Why Join My MotherCircle

I'll be facilitating the MotherCircle course over 8-weeks starting this week.It's been such a profound experience for me.

When I discovered MotherCircle 6 months ago I felt like I needed a tune up. Okay, I was struggling and I needed some support.

Mothering had become harder than I wanted it to be. And, I guess, I was also expecting it to be easier than it was. I was having trouble locating "me" in the whole equation.

While I had loved looking after everyone, I had also begun to resent it. And I wasn't "supposed" to be feeling like that!

My kids were 6 and 8 at the time and things were kind of getting easier. I wasn't up to my eyeballs in diapers, pinned to the couch with nursing or napping babies and I could go for a walk with them without all the gear. I was finally experiencing, at least, the physical freedom I had craved from time to time during those early years (current broken ankle not with standing) so why was I feeling like I was drowning all over again?

I began to acknowledge my unique situation. We all have a unique situation, and for me I was/am (and have been for years now) unschooling and running an online business while parenting. It was isolation on top or isolation with a side order of doing it on my own for the better part of the day-week-year.

I'd ranted with friends about this. I'd raged against my husband about this but the fighting was futile. I knew Mr. Maplerose was working hard and providing for us, and to him I was living in shangri-la - home with the kids all day. How could that be so bad!?

It really wasn't about him, though. Nor was about me. This was bigger than me or him or us. This was about our culture. Mother culture really doesn't exist, and if it does it not a supportive place to be.

Ever since my children were born I felt so lonely. I couldn't believe it. I felt duped! 

I pined for "the village".

The village is a magical place where you could live among others but still have your own place. In the village there is always another mom or two around to chat with while folding the laundry. There are elders - knowing souls who'd love your kids, make you tea and know just when to hold your hand or give you a kick in the ass. And there's always kids around for your kids to run of with.

Sigh. Wouldn't that be nice?! Because we were never meant to do this all on on our own.

But the reality is that the village isn't coming. The village isn't around the corner, somewhere we haven't looked because it really doesn't exist in our world today. And while that makes me sad in a nostaligic-for-something-I've-never-experienced kind of way, I do have hope because I found something else. Something that is real. Something that has helped me immeasurably.

In April, right when I was feeling like I was rolling into yet another bout of burn out, MotherCircle came across my radar. I couldn't exactly afford it (business was slowing, tax time was calling, all the things were getting more expensive, did I really need another "course" ?!) but I found I couldn't not afford it.

My intuition was right.Through those 8-weeks something happened for me that was more powerful than anything I'd experienced in all of my mothering years so far - I felt seen. I laughed and cried and had all kinds of "a-ha" moments.

Right from the get-go MotherCircle was unlike any parent-y thing I'd participated in. It was made clear that I wasn't going to be "taught" anything. That being in a circle is about respect and presence. It would be up to us to make this experience something special and something of value for ourselves and each other. We all mattered to the success of the circle.

We were to make agreements and one of the most surprising and significant to me was that there would be no advice-giving. We were asked to participate and listen, or bear witness, to the other participants with our full attention. And by so doing, together we could create a contantainer where we could feel safe to share, or not, and we could really explore what this whole motherhood journey has meant to us so far.

And so there we were, 350 of us from all over the world. There were pregnant and nursing mothers, mother bouncing fussy or napping babies, there were toddlers grabbing at screens. There were mothers with children and teenagers off in another rooms, like mine, or off at school. There were moms who'd lost babies during different stages of pregnancy. There were moms through adoption, grandmothers, women who specialized in caring for mothers and women who knew that one day they wanted to be moms but weren't just yet.

Maidens -mothers - virgins - crones. We were all there.

I learned so much all without a "teacher" or being taught. I learned, or have begun to learn, how to attend to myself first. I learned to really give my attention to the one speaking, and not be thinking about what I might say. My listening was a gift I could give someone that actually gave me so much, too. We were all learning how to listen, and I found that to be listened to with such presence was transformative. It changed me.

When MotherCircle was coming close to ending I decided to join the MotherCircle facilitator training. It wasn't a decision I jumped into, but the natural unfolding of the direction I wanted to, and needed to, go in.

Those 9 weeks of training, continued to tranform me, to unfurl me. Like MotherCircle, there were all kinds of tears and tough moments finally facing what I didn't want to and seeing what I didn't know was even there. There was also so much laughter. There was grief AND joy and the feeling of being held. I wasn't just learning how to be a facilitator I was learning about myself.

I know that to feel seen and heard can effect not only our immediate families but everyone around us. Together we can actually change mother culture.

This is a revolution, mama!

I've seen my parenting shift, I've seen the relationship with my husband shift and felt myself, as a woman, become a priority again. I know that I matter.

And so do you.

We can do it! Together.

If you know someone who might like MotherCircle please feel free to forward this to them. Thanks

If you want to know even more about MotherCircle and become a facilitator yourself please check out www.mothercircle.com to learn more