Category: General

The Truth About Parenting and Sleep

November 1, 2016

Posted by Sharon

When I was pregnant with my first child, who is now ten years old, I was unable to sleep well through most of my pregnancy for a variety of reasons from nausea, insomnia, heartburn, a painfully itchy rash, and other reasons. Complete strangers, friends, and relatives would say things to me like, “You better sleep now, because you are never going to sleep again once that baby is born!”. This caused me a lot of anxiety because, if this was true, then I was blowing my last chance at sleep. Also, this is simply a terrifying thing to hear. Why does anyone say this to pregnant women? While I have some ideas on why people say scary things to pregnant women, it seems most important here to share the realities of parenting and sleep.

The Truth

The truth is that, as a parent, you are a parent all day and all night. This reality changes your relationship to the type of activities you engage in both during the day and night. This may seem obvious, but it also isn’t clear how this will change your life. Part of the reason why you don’t know is because you haven’t met your baby yet! You have no idea what their nighttime needs are until you know. Some of the daytime needs seem more predictable because they ARE more predictable. Many expectant and adopting parents think a great deal about how they are going to adjust their daytime lifestyle to adapt to the addition of an infant. Everything from finding daycare so you can work outside the home, to car seats, and child proofing your environment at home are adjustments that need to be made regardless of your child’s personality or sensitivities. Night parenting requires just as much of an adjustment, but the adjustments must be made more in the moment and will constantly shift and change. It isn’t that you aren’t ever going to sleep again! The shift is going to be how you plan to care for your infant’s needs at night and also take care of your own needs.

Newborns

Newborns must have absolutely all of their needs taken care of by others. They are, at any given moment, eating, wetting or pooping in a diaper, or sleeping. At many moments, they will be doing more than one of these things. These three activities occur around the clock. Please don’t let this scare you. The key to working with adjustments during this time is planning for everything else as much as possible. Creating a comprehensive postpartum plan for your household is the best way for you to prepare for this time. The effort that it takes to feed a baby 24/7 means that you don’t have the energy or time to feed yourself for the most part for about 4-6 weeks. While there is a person in your household that may be creating a significant amount of additional laundry, the adults that do laundry have significantly less time to do it. Again, don’t let this scare you. There are some things that you can plan for and some that you can’t. If you can plan for how you will keep your household running and meet your most basic needs in the 4-6 weeks after you bring your baby home, then the sleep adjustments won’t seem as stressful.

Sleeping Through the Night

What a tin of poppycock! As your baby grows and your child develops, they will start to sleep for longer periods of time without waking and needing to be parented. This will happen. How much parenting your child needs at night depends on their personality, temperament, and how you and your parenting partners adjust to changing night parenting needs over time. While many people focus on this mythical moment in time when your baby “sleeps through the night”, it’s really the unicorn in the room. The reason why it is mythical is that everyone defines “sleeping through the night” in a different way. Your pediatrician will likely consider your infant sleeping four-hour or longer stretches of time during the night to be “sleeping through the night”, but this is likely very different from what your “sleeping through the night” looked like before you had a baby in your care. And, just when your baby sleeps for four or five hours straight, they start to teethe, or they get a cold, or the seasons change and they fuss to fall asleep while it is still light out. Your eight year old might get nightmares or your five year old might throw up at 3:00 am. Your four year old might be scared to go to the bathroom by themselves in the middle of the night. Basically, it just keeps changing, but the evolution over time certainly is towards going longer periods of time without needing parenting. Rather than focus on sleeping through the night, see the changes over time, and enjoy each night for what it was—-one night.

Parenting a Baby Can Be Physically Exhausting

It can be near impossible to maintain a state of equanimity when you are exhausted. It’s not just the parenting all night, it is the actual physical work of parenting a baby that can be challenging to your energy. All that laundry, feeding, diaper changes (seriously—the poop!), appointments, heavy car seats, strollers, infant carriers, groceries, changing your sheets, and, uhmmm……did I mention poop? Rather than focus on trying to get your baby to sleep more, it can be more effective to think about ways you can get some nourishment. While I don’t want to discourage anyone from trying different methods for helping your baby sleep as much as possible, in this moment, it is easier to get yourself some rest than it is to control whether or not your baby sleeps. If you find yourself feeling exhausted, I recommend the following:

#1: Figure out a way to get an uninterrupted nap today: sometimes this means hiring a babysitter, calling a friend to take your baby out for a walk for an hour, sleeping when your baby sleeps and not trying to do all the things that need to get done (email, dishwasher, laundry, change sheets, etc.—whatever it is, make sleep during the day a priority above all else). Don’t try to solve all the problems! Table all issues and errands and just do whatever it takes to get some sleep today.

#2: Hire a postpartum doula: When it is time to bring in a professional, hire a postpartum doula. This is a special family assistant who can help you with tasks around the house, make you a meal, take care of your baby, listen to your concerns and help with some common problems that new parents have, and give you some nourishment for mind, body, and spirit. A postpartum doula can hold your baby while you take a shower so you know that your baby who will not tolerate being “put down” is in warm and loving arms while you bathe. Don’t feel like having to hire help is some failure on your part! Women all over the world have support for the period of time after they give birth. Healing from the adoption process, pregnancy, birth, and developing a relationship with your new family member is a lot and all at the same time. As parenting is 24/7, you should expect to need an extra set of hands.

#3: Needs vs. Wants List: Sit down with your parenting partner(s) and make a list of what absolutely must get done and a list of things that you would like to do. For example, maybe you wanted to make birth announcements this week, but you are so exhausted that you don’t even know what day of the week it is. At the same time, all you have in the refrigerator is a jar of olives, there was a menacing note from a utility company on the door and you can’t find your checkbook……….At this time, your exhaustion might lead you to focus on the fact that the birth announcements aren’t done. If you are reading this and have never parented a newborn before, you might think I’m crazy right now. I’m not. This scenario will happen to you. But, writing things down can help you prioritize with the little energy you have and also work together as a team to get what has to get done, done. Everything else can wait.

#4: Unless it is an emergency, don’t make any major life decisions for the first year after you have a baby or ever have a conversation with your partner after 9:00 pm: Try not to sell or buy a house, change jobs, move to a different city, decide to go to graduate school, join the circus (unless you were already in the circus before having a baby), start a business, etc. for one year after adopting or giving birth. As much as possible, keep the big life decisions to a minimum. Additionally, try not to have any conversations with your partner after 9:00 pm that aren’t absolutely necessary. Absolutely, never, ever, engage in an argument after 9:00 pm. Trust me, you are both exhausted, frustrated, irritated and more. If someone snaps, don’t take the bait! For example:

Shouting from the couch, “Honey, why don’t you come over here and give me a foot rub?”.

Yelling from the kitchen, “How can I possibly rub your feet when the sink is piled with dishes and the garbage is overflowing like this? Was there really no time for you to do some of this today? I had a really stressful day at work and all you have to do is hang out here with the baby!”.

