Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings....

"If you make one emotion wrong, you make all emotion wrong....to the degree that you are not comfortable being in your anger and your sadness, is the same degree to which you diminish your capacity to let in joy, peace, and all the others." --Christian Pankhurst

I have been bumping into this idea - FEEL YOUR FEELINGS - a lot lately, including in my own advice column. But it's a hard one.

It's a hard one to DO, it's a hard one to REMEMBER to do, and it's a REALLY hard one to teach your kids. 

So often we don't think we have the time to let our kids (or ourselves) feel their feelings, but the more I work with this concept, the more I think the very opposite is true. Taking the time to feel your feelings - and to let others do the same - ultimately SAVES a whole lotta time in my opinion.

Take this morning for example. My older son wasn't feeling well. He was lying on the floor moaning and not eating his breakfast. There was a part of me that was saying, "Oh no, not this again...." and who wanted to march right over there and force him to eat and let him know in no uncertain terms that he was going to school today.

But I checked myself. Instead I went over to him, knelt down and asked him how he was doing. I rubbed his head and let him tell me that he wasn't used to going to school after a week off. I empathized, gave him a big hug and then went back to gathering lunches and finding sweatshirts and picking up stray homework sheets in order to help the boys get out the door.

A few minutes later he was up and at'em. Finding some socks, packing his backpack, getting ready to go. No fuss, no muss.

Just a few seconds of feeling his feelings - and having that validated - and he was able to make it happen.

It made me wonder...How often do we make things WORSE - for ourselves and for those around us - by not taking the time to feel our feelings and allowing others to do the same?

I am pretty sure I know how this morning would have gone if I had marched over to my son and undermined his feelings. He would have dug his heels in, moaned louder, procrastinated longer, and maybe even have convinced me that he needed to stay home today. But by allowing him just a few brief seconds to wallow and feel, I made room for him to move from feeling bad to feeling better, all right, capable.

How much time, pain, stress, body aches and therapy could be saved each year if we just FELT OUR FEELINGS and allowed others to do the same (without taking it on as something to feel guilty about or to judge)?  Let's find out.

Watch these great videos from Christian Pankhurst, Britain's Next Top Coach, and give it a try for yourself. Take the time to really FEEL YOUR FEELINGS and see what happens next.

Good luck and lots of love!

Emotional pain is the resistance to feeling by Christian Pankhurst:



3 Steps to instantly feel better:



I would also recommend a great article entitled, "What To Do With Your Feelings."

Humble Pie

"Less likely to see print is writing that honors our imperfections and chips away at the walls we've constructed between ourselves and others; that reminds us that what we value most is not for sale; that acknowledges the inevitable fact of suffering and the surprising ways it sometimes enriches us." --Krista Bremer, Associate Publisher of The Sun magazine

My favorite thing about this quote is where it came from. This quote is from a direct mail letter that I received yesterday from The Sun magazine, a magazine so amazingly cool that their junk mail is quotable. If you have never read The Sun I highly recommend it. It is full of writing that, "...honors our imperfections and chips away at the walls we've constructed between ourselves and others...that acknowledges the inevitable fact of suffering and the surprising ways it sometimes enriches us."

I hope this post will be as well. 

Coming on the heels of my post about peace on Monday, this one will be heavy with irony. Even as it was being automatically posted by the wonder that is blogger, I was lying on the couch, foot up on a block of ice, nursing an aching heel that came from a decidedly UN-peaceful moment. 

Every Sunday night we have a family meeting. This week was "hammer mom week." It was an official agenda item: Chop Off Mom's Head. 

The reason? I have been proposing for months, and finally insisted upon at this meeting, a one-week ban on screen time. ALL screen time. For ALL of us. (Okay, not email and word processing and blogging and anything that could reasonably be considered "work," but everything else...)

It did not go over well. 

There was shouting. There were tears. There was a 45-minute rant about what a horrible mother I am. And at the end of that, there was a threat to run away, out into the dark of the night without so much as a sweatshirt. 

