The past two years I have been stepping away from the crunchy mom way of life and stepping into wild mothering.
For me, the transition was a natural part of my healing process. The last three years, especially the two after leaving my marriage, have been primarily focused on healing. I let go of bad habits, hurtful people, and primarily, mindsets that were impeding me from stepping into my power and flow within life.
Wild mothering for me, is allowing myself to be untamed and unimpeded in my flow.
My intuition, my joy, and my love for my life and love for myself lead the way – not fear.
It sounds like common sense – to live aligned with our intuition and out of love – but fear is so prominent in our current society it’s challenging for it to not get a hold on us.
When I had began my journey into the crunchy mom life, I was deeply influenced by fear. If I’m being honest, fear ran my life.
As soon as I was pregnant, the fearful comments poured in. Hospital birth is dangerous, home birth is dangerous, this and that problem can happen in pregnancy, etc., etc. No one ever asked what I intuitively felt was the best path for me, but rather tried to influence me towards what they thought was best using fear.
I’ve always said, I went into motherhood knowing too much. I had a BA in developmental psychology, an MA in child development and nearly ten years of experience working in the field. And while yes, that had its benefits, it also had its downfalls. I knew all of the research and was hyper aware of developmental milestones, typical development, developmental disorders, and the causes behind things not going “typical.” It was a lot of pressure and rather overwhelming feeling fully responsible for every little aspect of my child.
While outsiders projected their fears onto my motherhood experience, I also created a lot of fears around not be able to fully implement the “optimal parenting” I had learned getting my masters degree. But there is no optimal parenting – there is only healthy and aligned parenting. Once I released the idea of some optimal, perfect, way to mother, parenting became a lot easier with more flow and space to find my own ease with my children.
One of the first big life changes that led me in the direction of Wild mothering rather than crunchy mom life, was my free birth. I had made parenting decisions from my intuition previously, but they were also decisions made from fear, research, and outside influences. My free birth was a decision I made purely from wisdom. It just felt right for me.
Having a free birth that I truly loved seemed to free me in motherhood, and while I still had a lot of healing and learning to do after my free birth three years ago, it was the beginning of unraveling my fears and the control they had over my life.
“I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories… water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés
To love motherhood, to be present within motherhood without resentment and without burnout, we have to release the hold our fears have on us and begin parenting from a space of trust. We have to trust ourselves to show up, to know what’s best, and to know that when we’re having trouble showing up in a way that’s aligned, we’ll learn how to become aligned.
Once we feel untamed and unimpeded, we can feel confident, secure, and even at peace within motherhood.
