Matrescence 101

00:01
So the fact that I'm talking to mothers, and not only, but the fact that I'm talking to mothers and that they have no idea what that what they're experiencing has a name to me is mind-blowing.

00:14
I mean that is where I'm doing what I'm doing obviously because I am fascinated by this and because I want and find normal that mothers know that what they're going through is real, is raw, is studied, and it's it's happening, isn't it?

00:32
It is the transformation of your life. No other process you'll go through will be as complex and as intense and happening simultaneously and in such a short time span as becoming a mother Mothers are culture shifters and creatrixes.

00:59
Then why are they kept in the background, quiet and unsupported? I'm Simona, Seasons of Matresen's guide and educator, holder of space for mothers, woman honoring her body, her womb, and her wise cycles, and this is This is Motherlived, the podcast that centers mothers and brings to light their lived experience, shifting the way mothers care for themselves and the way we support mothers as a culture.

01:26
I'm filling the gap between what we think we know about mothers mothers and their true lived stories and transformation. I sit down with amazing wise women, thought leaders, wealth of creativity to talk about matrescence, motherhood, womanhood, cyclicality, spirituality, sexuality, and all the juicy, deep, complex threads we weave together as women.

01:51
You won't leave this podcast without a seed of change or inspiration growing inside you. Welcome. Hi loves. This episode is about matrescence. Yes, if it's a term you've first heard right now or if you've never heard about it, perfect.

02:23
Here goes. Matrescence, this term that when I say it out loud or I'm asked what I do and I say that I'm a matrescence guide and educator I get all sorts of looks and hmms and mmm okay or plain silence or matrescenza in Romanian, that is my native language.

02:46
And if you don't know where Romania is, it's a country in Eastern Europe. Matrescence is a term that should be on much more lips than it currently is. And what better time to change this than now with Motherlived Podcast, right?

03:00
So let's dive into it. What is this tongue-twisting concept? Well, my dear and lovely mama listening, it is all of your lived experience since becoming a mama. And I know that we can pinpoint, and we generally do pinpoint, becoming a mama to that first cry of your baby that you hear after you've given birth.

03:25
But I also know that you started becoming a mother, and I know you felt that, with the moment you learned about your pregnancy. So from the moment you learn about your baby forming inside you, you are starting to become a mother.

03:39
And everything you live in and outside of yourself is matrescence. Physiologically, yes, you become a mother when your baby is born. But to become a mother, there is a whole process that you go through and that rebuilds every aspect of you and rebuilds every aspect of your life.

04:01
And it is an ongoing process. Some might say, and I agree with that, it is a lifelong process. Matrescence is a developmental process. So if you want a very clear and practical analogy, think of adolescence, yeah, studied, very well known and acknowledged by the whole world as a normal stage of development that every child goes through on his way to becoming a young adult, right?

04:29
That's what adolescence is. And everybody knows that. Now, matrescence is the process that every woman goes through that takes her from being a maiden, yes, a young woman, to being a mother. And if you were to think about adolescence as an anchor, yeah, to help you better understand how matrescence unfolds, think of all the aspects of a child that transform inside of them, to turn them into that young adult.

04:59
It's not just physical, right? I mean, yes, the hair growth, the hormonal changes and the smells, they're all pretty obvious. But we also know that there is more than meets the eye there. There are emotional changes that happen with that child, there are psychological changes, there are immense identity shifts that happen within that child.

05:22
even though we don't see them, and the way that they see themselves and the way that others see them change fundamentally. You don't look at a young adult the same way you look at an eleven year old, right?

05:37
Well, similarly, the changes that transform you into a mother, yes, or a woman into a mother, if you are not a mother and you're listening to this, impact all areas of your life. It's not just your body changing and shifting and looking differently.

05:54
It's not the all the madness hormone trip you're on, the hormonal depletion that you're going through afterwards. It's not just looking and feeling differently in your body, but you also experience these changes in many other areas of your life.

06:13
Actually in all areas of your life. Psychologically, you deal with the very, very big challenges of literally developing a new identity. You stop being the same you. You stop doing the same things, you stop living the same way, you stop valuing the same things your routine what you do change fundamentally and even though you're getting so much pushback from society to go back to the way you used to be, that is not the normal way.

06:46
That is not the way it's supposed to be. You're supposed to change. This is what matrescence does, this is what I'm speaking about, right, in this episode. Daniel Stern, who is an excellent author, he wrote The Birth of a Mother, and if you haven't read it, get on it, spoke of the spoke of this transformation of matrescence as one of the most significant physical and psychological changes a woman will ever experience.

