A Postpartum Mantra

Let it go, release, allow your body to heal.

Listen to its infinite wisdom, let it teach you, let it lead.

Sometimes it may guide you to the dance floor, other times to bed.

Let others help you. Tell them what you need.

Strength comes in honesty. It's okay to be angry.

Love the anger and every emotion that comes along

like you would a child. Say to your feelings:

"I love you. What do you need to teach me? Where

do you need to go?"

In the end, give yourself extravagant love.

This love may find itself in pretty pajamas and thick Shea butter

and glasses of wine and long, hot showers.

You have people. You have space. You have time.

You have more than enough.

Healing is yours.

In my thirty-eighth week of pregnancy, I began to freak out about all that would come AFTER I gave birth. The birthing part didn’t freak me out nearly as much as the postpartum recovery.

So I wrote myself a postpartum mantra. I shared it with my husband and a few close friends. I asked them to remind me what I’d written when I needed it.

My husband did just that.

I was about a month postpartum. My mom had been with us for a month—feeding, cleaning, caring, supporting, loving. She was our postpartum doula.

I sat on the back patio, holding my son in my arms, crying quiet tears of sadness, joy, gratitude, weariness, and love, when my husband sent me a text. It was my postpartum mantra.

The words I wrote in my thirty-eighth week of pregnancy now served as balm, a buoy in my fourth week postpartum. I was pastoring myself, taking care of me so I could continue to take care of my son.

Today, I’m thirteen months postpartum, and the words I wrote to myself still apply, if in slightly different ways. The truth is we’re all in some sort of postpartum period and in need of extravagant love every damn day.

Give it to yourself abundantly, mamas. Love, it heals us all.

Truly,

Claire

My postpartum mantra: