Family- where spirituality, sacredness & home belong.
Sacredness here will not include any mention of organized religion. I’ve spent too much time in my life participating in organized religion to ever want to be associated with it ever again. However, as I’ve aged and more importantly as I became a parent I am coming around to the idea of the importance of sacred spaces, mindfulness, and participating in connected space with others.
I grew up nominally religious, which included church on Sundays. Now I was in middle America, in one of the fly-over states. Now-a-days my home state has become unrecognizable in the wave of conservatism that has swept rural America. As I watch it from afar, I am aghast at how crazy it seems. My childhood trips to church did not seem to include the vigor, religious fervor, or adulation of a particular political figure.
It was more a societal thing; my immediate family went to church to meet up with my maternal grandparents on Sunday morning. Us kids would romp around in Sunday school until we got old enough to sit in the pulpit. Sunday school classes were filled with your run-of-the-mill middle America Presbyterian teachings. We talked about Old Testament stories, often white-washed of all the divine-ordered slaughtering that accompanied the storyline. New Testament stories seemed warm and welcoming with a white-washed Jesus smiling benevolently down at us.
I can’t really recall any aspect of Sunday school sticking out to me, but I can remember sitting in the sanctuary during the service, laying down with my head on my father’s lap staring up at the ribbed-dome ceiling. There were ceiling fans that lazily spun around, but I can remember being memorized by the repeating patterns in the wood. Or trying to count the individual boards from one side of the ceiling to another.
Growing up we spend most Sundays in the old sanctuary. A quiet, reserved place with towering ceilings, stained glass, and red velvet cushioned pews. Lunch followed with the grandparents at a local deli. Religion never meant more than Sunday mornings. But as I grew up, my teenage angst evolved into a fundamentalist approach to Christianity fueled by a emotional conversion experience and a conservative Wesleyan Church.
Thankfully this extreme dogmatism ended with the death of my maternal grandmother and general adulthood. By the time she passed away I had traveled the world, living in Western Europe, the far East, and central Europe. I left my hometown as quick as I could ad not only met different type of people (which is easy to do when you leave a small town) but spent time in different countries. Some who had no formal religion. Some others who were a completely different religion than I had ever experienced.
As I entered my mid twenties, I was a fierce atheist. But now as I enter my early forties (when did that happen?) I am gentle atheist. I recognize that I don’t know anything really, which really solidified after my stint in Academia where of all things to study, I studied religion. I also became a parent in the past three years which has completely turned my life upside down. So stay tuned for more not-religious, but maybe spiritual musings from a gentle atheist who now recognizes the value that organized religion can play in a life, especially a new parent.
Komodo Dragons & Family
Have I mentioned that I am a new parent? It seems wild to me that I created a person. That person now is almost three years old. How is it possible that me, with all my life stories, and mishaps created someone so new? My little one is so new, even at almost three years old. They are just starting to talk, can now express wants/desires ( I need!!) and is also finding their place in our little family.
One sidenote- I will not be posting any picture of them or reveal their gender. I will always refer to them in the third person. Why? Because I want to keep their life private from the crazy online world. So if that bothers you, too bad. They are more important.
Back to the cute stories… my little one has recently taken to reading books before bedtime. There’s one in particular that we read every single night. It’s called, “Borris Gets a Lizzard”. It’s about a wild boar “Boris” and his family. In this particular book, Boris daydreams of getting a Komodo Dragon and gets into all the shenanigans trying to bring one home. I have now read it a total of 29384738 times. But my little one loves it, so we keep reading it at bedtime.
One this that has caught my attention is that 1) my LO (little one) is fascinated with buses (which I already knew) and 2) they are interested in how Boris’ family represents our own. Now I realize that talking about family make-up can turn political in a split second. Especially in my home country who is a day away from deciding who the next president will be. One choice is a decorated person who is currently the vice president of the country. The next is a convicted felon with a makeup problem. I guess you now know which way I lean politically. Anyways, our particular family looks from the outside as a nice and neat hetero-oriented family. And that’s how I’ll keep it looking in this post. Our family also mirrors Boris’ family in the book. My LO keeps pointing out that Boris has a mamma and a baba just like themselves. There’s a particular page where Boris’ family is sitting down to dinner (while discussing Komodo Dragons) and my LO keeps pointing out that there is a mamma, a baba and Boris. Just like our own family.
