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Mother Time.

Patricia Gima, IBCLC.

From very early in our lives we begin to be rewarded for acquiring knowledge, thinking clearly, speaking articulately, responding quickly, and producing abundantly. As time goes on many of us get very good at this and see ourselves as achievers. We can hold our own with the best of them!

Then we give birth, and hopefully we enjoy all of those luscious hormones that accompany feeding our baby at our breast. There is a part of being human that didn't get much notice in those achieving years, with their production and deadlines. Sometimes we differentiate by calling it left brain and right brain, but it is deeper than that. We are in Mother Time. We see with Mother Eyes. We are given an opportunity to experience the "peace at the center of the atom." (Madeleine L'Engle)

We may seem "less than sharp", but I believe that we are more than sharp. We are round and soft, and our vision is one that can see beneath and under and through. And we are given "mega hearing" in order to understand before words are clear, or even without words being spoken.

The relaxing effect of prolactin enables us to see and to live in the now. It is a prism that slows our days so that we can experience the colors of our lives. It is what people go off to monasteries or into deep meditation to find.

Our "nursing mother's brain" is where poetry resides, where the story "about the street light whose good friend went dark" is found, where lullabys are born, games are created, and where we find ways to correct and guide without diminishing.

Instead of "zoning out", we "zone in." We are given the opportunity to go inside and find out who we are, for real, and to make friends with who we find there. We grow in confidence in our wisdom and our discernment.

I know that it is often hard to see this time in our lives as Gift when we are in the midst of it, but it really is. This is a sorting time and we come out of it knowing where we want to put our life's focus. We couldn't come to this Knowing as easily without this slowed time. I invite you to accept this gift of an altered way of seeing and being. I hope you can enjoy your infusion of prolactin. You wouldn't want to miss it.

© 1998 Patricia Gima

Patricia says about herself:
"I am the mother of two daughters--Lia, who is 30 and Alison, who is 26. I was an active La Leche Leader for 23 years and have been Leader Reserve for the past 5 years. I am a Lactation Consultant in Private Practice in the Greater Milwaukee Area and speak frequently at La Leche and Lactation Consultant conferences and to parenting groups. I am committed to helping women breastfeed and to find joy in their Mothering. I write prose and poetry and keep an on-going journal of life, which is where the seeds of thought and expression are nurtured."

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