Title
A Mother’s Restoration: A Path to Wholeness
Overview
A Mother’s Restoration: A Path to Wholeness serves mothers who seek physical and emotional restoration and vitality, whether their children are babies or teenagers. These women are reliable, hard-working, and ever-present for their families. They are also tired, suffer bodily aches, and may have lost touch with themselves as navigate the many roles they have had to adopt to support and nurture their families while possibly balancing home life with a career. This book addresses common changes women experience not only in the postnatal period, but for years beyond, including physical ailments and pains, emotional stress, and a loss of self as they give so much to their families and leave little for themselves. A Mother’s Restoration guides mothers who have lost their sense of self due to physical and emotional stressors through a yoga-based program in which she studies and enriches herself through mindful movement, breath work, voice and speech practices, meditations, and journal prompts framed by yoga's guidelines for living with integrity. Over nineteen weeks, she recaptures and enhances herself through a balance of mind, stability in movement, strength in voice, and conviction in spirit. She is vital and able to nurture herself as she cares for her child. The author, Melissa Hurt, knows from firsthand experience about exhaustion, postpartum depression and anxiety, pelvic floor imbalance, vocal fatigue, and the importance of movement-based practices to recapture wellness for daily life while navigating motherhood.
The Hook
A Mother’s Restoration: A Path to Wholeness reconnects mothers to their true selves and to the world through yoga practice and philosophy. This book provides tools from a range of yoga practices to rediscover, strengthen, and restore their body, mind, breath, voice, and spirit.
Who Will Buy This Book and Why?
This book is for mothers whose children range from new babies through teenagers who want to reclaim their personal vitality and fortify their spiritual connections with themselves. In Part One I list the conditions that many women suffer in silence with postpartum. According to Pew Social Trends, up to 39% of all women in the United States in their early 40s have been mothers[i]. Almost one-quarter of American women suffer a pelvic floor imbalance, with 13-36% of women who have had vaginal births ending with an injury to the pelvic floor.[ii] A study in Science Daily reported in 2008 that one in three women suffer a pelvic floor imbalance.iii I would estimate that the number has increased over the past ten years with the growing popularity of high-intensity interval training (HIIT), boot camp classes, and CrossFit (all which further destabilize the pelvic floor if the participant does not have sufficient core strength, body awareness, and proper breath control while doing the exercises). Nearly 15% of mothers suffer from postpartum depression; that’s approximately 600,000 women a year affected in the United States.iv British Journal of Sports Medicine reported in a 2018 study that 60% of women have diastasis recti in the first twelve months postpartum, a condition in which the two halves of the abdominal wall separate and possibly lead to severe low back pain, a compromise in muscular stability, and/or a hernia.v If a woman suffers diastasis recti and pelvic floor imbalance, then she must take care to heal her pelvic floor and deep core muscles before doing any movement-based regimen. Otherwise she risks bearing down while she moves in daily life and/or improper breathing causing pelvic floor prolapse and/or urogenital herniation, in which her intestines protrude through a gap in her abdomen.
The postnatal books on the market tend to focus on losing the baby weight or dealing with postpartum depression. There is a place for these books, but there is so much more that defines a woman as a mother. Books that are fitness-focused may be unsafe for mothers who suffer from a pelvic floor imbalance and/or have diastasis recti (both ailments are quite dominant). The lack of information on how a woman takes care of herself once she has had a child is maddening. This book is for:
• The woman who suffered a separation in her abdominal muscles (diastasis recti) so wide that she could fit her entire hand into her abdomen. Her doctor said nothing to her about the risk of diastasis recti throughout each of her three pregnancies.
• The woman who had two healthy pregnancies two years apart and successful natural vaginal deliveries with both. Yet, her midwife did not advise her that she must rest even though she might feel well; otherwise, she risks pelvic floor imbalance. She now has pelvic organ prolapse and diastasis recti due to moving too much while loading herself with one or both of her children on her hips around the clock.
