Spring is a season of change.

New growth.

Becoming unstuck.

Still craving warmth through the sun.

Feeling the muddy wet ground on your bare feet.

Reminding yourself that in the mess is where our seeds get planted.

In the messy, muddy ground is where the new hope lives.

We start here.

We start in the spring.

We start new.

We start new right where we are.

Let this be your start.


The seasons have so much to tell us. I like to use the seasons to remember that we are part of the earth as the needs of the earth change so do we. We shake off the hibernation. We are ready for a different kind of interaction.

This happens in motherhood.

This IS motherhood. Your needs change. Your baby changes. Your kids change.

We can see change as something to be controlled OR we can see change as a way to connect back into our truth. Our knowing. Our needs.

In this space- this space of remembering- it is here that you come back to your own mothering roots.

Your mothering roots spring from your roots.

Just a little wiser.

A little more free.

When I was pregnant and exhausted an “already a mom” friend told me “you don’t know exhaustion- just you wait”.

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When I was a mom to a newborn and exhausted a mom to an older child told me “just wait till they start teething”.

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When I was dealing with a teething child I was told “just wait till you are pregnant again and have a kid then you’ll know exhausted”.

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Every time I hit the exhaustion milestone someone moved the god-damn end zone.

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My own experience of my own exhaustion was never enough.

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Why do we do this to each other?

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Every time I reached out for help in the form of validation I was met with someone telling me I didn’t know myself.

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And we do this to each other all the time.

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And then we wonder why we start to doubt our own knowing of what feels true to us.

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I have said it before and I’ll say it again: how do you know a mother’s experience whether she is exhausted or not, whether she is content or not, whether she is drowning or not?

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You ask her.

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And I dare you to actually listen.

 Dear New Mom: 

I know you feel as if you are all alone in this game. I know you wonder why other mom's got the secret sauce and you are left with the name brand. 

I get that it feels like a lot. 

IT IS A LOT. 

Others will tell you that the time passes to quickly. Enjoy this moment.  You will miss this.

Maybe. 

Maybe you will miss this. Maybe you will long for the nap traps and the cow mode days. 

You very well might miss this moment right now. 

And guess what?  

We also get to miss moments we do not love. 

We are humans. 

We are not robots. 

We are humans raising humans and that makes this messy. 

It means plans change. It means something that worked yesterdays fails us today. 

I see you. 

Not everything is a woolly mammoth...

Our bodies react to stress. We want this. We need this. Stress is the indicator light that something is coming, something is too much, something might be dangerous.

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Stress then tells the body to prepare. It gathers what it needs to fight off the stressor. It temporarily tells our immune system to take a chill pill. It tells your body to store fat. It tells you that you need to stay alert and can affect our sleep.

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Stress IS helpful when all these features are actually warranted. You see the things that our brains now flag as stress are quite common daily occurrences: text messages, newscasters, feisty Facebook and Instagram comments, emails from our bosses, financial concerns. Your brain reads this all the same. Your brain sees this as an attack on you and your village.

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These things are not a woolly mammoth.

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So what can we do? We can work to shift our perspectives. Shifting our perspective can look like acknowledging that stress is just a biological response and bring in some mindfulness or gratitude practices to work through this stress.

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Complete the stress cycle: Identity. Reality Check. Move your body. Reset your thoughts.

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*When you actually study the temperament of a wooly mammoth you see they have no intent on hurting humans and YET it makes sense why one might have startled you out in the wild. That is the whole POINT. Your brain says "O MY I must protect myself" and then you calm down and realize "O this thing cares not about me but rather about itself". MOST things in life are more focused on themselves vs you.