I have started moisturising my body again...

Thoughts on motherhood, mental health and moving through my second matrescence...

Hello lovely one

How is your heart feeling today? Are you treading lightly with yourself?

In this post I am talking about early Motherhood and mental health, so if you are not in the space to receive this today please look after yourself and skip this one.

I can already feel my energy spiralling inwards as we move through December… partly because I am deep in my inner autumn within my own cycle, but also — as I become more and more connected to the outer seasons and the light (or lack thereof) I feel my body has become way more attuned to relishing in the quiet darkness of this time of year.

I used to fear that feeling of slowing… where my body wants to move a little less and to snuggle a little more. I used to think something was ‘wrong’ if I wasn’t full of energy all the time.

Now I delight in it… hot hearty soups, steaming mugs of cacao and slow cooked stews are all I can think of to nourish my body. Twinkling lights, blinds pulled by 4pm, flickering shimmers from candles lit and the smell of pine that meets my nostrils thanks to our beautiful Christmas tree. My brain is already wrapping up creative projects (while my fingers are wrapping gifts!) and I am allowing the descent downwards in preparation for the Christmas pause.

Before I go full steam ahead into today’s piece of writing I have a little invitation for you…

I find this time of year very reflective… which is why I have decided to host a little 1 hour online circle/gathering on Thursday 19th December at 1pm UK time to REFLECT.

There will be guidance and prompts, as well as space and connection, with the intention of taking a sacred pause to consider the year gone by, and bring a sense of closure to it by witnessing what seeds have been planted, what has bloomed, what may have wilted and what might need some tending to.

If you would like to join us you can book your space below. A recording will be sent out to all of those who registered. The investment is £10 (although paid subscribers get a 25% discount)…

A sudden realisation…

A month or so ago I got out of the shower one morning and was struck quite abruptly by the realisation that I had started moisturising my body again…

Now, to many people that may seem like the strangest statement to proclaim on the internet, but let me explain…

At the end of this year (in a matter of weeks) my littlest baby (toddler) will turn 2. My eldest daughter has just turned 5.

I haven’t consistently moisturised my body since before I had my first baby! I am not saying I have NEVER touched a drop of moisturiser in 5 years… but to be able to have the capacity (and time) to dedicate to this simple act of self tending each day feels like quite a turning point. It is a glaring illumination of the phase of motherhood I am exiting… and also (because with every ending there comes a beginning) the season I am entering.

The moisturiser part is really just symbolic of a shift within… that a chapter has come to an end, and that a page is turning towards something new.

The very, very early years of Motherhood are coming to an end. My second (and final) Matrescence… is coming to a close.

In the early days… blood, sweat, tears and a whole heap of emotions alongside love.

Landing in my new skin

In addition to moisturising my body, over the last few months I have…

• Started strength training again (with the amazing Emma Jeffery) for the first time since before I was pregnant with my eldest in 2018 (and back then I was doing Crossfit — who was she?).

• Begun running weekly (ish) again - zero pressure or setting any type of goals, just purely running because it feels like my nervous system, and my mind, needs it.

• Fallen back in love with makeup. Inspired by my beautiful friend Emily from Willow & Rose I have been overhauling my makeup bag, watching Lisa Eldridge tutorials again and falling back in love with expressing myself through lashes and sparkle and liner and lipstick! (fun fact… if money and time was no object I would 100000% do a makeup artistry course as it has always been a little secret dream of mine)

• Started to feel (a little) more connected to my sensual and sexual energy. I was NOT one of those people that felt ‘sexy’ during pregnancy… and it has taken a long time for me to even get a glimmer of desire back.

• Finally got my next, long awaited, tattoo to honour both of my daughters. I now have two fine line butterflies on my forearm, nestled between the two moon phases that they were both born under. I am obsessed with it! (and also planning more of course!)

• Felt the resurgence of visioning and creativity. I have so many creative sparks coming in… they feel very grounded and different to the short bursts of inspiration that have surfaced over the last few years and then dissipated in an exhausted/overwhelmed puff of smoke… these feel like slow burning, long term visions that I can gently bring to life. They excite me!

