That Mombie life tho

Are you a Mombie?!  You know just surviving in a zombie-like mode?!

This term is a not-so-endearing nod to the rising ranks of Mamas who are consumed around raising their children to the point of physical exhaustion, defined by the narrative of their sleep deprivation.

Not that this isn’t all of us at some point.  But the Mombie takes it on as the definition of who she is.  She makes it mean that is who she must be and resigns herself to it.  

Look, I see you: “You with the tired eyes, don’t be discouraged, I remember when.... I last saw you laughing” (and sleeping 10+ hours and pooping in peace hahahaha) cue “True Colors”. Your true colors are most definitely not gray and drab and dreary muted colors Mombie.  It’s just no.  It’s not.  

You’re a vivacious, colorful, three dimensional, deeply dreaming, vital, thriving, inspiring, gorgeous, untamed woman.   Roar.  I know you’ll roar and protect your babies.  Here comes the Mama challenge in 3-2-1.... But can you also play with this energy to roar from the Mama mountaintops and hold up your dreams and a mirror of your gorgeous soul all Simba Lion-king like to take your rightful place in the kingdom and the circle of life?!  

Truly, I tell you, the Universe is waiting for you to take your rightful place and send sunbeams and moonbeams of glory down upon you as you are exalted doing your thing, living into your dreams, allowing all the rays of prosperity and abundance that have been waiting to flow into your life warm you and for give you an oasis to bask in.  

I’m talkin’ Drum circle with it.  Gettin’ jiggy with it- Ma ma ma ma ma Mama.  Hey Mama Macarena.  Okay, I’ll stop.  Last musical snack serving up in the following characters: Even Gerald the Giraffe knows we all can dance when we find music that we love.... (See Giraffes Can’t Dance by: Giles Andreae for more on Gerald and the jungle animal dance)

Here’s the thing.... We’re often shuffling from one activity to the next, lost in our busyness and the charm/allure of defining ourselves based on how “productive” we were that day, how many things we addressed on the “To-Do” list (uggghh I’ve written before on how I feel about this hahaha), or how much we selflessly poured ourselves into others.  I’m talking arms out front Mombie shuffling. Head hits pillow, perhaps a little mindless Netflixing (or maybe just perusing what we can watch on Netflix for 30 minutes and then falling asleep before a commitment could even be conjured!?  Anyone hahaha?) Rinse. Repeat.  We’ve all been there.  But we don’t have to stay there.  And it’s okay to cycle through there sometimes.

Inviting yourself into a deep awareness + mindfulness to notice how you’re approaching your day- on default and Mombie mode vs. powerfully claiming your day and your own unique, vulnerable and Queen status is it on a Mama stick.  Like pee on the stick you’re pregnant purposeful. You have felt that purpose before.  It courses through your blood now.  Be aware of it and participate in it.  

I’m coming out of under the “I’m fine” umbrella.  I’m not even sure what that means.  I don’t think any of us really know.  It’s the Mombie answer.  And plenty of other humans use it too.  It just doesn’t really let anyone in and we feel temporarily assuaged as well that we don’t have to deal emotionally with anything from the person we asked, “How are you?”  I’m just not having this dance anymore.  I’m walking off the Mombie dance floor which is more like a arms out in front people-mover single file escalator.  I’ve hopped off.  And I think you have too.  Let’s flash mob the Mombies that are passing us by in the mall of life and let’s shop til we drop for things that fill our soul.  

Sometimes, I sit down to write, okay most times and then I just think of you and it starts flowing.  I’m in my genius zone sitting here in this life chat with you.  Many mahalos for allowing me to show up and occupy some of your precious mental real estate and fulfill the purpose for which I’ve been created- to connect, uplift, empower, inspire.  I’m showing up massively for myself these days in my un-Mombie yoga pants and this allows me to show up for my babies and all those I love in an energetic expanse that carries me above the “exhausting nights” narrative and into a Mama Mindset which is life giving and sustaining.  

We are raising our children and ourselves as a new generation of Mamas in relation to how tired we are and how good at googling and researching and knowing everything about everything we are.  To me, this is a self-fulfilling recipe for burnout and constantly feeling overwhelmed and not good enough.

So, not surprisingly, in a fight or flight kind of way, we retreat. We play conversational badminton around how we’re really doing, and we shield others (and perhaps ourselves) from the truth by evading questions about how we’re doing. This has become so normalized that is probably is shocking when you show up authentically and vulnerably in conversation socially with other Mamas or any other humans with bold truths.  It’s fun to create a new flow.

Protect your vitality and energy and engage in those who you know will raise your frequency and will invest uplifting energy into your life. And even just for fun to be playful with those who won’t so we can start to awaken the Mombies.

