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Thoughts

Peace by piece (let’s make it a thing)

February 13, 2018

I have, through a series of fortunate events, been introduced to and befriended a mindfulness expert, Dr. Dave. I just love the guy. He’s one of these folks who holds people with his eyes and controls your attention through the inflection in and pace of his voice. He slows way down when he’s making the point he most wants you to absorb. It’s like performance art, watching this guy explain the overthinking mind, I tell ya.

All that to say, he’s a pretty captivating soul, but mostly, I love the guy because he does beautiful shit like this …

A few weeks back, a group of us were working on a video project with Dr. Dave at his house, which is always kind of a rewarding exercise in itself because his home is very curated and collected and cool. It spawns a lot of creativity, which is my currency of choice. Plus, interview someone on a chair in a lobby and then interview them on their couch in their living room and just see which comes out more engaging. It’s a pathetic contest.

Anyway, we were standing in his kitchen, contemplating his gracious offer to make coffee, when he threw a standard Dr. Dave curveball out. “Guys, I want to start today by setting an intention.” Aw yeah, here we go! Intentions! [Oprah voice] He reached into his pocket and pulled out three puzzle pieces. He placed one very deliberately in my hand, then each of my coworkers’ hands.

“I want you to look at the glossy side of the piece. What colors are on it? What textures did the artist capture? What bigger image might this piece be a part of?”

We all obediently ran our fingers over our pieces, quietly, pregnantly.

“OK, now turn it over. What do you notice about the other side? What does it feel like?”

We complied. It looked and felt like cardboard.

“Now, I want you think about a word. One word. I want that word to be your intention for the month of February. Think about something you want to work on or focus on. What is your word?”

We only get one?

“You know,” he continued, “sometimes it can be hard to see the big picture when we’re only focused on one small part of it. But if you set your intention, it can help clear out some of the noise and give clarity.”

Classic Dr. Dave. That insightful son of a …

This was the shot from the gun at the starting line for me. Not the idea of setting an intention. I mean, I employ mantras in loads of different ways: To get through a long run … “one more step, one more step, one more step …” Or a long car ride with three tiny, disgruntled passengers … “you’ll miss these days, you’ll miss these days, you’ll miss these days … Or even to walk away from breakroom brownies … “skinny jeans, skinny jean, skinny jeans …” But this was more complex.

Strap on your seat belts, guys. We’re going full speed into Metaphor Town!

Let’s say life is a puzzle, with, we’ll call it 100 different pieces (if you’re lucky), and each piece is a different intention; A different facet of your character, awareness or behavior you’d like to strengthen. If you invested a bit of yourself in every single one of those pieces, you’d feel pretty great about the project by the time it all came together and it was ready to be put away, right? Do you smell what I’m steppin’ in? What Dr. Dave was steppin’ in?

You can set an intention for the day.

Set an intention for the week.

For the month.

For the year.

You could take everything apart, figure out what needs fixing or focus and then fix or focus on it. Piece by piece. Day by day. Week by week. Month by month. Year by year. However much you can break off and handle at one time, handle it. Maybe it’s one small thing – like an hour more sleep – and that’s all you want to focus on for 365 days. I think that would be lovely!

This whole thing – this puzzle – might just be the secret to realistic change. It’s a guide to showing yourself grace and getting down into the gritty work in digestible, manageable doses. Every yahoo with a 50+ piece jigsaw under their belt knows that big results don’t come together by dumping the whole mess out on a table and going hog wild. No! Things really only start to come together when you have a plan. A strategy. They come from pulling all the edge pieces out first and starting there, maybe from a corner.

Yes, a corner!

Think of what your corners might be … C’mon, what are your biggies? For me, it’s patience, presence, health and growth. If I can get to a good place in those four areas, I think I can love with as much love as my heart can hold and live with as much life as my spirit can imagine. Maybe start there. With your four corners. The “need to haves”. Then … break it out from there with the “nice to haves” that tie back to your “need to haves”. What are the other pieces of the puzzle for you?

My intention for February is “awake”. (Remember, Dr. Dave only gave us one word.) It’s a state of being that often eludes me. I’m upright. I’m dressed for the part. I’m crossing everything off the list, but I am not always seeing things. I’m not always tuned into the people I’m doing things for or the reasons I’m doing things to begin with. I’m a frequent flier on the autopilot express, and my intention is to quit hitting snooze and wake the F up. Most importantly, the word “awake” ties back to one of my four corners: Presence.

So, now it’s your turn. I mean … if you want it to be. You could even go so far as to buy an actual puzzle from an actual store and write actual words on the backs of actual pieces. It’s your call. Blow it up and put it back together, word by word. An intention isn’t a contract or obligation to anybody but yourself. You can pick what those pieces say and you can pick your pace for putting it confidently into place before picking up the next one.

It’s your life, your puzzle. Eventually, it all comes together.

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Mindfulness

Wake me up so I don’t miss it

July 26, 2017

“Promise you’ll wake us up,” JoJo and Spike say, their eyes burning into mine. “Even if we’re dead asleep and you think we’ll be mad. We don’t want to miss your hugs and kisses.”

Oh, these accidental, magnificent insights.

My chicks have made an art form out of changing my crooked, bleak perspectives. I think kids in general have this way of sifting through the litter box of life and coming up with golden turds of unabashed happiness. It’s just something they’re born with that erodes a tiny bit every time someone tells them the Tooth Fairy is creepy or they watch an episode of Hannah Montana or That’s So Raven, or whatever preadolescent dribble the Disney channel feels like shoving down their throats.

I’m definitely making a conscious effort to catch all of their organic amazement before it evaporates entirely. I find, when I forget what wonder looks like, I can just watch their little faces during a thunderstorm. How their eyes widen every time a hot shard of electricity pierces the racing clouds or a rib-shaking ripple of thunder cracks down from the heavens. “God got a strike!” I tell them. “And all the angels took His picture.” Their instinctive fears spread to smirks and we watch until it passes. In these moments, my own sense of wonder starts to whisper from under a pile of rubble in my soul. “Help me … I’m still in here.”

