Learn about self-mothering practices that will infuse your days with nurturing care. From gentle morning routines to midday check-ins and soothing evening rituals, Kaileen shares personal stories and practical tips for self-mothering. Discover how these small, intentional actions can cultivate a deeper connection with yourself.
Join the NEW class on Manifesting with Self-Care: https://kaileenelise.myflodesk.com/manifesting-with-self-care
Go to the show notes: https://www.kaileenelise.com/podcast/self-mothering-rituals
Book a session with Kaileen: https://www.kaileenelise.com/coaching
Join Kaileen’s free weekly newsletter, A Moment: https://www.kaileenelise.com/newsletter
Give the show 5-stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify!
(gentle music) - How can you bring more self-mothering to your everyday life? We're gonna get into that and more in today's conversation. I'm Kayleen Elise Seuss, your intuition coach and host of the Celebrate Cultivate podcast. And this is episode 176. Self-mothering is the practice of giving yourself the motherly love that we all need and deserve and crave. It is similar to self-care. It is similar to re-parenting, but it's a little different. So as you're listening to this conversation, let it be an invitation to explore these concepts for yourself and to land on the definition and the expression that feels best and right for you. Let it be a fluid expression instead of a rigid container. So give yourself the permission and the opportunity to explore and see what feels good for you. I'm a huge fan of self-care and honestly, in some ways, I feel like my whole life is self-care, but that can seem very selfish to some. Like if you're always putting yourself first, then are you selfish? Well, kind of depends on your intentions and the energy behind it, right? If you go along with that air mask, airplane, analogy of like put your mask on first before you put somebody else's on, that makes sense. You don't want to pass out before you can do anybody any good. But in everyday life, there are so many moments, especially as a business owner, a creative or mother, just an everyday person walking on the street where we do put the needs and the feelings of others before ourselves, especially as women. So this idea of self-mothering gives you an opportunity to kind of rise up from beyond your singular perspective and look at how would you care for yourself if you were your own mother? Not in an effort to replace your mom because that's impossible. And then oftentimes not necessary, but to do your care and do your life in a way that feels loving and nurturing and supportive and from a greater perspective. Mothers just by mathematics have more experience than their children, more life lived. Again, that doesn't mean that moms across the world are always doing things in the best and right way. On the contrary, as a mom of three little children right now, I'm often just doing things to the best of my ability. And even when I am frustrated or challenged at the heart of things I really want to do right by my children and I love them fiercely. That love that I have for my children is something that is more difficult to have for myself. But when I put that lens of self-mothering onto it and onto my life, it becomes a little bit easier. An example that I can give is putting on lotion. So for one, I don't always love putting on lotion and I don't always do it in the most gentle way. But becoming a mom, I always wanted to be more gentle than I was naturally with my babies and now with my older kids. When I have to put lotion on my daughter because she has such dry and sensitive skin, she hates it. She resists it. She fights me on it constantly. So I do what I can to make that experience more enjoyable, more palatable and easier for the both of us. Sometimes that means putting on a show for her. Sometimes that means explaining to her why. And other times it means just getting that lotion on as quick and easily as possible for all of us so we can just be done with it. And the same is true for me when I can find a lotion that feels really good and has a pretty package that I like, maybe a smell that I enjoy or maybe no smell. There is an ease at which I go to put on lotion. If I'm listening to a great podcast or audiobook while I do my lotion, that's really nice or sometimes I'll make sure that I have the right cozy clothes to put on after I put on my lotion 'cause I don't like having that cold skin feeling after you put on lotion and just bare legs. So all of these things that I think through as a mother in the topic of lotion are things that I can smooth over to myself. It has a twofold effect in the sense of, it's not only supporting me, but also it gives me a bigger awareness of how I am mothering my daughter in a really kind loving way, even when I'm like lapping on the lotion and getting it over as fast as possible because that's not how it always is. Sometimes we make a whole vibe of it. So when it comes to bringing these daily rituals and practices to your own life, use that as inspiration and look at the significant sections of your day. So easy to look at beginning, middle and end. And when it comes to daily rituals and building in rituals that incorporate self-mothering, the beginning is often a very small chunk of the day. The ending is a small chunk of the day and then the middle is like all of the meat in the sandwich. So maybe for you, there are different elements of the sandwich that make up your middle of the day. Maybe you have rituals that are tied around your work or rituals tied around the daily rhythms in your household. Whatever it is, look at ways that you can infuse a motherly comfort and love with yourself. In the example of the lotion, there's also a