Are You My Mother?

There’s this children’s book called “Are You My Mother?” that I woke up and was thinking a lot about today.

For about the past two years, who knows maybe even longer, I’ve been thinking about this book. Like the true meaning behind it, and what meaning we put behind it.

It’s about a bird, who hatched while his mother flew away to go get food. She left it when it was an egg, and it hatched during that time.

Then, when he hatches, he starts to look up and wonder where is mother is. Frightened, he falls out of his nest and then goes to the first animal he sees, and asks “Are you my mother?”. He then continues to ask this question to many other types of animals, and then at one point he ever started to asks objects like a car or boat. Some ignore him, and some state “No, how can I be your mother? I’m a cow and you’re a bird.”

He finally gives up and cries out for help for his mother, and then she shows up and says she was just out to go get food for him.

See, this book is not even that great of a book to enjoy as a kid or visually enjoyable with the pictures, but something about this book continiued to pop up for me “lately”.

The last time I remember even searching for this book, was about a year or so ago and I was desperately about to leave my job I was very unhappy work at, and I was so lost in every other avenue in my life as well. Nothing could make me happy. I thought it was all over for me, and that my happiness laid in my past. I couldn’t remember how the book went or how it ended exactly, so I would leave it up to chance for it to find me. Searched in thrift stores, and sometimes even in book stores. But still, for months I could not find it. I went to my local Y, where they had a small section to sit, wait, and read. I thought oh, for sure it would be there. But it was not.

I would go on the weekends, and the school there would be closed. As the months go by, I would just think of it as a symbol, for me atleast, was that I was always looking for guidance, but specifically for a workspace to call my own. What I questioned “Are you my mother?” usually resulted in the line of work. My work was where I found “my home”, which relays to “my mother”.

But if I look at it even more symbolically, in my line of work – like anything I do or create, I see it as my area of when I do it, when I makes these decissions and present them to the world, it’s like me asking back in return for love and approval – like a mother would. Or if we go even deeper, where it truly should lie but we as humans naturally give that responsibility to our mothers/father (and then later on to any other authority figure we give over that “responsibility”  to, so we don’t have to take ownership of our own words/actions),  is the depths of ourselves – our “higher sevles” – like that Godly like part of our selves that can respond back to us “Here I am. I never left, and it’s going to be okay.”

In this past week, I started to think about what it really means to be a “workaholic”. Not wanting to rest, putting all your efforts and waiting for love and approval in my work, from my work. Like really taking the term seriously. And it’s true. I can’t stop producing work – in hope that I can find love and approval back from other people’s resources. Like depending on them to give me “a source” (of income) in order to hear back the words “You did great, thank you. I love it (= You are loved).” Because I’ve always had to work hard to get those words. Most of the times I never did get those words, so I had to play mind reader or just “assume”. To create a sense of approval in my own mind, and battle it for a longer period of time then I should in order to move on from it.

But this time I’m the boss; I own my own business and I have no one around me who is knowledgeable on this topic, nor to go to as “the source”.

Yesterday was a tough day for me, emotionally. My rent was due in the space that I rent – yet I have not had a client in the past two weeks, and nothing booked so far in this near future. I started advertising my business 2 months ago. It feels like forever, because it’s a daily thing to advertise and it’s daunting to put myself out there and it feels like I’m a fraud cause I’m saying I “do” all these things, but because I don’t do them daily as like a daily description of my job, I feel like the insides of me want to scream out loud to the person who’s asking about my services to “RUN AWAY! I DON’T DO THIS! I DON’T HAVE A CLIENTELLE!”, even if I’ve done the work before – whether I’m good at it or great, or willing to get better.

I know this is all about feeling like an imposter, and it’s just the beginning of month 3. Plus, it hasn’t even been 1 full month of soley just working as a business owner. It’s been less than a month that I quit my last job, teaching part-time, just for a steady “source” of income. It wasn’t even needed financially, but it was “my source”. Where my workaholic-ism was being supported. Just like a drug, it wasn’t an area of “true source”/joy. I was very unhappy when I had to actually show up to it, and it felt like a crazy place inside my brain, that I had to convince myself other ways that I needed it. I’ve taught this age group for years, and even at the same place, and even with some of the same people. But something about me changed this time. I no longer needed it as “my source”, and I was mad at myself for not going to “my source” – what I actually really wanted to do right now with my life. Which is to be a business owner. I’ve dodged this for a few years now, because of fear of failing. But I’m here now, I’ve accepted that my “idea” of failing is not having a steady flow of income from not having clients. But that doesn’t mean I still can’t “do the work”. Like my God-given talent of “the work” – the work of service.

See, sometimes I think that “my work” – my service to others is the line of work that I do now, but I’m starting to see that it’s not. That line of work is my enjoyment of art, which is special to me. But my true work, my true service, is creating a space where others feel good about themselves. It’s always been about boosting their confidence. To be that first stepping stone, and letting them find their own path. Which, I believe is everyone’s work – we just use different tools and examples of signs & symbols for it. Some people wear white coats to point people in the right direction of their health, some where aprons to show people how to explore the world of taste and smell with food, some people lay down cement and wood to start a foundation of feeling and being safe from the structures of the natural world. We all work a skill to connect with others to produce “our work”, and our source is actually the connection – not the words of approval or the handing over of cash for “your service”. That’s just a sign, a symbol we’re all aware of. But it’s not the true source we’re looking for.

Last October, I did actually find the book, well I guess it finally found me. But I didn’t pick it up. It was my first day of my teaching job, passing the same area I searched for many weeks for it. I didn’t feel that I needed to read that book – that it was just a sign, a symbol for me. A sign that I found “my mother”; my source. Or so I thought. I thought the source laid in my job – the teaching job I just left less than a month ago now. That’s what my workaholic mind thought. That my source comes from working hard, and doing things for others even if I didn’t truly want to do them at that time. So now my mind searches for that book.

I looked up the meaning of that book, because it just seemed like there had to be one deeper. I feel these things; it bothers me until my theory is proven wrong or right and I get to know why. So the meaning of “mother” is actually “the source of I Am”, and all these others animals/objects are drugs. Even to where one shouts “SNORT!” as it’s name. And when Snort yelled that, the bird gave up and just called out loud for his mother. Which she then shortly came back and said she would never leave – or something like that. Atleast that’s a random source I found online. But, I do too believe it’s an analogy of life, and how we search for “the source” – which we first were introduced to as our mothers, and later blame for when we are lost in life.