From my heart as a mother🤍

Raising Ana and Maya has been one of the most sacred and humbling journeys of my life.

With Ana, I was so young. I was still finding my own footing in the world, still learning how to feel safe in my own skin. I loved her fiercely, but I didn’t yet know how to hold her emotions without fearing or fixing them. I wanted so much to be a good mother, and that desire often turned into pressure, to get it right, to be strong, to keep things together.

But Ana taught me that love isn’t in the perfection. It’s in the repair.

In the sitting beside.

In the “I see you” after the storm.

She softened me. She grew me. She mirrored the parts of me I hadn’t yet healed, and in doing so, she led me back to myself. She was an unbelievable guide and now she is an amazing young woman. I am so proud of her!

With Maya, I came into motherhood differently. I had walked through more life. More loss. More awakening. I had learned to slow down, to breathe, to let go of needing to always be in control. And Maya came into the world like a fire of truth. She is strong, sensitive, intense, and unapologetically herself.

She reminds me every day that emotional strength isn’t about emotional obedience. It’s about inner freedom.

With her, I don’t try to quiet her feelings. I witness them. I honor her wildness, her softness, her anger, her tears. I teach her how to hold herself by how I hold her.

And she taught me how to hold myself, how to express my voice and freedom. And that helped me to remember who I truly am. She is the fire, that strength and confidence, the courage to be herself exactly as she is and that gave me freedom to be.

Both of my daughters have raised me into the mother I am today.

A mother who no longer fears her children’s emotions.

A mother who knows that emotional strength begins in the space where love meets truth.

A mother who understands that the greatest gift we can give our children is presence. That presence that helps them feel safe and give them the confidence to rise, to bloom!

Ana and Maya are emotionally strong not because I’ve done everything right, but because I’ve chosen to grow alongside them. To apologize. To repair. To listen. To love out loud.

They are becoming women who know how to feel deeply without drowning, to speak their truth without shame, and to come home to themselves even in the hardest moments.

That, to me, is the truest strength.

May your children know the strength of softness,

The courage of truth,

And the safety of love that doesn’t flinch in the face of big feelings.

May you mother not from perfection, but from presence.

And may the way you hold them become the way they learn to hold themselves.

I see you, amazing parents! You are doing a fantastic work, you are raising humans!

🤍

Aniela