Peace on Earth Starts with Birth?

You can imagine my delight, as I paid for my gas in Stratford, that staring back at me on the cover of Time magazine was the gorgeous image of a heavily pregnant woman and the words that framed her. The words said something like this:
How the first nine months shape the rest of your life

HOW THE FIRST NINE MONTHS SHAPE THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!!!

My obvious delight took the store attendant by surprise:
Me - "Do you have any more copies of this in the back?"
Attendant - "Copies of Time Magazine? The one with the naked lady on front?"
Me - "Yes, the one with the pregnant woman on the front."
Attendant - "No, I think these are the last ones - do you want to pay for your gas?"
Me - "Yes, yes I do and I will take these as well, thank you."

I got a half-hearted, "she's clearly crazy" good bye as I left the store, and if I hadn't been driving I would have read the whole thing before continuing on to Waterloo. I left one of the magazines in the back of the car for my daughter to read on the way home, and read it she did. For years, I have been absolutely, positively sure that how our mothers are with us when we are pregnant determines how well we are in life. The physical environment, the emotional environment, our mother's nutrition, the amount of love she feels when she is pregnant, her demographic - all of this shapes us - it SHAPES us before we journey to this plane. Our cells change dependant on the emotional state of our mothers and fathers. We now have scientists, psychologists, researchers and skeptics interested enough in FETAL ORIGINS to study these concepts. Perinatal and prenatal psychology has been my passion for years - understanding a baby's experience, understanding the mum's experience, correlating the energy that passed between them - THIS IS WHAT WE MUST EDUCATE OUR SOCIETY ABOUT!!!! To say peace on earth begins with birth is only partly true - a good birth is determined by more than just the 3 P's - the passage, the passenger, the path - the PSYCHE of both the mother and the baby play the biggest role in the birth. Encoded with fear, a child would find it difficult to enter our plane. Encoded with fear, a woman finds it difficult to birth. There is more to the fear=tension=pain cycle than just contractions. It lies much deeper than that. It runs deeper than core beliefs. It comes out in huge realizations, a ha moments in safe circles. I have born witness to it in dozens of my Calm Mum classes. Surrounded by women, safe in non judgment we can allow ourselves to access what we know is true.... that some of the baggage we carry is not ours -just as it did not belong to our mothers. Some of it is encoded so deep within us that we are only able to realize it as we recognize it in someone else. Recognizing, feeling this in other women and allowing it to come to the surface in our own cells is powerful, powerful work. This work allows a deeper connection to our own children. This recognition can help us heal. We can become better mothers, daughters, wives, sisters, friends.... better human beings. We are not human havings or human doings.... we are human beings. Being allowed to fully feel the scope of our emotions, being able to explore them, understand them and then process them. This all begins before birth and this needs to be taught to relate to ourselves and all of those around us. Take a step back and then one more - learn how you are what you are.

Loving the Imperfect

I am grasping the concept of Wabi Sabi. To accept the imperfection of all and rejoice in the natural beauty of it is my best explanation of wabi sabi. The Japanese term has been presented to me by the universe many times, yet it is only since I have accepted my own imperfection that I can practise wabi sabi in earnest. There is absolutely natural imperfect perfection in everything. Living nose to the grindstone in a toxic job with a micromanaging overseer does not allow you to accept imperfection. Accepting imperfection and its splendor only happens when we can take enough time to observe and see it through a quiet heart. Self-empathy is a good starting point.

Softening to our feelings, allowing them to present themselves and then breathing into them- to give them life, to let them grow- allows us to see our imperfection, but better yet, to feel it. Just as the well placed, naturally occuring cracks in a well loved piece of pottery demonstate an understanding of wabi sabi, allowing our own "cracks" in our characters to shine through, to be admired, accepted and loved will let us feel that we too, have a purpose. In all of our imperfection there is sweet purpose. All we need to do is love it.

