The Rebel Yell

I have not written on this blog for a while.  Shortly after my last post I had to close my psych practice because in my home state they have let go of so many people at the state board that they can't renew licenses for therapists so what normally took weeks, took months. 

Here is the funny thing though, I do think some part of me knew I needed to go through some extra hoops but my unconscious needed a break. I had been suffering from depression since the birth of my second son and instead of genuinely taking care, I worked harder.  I am grateful some part of me knew to slow down and frankly, it isn't hard for me to be in a slow rhythm.  I am a heart centered person who has never lived a heart centered person's flow for sure.

I won't recap everything that has transpired except to say that I have gotten a lot of support, am enjoying being home full time with my children, and have been even braver in going deeper into what underpins some of the behaviors I readily engage in that feel reactive or just plain not me.  I am stepping away from the traumatology and somatic resourcing model I have been steeped in for ten years and now working very psychodynamically with a new male therapist on myself and working the same way as a client.  What does that mean?  Means I am looking at unconscious patterns rather than the "here and now" stuff that I was trained in.   It has been breathtaking to say the least to work in this completely new way.  I will no longer remain so dogmatic in my humanistic and existential loyalties.  There really is something to how the unconscious moves us. 

Second, I started taking some anti depressants five months ago and they have created some solid ground beneath my feet so I can go deeper in my own therapy.  I think it has been useful, as a therapist, to find a very skilled psychiatrist who has worked with other therapists and for me to really witness the power of psychiatry.  Another modality I used to poo poo.  Drugs are absolutely not a crutch but rather the medicine of courage for they have increased my ability to witness myself with greater clarity, to sit longer with feelings so they can work themselves out rather than analyzing and obsessing - which have proven only to keep things stuck.  I appreciate what my new therapist said to me the other day, "Sometimes we are repeating to repair, sometimes we are repeating to repeat".  I am wresting with the difference right now.

I decided to write today of all days because I was able to get enough distance from my own shame and had a massive enough "ah ha" last night that has left me feeling like a hollow wind blowing inside my core.  To readers it may seem like no biggee and for me there have been other big ah ha's but this one took the cake.
First, what happened?  Well, groups, as I have mentioned elsewhere in this blog have been a major sticking point.  I come up with theories, think I have figured it out only to be baffled again.  I diagnose myself as narcissistic or histrionic - neither of which help me heal anything.  Yesterday, I went to lunch with one of my closest girlfriends and her friends, mostly all therapists, for her birthday.  A group of fabulous, interesting, open, complicated, wise, conscious and wounded women.  I had a ball but I did my usual thing:  This kind of bigger than life persona comes out in groups, a ball-buster, if you will.  It doesn't feel like me always.  It has a tinge of aggression and it serves to keep people away while simultaneously entertaining or irritating.  None of this behavior is new to me.

Then I went to a second group event, way more triggering because they were women who, for the most part, I have never felt safe, comfortable, like minded or good in.  It is the playgroup moms from my son's playgroup.  A couple of moms in attendance are tricky figures for me to be around.  I made an interpretation after arriving that this group had been planned and I was "the outsider" - the last to be invited.  My heart started racing but I managed to calm down and settle in with the one or two people I felt safe with and somewhere inside I gave myself permission to leave early if it was just too triggering. 

After being there 45 minutes, I decided it was time to leave.  I felt an obligation to say goodbye to a couple people but in that side group were some triggering women and I do what I always do when I have some judgement, projection or general disdain for someone - I say something "shocking"  - something sexual, inappropriate or rude but in that "ha ha aren't I funny sort of way".  I came home feeling terrible about myself.  Why do I act like such a buffoon? I was also clearer about the role of anger and aggression that belies this behavior.  Well, for once, I was able to set the self criticism and shame aside and went in my kitchen and sat down and closed my eyes at the kitchen table and just felt what I was feeling.  Not with the intention of "figuring it out" per se but with the intention of giving attention to the part of me that was so hurt and pissed off that she continually needs to give people in groups the bird, so to speak. 

As I did a flood of all the groups in my life I have been in came back to me. There was a pattern.  The pattern was that I either put myself in groups where I am not a fit or made myself an outsider in groups that are potentially good fits.  I did this in high school, in a therapy group, two work groups, my school cohort, my mom's sharing group, the playgroup, church group...my god!  How many times do I have to do this over and over again before I can look?  Again, looking requires being willing to feel the stuff without being swallowed up by the feelings. Your head and heart are both still in the game as you just bare witness to the past and the present.  It hurts to process this way which is why most of us would rather analyze but this is the way of healing stuff.

An image of my brother came to me - just the image.  No story.  See my mother was married 5 or 6 times, I can't remember any more.  I have never met my biological father.  She married a man when I was four who adopted me but they quickly had a son together, my brother.  We used to lie and not tell anyone I wasn't his biological child.  So I played along and my rage out being the outsider went underground.  I was so much the outsider that the rule was, "She is mine, don't discipline her nor should you intervene when I am abusing her."  I had some disturbing acting out behaviors on the sly, was very depressed but was also a perfectionist, church going, straight A student, so not much attention was paid.  As I sat at the kitchen table, it was like a mathematical equation that was missing part of the equation got a huge piece added.

Of course, I have complained my whole life of never feeling like I had a family - a home base.  Even my friends with really dysfunctional ones often had a base.  My one friend who can relate to me the most also lacked a "base" or sense of "place".  I can't make it linear here for others of you that are reading because my adult brain isn't that impressed with my awareness but my guts and heart and innards are writhing in sadness and rage.  And my adult brain just nods with "Oh, yes that is yet another reason for funky dynamics for you in groups and more particularly, your need to rebel with your verbal 'fuck you's' to group dynamics, group norms, group rules that historically have sucked the life out my own self hood.

I can't say where this awareness will take me.  I am kind of discombobulated, but I am hopeful of my direction and have complete confidence in my therapist and psychiatrist who unearthed some of this this week during my homeopathy assessment.