But I want more. Without waiting for a temperamental warm front.

I keep coming back to it … Wake me up! Even if you think it’s going to make me mad. I don’t want to miss the hugs and kisses.

There was this afternoon a few summers ago, when I went to pick JoJo up from preschool, and Spike gasped and pointed down at the ground. She would have been about 3 at the time. “What?” I inquired. “What’s wrong?” JoJo gasped then, too, meeting the object of her sister’s jubilation. My eyes darted back and forth across the asphalt. What was I missing? Finally, “It’s a rainbow river!” JoJo offered. And there it was: ROYGBIV floating right there in a common oil spill. I didn’t see it. I saw someone’s misfortune; a pool of malfunction. That’s what I saw.

Why didn’t I see the rainbow?

The question bothered me.

But it’s not hard to answer. It’s so easy, in this life, with its pace and its pitfalls, to focus on things like moldy strawberries straight from the store, and my constant view of the tops of the heads of my tech-tethered loved ones, and the fact that the bathroom at work always smells like AquaNet, diarrhea and orange tictacs, and fitted sheets that refuse to dutifully cover all four corners of the mattress the way their packaging promised they would. But focusing on all the bad fruit and the poop paradise and other crap certainly doesn’t make any of it go away. A few years back, when I took an honest inventory, I realized I was giving all of the bruises on the apple of my life way too much attention.

And once I noticed my pessimism – once I named it – then I could finally start shutting it down.

How did I start shutting it down? Well, I decided to say “yes” more than “no”. It’s my attempt at a more spontaneous existence. I’ve been taking the sweet seconds to smile at my babies’ white tushies striding on top of their brown summer legs. Not always, but more often than not, I look over my shoulder at the sunset on my runs. And (this is the hard one) I’ve been pausing before I begin spewing obscenities and cursing people’s small-minded bullshit, and instead, using these moments as opportunities for grace. All these podcasts about how unique every person’s walk on this earth is, and how we can Make America Kind Again, are really starting to sink in. Still, I’d say I’m only at about a 65% adoption rate on this last one.

It takes practice to push all the fat winter flies and ingrown toenails of life aside and offer a larger portion of the pie to the positive stuff. But it is possible. I mean, the reality is that, even on the darkest days, there’s always a blue sky right on the other side of the clouds. (That’s some cross stitch shit right there, but you can still quote me on it.) I think once you make that decision, once you commit to think about what’s on the other side of the gray haze, you’re one step closer to peace.

Let’s be real, rain is always going to come. If every day was sunny we’d just take it for granted, right? But when those drops start to fall, you have a choice. You can pout inside a smudged window pane or grab your polka dot umbrella, some charming galoshes and a better attitude. I’m really trying to invest in the galoshes. It makes me like myself better.

And everyone else, too. The older I get, the lower my tolerance becomes for the pouters on the other side of the pane. The world is hard and scary and diseased. I. GET. IT. But I don’t need to sulk and soak in that sad bath with you every single day. It’s exhausting and, quite frankly, draining. Awareness is healthy. But when the heaviness of it all becomes an obsession, you’ve really just given up your power and turned me off. I’m learning to nourish the space between myself and the people with toxic tendencies, so that it can organically grow and buffer my soul.

Like anything, some exceptions will apply. Life can’t be like a season of Gilmore Girls. Things are going to happen. But, from this sunnier shore, I’m finding that pain can be beautiful, even healing. Long talks with someone who really needs your ear can be life-changing, for both parties. And that the uncomfortable stuff can be a powerful vehicle for personal evolution.

Is it all rose bushes and marigolds in my own yard all the time? Ah, no. And I don’t ignore the great tragedies of this world either. I don’t dismiss the just causes, or devastating diagnosis, or disturbing headlines. I don’t pretend to be so apathetic I can turn away from the morally corrupt circus playing out before us all in real time. It’s all still there. I didn’t abandon it. You can’t abandon it. But I’m finding that the more I lean toward the bright side, the easier it is to find the light switch on the darker days. The more I focus on fostering joy and putting a tight bandage on the infectious carcinogens that strangle my heart to contain them, the better off I seem to be. And the more powerful I feel.

One of my favorite people to talk to on the planet, recently told me that 99.9% of the time, your body breathes you. It’s automatic and involuntary. But when you breathe your body – when you take a moment to feel your stomach rise and fall and notice how your hair tickles your shoulders, and feel your daughter’s soft cheek against your own – that’s when you tap into the good stuff.

So, I’m into all that. Breathing my body and my people. Detaining the toxic bullshit and its carriers. And jumping into the joy parade. It’s my 3-step process for obtaining eternal optimism.

If you see me looking away – from an adorable baby with a mouth full of spit bubbles, or my girls smelling flowers or a sunrise painted with angelic brush strokes – just give me a little nudge. And dear God, please wake me up. Even if you think I’ll be mad. Because I never want to miss the hugs and kisses. I never want to miss the love. Or this life.

Mindfulness

Working on my core

February 28, 2017

Let’s start with a game.

I’m going to ask you to pick three words. The first three words that pop into your mind, OK? The prompt is: What drives your day?

Three words … and … go.

Got em? OK, what were they?

Full disclosure, so it’s all out in the open, my three words were: work, schedule and kids

Don’t forget your words.

So, I wanna talk about this book I read. Because we NEED to talk about this book I read. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, the dope pages of “Present Over Perfect.”

Present. Over. Perfect.

This audiobook came in for me at the library on the same day the Lauren Graham book, “Talking As Fast As I Can” came in. I was getting ready to leave for my Florida trip, I wanted something light, and so I opted for Lauren first. Now I’m watching Gilmore Girls because, let me just save you the suspense, the book is likely one trillion times better if you are watching or have watched the series. Which I hadn’t. So now I am.