Chiaroscuro

I am not Italian, but I love the Italian language. I am a romantic at heart - I became an English major because Shelley, Byron, Keats and Browning spoke.just.to.me. Really, I thought they did. I took Classical Studies as an elective and my professor introduced me to the concept of "Chiaroscuro" - the play of light and dark as it changed the perspective of Rueben's and the other masters works. Once again, I was sure this work was speaking only to me. So many times in my life something has resonated so deeply within me and lit my flame that I must explore it more deeply. I believe the beautiful chiaroscuro exists within each one of us - the light and the dark. I do not abide by any religious beliefs, yet feel that I am guided. Guidance comes in many forms and it too resonates within me when it needs to. I don't run from the dark in my life - illness, my own shortcomings, death, the behaviours of others. From the dark we learn our biggest life lessons. Embracing the dark allows us to know what we don't want to be like, how we don't want to be treated and how we don't want to act. Pain is darkness and softening to our pain and letting ourselves feel it lets some of the dark out. Sitting in feelings, no matter how dark gets us truly in touch with what we need to feel. Emotional pain won't kill us or tear us apart - it is really a portal through which we can see the possiblities in our life. Not stuffing our emotions down into the dark allows our light to shine. Balancing the light and dark takes time and patience - we all learn by doing. Elizabeth Barrett Browning asks "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..." and when we love ourselves we must love all of ourselves - the dark and the light, the chiaroscuro. Now that is Romantic.

Legacy

As summer and its restful days, non-structured ease and glorious heat ticks away, I am fully aware of the need to stay rooted in the present. I no longer wish anything away. It truly seems like I was just in labour for the first time, pregnant with possibility. My first life lesson is moving to Waterloo for her second year of University. Of course I will miss her - not just because she is my daughter, my child, but because she is part of the rhythm of my day and is a really fun human being to be with. When I say "be" with, she more than anyone has taught me the importance of emotional connection and staying in the moment. Through her difficult birth, our rocky breastfeeding start and my high expectations for my first born daughter, she continually reminds me of how the way we are with our children shapes them. It is not what we think we should say around them that makes them who they are as much as how we ARE when we interact with them. Everything we model does that to them - it models our children just as a piece of pottery is molded. Our children read our energy, take it on and vibrate energetically because of what we model before them and genetically pass on to them. Our energetic legacy lives on in our children, positive or not. If only we were taught this in prenatal classes instead of what an epidural catheter looks like! If only we understood and researched this instead of keeping up with the neighbours and their swanky baby gear!

As my daughter heads off to her second year of "higher education" I wish for her only happiness. Life is so hard. I wish I knew back then what I know now about being emotionally present. Problem is, you don't know it until you are in it. For me, being "in" it means the work and experience I have garnered by working with families for over 23 years and my love of continuing education. As my legacy goes forward to the next step in her life, I hope she understands that her father and I did the best we could with the tools we had at the time. The patterns we genetically and emotionally passed on to her as well as her siblings will cause them frustration, anger, anxiety, depression and regret we are sure. What we can hope heals all the negative we have passed on is our enormous capacity to love our children. I believe we all want to give our children our best and sometimes that is the best of our worst traits. If we could we would negate the parts of our past that have fractured each of us instead of perpetuating negative patterns. We do not intentionally hurt our children. We can take ownership of our bad behaviours and co-actively parent our children with good intent. We can unpack our baggage so our kids don't have to. We can tell the truth, give our feelings room to grow and respect our children and everything they feel. We can stop diminishing what they are going through by telling them they are "okay" when they have fallen and hurt themselves. We can honour where they are when they are sad instead of thinking it is at all about us. This is how we heal our legacies, our children and ourselves. We can keep this in mind with everyone we meet. We are all fighting our own battles, we all have our own issues, problems and challenges. Be kinder than necessary with everyone you meet, for we are all wounded in one way or another. Send your love into the future, the past and most importantly, connect with it in the present. Feel it all around you. That, my friends, is your legacy.

Keeper of the Babies

Why do we not treat babies with the respect they deserve? Why do we fail to admit that they are conscious, fully aware, fully feeling humans - conscious from conception forward ? Why do we not know this when we are planning for and carrying our children?

