When I was pregnant, I thought I would feel nothing but love and adore a deep sense of peace once my daughter, Lillian, arrived. And I did. Every now and then. But mostly I feel stressed and passed away.
The sound of the doorbell just sends me into a snit. Sure that every chime would wake the baby up from a nap with some difficulty, I snapped over both a service and intends UPS driver than I care to admit. If Lillian began to cry while my husband hugged her, I would yell, "Give him to me!" And took the baby from her hand. When my stepmother sent an e-mail to friends and family to announce the arrival of our daughter with a thumbnail version of the 72-hour labor, I struggled to answer all and show all the errors in his retelling.
To some extent, I understand why every small incident takes the importance of life and death. I was, after all, lost in a strange world where survival of the same meaning: Is the baby eating enough to grow? Is he going to give up on SIDS in the middle of the night? Many of my first experiences as a mother who studied actual physical violence. In the delivery room, I blew my voice out, pushing, and I'm tearing up as my daughter. The arrival of my milk-and rock-hard melons growing in the breast where I was-my skin taut to the point of cracking. The pain that accompanies the scabs on my nipples as my daughter and I learned how to work together to feel like something from a horror movie. I'm sticking with nursing, in my 10 years of practice, I've learned that what is difficult to feel one day the next business. So although the thought sits during sessions of breastfeeding, it makes me want to get into the car and go (at least for a few minutes). I suffered myself to the vision of nursing both of us relaxed on the sofa, without a couple of times to try and cushion mount at this time we needed to get a proper latch .
For the first time in my life, I felt primal, even wild. As the only child of divorced parents, I'm an expert at keeping the peace, not rocking the boat. Yoga practitioners only in my circle of friends, I have a reputation as the casual. And did I not just write a book about how to relax in the midst of everyday debacles? Although I can recognize the irony, I do not recognize the woman I am tired. Mom pulled the reins on my low-drama attitude of my hand, and I felt myself caroming through the day like a balloon deflating, whizzing through the air with a Bronx cheer to everyone within earshot.
Not all changes of mood I'm leaning toward the negative, thankfully. I had a swell of feelings of love: when my son fell asleep in my arms, her cheek resting on my shoulder, sighed a little sweet ointment on my wounds. Or lying in bed, our bed Lillian for the first few months, my husband and I on either side of her, our hands resting on his clasped tightly bundled. We were both silent as we stared, fascinated by him and in awe of us to creating this creature. But the capacity for love my whole life just focusing on my daughter, and everyone can go hang. Even myself.
Determined to finish something, I never heeded the advice to "nap when the baby naps." I end up so tired that I forgot to grab a pot holder before removing the pan from the oven hot, and I still have the scars to prove it. Over the years I have spent much time on the yoga mat and meditation cushion to seek awareness, and now exhausted and ignore my own needs, given my lack of objection.
The only way I know to ground yourself is to go back to my yoga practice, which I had let slide in the first few weeks away. I knew I had to go back to basics-down dogs, shavasana, child pose, because I would practice at home, alone, with a body that still needed to heal. So every morning as Lillian sleep, I'll roll out my mat and collect my blocks, bolsters, and belt. But despite my best intentions to take things slow, I find myself whipping through the pose, hoping the faster I go, the sooner I'll get my body and my mind-maybe even again. What I do not understand then was that I had to go back further than my asana practice to one of the most fundamental truths of yoga, the practice of Ahimsa. Most often translated as non-violence, ahimsa means love for all creatures, including ourselves.
I can not point to a single defining moment when I knew that the softening-for themselves, the people I love, even the UPS man will be my salvation. For the rest of the first year of the mother, because my son became a toddler and its needs become less urgent, I began to believe nanny and my husband, and left the house again. With more time for myself, I began attending weekly Iyengar yoga class woman who reminded me of the power inherent in slowing down and accept things as they are, and full awareness unravel the kinks in my muscles and mind with gentle but consistent work. I know all this, or know them in my life before, but they slipped from my consciousness. Fortunately, my body remembers, and the hum of pleasant taste after each class to help me be more loving at home. After yoga gives me a way more profound than the release, I stopped relying on my nightly glass or two (or three) of wine, which interferes with my sleep, and finally got the break I needed.
In the end, it saved my parenting monotonous. Everyday tasks I hate at first to be part of the practice-powerful, unexpected and unpredictable. Rather than sit and meditate for 20 minutes at a time as I did in the pre-Lillian life, I spent 20 minutes the night reading and rereading the same book. Good night, Gorilla taking a deep spiritual meaning in the reading of 223: the animal wants of their cages so they can spend the night in a nice house that Zookeeper; the Zookeeper's wife who patiently bring them back home. I found that the same metaphor works equally well for children who want to get out of their beds at midnight, and the unhappiness-promoting thoughts seek freedom.
In response to the food, crayons, and toys that end up on the floor during the day, I am also a loyal sweeper. Every night when I was swept up into a small mountain of crumbs, my legs, hands, breath, and calm the mind equally in synchrony. It became a ritual I look forward to these times will overflow its own insights. Dumping of debris into the trash can, I feel calmer, lighter, more down to earth. No euphoria, but satisfying.
Close to the reality of my new life with Ahimsa help me find Santosha or satisfaction, which in his Tree BKS Iyengar Yoga is translated as "fun." And that sense of pleasure in the details that ultimately helped me find my bearings: Lillian crackling sound on an apple, look at his face lit up when I return from work, the smell of his head when I first pick him up from his bed in the morning, the warmth of his body rested in my arms when I'm a nurse to sleep.
These instants are really gifts from parents, a mixture of the mundane and the sacred, the recognition of excellence in the chaos. Although this is only getting more chaotic since the arrival of younger sister Lillian, I also found more time to have fun in. They both helped me to see women not as a struggle, but an adventure. The monkeys were able to get out of their cage from time to time, and high Jinks might happen, but my formal and informal practices to ensure that there is always a way back home. This is a story that never gets old.
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