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The Long and Short of Letting Go

4/21/2018

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My son owes me and my husband money for some purchases and a broken iPhone screen repair. Instead of having him do extra chores (above and beyond his regular household help), I put him to work for my business instead. I'm creating a new life coaching program that includes a crafting kit for each mom; there's a lot of prep work involved in gathering, organizing, and packaging the supplies. My son and I agreed to an hour of work a day during his spring break. 

Every day, I eagerly anticipated that hour. My son and I sat side-by-side at the dining room table and built an inventory spreadsheet in Excel, ordered supplies, measured and cut paper, and divided up larger quantities of items into small ziplock bags and plastic containers. 

This time with my son was the shortest hour of my day. 

Based on the number of times that my son looked at the clock on the screen of his newly repaired iPhone, it was the longest hour of his. 

This is where we are now: the years when my boys would much rather be with their friends than family - or doing anything but spending time with me, the years when my husband and I are too embarrassing to be introduced to friends, the years when planning for family time activities is met with barely restrained groans. 

Looking back, I see it started early, my son's leaving and my letting go. Like when he was three years old and ran off to be with friends at daycare without looking back. When he was six and didn't want to hold my hand anymore. When he started asking at nine years old if he could just stay home instead of going with me to run errands. 

Last Sunday evening he came home after spending the night at a friend's house followed by a full day of hanging out with his friends at the mall, the park, another friend's house. I met him at the front door with a big hug and said I missed you. He pulled out of the hug and replied with a smile that it had only been a day, then walked to his room and shut the door. 

He's growing up, pulling away, doing exactly what he's supposed to do. 

I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to do, too: slowly letting him go, whispering quietly to myself as he walks away, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. 

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A Sign of Real Progress

4/1/2018

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I started a meditation practice about a week and a half ago. I’ve meditated in the past and I currently (somewhat inconsistently) practice Tai Chi. I'm hoping a regular meditation practice will reduce stress, ease insomnia, and increase my happiness. 

“We meditate to find, to recover, to come back to something of ourselves we once dimly and unknowingly had and have lost without knowing what it was or where or when we lost it,” writes Lawrence LeShan in How to Meditate.

Each morning, I wake up a little earlier than usual and listen to the guided instructions for the meditation of the day and then sit in meditation with the day's mantra. The actual meditation time isn't long, about 10 minutes or so, but getting through it is a challenge. 

My brain doesn't shut up. 

I'm constantly thinking, planning, worrying, calculating, dreaming, solving, imagining, desiring, wanting, stressing, fixing, fretting,  unraveling, fantasizing, hoping…

One moment I'm breathing and focused on the day's mantra; the next I'm remembering all the things that I forgot to add to my to do list or beating myself up because I forgot to buy my rapidly growing 13-year-old a new pair of flip flops, again. 

When I hear the chime that signifies the end of the meditation session I calculate how much time I spent actually meditating and how much time I spent doing mental acrobatics. It's discouraging. 

Author Martha Beck compares the brain of a beginning meditator to a puppy.

By gently pulling your puppy mind back to focusing on your breath or a mantra, you can start to see the separation between what is you, the essential you, and what are simply thoughts, nipping at your heels, whining for your attention, creating messes on your mind's mental carpets.

There are a number of helpful mindfulness apps and programs that can help you begin your practice. I like the Calm app, which has guided meditations, nature sounds, breathing exercises, and many other ways to bring mindfulness into your day-to-day. 

Deepak Chopra also has a number of guided meditation programs available on his website, many created with Oprah Winfrey.

But starting a meditation practice doesn’t require anything more than time and a willingness to begin. Simply detach from whatever is tugging at you, whether it’s a small child who is ready for a nap or your phone that’s begging for your attention. Find a comfortable spot to sit and bring your attention to your breath. When you notice that your mind is wandering, gently bring your awareness back to your breath, again and again and again and again.

“Somewhere in this process, you will come face to face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy,” says Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, a 90-year-old Buddhist monk. “Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill, utterly out of control and helpless. No problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has always been this way, and you just never noticed…. So don’t let this realization unsettle you. It is a milestone actually, a sign of real progress.”

Nice to know: I’m making progress.

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    The Well-Crafted Mom

    About

    I'm an author, certified life coach, and certified massage therapist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with my husband (William White of Happy Baby Signs), and our two sons, plus a rescue poodle, and a tabby cat that rolls over and fetches.

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