Soulful Quotes for Inspiration #1

I love love love Authentic Parenting’s idea of a quote for the day!  Don’t count on a quote every day, but on the days I can post ‘em, I will!  I’ve collected some great ones over the years and I hope some of them resonate with you and put a little skip into your walk.

Hope this one speaks to you all on a Monday morning (errrr) afternoon!

“Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds!  Shine!”

-  The Buddha

How a three year old prays: In Bob the Builder style

Our three year old son is a fix-it man.  A chip off the ol’ Bob the Builder block.  Every morning he gets up and puts his tool belt on.  Got a leaky faucet?  Not a problem.  Our son is on the job.  Need to lay cable wiring?  A. would shout, “Can we fix it? Yes we can!”

Three year olds pick up on everything, even when you think they are in the other room building skyscrapers out of couch pillows.

Earlier today, Brian and I were in the kitchen talking about the miners in Chile who are trapped in a mine that caved in.  We were in shock about how long it would take to get them out, we wondered how the 33 of them would cope until they were saved, and we thought of the families waiting with anxious hearts.

Fast forward to tonight’s bedtime prayers:

<Prayers started as usual.>

Dad: “What would you like to thank God for tonight?”

A.: “Umm…U and mom and my baby sister.”

Dad: “What would you like to say sorry to God for?”

A.: “For saying you’re a bad dad.”

Dad: “ Ahhh, thanks, A.”

Dad: “Is there anything else you’d like to pray to God for?”

<Here’s where A. took dad by surprise.>

A.: “For the workers helping the miners.” <pause. pause.> “Daddy, why’s it going to take so long to get them out?”

<here’s where the tears started – dad’s>

Dad: “Welllll, they are very far down under ground and it’s going to take awhile to dig down to them.”

A: <sits straight up> “Well, I could help!  I could bring my shovel and my excavator and my digger!!!  I could help!” <full of complete confidence that he and his equipment could ‘get the job done.’>

Dad: <tears now softly falling, hugging A.> “I love you, A.  I totally love you.”

Hey kids, dont bug me; I’m blogging about parenting

Yep.  This is what I thought to myself…ohhhh pretty much all day on Tuesday. I was practicing mindfulness alright!  I was fully aware that I was thinking this.  AND I was aware of how messed up it was that I wanted to blog about mindful parenting and there I was feeling annoyed by having to be a parent!

I was in a mooo-hooo-hoooo-d!  I was having a temper tantrum inside my head:

“I wanna do what I wanna do for a change!”

Not a shining moment as a mom, I know.

No, I didn’t actually SAY “don’t bug me” to A. and C., thank goodness. And the thing was I wasn’t actually annoyed with A. or C. — they were just doing their normal stuff — A. in his “construction boots” was building skyscrapers out of couch pillows wanting me to help him ”fix” the roof of the building.  And there was C., our 5 months old, just wanting me to hold her and her Sofie the Giraffe so she could maul it with slobber and her toothless gums.

I was “annoyed” at something else.  It wasn’t just because I needed to have more “mama-time” or time to actually FOCUS on one thing for more than three minutes.  It wasn’t because I had to put the pacifier back in C.’s mouth a bagillion times because she has a cold and can’t suck and breathe at the same time or play “construction worker” mama with A. for the one hundredth time.  But I didn’t know exactly why I was annoyed.  I just was.

But then poop happened.

That yellow, runny, infant-kind of poop — exploding all over C. and her crib.

I was cleaning her up (and the changing table, and her back, and belly — oh yes, it was THAT kind of poop), I thought, “Ok, here I am.  This is where I am at today.  Cleaning up poop.  Playing with my kiddos.  Wanting to be somewhere else and wanting to be just exactly where I am.  Lis, it can all be here…at the same time.”

In that moment I realized that my annoyance was really about resisting these opposites.  How could I want to be exactly where I am and want to be somewhere else?

Then came the uncomfortable realization that had been stirring within me for some time, yet, only today came into my consciousness:

Something is shifting in my life — in my psyche, my soul, the season of our family.  Something new is ready to emerge.  Something is calling me — us — forth but I can’t see it or name it quite yet.

What I really didn’t want to “bug” me is the fact that something old is dying, something new is birthing.  Something needs to be let go of; something needs to be embraced. AND. I. DON’T. KNOW. WHAT. THAT. IS… yet.

As it often happens in life, a friend pops in exactly at the right time with the right message.  My dear friend “happened” to email me this passage from Traveling with Pomegranates, by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor:

“I recline against the sofa pillows near the hearth and think of all the passages I’ve logged I my journal about hearth and Hestia – a Goddess who doesn’t represent domesticity to me as much as the ability to dwell, to belong to one’s place.

