Dear Me vs. DearMomMe

Being a mother, I sometimes ask myself, would I still take this leap of faith and sign myself up for this lifelong roller coaster ride if given a second chance? Strangely, the answer from within is still YES. Despite securing a tenure ship of 16 plus years in this role, I admit with sheepish honesty that there are days when I question myself as a mother and wonder if it has to be this way.

I was recently asked a very simple yet deep question – what does it mean to be a mother? Does it have to be someone of the female gender? What behaviors, feelings, and emotions define being a mother? This question made me pause and think.

How would you describe being a mother in one sentence?

All my reflections and conversations led me to one common theme “someone who can nurture and prioritize them over oneself.”

Now, suppose you are an ambitious mother with her own goals in life. In that case, the consistent and continuous deprioritization of oneself for years and, sadly, sometimes for decades creates this internal frustration, angst, and sadness that sets in of living your life but having unfulfilled goals and dreams. If we don’t recognize this and bring it into our self-awareness, it can slowly translate into external behaviors of becoming dismissive, cynical, angry, or just plain and simply boring. Sadly, many go through their entire life not realizing this and maybe even conditioned to believe that this is what motherhood is all about. It is to nurture selflessly, prioritize them over ourselves, their dreams over ours, and always remember to be there for them first, no matter what.

This summer, for almost three months, due to a combination of self-invited circumstances and some unexpected variances, I presumed the role of being a 100% mother. I had my wonder woman cape on and couldn’t put it down even for a day. It was nonstop and required a very basic level of motherhood duties. Unfortunately, what happened simultaneously for the first time in a long time was that I could not set aside any time for myself; I had to completely park aside everything & anything, including my pre-defined goals for the summer. I had a long list of tasks and actions that were just about me, my dreams, and my wish lists, and I ended this summer with not a single tick against any of them.

Even if I don’t want to, the Universe will do a good job of reminding me that I have unfinished business! in my case, it ensures I get triggered enough to pause and reflect. So, despite being the best mom I could have all summer, my children unconsciously triggered the growing insecure part of me, the gremlin inside me that kept saying what did you do this summer? Why didn’t you meet all those people, finish your writing, or focus on building your new career path?

I spent the last two weeks reflecting on what happened. Fortunately, I have no regrets, only learnings. I told myself what’s done is the past and what I can influence, so what should I do? We still have four months of the year, so let’s pause and restart.

Here are three tips that have helped me come back to being ME.

1. REVISIT

• Write down where you are now and where you want to be

• Create vision board images that resonate with your dreams

• Break down big goals into tasks and assign hours per task per day or week

2. RECONNECT

• Connect with your behaviors that were working well and adapt and adopt new behaviors aligned to meet your new goals

• Connect with people both old and new, drop a quick message, catch up for a 30 min chat over zoom, coffee, or lunch

• Connect with yourself in a dedicated way to pause and listen; if it helps, start journaling and write a word for each day of the week.

3. REFLECT

• Look back on the last three months and ask yourself, what worked well, and what you could have done better.

• Reflect ahead and write a post-dated letter to yourself dated 31st Dec 2022

• Start the day by being grateful for everything and forgiving anything that needs forgiveness.