Health
Motherhood and the path to happiness
Motherhood is one of the innate instincts of human females and is an important ancestral cognitive software responsible for the perpetuation of the species.
However, with the advent of culture, which marks the continuity of human work through art, motherhood is not just an instinctive need but a desire.
The components of this desire are innumerable and among them can be highlighted: the need to belong to a certain human group due to the repeatability of a procreative conduct, the projection of personal desires and frustrations in the offspring, the desire to please (the other), social altruism, the sense of duty, among many others.
Pregnancy is consolidated as a hormonal avalanche, often accompanied by intense behavioral changes, from melancholy to euphoria.
But it is after childbirth that the demand for emotional energy increases because women need to assume a new social place: that of mother.
Choices imply renunciations and, when choosing maternity, women are not always prepared to face the renunciations arising from the place of mother. To begin with, your own desire becomes relative to the imperative needs of a baby.
The new place, accompanied by continuous hormonal changes, not always supported by the family, puts pressure on women to the feelings of emotional exhaustion that often culminate in postpartum depression.
Dealing with the new situation, given the circumstances imposed by motherhood, is fundamental for coping with anxious and depressive behaviors.
To do this, it is important to always keep two emotional aspects activated: gratitude and the vision of the future.
It is important that women (not to mention humanity) develop and cultivate habits of gratitude:
* Thanking you for the good things you have: your life, your food, your home, your children and family, among other free things that life provides.
* Thanking you for the bad things that happen: all adversity is a gift of opportunity. Without bad things, there would be no learning and without learning you would not want to teach a child. Paradoxically, we need both bad and good things for moral evolution.
* Give thanks for the bad things that don't happen: every day we just get rid of horrible things. Thanking you for these booklets is fundamental to valuing yourself for the life you have.
It is even more important to develop and cultivate a vision of the future. The dream is the soul's food, without it the soul "dies". Anxious or depressed people often have poorly consolidated visions of the future. A good vision of the future includes the following aspects:
* It is reasonable and at the same time challenging: I am free to desire everything I want but not everything I want to desire. Designing achievable goals is essential to encourage persistence.
* It is reinforced by affirmative beliefs in the present tense: as much as I want one day to have my own home, I have to say to myself self-suggestion phrases daily like "I have my own home, I can see myself in my home, every detail of it is how I chose and I can feel the best sensations in my home, the home I deserve and have won ".
* Quantifiable: it is necessary to find ways to measure or evidence the progress made towards the vision of the future, as every objective goes through the triad of achievement (I want to, I see myself and I allow myself). By continuously measuring the scope of the vision of the future, one can correct the course or even the vision of the future.
* It must contemplate a mission and a purpose: the mission being the duty to oneself so that a better person is for you and the purpose your role in the world to bring happiness to the other.
By reconciling gratitude with a vision of the future, women can more easily create the new mental path necessary for self-realization. As a psychotherapist I have helped women in this emotional reconciliation. Only then, happily, can those who know how to inspire happiness in their children, that feeling that is not taught but inspired.
Dr. Márcio Moraes
Psychologist and Hypnotherapist with 20 years of experience.
Contacts: https://linktr.ee/drmarciomoraes
Member:
American Psychological Association
Federal Council of Psychology of Brazil
Portuguese Psychologists Association
European Federation of Psychologists' Associations