Has science convinced us that they are not conscious humans until they reach a certain gestational age or is it our collective consciousness? What if we were to treat our babies in utero as gently as we are supposed to when they are newborns? What if we chose to not put them into their sympathetic nervous systems while in utero by polluting their amniotic fluid with toxic thoughts and deeds? Why don't we consider that when we are flooded by adrenaline and cortisol that our babies are too? What if we were certain that their cells hold our traumas that we pass onto them? What if our unconscious thoughts became engrained in our babies while they still lived within us? What if we knew what our babies wanted? How do we become keepers of babies, guardians of birth? Keepers of the Babies in Mayan cultures ward off evil thoughts, deeds and environments and keep the child's soul intact.

Unpack your baggage, people. Don't leave it for your children. Don't overwhelm your children with your issues before they are born - dig deep and take responsibility for your actions. Educate yourself - really EDUCATE yourself and WAKE UP!!!!! Start with your pregnancy - don't subject yourself to toxic situations at work, at home, in your relationships. Take a good prenatal education class. Don't worry about what the epidural will do to relieve your pain - think about what your baby is going through with birth. Believe in yourself. IT IS NOT ABOUT YOU! Trust your body and trust your baby. Instead of buying the best layette and equipment possible, set up support for you, your husband and your baby by doing the best to understand what life as a new family is like. We need to tell each other the truth about parenting. We need to stop being narcissistic. You will sleep again one day. You will get your body back. You will socialize again. You need to connect with your baby by learning how to be emotionally present with them. It is much easier to nurture and love a child by connecting with them and being emotionally present than it is to heal a broken adult child. Take the time, WAKE UP, educate yourself properly, take ownership of your issues and parent with empathy. Your babies deserve it - they need you to be a keeper of the babies.

Some Women...

We, as a group, are much more critical of each other than men could ever be of us. I have learned and observed over the years that we are all doing the best that we can with what we have right now - to judge and be critical of one another is futile. Some women come into our lives and remind us of that, gently. I am fortunate to have beautifully strong, passionate powerful women around me every day. Two of them live with me. They are 17 and 19 and are as different from each other as night and day but is each in their own ways so very magical. My heart bursts with love and admiration for them. These two women love each other fiercely, push each other's buttons and are each other's biggest fan. I cannot tell you how many times over the years they have come to me and in rapturous terms described their love for their sister or how one can drive the other one crazy. They always have each other's backs.

Some women take our breath away. This morning I was privileged to spend time with a warm, open-hearted friend (and her amazing husband) that had her arms wide open to me when I walked in the door. Being in her presence is like an embrace - her heart energy and her love for her toddler daughters can bring me to tears. We have cried many times together - at the birth of her babies, when we share stories of our children and we have laughed so hard we cried. The fact that she loves my children too makes me love her even more.

Some women are our blood. There are only two other creatures that walk the earth with the same blood in their veins that I have, and as I have said before my bond with them is beyond this plane. Although we three are very different and we don't agree on everything, my sisters and I are bound to each other by our heartstrings - the blood is strong.

Some women break our hearts. They are the grade 5 girls that call us names, exclude us from friendships and leave us out. They write horrible things on bathroom walls, send us hate mail and undermine our power as we grow into adulthood. These girls never understand the depth of their damage, but if we are fortunate enough to have strong, passionate, HEALING women in our life, our capacity for empathy can extend to the broken lives of these bullies.

Some women heal our souls. They will pose in black bathtubs covered in bubbles for you. They will hold a camera in their hands and capture moments of ethereal wonder in the shape of a baby's smile for you. They will tell dirty jokes and not mind your constant references to gorgeous Scottish men. They will bring you food as your heart mends, birth their babies with their eyes locked on yours, kiss your forehead just to brand you as theirs with their new lipstick. These women don't mind if you lick caramel sauce off their face or ask them to sit through the latest vampire flick with you. These women will share with you that some days they want to get off the mummy bus.