07:15
That is big, it's huge, it's massive. You develop a new way of thinking. You develop a new way of seeing the world. Your roles shift. Yeah, we all have different roles in our lives.

07:30
We are daughters, we are mothers, we are partners or wives, we're sisters. Your roles shift when you become a mother. They look differently, they feel differently, and you get a new role, a life-altering one.

07:45
The role of the mother. Your career maybe takes the backstage or you take a break or it stops altogether and you realize you don't want to work anymore or you realize, as is very common for mothers, that what you did before no longer satisfies you.

08:03
It doesn't give you the same joy and fulfillment. And you want to shift completely what you're doing. You do something else completely professionally. And that's fine. Your priorities and your values shift and your relationships change or they end altogether.

08:22
Friends that you used to have no longer find a place in your life anymore. You don't have the same things in common. So naturally that relationship comes to a close. Culturally, you are seen differently, belonging now to a new group.

08:40
Mothers, yeah? This group about which you've known very little probably up to the point you became a mother, and at the same time a group to which you both want to belong and need, but also you have no idea what it involves.

08:56
You're learning about it, yeah, you're learning what it means to be a mother. Spiritually, you may find yourself more connected to yourself, to your life. You may discover new religion, you may discover you may find yourself closer to divinity, whatever form that takes for you, you discover a higher meaning.

09:19
And it makes sense, since you are experiencing a transformation unlike any other religious initiations through the deprivations that you encounter. Trudell Thomas was talking about all the deprivations that a mother and a father are submitted to when they become parent.

09:42
And she said that this is the level of a religious initiation, this initiation that you go through when you become a mother. Now, we could have a whole uh episode talking just about the transformations you undergo as a mother and we are actually gonna have one so if you stick around you're gonna be listening to that episode also but most of the changes that you're going through are unseen, yes, to the eyes of others.

10:14
But it is really important to know that when we talk about madrescence, that it changes you in all possible ways. Yeah? That it turns you upside down, it turns you inside out, it rearranges the way you live, the way you feel, the way you see others and you see yourself, and it births a new you.

10:33
The birth of your baby literally marks two births. The physical birth of your child and your birth as a mother. So take a minute now, if you want, or after this episode is over, to think about the changes that you've experienced that really challenged you and that really felt hard since becoming a mother, that felt difficult to adjust to and to go through Just acknowledge them.

11:05
So the fact that I'm talking to mothers, and not only, but the fact that I'm talking to mothers and that they have no idea what that what they're experiencing has a name to me is mind-blowing.

11:18
I mean that is where I'm doing what I'm doing obviously because I am fascinated by this and because I want and find normal that mothers know that what they're going through is real, is raw, is studied and it's it's happening, isn't it?

11:37
It is the transformation of your life. No other process you'll go through will be as complex and as intense and happening simultaneously and in such a short time span as becoming a mother. And I'm happy to say that matrescence is real as fuck.

11:57
Matrescence is a real concept. It's studied by universities, it's supported scientifically by, thank God, much more evidence now than 40 or 50 years ago when Dana Raphael coined the term matrescence. She was an anthropologist who coined this term and who first talked about the fact that the transformations that a mother goes through are immense.

12:22
And she gave them this name, matrescence. Like there are sociologists now studying motherhood and their experiences, this is a good time to be in. At the same time, there is still so much more work to be done to acknowledge and to normalize this transformation and to support mothers and their experiences.

12:45
So part of the mission of this podcast is also this, to raise awareness, to bring matrescence into normalcy and to make it as common as green tea and diets and adolescence. Um now, so far, when society spoke about motherhood and being a mother, or when you heard people talking about it, the conversations were very simplistic.

13:17
They were reduced to, oh, you're either doing great and all is well and you're breastfeeding checked, all coming naturally, checked, uh, you feeling blissful, checked, or postnatal depression. And while both these experiences exist and are lived by mothers, there is a huge whole wide spectrum in between.

13:41
There are so many types of experiencing motherhood and so many variables and ways in which you becoming a mother can feel that it is unfair to limit this experience and to narrow it down and to to trivialize it by saying it's either this or it's that.

14:01
And that's why knowing of matrescence and knowing of its existence, because this is what it is. Yes, matrescence is your experience as a mother. It's the way you feel it. That is why matrescence offers a safe space for all these experiences to be okay, for your experience to be okay.

14:23
You can be in between the perfectly blissful and natural and the postnatal depression. You can be in between and that is normal. So you're not broken, amazing, and lovely mama if you didn't find it blissful and you're not broken if you struggled with it and if you struggle with it and you're not broken if you have postnatal depression.

