Downtown St. George & online across utah
parenting counselor for family stress
Motherhood has changed you
your family growing has been anything but linear
Sometimes you don’t recognize yourself
Some days it all feels too much
Matrescence:
the forgotten rite of passage of motherhood
Change is certain. Awareness and framework is powerful.
Sure, the birth of a child is a defining moment in motherhood, but there is so much more on all fronts that come to life leading up to and beyond that one moment. You struggled to keep up with the constant changes before, but motherhood has never stopped making you ask yourself who am I now and where did I go ever since it began. It’s been a long road, and it’s not any lack of love for your kids; it’s just not always loving every part of life as a mom. Loving your children doesn’t erase trauma or grief. Maybe you’ve always wondered how certain circumstances or parts of your story effected your kids, and whether it’s too late to do anything about it anyways. Unnamed experiences can start to feel like personal failings. There was never time to give to processing things. It’s easy to feel lost in motherhood. You can feel invisible. Sometimes the hardest part of motherhood is hard to explain.
You feel like you’re drowning in surface level validation and starving for real understanding of what your life has come to. Everyone had plenty to say about the babies. No body told you about what would happen to you. Nobody told you you’d feel like a stranger in your own life at times. That you’d love your children completely and still grieve something you can’t find words for. That it’s lonely even though you’re never actually alone. That you’d keep waiting to see your old self again.
The confusion you felt was never a personal flaw, it was a gap in information. Life will never be the same again; you’re not the same, for good reason. You didn’t fail because motherhood broke you open. Motherhood has a way of exposing every place we’ve never been allowed to heal. Your nervous system has been trying to protect you with everything it learned.
Sound familiar?
You’re not lost. You’re in matrescence.
What if becoming a mother was a permanent shift in who you are? Not a temporary disruption to who you were? It’s just that you’ve been going through one of the most profound transitions and developmental phases of your life without the language, a map, or the mindset to navigate it. Your story, since your first thoughts around growing a family, in fact, has a name. It’s the developmental process of becoming a mother. The term Matrescence was coined in 1970s by an anthropologist Dana Raphael, but since disappeared primarily because much of our culture’s focus is primarily centered on the baby.
Whether you know it or not, you’ve been on a journey encompassing physical, psychological and emotional transformations and in scope to that of adolescence. Identity changes, relationships changes. You didn’t suddenly get more reactive in motherhood. The rage and following shame are messages. There are seasons in matrescence, ones with more intense developmental leaps, it truly never ends, so there is even another wave in grandmotherhood, and it is ever-changing. After all, once postpartum, always postpartum.
Every mother on the planet goes through it. Most of us think it’s just me. Understanding matrescence changes that. The process of becoming a mother isn’t something that happens immediately, it takes time, it’s meant to, it’s a process. It takes learning and adjusting. When we name matrescence, we don’t “fix” mothers—motherhood is not the problem, we understand what moms are going through in a way our culture has neglected for far too long.
Imagine if families, partners, workplaces and healthcare providers all knew this term? Right now there is a movement happening across the world that matrescence is an important part of maternal mental health care.
reorient
How’s your matrescence going?
How much less lonely so many people would feel if this was normal to hear? Maybe because if we knew that every mom struggled with parts of it, we wouldn’t struggle so much ourselves.
Motherhood changes every fiber, cell, every area. And with little understanding, support, and deep compassion, it can be the end of you.
When you have language and context to what you’ve been experiencing you’ll be able to navigate your journey without frustration, overwhelm, shame or isolation.
heal
Millenial mothers are experiencing midlife different
The “good girl” that became the “perfect mom,” until something snapped inside her. Motherhood can feel like an awakening, and that needs a framework. Matrescence is the perspective that turns self-doubt into self-understanding. What if your mom rage was the little girl inside you finally trying to find her voice?
So much co-exists in parenthood: strength and struggle, grief and gratitude, creativity and exhaustion.
all moms feels this
uncover your magic
let motherhood change you
Motherhood isn’t the problem. The silence around it the changes that happen when we become a mother that is. Your motherhood self is your wildest self. Somedays it’s going to be hard. The goal isn’t to make motherhood itself easier, it’s to make navigating it easier.
Forgive yourself. You’ve always made the best decisions with the knowledge you had at the time.
Explore exactly what happens to you since you became a mom, no matter how long ago that was.
Slow down long enough to meet her - the mother you’ve become.
why start with you?
+ Focusing on yourself is the most powerful and effective thing anyone can do, and, ultimately, it’s the only thing you can control. Ironically, when you focus on what’s in your control, you are more likely to influence your kids to do the same as well.
+ When life doesn’t go as planned, parenthood entails some aspect of grieving.
+ Imagine giving yourself permission to scoop up “little you” and offering them what they needed and didn’t get when they were little, only to find that you then don’t unintentionally fall into exactly what you hoped to avoid in your own life and family.
BRainspotting for parents
+ A brainspotting session starts with an emotionally charged issue, and it’s certain that our children have and will activate our nervous system. Brainspotting is proven to address anxiety, stress, and chronic pain. Often, on your own, you can locate a field of vision or place in your body that you notice an increase of emotions or sensations. Exploring that “brainspot” with an experienced therapist invites processing from the bottom-up and from the inside-out, which means lasting changes with stubborn blocks. Many clients talk about symptoms that kept resurfacing in their lives to be accessed and discharged through healing with brainspotting.
If you’re ready to…
01
connect the dots of what you experienced becoming a mother
02
Get to the roots of things that contribute to family conflicts by balancing a sense of self and knowing your boundaries.
03
Have more courage to talk about hard things with your kids.
04
Know how understanding Matrescence is magic
matrescence is the cornerstone of navigating modern day motherhood
I am a mom,
and i am me.
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When we think about the family as a system, like a bicycle, when a part is not functioning it is a sign of how all the parts are working together; each person plays a role to the overall functioning of the family unit.
Seeing an individual within the context of their family constellation allows important dynamics to be considered and reveals things that are easily pushed to the corner of our consciousness as sheer coincidences—when they are often key to finding our own happiness and wellbeing.
Therapy for families can help with improved communication, understanding family dynamics, conflict resolution, strengthening relationships, addressing behavioral issues, coping with transitions and life changes, crisis intervention, promoting healthy boundaries, building resilience, or, for a specific issue.
Willingness improves outcome, of course.
It is important upon outset we set clear expectations to the nature of the relationship for therapy when working with family members and, when needed, to address any potentially conflicting roles.
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One of the top struggles reported today by seasoned parents is technology and screen time.
Understandably, when you consider what it opens up.
Additional struggles often include, but are not limited to, balancing work and family life, parenting during the age of social media, recognizing and addressing mental health issues in both themselves and children, working through stigmas that can come with that, education and schooling, financial pressures, dealing with societal pressures, balancing individual needs and family needs, cultural or generational differences, and even global challenges.
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Sure, we could conceptualize broad phases for the sake of framework:
Anticipation and pregnancy
Infancy
Early childhood
School-aged years
Adolescence
Young adulthood
Empty next
Grandparenthood
But it’s more important to note that these are generalizations and individual experiences vary, especially when we consider the modern family. Each season comes with its own joys and challenges, and opportunities for growth and connection.