Rachel Snyder Archives - Mothering in the Middle

Meditations for Mothers

by Rachel Snyder

Leap

Once you warm up with baby steps, you’re ready to take your next leap. Take a leap of faith and know you can make it. Decide to leap over tall buildings with a single bound. Close your eyes and open your own business. Take the leap! March yourself into the recovery center and tell them you’re ready to heal. Make your leap! Take a leap into a second marriage and take the kids with you. Leap off the edge of your personal zone of comfort and feel the feelings you’ve been stuffing for years. Tired of small-town living? Leap into something larger. Frustrated by fear in the city? Leap over the freeway and onto a farm. You’re ready for the big stage and you know it, so take your leap. You can’t keep playing small forever. Take your leap! Keep your eyes on the prize. Let your feet touch the skies. Take a hard running start. Now leap!

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Meditation for Mothers

Now

No matter what the clock says, the only time is Now. That beautiful smile on your little one’s face is Now, so don’t miss it. The inquisitive eyes, the questions about love and babies, are happening Now, so don’t put them off. Your teenager is asking your advice Now, and for all you know, it may be the first and last time it happens. This moment with this child on this day will never come around again. So revel in the Now – and in every Now that’s bound to follow. Focus your attention on this moment, this book, this child, this stormy night – not on what you’re going to take to the dry cleaners tomorrow. Bring your presence to this scraped knee, to this picture of a pony, to this exquisite human connection right Now – not to a replay of the blowup you had yesterday with the man in accounting. Every time you retreat to the past or the future, you’re certain to miss what is Now.

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Seek No Longer

by Rachel Snyder

There comes a time when it is no longer enough
to seek out the transformative life.

There comes a time to listen deeply and to say Yes!
to the faintest inklings of your heart.

That is the time when you become a creator in your own right.
When you answer the Call without reservation and with fulsome heart. […]

Mindful Meditations for Mothers

by Rachel Snyder

Joy

More than a feeling and deeper than any emotion, joy is a pure state of being. Joy is holding your child to your breast for the very first time and locking lovers’ eyes. Joy is being in love and sleeping in the sunshine and running down a mountain path with the swiftness of a deer in the springtime. Joy expands your heart and opens your soul until you know, really know, that death is simply the turning of another page. Joy is snowflakes and slipping on the ice and getting up so you can slip all over again and never even feeling the cold. Living in joy doesn’t mean putting on a happy face. It means that joy is at the core of who you are and always have been. Joy is strong enough to carry you through the darkness and the pain into a place where joy still resides in ultimate measure. Seek to find joy and let joy fill your life.

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Mindful Meditations for Mothers

by Rachel Snyder

Frustration

Frustration has its place. It can create sufficient pressure to push you to a point where you know that you won’t take it anymore. Managed properly, the energy of frustration can provide high-octane fuel to propel you into healthier new directions. What frustrates you most? If you’re frustrated that they don’t listen to you, maybe you’re not speaking as clearly as you believe. If your frustration comes from a sense of being pulled in every direction, maybe it’s a message that you’re not attending to your center. When you feel a growing sense of frustration around the heavy burden you think you have to carry, chances are good you’re finally ready to lighten up and share the load. Frustration can be the spark that ignites a smoldering fire. Listen to the story your frustration is trying to tell you. Blow off a little steam and you can use frustration well.

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Be Yourself

by Rachel Snyder

The journey of mothering is like no other

and it’s all too easy to get lost in it.

Right now, set a conscious intention

to carry every bit of who you are into your role as a mother.

Promise yourself that you will embrace your shortcomings and your missteps

and will never beat yourself up for doing the very best you can.

Once you settle into being your authentic self,

you cannot help but become a one-of-a-kind, original, remarkable mom.

Don’t compare yourself with any other mother you know,

including your own.

Your genuine mothering path will have a feel and flavor and tone

that are yours and yours alone

and it just may open you up in new and unexpected ways.

You may be happy and sad – all in the same day.

You may find yourself more creative, more expressive, more loving.

Other times you might feel angry and sometimes, yes,

you may very well be afraid.

Take these opportunities to know yourself more deeply.

Consider what feels right for you

as well as for your child.

To revel in being a mother,

you must first celebrate the unique and beautiful individual

that you are and always have been.

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Healing (A Mother’s Journey)

by Rachel Snyder

A mother’s journey is to heal. From the moment you begin to contemplate life with children, you will come face to face with your thorniest unresolved issues. You will uncover ancient hurts around your own childhood and the mothering that was given you (or not). Embrace this singular opportunity for healing. Remain open to a flood of emotions and flow with them until you find a healing peace. Give yourself room to heal and know that you heal for those who came before you and those who now follow. Create new endings to old, tired stories of loss and betrayal. Inspire your children with new legacies and new, life-affirming ways. Take bold steps to change painful patterns passed down through generations. Seek out the medicine that strengthens you and take authority for your own healing. Every mother who heals herself, heals her children, too.

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Mindful Meditations for Mothers

Rachel Snyder

Sorrow

Every mother has her share. It may be a string of small sorrows, small hurts that one after another peck at a mother’s heart. It might be one great sorrow that swoops down and takes you in its talons, rising up and enveloping you even as you think you have it tamed. Sorrow goes hand-in-hand with joy, often in equal measure. The mother who feels the rapture of unspeakable joy may also encounter unbearable sorrow. Invite sorrow in with a warm welcome. Give her a place to sit by the fire; she may need to linger a lifetime. Speak with her, cry with her, grieve with her – yet do not push her away. Sorrow is a teacher. At times stern and unrelenting, she will dole out her lessons as you are able to receive them. She will work with you tirelessly. Slowly, as sure as the sun rises, you will make your way to the enduring light at the center of sorrow.

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Mindful Meditations for Mothers

by Rachel Snyder

Trust

Trust yourself. Listen to your intuition, your sixth sense, your voice within, the angels that whisper to you during the night. Whatever you call it, know that you are the source of your greatest wisdom. Trust that your body will know when to birth this baby. Trust that your breasts know how to give your child his first nourishment. Trust that you are cared for by people who hold your best interests at heart. Trust that there is something larger out there and trust yourself to know what that is for you. Trust that you have maternal instincts, no matter who tells you otherwise. Now trust yourself to rely on those instincts. Trust that your daughter will not enter first grade in diapers. (If she must, trust that she will be surrounded by those who will accept her for who she is.) Trust that you are only given that which you can handle. Now trust yourself to handle it in the very best way you can.

Mindful Meditations for Mothers

by Rachel Snyder

Sorrow

Every mother has her share. It may be a string of small sorrows, small hurts that one after another peck at a mother’s heart. It might be one great sorrow that swoops down and takes you in its talons, rising up and enveloping you even as you think you have it tamed. Sorrow goes hand-in-hand with joy, often in equal measure. The mother who feels the rapture of unspeakable joy may also encounter unbearable sorrow. Invite sorrow in with a warm welcome. Give her a place to sit by the fire; she may need to linger a lifetime. Speak with her, cry with her, grieve with her – yet do not push her away. Sorrow is a teacher. At times stern and unrelenting, she will dole out her lessons as you are able to receive them. She will work with you tirelessly. Slowly, as sure as the sun rises, you will make your way to the enduring light at the center of sorrow.

www.rachelsnyder.wordpress.com