When and as I see myself thinking and believing that women who don't enjoy pregnancy are bad mothers - I stop, I breathe - I realise that this is an opinion that I have copied from my mother from a memory wherein she judged my French teacher as a moron/dumbass when she'd said that she hated pregnancy - and where I thought that my mom is probably right - and thus, I commit myself to let go of the opinion that serves no practical purpose than to elevate myself through ego.
When and as I see myself assuming that I know what pregnancy and motherhood is like - I stop, I breathe - I realise that my knowledge is just made up of opinions, beliefs, pictures, thoughts, impressions, interpretations, projections, etc.that have no foundation within actual living, actual reality and actual experience, which I have created into apparent 'knowledge' of what pregnancy and moterhood are like as a means to convince myself that I should do it as well as an attempt to prepare myself for it - and thus, I commit myself to let go of this unfounded knowledge and to gain some practical perspective by consideration the practical implications of motherhood and pregnancy and what it physically implies.
When and as I see myself imagining myself holding a baby that is sleeping or playing with a child in a park - I stop, I breathe - I realise that I am defining the entire motherhood experience within but a few moments as though motherhood exclusively consists of such moments of enjoyment, where I am deliberately deluding myself by looking at motherhood through pink glasses - beause I want to be able to believe that motherhood will bring about this point of completion and fulfillment that I have been longing for - and thus, I commit myself to fulfill and complete myself within this very moment through breathing in all that exists and bringing it here as myself - as well as, I remind myself of the poo-factor and the screaming and the crying and the tiredness of which I have actual real experience - to pop myself out of my mind-bubble and get real.
When and as I see myself reaching to memories to define who I am - I stop, I breathe - I realise that I cannot take memories at face value, since firstly, I will twist and distort memories in my mind and secondly, I require to actually investigate who I was within the moment of the memory to assess whether this memory is in any way useful - and thus, I commit myself to take a closer look at who I was within the memory to assess the relevancy of the memory in terms of whether or not it can assist me within the present moment and simply stop defining myself according to the memory, as the memory can never dictate who I am within the present moment, but can only provide information about the past - and thus, I embrace who I am within the very simplicity of being here in breath.
When and as I see myself attaching a particular value to a certain experience where I interpret the experience as a sign of God or the Universe trying to tell me that I should make a certain commitment, decision or take a particular direction - I stop, I breathe - I realise that I am elevating a self-created mind-experience to the status of God - and thus, seperating me from myself to the ultimate extent - and where I completely abdicate all self-responsibility within the commitment, decision or direction, because - apparently, I was being led on by something or someone else, while all the while I was the initiator and creator of my own experience - and thus, I commit myself to investigate the origin of the experience to understand why I created it and to realise that it is nothing special or more than me, to from there, be able to align myself according to the particular realisations that open up from the investigation - and I commit myself to consider all points within the commitment, decision or 'choice' of direction before me so that the point is acted upon from the principle of What is Best for All and is not simply based on an energetic experience that won't even last.
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This is a continuation to
Day 81: What to Expect when You're Expecting
Day 82: Only Bad Mothers Hate Pregnancy
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continue believing in the idea that motherhood is all about fun and fulfillment despite the fact that I have had actual physical experience with spending a lot of time with children, where the majority of the time does not consist of having fun and fulfilling yourself, but of the practical considerations of what the child requires and fulfilling one's responsibility within that.
