Why motherhood can trigger a healing crisis and become an initiation into authentic power for Highly Sensitive women
A Mothers mythic journey of transformation
What no one tells you before you become a Mother is that you are embarking on a heroine's journey of transformation. From conception your psyche enters a ‘death and rebirth process’, as your body is transformed in pregnancy (and post), your old life dies overnight after the birth, your routine is remodelled, your responsibilities radically shift, your availability, energy and capacity profoundly alter…as do you. This process becomes an initiation into a new life that requires you to change your way of being to meet your new demands as a Mother and survive your new world which can bring about both a healing crisis and an intense evaluation of our relationships.
Intensity, breaking point and healing crisis
Becoming a mother demands that you turn up 24/7 on your good days and bad days, whether you have the energy or not, have enough sleep or not. If you are needing space or not. Your child demands your time, your energy and your attention. Your capacity is stretched daily, It can feel relentless and stressful. You need to be endlessly productive to stay on top of life. This is exhausting and can bring you to your knees (and you may still be recovering from the intensity of the birth, postpartum recovery and deletion from breastfeeding to boot). There is nowhere to hide and nowhere to rest - this can bring you to your breaking point…
Suddenly at this most intense stage of your life, you can reach a crisis point as the anxiety, helplessness, rage or depression surfacing is too intense and overwhelming to ignore. Your unresolved emotional trauma may be triggered and as it arises you can feel that it requires that you resolve it so you have capacity to cope with your life now. It feels like the worst possible timing to embark on self healing.
You wonder how on earth you're going to get through it and be in the world. It can seem impossible. These conditions are demanding deep transformative change from you to survive. It is horrible timing and it's incredibly intense, but you are not alone. I see many Mothers with young children who hit this crisis point - and I was one of them too. I understand how hard it is. (But things can radically shift for the better with subconscious healing. All is not hopeless!)
Lack of capacity demands you change unhealthy HSP boundaries
As your capacity is maxed when you become a Mother; to cope you have to re-evaluate your boundaries which often as a HSP is overstretched and unhealthy. You have to change and shift dynamics to survive your family life. This can bring you up against your biggest fears of conflict, rejection and triggers around asserting your boundaries to ensure your needs are met so you can cope with day to day life, which becomes even more challenging as you're very sensitive.
Outdated or unhealthy classic Empath behaviours have to change such as:
You can no longer over-give your time and energy with friends or family or partners to please or accommodate them
You no longer have the patience or energy to ‘parent’ or pick up the slack for an emotionally immature or disengaged… partner, mother or father, sibling etc as you now have an actual child to parent as well as yourself to care for
You don’t have the energy to take on the emotional responsibility for groups by playing the meditator or being the peace keeper
You may not have the patience or capacity for passive aggressive comments from the in-laws or careless remarks from self-centred friends that you may have tolerated before
You can’t listen to everyone's problems and try to help ‘fix things’ for them, you're too tired.
You find you have to protect your energy and your time from people that drain you so you can care for your child - so you find yourself creating distance from certain people or groups for example.
You have to re-evaluate and create a new set of boundaries for yourself, both big and small, to survive your new life as a Mother. Your role in the world has changed and your boundaries are having to realign to catch up. That's what is being asked of you because what was not working well before but could be ignored or denied pre-parenthood is revealed and becomes another pressure too many, so you have to change.
Communicating your no: Empath Mum rage
When you become a mum, your needs are frequently not being met on multiple levels: your need for sleep, your need for rest, your need for emotional (and practical) support, your need for intellectual engagement, your need for exercise, your need for space etc. All whilst continuously giving and tending to the needs of your child and family...
You can reach a point where your inner well of resources is empty, where you have no capacity, you are over stretched and feel you have nothing left to give… or can’t give in the way you have previosly - and now you’re angry. You've had enough and something has to change, your rage demands it. You can no longer defer to the appeasing voice inside that was always trying to ‘give the benefit of the doubt’ or ‘trying to be understanding, kind or reasonable’, whilst side stepping your angry reaction and shoving it into an internal cupboard. The accumulated anger towards this situation/s (and life prior) is now exploding out.
