Day 11

The young ladies were sort of mad at me so they cozied up to Ben on the sofa instead of with me on the floor. Kind of sad about this, but actually I needed the space. Realizing I was perpetuating this feeling of "poor me", separation -- and honestly I felt miles away from most things good. That sucked. So I began mentally playing with what is truly one of my all time favorite qualities: flexibility. Supported by that night's centering thought...

I attempted to let my cerebral analysis of the sorry scene shift from hurt (they didn't "choose" me) to glad they were giving me some space. From self-blame (why am I such an a**hole) to gratitude for Ben, who typically steps up and effortlessly offers the calm, sweet space our girls need when I can't give it to them. Then, tried to peek out of my self-absorbed little hole to a broader consideration of the other three people in the room. The room itself. Nice room. Warm fire. Cave woman truncation. Maybe they were so happy and settled "over there" that my black temper wasn't as infectious as I had assumed? The gradual settling, the flow, the end of another day. That we were sitting and doing this despite what never feels like opportune conditions; the silence we all contributed to creating and maintaining ... the boundless space I can give to myself when I shift from out of myopic viewpoint and into the broader vista. How can I let go more?

Hell. We aren't being bombed. We are not hungry. There is safety and connection here. We say "I love you" often enough so it's the norm -- not a consolation, or back peddling into making nice. There are days when I have absolutely no, NO problems whatsoever and enough time, space, joy, resources and energy to do everything I want to do.

...there are 100 billions neurons in our brains waiting for our cue, our efforts, to jump to something that makes our days a little better. Neuroplasticity is powerful science. Remember that old Cherokee Proverb? There is a battle of two wolfs inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, lies, inferiority and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy and truth. The wolf that wins if the one you feed.
The one that wins is the one you feed.

10th Day

We were rushed this evening but the gotta do all of these mentality took us by storm so we ate Mac n Cheese and organized DVDs on the floor while we fake meditated...time went by and it was kind of cool to see some reverence in the children. We decided no talking, so Phoebe madly lip synched something to Willoree that totally could have waited. At least two or three times. Willoree had an irritated face and kept quiet, but ended up yelling at Phoebe because she was messing up the DVD stack. The irony of the topic being FOCUS and tonight's play by play does not escape me.

Day 9

Very cool happening tonight in the Geitner/Ford household. The four of us were apres-dinner doing our own things: I am fighting a cold and was sitting in a pile of paperwork sorting on the floor; kids were in various states of getting ready for bed, talking up their tiredness; Ben was finishing up a book. Tonight's meditation could easily have been skipped because of apathy, tiredness, not feeling well, bedtime -- you name it. But I hit play anyways, right in the middle of typically average, busy evening. I didn't wait around for anything approximating perfect timing. I just called it. And once Oprah started talking the energy of the room -- and we -- kind of gelled into this single stream kind of thing. We never hear much of what Oprah has to say, same goes for Deepak some evenings (no offense) but by the time the little bell rings us into silence we're ready to collectively enjoy our quiet home. Which means quieter bodies. Eventually. 

It took about 3 or 4 minutes to settle, realize, and fall into our new habit -- but when it happened (and maybe even when it was happening) I could feel it. My experience was that we went from disparate, self-absorbed people into the new-found (and quite easily come by, I'm realizing) comfort of unified focus and quiet, together-in-end-of-day silence. It struck me (again!) that there isn't often an ideal time, optimal conditions, or a cohesive affirmation that dictates the pauses in our lives. Someone is usually just awesome enough to midwife a pause in.

So in the spirit of birthing new ideas, awareness, and gratitude for this experiment in our home, I am getting more and more comfortable serving up "the pause". Really wonderful how inviting in peace, stillness, a change of focus from independent, busy, distracted, chores, etc. can so quickly make like a cohesive field. Perhaps I'm stuck on "intention" here -- but so loving the practicality, elegance, simplicity, of this concept. I think, too, that "intention/attention" is a graspable concept and nice intersection between parents and children.

1/3 of the way through - Day 7

One week down. Day 7 is done!

I sat on a chair by myself in a somewhat black temper ... but by the end I was feeling better. Took a bath and went to bed early.

