Motherhood is a massive shift for new moms. I have been there, and it was tough. But I promise you that you can and will make it through your new identity shift.
Whether you’re a new mom, single mom, home mom, or working mother you should find some nutritious value in this blog. In this article, I discuss some great ways to rediscover yourself after motherhood!
Do You Lose Your Identity When You Become A Mom?
Yes, and no. You don’t lose your identity, but your identity does shift. So in a sense, you lose one identity (or some identities) when you become a new mother, but as one identity dies you also birth new identities too.
Becoming a mom has helped me to uncover my true identity. Interestingly, I found that I actually learned a lot about who I was pre-motherhood after I became a mom!
Even prior to having kids, you had multiple identities. Perhaps as a single woman, or a childless woman, maybe a sister, daughter, aunt, niece, career woman, and whatever else. And after kids, many of these identities remain but there might be slight shifts within them. Or you might lose certain identities altogether.
For example, you might still be a career woman after kids, but as a working mom, you’ll have slightly different priorities than a childless working woman. Perhaps before kids, you didn’t mind working overtime, but after kids, you might have a boundary to only work 9-5 in order to spend ample time with your family too.
Or perhaps before kids, you were career-driven, but since having kids you have decided to be a stay-at-home mom instead.
After becoming a mom, you also still maintain your identity as being ‘you’, but also you now also have a new identity as a mother too. Identities are complex, and they are always changing as you journey through life—even prior to having children, and they will continue to evolve after kids too.
The main difference after having kids is that you have to nurture and nourish your personal and individual identity to ensure that you don’t drown in the noise of being a mother, working mom, or wife.
As a mom, you have so many different responsibilities and people or things pulling you left, right, and center. So it is vital to spend adequate time nurturing and strengthening your individual identity as just ‘you’.
How Do I Find Myself Again After Motherhood?
There are a variety of different ways that you can find yourself again after motherhood. It’s important to explore a variety of different techniques because we are all different, and you want to find out what works for you.
Here are some of my top tips on how to find yourself again after motherhood!
Tips For Rediscovering Yourself After Motherhood
1. Explore Your Creativity
Exploring your creativity is a great way to rediscover yourself and your shifting identities. And the beauty of creativity is that there are so many different ways to play with it!
For example, perhaps you like to explore your creativity through beauty and fashion. Maybe you like to play with different fashion outfits and makeup styles for work, at-home snuggle days, days with your kids, lunch with your friends, and even the odd cocktail night with your partner!
Fashion and makeup are such a great versatile way to explore and play with your self-expression, and you can embody your different identities through a variety of styles of fashion and makeup.
Or perhaps you like to paint, draw, play music, and create art. Art and music are great ways to play with expressing emotions and whatever you’re feeling at the moment.
Movement practices such as dancing and yoga are also great creative ways to allow your body to feel different identities and emotions.
A medical journal by the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing notes that a growing body of evidence suggests that creative activities have positive, healing, therapeutic, and protective effects on our sense of mental well-being.¹
2. Journaling
Journaling is one of my favorite ways to explore emotions, thoughts, identities, and goals. Journaling can be really helpful because it allows you to really delve into your thoughts and feelings.
Allowing yourself to grieve for your old self through journaling can be highly liberating if you’re experiencing an identity crisis.
You might find yourself feeling guilty for missing parts of your life or persona before kids. But it’s normal to miss parts of your life before kids, and it’s normal to miss things that have changed.
It’s ok, and it’s important to give yourself the permission to grieve and accept change so that you can move forward without resentment.
Journaling Prompts To Allow Yourself To Grieve And Accept Change:
- What things do I miss, that were present in my life and persona before having kids?
- What did I take for granted before having kids?
- What do I miss about the version of myself before having kids?
- What am I grateful for about myself now as a mother?
- How have I changed now that I am a mother? What have I learned? And what am I proud of?
- What things am I grateful for now after having kids?
- What do I wish I could change now that I am a mother? What do I miss that I would love in my life now?
- Can I still incorporate some of the things I miss into my life now?
3. Spend Time Alone
Spending time alone is a vital component of rediscovering yourself again after motherhood. When you’re alone you can drown out the noise and truly focus on yourself, your desires, your longings, and what you really feel.
Take long walks alone in nature, without music, podcasts, or other distractions, and simply be with your own thoughts. See what arises.
Part of being a good mom is giving yourself permission to be you, which means spending time alone with yourself when you can. If you need a reminder as I did—you can get ‘be you’ tattooed too!
