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Savoring the In-Between

There is a place, the in-between, that can be passed by so quickly. It is the space of anticipation – right before the Next Thing becomes reality. It is the space of fear and not knowing – waiting for test results or a decision that is out of our hands to be made. This in-between place is often not comfortable, in fact I would say it is almost always filled with discomfort and we humans like to avoid discomfort in the present moment at much as possible.

I’ve been learning to live and be present in this in-between place. I have many things that are in the future: my husband coming back from a family visit, my birthday, the release of my new course, Halloween festivities, starting my clinical training, graduation, starting a private brick-and-mortar practice and so on. Many things that are far off, some that are just a few days away, and yet I have little to no control to making them happen sooner and so I sit in this waiting, in this in-between the last thing and this next thing, in this anticipation, and in some cases in this fear.

I get frustrated that I can’t make time move more quickly so I can get to that next thing. This frustration, this desire to leap ahead, blocks my ability to savor these now moments, the moments that are happening within and outside of the anticipation. I miss the quiet moments that pop up when I am too focused on the Next Thing and not paying attention to the now. I miss the joy of noticing what just made my girl giggle or feel proud. I miss connecting to the feelings behind the words my husband is sharing with me. I miss savoring the quiet before the chaos, the replenishing time to simply be and not worry.

So these past few weeks have been filled with excited anticipation while I try to not be totally focused on the coming events of this week, month, season and year. I’ve been putting away the laptop and phone more and snuggling with my girl as much as possible and listening to the feelings behind the words of my husband. I’ve been working on quieting the monkey chatter in my brain about All The Things That Must Be Done and letting there be moments of simply being in the now.

It is a balancing act: trying to find the right amount of space to focus on my future projects and staying in the here and now and not worrying about them. It’s a practice in balance for certain and I would argue that most of us are very unbalanced with our focus on the future, our worry about the yet to be, the long To Do list of things that may or may not be very important and yet are excellent distractions from the now. We, as a society, are obsessed with being and looking busy; it is a status symbol. I was caught up in this for years with my career and early motherhood and ultimately it cost me my health not to mention the time lost to connect with the people I loved in those now-gone present moments.

It is a process and a practice and I’m not sure I will ever get it 100% right. Yet, I practice to obtain this balance by continuing to practice being more and more present, bringing the now back into my life and not focus so incredibly much on the future. I continue to practice to recognize those moments of joy as they happen and to feel deep in  my bones the pleasure and bliss of those moments, in those moments.

My mindfulness practice has been the center of helping me to be in the moment, to finding this bliss and pleasure of the now. Mindfulness has helped me to release worry about the future and stay present and focused as I need to be in the particular moment. Mindfulness has allowed me to tune into the anxiety or fear I may be experiencing and to get to it’s root and start to heal some deep-rooted pains. Practicing mindfulness has given me a way to appreciate and fully enjoy my life, as it is, right now.

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Myths, Personal and Otherwise

While reading for school I came across this quote:

    Our stories are not always composed by us, but come to us in powerful ways from others. If, as children, family members describe us in a particular way, these family stories often remain the same no matter how we change. What others believe about us, what we learn in school, in the media and from the reactions of strangers, define our stories.
In searching for alternative narratives about ourselves, we are often drawn to stories about others. Listening to these stories may offer us new possibilities, but if our new life stories are to fully emerge, we must also challenge the underlying myths and prejudices that limit us.”
— Ellen Pulleyblank Coffey “The Variable Tales of Life” (2007) as quoted in “Revisioning Family Therapy: Race, Culture and Gender in Clinical Practice”, Monica McGoldrick & Kenneth Hardy (eds).

This quote speaks of how our personal stories evolve, where they come from, and in many ways more importantly, how we can heal and rewrite them. It is true that community and society and our families and friends contribute to the creation of our negative myths about ourselves, and it is ironically true that through our community, families and friends we can re-write them, creating positive stories about ourselves and our lives.

I’ve written in the past about my personal struggle with the myth of the Not Good Enough or Bad Mother. I’ve struggled with this generations old story from both sides of my family. The struggle, in many ways, has guided me to being a Good Enough Mother (in Winnicott’s terms) and has led me to develop a strong and deep connection with my daughter. Most days I am in a place of peace with this story, knowing both in my head and heart that I am a Good Mama, that my girl and I have a beautiful relationship and that I am breaking a pattern and cycle and myth that was handed to me on a silver platter. It has taken every rebellious part of me to break away from what was given to me, to re-write motherhood for our family and for myself, and I honestly couldn’t have done it without my friends, my husband, or, perhaps ironically, my mothers (birth, step and adopted) and grandmothers.

