It’s a universal experience.
You get close to someone, get to know them like you know yourself. You share stories and experiences, and the months and years pass. And it’s not just the time you spend together at “special” events, it’s the regular phone calls, e-mails, just “hanging out” time. They are the people who know your secrets, the soft underbelly of your life you seldom reveal to anyone – even yourself.
And then things change.
Mother’s Day is upon us. Sunday, May 13th this year. The morning of Mother’s Day twenty years ago the due date for my first (and only child) was three days away. I woke up in a pool of sweet smelling liquid – and realized as I came our of my grogginess that my water had broken and the final leg of the journey toward motherhood was underway. Labor progressed slowly and I walked at Pinksterfest in Washington Park to try to stimulate labor and use gravity to my advantage. My partner and I had done a radio interview on WRPI’s show Homoradio about being lesbian moms. It was pre-taped to air on Mother’s Day. My favorite picture of that day is of the two of us, me very pregnant, listening to ourselves on the radio broadcast sharing a headset and laughing together in the beautiful May sunshine awaiting the imminent birth of our child. After a very long labor, she arrived in the deep night on Wednesday, May 13th, 1992.
Laboring on Mother’s Day that year and her birth – which cyclically falls on Mother’ s Day as it does this year - has always added to my joy and celebration of this holiday. My daughter’s presence in our life is also a part of a bigger cultural celebration for me of all gay and lesbian parents and the creative ways we have created family. When I was pregnant with her, New York State did not support co-parent adoption, gay marriage was barely on the agenda for the gay and lesbian community let alone the rest of the country. She was going to be born into a world that was preparing for her arrival. As her parents, we were going to have to care for her and protect her as tolerance grew in her community. And she was going to become a spokesperson for gay and lesbian families everytime she called us both mom. When she was 3 and 4 – she always referred to her friends parents as moms. By age 5, she had altered that to moms or dads or whatever they have. Slowly – she learned that most people had moms and dads – but thanks to the growing presence of children in the gay and lesbian community – she always had friends and schoolmates with moms or dads.
Today as a twenty year old college student, five of her classmates including one of her best friends were raised by two moms. She initially met this friend at an open mike night where he read a powerful poem about being raised by his two moms and she walked up to him. This spring, she has been a trainer to prepare her peers to lead multicultural awareness for next year’s freshman class. When she was filling out her application for this position, she called me up. “Mom – I don’t understand what they mean by this question about multiculturalism.” I had to explain that there are people who think that their cultural experience is the norm and they don’t understand that other people have different experiences and cultural ways of being. After she heard that she was off and running with her essay. It had never occurred to her that there was any other view to have than one of seeing, acknowledging and embracing difference.
In 1992 I had no idea what was ahead for my family. I am more grateful than I can articulate that a world of care and kindness opened up to us. Despite so many set backs for the gay and lesbian community, tolerance and welcoming of gay and lesbian families has grown and grown. In 1996, co-adoption legislation was passed in New York State and my daughter became the first child in Albany County to legally have two moms. As a couple that went on to separate and co-parent from two homes – this legal protection provided seamless care for my daughter no matter which mom she was with when she enrolled for camp or went to the doctor. In my practice as a family therapist, I have an intimate view of the true diversity of families and delight in all the ways that families come together to love and make homes for their children.
Several weeks ago, my daughter got an e-mail from the co-captains of her Ultimate (frisbee) team detailing the upcoming tournament schedule. She sent it to both her moms and I noticed that her captains had signed it “.” I e-mailed her back – I thought we were “.” She sent back a reply. I have lots of mommas. And she does. We are all loving her and watching out for her and celebrating her like mommas do all around the world.
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mommas – especially all the brave mommas who weathered a community learning tolerance to bring forth a generation of children who grew up living and breathing respect and embracing difference. Watch out, world.
Karen Beetle is a therapist and mindfulness teacher. You can reach her at 518-424-7516 or kabeetle
Premenstrual syndrome, or PMS, is a recurrent syndrome tied to the menstrual cycle of up to 40% of menstruating women. PMS is defined by its cyclical nature, beginning seven to fourteen days prior to the onset of the menstrual cycle, and usually resolving within a few days of menstruation. There are over 150 possible physical and behavioral symptoms associated with PMS, with the most severe cases occurring in 2% to 5% of women between 26 and 35 years of age. Symptoms are easily described by most women experiencing this well recognized condition, but the actual etiology of the syndrome remains elusive. Despite this fact, there are a variety of treatments available that prove effective for many women.
