Naomi Chunilal - The Mindful Mother: A Practical and Spiritual Guide to Enjoying Pregnancy, Birth, and Beyond with Mindfulness

For my children
Sacha and Anouska Rose,
With love and blessings.
Thank you for choosing us.

Close your eyes and you will see clearly.
Cease to listen and you will hear truth.
Be silent and your heart will sing.
Seek no contacts and you will find union.
Be still and you will move forward on the tide of the spirit.
Be gentle and you will need no strength.
Be patient and you will achieve all things.
Be humble and you will remain entire.
Taoist poem

INTRODUCTION

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think.

Gautama Buddha,The Dhammapada

M otherhood is one of the most immense and life-changing events that can occur in a womans life. When you give birth, you create a new life, that of your child, and your own as a mother. You start an epic journey of self-discovery and growth that can transform your entire sense of self and identity, not just now, but throughout the rest of your life.

The birth of a child is a profound rite of passage with immense potential to bring infinite joy, delight and enchantment in its wake. Your relationship with your unborn child may be one of the greatest love affairs that you ever have, stretching across decades of your life. It doesnt matter whether you planned this pregnancy, are taken by surprise, or have walked the path of motherhood before. The magical alchemy of maternal love is one of the most wonderful surprises of becoming a mother a living, breathing gift nourished and renewed by daily contact and nurture between you and your child.

Yet at the same time as falling in love with your child, you are also cast into the role of full-time guardian, with around-the-clock responsibility for meeting their needs and demands both day and night. As you move through pregnancy into this unknown territory of looking after babies and small children, your entire life can feel as though it has been tossed up into the air, leaving you to catch all the different pieces as they fall down. Except that they no longer seem to fit back into the same place as they did before. And you are left, trying to juggle and keep your new life afloat, while feeling consumed by your new maternal role.

As a new mother, you are making massive physical and emotional adjustments to smoothly integrate your baby into your life, while coping with greater levels of tiredness, stress and exhaustion than you have possibly ever felt before. Simple activities such as having a bath, making a phone call, eating supper, sleeping, or chatting with friends are constantly interrupted, seldom reaching a satisfying conclusion. You dont have much time to do anything else apart from look after your baby; whose contentedness often seems to remain outside your immediate control.

As mothers, we instinctively want the best for our children, to give them a happy and stimulating childhood. At the same time, we also hope to find individual fulfilment through the experience of raising a child. Yes, there will be moments of domestic bliss and harmony when these two ideals coincide. Moments when our children smoothly fit into our internal expectations of how we want family life to be. Just not all of the time! So while it goes without saying, that we adore these little people who share our life, its also true to say that its not always easy living alongside them. The abrupt reality of giving up autonomy and independence to provide childcare around the clock comes as an immense shock to many of us, often provoking internal conflict and resistance.

So however much you love your baby, they can also seem to destroy your sanity and peace of mind, without doing very much except to open their mouth to remind you they are there. The push and pull of nurture is the fundamental paradox of motherhood. Yet its easy to forget this, when struggling to keep up with the treadmill of meeting your newborn babys needs and demands. The relentless nature of looking after a small infant can easily deconstruct your sense of having a normal, functioning adult life. And you may find yourself reacting to anything and everything with frustration, angst, anger and irritability, weepiness and despair. There are times hours, days, even weeks when you almost want to turn the clock back to a time before babies were invented!

We so want to make our mothering life calm and upbeat, yet we still manage to collide with countless flash points of stress and tension, often making ourselves, and those around us extremely unhappy in the process. We know that we arent doing anyone any favours, let alone ourselves, when we forget how to be relaxed and content. Yet it can feel impossible not to feel disappointed, fed up and out of control in the aftermath of this immense life upheaval. There are times when being a mother tests our emotional endurance to breaking point. And we suddenly find our negative emotions are oozing out all over the nursery. And this happens despite our crystal-clear picture of the positive and joyful maternal life that we wish to have.

And so we may sometimes feel that we are barely surviving, and definitely not enjoying ourselves as much as we might like. We hope and expect to have an uplifting experience of motherhood, yet feel unable to notice or appreciate, let alone celebrate the wonder and magic of what is happening in front of our eyes, as we struggle to make our new maternal role comfortably fit into our adult lives.

Yet your individual transition into motherhood holds the seeds of genuine spiritual transformation and growth in its wake. The daily experience of being a mother can become a conscious practice of mindfulness, as we start to explore our living relationships with our children, partners and others, and most of all with ourselves. Who is this inner voice of self, engaging our attention in constant mental dialogue; and how can we find our way to a place of inner stillness and peace? How can we get our mind to work with us, rather than against us? And what is our heart saying to us when we stop and listen?

When we become receptive to exploring our innermost nature, we start to uncover a heart spring of love, wisdom and truth flowing inside us. This is always there, yet can remain buried beneath internal conflict, suffering and tension. When we step onto the path of conscious mothering, our life energy starts to move more easily, and we can see and appreciate who and what we are. With all our imperfections, sorrows and joys. Motherhood and family life becomes a spiritual backdrop against which we can get to know and understand ourselves, and grow, through the simple act of being with our children.

At the same time, our children learn so much about themselves, in the reflection of our life within their own. They witness the world in our relationships with them, and with our partner, friends and family. So it follows that when we feel harmonious, whole and in touch with our higher wisdom and truth, we are more ready and able to guide our children. It is therefore up to you to sow the seeds of your physical, emotional and spiritual awakening into your daily mothering experience.

Mothering can be a daily act of inspiration and grace. We can use daily family life as an emotional catalyst, empowering us to find and cultivate new depths of love and compassion, self-awareness, forgiveness, courage, altruism, self-acceptance, affirmation and resilience.

To become a mother with mindfulness is to celebrate your life. To transform it into a living affirmation, as you accept and embrace whom you truly are, by learning to survive and blossom through the incredible, yet chaotic and often tedious, daily rhythm of life with babies and small children. Having a child now becomes a beautiful and profound rite of passage of awakening consciousness, through the everyday experience of mothering life.