Motherhood and the Awakening Path (Part 1)

in memory of Bonnie Greenwell

[I put the podcast episode above ⬆️​ if you prefer to listen to this piece rather than read it! My podcast ‘Conscious | Unconscious’ is here on the Substack app and also on Spotify, Apple and a few more.]

I honestly forget sometimes that there are a lot of children in my life. It can be jarring when someone at the supermarket asks me if I’m shopping for an army. No, I’m catering for 4 hungry teenagers. At least 40% of the food is consumed by the boy.

Obviously, I don’t actually forget that I have this many children in my house. It’s just so normal that it’s not even a thing. We used to have six kids in the house. I have three children; my partner has three children; and my eldest two have already left home. Hence we are down to his three daughters and my youngest of two sons = four young humans.

In addition to child-wrangling, amongst my other endeavours (like, say, work), I’m deeply engaged in a non-dual spiritual path. 

So it’s about time I address this elephant in the room, which is being on a non-conventional (i.e. contemplative) spiritual path and being a mother. I am in a lot of groups; I have spiritual teachers and meditation groups, and I often find myself the only mother, if not the only parent.

You might have noticed that I dedicated this post to Bonnie Greenwell, who passed away in 2022. She was one of the seminal spiritual teachers who influenced me early on. I resonated deeply because she was a woman and a mother, and always addressed this dimension of her experience in her extensive writing about awakening and kundalini. She was once a student of Adyashanti, but became a teacher to many with her many books, videos, teaching events and satsangs.

Honestly, if it weren’t for her, I may have left this path, as otherwise it seemed quite male-dominated and I felt that the reality of my full immersion in motherhood was an anomaly and thus a conundrum. She gave me permission to be myself and trust my instincts, which is always our most direct path to Truth.

So in honour of Greenwell’s life, her work and her influence on me, I’d like to speak directly to the issue of the (non-dual) spiritual path and motherhood.

What does it mean to be on the spiritual path when you’re a mother? 

First of all, by spiritual path I mean a journey towards awakening, which is more in the tradition of the contemplative traditions, in which there is a yearning to know yourself as part of consciousness. 

I need to be really specific here, because I don’t believe anyone has ever asked a Christian woman how she can be a Christian and also mother. Or a Muslim woman how she can be a Muslim and also a mother. Ditto Hindu mothers, as far as I know. But for some reason, in the West, those of us devoted to a more - generally speaking - Eastern conception of spirituality, face these sorts of questions more often: how to do it with kids hanging off your heels.

This is not to say that other involved parents —householders in the Hindu tradition— don’t have a rich and productive spiritual life, or that there are not great books bringing the two together (Buddhism for Mothers by Sarah Napthali was helpful to me as a very young mother). It’s just that in my life (first in the US then in Australia for 25 years), I have found there is more separating out of parenthood from devotional life when one is committed to the non-dual path. In the many, many, many groups online and in person I have partaken in over my lifetime so far, involved parents are the exception, rather than the norm.

How do I live my life as a devoted and involved mother with a huge weight of responsibility, and at the same time consciously allow my conditioned ego-self to loosen its grip so that I might commune with the Divine?

Um. In the same way anyone else does it, only my day-to-day gives me a certain set of circumstances and structures (and limitations) which are my unique tools. It’s all perfect.

Life is the guru, right?

Life always gives us
exactly the teacher we need
at every moment.
This includes every mosquito,
every misfortune,
every red light,
every traffic jam,
every obnoxious supervisor (or employee),
every illness, every loss,
every moment of joy or depression,
every addiction,
every piece of garbage,
every breath.
Every moment is the guru.
― Charlotte Joko Beck

One person may use solitude and quiet as the perfect toolkit, focusing exclusively on their communion with Source (Jeff Foster living at his parents house during his initial non-dual awakening comes to mind). 

My toolkit involves ginormous shopping trips to Aldi, helping kids with assignments, driving them everywhere all the time, having 16 (sometimes more) kids here on the weekend because 4 teenagers with 3 friends each (quick maths!). You get the point.

Which toolkit is better? Mine is perfect for me, and is doing the job of waking me up 100% in perfection, with absolutely timely timing. It’s all kairos.

Kairos - Greek, ‘the right or criticial moment.’

The intersection of religion and traditional cultural roles favours motherhood in some contexts - and in others, it’s seen as an impediment to a holy, devotional, life. I imagine, perhaps naively, that my Christian and Muslim and Hindu mother friends can go about practicing their devotion in blissful righteousness, without having to justify their path or feel they are doing it wrong.

