Just Be Silent

Funny that I should write on the virtues of silence after such a (relatively) long radio silence here. Just being silent, though, has it's place and it's time.
I have spent a lot of time with my kids lately. A lot of time watching them play, and even more time listening to them play while I do other housework. At first I was just present with them, and I was constantly adding my own commentary to their play - either information I thought was helpful, or critiques (positive and negative) of their play. The more I have watched them, trusted them to their own childhood work, the more I saw how purposefully they did each thing.
With this realization came a modicum of silence. I stopped reminding them of the rules. Then that silence grew as I kept watching. I stopped telling them to do or not do what I perceived to be safe, or acceptable, or age appropriate. I was just a pair of eyes, a keeper of the sacred space around childhood, just as the midwife holds the sacred space around childbirth. It was a realization that spilled over into the rest of my interactions.
Just being silent with others is difficult. Even more so when you feel like you haven't talked to another adult in weeks. But comfortable silence in the company of another can be very gratifying. Even just the awareness of how much I interject into the conversation is powerful. My silence can be the red tent - a ritual space for sharing deepest thoughts - or a bathroom, with lots of space for figurative dumping. Silence is golden - it's fashionable at any occasion, and very, very precious.

Intention

Intention has been the missing piece for me - the piece that connects mind to body, that touches my soul into purpose. How funny it is that much of what we all do in a day involves so little intention. I find myself, even now, doing things not because I have the intention to do them, but for a myriad of other reasons. Perhaps I am knitting to avoid doing the dishes, rather than for the joy of the project, and the intention of finishing it. Maybe I am writing because it means I can close the door and make my partner watch our kids for ten minutes. I'm side stepping the intentionality of my actions, instead settling for the void, the negative intention. I should write to write, not with the intention of being in a quiet space for ten minutes! If I need that ten minutes of space, I can take them, no guilt, no need to guilt myself about those 'wasted' ten minutes.

I struggle with this balance. Finding intention in everyday life can be hard - harder still when my phone and tablet are ever-present, waiting to distract me with an intention-numbing game or a ebook that I'm only reading because it was $.99. I struggle with intention in the technologic world I exist in. Perhaps intention and will are related, and I am still willfully dipping my toe in every puddle and pond, seeking exciting new sensation. My concentration too is limited. How can it not be when I must switch from dishes to making a snack, back to dishes, check on a boo-boo.

The intention of reading the book (this one cost $7.99 thank you!) is lost when I must do it in 1.6 minute stints between chores or summons. And yet, perhaps the persistence of that action fertilizes the intention, allows it to flourish in the rocky crags of child rearing. Perhaps intention just evolves, mutates into something smaller, more hardy - a bonsai tree  - that can be moved about, set down, picked up. Probably even occasionally dropped.

Healing

I would not have been able to write this post six months ago - for a lot of reasons. The first reason is that I stopped writing for a few days. In the past, I have stopped writing in a blog, journal or sketch book after a few days, and then feel as if I cannot go back to it because the continuity is broken.
It's one of the changes, the tempering of my self imposed extremism. It's part of the healing process that began when I made the choice to value my own health and well being over the perceptions of others and what I 'aught' to be doing.
Some of that healing has been physical. I sleep again, I eat again. The anxiety that gripped me at literally every moment of the day has abated. The painful heartburn that never ebbed has gradually lessened, and has finally disappeared. I can feel my energy returning, the creativity, the zest that makes life worth living.
Much of the healing has been psychological and emotional. I feel like I have come into a place I've never been in my life. I can look into the mirror and see myself. And I like what I see. Like looking into a rippling pond, the true self that has been just below the surface, waiting, is starting to take shape. The pieces of true self that I've carried around for so long finally have a space to begin to fit together. And I'm welcoming the experience.
Life is opening up for me, fresh and bright. I may still need to explore my options, but at least I can enjoy them, take pleasure in the journey. I may spend my life as a wonderer, proverbially and physically, but if I do, it will be because this is my true nature, not because I am running away from that which I do not wish to see, wish to face.

Guilt and Shame

I ate a sugar cube painted with watercolor in preschool. I still remember the hot shame that washed over me when the teacher saw me and chastised me. In elementary school I got my name on the board because I was looking at a map, trying to find Mackinaw Island (while sharpening my pencil) when the teacher called chair time. I actually cried, but told everyone I just had really bad allergies. These kinds of things stay with me forever. They run through my mind over and over again, for no reason.
Up until recently I would feel that wave of heat and humiliation pressing up and through me. I still occasionally run these episodes through my mind, but the rush of hormones that accompanies it has ebbed. I feel a sense of guilt and shame just thinking about why - for the first time in my adult life, I've chosen to medicate. I feel the guilt that I couldn't just buck up and make these feeling stop, that it took a crashing catastrophe to make me see the need was there. I feel shame that I 'need' to be on meds.
And yet. I feel good. I choose to be on medication. It's an adult choice, and the right one. I needed the help, and I took the steps to get it. As small as it seems, that's a big step for me. This has been the first time in my life that those waves of panic and guilt don't constantly press over me, threatening to sink me to the bottom. Beyond that I can see these patterns, identify that these feelings are irrational, rather than living in them. I can banish them with the emotional healing that has begun.
I have worth. I'm worth a twenty dollar outfit, or a new pair of earrings. I'm deserving of things that have form, not just function. I need not relegate myself to tatty jeans, the same three shirts, and over sized hoodies. I need not feel guilty about the beautiful (and functional!) leather boots that I bought on clearance, even if I spent a lot of money on them. I don't need to feel shame because I want to use make up (But hippies don't do that...). I can own my worth, and begin to hone and focus this new identity - this me.

