Some are already embarked in motherhood and business and just handle as best as they can, looking like true minstrels juggling all roles & responsibilities. I applaud them. Standing ovation my friends.

Nevertheless, for me back in my 20s and earliest 30s, witnessing that frantic rhythm to keep up spending ‘enough quality time’ with their kids while pursuing -or at least holding together- their corporate careers was terrifying.

SO. MANY. ASPECTS. TO CONSIDER. In motherhood, aggravated by the fact that you still want a career! As a Highly Sensitive Person, I could FEEL the mixed feelings, their frequent conflict of interests, and that ancestral parental guilt that comes naturally with the advent of the little ones to our lives. The messy hair and dark circles under their eyes, unnoticed stains and sleep-deprived edgy mood. Or the other kind: the Super Woman, gliding through the halls with poise and determination, dressed with the prettiest smile and ‘can do’ attitude. High Sensitivity comes with deep intuition, and an innate capacity to perceive more profoundly. We can’t help but see what is shown, and what is not. We are observers. So we don’t buy it. Don’t get me wrong, I wished so many times I could be that woman, the one that always looks as if going to a photo shoot, and still keeps up with work and kids and the house and and and. But I can’t. I’m not. I would break. Literally.

Going back to my starting point: Considering motherhood was just too much, too difficult, and in a way, a gloomy scene. Highly sensitivity often comes in combo with High responsibility. We worry (too much?) about what we make our own, and see it through until completion. Or else.

Allow me to take you through my personal experience on pondering motherhood as an HSP in business… I was in my 30s, in a very demanding senior brand management job still betting on my career at the company, initiating studies for the psychology degree at university, finally enjoying a peaceful moment at home after some turbulences, running, doing my yoga and socially active (in an introvert Highly Sensitive way of saying at least ☺). I could feel it was time for me to face my…let’s call it… motherhood drama. Not because it is a hot topic, as “society’ expects the linear progression of us all (which just makes me want to scream out loud how annoying it is to always be brought up with what is missing, versus what we already are & have), but because it was a long postponed unsolved issue within me, that started to speak through dreams, meditations and psychosomatic symptoms. A classic neurotic case of an insisting unconscious -I may add on a more Freudian remark- that manifests that incoercible desire that keeps us alive. Eros.

So I did what I had to do once I accepted it was not “OK” to keep walking with that stone in my shoe. Because it hurt. Thus, I faced my dilemma in therapy.

Psychoanalysis works magic with deciphering dreams and symptoms. Coupled with my Inner Bonding practice, the metamorphosis began.

I am not sure how long I spent healing the first aspects of my motherhood drama. What I can say is that I did so without disclosing it. It run so deep, activated dormant memories (nice & ugly, both) and to be honest, I was ashamed to discuss it out loud. I barely shared it with my partner, who was far more enthusiastic and free-spirited in regards to the subject, than I was. And I am sure he judged me as too emotional! Or that I worry to much, over-thinking things, and so on… The classic non-HSP speech towards HSP behavior.

Some (Imagine how long the complete list must have been!) of the fears I could manage to pick out were:

• How will I keep being an independent strong woman if I have a child to nurture & bring up? (The model I was told to become was staggering…)
• Will I have to give up my projects? Will I “just” work at an office and run home to see baby?
• What will the company think? Will they freeze my career for wanting to focus on motherhood?
• How will I handle SOOOOO many more responsibilities without losing it??
• …Will delivery hurt so much that I faint and fail?
• …..Will I be able to conceive? Maybe I have postponed so long and sent ‘messages’ to my body and the Universe that close my chances ? (Yes, HSPs get to this nature of questioning, too – And although I turn red only by writing it, I do it to help others feel someone else comes up with such considerations)
• …….Will my husband still be by my side if I’m not capable of conceiving? (and the opposite) Will my husband still love me if I have a child and decide I need a change of job? Will he think I’m lazy?
• Will I be mentally-able to face motherhood with its hormones swings? Won’t it make me go crazy? (mental illness has ran in the family, and this is a repeated fear in me)
• And the more nerd fear of them all: Will I get back all that gray matter I will lose to pregnancy & nursing? (I was studying bio-neurology at the time)

Together with the last of my work on dis-solving my motherhood drama, my gyn detected something ‘down there’. Bingo. One of those white patches on my cervix. I follow this rule in my ‘medical life’: I go to very caring, pragmatic and non-interventionist doctors. In this case she complied with the last two, and although she was not loving, she was tactful enough not to mention what anything of each step of the studies could imply. I was caring enough with myself not to Google too much, nor ask too much. Trust her. Biopsy indicated there were some ‘probable’ pre-C cells in there. She advised to wait as it could reverse on its own. She was the first person I verbalized my almost dis-solved drama to, to which she answered: This is no excuse, I give you medical discharge to get pregnant. It may even help. We just need to control it very frequently. It was not my first waiting to do while praying for natural healing, so I was confident about it.

That was that. After being somewhat physically enabled, and after the emotional and psychological process in therapy, not only was I ready but was blessed with all this beautiful, pink, energy running through me. I embraced motherhood, and was able to start talking about it as a possibility.

Pondering on motherhood: Trick or Treat for the Highly Sensitive person in business? Definitely treat, with a tricky process to break through.

Sensitive people can be very creative by using their perception to tap into the inner world of intuition, and that, together with the ability to also be more aware when self care if needed (because they feel the effects of neglecting themselves sooner and more severely than others), are what I believe we can count on when facing the challenge of the hardest multi-tasking ever: being an HSP working parent.

I encourage Highly Sensitives in business to face parenthood fears, ideally in hand with a certified therapist. Whether we end up having a child, the outcome is marvelous empowerment and a more healed, integrated soul. Happy mothers & family day to my Argentinean readers! <3