Some women remind us that we need to play. They will haul us out of the house to go for a run at 6:30 a.m., tell us that we work too much and need a break and encourage us to move forward out of a job that is no longer serving us. They scream at the top of their lungs as we dive to save a ball from going in the net and tell us it's okay that we mis-kick. These women don't mind slapping us on the bum if we've done a good job, and quite honestly don't mind a slap back. They will share water bottles, half-time watermelon and the inside scoop on the best place to buy a great black dress. Drinking Guinness at 9:30 a.m. on a day that is not St. Patrick's day is absolutely fine with these women. Some women are all women... we need many women in our lives. Today, know that you are loved more than you can fathom, let the critical tone of your heart melt away, love the women in your life and what they have brought to you. Some women...

Chances Are...

Chances are you doubted yourself today. Chances are, you doubted your children today. Chances are, we would all be much more content, much more connected, much more authentic if we were able to trust ourselves and trust our children. Trust that we are able to meet their needs by connecting with them from the moment we wish to conceive them, trust our ability to birth them the way we are meant to birth them, trust our body's ability to make enough milk for them. As they grow, we need to trust that they are perfect, whole and here to teach us our biggest life lessons. Just be, just love, just grow. Trust that your parents were doing the best they could with what the tools they had at the time and trust your old hurts to heal because right now, right here, you are loved and you are meant to be TRUSTED. Chances are, if we trusted in our heart energy and let the love in, we would be overwhelmed by all the beauty and love around us. Free yourself by trusting and watch what comes back to you. Chances are you will find a different level of connection.

Stopping The Tantrums

What if we were to understand that temper tantrums are caused by parents? I am running workshops titled "Stopping The Tantrums" because so many of my registrants in my Calm Mum classes ask me how to deal with tantrums. Let's look at what transpires with a tantrum (and for the record I hate the word - it is really a cry for help) and how we react. First things first - most of us make the first mistake with a tantrum by reacting. If we learned to respond to our children, tantrums would not exist. Tantrums are a cry for attention, a plea for time, a desire to connect. Adults have tantrums too - we display them in behaviours, attitudes, pleas and cries. Different types of tantrums have different resolutions, different needs to be addressed, different concerns to be processed. Empathy works wonders in the first step to resolution with tantrums, as does being connected, not diminishing your child and making them feel safe. It is amazing what we learn about ourselves when we watch our children - they are really just reflecting our own behaviours back to us, as hard as that may be to hear.

Balance

Balance is elusive, compelling and imperative. I struggle with balance - in parenting, in working, in relaxing, in life. This elusive state has been on my mind a lot more lately and I have decided to adopt "rhythm" into my life more regularly. Rhythm to me is a predictability in my day, an intuitive knowing that cycles will be more intrinsic, an honouring of BALANCE. To follow rhythms means comfort, solace and connectedness. For small children, predictability is key to keeping overwhelm low, confidence and self-esteem high and allows pressure valves in the day. These pressure valves are decompression times - circadian rhythms are followed, the body rests, restores and revitalizes. I truly believe as we grow and age we, like children, need unscheduled time. True disengagement from media, stimulation and drama will break addictions, stop triggering life traps and allow us to come home to ourselves. Listen to your heart, your body, your rhythms - finding balance will no longer be so elusive if you do.

Collapsing

It never ceases to amaze me every time I am truly "in spirit" and emotionally connected to the moment I am in that everything else collapses. Zoning out is such an active assault on every day life - it eats up time, it defragments our memory and it pushes our panic buttons. Stripping away the accumulation of insults, hurts and things we THINK are true is imperative to thriving - not just surviving. As I study the intricate kink of the curl in my second biggest life lesson's hair, as I nuzzle the neck of my seven year old nephew, I am living. When my oldest child snuggles against me, twenty years of being broken open grounds me. Because I am humbled at the sheer volume of compassion my son exhibits towards his sisters when he feels their sadness I am stopped in my tracks - time stands still. Lying on a lounge chair, my neice cuddled up against me staring at the stars on a warm Florida night in March, I feel my heart bursting. Collapsing from the inside out, entangled in the energy of all of the beauty that surrounds me every day, affected by it, surrendering to it and being it - demoralizes, diminishes and destroys the active assault that so many of us perceive as life. Namaste.

SHUT UP!

