HOW SPIRITUALITY STOPPED ME FROM BEING A VICTIM.

I was angsty as a teenager, prone to fluctuating moods, crying, and emotional outbursts. I pity my parents, but it's standard teenage stuff for some. If Emo had been a thing in the 90’s, I'd have been the poster child. All I needed were chin length bangs to hide my tears behind and a black section at Wet Seal.

I'd grown up Catholic, but after years of catechism and mostly consistent church going, it still didn't resonate. It was the judgment thing for me. And the burn in fiery hell thing.

I started reading books on spirituality when I was 19. That's when my mind, effectively, got blown open, and those books have shaped my life and thought processes. Forever.

I could go into the nitty gritty of my spiritual beliefs, but that's not the important part of my mental transformation. What happens after we die doesn't have a whole hell of a lot of impact on how we live today, no pun intended. It's intriguing and esoteric, to say the least, and it's safe to say that it's the greatest mystery of our species, but laboring over those metaphysical "what ifs" can take away from the importance of how we operate in the now.

There were things that happened to me, during that period in time, that spoke to my soul. Sounds cheesy, but I can think of no better way to say it. I felt like the Universe had laid a path out before me, and as long as I kept on it, new steps would always appear in front of me just as I became ready, in the form of books. Each that I read referenced the last somewhere within its pages. It was a spiritual puzzle, tailor made for me. I began having peak experiences (ethereal, transcendent, out of body moments), on the regular, another cue that I was heading in the right direction. Guidance seemed to float into my lap. One time, when still testing the whole thing out, I asked for the meaning of the word zeitgeist. The following day, three professors wrote it on the board and defined it. What the? I couldn't deny the synchronicities. The framework had been laid for my world, and that intricate web of thoughts, ideas, and beliefs saved me from the victim mentality that many of us masquerade behind for the duration of our lives. Life wasn't just happening to me, it was happening FOR me.

Every experience and perceived wronging is an opportunity for growth, a chance to remember that I'm responsible for how I react to each moment. I got my power back, I no longer had to lay the blame on an elusive “other”.

This shift in ideology took some getting used to. Culpability requires personal action. It's effortless to roll with “everything happens for a reason,” and just let it end there, helplessly accepting your fate, which I did for several years, post "spiritual awakening", in the name of the “greater plan” at work. My ideas were growing, but I wasn't.

The moment I absorbed that my experiences are calls to action is when the true expansion of self began.

I seek out the lesson, but more importantly, I search my emotions for my ego’s reaction to my feelings. If I'm having negative mental responses to someone or something, it’s on me to explore what fear or inadequacy they are triggering within me. Same fight with your husband all the time? Never seem to get ahead at work? Always have friends with drama? Do you always have drama? Always broke? Are your kids disrespectful? You. You. You. That's all on you. You may not be able to directly change any of those situations, but you have one hundred percent of the control when it comes to morphing how you experience them, and it's inevitable that when you do that, change occurs. The Universe places people and situations into our lives who will mirror back to us all of our ineffective ways of being, in an effort to remind us that we’ve got work to do. It starts as a gentle knocking, but you'll eventually get your door pounded in if you don't take heed.

When your friend says she can't help you because she’s too busy, you can call her a selfish bitch and reminisce on everything you've ever done for her when you just didn't have time, slowly building judgment and resentment, or you can dig a little deeper, and ask yourself what's really making you feel like shit in this situation. Did a wound reopen, a feeling of not being good enough? A fear of rejection, or that you aren't loveable? Same thing when your husband doesn't notice your new hair or the clean house. It all comes back to the reflection you're desperately trying not to see in that mirror we talked about earlier.

A steady diet of fear and judgment isn't going to feed your soul, but shame isn't going to provide sustenance either. Responsibility. That's the ticket. When you remember the power that you wield, that's when you take the reins. When you find the gift in each annoyance, each challenge, that's when your life becomes your own, no longer subjugated to a fate driven, anger laced experience.

I don't really care how you get there. It's your path, and whatever speaks to you will also lay the steps of progress before you, but you have to be willing to look for them, sometimes in very uncomfortable places.

In case you're interested or still searching for a path that feels right, I'll include some of the books that have transcended my experience of this world.

