In 2020, my husband and I welcomed our daughter Claire into the world. I thought she was going to be early, so I stopped working two weeks before her due date; however, she didn’t arrive until about two weeks after her due date.
How very 2020, right?
Another thing I didn’t expect… how much I would change. I did not expect pregnancy, postpartum, and motherhood to change me as much it has.
How?
Before pregnancy, I considered when I was in the ‘flow’ to mean that I was on a consistent schedule that optimized my time.
At first, I fought to keep my routines and schedules while battling 17 weeks of intense nausea through the first few weeks of Covid. But I quickly realized my inability to embrace my changing body and the world around me was causing me more suffering.
I was in the grind, for sure.
And what a great metaphor this was for the rest of my life, lack of flow with changes leads us to grinding it out as we hold on to certainty.
I never really valued my resiliency, or the ability to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions, until last year.
Last year, I went back to my mindfulness and ecosophy training which allowed me to surrender to change and to be very present with the beautiful experience I was going through… and resilient with some of the changes around me that I didn’t consider so beautiful (hello, 1st trimester as the world shut down).
By flowing more, it allowed me to be extremely resilient through a global pandemic, the fact that my pregnancy would unfold dramatically different from my expectations, not seeing my family for over a year, a racial justice movement, the raging fires and apocalyptic smoke in Northern California, a 40+ hour labor during a 70 mile an hour wind storm and an election with a very unclear delayed conclusion.
They say, 10% of life is what happens to you, 90% of life is
how you react to it.
So what did I accomplish by flowing and growing my resiliency muscle?
Last year I was able to:
wrote and published a book
worked 8 of the 12 months
launch my yearlong membership program
brought in 10 new corporate clients
completed a yearlong community resilience leadership training
become a certified pre and postnatal fitness instructor
deepened my spiritual practice
sold my home and moved to somewhere more aligned
delivered a healthy baby girl
lost the 50 plus pounds of pregnancy weight
During my pregnancy and especially now with a baby, I fully understand that there is nothing certain or routine about life. I now appreciate that I can use my tools to stay in the flow of it all rather than fighting the current.
And performance-based mindfulness is the foundation for us to understand what we need in order to have more resilience in our ever-changing uncertainty ridden lives.
I believe the key is to strive for Resiliency and a balanced life, not a certain life.
So specifically, how did I build my resiliency and balance?
Stay tuned… I’m excited to share the launch of a new program this year.
It feels so good to be back!
Alexis