Well, could you please be nice?

We have a morning routine. If not already awake, I get the kids up at 7am. Josias climbs in bed with me and Shiloh. We talk, sing, cuddle, and rip toys out of each others' hands for about fifteen minutes.

Since he no longer sleeps with us, I have implemented this "in bed" time to reconnect with Josias before the demands of the day begin (because along with those demands come some of the challenging behaviors that Josias and I struggle with). Also, I enjoy hugging and kissing my babies.

This strategy has been somewhat successful in preventing morning meltdowns, which tend to throw us off schedule. And keep on schedule we must, in order to get to school before breakfast is gone, as that would cause yet another meltdown. Our 7am wake up time gives us a full hour to get dressed, eat breakfast, and head out the door. It should be enough, but something inevitably waylays us.

Like today, for instance. We started out ahead of schedule. Eggs and toast had been prepared and consumed, cleared and cleaned. We had plenty of time to get dressed, so the kids were playing while I did some laundry. Great!

Then, outta nowhere, it was time to go. How does this happen? A problem with the time-space continuum? So, I began barking orders at Josias, telling him to get dressed. He continued to play. I "helped" him take off his jammies and asked him to put on his school clothes. He continued to play. Naked.

After about 10 minutes, I'd had it. I told him that if he didn't get dressed, Shiloh and I would wait for him in the car (not cool, and not true). He then discovered that he couldn't find his underwear. You mean the underwear I placed on the the couch 10 minutes ago and asked you to put on? Uh-huh, yes. Those underwear.

In a loud voice, I launched into a lecture about how if he had gotten dressed when I asked, this kind of thing wouldn't happen. The lecture went on for many moments longer than it should have. When I finally stopped, Josias looked up at me and with total sincerity asked, "Well, could you please be nice?"

This should have elicited not only an "aww" from me, but also a step back from what I was doing to take a deep breath and realize that nothing in this scene was an emergency and yes, I should be nice. Firm, but still kind. Always kind.

At that point, however, I had let my frustration get the best of me and my response was, "No! I cannot be nice. I asked you to get dressed many times and now you've lost your underwear!" It did not seem ridiculous when I said it.

I then left the room and recognized the idiocy of my statement and my attitude. It took me about 3 minutes until I was able to go back and say, "I'm sorry, Josias. You are right. Mama should be nice. I'm sorry for the way I spoke to you."

But then, I had to add, "I was frustrated," as if that was an excuse. Josias wasn't accepting excuses, however. He came back with, "Well you should still be nice. You could go like this - he proceeded to make exaggerated breathing noises, inhaling and exhaling several times - to calm down."

He had me there. Yes, I should always be nice. When I'm frustrated, I should calm down before I speak loudly, meanly or angrily. I should always be nice. When I am not nice, I should own up to my behavior and apologize, without qualifications. When I finally said this to Josias, he smiled, we found his underwear and he got dressed.

Later, as I debriefed this episode in my mind, three things struck me:

• Not getting dressed was age-appropriate behavior and was not a big deal. I'd do well to remember that the next time it happens, which, in all likelihood, will be tomorrow.
• I didn't like how I handled the situation and felt that I was modeling behaviors that I did not want to see in Josias. But, what I also modeled, is that everyone, including Mama, gets frustrated and angry. No one is perfect and no matter how much yoga we do, we all lose our cool sometimes. If and when that happens, try to make it right.
• Most importantly I realized that through our day-to-day interactions, I have supported Josias' understanding of what is and what isn't helpful, supportive, and NICE behavior. And, when someone is treating him in a way that doesn't feel good, he can clearly communicate how it feels and what he wants. 

That's not bad for a three and a half year old. So, what I came away with is that sometimes, even if this morning didn't seem like one of those times, I must be doing something right.

Now, if only Josias could internalize the idea that HE should always be nice.

Serenity Prayer

I was talking with a friend the other day, and she told me that she is struggling to get certain parts of her life under control. She has just joined a support group that employs the twelve steps. She went on to say that while she knows she needs the help and support of the group, the Serenity Prayer, which opens the meetings, is a stumbling block for her. The wording just doesn't feel right.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Her sentiments resonated with me. Last year was one of the most stressful of my life. In addition to the joy of having a baby, I was going through some intensely painful personal issues. One thing that I found helpful was the Serenity Prayer. Not just saying it, which I did over and over, but really understanding its meaning and trying to live it.

