I Did Monk Mode as a Mother

This is how it brought me to Medium

The alliteration is accidental.

But the journey is making sense in hindsight.

Monk mode is popularised as a period of enhanced focus, discipline, and productivity where you commit yourself to completing goals.

Today is Day 30 on Medium. I’ve written 36 articles.

I’m going to reflect on how I’m back in the social media saddle, after disavowing it all when I had my first child.

We were excited to learn that we were expecting a baby. We talked about it for years, but now it was now go time. This meant I had nine months to put my affairs in order: I was the editor, writer, and manager at my work then (more for lack of personnel than my own accolade), and my foot was to the pedal to complete all tasks before I adjourned to another role in life.

The complication was that the pregnancy was entirely rough for nine months. I wasn’t able to smell, or walk in, many places, without throwing up, much less enjoy a full meal. At eight months and feeling slightly used to the continual puking, I plotted a route with bushes to the hairdresser where I could throw up relatively discreetly.

I was cutting my hair to prepare for a new phase of life, and I was mentally preparing to let go commitments in my practical everyday life.

We engaged a doula and as a “lifelong learning” couple, took up natural birthing classes.

Later, I learnt terms such as: hyperemesis, environmental sensitivities, functional health.

Returning to my circuit of work identities was off the table, after the little one was born. I was easily fatigued and could not sit for long at my computer.

My attention was 100% focused on my newborn’s wellbeing, and our ability to carry her safely and joyfully through life.

I pared down anything that didn’t fit and/or made me nauseous. Toxic products, junk food, and fake friends. I stopped buying into them and soon they simply didn’t turn up.

Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

A house with a garden presented itself. Yes, we will move.

Our only friends for a while were the birds in our neighbourhood.

She was my whole world, and I was catching up on the meaning of love.

As I grew in love, more things fell away from me — the dreams and goals I thought I wanted.

Circadian rhythms claimed it rightful rulership over our days again.

I now wake with the sunrise and the stir of my daughter. We go out to the birds and the sunshine. We learn the world — so much to see in such a small heaven. I didn’t turn on the light at sunset — we drift to sleep while sorting out our dreams from distractions.

I continued to clean house. Including a dedicated study of Marie Kondo. Some rolled their eyes or stared blankly as I attempted to explain my new mode of being.

But without the prop of ego identities, I began to fret and care less. Former interests and habits faded. The biggest habit:

No more social media.

Everything else ebbed away to irrelevance, failing to even provide entertainment at the exhausting end of day.

When I asked serious life questions on a platform f*, my accounts got blocked. (Sorry, no screenshots because I was also digital decluttering.)

Well, that’s convenient. I returned to books for collective wisdom.

As my head and space attuned solely to the voice and needs of my daughter, I found a clear mind and focused consciousness. My thoughts can be primarily about the challenges in life I want to overcome.

As well as the challenges that I didn’t know I harboured.

This must make me radical in a consumerist economy, I thought. Nobody has a handle on me anymore.

My health surpassed what I thought I had in my youth during this period of abstinence. The dots connected in my monk mode began to point in peculiar ways for me.

Several years later, my children have grown older and with more questions that we had hours for. As the pace of life picked up again, I sought tools to maintain the mode of non-being.

Writing returned to my life. I decided to do this on Medium.

…

Thank you for reading.

—

This post was previously published on medium.com.

***