Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
—Pablo Picasso
Creativity is born in generosity, and flourishes where there is a sense of safety and acceptance. For our children to thrive, we must cultivate this safe environment. To do this, we must be willing to take steps toward our own creative and spiritual health as well. Taking care of ourselves, we give ourselves the energy and clarity to take care of our children. Like the advice we receive on an airplane to administer our own air masks before helping the children beside us, we must nurture ourselves to set the example for our children. Because a happy, creative home grows from a happy, creative parent, we must begin by focusing on finding creative approaches to the common and challenging realities of the parenting role. With a few simple tools, we can embrace this journey with a light touch and an open heart, establishing a lively and contagious sense of spiritual safety in our home.
SETTING THE STAGE
Children mimic what we do—playing with trucks or taking care of dolls, they imitate adult behaviors from a very young age. They also absorb and reflect our attitudes and emotional states. When we’re stressed, they pick up on it. When we’re joyful, they mirror our delight. When we feel safe, our children feel safe. When we model genuine enthusiasm, our children learn to have passions. It is one of the great joys of parenting to notice the ways in which our children learn from our example. We, as parents, provide the example for how a life is lived.
Desi, mother to six-year-old Aaron, works as a nurse, and her husband, Eric, has a career as a firefighter. Aaron has a collection of toy fire trucks—gifts from his dad—that he counts among his most prized possessions. “He is absolutely sure that he’s responding to emergencies when he plays with those trucks,” Desi laughs. “He says he’s a hero, like Daddy. He’s right.” Aaron’s connection to his toy fire trucks is actually a connection to his dad.
When Domenica was in kindergarten, I walked her to and from school daily. Although I varied the route, our favorite way to go involved passing a fish store. Taking Domenica by the hand, I led her into the dark interior. I pointed her toward the tank where a matched pair of angelfish floated. “Pretty, but mean,” I told her. Next, I led her to the tank containing a flotilla of swordtails. As we approached, the fish made a mad dash to hide behind a coral formation. “Pretty, but shy,” I told my daughter.
“Mommy, look!” she piped up, leading the way to a tank full of fantailed goldfish. As we approached, they swam closer, as interested in us as we were in them. “Pretty, but not shy,” I explained, making a mental note to myself that Domenica was old enough to enjoy a fish tank. For her sixth birthday, I gave her a pair of fantailed goldfish in a tank the size of a small TV. She was delighted with the present. Years later, when Domenica went away to college, she got a fish tank for her dorm room. “It makes it feel like home,” she explained. I smiled to myself, remembering our walks to school and marveling at how that simple stop had made an impact.
As much as we must make a conscious effort to reach out to our children, we must also make a conscious effort to “reach out” to ourselves, paying attention to our own needs and desires.
As parents, we often make the mistake of thinking we need to be completely available to our children at all times—anything less would be “bad parenting.” But what exactly are we role-modeling for our children if we abandon ourselves in the name of generosity? Becoming a parent is an act of selflessness indeed—but we must still maintain our sense of self if we are to have anything to give to our children.
When my daughter was a toddler, I was a single mother. I had the job of supporting us with my writing. I couldn’t afford not to write, and so I became a writer with child. I taught myself how to write with my daughter crawling underfoot. “Mommy’s writing,” I would say, as I set her to play with her toy horses. I learned to dash my thoughts to the page, writing quickly.
“Mommy,” my daughter would interrupt.
“Mommy’s working,” I would reiterate. “Mommy’s writing.”
Soon my daughter learned that I would give her my attention once I was finished with the page. She began to interrupt me less and to turn her own focus to her playthings. Soon she realized “I’m playing” to be a boundary, just like “I’m writing.” She modeled the concentration that she saw me display. With a little jolt, I realized I was teaching my daughter valuable autonomy. As I dipped into my imagination to write, she dipped into her imagination to play. When I finished my sprint to the page, my daughter would then claim my focus.
“Which horse is your favorite?” I would ask her. She liked the golden palomino. “That’s my favorite, too,” I told her. And together we would place the little statuette in a shoebox that served as a stall.
“How do you find time to write?” my friends would sometimes ask me. I told them of Domenica’s toy horses, and the boundary I set: “Mommy’s writing.”
