Grieving the Old You: What to Do When You Feel Lost in Motherhood

“It’s not like I’m going to let motherhood change who I am,” I remember saying, with unintended smugness, hand hovering over my resplendent belly when I was pregnant with my first child. I felt beautiful and powerful, and morning sickness was only a temporary limitation to my life as an avid triathlete and surfer.

Somehow, I was certain that I had the key, some mysterious alchemy of ambition and a supportive partner and a really great baby carrier: I would not lose myself in motherhood. 

Many of us try mightily not to lose ourselves in motherhood. Of course, lots of us have less-than-ideal maternity leave and childcare circumstances that jolt us back into our pre-baby realities whether we like it or not. But we also hear stories of celebrity mamas hitting the gym to achieve their pre-motherhood shape. We talk about striving for a “new normal,” which, for so many of us, looks a lot like the old normal. We secretly, or not so secretly, applaud women who are meandering through the farmers market with a baby who appears still wet behind the ears. Women who admit to losing themselves in motherhood have become the targets of pitiful glances, life-hacking life coaches, and motivational Pinterest memes.

To me, all of this seems as though our culture is saying that motherhood, being one of the least valued roles a woman can occupy in our society, is to be denied at all costs. It should certainly not define a woman. 

Should it?

Losing Yourself in Motherhood

In my work as a doula for the last 15 years, I have seen the behind-the-scenes truth of thousands of new mothers’ lives, and I want to say it’s often the women who seem to have picked up right where they left off before birthing their babies who are secretly struggling the most. So often, they are pushing through exhaustion or fighting the demands of breastfeeding, desperately clinging to the behaviors of their pre-motherhood lives.

And I get it. Because this was me, too.

But the truth is, motherhood will change you.

You will lose yourself in motherhood.

Before you start breathing into a paper bag, let me also say this: It’s supposed to.

Creating an entirely new human with your body, birthing it, perhaps nourishing it with your breasts every two to three hours all day long, and then having this little creature need you in the most primal way known to mammals for the next 18-or-so-ish years changes you.

You will lose yourself in motherhood.

And though that might seem terrifying to you now, let me say the next part, the part we all keep forgetting: You will find someone entirely new.

I feel like I want to say that again.

You will lose yourself in motherhood. 

And: 

You will find someone entirely new.

You may find a woman whose body made an everyday miracle. You will find the paradox of knowing this while also knowing that your body has been made less societally acceptable in the process, and you might find a way to respect the skin you’re in more deeply than you ever did before.

You will find an empathy for your baby, and possibly for the world, that takes your breath away. You will find a gut instinct, a knowingness, when it comes to your child and maybe to other things, too, that guides you like a compass that lives somewhere within your newly expanded heart.

You will find a gut instinct, a knowingness, when it comes to your child and maybe to other things, too, that guides you like a compass that lives somewhere within your newly expanded heart.

You will find a cadre of other women who get it, whose messy buns and Lego-strewn floors look a lot like yours, and you will find smiles and knowing glances to assuage every grocery store meltdown.

You will find a new understanding for your own mother and the mothers before her.

You might find a way to slow down. As you care for your child, you will find your needs pared down to the basics: sleep, water, food, repeat. Everything else falls away, because it often has to, and sometimes what you might find underneath it all is freedom.

You might find yourself with an entirely new set of priorities in your life, with laser discernment for any career path, person, or way of spending time that doesn’t feel worthy of your now more-divided energy and attention.

You might.

But first, you have to lose yourself in motherhood.

That is, you have to surrender to what motherhood is here to show you.

What’s On the Other Side?

As for me? I don’t care very much about competing in triathlons anymore, and I am just now, 12 years into motherhood, contemplating the idea of surfing again. I shower almost every day, and I drink hot cups of coffee—not reheated or choked down cold while saying the Motherhood Mantra of “No really, it’s an iced coffee! So good!” 

All of this took much, much longer than what felt comfortable to me, trust me. But also? I left the job I hated and started a business. I started writing poetry again. I have found a sense of deep permission in surrendering the parts of myself that motherhood has made irrelevant or impossible or, at the very least, not-right-now. 

