Here is some real mom honesty: From the very moment that our children come into this world there is an underlying anxiety and fear about being separated from them. I don’t care what your race or socioeconomic status in this world is and while I can only speak with 100% certainty from my own experience, I have spoken to enough mamas about this over the last three years of my motherhood. Whether it is the fear of our child dying, ourselves dying, losing them in a public place or even the regular thoughts about them growing up and going out into the world on their own, this is what runs through ours heads from time to time. We don’t talk about it often, but it’s real.
For most of us, we have the privilege of not having to make our life choices ruled completely by this fear. We are able to take a deep breath, move on into our days and our lives and trust that the likelihood of these things coming true is a lower percentage than our worst fear playing out. And while there are never any guarantees, we are lucky in that way. The mom and dads who are making these harrowing journeys across dangerous territory do not share this same privilege. They know that, in most cases, if they stay where they are they have a higher chance of experiencing separation from their children in some way. They know that if they send their child out into the world that they are currently living in, they won’t be safe or come back to them. They look to America, the place where you and I get to live with the mindset of possibility and safety and hope for the future and they want that for their own children. And so they make that choice, they take that risk because as a parent there is nothing more important than your child and the safety of their life. But then they show up and everything that they were running from hits them square in the eye. We, this country that supposedly stands for freedom and liberty, essentially steals their child away from them and tortures both parent and child in the worst way imaginable. Look, personally I am not surprised because while we like the idea that we stand for freedom and liberty, that has not been our actual storyline from day one. We have been the country that steals land from its native inhabitants, and takes and buys and sells people from their own native land. Stealing children from their parents who are looking for safety is just another narrative that actually falls in line with a lot of our history. What is happening right now is sickening, there is no question. But is it really so surprising? As a yoga teacher I teach that in order to truly let something go, we have to first bring it up to the surface and acknowledge it. Whether it’s a habit or a thought or a feeling. When we fight against the honesty and reality of what is, we actually create more struggle for ourselves. The most direct path towards healing is acknowledging and until we do that, the lesson keeps coming back to us. America, we have spent years struggling against acknowledging our truth. So here we are again, facing another moment of honesty, of truth showing us who we actually are. I am not saying any of this to bash this country, but I desperately want us to heal from this. I know so many of us do. But we gotta look in the mirror for that to happen. We have to let the honesty of our history reflect back to us the question of “have we actually been standing for freedom and liberty?” Or are we just trying to paint over it again and again and again until the next time. When I have those dark thoughts about being separated from my child in any capacity, I take a deep breath and I sit with the fear. I do this so that I can make my next choices not from fear, but despite it. Friends, we have to take a deep breath right now. We have to see, what’s happening in Texas is not new, it’s who we have always been. And if we really want things to change, we have to own up to it and sit with the fear that is driving both the actions we are taking and our unwillingness to see things truthfully.
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Sara Packardis a Mama, Wife, Yoga and Meditation Teacher, Coach, Writer and Activist. You can read more about her here. Archives
September 2021
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