Self Care as Family Life, part 2

As we navigate into our third week now of what looks to be an indeterminate period at home with all the personalities of our constellation, there is a quick cliff notes check list that can guide us. You might have heard the expression that the human being is a threefold being; a willing, a feeling and a thinking being. This threefold being is a shorthand description developed by Rudolf Steiner that we refer to regularly in Waldorf Education. It is a thumbnail sketch for a whole human being that we can keep in our back pocket at all times.

When something seems off, when the personalities in our home don’t seem to be fitting together, when we are endeavoring to navigate homeschooling or any other tasks at hand, we can always ask ourselves; are my needs or my child’s needs for willing, feeling and thinking being met? Has our day or week been overly weighted toward willing, feeling or thinking? Along the journey of human development there are windows where these aspects crave more attention, and that is wisdom for our home health manual.

Children in the first 7 years favor the willing. What is willing you might ask? Willing is generally doing and in particular it is anything we do with our limbs. We all need doing. Our bodies need to get up and do. This is the kneading of dough, the gathering of firewood, the mopping of the floor. When we’ve been sitting too long, sometimes things go awry. For young children they have a lower tolerance of sitting and a higher need for doing. When things go awry we can take a dose of doing; wash windows, prepare the garden bed, put away the snow shovels.

Children in the second 7 years of life favor the feeling. They sense feelings with much greater sensitivity than adults. Feelings we associate with our hearts and require connectivity, relationship. Have we found ways to connect? Singing together. Painting. Decorating the house. Storytelling. Storytelling can be as simple as describing what you did for fun, your first job, people in your neighborhood growing up.

Yesterday I told my daughter the story of a time in my neighborhood growing up when my brother brought home an orphaned raccoon. We had a neighbor who was known to be especially good with animals, her name was Frannie. She was the pianist for my mother’s choir. She raised the raccoon, Rocky.

You can make the story longer by describing the people or the places with greater detail. Or it can be short and sweet. Honoring the need for feelings is not the same as talking about emotions. This is a much more basic awareness of the presence and need for activities that allow feelings to be present. The easiest way to bring a mob of different folks and their feelings together might be to go outside and share in the discovery of the natural world.  Together you can find ways of reflecting the discoveries you make there inside your home.

Thinking is so culturally dominant that one cannot avoid exposure to thinking activity. We need it and especially crave it in the third 7 years from 14-21. For thinking you only need to wonder, to ask questions. Thinking isn’t about answers. Most often our lives are overly dominated by thinking activity, yet we can find activities that allow us to bring feeling and doing into thinking. Drawing maps has become a truly beloved activity in our home. If the thinking part of an academic lesson becomes draining, drawing a map of the part of the world involved, or somewhere that the child has an interest or a living curiosity about can be a nice compliment. Calling or writing to a relative that has work or life experience related to an academic topic can ignite the child’s inspiration to pursue it further.

One important overriding tidbit is that children all the way to adulthood are primarily learning through imitation. So we can’t just say, “go put the shovels away” and expect it to remedy our doldrums or theirs. We need to do too! When children experience the wholesomeness of our engagement with our own need for thinking, feeling and willing they mirror our attentiveness to it. Once we make a start alongside them, they may well take it on in earnest. Then we can quietly do something we need to do once they have leapt with us into the wholeness of willing, feeling and thinking. Sometimes they’ll even shoo us away!

Read Full Post »

Self Care as Family Life, part 1

A world that is rendered askew

is a world that can be seen anew

William Shakespeare

 

I am surprised to notice, at only two days in to the self distancing regime, all the aspects of my life that I have grown accustomed to neglecting.  Every post of remote workers that whizzes by on social media includes some broadly smiling friend with their lap top and 2-3 pets curled up nearby.  There is every opportunity for anxiety as the world, the economy, the health care system, screeches to a halt.

What becomes immediately apparent is the tremendous opportunity to inquire; how much of the lost routine is truly a loss?  In my household of three young adults now marooned at home with us middle aged parents, a universal recognition just dawned. We have not had the time to deeply clean, to restfully bathe, to meaningfully converse, to devotedly cuddle with pets, to heartfully listen, to create music and art, to explore recipes and build meals together…. since they were very young children when we were all at home together most of the time.

