Letting Go of the Way She Loves Me
BY LEENA LEMOS
Photo Courtesy | Leena Lemos
I’ll never forget the moment – it was one o’clock in the morning and as the early crisp spring air danced through our open bedroom window while I fought another restless night, it happened.
After months of calling out for her dad in the middle of the night, and frankly every other scenario when she needed help, love, or comfort – she finally said my name. At first, I thought I was mistaken. I assumed it was a phantom cry or half-awake dream, but again, the little voice from the next room cried out for her mother.
As I grabbed my sweater and stumbled around piles of laundry to her dark room, I wondered, Had I done something different today?
Did I say the right thing?
Was I finally fun?
Why now?
For the last three years, motherhood has presented me with a profound lesson in letting go of the ways I imagined my child would show me love. Thus, before reaching her bed, my mind spent a few moments within the dichotomy that had become a frequent internal dialogue – sorrow and joy.
To be honest, I’ve struggled with seasons of guilt and shame that despite all the self-healing and psycho-spiritual work I’ve completed to be the most loving, present, and conscious mother, she still chooses her father every time, even reminding me when I express my love, that she . . . loves her dad.
I constantly question, Is it me? Have I not put in the right amount of “effort” as a mother? Am I doing it wrong? Am I a terrible mother?
At times, it breaks my heart. Shouldn’t all mothers be the instinctual first choice? It was my body that created and carried her. Can’t she see the ways I’ve released decades of emotional baggage and healed ancestral wounds to make space to love her? Can’t she see that unlike some of my peers, my self-awareness provides her the freedom to be safe in her full expression without (most of) the confinements of my own upbringing or conditioned beliefs?
I often wonder if there are any other mothers of young children out there who seem to fall at the bottom of the totem pole despite how much love they freely give. I even question, as I write this, am I the only one? Will you read these words and think, I feel for her, but that’s absolutely not my experience. And if only one woman in the world resonates with my truth or an ounce of it, this is for you. I want to let you know that you are not alone.
When I was pregnant with my daughter, I was so frustrated with the rhetoric our society places on pregnant women. Not one person was willing to talk to me about the soul-level shifts that were stirring within me. They were only willing to talk about my growing stomach and cravings. After my daughter was born, not one person asked how I was doing (I was not well). They only asked if my daughter was eating and sleeping through the night. I felt so isolated in my experience that I made a vow to always be as vulnerable as possible, knowing if I can help one other mother out there know that her experience is valid, then it’s worth it. I know I could have surely used it.
And the funny – perhaps more sad, really – thing is, we obviously don’t engage in these conversations about motherhood maliciously yet on autopilot. Why aren’t we willing to go deeper? Why are we saying the things just because everybody says them? Why are we still pretending we’re all okay?
It’s almost as if our colloquialisms about parenthood, the things we mindlessly regurgitate to others, the “just wait ‘til…”s, the “is she sleeping through the night yet”s, are just surface-level banter so we don’t have to share the truth. Wouldn’t we all feel a lot less alone and a lot more worthy in our role as parents if we knew that we are all just figuring it out as we go?
Wouldn’t it release some of the heaviness in our hearts to know that we are good enough to guide these souls into adulthood?
Motherhood presents us with so many stories. Between our own experiences with the lineage of women who raised us and the depictions of mothers in movies and television, by the time we bear our own children, we have a concrete idea of what a mother “should” be. It’s only when we are deep within the trenches that we realize that those stories are not ours, yet we still hold a great amount of shame, assuming anything in our path outside of the narrative we’ve been taught is “wrong” or “bad.”
As mothers, we are all sold these ideas about what it means to bond with this tiny stranger who emerges from our bodies; one we know so well yet hardly know at the same time. We’re sold love at first sight, instant bonding, and a lifetime of dependency. Yet, in truly getting to know this new person, in nurturing them, and protecting them, parenthood forces us to wear our hearts on our sleeve, raw, wide-open, as we fall deeper and deeper in love with them.
It’s exhilarating. It’s gut-wrenching. It’s humbling.
In raising children, we are given the mirror to our own wounds and how our world has shaped our beliefs. It can be our opportunity for our greatest triumphs and growth. The more I allow parenthood to teach me, the more I realize that I’d rather be a mother that I am proud of than one I think I should be. Those of us truly willing to look within may find that this life-changing responsibility will never be a one-size-fits-all – nor should it.
And while I love the ways my husband and I have broken down gender roles to co-parent and build a life on our own terms, I sometimes daydream about the version of reality where in the last three years, I was needed more. I yearn for the validation that I am the safe space for her tears. I ache for the moments just to hold her closer. But that isn’t our story – and I’m slowly learning to let that go.
Batting number two in the lineup, as I so fondly call it, has forced me to surrender to the expectations of what a mother-daughter relationship looks like for us. And despite the ways it still pokes at my own wounds, we are only three years in and I know there is still so much for us to discover on our journey.
Because the truth is, I can’t truly love her unconditionally if I judge the way she shows me affection. In surrendering to the way I think she should love me, together we will discover a greater bond than we could ever imagine. And to me, that is worth the growing pains of an expanding heart.
As a leading millennial voice in spirituality, LEENA LEMOS is on a mission to help others remember the sacred light within. Leena is an intuitive healer and channel, podcast host, author of “Dear Luna Wilde…” and the Founder of House of Enlightenedhood, a global cooperative helping to make spirituality more accessible to all. Leena lives in Northern New Jersey with her husband, 3-year-old daughter Luna, and polka dotted pup. To connect with Leena or learn more about her work, visit houseofenlightenedhood.com and leenalemos.com or @IAmLeenaLemos on Instagram.