“But doesn’t Domenica resent it?” asked another mother, who set no boundaries, being always “on call” for her child. As time passed, I noticed that her child was becoming a little greedy for her mother’s constant attention. I remember a play date when I got out the toy horses and set the two children to play. Soon our little visitor wanted my attention. That was when I heard Domenica say, “Mommy’s writing.” No, Domenica did not resent my writing. In fact, before long, she began to write herself. As the years passed, the toy horses gave way to journals. She wrote poetry, short stories, brief plays—the very things I had been writing as she played with her golden palomino at my feet.
SETTING THE STAGE FOR ENTHUSIASM
List five things you love, such as snow, cherry pie, parrots, gerbera daisies, and drumming.
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2.__________________________________________
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3.__________________________________________
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4.__________________________________________
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5.__________________________________________
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How could you share each of these things with your child? For example:
Snow—Cut out snowflakes.
Cherry pie—Bake Grandma’s recipe.
Parrots—Visit a bird store.
Gerbera daisies—Go to the plant store together and buy one gerbera daisy, then come home and draw the flower together.
Drumming—Make a drum from an oatmeal container.
Now choose one item from your list, and embark on exploring it with your child.
Becoming a parent requires us to both add things to—and remove things from—our lives as we knew them. Added to our lives are a crib and changing table, and removed are spontaneous evenings out and a sleep schedule dictated by our own level of fatigue. Feeling isolated can be a natural part of this transition and is by no means a failing on your part. It is important, however, to make a habit of not isolating yourself. As powerless as we may feel over the great swaths of time alone with our child, we are not actually powerless. Using a few simple strategies, it is possible to protect ourselves from the pain of isolation—and this is important both for our well-being and our children’s.
Isolation as a parent takes two forms: one is being alienated from friends, and the other is being alienated from yourself. When you are able to stay in touch with the many different parts of yourself, then you will be better able to navigate the changing relationships—and time alone—that you will encounter as a parent.
Yesterday my phone rang. It was a new mother on the other end of the line.
“I just need to hear another adult,” my caller explained.
“Motherhood getting to you?” I asked.
“I’m afraid so,” she laughed. “My son is good company, but not all the company I need.” My caller was right about that. Like many other mothers, she found herself suffering the pangs of isolation. She also found herself suffering from guilt. “I should be more fulfilled,” she reasoned. But even as she focused her time and attention on her child, she found herself still yearning for adult conversation. What she didn’t know was that her yearnings and sense of guilt about those yearnings were normal. I couldn’t offer to come across the country and babysit for an hour, but I could listen to her for the few free minutes she had. I could understand and relate to her, and mirror her feelings back as the same ones I had experienced as a new parent. I could remind her that she wasn’t alone.
Before my daughter’s birth, I made my living as a movie journalist. I would go away on location with a film and spend long days on set, surrounded by the crew. I enjoyed this work, and I loved being able to ask pointed questions of each crew member. They were all too happy to talk about their jobs, convinced, correctly, that the film could not be made without them. This was true for lighting, sound, costumes—the many and varied categories of film expertise. When I became pregnant with Domenica, I found myself feeling out of place. My filmmaker’s uniform—blue jeans and a T-shirt—gave way to maternity clothes. Although crew members were chivalrous, I found myself feeling left out. I fought these feelings, but they were there.
I had Domenica on Labor Day, our only day off in the twenty-two-week schedule. When the car came to drive me home, daughter in arms, I instructed the driver to take us not home, but to the sound stage at MGM where Domenica’s father was shooting. I showed the baby off proudly—she was a beautiful infant. But soon it was time for my husband and his crew to turn their attention back to filmmaking, and it was my job to take the baby home. I found myself feeling isolated and afraid, even as Domenica slept soundly in the crib I had carefully prepared for her. My days were now my daughter’s days. When my husband came home, I was eager to hear of life on the set, and I was keenly aware that my stories of our daughter’s day were repetitive. She ate, she slept, she played, and I was her captive audience. My husband loved our daughter, but he was not spellbound by her antics. As for me, I had lost my role as his playmate. Increasingly, I was “Mommy,” and I missed my former self. When our daughter was less than a year old, my marriage disintegrated. With typewriter and child, I moved into a house of my own.
