I’ve been making myself unhappy for quite a long time. Why? Because I couldn’t manage to move forward from a past image of myself. I couldn’t stop viewing myself through the same old lens. I was stuck.
And what exactly was that past image?
It was of a young, busy, involved mother of five sons — five sons who were a major part of my everyday routine.
Five sons:
– I had wrenchingly dropped each of them off at the JCC nursery school on their very first day,
– I had agonized over their learning Hebrew for their Bar Mitzvahs.
– I had nagged them constantly to complete their college admission applications.
I liked that image, thrived while embracing that image and part of me yearned for that image and wanted it back.
And when, one by one, they departed for college…
Graduated, found jobs, established residency in far flung places…
Engaged with life, struggled, met challenges…
Formed relationships, married, had kids…
Yet I still carried my outdated version of motherhood in my head.
And what exactly was that image?
– It was an image of being the hub of the wheel
– It was the hope of still getting hand-drawn Mother’s Day cards touting me as “the best mommy in the world.”
I had given them life — birthed them — nurtured them — guided them.
And that was how I still saw my role.
The fallacy in my thinking was in not realizing that my role as comforter, go-to person, protector, confidant and champion cheerleader was over. Defunct. Non-functional. No longer needed.
Photo credit: Iris Pastor
Others fulfilled that role. And did it very well.
I had spent too many years waking up every morning trying to win back that coveted place in their lives. It was simply an exercise in futility.
In the waning days of 2025, I decide to go back to walking for an hour each Shabbat. The first Saturday I walk, I listen to music. And I’m kinda bored. The second Shabbat afternoon, I start perusing podcasts and stumble across a recent one from Mel Robbins: “9 Habits That Will Change Your Life – The Best Expert Advice I’m Using This Year.”
It’s a compilation of the nine most popular podcasts Robbins recorded over 2025. And her first featured podcast guest — who drew the most raves — is former monk, fellow podcaster Jay Shetty. He is the current host of “On Purpose” — with 50 million followers online. (The guy must know SOMETHING, right?)
I slow my leisurely pace even more and tune my full attention to the speaker. Could he provide a glimmer of hope out of my self-imposed misery? Maybe I can truly re-arrange how I think? Maybe I can learn to relate differently to those I love so passionately?
Shetty says so many of us are grieving a past version of ourselves. We still want things to be the same — the same job we lost, the nest still intact and not emptied, a past relationship still going strong.
Shetty’s point: What’s holding us back is what we are holding onto. And what we are holding onto is holding us back.
My identity as an in-the-trenches mother no longer exists. I am a spoke-in-the-wheel. I am no longer the hub. And I have been measuring my interactions with my grown-up sons with the same old, same old yardstick. And it is only creating sadness.
– Nope — I don’t talk to them every day.
– Nope — I don’t know their innermost thoughts or the names of all their friends.
– Nope — they don’t come to me for my opinions on what synagogue to join, where to vacation, how to raise their children or what car to buy.
We connect — we share — but in different ways now.
I’ve got a pretty good gig going with my five sons now that I can fully appreciate embracing them for the fine men they are and not yearning for the adorable little boys they were.
To let go is to give myself the freedom to use my energy in more positive and healthy ways.
To let go of that outdated vision will bestow on me peace of mind and lead me to a more sustained state of happiness and more joyful moments. And, on that, I think all five of my sons would agree.
Keep Preserving Your Bloom and a very healthy, happy and safe 2026,
Iris Ruth Pastor