Anyway, her mouth was really moving because it went super quick. Having wrapped the Gilmore diaries, I looked down the Tuesday after my quick Tampa weekend and saw the other audiobook, “Present Over Perfect” sitting on my passenger seat. I’d almost forgotten about it. I put in the first CD and a sweet voice filled the cabin of my SUV. Minutes later I was crying, clutching my chest and holding my breath. I think I was nodding, too.

Um, wait, did I write this? No, I didn’t write this. I’m not that good. This was instead a classic case of my very favorite thing; when it feels like the author, in this instance Shauna Niequist, chose her words specifically for me, her attentive audience of one. Shauna is, naturally, part of the poignant sorority that boasts the likes of Brene Brown and Glennon Doyle Melton and Jen Hatmaker that I so wholeheartedly worship. These truthtellers have got it goin’ on, you guys, I’m tellin ya.

Sobbing like the latest Bachelor cast-off after just 5 pages is a promising sign. And it proved a match. Completing this book in its entirety was like having a conversation with myself after we hadn’t spoken in years. It drudged up a lot of honest crap I’d been denying or shrugging off for years. It was a mirror I’d tucked in the back of my closet and now I was staring right at all the blemishes and cracks and imperfections.

Let’s dive right in.

“Present is living with your feet firmly grounded in reality, pale and uncertain as it may seem. Present is choosing to believe that your own life is worth investing deeply in, instead of waiting for some rare miracle or fairytale. Present means we understand that the here and now is sacred, sacramental, threaded through with divinity even in its plainness. Especially in its plainness.”

Let it soak in. Let it marinate and send sweet reflections through your scattered mind. But don’t linger too long. This is good. Really good. But Shauna was just getting started here. She was toying with me; Dangling her heart-squeezing verbiage in front of me like a gorgeous orange carrot to a tired, famished bunny, so I’d wrap my front paws around them and she could just then … at the perfect moment … yank me into her web of truth.

“Many of us, myself, included, considered our souls necessary collateral damage to get done the things we felt we simply had to get done – because of other people’s expectations, because we want to be known as highly capable, because we’re trying to outrun an inner emptiness. And for a while we don’t even realize the compromise we’ve made. We’re on autopilot, chugging through the day on fear and caffeine, checking things off the list, falling into bed without even a real thought or feeling or connection all day long, just a sense of having made it through. … I don’t want to get to the end of my life and look back and realize that the best thing about me was I was organized.”

Or capable, or a great multitasker, or punctual or anal. Remember your words?

“But what I eventually realized is that the return on investment was not what I’d imagined, and that the expectations were only greater and greater. When you devote yourself to being known as the most responsible person anyone knows, more and more people call on you to be that highly responsible person. That’s how it works. So the armload of things I was carrying became higher and higher, heavier and heavier, more and more precarious.”

My current currency is completion. A demand comes in, I respond and then I’m paid in checkmarks. I can take something off the list. I can crawl into bed knowing I’m rich in lines drawn through the middle of pressing matters like ordering new checks, refilling the dog’s prescription and sending peanut-free, gluten-free, sugar-free cookies in for the school fundraiser. I’m walking through my life collecting chores and calls and duties and no one is keeping track of the gold stars I get in return, how many pieces of flair I have on my lapel. Except me.

My collateral damage can be tallied in many forms, but perhaps saddest of all is my connection with my husband. This is not to say that we aren’t in a good place or we’re having problems, but the life and the routine I’ve built for our tribe certainly has the potential to break what has always been so good about us. The rich stuff. The stay-up-late-talking-and-laughing-over-gin-and-tonics stuff. My hand to God, he sent me a calendar invite to “hang out” this past Sunday. A calendar invite! I accepted and then immediately felt the asshole aspect of the situation rain down upon me.

The other day in meditation, I silently asked myself if I was giving enough to my marriage. On the drive to work that morning, I saw a “Henry’s Plumbing” van. I’ve never seen a “Henry’s Plumbing” van in this town, or in my life and now a toilet tender’s business bearing my husband’s name was turning in front of me. Just 24 hours later, a sign we kept in our bathroom that said, “I love you because _____” fell down. You know, the kind you write on with a dry erase marker? We’d had it for years. We’d leave silly and sweet little notes on it from time to time. Well, it fell off the wall. Gabrielle Bernstein talked a lot in her book, “The Universe Has Your Back” about signs. Ask for them. Look for them. Be open to them. Well, I got three of them in as many days.

I made the comment to Hank that I often feel like we’re business partners, particularly during the week. We are tending to our tasks and checking in on the progress of various projects. “How’s that poop test result coming, Jones?” “Doctor said to have Sloppy Joan lay off the corn kernels, Banks.” And so on. I can’t pinpoint when I committed to full-on ruining all of the things that made us fun and all give-a-damn about everything. I just know that it happened in spite of our best efforts to stay cool.

“It seems to me that one of the great hazards is quick love, which is actually charm. We get used to smiling, hugging, bantering, practicing good eye contact. And it’s easier than true, slow, awkward and painful connection with someone who sees all the worst parts of you. Your act is easy. Being with you, deeply with, is difficult.”

“It is better to be loved than admired. It is better to be truly known and seen and taken care of by a small tribe than adored by strangers who think they know you in a meaningful way.”

“What kills a soul? Exhaustion, secret keeping, image management.
And what brings a soul back from the dead? Honesty, connection, grace”

“The world will tell you how to live, if you let it. Don’t let it. Take up your space. Raise your voice. Sing your song. This is your chance to make or remake a life that thrills you.”

I know, brothers and sisters. I know.

This particular thread running throughout the pages was the big one for me; The slap that jolted the reality to the surface for me. If you think of your social connections like an onion, the center is likely comprised of your husband, kids, immediate family and ride or dies. Next, would be good friends and extended family. Then we’re looking at friends. Then acquaintances and gym buddies, and so on. As you work your way out through the layers, the connections get softer and softer. But what happens, and what has been happening with me for years, is we spend so much time committing, saying yes, donating our time and our talents to the people in the outer layers that we exhaust all our good stuff.

