📸 💦 Story Behind a Photo 💦 📸

Aloha Mamas!

Mahalo for your valuable insight, and raw and vulnerable feedback on the journey to choosing a logo which reflects Mama Mindset.

This has been an exciting and expansive energetic journey for me.  It’s amazing to me the level of gratitude vibrations we can exist within when collaborating with people we feel truly aligned with.  There were so many designers eager to jump on board with the mission and vision of Mama Mindset and to create a logo and visual branding that would appeal to Mamas around the world.  The designers I wound up working the most closely with were from France, Sri Lanka and Montenegro.  It’s so fascinating to me that here from the south shores of Maui, I could float my ideas to them where they were received at all hours of international timelines and we collaborated in continued harmony.

The culmination of Mama Mindset’s logo is ongoing, and I will keep you on radar and up to date on that.  It has always been important to me from the outset to serve all Mamas in the expectant and postpartum period.  And I truly feel that postpartum is forever.  We commonly define it as the first 12 weeks (4th Trimester) which is our initial introduction into Motherhood and then Mothering multiple children in successive pregnancies seasons and birth experiences.

I’m riding some serious waves of momentum and late night messaging and design sessions.  The culmination of all of this creativity and design vibes shared between myself and the amazing artists illustrates what Mama Mindset is about.  I’m so thrilled with the trajectory.  Empowering Mamas in the expectant and postpartum period.  Inviting you to step into your own power and the reflection staring back at you.

It truly is the ongoing story for me of how amazing it is that I am leaning into this sacred work, this space that connects you, Mama, to the adventure that is your life. 

I had a visceral reaction to one of the designs because the designer went to the website and was able to create an image that To culminate the creativity + design, collaborate with amazing artists to illustrate what Mama Mindset is about 

In this weekly wave life chat, I wanted to give you a behind-the-scenes (BTS for the millennial linguists) on the design evolution for Mama Mindset logo and where I am navigating it currently.

I’m claiming the power and the creativity, innovation and resilience that went into the designs here.  This is an exquisite project that culminated in a beautiful surge of momentum (Mamamentum) forward for Mama Mindset. It also set into motion some friendships around the world that are incredible.  I love the serendipity of life and will forever find a way to weave that word into a sentence.  Also, I’m obsessed with the movie Serendipity.  I’m not a movie re-watcher, I’m a one and done with movies with very few exceptions, Serendipity being one of them.  Also, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Lorax, Sweet Home Alabama, maybe a few others lurk in there but not many.  Anyway, Serendipity with Kate Beckinsale + John Cusack is a must watch, IMHO.  My college bestie and I went on a roommate date to see it at Sunset Place in Coral Gables, Florida.  So good.  The stars in the sky, they’re Cassiopeia.  Okay, I’m done.

Anyway, Mamas, I chose designs #126 and #136 as winning designs for vastly different reasons.  I also cherished the whimsical Mother holding her child and baby wearing with the delicate leaves.  I could gaze upon that image and the color scheme all the livelong day.  Would still love to have it up as artwork in my home one day.  Truly the originality infused into that exquisite design will be something I always cherish. That designer is amazingly talented and we’re staying on radar with one another for some upcoming projects.

#126 Is the 2 M’s juxtaposed with one another.  It is accessible and recognizable.  It appeals to all Mamas. It remains  of utmost importance to me that the logo of Mama Mindset conveys that.  Mamas are welcome here.  It is safe to rise. It is safe to feel.  This is a space to be validated, recognized, uplifted and seen.  To fall apart and to come back together. It is possible that an image of a mother and child may be triggering for a number of reasons: child loss and grief, infertility, post partum anxiety, post partum depression, or any other number of emotions or traumas that occur in motherhood when we experience our own journeys, compare, feel Mom guilt or shame.  So it was imperative to have a strong, soothing, bold and welcoming, meditative and powerful image to convey Mama Mindset.  One without an ideal image of what a Mother and child “should” look like- I’ve banned the word should from my vocabulary and energetic space because it’s so stagnant… and yet it creeps back in for me as I’m sure it does for you too, Mama.  We oftentimes do employ “I should” in its various and insidious forms, or it is heard in our inner mean girl dialogue. 

This image allows for you to come as you are, to create and forge your own path without having one drawn up for you.  We are visual creatures, we are drawn to comparison and the energy within Mama Mindset seeks to ground you in your own neutrality, in your own truth, in your own path, in your own peace, in your own brilliance and power, firmly within your divinely guided DNA as a woman and Mama to boldly write your own story.  That is why I chose this image.  

And now for the BTS story for this week.  Diving in raw and real into the refreshing waters of vulnerability that are becoming easier to immerse into week by week showing up here.  I wrote at first for all of you, and then realized writing to myself was the most powerful way I could tap into my vulnerability and share my inner dialogue.

Design #136 may look similar to the photo that you see on the cover of this blog.  It holds sacred significance for me and here’s why: The image is actually one of me in my Hapai (pregnancy) season with Cruz Kekoa (my newly 2 yo son) and holding Camden (my newly 5 yo daughter) up in the waters just a walk down the street from our home in Maui.  It’s in a little lagoon not frequently visited (but I’ll gladly show you if you come visit!) here on the Valley Isle.  It was a season in which I felt so much joy and promise and passion at the life growing within me and the one I held up in my arms in my little mermaid… and yet I was still so unsettled and not at rest in my soul of setting myself free to dream, to deep dive into the space that I now write to you from within.  I still held onto deeply ingrained limiting beliefs and stories about what I felt I needed to be as a Physician, and had a ticking time clock of what I felt my life “should” (there I go in the past now thank goodness “shoulding” on myself) look like, how much precious time I would get with my babies before the timer was up and I had to go back to “real life.”  It was deeply sad really, and power revoking, the limitations and self imposed ceiling. 