I suddenly realize that these kinds of things are now relegated to vacations (that rarely line up with my spouse and children’s time off) and holidays (which are pretty well reduced to maybe one week at Christmas together and a long weekend at Thanksgiving. ) What?  Me? The queen of cuddles, hugs and kisses, love letters… suddenly arrives at the awareness that she has allowed the most important aspects of life to be hip checked out? (GASP!) This unasked for severance from the work a day world may prove to be an experiment in living a new life. While on the one hand we might be hold up in our homes, this abrupt change is like a wind filling my sails, when I never expected to go on a trip!

It takes no time at all for me to instantly refill my day with the numerous back burner projects that generally linger undone.  I am grateful and privileged to be in good health, with my healthy family, with the Vermont woods all around me, a warm home, a deep well of very clean water, a decently stocked kitchen.  Heck, under normal circumstances, I absolutely love my work caring for young children and my life as a whole.

And yet!  This culture is inhumane and in need of renovation.  We need consideration for relationships and self care in our every day life. This is our moment to re-craft the culture, to set a new schema.  Just as we are ever more aware that most of the world enjoys health care as a basic human right, much of the world also considers much more substantial vacation and family leave time essential.

Please join me for a few moments in setting aside your worries.

(Do call if you need support 802-371-8452)

My children will tell you that through the years when they are anxious it has sometimes been helpful to set their worries in my worry basket.  Sometimes, particularly at bedtime or when they are overwhelmed by school work, they set their worries in my basket.  It helps to name each one specifically:

my worry basket

Try this: write them all down on a piece of paper, like a grocery list.  Now, set that piece of paper in basket or on a plate or on a sacred spot where you can find it later if you want it.

Now, imagine that this is all a gift.  This whole thing is an opportunity for you to revise your routine, to prune your program. Time has been erased right now!  There is no clock! Upon rising, what is your wish? Allow yourself to take a few days of intentionally listening to yourself.  If more worries arise, make another list and set them with the one you have already created.  You can always put them in my worry basket.

How would your frame your day if the clock never returned?

Young children live easily without a clock.  If you have a young child in your life you are truly privileged.  Notice what moves them through the day, if not us adults rushing them along through a schedule.  Now, that schedule is lifted!

All the world sings out at the rising sun.  Take these moments to go outside and notice the energy, the quality of light and other conditions provided by the natural rhythms of the seasons of night and day.  Let these cosmic wonders whisper in your ear.

 

Come away, o human child

to the waters and the wild

with a faery, hand in hand

for the world’s more full of weeping

than you can understand

W.B. Yeats

 

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Mentoring Adolescents: Mother/Daughter/”Auntie” and Father/Son/”Uncle” Gatherings

This is a “how to” article for creating mother/daughter and father/son group experiences. Creating these events enhances the mentoring of young adolescents as they begin to have exposure to adult experiences, emotions and physical changes and strengthens the social health of the class or group. At our very first Parent Evening in First Grade at the Orchard Valley Waldorf School, our class teacher suggested that we consider ourselves aunties and uncles to one another’s children. She articulated that the development of our relationship as adults would have a palpable affirmative influence on the social health of the children and enhance her success in teaching them. Often children learn by looking sideways at how others live, what their careers might involve, their diets and religions, and all manner of things. Hilary Clinton was not the first to note that “it takes a village” to raise a child, though her publicity of it was a good indicator of a powerful growing awareness in human consciousness, the power of the vehicle of relationship in education. Many indigenous tribes hand on critical survival information through the interwoven and consistent relationships of mentors of many different ages within the tribal community. Jon Young has made a comprehensive and careful articulation of this phenomenon and is applying it to restoring our relationship to the natural world all over the country. In addition, The Center for Social Sustainability specifically recommends this kind of conscious interaction between adults and adolescents to reduce delinquent behaviors and to enhance social inclusion within classes in schools.

“It was a nice way to get to know parents of my classmates” Mary Perchlik
“a really good way to connect with my classmates and have fun as group outside of school”
Tahla Woodnim

Our class, now entering the 8th grade, initiated the simple gesture of creating a mother/daughter and father/son camp out when our children entered the 6th grade.  We determined immediately that in order to advance our intention to strengthen the social fabric of the class we needed to design particular elements to our valuable time together.  This is a basic layout with practical details.

