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September 18th, 2011 North Cairn writes a nature column in the Cape Cod Times Sunday paper each week. She always writes about her treks through marshes and beaches with her dog. I love reading her writing. It’s usually quite a long piece and I can’t believe all the things she finds to write about on a simple morning walk, and then attach a theme to it. By the end of the piece she has me feeling peaceful and giving much gratitude to have the privilege of living in such a place as Cape Cod.
Today her column was entitled “Distracted by Technology” and her obvious message was “technology has delivered just what it promised: a virtual reality, but not the natural world and a long-sought community with all created things, or even a map to the interior of the self”. In some ways I beg to differ. I feel because of technology, the map to MY inner self has finally appeared. Having mediation books and even the bible available on iBooks at all times has gotten me to read, think about, and process ideas and concepts I would’ve never taken the time to even consider if I had to drive to a bookstore, search for and find a book. Also, this blog would be harder for me to write everyday if I couldn’t write it from my phone wherever I am.
I, myself, can stave off the face-booking and emailing. I can have my phone with me at all times and ignore the social parts and use it for reading, writing, and photography. I can take my phone on my beach walk and not be disturbed by it, but use it to enhance my experience out in nature.
These were my thoughts as I was reading along happily through her piece today. Then I came upon the following quote she used nearing the end of the piece and I stopped in my tracks when I read:
“To be beautiful and calm without mental fear is the ideal of nature.” ~ Richard Jeffries
Nature, beach walks, technology, – all of it is of mere insignificance next to being “without mental fear”. I don’t care where you live or how much technology you live with or without – the crux of peace is just that – being “beautiful and calm, without mental fear.” That is the “X” on the map to my inner self. That is the buried treasure to be found and set free by.
Everyone takes a different route when searching for the buried treasure. My route was through my smart phone – it put me in touch with God. Every Monday I can watch Dr. Charles Stanley deliver his weekly inspirational message. Every morning I can read from three different meditation books. As soon as I get out of bed I can quickly write my Morning Pages, which has turned into a daily conversation with God. Every afternoon I can can share my thoughts with you. Through this process, over the last nine months, I have found that place of being “without mental fear” as I surrendered everything that takes place in my life to God. Just went right over and dumped it all at the base of the cross. Peace at last.
And so, as another day goes by, I’m glad God “had an app for that”, and …I have written.
September 17th, 2011 I just spent yesterday and today reading Kristin Hannah’s newest book “Night Road”. I read from 8:30 this morning until noontime and cried and cried the whole time. Only if you’re a mom will you feel that much emotion and unimaginable pain while reading this book. Also, if you ever suffered a depression over loss and mother/daughter issues, there has not been a better book written that will make you feel like someone truly understands exactly the road you have traveled. I read this book in less than ten hours. I was drawn to it like a magnet. I never get up and read at 8:30 in the morning, but when I put it down at 1 am last night, I couldn’t wait to get up and finish it.
Kristin Hannah is a magnificent author on family issues. No one, and I mean no one, can describe what a character is seeing, hearing, feeling and thinking like she can. I’ve read every single one of her novels and I do remember crying through each one, but not like this one. This one hit home, hard. I highly recommend it for all you moms out there. Read it and go hug your children. Read it and go settle what’s been difficult between you and your children. Read it and go hug your mom – and if need be, settle what’s been difficult between you, too. September is the month we celebrate grandparents day. Do it. Take your kids to visit grandma and grandpa. They are most important in the lives of your children – and in yours.
I am not a grandparent yet, but hope to be someday. I would just like to tell all parents out there, that if you did (or do) your job right, two things are guaranteed:
1. Your children can leave your home and manage their own lives as healthy, happy, adults.
2. They will always come home again.
And so, as another day goes by, never give up on the things you love, not ever, and….I have written.
September 16th, 2011 Today in yoga a mom and I were discussing how children can’t be in charge of a classroom and I was taken back to remembering myself in this yoga class, one year ago this month.
When you first start Bikram yoga, you suffer and wonder why you go back the next day. You’re wiping sweat, swear you can’t breathe, and know for sure you have to leave the room and find air, but you do come back, day after day. Why? Because even though your mind can’t deal with it, you’re body systems crave it. As the days and then weeks go by, you gradually realize that the teacher will open the door or crack a window. That quiets you for a time, until you begin to learn and anticipate the routine of the teachers. Gradually, after you have begun to use the windows and door as a crutch to make you feel better, you lose trust in the teacher and begin to want to manage the room. Should you have a different teacher, or your regular one changes up her routine, you go into panic mode. There’s a lot of laying down, moaning and groaning, ragged breathing – all trying to tell the teacher NOW is the time to open the door. NOW is the time to open the window. NOW is the time to pull down the shade. Can’t you see I’m dying here? You have lost focus completely because you’re trying so hard to manage the room. You’ve lost trust in the teacher and the mediation is now non-existent. Your whole focus is on your eyes following the the teacher around the room hoping she’s going for that window.