14:44
You're not broken because you're in the throes of matrescence. It is real, it is normal for it to happen, and it is normal to find it hard, to find that you need support, that you need space to think about and talk about your experience as a mother to integrate it with everything, with the overflowing love, with the anger, with the looking in the mirror and not recognizing yourself, with the overwhelm, with the mental and emotional load, with the need for time alone, with the sense of

15:16
purpose and the sense of loss of your previous life. It's all welcome. It is all worthy. It's yours and I I see it and I honor it. So if you also honor it, maybe speak to people about matresence, speak to people about your experience.

15:35
Matrescence touches all aspects of your life, yeah? And as my mentor Nikki McCahan said, it leaves no woman as it found her. We speak of this immense transformation of this rite of passage way too little, and we see it as something trivial that should be kept quiet or spoken of just in specific circles, you know, just mamas and women talking about it.

15:59
How many of the mamas out there, how many of you would have felt less lonely, less broken, less weird knowing that this is one of the most important and life-changing transformations you can go through?

16:13
and that it is normal to feel like this. How many of you would have felt less alone knowing that ambivalence is normal, that feeling anger and love at the same time is normal? That feeling torn apart and put back together also normal.

16:28
Feeling like your life is taken from you and rearranged in weird ways. Also normal. How many of you would have felt less alone knowing about the seasons and the challenges that matrescence can carry you through?

16:44
Just knowing that it exists and that it's normal to need support. Motrescence is a natural, incredible transformation that requires a deconstruction and a reconstruction of you, of your life, of your identity and your values.

17:03
Matrescence is a cycle of nature, it's nature reflected inside of you, inside your life, and it is a catalyst for growth. Metrescence is a portal for growth because it centers you, mama, because it sees you, it talks about you and it puts you and your experience in the center and not backstage.

17:26
When we hear about a baby coming into the world, all the focus, all the worries on the child, on how they will grow, how they will receive what they need, and if it's all prepared, and of course that is important, is massive.

17:40
And speaking as somebody who up until two years ago was a Montessori guide and a parenting guide, I am the first to advocate for a right environment for the child and for the child to get everything they need.

17:56
And at the same time, I also advocate for mothers. Nobody looks at the mother. Nobody sees the mother as going through her own massive changes, her own challenges. Nobody seems to take into account that you, mama, you also need support, and that it is normal to need it.

18:16
Your story and what you're going through as a mother is important. It's essential. Your transformation is essential. Your story and the way you face all these challenges impact your mothering. They impact the way you can be a mother for your child and the way you experience your matrescence impacts you.

18:36
It can be a source, yes, of immense growth and of expansion if you're supported and if you know about it and if you know what's next and what you can do to support yourself.

18:49
And at the same time it can also be a source of belittling because you are incredibly powerful, but at the same time you're very vulnerable and open to the messages, open to the support you receive or you don't receive as a mother.

19:06
Now if what I put on the table today feels heavy or if it feels like a lot, because it is a lot, I know. Just let it settle. Let it rest for a bit, and don't feel the pressure to do anything about it.

19:22
Maybe take a journal and write about what you're feeling now, or just reflect, take a walk, have a cup of tea. You do not have to do or be anything. I'm hoping that this conversation that I only just started will bring forward more perspective, will help you feel less lonely as a mother, less broken, and more connected to all the mothers around the world, because you're all going through it, and it is normal for you to find it hard.

19:54
And if you do feel inspired to explore your matrescence further and you need guidance in doing that, because it might feel a bit scary or you might feel the need to just be supported.

20:05
going on this road with somebody at your side holding you, I'm here for that. Don't forget, you can find me on Instagram or you can find me at connect at Simona Mustata.com. You find all the details in the description of the podcast episode.

20:28
Thank you for being here and don't forget, you are wise, Mama. Thank you so much for listening to Motherlived, and if you liked it, please show your love by sharing with other mothers who need it, who haven't yet discovered matrescence, who are struggling, who need to feel seen, heard, and supported.

20:57
This is how we create the much needed cultural change and the way mothers are seen and held by society, returning their power to them and trusting the medicine that they bring to the world.

21:09
Have you joined my newsletter community of wise mamas yet? You get three mini audio episodes exclusively for you, meant to help you dive deeper into your lived experience. They cover the unseen work that mothers do, beliefs we hold about motherhood and their impact on your mothering and cyclical alignment as a tool to help you practice self-compassion and presence.

21:33
Join us today on Simonamustata.com slash newsletter community. Until next time, hold on to the belief that you are enough and that you carry the wisdom you need to guide you, Mama.. Hugs.