Where is my core, my center, my strength?
I gave birth a little over three months ago and these are
the questions I’m asking myself right now. They are all the same question but
each has a different answer I think. Yeah, it confuses me too but mom brain has
a way of making the pieces just fuzzy enough that they seem to fit together
even if you can’t articulate how to others.
The core of my physically being is, well, gone. My abdominal
muscles spent nine months getting stretched out and floppy then cut open when
my son had to be born cesarean. Everything seems harder without my core. For
the first few months things like sitting up or bending over or lifting anything
seemed tricky if not dangerous. But now that I’ve healed from the incision the
lack of strength is showing. Especially when I took my first yoga class last
weekend. For as body conscious as I am I realized just how much I’d been
“faking” it. It’s pretty amazing how incorrectly we can use our bodies when
compensating for muscle loss or injury.
My strength. Well I see this as a two-sided coin: there is
my physical strength and my emotional strength. Both seem like distant allies,
comrades that once stood by me and helped protect me but maybe got lost
somewhere on the journey. You can read
all the books, listen to your mother and other moms, and try to anticipate but
absolutely nothing can prepare you for the relentlessness of being a first time
parent. Things that were so easy one time with my soldiers of strength by me
seem almost unbearable. Some days those things include climbing the basement
stairs and listening to music. Shortness of breath and tears are all to
frequent.
And finally my center has shifted. Well not so much shifted
as disappeared. Where am I? Who am I? What was sleep like? Of all the ups and
downs of pregnancy and motherhood this one is the most baffling. One day I knew
my body, I knew my needs and my limits and now all of that has changed and I’m
struggling to find answers.
So I’m getting back on my mat. I took my first yoga class
since birth last weekend and I could feel my brain firing again. I got to know
my limbs and feel my strength (or lack of strength more appropriately) again.
Yoga reminded me that with each asana, and each breath we open up the chance
for understanding. So I’m taking that knowledge and I’m going to explore them
here in 3 parts: My core, my center, my strength both on the mat and off, both
as a mother and a woman.
Stay tuned if you are interested.
