Reclaiming Motherhood Without Martyrdom
A conversation with birth doula and licensed massage therapist Danielle Wojcicki.
Here at Yes, Misstrix, I often have the pleasure of speaking with amazing people doing fascinating work in the realm of sex, sensuality, sexuality and desire. This week, I’m sharing a two-part conversation with Danielle Wojcicki of Mother Nurtured Life. In this first interview, Danielle talks about her work, her journey into motherhood, some of the ways our culture attempts to strip motherhood of its meaning and what we can do to reclaim it—without losing ourselves in the process.
Yes, Misstrix: Danielle, thanks for joining me. I love to kick off these interviews by having you tell the readers a little bit about yourself and the work you do in the world.
Danielle Wojcicki: Yes, thank you. I am a witness to the Feminine offering birth postpartum and matriarch doula services. I support mothers in achieving their desired birth. I do this with a deep understanding of the body. I work with physiological birth as both a licensed massage therapist and a certified Body Ready Method Pro.
I emphasize the body in this process, but I also combine the studies that I've done with energy healing, Reiki and shamanic practices alongside somatic nervous system regulation. I approach this whole perinatal period and beyond from both the mystical and scientific applications.
YM: Tell me a little bit about your own journey and what brought you to this work.
DW: What got me here was twofold. The physical side is I had my first child, and that birth followed the cascade of interventions. I left that birth feeling like something big was missing. I had this very intellectual idea of what I thought birth was, and I didn't really have the embodied piece that it would take to get through that process, nor the spiritual side, really.
After that first birth, I actually did the program that I'm now teaching and offering to my own clients. I saw a tremendous benefit on my physical health and the delivery of my second child, which was a completely different experience from my first. I also started to unpack the mental layers of that first experience. This is what brought me into a more holistic approach, and I started really diving into my spirituality and what that meant for me as a mother and as an individual woman throughout this whole experience.
YM: What drew you to motherhood in the first place? What inspired you to make the transition from maiden to mother?
DW: Well, it wasn't a conscious choice, I'll tell you that [laughs]. And I think I'm not alone in that decision, right? It was like, ‘Oh, we got married. We should have a baby.’ And it was really beautiful, and it was wonderful. Motherhood changes you in a way that you can never anticipate. So, that's kind of how I got there. Very unconsciously driven and wholeheartedly happy that I was there.
YM: It seems almost inexplicable to describe all the changes that you endure when you become a mother, but on a spiritual/mental level what changed for you? How did those changes support your journey?
DW: I think there's a lot of nuance in this space. Motherhood is all-consuming. It is the ultimate self-sacrifice, and on the other end of the spectrum, it is this really deep remembering and becoming of self. I think that what it really felt like to me, was, ‘Wow, I have to give everything of myself to this human,’ but I felt myself thinking, ‘Wow, I have to give everything to myself as well.’ So, it's this really interesting balancing act between nurturing your inner mother and taking care of your inner child for yourself but also for your children. Does that make sense?
YM: Absolutely. That actually brings me to a question that I wanted to ask about motherhood without martyrdom, which is one of the ideas that you promote—that we can become mothers without martyring ourselves. It seems to go hand in hand with nurturing yourself and your children, so I’d love for you to expand on that.
DW: I think in our current culture motherhood has been stripped of its value. You see it in bounce-back culture; you see it in dismal parental leave and childcare options. I mean, honestly, even if you look at how many celebrities are using surrogates, there's just a devaluing of this whole period, this whole rite of passage of how it's supposed to go for both mother and baby.
I feel as though we have to bridge the space of what is deemed unworthy in the eyes of our culture by caretaking for our family. We do this in a culture that says, a lot of the time, that your work outside of our homes is really the most important work you'll do. When in actuality, once you have children, you feel the pull in that opposite direction. So, really, motherhood without martyrdom is bridging those two pieces, keeping your identity as a person who has needs and wants and desires, outside of something that is consuming you completely.
That’s especially true during the early parenting years. And people like to say, ‘You just have to find balance.’ Well, who ever thought that was a good answer, right? No one has ever said, ‘Oh, perfect, I never thought of that. I know exactly how to find balance.’ But that’s the point. Balance is going to look different to the individual and it won’t be the same every day.
But motherhood without martyrdom comes from recognizing your true values and aligning your action to your values—not what anyone else deems necessary or worthy. I think that's where we really have to begin to unpack the layers of what culture has told us our values are or what our family has maybe told us that our values are or even when outdated versions of ourselves have said, ‘These are my values.’ We have to allow our true values to change and to grow. I think that's how we start to unpack living in motherhood without martyrdom.