“Our intention was for the fathers present to share stories with the boys about our awkward experiences in puberty in an effort to demystify that very challenging time for the boys, and to try and break the perception of a barrier between our experiences and theirs. We, afterall, had many of the same embarrassing moments in our youths as they are having now.” Ward Joyce

It is very important to welcome the fathers of daughters in the group to the father son events and the mothers of sons to the mother daughter events.  Over the course of our meetings we have shared stories about physical changes, sexuality, keeping and breaking confidences, and other complex topics.  We notice that very often the “auntie” of a son or the “uncle” of a daughter can be good candidate for initiating a new topic.  The value of their participation and input is vital to the experience and deepens the social health of the group as a whole, recognizing the other half of the class and building relationships to those others through their adult mentors.

It is worth establishing a core group of 2-3 parents who hold this event and maintain a consciousness toward the distinctness of the opportunity so that the best use of the time occurs. Specifically the purpose is creating opportunities for deeper relationship and connection.  Otherwise the time can drift into parents chatting in one area and young people off at play in another area, which is of course also an essential part.  However, there should be some parents who are holding the awareness of the time, who move the group into specific opportunities during the time together.

“I love witnessing a group of girls sitting in the safe space of a circle of older women, and to watch this unfolding like a flower opening.” Kate Burnim

Ask around the parent group to see if someone in the group has experience facilitating group conversations or even specifically experience with a “talking stick.”  It is best to utilize the full parent group and not only rely on known teachers if they happen to be in the group.  This awakens the awareness of the adolescents that other adults have a wealth of experiences to share and makes those adults known and more accessible as mentors. It also allows the teachers that may be in the group to be known as women and mothers  or men and fathers and not always by their role in the school.  The talking stick is a very simple tradition used in many indigenous cultures where everyone agrees to be silent unless they are holding the talking stick.  Any item can be used.  It is like being handed a microphone.  Each person has air time with the talking stick and they may choose to speak or they may choose to hold the item in silence if they do not wish to speak, holding the silence for as long as they would like just as if they were speaking.  The facilitator explains that this kind of sharing welcomes participants to speak form the heart and asks the members of the group to practice listening without judgment.  A smudging stick may also be used by the facilitator as he or she explains the use of the talking stick.  Smudging is the passing of a smoldering smudge stick usually made of cedar and sage wound tightly together.  The smudge stick is passed from one person to the next, each person uses it to smudge the next person in the circle by moving the smoking stick around their body as if they were giving them a bath in smoke.There are many traditional reasons for the use of the smudge stick known and unknown. For the purposes of this meeting it can be a way of marking in a sensory way the entrance into a new kind of conversation.  The facilitator will describe that the conversation that we are convening in the circle is sacred or distinctive from typical conversations.  Any question is welcome and what is spoken in the circle remains in the circle.  These are the essentials.

1. Set a date at least 2 months in advance avoiding significant busy times of the year and make a reservation if needed at a camp ground.   If you decide to camp out, most camp grounds close in early October so it is best to set the date during the summer with any shared calendar such as a school calendar in hand.  You could also camp at someone’s home or on some other land that may be available in your community.  Summertime can be a challenging time to gather everyone together, though it can work.  You could also host a slumber party at someone’s home which can be effective in the deep winter months.
2. Food and support. In the email announcing the date, list the meals you will be planning for and ask people to sign up for specific items. You may wish to ask someone to take responsibility for a fire, for arranging for the wood and tending it during the event.  It might be worthwhile to invite one person to take a few photos so that the group can have some reminders of the time together.  You might remind people what features are available at the campground you select and ask people to bring canoes or other equipment if desired.  Someone might also bring materials for some handwork project or a guitar and songbook for singing.  All of these things can be the different ways that parents participate in holding the event.
3. After your initial gathering and arrival you may allow the time for meal preparing to be a time for hanging out.  Someone might bring a craft activity that can be brought out at that time also, often times handwork projects can continue throughout the conversation. Some mothers brought materials to make snow flakes that were used to decorate the school for an upcoming event.  If there is canoeing available nearby those who would like to do that could go out and do that.
   

   handwork activities support the atmosphere of the gathering

4. After the meal it is time to gather the circle. If there is a dessert item it is worth serving the dessert before entering into the circle since some people will find it very distracting, or plan something that can be eaten during the circle, like s’mores around the fire, rather than something that requires everyone to get up. To welcome everyone into this new way of being together you might have someone play a flute or a drum or begin singing a round and gesture the group toward an area where they will form a circle around a fire or in a living room.  The facilitator will welcome the group and begin to explain smudging or the talking stick or any other essentials to the process.  Essential is that the conversation is confidential, that this is intended to be a safe place to express questions, feelings and experiences openly and reminding everyone that any question is welcome.   The smudging begins and or the item is passed.  The first round is often a welcoming round where people express curiosity and gratitude for being together.  Many parents take the time to express their dream for participating in the event.  They might say,”I had many questions when I was your age and I often didn’t know who to ask” or “I’m grateful to see that you have a group of adults who you can turn to for support.”
   