Journeying is the predominant means of developing one’s self in this culture, not the habitation of place.  It has been true of me.  Always the seeker.  Yet at the edge of this marsh (where she built her new home), I want to learn how to be in it.  I want to behave like a finder as much as a seeker.  The irony is that I had to go on an elaborate journey to figure this out.  So much of my growing older seems to be about paradoxes.  The reconciliation of opposites.  The bringing to balance.”  (p.121)

I didn’t resolve anything on Tuesday.  Nor Wednesday.  Nor today.  But, a peace is growing within me about “reconciling these opposites” — letting go of what is dying and embracing what is birthing.  Being exactly where I am right now and listening to the small, still voice within me that is calling me forth into the unknown and “not yet.”

Tips for Mindful Relationships #4: It’s Your Choice

lifesshinyprettythings.blogspot.com/

In a Single Day

There are a million chances

in a single

day

when we have the power

to create

or destroy,

to build someone up

or tear them down,

a million chances to

pull away

or move toward,

to be right

or be kind,

to act out of fear

or choose

Love.

Lisa A. McCrohan © 2009

People come to me in pain.  Maybe not physical pain, but emotional, psychological, spiritual and surely “relational” pain.  They want to know how to connect to their partner (and others in their lives), how to be happy, and a lot of the times, how to get their needs met.

A sure way to not be happy, to not connect to your beloved, to not get your needs met, and to remain suffering is to believe you have no choice – that “this” – whatever it is – is happening “to you.”

Many of us believe that IF ONLY our partner were to do X, THEN we’d get along…THEN I’d be happy, THEN I wouldn’t get so frustrated, THEN I wouldn’t nag (or pull away, or blow up).

These “IF / THEN” statements are a lie, a distorted belief that keeps us trapped in the same old way of feeling, reacting, and being together.

One path to “being happy,” to connecting with your beloved, and to possibly shifting the suffering in your life is to realize you have a choice.

Every day YOU have a choice. And a million chances to try something different. 

Will your voice communicate kindness or meanness? 

Will you pull away or move toward? 

Will you choose to follow the fears of your ego or the wisdom of your heart?

It can be scary to try something new. It’s as though everything in you is resisting it (that’s the ego, friend).  The ego loves what is comfortable – even if it isn’t healthy or helping you to grow (or grow up!).

So just breathe.
Acknowledge that fear.
Don’t try to get rid of it.
Allow it to be there.
It’ll end up shifting on its own.
A choice will rise up within you.
AND then make a choice.
Even when you mess up, ok, let that moment go.
THIS moment, THIS choice.

Ok so you mess up again.  Let it go.  Make your choice in this new breath, this new moment.

I mess up every day – I may react harshly to my husband or sigh a long “I’m annoyed and I’m pulling away” kind of sigh.  But some times I can catch myself and wake up…and make a different choice.  Wow!  What a difference this makes. 

My willingness to be vulnerable and say, “Wow, I’m sorry, let’s try this again” and own my reactions becomes an invitation to Brian to come closer…it draws him in and we connect.

YOU have the power to create or destroy the life you want. In every every every situation there is a choice.

Buddha said something like this: “Liberation isn’t the end of suffering but rather the realization that you are suffering.”

Why? Because when you wake up and realize that you are suffering, then you have a choice.  THAT is liberation.

Nursing in Public – What’s the Big Deal?

 

 

Ok, so I’m really asking:  What is the big deal if a mom nurses in public? I don’t GET IT why folks get so upset.

For those of you who know me, you know that Brian and I aren’t extreme in anything (Ok, except being a biiiit in to lovin’ on our family and friends, yoga, my cell phone and Bri’s sci-fi.  A few harmless extremes!).  So I’m not writing this as some crazy mom who thinks “it’s my way or else it’s wrong!”

I have mama friends who didn’t let their milk come in and made the decision to feed their babes formula.  I’m down with that.  I really do believe this: IF MAMA IS HAPPY, BABY IS HAPPY.  I support their decisions because they were doing what works and is best for their families.

Our family has chosen to breast-feed.  I’m down with folks pulling out a bottle of formula at Starbucks or church or at the park.  So what’s the big deal if a mom pulls out her breast to feed her kiddo?

One of my neighbors, who breast-fed all her kiddos – some even while she was prego with the next – said, ” celebrities show more in their dress at the Oscars than a breast-feeding mom.”

Her partner commented, “I think it’s something about ‘seeing it all.’  People freak over seeing that ‘nip’.” (Do folks remember the “wardrobe malfunction’ in the super bowl show?  People freeeaked!).

