Guest Posts

Like Mother, Like Daughter. Guest Post by Lauren Eckstrom

May 18, 2012

My friend Lauren Eckstrom sent me this blog last night and I knew I had to publish it.

I adore Lauren. I used to wait on her back when I worked at The Newsroom and was always in admiration at her grace, her beauty. Then, I started seeing her across town at yoga in Santa Monica! Our paths just kept crossing. She is dear to me and the relationship she has with her mom moves me, as one would imagine knowing how close I am to my mom. Lauren is manifesting the life she always wanted, and as she realizes now, the life her mother had hoped for her. I am honored to call her a friend.

Like Mother, Like Daughter by Lauren Eckstrom

Like many young girls, I experienced a phase when the fear of “becoming my mother” gripped me with terror.

At an adolescent age we don’t realize that becoming a mirror image of our mothers might be the greatest honor we could receive.

Teenage girls sometimes feel an icy resistance to their maternal figures since those women are usually responsible for setting our boundaries, holding us responsible, and instilling morals we don’t yet understand. For many of us, our mothers were authority figures who were definitely not trying to be our friends. As we age, those boundaries begin to melt away and if we are lucky we learn about our mothers as friends and also as the incredible women they’ve been outside of our parent / child relationship.

When my grandmother told me that my mom graduated from college with the highest honors possible, I was astounded – not because I was unaware of how intelligent she is (after all, she’s one of the most impressive business owners I’ve ever met) but because she never divulged this incredible point of pride to me. I was always bragging about my 4.0+ GPA so how could she not share this with me?

My grandmother revealed my mom’s humility and grace that until now, I had never glimpsed. Over the following years I went on to learn that she traveled to Washington D.C. as a very young woman to volunteer for the National Organization of Women. After growing up in a Christian household with strict rules and ladylike expectations, her gusto and strength in the face of such opposition impressed me (and I wondered where my stubborn resistance to authority came from!). While in D.C. she secretly gained access to Jerry Falwell’s convention in order to help the National Organization of Women write important pamphlets to further the cause of a woman’s right to choose. My mother has traveled the world and seen cities, historical monuments, and cultures I pray I have the opportunity to see in this lifetime.

But most of all, in the privacy of her own time, my mother was a yogi all these years and I had no idea.

Waking up most mornings before sunrise, she would sneak into the guesthouse, pop in a Bryan Kest Power Yoga VHS tape, and practice yoga. As I was close to leaving for college she would poke her head into my room and invite me to workout with her. As a stubborn teenager I of course refused thinking she had lost her mind but it never deterred her from offering.

When I made the choice to step away from a big corporate job with a high paying salary, full benefits, and the promise of a comfortable income with no end in sight to teach yoga full time in the midst of a recession, I was sure she would tell me that now I was the one who had lost my mind.

Instead, as always, she embraced my choice, exercised her yoga practice through her words and actions, and fully encouraged me to follow my dharma.

Some of us are lucky enough to learn that the biggest blessing in our lives might just be becoming our mothers and while I still have many miles to go, I am eternally grateful for her every quiet action, spoken and unspoken word, and endless patience that have helped shaped me into the teacher I am today, guiding me and my students to Flow into Grace.

You Might Also Like

5 Comments

  • Reply barbarapotter May 18, 2012 at 11:24 pm

    Love your thoughts on your mother. Love that
    Mothers always have something to give. Funny I remember the look in my daughters eyes as I could hear her thinking “oh no, I am turning into my mother” which was always ok, because I know she loves me and I mean so much to her.

  • Reply Laurie Thiboutot May 19, 2012 at 4:49 am

    That was beautifully written! Your Mom is a gem! What if that is NOT the experience you have with your mom?? Mine is always criticizing me for everything from having a large stomach to being “cheap” as she told me this past Mother’s day…??:(

    • Reply barbarapotter May 19, 2012 at 10:09 am

      Laurie – that happens sometime. I had that and much worse all of my life. I could write a book and people would not believe. When my girls were born I was the mother to them that I wished I had…and I was. I am Jens mom by the way. Just remember you can change that history:) by the way that came natural to me I did not even have to think about it.

  • Reply ANNETTE :) May 20, 2012 at 8:50 pm

    LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU!! YOU ARE AN AMAZING PERSON! 🙂

  • Reply Lauren Eckstrom Yoga – Like Mother, Like Daughter January 7, 2013 at 6:14 pm

    […] LINK TO ORIGINAL BLOG  […]

  • Leave a Reply

    This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.