Becoming a mother can be a profound experience. There can be love, wonder and joy—and also exhaustion, isolation, uncertainty and a sense that life has suddenly become organized around someone else’s needs.
So much of early motherhood involves turning your attention outward. You notice when your baby is hungry, tired, uncomfortable or ready to play. You think about feeding, sleeping, appointments, laundry, meals and all the countless little decisions that fill a day with a young child.
And somewhere in the midst of all of that, it can become harder to notice you.
How are you, really?
What are you feeling? What do you need? What has changed for you? What are you enjoying? What are you grieving? What parts of yourself have become quieter, and what new parts are emerging?
Sometimes we don’t need another person to tell us what we should be doing. We need a little space to listen to ourselves.
Making space to notice what’s happening inside
One of the practices I love to introduce to mothers is called Focusing.
Focusing is a gentle, embodied way of paying attention to your inner experience. Rather than immediately trying to figure out what is wrong or what you should do about something, you slow down and notice what is happening in your body and sense of yourself.
There may be a feeling that is difficult to put into words—a heaviness, tightness, fluttering, warmth, sense of being pulled in different directions, or simply a vague feeling that something is there.
Focusing gives us a way to stay with that experience with curiosity and kindness. Often, when we give our inner experience some attention rather than pushing it away or immediately trying to solve it, something begins to shift.
I first discovered Focusing during my own difficult experience of postpartum motherhood. It became an important personal practice for me, and eventually became part of my professional work as a therapist. I later wrote about that experience in a peer-reviewed chapter on Focusing and motherhood that was published in a book.
You don’t have to be an artist
In my work, I also combine Focusing with expressive arts.
This doesn’t mean making beautiful art or having any particular artistic ability. You might make a few lines or shapes, write a few words, or simply experiment with colour. The purpose isn’t to produce something impressive. It’s to give some form to an experience that may be difficult to express in words.
There is something powerful about being able to look at what you’ve made and think, Oh. That’s what’s going on inside me.
There is no requirement to share what you make with anyone else.
We’ll also incorporate some gentle mindful movement to help us settle, ground and reconnect with our bodies.
A place to be a mother—and also yourself
I offer Mama Me, a six-week expressive arts and mindfulness group for mothers with babies in Hamilton.
It’s a small, closed group, with a maximum of 10 participants. Babies who are not yet crawling are welcome to come along. Mothers whose babies are crawling or walking are also welcome, but will need to arrange childcare for their baby during the sessions.
My hope is that the group will be a warm and supportive place where you can pause from the demands of everyday life, connect with your own experience, explore through creativity and movement, and spend time with other mothers who are also navigating this enormous transition.
You don’t need to arrive with a particular problem to solve.
You can simply come as you are.
Mama Me is not currently running. I plan to offer the group again in the future. If you’d like to hear when the next group is scheduled, you can contact me.
Stephanie Davis is a Registered Psychotherapist in Hamilton, Ontario. Her work integrates Focusing, Focusing-Oriented Art Therapy, mindfulness and other body-based and creative approaches to therapy.