I forgive myselff or not accepting and allowing myself to face the facts of reality of what it means to raise a child from birth, but deliberately ignore these facts and 'choose' to delude myself into thinking that being a mother is just fun and bliss.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not want to face the facts because that means I might influence my decision to have a child or not - whereas, I have always had a desire to have children and created a belief that, because this desire is so strong, that I will find a purpose and meaning within having children and that therefore, nothing can come in my way of becoming a mother.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to my memories of being a child and being asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, where my answer was 'mother of five children', where I would stick out my hand pointing 5 fingers, because I only could count to 5 at that stage.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define 'who I am' according to these memories of telling people that I would be a mother of 5 children as a child because of the certainty that I experienced in those moments, where I did not in any way question or consider any other options, because apparently this is what I had decided I would be and become when I grew up.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to ever consider and investigate where this experience of certainty originated from - where it might have been a preprogrammed point, or where it might have been due to the fact that my mother was the main character as example within my world in terms of what adults do in life, and so being a mother was the only thing I really knew about when it comes to adult jobs - but instead sought for a 'sign' or a 'meaning' within the experience, thinking and believing that this was simply my purpose in life and that this is why as a child I experienced this certainty.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to build my life through making decisions based on experiences which I interpret through my mind - which then completely determine the rest of my life - and where I never actually took the time to investigate these experiences so that I was aware/understood what exactly I was basing my decisions on - but in essence, simply trusted my experiences as giving me 'signs of God' - in the same way that I would believe that if I fell head-over-heels for a person, that it was a sign from God or the universe that this is the person I was supposed to be with - never even considering that I might have been the creator of my own experience and that the experience is merely an out-flow/consequence/manifestation of my participation in my own mind.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself as stupid within the realisation that I have been kidding myself my entire life simply within this one point of accepting my experience as God and defining myself according to the memories of telling people that I would be a mother of 5 children when I grow up, where I took an interpretation for granted - leading me for the rest of my life to believe that I would be a mother and that this was something that would fulfil me in life.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to postpone my self-fulfilment through believing that I will only be fulfilled once I am a mother - where, I missed what was right before me, because I believed I had to wait until being a mother to be able to be fulfilled - and thus, in essence, wasted my life away due to a belief based on an interpretation of my mind.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that if I were to decide not to become a mother, that I would be betraying myself for not fulfilling my destiny.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that the decision to be/become a mother should never be based on a personal experience as a desire to fulfill oneself, because this is a starting-point of self-interest, where one is expecting of an unborn child to fulfill one's life - when the child was not asked to be born and can certainly not be expected to be someone else's fulfillment - but, instead, the decision to have a child should be based within practical considerations only, where the questions must be asked whether one is able to effectively assist and support a child in this world - and thus, where the focus within the consideration of having a child, must already be the well-being of the child, and not the happiness of the parents.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that one of the reasons motherhood is mostly not what was expected, is because the decision to have a child was made from a consideration of one's own experiences - whereas the practical reality of living parenthood is entirely focused on the child and not the parent - and thus, one's expectations can never become fulfilled.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to ever consider not having children and consider what my life would be like and who I would be if I weren't a mother - because of the self-created belief that I have to attain this point of motherhood in order to fulfill myself, my life, my purpose and my destiny - where I think/believe that motherhood is the last step, the last stage that I must see to achieve and that after that, everything will just be okay, and I will finally be able to feel settled and 'in the right place'.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that it is nonsensical to attempt to raise a child in terms of what it means to live in this world if I have never even lived for myself, but only ever waited to start my life once I'd become a mother.
To be continued with Self-Corrective Statements.
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This Blog-post is a continuation to Day 81: What to Expect when You're Expecting
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to always romanticise what it would be like to have a child, where within considering what it would be like to have a child, I only ever picture the 'happy' moments of holding a baby sleeping or playing with a child in a park - everything that seems to be fun about having children - and deliberately ignoring all the difficult points in terms of having to take care of a child 24/7, where the child becomes the number one priority of my life and I have barely any time left to do what I'd like to do.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define pregnancy as a 'deep' spiritual/highly meaningful experience of bliss, where mothers just experience 'love' and intimacy with the unborn child, without ever wondering what the actual, physical, experience is of having a child, which, basically, involves the wrecking of the female body as a parasite grows inside the womb.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create an opinion of what pregnancy should be like and how I should feel about pregnancy and how I should experience it, based on a memory where I told my mother about my French teacher who said that she hated being pregnant and that she never wants to go through it again - to which my mother said 'wat e kieke', which is, loosely-translated from Dutch: 'what a moron' - where, I then created the idea/perception/belief that pregnancy is something you SHOULD enjoy as a mother and that it is unacceptable to acknowledge any unpleasant experiences within it - thinking/believing that that would make me a bad mother.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate in the belief that mothers should only ever love their child and experience love towards their child - and that anything else indicates that the woman is a bad mother.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to ever really place myself in the shoes of a mother and looking at what is practically involved in pregnancy and motherhood - and what challenges are involved on both a mental and physical level - as all one's energy and focus is now placed on another being - which is something entirely different from how people generally live their lives, where they only ever take themselves into consideration - and thus, that it is quite a challenge to be a mother in this world, and that it can therefore obviously not just be a blissful experience filled with only an experience of 'love'.
