Motherhood is a time of deep, intense change. Even if you’ve dreamt of becoming a mother your entire life, it’s one of those things you can’t really understand until you’re in it. The all-encompassing nature of motherhood — that hits you instantly and, at the same time, slowly sets in — can be overwhelming. As many say, you’re not just giving birth to a child, but to a new version of yourself.
To be totally frank, it’s taken me nearly two years to even come to understand what that saying means. My son’s birth was exciting and sweet but also a complete whirlwind. I was navigating how to be a parent, struggling to identify as a mother when, at times, I still felt like a child myself, and desperately trying to nail down what kind of mother I wanted to be.
Was I a stay-at-home-mom? Was it okay if I didn’t want to be? What would that mean for my son and his development? How much time was too much time away? How much could I put on my husband? The questions were vast and abundant and, honestly, often without a right answer.
I’ve had to reflect over the past two years and really dig to find out what resonates within me, while, at the same time, know that things are ever-changing. I can figure out what works now while being open to the fact that it’s okay to change your mind depending on how life is moving and you’re evolving as a person.
Bayla Abdurachmanov, 32, had a lot of the same questions after she gave birth to her first daughter. She was 26 at the time, newly married (she gave birth to her daughter 9.5 months after her wedding) and working as a college professor teaching literature and writing.
She’s someone who loves learning about people and whom people love sharing their lives with. “I’m the type of person that no matter what I was doing — even standing in line at the grocery store — that would have others coming up to talk to me,” she says.
Her students would do the same. They started coming regularly to her after-hours for mentorship and advice. She soon realized that if she got certified as a life coach, she could make even more of an impact on them and have real tools to help. Her love for English and stories actually stems from her interest in the human condition. “You’re learning how to be a human being with challenges in this world,” she shares.
Now, she has multiple certifications as a life coach — one from Rabbi Daniel Schonbuch, author of Think Good and It Will Be Good (2017), and one from The Life Coach School — the top institution in the world for coaching. She has streamlined her work into a practice dedicated to helping mothers (while still working as a professor). She calls herself an “Identity Coach” for moms and a “Matrescence Educator,” matrescence being the transition and development into one’s new role as a mom. “I support moms through the process of ‘becoming’ in motherhood,” she explains.
I sat down with Bayla (now, a mother of three, with kids ages 5, 4, and 1) to learn more about how to find yourself as a mother, how new and not-so-new moms can benefit from her work and how to get through common struggles one might experience when transitioning into this powerful and life-changing new role.
Bayla, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me. Let’s start with your journey into motherhood work. Why did you decide to focus your services there?
I actually first started working with multi-passionate women. I’m very artistic and creative and have my hands in a lot of different things. A lot of the time, I would speak with people and they would ask, “How are you working, a mother and taking singing lessons and painting classes?” At first, I thought the question was about time management but when you look deeper, it really was about how we can be fulfilled in our personal lives and be hands-on as mothers, without any guilt.
I went through a journey to get to that point. I always wanted to be a mother. When I had my daughter, I looked at her and said, “I’ve been waiting for you my entire life.” I’ve also always had big dreams and have been very high achieving. I graduated high school at 16 and was teaching at a college by age 22 with a master’s degree. That high achiever was part of my identity. When I had my daughter, things slowed down.
I didn’t have postpartum depression, but something just felt off. My husband was very supportive, and I said to him, “I love you; I love our daughter and being a mother, but I don’t feel right.” Eventually, I realized that all the personal development stuff I really loved had been squashed after her birth. I was still working and trying to give 120 percent there and 120 percent at home and, in the process, I took myself out of the picture.
I don’t just mean self-care, either — I took parts of myself out. I’m very creative and artsy and love to paint or take random courses, like coding. That’s my personality and who I am, and it disappeared. As I incorporated it back in, I felt expansive. I realized I really wanted to help other mothers do the same. I want to help them through the matrescence period and realize that they can be amazing mothers, can stop chasing perfection and can actively pursue their own dreams in the process.
How did you figure out how to add all that back in and get back to yourself?
Ironically, I realized that motherhood actually helped me grow. Even though it felt limiting at first, it really expanded my potential and changed me. On a biological level, a mother’s brain literally changes [more on that later]. So, when I let myself do the things I loved again, it felt amazing. The journey to get there can be difficult — you have to remember that part of expansion may involve discomfort. One of the coaches I got certified under, Brooke Castillo, founder and CEO of The Life Coach School, says that discomfort is the currency of growth. Eventually, though, once I went through those emotions, it built me up. It gave me the confidence to be myself and own who I am and what I do.
In terms of how, I learned a lot of key concepts in working toward this that helped me practically reintegrate things I loved and valued into my life. (See below for more on that!)
