenever they sleep…you sleep”)
~ in a puppy’s ears filled with marbles that taught me that sometimes things CAN be TOO quiet – and that laughter is sometimes the best medicine
~ huddled in an aero-bed miles from what was “home” days before the moving van is set to arrive when you really FEEL in your body for the first time that truly there is nothing in this world that you need as long as you have each other
~ in a warm bath in the middle of the night when no other self-care is in sight
~ and surprisingly even in the moments of loss and chronic illness, where it all fell apart – showing us all the people who love and support us – but more importantly teaching me how to ask for help, and even MORE importantly how to receive
Mama Bliss is all that. In the unexpected. The joyful. The strained. The bursting at the seams and the achiest aches too.
Mama Bliss is having been blessed with the journey. And having surrendered into the magic of imperfection along the way. It’s having had the awareness to let go, pay attention and soak it all in. Mama Bliss is finding gratitude in the sticky kisses and sticky cabinets too.
Mama Bliss is gratitude. For all that has been…and all that has yet to be.
Mama Bliss is the Journey…
xo Lindsay