I refused to allow it, which upped the ante and made it even more attractive. And then my husband threw in his two cents. And agreed. With the kid. 

Oooooh, was I mad. MAD mad. Stomping mad you might say. 

So mad in fact that I stomped my foot, repeatedly, on our newly uncovered hard wood (oak, not fir) floors and bruised (hopefully not broke) my heel. Badly. 

So badly that when I tried to walk I found myself in great pain. So badly that I had to sit down. For the next three days (and counting....). 

I also "spiked the cheese," - threw a block of cheddar cheese on the ground like a football player celebrating in the end zone - not once, but twice. My kids will be happy to tell you ALL about it. Mom spiking the cheese has already gone down in the history of our family as one of the funniest things that has ever happened, EVER. (For the record, the cheese was wrapped in plastic and survived to be eaten once again.)

And that's not even the worst part. 

The worst part is. I was wrong. Let me say that again. I was WRONG. 

My son "ran away." He ran one lap around the block in the dark with no shoes and no jacket and came back in less than 60 seconds, breathless and completely over it. He came into the bedroom where I sat reading to my other son, sat directly across from me and said, "That was kind of scary." Then he snuggled in and started reading with us. He hasn't complained about the screen time ban since. 

So, a bruised ego to go with my bruised (hopefully not broken) heel. 

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   

My favorite part about this story has been the reactions of others as I have told it. I decided pretty early on not to lie or make up a story about what had happened (there really aren't a whole lot of options when it's the bottom of your heel that is injured, it's kind of a hard part of your body to hurt), but to tell the truth. 

And in this case the truth has been a way to honor my own imperfections and chip away at the walls I've constructed between myself and those around me. 

When I told my neighbor what had happened the look on his face was one of relief, as if to say, "Oh thank God, it's not just us." When I told a group of moms, they laughed and one shared a story from her childhood about the way her parents used to fight. When I told a friend she admitted that a story she had previously told me was not the whole truth and that her anger had in fact led to that incident and not an accident as she had led everyone to believe.

Sharing my story of anger and pain, of suffering and humanity, has indeed enriched my relationships in surprising ways. And that seems worth a few days on the couch.

Working on It...

"If you want your children to succeed, show them how to fail. If you want them to be happy, show them how to be sad.        If you want them to be healthy, show them how to be sick.      If you want them to have much, show them how to enjoy little." 

--William Martin from The Parents Tao Te Ching

Resisting Resistance

“What you resist, persists.” --Carl Jung

This quote has been playing in my head for the past few days. I didn't even know where it came from. I am sure I read it in some book or on Twitter at some point in the past few years. It isn't even one I wrote down. (When I went to find it in my quotations database – yes, I am just that geeky – I couldn't find it so I had to turn, gasp!, to the internet.) But I've been playing it like a favorite song in my head this week.

My son is getting better. At least I think he is. He is complaining less about his stomach aches. He is going to school. He is running around more and eating pretty well. He is blaming me for pretty much everything. Have I mentioned the blaming?

I am the pinnacle of all that is wrong with the world right now. I cannot do anything right. If I give him a gift, it is unwanted. If I give him a hug, it is shrugged off. If I make a suggestion, it is rebuffed.

I have tried everything in my mom arsenal. I have tried talking. I have tried asking questions. I have tried doling out consequences. I have tried ignoring. And, yes, I have even tried yelling. All to no avail. I am still to blame for life and everything shitty in it.

It feels like a window into the teenage years.

But this week, this quote has helped me get to a new and different place. A place of not resisting.

When he starts a diatribe about how awful life is and how it is all my fault I do not resist. I don't resist what he is saying; I just listen. I do not resist how he is feeling; I let him feel. I do not resist how I am feeling; I let myself feel.

It's really funny, but I can sense how my not resisting his negative feelings is helping him. I am not sure why. He no longer feels judged? He no longer feels wrong? He feels more free to be himself? But I can feel it working.

And as I think about it, it makes total sense. Life is hard. Bad things happen. Bad feelings come up. As a parent we are so conditioned to keep our children safe. To make them comfortable and happy. To meet their every need and to take care of them. It is hard to realize that as they grow and mature this is no longer our job.

As they grow and mature into pre-teens, teenagers and young adults our job is more to guide than to direct. More to love than to care for. And more to allow than to resist.

My job is changing and I need to change with it. The problems my son is facing and will be facing over the next ten years cannot be fixed with a hug and a band aid. The problems he is facing now are the beginnings of the adult problems he will face for the rest of his life.

If I resist this fact I stunt his growth and I get in his way. If I keep him from feeling the feelings he needs to feel, I keep him from learning the things he need to learn. And that is not my job.

I need to stop resisting the fact that my little boy – my onetime baby – is on his way to somewhere I cannot always go with him. The sooner I do, the better off we'll both be and, hopefully, the closer we will remain. 

Serious Business Indeed

"Parenting is serious business. It brings out the best and the worst in us. It demands that we confront our brightest and darkest selves." --Dear Sugar

This column in the Rumpus simultaneously broke my heart and made it sing. Motherhood is tough, parenting is hard, and compassion is healing. I hope you will enjoy it too.

The Sharp Truth of Parenting

"...[P]art of what I’m seeing is that even now, even at age seven, he’s miles beyond my grasp. I can’t impose peace and happiness on him any more than I could impose it on those noisy middle school hallways years ago. He is on his journey, not mine. I’ve always known that. But I’m only just now feeling the sharp truth of it." 

--FloorPie from her blog of the same name

I love this quote, and it makes me want to cry all at the same time. The older our children get, the more they - and their life experiences - are out of our grasp, completely beyond our control.

The thing is, they really always were. 

The more I do this job called parenting the more I feel the truth of Kahlil Gibran's poem, "Your children are not your children, They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself..." and Floorpie's observation that they are on their journey, not mine. 

I can guide and commiserate and offer snacks, but they are pretty much on their own to figure it out and make the best of it. To find happiness and love and what feels to them like success. 

I hope they find it easier than I have (and with better results), but that is not up to me. All I can do is watch and love and feel the sharp truth of it.

The Tao of Parenting

"If you always compare your children's abilities 

to those of great athletes, entertainers, and celebrities,

they will lose their power.

If you urge them to acquire and achieve, 

they will learn to cheat and steal

to meet your expectations.

Encourage your children's deepest joys, 

not their superficial desires.

Praise their patience, 

not their ambition.

Do not value the distractions and diversions

that masquerade as success.

They will learn to hear their own voice

instead of the noise of the crowd.

If you teach them to achieve

they will never be content.

If you teach them contentment, 

they will naturally achieve everything.

It may be interesting to ask,

"What limitations have I, unthinking,

taken upon myself?"

It is very difficult for your child's horizons

to be greater than your own. 

Do something today that pushes

against your own preconceptions.

Then take your child's hand

and gently encourage her to do the same."

--William Martin from The Parent's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents 

I don't want to say too much about this one. I just want to let it sit with you and resonate throughout your life as it has mine. I feel like it explains so much and points the way forward for me as a parent. 

It explains for me why I have struggled all of my life with limiting thought patterns. I was raised by a safe people. Risk-taking and putting yourself out there was not encouraged and I clung to this safety with all I had. How much of the wonder and joy of life has this need to be safe hindered me from experiencing? If the sinking feeling in my stomach is any indication, a lot. I don't want to pass that on to my children. I want them to know wonder and joy every day of their lives. 

It explains for me the kid we know who is widely considered to be the smartest kid in his class - if not the whole school - who consistently lies, cheats and runs other kids down. I have struggled mightily with this child. I do not want to condemn or ostracize from our family any child in our social circle, but his behavior has hurt my son at times so deeply that it has been hard to find my compassion. Now that I know "why" I am finding it a little bit easier. The pressure and failure he already feels must be overwhelming. I don't want to put that on my children in hopes that they will get into a "good" college. 

It explains why I always feel most content when I am in gratitude, recognizing that all I have is already enough and that I need nothing but "right now" to be happy and fulfilled. Contentment is a gift of immeasurable value. I just hope it's not too late. I hope I haven't already taught too many of the wrong things, emphasized the wrong things, pointed them in the wrong direction - the direction that our society says is the path to success.

There is a well-known question in the self-improvement field right now, "Would you rather be happy or right?" This quote brought a new question to mind: "Would you rather be successful or content?"

I think I would choose contentment every day of the week, for myself and for my children. At the very least I hope to make it possible for them to choose it for themselves.

Juggling Time

"This is your life. Right now." 

--Tyrone Giordano as Graham Martin in A Lot Like Love. 

You have no idea just how much time kids take until you have one. As a pregnant woman I had this idea that my life would go on pretty much as it had before, except I would have this cute little person to share my days with (oh, and I'd have to change the occasional diaper of course). O.M.G. Not exactly.

Every day since the birth of my first son I have felt like someone trying to juggle time - talk about impossible! - trying to squeeze MY life in in between diaper changes and dolling out fish crackers.  

As I walked home from dropping them off on the last day of school last week that old feeling of "no more time" hit me and my stomach sank. How would I get anything done this summer? Writing? Cleaning? Exercising? Grocery shopping?

But I stopped myself, brought myself back to the moment and remembered this quote. 

I find it helpful to repeat it to myself the same way our junior high school Latin teacher Mr Lynch made us repeat sentences to help us learn about grammar, by placing emphasis on a different word each time you say it: 

THIS is my life 

This IS my life. 

This is MY life.  

This is my LIFE. 

Every moment is my life. Even the moments I am sharing with someone else when I might prefer to be alone. (Maybe especially those moments....) 

Yes, alone time is going to be hard to come by this summer. I am going to have to write, clean, exercise, and even grocery shop (the horror!) with my children. But in each of these moments there are lessons to be learned and life to be lived and joy to be had. 

Before I know it, it will be fall and they will be going off to school again. And then to college and then to THEIR lives. 

And I will miss lazy summer mornings snuggling on the couch reading a good book with my boys. I will miss playing two square on the sidewalk and pitching balls in the backyard. I will even miss taking them to the grocery store (though maybe not quite as much). 

And I will regret the moments that I had with them when I was wishing I was somewhere else, doing something else. 

It reminds me of a story from Care of the Soul : A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life by Thomas Moore:

"A man came to me depressed and completely dissatisfied with his job. He had been working in a manufacturing shop for ten years, and all that time he planned his escape. He was going to go to school and enter a profession that he liked. But while he planned and kept his mind continually on his escape, his work in the shop suffered. Years went by and he was always dissatisfied, hating his job and wishing for the promised land of his ambitions. 'Have you ever thought,' I asked him one day, 'of being where you are, of entering fully this job that you're putting your time and energy into?' 'It's not worth it,' he said. 'It's beneath me. A robot could do it better.' 'But you do it every day,' I observed. 'And you do it badly, and you feel bad about yourself for doing it badly.' 'You're saying,' he said incredulously, 'that I should go to the stupid job as if my heart were in it?' 'You're in it, aren't you?' He came back in a week to say that something had changed in him as he began to take his 'stupid' job more seriously. It seemed that by entering his fate and emotions he might begin to taste his life...."

Every moment we are on this planet is an opportunity to taste our lives and every moment we spend wishing things were somehow different is an opportunity missed. 

Every attempt at juggling time, misses the point completely.

Total Freedom

"The only relationship that can make both [people] happy is one in which sentimentality has no place and neither [person] makes any claim on the life and freedom of the other. " 

--Milan Kundera

I had a bit of a shock today. When I went to tell my kids it was time to get their shoes on to go to school, my older son was nowhere to be found. 

Not in the house. Not in the yard. Not down the street. Gone.

His backpack and shoes were gone as well so I had a pretty good idea where he was, but still it gave me pause. 

In the past week or so my older son has begun to want to walk to school on his own. He doesn't want to wait for me or our "walking bus" to be ready to go. He wants to leave on his own time and walk by himself.