To be continued.

Identity Crisis or Opportunity

I am feeling really light and buoyant today. Hung out with good friend last night for several hours, feeling grateful to her as I woke up deeply connected to my own heart and thus a very attuned parent. Sure tantrums erupted but rather than going to the place inside that says "things shouldn't be this way, they should be easier" I creatively, playfully and firmly handled them in a way that was useful for my kids.

Sadly, our connection and bond was going so well, neither wanted to go to daycare and in the moment, my heart aches for them. But, I get to study and sit here at the desk in my bedroom, looking out of the hillside in the distance as the sun shines and I feel calm and still. It is interesting to feel so well the morning before a second visit with a psychiatrist about taking some anti depressants. Hmmm. Just seems like I could use a little extra help regulating what I am unable to.

But I have sat with some wise others about this very question. Another mother who left he law career reflected back to me that when I had my second son and left my corporate life she saw me experience an identity crisis much like hers when she left her career to stay at home with her daughter. A close friend who is a therapist who works transpersonally sent me this lovely link to an Adyashanti talk about what happens when our identity shifts in this way - in short we freak out. (see bottom of post). 

Spiritually this separate sense of self is an illusion. Everyone smart agrees; Einstein, The Dali Lama, The brain researches at UCLA studying mirror neurons, Ekhart Tolle...you know a longer list of scientists my husband would have to chime in here. But see, the thing is, we are biological creatures as well, wired to survive so need to believe in a separate self to eat. We lose our way at times bc we get caught up in it but don't have to. Meditation is the way to get uncaught.

 What motherhood has challenged in me is the very "I" that was my self. And as that disintegrates I have been reading, brooding, freaking out, getting enraged, a host of feelings. It is more than an adjustment disorder to being a new mom and more than pathology or depressive disorder is going on. I do have some nervous system crap for sure but there is this other spiritual thing. What we face when we shift identity is death - death of the I. And it feels like drowning and we are absolutely clamoring to grab hold of something to pull us up and out of that pool that if we step into means we fundamentally, must surrender and realize we have gills for breathing underwater as a connected whole.

I won't write more. Here are some quotes from Mark Ian Barasch interview about his book Healing Dreams. I am reading his book the compassionate life. It isn't a self help book but rather a spiritual, intellectual, and poetic heavy lift but if you are in to people brilliant with the nuance of language and brilliant with integrating many many different schools of thought this is the book for you. He is questing in this book for the roots of compassion, scientifically, spiritually, communally etc. http://www.compassionatelife.com/

Quotes from Marc's interview:

"The way out is the way in." That's a koan worth contemplating. (he is talking about disease)

But if going in is too much for us, there's nothing wrong with stepping away. So often we're too harsh on ourselves. We expect ourselves to endure, achieve, overcome, and conquer. Being kind to ourselves in our weakness - which is really the only basis for healing - is not always the first thing we try in a crisis. Usually, we reach for the nearest blunt object and try to cudgel the problem into submission: the heroic ego to the rescue. And we usually wind up hitting ourselves in the head.

How do we suffer honestly? It can sometimes be extremely difficult to surrender to these situations, because we fear that if we do - if we even acknowledge what scares us - it is going to destroy us. So we are like the Little Engine That Could, puffing along with our positive thinking, always looking ahead, but afraid to look behind because something might be gaining on us. In fact, that something might not destroy but change us. The trouble is, the ego experiences change as death.

The question is: Are you going to cling in panic to some idealized self that no longer exists? Or are you going to cross the threshold and acknowledge that you're on a journey, though you don't know to where? You haven't chosen it, but now you're different in some way. This is one reason physical illness shows up as a turning point in so many spiritual biographies or as the catalyst of shamanic initiation. It's a profound shock to the system. It dislodges you.

 Here is the Adyashanti Video:

Heart Centered Parenting

Mark Brady's blog post this week struck a chord with me: a bit of an a ha really. 
Here is an excerpt:
It used to surprise me to discover that people who have suffered greatly in their lives are some of the kindest, most joyful, compassionate people I’ve ever encountered. It no longer does. Traumatic memories are primarily stored in our right brain circuitry. Out of the healing that comes from profound suffering, many of those encapsulated or disorganized circuits become reactivated, apparently helping to bring much greater right brain strength and balance to counter our culture’s left brain dominance. It’s often described as strength of heart, true grit or compassionate heart. And while many of my right brain friends assure me that the heart is definitely involved, what we know for sure, both from science and from anecdotal evidence like Jill’s, is that right brain reclamation appears to be the primary driver of Compassionate Heart.


What’s the takeaway from these brain hemisphere discoveries? Parents would do well to honor and embrace everything they can that will help mitigate the left brain dominance designed into western education and culture.

-http://committedparent.wordpress.com/

Big out breath. Silence.  Gratitude.  Oh. This is what makes my 18months of depression, of digging deeper than ever before, of facing more directly my attachment wounding worth it.  I am slowly learning to stay in my heart, my right brain, for longer periods of time than ever before.  To me, right brained and heart centered are synonymous. 


Then I thought about psychotherapy.  The "fix it" mentality that mirrors my religious up brining's teachings of original sin that says "you are flawed the way you are so you better be working towards getting better."  It is the single thing I hate about therapy and why I went to a school rooted in transpersonal psychotherapy.  And what I fundamentally believe good therapy is about is finding our way into our heart, delicately balancing change with self acceptance and self compassion.  So of course, I hate this critical way our culture self flagellates around parenting practices.  As if we could possible be perfectly attunded to loud, chaotic, irrational screaming all the time!?

What the heck, though, does heart centered mean?  And how do I relate it to all this nervous system hijacking that seems to take over for me in relationship.  The Heart Math institute has found that emotionally focused psychotherapy is more efficacious and producing real change than cognitive behavioral therapy because there are more neuronal connections from the heart to the frontal lobes so learning new nervous system regulatory processes is more expedient if psychotherapy works directly with the heart.

