Snuggled up in the early chilling Brisbane morning while the boys are still asleep.
A book, a cat and the sunrise. I feel like sometimes I need very little to feel like my cup is full! So simple, right? And then I realize how much is underneath this “small moment of peacefulness”.
• Checking my privilege. All the privileged circumstances in my life due to my class, race, capabilities and ethnicity that got me to have access to housing, safe roof, food, education and regular income. Yes I have worked hard for all of it. Much harder than most around me. But I consider that I had it incomparably easier than people who never had the opportunity to rise to the occasion. So acknowledging my privilege matters. It’s grounding.
• Awareness. I have put effort into my morning routine. In order to get to this moment of peace I had to become Aware of what matters to me. What I like, what my needs are … and then work to make it happen. To go against the grain and take up Selfcare. For the dominant narrative around motherhood Selfcare is a taboo. It’s a radical act of resistance. It’s sitting with judgement. Internal and external.
• Recognizing barriers. When we get into self-sabotaging roles, we do realize what we want but we stay in the victim state of whinging about not getting our needs to be met. By others. Instead we need to open to growing up and taking responsibility about our own needs and meeting them. Consistently. With care and determination.
•Patience. Took a lot of it in order to get here. Parenting a baby, then a young child that fully depends on us makes it logistically impossible to have such a morning. I remember grieving this part of motherhood the most. The losses of my TIME and PEACE. The loss of self-oriented MIND. And those losses felt the strongest during the mornings. When I remember the long road behind us, of parenting on our own – just my husband and I, no grandmas, no aunites, rarely any friends, no village- I recognize the strength it took, and all the patience. And the trust that one day I will get to read a book and bask at the morning sun!
•Gratitude. I am counting all the blessings I have been offered. Daily. Hourly. It’s the most grounding practice of all! During a pandemic, it became essential to orient towards all those taken for granted aspects of the mundane everydayness. My health. My safety. My inner and outer resources. My body. My ability to feel all of my feelings. My ability to see this moment, of reading a book and sensing my cat’s tickly whiskers on my neck as the Ultimate essence of this moment.
Of life. Lived fully. With presence. 🙏🏻💛🙏🏻
Aleksandra Staneva, PhD 