Mindful Moment: Stay and Soften

One evening in December, our bedtime ritual started out like to does every night:  brushing teeth, pjs, a book, a few songs, a prayer (sometimes we sing it!), and me laying with our two year old daughter while Brian lays with our five year old son.

Our son, he is out in like two minutes.  Kindergarten does that to a boy!  Our daughter, she loves to chat, sing, lay there, ask for more milk, cuddle.  Most nights, I savor it.  I linger with Little C.  I whisper my prayers.  I lay there in the quiet, holding her, listening to her breathe…and then ask another question.  When Little C was a few months old, I wrote this poem:

My Skin Remembers

In the dark stillness of the early morning,

before the first glimmers of dawn appear through our bedroom window,

Brian brings Clara to me for an early morning feeding.

She is half awake half asleep now nuzzled next to me.

Her little feet rest on my bare belly as she wraps one arm over my chest

and tucks the other under my breast to nurse.

I am laying on my side, my left arm stretched out on the bed

and heat from the top of Clara’s head warms the inside of my elbow.

My right arm wraps around her tiny, plump, six month old body.

Our bellies touching rise and fall together in a soft rhythm.

Though my body begs for more sleep, I don’t mind being up so early

before the sunlight slowly dances into our room.

I know now with my second child that this will not last forever.

There will come a day when I will long to hold my babies again

just      like     this

and my skin will ache with nostalgia.

But this morning, I also know that when that day comes,

a smile will rise up from within me

as my skin remembers breathing in

this

very

moment.

Butttttt….there are times when I am think “O.M.G., you gotta go to sleep!”  I am tired, needing space, needing to be on my own for a bit.  And that’s when my meditation practice comes into play.

“It’s ok to feel this way, Lisa.”

“It’s ok to want time alone, to need space.”

In those moments, I try to remind myself to practice self-compassion instead of beating myself up with mama guilt “Oh I shouldn’t feel this way!  I should be oh-so-very present AND loving every minute of it.  Why don’t I feel that way? What’s wrong with ME?  So-and-so…you’d never hear that from her!  She loves everything about being a mom….”  It goes on, doesn’t it?  Well, instead of going down THAT path, ….

I pause.  I stay with what is rising up.  I don’t push it away.  I just stay.  I hold my heart and my needs and my yearnings close, with breath and spaciousness.  I soften.  And the once intense emotions and thoughts shift.

What rises up is a sense of “ahhhh, ok.  I’m ok.  This is ok.”  And then I’m able to make a clearer, more compassionate choice.

So back to this one night in December…

I thought my Little C. was asleep.  I slowly rolled out of her bed and started to get up to leave.

“Mommy, where you going?”

OHHHH I could’ve lost it.  I was tired.  It was late.  I felt my feet on the earth (on our “beautiful” carpet stained with milk and god knows what else!), I softened, breathed…

And then Little C. continued, “Mama, you stay with me?”

STAY WITH ME.  These words cut riiiight through to what is most important.  Right through any frustration, tiredness, need for alone time.

I turned back into the room, got into bed again with Little C., and said, “Yes, my Love, I’ll stay with you.” 

We laid like that for a long while.  Just in silence.  Me — softening, letting it all go, noticing, allowing.

And then Little C. whispers – half asleep, half awake, “Mommy?”

Me: “Yes, Love?”

Little C.: “I love you.”

Then she fell sound asleep.

As I pulled the covers up over her little chest, as I walked out of the quiet room, I thought about how that could’ve gone comPLETELY different.  There are times it has — when I’m like, “BABY!  You gotta go to sleep!”  Times when I lay there but I’m not really present.  Times when I am tired and under resourced.  And I react.  Instead of respond.  And as I walked out of the room, I found myself oh so grateful for the intention I set years ago to be a mindful mama, for how that has informed my practice of SOFTENING, tending to, allowing, being with, being gentle IN OUR EVERYDAY LIFE.  I found myself bowing to the community of moms and  dads who are on this journey of healing our world through being RIGHT HERE, present to and regarding our little ones.