I think it’s because we live in a Puritanical society where folks freak out about anything that has to do with sexuality.  But the breast’s purpose is to feed babes!  Isn’t it strange that people get upset about something that is being used for what it was designed for?!  Come on, folks, this is how we kept the human race going for a bagillion years before formula.

When I nurse, I tend to cover up or at least move to a not-so-in-your-face place.  But how come I have to do that when formula-using moms can just whip it out?

What do others think? And if you do think it’s a big deal, tell me why! I’ll probably still feed my babe where and when she needs it, but I’m still curious.

Tips for Mindful Relationships #3: Speak Their Language

I often see couples in therapy who really do care for each other – but what they are experiencing is, as Jack Nicholson said in A Few Good Men, “a failure to communicate.”

What’s happening?  Sometimes it may be that they are speaking different love languages.  One simple way I have found to be effective in quickly improving communication is to figure out who is speaking what language and then coach the couple in each using the love language of their partner when they want to communicate “I love you” and “I care for you.”

What’s a love language?

Dr. Gary Chapman wrote an easy-to-read book called The Five Love Languages.  A love language, as Dr. Chapman explains, “is a way of expressing and interpreting love.”  He writes that there are five universal love languages and we all have a primary one that we like to “speak” – or rather use when giving love and get when receiving love:

Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, Physical Touch

How do I figure out my love language?

Here’s the gist:

Ask yourself, “How do I usually give (demonstrate) love?” Is it through a written card? Spending time with that person? Do I always have a little something to give them?  Do I do things for them?  Do I reach out and touch the person?

Ask yourself, “When do I feel most loved?  When do I get that warm fuzzy feeling and know, ‘ahhhh, they really love me’?” Is it when they talk to me and tell me what a great spouse I am?  When we hang out together?  When I receive a gift from them?  When they do something for me?  When we embrace/hug/kiss/carress?

(A great indicator to our primary love language:  how we give love is usually how we like to get it back!)

Can you see where there might be a ‘failure to communicate?’  It might be that you are speaking one language and your spouse is speaking another – and you both don’t feel “heard” (loved, seen, cared for…).

The truth may NOT be that your partner doesn’t love, see, or care for you.  You just might be speaking or sharing your love using a different language.

What to do?

Once you identify your primary love language and that of your partner, when you want to connect to them, begin by speaking their language!  (Imagine if both people in the relationship speak the other person’s language – they’ll both feel heard and loved!)

How does that look?

Ok, let’s say Jim’s primary love language is acts of service and his wife, Sally, hers is words of affirmation.  Jim and Sally really care for each other.  Jim shows her that by working hard at his job, making her coffee, or getting her car washed.  Sally shows that she cares by complimenting Jim and telling him how much and why she loves him.

But neither of them feels loved, heard, or cared for.  Jim is confused because he does all this stuff for her.  Sally is confused because she is constantly telling him what she appreciates about him.

Jim and Sally come to therapy.  They start to understand what their love languages are.  Jim begins trying to TELL Sally things like, he loves her and what he appreciates about her (some times it’s as easy as saying your partner’s name in a kind way!).

Sally begins trying to notice little things she can DO for him to show she is thinking of him, like making his coffee, getting his car washed (the same stuff he was doing for her!), etc.

After a few weeks of being mindful of each other’s love language, they may both report in therapy that they feel more heard, seen, appreciated, and connected to each other.

I have found the love languages to be a nifty tool in a couple learning to become mindful of how to effectively connect to each other. They learn that it may not be that their partner is this mean and selfish person!  But rather they are just using different languages to demonstrate their affection. And once they become mindful of their partner’s love language, they can speak to them in a way that leaves their beloved with that feeling of “ahhhhh, I am so loved!”

 

Five Ways I’m Staying Sane Today

The trashman in our kitchen.

I went to work this morning to see a few clients while Brian was at home with the kiddos.  While Brian was upstairs putting C. down for a nap, apparently A. decided to play build a house out of couch cushions (ok, that’s an everyday thing).  But then he found some baby powder and apparently he thought, “Hmmm, this could be snow on the house!”

Bri came back downstairs and after standing there in shock for a few minutes, started to laugh, “Well, I guess this is how our day is gonna go!”  They ended up “shoveling up the snow” (ie vacuuming it up).

(Side note: when I got home A. took me over to the vacuum — we have one of those see-through ones — and said, “Look mom, look how much snow we picked up!”)

But, what tops that….while Brian was vacuuming up the couch in the family room, A. went into the kitchen and played “trashman”.  He methodically collected everything — from the stools to cushions, from art supplies to his lovies — and stacked it up on the couch!  When Brian saw him, A. said, “Oh, hey dad, I’m the trashman.”

