Today’s topic is all about losing your identity in motherhood. 

This is something that not only comes up in the beginning of motherhood, but also many times throughout the journey of being a mom. I noticed fairly early on that whenever I ask a mother what she would do if she had 2 hours back into her day, she stares at me with a blank stare. Or when I ask mothers what they do for fun, they don’t even remember what that means. They usually do what their kids think is fun.

In becoming a mother we have a tendency to lose ourselves, and we get buried in other people’s things. Our kids’ dreams and desires, society’s expectations of us, the conditioning of what it means to be a “good mom.” We get busy keeping up with the things that will make us who we are “supposed” to be. 

let me first remind you that you are not lost. you are just buried. 

The you-est you is still in there – you are just buried under all of the doings. And really I would argue that we begin being buried before we even become mothers – it just gets even murkier when we reach motherhood. How did we get here, mamas?

As mothers we are busy making sure everyone else is good. We’ve forgotten to check in with ourselves about what we want and what feels good. We spend our time running the kids around and making sure everyone’s needs are met, and in doing so we have put aside our own. This is how we’ve gotten buried. 

Now being a mother is part of who we are, but that doesn’t define us. You were someone before you became a mother.

And if being a mother is a sacred part of your identity that is amazing – I just want to make sure you give yourself permission to live authentically. 

The fact of the matter is that conditioning is a key player that got us here: our perceptions of what makes a good mom, and the pressure to uphold that definition. These conditioned beliefs are then reinforced by all of the mommy blogs, social media influencers, the mothers in your kid’s class, the recognition that we get when we do it “right.” The behaviors are then perpetuated, and the narratives continue.

but the good news is this – we can find ourselves again. 

So before we get into steps we can take to start making change, we need to identify when our own conditioning is causing judgment against other moms and contributing to the problem. Have you ever found yourself seeing a mom out on the town, and you ask yourself where her kids are with a dash of judgment? What if instead we flipped the script and supported her for having a night off? Get curious about what causes your own judgment, because it has to begin and end with us.

Now it’s time we get more specific – where do we go from here? 

• Start allowing space to grieve the parts of yourself that you lost when you became a mother. We often skip over this part. We focus on the next thing and we never honor or grieve what was. Try out this journaling prompt: what do I miss about myself and my life before becoming a mother? Nothing is too taboo here. Let’s then identify how we can recreate more of these missed parts today. 

• Embark on a self-discovery journey to rediscover who you are now. I love tools like The Enneagram personality test, The Human Design, How Are You, Really? by Jenna Kutcher, and simply starting to pay attention to yourself. What are you doing when you feel the most like yourself and the most alive? Say yes to trying new things to get clear on what you value. Reflect on your highs and lows and what you learned from them. Have fun on the journey and don’t take yourself too seriously!

If you find yourself in the thick of being buried without the space to rediscover yourself fully, know that your time will come. But take a conscious step today – even if it means incorporating just one thing differently for yourself. 

There is a magical unicorn buried inside of you that needs to be expressed in authentic ways. And not just in the role of a mother – in just being.

Take care of yourselves and therefore each other!

xo, brooke jean