“The Seat of The Soul” Gary Zukav

“Through Time into Healing” Brian L. Weiss

“The Four Agreements” Don Miguel Ruiz

“The Happiness Project” Gretchen Rubin

“Conversations with God” Neale Donald Walsch

“The Code of the Extraordinary Mind” Vishen Lakhiani

“Ego is the Enemy” Ryan Holiday

“The Obstacle is the Way” Ryan Holiday

-Angi

WHY I CHOSE TO BIRTH MY CHILDREN AT HOME.

As a home birthed baby of the early 80’s, I have the sepia-tone proof that my mom and dad brought me calmly into this far-out world. In their four-poster bed, my mom is reclined against the embrace of my shirtless, long haired dad. He is smiling, leaning in towards her cheek to give words of encouragement. Eyes closed, she is laboring, adorned in an array of patterned blankets and knee-high socks. A midwife, her expression both relaxed and intent, is curled into the space between my mom's exposed thighs. This nest of support, wisdom, and trust exudes what birth can be, and what I assumed it always was.

Fifteen years later, my baby sister’s birth was something else all together. My mom chose to keep this life inside her, even as her own health began to decline. I stood vigil beside my birthing mom, in place of a bygone lover, wishing I could crawl in bed beside her. The blue hospital gown haphazardly covered her cinched waist where an electronic fetal monitor held her. I ached for the comfort in that old photo. And, as if she knew the struggles that awaited her on the outside, Mary Jo fought to remain in the womb. A pair of forceps and a vacuum extractor could not convince her otherwise. At last they clutched her tiny wet body from the parted abdomen of my anxious and exhausted mom.

But life prevails under many different births, and soon we were at home with our new, healthy baby. MJ’s infant existence provided me with early access to my “maternal gut feelings.” I swooned over the sweet, warm smell of cradle-cap concealed beneath measly strands of her black hair. Her body nestled into the breast of my mother as I watched completely unabashed; the grunts and suckles, her out stretched fingers seemed in search of the world’s compassion. I filled the tiny wrinkled palm with my own giant finger and vowed to protect her from anything.

The next year came and my mom asked me to help her while MJ got vaccinated. Once in the doctor’s office, my mother and I had to forcefully restrain her frantic body as she thrashed and wailed under the needle. Afterwards, we huddled in the hall, her spent body squeezed between us as we sobbed. I knew we were protecting her from illness, but I felt a moral conflict about the way it was done.

MJ grew during the course of hundreds of pancake breakfasts, and repeat Disney movies on VHS. We painted curly mustaches on one another with watercolor paints and took long walks in our neighborhood, just the two of us, her tiny legs leading the way. The nights passed with my mom at work. MJ and I would pace back and forth together during her marathon cries, pink-blanky mashed between us as we both yearned that mom would return home from her evening job. Each day was filled with decisions that I had no idea I was so thoroughly involved in making for her. As a sixteen year old, I did my best.

A decade later, I was pregnant with my first baby. I recognized right away what ‘felt’ right to me. But in the actual realm of motherhood, I couldn’t ‘feel’ my way through all the decisions; I had to ‘know.’ I was pre-internet during my pregnancy and relied on a fat file of photocopied paperwork on vaccinations. This sat on my left, a dictionary on my right, and a slowly protruding belly between the two.

Like many young pregnant women, I was suddenly isolated from my previous social life. I filled the vacancy of company with writings by Lamaze, Bradley, and Ina May Gaskin. I marveled over the anatomy of a reproductive system that I always had folded neatly inside me.

As my body continued to change, I gave myself permission to embrace my skin and bones for the first time in my life. If I were fortunate enough to have a low-risk birth, I would let my body lead and make every attempt I could to birth without interventions.

At three months pregnant, I held my best friend’s hand as she labored in the hospital. I witnessed the hypodermic needle as it was inserted into her spine. Intrigued, I watched as the pains of labor faded from her face. We spent the next hour watching the infant fetal monitor together, chatting with the nurses about her stronger contractions and happily awaiting the arrival of her son. I realized her body would still do what it needed to do, regardless of the epidural.