Uh OH! This evening is about to take a turn for the way worse. Already, there were two really tired adults, presumably at least one child (maybe sleeping already?), and a kitchen that could use some serious attention. Now we have two tired adults all set to compete in the “Who Had the Most Difficult Day Award”. There are a lot of options for how this situation can be redeemed, but the most important thing to recognize is that being home with a newborn baby all day is not a day off by any stretch of the imagination. And, it is near impossible to night parent, go to work and handle the stresses of those responsibilities, and come home to an insurmountable number of tasks and an exhausted co-parent to boot. Whatever solution you come to, this is not worth the energy of an argument. It is important for both parents to recognize that both adults are maxed out.

What IS Her Secret?

You know who I’m talking about! It’s that mom with the mascara on whose shoes match her purse that matches her outfit. The one who said, “Oh, I don’t know what you’re talking about! My baby sleeps the whole night.” Or, the rested one who says, “I got that book, “Bubbles and Blueberries: The New B Plan to Get Your Baby to Sleep Through the Night”. It really works!”. This makes you mad because you become convinced that if only you followed the right sleep training program or were a better Mom that you too could get a decent night’s sleep. I hate to tell you this, but there is no magic answer.

My Mother (I personally believe “Mother” should ALWAYS be capitalized.) always likes to say that if there actually was a cream on earth that could keep your skin looking young, then Jackie Kennedy Onasis would have not had any wrinkles. But, she did. Therefore, there is no such thing as a cream that removes or prevents wrinkles. I feel this way about sleep training. Let’s be honest, if there was any plan that worked consistently for even a significant percentage of families, then you would know about it. Your midwife would have given you the pamphlet. Your friends would have given you the book. But, instead, there are as many sleep training programs as there are people who are willing to believe that there is some kind of program that would work. The reality is that most of us just have to try, and try again, and work to adapt to the personalities and needs of our children and families over time.

Does this mean that you shouldn’t ask for advice or try new strategies? Absolutely not! If you feel like your routine could use a tune-up, then by all means, ask around. But, it is important to accept that your baby will change over time and what works for someone else may also work for you, but it also might not. Advice from experienced moms can be extraordinarily helpful. For example, I never let my son cry at bedtime. When he was about eight-months old, he started doing this thing where he would fall asleep nursing with me and then, when I put him in his crib, he would wake a bit and start to “whine”. It wasn’t really a cry, per se, but it was not the sound of a happy baby. My response was to quickly whisk him up out of the crib, but then it could take an hour or more for him to fall back asleep and, sometimes, he woke up completely and it would be hours of struggling after that. So, I started asking around and a friend of mine said, “Just let him whine a bit.” Revolutionary idea! It turns out that he was kind of whining himself to sleep because within 5-10 minutes, he was OUT. Picking him up was just interrupting his unique falling asleep process.

Is This a Baby Concern or a Parent Concern?

In some cases, parents are concerned about the amount of hours or way that their baby sleeps. Maybe you worry if your baby sleeps too many consecutive hours in a row that they aren’t eating enough or maybe your baby falls asleep when they start to nurse and you are concerned they aren’t sucking long enough to build an adequate supply? Absent of these specific baby-centered concerns, most of our sleep concerns are personal—they are about us, parents, feeling exhausted and like we aren’t getting enough sleep. This is a very important distinction for how you approach solving your sleep concerns. In order to make a plan to solve a problem, you need to identify who has the problem.

Just because you are exhausted doesn’t mean that your baby has a sleep problem, needs to be trained, or is a “bad baby” (whatever THAT is). It means that YOU are having trouble getting as much sleep as you need. Whatever solution you find, it’s of great importance that you are solving the problem of how you can get more sleep first. Many parents make the mistake of thinking first about how to get the baby to sleep more, but since it is impossible to control another person’s sleep, I suggest that you work on the part of the problem that you have 100% control over first—-YOU. Here are some things you can consider as you brainstorm this issue for yourself if you find that you aren’t getting enough sleep:

1: Environment

Is there something about your sleep environment that would make it more possible for you to get quality sleep? Do you need black out curtains so you can take a quality nap with the baby during the day? Is there noise pollution that keeps you or the baby up? Where is the baby’s sleep area? Could you get a Pack N’ Play or a Rock N’ Play type sleeper and keep the baby closer to you? Do you have everything you need for night parenting in a convenient place? For example, would it be helpful to keep more diapering supplies right next to your bed? Are you co-sleeping and find yourself having to get up to deal with wet sheets? If so, maybe keep a pile of towels nearby and just cover up the wet spots.

2: Expectations

Do you have realistic expectations? How can you make sleep a priority during the day or at times when your baby is sleeping? Who can complete the tasks you have been trying to do when your baby sleeps during the day? Are you over-programmed with mommy and me classes or events during the day that your baby sleeps through but rob you of much needed rest time? Keep in mind that your baby changes very fast in the first year. Match your expectations to reality and let go of anything that isn’t absolutely necessary.

3: Co-Parenting as Partners

If this was a business and the goal was to make sure that both parents got the most sleep possible, how would you run your business? Take all the blame and emotion out of the conversation and create a game plan. Try things out and get flexible. I remember at one point that I slept from 6:00 pm to 11:00 pm because this was a time when my son didn’t nurse very much and his father could care for him. Then, I could take the 11:00 to 3:00 am shift, fully rested, with five consecutive hours of sleep under my belt. Forget about sleeping just being a night activity. Work together to create a unique infant care and sleep schedule that makes sure that every adult gets as much sleep as possible while also meeting the baby’s needs. Use that plan until it stops working and then adjust as necessary. Some people find that changing sleep arrangements is an important part of the plan.

4: Once you Learn What Works, Do It!

This seems obvious, but it can be really challenging. Let’s say that you discover that your four-month old sleeps from 10:00 am to noon each and every day, but if you try to move them at all during this time, not only do they wake up, but it ruins the quality of their afternoon nap too. You have a dear friend visiting from out of town on business and the only time she can meet with you for coffee is at 11:00 am. The choice is yours, but if you want to get some rest for that time and meeting with your friend will destroy the whole day, then you have to say, “I’d love to meet, but the baby sleeps until noon. Any way we can meet at 12:30 instead?”. If the answer is “no”, then why should your friend’s schedule take priority over your schedule? You may think, oh, she is here on BUSINESS and has no flexibility—–my problem is just a sleeping baby that I can move around if I choose to. NO! This is not true. Your routine and sleep schedule is just as, arguably more, important as someone’s “business” schedule. Feel confident in your ability to create healthy boundaries around your routine. If anyone thinks that you should be more flexible because you are “just taking care of the baby these days”, you can either educate them on what works for you or just let it go.

The main thing to remember is that parenting an infant is very much a full day and a full night job. Although this is true, over time, the shift is towards your child being able to self-soothe more and more and for you to be able to return to your desired bedtime and night routine. As this evolution happens over time, the main thing to keep in mind is that you can, and should, make your self-care a priority. You and your parenting partner(s) can work together to support one another in making this possible.

Written by Sharon Fennimore, MA a doula and women’s health coach based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If you are in the City of Pittsburgh and need some postpartum doula care, please give me a call (412) 855-5692. I’d be happy to come over, make a meal, and care for your baby while you take a nice long nap.

