Snow days

I am sitting at the kitchen table watching my daughter sleep. She is so relaxed that her lips are drooping to one side. Outside, snow is falling from the sky in every which direction, and being whipped up from the ground in every which other direction. A couple feet of snow cover everything - trees, the place where the patio table is no longer visible, the pool has disappeared... it is chaos outside.

Inside, there could be chaos too. My life situation at the moment is one of "1,000 what-ifs". The kitchen table I'm sitting at is my parents', as my family has been living here for the last year. Lots of extenuating circumstances - particularly the beautiful lovey lump over there - have lead to this kind of thinking: "What if Grandma gets a job and can't take care of baby?" "What if we sell the apartment and move to a 2 bed and get pregnant again?" "Should we stay here until we can save for a down payment?" "Should we...?" "What if...?" The next phase of our lives could play out in infinite ways, and trying to think them all through is like trying to imagine the vastness of outer space.

In _A New Earth_, Tolle quotes a Zen saying that has become kind of a mantra to me in times that look a lot like the chaotic snowy day outside. "The snow falls, each flake in its appropriate place." Says Tolle, "Behind the sometimes seemingly random or even chaotic succession of events in our lives as well as in the world lies concealed the unfolding of a higher order and purpose". Once all this chaotic snow has passed, the world is covered in a serene, seamless blanket of beauty and stillness. We are just a snowflake falling toward that perfect pattern, into our perfect places, unable to see the bigger picture until it has unfolded.

In other words, people, stop trying to row against the current - just get in the boat and let the river take you. You'll end up in the same place either way, so we may as well enjoy the scenery.

Cozy up!

A Strength is Something That Strengthens You

Today my Yogi Mother's Milk tea tag said: Live in your strength.

A while back, during a career "crisis" which consisted of me brutally losing a job I'd had for 8 years, I ended up thanking my lucky stars, that it happened. The "crisis" resulted in the deepest, most peaceful three days of my life. Three days that I've been trying to get back to ever since, where for a brief time I was working "in flow" with enthusiasm, experiencing each moment with deep gratitude, living a dream I'd had for many years.. .until I realized the reality of that dream wasn't quite all it was cracked up to be... because I'd had my strengths and weaknesses mixed up.

A while back I watched a Marcus Buckinham 3-hour workshop through Oprah podcasts. The bottom line of that workshop was that most of us are not living in our strengths. Buckingham redefined "strengths" for me forever. What do you think of when someone asks, "What are your strengths?" You automatically think of things you are good at. I personally am very good at making good quality educational materials for the people I work with. I am really good at Functional Behavior Assessments and data analysis. I run and develop a mean Functional Analysis. And of everything, I have to pat myself on the back - I am an amazing 1:1 therapist to people w/ autism. Especially those on the severe end of things. And because I am good at those things, I'm often asked to do them.

Perfect, right? I'm asked to do the things I'm good at, my strengths. So why do I put off doing Functional Behavior Assessments? All that boring direct observation. I want to be in the game! I leave periods of direct observation of students needing a double shot of espresso. I leave a 1:1 therapy session ready to climb Mount Everest. What's up with that? I'm good at both... but only one strengthens me. Only one is an actual strength. The other weakens me, drains me - even though I am good at it, it is a weakness. I had been living in my weaknesses more than my strengths.

What are your REAL strengths? Work tasks that nourish you, where you don't look at the clock? Tasks that strengthen you...

(PS: According to Buckingham, things you love to do but are bad at are called: A hobby).

The Comparing and Categorizing Mind

I am reading Mindful Motherhood by Cassandra Vieten. My mom bought it for me while I was pregnant. I love it because it reiterates everything I learned in A New Earth, but with focus on motherhood, and real life.

Since going back to work, I feel a little more alive and well rounded. I feel that I am exercising important and very expensive parts of my brain. I do not feel that I am fully in every or any moment though. By the end of the night, I am a zombie who falls into bed and is asleep in 20 seconds. From a former lifelong insomniac.. that says something.

Vieten talks about unhelpful ways the mind processes information, often by padding the facts of a situation - e.g., The Storytelling Mind that adds made-up information to a situation ("He must be a jerk, he cut me off, I bet he beats his wife too"). The Comparing and Categorizing Mind immediately adds a "good" or "bad" or some other category to simple observations. When I read this, I cried. "You might compare another mom's performance to yours... Or, one of the mind's favorite activities, you might create an imaginary, unachievable ideal and compare yourself against that ('I should have a conflict-free marriage, be content and fulfilled as a stay-at-home mom, be cheerful and sexually vibrant, and not worry about money')".

SLAM DUNK. This "habit of the mind" is undoing me. When I check into the present moment, I find myself completely inadequate against that wonder-mom. I don't look professional enough at work. I'm not eating well enough to provide nutrition for myself and the baby. I haven't finished my Mindful Motherhood book so I'm probably ruining the baby already. I can't find the playard sheet so she's sleeping on plastic. She has a cold, I should have been rinsing her binks. I am too tired to even think about sex. Who would want to have sex with me anyway? Certainly not the man lying next to me who keeps telling me he does. Lies, lies!

Oh, the mind chatter. No one told me how much it would mean to a new mom to hear frequently that she's doing awesome.

Says Vieten? "Don't believe everything you think". Sticking to the facts, and accepting the moment for what it is can help suspend the constantly judging mind.