I’m so proud of Brian. He could’ve had a totally different reaction and it could’ve gone horribly wrong.

Now Brian is at work (“See ya, Lis!” He said as he went out the door smiling!  “Stay sane!”).  I’m home.  Here are 5 ways I’m staying sane today:

1. I’m eating a popsicle.  Maybe two.

2.  I’m not doing the laundry.

3. I’m going for a walk (I still thank god for my friend’s friend who gave us their double stroller).

4. I’m calling two friends who make me laugh.

5. My mom is here.  That means total bliss – she knows how to, as A. says, “Chill-lax!”

ok….and 6. I’m going totally kiss my hubbie when he gets home tonight for cleaning this ALL up before I got home!

Mindful Moment: Gems from our Son

This is the usual send-off I get when I go to work on my long day:

“Mom, wait! I’ll walk you out!”  Our three year old, in his full workman gear, runs to the front door, opens it for me, lets me through, and then stands on the stairs.

“Wait! I need a hug!”  We hug…about four or five times.  Then he stands there waving and blowing kisses while my husband is holding our daughter on the front porch behind him, smiling.

These are the gems that make me smile, that I want to collect and keep in my pocket of memories to pull out — when I’m frustrated with a protesting toddler, when I need to have my 45 minutes of mama-time before bed and hear from the bedroom “MAMA!  One more song!”, when Brian and I are old and gray (and still practicing yoga?!) and sitting on a park bench (yes, this was in our wedding vows!) reflecting on the life we’ve created together.

Here are 5 more gems from our son just from today for my pocket:

1. This morning, A. came and sat next to me on the stairs and asked, “Mom, why do you put your hands like this (hands on cheeks, elbows on knees)?  Are you sad?”

Me: “Oh a bit. I’m wondering about your sister and the binky.”

A.: <puts his arms around me, pulls himself up to my cheek and kisses it>. “There mom. I think that should do the trick!  See?  All better!”

2. A. in the bathroom: “MOM!  Come see this giant poop!  It has three parts!” (Need I say more?!)

 

3. Going down for naps, one of our favorite “songs” to sing is the Buddhist mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum.”  I sang it to him this afternoon.  When I left and went into the next room, I heard this soft little voice singing “ooooo hooo manny padme huuuung” to his stuffed animals.

4. After doing a whirl-wind shopping trip to the supermarket this afternoon right before lunch and naps, I was lifting C. in her carseat into the car and banged into the sliding door and smashed my chest. Trying not to swear, I was like “Shhhhhhhhoot.  Ouch.  That hurt!”

A.: “What happened, mom?”

Me: Still rubbing the spot and still trying not to swear, “I just hit my boob.”

A.: “I love your milk boobies. I’ll put a bandaid on it when we get home!”

5. Playing “fireman rescue” in the house he just made from couch pillows and A. “rescuing me” from the “burning house”…

A.: “Mom, I need to call the doctor.” <picking up his toy phone> “We need a doctor here.” <A. comes back in with his stethoscope>. “I’m the doctor now.  I make sure u heart is still working and you have blood.” <Listens to my heart.> “Yep, you still have a heart.”

****************************************

Ahhh…what sweetness.  Things have been crazy since the day he turned 3.  And often my reaction to A. is based less on what is happening in the moment and more on all the PAST moments of whining, protesting, and sassing.

What if I did the Buddhist thing of greeting each moment with fresh eyes fully present to what is right there as though it is the first time it is happening rather than reacting from the load of past frustrations?

Thumbs up! "No big deal!"

I think I’d have more compassion for our son, more patience with myself and him, and we’d all make it less heavy and a lot lighter.  “No big deal!” Says Pema Chodron, ” Treat it as ‘no big deal!”  Most things really are NO BIG DEAL!

These gems from our son remind me that I’m living with a delightful, curious, finding-his-voice-in-the-world three year old and the whining really is no big deal (and it WILL pass and it is part of him but not all of who he is).

Gosh, how our children really are our greatest teachers!

What gems are you collecting today?

The Binky Blessing

The other day I wrote the post, The Binky Battle.  Today the binky is a blessing.

I was sobbing — I mean SOBBING — last night and this morning.  Now, usually I am not a crier.  I wish I was.  It cleanses the soul let alone the limbic and nervous systems.  Many years ago, one of my best friends (you know who you are!) once said to me without any embarrassment, very matter-of-factly and totally accepting of herself, “I cry about once a week!”  I was absolutely in awe of her.  I’d love to accept my crying so wholesomely.