Your innermost thoughts during periods of silence often have a lot of wisdom to bring—regarding what you need more of in your life, and what you need less of in your life. Be still and listen to your intuition.
4. Learn More
A great way to help you to rediscover yourself after motherhood is to learn more! When you have free time immerse yourself in new information through books, audiobooks, podcasts, blogs, and YouTube videos.
There are so many different free sources of information on the internet now. You can learn new things to nourish your mind and soul without even leaving your bed or paying a cent!
The more information you explore, the more you can analyze who you are now in relation to the world around you.
What are your current thoughts, feelings, and priorities? What do you like? And what don’t you like?
5. Try Out New Hobbies
Trying new hobbies is a wonderful way to explore your new facets and identities. You can try new hobbies alone, but also with your kids too!
You, and your preferences, are constantly changing and that’s ok! Maybe there are old hobbies that you used to do prior to children that you no longer enjoy, and maybe there are new hobbies that you want to explore or take up.
There are loads of hobbies that you can do with your children too. Perhaps you want to put your kids into surf school and whilst they learn, you can also have lessons yourself too.
Or maybe you want to explore drawing, painting, or playing an instrument, which are also thing’s that your child can easily do too.
6. Take Time For Self Care
Yes, you now have a tiny human relying on you, but to be a good mother, you need to prioritize self-care sometimes!
Your little one relies on you being in tip-top shape—in terms of body, mind, and soul. So it’s vital that you nourish yourself and destress. If you have to, ask a family member to help out so you have a little time to yourself.
Self-care is a great way to nourish yourself and rediscover yourself after motherhood. Not only are you spending some much-needed alone time with yourself, but you’re also relaxing and restoring too which is vital during motherhood.
Check out my article on self-care and self-love for moms for more tips!
7. Spend Time With Your ‘Mom Friends’
Meeting up with a mom friend that you trust can be a great way to explore mom life with someone else who can relate. Sometimes, there’s no better way to sort out information in your brain than having a good chat about it with another mama over a cuppa!
Maybe you could meet up with an old friend that you haven’t seen in a long time to reminisce, or perhaps you’d like to explore making new friends for some fresh energy and excitement! Either way—getting out there and socializing is going to do you the world of good, mama!
A medical journal by the Journal of Health and Social Behaviour notes that social scientists have demonstrated correlations between health and social relationships. They have found that adults who are more socially active and connected to others live longer and healthier lives than their more isolated peers.² So it seems like those cocktail brunches are good for us after all!
8. Seek Professional Help
If you’re really struggling with an identity crisis, it might be a little more than you can handle alone and you might need to seek professional support. New motherhood is not always easy, and the postpartum period can be a massive adjustment process.
As a parent, you might experience the baby blues, postpartum depression, a sleep disorder, or mom guilt. Whatever you’re feeling or experiencing it’s important to remember that you’re not alone and there is a variety of support out there. All the way from communities like the one at NEL, to medical doctors and professional therapists.
There is no shame in struggling with your new role as a mother, and it might be that professional support could be the missing cog to help you through your shift into parenting.
If you want some guidance on overcoming negative or intrusive thoughts then check out my article here.
Finding Purpose Outside Of Motherhood
Having purpose outside of motherhood is vital for your mental health. As humans, we are complex creatures that require fulfillment on multiple levels of our being.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a great psychological theory that describes human needs as coming under a variety of different ‘stages’. He categorizes these stages as; physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging (social needs), esteem, and self-actualization.
You can use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model as journal prompts to assess if your needs are being met in multiple different areas of your life. And if you feel like they aren’t, then you can brainstorm different ways to fulfill those needs.
Does Motherhood Change Your Personality?
In some ways, yes motherhood can change your personality, but not always. This is so dependent on the individual.
You might find, for example, that you become more protective of your family. Or perhaps prior to having children, you were quite unorganized, but after becoming a mother you find yourself more prone to organization.
And it can also work the other way around! Perhaps before becoming a mom you were super organized and have had to let things go and relax more since having children.
Or maybe prior to becoming a mom you hated early mornings, spent a lot of time sleeping in, and loved late nights. But since becoming a mom you now love early mornings and early nights.
Don’t fear change because not all change is bad, the most important part is being resilient and adapting to change with a positive mindset, good habits, and some great structure.
Conclusion
Did you find this article on rediscovering yourself after motherhood helpful? Or maybe you have some helpful tips that you’d like to share with our community? If so, let us know in the comments!
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