STAY.  STAY AND SOFTEN.  With our own hearts, with our little ones.  I am finding that the more I offer myself such sweet spaciousness, the more I am able to extend that to my dear ones.  And I smile softly, with no regrets.

When it’s not a perfect holiday…

“When we are training in the art of peace, we are not given any promises that, because of our noble intentions, everything will be okay. In fact, there are no promises of fruition at all. Instead, we are encouraged to simply look deeply at joy and sorrow, at laughing and crying, at hoping and fearing, at all that lives and dies. We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness.”
- Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart, p. 100

This week may not be all that for folks.  Someone drinks too much.  Someone complains too much.  Someone critiques too much.  Someone holds too little, compliments too little, hugs too little.  Too few tender words.  Too many old aches surfacing.  Too many times of going riiiight back into our familiar family roles we learned as children.  And we feel like crap.  We regret.  We get mired in the complicated web of our constellation of emotions.

Maybe. Maybe we’ll have moments like this.

Maybe we are grieving.  And we wonder how no one we walk by in the busy grocery store notices the the big hole in our chest or hears the screams lodged in our throats.

Maybe.  Maybe we’ll have  moments like this.

Maybe it’ll all go perfect.  Perfect turkey. Perfect timing.  Perfect pictures.  Perfect decorations, conversations, and fun-filled moments.  Maybe.

Many of us want these perfect moments, believing that somehow, they held the key to our happiness.  Intuitively we know that perfection doesn’t = happiness.  But STILL, we get caught in trying to make it all perfect.  Or at least wanting it to be DIFFERENT. Then it’d be perfect.

Well, I’m getting DONE with perfection.  D-O-N-E, I tell you.  I see how this habitual pattern of wanting things to be different than they are — trying to GET so and so to be different, say something different, act a different way — is absolutely EXHAUSTING.  It sucks the energy, joy, and life right from me.

Instead, what is soooo much more nourishing is just to be gentle.  Gentle with my own heart and thoughts and judgments and hopes.  Gentle with this moment and the next….however it unfolds.  Truly what heals, as Pema says, is tenderness.

I’m reminded of Lao Tzu’s words:
“Water is fluid, soft, and yielding. But water will wear away rock, which is rigid and cannot yield. As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft, and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard. This is another paradox: what is soft is strong.”
― Lao Tzu

Soooo…I’m gonna take my husband’s lead and be water, folks. Soft. Yielding. Fluid.

Yielding to “what is”.  Softening judgment.  Softening the desire for perfection.  Fluid with circumstances may arise.  Letting us all be perfectly imperfect.

What is soft is strong.  Ok, so softening!

The Call of Fall – Pause

This fall, I am drawn to pause.  Summer had us out and about, playing in the sandbox and on the playground, swimming and hiking, meeting up with friends, and looking at bugs (oh yes.).  We had our “Summer Activities Board” up in our kitchen from May til August, sparking spontaneity and creativity.

But every fall, and even this year with school starting for us, I find myself drawn to pause.

To slow down.  To “go within” after months of being out in the world.  To regroup.  To be in my body and heart.  And to rest there for awhile.

Stillness calls me.  Even as I type away from my second floor window in Georgetown.  Even as I drive up and down (up and down, up and down!) 270.  Even as I walk to work in the eaaaaarly morning hours of dawn (now just two days a week!).  As I go home and hug my kiddos and heat up some soup and put C’s rainboots on her little feet and help my son get into his knight costume.

Fall calls me to pause.  To breathe it all in.  And to let it all go, too.  And to rest.  My thoughts, my worries, my plans, my body.

Some times “how-to” steps can be helpful when cultivating a new practice…Here’s a post about taking a Sacred Pause I wrote in the Spring with easy “steps to follow” for finding that sacred pause.

Here’s another post about finding that Sacred Pause in our parenting.

I find that when I pause throughout my day, the Sacred emerges…or rather, I wake up and SEE the Sacred already alive and present in my day.  I soften.  I open.  My shoulders relax, my breath deepens.  And I find that a sense of gratitude fills my heart.  The beauty all around me beacons me to honor and reverence this one precious and short life.

Sweet blessings of Pause to you all.

How to heal by doing very little? Just N.A.P.!