Still, some days I struggle. I struggle with my daughter’s independence and free will. I struggle with her opinions and self-determination. I struggle when she has absolutely no interest in following the path I think she should follow. I struggle with acknowledging her, who she is and where she is at and accepting her wholly and encouraging her to be who she is. I struggle with walking that line of guiding her, being a present parent to help her function in life and society and squashing her individuality, her sense of Self, her brilliant, creative and sensitive soul.

It’s a line all parents walk, I believe. We have all our own shit, some of it buried deep. Those messages we were given when we were squashed, how we weren’t good enough just as we were, how we needed to measure up to some arbitrary standard, how we needed to fit in (but never felt like we really did). When our children start to express who they are, we have a knee-jerk reaction to squash, simply out of defense for ourselves, simply because it is all that we know, simply because we can’t always see the nonduality of life and how it is yes/and not either/or.

In those moments I struggle to find my breath. Sometimes I find it, sometimes I stop myself from saying some shaming thing or another. Sometimes I can slow down enough to open the space for her to be her and acknowledge my own pain and give each of us a little extra love.

Sometimes. Not always.

There are the times when the shaming words come out and sometimes I immediately regret them and start the repair work and sometimes it takes me a while to get there. This is human. This is part of my journey.

There are other parts to this motherhood journey. Myths that speak of value and worth, both financial and emotional. Myths that on bad days can break me down into a ball of sobbing tears, feeling that my girl would be better off with any other person on the planet for a mother than with me. Days that can start to eat me alive. Myths, that on good days, just piss me off and help me stand tall, knowing that today, in this moment, I am not that person, I am not the prescribed, pre-ordained bad mother, knowing that in this moment I am doing the healing work of generations.

I have a gorgeous circle of women who help me explore these myths. We guide each other on our journeys of digging into the stories that have been so deeply ingrained in us, and yet aren’t true. It is through this community of beautiful souls that the deeper healing is happening. Together we explore, we heal, we deconstruct and rebuild. We don’t erase, but we do re-write.

I have many circles and tribes, some of them intimate and in-person, some of them global and online only, some a mix of the two. It is through my circles that I excavate my myths and guide others to unearth their own. I believe that in order to heal, to find our way to joy and the present moment we need to understand what has stopped us, what pieces of our past and present, what messages from our families and our cultures, have defined us in a way that doesn’t ring true to us any more. This deep exploration of who I Am is, to me, a vital piece of our healing process.

Who I Am changes, sometimes from day to day, or moment to moment and with each shift of the tide I’m given the opportunity to explore the myths, to heal and to rewrite or embrace as I feel moved to do in that moment.

I love this journey. I love my own growth and change and I am deeply grateful for the people who allow me to be witness to their own growth change. It is a process, an unfolding and an awakening and I deeply believe that together we can heal: our Selves, each other and the world.

It is my life work, the unearthing of personal myths, guiding others while they guide me, finding our true selves and healing generations long stories of pain and lack. It is my life work, this rebuilding of relationship to our Selves, to each other, to our world. It is my life work to heal and be a part of other’s healing, to bring change and love and joy into the world. It is my life work to find and share the beauty of the present moment, to laugh deep belly laughs and to cry body-wrenching sobs and to support others in their similar yet different journeys.

I am grateful for this life and this life’s work. I am grateful for you, allowing me to be a part of your journey.

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Silly is what Silly does

I’ve been digging into this idea of Silly for a few days now and have come up against the same question over and over: What is “Silly”?

I believe we often think of silly as synonymous with goofy and/or childish (as opposed to childlike). Silly often gets a negative wrap, we are often told throughout our lives “Don’t be silly” which is often translated to “Don’t be stupid.”

Silly, I’m finding, is bigger than all that and is a positive, not negative, experience. Silly is going against the grain, being a rebel.  Silly is doing something unexpected, just because we can. Silly is about not being efficient, about taking a “wrong” turn on purpose and exploring. Silly is also about playing, experimenting and having fun. Silly is about stepping into our vulnerability and embracing the butterflies and weird sensations that brings forth. Silly is about connecting to our joy, to releasing our fears. Silly is about nourishing ourselves and finding ways to play and care for our souls. Silly is about surrendering to our passions and going for it.

And yes, silly is also about being childlike. In the way that children are curious about their world and ask lots of questions and want to understand everything. In they way children explore without regard to any end product. In the way that children embrace life and want to experience every aspect of it.

Today is Day 5 of my Silly Challenge. Over the last five days I have stomped in mud puddles, sang songs out loud, danced, taken the long, inefficient way to run some errands. I’ve also stepped out of my comfort zone and connected with people I haven’t really connected with before but deeply wanted to, sat and listened to music with my girl: simply sitting and listening; I’ve taken a painting class with a friend, I’ve gone to bed early and then woken up at midnight and watched Gossip Girl.

Some of these things may not be considered “silly” by others. For me, each of them has been a step in either going outside of my comfort zone or doing what I want to do instead of what I “should” do.

