Motherhood

It has been many years since I wrote in this blog and I am amazed about how much I have changed but mostly from how much I haven't. But the biggest change is that now I am a mother two little humans that I adore with all my existence. And there is no bigger love that the one for our kids. You can call it biological, survival of species, love, attachment, learned behavior, whatever! It is the biggest love... and with big love many changes happen in people. In my case I have become better in all senses. I manage my time better, I have to "put it together" all the time in front of my children and everybody and that is a self-control that nobody could enforce on me. When motherhood hit me it changed me forever and there was not coming back.. you would never be the same, you can't understand yourself in the past and the future is full of anxiety. And what is the feeling that more often I feel?.... GUILT. Being a parent is about guilt about everything... guilt move us in all directions and doesn't matter what we do... we could always have done better. All these things are coming to my head as I am sitting here at 11:00pm on a Friday after having one of the hardest days of my life and it involved my daughter. Everything I know as a Mom and even as a Therapist was tested.. and I am exhausted of trying extremely hard today to be the perfect mother. I can't be explicit about the events to protect my family's privacy but I can tell you that I felt so much fear of losing what I have, my kids, my life, and kids are my life. It is true that kids should not be everything for a parent, that we should have more things to leave... but I will be honest here... BS! We live for our kids (well most of us) and it is a state beyond we can comprehend. I think this is where evolution kicks in because this feeling is so strong that has maintain families together and civilizations surviving. Often I think how an act of procreation so common and mundane can be at the same time the most amazing phenomenon. Becoming a parent is a miracle every time for everybody yet it is so common! I have to leave and rest because tomorrow my kids will not forgive that their mother felt philosophical.

Why do we suffer?... There are plenty of theories and plenty of philosophers that have explained what is suffering and its function. Let's jump and appreciate some phrases about suffering from these great thinkers: "We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other men. The suffering which comes to us from this last source is perhaps more painful to us than any other." Sigmund Freud “If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.” Viktor Frankl “The root of suffering is attachment.” The Buddha "To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." Friedrich Nietzsche They all seem to agree in something: Suffering is part of life. We can't run away from it, we can't escape it and we will all feel it. Then if suffering is part of life, part of being humans and we are experts on it (we experienced suffering since the first day of our lives when we were removed from the most perfect home we would ever experience), still we feel like we won't survive our pain and that it is unfair to feel that way. Every single time we don't accept it, we don't like it and we want to remove right away. And every time that we fight suffering we make it worse, because now we are suffering our suffering. If you ever have experienced panic attacks and have received treatment from a mental health professional you have learned that the key to stop the attack is to stop trying to eliminate the attack. Treatment for anxiety and panic attacks has an important step from where all the other interventions will develop from: the acceptance of anxiety, the acceptance of the uncomfortable, the ability to "let go and let it run its course". Suffering is like anxiety, fighting it would just make it worse. Acceptance doesn't mean passivity or conformism. Acceptance means that I listen right now to my body and accept what my body needs to feel and what my body is telling me. Suffering is the signal that we need to make changes that move us towards happier places. Suffering makes us move; we need suffering to change and get better. All emotions have functions and suffering has many different functions for each person or what Viktor Frankl may call "meaning". Find the meaning in your suffering, find the function of your feelings and walk along your suffering that it will be leading you to a more comfortable and happier place and perhaps will help you pursue and accomplish all these things that you wouldn't reach if you always felt "comfortable" or in your comfort zone.