• Gone on a solo day and night date!! We managed (when I say WE I mean my husband and I — alone without children) to go to a wedding for a whole day and evening on Saturday. This was the first time that anyone else has ever put our daughters to bed other than us… and it went beautifully and felt like a huge turning point, dare I say it a tiny bit of freedom!

It wasn’t that long ago…

It wasn’t that long ago that I would look at someone running, or nicely made up, or wearing something that didn’t have snot trails all over it… and I honestly couldn’t imagine ever being that person again.

It wasn’t that long ago that I had to stand and rock my littlest to sleep until my arms burned and my back throbbed — often with tears streaming down my face and humming to myself to stay grounded through her cries… and I could never have imagined anyone else being able to get her to sleep, or that the dread of bedtimes would ever pass.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was sitting in the hospital waiting for my scan to see if the midwive’s suspicions (and my own) were correct and that my little V was breech — totally shifting my birth hopes. You can read more about that here and it is my intention to share part 2 before the year is out.

Seasons shifting, phases changing… it all passes and as I have said in the past, Motherhood is one big constant series of goodbyes and hellos all tangled up in both grief and relief.

Adjusting into a family of four… it has taken much longer than I thought it would.

Honouring Motherhood as the rite of passage that it is

Matrescence, the word given to the transformative process of becoming a Mother, is said to take at least 2 years, and I cannot deny that in both of my experiences 2 years has felt pivotal… and the moisturiser ‘ah ha’ moment… is definitely a representation of this.

The first teeny, tiny glimmers of reclaiming a sense of self postpartum was having a shower daily…

It isn’t because I didn’t want to shower… I simply couldn’t seem to summon the energy to haul my aching postpartum body into the shower AND dry myself AND get dressed every single day, alongside the other essentials like brushing my teeth and feeding the children. It wasn’t really an indicator of my physical health, although having had a Caesarean Birth there was definitely an element of that at the beginning. It was mostly because mentally I had almost given up on taking care of myself because all of my energy was being poured into simply surviving and looking after two small beings.

It was easier to slip into an almost non-existence state of being and bypass my own needs because I simply didn’t have the aliveness in me to fight for them.

A shock to my system

Nobody prepared me for the absolute obliteration of my SELF when I transitioned from one to two children, especially a second child that forced me to throw out every previous expectation I had. With my first I had retained elements of ‘self’ because in hindsight she was a relatively straightforward baby and didn’t require me to dissolve fully into the butterfly goo in this intense metamorphosis.

Hours of crying and rocking through the night due to colic and reflux. Months of trying to figure out food allergies. Guilt and grief over how little attention I could give my eldest daughter. Days and days spent alone with a baby who didn’t seem to want to be in this world. Accumulatively it took it’s toll on me mentally and it was all I could do to survive each day… anything other than essential care was simply not an option.

I have not come out the other side of this matrescence in any vague semblance of my previous self. I have been totally rearranged. Something I am both grateful for, and also grieve deeply all in one deep breath. If I thought I had dark moments in motherhood before, this time round took me on an underworld journey I would have certainly bailed out of if I could.

I wrote this article in reflection of my first year as a Mother of two in January this year, it was a reflection of an experience that looked very different to what I had expected.

Hands and heart full while simultaneously exhausted and overwhelmed

Over the past almost 24 months I have felt frustration, grief, sadness, disappointment, anger, rage, overwhelm, anxiety, depression, flatness, numbness, regret, guilt, envy… not the blend of emotions people expect to hear when they ask you how you are as a new born mother.

Depression and anxiety in motherhood

At a year postpartum with my first baby I was diagnosed with high anxiety and moderate depression, and sure enough… this time last year (at nearly a year postpartum with my second) I sat with a friend and told her how numb and low I was feeling, how much I was struggling, how I had lost all sense of aliveness and was having to force myself to get out of bed, to wash and shower, and she turned to me and said, ‘that’s not OK you know?’.

