I recently had a conversation with several friends about the spiritual pros and cons of motherhood (or fatherhood for that matter, though they were all women). Specifically, we discuss how becoming a mother encourages and challenges our religious beliefs and spiritual practices. This was quite a diverse group: three different Christian denominations, a Buddhist, a yoga-loving agnostic, and myself, probably best described as ‘spiritual but not affiliated’. The results helped us rethink how we approach both motherhood and spirituality. This is what we came up with:

Facing Our Past: We often have to look back to move forward, and becoming a parent frequently triggers a reconsideration of our own childhood and the resulting psychological patterns. We really have to consider how we were raised, what we want to repeat with our own children and what we want to discard, what values ​​we were instilled in and what values ​​we want to pass on.

Develop self-awareness and overcome the ego: Our children test our patience, challenge our authority, and generally drive us to the brink of sanity at times. What better way to discover and overcome all of our egoic triggers and patterns? Doing so is the very definition of humility: the building block of all spiritual beliefs.

Showing us the moment: Children, especially younger ones, are completely in the moment. They marvel at a new flower, the colors of the sunset, the sensation of the wind. They can cry one minute and laugh the next. They naturally appreciate and marvel at the world, in a way that we adults are often too busy or caught up in our own concerns to do so. Our children can show us how to appreciate our world for what it is, and thus how to create the potential for deeper spiritual moments in our lives as well.

Building our resistance: Let’s face it, parenthood is often exhausting, but there are no days off or make-up days. You may have the flu, been up for two days in a row with your kids’ flu bout, and feel like you’re about to collapse, but your (now recovered) kids still need help with their homework, packed lunch boxes, some kind of breakfast , and maybe a hug or two when they fall over. So, move on. The needs of our children bring out a level of self-sacrifice and resilience that few other things can. And while this does not mutate into martyrdom, sow the seeds for true selfless spiritual service.

Develop compassion: When our children are suffering, physically or emotionally, it is like a knife through our hearts. The most self-absorbed of adults cannot help but be transformed by their own desire to protect their children from harm. And that often opens the door to a more compassionate worldview, one in which we can acknowledge the suffering of others more fully, rather than turn a blind eye.

Renewing Our Inspiration: Watching a child develop often feels like witnessing a miracle and can rekindle our faith in a higher power. How exactly do they learn to walk? How do their little brains sort through the myriad things we point out to them each day and learn to distinguish red from yellow, an apple from an orange? Or for that matter, how come they seem to arrive with so much individual personality? For many of us, biology and genetics just don’t seem to account for the whole, and as we watch the creation process in action, we begin to wonder again about the power behind it all.

Opening our hearts: Many people say that the love they have for their children is the most unconditional love they feel in their lives. In this sense, our love for our children can be a gateway to the universal love that the greatest mystics of all the world’s religions speak of. The trick is to allow our love to open our hearts more, instead of closing them out of a sense of vulnerability or protection.