Now I was really isolated. My days consisted of childcare and work. I wrote whenever Domenica was napping or absorbed in her playpen with her toys. Wanting to be a good mother, I made the mistake of thinking motherhood was a job that left no room for me. It was a 24/7 job, I told myself. Without a co-parent, this child depended on me and me alone. I had no choice, no other option. Ideas I might have that didn’t involve my daughter would just have to wait, be put off, or forgotten altogether. Increasingly, I became irritable and discontented. I felt tethered on a short leash. It was then that my friend Julianna McCarthy, older and wiser, instructed me to hire a babysitter and get out of the house on my own. “You need to nurture yourself first,” she advised me.
Taking her at her word, I hired a sitter and took my first “break” from motherhood. “You’ll see how much better you feel when you put yourself first,” Julie counseled me. I did feel better. I had more patience, more whimsy, more optimism. I was more available to Domenica’s feelings, humor, and ideas—as well as my own. And so, a habit of once-a-week solo expeditions, the forerunner of Artist Dates, was established.
It is important not to let ourselves become housebound. Isolation leads to depression and feelings of being trapped. Home alone with our child, we may feel disconnected and depressed. And having those feelings while spending time with our beloved child makes us feel guilty. If we were a better parent, wouldn’t we be delighted to spend every moment with our child? Morning Pages point out our feelings of self-pity. It is common for parents to experience these feelings. Throughout history, new parents were not isolated. Living in multigenerational households and tight-knit communities, new parents always had other adults around. Privacy and the nuclear family are relatively new phenomena, and come with both benefits and pitfalls.
A young father in my current Artist’s Way workshop in Santa Fe began doing Morning Pages and quickly discovered that he was stuffing a lot of anger as a new parent.
“I’m embarrassed to say it,” he confided in me. “But I envy my still-single friends. I can’t go out with them anymore, I can’t stay up late, and I feel like my life is never going to be fun again—at least in the way it was. I can’t believe how jealous I am of their freedom.”
“It’s common to feel those feelings,” I told him. But I suspected that there was more to it than just jealousy about their lifestyle.
“Is it that you miss them?” I prodded.
He sighed deeply. “Yes,” he said. “I really miss them. I feel like they have almost turned against me. In a way, I need them more than ever now—and I feel like I have them less than ever.”
Very often our single or childless friends are threatened by our new parental roles. They feel scared of, even competitive with our children. Used to having immediate access to us, they can be almost hostile when they don’t get what they want from us because we are dealing with our kids.
“It may take a little creativity, but what about trying to bring your friends into your new family?” I asked him. “Is there a way you can imagine doing that?”
He thought for a moment, and then said, “You know, it’s really simple, but the thing my buddies and I used to do is get together on Sunday afternoons and watch football. Maybe I’ll invite them all over—like old times. If I have to be in the next room tending to the baby some of the time, so be it—I’d still like to have my friends in the house. And maybe they’d like to see what my new life really looks like.”
A week later, he returned. “I had a football party,” he grinned at me. “My wife and I took turns taking care of the baby. There were some moments when he cried and screamed, but my friends were surprisingly accepting of it. And some of them were just so taken with my son, wanting to hold him. The game was on in the other room, so people could do what they wanted to do. But I realized I haven’t lost my friends. They just didn’t know how to be a part of my new life. I just needed to invite them in.”
As time went on, the young father found that he was able to continue his friendships with his “old” friends, and that he made new friends as well. Having kids opened the door to meeting other people with kids, and he found his circle became larger, not smaller, because of it.
The use of the three Basic Tools will guide us away from isolation, toward connection. It is pivotal that we as parents manage to retain our sense of adventure—and that parenting be considered an adventure. The key is to proactively find adventures that get us out of the house and interacting with other people. As we plan and execute outings, we become connected—to ourselves, our children, and the world around us.
ARTIST DATE
An Exercise 
One of the basic tools of The Artist’s Way is the Artist Date: a once-weekly, solo endeavor to do something fun, and alone. An Artist Date is not meant to be high art. It is simply to take yourself out on a “date” that sounds like an adventure you would enjoy.