The teacher will tell you this – and she won’t open the door or windows, either. To get all the benefits you’re supposed to get out of the practice, you have to relinquish all control and trust the teacher. Once you do this, you are now free to fall completely into the meditation of the practice, quiet yourself, and let the teacher worry about the room. You learn to be still and just focus on your breath. After many months you are now moving through the postures, lying or standing absolutely still for the twenty seconds in between, not drinking water, wiping, or making noises of any kind. Your physical behaviors have gotten your mind to grasp surrender and your spirit to absorb it. You have changed. You have learned complete surrender inside the studio.
You soon find that you have learned complete surrender outside of the studio also. This is where my most valuable lesson on my journey, “be a vehicle for the spirit”, was born from. I would lay there day after day and repeat that and quiet myself because I knew once I let panic in, the rest of the class was a disaster, just like I let fear and panic into my life and created the difficult situation I have had to battle this year. Never again. Through Bikram yoga I have learned to do everything with such purpose and control, there are times I really think I can face even my own death quietly, without fear.
I have always believed that for a person to truly learn something and change, the method has to involve the physical as well as the emotional. The physical body has to go through the motions daily in order for the mind and spirit to be brought along. As a teacher I always used a multi-sensory approach with children. It’s no different for us grown-ups.
This new fall season, if you are trying to initiate changes within yourself, make sure you involve your body, and not just your mind, for real change and growth to take place.
And so, as another day goes by, the old Chinese proverb says “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand”, and…I have written.
September 15th, 2011 I have always believed people can and do change. Sometimes it’s not for the better, but in most people I know who have undergone a metamorphosis, it is. The phenomenon of changing one’s psyche was always an intriguing mystery to me, until I have undertaken making major changes this past year within myself.
Most of the time people change as a result of going through an extremely difficult time. When going through it, we have two choices. We can work and learn from it and discard some old values we lived by and figure out and adopt a whole new set of values and morph into a whole new person. Or, we can hang on to things we should let go of and continue to let them drag us down deeper in our misery.
In the first very dark months of my journey there were certain things I discovered and grasped onto to keep from going over the edge. These things, within the next few months, emerged as my whole new set of values that I live by now. I blogged them in April and still can repeat all five from rote memory, and in weak moments, latch right onto them. They were then, and still are now:
1. Be a vehicle for the spirit (“lean not unto thine own understanding” – because I don’t understand a damned thing – only God knows all) – step back, drop my hands by my side, and quiet myself
2. Give gratitude – all day, for every little thing
3. Be custodial with all God has given me – appreciate and take good care of hearts and things alike
4. Practice deference – keep some things to myself so as not to deplete the energy
5. My primary relationship is with God. All others spill from there. All my energy begins with Him.
Now, in the ninth month of my journey, I have learned one more value on my trek to the shoreline on the downside of the beach path. I have learned I must trust the process. God has set a process that I must go through and the time I must trust it is when I don’t understand it at all. in yoga we are taught to come everyday – even when we’re tired or not feeling up to it. Those are the days we most need to go. We need to come with no expectations and trust the process of the yoga working in our bodies – even though we feel awful.
So it is with going through a difficult situation. In Melody Beattie’s words:
“It can be difficult when the storm hits, to remember that the journey is a benevolent and holy one, a process that is working with us to help us learn something new.”
I loved the words “a holy and benevolent one”. Looking back at the torturous months, when the knife was cutting deeply, I can now dub “a holy and benevolent” time. Not back then, but now I can see how I had to just hang on and trust the process. That was where my very first value of “being a vehicle for the spirit” was born. That moment when the kicking and screaming stops. When the handcuffs that bound me, necessary to get me to stop acting like was acting, were finally taken off and I could drop my hands to my sides and quiet myself all on my own.
This value, by far has been the most valuable one in helping me live a different, calmer, better life today. As a result, I have changed. Deeply and profoundly. Amazingly. God gave me the tools – the yoga, the people, the writing, the art, this blog – and then He let me go at it. I now thoroughly understand “how” people change. One affirmation in yoga this week was: “There is freedom and change in the air; time to discard old ideas”. Here I go again.
And so, as another day goes by, we learn by doing, and…I have written.
September 14th, 2011 Today we spent the day with one of our girls in Boston. We went to the Red Sox game (they lost) and then went to dinner with her and her boyfriend. We had great weather, iced coffee, shared kettle corn, and managed the heat.
Our daughter is in the midst of making some life changing moves and just wanted us to sit and listen. She was anxious, had a few tears, and, weighing all the options. Her dad only had one thing to say: “Are you happy?”
Dad asks the question, mom prays, boyfriend supports, and in the end we know she’ll be okay. It’s her first big career move and she’s learning how to follow her heart. Dad’s question is the crux of it all. After you talk money, benefits, and job description, what is most important is all that’s left – Are you happy? The most beautiful words to my ears are my girls saying, “Mama, I’m happy.”
And so, as another day goes by, today Fenway was about more than baseball, and ….I have written.