"While two-way communication between the cognitive and emotional systems is hard-wired into the brain, the actual number of neural connections going from the emotional centers to the cognitive centers is greater than the number going the other way. This goes some way to explain the tremendous power of emotions, in contrast to thought alone. "

http://www.heartmath.org/research/science-of-the-heart/introduction.html

What does working with the heart look like?    From a groovy well respected site in the meta physical community I found this entry. 

" [Being heart centered]... doesn't mean, "be good", or "be loving", or "be forgiving". Although these things might happen when we stay heart centered, but only as side effects.

To stay Heart Centered is an actual physical practice. It's like going on the treadmill to keep your physical body fit.  This exercise is designed to move our awareness from our head center/ego to our heart center/higher-self."

http://ascension101.com/en/ascension-information/20-february-2010/63-stay-heart-centered-what-does-that-mean.html

Pema Chodron, groovy Buddhist nun with loads of Huts pa points out it is hard to stay heart centered. 

"It’s like there’s an opening in the clouds. We sense that we're connected to something that wakes us up and makes our world feel bigger. It makes our heart and our whole being feel expansive; we feel confident and inspired. But, unfortunately, our habitual patterns are so strong that the opening usually closes again. We revert to our old ways of staying stuck in negative mind. We get hooked again in our old patterns. "

http://shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1469&Itemid=0

I was also having an inspired discussion with one of my MOST heart centered friends earlier, a therapist, who is deeply in her own work on herself.  She isn't floating above the clouds better in spirituality she is in it, growing and trusting her heart. She said this: We poo poo "being in our head" and it isn't that we leave our head for our heart.  Its that when we enter our heart we also are in our deepest knowing in our heads.  Her comments were very integrative: ah yes the body gets us into our heart which in turn gets us in touch with our truer knowing.

Dan Siegel points out that our brains can really just process too much information and we are more wired to pay attention to the high alert information.  Probably why parenting books that promote fear and "you are going to fuck your kid up" sell better. But also why Mark Brady's point about teaching kids right brain capacities; art, dance, music and emotional intelligence and really human to human foibled connection and repair with parents who are actively striving to be heart centered as opposed to "good parents" will benefit in the longer run.

So let's personalize this for a second.  Here is a recipe I have been thinking about because yesterday and frequently lately I have been crabby with my sons.  They are nearly at an impossible age:  Two boys ages 2 and 3.5.  My house feels like one long temper tantrum these days.  I stay heart centered 3/4 of the time but I was reflecting on what is it that helps me stay heart centered and what screws it all up for me. Some of what I will say is my "stuff" and other ideas is just plain old humanity that we all share. 

Heart Centered Parenting

1. Take Care of yourself - sleeping, eat, excercise, get out in nature, listen to music, dance, meditate. It is a non option to not do these things if you want to live in your heart.  If I don't do these things I am bitter, angry, resentful, intellectually unskilled because I can't be in my heart.

2. Practice Being in Your Heart - we probably didn't learn heart centeredness well, most of us, and our brain seems to want to grab hold of all trhe neuronal stimulation so to be heart centered we have to practice some kind of heart meditation practice, loving kindness practice etc.

3. Make a Plan - for things like household chores, money/budgets, how you will handle temper tantrums at the grocery store before you go.  Planning ahead allows one to stay calm when the house gets chaotically messy because you know it will get cleaned at 9pm so no need to freak about it now.  Planning ahead allows you to know how you will handle aggression with that particular kid so your expectations aren't off.

4. Presence and mind the expectations - I think I have said I used to think parenting was like a Norman Rockwell painting.  That shit still bites me in the ass.  It just makes me grumpy because most of the time it is not.  It is grueling hard work that frankly I wouldn't trade for the world.  Presence/acceptance of the presence is the antidote to this.

5. Slow down transitions - No, I don't mean for your kids.  I mean for you, for me.  I used to burst in the door from my corporate gig, my therapy gig etc and expect to be in my heart.  No way.  I also used to leave my kids for my corporate gig to abruptly.  The worst is to come into the house after a long car ride totally still moving at 50mph and a to do list a mile long.   Take time before entering the front door to breathe in, breathe out, feel your feet (take your shoes off if it helps).

6. Know when to throw the plan out - sometimes we have to surrender and be flexible.  Last night I could tell my oldest son just needed some one on one time with me so spontaneously we had a date night  - just he and I and stayed out til 9pm.  I just felt it and he woke up more in alignment with himself.

7. Share what you are feeling - talk to your kids, say I am sorry when you screw up.  My kid said to me yesterday after a sharing incident that I had to recover from my own mistake he said "Mama, I made a mistake.  I am sorry.  And we all make mistakes.  You make mistakes, papa makes mistakes and I make mistakes. "  Beaming mama, he is 3.5.  Gave me a big hug.  He learned that language because of my apologizing when I make mistakes.   Of course don't burden them with issues that are yours to manage.  Share with others -  talk to friends about your angst and off load - get held right there in your heart if you need it.  In my case, I am still learning to reach for people I can rely on - I tend to reach for people either not in their heart or who are flaky and unreliable or can't handle heart felt distress.   I have stopped doing that, for the most part, and am grateful every day for AMAZING friends.  I do think I have the best friends on the planet.   If you don't have them, go join a mom's group and there are bound to be a few there you can develop lasting connection with.  Sniff em out.  And if they can't do it, keep lookin. 

8. Mind the parenting books and parenting advice - get ideas but keep in mind, if you are feeling "afraid" you aren't in your heart.  See if you can use them to help you generate ways to plan ahead so you can stay in your heart rather than fodder for how you suck as a parent.  Test out if the idea feels right to you personally, in your heart.  One parenting group I was found of was advocating physically restraining a child and holding them in your lap when they are angry and wanting to pull away.  This is controversial and used for highly disturbed kids.  They used as evidence that this technique is a good one because once the parent let go the kid would come running back to them.  My heart knew this wasn't right and my training as a therapist and more research showed it wasn't. 