• The woman who was never told how to properly execute Kegel exercises prenatally or postnatally, even though she attended birthing classes and read every popular and respected birthing book on the market. She suffered pelvic pain during her pregnancy that felt like her hip was dislocating from her back. She learned years after having her children that she had diastasis recti and pelvic floor imbalance that severely destabilized her core.
• The woman who suffers depression as a stay-at-home mother, even though she simultaneously adores all four of her children. The monotony of daily life has run her down, and she has lost touch with who she was before having her children.
• The woman who has a son in high school and is just now realizing her back pain is due to a pelvic floor imbalance. She was never once told about Kegel exercises.
• For every prenatal and postnatal student in my yoga classes who does not raise her hand when I ask whose doctor or midwife has educated her about the pelvic floor and how to strengthen and release it properly. These women are left in the dark if/when they suffer pelvic floor imbalance anywhere from immediately postpartum up to years after having their babies.
· The women left alone to care for a child with zero support from neighbors or family. They desperately need to build a community network for at least emotional support.
· All of these women and the thousands of others that deteriorate in body, mind, and spirit each year who will buy this book to start their path towards wholeness and healing.
A Mother’s Restoration: A Path to Wholeness reaches beyond postnatal yoga and women’s health books on the market because it leads mothers (whose children range from babies to teenagers) through a range of body/mind practices to wholly integrate and develop their inner-felt resources to feel and be their best, even through the harshest seasons of motherhood. Many of these women may practice yoga or want to experience it. In 2016, Yoga Journal determined there were 36 million practitioners of yoga in the United States (approximately 11% of the US population), proving the popularity of yoga. Women make up 72% of this particular population, totaling just under 26 million women practicing yoga. A 2016 survey by Yoga Alliance reports one in three Americans has tried yoga on his/her own (not in a class) at least once.vi This proves that many people prefer utilizing sources outside of an in-person yoga teacher for their yoga practice. This book will be accessible to new practitioners of yoga who might feel intimidated by the word practice to popular misconceptions of needing to be thin, flexible, and calm in everyday life. Instead, I teach yoga through the lens of self-study, personal development, and integration of body, mind, voice, and spirit. Yoga is for everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, age, or body shape and size. Moreover, I list breath-based, movement-based, and meditation practices in ordinary English and not Sanskrit to include all readers on the path and not only those experienced in yoga.
I truly want this book to help women heal themselves and find community support through my community prompts as they navigate motherhood. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practices reports 78% of postpartum women suffering from postpartum depression experienced significantly higher rates of improvements in depression and anxiety when they began a yoga practice of two classes a week over eight weeks.vii A Mother’s Restoration can be a launching point for women to learn self-care practices that connect them with other women that can uplift and support one another.
I would like to market my book to mothers as a tool to feel well all-around in body, mind, voice, and spirit. I would like to solidly secure it as a “must-have” item in the postnatal recovery kit and as a back-to-school shopping gift for mothers with the strong possibility of evolving it into subsequent editions over the years. Women will complete the book with increased confidence due to the range of practices focused on self-study, personal faith in oneself, and creating a wellness discipline they can do in twenty to thirty minutes a day. The methods I share for each week can be done sequentially during the child’s nap, when the child is at school, or can be done one practice at a time for more time-constrained mothers.
Comparable books include:
* Yoga Mama, Yoga Baby by Margo Shapiro Bachman (Sounds True, 2013)—this book uses an Ayurvedic lifestyle to frame the experience of pregnancy and pursue optimal health through diet, yoga asana, breathing exercises, meditations, and mantras (yogic chanting). I use a broader lens to explore wellness, but extending the idea beyond pregnancy to include postnatal life. My lens encompasses physical postures and practices, meditations, breathing practices, mindfulness in daily life, and embodied voice practices. My book is the needed guide for postnatal recovery once the woman has had her baby.