   “At any time you can approach any one of us to call together a circle even if you don’t know why and we will come together in this way.”

   Several times throughout the overall time together and during the circle it is important to repeat, “At any time you can approach any one of us to call together a circle even if you don’t know why and we will come together in this way.”  The conversation quite naturally evolves for many rounds.  In the 6th grade parents might share memories of noticing their bodies change, or the first time they felt the spark of a crush.  The mother group specifically began a conversation about menstruation which deepened with each meeting. In the father group, some fathers shared their first experiences of arousal which can be as startling for boys as the onset of menstruation is for girls.  One parent might share a story from their life when they were that same age or describe questions or concerns that they had.  Nothing need be specifically planned though those who are holding the event may want to converse  in advance about what themes they notice arising in the group or even talk to the teacher to see if there are any themes the event might support.  The rounds with the talking stick can go deep into the night.  Even if there are moments where several people pass the stone or the stick, continue and allow the silence and the intentions to emerge.  This way of being together often is new to many of the adults as well as the youth. There will always be some that experience some discomfort  and others who are hungering for this experience.  It is worth the effort to allow a skilled facilitator to hold these dynamics.  Any topic that arises becomes a topic that the youth are learning they may address to any member of the group so consider what stories from your own life might be fruitful to introduce.  Depending on how long the circle continues there may be time afterwards for singing before bed.  Also, some individuals may wish to continue a smaller conversation with those interested and that is a perfect flow of events.

5. Bead Ceremony. The following day after breakfast it can be a nice gesture to give each of the young people a bead on a string. One parent might take this on as their contribution to select and introduce the beads and offer suggestions about what the bead might represent.
   

   one parent may provide a bead as a reminder of the event

   A red garnet, a rose quartz. Perhaps there is a general theme from the visit that can be remembered by the bead.  This is also a good time to remind everyone that a circle can be called together at any time, simply by asking any of the adults in the group to bring a group together, even if they don’t have a particular reason.  Someone might play a flute or a drum or lead a song to open the circle and welcome the group to from the chatter of the breakfast.  The group can also close in the same way.  The bead ceremony is a nice way to close the overall event.  People may remain together and go on a hike or go canoeing or take up other games.  Providing a point of closure helps people to depart when they may need to, knowing they were present for the moments that were intended for the group.  Often it is very difficult to gather people together.  Though everyone wants to support their young people, so many commitments can divert attention.  This is why it is well worth the preparation to craft the time together and bring it to a palpable closing.

MAY THE CIRCLE BE OPEN BUT UNBROKEN

Read Full Post »

Parenting as a Tool of Awareness

When we become parents we suddenly feel ourselves wearing an outfit we don’t recognize.  Perhaps we put it off for a while allowing the children to lead the family, being children alongside our children, following them into the glorious kingdom of childhood.  Every now and then however, we find ourselves wearing that awkward new outfit, standing at the doctor’s office asserting our intuitions, or feeling terrorized by their authority and assenting uncomfortably to a treatment that doesn’t feel right for our child.  Perhaps we wear the opposite mask asserting a territorial righteousness that isn’t quite true for us either, allowing no exterior influences to challenge our insights.

we find ourselves wearing that awkward new outfit...

At some point or other we are provoked.  Perhaps it is the responsibility we feel for our child of light.  Perhaps it is the lofty new title of “mother” or “father” to perform for.  Perhaps it is a rebellion toward the childhood we remember.  One way or another, at one moment or the next we find ourselves looking in the mirror and noticing that we have not spent a moment on ourselves in a long time.  Our clothes really look tired. We gaze into the eyes of a picture of ourselves as parents.
The bond with this tiny creature, our infant or child provokes a powerful array of feelings.  Most of us like to call it love, yet it isn’t on particular sensation or feeling.  It is a potency of all feeling, perhaps a heightened sensitivity.  What is that feeling? Is it love?
Recently in working with a father he said, “I can handle all kinds of situations and I am pretty unflappable, but when I come through that door my child can hit my button before both feet are in the door…. It’s fireworks.”  Here they are, new to the planet, unsophisticated they don’t know a thing and yet they sure know us.  Do they?

