To read the introductory Part 1, click here. To read part 2, click here.
The call to transformation and self-care
Mothering with migraine asks a ton of us, but if we are able to find the strength to see migraine as a call to radically transform our lives, it can be a blessing.
Having migraine forced me to realize I needed to live out in the country, and eventually we were able to manifest this dream and get out of all the pollution of the city. Migraine taught me that I needed to find my root and stop moving and commit to building local relationships of mutual support.
Having migraine transformed my life because it taught me how self-care and self-education could empower me to heal my body. It taught me how important common-sense, anecdotal evidence, and Folk Medicine are. It taught me how to show my kids the importance of natural healing and self-care. It asked me to speak up for my needs with my husband and be specific about the kind of support I wanted. I learned to have boundaries with how much I could take on and started to prioritize sleep, rest and rejuvenation.
I realized I needed to get much more childcare help in order to live in balance and to devote my self to forms of activism that give my life energy and meaning. I am currently forming a local group called the Community Health Wisdom Circle, where we are calling on each other to address numerous environmental health problems and also helping one another to share Folk Medicine solutions to common health issues and learn to build social capital. I would never have ended up here without the call to transformation that migraine brought out in me.
The healing continues. I see that my life was asking me to live in greater alignment with my authentic self and my beliefs. This is important work, although decidedly not easy. However, it is the path.
More than anything else, having migraine taught me that as a mother, I matter. And that becoming functional as a mother requires tapping into the most fundamental form of rebalancing with the earth by taking in the proper ratio of minerals into my body. My mineral imbalances were literally a reflection of how out of touch I was with my womanly power, how ungrounded I was. My discovery of how to balance these earth minerals has coincided with having more personal empowerment in my life as a mother.
Interestingly, the key minerals at play in healing migraine are copper and zinc. Copper is more of a “feminine” mineral as it is needed to make estrogen, whereas zinc is more of a “masculine” mineral, needed for testosterone. Of course, both men and women need both minerals, just as both qualities of masculinity and femininity exist within each person. I believe that mineral balancing is part of rebalancing the polarities of the masculine and feminine within ourselves and in the world.
This journey has been a re-connection to myself, and the earth. It has been a stepping away from what my patriarchal programming tells me about my adequacy, and a stepping further away from a medical approach to healing that sees the body as defective and in need of correction. That notion is fundamentally false. The body is incredibly resilient and fully able to respond with the right kind of nourishment.
In my life, I am manifesting:
Less fixing, more real support
Less guilt, more acknowledgement
Less meds, more minerals
Less isolating corporate culture, more community engagement
Less speed, more slowing down
Less overextension, more sleep
Less ambition, more boundaries
Less obligation, more centering
Less isolation, more reaching out
Less moving, more rooting
Less trying, more knowing
Less judgement, more kindness