Focus

When I begin a task, I begin it all or nothing. Perhaps this is part of my moderation issue, but I begin these things with singular focus. Some might even call this compulsion or fixation. This has been a blessing and a curse for me. I suppose it depends a lot on the project, and the effect it has on the rest of my life.
There have been many times when I throw myself into a knitting project and I cannot stop, even if it's two in the morning and I'm literally falling asleep at the needles. Times when I don't get up out of the chair to check on my crying child because I'm not at the end of the row, or because I'm just three rows from the end. In cases like this, my focus is actually detrimental to my self and my family, although I do get the knitting project done quickly.
On the other hand, I can also bring my complete focus to playing with my children. In those moments I have eyes for nothing but my children's' joy. I don't see the mess they make, or the dreads in the back of their hair. I don't see the ballpoint pen all over my daughter's legs, or the fact that my son is eating his boogers. I'm completely, single-mindedly focused on the experience of being engaged with them. It's magical.
It's sort of like having a super power, this focus. I just have to use it for good, rather than evil.

Extrovert/Introvert

In the past I have considered myself an extrovert. I get charged up around other people, and I enjoy being with them. That's practically the definition of an extrovert, right? It's ben interesting though, to acknowledge the changes I've seen in myself. Perhaps it's because I'm older now, or maybe because I have kids, so my energy is limited. Deeper down, though, I suspect it has to do with the 'masks' I wear when I'm around others, and my need to please.
It took a long time to come to the realization that I don't really enjoy being a frenetic crazy person, despite that being my default mode around those I don't know. That persona just allows me to interact with others on a superficial level so that I don't have to feel anxiety about meeting someone new, or being around a lot of others.
The problem with this persona Band-Aid is that it sets me up for people to assume that I'm always crazy and bubbly-hyper, which I'm often not. I have mellowed out into a relatively quiet, introspective woman. It often means I feel obligated to slip into that high energy place, even when I don't have the energy to spend.
More and more often I find myself coming away from these interactions drained, tired, and sometimes even physically ill. It takes everything out of me to be around so many others, and in particular those I don't know. I hadn't really given it a lot of thought - as I'm sure most people don't when they decide to have children - but I did seek out quiet, alone time with regularity, and I need it.
Children are people, and they require the same interaction, if not a great deal more interaction, than a normal person. Not only that, but they require a lot of physical interaction, a lot of being touched. By the end of the day, how can a person not be exhausted by that?
I'm an introvert, by choice or by design. Coming to terms with that identity and embracing it is a step in the right direction. Scheduling time that I am alone with myself, with nothing to do is a battery recharger, and as I move forward on this journey, I strive to make it a regular part of my self care routine.

Daily Rythm

I have always thought of myself as a free spirit, as someone who thrives in change and flexibility. I've been surprised these last few years (since having children) that, while I am certainly capable of thriving in constant change (and sometimes I crave it), I actually do enjoy having a rhythm to my life. There is comfort in the consistency of daily rhythm and routine. I have noticed, too, that my kids do better when they can dance through the day to the beat of our daily routine.
I never considered myself a creature of habit, but I am. I find myself falling into negative routines when I don't lay out positive ones for myself. It's part of what happened to me during these last few months of school. I had fallen into a routine of getting up, drinking my coffee and eating nothing, or eating perhaps a doughnut, cookie, or brownie. Then I would go the rest of the day marginally attending to my kids, serving them turkey and veggies in front of the TV while I attempted to do homework - and didn't eat anything myself! Then I would spend my evenings drinking more coffee (or sodas) to keep me awake while I did readings or organized the work I had been doing all day. Often I went to sleep at one or two a.m., and even then I tossed around in bed with insomnia for hours.
Now I'm spending time to think about what I want the daily and weekly rhythms of our lives to be. Do I want outside time to be a part of their daily life (yes!), do I want to bake daily? Weekly? As much as my children delight in knowing what comes next in the day, I thrive in the knowledge that our day has an outline. Not a stiff, rigid one, but a general flow that reminds us that today is painting day, or that after lunch is quiet time.
Beyond that, too, instilling an overarching sense of the natural rhythm of nature - now is the time when we will start planting seed, watching spring start to emerge. It's a time for cleaning out, tidying, freshening up the physical as well as the emotional and energetic.
I want there to be a peace in our house - my mother calls it shalom bayit - that fills us all with a sense of wellbeing. I want that peace to be laid into the foundation of our lives so that when they enter their teens and question everything, as I know they will, deep down we will have this sense of rhythm and peace to guide them, a place to return to when they feel unbalanced or confused. Don't we all need that, sometimes?