Monthly Archives: October 2019

Enough!

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Words are powerful, even magical. The words I use affect the way I feel. I can feel this most powerfully when I am journaling. When I write words like “effervescent” and “radiant,” my energy starts to flow and I feel as if I am in fact effervescent and radiant. When I write words that have negative charges, though, I feel my energy get heavy and slow.

I am paying attention to the words that feel right and the words that feel “ick!” when I am journaling. I want to use more of the words that lift me up and avoid the words that drag me down. Through journaling, I have discovered a word that is very important to me: Enough.

As a stay at home mom of a preschooler and first grader, I often feel rushed. There is not enough time to do all the things I want to do. Not enough time to exercise! Write! Run errands! Do all the things! I start to gripe – not enough, not enough! – and I get whipped into a frantic frenzy.

Except.

There is enough.

I have enough time to write. Sure, I could easily spend three or four hours each day writing my novel. But whatever I get, that’s enough. (J.K. Rowling got the idea for Harry Potter in 1990, but the first book was not published in 1997. So slow writing might actually be better than fast.)

I have enough time to exercise. Sure, I could do hot yoga every day. But so long as I wear my Fitbit and make an effort to walk, I get enough exercise. (Besides, it’s nice to give my body time to get in shape slowly. If I had time to do vigorous daily exercise, I might blow out my knee.)

I have enough time to read and stretch and paint and snuggle with my kids. If I am conscious and intentional with my time, than I have enough.

The more I pay attention to the word “enough,” the more I see how it resonates with my life.

I have enough money.

Our house is big enough.

I have enough friends. If sometimes I feel a little lonely, then I just need to make more effort to see the friends I already have, and when I see my friends, I need to make the effort to be authentic instead of struggling to be the person I think I am supposed to be.

Enough. Enough. Enough.

If I stop worrying and griping, and really look around at my life, I have enough of all the things I need and want. Right now. This moment. This place. This life. I do not have to hold my breath until Julian is in kindergarten or until Pippa can do homework by herself or until I hit some other mothering milestone. Already I have enough.

It’s amazing how one word can make me feel so alive and blessed.

To The Mama Crying At The Mall

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I saw you as I was buying my coffee. You: sitting, eyes brimmed red and tears flowing, while the baby kicked in her stroller. Me: Just over six years away from those tender raw postpartum depression days.

I am projecting, of course. I had postpartum depression, so when I see a miserable new mom, I assume she is struggling with the transition to motherhood just as I struggled (and thrashed and suffered and nearly drowned) when my daughter was born. Actually, I project my PPD days on all the new mamas I see, not just the ones who are crying at the mall. Even the mamas who are smiling and seem radiant: I worry about you. What worries might keep you awake at night? What OCD rituals might you be performing to calm the anxiety? What intrusive thoughts did you have yesterday when the baby would not stop crying? I know how easy it is to look like everything is okay, because that was what I did. And I’m not even that great of an actress.

I saw you, Mama Crying At The Mall, and I wanted to say hello. I wanted to stoop down and ask, “How are you doing?” I wanted to look into your tear filled eyes and say, “I worry about mamas with babies, you see, because my babies kicked my ass.”

But I didn’t, because I was worried I would say the wrong thing and make you feel worse. Also, I was waiting for my coffee. But mostly, I was just worried that I would say the wrong thing. So I said nothing and by the time I got my coffee, you had wiped away your tears and pushed the stroller away.

To the Mama Crying at the Mall: next time I will try to do better. Fuck these 21st century manners. Fuck pretending feelings do not exist at the mall. Fuck all this social and emotional isolation.

It’s been over six years since I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, and damn, those raw intense feelings keep fading and fading. But I want to remember them at least a little so I can relate. So the next time I see a mama with a baby, whether she is crying or not, I remember to ask the most important question of all:

How are you?

A Very Sweaty Namaste

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I started doing hot yoga! I love it! During class, I can feel myself literally sweating out the crazy.

My first hot yoga, aka Bikram yoga, was about fifteen years ago. I went to a studio in Hollywood with my sister Katherine. I knew next to nothing about hot yoga, but my sister wanted to go, so why not?

Well, I thought I was going to die. I had to leave the room to dry heave a bit in the women’s restroom. At the end of class, the teacher came over and said all these flattering things to my sister about how she was a natural and so flexible and gosh, she should come again. Then she looked at me sideways, sighed, and walked away.

Needless to say, I did not go back.

But, I could not get the idea of hot yoga out of my head. Every now and then, a friend or aunt would talk about how much she enjoyed hot yoga, and the things I heard made me think that despite my first experience, it might be a good practice for me.

My friend Laura convinced me to try again last December. She gave me lots of helpful advice beforehand, like Be hydrated and Bring water and Eat an hour beforehand so you have energy but don’t need to puke. Her most important advice though was to arrive early so my body could acclimate to the 105 degree temperature in the studio.

Armed with this good advice, my second hot yoga class was so much better than my first. I felt like I was getting my ass kicked, but in a way that made me feel radiant. The poses combined stretching and strengthening and midway through the class, my heart was pounding as if I had been running. When I left class, I felt very calm and relaxed. My worries had receded. I had found my dream workout!

Except the schedule did not work for my life.

