9. For the Brand New and Pregnant Mamas

Hey Everyone,

I’m seeing a lot of cute little babies being born, as well as a bunch of round bellies of some awesome Moms I know through yoga and a lifetime in San Diego.

The pregnant Mommas are doing their best in this heat, to prepare for what’s coming, and enjoy where they’re at before everything changes. 

The mommas who have just given birth have the heroic look of someone who just braved a legendary portal, as they hold their babies safely on the other side.

And the rest of us, well, we might still be making sense of where we’ve been and where we’re going from here. And it’s all good.

What’s amazing to me about being a Mom at any phase is that we span the full spectrum of caretaking, from full-on self-care in pregnancy, to exclusively caring for a tiny human, to getting to know ourselves as people who have been transformed by it all. It truly is a life like no other.

Personally, having some distance between childbirth and the present day, in which my nearly four-year old can make jokes at my expense, I can see how as Moms, we navigate our personal care and caring for our children in phases, and how slow-flowing between caring for ourselves and caring for others is like a cycle that keeps  us and our kids healthy and well-balanced.

And please don’t mistake my emphasis on Moms to mean that Dads and partners don’t factor-into this. They do, and this applies to all parents. I’m just focusing on one group of people so I don’t get overwhelmed :)

So, starting in pregnancy, I realized that having to pee around-the-clock was helping me get used to eventually waking up to tend to my incoming baby’s needs at all hours.

That got me thinking about how taking care of ourselves during pregnancy is what gets us ready to take care of an infant, which becomes the norm for the next years of our lives. This can be a hard thing to accept, especially for Moms like me, who coach people on tending to their well-being in holistic ways.

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Welcome to Yoga for Mom-Life. I’m Susana Jones, and I’m here to help you not just survive early motherhood, but to make it kinder on your body, your minds, and your heart. With time-efficient yoga and sage wisdom at your fingertips, you can receive the attentive care you give to the people you love, and live a full, vibrant life.

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While baby is in-utero, self-care makes sense. A pregnant Mom adjusts her diet and her water intake, and her daily activities to accommodate the needs of her changing body, knowing that doing so is what the baby also needs.

When that baby is born, aww, the caretaking starts to flip, like a magnetic reversal of poles. Mom’s body needs actual healing immediately after birth, but that rest and that mending happens while also helping baby breastfeed, or get its first nutrients, which can be labor-intensive. 

After the first diapers are changed, the reflux is abetted, the swaddles are folded burrito-style, Mom can progress through the rest of postpartum, and accomplish amazing things, like breastfeeding while making coffee, or using a perineum bottle like a bidet. All those tiny feats of strength rebuild our core strength, and introduce us to our new, superhuman Mom-skills. 

When an extra set of arms appears, Mom gets to take a shower, or a nap. Then, with baby back in her arms, she can eat that burrito, which she’s been craving ever since wrapping that last swaddle, and then you’ve basically got self-care on lock as a Mom with a newborn. 

Eating, sleeping, and staying somewhat clean form the base of your “self-care pyramid” as a Mom nurturing an infant. And they take enough strategy and effort that the things we thought of as self-care before birthing this baby seem like your wildest dreams.

And, being 3 ¾ of a year into this, I can tell you that the self-care stuff that’s higher on the pyramid, like exercise, fun outings with your friends, skincare, and meditation… it comes back around. So there’s no need to panic when those things are off-limits for a while. If you want them back in your life when it’s more feasible, you can have them. 

In the meantime, your body is very busy acclimating to a new kind of work, to new depths of emotion, and to a whole new focus during the time you spend with your loved ones. While you tend to the “lower-pyramid”, more basic forms of personal maintenance as best you can, when you can, the “higher-pyramid” social, creative, spiritual stuff calibrates to your new reality, and you’ll be able to tap into those eventually.

Because the self-actualization, which is higher in a pyramid of needs like Abraham Maszlow’s, is happening behind the scenes. It’s an undercover process, so if you can’t find the shiny new self you want to share with the world, that’s why. But don’t fret if you’re the type who likes to lead by example and inspire the people around you. Your duty is, for as long as you see fit, to nail the basic needs for yourself and your child.

And that’s why if you tell any other Mom on any given day, “I took a shower today” they’ll probably give you a high-five. And you deserve it, both the shower, and the high-five.

And look, if you’re inspired to turn tummy time with your baby into a version of mommy-and-me yoga, and that fires you up ‘cause you really want to be a Mom that does things like that, more power to you, and you’ll get to cultivate yourself as a Mom even more as time goes on. 

Meanwhile, you’ll be building a foundation upon super ordinary moments that support you and your baby. Like wearing them in a carrier while you fill a glass of water for yourself. Your baby watches how you do it, sees how you drink it, and thinks that you’re the most amazing thing they’ve ever seen, ‘cause you are.

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As you start getting pumped-up by stuff like brushing your teeth, or taking solo trips to the grocery store, you know, things your pre-Mom self would not have considered special, your little baby will be slowly growing into a toddler, and then little kid. And as that progression happens, you get to reach, from your sturdy base, up to the stars (the yoga teachers listening are like, “that’s a good cue” - God I miss you!)

