Stay connected with Jen on her Facebook and Instagram  pages, her website, and I highly recommend her Empathic Mastery Book!!! 

Jennifer Moore is a mentor & healer for sensitive intuitive women. Jen holds a Master’s Degree in Psychology & Religion, she’s also an Accredited Master Trainer for EFT International and founder of the Empathic Mastery Academy. Jen is the author of Empathic Mastery, host of Empathic Mastery Radio, and creator of two oracle decks and the photographic Healing Tarot. Bringing over thirty years of personal & professional experience, Jen merges practicality, intuition and wisdom to offer insight, guidance & emotional freedom to those she serves.

To the mom who is getting in her car for the first time solo with a new baby….it will be ok. 

To the mom who is leaving for the first time to go somewhere WITHOUT her baby…it will be ok.

To those experiencing that feeling in your throat, the pounding of your heart, the “can I do this?”; the “should I do this?”; the “will this ever feel normal?” 

Yes. You can. You should. It will.

To the moms who have to go back to work, who have to try to act “normal” around coworkers when ALL THE EMOTIONS are happening at the same time: it will be ok.

To the moms who feel the push pull of the happiness to be doing a thing that’s your own mixed with the deep sadness to be leaving to go do that thing.  Who feel the excitement to have some alone time mixed with the guilt at the excitement about the alone time. 

Who knew it was possible to feel so much and be SO conflicted! And.. IT WILL BE OKAY. 

To the parents experiencing all the firsts: the first bite of food, the first public baby-wearing moment, the first overnight trip with the baby away from home; the first public melt down; the first nursing or feeding or first anything in the back of the car…the first time you forget that one thing that you REALLY needed to make the outing NOT a disaster…It will all be ok.

The first time I drove somewhere with my baby was a ten minute drive to visit with my parents. They were renting a house nearby for a few weeks to be helpful in those early days of first getting home from the hospital. My son shrieked and screamed the whole way until he was red in the face. We pulled over three times to make sure he was ok. My husband assured me “if he’s crying, he’s breathing.” I texted a dear friend and she kindly told me “it’s your baby hazing you,” a phrase which made me smile for a moment, but then I burst into tears anyway.

The first year of motherhood for me was far from perfect. We had a million zillion beautiful moments  and just as many “oh my god I can’t handle this; how will I get through this” moments. 

We had sleepless nights, nights where we took shifts holding the baby and set alarms to make sure we didn’t fall asleep while doing so. Sleep training nights later on where we nearly lost our minds and sat half in tears waiting for our baby to fall asleep. I got on several planes and flew miles away from my baby for a job I adore, and both loved the time away and mourned the time away. I pumped every three hours on planes, on boats, in hotel rooms, and cars. 

We also had moments that stunned me with their magic and shocked me with their power. The first smile. The first babbles. The first (and every time really) falling asleep on my chest. The first time I heard “mama.” 

Things didn’t always go as planned (and rarely will I’m sure.) I had to do things that made me WILDLY uncomfortable. I had to be brand new again at something and this time the stakes were incredibly high (keeping this tiny creature happy and alive.) 

This year I learned there is no perfect and perfect doesn’t matter. Nursing or not, sleeping in a crib or in the bed, baby led weaning or mashing it all up, cloth diapers or not, all these things that seemed so so important to me to be making the RIGHT choice, in hindsight there was no right choice, just the choice that worked for me and my family. 

The idea of “mom guilt” was always something I thought was put on mothers by others. I thought people might point their fingers at me and say, “well how could you possibly, xyz.”  (And I’m sure that happens and did happen to me and I was probably too sleep deprived to notice.) 

What surprised me about mom guilt was that so much of it happens naturally and we generate so much of it on our own: we are constantly weighing our choices, wondering if we are doing enough, doing it right, being good parents, handling it all. We do all this while trying to keep a smile on our faces and without being impatient with our mutually sleep deprived partners and of course keeping it together in front of our little people….and wow that’s a lot for any person to try to do. 

If I could write a letter to myself a year ago, in those excited but also terrified days waiting for my son’s arrival, I would say this: Be easy and loving to yourself. Be prepared for the unexpected and get ready to be both humbled and ecstaticly joyful. It will all be ok. You will be ok. You will be excellent.

I’m the kind of person who fully believes she can have it all, do it all, and be it all. For my whole life, I’ve been fully entrenched in the Superwoman complex and my internal pendulum widely swung between being completely awash in feeling of successful bliss, and total burnout and sickness.

So having my first child was hard for me. Like, really hard. I had been told that I would feel totally different and really need time to chill out, lower my stress levels, and nest, but I was pretty sure I could just push through the fatigue, like I always had, and persist.

Didn’t work out that way. My kid came two months early and my whole life stopped for a while as I sat in the NICU waiting for him to be able to feed himself, regulate his own temperature, and do other normal baby things…

After we were out of the hospital and over the course of the next year, I slowly was able to work my way back to my business. I am a voice teacher and a life coach for performers, so I work for myself mostly. Which, as anyone with kids knows, basically means you have two full time jobs and three quarters of the time you don’t get directly paid for any of the work you’re doing.

When our second pregnancy came around, I again just kept persisting and working to keep my business up and going while wanting to puke the whole time. I wanted my business to GROW so that when the baby came it would be a machine I didn’t have to take so much care of.

Unfortunately, that pregnancy ended in a chemical termination because it became too dangerous for my life for it to continue.

Which really put things into perspective…

I WANT another child. And we’re exploring avenues like adoption, but recently we were also “cleared” to start trying again. (I use the quotes because the doctors never say that directly, but instead just make sure we know what the risks are like… SUPER clearly…)

In my case, it could all turn out to be a totally normal and healthy pregnancy! Or… it might not.

Something about this coming attempt that made me realize my drive and determination to build my business needs to be put on hold. It’s not like I can’t keep moving in that direction, but my emotional energy needs to go into taking care of my body in the best way possible so that it’s a warm and safe place for a baby to grow.

That doesn’t work well if you end up lying in bed at night with your mind spinning with business ideas or if you feel like you are constantly running from meeting to meeting.

It’s not that the action is wrong. It’s that, for me, it asks me to harden when I need to soften. Intellectualize when I need to listen to my intuition. Survive on coffee instead of water and good food. Stay up to “get shit done” when my body is telling me I need to sleep.

I can’t be in a mental growth space for my business AND my future pregnancy at the same time. They’re two different drives for me.

So while I have big ideas and programs I want to put in place. I try to constantly remind myself that it’s OK for me to rest. To take a break. To give my body space and love.

I try to remind myself that I have TIME. I’m still young. Especially in comparison to many women I know who are getting their own businesses up and going who are 10+ years older than me. (I know… I shouldn’t compare… but it’s helpful for me…)

I’ve got shit to do. But I also know what I want my life to look like. And I can’t control it all. But what I can control is my emotional space and my reactions to stress. 

While hoping for another child, I choose grace. I choose ease. I choose nesting, not building.

What choice do you need to make?

Katie Gall helps people discover the full power of their body’s ability to achieve optimal health, create a habit of self-love, and live in harmony with their body.

Connect with Katie on Facebook and Instagram.