List five outings that might be fun, such as visiting a bakery, getting a manicure with a wild fingernail color, visiting a garden store, going to a baseball game, and attending a concert.
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2.__________________________________________
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3.__________________________________________
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4.__________________________________________
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5.__________________________________________
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This week, hire a babysitter for two hours and take yourself on an Artist Date. Few things connect us to ourselves more than the willingness to take this simple outing.
Now list five adventures you could take with your child. Choose one together and take a creative expedition.
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2.__________________________________________
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3.__________________________________________
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4.__________________________________________
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5.__________________________________________
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THE SAFETY CIRCLE
I remember once telling a friend of mine that I was lonely as a parent, only to realize that it was that friend’s harsh judgment of me—and my admission of loneliness—that made me feel so alone. “Why would you be lonely,” she asked pointedly, “when you are always with your daughter?” I realized there was a pervasive mythology around parenting. That mythology tells us we should be completely fulfilled by our children, and that if we aren’t, there’s something wrong with us. I had to survey my friends with a discerning eye. Some of them tried to make me feel ashamed of how I felt. It was a rare and valuable friend who could say to me, “Of course you’re lonely. I’d be lonely, too.” As we enter this new stage of life, our identity as well as our day-to-day routine is suddenly and drastically changed.
My career had been consuming, demanding and exciting, and it was a shock to me to find myself cast suddenly as “Mother.” Somehow, engaged in my pregnancy, it never occurred to me that the baby would be my responsibility forever. But there it was. I was responsible, and my friends needed to adjust as well. Some of them found my new persona difficult to embrace. They missed their hard-drinking, tough-talking colleague. Others of my friends, Julianna McCarthy among them, provided a welcome strand of continuity, remembering the “old” me while welcoming the “new” me. I realized that what I needed to do was establish a “Safety Circle”—a cluster of friends with whom I could be wholly and candidly myself. I needed to surround myself with those who saw me as “Mommy,” but not just as “Mommy.” I needed to let go of some cherished friendships and find others that could take their place.
Some of my new friends were surprising. I’m thinking now of Blair. A confirmed bachelor and playboy, he unexpectedly demonstrated interest in and affection for my daughter. “I’ll keep her for a couple of hours,” he would volunteer, allowing me to make a dash to a bookstore or film, always feeling a little guilty that I was playing hooky, but increasingly aware that my windows of freedom were bearing fruit for me in terms of greater patience with my child.
A student of mine, Josh, found that by naming and thus becoming conscious of his own Safety Circle, he was able to better keep his clarity during times of stress. Josh, a lawyer, has a high-powered and time-consuming job in a corporate office. “It’s up to me to provide for my family,” he says. “But I am spending long hours away from home. My wife resents it, and I often feel like it’s her and our son against me. I’m starting to feel like a stranger in my own house—like I’m not welcome there.” Josh reached out to a member of his Safety Circle on his lunch break, confiding in his friend that he felt a rift growing with his wife. “Just telling my friend the truth was so liberating,” says Josh. “I realized that my wife and I both felt lonely and overworked. And that I needed to reach out to both her and my son.” Turning back to the Basic Tools, Josh took the time to check in with both his wife and child, asking them the highlights of their day. “I didn’t really want to try it,” he confessed, “but I promised myself I would do it, even if I was uncomfortable. I had been pushing her away as much as she had been pushing me away. And we both thought we were doing everything for the family. I think what we really needed was to listen to each other, support each other.”
Our Safety Circle can include our spouse or partner, and keeping an open communication builds strength in our relationships with each other and our children. There is a healthy balance of together and alone time that we strive to achieve.
In our busy lives, many of us crave creative solitude. Few of us realize how even a little can go a long, long way. Karen and Doug have two beautiful children. Their boys are energetic and demanding. When Karen picks them up from day care, they have stories to tell, not all of them tattling on each other. Karen takes them home and settles them in the kitchen with a snack of cookies and milk. Next, she settles herself with a notebook and pen. Dating the page, she reviews her workday, taking care to note tasks well done. By the time her children have finished their snack, Karen has finished her check-in.