Geography of Awareness

October 20, 2016

Posted by Sharon

Do you see these “markings” on the back of the fern’s leaves? In fact, these patterns are spores. Each one is a potential fern. The ferns carry their fertility in each and every leaf. If you are interested in joining a spore exchange group (not kidding), then you might want to look into membership in the Hardy Fern Foundation. The American Fern Society is over 100 years old and has more than 900 members all over the world.

Not only that, but each type of fern has spores that organize in a different pattern.

Recently, I have gone on retreat for a few hours a week to the Fern Room at Phipp’s Conservatory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Each pilgrimage to this sacred space has brought me to a deeper place of respect for this amazing plant type. I am also grateful to the amazing Theresa who cares for these plants and seems to have a well of patience for all my questions as well as some of the other horticulturists and care takers who work without fame or glory to keep my fern friends safe and healthy.

When I sit in this space, filled with ferns, light, air, and space, it makes me feel a lot like I’m being hugged. The image directly above is a hanging Staghorn and the leaves that drape down almost appear as hands that might pat me on the head while offering me an oatmeal cookie and a glass of milk. The energy of this space is fertile, abundant, and centered. It is the embodiment of the heart chakra. Sometimes, I place my hand in the leaves and allow the energy to roll up my inner arm directly into my heart-space. Have you ever played with a plant with an exchange of energy?

I have a beautiful friend who has some favorite trees that he likes to hug. While it seems he is an equal opportunity tree hugger, there are some specific trees that he has a long-term relationship with. When I watch him hug one of his tree friends, trees he has been hugging since he was a child, I can see his whole face and body relax. What he receives from the tree, he also gives to the tree. He really is one of the first people I have ever seen exchange energy with a tree. Sometimes we use the term “green thumb” to mean someone who is good with plants. Perhaps they can listen to plants and the plants tell them what they need to thrive? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all learn to listen to the trees? One of the trees that I am developing a close relationship with is a ficus from Nepal that is in the orchid room at Phipps. The ficus was added to the collection in 1849. Go ahead and let that sink in. I love to press my temple into this grounded being and reach one hand up to press into a higher branch while reaching another down to press into the trunk.

How many people have walked beside this ficus newly engaged, with their baby, in their immeasureable grief, on their wedding day, upon the joy of a visit from a beloved friend from afar, to celebrate a holiday or birthday or special occasion? This tree has witnessed it all, but not in silence. No, the ficus has a deep and grounded vibration. When I stand close, it absorbs low vibration from me and sends them down deep into the earth and returns high vibrations from it’s wisdom branches that face towards the sun. Surrounded by fragrant and jewel-toned orchids, the ficus does not fear my worst or suffer from my offering. I give, I breathe, I receive. If this isn’t friendship, then what is?

When we think about pilgrimage, we think of a destination, but my time with ferns and new friendship with a very special Nepalese ficus have made me wonder if we can also pilgrimage to a new geography of awareness. In Charles Genoud’s poetic “Gesture of Awareness” (page 116), he suggests that

We may wonder where the body’s awareness is, imagining it’s in the body, but the body’s awareness will only be in the body if we stand outside ourselves trying to figure out where it is.

I can’t tell you how many times I have read Genoud’s book. While I have always had a strong affection for the practice suggested in his teachings, not all of it makes sense. I have been practicing yoga techniques for enhancing my awareness for 25-years, but this concept above has not been applicable to my practice for all this time. With my new connection to the vibration of plants and trees, or, rather, with my willingness to open to the vibration of plants and trees, I start to feel a glimmer of understanding. Awareness is the softening of my friend’s beautiful face when I watch him hug his friend with his arms wide and face and chest warm and open against the bark of the trunk.

Not locating awareness in the physical body allows for a new geography to be explored. It is the geography of space, perhaps that space that we know to be mapped by mandala. The pilgrimage here, then, is not internal, but it is to an entirely unique geography. The palms of our hands have an energetic connection to the pericardium, the casing around the heart. Even if it feels silly, perhaps you want to play? Just pick a tree that calls out to you. The more ridiculous this seems, the more you might need this for your soul, your well-being, and a full expression of heart-mind. Gently place your palm on a place on the tree that calls to you for touch and connection. Trust your instincts here. The tree will welcome you. You know what to do. Take a few deep breaths into your palm and let the energy of those breaths flow up your arm into your heart space. The color of the heart chakra is green. You can do this. Feel the leafy green tendrils of your heart open to the tree, be fed by the tree, sent laughter and wisdom by the tree. From your heart to the tree, send it back through your inner arm, wrist and palm of your hand. You are smiling because this is so important and liberating. You can’t help yourself.

If you are not free to be out among trees for any reason, then go there in your mind. Practice wherever you are. As you practice, the geography of awareness will unfold like a forgotten map to a secret garden that has not been tended to in many, many, years. This is an important yoga. This is life.

Written by Sharon Fennimore, a yogini, teacher, and global doula who loves to pilgrimage each and every day to find the sacred in all that is around us in image, experience, and nature. This post is for Jason, who brought me to the Allegheny National Forest for the first time in my life and, in doing so, changed the geography of my heart-mind forever and my most generous and beloved Aunt Patty who treats me to a membership at Phipps so I can spend as much time as I want with the ferns.

Monkey Legs

October 20, 2016

Posted by Sharon

I remember the day that I learned there was something ugly and wrong with me like it happened yesterday.

The summer after third grade, when I was nine, I was invited for a day trip to the beach in Brooklyn, NY. It wasn’t hot enough for a bathing suit, but we were all in shorts and t-shirts. It was such a beautiful day and I remember being joyful in body and mind. We ran up and down the beach chasing waves and I can still feel the quality of light as it danced on the water and reflected back up to my face from the sand. I have always had thick and beautiful hair and it was pulled back into a braid so the end of it rhythmically thumped on my back between my shoulders as I ran.

We finally stopped for a moment to take a break and all of us girls sat in a circle and chatted about the things that nine year old girls chat about. There was laughing. After a rest and Twinkies—-it was the early 80’s so you could still give your children baked goods that would never go bad and drive a whole bunch of kids around without seatbelts—-we were back up to run and play. We were loosely playing tag and I was the “it”. All the girls scattered and there was more laughter and light bouncing off the ocean, on our ponytails, and glistening on the waves of the thumping sea. That is when my friend’s mother looked at me standing there, deciding who to attempt to tag first, and said, “Sharon! You have hairy legs like a monkey! Little monkey legs!”. She went back to smoking a cigarette and talking with the other woman who was there with her. I, on the other hand, was changed forever.

They were my legs, so this wasn’t the first time I had seen them. But, it was the first time I had seen them as “hairy”. It was the day I discovered that there was something ugly about me. I had monkey legs. Once home, I immediately took a shower and used a razor to shave my legs. It was a useless attempt to set things right again. But, even with my smooth and hair free legs, I was to remain “Monkey Legs” in my mind’s eye. There was something ugly about me that couldn’t be erased by laser, wax, or razor. My mother was livid. She was not livid that my friend’s mother had called me monkey legs. She was enraged that I used her razor and that I shaved. Now, it appears, I was stupid too because, apparently, shaving only temporarily removes the offending evidence of my being a mammal. I remember my mother yelling, “The hair will grow back Sharon and once you shave you have to shave for the rest of your life!”. The rest of my life seemed, at that moment, to be an awful long time to both shave and suffer the affliction of Monkey Legs.