* The Fourth Trimester: A Postpartum Guide to Healing Your Body, Balancing Your Emotions, & Restoring Your Vitality by Kimberly Ann Johnson (Shambhala Publications, 2017)—this book teaches new mothers how to care for themselves and their relationships physically and energetically in the fourth trimester postpartum. It explains what has immediately happened to a woman’s body once she has had a baby and shares exercises to bring a woman to a state of balance through movement, journaling, and nutrition, to name a few modalities. My book goes beyond the first fourteen weeks once a woman has had her baby by teaching practices that firmly establish a well-rounded regimen for nurturing herself, getting stronger in body, voice, and spirit, and becoming more of her true self through the first year of motherhood and beyond. The reader of my book can pick up my book each year and learn something new about herself as she moves through the program I put forth.
* Breathe, Mama, Breathe: 5 Minute Mindfulness for Busy Moms by Shonda Moralis (The Experiment, 2017)—this book provides a range of real-life opportunities for mindfulness to help busy moms recapture a sense of peace. Moralis pulls from positive psychology and mindfulness practice to help women find a balance between the many roles they play. My book is similar because it is for women with children ranging from babies to teenagers and it written for mothers to incorporate in daily life with minimal time required to reap the benefits of the practice. My book offers an entirely different program—breathing practices, yoga/mindful movements, embodied voice, meditation, and yoga philosophy for journaling—and does not directly compete with Moralis’s project.
* The Empowered Mama: How to Reclaim Your Time and Yourself While Raising a Happy, Healthy Family by Lisa Druxman (Fair Winds Press, 2018). Druxman leads mothers through a twelve-month program that sets up a vision for a balanced life and teaches how to create and follow through on an action plan that takes care of mother via the variables in her life. She includes the reader’s nutrition, fitness, meditation, creating positive habits and thought patterns, leadership in daily life, a non-toxic home, strengthening the family connection, and practicing gratitude. She approaches meditation as if the reader is hesitant to explore it and teaches simple practices to ease into it. Her fitness approach eases women nicely into exercises they may have enjoyed pre-pregnancy over five years. However, she offers High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) as a practice that moms can do up to three times a week and suggests lunges and full planks as “must-do” practices. These are confusing messages for mothers who may be suffering from pelvic floor instability (which she mentions in one paragraph) and diastasis recti (which she does not include)—conditions women can endure for years postpartum. My book eases mothers into a program that lasts sixteen weeks, is repeatable, and safe for as long as the mother wants to deepen her connection to herself through the yogic path. As a result of my approach, the reader finds the carryover from her personal care to how her restored Self (body, mind, and spirit) informs her behaviors in daily life that will affect her family and relationships.
* The Self-Care Solution: A Modern Mother’s Must-Have Guide to Health and Well-Being by Julie Burton (She Writes Press, 2016). Burton helps moms of kids ranging in age from newborn to teenagers with tips on how to create a self-care discipline. She covers caring for the body, sleep health, cultivating happiness, finding gratitude, setting boundaries, nurturing partnerships, finding work-life balance, and sustaining these practices for life. Burton and I share the same audience: moms with kids ranging from babyhood to teenagers. My book is different because I propose a wellness regimen for moms to follow over sixteen weeks to restore themselves in body, mind, voice, and spirit.
There have been no books published in the past five years that teach new mothers how to care for themselves wholly (body, mind, voice, and spirit) in the first year postpartum and beyond.
About the Author:
Melissa Hurt is a certified yoga teacher (CYT-500); a Lessac certified embodied voice, speech, and movement trainer (the last certified by Arthur Lessac); and a mom. She specializes in yoga for women’s health and teaches many embodied practices to mothers to help them navigate the stressors of motherhood while also continually bonding with their children.
She has a BA, MFA, and Ph.D. in theatre with a concentration in embodied actor training. In 2016, she founded Integrative Studio, LLC as a place where people (in particular, moms) rediscover how to connect with their true selves. She uses yoga, embodied voice, and, at times, actor training exercises as her tools.