Just then the doctor came in to check her progress. She was given a time limit in response to her ruptured membranes. Pitocin, more pain reliever, and eventually transition was complete. We supported her lifeless legs so she could begin pushing at the doctor’s command. I panicked as she refused his orders to push. She asked for more time, and was answered with his gloved hands, physically applying pressure to her perineum, forcing her to push anyway. She pleaded for him to stop. As he refused, I watched her use every ounce of the strength she had left in her numb legs to shove him away. I was quickly escorted from the room.

Respectively, I know of births that were the embodiment of calm and nurturing, and unfolded under the care of a hospital. I am well aware that emergencies require doctors and that sometimes all the reading, training, and support that a person can obtain on the journey to motherhood, won’t stop life from unraveling.

My own four home births have provided me with a knowledge and gratitude for two things in particular:

1) My body never blocked me from having the birth that I sought. I knew what to expect of my body, and it (literally) delivered. I have also shared the moment of disillusionment with friends who had their birth plans rattled. And, after some tears, they rose to the challenge by embracing those difficulties, later even speaking on behalf of other mothers who may have to birth with unchartered complications. Both of these births are “successful” and abundant in blessings.

2) During the labor and birth of my first baby, I was vocal about who I needed beside me at the birth pool. To my great pleasure, these people were there. And the ones that were not there, my in-laws for example, sat in their truck outside the apartment, perhaps with less faith for what I was trying to do, but never with a lack of support for the individual decisions that my husband and I had made. They waited, and even if they weren’t in the same room at that moment, they stood beside our choices. That is a trust that I hope to give my own children when differences of opinions arise. Without the people in my life making space for me as a birthing woman, respecting what I wanted to do with my body, and lifting me (literally, my dear husband’s strong, tired arms) up so that I could confidently give birth.

I am always enraptured over an individual woman’s birth story. Sharing the triumphs and unresolved difficulties of labor and birth is an empowering action that can lie dormant at the core of each mother. By listening and encouraging one another, birth stories can blossom into dialogues that help us navigate who we are and who we want to be, not only promoting other woman to find out what they want from their birth, but ultimately identifying what they need and want from their lives, as well. 

-Emily

I ASKED FOR HELP AND FOUND MY TRIBE.

This is not an easy thing for me to say, but here goes: My name is Suzy, and I need…ugh…I need…gulp…okay here goes…I NEED HELP!

Wow, that was tough, and yet it’s true. I am recovering from back-to-back reconstructive foot surgeries, and guess what I learned? I can’t do it alone. I need help. But sometimes it feels easier to do it the hard way than ask for help. Me, relinquish control of every aspect of my routine? Me, admit that I can’t do it all? Me, watch someone else do it the wrong way?

When you live over a decade with an illness, you learn to adapt. You learn to modify your ways in order to preserve your independence…and your self-esteem. Every time you have to ask for help, like opening a bottle of pain reliever medication so that you can function a little better and not have to ask for so much assistance, it’s a reminder that you have limitations while others don’t.

I don’t think the hesitance to ask for help is solely tied to those with illness or injury, though. I think far too many of us fall victim to this mentality. In this day and age of the multi-tasking, overachieving, constantly-striving-for-self-growth way of life, to admit we can’t do it all feels like defeat. Think about your workplace. A leader is only as good as the people she leads. A great leader has great employees and knows how to delegate. She has help.

Except in real life, most of us don’t have personal assistants to help us manage our lives. We can’t tell someone to watch our kids while we go to the doctor or bring us soup when we are sick. We have to ask. We have to interrupt someone else’s busy routine, one that’s probably just as full as ours.

                  No wonder we are so exhausted.

                  No wonder we feel busy and overwhelmed.

                  No wonder our relationships struggle and we feel alone.

                  No wonder we don’t feel a sense of community. We don’t offer a sense of community.

What are we so afraid of? Rejection? Move on and ask another person. Disappointment? Again, move on and find someone else. Being an inconvenience? Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Would you feel inconvenienced? Hopefully your answer is no. Are you afraid of strengthening friendships? Having someone by your side to make life a little easier? Sharing in life’s troubles?

You see, we have so much to gain when we learn to ask for help and very little to lose (except for some maybe their pride, in which case I would suggest you need to be humbled now and then).