Behaviorism has long been touted the best parenting ever.  Alfie Kohn, Dan Siegel, Naomi Aldort, Jane Nelson, Dr. Sears are all challenging our notions of behaviorism which was originally designed for training animals!

9.  Over Parenting - The Atlantic Monthly was alluding to this in last weeks article about how to land your kid in therapy.  Your kid needs to experience pain.  Don't protect them from your humanity.  Trust them and trust you to be human and heart centered.  As long as you repair well, you can be pretty darn imperfect as a parent.  More importantly, over parenting can have this mystifying fake happy quality that can leave kids feeling totally dislocated from what they are picking up intrapsychically but not being overtly acted out by the parents.  I think this was more the cause for the morose Ms. Goldstein was referring to in her Atlantic Monthly piece.

10. Stop comparing yourself or worrying what other parents think.  Um hello this IS my biggest Achilles heel.  It has sent my ass back into weekly therapy.  When we do this, we are no longer in our heart.  I will personally have to work on this the whole of my life. I was just too criticized as a kid so whole being is wired to be on the ready for this.  Ironically, being heart centered is its antidote.

11. Empathize with other parents rather than judge or parent their kid for them.  I was really struggling yesterday as I had had ENOUGH of my oldest son's grabbing toys and being unwilling for me to help him negotiate some sharing.  He saves this all for his younger brother - totally developmentally appropriate sibling behavior and I was just spent and was with other mothers whom I frequently compare myself to or imagine are judging me.  Said differently, I wasn't in my heart AT ALL!  What would have helped: If the other mother came over to me, put her hand on my shoulder and said, "Man I am sorry.  That is a really hard situation to navigate.  Do you need anything?"  Instead, she stepped in and tried to distract my son for me.  He didn't respond because he wanted me and now I was feeling ashamed along with irritated. 

This last one is so potent.  It is the greatest opportunity we women have to offer one another in parenting.  Who cares if you are using whatever style of parenting you are using.  Sometimes we just want someone to say "Man that is hard.  I see how hard it is.  Hang in there."  My therapist friend and I were talking about this today. She witnessed a sweet interaction in H&M of all places.  Two 25 year old moms who didn't know one another.  One was leaving her 2 year old to cry out her angst in a corner alone while she shopped.  The other mother came up to offer advice - ooo I thought as I listened, this can't turn out well. 

But what happened instead is the advice giving mom shared what she had just learned in a parenting class and teared up as she did and she moved from such honest vulnerability, not better than posturing. 

11. Be vulnerable  - when it doubt stay in your heart of hearts with other mothers, other kids and speak from there.  We aren't perfect.  We need to stop trying.  Our kids will learn more resilience if we quit trying to be and other mom's will feel more supported if we stop the ruse.  This job is vast and what we feel in our heart isn't often ease, it is discomfort and speaking the truth of that helps us not act it out with our kids.  I love this 20 minute talk by Brene Brown on vulnerability and shame.  Check it out. http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

Heart centered - the practice of being in your heart, your body and your higher knowing which leads to greater relational vulnerability, honesty and meaning.  My first stab at a definition.  How would you define it?

Gratitude for Six Years

I am aware of the pull I have, when I post, to feel like I need to say something inspired.   But in true  anti-guru form, I just want to write from the heart, from vulnerability, from rawness.  In the last three months I have left my therapist of six and a half years.  Money and desire to work in new ways were the driving forces but I think there were other driving forces there too.  Our relationship will eventually, I think, transition into something different once we have surpassed the two year ethical threshold for a change in relationship-probably a more deliberate apprenticeship.  It feels organic.  I am not waiting on her doorstep - no part of me hanging on.  Just feels like the truth of what may be.  I see the ways we are different and well...why am I writing all of this?

I am writing all of this because I had my last session with her today.  I feel heavy hearted but not heartache.  I feel the goodbye.  The session was half consultation on some of my client work and half good bye.  But I wanted to write about our work because to not save space for her on the this blog would seem like a shocking miss- a kind of enactment in and of itself. 

First off, at the end of our relationship, she dropped me.  She dropped me in the way every good therapist needs to drop their client so the client can a) test their skill b) feel how they have and have not grown c) test the relationship they have inside to them self and d) test the relationship with the therapist.  After all, therapists are human too and if we are lucky we find one that has just the right mix of holding us, dropping us, skillful repair, and skillful confrontation so our own wounded sense of self becomes more whole. 

What do I mean by whole?  Whole: the ability to own all our holes with a calm nervous system, self compassion, acceptance and humor.  Sometimes holding holes means having skills for holding our self, sometimes holding holes means having skills for reaching out, sometimes holding holes means having skills for boundary and limit setting, sometimes holding holes mean noticing where there are no holes, and sometimes holding holes means seeing, honoring, and accepting the holes in others - all of this done without having to fill in any holes inside of me or inside of you.  There is this sweet little book I have called The Prayer Tree.  I want to share a sweet poem that speaks to the simplicity of being with holes.  It goes like this;

When the heart
Is cut or cracked or broken
Do not clutch it
Let the wound lie open

Let the wind
From the good old sea blow in
To bathe the wound with salt
And let it sting.

Let a stray dog lick it
Let a bird lean in the hole and sing
A simple song like a tiny bell
And let it ring

I  might add to this poem the relational piece to read something like this:

And let trusted souls see it
Together vulnerable and courageous
To walk through not around
Without needing you to be it

Sweet eh?  The second thing that happened in the course of my long relationship with this sweet human soul of a therapist is I learned a lot, enacted a lot, was held figuratively and literally and healed a lot.  Today I was confronted and repaired with.  Sweet confrontation: I was dropping myself.  In Freudian terms I was confronted with my own compulsion to repeatedly grease people's hands up with baby oil or seek out people with well oiled hands and then leap my naked body wiggling into their arms.  I really got to own how I actively grease people up today in our closing session.  Moreover, what I communicate in the greasing process to that friend is "You don't matter."  A heartfelt relationship I trash because the fighty part is determined to not feel every be vulnerable again.  So "go fuck yourself" is her stance to the world.  Hers, mind you, not mine.  THUD.  Feel that one in my gut.  Yep.  I participate.   I have known that for some time but today, for the first time, I didn’t feel ashamed of it.  I just accepted it.  Hmmm…and I don't want to do that anymore. 