Sidenote: no one is currently making me feel I’m doing it wrong. But years ago I did get the strong message that to do it ‘right’ I needed to commit myself in a way that my at-home-with-3-kids-under-five lifestyle didn’t permit. Like live in an ashram. Frequently go on retreat and leave my kids. Hence my gratitude to Bonnie Greenwell.

On the non-dual path, there is the assumption of having the space and silence for contemplation. Not managing three or six noisy, needy children who need (*gasp) parenting, whilst juggling domestic responsibilities with work, self-reflection, and devotion.

More than one (inevitably childless) spiritual mentor has asked me what my lineage had been before I joined a particular group. Which teacher had I studied under? Which Guru, which path?

I always responded that life was my teacher, that every moment was the guru. Over time I became a bit exasperated in my response, only because so many had already asked me this, and honestly it was difficult to describe my passionate yet well hidden spirituality, filled as it was with stolen moments, devouring texts and videos, meditating whenever the domestic chaos left me temporarily un-demanded. The odd weekend away for blessed solitude with Spirit.

Always, I was re-membering something I knew as a child, re-embodying a familiar state that seemed, in my current life chaos, both inevitably present and squashed by the weight of life’s troubles and its distractions. This re-membering process has taken place within me and through me no matter how loud the music is on the morning teenage playlist, no matter how many lego pieces I have stepped on, no matter that I am preparing the gabazillionth meal and doing yet another drop off and pick up.

My winding path: childhood, adulthood, and the moments between

My non-dual nature, the kind I read about secretly from my early teenaged years, always body-felt self-evident beyond my capacity to articulate. As a child I knew myself as unlimited and expanded, and I was greatly puzzled by who Michelle was and why she was in the first place (or why, as I wrote about the time I saw an angel, I did not have wings). Eventually, I became identified with Michelle, which is all as it should be.

Then » Life happened. Marriage. Motherhood. Divorce. Messiness. 

Honestly, with three young children and then eventually as a divorced single mother, my teacher WAS life, although the more nuanced truth is that my devotion to the path ensured that I didn’t miss the teaching moment available at every experience in life.

Often this took place retrospectively.

It helped that I had re-trained from academia to working as a somatic therapist. I learned to be as present with myself as I was with my clients. After each crisis, big or small, once reactivity passed (or loosened its grip), I brought my attention back always to the opportunity to forgive. The opportunity to be present. The opportunity to examine my conditioning be the Witness, and to practice self compassion.

The truth is: no conditions are the perfect ones for a life of spiritual study and awakening. 

Or rather, all conditions are the perfect ones.

Both are true. Isn’t that a mindfuck.

Let me put it in a slightly different way.

Life can easily be the teacher when devotion is the guide. 

Devotion to knowing yourself as consciousness. Devotion to knowing God. Devotion to being connected to and loving towards and loved by and seen by the ALL.

Over a lifetime, in addition to the practices I mentioned above (forgiveness, being the Witness, self-compassion, etc.), I studied whatever books, films, videos, lectures came my way and resonated.

A Course in Miracles. Teachings from Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Shamanism. Also crucial was my ‘in the trenches’ apprenticeship to the human condition, through my various practitioner trainings (especially the Biodynamic Cranial Approach with Giorgia Milne) and through my work with humans, in whose reflection I was able to tap more deeply into my own pain, potential and growth. I have read lots of spiritual autobiographies. Especially of normal people who had extraordinary awakenings.

I take on board that it might blow the mind of some people to imagine that you could find your way back to God without being part of a religion and without being part of a specific lineage. That you could accomplish it instead by listening to your own internal guidance, being led by that guidance to texts and videos, immersing yourself in contemplation, and by living your life with grace.

Shar Jason, who is now retired and (frustratingly) has removed ALL her very helpful material off YouTube, once credited Adyashanti as one of her teachers - though she never met him until after her awakening.

Ma Jaya was a Brooklyn housewife and mother (called Joyce Green) when a series of incredible non-ordinary visitations and experiences led not just to profound awakening, but a lifelong mission to serve victims of the AIDS crisis. Her mission was interfaith. She was a devotee of Hindu Guru Neem Karoli Baba and Jesus was the first being she encountered and possibly the most influential: like Jesus, she championed the defenceless with her compassion-led teachings.¹

As for me, nothing has been as dramatic as the angel visitation when I was six. But, as the children have become more independent, and the exact perfect timing created an opening, I found teachers and community to support my inner process. 

