It’s almost 9:30pm here.
I have a sleeping baby to my left and my plate of finished rice and dal to my right. It’s been a long day. Baby girl has not wanted to take her naps and when she did they were about 40 minutes. Right before I began to type she had just woken up and I gently rubbed her back as she found her thumb. For now she is asleep.
We did go on a lovely walk this afternoon, her in the baby carrier looking out at the world. We stopped and said hello to a few baby leaves emerging on the naked branches. On our walk, I popped into the library to grab the book, Anchored. It is all about nervous system work and learning how to regulate your nervous system. Doing this work of nervous system regulation has been the most life-changing thing that has helped my healing. Sure there may be a place for talk therapy, but if that hasn’t worked for you then, try working with a trusted facilitator on nervous system regulation.
Learning how to feel safe and secure within ourselves changes how we feel, how we think and our vibrational state. It has for me.
A little snippet of what this work is about:
To support yourself in coming back into a state of regulation, I invite you to contemplate what things when you do them bring you back into yourself, your body, calm you down, ground you, help you feel lighter?
Make list of these activities or things. Notice if you can start to reach for one of these in times when your system is dysregulated. It’s a matter of unlearning the ways we cope, numb, escape, avoid or run - and teaching ourselves better ways to move through things that cause disruption in our system through supportive activities and practices that allow for our nervous system to calm down and come into balance. This is at the core of nervous system regulation and our nervous system is where we store trauma, unpleasant memories, emotional pain and imprints of lived life experiences.
Okay…I got side-tracked. Back to what I actually want to write to you about. I guess a sorts of an update?
I am now 14 weeks postpartum and to be honest I am in a fog. It’s been really difficult, trying, exhausting and a huge hit to my nervous system. After the high and euphoria of giving birth, I feel like I crashed hard. Most days, I feel depleted, tired, overwhelmed and aching all over. I have been sitting in a bit of regret for not preparing for postpartum as much as I did for pregnancy and birth. My body most days feels like it’s falling apart and I am learning how to be in a new body.
After I wrote those words, I walked away from my laptop and it’s many many many months later now. Like 9 months later. I opened this piece sitting my drafts and thought to myself, “you know what I want to pick this up from where I am today”.
So here we are folks.
It’s been 9 months of motherhood, 9 months postpartum, 9 months of my sweet little Rey. In these past 9 months, I have experienced some of the highest highs and the lowest lows of my life. I have dealt with crippling anxiety, fear of my own death and some weird, uncomfortable and scary health stuff. No one prepares you for the rollercoaster ride that is postpartum and the hormonal mess you are going to be especially if you are breastfeeding and have not gotten your cycle back. Women praise for not having their periods, but I like having mine. I don’t have a problem with “flo” being here. I feel disconnected to my women-hood and from myself. Each month when I get my cycle is a reminder of my cyclical nature. I miss living in cycles and continue to patiently wait for my womb to restart the act of creation with the monthly bleed.
Now that I have said that and it is out of the way….what I really want to talk about is the butterfly.
I have been seeing butterflies everywhere, no it’s not because its summer. I am a firm believer in signs - our guides and God speaking to us through the world around us. Butterflies on walks, on a screen as I randomly walk by someone on the airplane, in an eye doctors office when I had to get a thorough examination of my eyes, in the forest where there is random butterfly art. I mean everywhere.
This started happening about 7 months postpartum.
What is even more interesting is that I picked the butterfly as a symbol for my pregnancy. I felt like I was becoming. That I was going from a caterpillar to a butterfly as I prepared for my birth and rebirth.
What I didn’t realize is the becoming wasn’t just going to happen overnight the day I gave birth. It would be a slow metamorphosis that would happen over the course of postpartum. I am now realizing this at 9 months postpartum. After birth, I fell into a dark place. I became stuck. Each day I woke up and took care of Rey. That was primary task. I put myself on the back burner. I will talk about my challenges and struggles postpartum perhaps in an audio post. Seeing the butterfly after the tiring months I have had felt like a glimmer of reassurance and support that I was going to be okay, and that things were going to be okay.
I feel that if we pay attention, we will most often find symbols, messages and guidance being shown to us in the everyday things of our lives. Reminders that we are not alone and that God is listening, is here with us in each and every experience we go through. It’s really up to us to chose to see, listen and believe. For me, it helps lighten my load, makes me feel supported and provides comfort. The butterfly has served as my reminder and as a messenger that even though it may seem dark, bleak and hard right now, I am going through a deep change within and I will be get through this. The day will come that I will get to soak up the sun on my wings and finally be able to celebrate who I have become. I feel the metamorphosis is still happening, but since this past week I feel a shift within myself. I feel like I am tipping over the edge, rounding the corner and finally starting to feel a bit more connected to myself. I have heard this happens around 9 months postpartum and I am grateful to have reached this place now. I look forward to seeing how I come online with new parts of myself integrated. I feel a deep pull to go back to work and pick up my work again. To invest myself into what I do and what I offer, but this time I am doing it from such a potent and powerful place of being self contained. I think that is what birth taught me, that I have everything within myself. I can trust that what is being birthed through me is correct and a sacred offering of knowing met with experience. That experience cannot be taught, experience is a higher whole knowledge that pulses through every fiber of our being and is wisdom. Experience is the foundation for wisdom, and that experience is whole knowledge, it emanates from our beingness. I need to sit with this, as it just came through as I typed these words to truly get at what I am trying to convey.
For now, this is where I leave you. If you find my words and writing helpful in anyway I’d love for you to join the community for a deeper connection. :)
xx KP.