Cultivating Ritual in Everyday Motherhood
Picture this: A slow, gentle morning waking with your baby. Birds are chirping, the sun is spilling softly through gauzy curtains. There’s an easy flow into making breakfast and planning out your day. You’re changing your baby, playing with your baby, enriching your baby in creative ways. Later, you’re preparing a delicious lunch that you enjoy while your baby naps, then taking a walk together to the local park. Afterward, while your baby occupies herself on the floor, you’re cooking a yummy dinner and looking forward to the slow, pleasant rituals of baby bedtime.
This sounds lovely, right? And, if you’re an actual living breathing parent, slightly absurd? Yet these are the kinds of images we’re often fed, through social media mom influencers or glossy portrayals of motherhood in TV series and movies.
Trying to Connect With the Magic of Motherhood
The truth and hard reality are that we are living through late-stage capitalism, an economic and social environment in which the vast majority of us are cut off from any semblance of a village and/or don’t have the money to hire the village that parenting requires. Most mothers struggle through their days moving from one task to the next without pause, desperate to be a parent who’s present and engaged with baby but too often exhausted and overburdened by the unrealistic expectations of 21st-century society.
On top of all this, many parents are also trying hard to nurture their inner child.
They are trying to break unhealthy cycles, heal generational wounds and traumas, and create new ways of relating within their family systems. It can feel futile and overwhelming to take on this incredibly worthy work when we’re faced with the magnitude of what this life demands of us.
The truth is, in our fast-paced lives it can feel impossible to create rhythms that feel nurturing and supportive. Most parents are working full-time, and the stay-at-home mother or caregiver is so overtasked with childcare and housework responsibilities that connecting to the magic so many mothers hold in their hearts and want to manifest for their children seems unattainable.
Building Ritual Into Life’s Daily Rhythms
The key is to identify the natural rhythms of our everyday life with your LO and create rituals around those. It’s not about adding another task to our endless list, it’s about expanding our perception and slowing down enough to cultivate the wisdom that helps us prioritize what actually needs to get done. Magic exists in the everyday, mundane tasks of life. How we wash dishes or cook a meal is a natural rhythm that we can connect to ritual. How we bathe our child or ourselves is another example of an everyday task that holds the potential for rhythm and ritual.
It’s about the energy we bring to these tasks.
Are we being slow, intentional, and mindful in our connection to what we are doing? Whether it’s chopping onions or changing our baby’s diaper, or looking at pictures in a book together? We start small, with reasonable expectations. Sometimes it’s about bringing that intentionality and presence to just one task in a week. Maybe we choose a day that has a little more space in it to experiment with this practice.
It can feel counterintuitive to slow down when we feel like we are drowning, but any lifeguard will tell you survival depends on not flailing in panic. Beyond its benefit to our sanity and the development of our child, it’s also a philosophical—even political—stance: The systems we live in drive us to move quickly and often mindlessly so we don’t question or refuse their demands. But so much of maintaining a manageable parenting life is about not just slowing down but also shifting our perspective, as these are potent antidotes to the anxiety and self-criticism engendered by these inhumane systems.
Creating Connection Through Intention
Rituals are also a way to ground our energies and values in our homes. We can pass on to our children a more mindful way of being present in their life. Rituals bring intention into our actions and allow us to connect with the natural and spirit worlds around us, which then informs our mothering. So often in late-stage capitalism, we feel alone and isolated in our parenting. We forget that support comes in many forms, including through connections to our nonhuman kin. Cultivating rituals from an animistic worldview can bring many benefits and help ground our energies when we’re feeling overwhelmed.
Remember, the season of motherhood you’re in will determine what capacity you have to engage and experiment with ritual. As always, take only what works and adapt it to your unique life rhythms.
Here are some ways to create rituals in the everyday:
Choose one mealtime a day to bring intentionality. Light candles, set a small dinner altar, and give thanks for your day and your food.
Mark the seasonal shifts with your little one. Create a seasonal altar and invite your LO to participate.
Birthdays are a great time to bring in rituals. Get a birthday wheel that you grow with your child as each new year reflects the age and stage they’re in.
Making your morning cup of coffee or favorite beverage is an opportunity to be intentional, focus on your breath, and ritualize the experience.
Make space and time to transition through the ritual in the moments after you’ve put your LO to sleep. Step outside and list your gratitude, sit on the floor and focus on your breathing for a few minutes, draw yourself a bath, and read a poem.
BEGIN ONLINE THERAPY IN CALIFORNIA TODAY!
Building rituals into your daily life’s rhythms can help to ground your energies and bond with our LO. It’s also a time to be intentional about your actions while also allowing yourself to connect with the world around you. At Whole Mother Therapy, we offer online therapy in California where you can learn to see the rhythms of your daily life so you can be more intentional with your rituals and connect with the world around you. Our Pasadena therapists will support you in grounding your energy and give you ideas for rituals you can complete with your LO in your current season of motherhood. To get started with online therapy and begin the process of healing, simply follow the steps below.
Get the support you need from an online therapist.
OTHER THERAPY SERVICES WHOLE MOTHER THERAPY OFFERS
Our Pasadena-based online therapy practice offers a variety of mental health services to support aspiring parents, single parents, couples, and families. Our services include individual therapy for new parents, postpartum anxiety treatment, therapy for birth trauma, therapy for infant loss and pregnancy loss, postpartum depression support, marriage counseling and couples therapy for new parents, counseling for parental burnout and overwhelm, therapy for infertility, and online therapy in California for new and expecting parents.
We also offer an eight-week in-person Sacred Motherhood Circle to honor the transitions and transformations of motherhood. And we hold several support groups, including an online pregnancy support group and an online postpartum support group. Finally, you can read more about our services, values, and resources on our therapy blog.