I remember the tears flowing for the first time in ages as my numbness dissipated. I felt so seen, validated and loved in one moment. My entire being sighed at having what I knew, but didn’t think I could admit (because I was functioning right?!?), reflected back to me. To be fully witnessed, and most importantly met so compassionately, in the absolute depths and brutality of early motherhood.

I was very, very lucky to be able to access private healthcare — a huge privilege — and within a week I had booked my first psychotherapy appointment after being ‘diagnosed’ with post natal depression and anxiety.

In some ways, simply being acknowledged was the medicine I needed. Someone to listen and allow me to be angry, and sad, and anxious and not ‘my self’ all in one.

In 2022, just before I gave birth to my youngest, I was part of Jessie Harrold’s The Village Matrescence Mentorship programme. The information I learned was so powerful ahead of my second matrescence.

One of the things that we discussed during this beautiful journey was the pathologisation of motherhood… meaning that so often there is a ‘diagnosis’ placed on a Mother when actually much of what they are feeling is a very common (not necessarily ‘normal’) experience.

I am not dismissing any diagnosis in any shape or form, or suggesting that maternal mental health issues do not exist. They obviously do, but I have to question how helpful some of these labels are at times. It shifts the pressure onto an already overloaded mother to ‘fix’ a problem, often making them feel broken or ashamed or embarrassed, and like they can’t cope, when actually it is the society and overculture at large that is the real ‘problem’ because the environment is simply not set up for Mothers to thrive in.

It isn’t just the fourth trimester

While the first few months of Motherhood are hard in their own ways, I actually think it is the time beyond the fourth trimester that can be the most delicate. 6 months, 12 months, 18 months… beyond…

Accumulative sleepless nights, loneliness, the bubble of newborn bliss well and truly burst, weaning onto solids, regressions, relationship struggles, teething, illnesses, feelings of resentment or frustration… there is so much to hold.

How are we supposted to integrate the vastness of this experience in a society that doesn’t SEE Mothers?

And I know I am not alone in this, which makes me both reassured but also deeply, deeply angry and devastated that this is how we treat Mothers in our society.

The relief in a closure…

While I know that I will forever be readjusting and recalibrating to whatever season of motherhood (and womanhood) I am landing in, I do feel that the initial brutal, burn-everything-to-the-ground kind of initiation of Matrescence is coming to a close.

If I am honest I meet that with relief…

… yes, a sense of pride and achievement at walking through the fire and coming out the otherside a whole new being… but mostly just relieved that I am feeling the sprouting sense of SELF returning and that I made it through!

I am walking around in what feels like a new ‘skin’… I feel a deeper connection to what is true for myself… more resilience… greater clarity over what is important to me… more fire and passion for my creativity…

It feels very much like a beginning, and of course with that comes an ending. An ending that while there is a part of me that feels sad I will never walk my baby in a wraparound sling, or breastfeed again… I mostly just feel excited for the next chapter.

So the fact that I have started moisturising my body again, putting makeup on more days than not and tending to myself in ways that are not just the essentials… it is like I am ready to be seen again…

I would love to know if any of this resonates with you? What season of Motherhood are you in? Have you felt a shift around 2 years postpartum? Please do share in the comments or email me your thoughts as I would love to hear them.

Until next time.

With so much love

Lauren

xxx

For those wondering, the moisturiser is this beautiful The Ritual Of Sakura Body Cream that I was gifted for my birthday. It smells divine and I have asked for more from Santa!!!

Hello to anyone who is new here… I am Lauren. A Mother of two daughters, Writer, Women’s Circle Facilitator, Sacred Business Mentor & Guide, Soul Branding & Website Creator and multi-dimensional human being. I walk with, and hold space for, others who are treading the tender path of their heart and soul work. You can find out more about this space and what to expect here. Please do subscribe to join the journey, and if you enjoy this, and you do have the means, I would be so grateful if you chose to support my creations for £5 a month…

If you enjoyed this piece and wish to explore my other spaces please use the links below to explore…

Motherhood Essays
Self-Tending Practices
The Unravelling Podcast
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