The past few weeks have been fairly tumultuous for me. Well, I suppose the past 9 weeks really, and before that, as I dealt with a very uncomfortable pregnancy, a surprisingly quick birth, and now being mostly home alone with a newborn baby and a lively toddler. During this time I have been totally immersed in being a mother, and being the carer in our house. My husband works a full time job that is very demanding, and he is the breadwinner, so I have to let him get on with it for practical financial reasons. But I am not happy about the situation. He has been working a lot of overtime during recent months, at a time when I really needed him at home to support the children and me.
I tried to pretend everything was fine. I can handle it. After all, I am not the only mother to be in this situation. Indeed I am very lucky to have a loving husband who cares enough about his family to work himself to the bone in order to provide a comfortable home and food on the table. I know that. But it didn’t help when I was stuck in the house with a screaming baby and a toddler who refuses to cooperate with simple tasks such as having breakfast in the morning. I seem to spend my time rushing around trying to do all the little insignificant jobs that are actually also very demanding, very time consuming, and necessary to the well being of our family.
Needless to say I became frustrated. I never wanted to be the ‘bored housewife’ filling a stereotypical role. And yet somehow I have allowed it to happen. I have become the thing I detested the most, and now I have mixed emotions about it all. I am incredibly happy to be a mother. My maternal instincts kicked in as soon as my eldest daughter was born. Both of my babies took to breastfeeding without any problems, I recovered well from their births, and outwardly I am the picture of calm and controlled domesticity. But that is so not the case! I am anxious, irritable, grumpy and often swing from happy to angry in the space of about two seconds. And my poor husband usually takes the brunt of it.
Over the weekend I seriously began to wonder if I had postnatal depression, albeit a mild form. I have now concluded that I don’t. Instead I took some time to work my magick while we were experiencing the Dark Moon on Friday night. Witches often work magick for banishing and clearing during this moon phase. The theory is that as the moon is obscured and prepares to grow whole again, so we can banish and clear away any negative attitudes, behaviours and disorders that are troubling us or upsetting our daily lives. I actually drew out my ritual, since my baby would not allow for a full deep meditation. I found that it is just as effective.
I lit my ritual candles (including a black one to symbolize the clearing), I used a sage smudge stick to cleanse the air inside my home, and I worked with my Reiki crystal pendulum and a clear quartz point that had selected itself for the job. All I did was use the crystals and candle as a focal point, and I meditated on what has been bothering me lately, and how I can improve it. And it really worked!
On Monday, for the first time in many months, I was able to drop off my daughter at pre-school on time. And then I collected her on time. No rushing, no stress about being late and being a bad mother. Nope. I am done with it. Don’t get me wrong; it is not totally cleared. I have a lot of work to do with my husband and the structure of our relationship at the moment. But it will all be sorted in good time. I am strong. I can handle this. And I hope that for whoever is drawn to read this post, if you are in a similar situation, you can gain some perspective, strength and good advice from it. Feel free to get in touch if you need to talk…
*Busy Mother image courtesy of PennysaverUSA; Mabon altar from personal archive