It was late; too late. Pushing limits. The set up was haphazard. Deliberate creation and intention is the game here and I was realizing that I just didn't deliberately set anything up, nor did I prioritize and help usher in a reasonable family affair. I had my head in my studies and it wasn't OK to blame Ben for the lack of preparation, etc.

All me. Hence my bad mood!

Ah well.

Day 8

Feeling so grateful for the hope and openness these are offering me and my family! As I'm sitting each evening with them, now completing Day 8, I can't help wonder why it's so much easier to focus on the wiggling, the irritations, interruptions, the things that are challenges to peace vs. peace itself. I wouldn't trade this strange new experience of meditation -- I know it's "best enjoyed" in a distraction-free zone, but this is part of my experiment: can I invite peace in no matter the circumstance? And the answer is yes. At times. I'm noticing that there is a whole new layer of awareness about how challenging old habits are to break, but these mantras and this family ritual we've adopted are beautiful assurance that peace is here now, despite and around circumstance...and when and if I fall away from that understanding, I can get back up and accept whatever flavor of peace and harmony that's present. Here's to the Patron Saint of Second (and third, etc.) chances!

Day 6 - Attention...

Day 6.

Love this: "Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager." — Susan Sontag. We came, we sat. It was so late and our day was so big and fun we all lay on the floor toppled over one another like Dominoes and fell asleep. Hence the morning after post...

Day 5 - Shreem Kleem Namah

"I deserve complete fulfillment."

Shreem Kleem Namah. I attract abundance from my true self.

Tonight's installment left me kinda longing. Nothing much more to say about that, in this white box, at least. Kids were fine, predictable, throughout tonight's meditation and I feel the weather turning
from summery fall to wintery fall.

I'd be lying if I wrote I wasn't more distracted than normal tonight. I was also aware that repeating the bit about deserving complete fulfillment over and over left me wondering about places where complete fulfillment just isn't happening. It's like that thing about asking people about peace and they talk about war, or asking them about belonging and they talk about the times when they were left out. (Brene Brown talks in depth about this.) I don't think that you can consider complete fulfillment without considering the areas where you sense you'd like more. Maybe that's part of the the point.
I note too that not long before this gig started I preferred my lap free during my meditation time but I'm beginning to prefer two girl heads in it. At least tonight I did.

In any case, it's been and long luscious week and this lady's calling it done.

Until tomorrow...

Day 4 - Ahrah Kahrah

Day 4. Ahrah Kahrah.

Perhaps the cutest thing about this undertaking is listening to Willoree pull some serious Alex Trebek moves and pronounce the Sanskrit with alarmingly exaggerated, but close to perfect inflection and pronunciation.

Another cool thing is that the room where we're sitting truly transforms into a little peace den while we're meditating. No longer an entryway or a place to socialize...neither the place where we throw our shoes nor the kinda of laundry room. This living room -- just by intention and what we're all doing in it, together -- basically morphs into a little room of enormous ideals.

Neat.

Day 3 - Ananta Swa Bhava

Day 3 – Ananta Swa Bhava
My Being is without beginning or end.

Feeling spacious and unhurried is a really welcome (and rare) goodness in my life — especially where mothering is concerned. I guess for me one of the hardest things about being a mother is that feeling of not enough time. It’s so easy to rush. It’s so easy to feel like there are more important things to do than be present with kids, and, truth be told: sometimes there are. There’s no arguing the “time and a place” logic. I do my best to relish and create little moments that bring more good, simple things to light. Sometime’s it’s easy, sometimes it’s work. The cool thing about this 21-Day challenge is that I’m/we’re committed. So ultimately it doesn’t matter whether I’m in the mood or not; we’re doing it. Something about ritual…

For twenty one and a half minutes I welcomed the unbeatable feeling of having nowhere else to be but here, and this mantra just lulled me to happy. Love the reminder of the non-beginning and non-ending of it all. (Truly, what better backdrop for slowing down? There is time.) 

Tonight our now evening ritual was accompanied by a little whining, moderately violent sounding hiccups, parent lap hopping and finally snoring. Managed to sit through it all without needing to talk, address, solve, worry, manage anything. Eventually the whole house was quiet.

I bet injecting more meaning to the everyday grind would elongate time like nothing else. But how ever am I going to find routine in the day to day of child-rearing?

Oh wait. Never mind.

Day 2 - Rasa Hum

2
Rasa Hum
I am the essence of life.

Yes.

