Fractured Fairy Tale - Mama Edition

Mamas,

From deep inside the riveting tale of my own life to yours.

I’m so grateful the concept of feminine energy is gaining momentum in our world today.  That we are recognizing feminine energy, our hormonal cascade and complex dance of emotions and our power as women as vital instruments in living our best lives.  And further, that our power acts as a catalyst for our family and society’s overall health and wellness.

I remember being intrigued by the segment called “Fractured Fairy Tales” on Rocky + Bullwinkle.  I loved it and was fascinated by the concept.  And I think our life as little girls, as young women, as grown women, as Mamas is all a fractured fairy tale.  Not in the sense of not working out or somehow not receiving the perfect ending, because those are both passive postures-- but rather one of us authoring our own story and choosing our way of showing up for ourselves and in the world around us. And fractured not in the sense of broken.  Rather, fractured in the sense of glass ceiling seeing our own reflection and emerging as we were destined to within our own metamorphosis.

I love studying and treating fractures in Pediatrics- witnessing the vigor of the bone callus (an often felt lump over the skin in the area of the original injury/fracture) that is also often so impressive to behold on x-ray.  It is quite literally a bridge- that envelopes the original wound or fracture site.  This laying down of new bone in osteoblasts is so efficient and strong, that it often takes children mere weeks to recover from considerable injuries and fractures.  

We do retain this capacity to remold and heal, robustly and with renewed strength even after fractures occur in our lives.  Transcending now past the bony skeleton, physical body and into the emotional skeletons, hormonal skeletons we often have sustained fractures to but haven't given the chance to heal- to become stronger, to build bridges into our future over the previous fracture site.

As Mamas and as women, we’ve faced thousands of micro fractures emotionally over the course of our lifetime.  Perhaps we learned how to be “good little girls” and uggghh that phrase just makes me shudder now and I’m so grateful we’re transitioning into praising the action and not impressing upon young girls that they need to be “good girls.” 

I mean this to say that to elicit an action from a young girl, I feel it is much more formative, impactful and powerful to praise her for her action or to describe what she did to empower her and to validate her in the power that is forming within her-- rather than passing along the message that she is a "good girl" because she did something to please us.  Rather that she did something remarkable of her own volition.  This praising the action goes for girls and boys for sure, and I can elaborate more on this at another time as it's a super important topic to me as a Mama and a Pediatrician -- our ability and invitation to take part in their growing independence and formation of self, confidence, curiosity, and creativity.

As young girls, we often learned how to blend in when it was better not to cause any inflammation in a family scenario perhaps or a societal one, and then we learned how to posture ourselves and to always have a plan to look competent and appear we know what's going on.  We also learn to be alert to danger but to persevere anyway- we look around dark parking lots, having our keys at the ready and maybe looking busy.  But always having a plan.  I did this many a night getting out the hospital late.  Always glancing, often getting my jog on.

We have a plan often as Mamas, too.  And if we don’t have a plan we think we have to “fake it until we make it” lest we be perceived as weak or incapable.  

This fractured fairy tale is the WORST and it produces millions of isolated and lonely Mamas each time a new baby is born.  Perhaps we can join with the fabulously talented Jen Gunter, M.D. and her "Vagenda" (I adore this term she coined in her book  “The Vagina Bible” that I’m currently reading again that is recommend to all who have a vagina or will be around a vagina in their lifetime... which is well, everyone), and offer to add to it the notion of the fractured fairy tale, and to break down this  myth from all the -archy's--this is a combined matriarchy + patriarchy one --that Mamas need to have in all figured out.

Fractured Fairy Tale: Some Moms Just Know How to Do It All

Reality: NO ONE is doing it all

Catalyst for distorted reality: Social Media

(see my previous blog post here), and I’m not against social media, I love to get my scroll on. I’ve just been re-calibrating my approach to holistic health and social media has been a huge aspect I've been transforming for my health over the past year.  I believe it can be a place of healing and connection, and that it can also be a slippery slope for comparemode, guilt, shame and buying into the fallacy of the Fractured Fairy Tale that Mamas are superwomen that could and should (should is my trigger word hahaha) figure it all out and do it gracefully.  So yeah, the filters and curated albums can go a long way in portraying an I’ve-got-it-all-figured out picture.