So there have been so many times that I should have shut up. So many times when active listening instead of having to get my two cents worth in would have served me so much better. As your children grow and the primal amygdala portion of their brain is overpowered by their ego, you need to SHUT UP. Stop being sarcastic, stop reacting and stop competing! I am torn open by the number of children I witness being yelled at by their parents or being told "Well, it takes two to argue." Really? Can you not put yourself in your child's shoes and really practise empathy? Would you like to have to grow up in this age of technology, which allows access by predators to these children? Can you imagine how hard it is to be pressured as a teenager to pick what you want to do for the rest of your life - coupled with the absence of parental guidance, love and connection that is plaguing our childrens' generation? I remember being able to play outside all day - we came home for meals and had to be in for the day when "the lights came on." How many of us helicopter parent, micromanage, control and overprotect? When children are overprotected and are not allowed to move away from us at a proper developmental rate, they encounter trauma in the real world. If they have never known failure as a child, thrive on praise and stroking, they are burdened with expectations. SHUT UP! Don't praise - the pressure it puts on your child to be "good" "well behaved" and "the best" is crippling. There is nothing wrong with sharing your joy - "Thank you for making me a card - I love it!" or emoting when they play soccer - "You look like you had a lot of fun out there!" To hold space for constant praise is tiring - on you, your child, your family. Don't reward for intrinsic actions like going pee or potty - be patient and let your child tell you when they are ready to potty train. Being as empathetic as you possibly can for this, I believe, allows you to truly connect with the moment, and that is the best you can do as a parent. Now, I'll shut up.

Contemplate Perfection

What if, for one day, you did NOT judge yourself. What if the tape that was installed in your head was not allowed to rewind? How would your life feel, look and take shape if you didn't entertain the notion that you are broken? We do not need fixing - we need to soften and practise kindness with ourselves. On Friday night after an AWESOME day, I felt riveted anger with everything. My default map wanted me to pillage and tear apart all that I came into contact with. I took up space by myself and softened to the anger, which made way for the incredible overwhelming sadness that rushed in. It wasn't until 2am Saturday morning that I was able to sleep - hours of crying can release that which you have allowed to sit with you. I grew up in a family where anger was not allowed and it took me years to understand that anger is something that needs to be processed and more importantly needs room to grow. All of our feelings need room to grow - in order to fully experience pure joy, anger needs to be fully experienced as well. Honour this in your children and empathize with them because they are a direct reflection of YOU. If you are unable to be comfortable with anger, crying, tantrums or "BAD BEHAVIOUR" soften to your own feelings first. Your children are the intelligent barometers of your feelings - they are perfect, whole and complete when they come to us, just as we were as we entered this plane. Contemplate their perfection - at times I find my childrens' collective and individual beauty almost too much to bear. Allow - yourself to contemplate your children and their beauty as well as your own - it is amazing how much softening can happen if we remove judgement - even just for one day. xo

Who Is Parenting Our Children?

Once I had children I fully occupied a brand new space on this plane. I was torn wide open by the love I felt for each one of them and continue to be that way today. As my children have grown I realized that there is a "voice" that speaks to me that I swear is like a tape recorder that has the "play and rewind" buttons activated on a daily basis. My struggles with parenting have come when the voice is telling me to do one thing and my gut instinct completely disagrees! The problem is that normally my mouth, commanded by the "voice" says something before my gut can jump in. Then I can't take it back. What I have learned is that I over 40 some odd years have internalized all of the voices of authority that I was exposed to growing up. Collectively, they have at times over the years dictated how I should be parenting. When I realized that we learn to parent based on how we were parented and I removed myself from the equation, it didn't take long to figure out that I am parenting my children based on information passed down through the generations - from people that have never even met me! Our great, great grandparents and beyond are installed in each of us, but that is all. We are not blaming anyone - everyone does the best they can with what they have at the time, but recognizing that this installation of genes, habits, traits and reactions can be UNINSTALLED by responding to a situation is so very freeing! What we need to learn to do is DIS-ENGAGE from the voice we hear. If we grew up in families where we were not allowed to have room for our feelings to grow, this can be a process that takes time. When I work with families in distress, the identification of feelings and how to describe, weight and honour them is the first step in restoring harmony and deeper connection. Sitting in these feelings, dis-engaging the voice and allowing your gut instinct to take the lead will allow you to parent your children, deepen your connection with your partner and live in the present moment. We will all make mistakes as we go - we are human and wonderful- what we cannot do is let ourselves be defined by our mistakes as this will cause us to live in our heads where the tape or voice hits "rewind" and we take our default maps, which are conditioned responses. Feel it - all of the love, the instinct and the pain and grow as a human being and a parent. That is yours to own. xo

