Spirituality and Expansiveness in the Postpartum

Lots of learning and growing happening lately for me!

I’m really enjoying being in the postpartum window after the birth of my son Elder a couple months ago. Usually, the porousness and emotional sensitivity and rawness of postpartum is not my favorite, but this time my experience in these special days post-birth has been really expansive.

One of the reasons I’ve been able to sink into this space of growth and expansion in this time is because my relationship with Taylor has become more aligned for this type of inner work. We have really focused on trying to balance our masculine and feminine polarity.

It’s previously been easy for me to step out of the emotional (feminine) space and into the mental (masculine) space when my partner is needing to be in the emotional space. That is the push and pull of relationships, and equilibrium is always trying to be achieved.

We’re both doing a lot of healing work as individuals and that plays out in our relationship as deeper polarity, deeper attraction, deeper sexual intimacy, and more space for me to explore all the areas in which I’ve been avoiding being in the feminine. 

I could go into a whole side-bar conversation about how criminal it is that in our culture there is such a lack of initiation, for both men and women, but especially for men.. They are never initiated into manhood, never participate in a special ceremony or rite of passage, never really learn what it means to be deeply rooted into the divine masculine, holding the sacred protective circle and providing the foundation for their feminine counterpart/partner to rest easy in the feminine. BUT, that is probably a post for another day.. :)

So, back to my emotional process recently.

I’m just going to blab a bunch of stuff in flow .. hopefully it makes sense and you can follow along on my journey - if you’re interested!

I will start by saying that our culture is really good at encouraging people to be emotion-less....

Everything causes anxiety to our spirits.. everything wears on our soft spots and causes calluses. I don’t think I need to go into much detail here because I’m sure if you’re reading this, you can think of a couple handfuls of things that occur on a regular basis that give you anxiety. In an effort to cope with this onslaught, we put up walls and dampen our emotions. 

And then we identify with these walls and with this lack of emotional depth. (Not to mention identifying with the PHYSICAL ailments that come up in our bodies BECAUSE of this spiritual disconnection!)

Are our emotional and physical ailments, just projections from our ego to keep us from going where we need to go to examine our past traumas and to heal?

I definitely think there is at least a shadow of this for most people, myself included.

I have told myself that I’m just needing more alone time as an individual, that I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to love my children how I know (somewhere) that I want to love them, that I’m separate from my community in some way, that my cup isn’t full.

These are all coping techniques and walls I’ve put up because of past traumas. I’m realizing now that they aren’t really my identity.

Thank you, ego, for protecting my inner children ... but I don’t need or want your protection anymore and I’m ready to release this part of you and dive deep into the past hurts that have shaped me and encouraged me to put up walls. 

And I will grow.

And I will experience the richness and complexity of life that is my birth rite.

Our culture also prizes mental acuity and mental stamina and it downplays emotions..

The expression of them, the feeling of them, the physical sensations of emotions in our bodies. We become disconnected from it all. Our culture also values productivity and it defines that as working and producing goods or services and that productivity doesn’t include taking time or energy in order to feel feelings. 

I have a feeling this is part of the reason why so many people use alcohol and drugs and porn and other means with which to numb their emotions and disconnect them from their own spirit and the spirit of others around them.

You might be saying, “Hey, that’s not me.. I am connected and I experience all of my emotions fully!”

Which may be true.. but for most of us as humans, we are used to existing within a certain spectrum of experience and don’t know that there is a whole LOT of spectrum left outside of the narrow window in which we usually operate.

You may just not know what you’re missing. At least, I didn’t know what I was missing, let’s put it that way.

I have a feeling this is part of the reason why so many people experiment recreationally with psychedelics, drugs that help humans experience a greater spectrum of colors, emotions, and connection to others and the divine.

(Side note: I don’t judge people for using plants in ceremony. I know from personal experience how much growth can come from the ego death that can occur with such ceremonies. I just feel that when we use substances to experience the fullness of being a human or to numb us from the fullness of being human, there may be a disconnect there… we don’t need plants, substances, or drugs in order to experience the full spectrum of what it is to be a human! More on that later.)

So, as humans, a lot of us have forgotten that we are limitless love embodied.

We forget we have access to unconditional love. We are burned so many times in this culture on this planet, that we don’t love unconditionally anymore. Even our children. Our perfect children who are navigating their own soul journey in this world. 

So when we are in this state of disconnection, from ourselves and the divine and the full spectrum of human experience, we then feed off of others in an effort to have some sort of emotional experience. We are in relationships where we are not happy unless the other person is happy.

If there is an off day or if our partner yells at us about something, we instantly become fixers and try to solve the “problem” of our partner’s emotional state because we aren’t tapped into our own frequency and aren’t capable of existing within our own emotional state outside of the influence of our partner’s. 

This is just an example.. It is true outside of intimate relationships as well.

Take my two year old..

He does this thing where he hits me or screams at me, and then asks for milky.

My first reaction is “Hell no! You just hit me, you don’t get milk for hitting me.” 

What I have come to realize though is that he is pushing me to explore my walls and boundaries.

Can I love my son unconditionally no matter what? Can I show him unconditional love even when his behavior pushes me away?

I have a feeling that our kids come to us and show us their full range of emotions because we ARE their safe place. We do hold this container for them to be their own unique selves, regardless of what that looks like.

If I were my old self, my son would show me these big emotions and I would reject him for that. I would put up a wall and say “I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to love you and give you physical touch while you are feeling these big emotions.”

