A Deep Guide to Matrescence, Intuition & Rediscovering Your Identity

Pour yourself a warm cup of tea - this is a 7-minute read.

Motherhood begins long before the baby arrives.

It begins quietly - in the softening of identity, in the slow shifts beneath the surface, in the quiet knowing that something is about to change forever. And yet, no one prepares us for the inner transformation that motherhood demands. We are taught how to care for a baby, but not how to care for the woman who is also being born.

There is a name for this inner shift - matrescence - the emotional, physical, hormonal, psychological, and spiritual transition a woman goes through as she becomes a mother.
Many describe it as a breaking.
A losing.
A scattering.

But in truth, it is a return.
A return to intuition.
A return to the body.
A return to the parts of ourselves that motherhood asks us to meet with tenderness.

This is a guide for the mother seeking that return.

It is both an anchor and an opening — a blend of grounded insight, poetic reflection, and practical guidance for navigating the seasons of motherhood with presence, intuition, and gentleness.

1. What Is Matrescence? The Transformation No One Explains

Matrescence - a term first coined by anthropologist Dana Raphael - is finally gaining recognition thanks to the work of clinicians like Dr. Alexandra Sacks, who describes it as the “emotional push and pull of becoming a mother.”

Matrescence is not a moment. It is a process.

A long, often nonlinear unfolding that can last months, years… or a lifetime. It mirrors adolescence - not because motherhood is childish, but because it is a transition marked by:

• Identity shifts

• Emotional flux

• Hormonal waves

• Relationship changes

• A reorientation of values

• A deep questioning of self

And like adolescence, it can feel overwhelming, messy, disorienting, powerful, and sacred - often all at once.

Many mothers describe it as feeling “not quite themselves” anymore. Not lost - just unfamiliar.

Because matrescence asks:

Who am I now?
And who am I becoming?

These questions become the quiet drumbeat of early motherhood.

2. The Emotional Scattering: Why Mothers Feel Pulled Apart

Before the growth, before the bloom, there is a scattering.

Motherhood scatters you in a hundred directions:

• Your time fractured

• Your attention divided

• Your identity stretched thin

• Your body shifting

• Your relationships changing

• Your inner world expanding

• Your sleep disappearing

• Your nervous system working harder than ever

This scattering is not failure - it is biology, psychology, and culture intersecting.

Dr. Aurelie Athan, who researches matrescence at Columbia University, explains that motherhood requires a “reorganization of the self.” This reorganization can feel like chaos, especially in cultures that celebrate productivity over presence.

When a mother feels scattered, she is not “doing it wrong.” She is undergoing a necessary and profound internal rearranging.

This is the first season of matrescence.
The unravelling.
The loosening.
The dismantling of what was.

3. Why Mothers Lose Parts of Themselves (And Why That’s Not a Problem)

A mother is often told:

“You’ll lose yourself.”
“You have to find yourself again.”
“You won’t be the same.”

But perhaps the truest version is:

You will meet parts of yourself you’ve never known.

Psychologists describe motherhood as a “transformative identity event” - meaning it reshapes how you see:

• yourself

• your work

• your worth

• your relationships

• your past

• your purpose

This is why simple moments - brushing your child’s hair, watching them sleep, holding them after a tantrum - can feel spiritually enormous. And why small cracks of overwhelm can feel like breaking.

You are not failing.
You are evolving.

Motherhood strips away what is no longer aligned. It reveals the parts of you that were always true. It invites you to integrate the woman you were with the mother you are becoming.

This is identity expansion - not identity loss.

4. The Rise of Intuition: The Compass Mothers Forget They Have

When everything else feels scattered, intuition becomes the thing that roots us.

Intuition is the mother’s most ancient tool.
It is older than culture.
Older than rules.
Older than parenting books and trends and methods.

Intuition is the quiet knowing inside you.
The feeling in your chest.
The pause before the yes.
The breath before the no.

Modern psychology refers to intuition as “rapid, unconscious pattern recognition.”
You call it instinct.
Spirit.
Inner wisdom.
That little tug inside that says:

“This doesn’t feel right.” or “This feels exactly right.”

But in a world full of noise:

• expert advice

• comparison

• parenting debates

• societal pressure

• overstimulation

• unrealistic expectations

…it becomes harder to hear our own voice. Part of matrescence is learning to come back to it.

5. How Somatic Awareness Helps Mothers Reconnect to Themselves

Somatic awareness (awareness of the body’s inner sensations) is one of the most powerful tools mothers can use. Because the body remembers. The body speaks. And the body often knows before the mind does.

Somatic practices that support mothers:

• gentle swaying

• grounding feet on the earth

• slow breath

• hand on heart

• hand on womb

• stretching

• shaking out tension

• lying on the floor

• humming or soft vocalisation

• placing one hand on your child and one on yourself

These practices regulate the nervous system, soften emotional intensity, and invite intuition forward.

As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (author of The Body Keeps the Score) notes:
The body is where healing begins.
Mothers intuitively know this - they sway, rock, hum, breathe - without even thinking.