It turns out that you don’t have to shave for the rest of your life. For the most part, I have, but there have been a few times when I haven’t. One of the most memorable was a summer that I spent living in a tent in Michigan and leading outdoor adventure trips for children. You see, without warm running water and a razor and when you are camping with fifteen, eleven year old children for ten days and caring for their every need, meal, and emotion, you simply don’t have the time to worry about your monkey legs. Monkey legs be damned because I have to set up tents for fifteen kids and make sandwiches. When I visited my boyfriend in the middle of the summer, he became physically ill at my touch. Even in the dark, he said, “Your body feels like a man’s body.” I didn’t bother to ask how he knew that. Why didn’t my body just feel like my woman’s body, but with more hair than usual? He begged me to shave, but I had to go back to camping in the woods and it wasn’t worth the time. Actually, it was so much hair that shaving wasn’t going to be an option for hair removal. At the end of the summer, I went home and heard my sister and mother giggling and whispering as they looked upon me asleep with my legs sticking out from the sheet covering me. “It looks like a man’s legs!”

Before I went back to college that fall, I had my legs waxed of the offending hair, but I kept my hairy pits for a longer time as a nod to the rising tension in my heart around this thing about me that was so ugly and betrayed my gender. Truly, I didn’t like the way my legs looked so hairy, but none of the men that I worked with on those camping trips had treated me in a different way. Maybe there wasn’t something so wrong with me after all? Did being myself make me look like a man? Like a monkey? Was it ever going to be possible to be myself and be feminine and beautiful? If only I could turn back time and go back to that version of me that didn’t think twice before wearing shorts to the beach without shaving and that only felt the power to run and dance in my strong legs. What if my boyfriend had embraced me and my hairy legs? What if being natural had turned him on instead of making him sick? The ugly thing about me actually nauseated a man who loved me. Now that I am older, I understand more about the dance of attraction in long term monogamous relationships. I know that open communication about how to nourish attraction is important. But, actual nausea? That’s pretty harsh.

When my mustache started to darken in middle school, I discussed my options with my mother and friends. The consensus was that shaving would just create more thick and dark stubble, so it seemed that bleaching the fuzz was my best option. In the movie, Reality Bites, Winona Ryder’s character used cream hair remover on her upper lip when preparing for a date. I tried that once and ended up hairless, but with a bright red strip above my lip that would break out in hives when I washed my face. Some of the hives got scabs and took weeks to heal. Not attractive. My mother and father joked that there were men who liked women with mustaches, but that we didn’t like those types of men. So, not only was there something ugly and wrong with me, but the only men that might like me anyway, or like me as I was, had something wrong with them. And, the wrong that was wrong with those men wasn’t something that could be solved with a pot of melted hard wax.

Over the years, I’ve waxed, plucked, electrocuted, cut back, tweezed, bleached and battled with the hair on my body. Thousands of dollars have been spent managing my body hair. There have been times when I couldn’t be as vigilant as others and usually no one noticed. I never let body hair stop me from doing something I want to do these days. If I haven’t shaved in a few days and someone asks me if I want to meet them at the pool, I’ll go anyway. If I am newly intimate with someone or I think there might be a chance, I will shave before a date. It’s short-lived though because the hair on my body is hearty, thick and simply grows too fast to keep on top of it for any length of time. And by “length of time” I mean anything over 12-hours. Go to bed with me smooth and wake up with me fuzzy. Like it? Great, because this is the way it is. Makes you kind of sick to your stomach? Grab a Nutrigrain bar on your way out my dear and don’t bother coming back because this is the best it is ever going to be.

When I was living in China I had many experiences where my body hair was not considered ugly or manly, but was a significant point of interest. Once, when I was first in China (this was in the early 90’s and not so long after China opened to visitors after the Cultural Revolution), I was on a crowded bus and felt pinches on my arm. I looked over at my arm, which was gripping a central pole for balance, and there was an elderly man on the other side of the pole pulling at the hair on my arms. When we made eye contact, he smiled at me. It was one of the most genuine and beautiful smiles I have ever seen in my whole life. I relaxed and smiled back. He said, “Gende Ma?” (Is it REAL?) as he pulled a little bit more gingerly on the hair. I laughed and replied that yes, yes the hair on my arms was real. This wasn’t a criticism, but a genuine curiosity regarding my body hair. I enjoyed the playful interaction and it didn’t make me feel bad about myself at all. A few years ago I was having a coffee with my sister in New York. If you know my sister and I, while we were both living in New York as adults, you know that we were pretty much always having coffee, or going to get coffee, or on our way back from having had coffee. When you have this much coffee talk, there is no topic too small for sharing. I confided in her that I really hated the hair on my arms and she said, “Why don’t you just wax it off then?”. It was so liberating to realize that I could solve my current body image problem with a quick trip to the Red Door Salon. But, also kind of sad because had I not had hairy arms, then I never would have been on the receiving end of one of the most beautiful smiles I’ve ever seen. I did discover that I have some really cute freckles on my arms.

Today, I dropped my daughter off at school and it was dress up day for school pictures. As I walked away from the school, the most gorgeous and bright young girl ran towards me in a red dress, with shiny red shoes. I complemented her shoes because, as a stranger, it was something neutral that I could say to a child without it seeming creepy. But, I saw a woman facing me who was watching her with “mother eyes” and I said to her, “Are you her mother?”. The woman said yes and I said, “Your daughter is so incredibly beautiful and obviously bright.” It was true. It was so true that it needed to be said out loud. The woman said to me, “She is really upset about her hair. It’s not how she wanted it to look.” The young girl was African American and had this gorgeous, full head of beautiful dark and thick hair. She really was absolutely gorgeous. I replied, “How had she wanted it to look?”. The mother said, “Oh, she wanted me to straighten it. But I told her that even if I had, it would be looking like it does right now by the end of the day. I only wish that my hair was still so soft and thick, but I ruined mine by straightening it.” I replied with another compliment and walked away to my car, but my throat got tight and I just wanted to run after the little girl and find her and tell her that her natural hair was amazing and complementary for her and that she should love it and love herself.

I was brought back to one of my first memories of laughing until I cried as a child. I think I heard the audio of Whoopi Goldberg doing her “luxurious long hair” routine on an airplane on my way to Florida to visit my grandparents. (Here is an academic look at this issue in Children’s literature.) Why I thought it was so funny, I’m not even sure. Perhaps I could connect with the issue of having non-ideal hair due to my personal struggle with having so much body hair? I’m not sure, but clearly, “hair” is a big issue for women from a very, very young age. This is not so in every place and time. Some years ago I was traveling in Western China and a young man who spoke some English sang a Uighur folk song and when I asked what it was about he said, “The beauty of women with bushy eyebrows and thick arm hair.” I had finally found my people! I went on to study Uighur language and culture for years. I actually dated a man once (yes, one of those men who must have something wrong with them because they like hairy women) who explained to me that it was a big turn-on for him to be with a woman with a lot of body hair. Apparently, according to his experience, hairy women were better lovers because they had more free-floating testosterone and were more likely to get turned on and really enjoy sex. While his research methods may have been questionable, perhaps this is what inspired the Uighur folk songs in awe of the hairy women?

