The Revolution of Matresence
Reclaiming Intuition, Reparenting Ourselves, and Redefining Motherhood
Mariah Mueller
Jan 18, 2025
Welcome to my first post in this space—a place where we explore the unseen, the untold, and the often overlooked truths of mothering in the United States in 2025. If you’re here, it’s because you feel, like I do, that there’s something more we need to tap into. Something deeper than the noise of daily life and societal expectations. Something more deeply felt than the surface-level scripts we've been handed.
I’d love to begin where it all starts: with you (ie, me).
Trusting the Body, Listening to the Soul
Motherhood isn’t just a title—it’s an initiation. It’s a profound relationship with both the world around us and the rhythms within us. Yet, in today’s culture, we’ve been trained to ignore our own bodies, our own intuition, in favor of external guidance. We’re inundated with the “social media moms,” the guides for how to make our babies sleep, the “never do this,” and “nobody ever tells you about” stories that often make us feel afraid. We look to external “authorities” for answers and are often met with unwarranted trauma dumping masked as “advice” about how to raise our children and balance our careers. And that’s the end of the story. Except it’s so much deeper than that.
I am not here to tell you how to parent or what sources are reliable and trustworthy. I am here to challenge you to deeply listen to the wisdom that your cells already hold. Your body is waiting for you to stop, turn the external noise off, breathe, and listen.
I was introduced to somatic practices before I found out I was pregnant with my first (I don’t sell any courses on this, but I am a mother who has been deeply held by my own inner wisdom through somatic practices) and I felt called to practice because I could see the interconnectedness in my practitioners eyes. She had that soft but fierce inner knowing that held my inner knowing and met it exactly where it was —afraid to be seen. What if instead of needing anything outside of ourselves, we need to close our eyes, take deep breaths, and begin identifying what sensations we feel in our body and how they may be whispering to us, calling us back to ourselves. Even if the sensation is everywhere at once and the inner voice says “FUCK ALL OF THIS SHIT.” That’s a start, you’re safe here.
The Truth of Modern-Day Motherhood: It’s all Marketing
(Skip this if you don’t want to re-hash what we all hate about social media).
Modern motherhood, with all its social media images of perfect houses, happy children, trendy clothes, and “perfect couples” often feels like a lie. The pressure to perform, to “have it all together,” is immense. But here’s the truth: it’s all marketing to make us consume more/feel unhappy with wherever we are right now. Motherhood is never going to be clean and tidy. Even with a full time nanny or a weekly housekeeper. You cannot hide the truth that motherhood is messy.
Here in this space, we’re going to throw all marketing out the window. If we were to peer inside the houses of 500 families right now, there would be an assortment of: cluttered tables, toys not in their fancy clear bins, piles of laundry, stacks of mail that haven’t been sorted through, empty pantries, one bedroom with 3 mattresses on the floor, etc. And here’s the thing — I don’t want to normalize this because I think everyone should live this way. I want to normalize this, because we have all been sold this “go to college, get a job, buy a house, have kids” timeline as if that is supposed to work for all of us and it just does not. And then we’re “stuck” in these arbitrary boxes that do not live up to what we were sold. And by that I mean — I graduated college 7 years ago, and if I were to apply to a job today, I would still only make about $25 - $30 an hour. To LIVE OFF OF. Not only is this narrative isolating and not representative of the outcome that most of us are left with, it is keeping us more disconnected from our intuition.
I never used my autonomy and creativity at 18 years old to say “I could start a business”. I was afraid. I was afraid that if I didn’t pursue a degree, I would never be successful. Fast forward to motherhood, and we’re yet again sold this story of how fun and exciting having kids is and the reality is — we don’t even have enough childless adults or grandparents who are not working to support families. We are isolated, under-resourced, sleep deprived and mentally unstable. And then, we’re told that if we’re mentally unstable, we’re “unfit parents” or we’re “unemployable” and the list goes on.
Respectfully, fuck all of that. You’re allowed to be exhausted, overwhelmed and angry. In fact, if you’re not angry, you might be disassociating to survive! That’s where I return to somatic practices. Not only are you allowed to feel all of this (reparenting language) — you are safe to sit with the feelings of rage or envy, the feeling of lack, or instability. AND there is nothing outside of you that can give you the deep inner healing that comes with growing comfortable in your own presence. Being with these feelings. Reparenting your relationship to them. Instead of “I don’t want to feel so angry at my children” it’s “ah, I am feeling angry. What do I need in this moment? Space, silence, food, water? What can I do to take care of that need and recenter myself in this moment.” Anger and rage are not going anywhere if we pretend they do not exist and “push through” parenting.
