Gentle healing for mothers: Finding Balance through movement, self care and slow motherhood.

A Friday Evening in Motherhood: Exhaustion, Tenderness, and Love

It’s 8pm on Friday evening. I have just finished a solo bedtime. I have been awake since 4am. Beatrice, my 2-year-old, fed from 4am to 5.15 when I whispered that I needed to go to the toilet. She asked to come too. I carried her and let her rest her head on my shoulder whilst taking my first wee of the day…

William crept into the bathroom as I was flushing the toilet and asked if he was allowed to have his iPad. (He does this every morning and, so long as it is past 5am, the answer is always yes.) He rises early; we cannot fight that—he has done so since he was small. And now the iPad and Peter Rabbit mean I can eke an extra 40–60 minutes of sleep.

As William lay in my arms softly snoring this evening, with all three of his bedtime toy companions carefully positioned, I cried… Because this Friday evening, after our first week back to school and work after Christmas, has been the best in a long time.

How Slowness, Movement, and Self-Care Changed Everything

The difference is all me! Although it has been a return to normality, the snow this week has afforded me an additional grace period. A time to be slow, to indulge in some of the work that fills me up. To practice yoga for me. To tie up loose ends.

I am not overworked or stressed. I have been able to cook nourishing meals in the morning, at lunchtime for myself and my husband, and in the evenings for us all too.

I have headspace, I have patience. I didn’t want to get them to bed so I could do more work or have some time. I just enjoyed being with them.

Solo Bedtimes, Resentment, and the Reality of Working Motherhood

My husband goes to a club every Friday. (Not a drinking kind of club—a games club.) So Friday is always a solo bedtime. And when I have had a busy week, the house is still in chaos before the weekend has even begun and I’m undernourished after jumping from class to class and trying to achieve all of the things I want to write and share online. I sometimes resent that it’s me again who is with the children.

Even though there genuinely is nowhere else I want to be on a Friday. Honestly, there is not. I have always loved being at home, and especially in January I want to be doing all the cosying I can!

Gentle Presence Over Productivity

Tonight was beautiful. We played, drew, ate (very slowly). It took Beatrice 1.5 hours to eat her dinner, but it didn’t matter, and when she decided she was hungry she ate all of her food and asked for more!

William drew insects using a guided video (Home for Kids Art for any of you who have children that are budding artists). He kept getting the positioning off and starting again. Sometimes I would have hurried him along, added pressure where there didn’t need to be. My actions, in turn, forcing more errors, more fresh starts.

But this evening I let it naturally run its course. His drawings are beautiful.

Beatrice played aeroplanes. She went to Australia at least 50 times, repeating the same pattern over and over—processing me leaving her to go to work again this week through her play. (Her baby wasn’t allowed to go on the plane to Australia. But “she was fine after she had a cuddle and was safe where she was left.”)

Regulation, Reflection, and the Soft Glow of Evening

And now they both peacefully sleep… as often happens, in the soft orange glow of William’s rocket lamp, my mind began to think…

And what came up—what has actually been coming up a lot over the Christmas holidays—is this. I am so happy mothering. So content, so in flow, so bloody good at my job (as a mother). Not just to my children but to my husband too. He needs holding in very different ways, but those ways are still requiring of my energy. Which, when I am not working, I will gladly share. In fact, I love doing it. I love being a wife and a mother.

And it is really only in these last two weeks that I have felt OK with that. Content with my purpose being a mother. Being a wife.

Reframing “Just Being a Mum”

You see, growing up I was under the impression that it wasn’t a good thing to “just be a mum”—that you needed to have something outside of your family to sustain and fulfil you. But what if I am here to be a mother? Not just for my babies but for others too. To hold people? To nourish and nurture them?

What if right now I am already doing exactly what I should be doing, but then making it so much harder by trying to do so many other things?

Motherhood as Sacred Work

Many of you reading this will know just how much I LOVE my work. It nourishes me, it fills me up, and I adore the women I hold. But I’m still doing the work of a mother. I’m still holding and supporting women as they navigate really challenging times in their lives.

I am lucky I have been afforded the space and opportunity to make my work of a mother into my paid work too. But many women are not able to do that.

And it struck me how very unfair that seems. In this modern-day world, where if we really want to soften into mothering—our traditional role—we either financially can’t afford to, or if we can afford it feel guilty because being “just a mum” is somehow less than.

Raising Regulated Children Is World-Changing Work

How can raising your children to be grounded, independent, regulated adults be less than? We are literally shaping the future of our world by raising our babies in a way that is nourishing for us all. How is that work not as valid as reaching the top of the management tree in a corporate job?

Energy as a Precious Currency

On reflection, this festive period has taught me a huge deal. And I am seeking this state of regulation to continue as we head into the rest of this year.

For me, that means teaching less. Reducing classes—not because I don’t enjoy it or because it doesn’t light me up. It truly does. But because when I expend energy doing it, I have less to give at home. And right now, home and family need a lot of my time and energy.

Ultimately, they suffer when I am depleted. As do the people that I teach.

Energy is a precious currency, and although I am referring to energy in all its different guises, you could think of it simply as pure energy expenditure.

Redefining Success in Motherhood

This isn’t a guidance piece, but perhaps my heartfelt words this evening may make you feel more valid in your turmoil around working and motherhood.

It is practically impossible to do it all. To have it all. We simply do not have the capacity to hold the amount of energy it takes to be a full-time mother and rise through the world of work.

Success has to look different when you become a mother. In the early days, it might be that success is resting while your baby sleeps on your chest.

It might be going out for a walk. Or not losing your mind in the witching hour between 3 and 8pm!

As time goes on, success might mean managing a toddler meltdown in the car park of Aldi without losing your cool. Another thing I did today without even registering it until now. I absolutely smashed it—keeping cool, keeping Beatrice safe, AND allowing her to express her emotions without dismissing them.

Holding Mothers Through Movement, Massage, and Safe Spaces

Mothering is the work I am here to do. I am here to mother my family and also to hold other mothers as they navigate through conception and into perimenopause.

I am here to hold you. Either physically through movement and massage, or by creating safe spaces for you to explore your process and journey through cacao and writing.

Both roles light me up. Both take my energy. And perhaps for now I need to work on balancing the two so that I stay nourished. So that everyone, including myself, gets the best of me.

An Invitation to Reflect

I feel truly privileged to be able to write these words, to be able to have the opportunity to live the life I dream of.

And if this has stirred something in you, I would truly love to know. How do you feel about working, mothering, and all the roles we carry in between?