motherhood Archives - Emerging Women

Twelve years ago, sparked by a difficult transition to motherhood, I began studying the soul-quenching world of feminine power.

On this path I learned all about:

Sisterhood – I became part of a community of women that truly saw and celebrated each other.
Desires – and we lived in sacred alignment with our deepest desires.
Self-love – and in a societal sea of fear-based messaging, self-love was the boat we sailed.

Finding this path was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It lit up my relationships, intuition, creativity, and overall confidence. It was such a positive force in my life that I went on to create retreats and workshops working with these teachings.

“I received a message from the universe that simply said: Forgive.”

Back then, if you asked me about forgiveness, I probably would have suggested that forgiveness was a religious concept that instructed pardoning. Being a psychotherapist at the time and hearing challenging stories daily, I also may have added that forgiveness was a nice idea, but not for everyone. Some things were just too painful to forgive.

But then something intense happened to me: I was betrayed by someone I trusted. And I lost something I deeply loved.

Initially, I looked on the bright side. The relationship certainly had its problems, and there was a genuine part of me that was relieved it had come to an irreconcilable end.

I also had so much to be grateful for and even more to look forward to. I vowed not to let the loss bring me down.

However, as months passed, whenever I thought about what happened, I would feel an undeniable ball of resentment in my gut that made me think: “That. Was. So. Wrong.” My mind struggled to comprehend that it even happened.

So there I was on the path of feminine power that stood for:

Sisterhood – and a trusted female relationship had imploded.
Desire — and what I had desired was lost.
Self-love — and self-doubt rained down on me.

I was in the deep hole of betrayal’s aftermath, and I hung out there for three very long years. And then one dark evening in October 2012, I received a message from the universe that simply said: “Forgive.”

I initially balked at this idea as I had no desire to let anyone off the hook. But the message was so clear that I reluctantly accepted the directive and began researching the world of forgiveness.

Three weeks later, my resentment was gone. I felt peaceful, and my faith in my myself and the universe was restored. I was wowed.

“Forgiveness is a spiritual experience that heals betrayal.

It is very powerful and sits at the core of feminine power.”

Fast forward to today.

Over the past 12 years I have observed the rise of feminine power, and while “We can do it!” is the awesome and accurate collective cheer, becoming and achieving are never straight lines. Loss, setbacks, and failure are always part of our feminine path.

Whatever the story, it is imperative to the success and fruition of feminine power that we transform hardships into the highest force for good.

That’s where forgiveness comes in.

Betrayal is when someone or something you trusted fails you. It often results in a grudge, a persistent feeling of ill will or resentment.

Ask yourself: Am I carrying a feeling of ill will or resentment towards another or myself?

Or, does your body cringe or contract when you think of a difficult time in the past?

If you answered “yes” to either of these questions then ask yourself — are these feelings helping me to:

Attract and sustain the types of relationships I deeply crave?
Align with and attain my desires?
Trust my intuition?
Live creatively?
Be courageous?
Love myself?

If you answered “no” to any of these questions, then your feminine power is likely being held back by something in the past.

Forgiveness not only untangles you from the past, but in doing so, unblocks the vast potential of your feminine essence.

And this is why today, when someone asks me my thoughts on forgiveness, my eyes twinkle as I say, “Forgiveness is a spiritual experience that heals betrayal. It’s very powerful and is at the core of feminine power.”

I once believed that I was less of a woman because I was not a mother.

What are the birth defect rates?

What is the chance that the pregnancy will go to term but without a live birth?
What is the chance of having multiple births?
What is the success rate of Intra-cytoplasmic sperm injections (ICSI)?
These are the questions, I, matter-of-factly, posed to the doctor of reproductive fertility.

In the National Survey of Family Growth (2006-2010), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that 1 in 8 couples (12.5%) have trouble getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy. In 2005, my husband Phil and I were one of those couples.

Phil and I, as many couples do, sought medical assistance. I daringly faced a rigorous schedule of subcutaneous hormone injections, antibiotics and birth control pills to stimulate and restrict the necessary pregnancy hormones. I endured numerous ultrasounds and blood drawings to monitor the levels. I experienced mood swings that were pretty unsettling and stressful. Phil and I went through uncomfortable procedures for fertility tests and egg retrieval.

After a single cycle of the procedure, the doctor advised us against trying the procedure again — because the probability of success was zero. My questions at the beginning of the process seemed in vain. I felt deflated.