We are all kind of feeding upon this and infecting and reinfecting one another with each conversation that we engage in that doesn’t really make us or the other feel seen or validated.  We do this all the time.  All. The. Time. Even sometimes with posts or milestone cards we’re “3 days late doing” or anything. 

It’s okay to be tired.  It’s okay to need space for yourself.  It’s okay to be exhausted.  It’s okay to be doing effing amazing.  It’s okay for this to be the most blissful and playful and creative chapter of your life.  It’s okay to be struggling.  It’s okay to be falling apart.  It’s okay to crave community.  It’s imperative not to be perfect and to allow your rebirth as a Mama and human to evolve in a way that honors you as a person.

Maybe you were born with it.  Maybe it’s Mamaballine.  Maybe it’s something you created.  Either way, nature’ing and nurturing yourself into this new space as a human, woman, Mama that you’ll occupy for the rest of your days here on earth.

What if, and I want you putting on your purple royal robe rn—>

You walked down that royal hallway in your flowing robes with your glittering crown like the effing Queen that you are. 

What if ... you took the throne and have your doubts and the narrative that you need to be struggling and just surviving and be utterly exhausted and greasy haired and 1 coffee away from being a normal human BEND THE KNEE before you.

What if you played around and asked yourself which parts of the narrative are serving you or adding value to your life and allowed them to stay, and banished the rest from your kingdom  Queendom  henceforth forevermore?!

You’re a Queen. Be a Queen.  Treat yourself with the same dignity and love and respect and protection that you bestow upon your loyal little subjects that have been placed under your care and protection. 

Only you can put the crown on and accept your role.  And believe that you belong on that throne.

Do you think Mamas are Queens?  Do you know that you have the choice for this to be a space in your life in which you feel exalted, more beautiful, more inspired, more creative, more powerful than ever before?

Do you know you have a choice to drop the exhausted/overwhelmed/barely hanging on narrative and write you own story of flourishing/in your flow/inspiring yourself, others, your babies?!

It’s your choice.  The rest is yet unwritten

So consider this your invitation to reexamine the way you’re flowing through life right now.  Is it to your own tune and a song that makes you want to dance like you just don’t cayyyaaa and live out the life of your dreams and boldly pursue that which brings you joy?  Because if it isn’t, pivot. 

How will you show up differently for yourself when you finish reading this?  I’m here to hold space for you, Mama.... that you’re meant to thrive, not just survive. 

So, how does it feel for the way your baby or child slept last night to be external to you (sure it impacts you, I get it believe me), but this doesn’t have to permeate into how You are and how you choose to show up and nourish and nurture yourself everyday.

Choosing language and words to describe yourself in your internal and external dialogue is so important, because as these words are spoken we either go into a mind-body disconnect which doesn’t add to our overall health, or our mind goes to work trying to find proof that what we just said was true to bring harmony.

So this could show up in a more slumped posture after we utter something like, “I’m just doin’ over here..... C woke up 3 times last night so you know....” and a few more conversational Iike this and 3 cold coffees later and you’re living that Mombie life.

And if you’re happy there, then rock that side pony with yesterday’s makeup and your comfy yoga pants.  I’ve been there.  I’m still there sometimes. I see you.

But, I’m here also.  Playing in the visionary energy.  Here showing up in your inboxes because I know there is more for me.  I’m becoming a little more bold, a little more daring, a lot more radically compassionate about honoring my unique soul and the dreams that have been divinely dropped into me each day.

And every time I lean a little bit more into that energy, I feel myself getting lighter and more excited and purposeful.

So let’s drop the Mombie and come play in the energetic exchange of the Mamas that Be.  Mombie—> Mom. Be.

Existing in your own vitality and creativity.  Thriving.  As you are.

So drop the Mombie script.  You’re alive.  Alive.  You get to be in this.  Mindfully. Presently.  Vigorously.  Playfully.  Creatively.  Uniquely.  Intentionally.

Consider this fair warning that if we ever life chat in person.... I’m not playing Mombie with you.  I’ll ask you how you’re doing but probably in a question form you’re not expecting like “What do you love?” Or “How is today in alignment with your dreams?”  I steer toward open-ended questions when I can so I can hear another’s organic thoughts and I’m out to break up the monotony of the elevator one-word barely acknowledging each other exchanges.  I’m just not into them.  If that’s all someone can give me or offer at the time, then I accept it.  But I’m a sunglasses down, look you in the eyes and engage kind of human.  I think we all crave it and we can have a heap of a lot less Mombies uniting after reading this today.  

Circling back to readdress our inner Mombies: I think we playfully throw around to one another in reflex conversation and discuss how we’re doing in relation to how much our child “allowed” us to sleep the night prior.

