Motherhood

Facing and Finding Yourself

By: Lisa Marchiano

Narrated by: Xe Sands

Length: 7 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

Motherhood is the true hero's journey - which is to say that it can be as harrowing as it is joyful, and enlightening as it is exhausting. For Jungian psychoanalyst Lisa Marchiano, this journey is not just an adventure of diaper bags and parent-teacher conferences, but one of intense self-discovery.

In Motherhood, Marchiano draws from a deep well of Jungian analysis and symbolic research to present a collection of fairytales, myths, and fables that evoke the spiritual arc of raising a child from infancy through adulthood.

Divided into three major segments similar to the stages of a hero's initiatory journey, (Descent, Sojourn, and Return), Motherhood charts how events like pregnancy, the calamities of childhood, and the empty-nest experience are all parts of an odyssey to which every mother receives an invitation. Here, Marchiano emphasizes that when you take up that invitation, it will lead to an adventure into the wild frontier of your own soul. And once you return from this inner journey, you'll possess the treasured knowledge need to clarify your values, embrace your disowned parts, and claim the mantle of motherhood in the full bloom of your empowerment.

©2021 Lisa Marchiano (P)2021 Tantor

Incredible. Validating. Insightful.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It touched my heart. It validated my experience. It piqued my interest. It gave me insight and it gave me hope.

I bought a hard copy to lend to friends. It’s just such a sweet, touching book. I want every mom to get a chance to read it.

The layout of this book reminds me of Women Who Run with the Wolves in that it uses fairytales to bring insight to whatever is being discussed. I loved the questions for introspection at the end of each chapter.

The one thing that took getting used to is that I am very familiar with the authors voice from her podcast and I had to get used to another person reading this book. The reader is great, though, so I was able to come to acceptance.

I am grateful that i found this book

Beautifully written about patterns in our psyke Women can be facing by being mothers. The author lead me through the book with her warm understanding of herself, the subject and, it felt, me and every mother. The shadow aspects of mothering was beautifully woven into the text and explained by using stories and fairytales. The text is smooth and easy to understand - even if English is not my first language. I feel this book is an important contribution to give value to mothering.

Motherhood: The real story

Motherhood from a Jungian perspective. Spiritual yet down to earth. I gained so much from this book. It helped me mine my motherhood experience for wisdom and confidence. Beautiful.

Deeper Motherhood

As a professional with a 3-year-old and lots of new emotional territory to navigate, I desperately needed a deep psychological dig into motherhood. Lisa Marchiano, who also co-hosts the podcast This Jungian Life, is the perfect guide through the beautiful but often bewildering and harrowing path of motherhood. Because she is a Jungian analyst and herself a mother, she is the mentor I have longed for but didn’t know how to find. So many resources for parents focus on the “joys of motherhood” and the more practical aspects like health and discipline. Lisa’s book captures motherhood as an ultimate hero’s journey, using fairytales and folktales to mine the psychological depths of the self as mother, but first as individual.

Xe Sands reads Lisa’s book as though she were a friend speaking it to you while you both rest in comfy armchairs with a mugs of tea in hand.

Who should read this book? Everyone, but especially parents looking for thoughtful, well-written personal development while parenting.

Beautiful & easy to listen to

I absolutely loved this book. I loved the stories, the decoding, the mix of fairy tales & modern day examples. This book captured the essence of motherhood beautifully and deeply. I couldn’t put it down. Thank you.

Wonderful content.

So beneficial even though I have fur children instead of mini-mes. Grateful for the insights and lucid delivery.

Incredible listen

The narrator does an incredible job and it’s such an amazing listen. This book takes you on the internal journey of motherhood and helps you mine it’s depths. I highly recommend this as a gift for mothers. It has helped me immensely.

Wonderful look at motherhood from a Jungian angle

I put off getting this, since I am not a mother, but I wanted to check it out in support of Lisa Marchiano, who founded the "This Jungian Life" podcast with her fellow analysts. The podcast has been wonderful spiritual comfort food for me since the inception of the pandemic, and I can't recommend it highly enough for anyone remotely interested in Jungian thought.

I enjoyed this book, and would recommend it even to non-mothers. Lisa's deep well of knowledge of archetypal patterns from fairy tales will strike a spark for almost anyone, and may help people understand their own mothers better.

A drawback for me on this was the narration - I simply would rather have had another narrator for this book.

Yes, it is as good as the reviews (if not better)

Will recommend this to every new mother. It helped me tremendously postpartum, didn’t feel so alone anymore. Not a fan of overhyped books, but this is 100% the book to listen to when becoming a mother, even more so than parenting books.

Loved this

As an overwhelmed new mom of two, this was insightful. It was very similar to “Woman who run with the wolves” by Clarissa Pinkola, but focused solely on motherhood. I felt it wasn’t too psychological and the narrator was enjoyable to listen to. I’m going to tell all my new mom friends about this one!