For some, reaching higher from a stable base could look like returning to work, or revamping a career once their child is in preschool, or gathering materials to homeschool their kids. These are just examples. But what I’m speaking to is that as our children require less and less hands-on care, we can start scaling that pyramid. 

Doing so may feel kind of reminiscent of how we evolved in earlier chapters of our lives, but we do it in new ways that honor the real changes that have taken place since becoming parents.

And this, to me, feels like a well-balanced life as a Mom. One in which basic needs are met - which is not a given. Food and shelter and basic well-being take a ton of energy each day, as we know. From making money, to cooking food, and changing diapers. It’s a slog, BUT it’s balanced by the things that feel meaningful, things that inspire us, or help us find order in the chaos. 

The means to thrive, and not just survive, are higher up on that pyramid, and while we may not even look up there when we’re so busy on the ground-level for weeks, or, months or years at a time, there’s good stuff up there for you, and you can make it yours.

I talk to a LOT of Moms whose kids are older than mine, and the sense that I get is that many moms stay so focused on the basic to mid-level needs of their family’s life that the sense of there being something greater for them dissipates, to a degree. But the desire is there, and it can be satisfied in some good, and some not-so-good ways. This is where addiction can creep in, or self-neglect. And this is not to impose judgment, it’s to make us aware, and to emphasize that we get to choose how we live, even as Mothers. 

So while it may become default to put the personal glory stuff on the backburner for awhile, it doesn’t mean it’s lost forever. 

Personally, after giving birth in 2020, I knew I wanted to keep my career alive after a gracious maternity leave, and to work part-time as a student and business owner. But I had no plan as to how that was going to actually work out, which turned my self-doubt on blast. 

Then one night, I read an article about Moms who competed in the olympics, and another about Alex Morgan, also a Mom, of the U.S. Women's Soccer Team, and San Diego Wave, who helped secure equal pay for male and female soccer players in the United States. Women like Alex are my role models, and they inspired me to get to work on Shakti Urbana, which now has members doing online yoga in half-a-dozen states, and a bunch of subscribers to this podcast, which I’m really happy about.

And this kind of engagement with the world, beyond the little bubble of my home and family life, gives meaning to my toughest days, and a sense of victory on the good ones.

Climbing up and down the self-care pyramid as a Mom looks different for everyone, but whether we’re climbing up or down, it strengthens us in all the vital ways.

So, to recap:

Pregnant moms take special care of themselves, which prepares them to take care of their babies and their bodies after childbirth. Maybe your prenatal journey involves an expert mix of mind-body nourishment, like my fellow San Diego yoga therapist Kelli Livingstone eating ice cream after acupuncture, cause why not, and walking with one foot on the curb to prepare her body for birth (yeah, girl!). Maybe it’s making peace with having to pee 20x a day. However you shape it, it’s training grounds for putting that kind of energy into the living being who’s on their way into your arms.

While helping baby grow into a vivacious child, Moms tend to their basic needs, like food, sleep, and bathroom time, as best they can while ensuring the baby's needs are met. A shift in our sense of what’s important in those early days can help a Moms feel like the champion she is, even while doing what feels mundane after a while. 

As the child gets older, Mama can reach new heights from a steady foundation of health and well-being. Then she can evolve as an individual, outwardly, and inwardly, which can counteract the stress of family life and create a dreamy future for all.

Going from heightened self-care in pregnancy, to caring almost exclusively for a baby, back to greater self-care seems to be the flow in early motherhood. The idea is to move between them gradually, and to remember that you get to choose how you live and evolve as a Mom.

So for every pregnant Mama listening, I send you all the love and encouragement in the world as you prepare for birth. For the Moms with itty bitty babies at home, you’ve got this, and all the basic stuff you do every day counts for A LOT. It matters big time, and so do you. And for the Mamas wondering what to do with unexpected free time, let’s do some Yoga together.

‘Cause taking personal time can be stressful, but using it well can make the difference between thriving, and a life in survival mode. With concise yoga routines that complement what you already do throughout the day, you can keep yourself on a sustainable track of health and happiness as a Mom. I want that for you, and so do the people who love you.

You can get started for free with a printable yoga sequence of floor poses that you can do while your baby explores their toys. It’s there for you, and so am I, at yogaformomlife.com

Thanks for tuning in, and for sharing this episode with the Moms you love. Until next Suzday, it’s Yoga for Mom-Life, and it’s about time.

This is a topic we can explore much more in future episoses, because a lot of moms express a kind of “loss of self” that has nuance in this pyramid-like-sense of where our energy mostly goes for the first couple years of our child’s life. There can be some grief, and it’s OK to feel it that, and call it that if you like. And no, you’re not a bummer to admit to yourself or others that you’re feeling sad, or lost, or straight-up not liking life when “the best thing ever” has just happened in your life. Having a baby can be more than one thing, and you don’t ever have to front total joy if you’re not feeling it.

Our generation of Moms understands this, and our Moms’ generation wish it had been more acceptable to be real with ourselves and our people about the hardship of it. So feeling the feelings is good, and if that gets to be too much, there is support for you. Doctors, therapists, friends you can just let it all out to, are there to support you through various degrees of difficulty.

There is a lot more I could share about using the kids of support that are available to us as Moms, doing what everyone calls the most difficult, never ending job on Earth.