Muddy Roads Lead to Good Reminders

July 7, 2011 By TheOrganicSister 14 Comments

It rained all day yesterday.

Which wouldn’t have been too big a deal had we not wanted to tow our 15,000lb 5th wheel and motorcycle trailer up a hilly country road lacking adequate gravel.

Try looking in your rearview mirror and seeing all that weight slowing skidding toward the ditch on the side of the road.

Note: You should not be driving straight
and see your rig off in another lane.

Terr. If. Fying.

Even more terrifying? Seeing the same look of Holy-shit-it-should-not-be-doing-that in your always confident husband’s eyes.

We slid, we skidded, we pelted giant clumps of mud all over ourselves in an effort to find traction.

My heart was racing, my stomach was clenched, and my voice was clear as I prayerfully reaffirmed – very loudly for all of the heavens to hear – that we are totally safe. Safe, I say, dammit!

By the time we made it into the campgrounds and my heart stopped racing, I was pissed.

“That’s not effing cool.”

“Someone should’ve warned us about that road.”

“They’re gonna hear it from me at the office.”

I wasn’t exactly freaking out (on the outside) but you could say I was ready to make a statement.

As we walked up to the office – me mentally practicing what I intended to let them know – a man got out of his car and walked up with us. He had driven behind us up that muddy hill and had watched us work to keep control of our rig.

Chuckling, he said, “You guys looked like you were making a Ford commercial! Built Ford Tough!”

And that’s all it took.

One moment of laughter to break through my tension. One reminder of just how thankful I am that our truck could make it up that slippery road.

I laughed. I breathed. I remembered.

I was taken out of my anger and my self-inflicted suffering to remember the bigger picture: That small moments only have the power I give them. That living in the past, in What Could’ve Happened, does nothing for The Now, what IS happening.

Thank goodness for the reminders of muddy roads.

Filed Under: Life on the Road, Things To Remember Tagged With: 5th wheel, anger, fear, Jazz, laughing, mindfulness, scary

Time Flies When You’re (Not) Having Fun

March 15, 2011 By TheOrganicSister

Justin and I were talking today about an interesting phenomenon we experienced over the last year: Time flies when you’re NOT having fun.

In 2010, our family of three spent a total of seven months on the road. We explored 18 states and countless locations, met innumerable and amazing people, discovered new passions and new careers, played endlessly, learned relentlessly and grew constantly.

It was fun and breathless and we were amazed when only a month had gone by!

We just left Las Vegas yesterday after six months of hard work, sorting, unpacking, repacking, selling, buying, more selling, creating and non-stop movement. We were working hard, with our eyes set on the goal and not enjoying anything we had intended to enjoy (like time spent with family or locales).

And it feels as though that time flew right by us.

Nearly the same amount of time. Two totally different experiences.

Time Flies When You’re Having Fun? Um, No.

Our conversation hung over me for awhile as I tried to understand what differed between one moment to the next. Weren’t stressful things suppose to drag on?

I can unequivocally say that we had way more fun on the road than we did off the road. But our experience in relation to the perception of time was so vastly different….fun seeming to last forever, while times of stress rushed past.

But when I compared our emotions and our state of being in both times, the answer became totally clear:

The one thing that affected our sense of time was not the amount of fun we had, but how present in the moment we actually were.

The more we were mindful and aware of where we were, what we were doing and why – the more we were in the moment – the more the clock seemed to slow and we could relish the present moment we were in.

On the other hand, the more we barreled through our tasks, with one eye on the end goal and the other on next week, the more we missed each day.

Time doesn’t fly when you’re having fun. Time flies when you’re flying by it.

And I can think of one other realm were this is commonly felt:

Mainstream Parenting (Lacks Mindfulness)

In mainstream parenting the theme seems to be about “getting through.”

Parents talk about getting through the colicky stage, the sleepless-nights stage, the into-everything-whenever-we-turn-our-heads stage, the self-asserting stage, the beyond-messy-bordering-on-slovenly stage, the rebellious stage.

Our focus is on survival, usually because its the only tool we have.

We’ve lost mindfulness. We’ve lost the ability to get down on the floor and play. We’ve lost the patience to look for monsters under the bed or read a story “one more time”. We’ve lost the wonder that allows us to listen to their wild tales of dinosaurs and princesses and revel in their wide eyes and excited bouncing as they tell it again and again.

We’ve lost our ability to be in the moment, because we think the moments last too long, take too much of our time or energy and quite frankly, don’t matter as much as they do.

But these moments, and our fully being in them – aware, conscious and engaged – is all that will matter in a few years.