But lately I’ve been feeling like that is my own wounding. Yes, boundaries are important in life, but when do boundaries just become defensive walls protecting our inner children from the full spectrum of what it means to be a human?

And isn’t this a moment when my son probably needs the MOST love and attention?

I am striving now to re-parent myself as I parent my children.  

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.. children are the clearest mirrors for us as their parents, relfecting back to us the areas that we need to heal the most.

How does this situation with my two year old reflect my own inner process?

Can I show mySELF unconditional love? Even when I am needing more support? Even when I experience explosive emotions, when I “mess up” or “fail?” 

It makes sense that our conditioned nature might be to be hard on ourselves and each other. That’s what the culture around us has espoused for so long.

It makes sense that we can’t love ourselves unconditionally. That we have this constant negative self-talk track in our minds throughout the day.

It makes sense that we can’t really experience a full spectrum of highs and lows without feeling the need to medicate ourselves with whatever substance or media that is handy.

It makes sense that we shy away from big emotions, that the world seems dull and drab. 

(Side note: like I said earlier.. it seems dull in drab in HINDSIGHT for me.. because I didn’t know what I was missing. Now I’m experiencing what seems like a rainbow type of world partially because I’ve done some healing and now allow myself to experience the full spectrum.)

I’ve worked to release this programming, heal my wounding, step into alignment, and the world is more colorful, and the extra colors are brighter, emotions are more intense, sounds are more touching, things taste more expansive, I am more expressive ...

I can eat a piece of melon and experience heaven, just on a normal morning. One piece of grapefruit and my whole body is alive and tingling.

Seriously, it feels like I’m on drugs sometimes, but that’s just because I’ve only ever experienced these sensations in my mind/body/soul while I’ve been on drugs in the past.

These are all accessible to us in daily life.

No drugs necessary.

#highonlife :)

Why would I want to go through life any other way? 

I wouldn’t want to, not now that I’ve experienced this. I will never go back.

#heavenonearth

And I do want to note that this journey of healing and stepping more into alignment is not just a mental pursuit..

It’s not just training the mind to feel more or training the mind to release the anxious thoughts... it’s a balanced approach that includes healing past traumas, rewiring the brain, diving deep into experiencing all of the emotions on all levels, and tuning back into the body on a physical level too.

It’s so complex and writing it out doesn’t do it justice. At all.

So, a little back story here from me..

My own healing journey began in my early twenties. Before then, I had a reallll low sense of value for myself, and self harmed in the form of drinking to excess, limiting my food intake, and I started experimenting with drugs like Ecstasy ..

I don’t think I would have started my spiritual path if I wouldn’t have been raped when I was 21 ... After that I sort of spiraled, but then I started trying to heal myself.

I became a vegan, I had my first experience with magic mushrooms, started reading self-help books.

I had a slow climb into spiritually after that, but also still had a lot of inner wounding that I wasn’t aware was influencing my daily thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It was #spiritualityLite :)

Taylor and I broke up for a year in my late twenties and my darkness/wounding really showed itself in that period. I did a lot of drugs, smoked a lot of cigarettes, and was dangerously promiscuous, searching for my sense of self and for some validation externally.

Taylor and I got back together after a year apart and moved to the magical town of Rincon, Puerto Rico. I stopped smoking and doing drugs, started working out, and experienced much spiritual growth and mysticism, and I would say even ecstasy in daily life, just from being connected to myself and the nature of that beautiful part of the world.

We moved back to the States, and had a baby.

After my first was born, I experienced a massive level of ego death without really knowing that was what was happening and without guidance.

I experienced a lot of postpartum anxiety for the first year and a half after that birth. As I was healing from that and putting my pieces back together, I had a loss of emotional output as a way of coping with life at that time. I couldn’t just go through life being anxious about everyone and everything (this little innocent precious life I was now holding space for triggered all of my darkest thoughts and highest anxiety!), so I turned it all off, put up a lot of walls but not the good kind. But I didn’t realize that’s what was happening.

Now, my eldest is four and a half years old and I feel like I’m finally coming out of that experience of building up a lot of layers.. not just that particular experience but literally a whole lifetime of doing so, from childhood (actually probably when I was in my mom’s tummy.. plus all the ancestral/lineage stuff!) onward.

I am feeling the unconditional love for myself, noticing where I’ve put walls up and where my limiting beliefs are, where I stop myself from expansiveness .. because I had to in the past to cope. Plus I’m healing my wounding and all the ways my ego has developed over the course of my lifetime to cope with “reality.”

I’m not perfect and I’m not at the end point yet, of course, but I’m in the noticing and shedding stage. And it feels really good and really light and bright!

So that is where all of these thoughts are coming in. I’m in the middle of a deeply healing process and feeling more connected than ever, which to me is crazy because my past postpartum experiences have NOT felt this aligned!

This process is not about becoming a better person or a better parent. I really do believe I am (and we all are) perfect as I am.

It’s about removing the veils that separate me from divinity and from the quality of life that is my birth rite. 

I feel that this is part of the natural cycle and flow of our infinite souls... we find our power and then we give it away or cover it up... over and over throughout eternity until we “heal ourselves out” of the wheel of reincarnation. 

We see this playing out in the macro on a global level now, too! The struggle to find where our power is and which boundaries are walls and which are actually beneficial. How connected are we to nature, to the divine, to each other, etc..

But I digress..

Thanks for reading this far, if you made it to the end!

If you have any questions or comments about what I’ve shared, email me!

Or, if you want to work more closely, book a virtual session with me here :) I’m really looking forward to getting to know you more!

Lots of love,

Ashley