She has been a yoga teacher since 2011 and a certified embodied voice trainer since 2010. She has taught embodiment practices to hundreds of students, and they have given her positive feedback on how they feel much more refreshed and focused in their lives than they had before their work together. She is active on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn and serves her website followers with a biweekly newsletter offering wellness tips that help them feel vital again. She has been a featured guest on The Fourth Trimester podcast and is an invited expert for the upcoming Natural Mamas Movement podcast in which she will discuss the importance of embodied voice practice as a tool for sustaining oneself as a mother.
She has published Arthur Lessac’s Embodied Actor Training (Routledge, paperback edition in 2014), a chapter on mindfulness in motherhood in Play with Purpose (LTRI 2017), as well as several articles in journals. She has a picture book titled I Am the Jungle: A Yoga Adventure set for publication with Sounds True Publishing in August 2020.
Table of Contents:
A Mother’s Restoration: A Path to Wholeness unfolds over an introduction, four parts, an
epilogue, and one appendix.
INTRODUCTION:
I share the story of my need for a C-section, my fears, and my difficult recovery. I felt isolated, exhausted in every capacity, and completely depleted while I stayed home to take care of my daughter. I end my personal story with the moment my voice mentor asked why I sounded so bad and suggested ways I could recapture my vocal life. These conversations inspired me to heal myself in other ways as well, and I share what I did to rise up and start anew.
I address the importance of caring for the whole self in body, mind, breath, voice, and spirit. Additionally, I state the need for accessible and coherent information that helps women understand what has happened to them once they have had a child. Knowledge is power, and once women realize that what they feel is within the range of typical postnatal experience (again, which includes any length of time once a woman has had a child), they can empower themselves to get well.
I introduce myself as a certified yoga teacher and embodied voice, speech, and movement trainer with years of experience teaching mothers embodiment practices. In times which people seem to pay attention solely to the child, this book focuses on mothers so that they can restore themselves and feel balanced again. I forecast how readers will use the book: Mothers will explore the six-phase program over sixteen weeks with an ideal practice being six days a week. However, I emphasize the importance of mothers’ being kind to themselves if they can only find energy and time for three or four days a week. Mothers will ground their practices with the information they learn in Part One. Part Two leads them through the program, and they have the option to either complete Part Four concurrently via my prompts or as a separate study. Once they have completed the program, they can circle back to the beginning and start again to continue growing and deepening their practice. Once their child reaches one year of age or, for mothers of older children, they have completed Part Two twice, they will complete an addition three weeks of the program in Part Three.
Part One includes foundational material that is physiological and anatomical in nature and informs the practices in each phase. Part Two lays out the course over six phases with practices in breath-based centering, mindful movements, embodied voice and speech (which I casually call “yoga for the voice”), and meditation. Each phase begins with a community prompt to give ideas on where and how to meet other women so that they can grow in relationship with others.
PART ONE: The Five Conditions You Don’t Have to Accept
I teach how and why mothers feel depleted, using a layperson’s explanation of the physiology and anatomy of the postnatal woman. These five conditions are 1) You Feel Hopeless Despite Your Beautiful Baby, 2) You Pee When You Sneeze, 3) Your Lower Back Hurts and Belly Protrudes, 4) Your Back and Pelvis Hurt, and 5) Your Voice Feels Weak and You Have Lost Your Sense of Self. The five conditions continue to explain postpartum depression and anxiety, pelvic floor imbalance, diastasis recti, a weak core, and vocal fry/fatigue. These conditions can last for years after a woman has had a child.
I teach the physiology of postnatal depletion, a condition that can last up to seven years postpartum, as a potential cause for exhaustion and emotional highs and lows. I discuss the importance of community when adapting to life’s changes due to the physiological changes happening in the brain. I base this section in neuroscientific research showing that we come into a sense of ourselves as a result of the relationships we hold. I further explain how befriending other people and finding one’s “tribe” help alleviate emotional distress and strengthen a woman’s identity as a mother. The mother will breathe more easily once she feels supported by a network of social support, which will help with her depression and anxiety.