Bayla’s Matrescence Guide 1. View time as your friend. You always hear people say, “Oh, I don’t have enough time,” and there’s a scarcity mindset around it. Shifting your way of thinking to “I accept the amount of time that I have,” and being in the present moment — so you can actually do something you want to do in that amount of time — is huge. “Time is a circumstance,” she says. “How we think about time will determine how we feel about time and will create different results.” 2. Experiment. If you can, try and ask for flexibility in your work schedule to see what ends up being best for you. “A lot of people want a black-and-white answer of how to make things fit, but motherhood isn’t black and white,” Bayla explains. She tried going part-time in her career to see how that worked. She also tried going full-time at another point, but where she only had to be in the office once a week. Experimenting as much as you can and seeing what works best for you and your family will help you get the optimal result. 3. Put it on the cal. A lot of the time, you’ll run into a friend and say you want to meet for lunch, but the lunch never happens. Bayla will put a time in her phone calendar right then and there. “It’s really important to have a system where you write things down and schedule things, as well as have reminders when something is important to you,” Bayla shares. “For some people it might be seeing friends, for another it’s singing lessons, a course, or one-on-one time with their child.” If you want to do something, it often won’t happen unless you actively do something to make sure it does. 4. Create a support system. Maybe you already have a stellar one in place through family and friends or a spouse, or maybe you have to create one with babysitters or neighbors. Either way, no one gets anything done alone. Realizing that and then creating a network of trusted babysitters or family members you can call when you need or want to do something will help you actually put those plans and dreams into place. 5. Build confidence in your new role. If your babysitter or other support system person falls through, maybe you can bring your baby where you want to go. Bayla used to worry that her baby would cry at the class she was taking but then she realized, that’s actually okay. “I realized that it’s just a part of life,” she says. “I may have to step out and that’s fine. If you don’t want to cancel a plan, maybe in certain cases it will work to take the baby with you.” As a professor, she often works with students who need to bring their babies to class. “Most of the time, people are way more understanding and accommodating than you may think.” 6. Work on knowing yourself. If you’ve tried over and over to fit that side-hustle into your nighttime schedule when your baby is asleep, but you can’t focus, maybe the problem isn’t you, it’s the time of day you’re setting out to work. Bayla learned that night is just not a great time to do creative activities because of her exhaustion level and has had to figure out ways to integrate those things earlier in the day, whether it was getting the help of a babysitter, doing it while her kids were in school or working it out with a flexible job schedule. Knowing how you work best will take off a lot of the pressure and help you actually focus. 7. Know it’s not all or nothing. Sometimes, you may really feel like you have no time but even 15 minutes of work on something when you’re in the zone can have huge results. “When you’re in flow, you could be spending 10 minutes on something or three hours and your brain won’t know the difference,” Bayla explains. “Sometimes I do things for a short amount of time and that’s okay. If I’m being really present, I will still feel filled up.” 8. Emphasize quality over quantity. As referenced above, Bayla believes that quality really trumps quantity when it comes to the things we want to do. “Whether it’s working, being with my kids or on a date with my husband, the quality of time makes a difference,” she shares. “Being fully present with my kids for 10 minutes is better than an hour of divided time. It’s not always easy to put your phone away but I’ve worked on it. Our children really pick up on that and benefit from it in big ways.”
What if someone is feeling a bit lost but doesn’t know where to start or has no clue what lights her up? How can she go about finding that?
This is actually a lot of what I coach on. When I meet with someone, we talk about her life’s mission and if she doesn’t know what that is, we’ll work to come up with one. It may seem daunting, but it’s really not. It’s not your career. Your mission is who you are and how you want to show up in the world. So, for example, mine is to be connected to Hashem, my family, my children, myself and the world around me. My mission is all about connection. The second part of my mission is about creating. I’m a creative person and it’s part of my essence.
Once I help a client figure that out, we can learn how to apply it in any situation which really helps someone to stay grounded and present in any moment of stress.
Then, you have your callings. These come from outside of you — Hashem sends them to you or the universe calls out to you in some way. These are the things you want to explore and have fun with. They can last forever or be very short-lived.
In the beginning, to find out what these callings are, you can really allow yourself to experiment. When I was starting to integrate these things back in, I thought anything I did had to be a job. I had to profit from it somehow, because otherwise, why else was I doing it? But when I allowed myself to explore, I realized you don’t have to do something because you make money. I love to paint, and I think I’m pretty good at it, but I don’t imagine myself selling any of my paintings. I just do it because I love it.
I tried jewelry making, too. It was okay, but I realized it wasn’t for me. Just allowing yourself to experiment and try new things is key. You’ll either find you don’t love something and move on, love it for a short period of time or discover something you want to continue forever. If it’s something that calls out to you and helps you express yourself in that moment, that’s key. You need something that you find fulfilling, even if it’s just for a bit.