boundary and a firmness about it. Even though my daughter doesn't like getting lotion put on her body, it is a frustrating thing that she doesn't feel like it's fair that she has to do when her brother doesn't need it because his skin isn't as naturally itchy and dry as hers is. I still do it because it is helpful for her and ultimately it will benefit her. So the same thing applies to your own life when you're feeling kind of grumpy and yucky and maybe it's like overcast. You could very easily decide, I'm not gonna go for a walk today. And sometimes that decision to not go for a walk and instead to like listen to your favorite podcast and flip through magazines, maybe that is the choice that serves you best. But other times you know that going for a walk is gonna make you feel better and it's probably not gonna rain. So if you just get yourself out there and give yourself the out that if it starts raining, I'll walk back home, no big deal. Then you're setting yourself up for a more consistent daily walk. And that firm boundary that you might have with yourself as a mother self-mothering is going to feel supportive and loving. We're doing this for our benefits and we're gonna do it in a way that feels as good as possible. And I don't want you to go suffer and walk in the rain. We'll just have you walk home and get some tea if that's what happens. So this idea is a little bit playful. It's a little bit of a magic trick in a sense of doing the things that you know are good for you but making it in this motherly way. In the beginning of the day, that might look like having a big glass of water before you drink your coffee. It might be having your coffee without the drama that you need a certain amount of protein or water or whatever before your coffee. This is a mental exercise that I've been going through recently, which is that I feel in my social media circles. And in the newsletters that I'm subscribed to, there's a lot of people quitting coffee. There's a lot of people eating the macros before they drink their coffee. And I've been exploring for me personally, like is that something that I need to do? And my inner voice has been telling me, no, like just have your coffee with no drama, right? So again, this is another way of bringing your inner voice into it, but also the self-mothering aspect might be in the self-mothering. No, you don't need to worry about that. You are not having any jitters. You are not having any anxiety. This is a fine thing for you to do. So don't worry about the stuff that your friends are talking about, right? Like if I came to my mom and had that conversation, that might be how it go. Now, not my mom personally, because I don't actually have a relationship with my mother and I've shared that in past episodes, but the metaphorical mom stands. So in your morning practices, what are the daily rituals that you can bring in that will cultivate that connection with yourself, that motherly love with yourself, that could be journaling, meditation, pulling an oracle card. It could be sitting and watching the rainfall, watching the candle flicker, right? Having a moment of quiet, cuddly connection with yourself to start the day. It doesn't have to be complex. It doesn't have to be long, but just a touch base with yourself in a nurturing, loving fashion. In the middle of the day, some of those rituals and practices might be checking in with yourself before you check in with your to-do list. So instead of letting your to-do list run you, letting your inner voice help you plan your day, it's important to have to-do lists for some of us. I am in flow whether or not I'm using a to-do list. Some days I do, some seasons I do, other times I'm in a total flowy place where I just go with what comes. I'm kind of in a hybrid right now where I have some objectives each day that I want to focus on, things that I want to focus on each season, and I'm working my way through those. But coming and checking into your intuition is always going to give you that sense of clarity that so often we crave and we often seek it through doing instead of tuning in. So giving yourself time to check in with your intuition before you go about your work, whatever your work is, that's one act of self-mothering. Another midday act might be going outside and getting some fresh air for a minute or 30 or an hour. Maybe that's a movement practice. In the middle of the day, you might find that you need a little creative outlet or expression. So if you need to pull out your fiction book or doodle or flip through a magazine, like giving yourself the space and the permission to do that, however small or big that it needs to be. Other midday rituals could be burning a candle, turning on music, checking in with what feels good and right for me right now, and making that a priority, and then making it as nurturing and loving as you can in the practice. Before we go any further, I want to invite all of my high-achieving, woo-leaning listeners to an all-new self-paced class that combines two of my favorite topics, manifesting and self-care. I know y'all love multitasking, so why not use this superpower for some serious good in your life? Manifesting with self-care will give you the space and reminders you need to prioritize your well-being while also calling in your desires. It's totally self-paced and created to be impactful while not having a ton of extra busy work because ain't nobody got time for that. When you sign up, you'll get access to video lessons, meditations, rituals, and more. This class will help you tend to your energy, cultivate your desires, and rest in the sometimes most difficult, but always transformative space of receiving. If you've ever joined one of my past online retreats or classes like Magical May, Summer