Letting Go: The Art of Aparigraha in Motherhood

Letting go is easier said than done after stepping on a toy fire truck while trying to catch your laughing toddler to get their shoes on so you can, hopefully, make it to an appointment on time. Aparigraha guides us to a place where we can release the temptation to hold on to the emotions we gather through out the day as mothers.

Letting go has been a common theme in my own life for the better part of a decade. The universe has been trying very hard to get the point across to me. Aparigraha is one of the five Yamas. (Yamas are one of the eight limbs of yoga.) It is commonly translated as "Non-attachment" and is also often described as non-possesiveness, non-grasping, and non-greediness.

Below I have three ways mothers encounter Aparigraha lessons in life followed by ways we can practice aparigraha to let go of that which no longer serves us.

Pregnancy and Birth

Pregnancy, especially the first round, was not glorious for me. Is it really glorious for any of us? We can't stomach anything, we puke until we hurt, we pee when we laugh, our pelvis makes concerning sounds when we walk, our feet go up a size or two, and we feel like a whale!

I know it is hard. I have been there twice! I want to go a third round, but we may be adopting. Pregnancy was that hard. I appreciate it for what it has taught me though and I wish I could go back and tell myself to embrace the transition and let go of what used to be because the truth is, you will lose all the baby weight, you will fit in a bikini again, but more importantly than any of that is you will never be the same again.

When I was younger, I used to fear I was going to die at 21 years old. I never shared this with anyone because it was just a gut feeling that seemed silly, but I did die at 21. When you go through pregnancy and birth your body is not the only thing that changes, you do. Down to your soul. Whoever I was before my body created a human life, before my mind was forced to face fears and release them, before my soul helped bring another soul into the earth, is gone forever and a new body, a wiser mind, and an awakened soul were born.

Pregnancy and birth show us what we need to release physically and mentally in order to go from woman to mother. If we refuse, if we hold on to our fear of labor, our frustrations placed on our physical appearance, any anger towards how we raised; our pregnancies and our births will be hard not only on our physical selfs, but our mind and spirit and we struggle coming into motherhood.

Postpartum and motherhood

Our lives will be different. There is simply no way to avoid this truth and the harder we fight our motherhood rather than embrace it with all it has to teach us, we will manifest negative lives and thus negative parenting.

It took me four years to find the balance, four years to let go of what was and own what is. My pregnancies were full of aches and pains from not being able to stomach anything to Separation Pelvic disorder, my births were long with the first at 36 hours and the second at 90 hours, as I fought the transition both times, followed by postpartum depression twice as I strived to push both my old self and my new self to live as one.

I don't come from a place that is higher, I come from a place of understanding. The woman you are now is perfect, beautiful, and amazing. What she does today is more important than anything she has done in the past and more important than anything she will do tomorrow. Where you are is perfect. How you feel is perfect. Embrace it, own it, learn from it, and use it to grow with in every moment. Then, let it go as aparigraha teaches. Whatever does not serve you in this moment; release it to the wind.

Postpartum and motherhood bring on a lot of emotions and challenges on a daily basis. They constantly stretch us to our breaking points bringing us to a place where we can feed our negative ways or we can find a place of growth. Non-attachment, non-possesiveness, non-grasping, and non-greediness teach us to let go of what used to be, to love our new bodies as they are, to let go of any previous expectations we had of ourselves as mothers and to go with the flow and let each moment teach us, to not desire more than we need for a sustaining life for ourselves and our child.

In Our Home

Our homes are the physical representations of our minds.

So if your space is always a mess, you cant see anything in your closets, dresser drawers, or toy room, and your kitchen is filled with food and supplies that you don't actually use....it is time to declutter.

We are women, mothers, daughters, friends, wives....and all of those things get neglected when we are consumed by cleaning and worry about our stuff. Aparigraha is hardest to apply to your phsyical life because that usually comes first and then the decluttering of your mind comes second.

This is where I am severly grateful for all the books and articles and popularity surrounding "Minimalism." We don't need every gadget on the planet to entertain, develop, and teach our children or ourselves. And we don't need to hold on to things just because a good memory is attached.

The belief that we need something or that it has sentimental value has created fears from a messy house, to "outgrowing" our homes, to multiple sources of protection from theft, and even to reasons why we cant do things.

As mothers this keeps us cleaning rather than playing with our children. Worry that we haven't given our children a good enough life in the form of material possessions. Making us upset with them when they break something almost as if they physically hurt us.

How to Apply Aparigraha Today

Apply Aparigraha to your life in one or more of these ways and start to watch the difference unfold! Declutter your home:

Starting with your space allows you to clear your line of vision which in turn helps with your level of stress and frees up your time a little bit more because you won't be cleaning as much. As well as helps you with a pretty important step; you start letting go of attachments to physical things that you place on pedestal. As moms we tend to cling to our children's stuff the most. Not only that, we tend to buy our children more stuff than is reasonable so we especially need to learn to declutter and then to keep it that way.

In our yoga practice:

We all have our reasons for starting our yoga journey whether it be an injury, someone recommended it to us, we heard it helped with stress, or we wanted to lose baby weight. Along the way we discovered yoga has some really cool poses like the ever lusted after handstand and splits and toes touching your head poses! It is really easy to start to feel like if you don't have these advanced postures in your practice that you are not a true yogi. (Trust me, Im a yoga teacher who still can't handstand after 11 years of practice, I have had my fair share of struggles with that.)

Not to mention after you have been practicing for a while, you may experience injuries, bodily changes (pregnancy anyone?), and even cases of illness where you feel like you are starting over. So you find yourself either being bitter about what was or you let it go and accept where you are on the mat today.

You can start practicing with poses, mudras, and mantras to help you with letting go and find the impact your yoga practice has off the mat as well! Seated Forward Fold // Paschimottanasana Starting from a sitting position with your feet parallel out in front of you, take a deep breath in and on your exhale fold at the hips with arms over head reaching for your feet while bringing your head to your legs. Engage the quads to protect the hamtstrings while pressing your heels out towards the wall ahead of you and toes back towards you. Hold for 5 full inhalations and exhalations. With your last exhale, look up, release your hands and slowly come up one vertebrae at a time.

Pushpanjali Mudra

Pushpa - Flower // Anjali - Hands

Mudras are pretty awesome and they are becoming my newest fascination in yoga! Mudras are a lot like setting an intention for your practice or meditation in your hands. How cool is that?!?!

This particular mudra is for non-grasping, releasing attachments, creating openness, appreciation for the present, and a sense of generosity.

For pushpanjali cup your hands together as if you are holding water or rose pedals.

Essential Oils: My personal favorite essential oil for releasing is Ylang Ylang

Ylang ylang helps with releasing by helping ease stress, anger, and anxiety. Three emotions that can hoard all sorts of negativity preventing us from truly letting go.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about Aparigraha and several ways to apply letting go in your own life. I encourage you to look deeper into the Yamas and Aparigraha for your own knowledge.

#letgo #aparigraha #nonattachment #minimalism #yoga #labor #life