Do they?

Maybe it isn’t them at all, but instead, our reaction to our own outfit, our assessment of how we measure up to the title of “mother” or “father“.  Our child reflects an image that causes us to judge ourselves. Ouch that button hurts!

We can say, “she really knows how to push my buttons.” Is that true?  Perhaps what is more true is that our child is behaving in a way that diminishes our idea of success in our new role.  We are rookies most of the time. Each time our child hits another developmental stage we are a rookie again. When the next child comes along with a completely different temperament, the rules change again.  We want to believe ourselves somewhat qualified for the job, after all the universe sent us this baby.  Yet the longer we parent the more we realize that there is no gauge available to measure our success.  One moments triumph could easily be interpreted as a later shortcoming.

What is happening when our child  or anyone else “pushes our buttons“?  Is there a sense of rightness or wrongness to it?  When so and so pushes my buttons aren’t they doing something wrong in a way?  If not wrong by law, morals or ethics then just wrong “in our book”?   “She knows that drives me crazy”  Is it she that is driving us crazy? Or is it me seeing a reflection in my child that causes a harsh self judgment to arise within me?  My child is doing something right now that I could never do, that I was taught to hide or deny.  My child is doing something right now that reminds me of a moment or a person from my past.  Isn’t that more true than believing our child has developed an intimate inner agenda meant to torment us?  Take a look.  Remember for a moment the last time you had a strong feeling in reaction to your child.  Look at it carefully. What was the real thing at the core that “hit your button”?  If you could name that button for yourself and put a sticker on it what would it say? Would it include a flashback or instant replay video of a scene from your past?  Perhaps there are a long string of instant replays mixed with decisions that in the end amount to  a cacophony of unpleasant emotions and wind up with “You piss me off!”

When we imagine our child is “pushing our buttons” we are in the act of taking personally their action.  We are believing that they have intentionally aimed their behavior at us and they want us to experience this miserable reaction we are feeling.  We may even begin to associate our child with the original pisser offer from our old home video collection.  How close we are then to declaring war with our child.  Pulling out the histories and playing out the next karmic reaction….

Are you ready for a new dream? I sure am!  Parenting if we allow ourselves, can be a practice of revealing to us our inhibiting self judgments, our limiting judgments of others and then offering ourselves the freedom of release. It is the task of a great inner hunter that takes up this study but hey what else do we have going on laundry, dishes and bills?  This is our parental scavenger hunt and the self acceptance we liberate is the new dream, a dream of love and acceptance of ourselves and the incoming generation.

In a way this is an organizational system for the routine emotions that jump up in our days, a what not shelf for our inner life.  In time you could even fashion a little character or symbol for each reaction and come to recall intimately the landscapes and characters that each symbol holds for you.  The more frequently we can pick up our reaction  and recognize that it has been living in us long before our child, we then take responsibility and allow our child to live without the threatening energies of our unresolved judgments.  We declare peace as the leader of our home and make way for a new dream, an empty space, an opening for ourselves and also for our child. We walk together in acceptance.

It is important to remember to pay attention just as carefully to our “positive” reactions. Notice what makes you feel that you are a “good parent” and consider the same questions.  Where was this outcome qualified for me as “good”?  Who says it is “good”? What would be “bad”?   For our children’s behavior that pushes our “good parent” button is just as heavily loaded as our “bad” button.  For when we strongly guide them to be “good” believing it is a reflection of us then our child grows in the confinement of our approval. Our child learns to live to  please us and our judgments, most of which do not bear a light into the future.

Parenting can be a powerful tool of awareness.  We have all noticed that our children did not come with an operator’s manual so we really can’t do anything “wrong“.  Tracking our inner reactions simply offers us tremendous happiness.  We come to see that what often provokes us is a belief established in the past, according to the rules and associations from that particular past, and now in this moment, we have a fresh new moment, free to accept our urges and enjoy our children’s expression of theirs in perfect harmony.

Read Full Post »