It would be easy to dismiss my struggle with body image around my hair as a problem that only someone privileged with not having to figure out how to find food or safe water or shelter can give service to. But, as I consider the challenges that we have with consent and the pervasive sexual assault of girls and women, I have to wonder about how girls and women start to feel that there is something deeply “wrong” with them. Many of the personal narratives of assault that have been shared on social media lately that I have had the honor of reading and witnessing have happened when women were just young girls, before puberty and the arrival of darker body hair and pubic hair. If what is “attractive” about a 9-11 year old girl is that she is still hairless and therefore not ugly, then we need to consider the root of this social concern. We also need to consider how to help girls and women feel that they are lovable and attractive as they are because this would help us reject partners who reflect back our self-hatred to us through their disrespect. These men become a mirror where we can see and feel that ugly thing about us, whatever our personal bit of “ugly” is. This does not excuse sexual assault, but I want to at least consider that this lifetime struggle I have had is more than just a matter of being comfortable with my body.

I stopped dying my hair two-years ago this November. I was dating a man who insisted he preferred my gray hair. Insisted! When I let the last bit of temporary brown gloss wash out, I found that I also preferred it natural. I liked the way the more textured gray hairs kind of popped out and it was kind of wild and bold. Sure, I appear “older” than I do when I have it dyed. But, how much older? And, is older less beautiful? I doubt it. When I was at work the other day, where I interact with the public in my role in “Guest Services”, a man said to me, “You have the most interesting hair. I bet everyone says that to you.” I replied, “Yes, and it is all natural.” He smiled at me and replied, “That’s the way it should be.”.

Written by Sharon Fennimore, a global doula, writer, and yogini, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

How to Claim Your Mammauthority

October 14, 2016

Posted by Sharon

Many of my clients have experiences where their authority as a mother to make decisions for their infants and parenting, or lifestyle around parenting are not only questioned, but threatened. No matter how many children you have, the time when you have a newborn and for their first year of life seems to be when mothers are most vulnerable to the opinions of others. How to find good sources of information for decision-making around parenting is a whole other topic for consideration. This post is about ways to claim your authority without alienating members of your community, friends, and family when offered unsolicited advice or your ability to care for your child is questioned.

Here is my tried and true method for claiming your “Mammauthority” in all situations. Please comment below with your experiences and let me know how this has worked or not worked for you.

Foundations of the Method

#1: The underlying principle in this method is that you are the mother and you have the right and responsibility to care for your child in the way you feel is most appropriate. This is not a democracy and no one else gets a vote. I’m not suggesting that you do not work together with your parenting partner to make parenting decisions. I am specifically speaking to times when mothers’ authority is questioned from someone outside of the parenting partnership.

#2: You may be triggered by words, especially when spoken by someone who you may already have a tense power dynamic with, but they are just words. So, I don’t want to demonize anyone, but I have to give some examples here, so, let’s just say that your brother and his wife have eight kids and you just had your first and the whole time you were pregnant your sister-in-law was telling you how unprepared you were, how you were never going to sleep again, how it was a joke that you were even thinking about using cloth diapers, blah blah blah. Then, after you have the baby, when your sister-in-law criticizes how you are caring for the baby, it’s not just that particular critique, it’s everything she has ever said to question your ability to mother that really upsets you. In this method it is important to remember that words are just words. Just because someone SAYS something to you doesn’t make it true, right, or even something you need to consider. Strip the words of their emotional strain or perceived meaning and they are just words.

#3: Human nature is that we want to be important, listened to, heard, and treated as though we are special and intelligent. Assume that someone who is offering unsolicited advice or is being critical really just wants to be seen as a person who knows more than you. Sure, you can let yourself be triggered and try to argue with them, but the truth is that they will likely fight you to the death and never agree with you or change their mind to agree with you simply because they only wanted to be seen as superior in the first place. I know, this is a hard truth, but it is important to know and understand this in order for the method to truly work for you.

THE METHOD

In the method, regardless of situation (and I will give some examples), basically, you follow this dialogue pattern:

OTHER PERSON: Some type of criticism, advice, direction which is sometimes followed by “research” that supports their criticism.

MOTHER: Agree with the other person no matter what they have said. This agreement is followed up by either changing the topic if this person is someone you wish to maintain a relationship with (like a family member) or walking away (like if it is a stranger in the grocery store).

EXAMPLE 1

OTHER PERSON: I read that babies will sleep through the night faster if you give them a bottle of formula right before bed. You are starving your baby and that is why they are crying so much. Maybe you don’t have enough milk?

MOTHER: Wow! That is very interesting idea. I’m going to have to consider that. I heard that you and Bob are taking a gambling cruise next week! How fun is that? When exactly do you leave?

Now, listen, I know that this person questioning your choices regarding how you feed your baby and then suggesting that your baby is crying because it is starving is like a punch in the gut. You are vulnerable and there is a tiny voice in the back of your head that wonders—-“What if she is right? What if my baby is hungry and that is why they are crying?”. Your ego wants to respond from that little voice and argue with this person. You want to tell her that your baby is growing just fine and couldn’t possibly be hungry and then give her all the facts about how wonderful exclusive breastfeeding is. But, I can promise you that you could be a Board Certified Lactation Consultant and have written 15 peer-reviewed articles for medical journals on the topic and your arguments are going to fall on deaf ears. Really. This woman has no idea what she is talking about and she just wants to let you know that she knows more than you. I don’t know why, but she does. So, your only way to truly escape is to agree with her. Remember, words are just words. And, once you agree with someone, it ends the conversation because they can’t continue to argue with you. The wonderful thing about this method is that you haven’t agreed to change the way you care for your baby, you have only agreed to accept the words that came out of their mouth and to consider them further.

EXAMPLE 2

OTHER PERSON: (Walks up to you in the grocery store.) You better put socks on that baby or it is going to get pneumonia!

MOTHER: Oh, will you look at that? Thanks so much for caring. (Now, keep on walking Mamma!)

Now, this example may seem like a no brainer. But, trust me, that little voice will creep up and you will want to explain to this complete stranger how you had socks on the baby, but they fell off in the car seat and you have no idea where they go or that your baby screams when you try to put socks on them or maybe you are a barefoot kind of mamma and it never dawned on you to put socks on a baby. Whatever it is, you don’t owe a stranger an explanation. Actually, you don’t owe ANYONE an explanation.

Also, a little smile and acknowledgement goes a long way with most people. It doesn’t hurt to smile. And, maybe you are reading this example and thinking that this kind of thing doesn’t even bother you. Well, maybe it doesn’t, but in my experience, it is good to have a strategy because it all starts to add up. By the time the fifth person of the day has made an unsolicited suggestion, the little voice in your head might have become a roar and your confidence buried under the chronic questioning of your “Mammauthority”.