Like we just skip over ourselves a lot and answer another’s expected question into “How are you doing?” In a repetitive dance with no creative expression around how we’re really doing as we deflect it onto how our child is sleeping/doing.

Look, I’ve been there twice and also done plenty of 28 hour shifts in the hospital without any sleep taking care of the patients entrusted to me. So, I’ve been there in the trenches with you with sleep deprivation.  Sleep is medicine.  Sleep hygiene is the bees knees.  I’ll choose to elaborate on sleep safety for Mamas and babies another day another keyboard jam sesh.  I’m still finding my recipe truth be told. 

And in my clinical practice, I jokingly ask new Mamas how they’re doing living on “____ (insert name) central time zone” in the early days.

I’m increasingly aware, and want to offer that what if this wasn’t truly serving us though and it was setting up the dialogue to continue, even unknowingly, as we moved forward into not truly answering questions about ourselves. We learn to shrink early and then fall into a comfortable pattern of answering how we’re doing in relationship to a person who isn’t even us.  How bizarre.  How bizarre.  Every time I look around.... hahaha so many musical pupus today (Hawaiian for appetizer) 

Certainly, our children are part of our soul and our role as their Mama is majestically sacred.  I fully claim this and embrace this.  I want to invite us to consider that it is most sacred when our own inner sanctuary is calibrated to a place of peace.

When we’re willing to constantly reflect and take inventory of really how we’re doing.  And when we stop hiding behind answers about our children when people ask how we’re doing. Because, it becomes as natural as the default answer on the elevator we give to “How’s your day going?”  With “Good” or “Fine” without any real exchange of human emotion or vulnerability.

So, what if you claimed that your birthright as a human, woman, Mama was to be thriving, not just surviving?!? In all of it:

• Pregnancy
• Labor & Delivery
• 4th trimester (the first three months of being a new Mama)
• Mamahood
• All of it 

What if you re-wrote the narrative to one that honored your life energy and your story?!? Dropping the “I’m so tired and exhausted” and all the words that don’t serve you.

And I do want to give a shout out to the Mombie.  She is functioning day and night and she is doing all the things.  We’ve all been there.

Personally, I’ve been on both sides of the Mombie life: working 90+ hours a week in the hospital as a Pediatrician and also in the home 24/7 with 2 little ones.  I honor all Mamas.  

Bottom Line: The narrative of suffering is just not serving any woman, any Mama.

• The notion that you have to suffer through the 1st trimester & pregnancy
• That you just have to “get through” the last few months of pregnancy, rolling yourself out of bed with momentum and your swollen feet and you just can’t wait to “get your body back”
• That labor and delivery is a period of suffering intense pain.  I truly feel that this robs us of the primal strength + boundless joy + power we’re meant to feel that is our birthright.
• That you have to suffer through exhaustion and the early period of parenting  a newborn.
• That you have to be a frazzled, greasy hair, Mombie
• That you have to endure the two and three-nager, not to mention the middle school pre teen/tween years and the teenage years ahead.  These times are so magically amazing as their personalities are evolving.  

What if this was a completely voluntary narrative we could rewrite?!?

I’m exiting stage left, or is it stage right?!  Actually, Eff it, I’m crowdsurfing from the front of the stage because I know you Mamas will catch me, and lift me and carry me.

Life chat coming to a close with these mental Mama fireworks to boom boom our Mombie from her slumber and into savoring herself and her place in this world... her place in this world...  no longer needing to roam through the night to find her place in this world... thanks Michael W. Smith for that (truly last musical innuendo, promise.  I think.)

• We can choose to rewrite this narrative
• What if Motherhood was inherently created to be massively, endlessly empowering?!?
  • We don’t apologize for anything related to how we feel
  • No belittling
  • No minimizing
  • No harmonizing with popular Mama memes
  • No suffering
  • Embracing a clean pain concept- one in which all of our emotions are for us and are our teachers

So here you are: empowered, strong, tired as a Mother, claiming your power.

• Allowing birth and rebirth continually as a Mama at all phases to serve you
• You have arrived
• Pausing for station identification.  I’m just in my zone here writing this being a Midwife for Mama souls.  So deeply feel my gratitude. Mahalo Mama.

You are capable of anything you set you mind to. You are literally shepherding souls through their lives. We’re taught and modeled to check out on our own life, maybe with a massage or random hotel night to sleep 10-12 hours thrown in there. No.

Reject.  Redirect.  Course correct.  Recalculating.

Your route is one to prosperity now. Right now.  Enjoying the journey.  Experiencing peace.  Being passionate pursuing your dreams while living into your genius zone as a Mama.

Infusing Humor into the hard things

Claiming your creativity as your secret sauce.  There is nothing you can’t figure out and flow with.  

Be the CEO your own life.

Rewrite your story

You’re not playing small now or ever again.

Mama mic drop.