A woman gives birth and almost immediately starts hearing questions about when she will get her body back and when she is going back to work. People ask kindly, with the best intentions, and only one answer is implied. Peruquois judges that rush sharply and explains what a woman gives up by skipping past this year. This was described by Peruquois, a top World Music performer in Australia, musician, composer, author and facilitator of self-development trainings for women.
The pressure this happens under
“The world tries so hard to tune a woman toward achievements and victories that she literally has no time to relax,” says Peruquois.
That setting does not switch off when a baby is born, it simply changes targets. “After pregnancy and birth she tries to get her former shape back as fast as possible and takes up her career ambitions again,” says Peruquois.
From the outside it all looks admirable: she is coping, she is keeping up. Inside, a race is running against her own body, which a month ago completed the hardest work it will ever do and needs quiet.
Her verdict
She states it without softening: “That is cruel and simply stupid! There will never again be a period as interesting as the first year after a child is born.”
The word cruel is the key one, and it points at the woman herself. The demand to become the previous version quickly is not addressed to circumstances, it is addressed inward, and she is also the one carrying it out.
The second word is about uniqueness. The first year happens once with each child and does not repeat under any conditions.
What the year gives
Peruquois does not romanticize how hard it is. “An enormous load, lack of sleep, exhaustion, and all of it is rewarded by the fact that you share a world of unconditional love with your baby,” she says.
The unconditional love here runs both ways. The child loves his mother simply because she exists and does not check her against a list of accomplishments. For a woman raised on conditional parental love, this is the first experience of a relationship with no merit attached.
“Yes, it is very hard, but the baby gives so much warmth, gratitude and happiness,” says Peruquois.
And then she names an unexpected effect: “Very often new creative ideas and brilliant projects are born out of the awareness of motherhood.” Women who allowed themselves to live this year slowly often come out of it with an idea they did not have before the pregnancy.
Motherhood as purpose
“Motherhood is already a purpose,” says Peruquois.
That closes a widespread internal argument. A woman at home with an infant often believes her real life is on pause and her purpose is waiting somewhere outside the door.
“Give yourself the right to live it, do not rush, do not hurry, remember that this is an extraordinary time,” says Peruquois.
She notes separately what happens to a woman's character: “The birth of a child opens a woman up and at the same time quiets her ego.” It is an important stage in the forming of strength and love, and its fruits later become the ground for substantial work.
Femininity during this period
The second common storyline is the feeling that femininity is suspended for a while.
Peruquois answers that with the opposite observation. “This is a very sensual period, when a woman can realize herself in ways she could not before, become even more attractive and sexual,” she says.
The body works differently this year: more warmth, more touch, more presence in sensation. A woman who is not at war with herself during this time comes out of the first year with deeper sensuality than she had.
Her inner needs are still there. A new mother still needs to express herself, to be wanted and loved, and denying herself that costs more than any amount of lost sleep.
Going back to work
Peruquois never says the work should be abandoned. She is talking about order and about timing.
The return to professional life happens when a woman herself knows it is time. Each woman recognizes that moment by her own signs, and it almost never coincides with the public schedule.
She describes the road to your own work honestly: following your purpose is not an easy path, and there will be many difficulties and questions that need solving. At the same time she calls it a path of gratitude and explains why it is needed: there is no happiness to be had by giving up your soul and running on cold calculation.
A woman who crosses a certain age inside a continuous loop of work and chores risks losing the sense of what any of it is for. The softness and tenderness drain out of her, and harder qualities arrive in their place, ones she never ordered.
What is left at the end
A year lived slowly looks from the outside like a pause and works like an investment. A woman comes out of it with a recovered body, a new experience of love with no conditions, and often with an idea worth having slowed down for.
A year taken at speed leaves the body where it was and takes the rest. It cannot be recovered, and it is the one irreversible item on the whole list.
If you want to reconnect with the center your strength as a woman comes from, take the Peruquois course Wake Up Your Womb Power, available on her website under Courses.
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