Try Again Tomorrow

I had big plans today.

My day was actually pretty unproductive until about 3:00 when I decided to try a new recipe for tortilla wraps for our after-school snack.

It wouldn’t be that hard to do. It’s just a cream cheese spread with a bunch of veggies thrown in a tortilla. Easy peasy, right? So I got out the chopping knife and started on my fancy snack. My husband was going to be so impressed with my skills when he came home to this waiting for him on the table.

Then, as usual whenever I try a new recipe, it took way longer than I expected to chop everything up, plus I didn’t read through the recipe well enough to realize that you need to chill the wraps for an hour before serving.

So I went to Plan B.

I’ll just make everyone a piece of whole grain toast (that ought to hold them for a little while, right?) and while the tortilla wraps are chilling in the fridge, I’ll make a pasta salad side dish to go with them and we’ll just have them for dinner.

Brilliant. See how I am, rolling with the punches, going with the flow and being all zen about things. It’s all good…

So my family is getting hungrier by the minute, but I send them downstairs to watch TV while I make the pasta salad. If they’re out of my hair, I’ll be able to get much more accomplished. On I go to making a delicious and semi-healthy pasta salad to go with my delicious and semi-healthy turkey tortilla wraps. It’s going to be a great dinner, I can feel it!

Two hours after we should have been eating the awesome after-school snack (replaced by toast), I’m finally almost finished with the pasta salad (also a new recipe). I’m just about ready to ask my daughter to help set the table when I read the final instruction for the pasta salad: refrigerate overnight.

I roll my eyes.  I grunt and sigh. I ask my husband how he feels about Plan C.

Plan C is pizza. Husband is not happy about spending money on pizza when we just spend the last of the food budget money at the grocery store yesterday. Plan C now also involves scrounging up money from my piggy bank (where I put all the stray coins I find around the house as I’m cleaning or doing laundry) to go get a $5 Little Caeser’s pizza.

I bring the pizza home to very happy and excited children. “Yay! Pizza! My favorite!” they scream. We sit down. We thank God for the piggy bank and the pizza. My 3-year-old picks up his pizza and immediately drops the whole slice, face down, on the floor.

My husband and I look at each other incredulously. We both grunt and sigh. “Pick it up. He’s eating it,” I say, justifying this decision by reminding everyone that this boy sucks his thumb constantly, so he might as well be eating pizza that’s been dropped on the floor. I’m sure he’s eaten worse things off that wrinkled thumb of his.

The baby starts to cry. I pick him up, but he continues to whine. The 3-year-old starts to whine too, saying that the baby is too loud and is yelling right in his ear.

My husband and I look at each other incredulously again. We roll our eyes. We sigh.

I look around the table at my 3 beautiful kids and my supportive husband and decide that I am very blessed. “I’ll try again tomorrow,” I say, smiling.  “What?” my husband asks in a mild shout to be heard over the whining kids. “Let’s try again tomorrow!” I say loudly. “Sounds good,” he says as I hand him the baby and get up from the table to tackle the dishes…

Wish me luck.

The Conscious Mom

The Secret to A Happy Life

I’ve been reading a book called The Secret — no, not that one. It’s another one by a Kabbalist named Michael Berg, and its subtitle is “unlocking the source of joy and fulfillment.”  Anyway, I just read something that I thought was very appropriate for me and my little blog here.

Basically, Berg asserts that “the secret” to feeling happy and fulfilled in life is to “become a being of sharing.”  As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon to most people), this concept of sharing and serving others totally resonates with me. But I really like the spin Berg puts on it in this little book of his.

“Sharing will become easier if you’re always aware of the real goal toward which all positive change is directed. Not “righteousness” or “enlightenment” or any other self-help or New Age buzzword, the purpose of sharing is to become a being of sharing. Why? Simply because our own joy and fulfillment expands as this transformation takes place. In this way, it’s self-interest in the highest sense.”

Yes, self-interest. But not, I don’t believe, selfishness.  It’s just that as we step outside of ourselves and serve others, it actually does change us – it transforms us. We begin to actually change on a cellular level and feel joy and contentment deep inside.

I could go on (and maybe I will in another post) but for now, I just want to declare to the world and to myself that the reason I am writing this blog is to share. I want to share things that inspire me because maybe they will inspire you.  I want to share things I have learned (both big and small) because I wish someone would have shared them with me. I want to share this journey of a conscious mom with you because I want you to know you are not alone out there in Momville.  I want to provide resources for us all to feel connected to ourselves, connected to each other and connected to our kids.

