Day 115: Parched

When I step back and take a look at my life, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude and humbled by all I have that I've done nothing to deserve. In my real-life Prince Charming and two boys who could not be any more beautiful inside or out I find daily evidence of God's infinite grace and mercy, proof that on my own I could never be worthy of the blessings that flow freely from His hands.

And when those realizations come, they carry with them a reminder of how spiritually dry my life is right now.

Once upon a time we were part of a church community - one that was authentic, inspiring, and challenging. But the busier life got, the more commitment faded. Eventually Jackson became too talkative for the service and unable to be separated from me in the toddler room, and the final nail was in the coffin. It has now been about a year and a half since we've been back. And if feels like it.

Not that a weekly church service is a spiritual prerequisite, but without it, I've found it far too easy to let my other relationships and responsibilities crowd out my most important relationship - the one that, if at the center, elevates all the rest with it.

I feel more ready and open for connection with God than I've ever been thanks to all the other growth I've been undertaking. I think this is because spirituality permeates all aspects of life, and because the expansion of my worldview has stretched me in ways that allow me to see God in places I never knew He was before.

I'm sure some read posts on energy, unconditionality, the mind-body connection or intuition and think "New Age" (ahhhh, run for the hills, Christians!). But I see God's incredible physical and spiritual human design in these things. He made us energetically interactive beings, our intuition is a guiding gift from Him, it was He who interconnected our physical and emotional states, and the unconditionality of life only exists because of His sacrifice that allows us to experience freedom. What a shame to miss out on these dimensions of life that He intended for us to experience, utilize, and enjoy! If you gave someone a Swiss Army knife for Christmas, wouldn't you want them to use more than just the tiny, nearly-useless scissors?

So now that my eyes have been opened to the can opener, the screwdriver, the blades, and even the nail file, I find myself wandering alone in a spiritual desert. Those who share my foundational spiritual beliefs reject much of my philosophy and theology (which, by the way, are essential to my foundational spiritual beliefs!). And vice versa, those who share my philosophical beliefs often differ significantly in the spiritual realm. And in particular, a similar view of respectful, loving discipline is hard to find among Christian parents. (A post on that later!)
 
But I'm committed to finding my way back to center, back to the love that is the root and reason for it all. And to do that, I'll need to live in community with like-minded people. I'm a part of this amazing holistic parenting community that has been so instrumental in my mothering journey, and I need to dive back into a church community to foster the same growth in my spiritual life.

My hope is that the community we left behind is one that will embrace us again, new ideas and all. But whether we find our home in the familiar or new, I'm feeling ready and drawn to search. And this is reassurance that now is the right time. Not last year, not last month, but now. Acceptance and forward motion: two more blessings I couldn't live without!

Day 49: Better Late than Never

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
I will choose acceptance over resistance.
I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.
I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.

I'm going to take another day to soak in some thoughts on trust and control, and in the meantime share a recent revelation and subsequent observation relating to the television.


I've been struggling to find a comfortable relationship with DVDs. I was paying far too much attention to external influences - research, opinions, what other moms are doing - instead of tapping into my intuition. Ironically, it was an external resource that brought me back to my intuition to make peace with the issue once and for all.

Putting on a DVD for Jackson never felt right. There were always feelings of guilt and inadequacy when I hit play - every time. I chalked those up to "shoulds" based on research, wanting to be the fictional 'perfect mom,' or having a black and white view of the issue that should be more gray. I didn't honor the fact that those emotions were coming from within me. In other words, I blew myself off.

I was never happy with how Jackson behaved during and after a DVD, but I blamed it on my absence instead of the DVDs presence (Of course! Don't we moms blame ourselves for everything?). In other words, I used guilt in a negative way by placing blame instead of using it as a positive guidepost for future decisions.

I listened to other moms I respect talk about their kids' favorite shows or movies and saw the TV on in other moms' homes and told myself, "See, they do it. It's not so bad." In other words, I looked at what someone else had decided was right for their family and tried to apply it to mine instead of looking at what I felt was right for my family.

Instead of honoring my intuition, I tried to smother it in reason: I do what we have to do to survive. We're not capable of being a no-TV house anymore. It's not ideal, but it's not that bad. I just need to relax about it and stop being so all or nothing.

Then by chance (or divine intervention) I came home from ECFE a couple weeks ago with a handout on temperament. I'm pretty tuned in to the kids' temperaments and had already done lots of reading on it, so I set the packet on the table and didn't give it another thought until a few days ago when I decided to read through the suggestions for the different traits before I filed it away.