I had a hard day.  You all know how it goes – something doesn’t go as planned, people don’t respond the way you’d like, you were just “off” and didn’t come across as confident or maybe even competent, your child threw up or is having a rough day, someone was critical of you even though you were really really trying to help. We’ve all been there. The specifics don’t matter. (No really, they don’t matter. Keep reading!)

Today, I could feel the sting in my heart, the tightness in my throat, the defeat in my slumped shoulders…all before noon.

I started down the path of aversion and separateness: “Well, I’ll never help them again!”  And judgment: “Who do they think they are?!”

I got into the car.  I sat there.  Tears were welling up.  Not the tears of hysteria and wild emotion, but the quiet tears of defeat.

I knew I needed to hear my own voice. I turned on my iphone (god, I love this thing!), went to the voice recorder and clicked “record.”

I sat there, pausing, breathing.  I know that explaining, complaining, and analyzing don’t do jack to heal us.  They aren’t the healing balm to suffering.

And I wanted HEALING BALM. Not some bandaid B.S.  I am over the “treating the symptoms” kind of approach.  I go for true healing.

So I decided to “go back to the basics” of my mindfulness practice:

I just started naming whatever was in my present moment awareness.

Any thought, emotion, memory, sensation…whatever came into my awareness, I named it.
“Anger.”
“Tightness.”
“Heat.”
“Now this layer of defeat.”
“Now breathing.  Now I am exhaling.”
“Crying….; wet…hot…”
“Now tightness in my throat.”
“Thinking.”
“Now thinking of memories from childhood.”
“Now this layer.  Thought.  Trying, trying sooooo hard.  And being misunderstood.  Feeling like crap.”
“Now breathing.”
“Now tightness.”
“Now ‘old belief’ – ‘I try and no one notices.”
“Aloneness.”
“Quiet.”
“Now regret.”
“Compassion.”
“Softening.”

It went on like this for 20 minutes.  Just naming whatever came into my present moment awareness.  No judgment.  No “going into the story.”  No analyzing the sensation, thought, memory, or emotion.  Only right here.  In the now.  Space.  And Breath.

Gradually, I noticed this:

life returning
a sense of resiliency
an okayness within me
no desire to change what was
letting go of blame, hurt
opening
expansiveness
a sense of connection

Gradually, there was less gripping.  My heart felt restored.  My body — calm.  My emotions — soft, even.

I thought of Lao Tzu’s words: “Can you wait until the mud settles and the waters become clear?”

The water was becoming clear.  Settled and clear.

NAME.
ALLOW.
PRESENCE.

That’s all I did.  I took a “N.A.P.”

This is what heals. This naming “what is.” This spacious allowing. This kind presence. Too often we get caught up in the weeds of our emotions and thoughts, when, really, all we have to do to become untangled from them is to look up and breathe in the expansiveness of the sky.  We get caught up in the waves of our thoughts and emotions instead of allowing them to just rise and and fall on their own…instead of remembering WE ARE THE OCEAN.

REMEMBER WE ARE THE OCEAN, as Tara Brach says.

Bitterness.  Confusion.  Gone.

In their place:  a gentle, compassionate, spaciousness for holding the deeper hurt within me – holding and regarding what longed to be seen within me.

But had I not just “allowed” and softened and breathed and named whatever it was that came into my awareness and held it all with gentle, gentle presence…but instead got caught up in the “weeds” of judgment, blaming, separating, I’d still be feeling like crap.  Maybe I would’ve called a friend and they would’ve been like, “Oh that bites, Lisa.  Wow.  They don’t know what a good thing they got!  You are an incredible………….” And I would’ve felt “better.”  For a moment.

But what was needing my attention most WEREN’T the particulars (the waves, the weeds) of what happened.  It wasn’t OTHER people’s reactions or behaviors that needed my attention.  IT WAS ME. The parts of me in need of some healing balm.

So I found myself THANKING these experiences of today – and all the people.  They woke me up to tend to ME.  I found myself BOWING to life and the SIMPLICITY and the ease to which we can suffer less.  Just a bit of spaciousness, naming, allowing, and gentleness.