The sobs as of late have been those “whole self” cries. The ones that rise up from a space deep within.  The ones that, when you are finished, you feel tender and paradoxically fragile and strong.

Why the crying?  Well, there was a trigger (taking away C.’s binky and hearing her cry as I was with her).  But as Eckhardt Tolle says, “You are never mad/sad/angry for the reason you think you are.”

It’s old stuff.  Old stuff that I can’t even name well.

But I do know weaved in there was the sadness a mother (or parent) knows: the fact that I cannot protect my children 100% from suffering in this life (I know, I know, nor would I want to).  It is an ache within me that wraps around the inside of my ribs and stomach knowing that they will suffer and feel pain and be hurt (yes, I know, rationally and mystically, that suffering draws us closer to the Divine and each other, and beauty, strength, and committed action can sprout from that suffering.  But the ego part of me still rejects this truth at times!).

Well, today I experienced yet again that crying can be a release of some of the “stuff” that has been held on to too tightly and has become toxic to the system.  The “stuff” that we’ve tried to keep at bay but has really just been there polluting our thoughts, hearts, and actions.  And our bodies are now flushing it out.

Often I, along with most of us in this culture, want to pinpoint “the why” to our suffering because we think that knowing “why” will bring relief and healing.

But it doesn’t.  Information informs but it doesn’t heal.

A few years back I attended a workshop of Patrick Daughtery (excellent, by the way), a leading psychotherapist who incorporates Qigong into his work.  His words have stayed with me, “You gotta feel it to heal it.”

Yes.  You’ve got to BE with it all — whatever arises. in. the. moment.  And in. the. body.

Allow it.  Be with it.  Breathe with it.  Without reacting in our habitual ways of pushing the suffering away or totally getting consumed by it.  Oh what a great reminder for me today!

I often quote Thich Nhat Hanh in my work — this adorable and wise Vietnamese Buddhist monk.  He suggests that when there is pain, allow it to rise and say, “Oh there you are, dear one.  I see you and that’s why I am here.”

As we allow it all to be present — as we feel it — it just moves through.  And healing happens.  Our suffering has less of a grip on us.  We release our hurts.

It’s been a long time since I’ve treated these particular sufferings within me that had me crying today as “dear ones” and allowed them air to breathe and then move on. Ahhh…what sweet release.  What liberation.

So thank you, binky.  What a blessing.

The Binky Battle

I have a love/hate relationship with C.’s binky.  I love that she loves it.  And I hate that she loves it!

For the first four months of her life, out daughter was one of those super sleepers that new parents dream about — or at least WE dreamed about!

(Our son was up every 2 hrs for a llooooong time.  I was never so exhausted in my life!  When C. was born and she was a sleeping champ, we were like “OMG, thank u lord!”).

C. would sleep at night for 6-8 hours and then was up off and on from 5 a.m. til 7 a.m.  (I don’t want to hear it if your babe slept even better than this! ).  Unbelievable to us — a breast-fed babe sleeping so long…and gaining weight!

Well, then something changed.  Brian went away for a service trip with the teenagers from church, and my girl was UP!  I went through the usual mama questions that often have no answer to them!  Is it the binky?  Is she sick? Does she miss Bri or sense me missing him? Is she teething?  And then we were traveling.  Uh-oh.  She was waking up every two hours.  OMG.

Now we are home and though she is sleeping better, now when she wakes at night, she is awake!  I feed her some times, but other times, she’s just not hungry.  She. wants. the. binky!

So Brian and I had the “if and when and how to get rid of the binky” conversation that so many parents know all to well!

Yeah, I know, having an infant = being tired.  So I accept some exhaustion.  But there comes a time when mom’s had enough — and that means some things gotta change.  AND I also know that she’s gotta learn how to fall back to sleep on her own — eventually.

I’m sure we’ll figure it out.  I’m not in to C. “crying it out.”  I gotta talk to my mama friends and check in with my own gut and husband (!) and then try something out.

I think what stresses me out more than the binky battle, though, is this anxiety many moms, including me, seem to have these days:

If I do X will this create a bad habit that’ll be hell to deal with later (binky, co-sleeping…you name it)? And if I do Y will that ruin my child (cry-it-out, etc)?

Mom guilt + knowing too much about attachment and trauma as a psychotherapist = paranoid…at times!So I often just have to take a step back, breathe, go with my gut, try something out, and believe that in the end, all will be well.

mindfulness + faith = letting go = contentment.

Yet the fears associated with being a parent can be pretty tough illusions to battle!  Lots of breathing and lots of other mamas are necessary for survival!