6. How Nature Mirrors the Mother’s Journey

Nature has always mirrored the feminine path.

The cycles.
The seasons.
The shedding.
The blooming.
The returning.

Motherhood echoes this rhythm - nothing stays the same, and nothing is wasted. Every season has a purpose, even the hard ones. Especially the hard ones.

Some of the most resonant metaphors for mothers:

• Seasons (the wintering, the springing, the high summer joy, the autumn shedding)

• The Moon (internal tides, phases, softness)

• Flowers (“As long as the flowers keep blooming, there will always be a new beginning.”)

• Tides (ebb and flow, expansion and retreat)

• Roots (holding, anchoring, unseen growth)

When mothers learn to see their experience through nature rather than perfection, they begin to soften into the truth that growth is messy, slow, and beautiful in its own way.

You are not meant to bloom all the time.
You are meant to cycle.
Pause.
Return.
Begin again.

Just like nature.

7. Practical Ways Mothers Can Reconnect to Themselves

1. Create a 60-second daily pause

One breath.
One moment.
One hand on heart.
One check-in question:
“What do I need right now?”

2. Use intuitive journaling

Short prompts work best:

• What feels heavy?

• What feels good?

• What am I resisting?

• What is my intuition whispering?

3. Anchor into micro-moments

Not hours - moments.

• sunlight

• the smell of your child’s hair

• the first sip of tea

• a soft inhale while washing dishes

4. Reclaim your mornings (even 3 minutes)

A poem.
A stretch.
A slow breath.
A softening.

5. Find rituals that ground you

Your Peaceful Mama Cards.
Your journal.
Your book.
Your body.

6. Reset your nervous system

With touch, sound, breath, or movement.

7. Release comparison

It steals presence faster than anything else.

8. The Psychology Behind Identity Shifts in Motherhood (And Why You Feel the Way You Do)

So many mothers wonder, “Why am I feeling this so intensely?”
“Why do I feel both love and overwhelm?”
“Why do I miss who I was… and yet never want to go back?”

These questions are not signs that you're failing.
They are signs that your brain, body, and identity are undergoing a normal, research-backed transformation.

Here are a few grounding truths from leading psychologists and maternal health experts:

Motherhood is a psychological transition as real as adolescence.

Dr. Alexandra Sacks, who helped bring the concept of matrescence into mainstream awareness, describes the emotional push-pull as “the motherhood frame” - the internal tug between who you were, who you’re becoming, and who the world expects you to be.
It’s not a flaw, it’s development.

Perfection is not only impossible - it is unnecessary.

Decades ago, pediatrician and psychoanalyst Dr. Donald Winnicott introduced the concept of the “good enough mother”.
Not perfect.
Not endlessly patient.
Not endlessly self-sacrificing.

Simply good enough - responsive, present, human.
This idea has liberated countless mothers from the pressure to perform.

Your nervous system changes in motherhood - and connection is the medicine.

Trauma specialist Dr. Bessel van der Kolk shows that regulation is built through attunement, not control. Your child doesn’t need a mother who never dysregulates - they need one who is willing to repair, reconnect, and model humanity.

And you need that same compassion for yourself.

Mindfulness strengthens resilience and helps you return to yourself.

Mindful Birth creator Dr. Elise Bialylew teaches that presence isn’t a luxury - it’s a stabiliser. Even a single mindful breath shifts the brain out of survival mode and back into connection and clarity.

Why this matters

When mothers understand that:

• overwhelm is expected

• identity confusion is normal

• matrescence has biological and psychological roots

• perfection is never the goal

• presence, not performance, supports resilience

…they finally exhale.

You are not unstable.
You are not losing yourself.
You are becoming - inside one of the most profound psychological transformations humans experience.

9. A Poetic Reflection: The Return

There will be a moment -
maybe quiet, maybe unexpected -
where you feel yourself again.

Not the woman you were before
and not the woman you were told to be.

But the woman who grew in the spaces between
night feeds, school drop-offs, tantrums, laughter
and the long, unglamorous middle.

This is your return.
Not back -
but deeper.

Into yourself.
Into your wisdom.
Into your intuition.
Into the truth that motherhood didn’t break you -
it revealed you.

10. How to Honour Your Own Bloom (No Rush Required)

• slow down

• be gentle

• choose presence over perfection

• honour your tiredness

• allow cycles

• embrace the mess

• celebrate tiny moments

• forgive yourself often

• trust the wisdom surfacing within you

Motherhood is not a straight line.
It is a spiral.
You return to yourself again and again, each time deeper.

A Tender Invitation

If you’re craving a companion for this journey -
words to hold, steady, and soften you -
Scatter to Bloom was written from this exact place.

It traces the three seasons every mother moves through:
The Scattering
The Growth
The Bloom

And it honours your intuition as the quiet guide you can always return to.

If you’d love more poetry, tools, and reflections on motherhood,
you can join the Peaceful Mama newsletter - a soft landing place for mothers seeking presence, grounding, and self-return.