When Doug comes home, he will focus first on the kids and then on Karen. Dinner is family time, and after dinner, while Doug does the dishes, Karen bathes the kids. Once the kids have been put snugly to bed, they are both able to snatch fifteen minutes for themselves. This is time enough for Karen to take a restorative shower or make a phone call, and for Doug to relax with a magazine and his own thoughts. Karen and Doug then take time to check in with each other, making it a point to communicate honestly about where they are in the moment. Because they make their connection a priority, they are grounded and able to be present in their day, for themselves, each other, and their children.
Sally, a stay-at-home mom, admitted that she felt guilty about spending time with her Safety Circle. Because her husband earned the family income, she felt that he deserved to have the weekends to relax. But giving her husband the weekends left her on-duty 24/7. She hadn’t any room for downtime in her own very demanding full-time job of raising their child. “I am a member of a bowling league,” she told me. “We’ve gotten together every weekend since high school. It’s my favorite activity and my favorite group of people. I can tell them anything. But what I’ve been telling them—and myself—now is that since I’m the first one of the group to have a child, I can no longer give up the time to bowl with them.”
“Is there a day-care center at the bowling alley?” I asked Sally.
“Yes, but I can’t leave Sharon there. I can’t imagine putting her in day care just so I can hang out with my friends and bowl.”
“I think you should try it,” I urged her. “Just once. And see how you feel.”
Sally came back, elated. “I don’t know who had more fun!” she exclaimed. “Sharon was obsessed with the day care and is begging to go back. And I felt like I’d come home, seeing my friends again. It was a much needed break—and a much needed connection to a group of girls I know I can talk to.”
Sally shared her excitement with her husband and he encouraged her to take a few hours for herself every weekend—and not just at a place where she could bring their daughter. “I’ll take Sharon a few hours each weekend day,” he suggested, “so you can have a little time for yourself in addition to your bowling.” Seeing his wife’s happiness at having a chance to connect with her friends inspired him to try to offer her more. And, as a bonus, he was able to have important one-on-one time with their daughter, as well. “I’m a parent, too,” he told her, “and we all need for me to participate. It’s good for everyone.” At first Sally was unsure of how to spend her newfound windows of time, but she soon found that keeping up her friendships and independent interests was relaxing and rejuvenating, and ultimately gave her more energy as a spouse and as a parent.
As you look for your Safety Circle, you will find that there are some old friends and some new friends within it. It is important that the members of your Safety Circle be able to relate to all of the different parts of you. A quick check-in with people with whom you are able to be completely yourself can give you enormous energy. It is hard to underestimate the importance of just being heard.
BUILDING THE SAFETY CIRCLE
An Exercise
DOWNTIME
“I have no time—like, really no time,” new parents tell me. When we have children, our lives are no longer our own. Focused—rightfully—on providing for our children’s many needs, we watch our own needs start to pile up like the unattended laundry. Over and over again, we resolve to “get to it later,” charging on through our day, willing our anxieties away as we focus on what is “more important”—the child demanding our attention and energy.
“I love reading,” says Todd, an editor. “I chose my career based on my love of books. Before I had children, I read a book a week, sometimes two. It is my greatest passion and my guiltiest pleasure. I read new manuscripts for my work and classics for my own enjoyment. My greatest inspiration comes from analyzing and appreciating how different writers choose to use the English language. I would almost call it a spiritual practice.”
But today, as a father with two sons ages six and eight, Todd laments no longer having time to read as he pleases. “I haven’t opened a classic since I had kids,” he says. “I’m ashamed to admit it, but I resent that. I’m careful not to take my feelings out on my kids, but every time I look at the untouched book on my bedside table, it’s another little reminder that there’s no time for my interests anymore.”
Deciding that there’s “no time” for something we love is a thought that is well worth examining. If we decide that there is no time to read for pleasure—because it isn’t important, because it would “only” make us happy—we are deciding that there is no time for ourselves, for our own spiritual balance, and we are making a dangerous decision indeed. Not only are we putting ourselves at risk of becoming resentful, we are modeling this behavior for our children.