Sometimes it seems on the outside that women have children and then just resume their lives, and so we feel that’s what’s expected of us. How can we become more accepting of ourselves when that’s not the case?
Part of the problem for moms is that we have this identity that we’re very closely linked with from before we had children. Let’s say, as I mentioned, one part of that is being a high achiever. After we have kids, we try and fit ourselves back into that identity, but we’ve changed. Our brain is physically different. One of the differences is that women with children get more oxytocin receptors. Oxytocin is the hormone of love, intimacy, trust and connection, so because you have more receptors, you literally start changing the way you think and go from me to we.
It’s interesting to note that a foster or adoptive mother’s brain will look like the brain of a mother who biologically had children, it just takes longer to adapt.
Understanding that is key because often our goals or priorities change. We may like different things and feel bad that we aren’t as into something anymore. So, we made this big shift and if we’re trying to fit ourselves into our pre-mom identities, the tension can come in.
The process is called matrescence, which is really similar to adolescence, when a child is becoming a teenager. Imagine the shift from child to adult — your essence and soul are the same, but there’s so much that changes in terms of identity. The same comes with matrescence. A mother goes through this with every pregnancy, by the way, not just the first, and it lasts a minimum of two years and a maximum of her entire life.
So even just acknowledging you’re going through a huge identity shift is so important. Allowing yourself to understand that you’re right where you’re supposed to be — experimenting, growing, moving through a new stage of life — versus trying to fit your whole life back into how it was before is key. It doesn’t mean you can’t still be high achieving or however you were before, but maybe the way it looks will change for you.
How would you help a mother transition into going back to work after giving birth if she’s struggling with leaving her child?
One really important place to start is with a mindset shift, if it’s a struggle going back. So, if a mother works to support her family, instead of saying, “I have to work,” she can say, “I choose to work.” Technically, we could really pare down our lifestyles and then choose not to work, but maybe you choose to do so because it supports your child. Getting really clear about why you are working is key.
Also, I talk about something called the “motherhood manual,” or eliminating the “should” and “should nots” from our lives. The “motherhood manual” is basically our subconscious, which grabs certain ideas from societal expectations, our family upbringings or our past experiences, and it has now crafted who we think we should be as a mother. Whether or not to send your child to daycare could be part of someone’s manual, and something I do talk about with clients. Daycare is actually a totally neutral circumstance. Some moms feel guilty because they’re actually happy to send their child to daycare. You can have one circumstance with two different thoughts about it.
Doing an exercise where you go through the manual, take out all the “shoulds” from it and then consciously go through and question those statements can be really helpful to getting more in touch with yourself. Ask yourself: Is this true? Is this helpful? Is this what I want for my life? Is this what I truly believe? Write your own manual, based on your actual values and choices.
I also think it’s important to note that Hashem has chosen you as the perfect mother for this child and He has chosen this child as the perfect one for you. Hashem knows you are sending your baby to daycare if you choose to do that.
So, with the combination of the mindset shift and going through the manual and choosing what actually aligns with you and your values, you wind up really creating a life that’s happier. You can stop dwelling on the negative emotions that are coming up and really become more fulfilled, with more patience as a mom. You’ll show up more in the world according to the life’s mission that you created. We can shape reality for ourselves.
What if we are stressed about a certain issue like the daycare one, and someone you respect, or an actual study comes out that verifies a certain choice?
There are so many studies out there that wind up being contradictory. Our brains often work on confirmation bias also or, in other words, it likes what it finds familiar. So, if you’ve gone through your manual and are now aware of the societal pressures or your upbringing and how that molded you, and you have decided how you want to show up and then see those studies, you can evaluate them on a much more neutral level.
Right, that makes a lot of sense. How can a woman who chooses to be a stay-at-home mother and feels like naps and nighttime are the only times she can actually get stuff done actually make time for herself? You can apply it to a working mother, too. The actual time you’re not totally exhausted and can do non-necessary things feels really minute … or even nonexistent.
I can answer this with a story, actually. I had a really difficult pregnancy with my youngest child. I would literally pass out on occasion. I could no longer drive because it was too dangerous, and my husband had to work until late at night. I was the main caretaker — picking up my kids from school and taking care of everything in the home. Before this, I would push myself. I was teaching, I got another coaching certification and even though I loved it, it was a lot.
Once I started passing out, there were no ifs, ands or buts. I was not going to be alone with my children under those circumstances — it wasn’t safe. We decided my husband shouldn’t leave his job, so I was pretty much forced into hiring help. So, that’s what we did, but you don’t have to get to that point to get help.