As mothers we’re often conditioned to give, give, give, until there’s nothing left for us. We’ve seen our mothers and grandmothers do it, or we never had an example of a nurturing mother and so we deplete ourselves fully trying to become that. But it’s in this depletion that we begin to disconnect from our inner compass. A tired, overworked, burnt out woman is a disempowered woman. And that’s where we need to start: by reorienting toward the self, rather than constantly looking outward for validation or instruction.
De-centering Men: Reclaiming Our Power
I know what you’re thinking— oh cool Mariah, I’ll just take the space I already DON’T HAVE to BE WITH MYSELF?! That’s literally all I ever ask for and cannot get! I know. I know, I know, I know. Believe me. I have screamed this from the rooftops to my partner since my son was 4 months old. A part of this journey is about de-centering the voices that have dominated our lives for centuries. In modern society, men’s perspectives and needs have been prioritized, often to the detriment of women’s voices and experiences. But in order to reconnect with our truest selves, we need to advocate for the space to exist outside of the patriarchal lens. This means deconstructing the structures that have trained us to suppress our own truths, emotions, and needs. This means instead of saying “Hey honey can I have 5 minutes to go sit in the closet and scream?” We say “Hey honey on Saturday morning I am going to breakfast with Tina and then to a yoga class until 11:30 am.” Period.
Motherhood is not a "man's world." It’s not a “shared responsibility” in the way it’s often framed by societal standards. Women’s experiences, desires, and needs have been suppressed for too long, and we need to reclaim them—without apology, without compromise. It’s time to make space for us to exist on our own terms, to redefine what motherhood means for us, beyond the expectations placed upon us.
What do I mean by that? Take a deep breath with me and I want you to take 5 minutes to breath into and feel into what your “dream situation” in motherhood feels like. Do you have a nanny for 4 hours a day? Do you have a chef prepare all dinners for your family? Do you work outside of the home while your child attends a beautifully enriching forest school that has a 1:4 teacher to student ratio? Ok I am getting a little personal here, but that’s the point. Instead of existing in a man’s world where they go to work and make the money because they systemically get paid more than us (already an injustice), and we take care of all domestic work, we’re taking a moment to envision a different way. It might not be “realistically” tangible right now — heck I certainly can’t afford childcare let alone a nanny and a chef — but the practice is in re-centering our daily rhythms to support our desires and dreams.
Reparenting the Nervous System: Healing from Within
When we talk about reparenting, we’re not just referring to how we care for our children. We're talking about how we care for ourselves—especially the parts of ourselves that were neglected or traumatized as children. The nervous system holds deep imprints of past pain, fear, and neglect. As mothers, we often become so wrapped up in caring for everyone else that we turn off the volume completely to where we can no longer hear the parts of ourselves that still need healing and reparenting.
Reparenting your nervous system means recognizing where your own trauma and old wounds are still active, and nurturing yourself in the same way you would a child. It means learning to create safety, stability, and compassion within yourself. This process is ongoing, and it can be deeply transformative. It’s about finding peace with the parts of you that were once fragmented or disconnected and allowing them to come home. It’s saying “you can be sad and cry loudly here, you’re not in trouble” to ourselves and our children.
A Call to Action: Come Home to Yourself
If you’re reading this, you’re already on the path. The path toward reclaiming your intuition, your power, and your inner peace. You’re already beginning to heal the wounds that were passed down to you and make space for a new kind of motherhood—one that’s rooted in your deepest truths.
In future posts, we’ll explore somatic practices that I have gathered from my practitioners, journal prompts, and tools for how to have a conversations with the men in our lives (even if it’s fathers, uncles, brothers, etc.) that will help you reconnect with your intuitive wisdom, redefine your relationship with motherhood, and reparent your nervous system for a healthier, more balanced life.
But for now, take a deep breath. Feel your feet on the ground. Remember: you are full of the wisdom you seek outside of yourself. The answers are within you, and you are worthy of the time it takes to listen.
What are your first steps on this journey? What do you most need right now? Let’s share this space, this conversation, together.