Antidote: Embrace your own effing recipe for thriving

Challenge every thought that emerges around “Having it all” and embrace your rawness. Your learning mode.  Your childlike wonder and fascination.  That is your superpower.  Your intuition. Your Mamatuition. Your humor. Your humility.  Your ability to have your children be your teachers, too.  To course correct.  To ask for help.  To speak life + love over yourself.  To ask the questions of fellow Mamas and especially new Mamas that go beyond the surface Mama code.  To not repeat unhelpful “tips”- if they can even be called that, more like tricks/traps- passed down by society like “It’ll get better when baby is older”, or ''Give it time", “Sleep now before the baby comes!” Or just in general agreeing with and complying with the notion that a new Mama is meant to and expected to be chronically tired and left to her own devices to figure it out.

We can choose to bring the fractured fairy tale to this corner of creation, to the new life and celebration of a miracle of love being born, and a new Mama along with it.  And help her feel empowered, uplifted, seen, heard, validated.  Are we willing to ride the hormonal and emotional roller coaster with her?!  The resounding answer for thousands of years is largely, No.  She is left to her own devices and the privacy of her home to sacrifice and be with her newborn baby.  

Every Mama has had moments of pure bliss and harmony with their precious newborn and it’s everything we live for and our uteruses sing and we feel in alignment with our core values.  But we also have leaking boobs and greasy hair, are constipated, possibly have stitches and a whole inflammatory situation down there we can’t even understand but running our fingers along the perimeter makes us very aware that is some kind of fractured fairy tale playing out for sure down there.  We just don’t ask the deep questions, we think it’s prying and we just dance our way around it.  

And we trade baby announcements and post the good stuff while leaving the fractured fairy tale for our own mirror, and often don't even know how to speak life and love into ourselves at such a pivotal junction in our lives.  And we assume the fractured fairy tale reflects flaws within us that we can learn to cover up and heal until we can present ourselves postpartum in all of our I've got this figuredoutedness, when in reality this is our true power we're coming into, and this raw and real chapter is an invitation, an offering to step into it and be forever transformed.  In a way we were born to be.  When a baby is born, a Mama is too.  This is why Mama Mindset™ exists.

We have the opportunity to let go of the fairy tale of Motherhood and of true love's kiss, essentially waiting like docile maidens for the magic to descend upon us where we wait in an external focus, and instead pivot within and instead ask ourselves what our one wild and precious life looks like? What is most beautiful and true for us?  For me, it’s loving the mess, loving the intimate moments and the life chats I have with my babies + others where I go waayyy beyond the cute and familiar and into the pondering and themes of what holds us together, what my dreams and visions are, what my current struggles consist of.  How facing my fears are leading into enormous freedom, how holding space for myself and others is expanding my soul in a tremendously challenging and fulfilling way.  It's also being spontaneous, accepting all the serendipitous twists and turns, learning to swerve when life throws the curves.  It's anything but linear, anything but predictable, and it's surfing all of it.  It's the magic in the mundane, the passport stamps to the end of our driveway this past year and flower safaris around our neighborhood during quarantine, it's appreciating all of the beauty that surrounds me, right now.  It's chasing a dream with reckless abandon, and then being brave enough to walk away from it when it isn't serving myself or my family anymore. It's listening and trusting my intuition as my superpower and knowing that I have the power to pivot.

Mamamentum offering:

When we are truly willing to ride the front row of the struggle bus together, we are existing in the sacred sisterhood stratospheres of healing and of effing with the fairy tales that were never meant to be, and are most definitely not serving us.

We don’t need rescuing.  We never have.  We don’t need to let down our long hair or fit into a glass slipper or be awakened with a kiss.  I think our DNA knows that and we resist it.  The problem is that WHAT WE RESIST WILL PERSIST.  I think we resist help and assistance that others may offer, maybe not directly with words, but we put out the vibes.  We’ve learned how to be socially deflective when it comes to that kind of thing.  And we women are so adept at that dance, we know how to pick up another woman’s vibe and then get the H out of the way and we stay out.  Instead of asking and risking our pride or heading onto the feared emotional hormonal roller coaster, offering to strap in front row hands up next to her, we just wave as she straps back in for another lap.  It may look like "No, I'm fine, thanks" or "I think I'm good", just these basic robotic responses that are ping ponged back and forth and we've likely said or responded to in kind thousands of times in our life.  