September 13th, 2011 Today I was talking to my friend who has a child in fourth grade. I worked with him all summer in my young author’s workshop. He is extremely gifted and wildly creative. She was telling me how he didn’t sleep the whole first week of school and yesterday she had to go pick him up because he was stomach sick. Sound familiar?
I have been a teacher for 35 years and have seen this behavior in many gifted children. It’s school anxiety. Parents always ask me why their child behaves this way because he/she is so smart and accomplished that school should be no problem for them.
Many times it’s not the school, class, friends, or the teacher that is the problem. It’s the child and the pressure they put on themselves to be perfect in their work and fit in with their friends. A gifted child understands a lot about the world and magnifies “doing well” to being perfect without flaw and spends an inordinate amount of time both consciously and unconsciously worrying about it. The art of relaxing is a major issue for them.
With a gifted child I have always advised parents to sit down and talk about anxiety as a very real thing with them. Often this in itself will help alleviate the problem because the child is a natural learner and enjoys learning about themselves. A few other helpful hints is to tell them they have to learn to manage this anxiety so the “getting sick” stops. Suggest physical activities and exercise after school. Reading quietly away from everyone else. Writing in a private journal they are sure no one will ever read is a great release for children of all levels. If they can manage to “get lost” in a creative activity this relaxes both conscious and subconscious worry leading to stomach upset.
Don’t worry if what you say to your child seems not to be “taken in” during your talk. Children store the info away and return to it when they need it. We, as parents and teachers, have a responsibility to “set things around” children in our words and actions, and let the child “pick it up and use it” when they think we’re not looking.
You have a tremendously talented intelligent child – trust them enough to both talk to them and give them the chance to listen to you. For them, it’s another interesting phenomenon of life to learn about.
And so, as another day goes by, I wish all parents, children and teachers another successful school year, and….I have written.
September 12th, 2011 Some years ago a friend introduced me to the idea of getting a new meditation book every year as my birthday passes and a new school year begins. Melody Beattie is one of my favorite spiritual authors. I’m drawn to her thoughts and writings because she believes in God and what He has to say, but she doesn’t push any one religion. I like that because it isn’t about religion – it’s about an intimate relationship with God through an inward journey. I found the best way to go about having a close relationship with God is to forge the journey myself and let God himself lead me.
So I downloaded my new book for 2011-12 and opened it up to the dedication page. It said:
“For drama addicts”*
I fell back into the chair laughing so hard that couldn’t go on to the first reading. That, for the day, was enough. The way this year has gone so far, I knew I bought the right book.
And so, as another day goes by, it was worth the $12.99 for that laugh, and ….I have written.
* 52 Weeks of Conscious Contact, Melody Beattie
September 11th, 2011 …..there are no words.
And so, as another day goes by, we remember, and..I have written.
September 10th, 2011 Today hubby and I took advantage of the return of our gorgeous fall weather. We replaced some bad boards on the corner eave and endcap, and installed new downspouts. At the end of the day we are pretty proud of our work. Added to the new stain from last week, it looks like a new house!
Now….shower, wine, dinner (another hubby seafood creation) and Red Sox…ahhh…life appreciated, gratitude given….
And so, as another day goes by, all that’s needed is a Red Sox win, and…I have written.
September 9th, 2011 Today I was watching the clip of President Bush reading to second graders as the first plane hit on 9/11. I was reading to kindergarteners at that same moment. The second graders are now 17. My kindergarteners are now 15. Some of those second graders described the look they remember on President Bush’s face when the aid whispered what happened in his ear. My 15 year old “kindergartners” are now able to remember sitting on that carpet that day as my student teacher and I hear the news in much the same way – someone came to the classroom and whispered it in our ear. Soon after the second plane hit, it was announced over the loud speaker that the school was going into lockdown.
I remember sitting on my teacher chair with those little faces looking up at me asking, “What’s happening?”. I don’t remember what I said to them that day. Now that they are old enough to participate in the “Where were you when it happened?” conversations going on all over this weekend, I can only hope it was the right thing. Did I explain it correctly? Did they feel comfort? Did they feel safe? Did they feel secure in my care?
My words had an influence on 21 young minds that day on an experience they will remember forever. This gives me pause to stop and think today. We must be careful of the things we say – and don’t say. How we act and react to the people we come into contact with each day, impacts their lives – even in some small way. What are the last words you said to someone you love? What kind of an impact will your words make if you never see that person again? Sobering.
And those of you who know me, wonder why I don’t like to fight, hold grudges, be mean to people who hurt me – this is why. Ten years later those children are saying, “I remember sitting on the carpet in Mrs. Bartosik’s room and…” How do I want them to finish that sentence? We are all important. We touch people’s lives everyday. Do all you can to make those “touches” convey something good, because you never know when you will be sitting, wondering, years from now, how you made someone feel today.
And so, as another day goes by, I hope my babies felt safe that day, and…I have written.
*Art work below by my daughter, Ashley. It’s a pencil drawing of her own hands. To me, it represents kindness and gentleness – the kind of person she is.
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