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Often, in my self-care talks, I remind people that self-care isn’t just about green smoothies. It’s about caring for yourself as a whole being, including (but not limited to): getting solid sleep, setting boundaries in relationships, taking time to play and be creative, being nice to yourself and civic/environmental engagement. But, it’s not NOT about the green smoothies either. I’m taking a spring self-care class with @wellinthewest, because I needed help reestablishing my self-care practices after this last period of pregnancy and postpartum. Wow, it’s so helpful! Lauren is reminding me of what I already know - eating/drinking lots of greens is important during this spring transition - and inspiring me with new self-care from the Chinese medicine tradition. Now, I’m doubly glad I offer self-care support as my work. I see how much we all need it, even those who are teaching it to others. As always, I’m amazed by how much energy refocusing in on my self-care gives me. I’m finding it way easier to hang with the changes (like one less daycare day this week) and to show up for what I believe in (I went to a talk on zero waste loving last night, so provocative and important- more on this soon!). And now, back to my morning smoothie... PS - I have a couple of spaces left in my spring Self-Care 101 group that starts April 22nd. Visit my website (link in my bio) to learn more and apply. Has anyone been watching “Wild Wild Country” on Netflix? If you haven’t, it’s a FASCINATING six-part documentary on an Indian guru’s (Osho) attempts to establish a commune for his followers in rural Oregon in the 1980’s. Watching this bizarre and tragic story unfold brought up so many thoughts and feelings for me (lol, when does something not bring up lots of thoughts and feelings for me?). I’m not giving a lot away here by saying that this commune was extremely controversial in its surrounding community (and in the rest of the United States), and in the end, it didn’t work out for Osho. His followers were devastated and disillusioned, and their rancher neighbors were vindicated and gleeful. This made me think about the classic polarity between winning and losing. As always when working with a polarity, we have to ask ourselves how the polarity can flip, i.e., what’s the winning within losing (and the losing within winning). The Osho people had lost everything - their home, their community, for some, their faith in their spiritual leader. Where’s the winning in that? Well, I think the basis of a true spiritual practice is learning to be okay when everything is falling apart. I didn’t get what you thought I deserved and I’m freaking out. Wonderful! It’s such a rich opportunity to look within myself and see what’s really there. Of course, this is also painful is hell and my ego always wants to avoid it. But it’s an effective tool for growth. And the losing within winning? Those ranchers didn’t grow as much as humans. Thirty years later, they still feel the same way about the situation - like they banished evil people from their town. I think this is important right now in our political world, where we are so often feeling so much loss. Polarity work invites us to look deeper within the loss and learn more about ourselves and life. Then we can begin applying that knowledge to make thoughtful change in the world, in whatever little or big ways we are able. This is us from last week! It’s kinda crazy to think we will reach 70 degrees today. Life can change really fast, right? We are almost seven months into this parenting journey and I’m feeling pretty darn proud of us. We’ve survived sleep regressions, starting daycare and the flu that wanted to take us all down. Micah and I have had a few tense moments (of course), and through it remain really united as a team. (I have such respect for anyone parenting alone.) We love this little guy so much. In myself, I’ve learned that I can do more than I thought, care more than I imagined, and that I can actually learn to enjoy the sometimes empty-feeling space of being home all day with a baby. It’s such a necessary invitation to slow down (which is so hard for me.) Deeper, I’m learning that it’s ok to make decisions based on my own self-care needs. Although I teach this stuff, I was still subtly thinking that my choosing self-care would hurt others. Yes, it may disappoint people sometimes, but that’s not the same as hurting them. As I heard once, disappointment is the feeling of getting your power handed back to you. It can sting, but it can also set us all free from destructive or draining dynamics. I am free to establish boundaries and others are free to feel the way they feel about them. Oddly, knowing this in myself hells me tap into a lot more compassion, for myself and others. We are all struggling with a big load, including a lot of inherited patterns. We’re doing the best we can and gaining awareness with time. We’re slowly finding our way back home. Happy spring! This is my tarot reading from yesterday, which told me I had enough space to get back on social media this week. My rules for posting are: 1) treat it as a practice and try to do it about once a week, 2) be kind to myself if I don’t respond to ever comment (although I cherish them all!), 3) only share what I have processed enough in myself first. Well, last week was definitely not one of those times. It was a really hard few days for me where I had to read the writing on the wall about what was no longer working in my life. As I began to accept that I needed to make some changes, I was overwhelmed by fear. Omg, fear is so scary! I felt paralyzed by it and just wanted to hide. All of my old triggers - abandonment, scarcity, feeling like an imposter - descended upon me. At first I tried to fight them off, but