I, too, struggled with the wording of the prayer. It's not that I don't believe in God, although by my way of thinking, It's the Divine, or the Universe. The part of the prayer I take issue with, is asking a higher power to grant me a favor, if you will. I believe the power is already within me, and with this prayer, I am both acknowledging that and asking the Universe to help me muster the strength to use it.

The concept of the prayer really helped. So, I decided on this, albeit cumbersome, personal wording:

I ask the Universe to support me in calling forth my own power for the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Now, some might think: that's a lot of new-age mumbo jumbo, or, that my wording is just semantics. That's okay. What I think, is that it genuinely means something to me, and that is:

#1 I can only do me. I have the power to decide to be the best me I can. That is not easy, nor it is necessarily going to get me everything I want. It is a heck of a lot, though. 

#2 No matter how much I want something to happen, or someone to change, it is not within my power to make it so. I have no control over what other people do, nor can I control the actions and beliefs of others.

#3 is the kicker: whenever I feel stressed, angry, disappointed, sad, etc. it helps to think about the points above and reassess how I approach any given situation and what I hope to get out of it.

It serves me well to remember all of this. It helped me through a very difficult time. The prayer didn't make the situation better, nor did it take away the pain and sadness. What it did, is help me understand who I am, who I want to be, and that in the end, that is what is in my control. It gave me perspective.

Even though things did not turn out the way I had hoped, I am steadfast in my faith that things will turn out as they should.

If you're searching for some Yogic wisdom on this topic, these two Yoga Journal articles are a good place to start: Spiritual Surrender and The Practice of Surrender.

No matter what you call it - Serenity Prayer or Ishvara Pranidhana, it's all Yoga to me.

How has prayer helped you?

Photo credit: Robert Kiss

Today the adventure begins

The Lotus flower symbolizes new beginnings

Today marks a new beginning for me, and my family. I've just quit my full-time job of almost ten years. It's margaritas by the pool for me from here on out.

Well, no, not really. I'll be with my sweet babies. I have a three year old, Josias, and a seven month old, Shiloh. And, to be completely forthright, at times I find it a bit challenging to meet the physical needs of the baby, while simultaneously meeting the intellectual and emotional wishes of the preschooler.

So, that is how I have decided to frame this adventure. An exciting challenge! I've been gearing up by reflecting on all my own beliefs about motherhood as well as the advice and strategies of those who I think have a lot to offer on the subject. Each day, I'd like to make it my job, my challenge to put all of that into practice as best I can.

You see, I have a stubborn streak, so it can be a huge challenge for me to let go of my own agenda (the arbitrary parts, anyway) and be there for my kids in the ways that they need and want; to guide them and support them in a manner that will help them become the awesome human beings that we all have the potential to be. Oh yeah, and I'd like to enjoy the journey too. Pretty ambitious, hey?

Yoga has helped me get to this place. I've made a fundamental, somewhat scary, life-change in order to more fully be the person I want to be. So, now that I'm on my way, I'm relying on yoga to guide me along.

For starters, we'll spend a good part of the summer with friends and family in the natural beauty of the Finger Lakes region of New York State. Then, in the Fall, Josias will start his own adventure as he's off to preschool.

Actually, if the adventure begins today, Josias, Shiloh and I are off to the dentist for Josias' first visit. Challenge numero uno awaits! I hope you'll join me as (time permitting) I write about our journey on Earth Mama Yoga.

What guided you through a life-changing event or experience?

Photo credit:lezumbalaberenjena

How yoga helped me NOT lose weight

Have I mentioned that I was HUGE when I was pregnant?  By the time I made it to my second trimester I had gained the recommended amount of weight for an entire pregnancy.  All told, I gained almost sixty pounds.

After giving birth to my son, I lost 25 pounds within a week.  That felt pretty good, and I figured it would just keep coming off.  Nope.  It didn't happen.  My three month maternity leave came and went and no more weight came off.  I had been walking everyday for at least half an hour.  And, as I've posted before I was practicing yoga nearly every day. Not exactly Olympiad training, but not sedentary either.   

So, there I was ready to go back to work and still carrying around 35 extra pounds.  I was not pleased with this fact in and of itself, but add the issue of lack of work-appropriate clothing that fits and it was downright depressing. 

Or was it?