By the time I leave work, take care of any outlying obligations, make dinner and get through the kids’ checklist of “necessities” for the next day, I certainly don’t have the mental lightness to roll around and play tickle torture. I am depleted and primed to fail.

And while this all seems to be the norm these days, and I know that my priorities, in all their backwards glory, are not uncommon for mothers, the whole thing really is super freaking messed up, right? Because I volunteer to help causes that are important but not that close to me personally, I miss hearing JoJo’s recount of her bee experiment that day. And we all know those stories are always best the first time around. Because I said I could step up my freelance game for extra sitter money, I rush through the bedtime ritual and feel annoyed that my five year old dare ask for “one more butterfly kiss.”

It’s a mess.

My flow is all fucked up.

It’s clogged with boulders of bullshit excuses and obligations made to third- and fourth-layer acquaintances. I have to learn to choose no when yes means less of the good stuff. Less cuddles, less sanity, less conversation, less eye contact. I have to learn to say no even though the yes is wearing pretty clothes. Even if it means more money or smart connections. I have to learn that if yes doesn’t feel good in the moment, it’s not going to feel good on a Thursday night at 9:30 when the laundry needs folded and Sloppy Joan has gotten out of bed for the 14th time.

“I almost left her behind. I almost lost her when I started to believe that constant motion would save me. That outrunning everything would keep me safe. You cannot be a mystic when you’re hustling all the time. you cannot be a poet when you start to speak in certainties. You can’t stay tender and connected when you hurl yourself thru life like being shot out of a canon, your speed a weapon you wield to keep yourself safe. The natural world is so breathtakingly beautiful, people are so weird and awesome and loving and life-giving. Why then did I try to hard for so long to get away without feeling or living deeply?”

Go back to your words. Think about what they mean to you and what you wish they were instead. Because, why not wish for what you want?

I want to move work to love, and schedule to passion, and kids to … well, the kids can stay. But I want to stop letting responsibility be my defining asset. So I can get it all done? What’s the good in any of that if I’m miserable? Who’s keeping score anyway?

It’s time to shake things up and slow things down and really, truly, deeply focus on the middle of my onion. People are always saying they need to work on their core, strengthen their core, build from their core. Well … there ya go. This is the kind of core work I need. Screw abs, I want to be present for Spike’s story hour and the chicks’ gymnastics show in the front room, with Sloppy Joan wearing her “bathing soup” as a leotard.

These are the people I so desperately want to hold close to me. Because at the end of the day, I’d rather be focused than frenzied. I’d rather be late to a meeting than missing as a mother. I’d rather be known for my mess than tidy and tired.

I’d rather be present than perfect.

Thoughts

Do you have the time?

September 23, 2016

“I myself am full of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” – Augusten Burroughs

When someone finds a way to say what you’ve been feeling, in a way you never thought to say it, but wish you had, it is the most bittersweet validation. Hearing your shortcomings echoed back through someone else’s voice and experience is like a doctor telling you that weird sperm-shaped mole is totally normal. Of course the bitter is the bite of not coming up with the words yourself.

If you follow this blog, you know I’ve been ingesting a healthy amount of non-fiction gospel lately, crafted by the minds of, among others, Shonda Rhimes and Glennon Doyle Melton. More often than not, you read these amazing works and then they leave your mind just as swiftly as they swept in and shook everything up. They get pushed out by PTO meeting notes and potluck dish assignments and lyrics from the Storybots song. But I’m finding the messages that were truly meant for me always seep back in.

Driving home from the gym this morning, I watched the sun beginning to rise and started ticking through my lists: The things I didn’t get done yesterday. The things I needed to do today. The things I would most certainly put off until next week. The shortcuts I could take. And I was reminded of sweet Shonda. In her commencement speech at Dartmouth College, she spoke about motherhood and working.

“Shonda, how do you do it all?” they would ask. And she would respond, “I don’t.” The truth according to the TGIT maven, and every mother, I think, everywhere, is that if we are succeeding in one area of our lives, we are likely failing miserably in another. She said it. She spoke my truth with words that I will likely borrow a million times from today until forever.

I am most certainly experiencing success in several areas of my life at the moment. And just as certainly, I am experiencing some failure … or rather, I am failing. I will not only own that last statement, I’ll pay for it outright in cash. If I were to take the personal and professional buckets of tasks, both mandatory and aspirational, that fill my days, and put a penny in the ones where I felt like I had killed it, I might have enough to buy a pouch of Big League Chew by the end of the month (Do they still make that?).

Did I handle that presentation well? Yes. Drop a penny into the professional bucket. Did I spend enough time with the chicks? Never. No. Skip that bucket. Did I get dinner on the table? Yes. Penny. Did I get my 5-mile training run in? Um … skip.

Then, as if someone were pouring cake batter over Swiss cheese, the voice of Glennon Doyle Melton oozed into my brain and filled in the holes. (I should mention here that I’m currently listening to her audiobook, Carry On, Warrior. I don’t just randomly hear Glennon’s voice.)

“There are two different types of time. Chronos time is what we live in. It’s regular time, it’s one minute at a time, it’s staring down the clock till bedtime time, it’s ten excruciating minutes in the Target line time, it’s four screaming minutes in time out time, it’s two hours till daddy gets home time. Chronos is the hard, slow passing time we parents often live in.

Then there’s Kairos time. Kairos is God’s time. It’s time outside of time. It’s metaphysical time. Kairos is those magical moments in which time stands still. I have a few of those moments each day, and I cherish them.”

And I was struck, right then and there, with more beautifully bittersweet words! The lights came on and I said, “amen!” out loud so the whole empty car could hear me. I am a creature who crowds herself with hours of toxic chronos time but so, so desperately wants that divine, illusive kairos time. You might be, too. Let’s work through some examples.

Laundry is chronos time.
Staring at your baby sleeping is kairos time.

Wiping baseboards is chronos.
Cuddling is kairos.

Monday morning staff meetings are chronos.
After school stories are kairos.

Making a grocery list is chronos.
A glass of wine with your husband is kairos.