Example 3

Other Mother at Baby Sit and Sing Program at Library (Yep, we mothers do this to one another too!): Oh, you are using the Bimba style carrier? I considered that, but then I read all those studies that showed that infants carried in Bimba carriers learned to read two hours later than those in Eeeko carriers. Who wants to risk their infant’s future literacy?

Mother: Wow! That’s some interesting research. Amazing how many ways there are to carry a baby! (Now, walk away because this other mother is not good friend material.)

I know Mamma, I know what you REALLY want to say, “Oh, that’s OK because my baby can already read.” The challenge with other mother challenges to our Mammauthority is that any response other than agreement just challenges THEIR Mammauthority and that is a power struggle I just don’t want to engage in. That fight is not worth your energy. Also, any mother that behaves in this way is actually showing you that she has the least confidence of anyone in the room. This is a mother who, at her core, is terrified that she will make some mistake that will impact her child’s life in ways that can not be healed or rectified. That is an anxious mother at best and, maybe she is also just not a very nice person. Either way, you need to “PEACE OUT” of that conversation as quickly as possible and walk away. In her desperation to prove to you that she knows more, that she has done more research, or has superior mothering skills, she isn’t going to stop until she has you questioning your every decision.

How to find nourishing Mamma Friends will be the subject of another article, but suffice to say, anyone who demands that you qualify yourself and your decisions in casual conversation between strangers is simply not nourishing friend material.

In Summary

With practice, you can learn to maintain your Mammauthority without frustration, anger, or diminished confidence. Trust me Mamma, if I could protect your wisdom and make sure that no one questioned your authority as a mother, then I would. But, since this is not possible, I offer you this very simple, yet effective method for deflecting and diffusing unsolicited advice as quickly and compassionately as possible.

Remember, your baby chose YOU to be its mother. You are the perfect mother for your baby. You will make some mistakes, you will change your mind—sure—but you are NEVER “wrong”. A mother and her baby are in relationship. As with any relationship, it takes a lot of work, communication, and experience to figure out how to make it work. Theory is interesting, but you are on the ground and you have to do what works for you. Sometimes, someone offers us advice that we haven’t considered and a little positive voice sounds in our head, “Hey, that sounds pretty good and worth trying!” and I encourage you to explore ideas, methods, and products that may improve the quality of your life and your relationship with your baby. This isn’t about dogma or sticking to ideas that aren’t working for you because you decided while you were pregnant that this was how you were going to parent your baby. The bottom line is that YOU know best and you don’t owe anyone an explanation for your mothering decisions.

Please let me know your experience with this method, if you have a way of maintaining your authority as a mother that is different, or if you have any questions in the comments below. I think you are brilliant and I would love to hear how you have maintained your Mammauthority in the face of unsolicited advice.

This “Ask Sharon” column was written by Sharon Fennimore, a mother of two and global doula helping women and their families all over the world enjoy optimum reproductive health, have great pregnancies and live with new babies in peace.

Barbarians and Blockheads

August 19, 2016

Posted by Sharon

It’s always the same.
Barbarians and blockheads, rival queens and kings,
The drama rolls on and on.
When people honor you,
You are supposed to feel honored.
When you don’t get respect, they expect
You to sulk in indignation.
One minute you are cruising on a throne in the sky,
The next you are standing on some bleak patch of dirt.

~Yukti Verses #102, Radiance Sutras

This verse, part of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra translated by Lorin Roche in his book, The Radiance Sutras, has helped me to put into perspective the characters and actions that grace American politics and the local and global violence, destruction, hatred and greed that unfolds before me on the news, in my social media feeds and in discussion boards where my neighbors complain about a 2% increase in some tax or another. It is, quite frankly, why I don’t belong to any “mommy groups”. Quite frankly, I don’t care how you potty trained your little genius and I certainly don’t want to waste time watching an argument between strangers regarding the appropriate techniques to unfold before my eyes in varrying degrees of aggression, shame, and self-absorbed righteousness. But, I digress!

It is important to recognize that we are not special. This time is not particularly special either. The first written version of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra appeared in Kashmir around AD 800. The drama rolled on and on then and it continues to roll now. I recently read Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, “Inside the Now: Meditations on Time” and he introduces the book with a very matter of fact listing of all of his little brother and older brother monks who were killed during the colonial war with France in Vietnam. Young, un-armed monks, shot to death at temples and on the street. What do we have now? We have little children gunned down in their elementary schools, the victims of a storm of mental illness and a culture that accepts violence as quality entertainment. We have marathon runners losing life and limbs and a heroin and opiate addiction problem and college students inebriated and using sex like a weapon against themselves and one another. We do nothing to help new mothers and families with young children, yet we are quick to judge and “click clack” our tongues when we see on the news that some napping mother’s two-year old toddled out the front door in a wet diaper—again. We are asleep with our eyes open.

The verse ends with a great instruction in how to release ourselves from this cycle of ups and downs and the drama that rolls on and on:

I say, the Sun regards all with a steady eye.
The force sustaining Earth and Sky
Calls everyone to awaken from this trance.
This whole world revolves around an axis, and I am that.

When you are friends with the Friend to All Beings
Nothing is the same.
Rich beyond measure, abundant beyond counting,
You can move through this life laughing.
Opinions of others have no rulership over you.

The Sun Regards All With A Steady Eye

Sometimes, I like to use a visualization with the sun for a sort of quick cleanse. I invite you to try it too. No matter what is happening, while sitting or standing somewhere safe and somewhat quiet, feel the soles of your feet growing roots down into the earth. Feel these strong roots as cool, wide, and deep. Then, picture a sun, a glowing orb of yellow light, sparkling right above the crown of your head. Feel the sparkly yellow light cover the whole outside of your body like a sparkle poncho.

Don’t roll your eyes at me! Give this a real try, then, whether it works or not, start a band named “Sparkle Poncho” and give me a little shout out when you play your first Super Bowl half-time entertainment gig. Better yet, why not send me a small percentage of the check in gratitude with a little note about how I changed your life and you can’t believe you rolled your eyes at first. Now, back to the visualization…….

Let your skin soften and relax and feel the boundaries of your body ease into the safety of this bright light of covering. You may find that all this relaxation has caused all the tension in your body to travel to a specific spot. For example, you are all blissed out, but your jaw is clenched and mouth tense. Or, maybe you are wearing your shoulders like earings. Try to let that go too.

Now, allow a gentle warmth to spread into the cellular body, filling your bones with this sparkly yellow light and then your organs and all the fluid of your body. We are mostly water and you can see yourself like a glistening ocean in the sparkly sunlight. Feel all of your opinions, identifications, ideas, commitments, priorities, attachments soften with each exhalation until all you are is sparkly light. Know that this is the same sun that warmed the faces of your ancestors and shines upon all living beings. Share in this light that is beyond time and space. In this knowing and sharing, we can access our friendship to the “friend to all beings”. We don’t have to like everyone or be friendly to everyone or act like someone we aren’t, but we can use this shared light from the sun to enjoy a moment of connection to the “friend to all beings”.

