I love setting intentions at the start of every year, but I do things differently compared with the standard New Years Resolutions rigmarole.  This post is the third – and final – instalment of this Intention Setting series, and is all about my personal theme for 2024. You can read the first and second blog posts if you want to lean more about themes and how to create your own years intentions like this, you’ll love the first and second posts too. 

My theme for 2024 is identity. At the end of 2023 I felt so lost and disconnected from myself, and didn’t have a clue who that person even was anymore, so this theme was both easy to decide and very needed!

As a mama, I personally found the 12-18 month phase the hardest so far due to a lethal concoction of teething, separation anxiety and starting nursery (aka a constant onslaught of disease for 6 months). I was exhausted from 6-10 wakeups a night every night for 6 months, and usually being the least ill person in the house and therefore the one looking after everyone else.  We also lost one of our beloved cats, Sparrow, and we just didn’t get a chance to stop and process it. It was so hard, especially as Rei just needed to be in constant physical contact with me, and I couldn’t even stand up without her getting upset. I ended 2023 with a bad bout of Covid and the worst mastitis I’ve had. I was freaking FLOORED, let me tell you! 

(Not to put anyone off having kids or make anyone dread this age – this was just our experience and everybody is so different.)

I think it was so much harder because I’d planned on spending those 6 months rebuilding myself and my business again. We’d obviously got Rei a space at a lovely nursery months beforehand, and I was so excited as the date got closer with the intention of getting more time to myself to practice, go to classes, go out, write and teach more again, and it felt like the opposite happened.

By the time 2024 came round I felt so disconnected from myself and I could feel my mental health was suffering as a result. As someone who has had a very strong sense of self for over a decade, this identity loss felt really alien and confusing to me.

I now know that this identity shift is a very real postpartum experience and is called matrescence.  There’s so much to unpack there (and that’s beyond this blog post today!) but pregnancy and postpartum involves significant – and possibly permanent – physiological changes to our brain structure, not to mention the hormonal changes and huge lifestyle upheavals that come alongside.

I’m ambitious and a high achiever, which (let’s be real) means that a lot of my validation and self worth is dependent on external sources, like my productivity and achievements. When I stopped being ‘successful’ – according to my old standards – my sense of self took a hike. Off a cliff.

These are big questions, and I am not rushing this process. I know it can take years for this fog to fully clear for some mothers, and it’s impossible to get the mental space to devote to this after a bad night or when Rei is ill or teething. 

We’ve now had a solid 2 months of much better sleep and I do feel like the brain fog is lifting. I’m more able to think straight, and I’m not calling everyone Rei. My energy and creativity levels are much higher and I’m actually enjoying life again.

Again, this experience is my own and if you’re a mum please feel free to comment and share a little about your journey through the first couple of years postpartum to help others who are maybe still in the trenches of this. I feel matrescence and postpartum are is still not talked about or acknowledged and instead glossed over. It’s so healing to read about the full diversity of other peoples’ honest experiences, find common ground with other mamas and feel less isolated when you’re going through something so seismic.