“I have come to drag you out of yourself, and take you in my heart. I have come to bring out the beauty you never knew you had and lift you like a prayer to the sky.”

~ Rumi

Motherhood is a passionate journey entwined with extraordinary occurrences.

It is one of the most tough, altruistic, euphoric, melodious, mysterious and life-affirming enchantments. There are infinite vicissitudes, shifts, through which one could be a remarkable mother, yet focus often lies on what we are doing wrong, instead of what we are doing right.

We need to stop judging ourselves.

The more emphasis we place on specific outcomes of our choices, the more we get lost in thoughts of a completely enigmatic and arbitrary future. The concept of creating the perfect child is principally reliant on a fixation of a forthcoming that we have absolutely no real control over and no way of predicting. If we practice this we often end up missing the beauty in the current.

Motherhood has taught me to stay in the present.

Whenever my mind strays to an elusive hypothesis of the future, I quickly remind myself to bring it back to this moment, here and now. I’ve found that the more I’ve let go of my own ego and of an abstruse notion of successful parenting, the more liberated I’ve become. When I’ve allowed myself to self-attune, to feel, to accept, to receive my present reality, parenting becomes a lot less cerebrally demanding.

Human nature inherently predisposes us to distractions and reflex reactions.

Moments of overwhelm are ubiquitous, and at these moments I am grateful to have the tools that remind me to just breathe and be. I struggle with shadows of grief that are hidden in the most unlikely of places. Hearts are perpetually perforated by love and loss and it is love that makes loss endurable. I remind myself that gentle spirits weave in and out, so goes this filament of life.

Yet, I grieve for one ethereal old soul in particular, and thoughts of how much he would have loved my children frequently feel enervating. Connections and memories are unrestrained, interwoven in my solar plexus. We’ve given our children names that somehow moor him to us, yet, his physical absence is often achingly and blindingly heartbreaking.

I let in the sadness.

It is easy to judge ourselves for engaging with emotion, and for letting it impact how we interact with our children in a specific moment. But, when we are awake to our reflections, emotions, vibrations and actions, we begin to develop a valuable sense of self-awareness and intuition that we can nurture with peaceful self-tweaks. The more we become connected with our own self, the more we are able to foster a healthy and secure attachment to our children and to provide them with tools of empathy, humor, self-awareness and mindfulness.

My children are teaching me how to love through it all with a kind of bliss I never before divined.

Their sacred and radiant presence teaches of beauty and grace, of magnetism and tenderness, of hope and faith, of laughter and rhapsody. I could have never imagined that my core could expand so infinitely to house as much love as it now does. I could never have known how much I would let go of, and how much I would reap in return. Children renew purpose and paths, and they do it all through love.

To me, being a great parent is to try to surrender fully to the present, to the existent, and to embrace every moment in both its rapture and its hurts.

Revitalize life’s mantras.

Let them take a form that flows alongside the glory and sacrifice of parenthood. Let the stars shift. Experience the exquisite, breathtaking and mystical wonderment of life and of self-evolution. Be open to the charmed connectivity of it all, and notice feeling nothing but grace, gratitude and harmony.

Dedicated to my beauties: Aarzu, 4 years young, and Rumi, 7 months.

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Apprentice Editor: Alicia Wozniak/Editor: Travis May

Photo: Marie Diaz/pixoto