then I realized I just had to stay down in it and cry and rage and grieve. On Wednesday, while talking to some friends, I really broke down. I didn’t even feel like I had to energy to pretend I was ok. I felt so naked and raw when we hung up. But then, the next morning, I woke up in a different headspace. I laid out a self-care plan and have been really disciplined about following through with it. The result? I feel much better and I have a ton of clarity about what needs to happen next. Yes, I’m still totally scared, but I see now that I can just recognize the fear, practice self-care and keep on going. My life will just keep flowing from there. This is all so aligned because I’m actually leading a free call this Saturday about how to unstick your life with self-care (sign up on my website, link in my bio). I’m learning that I better be careful about what I endeavor because my life tends to hold me to it and teach me so many lessons. However, I’m always so grateful for the release on the other side of the hard stuff. To me, this is the truest self-care - really such a gift - although I may need to be reminded of it again and again during those hard moments. Weren’t the windstorms from last week so crazy? After our ER adventure with Jonah, I had been looking forward to a restful weekend. Alas, on Friday the wind took down our power and canceled daycare (also, Micah’s congressional briefing - which he had been working on for months). So, we found ourselves tired, disappointed and needing to make a plan before our house got too cold. Micah had a credit on hotels.com and managed to get us a fancy room at the W for $30. Normally, I would have been excited - who doesn’t love a fancy hotel? - but the thought of transporting us all downtown while praying we didn’t mess up Jonah’s sleep schedule felt so stressful. I wanted to stick my head in the sand, binge watch TV, eat too many cookies. But that wasn’t an option. We needed to move. I took a deep breath, strapped Jonah in the carrier and started to pack us up. My energy picked up and we managed to move, albeit quite ungracefully in the wind, onto the metro and into our room. It’s been occurring since to me lately, since I don’t have much time to meditate or do yoga, that self-care could be my spiritual practice. It feels strange that something so practical could feed me on that deeper level, but it truly does. With self-care, when I do it authentically, I feel more relaxed and more generous with the people in my life. Since these are the aims I have for a spiritual practice, why not self-care? If I just changed my framework for what qualifies as “spiritual“ and as “practice”, then I could see I’ve been doing it all along. Ahhh, what a sigh of relief. It makes me wonder where else I could shift my thinking and see that I already have what I need. Because what I need most is that feeling of abundance, which I am seeing more and more is a state that I chose, to sustain me and mine, wherever we go. Here we are taking Jonah’s first train ride (he was captivated!). Last week, we also took his first trip to the swimming pool (loved it) and finally, his first trip to the ER. Yup, our little guy spiked a 106.2 fever on Friday night. Eek! After a frantic call to urgent care, the doctor on call told us to call 911. An ambulance showed up a few minutes later and after checking him out, said he was ok enough for us to drive him ourselves to Children’s Hospital (during this whole time Jonah seemed fine and actually pretty delighted by the flashing lights). We spent the next few hours in the ER waiting room. The more time that passed, the more relieved I felt. If it was an emergency, they would have called us back sooner (and we saw kids that they did). Finally, the doctor said he was fine, just to keep up the baby Motrin so the fever didn’t spike again. Sheesh! Behind all of that, I knew that we had purposely skipped a dose of the meds when his fever had been lower, in the hopes that his body would fight off the infection. Were we wrong to do that? I have no idea and I think that’s the hardest part of parenting, for me at least. There is so much conflicting research and strongly-felt opinions around parenting. The stakes are so incredibly high. And ultimately, none of us know the truth. That’s really, really vulnerable. I think this is why there is so much fighting on the mom blogs. We each want to feel safe in our own stance and another perspective can be so threatening. I think the only real answer is respect. We start by respecting our own choices, even when they don’t go as planned. We’re learning, right? Then that respect can perhaps flow outward to others. We all want the best for our kids and are figuring out the best way for our families. Further, I think real tolerance comes from a willingness to feel the shaky space of our own vulnerability. It’s not easy, but if we really want to teach our kids peace, I think it’s a path worth walking. I went away to lead the Self Care 101 retreat this weekend (17 brave women diving in + this beautiful old mansion in the woods + really incredible food = magic beyond words). I lead a few of these retreats a year and felt like I had them down to a science. But this time I also had Jonah. After going back and forth in my head, I decided to bring him. I knew I wasn’t ready to be apart for four days. However, I didn’t know what kind of leader I could be while caretaking for him. Or worse, what if his presence offended a client? Was this professional? Would I exhaust myself? So many questions! I really just had to trust my decision and move forward into the weekend. The first night of the retreat, I opened up to the group about my fears. Being the incredible community that they are, they responded with so much support. They took over some of the responsibilities and