The hard-coding of thoughts begins when we are children

Growing up in the city of Chennai on the southeastern coast of India, I was the youngest of three girls in a Catholic family. As a little girl, a path had been set for me — like many Indian girls growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, finishing school, getting married and having a family were obvious next steps… just as obvious as breathing.

I believed that having children was guaranteed. And in fact, I had an attachment to this idea — it was as if my self-worth was tied to this… as if my value to society rested on my ability to birth a child.

But with one statement from a doctor back in 2005, that surety was ripped out of my hands. It felt like someone punched me in the stomach without any warning. And I was terrified about losing the one thing I thought would allow me to be myself — that would allow me to shine.

Social stigma and personal beliefs are equally stifling.

Every time I received an invite to a baby shower, I cringed. I sincerely wanted to celebrate my friends and so I endured it quietly. Inside, I was screaming to be free. To be free of feeling left out, to be free of the feeling that I somehow didn’t count, to be free of the feeling that I would never be able to truly empathize with someone giving birth. I avoided seeing commercials on TV about babies. I disengaged if I heard someone say that only a parent would understand.

Talking about this wasn’t an option. I worked in the male-dominated engineering world, and there was no room for me to let my guard down — I had to stay tough. Not realizing that I was experiencing a loss, I didn’t really think seeking guidance or counseling was necessary. Besides, socially, I felt it made people uncomfortable — and so, I began to believe I just needed to “suck it up” and stop what I was feeling.

Family and friends were supportive, in ways that I allowed them. I remember one friend in particular. She told me that my feelings reminded her of what parents feel when their kids leave home for the first time; that empty nest feeling of sadness. This somehow encouraged me to feel less alone. It opened a little window for me to explore this differently. My father had been a lifelong meditator and so I began to explore meditation.

Begin exploring how to re-write your code.

I would sit in silence, allowing the anger to pulse through my body, allowing the tears to flow down my face, releasing grief, loss and pain. I was guided by teachers to wonder about the questions that surfaced during meditation. The one question that repeatedly surfaced was this: who am I?

Ready to experience your life outside of others’ praise or criticism?

Was I a wife? Surely if I was only a wife, then how could I explain all these other roles I had. Or how could I explain everything I felt or thought about? So, if I wasn’t a wife, then who was I? Was I an engineer or a senior leader of the management team? Surely I was more than that. So, then who was I? Was I a reflection of my bank account? That didn’t make sense to me. So then who was I? Was I a mother? The answer was a resounding no. So then who was I? You get the idea.

My discovery in these moments of stillness was that there was somebody making all these observations. Somebody that realized I still had value, even though I wasn’t a mother. Somebody that loved me even though I couldn’t play the one role that nature intended for me. Somebody that showed me compassion in the truest sense possible. Somebody who could give me the positive affirmation I needed. Somebody who understood that I was hurting. Somebody that realized that what I was not, was not who I was. This somebody was me. This was the beginning of the answer to my question of who I was.

This realization encouraged me to dig deeper. I started to challenge the notion that motherhood was the only path — as if being childless makes one’s life meaningless. I allowed myself to feel the sadness and the anger and loss — it was my right. Frequently I repeated to myself all the things I was not — to get closer to who I was. I started practicing action with clarity and conviction while staying detached from outcome. In meditation I created space for the knowledge of who I was to emerge — it could only happen in that space of stillness and silence.

Get started right now with this free download – a powerful guided meditation on self compassion.

What you are is not who you are.As a woman leader, if you find yourself at odds with your beliefs or social stigmas, like I did, I encourage you to:

Practice first and foremost, self compassion, self acceptance, and self love.
Challenge the notion of a “normal” or “standard” path to solutions, goals, or life.
Gently ask yourself if you show up in life as more than the roles you play.
Practice decision-making with conviction and clarity while staying detached to outcome.
Explore your relationship with being uncomfortable… your relationship with discomfort.

I learned what I was not… but that does not stop me from being who I am.

About the Author
Rita Devassy, the founder and CEO of Deva Seed, brings leadership experience from the tough corporate world of tech. Conforming in a male-dominated culture left her personally depleted, but then called to bring mindfulness back to the corporate space. Now, she builds up business leaders who believe that self-inquiry, generosity and compassion are required hallmarks of an effective, successful leader.

Rita holds degrees in Business Management and Computer and Information Science along with a certificate in Authentic Leadership from Naropa University and is on the faculty for The Foundations program at the Authentic Leadership Center.She lives with her husband and their miniature pinscher dogs, Oliver and Oscar. She meditates often, can’t parallel park to save her life, and seeks the American culture she missed in her childhood vicariously through re-runs of The Brady Bunch and Leave it To Beaver.