Sucks that it took so long as I am sure I have been confronted many times by many others on this topic but these ah hah's really do need the right ingredients in the soup (timing, internal resources, and relationship) for it to fully be ingested. (Hence the limits of cognitive behavioral therapy).  Well the soup is in, I am full bellied and as I sat in my car writing notes after my session I asked myself, "well how do I stop greasing people up to drop me and stop dropping myself?"

There were, of course, a lot of brainy responses I could make here, but you could go get a good self help book for those.  The answer for me was I had to absolutely hold this fighty part of me rather than hate her or pretend she doesn't exist.  She is this very angry bitter girl who in her effort to protect me from the more vulnerable feelings keeps callous building by dropping and being dropped.  She wants to keep me callous stiff and impenetrable.   Wow!  Yep.   I have to help this poor kid out.  She is like a feral cat.   Here I am again being invited to actively hold such an insidious creature.  I get her twisted goal to help but fuck, really, creating more suffering to prevent suffering? What a misguided strategy.  Poor thing! 

I wasn’t sure, as I sat there in my car, if I knew how to hold such an angry, temperamental, impenetrable child.  And here is where mothering comes in.  Immediately an image of my oldest son’s angry face flashed into my mind and several memories where I DID have the capacity to hold his anger with a great deal of skill, compassion and respect.  “Oh”, I thought, “I can do this.”   I am reminded again of the priveledge of parenting blog post about the profound teacher parenting is.  Thanks son!  And I am also aware that as I get better had holding this part of me, I will also get even MORE skillful at holding him so he doesn’t feel burdened to squish his anger.
In the moment, I feel shame free.  Just honest and accepting.  This is what it is.  I am doing my best.

To my old therapist, deep love and gratitude for being one of my trusted souls!  You matter to me, deeply.

And let trusted souls see it
Together vulnerable and courageous
To walk through not around
Without needing you to be it

Contact Is Currative

It has been a solid week of intense contact.  The friends from my party mentioned in the last blog I was able to make heartfelt connection with.  Man, I really do have good friends.  My heart wants to shut down but they are open to hearing my experience and well, I am relationally extremely good at repair.  It is why I am a kick ass couples therapist because couples therapy is less about communication "skills" and more about staying vulnerable enough to make repairs with those we love after we fuck up.

I continue to be amazed at how open hearted vulnerability creates a wide amount of space for connection and healing and deepening relationship.  I had some other harder conversations with my best friend where we each had to admit that we don't connect well in distress mode.  Her young stuff that had to take care of her mother's distress comes up. And when she is in distress mode she disappears.  I am the opposite.  I reach out in distress mode but on the ready for being dropped - sometimes setting the dropping up.  So each of us triggers very young stuff in the other.  It was a beautiful lovely place of witnessing and compassion and recognizing that each of us will have to stretch and heal to be present for each other - for her to reach when she is in distress, for me to take a deep breath before I reach and for each of us to stay uber present with each feeling, moment to moment in distress interactions and compassionately set boundaries so no one feels overwhelmed or dropped.  It is honest.  I have other friendships end because this conversation can't be had.  Makes me grateful to have so many friends so deeply skilled at contact, communication and vulnerability.  I am grateful I am so skilled at this.  I am.  It is my greatest strength.  Whew. 

I am grateful I do this repair process well because it gives my humanity a lot of room with my kids.  They have been in my heart all week in a massive way.  I love them.

Mothers Have Needs Too

We are fully in to summer.  Today is summer solstice.  Wahoo!  I love the sun.  I had some friends over this weekend, many close and many single.  It was a really fun time and I am grateful I have kept this "non kid" part of my life alive.  At the same time, I felt taxed and overwhelmed by how much work it is to host company especially with two active toddlers.  It ain't like throwing a party in the old days that is for sure.

Toward the end of the evening all who remained were me and my husband and a couple of my single friends.  One an acupuncturist, one a therapist, one a burgeoning tarot card reader and my husband.  I got really triggered by some of the things that came up in the conversation and went to bed angry at myself for being triggered and surely, again, my feelings must be wrong, you are screwed up etc.  It is this line of thought that is my problem, not the trigger.  The general theme was really just the difference between being single and having two active toddlers and what kind of devotion you can commit to things that I have admitted previously in this blog are so important.  But still, I think that certain kinds of sharing, can easily drift into advice giving, one upmanship and lack compassion. 

I am really getting that "doing" is less important than "accepting" and that cultivating self compassion - where ever that happens, taking a dump or sitting on a meditation cushion, it is all good.  Would I like to be radically re devoting more time to certain self care activities? YES!  But in the meantime, self compassion and compassion from others greases my wheels.  I got to experience being told that my primal and existential place of struggle (which is more painful than my usual dysthymia) was right where I needed to be.  I am open to hearing that when it is mixed with compassion, not when it is delivered devoid of compassion and tinged with one upmanship.   And, I was appreciativee of the mirror, because I think I have done that to people too and I am really committing myself in my own practice with psychotherapy clients the art of beginner's mind - to not know or even need to be an expert, so live and learn.  I likely was triggered because I am in the process of letting this "need to be expert go". It was still painful to here my friends speak so discompassionately about people who hadn't evolved enough and how they should. 

Needless to say, on Monday, which we term "mama day" I was exhausted from this party.  I was still dealing with my inner critic and just a general malaise. All I wanted was to go recuperate from the beating I had given myself...I was brutal.  But here were my two sons, no doubt picking up on my state and wanting more attention and still coming down, themselves, from all the people in our house.  I just couldn't relate to them.  "Oh great", I thought "Bad parenting, another thing to beat up on myself about."