It’s cute, and it happens every night. But I think there is something deeper at play. It seems like my little one is figuring out their space in our family. Yes, we have a mamma, yes, we have a baba, and yes, we have a LO just like Boris’ family.
It always seems like a profound moment when my LO points out Boris’ family. For them and for me. Mainly because I’ve never really had a family that I can count on, never had a family that I really liked. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why I fell into religion so hard, because it was a place where I finally felt like I could belong. But I’m hoping that for my kiddo, that they don’t experience the painful self-doubt that I did while growing up. And that they grow up with a secure sense of belonging.
Sacred birthing space
One thing I never understood pre-kiddo is how exactly having a child transforms your life, our brain, and your values. In fact, I was so insensitive that I would probably roll my eyes anytime a parent would talk about their life experiences with making, raising, and loving children. Young me was an asshole, and to all those people, I am sorry.
For me, the bodily changes happened immediately after conception. Prior to baby I was extremely active. Biking to work, running 4k before work, working all day, and then biking home. I was incredible. But then, bam I got pregnant and immediately everything changed. All my energy disappeared. When I did manage to still bike into work, at the end of the day I would just fall asleep on the couch before dinner. I was so tired. Runing felt terrible, like something heavy was bouncy around deep in my gut. It felt like even the tendons inside of me were being pulled, it was a very uncomfortable feeling.
As my pregnancy progressed, I became interested in hypno-birthing. As you know I’m not the most spiritual person out there, so I was a bit skeptical. But let me tell you it transformed my life.
No, it did not. Sorry. However, it was a good resource for positive birth stories and it introduced me to the idea of a birth doula. Now pre-pregnancy I had no idea what a doula was, and didn’t really think that an extra support person was necessary. When you’re pregnant and it’s time for the baby to come, all you have to do is to go to the hospital and then you have the baby right?
No. So much can go wrong and having an experienced doula there can help advocate for you and be a support person for the birthing parent. Doulas are also a really good resource for following our birth plan. Now, unfortunately mine was not able to come to my kiddo’s birth due to COVID lockdowns. But having access to them was a lifesaver.
Some people like to uphold the sacredness of the birthing space. Some others like to lean into the inherent wisdom of their bodies during their birth. While I have an opinion, I will keep it to myself because I know now that my knowledge is limited to my own experiences, worldview, and past history. What hypo-birthing taught me was how to incorporate mindfulness into the marathon of labour.
I learned how contractions work and how frequent they become at the end of labour. I learned how to ride the waves of the pain, from beginning to the crest and then the relief. And you know what? It worked. Often people fear labour, because they think that the pain will never end. But what my birth doula taught me along with hypnobirthing was how to use my breath to release the tension in my body during the pain of labour. At the end, I would ride the pain of contractions up, up, up, and then after it peaked, I would revel in the release. It was an extreme form of self-discipline. And I am so proud of myself.
I’ll write more about my birth story later, unfortunately it did not end well. But I was able to have a few moments during labour where I could create a sacred space for my body. A sacred space for my mind and a sacred space for the process. This was all achieved through mindfulness and breathing, it was pretty magical.
Yoga and Mindfulness
My split leaf philodendron
As I’ve gotten older, and left religion behind I’ve also noticed a growing interest in finding a connection with my mind and my body. I discovered mindfulness while going through a major and painful life change and have been practicing ever since. But when I was pregnant, I sought to strengthen the connection I have with my body, knowing that movement is beneficial through out all stages in life.