And THIS is life. I'm sitting in it, and it's sitting on me.

Phoebe's been bustling to turn off lights, find a suitable cushion, settling as close to me as possible and squirming in my lap trying to find her seat. More moving, adjusting, fidgeting, wanting things to be just so. Willoree is sitting facing me. We sit cross legged with our knees touching while Phoebe squirms between us. I have my hand on Willoree’s knee, and her hand is on top of mine. It's like we are the tolerant mothers of Phoebe, so is so perfectly four years old.

I can hear Willoree saying quietly to herself Rasa Hum, and she and I exchange a quick smile of acknowledgment before we close our eyes and deepen into our silent meditation time. Phoebe eventually falls asleep in my lap; I know this because I can feel her head dropping down into my lap off my arm, which was serving as her cushion. I think to myself: this is exceptional! This indeed is what meditation looks like in this crazy modern world, surrounded by a loud and needy family, the noises of an older home. It smells like dinner and feels like the end of a long day. It takes a minute or two to find my way into the quiet, but I do. And the kids do. Once there I get excited: the message is so simple: you absolutely can find peace and silence and connection in a world filled with chaos. We must! We don’t always have the pleasure of fine tune our surroundings to create what we want peace to give us...peace is inside. I am the pudgy, not too fit runner on the high school track racing after a peaceful feeling, trying to catch it, and peace is the team of encouraging running partners who, no matter where I go, fast or slow, are always cheering me on...waiting up, reminding me that the "finish line" is here, now, and always; giving great perspective and a cool drink of water.

Desire for peace is inside, and taking the time to touch in to that desire that puts me closer to living it. This is the essence of life.

Ben was on the sofa the whole time, but after we talked this morning about last night’s meditation and the cat puke, etc. I know he was attuned to the mantras yesterday and tonight as much as we were. And he was right there with us. Ben is the metronome in our lives: steady, steady, steady and reliable, quietly ticking and moving forward with all of us.

The 21-DAY Challenge BEGINS

Hi. I'm back.

I'm trying an experiment -- both in posting and in trying this out...DAY ONE (from yesterday.)

A few days ago I decided to take on the meditation challenge WITH MY family, including our two young girls Willoree (8) and Phoebe (4). They’re into it; we’ve dabbled, and I have done enough meditation to know that it’s in my blood and spirit for the haul, so without thinking much more about it, we sat down to join Oprah and Deepk on their 21-Day Meditation experience about the Energy of Attraction.

I like a challenge…it keeps me humble and open to life.

The girls and I sat in front of our wood stove snuggled close, holding hands; husband Ben in the background probably sleeping on the sofa. Eventually Phoebe gets up to snuggle with Papa. Willoree’s sitting like she’s been taught in Montessori school: hands on her lap, back straight, sitting criss cross applesauce, feeling her love. A few minutes later Phoebe is back on my lap in a strange combination of lying down and sitting up. My posture’s suffering: the angle I must assume to accommodate Willoree’s slipping head, who’s scrapped the “perfect posture” for the pull of sweet, warm gravity, is now on my lap and Phoebe is trying to lay on my lap without bothering her sister. This is not what they teach in meditation class. I go with it. Oprah talks a bunch about alignment and my heart feels full, happy, sweetened by this funny, natural moment in life — and then the cat begins to puke on the yoga mat where we’re all sitting. She’s a long-haired Maine Coon kind of cat who leaves hairballs all over the place. She moves to the fireplace and pukes on the hearth. “Shit”, Ben says, and comes over with some paper towels to wipe it up. I say to myself: Eecha Shakti Namah, about three times, and I am somehow still smiling on the inside.

Maybe I’m just happy that I’m so warm, my girls are falling asleep in the afterglow of our new bedtime routine, and I am holding their hands and tearing up and laughing in the inside at the same time at the strange wonder of it all ... and my back is somehow hanging in there.

Not mine. But Loved Her.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/glennon-melton/the-questions-that-will-save-your-relationships_b_4618254.html

The Questions That Will Save Your Relationships

When I was a mama of three very tiny, very messy, very beautiful rug rats, we had DAYS THAT WENT ON FOR LIFETIMES. Craig left at 6:00 a.m. every morning and as I watched his showered, ironed self leave the house I felt incredibly blessed and thrilled to have so much time alone with my babies and incredibly terrified and bitter to have so much time alone with my babies. If you don't believe that all of those feelings can exist at once -- well, you've never been a parent to many tiny, messy, beautiful rug rats.