So we went to the beach.  Had a sandwich, I even indulged in a diet coke and potato chips which aren't my usual fare and a laundry basket full of sand toys at a safe spot where no one could get carried out to sea.  I could feel their desire for me to join in and I also was aware, I just needed to sit, take in the moment, regroup, especially after the chaotic morning me and the boys had had, me probably not tending well to tantrums.

We hadn't been there ten minutes when a mother comes with two sons - I found out later were just has far apart as mine and only six months older.  She was actively playing with her kids, full on building moats and turrets and collecting sea weed and skillfully re directing them when any sibling rivalry showed up, was mirroring and exuberant (I am offered some reprieve bc it felt a little feigned) but what do you think I did?  I started comparing myself.  I should be more like her.  I should want to play right now too.   And when my oldest was drawn to join their play, I was sure this was proof I was parenting poorly.   I went over and tried to join in but it just wasn't where I was.  We played with them for 45 minutes but after some time, I realized, you know I am ready for us to leave.  I have played "nice" with this exuberant mother.  I really can make this easier on me and in turn feel more connected to my kids.  My youngest was beginning to bully her sons so there was a signpost he was tired.

We got home and had a great time and I must say, it was so much easier to take care of myself rather than tell some kind of story about how screwed up I am bc I wasn't playing with my kids.  Truth be told, I have been mindful of not wanting to intrude on my children's play and delight in what they come up with when I don't direct the play (like the mud, straw rock chocolate ice cream concoction they made in an old potty chair they found).  My kids and I all made the best smoothies we have ever made, ran around naked in the sunny back yard and everyone got to nap on time so mama got to do some self care.  Funny too, I saw a mom walking to the parking lot as I was leaving the beach, her children tantrum and all I felt real empathy as her face contorted in that combo impatience, embarrassment and forcibly keeping it cool.  What I sent to her was "Hang in there.  You are doing a great job."  Yet again, proving to myself compassion breeds compassion.  Have compassion for my own limits and needs allowed my heart to bust wide open to this other mother.

What is Mental Health?

I have a break between clients.  Getting ready to begin my study process.  But I have been feeling anxious again since yesterday after handling a couple situations with my kids sub optimally.   I am taking a mistake and calling into question my mental health because I made a mistake.  I am working toward a kind dialogue inside that says "Hey that was a hard situation.  You are still learning to self soothe so it makes sense that when your kids are beating up on one another you lose your cool.  You are committed to getting better at it and that is what is so great about you...your dedication and commitment to your kids.  It is what makes you such a wonderful mom.  I love that about you.  Let's not feel ashamed and get wrapped up in being bad.  You are doing great - the best that you can and what you can do better is being human and imperfect." 

When I make mistakes I go to the "I am all bad" place which I hope I will one day stop doing.  But just writing the nice couple words above have already made me feel nicer.  It occurred to me that other perfectionist parents could write letters to themselves - taking note of all the good things they are doing and really cheer leading themselves around their mistakes.   I need it because when I make mistakes, in any area of my life, I give myself an abusively hard time.  Good thing to shore up because I have a thread of criticism that eeks out to my kids.

That said, mindfulness practice - no not the thought of mindfulness, but actual mindfulness practice is a really important way to cultivate mental health.  And parenting from a mindful place as opposed to from the perfectionist place is the way to help our kids be mentally healthy.

Here are the 9 features of mental health per Dan Siegel and that living mindfully brings about because mental health is the opposite of rigidity or chaos - it is integration of the human organism.  (IE Rigid - it is always going to be this way to Chaos - bouncing around of ideas/sensation.)

1. Body Regulation - ability to calm the nervous system down when you were distressed.
2. Attuned Communication - ability to respond to one another empathically
3. Emotional Balance - Aroused enough so that life has meaning but not too aroused to too depressed - it is a kind of optimal flow so that you in your experience aren't too rigid or too chaotic  - flow happens in between.
4. Fear Modulation - Feeling safe actually impacts the brain
5. Response Flexibility - The ability to pause before acting - or separation between impulse to act and the action
6. Insight - Ability to review one's life and make meaning
7. Empathy - Compassion for feeling with another and be motivated to act on their behalf
8. Morality - Think about and act on the larger social good
9. Intuition - Use the data from your intestines and your heart to move through the world.

As I like at that list, I have some work to do and there are many I have in spades.  Mindfulness practice isn't about trying to "get better" at all of the above but to mindfully and radically accept my imperfection and humanity which then, in turn, makes me better at 1-9. 

For more on mindfulness practice check here.
Dan Siegel will have a new book on children's brains coming out Oct 4 which I will for sure be buying. 

Days of Sick Are Over

We have had sickies in our house for two weeks. The lay in bed, tongue hanging out kind.  And I am in the final weeks of prep for my MFT exam.  I hope to be back more regularly.  I am doing great.  Getting sick got me back in my body, focused on me.  I said to a mother I had over the other night about my "worried about what people think about my mothering" crap and the "being left out" fantasies that the antidote was a daily practice of self love.  Not thinking about loving myself, not enjoying the idea of self love but actually sitting in meditation every day, actually considering myself with a great deal of affection, actually ruminating about all the proof points in my life that prove how I am included and how I am a good parent and not ruminating on the other stuff.  It felt good to stand tall, in my kitchen, with such conviction to this mother who has very similar sensitivities about being left out or being judged as myself.  I could tell she took in my message of love and it cemented my own committment.

So here is a quote on mothering from the priveledge of parenting blog that I love.  I will have some more blogs coming but this quote sums up what happens in parenting and it also sums up what happens when you whole heartedly step in to the role of therapist.