Finally, re-connect to the cool roots through the soles of your feet and feel that earthy energy as it moves up through your legs, hips, belly, spine, middle back, heart, shoulders, arms, hands, throat, neck and face. Enjoy this grounded feeling into your skull and whole head. You have been cleansed of all negativity and fear by the sparkly yellow light of the infinite sun that shines upon us all equally. You can not be swayed by winds of this time that attempt to yank you around in swift contradictions. You are grounded in the truth of the timeless sun that shines equally upon us all.

Here is an MP3 recording of this visualization for you to listen to or download and play whenever you need it. It is less than four-minutes long. Just don’t play while you are driving, operating heavy machinery or trying to change a poopy diaper because all those activities require your full attention.

Barbarians and Blockheads

If you ask me to name some people that I think fall into the “barbarians and blockheads” category, I can answer you quickly. Actually, the list is long and ranges from people I have known intimately to people I just see on television or read about in the Atlantic Monthly. Recently there has been a video traveling the interwebs of a little five year old Syrian boy who is covered in dust and bleeding from a head and face wound and he is alone in an ambulance. He was in a building that was bombed. We see this suffering and we don’t know what to do with it. Even worse, it pulls our own history of suffering out of whatever cave it might have been resting in and chokes us. We shout out in genuine compassion for this young child who is a victim of circumstances he certainly isn’t to blame for. But, we also cry from this wounded place inside of us where we have held on to experiences that left us “standing on some bleak patch of dirt”.

Whenever we find ourselves “standing on some bleak patch of dirt” we have options. I believe we have infinite options. Sometimes I like to just stand there and sob and then send text messages to anyone I think might read them about how bleak my little patch of dirt is at the moment. Many times these good friends take a moment to remind me of times when I empowered myself jump off that bleak patch and used that leap of opportunity to shift my enegetic geography. Many times these good friends stand with me in solidarity and let me know that they see me there in that patch of dirt and, for what it is worth, I’m not alone. I’m grateful for this message too. But, Thich Nhat Hanh has a message that releases us from that geographic location of the bleak patch of dirt and provides the instruction that:

Each moment can be all the moments; each moment is an opportunity waiting to be seized.

If you feel that you have been wasting time trying to garden in a bleak patch of dirt or you know you are guilty of engaging with the barbarians and blockheads du jour, Thich Nhat Hanh says that this is ok because you can re-connect with the now. In this moment, there is an opportunity. Right now. Each moment can be all the moments. The Sun regards all with a steady eye. Make friends with the Friend to All Beings.

REFERENCES

The Radiance Sutras: 112 Gateways to the Yoga of Wonder and Delight. By Lorin Roche, PhD. Sounds True Press 2014. The verse used in this blog post can be found on page 137.

Inside the Now: Meditations on Time. By Thich Nhat Hanh. Parallax Press 2015.

This was written by Sharon Fennimore. Please join me for an online course or a class or workshop. Share this post and guided visualization with all your friends. Subscribe to my newsletter and never miss a new post and get FREE access to my online course designed to help you clear emotional and physical clutter.

Yoga for Labor and Birth

August 18, 2016

Posted by Sharon

This is a post written over two-years ago, but if you are looking for my current pregnancy and birth support services, classes and workshops CLICK HERE.

Whether you are having a scheduled cesarean birth, are planning a water-birth at home or something in between, yoga provides wonderful tools for working with the energies of labor and birth in an empowering way. The techniques you will learn in this workshop are helpful for both the laboring mom and her entire support team. These ways of breathing, sounding, moving, communicating, making decisions and for touching/interaction, are compatible with all childbirth methods. This is an experiential workshop so wear comfortable clothes and get ready to make some noise, move around and have a lot of laughs while you prepare to welcome your newest family member with love and light! No experience with yoga, meditation, or birth is required. Tuition is for the birthing mother and up to one birth partner/support person. Ideally, Mom comes with her primary labor and birth support person, but if they aren’t available, then come with a friend/neighbor/Aunt/your Mom—-whoever you want! Plus, you are guaranteed to have a chance to watch and listen to me do my best Alaskan moose impression. This workshop is not be missed.

REGISTRATION DETAILS

DATE: Sunday, September 18, 2016

TIME: 2:00 to 5:00 pm

PLACE: Mookshi Wellness Center

PRICE: $50 with pre-registration (this is for up to two adults)

Buddhist Philosophy and Yoga Anatomy Workshops

August 9, 2016

Posted by Sharon

These workshops are no longer being held fall 2016. Please check back for future collaborations and check out Mark’s website for his teaching schedule.

Philosophy and Embodied Anatomy Workshops

I am honored to host our guest instructor, Mark Chandlee Taylor, the Director of BodyMindMovement to facilitate the following embodied anatomy workshops yoga students and teachers. All workshops are held at Mookshi Wellness Center in the Regent Square neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Sessions begin with an hour of practice and discussion of the required text with Sharon which will be followed by a short break and then three-hours of anatomy with Mark. All workshops are from noon to 4:00 pm. I recommend that students obtain a copy of “Awakening of the Heart: Essential Buddhist Sutras and Commentaries” by Thich Nhat Hanh and read both his translations and commentaries in preparation for discussions. Alternatively, I have provided links below where you can find PDF versions of the required texts.

As space is limited, pre-registration is highly recommended. Workshops are $45 when you register online. If you are blocked from online registration, please email Sharon Fennimore with your interest and you will be added to the waiting list: sharon@yogamatrika.com. If space is available on the day of workshops, you will be warmly welcomed for $60 drop-in tuition.

October 16, 2016 (SUNDAY)
Text: Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breath (Anapanasati Sutta)
Anatomy Focus: Anatomy of Movement & Bone

November 6, 2016 (SUNDAY)
Text: The Foundations of Mindfulness_ Satipatthana Sutta
Anatomy Focus: Knees, Hips and Pelvis

December 10, 2016 (SATURDAY)
Text: Heart Sutra (Prajnaparamita Hrdaya Sutra)/New Translation by Thich Nhat Hanh
Anatomy Focus: Spinal Anatomy & Alignment

How to Throw A Dinner

August 8, 2016

Posted by Sharon

Today, I received an email from Martha Stewart Living. Yes, go ahead and chuckle. I love Martha Stewart and her magazine “Martha Stewart Living”. I actually find that her posted recipees are simple to make and sometimes she has very unique ideas for crafts or ways to make things more special with just a little more than the usual effort.

Well, the title of this one made ME laugh:

“How to Throw a Rustic French Dinner”

While not the intention of the linked article, I immediately envisioned myself conservatively dressed sitting at a table of people I didn’t know how to talk to with a plate full of a French rustic style dinner in front of me. I could see myself in the vision just picking up the plate and throwing it as hard as I could. Not at anyone. Just throwing it. I certainly do not need Martha Stewart to instruct me on the right way to throw a plate of any kind of dinner. If I had any doubts, I could always hand it to my five year old daughter as she has no patience for dinner parties and a rather awesome left-arm pitch.

Just a little reminder not to take yourself so seriously. And, also, thinking something isn’t the same as doing it. So, allow a little mischief to creep in around all your good intentions when it comes to your imagination. Why not?