I’m not suggesting we make every problem someone else’s problem. There is strength and satisfaction to be found in perseverance. But when life seems to be throwing a dozen lemons at us (or in my case, a broken garbage disposal, broken dryer, backed up sewage pipes, broken garage door spring and a totally busted “Franken-foot”), and we only have two hands, why not ask for help catching the other lemons rather than trying to grow ten more hands (and maybe even an extra foot)?

So back to my foot surgeries: I not only accepted but I asked for help. I accepted offers for meals. I asked to borrow a knee scooter. I asked for healing prayers and emotional guidance. I asked for help getting kids to and from school. I asked for rides to doctor appointments and play dates. I asked for help when my daughter got herself stuck inside box spring mattress. Imagine making that phone call. I even asked one of my closest friends to scrub my toilet. (For the record, she is a neat freak whose love language I am pretty sure is cleaning toilets.)

And guess what? Not everyone helped, but a lot of them did, even with the toilets. They caught my lemons! It’s my hope that I can repay them with kindness and generosity. No, I take that back. I won’t repay them. These friends of mine, they don’t keep tabs. But maybe, hopefully, I can be there for them, and others, when the need for help arises.

-Suzy

SATIATING MY INNER ARTIST. HOW TO BE CREATIVE AND A PARENT.

I have been mothering multiple children for over a decade now, and in their midst, my time is always shared. I have begrudgingly learned that some tasks cannot even be begun in the realm of raising little people. Perhaps that is when we lose sight of actions that bring us joy. To be peeled away from what we love to do, because we are never not needed, is painful at times. There was a moment when I felt sure that I would never again see an artistic endeavor from conception to completion. To feel compelled to create, or inspired in that moment, and realize that someone is always going to be hungry, or crying, or bored, and you are the one responsible for tending to those needs, is really awful.

I’ve adapted. Part of it sounds like less than a solution. I have embraced that sometimes I appear to be a slob. Okay realistically, if the creative urge is strong, I cut corners. My friends know that if they drop in on me, I may be wearing my pajamas as an outfit. On certain occasions, I have not asked the kids to clean up after themselves if they are not interfering with me, and aside from throwing food at them, I will anchor myself in the task at hand. It’s an artist/mother survival technique.

The truth is, I've never been afraid to make a mess, but there was always time before kids, to start and finish something. Now there are twenty in between stop-and-start-again phases. And at the end of the day, as I scramble to throw dinner together, the countertops may be covered in unfinished paper crafts, paint trays, and the resulting hint of what could someday be art are littered over the colorfully blemished dining table. My bed may be hiding beneath strewn fabric awaiting a final stitch and me somewhere else completely, making a sandwich, applying a bandaid, or just belly to the ground, playing with my kids.

I have made an effort not to completely abandon those things that seem absolutely unfathomable to finish. I credit this to handing over much of what I love to do, to my kids. I may have wanted to collage a masterpiece, but I spent the hour cutting out things that they wanted from magazines instead and in between helping the littles with the glue and the scissors, I was able to steal enjoyment from the creations that they made. This is how they have come to sew, paint, sculpt and draw. I had to willingly let go (literally sometimes: paint brushes and pencils pulled from my grasp), and be okay with assisting them in their own creations.

Making things for the sake of making things, is who I am. There is homemade flarp in my carpet that is never coming out. A beautiful smear of fuchsia paint has embedded in the wood floor in my dining room. Sparkles are so deeply ingrained in the nooks and crannies that you can’t escape, unknowingly wearing one or two on your face for a day. The mess is collateral damage for the bigger, more important part; remaining a creative force while being a mom. 

-Emily

PARENTING WITH RESPECT TO GROW YOUR RELATIONSHIPS.

In astrology, it's said that an eclipse is looked upon as a turning point. Where I live, we had almost one hundred percent totality. Our most amazing friends drove 11 hours to witness this phenomenon and stayed with us for a few days. They have four children, whom Mom homeschools, ranging in age from four to eleven. These kids are something to behold, full of smiles, confidence, and endless pleases and thank yous. They are constantly drawing, reading, playing games, or generally being delightful. And that's just the kids. I haven't even gotten started on their parents.

