You can do everything right as a mother, and still feel like something is missing.
I don’t share this because I have it all figured out. I share it because somewhere in it, you might recognize a part of yourself, and feel a little less alone.
I have always had perfectionistic tendencies. I read the books, found the right specialists, and searched for every tool that might help them thrive. Like every mother, I wanted to raise confident, conscious children, and I gave it everything I had.
And still, there were the triggers, and the moments I felt completely disconnected from my own kids.
I knew a lot of my struggle came from my own childhood. My mother fell into a deep depression after moving our family to the United States, and I grew up as the immigrant outlier, the girl who never quite fit, hungry for a connection I didn’t know how to name. For a long time, I held that against her. But as I grew, something in me softened. I began to see that she had never been given that connection, or the tools, either.
Maybe you have everything I used to dream of. Maybe you are stretched so thin there is nothing left for yourself. But I have come to believe we arrive at the same place. Doing everything we can, and still feeling far from the people we are doing it all for.
Two years ago, on a spring break family trip, I was sitting in a stunning villa in Saint Barths with my husband, my kids, my parents, and my whole family around me. Everything I once thought I wanted was right in front of me. A stable family. A beautiful life. And yet I found myself staring at the ocean, wondering why I still felt so empty; why joy felt so hard for me to hold.
That was the moment I could no longer look away.
I decided to spend my 39th birthday going inward. It began with a psychedelic journey with a doctor in Mexico City, and it ended with me sitting in the Sacred Valley of Peru, beneath a pre-Inca temple. There, in the stillness, I felt a higher presence. For the first time, I knew I had never been alone. How could I live according to this insight?
If I wanted to feel the beauty of this life, and raise strong children in an era of ever-growing technology and noise, I had to do the self work.
That is how I found my calling, Ayni: sacred reciprocity. What we receive with love, we give back.
Building Ayni Mama was hard, and at times, it still is. Through breathwork, IFS therapy, and shadow work, I went into the depths of my childhood and felt every part I had spent years avoiding. But, I also let myself see the potential and wisdom I had never let myself claim.
Our first retreat was all I had hoped for, and more. Eighteen mothers and their daughters came together, all wanting the same thing: to love, to connect, and to grow. And over those few days, I watched it happen for them. Mothers who arrived carrying so much began to soften. Daughters laughed and danced, safe enough to be fully themselves. They left lighter, and closer, carrying practices they could return to long after they went home.
We did not build it alone. We brought together a circle of extraordinary facilitators, breath specialists, and movement teachers, each pouring in not just their knowledge, but their own kind of magic. Together, we shaped the rituals: ways to stay present, connected, and grounded.
And when it was done, we got to practice reciprocity in its truest form. Through the Sol y Luna Foundation in the Sacred Valley, we sponsor two children, survivors of abuse, giving them the chance to heal and to learn.
What began as my own return home is becoming something bigger. A community of women, evolving, learning, and remembering who they are.
But the change I feel most is at home. My children are learning to breathe through big feelings at an age when I was still learning to survive mine. I haven’t mastered any of this, but I am raising them the way I once longed to be raised. The same resourceful girl who found her way through the hard years is building this today, no longer from lack or fear, but from love.
This is what I want for you, too.
And if you have read this far, maybe you feel it too. That quiet pull toward something more present, more connected, more true. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to be willing to begin.
Because Ayni Mama was never about becoming a perfect mother. It is a place to remember who you are, so the love you give your children is the same love you are finally learning to give yourself.
There is a place here for you.
With love,
Romina
P.S. If this resonated, I would love for you to join us. Our next mother and daughter retreat is November 5 to 8, a space to slow down, reconnect, and come home to each other. You can find everything at aynimama.com.