and Flow, or the OG of them all celebrate Cultivate before it was a podcast, then you're going to love this class. Manifesting with self-care costs $222 and drops on August 19th. You can go ahead and sign up now at calenealease.com or by clicking the link in your podcast app. I can't wait to see you there. So back to some of those midday rituals. The other things that you can do are things that you're already doing in your everyday life and making them a ritual. So lunch, for example, happens at some point in the middle of the day. Number one, making sure that you are hungry and that you are eating when you're hungry and giving yourself the time and space to tune into that hunger and feeding, nourishing your hunger with foods that feel good and aligned for you. So if you think about, again, using my daughter as an example, she is currently in a phase where every time we turn around, something that she used to really love eating doesn't taste good to her anymore. And that's fine, that's normal, that happens. It can be frustrating for the person assembling lunches to discover that the lunch has not been eaten. And yet the aim is to find foods that do taste good to her so that she can be nourished as she goes about her days. Same thing applies to us as adults. And when you're in the practice of self-mothering, it is checking in with like, oh, does she like this? Is this going to taste good to her? How can I make this lunch a little bit more yummy and a little bit more fun and a little bit more enjoyable? So you can infuse that self-mothering into your lunch or into your afternoon snack or into your drink break. Whatever it is that you do throughout your day, you just pause for a moment before you do it and think about how you can infuse that self-mothering similar to our past episode that we've had here on the show about blessing the forks, the blessing of the forks ritual. I'll include that in the show notes for today's episode as well so you can go and check that out. If you haven't heard it yet, if you have heard it, then you know I have a client with a beautiful connection to her inner voice and in a point in her life that was very challenging, her inner voice guided her to really slow down in her daily chores and instead of listening to podcasts and trying to like pack as much productivity into doing the laundry and putting away the dishes, her inner voice really guided her to use that as a time to connect to her inner voice but also to infuse love in the things that her children were touching on an everyday basis like their clothes and their forks. So as she put away the forks, her inner voice told her to bless those forks because they would be the forks that her children will use later to eat their meals and then they will receive the love that she infused in those forks. You can apply that same love-filled action to yourself and to your self-mothering practice by putting away your laptop in a loving way that like pour some gratitude into your laptop as it goes into your bag and as you pull it out, thinking your laptop and thinking yourself and thinking your creativity for arriving at the time that you work, right? So this is just another way to look at self-care. The other thing that you can do is at the end of the day, the closing of the day as a mother of small children and if you have little kids or have ever dealt with children, the night can be a very magical time but it can also be a really challenging time. Same is true for adults, right? It can be really hard to shut things down, to slow your mind down, to like not watch 15 episodes on the show that you're really into, to have those sperm boundaries and get yourself to bed and to have a nourishing routine in the evening that feels good. So some of the obvious rituals and practices for self-mothering in the evening can include pausing just for a moment before you go to bed, just by yourself, doing nothing, taking a minute to breathe before you brush your teeth, before you wash your face, just being in stillness for a moment and then going about the routine that you have and infusing love and gratitude and reflection and intention setting for the next day. So the night is this magical time but it isn't always when we don't pause to acknowledge the magic or it is magical regardless but we just kind of bulldoze right through it to get on to the next day. So slowing down, maybe giving yourself space away from technology or experiencing your technology with intention and awareness and not letting it rule you but simply being with it, right? I watch a show almost every single night with my husband and or if he's not watching a show with me, I'll watch my own shows and I do it as a way of unwinding and unplugging from my day and plugging into some other interesting space and time and story, right? And how can I add more self-mothering to it? Maybe just making sure that I have cozy socks on and if I want to snack, taking a moment to make myself a really nice snack or not having a snack because I don't actually need one, it's just a habit, right? Like when your kids ask for a snack and you're like, "No, you're done, you don't need any more food," but doing it in a loving, nurturing way. I continue to say that loving and nurturing because that is just so much of what we need sometimes and if you've made it all the way through this episode, then I'm venturing to guess that that loving and nurturing is something that you're craving as well. And if this is resonating with you, I would love to hear what self-mothering rituals and practices you're bringing to your everyday life. That's it for today's episode. I'll be back next time with Fresh Inspiration. I'll talk to you then. (gentle music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) You