The morning routine is chronos.
Hiking through mountains at sunrise is kairos.

My initial assessment has revealed that these two classifications of time, defined by the Greeks however many years ago, so accurately describe the divide between pleasure and pain that they were obviously intended for me to discover on this dark September morning. The worst part is, in many ways, it’s self-inflicted. I offer. I raise my hand. I sign up. I put my name on the line next to, “volunteer”.

Where does that come from? Am I a pleaser? Do I fear I’ll get bored? I mean … I should know I am NOT going to get bored.

I can not do it all. Shonda is right. I can not succeed in all of the areas that matter to me all at the same time. But now I know who to blame.

I blame the chronos.

Kairos means, “the right opportune moment”. And maybe that’s the problem. When, dear sisters (and brothers) in your day does it ever cross your mind that this, yes this, is the right opportune moment to stop everything and look at your sweet little girl’s endearing chocolate-covered cheeks? Or notice that dimple in your husband’s chin? Or admire a tree with particularly interesting branches? I know … right between picking up your middle child from daycare and burning dinner. If that time is too tight, you could always squeeze in some kairos while picking clothes up off the floor or replying to that 20-response-long email thread or prepping food for tomorrow’s friendship day snack.

In my world, and I’m guessing in yours, there doesn’t appear to be any kairos (opportune) time. But, as Glennon would say, that’s why you have to make it. No one is going to make it for you. No one is going to grab your feet and put the roses under your nose. The world is always going to go as fast as you let it. You might not set the pace, but you choose to keep up or just let it pass right by.

They’ve said it so well. In so many ways. In so many words. These beautiful women who sat down at their keyboards and were courageous enough to spell out the struggles of trying to do it all and trying to savor it all. They lent their voices to so many who want to scream but don’t know what it sounds like.

I can’t do it all. I can’t succeed at home and kill it at work. Or dominate in the office and still be the mother I want to be. Most days. But it’s the trying that they see … those little girls of mine. It’s the trying and the reaching and the ambition that they notice. All I can do is try to settle into a good pace, sprinkle in a bit more kairos, put pennies in the buckets and pray they’re lucky.

Mindfulness

Drop the damn bananas

July 21, 2016

What if I just let go?
What if I dropped all the weight, right here, right now?
What if I managed to slip away?

Like the majority of my fellow estimated 152 million bloggers pounding the keys somewhere in the world right now, this particular platform is not my primary source of income. [I’ll pause here so you can recover from that shock. We good? OK.] Yes, I have an honest-to-goodness 9-to-5 job in the corporate world. You know, the one. Where women wear smart skirt suits with white tennis shoes and everyone keeps a carpal tunnel brace in their top drawer for days when it’s damp outside. This is just my side gig. My alter ego.

One of the perks of my big girl job is that I get to do a lot of writing and a lot of editing. One of my favorite people to work with is my main man Dr. Dave. You know that dance you do when engaging in a conversation with a hyper-intelligent human being … When you nod on the outside and say things like, “How interesting,” and “Huh. Really?” but inside your brain is like an Amazing Race contestant frantically trying to put the puzzle together? But then, like Steve drawing the final hint on Blue’s Clues (I will never acknowledge Joe), it’s all there. Bam! You get it. And it’s genius. Life-altering even. It’s the type of exchange that’s worth the work because the thought changes you. It expands and alters the makeup of your brain. That’s my entire relationship reading and listening to Dr. Dave. The guy has this gift for inspiring and shaking cores and soothing souls. Sometimes he takes a straight path to deliver his message, but often he invites you along on a series of unexpected U-turns and gravel paths before delivering you to the promise land. To the epiphany. Yeah … he’s one of those people.

Recently, Dr. Dave shared one of his favorite metaphors. It seems that some time ago, in a small village in India, there was an obnoxious monkey population. The primates were so numerous, in fact, the townspeople decided to round them all up and take them to a lovely little monkey farm in the country somewhere, where they would have a better life and live out the rest of their monkey days. To catch them, the people would place a bunch of bananas inside an upside-down bamboo cage with fairly narrow bars. The animals would approach the cage, see the fruit, reach in and grab the banana. With their hands clenched tightly around the fruit, the monkeys couldn’t remove their arm from the cage. The harder and longer they would try, the louder their screams would get. This attracted more curious monkeys who would repeat the same imprisoning process. And thus the animals were had.

Of course the monkeys could have escaped easily if they would have just let go of the fruit. If they’d just drop the damn banana they would be free to go swing with their posse through the mossy trees and throw poo like little jungle punks. But they just couldn’t. They were panicking. They were frozen with fear. They were reacting. They were trapped. Then Dr. Dave went on to define what constitutes a banana for us – that being the feelings or actions or situations in your life that elicit a strong mental or physical response. Probably detrimental. Likely toxic. Definitely negative.

After reading Dr. Dave’s piece, I spent nearly my entire 3-mile run the next morning thinking about my bananas; The toxic things that I cling to and the response they trigger in me. The noxious notions that infiltrate my thoughts and ridiculous requests I place on myself.

I hold onto sugar.
Boo hoo, I know. But truly I’ve long battled some sweet, sticky food addiction demons. Growing up, treats and large meals were a mark of celebration. I, in turn, have carried this tradition on to my own family. Frozen yogurt, brownies, greasy gyros from our favorite place … it all adds up to a slippery equation of food + happy = reward. And who doesn’t want to be rewarded? Like, all the time. The problem is I’ve come to a place where those little white granules (perhaps the poop of angels, I hypothesize) now own me. They control me. They take me so high and then drop me on my head. But no matter how many times I tell myself – usually in the haze of a sugar-induced hangover – that I am done, I end up following the syrupy trail right back to the honey pot.

