Mothering the Mother

Motherhood is so often spoken about in terms of love, devotion, and sacrifice. And all of that is true. But it is also incomplete.

Because motherhood is not only tenderness.

It is endurance.

It is vigilance.

It is the long, quiet work of holding; physically, emotionally, invisibly - and often without pause or witness.

Mothers carry a lot. In their hearts, hands and shoulders.

They carry worry and responsibility, mental lists and emotional weather.

They carry the unspoken needs of others, the remembering, the anticipating, the smoothing over.

And they carry it day after day, often without anywhere to put it down.

In the book A Thousand Splendid Suns, a passage describes a mother’s love in visceral, bodily terms. Hosseini writes of how a woman’s womb expands to hold her child, and how that capacity does not end with birth. It stretches further - beyond the body - becoming something boundless. A love so vast it can hold fear, grief, rage, hope, exhaustion, and still remain open.

It is a beautiful image. And a heavy one. And one that will stay with me forever.

And if a mother’s capacity keeps expanding, the question quietly follows:

Who holds her?

This question is not abstract for me.

My lovely mum with me - 1986, South of France

I am a motherless mother. I have been for six years now - longer, if you count the years before that, when dementia quietly stole my mum from our relationship while she was still here. That loss has shaped how I understand care, support, and what it means to be held. I am held now by a very small circle of women. Without them, I would flounder. They remind me, in ways both subtle and profound, that motherhood was never meant to be carried alone. That care is not only something we give outward, but something we need to receive in order to keep going.

My children are older now — almost twelve and fifteen — and the demands and the joys

have shifted shape. Motherhood no longer looks like it once did, but it is no less consuming. The scaffolding I once leaned on has long since gone, and there is no maternal hand to reach back to for reassurance, perspective, or rest.

I still have sleepless nights. Only now it is not a crying baby that wakes me, but my own

thoughts and fears. The quiet hours carry different worries: questions about who they are becoming, how the world will meet them, where my influence ends and their own path begins. The labour has moved inward, and it can feel lonelier without someone ahead of me on the path.

In some ways, it feels like yesterday that I became a mother - the rawness of those early days still close to the surface. I can still recall the raw edge of my post-birth body, the endless hours of feeding through the night, the thick fog of sleeplessness. And in other ways, it feels like centuries ago, as though I have lived several lifetimes since that moment. I have been many versions of myself in between: vigilant, exhausted, devoted, uncertain, resilient, undone.

So much of motherhood asks for constant outward attention. The needs of children. The needs of partners. The needs of family, work, and home. Even joy, when it comes, can be demanding. There is little space in the cultural story for the mother who is tired beyond words, or ambivalent, or overwhelmed, or quietly grieving a version of herself she no longer recognises.

Motherhood can be deeply loving and deeply challenging at the same time.

Both truths belong.

And yet, many mothers move through their days without ever being mothered themselves. Without being tended to. Without being asked how they are carrying it all.

Mother’s Day can amplify this tension. Gratitude sits alongside pressure. Celebration alongside fatigue. For some, it brings joy. For others, complexity, absence, or grief. For many, it simply highlights how much has been given outward, and how little space there has been to receive.

This is why I am holding a gentle workshop called Mothering the Mother.

Not as a performance of appreciation.

Not as a fixing or an improving.

But as a pause.

A space where the direction of care is allowed to turn back inward for a while. Where the body can soften, the shoulders can lower, the nervous system can settle. Where nothing is required, explained, or justified.

A space where the woman beneath the role is welcomed back into the room.

This small-group workshop will include gentle, accessible movement, guided rest, quiet reflection and shared space. It is designed to support the nervous system, soften the body, and offer a rare moment of being held rather than holding.

It is open to all mothers, including those who feel complicated about Mother’s Day, those who are tired, those who are quietly carrying a lot, and those who simply need somewhere to lay things down for a while.

You do not need to arrive calm, grateful, or full of celebration.

You only need to arrive as you are.

Spaces are limited, and if this speaks to something in you, you are very welcome.

Book online