I skipped to the section on sensitivity, knowing that Jackson is off the charts in this trait. There was the expected list: teach your child to recognize when he's becoming overstimulated, be sensitive to how much stimulation your child is receiving from noise, smells, etc., help your child avoid situations that are overwhelming, and so on. But then there was this simple suggestion: Limit the amount of television your child watches.

Somehow seeing it under the category of sensitivity and overstimulation finally helped me make the connection. I was uncomfortable with it because I knew deep down that it had a negative emotional and physical impact on Jackson. Not because of the research on brain development, not because of the arbitrary number of hours "they" call acceptable or unacceptable, not even because of a change in his behavior. Those feelings were there because I know him in an inexplicable way that can only be felt.

The fact that I couldn't put my finger on why I didn't like it or what felt wrong about it shouldn't have stopped me from acting on the feeling. When it comes to mothering, the feeling is enough.

Five days without the TV have validated my instincts. He's not needing more attention without the distraction of a movie, he's actually needing less. Instead of asking for a DVD (since they've all been removed from our living space and relegated to the depths of our place-here-if-you-never-want-it-to-be-found-again mess of a storage room), he happily plops down with a lump of homemade playdough and entertains himself creatively for an hour.

He's happier and more at peace without the bombardment of screen full of action overstimulating him (even if the action was just Cinderella going to a ball!). And the fact that he readily accepted the change, even seemed to welcome it, also validates that he also knew it wasn't a healthy activity for him.

I'm disappointed that it took me so long to acknowledge and honor my intuition, that I allowed other things to guide my choice. But I'm thankful for the experience because it reinforces what I'm always preaching to myself and other moms: Trust your instincts above all else. We are each experts on our own children and no one else knows what's right for us and our families like we do.

Day 38: Intuition

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
I will choose acceptance over resistance.
I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.
I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.

Our Holistic Moms Network meeting last night was on "food as medicine." Having done loads of nutritional research, especially in the past few weeks, I didn't expect anything to rock my world, but I ended up walking away with something really significant. She talked about bioindividuality - the concept that no one diet works for every human body - and touched on allowing the body to guide you to what it needs. She went on to explain how that intuition isn't accessible when we're in a toxic state from eating processed foods, pesticides, hormones, and everything else that comes along with the Western Diet. I can identify with this so powerfully right now as the detox diet is slowly changing my dietary intuition.

I'm a person to which moderation does not come naturally or easily - in anything. When I'm in, I'm all in. This intensity brings so many positive things to my life. Most relevant to this project, it allows me to love my children so fiercely that I'm willing to fight through the ways that same intensity can damage them. Most relevant to the topic of nutrition, it means that food has been a battleground my whole life.

I believe so completely in the healing power of real food, and most days that knowledge is what guides my food choices. But when I fall prey to the enticing false promise of satisfaction from harmful food-like products, I go overboard. Way overboard. The only time I've felt my body's intuition guiding me toward healthful choices was during my pregnancy with Max, which also, not coincidentally, was a time I felt more energetic, healthy, and peaceful than ever before. 

Looking back, I now know that this is because this longstanding candida overgrowth coupled with the toxicity that results from overindulgence in moments of weakness has smothered that intuition for over a decade. As I detox, I feel it returning. Instead of feeling satisfied by "fake" foods, I feel physically sick when I make a poor choice. Instead of shoveling too much in with no signal to stop or repercussion when I don't, I feel full and even ill when I surpass full. It's only a matter of time before that intuition is fully restored to the point that non-foods are no longer appealing. What a welcome change that will be!

All of this got me thinking about emotional toxicity and mothering intuition. I think the parallel is strong. Emotional toxicity can come from unhealthy relationships, damage from early life experiences, insufficient coping skills, overbearing advice from family and friends, and any number of other sources. We all carry some toxicity, but when we become overloaded, it clouds out our intuition. The feelings - in both body and mind - that are intended to guide us through life and relationships are replaced with externally prescribed shoulds, and can'ts or simply confusion.

The danger is that shoulds and can'ts, like food-like products, can look appealing even though they're damaging. And the more we internalize them, the more they crowd out intuition. As we detox by refusing to engage in toxic relationships or listen to toxic advice, by finding ways to heal ourselves, our mothering intuition returns. Eventually the wrong choices will simply feel wrong, maybe even make us feel sick, and clarity will replace confusion.

So I've decided to engage in a full body and mind detox. As I get more in touch with my body's intuition, I'll work on connecting more fully with my mothering intuition. Together these things will bring me closer to the kind of energy, health and peace I want to experience and be for myself and my family.