Self-Forgiveness to be continued.
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After listening to the Interview 'A Mother's Love of Guilt' - I realised that I have always romanticised what it would be like to have a child. You always picture those moments of holding a baby sleeping or playing with a child in the park and things like that - you know, the nice stuff. I also recently saw the movie 'What to Expect when You're Expecting' where this one lady was really eager to get pregnant and she was expecting to experience this state of 'bliss' in terms of having this profound connection with the baby and this whole lovey-dovey experience in relation to carrying a child. But then once she gets pregnant, the bliss is nowhere to be found and all there is is physical pain, tiredness, uncomfortableness, emotional turmoil, weird cravings, mood swings, uncontrollable peeing, and so the list goes on.
So - what our expectations are as what we project of pregnancy and motherhood have no connection in any way whatsoever to the reality of living and walking these points in the physical.
It's fascinating - because I've spent time with cihldren for long periods, like on camps, where I'd be responsible for entertaining a group of teenagers for ten days. Or, during the summer working at a daycare, where me and 4 others would be in charge of 30 to 40 toddlers each day. And sure - there was moments where I'd have so much fun with them and absolutely enjoyed their expressions and way of looking at things - but at the end of the day, I was just so fricking glad that I could send them back to their parents, because I was utterly and totally exhausted. So - I've had this practical experience of what it's like to spend a whole day or several days with a child, continuously having to place the child as the number one priority and where I basically have no time for myself, except after the children's bedtime - and yet, my ideas and projections of me having a child of my own don't consider these experiences in any way whatsoever.
I mean, I've even raised baby-chicks in my house - which is this tinly little being that you have to look after all the time. And if you for a moment don't give it the required attention by not feeding it in time or not letting it fall asleep under your shirt, it tweets so loud and continuously that your brain tries to flee from your head. And once they get older and start to want to wander around by themselves, I waddled around after them to clean up their poop from the floor. And when they still got older, I made them diapers, because their shits were now getting so big and frequent that I couldn't keep up. And so, then I was changing diapers every day - which was so not a pleasant experience - I mean, chicken-poo really stinks and I can imagine that baby-poop stinks a thousand times more. AND STILL - when I try to picture what it would be like to have a child, I focus only on that which I think I would enjoy - completely forgetting about the poo-factor and the fact that a baby-human can't walk by itself for a really long time, where you have to carry it around all the time. I mean, what's the deal with that anyways - even a chick can walk after day one!
Anyways... the point is that I'm deliberately ignoring the fact that having a child means to be responsible for the life and well-being of a completely helpless creature. Without me doing my part of taking care of the child 24/7 - the child dies - simple. If ever I thought choice existed - that perception would be completely annihilated when faced with a having a baby.
I don't want to spoil it for you by giving the details - you should really listen to it yourself - but the interview 'A Mother's Love of Guilt' explains very clearly how and why it is that our projections of what we think it will be like to have a child/be a mother never ever matches the actual reality of it. It also explains why mothers often have 'bad'/negative thoughts about their children of wondering if they didn't make a mistake in having a child, or wishing they'd never had kids or thinking they wasted their life in having a child. Obviously, this is a topic no-one speaks about, because the mother doesn't want to be judged as being a bad person or a bad mother. But, I mean - every mother has these thoughts - and it's not that it's a bad thing - but the thing is that mothers don't understand why these thoughts come up - and in listening to this interview, you'll get a clear explanation, which will allow you to understand these experiences and be able to direct them more effectively. So, if you're a mother and you can relate to these experiences - then listening to this interview is a MUST. If you're a mother and you're reading this and you're kind of feeling offended and thinking "no ways - I would never think that - these are lies" - then, by all means, leave this page and move on. Only those mothers who are honest with themselves about their experiences will be able to change them in any case.
To be continued.
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