Symptoms
PMS can develop at anytime in a menstruating woman’s life, although the risk is greater in younger women. Women are also at increased risk if their mother had PMS, they have given birth to several children, they live a sedentary lifestyle, or they experience high stress. Once PMS develops it is often persistent, although the symptom complex may vary. The most common symptoms include breast tenderness, fluid retention, weight gain, acne, abdominal bloating, irritability, depression, anxiety, nervousness, mood swings, low self esteem, social isolation, low libido, lethargy and fatigue, insomnia, headache, joint pain, back pain, constipation, diarrhea, clumsiness, and increased appetite coupled with food cravings, typically sweet and salty foods. Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a more serious manifestation of a symptom complex which includes physical symptoms, but focuses more on the behavioral aspects of PMS. The symptoms must occur cyclically and be serious enough to interfere with a woman’s normal activities.
John F. Kennedy did it. So did Leonardo daVinci, Thomas Edison, Eleanor Roosevelt and Napoleon. Salvador Dali did it too, with a method that only took a few seconds, using a technique followed by the Capuchin Monks.
It was part of Winston Churchill’s daily schedule, allowing him to stay sharp and deal effectively with the horrors of war that raged around him. He is quoted as saying:
Mindfulness meditation is about keeping it simple. One way to think about this idea of keeping it simple is to look at the “add ons.” We come into relationship with the basic building blocks of experience through mindfulness meditation. We feel into our experience and notice the sensations, the feelings that are present, and the thoughts that form and drift through. The “add ons” move in so quickly that we often have little awareness that we are embellishing our direct experience. We have a sensation that is followed by a thought. Another thought arises and we are now actively engaged in planning or problem solving. Meditation practice asks that we come back to our breath to establish ourselves – once again – in our direct experience. This practice of returning to our experience is the heart of meditation practice. This is how we learn to rest in the present moment and to learn to see all the “add ons” that flavor our day and become solidified as opinions, points of view, and ultimately get incorporated into our personality and world view enough that we know longer question their presence.
Our experience gets constricted by this process and our capacity to experience the world directly diminishes. Beginner’s mind is the opposite of this practice of adding on to our experience. A fresh view is always available to us – no matter how caught up we are. Simply returning to our bare experience is where it starts. I’ve been thinking about the common custom of saying “”. We wish each other well with this phrase but we also encourage each other to make a fresh start. A new day has arived and we have an opportunity to start anew. Grumpiness from the previous day can fall away and we can open to the freshness within us and around us. Recently, I have been using a mindful yoga cd to do my morning meditation practice. I found myself exploring the possibility of connecting to my experience by greeting each nuance of feeling and sensation with the phrase . to the residual ache in my hip. to the pressure of my back against the floor. This practice supports me in seeing the subtle evaluative energy that so often lies underneath our experience. Often I am simultaneously wishing myself well and thinking “Why can’t I stretch my leg more than that today?” This practice of saying to my experience exposed the tendency to evaluate and ultimately to judge my experience. When I rest in the seeing and well wishing without add ons, I am more accepting and more present to my experience.
It is easy to see evaluation as neutral. What is the problem with noticing that me led isn’t stretching as far as it did yesterday? Yet, this is a fabulous opportunity for seeing what arises. My investigation has allowed me to see the slippery slope between evaluation and judgment. It starts out feeling fairly neutral – but what arises out of seeing and naming is the strong human tendency to improve, impact, adjust, or fix. If I allow my mind to pursue a line of evaluative thinking, I am quickly lost in comparison and judgment. The “ practice” gets underneath my tendency to evaluate and brings me back to the direct experience of my body – just as it is – with all the places that are tight and all the muscles that do and don’t stretch. I feel a sense of grace when allowing replaces evaluation, but I also feel closer to my experience and kinder to myself. When we really see what is true for ourselves or another – it is often compassion that fills the space once occupied by evaluation and judgment.