This is precisely the recipe behind PPA and PPD (Postpartum anxiety and depression).  These are complex issues I couldn't possibly do justice to with this post, but basically we all know these are afflictions that can impact Mamas.  They are feared.  They are screened, but very superficially at postpartum visits.  And not because your OB or Pediatrician doesn't care or isn't empathetic, but because modern medicine and the constraints placed around practice are not equipped or built or even willing to accommodate Mamas to the extent we need to in order to promote ideal postpartum health, and get the MF ball rolling on meaningful conversations when they're meant to be had. 

So this can be an isolated, lonely, shameful, and hurting place that takes perfect and beautiful, whole and powerful, capable and courageous women that have become Mamas and has the potential to fracture them in a way that they don’t know how to find the beauty in the pieces anymore.  Tragically, some lose themselves entirely as no one knew or dared to venture into the darkness of the fractured void with them.  Each year, women take their lives out of desperation for some solace from this space where they have lost their essence and any tether to their true value.  And this breaks my heart.  And hopefully our collective hearts.  And we can do something about.  We are definitely starting to.  Much more Mamamentum is needed and we can choose to be a part of that healing.

Fairy tales can be so dangerous.  We set expectations, and then experience disappointment when another does not live up to them.  We do this in interpersonal relationships, we do this with Motherhood.  The issue I would offer here is that expectations placed upon someone are unfair, and we have often written a script for someone else that they likely have never seen or read.  Our power come in taking responsibility to show up for ourselves, champion ourselves and communicate effectively so that others know how they can show up for us in ways that will add value to our lives.

What if we deviated and wrote our own script?  One that accommodated the messes, the magical, the mundane, and one in which we are the SHE-to of our own story?  It creates so much more space for your intimate relationships to soar and thrive-- as they were never meant to be under the burden of your spoken or unspoken expectations.  Life is spontaneous and unpredictable-- perhaps no better illustrated than in the journey into and through Motherhood.  You find out you’re pregnant, get a projected due date and typically baby comes on their own timeline and you start living into that realm forevermore.  

Fairy Tales are whimsical and fun and flowing into the elements of the magical can be fun to play around with, as long as they are adapted into the raw and real and messy, the vulnerable and the hormonal, the emotional kaleidoscope of Motherhood.  I absolutely love that my daughter can dress up as Wonder Woman, a mermaid, a princess, or a firefighter on any given day.  We can continue to do this, we don't have to drop this playfulness.

Our hormones allow us to exist in harmony, to have the ability to co-create, nourish, sustain and birth life into this world.  That’s effing fantastic if you ask me. 

We can choose to stop apologizing for our hormones.  Innocuous phrases like “It must be that time of the month” or others explaining away frustration or other emotions around our menstrual cycles start the seeds in us at a young and impressionable age.  We learn that we must posture and persevere, push through and try not to “period rage” on everyone, to “hide our crazy”.  I really never experienced a lot of heightened emotions around my period, but some women do.  It’s all okay.  Let’s honor that.  We’re safe to be us.  Men have hormones too and no one goes around saying “It must be that time of the month” when a man does something considered out of line.  I mean this to say that hormones are an essential component of what makes humanity and creation cycle around.  They are essential to life.  To our evolution.  To our growth.

We can choose to glorify our bodies and all they are capable of, to love and embrace our complexities and that tremendous knowledge and love written into our DNA.  We get to join in the dance that our hormones offer us by playing into this power that allows us to be charismatic, powerful, whimsical and also wonderful beings.  

Playful and powerful.  Athletic.  Yes, I said Athletic.  Specializing in Sports Medicine after I finished the culmination of my intense medical training in Pediatrics gave me a whole new perspective.  As I combined my love of Pediatrics and working with Mamas with Sports Medicine, I started marveling in the fact that Mamas were among the most brilliant athletes I knew.  So I’m here to claim that for you.  Many Mamas feel they are “not athletic” and they carry that branding around with them FOR LIFE.  What a sad and horrifically untrue and deviating statement.  Truly, your body is an effing gymnast for what it equilibrates to and how it accommodates the internal gymnastics that occurs when baby is growing.  And how you juggle and nurture life so brilliantly is a true work of art for the next forever after your miracle is born into existence.

