As a new mother, my life has changed in countless ways. My priorities have shifted, and my days are now filled with the joys and challenges of motherhood. Setting up my studio and deciding to be a full-time potter happened at the same time as the birth of our son, Remi. One of the biggest challenges for me has been finding a balance between my art and my role as a mom. It can be tough to find time to create when there are endless daily chores and giving quality time to Remi.

I've found that being a mom has also inspired me in my art. I have become more resourceful and, more than anything, present. Remi has brought that gift to my life with his presence. I feel in this time of my life more than before that every minute I have for myself counts.

My daily routines of yoga, meditation, and writing have diminished at this moment, and sometimes that has a big impact on my well-being and my creativity and rhythm in the studio. My approach to that has been to make small changes in the following areas:

Expectations: Working on coming to terms with understanding that less is more. I used to fill my Bullet Journal with lots of unrealistic amounts of tasks and then kept finding myself feeling constantly overwhelmed.

Boundaries: Not engaging in other situations, and focusing my energy on Remi, Ravneet, and myself. Setting boundaries with myself about phone usage, my relationship with social media, reading about other potters' work, etc.

Being: Just being, not thinking so much about all the things I want to do, the books I want to read, the rhythm at my studio I wish I could have, etc. It's been so hard to understand that being abundant starts with taking care of myself by doing less, thinking less.

Maybe many of you have heard the story of the onion and the layers of self-discovery. It turns out it does work like that! I started to peel the layers and let go of beliefs and identities I started to create for myself to navigate through life. One of those is my overachiever mindset that I imposed on myself for many years. Now that I'm not employed and I'm literally figuring out my new steps, the most basic one is feeling my body and creating my own rhythm every day.

All of this may sound smooth, but it involves all the emotions of being a human in this world. As Glennon Doyle writes in her book "Untamed":

"Being fully human is not about feeling happy; it's about feeling everything."

I'm still breastfeeding; this has been my decision. It has given me purpose and connection. Along with this, my body is working to give Remi the best for his growth, and this comes with a lot of energy needs from my body, staying healthy, needing rest, and sleeping.

All those things the overachiever voice in my mind keeps saying, like, "Why are you sleeping so late? You should wake up earlier, around 5:45 am like before, remember?" I used to wake up at 5:30 am every day, but now I wake up at 8:30 most of the time, along with Remi's rhythm.

For the last three months, I've been waking up at 6:00 am and going to my studio. Remi was not responding well to my schedule; he was fussy, expressing his feelings throughout the day. I tried another approach, like meditating next to him. I don't want to impose a rigid schedule on my sixteen-month-old baby.

I've also found that incorporating my son into my work has been a great way to spend time together and create special memories. However, this also needs some redesign, as he wants to explore in the studio, and there are materials that are hazardous for him.

My pots are gradually coming to life, perhaps the space they require to exist, the need for them to be fired, and the intention for them to exist are all showing me the path to discovering a new meaning for myself in this moment of my life's history.

Overall, this doesn’t end with these words. I’m a work in progress and figuring out myself as a mother, daughter, wife, artist and lastly as a being, which is not a straight path, yet a beautiful one.