I hold onto perfection.
Real talk for a second. I started an entire blog based on this concept. Based on the pursuit of a perfect balance between all of the parts of myself that battle for time and attention. I want to see the world. I want to stop screaming at my daughters. I want to cook with ingredients I pluck from an organic raised garden bed. I want to kill it at work. I want to be perfect at this blog where I write about my pursuit of perfection. With my body, with my habits, with my profession, with my parenting, I hold onto these unrealistic expectations for myself so tightly that I don’t even know what a feeling of perfection would smell, taste, look or feel like at this point even if I somehow managed to reach it. Sometimes I think it’s just easier to keep looking past where we are rather than live contently in all the messy, dirty, imperfect bits of ourselves. Defining yourself as a work in progress is the ideal guise for an existence riddled with rough edges.

I hold onto fear.
This is a huge one for me. I’ve talked about my anxiety and I’ve talked about my struggles with parenting in this violent world here before, but truly, the terror I live with runs crazy-deep. I attribute at least some of this to the fact that I am a prisoner of push notifications. My job requires me to be online for the majority of the day. My phone, my laptop, my desktop, my television, whatever it is, there’s some horrifying news alert popping up on it. Flashes of events that point to the demise of character and kindness and sanity and love for humanity flood my newsfeed and thus, my mind. In one of my more recent social media-induced meltdowns, my brother (you remember Just Matt) told me to get a grip and remember they’re just leaving out the good stuff.

My thought of the day for you regarding the world we live in … You’re better off not watching the news. It will make you a happier person. Something negative happens and they beat it to death to keep you tuned in. Try shutting it off. The world is full of wonderful people, so many caring and selfless things happen on a daily basis, but that isn’t what anyone focuses on. All any of us can do is help one another and love one another and raise our kids that way and to not let a few bad people keep them from loving every minute of the short life we all get. The kids and I will sometimes pick up a bill in a restaurant for someone. They love it and you have to think that it makes that person’s heart happy and makes them want to pass that feeling along to someone else. Bad things have happened since man was created and always will, but at the end of the day people are good, that just isn’t news. The positives far outweigh the negatives on a daily basis, but just like the evening news, we tend to focus 28 minutes on all of the negative and just set aside the last 2 minutes to talk about how a stranger donated an organ for some child they don’t even know so they can live a happy normal life and love their friends and family. So shut off the crazy people on the news and focus on all the awesome people you are surrounded by on a daily basis, like me for starters.

– he wrote

And he’s right. I know he’s right. But then I go to sleep and have vivid dreams of nuclear attacks and running through crazed streets grasping my sobbing children and all the horrible things the dark parts of our brain push aside during the daylight hours. And I wake up drenched in sweat and succumb to the fear. How can I protect them? What would I do if …? Why is the world so broken? I feel helpless and small and scared to death.

I hold onto my routine.
Ask anyone who’s close to me and they will tell you I live and die by my meticulous schedule. They’ll also tell you it’s annoying AF. Almost any hour of the day I can tell you where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing with about 80 percent accuracy. Any deviation from this cadence requires additional planning to compensate appropriately. Any unplanned deviation has the potential to send me spiraling downward … smoking engine, towering flames, the whole scene. The thing is, it annoys me, too! I swear it does. But it’s a survival mechanism. Unfortunately, to conquer the Everest that is training for a half marathon, dressing and getting 3 children ready to go, working a full day, making dinner, doing baths, menu planning, meditating and getting a semi-decent amount of sleep, only, mind you, to wake up and do the whole damn thing over the next morning, requires a solid plan. Otherwise the wheels just fall right off the wagon. But there’s certainly a strong argument for a little more flexibility. A little less rushing along and a little more “in the moment”. But if I’m really honest, even when I’m cutting loose and playing along with the pull of the universe, I’m still calculating the time lost and required compensations in my head. Maybe that’s just being a mom. Maybe that’s just me as a mom. Maybe I’m a total psycho who needs drugs and liquor.

It’s brutal holding onto these bananas. They’re rotten. And honestly, it’s exhausting. So much of my energy is pumped into fueling these cyclical habits that positively drain me. So, what would happen if I just dropped them? If I let go and pulled my arm back out of the cage? Would I be free? Could escaping anxiety and shedding all that extra weight really be that simple? That obvious? Something I could have just done 5 years ago? Am I held by a trap I set out for myself? I don’t know …

If only bananas weren’t so sweet. You know how I like my sugar.

Mindfulness

In the name of my OODA loop

January 23, 2016

I stood paralyzed; spinach in one hand, almond milk in the other, a steam engine stalled at a bend in the track. The cups for my Ninja blender, the device I use every single morning to whip up a little smoothie action, were all suds-deep in the still-running dishwasher. A problem that should be a dot on the radar of my day was, in that moment, a hurricane coming ashore. Everyone kept moving with the momentum of the morning, while I stood still, unable to unravel the riddle of my shattered routine.

Have you heard of the OODA loop? The phrase refers to the decision cycle of observe, orient, decide, and act, developed by military strategist USAF Colonel John Boyd. Basically, it’s our reaction time, or the time that elapses between the onset of a stimulus and the onset of a response to that stimulus. We go through the process thousands of times a day. And I think my OODA loop is broken … or at least, on autopilot.

A routine is a necessary evil, isn’t it? Each one of my weekdays is, give or take a tantrum, basically a revolving door of tasks, routes and actions. I can guess, within a few minutes, what I’ll be doing on any given hour Monday-Friday. I worked hard to make it that way. It was an intentional process. It feels vital to my sanity. But the predictability is so engrained in my nature, so damaging to the health of my OODA loop, that one obstacle sends me into a complete downward spiral, with smoke and flames and a sticky parachute. I mean, I can always rally. I can pull myself out of my assembly line mentality long enough to put out the fire in front of me, but then it’s right back to putting all the parts in place before the next task comes along.

Our security officer at work encouraged us to change our routine to throw off anyone dangerous who might be watching. A researcher presenting at a seminar on brain health recently told us you should vary your route to work, hobbies and schedule to strengthen the neural pathways in your brain. It seems everywhere I go, someone is saying, “Snap out of it, sister! Mix it up!” But the truth is, when I go rogue and burn the agenda defiantly, the whole day goes to pot. The wheels fall off the wagon. Shit gets crazy. I get crazy.