"If parenting is an attitude of relating in the service of being, then perhaps what is “created” in this archetypal relationship is reciprocal; the child forms a self in the context of being cared for (learning trust and finding her unique voice and identity) while the parent forms her soul (learning that “she” is not limited to the singular identity of who she thought she was, but rather finds her true Self in the group, in nature, in the mystery of what just is).  Much as baby and mother work together to effect the first great transition of birth, the psyche and mind of the parent works together with that of the child to “create” soul in the parent.  In this way parenting is an organic and readily present spiritual practice—one that, like yoga class, allows us to be on our own matt, and at the same time connected with each other."  http://wp.me/pwpN2-1wZ

Lovely! 

Busy and Competent as a Defense

Accepting the present: body, mind and mothering.

I think I found my new therapist.  Got to sit and work more relationally than frankly I ever have.  I love sensorimotor work but once you have the somatic resources you still need to learn to relate and practice it over and over again in the presence of a safe other.

That said, what I was reminded of today was how "doing" and "being good at stuff" is a ruse for me, anyway.  It is an attempt to win other's affections but the people who matter most it impacts negatively: my family.  See staying busy, not settling in to the truth of my being, means I am not fully IN relationship to myself and therefore those around me.  Also, being good at therapy, being good at mothering, being good at being a party host can, itself, being a striving for perfection that leaves my authentic self in the dust.  I am so busy trying to achieve that the motion is forward only as opposed to inward and embodied. 

What is busy and competent in defense of?  In my case, being deeply in relationship to myself and others.  Why?  Feeling frightened about being in connection stems from something different for everyone.  The word defense according to dictionary.com has the following synonyms: security, preservation, safeguard, support, advocacy, justification.   Somewhere along the way many of us had to learn to brace for impact and we do that bracing in our bodies.  The defense was in service of security and self preservation but as time goes by the defense becomes the injury because we lose connection with our truth and voila - anxiety and depression accompanied by despair, obsessive thinking, isolating, inner criticism, judgement of others, bad boundaries, rigid boundaries, lack of empathy for self and other, fear of conflict, fear of intimacy and the list goes on. 

Moreover, our culture supports this busy and competent vortex of personal burnout.  Usually, as we are burning out, we are also buying a bunch of shit to make us feel better.  So, selling us on the idea to continue to strive for greater and better...and in the hamster wheel we go.   I have been accused of navel gazing - of too much identification with suffering.  As an accusation, that didn't go over well because what I heard was "quit complaining and get over it already" which is a massive trigger.  But as an invitation I can be curious and explore open hearted.  I seem to feel identified with my painful story rather than my lived experience in the moment.

We tend to do two things with our pain: push it away or hold on to it - perseverating, repeating and stuck.  A bunch of my non therapist friends of are the push it away camp and sometimes therapy can support this hold on to it idea by the way it solidifies over and over and over the "wounded" narrative or the very competent "let's push through this and change it" to be "better humans".  Both methods create a rigidity in the body where we get stiff and stuck in other parts of our lives too.   What we know about stiffness in the body is it leads to injury. There is no body bend, relational bend and softness in our internal organs so we become relationally sick and physically sick.

Gabrielle Roth said "The way out is in" but I would add that "the way out is through acceptance of what is in".  If we can learn to accept our human experience; fear, grief, intimacy, patterns, joy, receiving etc with an observing curiosity and mindful acceptance our thoughts soften and our actual bodies soften and ironically we become more flexible, bendable and literally healthy.  As my supervisor said, when we are in this mindful accepting state it frees up a lot of energy to think about other possibilities and create our lives as opposed to spend our energy focused on navel gazing.  But it also doesn't mean avoiding our pain.  It is a learned skill of meeting ourself over and over and over again.  Man have we lost this fine art in this culture.

I am aware, that as a mother, I can buy into the hundreds of models of "perfect parenting" striving for uber clean, uber attached, uber non tv or whatever "doing it right" kind of thing I would but if I just accepted my experience and move from that acceptance, I would just have more fun.  Here is to acceptance.

Suffering, Coping, Receiving, Relationship, Gratitude

I have been struck by loads of different meaningful quotes, ideas, compassionate offerings from those I am so deeply moved by in my life.  So I suspect this entry will be a bit stream of conscious as integrating them

I think the one which continues to stick is this notion that we can do more than "cope".  We really do and can learn to take in and receive goodness or be fulfilled.  Seems new agey right?  But we don't and mothers are the worst at this.

Inherently, we travel at a velocity which is not natural to us.  To quote Arrian Angeles "Nothing in nature moves rapidly unless its in danger".  The velocity of my own thinking is astounding at times.  Nothing about its speed is in alignment with who I am.  I am moving quickly.  What am I in danger from?  I bring past dangers into the present.  Past fears, past patterns...

So why don't we slow down?  Why must we do so much and when we do slow down what would be there?  In the mother's group I was telling you about, there were some mothers who completely balked at the idea of sitting in silence for two minutes at the end of our time together.  I have learned that while I operate faster than normal, I truly treasure going slow or better said, I treasure being able to do both (fast and slow).  I believe, we/I don't slow down because sometimes receiving is too hard - dare I say painful.

Arrian says that we can tend to those moments when we stopped singing, dancing, being enchanted by story and especially our story and enjoy the comfort of silence and contemplation as moments when we have lost a bit of our soul.  Made me feel good because despite all of the crap I have been feeling, I can still do them all.  Perhaps being enchanted by my own story I have lost but singing, check, dancing, check, silence check check. 

What would it mean to authentically receive and take in?  First it means that parts of us that haven't received get reawakened and we are confronted with grief that lives there in those hollows of our body.  Second, it means that we cling to what we take in and are open to more grief when it isn't available.  People can't always be there when we need to receive, mother's milk is not limitless, and the sun is not always shining.   The Buddha says suffering is a guarantee.  So part of receiving fully is also a willingness to feel loss, to grieve skillfully, with a great deal of self compassion and acceptance.  It is just a part of life to not always have those things immediately available but we can still remain grateful for the present moment of sorry and our willingness to hold ourselves in our sorrow.   We need to risk this sorrow because it is the connection to eachother that enlivens us.  We are wired to herd, wired to connect, we are wired to receive. 