Doing very little.  And yet healing a lot.

I didn’t change my experiences (or the people around me!). I changed how I related to them. And THAT cultivates peace. THAT is what, as the Tibetans say, brings on the lion’s roar: the capacity of heart to be with whatever arises.

I did call a friend. Well, she happened to call me. And I sat there telling her NOT about the particulars of the day but rather this process and the clearing and the CALM within me now. She gets it. We said very little. Still tender, I went home, lighter, softer, whole.

Tips for Everyday Mindfulness #12: The Sacred Pause

taking a sacred pause in Spring.

“Rest in the pause between breaths.
Pause in the rest between thoughts.
Bask in the space between words.
Stop in the stillness of a calm lake
and listen.”
- Julie Rappaport

In her book, Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach talks about the Sacred Pause. Pausing for a moment in our day, perhaps several times in a day, to “arrive” right here. In your day. In your body. In your life.

As a mom to two little ones, I know how busy life can be. I get up at the crack of dawn (ok, even before dawn!) and I feel like I am going all day until I, often, fall asleep in my son’s bed after singing him to sleep.

It is challenging to get away for a girls’ night, a weekend retreat…let alone a week-long retreat. I find that I need “everyday” retreats. Mini retreats throughout the day so I can arrive at my heart again, center myself, and feel MY pulse as well as the pulse of Life. I need these mini retreats in order to be able to respond to my children (and husband and co-workers) instead of react.

Every. Single. Client. or workshop I facilitate, I offer the wisdom of finding “everyday ways” to take mini retreats. To center ourselves. To re-arrive in this moment. One such way or tool is the Sacred Pause.

The Sacred Pause is a gift. It gives us a chance to come back to our hearts. To relax. To recharge. To begin again our daily tasks of caring for others.

Here’s how a Sacred Pause might look:

Take a moment to pause.
Maybe you’d like to sit down.
Feel the feet on the floor.
Let the legs relax.
Soften the belly.
Feel the heart slightly lifting up to the sky.
Feel the crown of the head lifting up to the sky.
Soften your face – eyes, jaw, lips.
Feel the shoulders relax.
Become still.
Sense your attention deepening and feel your body.
Take a few full breaths – slowly exhaling.
Breathe in…
Breathe out…
Sense yourself softening – your eyes, shoulders, judgment
Sense yourself softly smiling.
Feel the heart – from the back of the heart – lifting.
Feel the sensations of your body – maybe tingling in your shoulders, or warmth in your hands.
Feel the body from the inside out.
Allow yourself to rest – just breathing in and out, feel the rise and fall of your breath.
Stay here, still and breathing, for as long as you need.
When you are ready, open your eyes gently and slowly.
Notice how you feel.

There you go. That’s what I try to remember to do and what I offer to others. In a few minutes – at the park, at work, before walking in to the house, when I’m brushing my teeth. A mindful practice that can often bring me back to my heart and help me to arrive here again and remind me of my connection to my own Self and the pulse of Life.

Tips for Everyday Mindfulness #9: Soften

Soften, soften, soften. Whenever we wake up and realize that we have hardened our hearts, that we are pulling away, that we are wanting to be right and standing our ground, that our anger has led us far away from what we really want (to belong, to be loved, to be connected)…the answer isn’t to get more ridged. Or more self-righteous. Or more self-protective and closed off. It’s to soften.

Soften our brow. Soften our jaw. Soften our shoulders away from our ears. Soften our grip on…everything. Unclench our fists. Soften our words – to ourselves and others. Soften around our heart. Soften, soften, soften.

I am finding more and more the truth of what Lao-tzu says here — softness always triumphs over hardness or harshness or rigid thinking or trying to justify our positioning. Softness is always stronger and more powerful than any kind of power that comes from fear and seeks to dominate. I am convinced of this now.

Next time we feel the burn of anger, of feeling justified in how we feel or in what we think, of judging someone else — however right we may believe we are — just soften. Breathe into the heart. Relax the shoulders and jaw and eyes and belly. Soften, soften, soften. And a strength rises.