You don’t have to have a group, a teacher, or a path — only if that’s right for you, and you can. You don’t have to go live in a monastery; you can be what in Hinduism is called a householder, someone who’s just living your own life and yet has devotion.²

And sure, the spiritual path requires silence and solitude - episodically - not as a lifestyle requirement.

And whilst it’s true that there are times, especially the dark night of the soul, when it would be easier if the children just fucked off and I could have a crisis on my own and not have to cook them dinner or take them to school, the truth is that the Divine works through the dimension of time and innately aligns itself to ideal timing - experiences happen when timing is ripe for maximal benefit! (kairos!)

Case in point - I went through the worst of the dark night when my children were old enough that they didn’t need me all the time and I could get away; I could have hours alone to cry myself senseless then reappear in time to cook dinner and conjure a smile.

In fact, I have found that the routines of motherhood have been much more conducive to my particular spiritual inquiry than a conventional job, which might have demanded too much of my mental focus and concentration. There has been a lot unstructured time. I could be fully present in myself with young children as I found their needs did not demand all of me.

Even now I find that the rhythm of my life and the needs of the children are perfect compliment to my inner process, and of all the fears, nay terrors and challenges I’ve had, none of them have been about my ability to meet their needs.

If anything, my capacity to be present has deepened.

Not to mention, some of my biggest spiritual lessons have been in my relationship to motherhood.

My attempt to try to create for myself an identity as a career woman with a particular kind of success in the world has always partly been driven by a wounded part of me that seeks to diminish the value of my role as Mother, to prove that I am more than ‘just a mother’ in order to gain approval. (From whom? the world? my parents?)

I refer to this as ‘identity wars.’ I used to be at war with aspects of my identity, wanting to claim one and diss the other. This is not about work versus motherhood (I do both), but rather, how I have wanted to create and promote my ‘self’ to the world.

Whenever I bowed to the pressure of being ‘the career woman’, I withdrew emotionally from my family and experienced suffering, often in the form of illness but also mental health.

It was never good for anybody. Unsurprising, right?

When I lean into my life exactly as it is, juggling work and life with four teenagers and two cats and ginormous shopping trips and never-ending chauffeuring, everything is lighter, and everyone is happier, and my spiritual life flows. Importantly, I am not leaning into a role (Mother), I am simply leaning into the reality of my life (which includes spirituality, motherhood, therapy work, and cats).

Working with cats.

Life’s limitations | Life’s parameters

We MUST, must operate within life’s parameters. They are the context or the container within which we have all we need for growth and awakening.

There’s that Zen quote:

Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.

After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.

Like every other part of my life, motherhood is also my wood and my water.

Thanks Dalle-E, I didn’t specify the number of dishes but with 4 teens living here and 10-16 visiting on the weekend, you nailed it!

By the time my youngest is grown I’ll probably have grandchildren. Since between my partner and myself we have six children, I shudder to think how many grandchildren we could potentially have. I legitimately wonder if they will need name tags. 

Women, Mothers, Awakening

Bonnie Greenwell once wrote that because motherhood for women creates very strong, almost primal attachments, and is therefore a very strong chunk of our ego identity, women might have a harder time awakening than men, and perhaps this was why there were a few female teachers.

I would say, rather, that there are fewer women because there is a preconception that the non-dual spiritual path seems to demand a de-identifcation with our human self and ego altogether, in service for which there is an expectation that we live a lifestyle that is congruent with aloneness, quiet, space. Which is not the lifestyle of any mother I’ve ever met.

All this is changing though, as there are spiritual teachings and communities which recognize the validity of living life as a human with an ego as part of the awakening process; it’s not either or, it’s and. There is a reason we are born into a body and have an identity in this life, and it doesn’t preclude awakening because any kind of life, and importantly your life and my life are simply vessels through which awakening inevitably flows.

I am a mother and a human AND I can know myself as Wholeness.

There is no circumstance we have, no attachment, no feeling, no grasping that can never stop us from experiencing who we are, because we are always both the human and the Divine. That’s the gig. We can be mothers who sometimes feel anxious or attached, and yet simultaneously be one with that and everything. No biggie.

If you’re a mother and also on this path, I would love to hear your comments!

1. How God Found Me: Memoirs of an American Guru by Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati

2. Actually in Hinduism there are 4 stages of life: celibacy (growing up), marriage and family life, the life of the forest-dweller (apparently this means retirement, but living alone in a forest sounds epic to me), and renunciation. This ‘asrama’ system is meant to represent the full development of a human being and fulfilling all the needs of the individual and society.