I took some time to think about it and came to this conclusion:  I have a beautiful, healthy and joyful baby; I am healthy and able to provide him what he needs to thrive with love and breastfeeding; and (here's where the yoga comes in) I may have some extra weight on me and not look like I did pre-pregnancy, but I feel pretty darn good in my body. 

Yoga connects me to my body through physical exertion, mental concentration and spiritual awareness.  That feels great.  Perhaps, more importantly, yoga teaches me non attachment: everything is temporary, including my body, the vessel that houses my soul.  So why get all worked up about something that, in the grand scheme of things, may be here today and gone tomorrow?  Yoga also teaches me to be grateful and focus on what's important in life and in the world, and I have a lot to be grateful for.  In light of all that, what's a few extra pounds?

I lost a bit more weight in the months that followed, but still don't look the way I did before I carried Josias for 10 months.  And, even though yoga helped me be okay with that, I still have to talk myself through it sometimes on a daily basis.  That's the great thing about my yoga practice, it helps me feel great, no matter my weight, and be grateful every day.

Mama's home yoga practice (is awesome!)

Since the birth of my son, I have struggled to find time to practice yoga at home. 

And, although I would love to attend a yoga class at least once a week, I made the decision shortly after he was born, that while he is an infant and needs me so intensely, I would not spend what precious free time I have away from him at a yoga class.  I know this won't be forever, so I look forward to the day when I will return to class, but for now I am happy to spend that time with my sweet baby.

About four weeks after his birth, I stepped back onto the mat.  I was eager to find out how my body would feel after nearly ten months of pregnancy and the birth of my son.  I also wanted to stretch out some of the aches that breastfeeding was causing.

I took it slowly at first and did a few poses for only a few minutes at a time.  It felt wonderful!  I was amazed, though, at my lack of strength and the changes in my body.  Although it did seem that my hips were much more flexible than before pregnancy.

After a few weeks, I felt ready to dive back in to my old yoga routine, which was a DVD with five days worth of practices.  I loved this DVD and the teacher.  During my three month maternity leave, I was able to do a thirty minute practice with this DVD about four times a week.  It was always rushed, though.  As soon as my husband would get home from work, I would run to the basement and pop in the DVD.  Rarely could I completely focus on my practice.  I was always listening for Josias' cry or alert for indications that he needed to eat.  BUT, I was practicing and it felt good.

After I went back to work, this daily routine went out the window.  My day goes like this:  wake up at five to pump, get Josias ready for daycare, get me ready for work, eat breakfast, breastfeed Josias and head out the door.  After dropping Josias off at daycare, I have an hour commute.  At the end of the eight hour workday, I have an hour commute back home.  My husband picks Josias up from daycare, so when I arrive home at 5:45, I breastfeed him.  If the stars align that night, as a family we take the dog for a half hour walk.  That usually leaves less than a half hour to make dinner, eat dinner, bathe Josias, and get time ready for bed by 7ish.

By 7:45, Josias is asleep and I have about an hour (I try to get in bed before nine, since I have to be up at five and will need to feed Josias about four times throughout the night) to prepare everything for the next day and practice yoga.  Now, we probably all know, having the time and actually doing it are two different things, especially when exhaustion has set in.  For about two months now, I have established a 20-30 minutes practice almost every night, without the DVD.

In the next post, I will share how I established my regular, home practice.

I plan, God laughs, Yoga helps

One of the things that scared me about having a baby was the enormity of the endeavor, on a philosophical level.  I was creating not only a life, but a lifetime.  How would I care for this person for a lifetime?  What kinds of things should I try to convey are the important things in life?  What is life all about?  What will I do if something happens to this baby?  How will I go on?

The list goes on and on.  These kinds of questions bob around my brain on a daily basis.  Being pregnant made it worse. Now it's not just my life for which I need to figure out answers to these age-old questions, but I also have to be responsible for someone elses' as well. For a really long time.  Being a mother is not time-limited.

As the litany of "why are we here questions" begins to ebb, the unending list of possible answers begin to lap up to my consciousness, like waves to the shore.

This stuff gets me feeling anxious.  It's a cycle.  The more agitated I get, the more possible answers come to me, the more I feel like a need to figure it out.  I begin to feel immobilized.  How can I go on without figuring this stuff out?  How will I ever figure it out?