A letter to myself on my 38th birthday

My birthday is coming up.  I woke up with the prompting to write a letter to myself. I’d highly recommend trying this on your next birthday.

Dear Lisa,

On your 38^th birthday…

open

Ahhhhh….Dear One, happy birthday!  Do you remember when you were little, on a hot August day, you’d announce to your mom, “I know what I want to do for my birthday (in January)?”  Maybe that was Grandma Clara’s promptings moving in you.  August was the month she died while you were nestled in mom’s belly.  Maybe, for your family, August is a month where birth (Julie’s birth) and hope (the promise of your arrival) triumph over death.  And maybe Clara had a hand in prompting these birthday delights to be had in five months.

Today, as you wake up, life is goooood.  What loveliness you have all around you, cushioning you.  ALL OF LIFE is saying to you, “Here, drink such loveliness.  Wrap yourself in this warm, sparkling shawl.  You are surrounded with softness.  Deep calm and delight can spring forth from you and into this world, transforming it in little and big ways with gentle, powerful love.  And you don’t have to DO anything except BE, listen and respond from a place of delight within you.  No pushing the boulder up the hill.  Now we are about the water element – jumping into the river…and flowing along with it.”

You are cushioned, Love.  Your husband…ahhhh, what deep love can do to nourish a body and soul.  His love is the alchemy for parched, dry bones, the worries of decades ago, the Capricorn goat “pushing the boulder up the hill” mentality.  His love is the calm flowing through you, the softness lubricating your bones and heart, the nourishing sweetness that bubbles up from you and is offered to others.  It is good to be reminded of that.

And your family.  Your dear friends – those blossoming right here and those we’ve known for years – they are roots running deep.  And as of late, once again, you sense the mystical forces that have been with you from before time.  All cushioning you.

You are wrapped in love and light.  And what is emerging?

We have no plans anymore.

For years, you have only been able to see just so far in front of you – from only the kitchen table to the dirty dishes in the sink!  You have heard God saying, “Just right here.  That’s all I’m revealing.”  You got it.  And, yes, there are still “knowings” within you – for you, your kiddos and Brian.  But the specifics of how that plays out…you are just open.  Totally open.  Ready.  Not searching. Just listening and saying, “Ok”, and being awake to/grateful for what IS right now.

What is emerging?  Joy…softly glowing.

What a great way to begin another year, Dear One.  Happy Birthday.

my three words for 2012

I loved having a “word” for the year. For 2011, I had three! Soften, strengthen, and forgive changed me. They took up residence in me, stretched me, and shifted things within me and in my life.  Here’s what happened:

Soften.   I softened my judgment, my inner critic, my talk, my eyes, my way of being, and my “pushing the boulder up the hill” mentality.  I softened my expectations of others (ok, sort of, still in progress!).  I noticed how, in the moment of stress, instead of becoming rigid and harsh, I could more quickly soften.

strength and softness

Strengthen.  I strengthened my body, how I carry myself, and my inner glow.  Pregnancy and c-sections take their toll on me, leaving me feeling quite weak.  This year I got my strength back.  I feel it in every muscle – still workin’ on those abs!  I walked with more confidence – as a parent and a professional.  And my inner glow – well, by softening I feel like I’m strengthening my soul’s light to shine through more.

me and brian after finishing the warrior dash

Forgive.  I found myself needing to let go of old stuff I’ve carried too long and also needing to let go of “everyday stuff” that could ruin a day  – just letting it go, asking for forgiveness, and moving on.   In softening my judgment, I found that forgiving would spontaneously happen.  I exhale and then breathe in the opportunity of softening and connecting in the next moment.  It works.

It’s amazing to carry a few words within you for a year and to see how they change your heart, how they come out in your smile and hands, and how they shift your everyday life, perceptions and relationships.