And we don’t offer the most athletic of positions in which to birth—- but that is for a whole other Mama Mindset Anik thought download.  I love modern medicine and have been trained extensively in it, and will continue to enthusiastically support research and EBM (evidence based medicine) for my lifetime and the legacy of wisps of wisdom I aim to offer in my path. I am also firmly and playfully deviant and accepting of holistic health, and that there is MORE, MUST BE MORE that we can offer Mamas.

Hence, creating this space so I can practice medicine in a way that flows for me, honors who I am coloring outside the lines and what I saw and knew was needed over the course of serving thousands of Mamas, BA Mama athletes and their babies, clinically.  

So, I’m here living fantastically into my own fractured fairy tale of a career as Physician, no longer feeling claustrophobic of the questions I longed to ask the New Mama sitting across from me.  She looked into my eyes and I looked into hers, and I knew she craved more from the encounter.  Each time I moved on in answer to the medical hub bub, schedule, insurance, metrics way-of-life, I felt another dissatisfied piece of me placed gingerly into my white coat pocket.  And I sent her every vibe from behind my carefully woven braid, and my stethoscope hung around my neck as I walked reverently out of the room and onto my next patient. 

But inside, I vowed more for her.  Sometimes with tears in my eyes as I knew my gift as a human, woman, Visionary, creative and meandering soul, much like her was not being utilized to it’s full potential- I vowed more for her.  That I would do more, be more, and offer to be in this with her.

And I am.  I did.  I’m here.  In the Mama Mindset™.  In the Fractured Fairy Tale.  Writing our own novel.  Celebrating the hormones that give us life and give to all life. Boom.  Leaning into the emotions that add color to the world.  

So to fairy tale or not to fairy tale?  Let's.  But let's do it fractured and beautiful, the pieces fixed and revealed in a way that shows our raw beauty.

We can paint with all the colors of the wind.  We can be loyal, brave + true.  We can show ourselves, step into the power ..... looking at you Pocahontas, Mulan + Elsa (Anna too, you’re BA). Inspo from some of my favorite fractured fairy tales that depict women who knew they were meant for more....

So Mama, start living into, claiming and having fun in your own fractured fairy tale.  Flowing into the life you were meant to live, leaning into the dreams Divinely dropped into you.. these are the whispers in your soul and spirit animal that beckons you on into your one wild and precious life.  

When we start harmonizing with all that exists to prosper us, we start believing in ourselves.  And when we come from a place of ease and grounding in that way, we are able to offer it to other women and Mamas without insecurity our own emotional turret of some castle we aren’t even sure we want to be at might come tumbling down.  

Fractured fairy tale lore aside, what I mean is we can’t help other Mamas unless we get our own sh*t together.  This requires tremendous and unrelenting bravery and courage to go within and live according to our own inner compass + core values.  When we show up for ourselves, honor who we are at our core, see our emotions, hormones and complexity as women and Mamas as assets and our superpower, that intuition allows us to be a steady and guiding force for other Mamas in their own trials.  

So get on your own horse and ride off into the sunset of your own fairy tale.  Nature already salutes you.  You already are celebrated and exist in a beautiful and melodic symphony with all creation.  So get playing and release all that no longer serves you.  Release it.  Say no to it, so you can say yes to your priorities.  So you can say yes to you.  So you can see your own fractured fairy tale for the legend that it is.  

-Anik

P.S. This picture is part of my fractured fairy tale, a few months postpartum with Cruz.  I remember being perfectly at peace in this moment, a super nocturnal middle of the night picture.  I could see her beauty reflected back. 

In it to Twin it with matching rolls!

Up for a late night breastfeed living on Cruz-central-time-zone.  I looked back at my reflection and the gorgeous nugget of love in my arms.  And I was so proud of the rolls on his body that came from the nourishment I could provide him.  Of our harmony.  Of the way my body continued to show up for me and for him. 

And I felt beautiful.  I looked back at the dirty mirror with toothpaste flings from our electric toothbrushes raining down and knew I would enjoy reflecting back upon it. Wasn't aware I would be reflecting upon it and sharing with so many of you, but here I am.  And it felt appropriate and reverent to share this raw and real moment with you. 

P.P.S. From my fractured fairy tale to yours!