So, I am aware, that I can receive fully, give fully and do more than cope in my life if I am willing to hold myself with compassion and accept that sorrow is organic  - its no big deal.  What that also means is I will continue to sit in self compassion for I am still in a grieving process right now - the grief of the baby -  and not freak out.  Creating suffering about my suffering is just not useful.  Others are not bad but nor am I.  And that I can move slowly in this process. I can be grateful for my courage to feel grief without identifying with it and still sing and dance in the midst of it.  If I stay in my body the grief itself even feels very alive.  I am alive in this grief.  If I try to run, it chases me anyway through obsessive awful self critical thoughts.  Guess I would rather hold the grief with love and compassion than deal with that crap.  YUK!

I am grateful for being right where I am.  I am on a mission to fully live out my truth.  And I couldn't be luckier to have the right partner, kids, and friendships to receive when I need, give to when needed and grieve when let down.  Sign me up.  I am in!

Starting Chapter 4

I have had some interesting interviews with new therapist the last few days.  I was stunned by how their humanity impacted how I showed up.  So I got curious about how in relationship, I tend to move from the outside in, rather than the inside out.  I tend to also take on other people's anger, sadness as if I don't have a choice and act on it. 

We talked about group dynamics and my continued tendency to pick up a group's pathology and carry it around inside of me and how that lets other people off the hook in terms of taking responsibility for their own behavior.   And I tend to get sucked into this notion that I am destined to live with a sabotaging internal dialogue.  We talked about what I am doing to take care of me and why I seem to be unwilling to do that.   I am aware of not fully grieving the past and leaving it there, in the past.  That inability to grieve prevents one from fully taking responsibility.

I am responsible.  No one else.

I am responsible for doing the things I know will help me thrive; self care, meditation, nourishing diet, slow transitions,careful goodbyes, good boundaries with other people, stating my needs clearly, hearing no clearly, seeing people for who they are and what they can offer, seeing myself for who I am and what I can offer, reaching deeply for the people who can meet me deeply and "leave the others be", and practice those things I have learned from my years of training in developing a sustaining and nourishing inner dialogue.  It is a commitment to self care I have been unwilling to make because my unconscious continues to rule and she keeps thinking someone is going to swoop in and make up for the past.  That belief will go away if, and only if, I grieve and leave the past back there.  So, underworld traversing, grieving doing, self care starting. 

Little Poem by Portia Nelson called Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

Chapter 1
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost...I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it. 
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in...it is a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter 4
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter 5
I walk down another street.

Our Inner Dialogue: Saboteur or Ally

My mind has taken over my whole body.  I am one big obsessional thought after obsessional thought.  I don't even want to write about what those obsessions are.  Because of the extreme nature of the imbalance inside of me ,thoughts taking over, I have become aware of the extreme nature of the imbalance outside of me.  I am aware of how heady and out of contact with their own beingness many people are more regularly than I.  I guess I found something to be grateful for as I noticed.  A start on the road to recovery.

In my case, this fusion of my self hood with what I am thinking is a highway to the danger zone.  My mind, and what I say to myself in my head, when it isn't balanced what I feel in my body and in my experience or isn't channeled by focused attention on some task is that of the internal critic.  I have talked about it a lot recently because this critic, this angry child, this one that wants to make sure I don't feel any of the pain beneath, this swallowed voice of my mother - is an unrelenting saboteur designed to squash me into immobility.  Today, as I was walking down the street I said to myself, "man this voice is so pervasive these last weeks I can barely stand upright under the pressure of all the mean things it tells me."  And then I thought, "yeah but I am still walking so as long as I am walking I can at least feel my feet." 

So today, when I remembered, I just noticed my walking feet moving across the earth.  It was all I could do to redirect my attention.  And I found some joy as I felt my feet touch down, lift off.  Suddenly I felt my body again, the breeze on my skin, the smells of the city, the sounds of the rustling trees. I am reminded of Gabrielle Roth saying the "only way out is in" or the only way to get out of pain is to get back inside your body because pain is about thought, often. 

I was wondering about my sons.  I have been grumpy the last two mornings. I really have been annoyed with the eating routine lately because they are so wild at the table they get up and wander and I am a "sit at the table and eat" kind of mom.  You can finish at any time you like, but so long as you are eating, that needs to happen on your bottom at the table.  But, I lost my cool and really said it in a grumpy way. My oldest, when I speak in this way, tells me he doesn't like me or he will say "I don't like it when you talk to me that way."  I always feel badly but glad that he feels comfortable expressing himself. 

In my own state of angst, I was noticing my son more.  Less worry about screwing him up, more interest in just looking and saying "Who are you over there?"  That felt nice too, like my feet on the earth. So much worry really interrupts my own fascination and curiosity of just who my kids are. What a bummer. 
Ah Ha!  I had an epiphany - one that maybe could have saved me loads on parenting books; I could just parent my kids with the internal dialogue I am leaving them with.  What do I want them to be saying to them self that is being taught through the way I set boundaries, what boundaries I set, how I repair, how I am available, what I prioritize, how I see them vs. my worry etc.   It is a good exercises for me right now as it forces me to challenge my own inner critic. 

Here is what I hope their inner dialogue tells them;
I am sorry you feel that way.  I am here with you.
Whoa that person is angry and we don't have to avoid this conflict because I know I am still good and those angry feelings of theirs will change.
My human fallibility has zero impact on my love ability - I am lovable just for being me.
I deserve to have needs and I am entitled to express them.
I can be in relationship with people who are different.
I MATTER!

I am sure the list goes on.  Seems like a nice way to parent.  What do I want my sons to tell themselves inside.  I wish someone had been parenting me with this goal in the front of their mind.   And yet, here I am, one foot on the earth at a time.

Good night.