In this picture, on this day, I remember JD capturing this raw moment in which I felt blissfully free and in my element.  There were rays coming through the clouds that day at the beach and also through my mind at what life could look like.  I was the Mama.  I felt completely empowered and whole in this role at that moment.  Dreaming and living into the expansiveness, into the invitation to soar and immerse into the prosperity waiting to flow into my life, as vast as the ocean behind and surrounding me.  I need only surrender to it.  There were many moments and a growing courage within me to surrender.  I had made some major career moves in medicine when this picture was taken, recently declining a prestigious job offer on O’ahu, moving to Maui for another job offer and we actually purchased our first home that I now write to you from (and that we can walk down to this whimsical lagoon) close to this job offer I accepted so I could breastfeed the new baby when they were born.  That job also fell through for reasons originally unforseen, and this picture is taken just after I had listened to my intuition and pivoted away from that opportunity.  I was leaning into the growing truth that to create, to live my one wild and precious life, I would have to embrace the courage to pursue my dreams, and even more bravery to walk away form them when they weren’t serving me anymore.

So here I was, feeling beautiful in my bikini with a growing baby holding up my first dream come true. Dreaming but not yet consistently daring.  Knowing that I was meant for more but not yet allowing in all the prosperity and abundance into my life. The ocean has always symbolized for me endless prosperity, endless wealth, endless energy, surging abundance, health and vitality.  Strength and consistency. 

So this image is me on my path of traveling from the overwhelm I felt at many moments on the journey to motherhood, in pregnancy, in the postpartum period… to the peace I now exist within.  The same path I desire for all Mamas.  It’s sacred to me because I’ve lived and walked this path and still do each and every day.  Mama Mindset is not a job or work that I do, but a life calling that I live into each and every moment alongside you, Mama.

The artist understood my vision and actually went to my website and was inspired by the image that he found there.  I had a visceral reaction to the image when he first sent it.  And I’ve learned to pay attention to the wisdom my body holds.  It’s an ongoing skill I’m cultivating to tune into.  

Did you notice the dove that is woven into the negative space in the image between pregnant Mother (me!) and child (Camden)?!  I actually didn’t notice it for a while (days) of reviewing the images. I initially just thought it was the little boomerang line that was the dove between haha.  I’m not usually one of the first people to see the “hidden” designs in pictures and I’m fascinated by the neurobiology within all of that. And when I did see it and it dawned on me….it was so moving for me. I initially just thought it was the little boomerang line that was the dove between haha. The dove symbolizes peace and the transition from overwhelm to peace that each Mama can choose to take.

So this image captures my vision for all Mamas…. To travel from overwhelm to peace, to celebrate the life they desire and the dreams that have been divinely dropped into their soul.  To claim the prosperity and health and vitality available to them and to feel and live into their genius zone as a Mama.  Knowing, believing, being guided by their Mamatuition (their Mama intuition!) that knows the way.

That you can choose to dismiss the limiting beliefs and stories that no longer serve you… to release them and cleanse your gorgeous soul of these forevermore.

The me in this photograph was on her way to this delicious freedom.  And so are you.

I am so proud of the Mama in this photo for moving the energy in her vulnerability, compassion and empathy to serve other Mamas in a way and in a space into which I knew I was called.  I had known it holding the hands of Mamas (long before I was one myself) on the Pediatric Cancer units gazing at their beautiful angels earthside and some already on their way ascending back to the heaves from which they were perfectly and wonderfully made.  I knew it holding a Mama sobbing with the wail of grief and trauma post code and calling the death of her child.  These moments would haunt me, and yet also in their sacred quality of seeing her strength and her soul and her undying love even as her child was called from this world.  The raw strength of Mamas.  In the delivery room as I would introduce myself to the Mama about to perform the primal dance of destiny welcoming a new miracle into the world, as I would wait by the incubator to start the clock once baby arrived, check out baby, provide any assistance from a Pediatric medical perspective if the OB had requested my presence and assign an APGAR score.  Oh, how I loved swaddling up those perfect bundles and putting on their little knitted hats and handing them back to Mamas with a reassuring look that no further intervention was required.  And when the NICU was required, I prayed that I conveyed to them a sense of calm and peace and that they were the instrument of an absolute miracle that would now carry her energy forward in their healing journey and finding their way back to her arms.  

I knew I could be in this space- in the happy and in the horror and all of it in between because it’s what I’m called to do and how I naturally show up.  There is joy and exuberance, there is great sorrow, there is confusion and doubt, bliss and pure joy, deliberation and desperate exhaustion.  We are called to experience the depths of our emotions, to validate them all and to surrender to the divine journey that is motherhood.  

I pray giving a window into my heart and how I feel divinely guided to form this space is a transparent invitation for you to enter and to connect to the adventure of your life… to know that you are divinely guided and there is no trauma or emotion where you cannot emerge healed, whole, and triggered to surrender to your inner power and peace.  

I chose these designs because there is a window into a Mama’s soul, a vulnerability that is necessary to know that we are safe to rise.  We are safe to fall apart and come back together in an entirely new and ever expansive way.  That we get to write our own stories of what Motherhood looks like, feels like for us… creating this ongoing dialogue over consuming the content that is put out for us by others and by society.  This is my everlasting prayer for you…. To illustrate your own chapter and to feel all the ways in which your story is vibrant and worthy of being told.