One thing I know for certain is that connection is a huge part of what makes life meaningful. But connection also makes us vulnerable.

Over the last several months, I have (aside from having my third baby), had a lot of ideas and I have thought of dozens and dozens of things to write about. As you may have noticed from the extreme lack of posts since December, I have stopped myself from writing for one reason or another, most of which all go back to being uncomfortable with being vulnerable.

Well, no more.  I am committed to becoming a being of sharing. Hiding my thoughts from everyone is not only cowardly, but it is also selfish, greedy, and unproductive.  I’m not sure I’ll ever make any money from this blog or if I’ll ever get 1,000 followers, or if anything I write will be helpful to more than a handful of people. But the fact is, not writing even though I have thought of something to write about is stopping me from becoming a being of sharing. So I will share.

And I hope you will too.

Until next time,

The Conscious Mom

A Shout-out to Mother Eve

Since I had the Mother’s Day gift of some free time this morning, I thought it would be fun to try another Newspaper Blackout Poem. It was totally an accident that today’s poem turned out to be a poem about motherhood and how we can (and we must) be the ones who make the conscious choice to be deliberate mothers at the center and heart of our homes. I have this image in my head of our first mother, Eve, rising up from the ground stronger and stronger every time a mother takes a stand and decides to try with all her soul to be the best mom she knows how to be.

I just started playing around with this article about thieves in Egypt, and this is what I came up with.These poems are so fun to do!

Be a conscious mom!   Happy Mother’s Day!

Love,

The Conscious Mom

No Soup for You!

I’ve been thinking more about the concept of embracing “immaturity” that I wrote about last time, and there’s a great little soup metaphor from the “Immature” chapter of the Dhammapada that further explains how we can take the knowledge that we are immature and use it to help break us free from our current state of immaturity.

“The immature who know they are immature

have a little wisdom. But the immature who

look on themselves as wise are utterly foolish.

They cannot understand the dharma even if

they spend their whole life with the wise?

How can the spoon know the taste of soup?

If the mature spend even a short time with

the wise, they will understand dharma, just as

the tongue knows the taste of soup.”

So the spoon is compared to the immature person, who is just too stubborn and impervious to his surroundings that he will never absorb the soup (i.e. the experience he is having, even though he is completely surrounded by it). The tongue, however, is compared to the wise person who is actually alive and completely engaged with the soup (or experience). The tongue is allowing itself to be permeated with the soup, so much so that it actually absorbs it and does know what the soup tastes like. The (immature) spoon will never know that.

Now, believe me, I’m the first one to admit that it can be a little scary to be a tongue.  As early as Kindergarten, my report cards included comments about my personality like “conscientious,” and, “cautious.”  I am well aware that it is a lot safer to be a spoon. The spoon is protected and is not phased by hot soup, but the tongue can be easily burned.

But our tongues (and our spirits, for that matter) are amazing things. They can change and grow and be healed. And life is meant to be lived and learned from, not just to be survived.  If the tongue does get burned by hot soup, it will now know what it means to be burned, and maybe the tongue will be a little more careful next time. It can learn to take such precautionary measures as blowing on the soup to cool it down, or just being patient and waiting until the soup is ready to be tasted.

If we want to gain wisdom, we must be open to experiencing everything that our life brings us — not just running away from it because it seems uncomfortable. What if the tongue got burned by the first bite of hot soup and then decided never to eat soup again? That tongue would never know that a) soup can be quite tasty if you taste them at the right time, and b) that some soups are actually cold to begin with (gazpacho anyone?).

How many experiences have you run away from because you didn’t give them a chance? They just looked too scary to tackle. Go ahead and plug in whatever thing you’re avoiding in your life right now to this soup metaphor and really take a hard look at whether you’re embracing what life is handing you or if you’re avoiding it. It can be a tough pill to swallow, but you’re going to have to swallow it one way or another, so you might as well get it over with.

Okay, I’m done expounding on this soup metaphor. I’ll just leave you with a parting thought: if you want to gain wisdom, acknowledge that you are immature (not fully mature yet) and that you have much to learn, Daniel-son. Allow yourself to really feel your experiences, even if they are painful, and allow those experiences to teach you instead of allowing them to victimize you.

Otherwise, “No soup for you!”

– The Conscious Mom

Immaturity Can Lead to Wisdom

I have a confession to make. The reason I haven’t been blogging in the last month (or more) is not because I haven’t had time (although it seems like a really good excuse). I could have found time if I had really wanted to.  In fact, I did find time on a few occasions, but every time I sat down to write, I was paralyzed by writer’s block.

And in pondering about said writer’s block, I have come to the conclusion that writer’s block is just a euphemism for “fear.”