A couple of years ago this would have freaked me out, but he has matured a lot and so have I. I have also read, "Free-Range Kids, How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry) by Lenore Skenazy so I know that a lot of my fears are unfounded. Still. 

I have the somewhat irrational fear that if my kids are out of my sight they are not safe. On one level, I know this is not true, but on another level I am not so sure. 

When I called my husband to tell him about the incident (after I drove to school to confirm that, yes, he had made it there and gave him "the talk" about letting me know when he was leaving the house), he was very sympathetic....with my son. 

He has always thought that I am too cautious, too worried, too.....safe. That the boys need more room, more independence, more FREEDOM than I give them. 

We talked about it a little bit and I found myself getting really upset. Feeling like men (and boys) don't care about women, about our needs for communication and checking in, that they just want to go off and leave us in the dust, hunt some elk and come home when they damn well please. 

My husband confirmed that this was pretty much so. BUT, he said, the important part is that they DO come home and that they WANT to. 

So I have been thinking about freedom today. What it means, how much I want, how much I can give to the men in my household. 

The idea of everyone coming and going without any communication is frightening to me. It's anarchy and that just doesn't feel like a family to me. But perhaps we are in need of some adjusting of expectations. 

For the past nine years I have done everything for my kids. Made their meals, changed their diapers, washed their clothes, picked up after them. I have been feeling lately like they need to take more responsibility for their things and their bodies and their lives, so it only make sense that as I ask more of them, they ask me for more too. More freedom. Of movement, of control, of decision-making. 

It's an intricate dance we are all doing together, this dance of freedom. Always trying to decide what is too much, what is too little and what is just enough.

I have to admit I do like the feeling of TOTAL FREEDOM. I got a taste of that when I was in Paris a few weeks ago. Just being able to go and do completely on my own time was something I had not experienced in a long time. It felt great and I want that for my kids and for my husband and for my family. BUT...

There is such a strong pull towards being in control, being in charge, being "the one" who is doing it all, holding this whole thing together, that it is hard to let go and just let everyone be. Be themselves. Be who they are. Be in each moment with total freedom.

For the past nine years that has not been possible. For me. For them. For us. But now freedom is looming and I am not quite sure how I feel about it.  

PRIDE! (in the name of LOVE)

"Being absolutely present and engaged with each moment is generally the way to go. However, sometimes it's best for you and all concerned if you can take a step back from the intensity of the present. Ask yourself, 'How will I feel about this in 10 years?' Then channel your decade-older self and speak from his/her perspective. People might think you're crazy because you're laughing instead of furious, or casual instead of intense. But coming from that place will generate a more positive situation...." 

--From Sign Language by Caeriel Crestin in Maui Time News

Earlier this year we had our kids' parent-teacher-conferences. They went well. Very well.

Our kids are bright, well-adjusted, and well-behaved (for the most part anyway :)

Walking home I felt proud of my kids. Proud of their accomplishments in school thus far. Proud to be their mom.

As I continued to reflect on these feelings of pride I found myself wondering....is this what life is all about?

Smart children. Good meetings. Proud parents.

Or is life about learning and growing and sometimes making a mess?

And I began to wonder....am I going to feel as proud of my kids when they are messing up as I do when they are doing well?

Am I going to feel proud the first time one of them fails a test, or sneaks out of the house, or gets his heart broken,  knowing that they are learning as much - if not more - from these experiences as from doing well in school?

The conclusion I came to was: I hope so.

I hope I can remember to view their slips, missteps and failures with as much pride as I view their accomplishments and successes, knowing that BOTH are an integral part of this human life.

Dutiful is (sometimes) Beautiful

"I slept and dreamt that life was Joy. I woke and saw that Life was Duty. I acted, and behold, Duty was Joy." 

--Unknown from a YogiTea tea bag

I was up all night with sick kids, after hosting a dinner party at which I drank WAY too much red wine. By all rights I should be a mess right now, but for some reason I feel pretty darn good. 