“I come home from work and want to spend time with my kids,” says Todd. Of course he does. But all children take naps when they are young, take movie breaks when they are older, become consumed in a project they are focusing on. The trick is to conserve our energy, grab the moments we can, and allow ourselves to spend them as we please.
The act of spending time doing something we want to do as opposed to something we have to do takes courage. Baby steps may be necessary here. Be gentle with yourself, and be willing to try something small.
Giving ourselves even fifteen minutes a day that is our own can turn our anxiety into optimism. Our children lie down for a nap, and we rush toward the dirty dishes, the unopened mail, the business calls that we haven’t yet returned. We push our desires away as we push ourselves toward the imaginary finish line of being “done” with our ongoing list of “things to do.” It has been said that the average person has two to three hundred hours of “things to do” to be “caught up.” We will never be caught up. But we can adjust our course in small, daily ways to bring more balance into our lives. When we allow space for our own desires, we discover the unexpected paradox: by taking a “selfish” moment, we actually become more productive—and more available to our children.
“What book do you crave to read right now? For pleasure?” I ask Todd. He looks away, guilty that he craves this luxury, wishing he hadn’t admitted it to me in the first place.
“Moby-Dick,” he says quietly. “But I’ve read it before. I don’t really need to read it again. I’m so behind on everything else—it’s ridiculous for me to waste time re-reading a book for no reason. My kids need me to be available to them.”
“What do you love about Moby-Dick?” I prod. I myself have many favorite books that I have read over and over.
“Each time I read it, I see something new. The larger themes inspire me with their constant relevance. I feel connected somehow.” Todd’s eyes light up as he speaks.
“Great,” I say. “You have to find fifteen minutes a day to read Moby-Dick. Giving yourself that gift is as important as anything else on your list. Just try it for a week and see what happens.”
When Todd phones me a week later, his optimism is palpable. “I thought you were crazy,” he says. “But because you challenged me to try this, I did. Maybe I wanted to prove you wrong—but whatever the reason, I’m so glad I tried it.” I smile to myself, suspecting that his small, “selfish” act has made a big improvement in his week.
“First of all, I do have fifteen minutes every day,” he tells me. “I could have promised you I didn’t, but it turns out that I do. I might be sleepy, or stressed, or anxious, but in those moments I’m not that productive anyway.” Todd is correct: when we are out of sorts, we are not at our best. Trying to cram a business e-mail into a hectic moment, we are impatient with requests and our impatience is the subtext of what we write. We copy someone we didn’t mean to. We call someone by the wrong name. We hit “send” and then realize our error with horror. Meanwhile, we are not available to the child sitting next to us who wants us to look at their drawing or help them choose a shade of blue from the crayon box. Trying to do “one more thing,” we do much less.
“I decided that for one week, I would try this,” Todd says. “So, every day, when I thought I should do the dishes or get just a little more work done, I would pick up Moby-Dick. At first I felt so guilty. I could hardly focus on it. But I said I would give it fifteen minutes a day, and I did. I found that within a few minutes, I was absorbed. And within a few days, I really looked forward to continuing where I left off.
“My younger son, Sam, was fascinated,” Todd continues. “He wanted to know what I was reading, what the story was about. I told him I had read the book many times before, and that it gave me pleasure to read it again. I found myself being more patient and efficient at home and at work. I was excited to talk to Sam about the story, and it made me realize that when I was constantly running from one job to another, even when the job was something for my sons, I wasn’t really available to talk to them anyway. To my surprise, no one seemed to mind that I was taking a moment for myself each day. I almost thought no one even really noticed, until I discovered Sam last night, sitting in my leather chair, feet up on my ottoman, with a book in his lap. When I asked him what he was reading, he replied, ‘I’m reading a great book, Dad. It’s about a whale.’ He held up the book, showing me its cover: Pinocchio.”
I hear Todd’s voice waver slightly over the phone.
“You must have been proud,” I say.
“I felt like a great father.”
“Do you think you’ll keep reading?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Absolutely,” Todd laughs. “I am already thinking of which book I’ll read next. It’s amazing how giving this tiny gift to myself makes me more present during the rest of the day—and makes me a better parent.”