But the simple fact that on that particular morning with the cups I didn’t just stay in stride, grab my big blender and continue concocting my green juice, got me thinking about my sad, humdrum OODA loop. Most days, the only challenge might be the addition of a class at the gym, or an appointment after work. And in those cases the exorbitant amount of energy I put into reframing my cookie cutter schedule is so absurd my OODA loop turns frenzied and exhausts itself. There is no healthy happy-medium. No delight in the detours. And what kind of way is that to live life?

My world is full of well-worn trails and thin-soled shoes. And while I’ve come to rely on and relish the rhythm of my days, I know it isn’t always healthy. I know a last-minute request shouldn’t be cause for complete emotional upheaval, but I don’t know how to break free from my deep-rooted habits and be carefree about the curveballs. Did you know that the neural pathways in our brains that are tied to the habits we repeat over and over – the ones you can do without ever really arousing your OODA loop – are the widest of all the neural pathways? It’s like a path through the woods. The more people walk down it, the wider and more prominent it becomes, making it the natural place for our feet to follow as we trek along. The road that the signals for stimulus and response travel in our minds are the same. The more we light them up, the bigger they get. So every time I pick out my clothes the night before work, the wider that neural pathway gets. Each morning I drive to work, always the exact same route, that pathway expands and strengthens. And the widest neural pathways are the ones we start to take involuntarily. You can start new ones. And you can change the ones you have. There’s nothing but opportunity there.

I went to a presenter today who spoke about mindfulness, and he talked a lot about being on autopilot. “I’d be in the shower and I’d start thinking about something else, and there are times I’m sure I got out of that shower with wet hair, but I never washed it,” he said. “I think you’ve done that, too.” He encouraged us to crack the window, breathe into our bodies and shut off the autopilot whenever possible.

So, I’m waging war against myself in the name of my bored, predictable, even lackadaisical OODA loop. I’m fighting to snap out of my snap reactions and judgements. To do things differently every now and then for the sake of feeling awake. To widen new pathways in my mind and to keep growing, learning and taking pauses drenched in wonder.

How’s your OODA loop?

Mindfulness

There’s some things on my mind

October 15, 2015

On my migration toward mindfulness, I’ve learned things about myself. I’ve learned that the majority of my thoughts are frantic and frivolous and trail one after another like a demented train of dominos. Below is a sampling of the subtitles that would actually appear to you, the reader, as generated by my psyche.

OK …
sit up straight …
touch your forefinger to your thumb to generate that good kind of energy …
and …
here we go! Breathe in 4 seconds and out for 4 seconds …
picture your breath coming and going …
gosh, my lungs feel so good …
is it the running? I bet it’s from all the running …
I need to get back to running …
why do I always fall off the wagon …
and why is there so much freaking flute in this Asian zen playlist? It’s like meditating with Ron Burgundy for pete’s sake [picturing this exact scene from Anchor Man] …

my back hurts …
I should eat better …
I wonder if it’s been 3 minutes yet …
oh, shoot, come back to the breath …
come back to the breath …
And why does every Asian zen song have waves crashing? Do I have to pee or is it just the water sounds? And, you know, I hate them for making me have to decipher the difference …
I know this, my head itches. Dan Harris didn’t scratch his itches. He acknowledged the thought, put it aside and – [I scratch my head] …
In for 4 seconds, out for 4 seconds ….
In for 4 seconds, out for seconds …
Gah! Are my itches having babies with each other or what? I just gotta scratch and be done with it. I’ve committed to scratching. I’m not as strong as Dan. I wonder if there’s some science to trying not to itch and how it makes you itch more …
bring it back …
bring it back y’all, bring it back y’all, bring it back heeeeeeeeeere we go! ….

The jam! …
Do I really like Empire? Or am I just faking it and trying to see what Libby sees in it? I mean, Cookie’s so good, but it’s a little soap opera …
In for 4 …..

I believe eventually the thoughts are supposed to become passersby; just fleeting flashes in a calm and focused mind. But for now, they’re bouncing around like fleas at a circus. Please send any great meditation playlists or guided meditations my way if you’ve got ’em!

Mindfulness, Pages

10% Happier ain’t too bad

September 30, 2015

I just finished 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works – A True Story by Dan Harris, and it was a game changer. Like the majority of people seeking calm and clarity, meditation is certainly on my radar. I even tried to do it for 30 days straight, remember? While my initial attempt was a weak, failed effort for sure, this book rekindled my respect for the practice.

I love the fact that Dan comes at the topic from a hater’s perspective. He isn’t a Buddhist or a zen master. He’s actually a bit of a self-absorbed prick. As a popular newscaster, he ends up covering a series of intense stories, which had a more severe impact than he realized and led to an infamous panic attack during a live news broadcast.

What followed, over the course of several years, was his pursuit of a little bit of peace, patience and control. He was trying to be less of a prick. The prescription that seemed to deliver – much to his shock – was meditation. Following the progression of his practice and facts from the perspectives of some of the most recognizable figures in that sphere was fascinating. Along with mindful pauses, the idea is to stop living for fruitless, empty endeavors, and be in the beauty and absoluteness of the present. I’m so guilty of this: I wake up at 5:40 so I can shower, so I can get the girls ready, so I can get JoJo on the bus, so I can pull analytics before the 8:30 meeting, so I can write the article, so I can get lunch in time for the next meeting, so I can … It’s a hamster wheel that leads to exhaustion and frustration, with no satisfied conclusion or feelings of attainable joy. The people turn into a blur in your peripheral rather than the beautiful objects of purpose they are. This book is a convincing proposal for a more intentional life.

But by the last chapter, Dan, while undoubtedly a devoted champion for the practice, doesn’t make any unreasonable claims. Meditation isn’t a magic pill or fountain of youth. It does, however, make him about 10% happier, he decides. But think about what the world would be like if everyone was just 10% happier. Seems like it’s worth a closer look.

