Today’s Find Your Flow message is really a message of self-care. It may appear just tot be for the mothers, but in some way, we’re all nurturers, holding someone’s hearts and growth as something we treasure and feel responsible for. It’s those places maybe we hold so much, we forget to hear what our body has to say about it.

It’s a lot to hold someone’s whole world together, while still keeping yours not only together, but thriving, too. 

I wrote a post for Mother’s Day and didn’t actually share it at the time. I decided to prioritize my family and quiet time. It hit me today while handing out some belated cards, that it’s just as important of a message today as it is on a holiday…maybe even more important. 

I realized how can we turn mother’s day into a feeling and way of being with ourselves all year-long, rather than a day of acknowledgment and maybe some “time-off”. 

It wasn’t until a few days before mother’s day when I was gifted a 20-minute massage that I realized the difference between taking care of yourself and true self-care. 

I do often take care of myself. I do the things. I get bodywork, because my body gets run down carrying my toddler and chasing her. I go to the hot springs, because I barely sleep and it’s an hour or two to drop-in so I can be more present with my daughter, and so that I can work more efficiently. I usually in fact plan those days that way. Working or an appointment right afterwards. 

What I realized is how infrequently, if ever, I actually just slow down without a purpose. Not to be more efficient. Not to do more. Just to solely be and stay available to what comes from that. 

How often what looks like being is actually still doing!!  My body felt such ease with this realization. 

I feel like I went a step deeper than even I knew. And, so came a few days at the beach with a presence I usually only feel after a week on vacation. I just showed up fully present to what was around. Released judgments or disappointments I may have felt in the past. I felt deep connection and gratitude. I found freedom and space in the ability to see myself and my environment. I appreciated people in my life in a more meaningful way…the list goes on. 

Who are you beneath all the different roles you play? Not the one who sometimes gets so buried under the giving, doing and showing up for everyone else, that she forgets to show up for herself. Who are you when you’re really present to what your body and life are trying to reveal to you?

I spoke to someone this morning and I felt something release from my body that I had unconsciously been holding onto. I finally saw it, felt it and acknowledged it. These are the first steps to releasing it. 

It’s so easy to get caught up in: are we doing enough? Are we even enough? Forgetting to validate the quiet moments where something clicks and you know overall, you are doing exactly what you need. You are more than enough. The goal was never to be perfect. You’re allowed to fumble and see the beauty, gifts, awareness and growth that comes from those times. Way more than everything just going according to plan where you don’t have to reflect or dig deeper. Those moments don’t actually shape you or help you teach or guide your children. 

I like to think of who I am as my legacy. These are the moments I’m really passing down. The how I handle disappointments, losing my cool, being overwhelmed. How do I come to the other side and keep going with purpose, vision and connection at the forefront. 

I’ve realized more and more that the rules, what other people can see as “successful” parenting isn’t as important as you being authentic to yourself and your ideas. This is the most fulfilling thing you can do. This carries you through the hard times, the judgments, the loneliness and helps you reconnect to your purpose as a parent, partner, friend, coach or whatever role it is that you are playing. 

Learning the places that help you thrive with strength, efficiency,  boundaries and discipline is critical for true self-care, awareness and prospering while juggling a lot. 

Learning how to navigate the delicate balance where you tend to harden, push or power through may need some attention to consciously shift and soften. 

What may have worked or served you ‘pre-motherhood’ may no longer truly be serving you. 

On the days where that pressure builds extra high. Where you’re at your capacity and barely keeping it together. When you need more space than you feel you’re allowed to ask for. Those moments when you look in the mirror and barely recognize the woman looking back — that voice creeps in. Often in the form of “I have to keep going” or “I’m strong, I got this”, or “I just need sleep, or to do x…I can schedule that later”…these are the statements when it’s time to stop and pay attention. 

Hopefully, the more you prioritize your nervous system’s feedback, your sleep and stress feedback, the amount of space you give yourself versus deflection, reaction or disconnection, the more you don’t even need to let your feedback loop go so far away from you as your most authentic, vital, open, balanced, loving, present and connected self. 

Here’s a reminder for yourself today and everyday: Perfect doesn’t exist, but presence does. 

Presence is what allows noticing, softness, gratitude, fulfillment and being willing and able to still be figuring it out with nowhere you have to be. 

I had to learn this the hard way. There were seasons in early motherhood where I was so focused on doing everything right that I lost the thread of simply being with my child. So consumed by the checklist of what a good mother looks like that I stopped trusting what a good mother feels like.

Your child doesn’t need your perfection. They need your realness. They need to watch you take a breath when things get hard. They need to see you be gentle with yourself — because that’s how they’ll learn to be gentle with themselves.

The most powerful thing you can model for your child is a woman who knows who she is. In the messy moments as well as the coming together moments. A mother who knows herself raises children who are allowed to know themselves, too. 

You don’t have to fall into wanting them to please you or others just for a momentary relief, build their character so they can love themselves as they are. They get to have their experience, however loud, rebellious or inconvenient, just as you get to hold your clarity too of what’s age-appropriate and works for who you are. The larger your capacity for uncertainty, the more neutral and natural you can be holding space, the easier this gets. 

I want to invite you to put down the measuring stick for just a moment. Not because the growth doesn’t matter — but because there’s a different kind of growth that matters even more. The one that’s you connected. This is what allows you to actually receive the love that’s already here. The love and path that you’re already on. 

Your child/children/life/partner…chose you. Not a perfect version of you. You. Exactly as you are, in all your beautiful, complicated, fully human wholeness. The one that’s willing to be vulnerable enough to grow and release all that you’re not. 

An invitation to ask yourself: 

• When did you last do something purely for yourself — not as a mother, but as a woman?
• What part of yourself have you set aside that is quietly asking to be reclaimed?
• What would it look like to honor both the mother and the woman you are — at the same time?

With love,

Laurin