18 Months Postpartum: I Didn’t Find My Old Self, but I Found This

I read this quote recently: "You're not healing to be able to handle trauma, pain, anxiety, depression. You're used to those. You're healing to be able to handle joy and to accept happiness back into your life." It struck a cord. It made me flip the automatic mode of "coping", "handling things", "pushing" to wanting to receive, trust, explore. And I am thinking what if joy and gratitude took more space than "coping", "handling everything", "getting by".

There’s a version of you that can hold heartbreak with quiet strength. You’ve survived the sleepless nights, the loneliness, the postpartum fog. You know how to handle pain. But what if the next chapter of your healing isn’t about becoming stronger but about becoming softer? What if it’s time to learn how to let joy stay a little longer? I don't know how it has been for you but after a year postpartum, I expected a sudden shift, a sudden "flip" to the "new" me. How foolish, the challenge, the feeling of being lost were still lingering. Of course I did not expect motherhood to become a walk in the park all of a sudden, but I hoped for a change regarding my "inner world", the "self" that I was longing to know. There was no change, tireness was still here, and trying to figure out how to have time to do everything I wanted, and had to do was still here too. That "self" in question was nowhere to be seen.

I watched the months go by, and I held onto what a mum that I met when I was 8 months pospartum said: "Don't worry, at about 18 months postpartum you'll start feeling like yourself again, don't put pressure on yourself, it's normal to feel how you feel".

Now at 18 months postpartum, I can say that I get glimpses of that "self" through my acts of presence. The moments that I allow myself to fully be, be with my baby, be fully in the activity I am doing, and catch those moments where nothing else exist but what is in front of me. It is not a crystal clear "SELF" as I expected it... It is not: "Now, me, Karolina: Woman, Mother, I am this and I like this, And I want to do this, and I don't like this." It is not so straight forward, but much more interesting. I discover that "self" as I go, I discover "it" through the triggers, through what tends to make me loose my patience for example, and it helps me by pointing at what I can work on. And as I work on those, I discover who is there under the wounds, under the triggering points. It is a harduous, long path but it shows me that it is a lifelong learning, and we might as well do it with as much joy and happiness as we can.

Healing does not have to be only tears, and sweat, it can be learning to receive, learning to let go, learning to grow from a place of slowing down instead of pushing.

So, I would say, at least from my experience: that "self" you want to get back, or that new "self" you want to get to know... It won't be crystal clear, it will never really be as we are always changing, always evolving. You will get glimpses of it, you will know. It is fine to not feel/ know every single inch of yourself especially after you have given life to another human being.

You just need to open the door to getting to know her (that "self") though. Believe she is there, sometimes she'll come knock, sometimes she'll be too busy with her to-do list and running after her toddler. Sometimes she'll come knock and tell you "I want to paint", so take her painting, do not leave her in the cold! Sometimes she won't come to the door for a long time and you will see her running around and it is your duty to make it inviting for her to come: buy her flowers, make it cosy, prepare things for her that you know will soothe her and help her unplug, relax and recharge. That is how you will get to know her more and more.

To get to know that self...

We start with awareness. We slow everything down.

We invite the body to feel, not just think.

Sometimes it’s a visualisation where we meet a version of ourselves we haven’t dared to dream into yet. Sometimes it’s just a safe, spacious conversation where something buried finds breath.

Sometimes it is a bath, a moment to breathe with nothing to do and letting go of the things that will need to be done.

And slowly, that hidden “self” we’ve been searching for begins to emerge. Not as a grand, dramatic rebirth. But as a quiet remembering. A soft unfolding. A mother becoming not just to her child, but to herself.