The cliche phrase “Enjoy them while you can; they grow up fast” is only cliche because it’s so freaking true and so damn surprising that no one who’s experienced it can stop repeating it.

Nearly every single parent, as their child moves away (or pulls away) laments on how fast the time went, how quickly they grew up, how they miss this age or that, how they wish they had more time.

Because the time really does fly when you’re not having fun as a parent.

I’ve experienced it, and not just in relation to our traveling. I’ve spent many years with Zeb, unconsciously rushing through the moments I ache to experience again.

It wasn’t any fun. And I paid dearly with sacred time and trust lost between us.

But the magical thing about time is that it really doesn’t exist. Human beings create time measurement and perceive the time based on our experiences.

By changing those experiences and our choices, we can also change how we perceive the time we spend.

It all comes down to mindfulness: Being in this moment vs. constantly moving toward the next.

Join the conversation: Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Filed Under: Organic Parenting, Organic Wisdom Tagged With: awareness, choosing happiness, engagement, focus, mindful parenting, mindfulness, time

The First of 28, and a Question

March 16, 2010 By TheOrganicSister 26 Comments

The very first thing on my list of 28:

1. Embrace my child’s fullness, even especially when it scares me.

When I wrote that it just sort of tumbled out. I’m not sure I really understood it, but it took rank as the first thing my heart desired for this year and so I trusted it. It’s probably also the most difficult. It’s not a one-time task like “Knit a pair of socks”. It’s an ongoing, never-ending process. And what did I even mean by “especially when it scares me”?

Last night Zeb and I laid together and talked and as he began to drift off, it dawned on me exactly what I was afraid of. Not only am I afraid for him, I’m afraid of not being the parent he needs me to be.

Let me digress for a few paragraphs:

Zeb is a very old soul and carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. He not only notices injustices (or ugliness or negativity), but sometimes seeks them out. Sometimes this means his analytical thinking brings about awesome changes as he points out room for improvement. Sometimes it means he’s bogged down with a heaviness he can’t get out from under. And too often it means we are left feeling frustrated and bogged down with him.

I was told some things when I was pregnant about Zeb’s life; “prophecies” if you will. Without going into detail they all felt very much like he was going to lead a deeply spiritual and/or philosophical life. I tend not to think of those things very often as I don’t want to project anything onto him, but sometimes they pop into my head and I wonder if he’s already on that path. If somehow this heaviness he feels will eventually lead him to question or seek greater or deeper things.

It’s very hard to watch him when he feels that weight bear down upon him. He’s not a very happy person on those days and it’s difficult to know what to do for him. (Especially when there are so many consecutive days.)

But isn’t this part of his fullness? Life isn’t always sunshine and butterflies and can’t beauty be found in despair? Or at least be born of it?

The first 11 days of this adventure were exciting to watch. We rarely get to see him so engaged and lit up! He was curious and inquisitive and full of life, every single moment. He was Open in the way we hope to see our children open to life. And I reveled in it, hoping *this* is what he needed to embrace joy.

Maybe that’s why I sort of panicked when I saw that heaviness return yesterday. When your child tells you he hates new things, hates trying new things, and even though he’s bored he doesn’t want the risk of failure, it’s hard to fight that urge to take him by his shoulders and shake him back Alive. In one bubbling flash of emotion I felt like yelling “You’re 10 years old! You should be laughing and playing and full of Life! You’re missing out! Look at the beauty around you, open your eyes, embrace it!”

Instead, I remembered what I had just read on Mama-Om about those flashes of stories our minds or emotions tell us. So I held my breath, squeezed my eyes shut and tightened my stomach for just a moment to stop the rush of emotion coming up. (I know; exactly the opposite of what people say to do – take a deep breath and relax your core. But I find I have to feel something intense to stop the intensity trying to find its way out. Then I can breath and relax again.) And when that rushing, bubbling urge to react subsided, I said the only thing that came to my heart.

“I’m sorry you’re feeling that way.”

That’s when he began to drift off and I began to realize that I am afraid. Afraid that he will always be unhappy. Afraid that I don’t know what he needs or that I might do the wrong thing for him. Parenting is a very vulnerable place, full of fear and deep concern. But parenting mindfully is difficult when you can’t get out of your own mind.

So here I am, turning to the wisdom and grace and tenderness of the mamas and papas out there, the ones who understand my goal of deep respect for Who He Is but aren’t in the thick of the brambles and can perhaps see the bigger picture that is so often blocked from our emotional view. Here I am, asking you…

How do you embrace your child’s fullness, especially when it scares you?