I’ve been travelling with my family recently, and it has reminded me of something I’ve been craving for a long time.

Adventure. Freedom. Independence. Spontaneity.

That feeling of being somewhere unfamiliar. Experiencing something completely different. Not quite knowing what’s around the next corner.

Feeling alive.

This is the first more adventurous travel I’ve done since my son was born five years ago. Travel was a big part of my life before becoming a mother, and I’ve missed it deeply.

I’ve always had a very independent, adventurous, free-spirited part of me. I love exploring. I love experiencing different places and cultures. I love the feeling of stepping outside the familiar and seeing what happens.

And then I became a mother.

When parts of ourselves become harder to access

Of course, becoming a mother didn’t suddenly make me less adventurous or independent.

But it did change how easily I could access those parts of myself.

Spontaneity became harder. My time was no longer entirely my own. Decisions that once involved asking myself What do I want to do? suddenly had to take into account the needs, routines and wellbeing of another little human.

That is part of motherhood.

But I think we sometimes struggle to talk honestly about what that can feel like.

Because there can be an assumption that if you say motherhood feels restrictive, or that you miss the freedom you had before children, somehow that means you don’t appreciate being a mother.

It doesn’t.

I adore my son.

And I have also really struggled at times with the loss of freedom and independence that came with becoming his mother.

Both are true.

Maybe we don’t miss our old lives. We miss how we felt in them.

I hear versions of this from women I work with too.

They miss their freedom.

Their independence.

Their careers.

Their creativity.

Their friendships and social lives.

Their ability to travel, explore, exercise, spend time alone or simply make a decision based entirely on what they feel like doing that day.

And I sometimes wonder whether women who have always had a particularly strong independent, adventurous or free-spirited streak can find this aspect of motherhood especially challenging.

Not because we love our children any less.

But because some of the qualities that have always made us feel most like ourselves can suddenly become much harder to express.

And when that happens for long enough, we can start to feel disconnected from who we are.

Sometimes what we miss after becoming mothers isn’t actually our old life.

It’s how we felt in it.

Free.

Independent.

Creative.

Confident.

Spontaneous.

Alive.

Motherhood is an identity transition

This is one of the reasons I find the concept of matrescence so powerful.

Matrescence describes the transition into motherhood — not simply the physical experience of having a baby, but the psychological, emotional, social and identity transformation that happens alongside it.

We talk so much about the arrival of the baby.

Far less about the transformation of the woman.

Yet becoming a mother can change almost every part of your life: your relationships, your body, your career, your priorities, your time, your sense of freedom and the way you see yourself.

There can be enormous growth within that transition.

And there can also be grief.

Grief for parts of your old life.

Grief for versions of yourself that feel further away.

Grief for the freedom you once took completely for granted.

Acknowledging that grief doesn’t diminish the love we have for our children.

It simply makes space for the full complexity of becoming a mother.

I don’t want to go back

One thing this trip has made very clear to me is that I don’t actually want my old life back.

I don’t want to return to the woman I was before I became a mother.

Motherhood has changed me.

It has stretched me, challenged me and shown me parts of myself I might never otherwise have met.

But I also don’t want motherhood to require me to leave important parts of myself behind.

This trip has reminded me that those parts are still here.

The adventurous woman.

The independent woman.

The free-spirited woman who wants to explore and experience and feel deeply alive.

She didn’t disappear when I became a mother.

I just haven’t always had as much space for her.

And perhaps that is an important distinction.

Because when we feel disconnected from ourselves, the question we often ask is:

How do I get the old me back?

But I’m not sure that’s the question.

Maybe it’s:

What parts of myself have I lost touch with?

What made me feel most alive?

What am I craving now?

And how can I make space for those parts of myself in the life I have today?

Finding your way back to yourself

It doesn’t necessarily require getting on a plane or taking off on an adventure.

For one woman, reconnecting with herself might mean travelling again.

For another, it might be making art.

Going dancing.

Returning to work.

Spending time alone.

Swimming in the ocean.

Starting something of her own.

Seeing friends without her children.

Learning something new.

Or simply having enough quiet to hear her own thoughts again.

The specifics will be different for every woman.

What matters is recognising that these desires aren’t frivolous.

They can be clues.

Clues to the parts of ourselves that are asking to be seen again.

This is so much of the work I find myself doing now, both personally and with the women I support.

Not trying to recreate who we used to be.

Not rejecting the season we’re in.

But slowing down enough to ask:

Who am I now?

What matters to me in this season?

What parts of myself am I ready to reclaim?

What do I need more of to feel like me?

For me, right now, one of those things is adventure.

It’s freedom.

It’s exploration.

It’s feeling alive.

And after five years of missing that part of myself, it feels very, very good to meet her again.