As she lay curled in the foetal position, she murmured the words ‘I cannot do this anymore. I cannot get out of bed. I have nothing left’. Her confused and concerned husband stood there holding the baby, with a toddler clinging to each leg, not knowing what to do or say. And as she turned away from her beloved little family, she sadly wondered what had happened to her.
Who was she?
What had happened to her life?
Where had she gone?
When did she loose herself?
Why had she become so lost?
How did she become this person?
And in her numbness and exhaustion, she grieved the loss of the passionate, spirited, intriguing and inspiring girl that she once was. That she was, before she became a mother.
Was it possible to ever find her again?
That mountain seemed too huge to even contemplate climbing and yet she would move that same mountain for her children if she had too. So powerful was her love for her children.
She just couldn’t climb it for herself.
Oh, the grief that filled her in that awareness – that there is not enough of me, for them and me.
How can there possibly be enough for both?
For that love, that deep maternal love, that one cannot comprehend until they experience it, compelled her to fill their cup with all that she had, while leaving her own empty. And this was to be to her detriment. And to her children’s.
How had the pure joy and magic of becoming a mother a mere four years previously been replaced by this?
Three babies, a miscarriage, an interstate move with no friends or family close by, a resignation from a once loved job, unexpected acceptance of a full-time ‘stay at home mummy’ gig, a hard working husband, a traumatising home break-in in the middle of the night and the passing of a beloved father, which had not been fully grieved, distracted by little people and their needs.
A lot had happened in those four years. Far too much to experience from a depleted state of being. Far too much to experience with an empty cup.
I AM NOT COPING.
Those life-changing words, simply stated to her GP, became a public declaration of her vulnerability, and were the key to finding herself again. In reclaiming and reconnecting to that passionate, spirited, intriguing and inspiring girl that she had inadvertently lost somewhere along the way. Somewhere in her motherhood journey she had lost the essence of ME, replacing it with her love for others. And while she had convinced herself that that was enough, she finally listened that morning as she laid curled, frightened and empty in bed, that it clearly was not enough.
She realised you cannot be enough to others, if you are not enough within yourself.
You cannot love others fully, if you do not first fully love yourself.
And so began the path back to herself. An extraordinary and exciting journey of discovery of her true SELF. An endless journey, because there is always more to explore, more to grow into, more to become.
I AM THAT GIRL.
And within 2 weeks of speaking those powerful words, Kinesiology had found me. And as I found myself sitting in a classroom only days later, without my babies surrounding me for the first time in years, I breathed and allowed myself to be taken wherever this ‘Kinesiology thing’ took me. This ‘Kinesiology thing’, which I didn’t really have a clue about and had seemingly quite randomly stumbled across and yet I couldn’t shake the deep sense of intrigued and inner knowing that I simply had to study it.
As I sat in my course on that first day, feeling like I had discovered a treasure, I knew it wasn’t really about me. I knew I was learning so I could help other women, who like me had lost themselves. I knew I was learning so that I could help them find their way back to their true self, or ideally teach them how to hold onto their true self as they enter motherhood. For when we hold onto the essence of who we are, there is no need to go searching for what you have lost, instead you can use all that extraordinary energy on expanding who you are into the most magnificent version of your SELF – and that is the greatest gift that you could ever give yourself and your children!
Four years later, almost to the day, since I couldn’t get out of bed, I sit here typing these words, interrupted by morning kisses, cuddles and declarations of love, from my now 8, 6 and 4 year olds. My heart is filled with gratitude for where my moment of despair, my moment of pure vulnerability has taken me. And I am filled with love for myself, for allowing myself to courageously let go and go where this journey of self-discovery has taken me.