When we are willing to make time for ourselves, willing to do the things that will make us happy, we give our children an enormous gift: the example of self-care. Taking pleasure in our true interests teaches them to do the same.
HEIGHTENING DOWNTIME
An Exercise
List ten “frivolous” things that make you happy but that you believe you no longer have time to do, such as cooking for yourself, listening to classical music, and knitting.
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Now choose one of these things. This week, spend fifteen minutes a day indulging in it. Fifteen minutes is a lot more than no minutes—and fifteen minutes is enough.
WHO YOU “WERE”
The shock of becoming a parent often leaves us feeling untethered, adrift, removed from life as we knew it. Who we “were” before we were parents feels like a distant and untouchable past. But there is a path back to ourselves, and we do not need to abandon our children to travel it.
Stephanie, a fitness instructor, recently had her first child. “I couldn’t be more in love with Amelia,” she gushes. “But I have to admit it’s like the ‘me’ I once knew is not here anymore. I don’t recognize myself, and to be honest, it really scares me.”
An optimist by nature, Stephanie is a popular teacher as well as a personality in the fitness industry. She has created workout DVDs and has made her living professing the benefits of healthy living and scientific, structured exercise. Through her pregnancy, she continued to work out, blogging about her experiences and letting moms-to-be know that it was indeed safe to continue their fitness routines even into the ninth month of pregnancy. At the peak of fitness, Stephanie gave birth to a beautiful baby girl.
“I am afraid it’s just vanity, but I am upset about how my body has changed,” Stephanie confesses. “I’m exhausted, and I end up eating whatever is fastest—and that’s not helping me get my body back, either. I know better. I know that when our bodies are tired, we can fool them by replacing sleep with food. It may give me temporary energy, but it’s also making me fat.” With her new, all-consuming daily routine with her daughter, and without the endorphins of exercise she had always maintained as an athlete, Stephanie felt her anxiety level starting to rise in a way she had not experienced before.
Stephanie is not alone in feeling like she has lost her “self” in more ways than one. When we become parents, we lose a part of our identity—gaining a joyful new one, but losing some of our freedom and sense of independence nonetheless. We must be very honest with ourselves: What are we willing—truly willing—to give up? What are we not willing to give up?
When Stephanie’s daughter turned six months old, Stephanie made a change. “I realized I had to return to my workouts—tired or not, it is a part of me. It’s my livelihood, but also my meditation, my source of strength. I bought one of those jogging strollers and started taking long walks every day with my daughter. Sometimes I would jog a little with her in her stroller. While my daughter napped, I popped in a DVD and did my own workout tapes next to her crib. I know how to get in shape. It was just a matter of doing it—making it a priority, like I always tell my students.”
As Stephanie returned to her work and her workouts, her anxiety level diminished radically. “I got my body back, and I got my personality back, too. Looking in the mirror and seeing someone else was depressing and confusing. It distracted me from my daughter. I feel like I’m learning the lessons all over again that I myself teach—love your body, and it will love you back. I’m relaxed and optimistic when I push myself physically. I’m anxious and depressed when I don’t. It’s as simple as that—for me, I feel like the difference between doing my workouts and not doing them is the difference between being sane and being insane. And I want to be sane for my daughter,” she adds, laughing.
Who you “were” is still a part of you. Although it may appear that there is no way to return to your former self, even the smallest steps in the direction of your desires will lead to greater energy and optimism.
Norah, a longtime student of mine and a Broadway actress, experienced great change in every part of her life when she became a parent. “I got married, got pregnant, and moved across the country when I met my husband, a studio executive,” she remembered. “I was so grateful for my new life, but it was so different from the life I knew. Suddenly in a new city, away from my friends and career, and about to have a child, I felt panicked. I had worked so hard to be an actress, and it was what I loved to do. I no longer saw how I would be able to do it.”
Norah had her child and, finding herself home most of the time in a foreign place, fought pangs of sadness. “I didn’t miss the life of sitting in New York, waiting for the phone to ring,” she said. “But as I stood in my house in Los Angeles, changing diapers and looking out at the palm trees, I knew this life wouldn’t be enough for me, either.”
