Welcome. This is Mother Nurture: A Blog about Motherhood
Hello!….And Hello again if you have ever followed any of my self-care tips or Facebook lives in the past!
This blog has been in the thinking works for many years and is finally ready to be birthed out into the world! Because mothers need to be nurtured-supported, cared for, and given adequate resources to support them in their healing so they can mother from a place of inner strength and fulfillment.
I’m so happy you have an interest in topics about mothering and the importance of care for mothers. This is a topic I am passionate about and continue to find more and more layers of interest as I explore, study, and find new insight through my own mothering journey and experiences. Whether you are just beginning your mothering journey planning your family, newly pregnant, a new mom -or a dad, a mother of several children or grown children, maybe you have no intention or interest in becoming a mother yourself but see the need for better care for mothers in our society, or you’re just curious, I am happy to share with you and to listen to your feedback and engage in conversation about the ever-changing role of mothers in society.
Radiant Mama has been in a gestation period since 2017, the year following the birth of my first baby, and when I was embarking on my DACM (Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine) studies while being full-time mom to my daughter. I also became a certified health coach that year and began working with new moms in that modality after I had given up my acupuncture practice in New York to be a mom. The subsequent years added an extra element of chaos with a couple of overseas moves back and forth, a new baby, a pandemic, etc. As you can imagine it was a period full of challenges, obstacles, uncertainties (as it was for us all), and a lot of growth - not just my 2 babies, who are now 3 and almost 6, but for me as a mother and person.
It’s been just over a year since I moved back to Switzerland with my family, two years since the start of the COVID lockdown, when I created a free online support program for new moms when the uncertainty of childbirth became even more confusing and stressful. For the next year I continued developing New Mom’s 21 Days to Radiance, and offering regular self-care tips on Facebook Live and Instagram posts. I thought I would take a two week hiatus from my weekly posts to move and settle in-but the two weeks turned into a year….😳
My first priority was supporting my daughter adjusting to kindergarten in the middle of the school year, readjusting to city life after a year and a half in the country, a new country and obviously her biggest challenge, a new language. She’s now halfway through the second year of 2 years of kindergarten. She loves playing with her friends and going to gym class. Everyday she’s more confident with the language and she walks all by herself to kindergarten, as they do here in Switzerland. After that adjustment my son was ready to start spielgruppe, playgroup, which is for ages 2.5 to 4 years. It was a long and difficult adjustment for us both. The transition period is expected to be about 2-6 weeks or so when the parent, usually the mother, stays at the playgroup while the child adjusts and gets use to the new environment and people and is ready to say goodbye. But it took well over 2 months for him to get there, and there were still a lot of tears and protests. It was stressful for me as well. I could understand what he was going through, but I also desperately needed some freedom. It was both frustrating and sad. He was born under a stressful period when we had just recently moved, and he has been a high energy, demanding, strong-willed, emotional personality since before he was even born. Between big moves and pandemic regulations and all of the unpredictability that comes with those things, it made sense he’d want to stay close to his mama. In his short life it was in many ways the only constant he knew, and he’d had very few opportunities to socialize with COVID closures on top of being new in a place. Now he’s completely settled and happy. Instead of crying when it’s time for me to leave him, he cries when I come back to pick him up.
My husband continues with his treatment for CLL, which was the deciding factor in our decision to move our family back here. He had better options for his health care since his employment was still here and he had the coverage he needed. He stayed with us in the US working remotely through the pandemic lockdown with travel restrictions. As prospects of new potential work assignments were put on hold and he’d been without treatment during those several months in 2020, his health was over-due for attention and he had to come back for contractual requirements. So it made sense. He has been on a wonderful treatment regiment including acupuncture and other holistic modalities in addition to his targeted immune therapy he has been on for a year. We went through a rough period last fall when our family had COVID and he suffered a setback with the progress he’d made with treatment and his immune system became further compromised. But now he’s doing much better!
Everyone is happy and doing well, settled into their life and routine.
Now… there’s me! Needless to say it has not been easy, tending to everyone else’s needs as mothers do, being far away from my community and family, adjustments to so many new’s for my kids and myself, a husband dealing with a chronic illness.…I’ve been living in a constant state of overwhelm. Not a happy place for a mama to be! I’ve been neglected- neglecting myself. As a person who has endeavoured to focus her work and energy on a model to teach moms about the importance of self care, it’s difficult not to be hard on myself. But it has taught me so much about why we need self care, and how to navigate those times when individual situations may not be ideal and how to bring them back into balance. As the spring returns, I feel a personal rebirth happening. My children are no longer babies. They need me less, which gives me more time. Sometimes I think “they’ll only be small for a short while longer. should I just be their mom now and everything else can wait?” But the reality is, I need to create room for myself within my family. My relationship with my children and husband suffers when I am not “scheduled in.” That’s why the main mission of the work I do for Radiant Mama is the health and well being of mothers, with an emphasis on self-care. I know, through my own experience, that it’s the key to survival in a family dynamic and for everyone’s personal sanity, especially your own.
…So I’m happy to say that I am “on the schedule“ now! I recently joined a gym with a child center right next door where kids can play for 5-6chf per hour in their “mini city.” It has been life changing. I have an amazing yoga class right across the street that must have been placed there as a gift from the divine, and I have been taking an herbal formula to support my healing. I now manage to make quiet time for myself to think, plan, check email, write in my journal… I have time to remember who I am, and consider who I want to be.
All this is to say that I am reconnecting -with myself, my online social communities, Radiant Mama projects, and will soon be reuming to offer self-care tips for new moms (and any moms who may find them useful)! As I write this, my 2 children are running around somewhere outside of our aparment building playing with other children. I sit on our balcony with one ear tuned into their whereabouts, with the faith that they are safe and ok, having a healthy childhood experience with other kids, while I get some time to sit down and focus on work- nurturing another “baby” that I care about. I cannot imagine having this kind of freedom and trust in my children’s safety outside of my house and sight in New York. So I am grateful that life has guided us to be here for this chapter of our development as a family; They are out there developing their independence in a safe place, while I get back some of my own with a sense of satisfied reassurance that the Universe will take care of my babies. As I look out to see if I can see them, I see other mothers, who I know, looking out from their balconies and windows; I see I finally found a village to support me along the journey.
If you are a mother, reply to this email or share in the comments below and tell me one mothering victory or satisfying moment you had as a mama his week- no matter how big or how small, one challenge or set back you had, and how you dealt with it. Then share one small ritual you have where the only one you take care of is you, and tell us how it keeps you going.
Keep an eye out for new self-care tips and offerings in the coming months! For free self-care and health tips for new moms, sign up for my newsletter, and follow me on Instagram or facebook. If a girlfriend, co-worker or family member of yours is pregant or recently gave birth, forward this to her in case some of the services Radiant Mama has to offer could help her in her recovery from pregnancy and childbirth, or get some support along the way. If you are a new mom yourself or have a little one and want to join an online community to find support and/or give support to other new mothers, request to join my private Facebook group here.
May you feel loved and nurtured from within
Karen