Grounding - The Multiplicity of the Word

For me, letting go of that which no longer serves me has become a mantra. In my parenting classes and workshops I tell the parents that I wish I had adopted the "No praise, no punishment" mantra as well, years ago. Holding space for constant praise does not allow a child to develop their own sense of self - perpetual praise means that a child is viewed and valued based on their accomplishments and achievements. For parents, we run out of the energy to hold our children in this way - their self-worth, their mood, their demeanor is determined by how valued they feel based on how well they accomplished their task or participated and contributed in their chosen sport or competition. How many of us as adults still need stroking, praise and approval to prove to us that we are valuable? How many of us do more and have the disease to please? How many of us are aware that this is the fast track to burn out for both ourselves and our children?
I am in love with the notion of grounding. Grounding means taking things, events, expendable energy away and bringing things to a center. I don't believe in it anymore as punishment, but as a way to calm a soul fever, to bring things back into perspective and to allow each of us to come home to ourselves. If we are physically sick, we are grounded. If our soul has a fever and we are overwhelmed, exhausted, or burnt out we need to strip away all the excesses and be grounded. I work with families and see childrens' attention spans, concentration and emotional availability improve when they are grounded - in the love and time of their parents. We need to stop over-scheduling and allow them time to play, to not be overloaded with too much adult information and television, scheduled play and expectations. Connecting, loving and disconnecting from external stimuli are what our children and we ourselves crave. We are completely hard wired to connect with each other. Grounding in this love sometimes means missing extended family celebrations, not doing the laundry, not staying late for a meeting and perhaps missing a favourite sport. It also means healing, loving and coming home to ourselves.

She's Turning 17

So tomorrow she is 17. She is Sarah, my second child, my second daughter. Last September she coerced me into going to see Kings of Leon in concert in our home town. My response initially, was "they are a bit harsh, Sarah." I'll think about it. "What's there to think about, Mum? You just need to listen to more of their music and I think you'll agree you need to go to the concert with me." I did just that - driving her to work we listened to "Sex on Fire" and I must say that I really enjoyed them. My husband dropped us off the night of the concert and we headed directly to the t-shirt stall and I bought her a t-shirt and we headed to our seats. We chatted through the opening band and I watched her become entranced as the Kings as Sarah calls them came onstage. The large screens projected Caleb Followill's image all over the arena and all Sarah could say was "Mum, look at him." Well, how could you not look at him? When "Sex on Fire" came on live, I was transported back in time to when I was sixteen and I was in the presence of Sting with the Police for the first time... didn't the opening strains of this Kings of Leon song sound eerily like "Message in a Bottle?" Didn't this bearded man move just as magically as Gordon Sumner did 27 years ago? Was Sarah feeling the same rush tonight as I did when I was sixteen? I certainly didn't dance as well as she was dancing this night.. this baby that saved my life now seventeen years ago when I was operated on twenty weeks into my pregnancy with her. When the pathology came back with very scary results, I remained attached to this little soul and we battled on together through all kinds of horrible tests, blood work and doctor's appointments. She came rushing into the world, curly haired, peaceful and so very present... her dad was right there, ready to catch her and love her and her older sister Emily, her best friend, her protector, welcomed her into her heart. This child, this force, continues to be the second of my three biggest life lessons- she pushes me on, she challenges me, she is sassy, fierce and fearless - and tomorrow she is 17 by her real age, but her heart has been around this way many times before. Happy Birthday, my Sarah, my warrior princess.