The Thinking Yogi
by Kerry Maiorca

July 2006: Transitions: the death of one self, the birth of another

Change can be scary, whether big or small. As beings who seek out routines and familiarity, when asked to move into the unknown we may resist. But what’s so frightening about change?

Any period of transition requires wiping away the old in order to make way for the new. To use a rather dramatic metaphor, the death of one self must precede the birth of another. Just as we experience pain and sadness at losing a loved one, we often feel a sense of mourning at losing a long-familiar part of ourselves. And though the new may be a welcome change, we still must move through a state of unknown in order to get there. It may leave us wondering who we’ll be on the other side.

As I anticipated the birth of my son Theo a couple of months ago, I contemplated my impending shift into the role of mother. I feared it would mean the loss of my individuality, the loss of time for personal interests such as yoga practice and writing. And I worried that my relationship with Zach would never be the same. Throughout the course of my pregnancy I sought out new mothers and asked them all the questions I could think of in an attempt to prepare myself for this great leap into the unknown, but I still felt woefully unprepared and unsure of what was to come.

Change is so charged because no matter how much we prepare there’s no way to know how things will turn out on the other side. We can plan and plan, but just as the course of a river is irreversibly altered by a boulder placed in its path, nothing in our lives is untouched by the process of transition. Like the water, we can’t go back to our original route, and we can’t know exactly where the new one will take us. We simply must go with the flow.

In the time since Theo has arrived I have, not surprisingly, found my life changed in more ways than I could’ve imagined. Many of the changes I worried about have come to pass: it’s very difficult to find time for myself, and my relationship with Zach has certainly been altered. But though I miss those pre-Theo parts of my life, life with this boy is so sweet! Personal interests such as yoga and writing have been informed by my experience of becoming a mother. And my relationship with Zach has been enriched by our joint efforts through labor, birth, and parenting. These are benefits I couldn’t have anticipated, things that wouldn’t have been possible had I not been willing to let go of the former me.

The most difficult part of this transition has been the in-between time, the recognition that my former self is gone and I need to figure out who this new person is. It’s a gradual exploration that allows me to discover more about my new identity on a daily basis, but it can be difficult because I don’t always know where I stand or who I am. I’m still getting used to seeing myself as this new person, as a mother.

Transitioning is a slow process of morphing into the new. In my case, even something as dramatic as labor and birth wasn’t enough to make the change immediate. Some days the uncertainty was difficult to handle and left me feeling out-of-sorts. But though the in-between time can be difficult, it’s been a wonderful place to draw from yoga practice as I let go of expectation, pay attention, and experience the thrill of newness.