Even before pregnancy I was compelled to starting a yoga practice. I like the strength it provided and how cool is it to be in positions where you are all twisty and upside down? Very cool. I like how it makes my body feel and I like how it pressures me to work through the discomfort of different poses through my breath. I’ve wrote a bit about how I utilized hypno-birthing for my delivery, but this post will be about how prenatal yoga helped me stay in tune with my body as it went through the serious change of being pregnant.
I am lucky to be in a country that values social good, especially regarding new families. There is leave for the birth parent, and then there is also leave for the support parent. Interesting enough you can access this leave before you give birth, allowing pregnant people the flexibility to prepare for their little one prior to its arrival. I decided to leave my job prior to giving birth for multiple reasons. Looking back, I really value the time I spent with myself, taking care of the house and my body before my LO came. I was able to settle into a new routine where I could focus on my breath and my health.
Now-a-days, about three years later I still relay on my yoga practice, centering in on my breath and work on finding acceptance for my current situation.
More Mindfulness
When we begin practicing paying attention to the activity of our own mind, it is common to discover and to be surprised by the fact that we are constantly generating judgments about our experience.
– Kabat-Zinn, 2005, p. 33
As I’ve matured as a parent (aka been at it a couple years) it’s been curious how much I relay on mindfulness to help regulate my body and emotions. I’m been working on mindfulness for the past four years, but was dabbling in it for the past 10 years or so. Honestly, it’s a practice that gives back exactly what you put in it. It’s really incredible how you can deepen your practice over time and sink further into awareness of your being.
I have leaned on my mindfulness practice hard in regards to my kiddos’ sleep. There’s a saying that ‘every kid is different’ and man is that true. Mine has a very sensitive nervous system. Even more so when they were a newborn and sleep has always been an issue. It got really bad from months 9-12. I was woken up every 1.5 hours for three months straight. I am not kidding, I am not exaggerating. The lack of sleep made me a shell of a person. I can’t remember how many times I had to cry myself to sleep during those months because I was so tired, but I knew that I would be woken up again in 1.5 hours. Sometimes the insomnia was so bad that I couldn’t fall asleep. I was so tired, so stressed out, so touched out that I couldn’t fall asleep and so I would get even less sleep overnight.
I would drown in despair. There’s nothing like being awoken every 1.5 hours for months on end and being the only person awake. Over and over again. It was in these dreaded nights that I would rely on my mindfulness practice to calm my mind and my body enough to fall asleep. What I would do is to only focus on my breath. In and out. In and out. Over and over and over again. To say that it was difficult would be an understatement. This was not an easy thing to do. Honestly it took months, months of redirecting my stressed-out brain to solely focus on my breath. But slowly, slowly I was able to focus on my breath. Slowly I was able to keep bringing my mind back to my breath after it filtered away for the 1,000th time. Sometimes it didn’t work, and I would drown in despair again and again. Just sink into the depth of exhaustion, pain, and stress.
It was during this time that I heard about sleep training… well I won’t go into it because its not a good fit. I even went as far as to talk to a sleep consultant. I actually liked Petra. She’s Dutch and is quick to speak her mind but is also kind and understanding. She also said that our co-sleeping situation is okay, and we do not have to change it if we don’t want to. Also, my personal opinion is that some kiddos need to just grow up until they start sleeping better. At 18 months my little one started to sleep for a sold five hours at night. I with all that sleep I felt like a new person.
But back to the mindfulness, even now I still rely on my practice to manage the difficult times in my life. What I’m struggling with now-a-days is how to manage my practice when I’m feeling really happy, or joyful. I have a hard time coming down for jubilation and it seems like the swinging of emotions can be a difficult journey. It’s something I’m still working on.
Gratitude vs. Judgement
I feel like mindfulness is something I keep returning to again and again, mainly in moments of pain. Last night was bad, it hasn’t been that bad in a long time. For some reason I could not quiet my mind, even after gratitude journaling and accomplishment journaling. Those two things normally work, I even have a pretty stringent routine that I follow, thinking that it helps me wind down my brain. But last night nothing worked.
