From very early in our lives we begin to be rewarded for acquiring
knowledge, thinking clearly, speaking articulately, responding quickly, and
producing abundantly.  As time goes on many of us get very good at this and
see ourselves as achievers.  We can hold our own with the best of them!

Then we give birth, and hopefully we enjoy all of those luscious hormones
that accompany feeding our baby at our breast.  There is a part of being
human that didn't get much notice in those achieving years, with their
production and deadlines. Sometimes we differentiate by calling it left
brain and right brain, but it is deeper than that.  We are in MOTHER TIME.
We see with Mother Eyes. We are given an opportunity to experience the
"peace at the center of the atom." (Madeleine L'Engle)

We may seem "less than sharp", but I believe that we are *more* than sharp.
We are round and soft, and our vision is one that can see beneath and under
and through. And we are given "mega hearing" in order to understand before
words are clear, or even without words being spoken.

The relaxing effect of prolactin enables us to see and to live in the NOW.
It is a prism that slows our days so that we can experience the colors of
our lives. It is what people go off to monasteries or into deep meditation
to find.

Our "nursing mother's brain" is where poetry resides, where the story "about
the street light whose good friend went dark" is found, where lullabys are
born, games are created, and where we find ways to correct and guide without
diminishing.

Instead of "zoning out", we "zone in."  We are given the opportunity to go
inside and find out who we are, for real, and to make friends with who we
find there. We grow in confidence in our wisdom and our discernment.

I know that it is often hard to see this time in our lives as Gift when we
are in the midst of it, but it really is. This is a sorting time and we come
out of it knowing where we want to put our life's focus. We couldn't come to
the Knowing as easily without this slowed time. I invite you to accept this
gift of an altered way of seeing and being.  I hope you can enjoy your
"double shot" of prolactin. You wouldn't want to miss it.

Patricia Gima, IBCLC
Milwaukee