I teach how pelvic floor imbalance occurs once a woman has carried and delivered a baby, whether via C-Section or vaginally. Everyday behaviors impact the pelvic floor ranging from sitting for long periods, emotional stress, postural habits, and the shoes women wear. I discuss how women may also unknowingly be compromising their breathing from these behaviors, which can also negatively impact the stability of the pelvic floor. I speak about the Kegel exercise and how it is popularly misunderstood as mostly focusing on the contraction of the pelvic floor without any regard to the necessity of breathing optimally while doing the activities (which I teach in Part Two).
I discuss diastasis recti, a condition in which the two halves of the abdominal sheath closest to the surface of the body separate; thus, rendering one to recruit back muscles to do the work that should be spread over the core muscles. Diastasis recti causes back pain and can lead to hernias from the intestines squeezing through the separation due to too much compression on the abdominal region. This compression comes from popular abdominal exercises in which the spine is curled forward and from poor posture while sitting and/or standing throughout daily life.
I teach how a mother develops weak structural support in the muscle groups commonly called “the core.” I share how the core is actually made of many muscle groups, including the breathing diaphragm and the pelvic floor diaphragm. I simplify this lesson by teaching the six sides of the core: front, back, left side, right side, top, and bottom. We need to find stability and balance with each of the muscle groups as a system to support ourselves in daily life. This is especially important for mothers of young children weighing up to 45 pounds as they may be carrying them for years. Moreover, mothers of babies and toddlers are burdened with carrying car seats, diaper bags/backpacks, purses, and perhaps also holding a child or holding a hand—they need to learn how to strengthen and stabilize core so they can continue their daily work as nurturers, chaperones, and playmates to their children safely.
Lastly, I speak about vocal fry/vocal fatigue as a condition that prevents a connection to what we say because we no longer feel vocal sensations as we talk. I briefly teach vocal anatomy and how the breath intricately works with vocalization. There is a psychophysical connection between breath, voice, and spirit. When we are exhausted energetically, we tend to retract from connecting with others. This can result in more shallow breathing and a weaker voice. For many, losing the capacity to feel vocal sensation in the mouth when we speak results in a loss of one’s Self. Once a woman regains an ability to perceive and strengthen her voice, she develops a personal sense of empowerment.
I offer information about these five conditions with a large caveat: A woman is not the summation of her parts. I share with the reader that she is a whole person complete with emotions, memories, passions, fears, intelligence, beauty, and love—to name a few of her qualities. The way she moves encompasses all that lives in her and as herself. Habitual ways of moving likely stem back to patterns and behaviors created unconsciously in childhood. With the practices in this book, she won’t necessarily work to de-pattern these habits. Rather, she seeks a relaxed, yet curious, state of inquiry of body and mind. Then she can embrace and investigate herself, noting new discoveries as she navigates the work.
PART TWO: A Path to Wholeness
There are six phases for restoration in body, mind, voice, and spirit in this book. The first two phases are two weeks in length, and the subsequent phases are three weeks in length. At the beginning of each phase, I suggest finding other women for interpersonal connection and friendship. I frame each phase of Part Two with Yoga Sutra 1.20: “For most people, (deep insight into complete absorption of the heart-mind) is preceded by faith, vitality, strong memory, samadhi, then deep insight.” I use this teaching as a guideline to affix focus, faith, and discipline on mothers’ path to wholeness. I add Yoga Sutra 1.21 in Phase Six, the final phase: “Intense momentum of practice and faith accelerates them toward samadhi” as a beacon and reflection on what mothers have developed thus far. I then lay out the week-by-week path of breath-based centering practices, mindful movement postures and practices, embodied voice and speech explorations, and meditation.