Although this is one that I still need a lot of help with, yoga provides me with a avenue to begin to cope.  Yoga teaches me that not only do I not need to have any of this stuff figured out, I am not responsible, on the highest levels, for the outcome.  It's like that old adage: We plan, God laughs. Not that I can't make daily plans, or that I shouldn't have goals, but life is fluid and stuff happens all the time that is totally outside of my control. 

Another meaning I find in yoga is that everything makes sense on some level.  It's just that, sometimes, it doesn't yet make sense on MY level.  The challenge is to understand that and feel comfortable with it.

Yoga encourages me to be present in the moment, in the here and now.  It's a struggle for me.  My brain will always run back to the questions and a desire for answers.  What I know now, though, is that yoga is a place I can go to quell the anxiety, stop asking the questions, give up the responsibility of knowing all the answers, and as best I can, BE with and enjoy my son.

My pregnancy kula

I had been attending yoga classes for about a year and a half before I became pregnant.  I attended three or four teachers' classes before I found the one for me.  I loved what I learned.  I couldn't wait to go to class each week and learn new things about yoga, myself and my body.  I incorporated those teachings in my home practice as well. 

Going to a class regularly advanced my practice by leaps and bounds.  It was the first time that I heard about the other seven limbs of yoga; those beyond asanas.  I fell in love!  I couldn't learn enough.  I started reading books and magazines about yoga.  I began to meditate.  I also began to reexamine the way I lived my life.  I realized that yoga would be a lifelong journey in which I would never arrive "there," but rather enjoy the fruits along the way.

So, when I became pregnant, one of my first priorities was to find a pregnancy yoga class.  I was crushed when I learned that "my" yoga studio did not have a class that would fit my schedule.  There was another studio a bit further from my house about which I had heard good things.  They had a class that would work.  I swallowed my disappointment and decided to give it a go.  This class and my new found kula turned out to be the single most supportive thing in my pregnancy.  There is a lesson there, but I'll save that for another post.

I've posted before about how yoga helped me physically during pregnancy, but finding my kula meant so much more than that.  My teacher, who was also pregnant at the time, was nothing short of awesome!  I warmed immediately in the presence of twenty other mamas who were there to support and learn from each other.  I learned about pregnancy and birth, about the strength of my own body to do what the mother of all mamas, Mother Nature, had designed it to do, about giving myself up to the experience and about my own power.  Watch out world!  I'm here, I'm pregnant and I'm strong!

I don't live close to my family and friends, so during my pregnancy, when I really needed support and information, I got it all from my kula.  I found out about doctors, natural remedies, breastfeeding, stores that sell used children's stuff.  I heard about Attachment Parenting, co-sleeping, and babywearing, all of which are integral to my approach to being a mama.

I learned about how yoga could support the birth experience I wanted to have.  I practiced poses that would not only ease labor pains, but move the baby into a comfortable position, and use gravity to help the baby move through the birth canal.

I think without my kula I would have been frightened of birth.  I would have been frightened of the unknown.  With yoga, I did not experience an iota of fear about the birthing process (anxiety about the baby's health, yes; excitement about not being the size of a rhinoceros, definitely! But fear, nope!)

My community of mamas helped me understand that I could make choices about my birth experience, and I could take actions to support those choices; I had the power to birth a 10+ pound baby without medication; that birth does not occur on a timetable dictated by doctors and hospitals; and that giving birth is an experience to relish, not to dull, shorten nor sleep through.

The birth of my son was wondrous and beautiful.  I humbly give thanks to the mamas of my kula. 

Namaste.

My first Mama post: Yoga helps me be Mama

I'm new at this whole blogging thing.  It's not as though I have any unique wisdom to impart, but the journey into motherhood has propelled me into talking about the impact it has had on me.  Many people say that motherhood is the biggest change in a life that a woman can experience.  I think that practicing yoga is the biggest change I have experienced. 

Without yoga, I'm not sure I could handle motherhood, not to mention pregnancy and birthing a 10+ pound baby.  Okay, I could HANDLE it, but I would be one stressed out mama, constantly trying to put out fires.  Well, maybe I am that even with yoga, but at least I'm reflecting on it, no?  So, my blog is about how yoga has helped me (try) to be the mama that I want to be.  And to remind myself that I have the tools I need to be a good mama, wife, tree hugger and person.

I'm not known for my ability to stay on point, nor for succinctness, so we'll see how it goes.  What do you think?