Spirituality and mamahood. Where do they intersect?

Svarun went on a week-long holiday with my parents on Saturday. While I do believe it’s healthy and desirable that we spend 7 days out of 365 apart, I miss him a lot. And I feel guilty, too. Guilt is probably the number one emotion all mothers worldwide experience. We were conditioned with the role of a perfect mother and when we don’t live up to it, we feel guilty, all the while forgetting we’re only human with strengths and weaknesses.

On our Saturday’s sweat lodge that I talked about here, I received a very profound message.

(I say received, because I didn’t hear or read it anywhere, it just came to me formed in words, through my mind, and in into the knowing. I usually get such messages in form of words, because words are my chosen form of expression, but you may get it as a vision, a voice, a set of numbers. Receiving such messages from the Universe is what I call divine inspiration; it’s how the recipe for my synergy bars came to be. It’s as if I was reading the book of Universe that contains all that is, all that was and all that is yet to be.)

Back to the sweat lodge. When we made the fire to heat the rocks and sat down, forming half moon around the circle, the following knowing came to me:

Your task is to turn all of the conditions that your mind sees as weaknesses into your strengths; they are here to serve you.

I knew exactly what we were on about. I’m very devoted to my personal growth and spiritual practice, as I have been on and off for the past six years, but never to such an extent as now. But considering I’m a single mother who worked and raised her son at home for three and a half years until he went to kindergarten this February, I was not given much time to harness my internal peace. For three and a half years it meant either waking up really early and risking the exhaustion of my body, or the exhaustion of my mind that was craving 5 minutes of me-time. But even when I was given the five minutes, I didn’t know how to use them because I was avoiding myself and my darkness. I conceptually knew I should meditate, but never took the time to sit on the meditation pillow. As soon as Svarun finally fell asleep for his midday nap, I ran away from me and went … to the kitchen, to the internet, to clean something unnecessary, to do anything that would prevent me from facing the stillness. I lived in such frenzy that honestly, I didn’t know how I remained sane.

Now that I do all of my peace work, I still sometimes experience the contrast (that I talked about yesterday). Then my ego mind would try to come up with an excuse to set me free of the responsibility: “Well, I’m a mother. If only I had all the time in the world to invest in my spiritual journey, I would be a spiritual leader by now.” Bullshit. Nobody has 24/7 to invest in their spiritual practice. Besides, every situation we find ourselves in it’s because it is here to support us; they are not something we need to fight. Yep, even being a mompreneur and trying to meditate. I had the feeling long before Svarun was born, that I will grow with my first child. But up until now I wasn’t very good at putting that feeling into practice. For example, I would witness his reactions that were pissing me off, and I knew they were actually my reactions. They were the part of me that I didn’t want to acknowledge, so I felt the need to fight them, condition them, uproot them.

I don’t feel bad about it. But I do see now how every single circumstance is a blessing. Our children are showing us the mirror 24/7. It’s just copy-paste, copy-paste, copy-paste. They are a reflection of ourselves and when there is something in them that bothers us, it’s because we have it, too, but trying to ignore it.

And I thought I didn’t have enough time to devote to my spiritual practice?! Time is not something we have. Time is something we make.

Right now, I can either go back to trying to have the time for my meditation, yoga, and reading, or I take the time that I’m given with this precious being as devotion to my spiritual practice, such as it is. Just being with Svarun is a seminar in the very next things in and about me that must be dealt with in order to life a happier and healthier existence. The best part, thought? I know he thinks I’m fine just as I am. Children don’t have a hard time forgiving, us adults do. One time I asked Svarun why he choose me to be his mother, and he said: “Because you seemed young.” I didn’t fully understand his response then, but I know now what he wanted to say. He knew he was going to be my teacher, and he knew his mother was going to grow as she went.