Phase One teaches basic awareness of how the breath moves in and out of the body. The movement practice includes gentle core work that addresses the whole of what surrounds the “abdominal sac” and establishes the “core foundation” practices that address pelvic floor imbalance, a weak core, and diastasis recti. I include explorations for releasing tension in the neck and shoulders. Mothers discover how to become aware of vocal sensation through vocal humming. They begin their meditation practice by sensing the air that surrounds them, and their connection to it.
Phase Two deepens mothers’ awareness of their breath as an expansive and grounding energy in the body. I share how to measure the process of breathing evenly, which helps with depression and anxiety. Mothers’ movement practice carries over core awareness to gentle strengthening and stabilizing, lengthening the spine, and releasing the shoulders. Mothers shift their awareness of vocal vibration into feeling consonants that ground their speech and give them vocal color and clarity. Their meditation practice moves to expand their awareness from within to incorporating their surroundings so they can attune with their home life as it is (whether there are dirty dishes, piles of laundry, or various belongings scattered all around the house).
Phase Three brings mothers’ attention to the subtleties of the “Victorious Breath” in yoga, which draws focus inward and creates gentle heat within. The movement practice lengthens, strengthens, and stabilizes the hips and core through awareness of alignment in the sides of the body so that mothers correct diastasis recti. Mothers begin transitioning what they have learned in the floor postures to how they connect with themselves on their feet with proprioception. The voice practice moves into vowels that develop warmth to the quality of the voice and strength to the vocal vibrations so that they speak without any pushing or pain in the voice. Their meditation practice continues evolving to counting the length of inhalations and exhalations in a relaxed yet focused manner for longer periods.
Phase Four teaches the “Three-Part Breath” to feel the expanse of the breathing mechanism. Their movement practice further develops strength in the hips to stabilize the pelvis. Mothers of babies and toddlers take on more of a load carrying their child around by this stage of the program, so there are dynamic squatting poses in the movement practice to get stronger as they unite movement with healthy breathing. Mothers continue to strengthen and stabilize the core and correct diastasis recti. Their embodied voice practice develops the subtleties of vocal power (without pushing) further and carries over their new awareness of voice and speech to a nursery rhyme so that mothers can connect what they have discovered to what may be real-life speech. Significantly, I am the first women’s wellness writer to develop a practice that combines wellness, voice, and nursery rhymes and other everyday texts and songs for mothers to feel embodied with their voices for daily life with a child. The mothers’ meditation practice continues to evolve to more in-depth self-study as they hold their child and feel an energetic connection between them. Mothers of older children can maintain an image of their child in their heart-mind if they are unable to hold their child.
Phase Five introduces a breathing practice that balances both sides of the body and mind together called “Alternate Nostril Breathing.” The movement practice explores poses that continue to lengthen and release the muscles surrounding the core and the hips so they can continue building stability and balance. The voice practice includes vowels that bring dynamics to voice and speech because they speak the vowels with variety. This component of the voice work attunes them to the flexibility of the lips and cheeks. Feeling this flexibility and balance prevents mothers’ vocal and energetic fatigue, even if reading their fifteenth book to their child (or the same book, fifteen times in a row), answering a hundred questions that begin with “Why?” asked by curious minds, or working a career in the day then continuing their role as mother long into the night. Mothers’ meditation practice introduces them to the energetic systems of the body—the chakras—the deepen their awareness of how body, mind, and breath are deeply integrated.
Phase Six teaches a restorative breathing practice that integrates body, mind, breath, and spirit through the length of the spine as well as the front and back fascial lines of the body. The movement practice integrates explorations from the previous five phases to feel the explicit and subtle energies at work in mothers’ standing, seated, prone, and supine movements. We begin to include forward folds since mothers have now done a lot of work to strengthen the core from all six sides and correct diastasis recti. Mothers’ voice practice moves from singing nursery rhythms to traditional yogic chants with the syllables broken down phonetically as they have learned through their embodied voice practices. Mothers’ meditation practice moves to silent mantra awareness with “Soham” and “Hamsa,” “I Am That” and “That I Am.” By the end of this phase, mothers feel stronger, more vital, vibrant, and peaceful from their connection of mind, body, breath, voice, and spirit.
