After I had my baby, I didn’t recognize myself anymore. Not just my body, though that was part of it. I didn’t know what I believed anymore, what I actually wanted, who I was underneath “mom.” So I went looking for her. I read articles, listened to podcasts, took random courses online, followed people who seemed to have themselves figured out, trying to find my way back to me one piece at a time.
Every time I learned something new, I felt productive. But if I’m honest, I wasn’t always doing the thing. I was learning about it, which felt like progress but wasn’t.
I also noticed I was copying what worked for someone else instead of asking what actually made sense for me. I wasn’t listening to my own life, my own season, my own compass. And that was a big part of why I kept finding myself in the same place, starting again.
I’d start with so much motivation. Then life would happen, the routine would fall apart, and instead of asking what I learned, I’d think, okay, I need to start over.
Monday. Next week. Tomorrow. Again.
Until I realized I wasn’t actually becoming anyone. I was just collecting more information and more borrowed habits, and calling it progress. Maybe the real work was never about learning more or copying routines better. Maybe it was about learning how to come back to myself.
That’s where the Ginhawa Spiral started forming for me. Not something I read somewhere and adopted, but something I pieced together from paying attention to my own patterns, mixed with bits of research I came across along the way that finally made sense of what I was already living. I’m not writing this from the other side of it either. I’m still inside it, still using it, still learning what it’s teaching me. It has three movements, and they build on each other.
The first is Return. Not becoming someone new, but coming home to who I already am underneath everything I learned to perform just to fit in. My core values, my beliefs, my why, the parts of me that were always there before I started wearing masks to be accepted. Taking those masks off is uncomfortable at first, because they were doing a job, keeping me safe, keeping me liked. But what’s underneath isn’t a stranger I have to build. It’s just me, and coming back to her is its own kind of relief.
The second is Expansion. Once I know what actually matters to me, I set an intention and picture where I’m headed, and expansion is the bridge, the small aligned actions that close the gap between where I am and where I want to go. For me that’s often as simple as drinking water first thing, or taking the supplement that’s been part of my mornings.
The third is Ripples. When my actions line up with who I am, it doesn’t stay contained to me, it overflows into how I show up for my family, my community, the people around me. Growth isn’t something I chase. It’s the overflow of operating from my most authentic self, once the first two movements are in place.
You return, but you don’t return empty handed.
You return, but you don’t return empty handed.
A straight line makes change look like start, improve, arrive. My life has never worked that way, and I don’t think motherhood does either. When life interrupts me, a bad week, a version of myself that quietly slipped away, I don’t need a new system. I just return to who I am, and let the rest build again from there.
That’s why I think of it as a spiral instead of a straight line. And why I named it after ginhawa, that feeling of ease, of finally exhaling after holding everything together. That exhale is what Return gives me every time I circle back to it, before I move forward again. A spiral never asks me to walk a perfect line. It only asks me to keep coming back to center, a little wiser each time.
So if you take one thing from this letter, let it be this. The next time you fall off a habit, a routine, a version of yourself you were trying to build, don’t ask how do I start over? Try to ask yourself, who am I underneath all this, and come back to her first. Everything else will follow from there.
With love,
Kristen
Ready to Start Your Daily Ginhawa?
The Ginhawa Starter is a 5-minute guide to help you take one healthy habit and turn it into a small ritual—something that fits your real life and feels doable enough to keep.
If you’re craving a little more ginhawa in your everyday, this is a gentle place to begin.
Get Your Ginhawa Starter Guide →Free. Less than 5 minutes to read.
My Morning Ritual
Motherhood asks a lot from your body.
This daily supplement has stayed part of my morning ritual through it all—a small, essential way I choose to care for myself.
One optional tool—not a requirement for your Daily Ginhawa.