Developing "Mother Development"

A mother may always be a mother; but what about the woman whose children have grown and left her daily care? One part of the job of a mother is to anticipate and facilitate not being needed, to make ourselves unnecessary. Still, once we begin, we are mothers for the rest of our lives. When a tiny creature is clinging to you for life, it creates the kind of deep-soul entrainment that requires a Dali-Lama-level of grace to loosen. And yet most mothers still manage to do it. That is part of why I consider mothering a kind of spiritual practice.

I especially love these lines: “We suffer from a surfeit of information on child development and a complete lack of information on mother development. “Mother development.” The phrase even sounds odd.”

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Giving Notice: the Gift Economy of Happy Couples

What really happens in a marriage, in the private, daily life of a happy couple? There are years together, days, hours, minutes, and milestones, stories, symbols. I think one reason I love counseling couples so much has to do with my own profound curiosity about how others live. I like hearing the stories, the jokes, the nicknames and shorthand words that stand for some meaning unknown to everyone else.

A healthy couple creates safety for the kind of vulnerability that makes connection: confiding, remembering, revealing, knowing. And how wonderful this makes partnerships: true havens. This superpower is also what the philosopher Alain de Botton defines as empathy or “the capacity to connect imaginatively with the sufferings and unique experiences of another person.” [...]

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Self-Care for Therapists (an excerpt from Psychotherapy.net)

[...]

Moms are my specialty, but I am writing today to make an association between therapists and moms. The day I worked with this mother on her first steps to reclaiming her relationship with herself, I spent the morning at an HIV+ Women’s Health Clinic from 8 to 12 seeing deeply troubled clients, then I saw private practice clients from 12:30-3:30; then rushed over to see my supervisor, then back to the office for several evening clients. I had my whole day planned out, down to the taxi I took to make supervision on time; and the important phone call squeezed in before a session with a client who is always a few minutes late. There was only one problem I realized by mid-day—I had not budgeted any time to get or eat food, all day. Many of my therapist friends and colleagues have told me of similar schedules, and when there is not a commitment to self-care, it is a big problem for therapists.

It was that day that the connection between mothering and therapizing hit me—both are based on nurturing others, both can tend towards an unhealthy martyrdom. I assert that both roles need a radical re-balancing program in the form of intensive, sumptuous, deep self-care for the nurturer. And the better the self-care, the better the mom or therapist will be at their job of caring for others. This is provable in the simplest of mind-body studies available to look into everywhere, but it is something I also know in my bones. When I am thinking, writing, resting, feeding myself really well, having sex, and laughing a lot, I am a great mom and a great therapist: I feel the creative energy and power that comes from a sense of flow and gratitude. From this place, giving feels natural and right. [...]

To read more, please click over to: psychotherapy.net

New Spring Mother Nurture Support Group Forming!

Dear friends,
I am offering a new moms group this spring. This has been a wonderful, refreshing experience for moms in the past--I hope you will join us!

M O T H E R  N U R T U R E

“Why do I feel so exhausted? Everyone else seems to be fine.”

“Where is the sparkly, creative woman I used to be?”

“I am so irritable lately! how can I feel better?"

Moms: Are you feeling a little burned out these days? Is your to-do list running your emotional life? Would you like to feel more perspective and grace? more humor? more spirit? less irritation and discouragement?

Join us for a revitalizing support group this spring:

Saturdays from 10-11:30am, April 20th through May 25th (skipping May 18th) 
$300 for 6 week class; *$200 early bird price if you sign up and pay before April 6th.

To join, send me an email at elizabethceceliasullivan@gmail.com  telling me a little bit about yourself.

You can pay by paypal at: www.elizabethceceliasullivan.com/paypal-policies/

Your kids and your partner will thank you!

Why A Mom's Group? Women are often caught in a bind where the nurturing we provide our kids is drawn directly from the well that refreshes our own souls. It is challenging to have meaningful work, love with partners, friendships, creativity, and other elements of a great life when we are mothers. Join us to explore the joy, resentment, creativity, anger, longing, sweetness and the great confusing bind that is 2013 motherhood. We will talk about our experiences, read some brilliant mothers-who-think, and make a circle of connection and support to help one another find more pleasure and balance in our lives.

Past Participants Are Saying:

“This group gave me the chance to connect with other moms in a non-judgmental space to talk—something I’ve been needing for a while! Elizabeth’s facilitation was insightful, compassionate and funny.”

-Katherine S.

“I felt more “ok” after this group—proud to be a Mama in my own way.”

-Lauren B.

http://www.elizabethceceliasullivan.com/paypal-policies/

DOWNLOAD FLYER AT: http://www.elizabethceceliasullivan.com/flyers/ 

Perspective and Gratitude (From "Psyched in San Francisco")

The other day I was waiting for my son’s basketball practice to end; I had driven the carpool. I was trying to entertain my younger kid who was hungry and crabby at 6pm. I felt strangled, victimized. I was cruelly poking at myself with barbed assessments of my life, “this sucks! I am bored! I hate waiting around--I have so many other things I want to do...”

But as I sat there fretting, I became aware of a homeless woman sitting nearby. She was dingy with grime, but also a bit striking or beautiful in a way. Her face had a kind of smoothness that made it seem like she had been raised middle class. What was her story? A neatly packed but obviously street-ready granny cart was parked at her feet. She sat quietly, observing everything. I saw her face light up with joy when an 18 month old boy toddled by her. When a docent came close she asked politely when the lecture was to begin. I checked the poster and found out she was there to attend a free lecture on neuroscience.

I felt in that moment just utterly penetrated with this woman’s existence--her intelligence shining out of her poverty and mental illness. Here she was, one possible future for me. Not likely, not really, and yet--it was not impossible either. I felt like I was on a continuum with her--if a few terrible things happened to me in a certain way. Perhaps.

It lent me some perspective, it helped me. My son’s whiney voice suddenly seemed not so bad. I pulled him onto my hip and took him to the cafe for a granola bar. I smoothed and smelled his hair and felt a little shot of patience run through me. I was lucky to have this life, these kids, the man at work who would come home later and kiss me and ask, “how was your day?”...

 To read more, please click over the publication: Psyched in San Francisco