Here are some of my favorite quotes, but don’t cheat yourself. Read the whole thing:

“But it was in this moment, lying in bed late at night, that I first realized that the voice in my head—the running commentary that had dominated my field of consciousness since I could remember—was kind of an asshole.”

“Make the present moment your friend rather than your enemy. Because many people live habitually as if the present moment were an obstacle that they need to overcome in order to get to the next moment. And imagine living your whole life like that, where always this moment is never quite right, not good enough because you need to get to the next one. That is continuous stress.”

“If you stay in the moment, you’ll have what is called spontaneous right action, which is intuitive, which is creative, which is visionary, which eavesdrops on the mind of the universe.”

“Striving is fine, as long as it’s tempered by the realization that, in an entropic universe, the final outcome is out of your control. If you don’t waste your energy on variables you cannot influence, you can focus much more effectively on those you can. When you are wisely ambitious, you do everything you can to succeed, but you are not attached to the outcome—so that if you fail, you will be maximally resilient, able to get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the fray. That, to use a loaded term, is enlightened self-interest.”

“What mindfulness does is create some space in your head so you can, as the Buddhists say, ‘respond’ rather than simply ‘react.’ In the Buddhist view, you can’t control what comes up in your head; it all arises out of a mysterious void. We spend a lot of time judging ourselves harshly for feelings that we had no role in summoning. The only thing you can control is how you handle it.”

“Marturano recommended something radical: do only one thing at a time. When you’re on the phone, be on the phone. When you’re in a meeting, be there. Set aside an hour to check your email, and then shut off your computer monitor and focus on the task at hand. Another tip: take short mindfulness breaks throughout the day. She called them ‘purposeful pauses.’ So, for example, instead of fidgeting or tapping your fingers while your computer boots up, try to watch your breath for a few minutes. When driving, turn off the radio and feel your hands on the wheel. Or when walking between meetings, leave your phone in your pocket and just notice the sensations of your legs moving. ‘If I’m a corporate samurai,’ I said, ‘I’d be a little worried about taking all these pauses that you recommend because I’d be thinking, ‘Well, my rivals aren’t pausing. They’re working all the time.’’ ‘Yeah, but that assumes that those pauses aren’t helping you. Those pauses are the ways to make you a more clear thinker and for you to be more focused on what’s important.”

“Everything in the world is ultimately unsatisfying and unreliable because it won’t last.”

“May you be happy. May you be safe and protected from harm. May you be healthy and strong. May you live with ease.”

Thoughts

Long days and short years

September 10, 2015

I’ll be honest, today I feel very humbled and human. As a family, we find ourselves in the pits of a chaotic, frenzied new routine, that isn’t quite routine yet. JoJo’s in school, which means waiting for the bus and an extra stop at aftercare. Hank started a new job, which has him out the door with the babies by 7:10 and home after 5:30. My job is still fairly new, which means less flexibility. Between the long hours and homework and half marathon training and hormones, our household is in a bit of an upheaval. The hardest part for me is accepting the normalcy of the unbalance.

It’s hard as a woman who desperately wants to be everything for everyone to admit there are times I come up super short. There are times when all the “yeses” come back to slap me across the face. A quick commitment in passing, always ends up meaning stress in the final hours of a too-short day. And all of my promises have the heaviest impact on the girls. These moments – these precious, delicate moments – I’m missing because of a frantic, hamster wheel agenda make me yearn for peace in passing on other people’s pleas. I feel weak in my resolution to prioritize my little people. I feel like life is running me, rather than me running my life. I am twirling in a tornado of tasks and have lost sight of what makes my soul happy.

But in the midst of this choking fog, God gives us clearings when it counts. Sensing her mama felt flustered and fatigued, my sweet Sloppy Joan started putting on a show. She’s toying with humor and words and reactions and watching her brought us all together to laugh from a proper perspective. I get it, Big Guy, and thank you for the subtle nudge back to what matters.

I have to get control over my anxieties. These years won’t wait for me; they are dashing past me, only pausing for a second to become a memory. These people are the loves of my life and no commitment is worth sabotaging a single second of attention. It’s time to circle back to meditation and make a conscious effort to slow the pace I’m setting. Any suggestions for balance are welcome.

Mindfulness, Tune in Today

Better in my 30s: Meditating

April 29, 2015

Tune in today to see if she can … Meditate for 30 days.

A few months back, I was on a Gabrielle Bernstein high. I listened to her audio book for Miracles Now and became a full-on spirit junkie, taking hit after hit of Gabby’s good stuff. While like most of my infatuations, it only lasted a hot minute, I would say I was addicted. I took introspection to a DEFCON level 5, dissecting every passing thought and action, trying these wild meditations with mantras that I chanted, having absolutely zero clue what they meant. But before you judge, listen to the girl speak. You might not drink the Kool-Aid, but you’ll at least smell it to see what flavor’s in the pitcher.

She said things like …

And these memorable nuggets …

I finished the last disc and swore to find my peace, damn it!

A quick confession and choppy transition: I have over 100 blogs in my Feedly roll. Whether you find yourself appalled or impressed is neither here nor there, but what I can tell you is certain trends are undeniable in the blogosphere. Repeating themes, if you will. And right now I could create a brutal drinking game for content addicts based on the mention of any of the following: juicing, HIIT, festival, flower crown or meditation. The latter being the only one that also coincides with my resolutions for self improvement in 2015. The universe just keeps throwing it at me. So, I’m going to stop throwing it back. At least for a month.

Starting Monday, this mama is going to hide in my basement, closet (c’mon, I have no pride anymore) or bedroom for 10 minutes every day, for 30 consecutive days, and meditate. Nothing fancy. No mantras. Likely just a timer and some instrumentals. I don’t know … I don’t know if I’ll have enough time … I want to see if being mindful truly impacts decision making, parenting and sleep. I want to breathe and reboot. So, we’ll see. I’ll journal and overthink it all and report back in June. I know you’ll be on the edge of your seats (wink, wink).

Until next time …