I have begun to trust that the parts of me that I was meant to reclaim, eventually, after becoming a mother would return to my life with a force that I have found to be almost gravitational—even if it doesn’t happen on my timeline. It never does. And I have found a reverence for the woman I’ve become since I’ve brought these two little humans earthside. It’s a reverence for myself, for all mothers now, and for the mothers before me.

I have found a reverence for the woman I’ve become since I’ve brought these two little humans earthside. It’s a reverence for myself, for all mothers now, and for the mothers before me.

And so, mama, if you’re feeling lost in motherhood, let me remind you: It’s okay. You are okay. This is normal; you are supposed to feel like a different person. Finding your way into who you are as a mother will take time and may be uncomfortable. Discovering the woman you’re becoming is like following the trail of a wild animal in the woods: Walk soft, listen close, and be patient. She is waiting for you.

But First, Cry

“You can’t do the growth without the grief.” 

This has become one of my favorite things to say to the new mothers that I work with. It’s an uncomfortable fact that is woven into the fabric of what it means to become a mother, for to truly step into any new identity in our lives, we must leave an often-cherished former identity behind.

The thing about grief and loss is that they chart their own course. And, as I’ve touched on already, grief really, really wants to be felt and acknowledged. You can imagine your grief as being like a little child within you, not unlike your own little one: the sadness you might be feeling about the many, many shifts happening in your life right now wants to be validated and wrapped up in a warm embrace of acceptance.

And, amazingly, it’s when we are finally able to embrace the enormously complex—and definitely not one-tone joyful—feelings about motherhood that their edges begin to soften and they slowly dissolve. 

Don’t get me wrong—12 years into motherhood, there are still some days when I wish I could go to the bathroom by myself. And this brings me to the most important nuance about feeling sadness in and among all the joys of motherhood: It involves a good dose of self-compassion when this transition feels hard and you long for the days when life felt a little easier or just different. With compassion, you can say to yourselfHoney, I know. Those old times were so, so wonderful. They’re over now, but they were important to have experienced. What could happen next?

And that’s just the thing: What could happen next? Trust me, I know from firsthand experience that forcing yourself to “snap out of it” and get back to normal won’t allow you to evolve into the kind of mother—and human—you have the potential to be, wholly and compassionately.

Honor Your Emotions With Self-Compassion

Remember that although you’re feeling sadness and grief and a lot of complexity right now, there is enormous potential in all of this. Truly going through this process of letting go and releasing some of the pre-motherhood parts of yourself that no longer fit your new life allows you to move forward rather than living in or yearning for a life that is no longer your own.

Consider this your giant permission slip to feel all the feelings that come when you embark into matrescence—the time of mother-becoming—even the gnarly ones.

Sometimes, it can help to honor your sadness with a little bit of ritual. It’s kind of like a way of validating and embracing the tiny little child of your grief in a meaningfully symbolic way. For example, you could take slips of paper and write down what you are feeling sad about or what you are being asked to release and surrender, and throw them into a fire—or write these things down on rocks and toss them into the ocean. Engaging the five senses and the body in your ritual—the heat and smell of the fire you release into, for example—creates a visceral memory associated with the idea of letting go that helps to consolidate that intention in your brain and allow it to live on in your very cells.

Sweet mama, it’s OK to feel sadness in this time of also-joy. It’s OK to long for the days when you could sit in silence or see the world outside of your house after dark. It’s OK to wish some days that you weren’t a mother at all. It’s even OK to wake up seven years from now and have a little knot of sadness in your heart for your pre-motherhood life. None of this makes you a bad mother: It makes you a human. And, in fact, it makes you a human who has loved her life and who is on the path to creating a life that encompasses the enormous love you have for your baby. Consider this your giant permission slip to feel all the feelings that come when you embark into matrescence—the time of mother-becoming—even the gnarly ones. Consider this your permission slip to speak those feelings aloud to someone who can hold you and the fullness of your emotions in reverence and respect.