The reason I couldn’t think of anything to say was because I was afraid that the things I could think of to say were too lame to put out there for everyone to see.  And every few days I would have a small insight into one thing or another, but this negative voice inside me said, “That? You call that an insight? You’re so lame.”

I know, I know. It’s one of those things I should have just immediately crossed out with my giant imaginary Sharpie. But I didn’t.  I just let it fester and grow into more than a month of not writing anything. Now THAT is lame.

So here it is, whether you like it or not. My most recent insight. Or maybe I can’t call it my own insight, but an insight I stumbled across and wanted to share with you.

Years ago, I had my handwriting analyzed, and part of the final report said that I was “possibly immature.”  I don’t know about you, but if someone calls me immature, it immediately conjures up defensive feelings. (And makes me want to respond with, “I know you are, but what am I?” You gotta love that classic Pee-Wee Herman scene.)

Since then, I have tried to be aware of ways that I may be acting immature. And I certainly have been able to find some. However, several days ago, I was reading The Dhammapada (translated for the modern reader by Eknath Easwaran), and I read the most wonderfully freeing thing! There is a section called “The Immature,” and now that you’ve read the above paragraph, you know why it piqued my interest.

The introduction to this chapter provided some great clarification. Easwaran tells the reader that the title of the chapter is usually translated as “The Fool,” but that he decided to translate it as “The Immature” because bala can mean not only “fool” but “child.” He says, “A fool’s behavior is not likely to improve, but a child is simply immature; given time and experience, he will grow up.”

I love the thought of being immature as meaning simply, “not fully matured … yet.”

It made me think of the scripture in Matthew 18 where it says, “…except ye become … as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”  I’ve always thought that becoming like a child meant more that you have to be submissive and meek and trusting in your relationship with God, the Father of your spirit. And that is definitely part of it.

But I love this new nuance of meaning that if we embrace wherever we are on our journey, acknowledging to ourselves that we are, in fact, “not fully matured” (even if we’re 90), then we are free to move forward without guilt for not being farther ahead than we are. We just are where we are. And then we can just acknowledge it and move on from there.

It’s like Socrates said, “The only true wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing.” (Before you become too impressed with me and my knowledge of Greek philosophy, I’ll have you know that the only reason I know this quote … if this is even the exact quote … is because of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.)

Once we become conscious of where we truly are in our journey and we just accept that this is where we are, then we are actually opening up our minds to receive more information and opening up our spirits to experience more growth. And THAT is how we can continue moving forward on our path toward wisdom.

So this is where I am.  I’m immature. In ways.  I know that I have A LOT more to learn, and sometimes I act like a little child who is too scared to go to the first day of school.  For today, I’m just going to own that.  Today, I acknowledge that even though my body is feeling anything but youthful, that spiritually speaking, I am a child. Given enough time and experience, I will grow up.

Accentuate the Positive

Want a tip for having a better attitude? Start with the negative.  I know, it sounds weird, but give me a second and I’ll explain.

A few days ago, I decided to try my hand at a new way of writing poetry. It’s called newspaper blackout poetry, and was introduced to the world by writer/poet Austin Kleon.  The idea is that you start with a newspaper article and then black out the words you don’t want as you create a poem using only the words printed in the article. Sounded like a fun, creative exercise so I thought I’d give it a shot.

I grabbed a black Sharpie and the nearest newspaper, flipped open to a random article to begin my experiment, and something very interesting happened.

The article I chose to black out was titled, “Tensions rising with Wall Street protestors,” and it was filled with scores of negative words like “showdown” and “feared” and “arrest.”  Even though I didn’t know where this poem was heading, I knew I didn’t want those words in my poem, so I just started crossing them out. Suddenly all of these other, more positive words started appearing like “success” and “power” and “cheer.”  The end result was a poem about individual success, waking up early for a power hour during which you connect with God’s message for you that day, and embracing personal growth.

A few days before, in a totally unrelated experience, I was asked to answer some questions in writing about what my true/goddess/spirit self does well. Part of what I wrote was that my spirit is able to find joy and happiness even amidst the horrifying realities of this world.

Back to my little poetry exercise, it was only after I had finished the newspaper blackout poem that I realized I had done exactly what I had written about the day before — finding something positive amidst the negative realities of our current world.  And even more interesting was the fact that the positive words started showing up more once I had started crossing out the negative words I didn’t want in my poem.

It makes me think of that World War II era song, “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive,” lyrics by Johnny Mercer.

