Mothering Myself Through the Unknown

Mother’s Day brings more than celebration—it brings a quiet reckoning. A soft (or not-so-soft) stirring beneath the surface. For some, it’s a day of sweet joy. For others, it brings grief, longing, or reflection. For me, it’s all of it.

This year, I find myself not just honoring mothers—but learning to mother myself.

We often talk about the early phases of womanhood: the new mother, the threshold of birth, the rites of becoming.
But what no one talks about is what comes after. The unnamed space between roles. The shedding of an old self that no longer fits.

This season hit me like a wave. Brain fog. Sleepless nights. Unexpected emotion. A deep feeling of unraveling—and becoming. It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t linear. And no one had prepared me for it.

The systems I turned to had few answers. But the plants, the stories, and the memory of my lineage offered something else: belonging.

🌿 Remembering the Lineage

I remembered my grandmother—sending me down rainforest roads in Puerto Rico with thermoses of medicinal teas for neighbors.
I remembered my father’s stories about my grandfather mixing herbal blends for the family.
I remembered my mother teaching me to pick spearmint from the backyard for tea when I had a stomachache—something I still do, whether from a garden bed or a bunch at the market.

Later, through a chance encounter on Ancestry, I met a cousin who said, “We come from a long line of healers. People used to travel to see our family in Guayama—the City of the Witches.”

It clicked: the ache in my body, the call to slow down, the pull toward ancestral practices.

I wasn’t unraveling—I was returning.

🤲 Becoming My Own Mother

So I began again.

I paused. I brewed tea. I sat in silence. I let emotion move through me like waves.

I stopped asking, “What’s wrong with me?”
And started asking, “What do I need today?”

Some days the answer was movement. Some days stillness. Often, it was nourishment—in the form of herbal infusions, breath, or permission to rest.

I mothered myself.

🫖 A Practice to Begin With

One of the first ways I began holding myself was by making tea slowly. That simple act opened everything else. The herbal steam rising from a mason jar became a prayer. The steeping became an act of care.

If you’d like to read the full story—and learn how to make your own nourishing infusion—start here:
👉 Why I Started Making Tea Slowly

📓 A Prompt for You

“How am I being called to mother myself right now?”
“What do I wish someone would do for me... and can I offer that to myself today?”

Take five minutes. Light a candle. Write it out. Speak it aloud.

💌 Want a Ritual to Begin With?

Download the 10-Minute Ritual Reset Guide—a free, gentle practice to reconnect you to your body, breath, and inner rhythm.

[Download the Free Guide →]

In reverence to all our becoming,
Catherine Dawn