Mama is ethereal, she has a gentle way about her and a humble, witty, refreshingly honest sense of humor. She effortlessly floats from child to child, sitting down to draw with one or play cards with another. They arrived with a slew of library books, and she very naturally expanded upon the lessons within, craftily turning it into a teaching moment. None of it felt hurried or like a chore. She was one hundred percent engaged, and this wasn't even homeschool, it was vacation. 

Dad handles the kids with an uncommon level of patience. He is gentle in his reprimands, which surface more like empathetic chats. When the kids talk to him, he's all ears, there's no half listening or hurrying the conversation along. He injects subtle humor, which remanifests in the kids and how they communicate with others.

All across the board, major parenting inspiration. Goals, people.

Now, I'm going to have to get really transparent about how witnessing all of that made me feel as a parent. In two words, inadequate and ashamed. While I could have internalized these sensations, I chose to instead use them as a tool to explore my own parenting.

What I realized is that I'm spending a whole lot of time wiping down countertops and making things clean, at the expense of my children. I really had to sit back and ask myself, "Am I wiping countertops for four hours per day (exaggerated for dramatic effect) because I'm a neat freak, or am I endlessly cleaning because it's an excuse to not engage?" Then, I have to follow that up with, "Do I not want to engage, or do I not know how to?" This leads me further in, "Am I afraid to engage?" "Is my need for perfection or, more accurately, my fear of a lack thereof, keeping me from checking in?" I also noticed an underlying fear of changing and what that might entail.

For me, it all comes back to that vulnerability. It's diffusive. If my image doesn't project like I've got it all together, then what will people think of me? More importantly, what will I think of me? Will I feel weak, not good enough, not worthy? 

We both know that no one really cares about my house being tidy or meticulously decorated. Sure, they notice, but it's probably not a major factor in whether or not I'm considered likeable. The only person who is judging me is ME.

And, watching this family interact, I was judging myself, hard. But, this judgment felt like it had merit. It reminded me that my current parenting priorities aren't very authentic. They're coming from a place of feeling like I'm not enough. A place where I have to control my environment to feel adequate. And, some of it isn't about vulnerability at all, but is born out of a simple need for an example of how to be a more present parent.

Witnessing their profound relationships with one another checked me out of that irrationality and offered me a model, both things I sorely needed. I realized that in an attempt to maintain "perfect" order, I'm impatient. I half listen to the words coming out of my children's mouths. I often respond hastily, because the laundry ain't gonna do itself. Ultimately, wether it's inadvertent or not, my children aren't feeling respected. That plays out in their treatment towards one another and their treatment towards my husband and I. I'm falling short in some really important ways. It's likely that many of us are, for varying reasons. We're tired, and we're busy. It takes a lot of extra effort to be mindful under those circumstances. It's easy to get lost in our phones and our televisions. 

Now isn't the time to languish in guilt. That's not why life presented me with this beautiful family for four days. This was an opportunity, a gift to reassess how I'm operating. And, I have it on good authority that it took effort and self evaluation for these parents to evolve into the stellar force that they've come to be.

A light has shown in a darkness, and I'm forever changed. This isn't the type of thing where you go on a diet and then eat a cupcake two days in, reasoning that you'll start again on Monday. This is my family. There is absolutely no excuse worthy of failure or transgressions. These little souls are going to be part of our lives, as children, for a very limited time. I can probably keep my sparkly countertops and still be far more present with my children. Showing your children the same deference that you desire of them takes no extra time, just more focus. Commingling with them, in their individual activities sporadically throughout the day, equates to the laundry hanging out in the basket for an extra hour or two. 

I hope you'll take away a few things from this:

1.  If you're going to be your own worst critic, do something about it. Guilt is a useless, fruitless endeavor.

2.  It's worth it to sit back and examine your feelings in reaction to something. Find the opportunity for growth in your experiences. Allow yourself to go deeper. Don't sell the process short by moving on from a little introspection too quickly. 

3.  Remember that most of our faulty methods of operating are coming from a noble place of self protection. Don't be too hard on yourself, but also don't use that as an excuse to stagnate.

4.  Finally, your kids, your marriage- always worth it. Put the work in. Too often these are the people we are the least respectful too and the most indulgent with, yet they love us the most. Don't just be decent, put one another on the pedestal that kind of love deserves.

-Angi

Links to the blogs of Emily, the beautiful creature/mother I'm referencing, below. Learn from her. She's special.