Have you ever felt your gut churn at what seems to be logically the best way forward? Or your stomach jump up and dance at what seems to be the worst idea?
Human beings have lived and thrived on the basis of their instinct and intuitiveness for centuries. Until we stopped doing that.
While we blindly follow the norm aka peer pressure or forever changing opinions that surround us or what others around us think or do, technology and the way culture has evolved owing to the ways Society has evolved.
Where civilisation is a blessing and was much needed to steer us all in a direction towards a more organised, comfortable to live species it ended up taking away a lot of magic from us.
Whether we own up to it or not, most of our decisions today are made in fear, avoidance and anxiety stemming from a need to be the way society expects us to be. In whatever we do.
I was a classic example of all of this. In many ways I still am.
My corporate career had me convinced of the single dimension of life where everything had to be planned, defined, colour coded and organised. Sure I was up for “adventure” every now and then but that was reduced to traveling once or twice a year, eating ice cream on a week day, an unplanned meal out with friends or an impromptu visit to the beach.
Then. I became a mother.
Breastfeeding hit me like a boulder and crashed all my preparation (it what I THOUGHT was preparation).
Motherhood made me reconsider everything.
It is when the obsessions and anxiety of coexisting within a judgmental society and a civilisation that only rewards order, preparation and preemptions, seeps into parenting that we have a problem.
Somewhere along the way as we count the grams our child weighs twice a week, or log their every single move (that I just can’t shake off. I’m still chained to it), a mother’s intuition goes out the window. The power of love goes with it.
Despite constantly studying science and logic, no matter how awe-struck I am at it, my trust in a mother’s instinct trumps everything. If a mother’s heart is not at rest, go get your child checked out.
Go to another doctor and another doctor. Until YOU are at peace. Until someone gives you an explanation that helps you sleep at night.
Mamas. TRUST YOUR GUT.
Try unhinging from the obsession with weight. If your child is active, happy, alert and responsive, most things are going just fine.
Don’t fall into societal traps of “doing the right thing” whether it is booking a spot at the best school while you’re pregnant, disciplining a 2 months old (literally. Physiologically. Psychologically not possible to spoil a child under 2.5 years of age.), defining a schedule for your child (What even is that?), Sleep training (Don’t even get me started on that one), or ANYTHING else that the world around you dictates you MUST do.
Try to disengage from expectations and tap into the Human intuition We have lost over time. Motherhood brings you so much closer to where you CAN hone into this innate ability.
How? One Simple Answer.
Love.
Love is what heightens intuition and what purer love would there be than to love one’s child? Use motherhood to become more human and not go the other way where you turn your and your child’s life a pile of expectations, to-do lists and things to achieve.
When you love your child, or anyone for that matter, you forever have their best interest in mind.
You put THEM before lists.
THEM before others.
THEM before yourself.
It embodies their interest as your own.
If something hurts them it hurts you.
Slowly you start making better choices. For both of you. The primary underlying principle of parenting? Choose your child.
Over everything that surrounds you. Choose your child.
Whenever making any decision whether it is to force feed your child or reprimand them, choose THEM in that moment. Find a better way to achieve “their best interest”. A phrase you use to bury your intuitive love.
A noble cause can never have a journey contrary to its positivity. There are always better ways to achieve what you need to.
Maya Lou Angelou once said “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Perceive, accept and internalise the fact that our children are indeed PEOPLE. They might be small but that doesn’t make them insignificant nor does it make them less human.
Where they might even be too young to understand the words you use, they are far more honed into their human intuition and better connected with the feeling part of their psychology than us grown ups possibly can be.
Allow yourself the space to love them. Loosen up. It won’t spoil them from matching up to the societal standards. It’ll infact make them better equipped at navigating through life.
Stop Managing your life and start living it with your babies. You will raise healthier, happier families.