“I’m so far from New York now,” she continued. “I didn’t want to give up my acting career—I just wanted to add more to my life.”
The fire of her dreams was not going to go out, and I told her as much. “Abandoning the stage isn’t an option for you,” I said to Norah. “But abandoning your family isn’t an option either. You have to find a way to do both. Maybe you aren’t up for a Broadway schedule right now, but there are other steps you can take.”
“I’ve thought about writing a one-woman show,” Norah confided to me. “But I’ve never written anything. I think of myself as just being an actress.”
I felt immediately excited as she spoke. “Well, then,” I encouraged her, “it sounds like you need to write.” In my experience as a teacher, it is often the students who desire to write but don’t think of themselves as writers who actually have the most to say.
“Do you really think I could do it?” Norah asked me, gently hopeful.
“I do. And remember—a show is written a page at a time, and all you have to worry about for now is a first draft. Editing and rewriting can happen later. Producing it can happen much later. Just try to put pen to page and let yourself express what you are going through.”
A week later at class, Norah was excited to give me an update. “I have been writing—just a little every day while Cooper naps, but I have ten pages already! I find myself thinking about my life differently, knowing I am going to write it down. I watch myself with more compassion, as if I am creating a narrative through my day. Today I even had an idea for a song.”
Norah is a brilliant woman, and I can’t help thinking that her foray into writing may give her career longevity that she might never have expected. Because she was willing to act on her dream, even for just a few minutes a day, she was able to experience a shift in perspective—on herself and on her life—that ultimately brought her greater happiness. And yes, three years later, Norah did a short New York run of her one-woman show—about an actress with a child—adding the titles of writer, composer, and producer to her already impressive résumé.
As you see your life change, please be gentle with yourself. You do not have to abandon yourself to be a parent. Becoming a parent leads you to a new life, a life that has room for an expansive you that contains both the old and the new.
Ann, a mother of four grown children, recalls her own experience of, as she named it, “losing myself to find myself.” Ann was a model before she had children, and when she became a mother, she no longer had the same opportunities available to her. “I was at home, and I felt like I had lost my identity as I knew it. I couldn’t model anymore, and that was what I had spent the last ten years of my life doing.”
Ann decided that, just for fun, she would create a class for girls in her suburban Chicagoland community. Naming the class “Beauty Inside and Out,” Ann taught girls about taking care of themselves—on the inside and the outside—building confidence and poise as they learned to stand up straight, keep their hair out of their faces, and use discernment with makeup colors and application. As Ann worked with her students, directly addressing the specific ways in which they could best carry themselves through the world physically, she was interested—and delighted—to see that they became more personally self-assured, as well.
“Every girl thinks about how she looks,” says Ann. “If her bangs are in her eyes, she is trying to cover something up. It’s always related, the inside and the outside. I’m convinced of it.” As Ann, with her gentle candor, helped her young students, she realized that the wisdom she was imparting was deeply empowering to them.
“I think I assumed that modeling was superficial,” Ann muses. “But I realized that what I could teach girls was really valuable.” Twenty years later, Ann is still teaching “Beauty Inside and Out.” And when Ann’s fourth child went to college, she became a modeling agent, teaching poise and confidence to her clients, as well.
In our society we have such a powerful archetype of “mother” that it doesn’t occur to people that you have any other role. In remembering who you “were,” it is very helpful if you have a friend with whom you can keep continuity, a friend who knew you as you were, but is also open to knowing you as you now are. Some of your friends from “before” will not be comfortable with your evolution, and you must also make an effort to find new friends in your new role. When you do, filling them in on the historical you—and learning about who they “were,” too—can help you to feel connected to your past and present life, both of which are relevant and valuable to your parenting and to your child.
WALKING
An Exercise
There is little that moves us more quickly into clarity than walking. As we redefine our identity to include “parent,” it is important to venture out into fresh air and let the simple, meditative act of walking help us to process our new role and our new self. Take yourself on a twenty-minute walk with your child. The walk should have no agenda. Simply getting out into nature is enough. Allow yourself to take in the sights and sounds. When you return, take pen to page. Did any insights come to you as you walked?