Mother's guilt alleviated by yoga

My friend, a psychiatrist once joked to me that when a baby is born a mother is delivered years worth of guilt. Sounded funny to her but actually, it scared me to death.

Some of my first experiences with motherhood were filled with guilt that was created by my not feeling secure about what I was doing or wanted for myself and my baby. I definitely wanted my baby not to cry in the middle of the night and sometimes found that annoying when she did so. Guilt soon followed and I chastised myself for being so impatient with her. Truth is it is quite tiring finding that place of acceptance at 3am in the middle of winter with your boobs out and your baby feeling the full capacity of her lungs.

Letting go and being in the moment is something that is totally necessary for the growing of young babies and not always something that is easy to access. I have found my yoga practice to be invaluable at firstly, finding the way to this acceptance and then not giving myself too hard a time when I cannot.

It can be tricky to even find the time and place to practice some yoga when your baby is little but it is truly worth every taken minute to do so. When your baby goes to sleep in the mid morning take the time and quietly sit for a little bit. Finding the way to a comfortable seated position, this can be right next to the cot if you feel more calm in that place. No place for guilt here, you have your feelers right on your baby next to the cot. Feel your sitting bones connecting with the earth and the crown of your head reaching to the heavens. Slowly bring your focus to your breath and you will find, very quickly that your breath slows down and therefore you will begin to experience feelings of calmness, replacing the frantic feelings of just moments ago. Just this practice is beneficial to both mother and baby. Believe me.

Your baby is totally connected to your energy whilst they are so small and by slowing your breath and regulating it, calm and peace will eminate from you. Your baby will pick up on this and also feel the peace.

At some point in my little boys life he had a tricky time with going to sleep. If I laid down with him he would fidgit and fuss and pull at me and fight the sleep process. After some time I found this totally annoying and quickly the guilt followed. “Oh what a mean mummy” I told myself, you should accept where he is a go with it. But I really didn’t want to. Annoying. So rather than wallow in the guilt that helped neither of us and just continued the problem I looked to my yoga practice.

I began to sit next to him on the bed and practice my pranayama exercises. This was a great way to share the feelings of safety and comfort that I was trying to relay to him with no avail. My breath was deep, slow and grounded and he simply could not ignore it. Every single time I did this he just dropped off very simply and sweetly, with no sign of a struggle. Wow I thought. Yoga can help so many things and people. My son soon began to relate the bed time to my pranayama with the calm and peaceful feelings and we turned his bedtime to a time of sweetness. Nice one yoga, good for you mama. Bye bye guilt.

Guilt can only take a hold if we let it. Motherhood is a wonderful and exciting experience but also very testing and challenging. Take it as it comes and allow yoga to lead the way to a peaceful and happy mama. We all deserve it.