Motherhood & our Intuitive Wisdom

Cathy Williams
Sep 12
6 min read

Since starting Intuitive Self in 2016 I have had a tendency to keep my life private, including my life and role as an Independent Mama and all that entails. However, it is one of the biggest parts of me. My daughter is one of my greatest teachers; motherhood itself feels like one initiation after the other; and all my practices for knowing myself on a deeper level and being able to regulate myself all trace back to my deep desire to have the capacity to show up for my daughter in the way I want to and to have the tools to look after us both.

I’ve drawn on examples from my own motherhood journey in private consultation sessions, offered parts of my story in my book, and referred to it when appropriate in workshops and training, but for the most part it hasn’t been something I’ve spoken openly about or directly to.

So it felt quite refreshing lovely to sit down with Mother and Podcaster, Amaya from The Life, Liberty & Laundry Podcast and speak directly to our roles as Mamas and the juggle and balance of it all.

You can listen to our intimate sharing here

*Motherhood is more than a role - it is a transformation. In our episode we dive into the intuitive wisdom that awakens within mothers and the healing power of somatic art therapy.*

***

My journey into Motherhood is one that I would love to write about in all of its fullness and complexity one day, and starting these candid conversations was a beautiful place to begin.

With Amaya, I traced back to the years leading up to my pregnancy. My lens at that time was all community-development focused - involved in multiple back-to-back projects in various developing communities overseas, finishing my Masters in Philippines and diving into Spirituality books. I came back to my hometown of Melbourne quite burnt out and jaded - and I have spoken before about the workshop I then attended and was first introduced to Movement & Art Therapy and the epic path that led me on. But what I haven’t spoken about was my interest in the Goddess archetypes and the Goddess retreat I attended around the same time.

All of that world was so new to me but - probably due to utter exhaustion - I was becoming aware of how much I’d been in living in my masculine energy - in over-productivity mode of ‘doing doing doing’ hustle culture. I had recognised my disconnection from my body and my heart, living primarily in my mind. I became so curious about what it would look like and feel like to step more into my feminine energy. It was also the year that I enrolled into my first two-year Somatic Movement Therapy course. So even though becoming a mother had not been on my radar for that year, it was almost as if my daughter came in during that time when I was transitioning between career choices and diving further into spiritual exploration and self-development and becoming pregnant was a catalyst to connect me even deeper in this space.

A portal space had opened.

***

Amaya asked what was some of the biggest surprises during that transition?

My biggest initial surprise was just how much love I felt in my heart. Potentially corny to say, but it shocked me. I felt my heart expand and my care for another being grow. The week I found out I was pregnant, I stopped into a bookstore. I found myself walking towards the children’s section and then silently weeping when I held Sam McBratneys book, ‘Guess how much I love you?’ in my hands.

Becoming pregnant catapulted my return to my body. I was more IN my body than I ever had been. So super aware of my changing body. Enrolled in the two-year Somatic course, I was a student to these beautiful body-based expressive modalities where I was literally moving the stories of my body. Through the growing of a child and the birth process, I had this extreme love and appreciation for what our bodies can do.

Physically needing to slow down more and not being able to function at the high-speed pace I had cultivated in the years leading up to it, it was this cosmic forced pause to allow me to tune more into my body and become more familiar with and understand my body signals. In many ways it was my awakening to understanding my body wisdom and work in partnership with my body.

It was during my pregnancy journey that I was beginning to put intuition and the body together - I was even more sensitive to how my intuition was in communication with me.

***

Together, Amaya and I spoke about our quiet inner knowings but also the noise of daily demands and the struggle to make time for this vital part of ourselves.

Once I started to acknowledge that I have an inner knowing I naturally became curious about how that part was communicating with me.

I love encouraging women and mothers to start dialoguing with their intuition.

How does your Intuition speak to you?

How does it show up for you in your life, in your body, in what you notice?

Begin to get curious about meeting your intuition.

Create practices that honour your intuition.

I know we can often feel time-poor and our focus and attention can’t always prioritise that, but I am a huge advocate for using our intention and attention to make any moment sacred to tune in with yourself. Ask your intuition a question, pull a card, offer gratitude.

We have different seasons with our children and my daughter is older now, but it’s definitely been a journey of “how can I make the most of these small pockets of time and make them sacred for me".

When I dismantled my own self-imposed expectations and loosened the ways I thought a day ‘should’ look like, I’m less frustrated and able to embrace the flow of both my daughter and me.

And I loved how Amaya and I spoke of bringing our children into our practices and fostering such curiosity and play together.

***

One of the key reasons Movement, Somatic & Creative Art Therapies have been such a pillar of my own healing journey is because they gave me a framework for being with myself in a non-judgmental way. In a way that actually invited me to, gave me permission for and avenues of safe processing and expression of the full range and spectrum of my emotional experience.

This form of therapy has supported me through navigating fears in motherhood, my changing identity, grief, emotional overwhelm, feeling like I had to “have it altogether”. We can get so trapped by our own and societal expectations and by-pass the emotion as we mask and try to show up and “be our best selves”.

What I love about this work is that it gives us space to feel how we are feeling in the moment. To actually get curious and enquire about what our bodies are carrying, what emotion we are experiencing, and it beckons us to express that and move it through. This work is a supportive way to be with ourselves, compassionately.

I loved speaking to Amaya about our experience of anger and how we can re-frame the way we navigate this stigmatised emotional state.

***

Ways for mothers to start connecting with their own body & intuition:

~ Putting on a track: dancing with yourself & dancing with your children

~ Exploring different ways your body can move

~ I shared with Amaya my personal practice of ‘The Impulse Stretch’ - following the impulses of your body, becoming more familiar and comfortable with being embodied, and becoming more attuned with sensations and being in dialogue with the body

And if you find yourself saying “I’m not creative” - my compassionate response is, “compared to what? Compared to whom?”

This work is not about the end product, it’s about the process. We are playing for play-sake. It can serve as functional meditation: busy hands clear the mind, express where you’re at, enjoy just being.

How does Somatic Art Therapy support mothers in reclaiming parts of themselves beyond caregiving?

These are ways to return to ourselves, honour our body, our intuition, our own creative flow.

The many practices available through this work have been pillars for my wellbeing. They are beautiful entry point practices for knowing yourself giving love and compassion to all parts of yourself.

One of the biggest themes that come through in my work with mothers is unmasking. Learning how to be with Self without judgment. Working through limiting self-beliefs. Let’s presence what we are experiencing and get curious about it and build compassion for ourselves. Self-trust: learning to trust ourselves or deepen our trust with ourselves and feeling comfortable and confident with the decisions we make for us and our children. Through this work we get to know ourselves more and we get to feel more in our power which inevitably ripples out to our children.