“You’ve got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between”

How many times do we automatically see the negative first thing? It’s pretty hard to ignore when that seems to be the spin on nearly every news story.  Or when you’re trying to write your blog post and your 2-year-old poops his pants for the seventh time and you’re about ready to give up on potty training altogether.

But whenever we see these negative thoughts popping up in our brains, all we need to do is acknowledge that they are there, and that they are negative, and then cross them out of our minds. Just picture that negative word (or words) in your mind and then take the thickest, blackest imaginary Sharpie you can think of and cross that baby out!  I’d be willing to bet that the more we begin to eliminate those pesky negative words in our minds, the more clearly we will be able to see the positive things that are all around us in our lives.

On that note, I’d like to leave you (and myself) with a challenge to just notice when we’re reacting negatively (in thoughts or actions) about something.  Then try eliminating the negative first to see what kinds of positives start to show up.

And maybe try a newspaper blackout poem for yourself. It’s fun!

Back in the Saddle

I’m sure most of you have been waiting with baited breath, thinking, “When is this lady going to post again on The Conscious Mom’s Journey?” It HAS been a while.

My last posts were about playing, so you may have thought I was just living it up, playing the days away and forgetting completely about the blog.  I have not.  I’ve not been playing much and have not forgotten about you, dear handful of readers.

The thing about trying to live consciously is that it’s kind of like remodeling a house.  And when you start dismantling the things you thought you wanted to change, sometimes you end up finding things that you didn’t really want to find.  And even though you know that finding those new problems is really the best thing – because now you can fix them – it doesn’t make dealing with them any easier.

During the last several weeks, a lot of changes have taken place for me, and very quickly I might add.  And while they have been changes I know are either blessings or blessings in disguise, they seem to have put me in reactor mode again – and more of a fearful state rather than a state of conscious creation.

I’m trying to see things from the grand perspective again so I can get back to that Zen-like place of peace and acceptance of whatever happens, which I felt I was getting a glimpse of a little while back.

There’s an awesome quote by C.S. Lewis that I think applies here:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

This weekend, I’m attending an event that I’m hoping will get me back in the saddle again. It’s called, “Awaken the Goddess,” put on by my friend Marie Holleman, one of the founders of Revolution Motherhood and the RevMom Academy that I was a part of.  The event promises to leave attendees with a clear understanding of our personal power and to help us CONNECT — to our soul purpose, our kids, our body, and our divine selves. Sounds good to me. I need this more now than ever.  If you want to join me, click here to register. Friday night is free!

In the meantime, I promise to try harder to forge ahead and post things when I think of them instead of just thinking of them and then letting those thoughts die in my currently overcrowded brain.

Happy Tuesday!

– The Conscious Mom

New Muppets Album Rocks!

In the spirit of trying to be more playful this week (see the last post if you missed it), check out Muppets: The Green Album, an amazingly awesome compilation of alternative rock covers of songs from the old Muppet Show (or subsequent Muppet Movies) by various artists like Weezer, OK Go, and others.

So much fun for me to listen to, and my two-year-old was rockin’ out, too.  Listening to it even brought up some emotions I’ll probably have to delve into more before I post about them. But that’s for another day.  Right now, seize the moment and give this album a listen (you can sample it on Amazon.com or you can listen to the whole thing on NPR.com to see if you want to buy it).

Have a consciously playful day!

The Power of Play

I just had a breakthrough.

I have been trying to make some significant changes in my life lately, and a huge part of any lasting transformation is ACTION.  I’ve known this for a long time, but that always seems to be the part where I get stuck.  It usually lasts several days at the very most. Then I get sucked back into my old habits.

But whenever I have tried to analyze my old habits, I have been confused. On one hand, I am a super hard worker. As long as I’m not feeling sick (or pregnant), I will be up and doing something. Heck, even if I am feeling sick, sometimes I will be up and doing something anyway.

So it doesn’t make much sense for me to be realizing that I am also lazy.

Yes. Lazy. Unless someone else is involved in my motivation, I have been completely lazy about doing anything. I did great when I had a job – if I didn’t get up on time and do my work, I would get fired or at least not get a raise.  But now that I’m my own boss (a.k.a., Mom) I don’t get up early unless my husband does too. I don’t clean my house unless people are coming over (and sometimes not even then, lately). And sadly, a lot of the time I don’t do what I say I’m going to do unless the consequences are pretty dire.

Pathetic. I know. I’m not proud of it. But I’m determined to change this, now that I’ve had this breakthrough this morning.

Early this morning (because my husband got up at 6 a.m., so I did too), I was reading more Joseph Campbell (Reflections on the Art of Living by Joseph Campbell and Diane K. Osbon), and Campbell mentioned the six-pointed star, or the Star of David.