Your Empath Mum rage can be the voice of your fierce inner mama bear that has known all along what’s fair and out of balance in your life, but now in this Motherhood pressure cooker it’s coming to protect you too saying NO. It may well feel frightening and intense, but it comes with a fierce message demanding change where it is required: partner, work, family etc… That voice may be saying…
I’ve had enough of the way that you speak to me
This routine is unfair and I’m furious
I resent the responsibility of this invisible workload of motherhood and how much I am carrying
I’m tired of being the emotional caretaker for you
I don’t have a voice in this situation, you’re not listening and I’m sick of it
I’m fed up with feeling like my basic needs are too much etc.
I’m sick of this invisible workload as a Mother
Your rage demands your attention to address over trodden boundaries. To find practical solutions to the problem we often have to face our fears that prevented us addressing it in the first place; this usually has roots from memories in our past - our fear of rejection, conflict, criticism, humiliation etc. It may not be comfortable but it's necessary, not only to grow but to survive parenting - that’s why it's happening now. Your fierce mama bear is for your protection, not just your childs. Your rage when acknowledged whilst tapping can transform into empowerment and assertiveness, enabling you to articulate your truth. So stepping up to this challenge can be transformative.
Communication and renegotiation of boundaries in our relationship
“There were 10 years where I couldn’t stand my husband and guess when it happened? - when the kids were little” Michelle Obama, watch short interview
Becoming a Mother puts an enormous pressure on your relationship with your partner, if you are with one, and any cracks that were there may go from feeling microscopic to becoming canyons - the problems can become impossible to ignore. It’s no wonder the highest percentage of separation and divorce happens before a child reaches the age of 5 years old (!) If you are not pulling together as a team, day to day life can feel near impossible.
The ways in which you may have compensated for your partner (let's be honest!) prior to having a child, you find you do not have the capacity to do so anymore. Resentment towards each other can feel commonplace as the list of chores is never ending and we notice everything that hasn't been done by them or where we take the load. It is easy to feel under-appreciated. Often a key relationship we need to work on regarding our boundaries as a highly sensitive Mother is that with our partner, so this relationship comes under the spotlight.
If the current dynamic in your relationship feels like a struggle you begin couples counselling. You may know that you need to do deeper work on your own triggers caused by past experiences so seek solo support, but wish your partner was doing the same and working on their stuff too! (if they’re not already). You might be realising you are highly sensitive and are learning how that impacts you, your responses and your needs as well as managing your relationship with your partner. You're trying to do this while you are feeling exhausted from parenting, are overloaded and are trying to fend off burn out. This can feel like a big ask at times.
When it comes to our relationship with our partner, the unsexy key to change is communication. However willingness on both sides needs to be present, as if we are expressing our needs and trying to renegotiate personal boundaries as a highly sensitive Mother in a disinterested void, we will go nowhere. Even when our partner is willing to put in the effort to change or make changes in your dynamic and is self aware, we often have to overcome some of our fears of expressing ourselves and the unknown! We can also be faced with the need to think creatively about possible solutions to the current problem or situation or a different approach to meet our needs as a HSP and work with reframing perceived blocks or resistance to change. This can all be very challenging but a highly transformative journey.
With all that said, even If you're both incredibly self aware, are in a loving relationship, are willing to be supportive and make changes and are doing the work on yourself etc… at the end of an intense week of parenting you may still want to throw something at each other so be kind to yourself (and them if you can bare it).
Moving from being a mess and evolving into your authentic power as a HSP
It may all feel like a mess when you start the journey. Working on our past doesn’t feel easy. Renegotiation of our present boundaries to meet our needs can feel uncomfortable and frightening. But through adapting to our new life of Motherhood and its demands we are pushed to grow and to do the work which we have either avoided before or maybe started but did not complete; this means now we have to go even deeper. When we take on the challenge by choice or necessity with EFT and we start to transform by releasing old habitual patterns and release stuck emotions in the subconscious you can, bit by bit, begin to feel more empowered, resilient and authentically you. Becoming a mother may just be the greatest learning experience of your life and right now you could be in the transformative fires of change.
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