To Become a Mother, You Must Be Willing to Die

At the beginning of the new year, I went on a walk with a new friend.

It was the kind of walk where conversation opens easily, where bodies are moving, breath is steady, and defenses soften without effort. We talked about wellness, fitness, the usual language of care we’ve all learned to speak fluently. But as the miles passed, I felt another truth surface between us- quiet, invisible, and unmistakably present.

She was holding a question.

She shared that she and her husband are hoping to become parents by the end of the year. And with that desire came fear. Real, honest, intelligent fear. She spoke openly about her anxiety, her neuroses, her awareness that her nervous system already runs loud. She worries that if she hasn’t “fixed” herself, resolved her trauma, quieted her fears, how could she possibly show up the way she wants to for a child? How could she hold space for another life when her own system feels so fragile?

I want to say this first and foremost: what she shared was brave.

And what I told her is a truth you won’t find easily.

Becoming a mother is a kind of death.

Not a literal one but a profound, ego-level dying.

Motherhood is the death of a freedom as you once knew it. The death of your old identity. The death of familiar thought patterns, comforts, social circles and ideals. The death of the version of you who believed she could remain unchanged.

Motherhood asks you to die a thousand small deaths, every day.

The ideas you once held about love, marriage, partnership, ambition, rest, education, time, and even your own body will be challenged. Your children will demand new perspectives from you because their very existence forces expansion.

Your health suddenly becomes sacred (not only physical health, but mental and emotional health). Your nervous system is no longer just yours; it becomes the climate your children grow inside of. It is the ultimate quantum leap.

And yet, the role of a mother is not to arrive healed, finished, perfected.

A mother is not a completed sculpture.

The work of motherhood is allowing your children to reflect back to you where you are still unhealed. Where you need support. Where rupture exists and where repair is possible.

I do not believe children arrive by accident. They choose you. They are shaped for you, and you for them. They come carrying lessons you are meant to learn in this lifetime about love, patience, boundaries, softness, strength, and the generational patterns that are ready to end with you.

Matrescence is not gentle.
It is the crucifixion of who you were.
Motherhood is the resurrection of who you become.

Nature has always known this. Creatures shed skins, dissolve forms, and emerge new. Butterflies liquefy before they fly. Snakes outgrow their skins and leave them behind. Transformation requires surrender.

So yes, I validate and understand her worry.

And she has every right.

But look at her: she is already nurturing her child before they exist. Her awareness, her fear, her desire to do better, to be better … these are not weaknesses. They are evidence of readiness.

Final Thought

So this is a note for the women who are expecting this year. For the women who are hoping, planning, or quietly wondering if they are “ready” :

Readiness in motherhood does not come from fixing yourself first.
It comes from learning how to trust and listen to yourself sooner. From understanding that your nervous system is not a flaw to overcome, but a language to learn.

No mother survives this transformation alone.
Not without walks that clear the static.
Not without at least one place where she can tell the truth.
Not without a village (chosen or built ) that understands regulation, not just resilience.

You do not need to arrive ready.
You become ready by staying open.

And if you can do that, if you can stay open to being rearranged, supported, resourced, and seen, you will discover that what feels like an ending is actually the beginning of a strength and love you could never have imagined before.