I could have attended the 9 a.m. class, but I would have been about ten minutes late. (Pippa’s elementary school starts late.) I knew that would make me anxious and affect the quality of my workout. The 11 a.m. classes were all too late, because at the time, Julian got out of preschool at 11:30. Blah blah blah, talking about my mom schedule is tedious and dull, but long story short, I kept walking and wearing my Fitbit, while promising myself that when the time was right, I would return to hot yoga.

That time has arrived!

Julian is older and his preschool days are longer. I dove into my hot yoga practice last month. I’d like to go twice a week, but so far, I’ve only been five times. (I ran a preschool book fair for a week. Pippa had a cavity. We went to Disneyland. Such is life.) But I can feel my body getting stronger. I am getting stronger, body, mind, heart and soul.

I am just at the beginning of this hot yoga practice, but I am excited to see where it takes me. A few years ago, if I had written a post about doing hot yoga, I would have used a lot of swear words and then said demeaning things about how my postures compare to the other students. But now I am forty, and I do not feel the need to ridicule something that is giving me such joy. I just want to embrace this practice, sweat and all.

p.s. There is so much sweat! It’s ridiculous.

My Glorious Forties Self-Inventory

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I turned forty last January, and I kept having the idea that I should do a personal inventory about my health and well-being. The idea would not leave me alone, so finally, I spent a couple hours yesterday doing what I call “My Glorious Forties Self-Inventory.” I enjoyed the exercise so much, I think I will do it quarterly.

I want to live my forties in a way that is intentional and conscious. Menopause is on the way! I was blindsided by postpartum depression, and I do not want to just whistle along obliviously until I wake up in the middle of one night, wondering Holy shit, was that a hot flash? I want to understand this transition. I want to understand myself. I want to celebrate being a woman in her forties!

My self-inventory was definitely a step toward intentionally and consciously living my best life possible as a woman in her forties. (Psst, I’m in the process of taking another big step in that direction in the form of a new podcast. Stay tuned!)

Here are the subjects I covered, in case you are interested in taking your self-inventory:

  • The Date
  • My age
  • Height (I did not actually measure myself! I need to get the husband to do this before the next inventory. I’d like to see if I shrink or if I can gain a little height with yoga and pilates.)
  • Weight (I hated putting this at the beginning of the inventory, but as my therapist observed today, weight is an ongoing issue for me. I think it is the health issue that acts as a barometer of my overall wellness. The past six months were stressful what with Julian’s preschool closure, and coincidentally, I gained twenty pounds during those six months… I’d like to pay more attention to my weight so that the next time the numbers creep upward, I can hit the pause button and reflect upon what is happening and why.)
  • Nutrition: I thought about what I am doing well and then what areas could use some improvement.
  • Supplements that I am taking
  • Medications that I am taking, including my plan to wean off the anti-anxiety medication I take at bedtime.
  • Sleep – how well I am sleeping (fantastic!) and what I am doing to get my best Zzzz’s
  • Eyes and vision: I need to pay attention because I will need reading glasses eventually.
  • Shoulder and back: I have had some ongoing pain here. I reflected on what helps minimize the pain. I do not have a section about my knees in my self-inventory, but a lot of friends have complained to me about knee pain. Maybe I need to add a section about my knees in my next inventory so I can celebrate the health issues that I do not have?
  • Motherhood – issues, triumphs, mindset
  • Play and Fun: I do have fun in my life and I do play, but I realized I need to pay more attention to this area of my life.
  • Nature and Fresh Air: critical to my mental health
  • Fitness
  • My Inner Call: Oh, my inner call. I need to write about this. And podcast about this. And then write a book about it. The older I get, the more I realize that so much of my life is about listening to and honoring my inner call.
  • Journaling: As I write out this list, I realize there are so many ways that the self-inventory would vary from woman to woman. Journaling is vital to me, but for you, it might be about baking or gardening or yodeling.
  • Energy
  • Mood
  • Menstrual Cycle
  • Sex (and that’s all I’m writing on the subject, ahem, because sex is between me and the husband. But I wanted to mention it because I think this is something women should pay attention and be curious about.)
  • Perimenopause? Right now: I have no idea! I need to read more about perimenopause before I decide if I have entered that phase of my life or not.
  • Brain (or lack thereof) (I kid) (but not really)
  • Femininity: this is an emerging focus for me. Something that requires my attention.
  • Beauty, a.k.a. I buy all the face masks but never use them.
  • Reproductive health (translation: I need to schedule my next damn pap smear!)
  • Relaxation
  • Connections and Relationships
  • Spirituality: I completely forgot to cover this topic! Definitely adding to the next self-inventory.
  • INFJ: This is my personality type. I would like to read more about being an INFJ so I can take better care of myself AND I would like to learn about the enneagram.
  • Stress
  • Feelings
  • My values
  • My current mindset
  • Boundaries
  • Therapy
  • Alcohol
  • Self-care
  • Painting and drawing (or whatever gets your creative juices flowing!)
  • Homework (as in homework I gave myself to do over the next three months, not as in Pippa’s first grade homework which is driving me insane – new math? WTF?)

Whew! My self-inventory ended up being eight pages long. By the end, I was drained but in a good way. If doing a self-inventory sounds interesting, I highly recommend that you do one for yourself. It is a great act of self-care.