Mothering Yourself

Above is a picture of my mother.
I knew her only in utero and for 5 days in the outside world.
I was adopted, on Mother's Day, May 10th 1970 by my parents, and had a lovely childhood and upbringing.
Like most adopted children, I had questions; felt out of place in my family; and longed to know my history. I searched for her in my early 20s, but neither search technology nor Canadian laws favored adoptees at the time.
Fast forward to the era of retail DNA testing, in 2019 I got a message from a "first cousin" through 23andMe.
I'd finally found my birth mother.
My excitement and anticipation skyrocketed as I began reading my cousin's email, only to be shot down in the second paragraph where he shared that she had died just 10 months earlier.
It was the most primal loss all over again. It was the loss of hope. The loss of answers to never fully articulated questions. Of someday... Of what if...

A month after the discovery, my adoptive mother suddenly died. Two mothers lost to me within the span of one month.

I remember so clearly, practicing yoga on the morning that my adoptive mother passed. I was doing deep hip work and I came up from a forward fold and my left hip (the female root, the mother) just let go. The tears started flowing, fast and furious, and I received the message that it was now time to truly mother myself.

From that point on, my life changed. I stopped putting every one else first and waiting on my dreams and needs.
I realized that being a mother did not mean being a martyr.
Being a mother meant being a model for my children.
I began to mother myself the way that I wished that I had been mothered. Like I mother my own children.
The way that I too needed to be mothered.
This is real self care.

So for all of the mothers, even if, and especially if, you are only mothering yourself.
Happy Mother's Day!

With so much love,
Kari