{"id":3089,"date":"2016-05-26T00:01:41","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T06:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/?p=3089"},"modified":"2016-05-26T00:01:41","modified_gmt":"2016-05-26T06:01:41","slug":"medicine-for-a-moms-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/medicine-for-a-moms-soul\/","title":{"rendered":"Medicine For a Mom’s Soul"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a voice that inhabits every mother\u2019s head. It is a voice of shame and doubt, and it points a finger inward, berating us for all our shortcomings.\u00a0Today you slacked off<\/em>, it whispers.\u00a0Today you made mistakes. Today you were less than the mom that you could be if you would only try harder.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I catch myself listening to that voice all too often. When, for a third consecutive day, I allow my 5-year-old to watch a movie while the other children nap:\u00a0You should be playing with her.\u00a0<\/em>When I use the time they are playing in the bathtub to check Facebook:\u00a0They\u2019ll think you love screens more than you love them. \u00a0<\/em>When\u00a0a load of laundry sits in the washer, clean, for so long that it begins to smell like pond water:\u00a0\u00a0Why can\u2019t you handle something as simple as putting clothes into the dryer?<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And on the hardest days, when the baby is sick and I don\u2019t bother showering because she\u2019s going to keep wiping her snot on me anyway; when I can see clearly the crumbs on the kitchen counter and hear the dog whining because I forgot to feed him breakfast; when the older girls have decided that today they will be partners in defiance; giggling while they refuse to brush their teeth, it is so easy to let the voice consume me.\u00a0You are failing, you are failing, you are failing.<\/em><\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t about silencing the voice. She is\u00a0undeniable, a part of you. She is a side effect of the sacrificial love that makes you a mother. She wants you to give everything you have, to always dig deeper, because your children are\u00a0everything<\/strong>\u00a0and you are\u00a0nothing<\/strong>.<\/em> She will never stop telling you this. And you know that, in some ways, it is true. Could you ever feel whole without them?\u00a0Wouldn\u2019t you die for them?<\/p>\n

It takes incredible strength of mind and spirit to rise above the instinct\u00a0of self-blame and to begin to forgive your own shortcomings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I feel weak, I seek peace in the mundane, which is also a gift:\u00a0Blue sky after three days of rain. The oh-so-sweet bitterness of a good cup of coffee. A book I can\u2019t put down. Homemade bread, toasted, with butter and a touch of honey. (My mother-in-law brought a loaf by the house yesterday, because she knows how much I hate preservatives.) A hot shower, when the opportunity arises. Deep breaths of outdoor air. Watching a small brown-green lizard creep along the railing of my back porch, hunkered down against the gusting wind. I sympathize with her \u2013 I\u2019ve been there. Let\u2019s be honest, I\u00a0am<\/strong>\u00a0there.<\/p>\n

I take comfort in the company of the people who love me. My wild \u201cbig\u201d girls and my poor, snotty baby, who cried all night and is now napping in her car seat, the door to the garage propped open so I can attend to her when she wakes. My husband, the partner of my life, my fellow lizard in the wind.\u00a0The friends who will take a fussy\u00a0child from my arms and hand me a glass of wine. The friends who will say a prayer for me, even though we both know that this is just what motherhood looks like. It\u00a0is not, however (no matter what the voice in my head tells me), what failure looks like.<\/p>\n

Motherhood is a practice, not an art to be perfected.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I manage to make it to yoga class, my instructor always uses the words, \u201cWherever you are in your yoga practice today.\u201d I need to start thinking of motherhood that way. Some days I will be more flexible than others. Some days will take me to the edge of what I think I can endure, even beyond. Some days I will fall off balance, but I will forgive myself. I will bring myself, all of myself \u2013 the flaws and complications \u2013 back to the mat to try again.<\/p>\n

The voice is wrong. Where there is love, there is no failure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Life \u2013 all of it, the crumbs, the snot, the whining dog and gleefully naughty children \u2013 is beautiful.\u00a0My<\/strong>\u00a0life is beautiful. It is not too much. It is not less than enough.\u00a0 Try as hard as I might, it will never be perfect. I think I can live with that.<\/p>\n

\n

Jenny Dunn Pray is mom to three young daughters, whom she lovingly refers to as “psychos,\u201d and who supply her with endless blogging material. Come see what else she has to say at\u00a0<\/em>Mommy Identity Crisis<\/a>\u00a0and on\u00a0<\/em><\/span>Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em><\/span>Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a voice that inhabits every mother\u2019s head. It is a voice of shame and doubt, and it points a finger inward, berating us for all our shortcomings.\u00a0Today you slacked off, it whispers.\u00a0Today you made mistakes. Today you were less than the mom that you could be if you would only try harder.\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":161,"featured_media":3090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[332,115,271,402],"class_list":["post-3089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellness","tag-encouragement","tag-health","tag-honesty","tag-wellness"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/161"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3089\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}