Buddhist Philosophy and Embodied Anatomy for Yoga Workshops

July 21, 2016

Posted by Sharon

Philosophy and Embodied Anatomy Workshops

I am honored to host our guest instructor, Mark Chandlee Taylor, the Director of BodyMindMovement to facilitate the following embodied anatomy workshops for experienced yoga students and yoga teachers. All workshops are held at Mookshi Wellness Center in the Regent Square neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Sessions begin with an hour of practice and discussion of the required text with Sharon which will be followed by a short break and then three-hours of anatomy with Mark. All workshops are on Sundays from noon to 4:00 pm. I recommend that all trainees obtain a copy of “Awakening of the Heart: Essential Buddhist Sutras and Commentaries” by Thich Nhat Hanh and read both his translations and commentaries in preparation for discussions. Alternatively, I have provided links below where you can find PDF versions of the required texts.

October 16, 2016
Text: Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breath (Anapanasati Sutta)
Anatomy Focus: Anatomy of Movement & Bone
REGISTER for 10/16/16 Workshop

November 6, 2016
Text: The Foundations of Mindfulness_ Satipatthana Sutta
Anatomy Focus: Knees, Hips and Pelvis
REGISTER for 11/6/16 Workshop

December 10, 2016
Text: Heart Sutra (Prajnaparamita Hrdaya Sutra)/New Translation by Thich Nhat Hanh
Anatomy Focus: Spinal Anatomy & Alignment
REGISTER for 12/10/16

Second Location

June 27, 2016

Posted by Sharon

One of the most significant changes that came with parenthood was the demise of my ability to travel to a “second location”. I had attended college in a neighborhood that was not safe (understatement) and have always been an urban dweller and I regularly attended public safety workshops where I learned important skills like yell “fire” instead of “help” since more people will respond to a potential threat to their own safety than taking the risk to assist someone else in trouble. I also learned to be prepared to poke someone’s eye out. Which, honestly, may be good advice, but I’m not sure what it would take to be inspired to act on it. But, the advice that seemed both strongest in message and reason was to do whatever it took not to be taken to a “second location”. Apparently, even if someone has a gun to your head, statistically, you have a better chance of surviving the assault if you run or try to get away than if you get into a car to be taken to a second location for further violation. Yikes! Who wants to think about these things?

I started thinking more about the “second location” when I first became a mother. It’s a mistake I made a few times before I realized that my days of multi-tasking at multiple locations was over. It starts out innocently enough. Say, you are on your way back from the playground and you remember that you are running out of milk. So, your inner mind-voice says, “That’s OK, we can just stop by the grocery store on our way back from the playground.” Except, it turns out that your baby was holding on to some explosive poop and really needed to nurse for an hour–or else. Your baby was counting on playground and then home. There was no way for you to know this because you can’t really consult with your baby and they might seem kind of tired and zonked out in the back seat. It appears that your baby can withstand a 15-minute or less pop into the grocery store. Sometimes, you park the car and go as far as reaching into the car seat to remove the baby and they start to scream or tantrum and you can realize the error of your ways before you make it to the interior of your second location of choice. Then you just re-buckle and drive away thinking that it is likely you can sneak out later or send someone else or just bloody do without the milk. But, in many cases, your baby lets you put them into the grocery cart and away you go to second location hell. It’s like the Hotel California—you can check-out any time you like, but you can NEVER leave.

The next thing you know, baby has an explosive poop and you find yourself dangling them over your lap while you change their diaper in some restroom most recently used for a hobo’s sink bath, but you feel confident because you remembered a diaper and a change of clothes and you’ve got this! So, 20-minutes later you emerge from the bathroom victorious with a cranky, but clean and dry baby and you are back on your way to the dairy aisle. At this point, your cranky baby loses their marbles and just starts screaming, which, you figure is OK because you are within arm’s reach of the gallon of milk and then all you need to do is check-out and you can get back into the car and home before the REAL meltdown. Again, you’ve got this! Now you’ve got a crying baby and a bag of poopy clothes and a gallon of milk and you get into the shortest line right behind someone who only has one or two little things left on the counter and you are sure that your turn to check-out is imminent. Score! Except, that person needs a price check because they are sure they were over-charged for something and the manager needs to be called. It takes them 10-minutes to figure out that the charges are correct, but still…….you feel like you are close to checking out. At this point, you look over and realize that your baby has grabbed a few chocolate bars and scattered some SUN news magazines all over the floor. The chocolate on their face leads you to believe that maybe they have gnawed through one of the wrappers, but you don’t think a little chocolate will kill your baby. Until you see that it is a Reese’s and you were kind of hoping to keep peanut butter out of their diet for a while, but, you know, they are still breathing at this point so maybe that’s just not a concern. And that is when the person in front of you starts returning some items from their order, one by one, because the price differential between what they thought something cost and what it actually cost has put them over what they were prepared to spend.

Still, it’s 45-minutes since you parked your car and you thought it was going to be just 15-minutes, but you aren’t quite ready to give up yet because you have that gallon of milk in your cart and you are SO CLOSE. With horror, you realize that your baby is now throwing up. Was it the peanut butter? It doesn’t matter, because now they are soaked in puke and so is the cart and, oops, looks like they got your shoes too——good thing all those magazines are scattered on the floor! And, seriously? They are calling the manager again! Frozen, you don’t know what to do. Do you try to switch lanes. Everywhere looks crowded.

You give up. You pick up your crying and puke covered baby and leave the cart and the puke and the magazines and wrappers and that flipping gallon of milk right there in the check-out lane. It’s an hour since you left your car and before you put your baby in the seat you take off all their puke covered clothes and add them to the bag with the poopy clothes. You put your diapered and otherwise naked baby into the car seat. Screaming. They are screaming. Are you cursing? You don’t even know because your heart is pounding and your head is pounding. Now you drive home. You drop the bag of disgusting clothes on the porch, take your screaming baby and sit on the couch where you nurse for two hours. Each time you try to disengage your boob from your “sleeping” baby’s mouth they wake immediately and start to scream. So you just sit there.

Do you know what the mistake was in this scenario? It was the “second location”. Once you have a child you can no longer just “pop-in” anywhere. No, you can’t just pick up the dry cleaning on your way. No, you can’t stop for burgers on your way back. No, whatever that second thing is that you thought you could squease in, you can’t. Maybe you did this once and nothing bad happened so you got some false confidence? Maybe you are naive? Maybe you had one second location trauma, but you assumed it was a singular incident. No, it wasn’t. Once you are a parent you get to choose one thing and make that one thing happen and that is it. One. One task. One location. ONE.

Experienced parents have embodied this knowledge. We can say things to each other like, “No, we can’t meet you at the museum on Sunday afternoon because we go to church in the morning.” Sure, people without children might wonder why you can’t get somewhere in the afternoon if church is in the morning. But those of us with a child know that even just making it to church was a coup. A second location in one day would be a miracle. Us parents only get so many miracles and we aren’t going to use it up on some outing to the museum. I remember a multi-tasked life where all kinds of things were possible, but now it is a distant memory.

Beware the second location is both excellent urban safety and parenting advice.