held Jonah when it was time for me to teach. The whole thing felt like a dreamy utopia! At the end, I received the feedback that Jonah’s presence (along with another dear baby that a client brought), was healing. We had all ends of spectrum around motherhood present, but it didn’t feel like there was a value judgement attached to being a mother. We were just a group of women, grappling with big life choices and supporting each other to trust ourselves. As we left, I was tired, but I also felt fortified. I took a risk because it felt right. Instead of trying to hide it, I brought it to the group and found support. We leaned into each other. We all learned something new. The magic continues. Here I am in my bathrobe again and the little guy in his winter hat. It’s crazy how fast he’s growing! I’m grateful for the two days of the work week I get to spend with him (the other three he’s in daycare) so I can really soak in each stage. And those days are also so hard. It’s care-taking at a whole new level for me. The whole day revolves around his nap schedule and feedings and his moods. I feel like I’m both scrambling to keep up and also pretty bored a lot of the time. By the end of the day, I’m exhausted without any feeling of productivity. It gives me such immense respect for anyone who does full-time care-taking. It’s such a necessary part of life that we don’t really value in our culture (as reflected by how little, if at all, we pay caretakers). Sometimes, when I’m venting about how hard it is to Micah, he’ll suggest switching up the schedule in some way to give me more relief. But, I really don’t think that’s what I want. In the spiritual sense, it’s an important experience for me to go through this kind of self-sacrifice. Especially when I add in lots of self-care, it’s maturing me in essential ways. However, I do want my work with Jonah to be recognized and valued. I want that for all of us because it’s worthy of so much. Truly, I don’t want to imagine a world without caretakers. They keep us grounded in our humanity and we need as much of that as we can get these days. This guy! My heart! Now that sleeping training is working (praise be!) and I’m more adjusted to daycare and we are supplementing with formula (this has been a game changer since pumping has been a challenge), I am breathing out a huge sigh of relief. And it’s opened up the space for me to look at the bigger picture. Micah got the flu again this week and I noticed I was angry about this. First, I had to figure out why. I realized that when I was sick, we didn’t have these systems set up and I still did a lot of care taking while feeling bad. When Micah’s sick, he’s been able to pretty much check out until he heals. This is just one example of the inequities between male and female parenting, even in this more gender ambiguous wave we are in. It’s hard on all of us, especially women. Despite being in a very awesome relationship with a very active co-parent, these issues still show up and when they do, I get pissed. My old pattern would be to keep my anger inside and be passive aggressive. However I’ve learned that a big part of self-care means having difficult conversations. Over oatmeal, I told my sick partner how I was feeling. I listened to his responses, which were valid and thankfully, not defensive. We parsed our what was out of our control - our patriarchal, work-centric culture that doesn’t value families - and what is - reevaluating our personal finances and being more direct about what we need in the moment. After, I felt closer to Micah and inspired to keep having these talks. We probably aren’t going to change a whole system with them, but we can chip away at how these dynamics play out in our family. Little by little, we can reinvent what it means to be truly equal parents and little by little, it might just spread outward. Here’s a roasting pan full of squash, onions, garlic, pears and ginger. Once roasted, just purée these veggies with broth and make yourself a sweet/savory winter soup. (Recipe courtesy of @whyfoodworks ). We’ve been needing extra comfort this week because we’ve started sleep training with Jonah. Since the beginning of the year, no one has been sleeping well. (For those who haven’t raised a newborn, there’s a sleep regression at around four months - just as everyone is going back to work. It’s really tough.) After a few weeks of being up all night, I know something needed to change. We did a bit of research, mostly asking our friends who are raising awesome kids. Pretty much across the board, with even some of our crunchiest friends, we heard that you gotta let them cry it out so they can learn to put themselves to sleep. I know this method can be very controversial. I’m nervous to even write about it here, lest I seem like a heartless mom. But no one told me another method that actually brought sleep and sanity to a household. So, this weekend, we steeled ourselves for tears. And there were some. He did resist a nap for a whole hour and I cried along with him after a while. But that night, he was asleep in less than five minutes although he fussed throughout the night. The next night, he cried for 40 minutes before settling down and slept pretty soundly after. Last night, he fell asleep immediately and other than waking twice to eat, stayed asleep. It’ll probably take another week or so, but we are all learning this new pattern. I won’t lie, it pushes me to my edge to see Jonah even slightly upset. I want to save him, I want to save everyone. But I’ve learned in my own healing that often this instinct does more harm than help. My job is to take care of myself and when appropriate, let others take care of themselves. This is a very big step in that direction for our family. It’s a tearful victory, but one that I think will continue to serve us.