You are fucking amazing

It struck me the other day that many of us seriously do not recognise how amazing we are. I work with women, more specifically mums, on a daily basis. I come into contact with around 100 mums every, single week and they all have one thing in common: they are nowhere near celebrating, or even acknowledging, how absolutely amazing they are.

They feel guilty, they feel tired, they feel sad, they feel fat. They feel broken, they feel lost, they feel frantic and busy and overwhelmed. And they forget.

They forget that they are often responsible for keeping it all together.

For making sure everyone is fed and watered and (clean) clothed and on time and happy and bathed and in bed and EVERYTHING.

And for the most part, especially in the early days, they are operating on Very. Little. Sleep. The motherhood journey starts with a marathon, and continues with no rest period, and goes on and on and on.

For the woman who has given birth and become a mother (any which way) she has moved into the most physically demanding job, in the most deconditioned state she has ever been in. Her body is different, her insides have been moved around physically, emotionally and spiritually, and there is no hiding away to recover from that.

For the woman who becomes a mother in any other way, we salute you. You may not have been through pregnancy and childbirth but you are the rock in that child’s world and we can only imagine the emotional journey you have been on to get there.

Together we have been thrown in the deep end and there we toil away, for as long as it takes, often appearing to keep it all together on the surface.

We love our children dearly and we are thankful for the blessing of motherhood but let’s be honest; it’s a pretty thankless job a lot of the time. There are very few people standing on the sidelines cheering us on and pointing out all the amazing things we are doing, to counterbalance all the things we think we are failing at, or feel guilty about, or got ‘wrong’ or at least didn’t get right! And all the moments we roll our eyes and wonder if we will ever get it right, where we are deep breathing to hold it together, or screaming when we are not.

So I hereby propose that collectively we pat each other on the back. That collectively we remind each other what an amazing job we are doing muddling our way through motherhood (and the rest of life). That collectively we stop giving so much of a shit when we feel like we dropped a ball, or two, or all of them. And that we are able to look ourselves, and each other, in the eye and remind ourselves that we are. Actually. Fucking Amazing.