December 7, 2022
Just Breathe, Mama:
Finding Your True Self After Misplacing Your Identity in Motherhood
Kristine Hackman
Aviva Publishing (2022)
ISBN: 978-1-63618-190-5
New Book Helps Moms Regain Lost Identities
In Just Breathe, Mama: Finding Your True Self After Misplacing Your Identity in Motherhood, Kristin Hackman reveals how easy it is to lose touch with who you are when you’re a mom, and how you can reintroduce yourself to that person.
If anyone had reason to lose touch with her true identity, it is Kristin. First she had triplets, and a couple of years later, a fourth child. Talk about a busy mother. But after about a dozen years, she realized one day that her kids did not need her every waking minute anymore and she had some time to herself again, and then she went in search of who she was—she’d sort of lost track. Motherhood was wonderful, but it did not define her, and she also knew the day would come when she’d be an empty-nester. It was time to start the journey to be the real her beyond a mom.
For Kristin, one of the hardest aspects of nurturing your identity outside of motherhood is just giving yourself permission to be the real you. Too often, people think self-care or doing things for yourself is selfish. The truth, however, is that you can’t take care of others unless you take care of yourself first. Throughout Just Breathe, Mama, she offers practical advice for reconnecting with yourself. Instead of holding yourself back from creating, dreaming, and living the way you want, you need to whisper to yourself, “What do you need? What are you craving?” Then you need to explore those cravings. Plus, you need to quit caring what other people think about you when you pursue the things you truly love and adore.
For some of us, trying to figure out who we are can be difficult. Maybe we remember and even miss our past selves, but we don’t know how to invite them back into our lives. One of my favorite ideas in the book is Kristin’s suggestion that moms start going on dates with themselves to get to know who they are again. These dates can be as simple as a trip by yourself to Target or going out for coffee by yourself and bringing a book along, or they can be more introspective. Kristin shares several ideas along these lines for reconnecting with ourselves.
Kristin also reveals that if we don’t take this journey to connect with ourselves, we will find it more difficult to let go of our children when they no longer need us. I loved her truthful realization about watching her children grow up:
“The first time they scooted away on a scooter with a friend without me, first boarded the school bus, their first slumber party, or the first time they rode in a car with a friend—without me—was a ‘last’ for me. It was painful and felt like a huge, wild, and poorly construed rollercoaster operating on faith and hope alone.”
But it doesn’t have to be that way. As her children no longer needed her, Kristin realized she needed herself more. Before being a mom, she remembers she was a child just like her children are now. She knows that inner child is still in her. She states:
“You can’t undo who you are. You can lose her and cover her up, but you are still the inner child who indulged in both play and work. As a child, you knew how to feel joy, sadness, and anger, and you didn’t push those feelings down.”
She then advocates for watching how your children express who they are and gaining inspiration from them.
It’s also important not to start copying others on your journey. We cannot simply try to model ourselves after other moms who seem to have it all. For example, Kristin loves TV celebrity Joanne Gaines, who lives on a farm, gardens, cooks, redesigns homes, and had a baby at forty. Joanna seems to have it all, but when you think about it, do you really want to live on a farm? Do you really want a baby at forty? How about the stress of having your own TV show? Chances are you do not. You can’t just daydream about other people’s lives and then be disappointed that you don’t have them. Instead, you have to start dreaming about your life and figure out what you really want going forward. Those things you want may not be big but little things. To back up this point, Kristin quotes Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who said, “Enjoy the little things in life because one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things.”
Now after so many years of being a mother, Kristin realizes the only thing she regrets is when she pursued things that were not her truth but she kept persisting in believing they could be. In the end, she says there is no right or wrong, no straight line to follow, no place we have to arrive. We can just enjoy being who we are and realizing no one thing, including motherhood, has to define us. In the end, we can “just breathe” and realize it’s all good when we let it be.
I think most mothers will find it a relief to hear what Kristin says in Just Breathe, Mama. This book will provide them with the opportunity to exhale, let go of the past, and start to create a new future that includes but is not limited to being a mom.
For more information about Kristin Hackman and Just Breathe, Mama, visit www.KristinHackman.com.
— Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD and award-winning author of Narrow Lives and The Best Place