I can’t even find anything to blame it on, I didn’t have more caffeine than my one cup of decaf in the morning. I also had some dark chocolate before bed, but that doesn’t seem to be the issue. My mind would just not go quiet. I’ve dabbled in insomnia before, and it really felt like that again. The hardest thing to do is to not judge my experience. It’s a lightening fast response and I issue judgement so hard and so fast upon myself that even my therapist and business coach have to remind me not to judge an experience. But it feels like judgement is the solution for messing something up. Awake at midnight? Judgement for not being able to sleep. Cold? Judgement for not being warm (I know that sounds stupid). Also, last night was cold. Or maybe was it the humidifier?? Was the air too humid making it seem colder than it originally was?? My dumb lizard brain keeps hopping from one thing to another and I can’t solve why I could not sleep last night.
Even as I’m writing this I’m dreading going to bed. Thankfully I think I have solved one thing; I bought a heated blanket today. I felt so cold last night that I had to put on sweatpants, a hoodie, and an extra blanket on top of my already warm comforter. It was ridiculous. See?! Here I am judging myself for trying to get warm so that I could sleep. God.
The silver lining to all of this was that I ran into a friend while blanket shopping, an OG doula who also does pre-natal yoga. I love running into her and it was amazing to see her again. I didn’t tell her about my sleep saga, but due to last night’s nonsense I should probably sign up for more yoga, I just can’t seem to shake the restless nights.
Maybe it’s an anxiety thing, maybe my brain couldn’t calm down because the room was too cold. Maybe it was trying to keep me safe. Or maybe I need warmer jammies? Hopefully the blanket will help. I really feel like I’m failing at mindfulness when I can’t use it to get what I want. But that’s probably not why one should practice it… I feel like there’s a deeper truth here I need to figure out.
Mindset
It seems to me that the benefits of spirituality and sacredness really stem from working on your mindset. For example, when I was younger and deep in the throws of fundamentalist Christianity, the church, worship, and communion with others really reinforced the church’s dogma (not surprising there) but it also did wonders to my mindset.
For example, if I was having a hard time in life my troubles weren’t due to the inequities of this world but due to some spiritual powers that be. It was like I could give up responsibility if I was unsuccessful because it was not my fault if something went awry. Now I have had enough of the church’s doctrine shoved down my throat to know that this is not what they intend. But I do remember seeing and hearing a lot of fatalistic attitudes when I was younger.
But now? Thanks to my business coach I know now that it’s not some special spiritual force that’s preventing me from accomplishing a task, but it’s my own thought processes and neuro-pathways in my brain that are making it hard to make a change in my life. Additionally, I am in-debited to my past work in mindfulness to know that sometimes I need to stop, breath, and watch my thoughts go by. Because otherwise I get consumed by them.
For example, I’ve mentioned that I have an accomplishment journal above. Now this journal is not about writing the amazing and great accomplishments I have done that day, but for the little victories. For example, one of my consistent victories is to enjoy my little one. Because sometimes I can get so caught up in the required details of everyday life that I forget to actually enjoy them. To revel in their belly laughter. Or to delight in their adorable mischief. They have started to play a little game at the end of the day when it is time to brush their teeth, we have dubbed it “brush brush time”. Now whenever the toothbrush is brought to me so I can brush their teeth, they have a flash of mischief in their eyes and run away cackling. It is the cutest, most adorable things. Then, I pretend to not see them, to stare off in the distance perfectly content to twiddle my thumbs for the rest of the night. They then slowly creep towards me while I pretend not to notice them. I even go as far as to whistle a merry tune while side-eyeing them creep towards me. Eventually they can’t stand it anymore and they run into my arms laughing so hard they can barely breath. This goes on over and over till all their zoomies get out.
Is this cute? Yes. Absolutely. But sometimes I forget to enjoy this time, focusing more on the task at hand then the journey of play. But, paying attention to them, enjoying them is something I’ve been working on for weeks now. It’s made parenting way more enjoyable and has also allowed me to slow down in life a bit more, and enjoy taking it all in.