Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself

Joseph Campbell noted that hero stories usually involve a visit to the abyss where the protagonist must face a frightening ordeal.

If you go through life tending to your authentic voice and making it your job to learn and accept as much about yourself as you can, you generally wind up being one of those older people who are happy and wise, rather than an older person who is bitter and small-minded.

It features the universal motif of descent, sojourn, and return that characterizes female initiation.

In Celtic mythology, sacred wells were points of access to the other world, and their waters had magical or healing properties.

They always reveal something we did not consciously know before. Your dreams can be your guide through your motherhood journey. In this book, we will sometimes explore a dream and ponder its significance.

she often went to the beach at twilight, where she would gaze wistfully out to sea. And though she loved her children dearly, they never saw her smile.

Lily was the precious child who was longed for and despaired of before she finally arrived. In psychological terms, Little Brier Rose’s birth is the granting of our heart’s desire after a long, tearful duration of fretful waiting.

Only by allowing ourselves to feel our sadness can we reawaken to the new possibilities and pleasures offered by the next stage of our lives.

Questions for Reflection for Losing Ourselves 1.When have you felt disconnected from yourself? From your children? What is this like for you when you feel this way? 2.The fairy tale in this chapter begins when the king becomes lost in the forest and is therefore susceptible to the witch’s ploy to get him to marry her daughter. Where in your life ha