Motherhood makes you let go of everything

and that nakedness can be a blessing

This week I had plans to make it to a dance class I used to love.

It didn’t happen.

I also had hopes of getting together with a friend I hadn’t see in a while. And researching new light fixtures for the bathroom. And starting one of the new books I got from the library.

None of this happened either.

They say labor is all about learning to surrender, to be willing to go down, all the way down, until you hit the bottom—and it is. But the whole process of giving birth is really just a preview. A taste test of the kind of massive, life-sized letting go you’ll have to do on the other side of your baby’s arrival.

Since my daughter was born last year, I’ve been through seven gateways of surrender. Like Inanna’s descent into the underworld, I arrived at each gateway thinking I could take with me something of what my life looked like before. My routines or practices, the way I saw myself, how I moved through the world.

And at each one, I had to surrender another piece.

In the ancient Sumerian myth, the goddess Inanna must discard an article of clothing at each of the seven gateway until she arrives, naked, in the underworld.

Motherhood is like this.

Very literally, if you’re breastfeeding, whole swaths of you will be bared to the world for inordinate amounts of time.

But no matter how you’re feeding your child, motherhood will ask you to take off every piece of clothes you were wearing before. To remove the belts and rings and undergarments. To let go of every outward indicator and trapping of who you are, so you can arrive to the bottom, entire and naked, and see what’s there.

It took me a whole year after my daughter was born to accept that things weren’t going back to the way they were. That I might not have my slow peaceful mornings for the next eighteen years.  Or be able to make it to my weekly dance class consistently. Or stay up late to work on a creative project without paying the price of tiredness for days.

It was hard to finally, totally, completely give this up.

But it was harder, much harder, to hold on.

Because as vulnerable and raw and tender as it can feel to be naked…it can also be vastly liberating.

Now that I’ve had surrender so much of how my life functioned before, now that I’m naked, I see just how much I was wearing that I didn’t need. The clothes that didn’t fit, or fit awkwardly, or that I thought I needed to feel like myself, but were just garments, after all.

I remember when I used to bartend in my early twenties. I’d get home in the wee hours of a summer night, sweaty and aching to take my bra off. After a quick snack in front of the open refrigerator I’d trudge upstairs. There, I’d strip down into nothing, fall face down into bed, and collapse into bliss.

Motherhood can feel like this.

Letting go can feel like this.

Being naked can feel like this.

I used to struggle to say no before having a child. Sometimes out of the tendency to please others, but often out of my own drive, ambition and striving. I remember reading once that constant busyness is a trauma response. And the truth of that sunk into me like deep water.

I knew the way I pushed myself wasn’t sustainable. I knew I took on too much, worked too late, put too many things on the schedule. But even as I attempted to slow down, I never took it all off, not really. I had been under so many layers of garments for so long, I didn’t know how to get naked anymore.

Then I had a child, and there was no choice—I had to say no. I had to let go. I had to take off every piece of clothes. And slowly, slowly my nervous system relearned that it was safe to do so. Slowly, slowly I descended to the bottom and remembered the nakedness of joy.

Now, I say no all the time. Most of the time, really.

Sometimes I say no because I have to—Iona is napping or I don’t have childcare. But more often I say no because I don’t want to. I’m tired from being up part of the night or I’d rather use that time to sit and do nothing.

So I say no to parties and friend dates. I say no to taking on new hobbies or teaching gigs. I say no to writing emails or hauling mulch or making dishes for potlucks. Sometimes I say no just for fun. Other times I say no, and it still tests me.

I make plans, then something shifts with Iona, and I have to cancel them. I surrender, I let go, I take off my clothes. And while at first this felt scary—who am I when I’m not doing anything? How do I recognize myself without a stitch on?—most days, it feels liberating.

Now I realize that I don’t need anything to relax. Or be inspired. Or feel like myself.

After I put Iona to bed each night I turn off all the lights and do nothing. I lay there in the pink glow of a salt lamp, feeling myself sink into the sheets. I lay there naked and realize I never needed clothes.

Because this is what happens when you take everything off, when you get all the way to the bottom, when you surrender everything—you find yourself, only yourself, and it’s a miraculous thing.

Motherhood has forced me to let go of everything. And at this point in my life, I’m okay with it. More than okay, I’m grateful for it.

I know I’ll need to pick things back up again. That one day, in fact, it’ll be essential for both her and I that I do.

But for now I’m relishing this time of simply swimming naked through my life. Of reaching another gateway and seeing, with curiosity, what I can still give up. Of leaning into the spaciousness I have now to decide, discern—what still fits? What doesn’t? What do I want to wear as I enter the next phase of my life?

Because motherhood makes you surrender all your clothes.

And the nakedness, the sovereignty, the completeness of that can be a gift.

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