Motherhood was not the domain I expected to apply the “A” in MAPP to, yet it’s where I’ve spent the past seventeen years—threading the science of wellbeing into my days as a stay-at-home sort of mom. You might say it’s a role with no clear way to define success and a million ways to fail. But a shift in perspective has offered a million opportunities to gain resilience and grow—since the day I first saw two blue lines on a stick, which was quite literally, the moment I arrived home from my last MAPP class.
When I crafted my “legacy exercise” as a MAPPster back in 2008—writing my future self as the matriarch of a big family dedicated to weaving a web of love—did I understand the grit and determination it would demand of me, or the hope I would need to create along the way? Could I have fathomed the spiritual nature of this journey or the faith I would gather like pearls ground into treasure in the depths of my experiences?
Now, as a mother of five, I see that each child I have brought forth is a miracle of their own making. I am merely the nurturer of inherent goodness, intent on drawing out the unique strengths I’ve been trained to spot. By the grace of “Mom’s Grateful” aka “Three Good Things” in a ritual that echoes as a family prayer at dinner time, we are committed to leaving our world a little brighter than we found it.
I often think that the expansiveness of Love is one and the same as the “magic of MAPP” Marty has illuminated since my cohort left its indelible mark on the program I was no doubt called to. Some intangibles are easier to express than others, but the “Hallelujah” we once sung in unison has met me in moments of both joy and loss—guiding me toward a lived understanding of all the good that is eternally within our midst.
For there were blessings in the darkest moments. I just needed to choose to notice they were there.