 

When Craig returned each day at 6:00 p.m. (he actually returned at 5:50 but took a STUNNINGLY LONG TIME TO GET THE MAIL) he'd walk through the door, smile and say -- "So! How was your day?"

 

This question was like a spotlight pointed directly at the chasm between his experience of a "DAY" and my experience of a "DAY." How was my day?

 

The question would linger in the air for a moment while I stared at Craig and the baby shoved her hand in my mouth like they do -- while the oldest screamed MOMMY I NEED HELP POOING from the bathroom and the middle one cried in the corner because I NEVER EVER EVER let her drink the dishwasher detergent. NOT EVER EVEN ONCE, MOMMY!!! And I'd look down at my spaghetti-stained pajama top, unwashed hair, and gorgeous baby on my hip -- and my eyes would wander around the room, pausing to notice the toys peppering the floor and the kids' stunning new art on the fridge...

 

And I'd want to say:

How was my day? Today has been a lifetime. It was the best of times and the worst of times. There were moments when my heart was so full I thought I might explode, and there were other moments when my senses were under such intense assault that I was CERTAIN I'd explode. I was both lonely and absolutely desperate to be alone. I was saturated -- just BOMBARDED with touch and then the second I put down this baby I yearned to smell her sweet skin again. I was simultaneously bored out of my skull and completely overwhelmed with so much to do. Today was too much and not enough. It was loud and silent. It was brutal and beautiful. I was at my very best today and then, just a moment later, at my very worst. At 3:30 today I decided that we should adopt four more children, and then at 3:35 I decided that we should give up the kids we already have for adoption. Husband -- when your day is completely and totally dependent upon the moods and needs and schedules of tiny, messy, beautiful rug rats your day is ALL OF THE THINGS and NONE OF THE THINGS, sometimes within the same three minute period. But I'm not complaining. This is not a complaint, so don't try to FIX IT. I wouldn't have my day Any.Other.Way. I'm just saying -- it's a hell of a hard thing to explain -- an entire day with lots of babies.

But I'd be too tired to say all of that. So I'd just cry, or yell, or smile and say "fine," and then hand the baby over and run to Target to wander aisles aimlessly, because that's all I ever really wanted. But I'd be a little sad because love is about really being seen and known and I wasn't being seen or known then. Everything was really hard to explain. It made me lonely.

So we went went to therapy, like we do.

Through therapy, we learned to ask each other better questions. We learned that if we really want to know our people, if we really care to know them -- we need to ask them better questions and then really listen to their answers. We need to ask questions that carry along with them this message: "I'm not just checking the box here. I really care what you have to say and how you feel. I really want to know you." If we don't want throwaway answers, we can't ask throwaway questions. A caring question is a key that will unlock a room inside the person you love.

So Craig and I don't ask "How was your day?" anymore. After a few years of practicing increasingly intimate question asking, now we find ourselves asking each other questions like these:

When did you feel loved today?
When did you feel lonely?
What did I do today that made you feel appreciated?
What did I say that made you feel unnoticed?

What can I do to help you right now?

I know. WEEEEEIRRD at first. But not after a while. Not any weirder than asking the same damn empty questions you've always asked that elicit the same damn empty answers you've always gotten.
And so now when our kids get home from school, we don't say: "How was your day?" Because they don't know. Their day was lots of things.

Instead we ask: 

How did you feel during your spelling test?
What did you say to the new girl when you all went out to recess?
Did you feel lonely at all today?
Were there any times you felt proud of yourself today?

And I never ask my friends: "How are you?" Because they don't know either.

Instead I ask: 

How is your mom's chemo going?
How'd that conference with Ben's teacher turn out?
What's going really well with work right now?

Questions are like gifts -- it's the thought behind them that the receiver really FEELS. We have to know the receiver to give the right gift and to ask the right question. Generic gifts and questions are all right, but personal gifts and questions feel better. Love is specific, I think. It's an art. The more attention and time you give to your questions, the more beautiful the answers become.
Life is a conversation. Make it a good one.



This post originally appeared on Momastery.