Why Motherhood Can Actually Bring A Woman Back To Herself

Photo by Карина Суховерхая

 Transformative experiences are often the most revealing of experiences, and if my particular life experiences have taught me anything it’s that few experiences in life are as radically transformative for a woman as the entrance into motherhood is.

Of course, there are many experiences in life that have the power to radically alter one’s sense of self. Marriage, death, adoption, sickness, grief, injury, addiction, recovery, and any type of adversity we encounter all have the power to radically reveal and change what’s lurking beneath the surface, but I believe there is something particular about the shift in self one experiences when her whole being — mind, body, soul, and spirit — is altered in the biological process of becoming a mother.

I’m still in the thick of sifting through it all, but there is one truth I can say with certainty; I am slowly, steadily, and most assuredly coming home to myself.

You will often hear about the dangers of a woman losing herself in the throws of motherhood. And rest assured there is a danger. The long, sleepless nights, seemingly endless diaper changes, and the challenge to regulate your own nervous system alongside your infant’s can be downright perilous. There are undoubtedly mountains to climb and dark valleys to traverse. There are tunnels of postpartum depression you might be forced to crawl through. And there is the constant requirement of servanthood and self-sacrifice that tests even the most generous of hearts.

A woman can most certainly (and often will) lose herself to the sea of demands and winds of change that motherhood ushers in — but if I could offer you a hopeful possibility in conjunction with the inevitable struggles it would be this; the very squall that could drown your sense of the self is the very journey that has the power to make you more like yourself than you have ever been.

How exactly this happens is a mystery many mothers are still searching out with mirrors and magnifying glasses in hand.

Perhaps it is the unavoidable fact that motherhood teaches you more about yourself than you would ever like to know. Forcing you to come to terms with all your deepest fears, dreams, hurts, desires, motherhood can simultaneously be the most heart-wrenching and most healing hurdle your heart will ever jump through.

You are presented with a tiny, needy human and tasked with raising it to the best of your ability. And for a moment, it feels like you are given a blank page, a canvas void of any paint stokes — until you realize that you are as much a part of them as they are of you.

Suddenly, your heart isn’t yours anymore. And their heart is actually yours, toddling about to and fro as if you’ve just thrown yourself back out into the big, wide world where wolves are lurking and dragons are real. Suddenly, any amount of pain or distress inflicted on one tiny human could devour your heart at a moment’s notice. You’ve flung the doors of your heart wide open to the problem of pain and it no longer beats to the rhythm of your own body. It has an entirely new life form all on its own and you are left wondering how you’ll manage.

You very well might “lose” yourself.

However, if we are paying attention, slowly, steadily I believe time will both reveal and restore all we believed was lost.

As the days turn into months (and the months into years), your child will grow and learn right alongside you. You will watch them struggle in both familiar and unfamiliar ways, hold out your hand, and clear away a branch or two that they might walk through the trees less scathed than you once did — and a piece of your own heart will heal from the blessed branch you are holding. You will watch them fall in love with parts of life, nature, play, holidays, and experiences you once loved yourself — and you will love them all again, too. You will watch them watch the world with wonder — and it will restore childlike wonder in you.

Most days, it can feel as if I owe everything to my two children. Story means more to me than it has ever meant, and the school-aged girl who dreamed of “making books” is dreaming again. And when I am not copiously reading or writing in fleeting moments of quiet, there is no place I’d rather be than snuggled between them both, reading aloud while their eager eyes scan the pages of an intricately illustrated picture book.

I am deep in the throws of motherhood and potty-training and loose teeth and I have never felt more like myself — and I never could have imagined I would feel this way.

I can’t exactly tell you how I’ve ended up here, but I want to tell you that I have ended up here because I believe that you can, too. Perhaps I’ve had my nose in one too many Ralph Waldo Emerson essays lately, but I’ve come to believe that there is a transcendental power that motherhood holds; if we surrender ourselves to it, there is a glorious sort of homecoming that awaits. We have the opportunity to tap into our deepest sense of self to revive what may have died and restore things we may have lost.

No two mothers will experience the same journey through (and into) motherhood, but I’d like to think that we can all experience its transcendental power. It is not a lie that a woman can lose herself in motherhood; it is simply an incomplete truth, for she can also find herself there, more defined and whole than she might have ever thought possible.