The Mother, The Mover, The Mirror, and Reclaiming Strength Through Fluidity
- Brainz Magazine
- Jun 4
- 6 min read
Kasturbai Azcona is a traveling photographer and movement facilitator raising her young kids in the farmlands of Guadalajara, Mexico. She specializes in mobility training and the nervous system, intuitive and creative sequencing, arm balancing, inversions, contortion & more!
I became a mother and suddenly my body wasn’t mine. It was a home, a food source, a place of comfort. A landing pad for little bodies and often for big, wild emotions. Somewhere between baby-wearing and breastfeeding, between long nights and early mornings, I realized I was no longer who I had been. Not because I was lost, but because I hadn’t yet fully arrived in this version of myself.
Mindful movement brought me back. Yoga brought me back.
Through spinal waves, inverted balances, deep backbends and playful contortion, I began to remember when to be strong and when to be soft. That power can be quiet that my femininity isn’t something I need to toughen or change. Being feminine in itself is a strength. It is a deep wisdom woven into the body, something to listen to, something to trust.
This is a story of reclaiming my body while raising my sons; of becoming the mirror I want them to see strength in, not as hardness, but as presence, adaptability, sacrifice, patience, and love.
What they see is what they learn
In the beginning, strength felt like endurance. Like being everything for everyone and asking for nothing in return. It meant facing my own inner child, looking her in the eyes, and realizing how much I had buried just to survive.
Motherhood didn’t just ask me to care for someone else. It asked me to care for the parts of myself I had been avoiding. The wounds. The old stories. The habits I leaned on to cope. It exposed what was unhealed, not to shame me, but to give me a chance to do it differently.
For a long time, survival looked like strength. Keep it together. Keep moving. Keep producing. Keep going. Keep doing.
But eventually, I realized that the way I show up for myself is the way my children learn to show up for themselves. They don’t listen to what I say nearly as much as they absorb how I live. They learn by watching. They learn by feeling.
Children can sense energy before they understand words. They know what love looks like when they see us love ourselves. They know what regulation feels like when we breathe, rest, eat, move and care for our own bodies.
The way we talk to ourselves becomes the way they learn to talk to themselves. The way we treat our bodies, our needs, and our emotions all become part of their blueprint. And that’s what I’m choosing to shift, not just for me, but for them.
Embodied again
Movement became a mirror. It reflected back how I was really doing. It reminded me of what I was carrying and what I could let go. And every time I stepped onto my mat, I wasn’t just practicing yoga. I was practicing coming home to myself.
I returned to a consistent movement practice when my kids were just past the baby phase and into toddlerhood. Out of diapers. Walking. Talking. Needing me in a different way. That was the window that opened, where I could finally start tending to myself again with intention.
That’s when yoga became more than a tool. It became a devotion. A quiet, steady practice of breath, asana, and presence.
Movement gave me a way to process what words couldn’t reach. It helped me manage the space between big moments in life and all the little ones packed into a single day. Even just 15 minutes of standing poses, one-legged balances, or a few spinal rolls was enough to shift something inside of me.
It helped me find joy again. The kind that lives in the body, not the calendar. The joy of moving for the sake of discovering what’s possible. The joy of opening new spaces, waking up dormant muscles, and feeling my breath deepen and my awareness sharpen.
This wasn’t about how I looked. It was about how I felt, how I reconnected. Because so much of motherhood is go, go, go. It’s giving. Anticipating. Moving from task to task. But on the mat, I wasn’t giving anything to anyone but myself.
This is where I learned to play again. To feel again. To land in my body with curiosity instead of criticism. And in that process, strength returned, not as force, but as fluidity.
Redefining strength
Strength used to feel like tension. Like bracing. Like pushing through. Like contraction. Like a loud exhale forced out of a body holding too much.
But now it feels like a quiet presence. Like choosing to soften while I root. Like knowing when to sustain and when to release. It feels like letting my body speak before my mind jumps in to fix. It feels like the truth without urgency.
I used to believe strength meant being unshakable. But now I know real strength includes shaking. The kind of shaking that wakes the nervous system before a practice, that clears stuck energy and brings us back into rhythm. That tremble is intelligence. It means something is moving through.
Strength includes feeling. It includes starting over. It includes breath, stillness, and listening. It’s not about getting harder. It’s about becoming more honest.
When I move, I’m not just tuning into my body. I’m tuning into truth. I’m tuning into the deep wisdom that wants to be revealed within me. I’m releasing. I’m paying attention to breath, to my nervous system, to the tension in my face and jaw, and gently asking it to soften.
Every time I step on the mat, I ask myself. What do you need from me? What can I give you today?
This is the kind of strength I want my sons to see. Not strength that silences, but strength that listens. Not control, but connection. I want them to witness a woman who feels deeply, speaks clearly, stands confidently, rests when she’s tired, and keeps returning to her own body and her community for guidance.
I want them to know that being strong doesn’t mean never falling apart. It means knowing how to come back together when things start to crumble. It means knowing where to go when we feel lost. And that we are always one breath away from reconnecting. One breath away from spirit. One breath away from ourselves.
Coming home
Strength has never been just one thing. It changes. It grows. It softens. It listens. I’ve lived many versions of strength: the kind that held it all together, the kind that pushed through, and now, the kind that pauses, breathes, and chooses to stay connected.
Motherhood didn’t take me away from myself. It invited me to go deeper. Movement didn’t give me anything new. It revealed what was already there, lying dormant. And every day, in small moments, I continue to meet myself in the mirror of my mat, in the mirror of my sons, and in the mirror of my breath.
Sometimes I move to shift energy. Other times, I sit still and let the energy move through me. Whether it’s meditation with a clear focus or simply sitting and feeling my breath, these mindful moments have taught me just as much about strength as any pose. Stillness is not absence. It is present in its purest form.
This is what it means to reclaim strength through fluidity. To live in rhythm with what’s real. To remember that we are not meant to be still statues of resilience. We are meant to move. To feel. To return again and again.
I am the mother. I am the mover. I am the mirror. And I’m still becoming.
Read more from Kasturbai L Azcona
Kasturbai L Azcona, Movement Instructor & Photographer
Kasturbai is a certified yoga teacher and fitness instructor for English and Spanish speakers around the world. She teaches with intention for hypermobile yogis and advocates for strength within flexibility. She is also a traveling photographer who documents retreats and events of all kinds!