A lot of the time, we think we can’t or don’t have enough money. Asking yourself, “Okay, if I hired a babysitter maybe three times a week for an hour, what is that going to give me in my life? What will I get in return?” I’ll probably show up differently as a mother when I have that. We don’t have to get to the space where you have to, because at that point, it’s already too much.
I look back and realize that it was already a difficult pregnancy before I was passing out and I could have gotten help earlier. I didn’t have to push myself so much.
It’s so true. Why do you think that’s so hard for women? “Mom guilt” is a term for a reason. How can we really work to banish that and overcome those moments?
Guilt is not a helpful emotion — its function is to keep us stuck. If it helps you to do teshuva (repent) in life, then great, but even with that, you’re in the guilt for a moment and then move onto something positive. It’s important to recognize that everything in your life is a choice and realizing that gives you back your power. If you go through your manual, decide what you want to keep, what you want to change and what you want to add, you’ll feel very empowered in your choices.
So, let’s say you decide to take a class for an hour or two and you’re feeling guilty about it. First, consult your manual. You’re thinking that you should be with your baby instead of in that class, but is it true? Is that a helpful thought? No, probably not. If it is honestly a true thought, then you can make a change, but if it’s not, then you’re wasting time and the guilt is just keeping you stuck in a negative place. You’re not physically there with your baby and you’re not mentally in the class either.
That’s really true. That being said, sometimes we might make a choice in the moment, but we don’t know how things will turn out and what the implications of our choices are. How can we have confidence in our decisions and in our children moving forward?
This is really important. You are only in charge of yourself — you are not in charge of your children’s results. You cannot control your children or make them become a certain way. You can control your thoughts, feelings and actions and that is it. If you know that you showed up how you wanted to as a mother, and know that you’re going to make mistakes because you’re human, that’s all you can do.
Learning how to forgive yourself and love yourself unconditionally is the number one piece of advice I give to mothers. When you do both of those, not only do you show up as a happier, more fulfilled, more patient, kinder and more loving mother, but also your children then learn how to forgive themselves and love themselves unconditionally. That is a really powerful lesson to give to them.
“Learning how to forgive yourself and love yourself unconditionally is the number one piece of advice I give to mothers.”
Let’s say someone now feels good about where they’re at but then they have another baby, which throws off the system. How can someone readjust once they have more children?
It’s interesting because each child does come with his or her own set of challenges, and each time you give birth, you’re entering a new stage of matrescence. I do feel like on a personal level, the adjustments have become easier. Having done it before, I recognize the feelings and know I’m going through a certain process.
You’ve also probably heard of something called “Mommy Brain.” If someone isn’t familiar with the term, our brains actually go through a pruning where they decide to focus on what’s most important and leave all the little odds and ends out. We usually look at it as something negative, but it’s actually a positive. Your brain feels like it’s somewhere else, but it’s really focused on your kids.
As you add more children to the mix, the demand becomes higher, so it may force you to get really clear and focused on who you are and what you need to be doing. You’ll gain a higher awareness of what you need in order to show up in the best way for your family and anything else in your life. Each child pushes us more toward that clarity. Maybe you’ll be forced to become more hyper-organized or put your life on more of a schedule so things don’t fall through the cracks, or maybe you feel that being relaxed works better for you and decide to become more free-flowing.
You’re forced to come to terms with certain things about life that maybe wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Each child brings you to a higher awareness of yourself. This is another thing we can discuss more deeply in coaching.
How does someone know if they need to turn to a coach? And how can they decide between a coach, a therapist or another mentor?
First, it’s important to note that before birth, understanding the idea of matrescence can be really helpful. We often take a class to prepare for birth, but not for what comes afterward. Having a support system in place, whether it’s a therapist, coach, older sister, rebbetzin, mentor, or your own mother is really important, so when you need it, you can ask for help and you shouldn’t feel afraid to do so.
Therapy and coaching are very different. Therapy is very healing focused and while coaching is also healing focused, I think it has more of an emphasis on the present and future versus dealing with issues in your past. I really look at coaching as just getting into a bit of a clearer mindset. I help my clients process their emotions in the now, because a lot of the time, we just don’t deal with them and then they become even more intense. I then show them how to find clarity in their emotions and get to the point of unconditional self-love, or forgiveness, or I guide them on how to process their feelings more specifically. I’ll share different strategies and advice for new mothers as well; these are really tailored to each person. It’s a combination of digging deep into identifying emotions and getting clear on your identity now and about who you want to become.
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For more information on Bayla’s coaching services, visit coachbayla.com. She offers a free mini session if you’re interested in working together. Bayla also recently launched a podcast called “Awaken to You: A Podcast for Moms.” You can find it on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts.