Mindful Monday: If Anybody's Still Listening

Well. It's a been a while. I think there's a 75% chance that this post won't get published but I'm going to let go of that notion for now and keep typing and see what happens. It's been so long now that I can't imagine anyone could care much about what I might write here anyway.

You know I'd forgotten that I started Mindful Monday posts until I went over to Rebekah's blog and saw that she's still doing it? Who needs some mindfulness? Me. Clearly.

Yonas has been home over a year now. We've come a long way. We have a long way to go. Nothing about it has been easy. Some of it has been beautiful. Some of it has been far uglier than I could have ever imagined. Most of it has been that strange mix of pain and beauty and progress and fear and revelations and missteps that life is so full of. I have tried my best for all my kids and come up short more times than I care to count. I haven't been compassionate with myself when I've been struggling. And I've struggled a lot. More that I care to admit, which is another reason I haven't posted here much. No one likes to admit they are struggling.

How do we strike the balance of recognizing that this parenting gig is the most important job we'll ever have and setting the expectations of ourselves accordingly while letting ourselves be human?

It's the balance I've been lacking. The balance that allows me to recognize when my well is empty, when I need a break, when everything seems to be falling apart, and yet I keep pushing through because if not me, who? I know that doesn't serve us as a family in the end. I know it doesn't cultivate spaciousness and calmness. But I can't let go of the idea that these are people's souls we're taking about. Their futures. Their lives.

I said it out loud last night. I'm struggling. Again. AGAIN.

For me, today, this is a love letter to myself. It's okay if no one else reads it. The balance I seek is mine for the taking. It's not my life that needs to change, but my thinking about my life that needs to change. It's okay if I'm falling apart. It's okay if I feel overwhelmed.

In her book, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Pema Chodron says this:

"If we're willing to give up hope that insecurity and pain can be exterminated, then we can have the courage to relax with the groundless of our situation. This is the first step on the path."

I feel groundless already. I might as well get comfortable with it instead of wishing it away, which is absolutely not working. It's a shaky first step. But here I am taking it.

Mindful Monday: 'Opia

This past week, the week we officially began homeschooling, coincided with Yonas getting sick for the first time since he's been home. Just you're average cold, nothing too awful. But man, oh man, it triggered something in my boy. He regressed to where we were at about the two-months-home mark. A screaming, tantruming, rabid mess. He started using Amharic words he hasn't used in four months. Milder, less alarming versions of his previous food issues emerged, he wanted to be carried everywhere, sucked his thumb more, hit me, slammed my finger in a drawer on purpose.

He also started talking about Ethiopia, " 'Opia" a lot more.

On Friday it rained for the first time all August, it was a gray, cloudy day. While Yonas had lunch and the girls were off playing, we had this conversation:

"Baby cry 'Opia"
"A baby cried in Ethiopia?"
"Yeah, baby Ula cry 'Opia."
"Baby Ula cried in Ethiopia?"
"Yeah. Baby Ula sad. Baby Ula hurt."
"The baby cried. The baby got hurt. Did Yonas cry in Ethiopia?"
"Yeah."

After lunch I sat down with him and we looked at the pictures of when he lived in Ethiopia. We looked at his friends, the women who cared for him. He didn't seem particularly sad or affected, just happy to see pictures of himself.

I was so overwhelmed in the moment, thinking about how much of his life I won't ever know. He has a couple of scars I don't know the source of, visible reminders of the life he lived before he came to us. But it's all the internal scars, all the pain and grief, all the physical and emotional hunger that I can't ever know that I try to honor but sometimes lose in the face of daily living. His presence seems so natural now, such a given, so right, that it can be hard to keep his losses in the forefront of my mind.

Perhaps being sick shook loose some cellular memories he needed to exorcise. Or maybe he was feeling secure enough to let loose more of the pain. Whatever was happening I found myself struggling not to regress with him back to the pain and fear of when we first got home. It's tricky business, this attachment stuff. We let go, surrender just enough to trust each other so that we can fall in love a little more, then hang on for the unpredictable ride that love unleashes.

I try, I do, to stay open to his heart, to the hearts of all my children. Sometimes I get it so wrong it keeps me awake at night. But occasionally there are moments when I let go of my "shoulds" and give myself space to see what they are really after. What they really need. Sometimes I can actually give it to them. And sometimes all I can do is sit with the awareness of where we both are and it has to be enough because in the moment I can't get any closer.

My practice for mindfulness in parenting, in my life, is to get closer to being with my children and myself wherever we are at any given moment. Whether they are slamming my finger in a drawer or pulling me close and whispering, "Luf you, Mama" in my ear.

Mindful Monday: Resistance

When I was in my early 20's I wrote "Nulla dies sine linea" on the inside cover page of every new writing notebook: "Resistance always has meaning". Then I made a true effort to Become a Writer in my mid-20's. At least, in my mind it was a true effort. It certainly felt like one at the time, and I received enough rejection letters to prove I'd made a bit of effort. Then I stopped writing. And I didn't read any fiction for 6 years.

That was a long time ago, and since then I have tortured myself by not writing every day. I have had long stretches of not writing for weeks, months, even years. And lately I have not been writing this blog and I haven't been writing any fiction. And I feel shitty and restless and guilty and small and angry when I don't write. So the question is: If not writing makes me feel like hell, WHY DON"T I JUST DO IT??????????

Because Resistance ALWAYS has meaning.

I am re-reading a book called The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. It is a book I should never stop reading, one I should pick up every day so I don't forget. This book is about kicking Resistance in the ass and getting on with your work, whatever it is. The idea is that if you are trying to elevate yourself in any way; spiritually, physically, emotionally, morally, then you will meet Resistance. If your are trying to make art of any kind, if you are an entrepreneur, trying to lose 20 pounds, you will meet Resistance.

Now here's the cool thing: Fear and self-doubt are great indicators of the action we should be taking. They serve to illuminate our path. The more intensely we experience Resistance, the more we can be sure that it is important to us and to the growth of our soul.

So. What's a miserable non-writing writer to do?

Write, I guess. Show up and let go of the rest. Stand up for herself. Fight the good fight like a warrior every day. Make a commitment and then get out of the way of herself. Stand tall in the face of the greatest fear of all: the fear of success. And I don't mean money and certainly not fame. I mean the success that is born from showing up for your life and giving the world what you've got.

So here I am. I hope to be here more often. I leave you with this abridged quote from Marianne Williamson that is often incorrectly attributed to Nelson Mandela:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Are you getting buried under the weight of Resistance like I am? It always has meaning.

Let's get to work.

Mindful Monday

I thought I'd try my hand at this blogging thing and see how she flies. Many things have conspired to make maintaining this log of my life hard right now. Health issues, a continuing bit of Post-Adoption Depression (mild and nebulous, but there nonetheless), summertime, and being the mama to my four lovelies (and especially my two youngest that have been particularly, um...spirited lately), have come together to make an inertia soup of my life that I'm finding hard to swim in. Or swallow. Or something more clever than that.

Okay, that was an awful metaphor. But I feel too dull to think of something better. Plus, I just don't have the time. Yonas will be awake any moment from his nap.

Here are some of the things I've been exploring and pondering in earnest lately:

1. Minimalistic living- I have given away box after box of toys, clothing, and STUFF that we can and should live without. I want less things to pick up, clean, trip on, or otherwise deal with in some way, not more. I'm going to keep filling boxes, looking for what's necessary and loved, and getting rid of as much of the rest as my family will bear. The girls have been great supporters and have given up way more than I would have ever considered asking them to. The idea that space is a commodity resonates deeply with me. I want to fill my space with things I need and love.

2. Deep, slow living- I have always had a need for this. I need massive amounts of downtime and I think my kids do to. I want time to connect with myself and Erik and my children. I want the pace of my life to be as peaceful and full of space as possible. I want time to contemplate banana trees in the backyard in all their tall, bright green glory. I want to laugh and dance and bake with my children and drive as little as possible. I want to savor this short life.

3. Frugal living- I'm cheap and want to learn to be cheaper.

4. Homeschooling/Unschooling- Ava and Eden go to an amazing alternative school. I love the staff, I love the families. But sending four kids to a private school (even a very reasonable one) may not be possible. So, for the millionth time I have spent some time looking and learning about homeschooling and for the first time spent some time exploring what unschooling is all about. (It's not crazy or neglectful or lazy. Done well, it is respectful and meaningful and creates critical, engaged thinkers that trust themselves enough to listen to their hearts.)

5. My health- I have finally found answers about the mystery illness that has been plaguing me for most of my life. It is no longer a mystery, and I am thankful. It's an auto-immune disease called Psoriatic Spondylitis. I have been processing what it means to finally be validated after so many years of searching, but also what it means to know this disease will be part of my life's path. I have been actively searching for ways to control it as much as I can with diet, exercise, and supplements.

I'm not sure how all this fits together in a Mindful Monday post, except that these are things things that are taking up my mental space, my energy; the reason posts here have been so few are far between (that, and an infected, broken-down laptop, hence the no-pictures as of late). I feel a paradigm shift coming on. I look at my sometimes glorious, sometimes tedious life and think: It's all too fast,too precious; don't live on the surface, don't get carried away by its current, don't let it whisk you away so fast. Dive deep, and deeper still, get down, way down where the waters are still and quiet and there is silence. Go deeper still and let the surface above move over you while you sit on the bottom and smile in silence and awe.

That's what I'm striving for. An authentic, vivid life that brings me closer to the best version of myself. One where I can foster the same for my children. One that honors what Erik and I want for ourselves, for each other, for our marriage, and our children. A life of opening and unfolding truth, a life that honors the magic and love that have bound the six of us on this crazy ride together. A life of love and peace.

Mindful Monday

I like to live my life with a sense of magic always intact. Always believing in the veil. Always waiting for the beautiful, rare moments when it is lifted for my heart and eyes and the expanse and beauty of life unfolds before me. But it feels gone right now. And so I think of this poem and try to remember...


Things To Think

Think in ways you've never thought before.
If the phone rings, think of it carrying a message
Larger than anything you've ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he's carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you've never seen.

When someone knocks on the door, think that he's about
To give you something large: tell you that you're forgiven,
Or that it's not necessary to work all the time, or that it's
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

~Robert Bly

Mindful Monday

Wouldn't it be amazing if we adults could show our true selves like toddlers do? They lay their emotional cards on the table, no bullshit, and say here I am. Take it or leave it. If a toddler is mad, you know it. If they are happy, you know it. I'm not saying they aren't multi-layered, complicated beasts. They are. And even though you can't always know what's behind their actions, you usually know what they are feeling.

I'm struggling right now. Physically, I'm a mess. I will address that in more detail at some point on this blog, but not until later, not right now. My brain is running in circles, I'm exhausted in body and spirit. But only handful of people in my life know it. Why? What am I saving myself, or them, from?

I like being strong. I also like being thought of as strong. I don't want to seem like a complainer, a whiner. I have so much.

But to be vulnerable enough to say here I am. Take it or leave it. (But please, please take it.) There's wisdom there, yes?

I watch Yonas opening himself up to us, trusting us enough to show us where he is, letting it all hang out, and I am reminded to open up. It's hard. It feels scary sometimes, to show your hand. But it's good.

So when my sister asks me how I'm doing I say, Not good.
And when I need to have the same conversation with Erik for the 100th time in a week, I don't stop myself or my tears. I open up, I feel the weight, and I am thankful for vulnerability in the face of pain and fear because it softens my heart.

And because the only way is through and there are no gold medals for doing it alone.

Mindful Monday

"I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops."

~Stephen Jay Gould

Mindful Monday

I thought I'd sit down to write a Mindful Monday post, since it had been so long since the last one. The problem is I have no idea what to write about. I'm flying by the seat of my pants. I'm doing a lot of that lately. My plan is to just see what comes...

If my children are my best mindfulness teachers, (and let's face it, nothing brings you face to face with all your Stuff and forces you to hang out with it like children do) then Yonas is my Professor. I have to stay open and aware of the ever changing tide of emotions this boy brings. Sometimes I can hardly bear it. Most of the time I see exactly what he needs from me and most of the time all I want to do is give it to him. And sometimes I really don't want to give at all, but I do it anyway. And then sometimes, I watch myself watch him, knowing what he needs, knowing what I'm feeling, aware of everything, mindful, and yet. And yet, it feels torturous and tedious and I struggle to not head out the door and walk the few blocks to sit under the highway bridge by the railroad tracks and take up a new life. And then sometimes mindfulness is nowhere to be found and all I want is chocolate or tequila.

That's how it is, this parenting gig. Or at least, that's how it is for me. That's how it has been from the beginning, when Ava was an infant, or Eden a toddler, Safa right now. But because they've been with us from the beginning, the stakes aren't as high if I check out from time to time. If I don't respond in the most open-hearted, mindful way, we have a history of learned love and attachment and trust to carry us to the next moment. They know I will listen, come, comfort, tend, and care. They know in the deepest parts of who they are that we are a we.

Yonas has no baseline knowledge of this we-ness. So those moments when I can't seem to open my heart enough to engage the way I know I should, those carry far more weight with him than they do with the girls. Those pitiful moments like the one we had today where even though he could have absolutely gotten up from his seated position on his own, for some reason he needed me to help him. And for some reason in that moment this admittedly pull-yourself-up-by-the-boot-straps kind of mama just couldn't do it. So we sat in some kind of ridiculous stalemate, his needs bumping up against mine, the oldest of human dances. And he cried. And I sat by him. I said, "You can do it." (Which I should have probably just been saying to myself.) I offered him a hand to reach for. But he wouldn't take it. So I pointed out a roly-poly instead. And I broke a stick. I looked at his fat belly, the swollen mosquito bites on the back of his neck. We watched the roly-poly together. The wind blew. I noticed the yellow dusting of pollen over my arms. I heard the girls playing. I saw how I wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else. I noticed how I wanted a glass of wine. How I still wasn't just helping this kid up. He said roly-poly. We laughed about it, this crazy gray bug that becomes a ball.

And then it happened. At the same moment he began to stand, I reached for him. And I picked him up and we went inside, a mama and her boy, both doing the best we can.

Mindful Monday, Four Days Late

Last week, when I was ready to head for Belize or Costa Rica, (somewhere warm with beaches, I hadn't worked out the details), I kept analyzing where I was emotionally and asking myself, "What happened? What went wrong?"

But the very simple answer is this: Nothing went wrong. It just went.

I do know some things that made it harder. We were matched with Yonas on March 31st, 2009. We waited almost a year to bring him home. We spent the majority of the past year filled with longing for our son, waiting for the time that we could hold him in our arms. It's not that we were unprepared for all the challenges; we took classes, read books. It's just that I imagined that the joy and relief of having him home would trump the challenges. But they didn't. That's a gross feeling, but an emotionally honest one.

I will also confess to thinking that I would be immune to the grip of Post-Adoption Depression. I'd read about it on the forum. I'd read Melissa Faye Greene's piece on Post-Adoption Panic. I had no judgment, only empathy. I just never in a million years thought it would touch me. I was wrong.

I also knew about the food issues that many post-institutionalized children face. But I naively thought that because Yonas had been in care for so long, that because he hadn't experienced the kind of hunger many children coming home from Ethiopia had, that those issues would be minor. I was wrong. Really, really wrong.

I underestimated how much grieving I had left to do for our family of five. I have grieved every change our family has undergone. Every incarnation has brought a what-are-we-doing-what-have-we-done? feeling. I just thought I'd worked through most of it. I was wrong.

In essence, I misread some stuff. I romanticized some stuff (who me??). I thought I was more capable than I was. And here is the kicker: I am not the person I thought I was.

I'm not head over heels in love, I'm not full of patience, I don't have the answers for every challenge Yonas lays down at my feet. And that's incredibly painful.

It's also really okay. I don't have to be more than I am (even though I really wish I could be).
I would love to know that every move I made was bringing us all closer to emotional health and peace. I would love to have a crystal ball that would reflect back to me our shiny, happy, healthy future selves.

When I was in my twenties I wrote on my bedroom wall: "Leap, and the net will appear." There is no crystal ball. But I'm doing everything I can to trust the net will appear.

Mindful Monday: Mindful Parenting-Part One

This short mantra is the best and perhaps most succinct way I know to describe what mindful parenting looks like:

With each step I take,
My child's heart beats.

Mindfulness is a non-judgemental awareness of each moment. Not what happened an hour ago. Not where you need to be or what you want to get done. When we extend mindfulness to parenting, we aim to see our children and ourselves more clearly in any given moment.

The biggest goal I have on this lovely, chaotic path of motherhood is to be fully present, fully mindful with my children. I fail daily. But I remember and try daily too.

It means that I stop what I'm doing so I can hear what a child has to say about a leaf, even when they are interrupting me. It means that when they fall apart, I try to remember to stop and think about what's driving the behavior instead of reacting to the behavior. It means that I can stop and remember that for as ugly or wild as things can get, it will pass. More importantly, it means that I remember that the beauty is just as fleeting as the ugliness, and there will be a time when their small hands on my face or sweet whispers in my ear are no longer part of my daily life.

Mindful parenting means not only being gentle and compassionate with my children, but also with myself. It means aiming to be a witness to the anger or tumult or sadness in us without becoming too carried away by it or trying to change it. It means getting real comfortable with just the way things are in any given moment.

In other words, it's hard. But if we can relax into it, surrender a little beyond our comfort zone, it gets easier. Just be where you are. Don't overthink, get wrapped up in, or attached to any given moment. Make friends with it, sit down beside the anger, boredom, guilt or worry.

As Pema Chodron says, "Drop your story line."

Mindful parenting looks like this: If I can "drop the story line" of Ashley, whatever that is in any given moment, and just be with my children, then we're all better off. I'm better able to meet their needs, be the mother I want to be, and intuit what they really need.

It feels like this: connected.

And nothing I do as a mother means more to me than that. I once read that if you want to know what your relationship with your child will be like when they are adults, look at your relationship with them now. That's enough to keep me on my toes and working to bring mindfulness to my parenting. They are children but for a short time, they will be adults for far longer. I want them to like being around me when they are grown.

As the saying goes, with children, the days are long and the years short.

Mindful parenting helps me remember and honor this truth in the long, hard days, and will one day help carry me through when I look up and the years with my young children are over. I want to remember the way Eden's newborn peach-head felt in my hands, the way Ava looked at the bubbles like they were a special magic made just for her, the sound of Safa's voice in my ear.

The days are long and hard. I want to stay open to their magic too. I want to look up and see that I moved through these days with awareness. Because before I know it, they will have turned into years.

Mindful Monday: A Proper Cup of Tea

sam sa ra Sanskrit word meaning going or wandering through, undergoing transformation. In Buddhism, the pain and suffering of life and the journey of living it.

"Hold the sadness and pain of samsara in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. Then the warrior can make a proper cup of tea."

~Chogyam Trungpa

Mindful Monday: Expanded

I began a post Thursday morning to tell you that Erik was meeting with someone from our congressman's office at the urging of our specialist to try to help speed up the processing of our adoption case. I didn't finish that post. Later that afternoon we received a letter from USCIS, which is the governmental agency that processes international adoptions. It said our update was incomplete. The one we sent three weeks ago after the Social Work Scramble. Erik quickly made an appointment online and drove to the USCIS field office in San Antonio Friday morning. He met with with the officer that has been handling our case. It doesn't change the time we've lost, but we did put a human face to our names. A desperate father wanting help to bring his son home is hard to forget.

If you only recently began reading this blog, you might not even know we were adopting a son for as little as I've been able to write about Yonas lately. You might not know how my heart aches for him. How much I miss him. How I can't stare at his picture anymore. How I no longer look at the clock in the living room that reads Ethiopian time multiple times a day and wonder what he's doing. You wouldn't know I can't go into his room without my stomach hurting.

Sitting 9 months post referral with no travel date in sight, it begins to feel like a fantasy. Or maybe not a fantasy, but something so far away, so nebulous, that I begin to lose my sense of it. I begin to feel as though I've made the whole thing up.

Sometime over the summer, I made peace with this process. I was full of genuine grace and patience. I could see and believe and trust. Last Thursday night it all fell away. It broke me. I'm a "where's the lesson here?" kind of gal. Because if I'm struggling, then I'll be damned if I'm not going to try to see the bigger picture, find the lesson. So I've been searching. And I can't find anything. But I have an annoying, gnawing suspicion that it's the searching that's enough. I don't want it to be. I want to shut down, to fill up on tequila and dark chocolate and movies. And I have done that a little bit. But what I see through the lens of my busted heart right now is a hint of that idea that all of it; the waiting, the uncertainty, the love and sympathetic tears of friends and family, our pain, the occasional shutting down for self-preservation, the moments of grace; it's all just how it's supposed to be.

And it kills me. And it doesn't feel bearable. But it is, just because it has to be.

Mindful Monday

It is my intention to keep Mindful Monday posts short and leave space for people to get something out of them without mucking things up with too much of my own interpretation or laying my baggage down on whatever the gist of the post is. Today I'm going to depart from that plan a bit and talk about my weekend.

A while back Erik and I negotiated a weekend-off trade. A last hurrah before bring Yonas home. He went to Big Bend a few weeks ago for some backpacking/hiking on some primitive trails. This past weekend it was my turn, and I had the pleasure of spending the weekend with some of my favorite women at a condo by the lake. It was perfection, save the friends that couldn't be there. I didn't want it to end. On the drive home I felt a little panicky. I had fantasies of not stopping, just driving until I couldn't anymore and the finally checking in to a motel. Alone.

I felt awful really. I actually started to cry in the car when I hit our neighborhood. The tedium came rushing back. The constancy of need. The reality of searching and then finding yourself pushed into in the tiniest spaces of life, a flagging shadow of the woman you meant to be. Did I mention I felt awful? Guilty? A whole weekend alone and I couldn't come back filled with gratitude and a full well.

As we talked later, I told Erik maybe it's like this: imagine the disturbance of pouring water into a deep well. Water sploshes the sides; bubbles, ripples. The re-entry after a break is this way. The water takes time to settle and become still again. The pressure re-distributes along the sides of the well, things shift and finally settle. The well is solid and full again. The energy has shifted for me. I have slipped back in to reality, a full and quiet well. The trick, we all know, is to not let your well get so empty that it's such a shock to feel the water again.

I leave you this Monday with this quote:

"It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts."

~K.T. Jong

Wishing you all some silence and truth today.

Mindful Monday

I feel like I said my piece to NaBloPoMo yesterday. Today I found out about NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. That's right. Write a NOVEL in 30 days. Maybe next year...And I might need to be prepared to spend Christmas on my own.

One benefit of NaBloPoMo is that it got me wondering just how close to everyday I could post, and how I might structure postings.

From now on Mondays will be "Mindful Mondays". I'm counting this last day of NaBloPoMo as the first Mindful Monday...



"When our eyes see our hands doing the work of our hearts, the circle of creation is completed inside us, the doors of our souls fly open, and love steps forth to heal everything in sight."

~Michael Bridge

I'm not entirely sure what the work of my heart is yet. I'm pretty sure it involves writing. And being in service. And children.

And paying enough attention to myself to figure out what the work of my heart is and how to walk the path with my eyes and heart open.