YM: How have you found balance for who you are at this point?
DW: Well, I won't say that I had kids and I figured it out right away. That hasn't been the case at all. I will say that it's constantly changing and growing, especially as my kids age and grow, and as I age and grow. I'm proud and grateful that my partner, my husband, ages and grows, too. It’s always a re-evaluation. And what worked for us at one point doesn't always work for us now.
One of the most potent things that I have done is to check my heart. Really checking in with my heart asking myself every day, ‘What do I need to be nourished?’ and it's non-negotiable. I have learned over time that it is not negotiable if I'm going to be able to give. You know, people say you can't pour from an empty cup. Well, motherhood will reveal to you that that is absolutely true.
We're often in this busy fast-paced culture where productivity is king, right? And you can feel disconnected from yourself, your desires, your wants. To counter that, it’s important to check into the heart space multiple times throughout the day and notice how you're feeling in your body and then make adjustments to meet you where you are in that moment.
YM: Can you give an example of how this works for you?
DW: I had one today actually. We home educate our children. Our eldest child is going through some growth and some change as all kids do. And I had this moment of wondering why I was feeling super anxious about getting our school work done. I felt a lot of pressure coming up in my body.
So, first of all, I was able to recognize that I was feeling this pressure to get something done. There was resistance there, and I felt a lot of frustration in my own body to the resistance. I got curious about this and began checking my heart space. Why was the pressure there? Where was that coming from? I could easily say, ‘Oh, well, I had to get this stuff done,’ but let's go a little deeper: Why do I feel like I need to get this stuff done?
The answer clearly was comparison. It was a comparison journey of how it was just two weeks ago and how we were easily able to get our work done, and everyone was happy. Everyone was having fun. But that isn't how they showed up today, and it's not how I showed up today. So, checking the heart space and reprioritizing as you need to.
YM: It also sounds like giving yourself permission to be flexible in the way that you show up.
DW: Absolutely. There's something to be said for flexibility. There's not often a lot of it, and what a gift we can give ourselves when we allow for it. It's really just surrendering to the illusion of control, right? Surrendering to bring flow, which allows you to release that pressure of needing to be perfect and needing to get it all done.
YM: And as you're talking, I see this parallel between child-raising and childbirth itself, right? The surrender that's required during labor and after your child comes into the world.
DW: I'm actually really glad that you said that because I think there absolutely is a parallel. And I think this is where a lot of our frustration as mothers comes from: We have this expectation that if we do X, Y and Z, then this will happen. Birth is the ultimate example that that's actually not how it works. You can do everything ‘right,’ and what will happen, will happen.
I have seen that time and time again in my parenting. If I respond in this way, then this will happen. And that's a trap that I really feel like we want to avoid getting into. I know we were talking about the body, but that release and surrender comes into play here, too. Coming to terms with letting go in your birth and labor process is going to serve you later. So, if we can realize that now, in the age of self-help, that doing it all ‘right’ isn’t always going to give us the end result we want—because we're all individuals and there's too many variables at play—we’re going to be better off later on in our journey.
You have no control over how babies come into the world. You cannot manage it. They have to do their own dance. And you have to do your own dance. Then, that comes into parenting as well. You have to do your own dance, and your kids are going to do their own dance as well, and then you've got a partner who's going to do their dance, too. So, it's really just getting out of this mindset that there's a formula that's going to give us our desired end result.
YM: Being pregnant myself right now, I talk about that a lot with my husband. We talk about parenting for the kid you have. The best laid plans sometimes won’t work because you don’t have that kid.
DW: I absolutely see that throughout motherhood as well. What works for one kid at one stage, does not work with the next kid, and then that first kid changes, and they don't need that kind of care anymore. They need something completely different. And maybe you need something different from them, too. It goes both ways.
With pleasure,
Yes, Misstrix
P.S. So, you may have noticed the newsletter sliding into your inbox a little early this week. While I do love to keep you guessing, the real reason I’m sending you this love note on Tuesday is because I didn’t want to keep you waiting between interviews.
Instead of splitting Danielle’s wisdom between two weeks (as I have done with my lovely guests previously), I’m going to start sending part one on Tuesday and part two on Thursday. If you’re loving the content (and why wouldn’t you?!), I’ve minimized potential longing by giving you access to the full interview sooner. If you’re not into the content (why wouldn’t you be into the content?!), you don’t have to endure two weeks of a topic you don’t resonate with.
In the words of Sister Hazel, “it’s all for you.” Muah!