I spent the night lying all curled up at the bottom of my sons' beds; first one and then the other, moving whenever I heard that still, small voice calling out, "Mommy!"

"Mommy, I got sick again." 

"Mommy, I need some water." 

"Mommy, I wet the bed."

"Mommy, is it my turn for snuggles?"

Midnight, one AM, three AM, six AM....there may have been more, I kind of lost count somewhere along the way....

The funny thing is instead of feeling martyred or exhausted or hungover or even resentful (my husband was enjoying a blissfully uninterrupted night's sleep), I felt....dutiful. 

And that felt beautiful. 

Pondering Parenthood

 "Parents are as confused by life as anyone else. But they try very hard. "

--Rohinton Mistry from A Fine Balance

Driving home from the grocery store today I saw a sign for a preschool in the area. It said, "a relaxed trusting atmosphere for your child," or something like that....

It caused a full-body sigh of exhaustion in me as I remembered that time - not so many years ago - when my boys were toddlers and I was looking for a preschool for them.

I spent SO MUCH time on it. Online. Talking to other parents. Going on tours. Thinking. Planning. Considering. Wondering.....

Once they were in school I spent MORE TIME getting them there, picking them up, deciding which snack to bring, worrying about how they were doing, wondering if we had made the right decision....

The weight of all this time and energy got me down and I had a thought: What if we just didn't do that?

What if instead of thinking, planning, worrying, and wondering we just WERE. With our kids.

What if instead of reading, and touring and talking to other parents we just LISTENED. To our kids.

Later, when I was walking my kids home from school they were a few steps ahead of me, plotting their next Lego Star Wars Xbox mission and paying absolutely no attention to me.

As I watched them walk up the hill toward our house together I could see them walking away from me.

Some scientists believe that most of what kids learn about how to be in this world is learned in the first seven years, which would mean that my work is pretty much done.

I don't know if I believe that, but I do know that from this point on it is their friends and their peers who will have a much bigger influence on them than me and my husband. In a way, our work IS pretty much done, for better or for worse.

I know that I have failed them in many ways, taught them bad habits, failed to give them what they needed, and crushed their spirits, without even meaning to. But I hope I have also taught them many good habits, given them most of what they needed and taught them how to find what makes their spirits soar.

In any case I know that I have done the very best that I could in each moment, even if sometimes that wasn't good enough. And I have tried very, very hard.

Unconditional Love Shower

"From my heart to yours, I shower you with unconditional love."

--A Blessing from Master Stephen Co

For some reason I am feeling like we could all use a shower of unconditional love today.

I received this blessing from Master Stephen Co during a Pranic Healing workshop that I attended a few years ago and have used it ever since.

Sometimes I use it on my kids, sometimes I use it on my family and friends, sometimes I use it on myself. 

Most often I find that I use it when I don't know what else to do. When I don't know what to say or how to help, I send a shower of unconditional love, hoping that it can somehow do what I can't or don't know how to do. 

I am sending you a shower of unconditional love today. I hope it helps with whatever is happening for you. 

There is no such thing as lose-win long-term; there is only win-win or lose-lose.

Foster Cline and Jim Fay from their book, Parenting With Love And Logic

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all."

Helen Keller

"Parents are as confused by life as anyone else. But they try very hard."

Rohinton Mistry from A Fine Balance

"The first duty of love is to listen."

Paul Tillich from a Good Earth Tea Bag

"If you want your children to be generous, you must first allow them to be selfish. If you want them to be disciplined, you must first allow them to be spontaneous. If you want them to be hard-working, you must first allow them to be lazy. This is a subtle distinction, and hard to explain to those who criticize you. A quality cannot be fully learned without understanding its opposite. "

William Martin from an email about the "2010 Rethinking Everything Conference"

"...[I]t was the best we could do. And the best you can do has to be enough."

Isabel Gillies from Happens Every Day: An All-Too-True Story

"Our parents job is to wound us in the exact way our soul needs to do its work in this lifetime."

Bevin Keely, LMP