PART THREE: A Path to Wholeness Beyond the First Year Postpartum
I continue the program for mothers of children who are now 12 months old and have completed Part Two more than once as well as for women who started the program with older children who have cycled through Part Two at least once. Mothers are feeling more integrated in body, mind, voice, and spirit. This is now in Phase Seven, which has three more weeks of Breath-Based Practices, stronger Movement-Based Practices, more advanced Embodied Voice Practices, and Meditations. Consider it A Mother’s Restoration version 2.0.
I begin to include lunges and kneeling planks at this part of the program so mothers can explore regaining dynamic flexibility and strength in the muscles surrounding the pelvis. The time spent investing in stabilizing the pelvis through the six phases in Part Two have prepared them to safely hold lunges, standing lunges, and Warrior poses. The mindful movement practice gets stronger at this phase so they can begin to recapture more of the vitality they may have felt pre-pregnancy. In addition, I include kneeling planks that evolve into full planks once the front of the core feels strong and stable to support the lower back. Lastly, I include some poses, such as Boat Pose and poses from mat Pilates abdominal series, that specifically target strengthening the abdominal muscles. I advise mothers to only perform these poses when they have determined they have corrected diastasis recti.
I frame the work in Phase Seven with excerpts from the Bhagavad Gita, the classic spiritual tale of Lord Krishna teaching Arjuna, the prized warrior, how to find and step into his dharma through the act of yoga. Arjuna struggles with his core sense of self as he faces battle and Krishna educates him on his duty to serve and live his life as an act of service to Him, the Supreme Lord. He teaches meditation is the best way to do this while also finding your true self. I include three small excerpts from the text as a frame for the next three weeks and encourage mothers to find a copy of this sacred text and use it to discover herself on a deeper level.
PART FOUR: Connecting with Others, Loving Yourself
The book concludes with a study of the ten ethical guidelines outlined in yoga for relating to the world and loving yourself, called the yamas and niyamas. These teachings provide spiritual prompts for self-reflective journaling. I ask questions for in-depth inquiry and reflection for mothers to use as material for journaling as a final stop on their path to wholeness. I teach each guideline using every day real-life examples of motherhood. I want the reader to inhabit these teachings in her heart-mind with a sense of integrity. Journaling honest responses to these questions provide an opportunity for space and reflection as mothers observe themselves, connect deeply with themselves, and notice how they relate with the world as a mother and as a woman. It will feel encouraging to look back on the pages of this journal years later and see how wonderfully and wholly far they have come since beginning this path to wholeness. There is an option to explore the lessons and prompts at the end of certain weeks if readers want to complete Parts Two and Four concurrently.
CLOSING REMARKS
I conclude the book by explaining how the metaphor B.K.S. Iyengar, famed teacher of modern yoga, writes in his book The Tree of Yoga is a frame for how the mother’s path in restoring balance in body, mind, and spirit. I summarize the gains of the A Mother’s Restoration program and how each facet of their process relates to the eight-limbed yoga path described in the Yoga Sutras and in The Tree of Life. It’s an honor to be a mother and learn about life through the rearing of one’s child/children. I encourage mothers to revisit the path I have presented in this book time and again as they navigate new seasons of motherhood over the years.
APPENDIX A: A List of the Explorations for Each Phase
Book Details
A Mother’s Restoration: A Path to Wholeness will run approximately 270 pages (approximately 64,000 words) with a photo of each pose appearing as it is first introduced. I write in a casual and relatable tone as if I am teaching mothers in front of me. I include the program written out as a grid that lists each of the practices in each phase week by week in Appendix A.