He said that the upward-pointed triangle symbolized movement or aspiration. The downward-pointed triangle represents inertia, or an obstacle pushing you back. He says that you can view the downward-pointed triangle in two different ways: “One, as an obstacle; and the other, as the means by which you are going to make the ascent. So, everything in your life that seems to be obstructive can be transformed by your recognizing that it is the means for your transition.” (p.155)

We don’t have to accept that obstacle as something necessarily bad. “It is either an obstruction or the field through which the realization is to come.” (p.158)  Campbell asks us, “What is the obstruction in your life, and how do you transform it into the radiance?” (p.156)

Good question. So I asked myself that question, and right now, my obstruction seems to be inaction, or the demon of laziness.  So I read on.

“In India, demons are really obstructions to the expansion of consciousness. A demon or devil is a power in you to which you have not given expression, an unrecognized or suppressed god. Anyone who is unable to understand a god sees it as a devil.” (p.156)

At that moment, I realized that the reason I seem to be acting lazy is because I have not given expression to the power within me to simply play or relax. For some reason, if I am able-bodied and awake, I feel like I should be working, working, working—being productive 100% of the time. So when it comes to forcing myself to do something that I could get away with not doing, I have the tendency to just let it slide. It’s like I’m unconsciously forcing myself to give some kind of outward expression to that innate need for relaxation.

I love this quote by Brigham Young:

“Life is best enjoyed when time periods are evenly divided between labor, sleep, and recreation…all people should spend one-third of their time in recreation which is rebuilding, voluntary activity, never idleness.”

That’s two-thirds of your life that is supposed to be spent NOT working. Not working while simultaneously not being idle. Isn’t that fantastic?

So yes, I have been acting lazy, but it’s not because I AM lazy. It’s because I have not been honoring the God-given 8 hours a day that I have to recreate. Part of my job every day is to play. What an amazing idea!

And the real kicker is that I have GOT to show my kids that adults can play too. I never really saw my parents play or do anything just for fun. They had their hobbies, but as a child, their hobbies appeared to me to simply be other ways for them to be productive. They are both very crafty, so they would either make things and sell them (the end goal seeming to be the money, not the creative process), or they would use their skills to fix things or beautify our home, but nothing they ever did seemed to be just for fun.

And now I’m the same way. And I have got to change it.

I found this awesome clip from a documentary called The Power of Play (which I had no idea featured one of my favorite creators of super playful children’s music – Jim Gill). Take 5 minutes and watch the first segment (or watch all 6 of them) and consider how your life – and your kid’s life – is structured.

Is there time set aside for playing? Is there a specific space in which you and your family can play?  Are you honoring your recreation time as well as your work time?

And if finding time for play isn’t your issue, ask yourself what seems to be the obstacle in the way of your progression in whatever you’re doing right now.  The key is that you can transform that obstacle into an opportunity to know yourself better and move through the challenge if you just change your perspective.

In the spirit of play, here’s a little ditty from Sesame Street back in the day. It’s by the talented (and pre-Pixar) Bud Luckey, and it’s all about where you put your eyes…

Have a productively playful week!

What Do Men REALLY Want?

I think there’s much more to the way our bodies look than meets the eye.  One time a few years ago, I woke up with the nastiest Pink Eye there ever was. I shuffled down the hallway into the kitchen, and my husband took one look at me, and endearingly said, “Wow… You’re cute in the soul today!”  We both laughed, and I think it’s because I know that while he does care on some level about what I look like on the outside, I know that he cares more about what I look like on the inside.

 

Our eyes are the window to our souls, even if they’re all goopy and infected.  Here’s a picture of my eye on a really fancy make-up day:

I’ll spare you the picture of the disgusting Pink Eye day.

Life coach Heather Madder posted this on her Facebook page, and I thought it was really interesting:

“A lot of women think men want them to have perfect bodies. I don’t think men want women who have perfect bodies as much as they want women who KNOW WHO THEY ARE. If you KNOW & LOVE yourself, you create the best version of YOU … and the whole package makes a woman deeply attractive at all levels…but ‘perfect body pursuit’ is a prison for both men and women.”

 

Like I said, I’m pretty sure (I think) that my husband thinks this is true. And I’d like to think this is true for the majority of guys.  My gut feeling is that it should be.  But I’m just wondering — what do you guys think?  You ladies and also you Guys. I’d love to know what the guys really think… if there are any guys reading this blog.  And if they dare to post here.

Let’s start a conversation.

– The Conscious Mom