That’s the essence of “silly” for me: letting go of shoulds and doing the coulds, doing what my heart wants in the moment, just for fun.

Today’s planned silly act is making cobbler and sausage for dinner. Because I can. And it sounds good. And dinner for breakfast always feels like a treat. (It’s also not my original idea. One of my best friends gave this one to me). I know there will be unplanned silliness too, because part of silliness is stepping into Yes. It’s about opening to the possibilities.

I would love for you join me on this challenge. You can hop on this Silly Train at anytime. We’re using the hashtag #30daysofsilly to see how others are taking the challenge. There is no right or wrong way to be silly. Being silly looks different for everyone. We all have our own comfort zones to break out of a bit. So, really, step into Silly, step into Yes, step into Joy and expanding your experience of fun and pleasure and life. I’d love to hear about how it works (and doesn’t work!) for you.

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Finding Silliness: A 30 day challenge

If you haven’t seen this yet as it makes it rounds on the interwebs, I recommend that you check it out. A dear friend recommended the page to me and I’m so glad she did. She said she was going to read it daily for the excellent ab workout from the deep belly laughs the blog post produced. I second her idea to read it daily, however not just for the deep belly laughs.

I want to read this post daily to remind myself not to take myself and my life so damn seriously.

I’ve always been a Very Serious Person. I’m not so sure I was born serious, however silliness was never part of my home life and was often frowned upon in those rare brave moments when I would dare to try to bring a touch of silliness  in. While there was laughter in my childhood years, it was generally the polite kind, not the deep belly-laughs that cause you snort and sometimes stop breathing kind. Life is serious, you know, there is not time for silly shenanigans. There is time for work and thoughtfulness and art appreciation and a love of animals, a little time for rest (generally in the form of sleep at night) however silliness? No, no time for that.

So I grew into a rather serious person. A person who loves books and Deep Discussions about Important Things. A person who dives into Self Improvement and Personal Growth and the serious exploration of all things that hold us back from reaching our True Human Potential. A person intent on changing the status quo and breaking rules and changing the world for the better, but in a serious way.

No time for silliness, don’t you know. Silliness doesn’t accomplish anything. Silliness is a Waste of Time.

Or so the myth in my head would repeat over and over.

Lucky for me I married a man who understands Silly and together we had a girl who loves silliness. The two of them have taught me over the years about silliness and I  have had my moments of silliness or goofiness. I have experienced deep belly laughs where I can’t breath. Multiple times a week even. But not every day. No, not every day because really, I am a Serious Person who does not have time for such shenanigans when there are so many Serious Matters to attend to.

Fuck that.

I say that with every serious bone in my body. FUCK THAT.

When we laugh deeply, so deeply that our whole body trembles, that we literally find ourselves gasping for air, our muscles actually loosen and we release those things our body has so desperately been holding on to. Laughter is the best medicine, They say. This time, They are right.

Laughter can literally cure our bodies of illness, and it makes sense that it also can cure our minds and souls. Releasing tensions, letting joy into our cracks, helps to break us open. And there are times when things are so bad, when it seems the Universe is plotting against us with one heart-wrenching event after another that all we can do is laugh. Well, laugh or fall apart and never, ever get back up.

Anne Lamott wrote: Laughter is carbonated holiness.  I love that image. Carbonated holiness. Yes. Laughter soothes and heals our souls, it brings us closer to the Divine, both the Divine within us and outside of us. 

However even more than laughter, silliness, heals us. When we open ourselves to being silly, to doing things like buying fake bear heads or oogling prancing pony chandeliers or making funny faces or having pillow fights or running funny on purpose or skipping and singing at the top of our lungs or even starting small by wearing mismatched socks on purpose and not apologizing for it – THEN the real release starts to happen and we start to open ourselves to deep belly laughs, to the carbonated holiness. We truly start to open ourselves to the possibilities of life, we truly open ourselves to not simply seeing the joy, but truly, deeply, down in our bones feeling it.

So I’m challenging myself for the next 30 days. The thirty days leading up to my 42nd birthday. My challenge is to do one silly thing every single day. Preferably in public, but really, where ever I can get my silly on, I’m going to do it. I’m going to shed caring about what others may think in those moments (though really this isn’t an issue for me anymore, caring what others think). I’m going make space to not focus on All The Serious Things and open myself to daily deep belly laughs. It’s an experiment in healing and into seeing who will I be after 30 days of intentionally letting silliness into my life. It’s an exploration of a part of me that has been suppressed most of my life. It’s a journey into knowing me better, into experiencing each moment more, into deeper intentional living in the moment. It’s a serious undertaking of bringing more joy into my world, both inside my own soul and to the lives of those around me, both loved ones and strangers.

I would love for you to join me. Who’s in?

Me: making funny faces and making myself laugh
Me: making funny faces and making myself laugh