In thinking about my word for 2012, I said to myself, “This year I’ll have just ONE word.” And well, nope, that’s not how it’ll go down yet another year. Again, I have three:

1. silly
2. sensual
3. connections

Silly. My son is hilarious. A jokester. His presence reminds me that a good laugh goes a long way in connecting with others. I need to laugh more. All four of us do. This puts me out of my comfort zone.  I’m not silly.  Fun, yes, but silly?  Not so much.  So here’s to lightening up and being silly.

being silly

Sensually feminine.I am being drawn into all that “flows,” and is feminine, water-like, and powerfully “woman.”  From what I wear to keeping my hair long.  From communicating with a feminine strength, compassion, and fierce regard for life to embracing “non-linear healing” and ways of being in this world.  Not being about conquering, analyzing, dissecting, or thinking my way into the next phase of my soul’s journey.  I’m ready for some deep listening to my soul’s song (or poetry, in my case!), energizing movement, honoring the unknown, and living with a fierce but gentle strength.

the ocean

Connections.  I’m pretty good about staying in touch with friends from the different places I’ve been.  But I’d like to just put more attention into nurturing and tending to the lovely connections I/we have with amazingly wise, hilarious, genuinely kind friends and family, near and far.  “Connections” also continues to mean “being in cahoots” with Brian and with my kiddos — lightening up, deeply listening to what I “intuit” about my kiddos and nurturing their connection to their soul’s path.

sweet friends

my two little superheroes

So those are my words for 2012!  We’ll see how it all unfolds.

What are your word or words for 2012?

Blessings to each of you in this new year.

when I’m not grateful

There are days, I embarrassingly admit, that I am not grateful.  I don’t want to be grateful.  I pull away.  I don’t express what my heart wants to say and do.  I tense up.  I refuse to look at the goodness in my life.

I’m beginning to realize that that is ok.  Like EVERYTHING else, I can give that ingratitude permission to just be.  Give that “I don’t feel like being grateful” feeling space.  Instead of trying to change it.  Or force it along with a tyrannical “should.”  IT’S ALL OK.

And then…I find…that out of such spacious acceptance…some grace lands right in my face.

It’s like, ‘WHAM!  Here ya go!”

I am am humbled.  And, organically, gratitude rises up from within me and fills every cell of my body.  It’s as though light mixed with softness and boldness and sweetness sweeps through me.

I turn toward.  I soften.  I exhale.  Life embraces me.  And I hug back.

Allowing + Spaciousness + Grace = Gratitude.  In my book. 

 

It’s these eyes that are, most often, my Grace.  So on this day of mindfully recalling what we are grateful for:  thank you, my beloveds, for seeing me with adoring, loving, “let’s begin again,” and “you totally rock, mom” eyes.  Thanks for being my grace.

 

God in the ugly

Inspired by the spiritual yoga class I teach at our local parish, I started to really sit with the Gospel reading for today, Sunday, November 20, 2011. It’s the very “Catholic-y” famous Matthew 25: “…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothes me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”

taken by theojunior, flicker

Noticing God…… Right here. In even the ugliest of places. The vulnerable, the outcast, the imprisoned. No, not just in what is beautiful.

It’s easy to see God in babies and butterflies. What about seeing God in the ugly?

The outcast, the sick, the lonely?

What about seeing God in what makes us recoil…about ourselves? The parts of us that we are ashamed of so we try and keep them in the dark? The outcast, ugly parts of us longing to be gently brought out into the light with tender, warm hands…holding, protecting, healing?

I see God in the lavenders and reds of the rising sun, the ocean-blue eyes of my children, the coziness of our light-filled home. I have become mindful and grateful for such delights. I have trained my brain and eyes and heart to pause and notice these silent gems in my day. And while yes, I could always use more mindfulness in my day to notice these gems, tonight, as I write, in the darkness, listening to the rain, feeling the pulse of silence in our sleeping home, I’m wondering about seeing God in the ugly. The ugly moments of my day. The ugly parts of me. My habitual reactions looping again and again.

I haven’t looked for God there. If anything, I have tried to keep God out. Along with the light and my beloveds and my Self. Oh the ego has been hard at work “protecting” what no longer needs to stay shut up, shut in, imprisoned.

God in the imperfect. The ugly. The outcast. I imagine God in the trash. In the dumpster. Digging. Saying to any part we’ve banished, “No, we will not throw out this one. Come, Sweet Love. Yes, I call you ‘Sweet Love.’ We have a lot of holding of you to do.”