On being witnessed in our pain and shame

It's interesting how we reveal ourselves little by little, when and how the time the feels right.

There was a time I wished I could send my son to a military-style training camp so that a sergeant major could deal with him, when I could not.

I was despairing. I couldn't do it. I was single parenting (not entirely: my husband was living in Somaliland and I in the UK for a time - my parents weren't keen to host me so I was renting a house in a town where I was without friends and family - the feeling of isolation and loneliness was real).

I was tired so tired and didn't know how to do it. I didn't know how to parent my son.

That wasn't entirely true. Of course I did, just not in a way which felt good inside to me.

Those days of desolation are sad to relive. I don't tell it to relive it (or perhaps I do), I tell it to be honest. Because honesty about how hard and isolating and sad and lonely and despair-filled mothering can be is vital.

It normalises what isn't normal at all but is normal because so many women live it day in day out:

the pain of being in relationship to parenting in ways which we know we'd rather not, but out of conditioning and internal stories about how we should be, they should be - (and the practical realities of living in nuclear families behind closed doors, coping coping trying to cope) - we create painful internal realities for ourselves.

I didn't shame or judge myself for the thought - many others might have, perhaps even you do? But I *was* shocked by the severity of it, the strength of the level of despair I felt - and I was sad that I felt that way.

'If only he was different I wouldn't have to feel this way.'

'If only I could get someone else to do this, I wouldn't have to feel this way.'

There can still be moments: 'it would be easier if my reality were different’, (never me, no, that was too much to bear).

Deeper down, through that was the deeper truth: it wasn't that I didn't love him. I didn't love me, or what I was capable (or seemingly, *not* capable of). And there was great shame in that.

I could finish this piece by explaining how I came to love myself (and my children), deeply, but I see now the point of this outpouring: an honouring of the pain and the shame just as it was.

A reminder of how sitting with the tension of being witnessed in those feelings was the beginning of liberation from them.

How, after the painful rawness of exposure, being swept up in a tidal-wave of others' unconditional love for me, was the beginning (just the tiniest beginning) of setting sail on a tidal-wave of my own.

*To those who did the witnessing and loving, thank you, and untold blessings.

**This piece flows out after conversations with dear, magical, Janet Hill about The Cherished Mother - we are in the process of creating this; this space for raw witnessing and loving; for women to be swept up in love and seeing, and to be given the tools and understanding to craft their own high-seas-worthy, Sovereign love-vessels.

If what I've spoken of resonates and you know there is a part of you which longs to be honest about your mothering journey, to receive the balm and love and support which is your birthright, and to step forward fully into what the sacred opening of motherhood is calling from you, and offering you - ultimately: full, unbridled, full-powered, fully-liberated, full-loving, adulthood ie Sovereignty.

The Cherished Mother begins in November. 6 places are available. Register your interest now by messaging one of us, and we will be sure to let you know the full details when we have them.

With love, always,

Kate.