Being a mother is one of the greatest challenges you'll have in life. It takes so much of your time and patience - clearing up the cluttering, getting healthy food for your child, and then trying to somehow to convince your child to eat it. You have to go through crying, minor squabbles, and full-on tantrums.

This daily grind of mothering gets to be overwhelming, especially when you get the idea of questioning yourself if you're going about it properly, if there's something you failed to do or make or give, because it seems so much harder that you had even imagined it to be. You look around and wonder how others seem to be taking it all in stride, enjoying afternoons at the park, savouring the sunsets or the cool breeze by the shore. Then you get tempted to entertain the thought of wishing for a 'pause' key to get away from this rollercoaster ride of mothering for a while, catch your breath and have time for yourself, to think awhile, to recharge.Can you change your mothering of suffering and struggle to mothering of fulfilment and peace? Yes, you can. Of course, it doesn't happen overnight. Or in a year. Or without some other effort from you.

The first thing you have to do is believe that you have it within you to become a good mother. Being a good mother is less about mental or intellectual development, but spiritual and emotional maturity. We all start out in life with the potential to be good parents, but sometimes, somewhere on the way, these qualities have been neglected.

We are all capable of gentleness, patience, compassion, empathy, confidence, responsibility, joy, enthusiasm, peace, assertion, self-discipline. These just have to be tapped to rise from under the surface. Take note of your strengths and capacities. Do not dwell so much on your perceived, or even actual failures or shortcomings. Credit yourself with whatever talents, giftedness and capabilities you have, regardless of how small or minor it is.

Some women take a negative view of mothering. They think that staying home to raise children is a sign of laziness, of a lack of the drive to better oneself. They may not believe you when you say that being a mother is the best thing that's ever happened to you, or is the highest accomplishment of your life. But the fact of the matter is that mothering brings out the best in you, that it pushes you to become a better person, that in a lifetime, nothing comes close to the experience.

This is the time for you to bring out and nurture those qualities you weren't aware you have. Connecting with your child, even just the attempts to connect with your child, awakens so many levels to your being. You will find yourself closer to your spouse as you see him from perspectives previously absent. You will see and feel a relation to other women, biological mothers and mothers-in-fact.

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