Check out these questions as you move through your morning. How does greeting your experience with freshness and allowing impact what comes next? Is evaluation neutral or does it in some way invite judgment? What contributes to a sense of happiness and well being in your mind and body as you meet your direct experience and the add ons that arises?
Karen Beetle is a therapist and mindfulness teacher in Albany, NY. You can reach her at 518-424-7516 or kabeetle
Three years ago on the day after Memorial Day, I lost my job. I wrote about it in this blog on June 9, 2009 and entitled the blog “Free Fall”. I just finished reading it once again. For the past 2 years on Memorial Day I experience flashbacks to that day, a rainy stormy day like the one we are having today. As my husband and I sat out Monday night this year, I felt fearful at thinking how lucky I am again this year. Three years later I have a job I like very much, doing work that matters, I live on less money but I have a small business teaching mindfulness to people who may or may not be in a situation similar to the one I found myself in then. I have landed safely from my free fall. One of the most difficult things that happened when I lost my job was that the person who offered it to me was also the person who took it away. He was part of a family business that needed the special skills I had to offer and he convinced me to come to work with them. It was a challenging task they had hired me for but I was successful in bringing them where they wanted to go. The family entered into a acquisition deal about a year in but I was assured my job was secure. I had to work closely with the man who hired me and we became good friends. So when he came to tell me I was laid off I felt twice the pain, I had not only lost my job but I had been betrayed by a friend. Last Friday we spoke to each other. Through the Internet we had contacted each other and let each other know we were willing to talk. When he came to tell me I no longer had a job I felt such anger. It took a long time for me to stop feeling anger toward him. When we spoke Friday, we were once again friends. So much had happened and he, too, was no longer working for the company. I could only imagine what it had meant to him to have the plans and hopes he had for a future for himself and his family not materialize. It was good to tell him I had forgiven him long ago when he said how sorry he was the way things went. As we ended our conversation, there was relief on both ends of the line. Things had come full circle. In retrospect, losing that job three years ago led me to a place where I feel more whole and happier than I have in a long time. I learned so much about anger and forgiveness. Anger is a deep emotion; the deeper the wound the deeper the anger. Forgiveness is a process; it took a great deal of mindfulness practice and loving kindness for me to forgive myself for something I often could not name and to forgive my friend. Losing my job generated feelings of worthlessness, sadness and loss. Losing my friend, the same. My meditation practice was the anchor; seeing the healing day by day kept me going. Self compassion and kindness for what I was going through was soothing every day. Each time I would slip back into deep feelings of anger I could reach for that thread, sometimes fragile, but always there. When I spoke with him last week I could feel the good both of us experienced. We both had done some work and learned a lot. He is a good man and I always thought that; he just was led astray. He knows that now. He told me he came to learn that both he and I were fodder for the wood chipper when greed takes hold. Not every broken relationship can be mended nor will be. But anger can always be transformed. An open heart feels so much better than a hot, closed one. We can choose; we can give ourselves that gift. I am grateful now to him for what he forced me to learn about my own worth, the gifts I have to share and the importance of healing. Up until recently I wanted to still be mad at him but found myself less able to generate that emotion. The phrases of the loving kindness kept pushing out the anger:
May you be filled with loving kindness,May you be well,May you be peaceful and at easeMay you be happy.The meditation begins with you extending these same phrases toward yourself first. Try it; it can heal you.Lenore teaches meditation and mindfulness in Albany; for information go to www.solidgroundny.org.Stop by the Solid Ground booth at the Natural Living Show this weekend at the Altamont Fairgrounds.What should I eat? How much? What about pesticides? GMO’s and Frankenfish? Is the stuff at the farmer’s market really “Organic”?
And what about exercise…how much builds strong bones…does too much lead to osteoporosis?
Coffee?…demon or savior?
When it comes to health the questions are endless..and seem to be getting worse.
My friend, fellow yogini, health-aware and clear-thinking human, Dolly Magarik, sent me this piece about how she finds a way to “sort it all out”. It really hit home. Thought that perhaps readers of Holistic Health might find something to relate to in these bits of personal sharing.
Where do you……draw the line?
