But I know a change is gonna come.....

The other day in the car I told Lucia that I thought it was time for her to have a desk in her room. Of course, kindergarten over-achiever that she is, Lucia giggled with excitement at the prospect. We talked about a trip to Ikea, desk accessories, colors, knobs. Then I suggested we move her bed to the other wall. I ruminated about maybe even getting a bigger bed, maybe a loft so her desk could fit in her tiny room better. As I rambled on, I noticed that my partner in excitement was stone silent. "What's up Lu?", I asked through the rear-view mirror. "Mommy." Lucia said authoritatively, "If we move my bed we're going to have to move my bookshelf. Then we'll have to move my dresser and my hamper and my bead box. And, Mommy, you know I'm not a fan of big changes." And that was that.

Two days later, my partner Nancy gifted me a new coffee maker, a nice one, not like the schlock I have from Target. This Dutch beauty brews hot and fast and strong. Plus, the thermal pot keeps coffee hot for HOURS! For a coffee junkie like me, this is the perfect gift. Perfect.

From my living room couch, I could see the exquisite machine sitting on my kitchen counter. Semi-catatonic, I stared at the coffee maker, quietly entering a not-so-mild state of panic. The pot on the new machine is smaller. What if I need to serve coffee to drop-by visitors and there isn't enough? The part that holds the water is glass and maybe it will get dirty. What if my coffee doesn't taste the same? What if it tastes BETTER?

Turns out Lucia isn't the only one who balks at change.....

Change is hard. But why? My life could only be improved by the presence of this fabulous coffee maker. Lucia's room would be fantastically more fantastic with more space and a cool-kid loft bed. But we still opt for the familiar. The known, finding comfort in the well-worn items we've each shaped over time. I'm not proud of this. I fancy myself an outlier, a risk taker. How could such a thing as a coffee maker throw me off guard? I just jumped into a 46 degree lake!

Seeing the response that Lucia had to her theoretical room shuffle and then my reaction to my divine new coffee machine two days later gave me pause. Am I hard wired like this? Is she? (Poor thing). And, if we are, how do we deal with this aversion to change? Here's what I think. We wait. Once we get the information that change is afoot, we sit with that knowledge and wait to make a move. It's a little bit like Savasana. We want to be immediately calm and okay in our corpse pose, but that doesn't usually happen. We have to experience the friction, the struggle, the confusion that almost always comes before any clarity or calm.

I'm happy to report that I'm out of my panic mode about the new coffee maker. Today I'm in the excitement zone. I want to bake cakes so I can serve my new Dutch coffee to everyone I know in my Nana's perfect white German-made china cups. As for Lucia, she's still stewing. I'm not talking to her about the new desk or room re-arrangement. I'm following her lead, letting her soak up the idea in her own time. Who knows where she'll end up, but I predict that within a week, she'll be asking for that loft-bed from Ikea.

Jumping in to a year of more of the same.....

Every year on December 31st I resolve to do nothing. And, like most years past, this year I pretty successfully did nothing with my New Year's Eve or my New Year's Day. Success. I neither contemplated my past year, nor planned for the months ahead. While I'm open to change, I really really like my life. There is very little I want to alter. I'd consider myself lucky if, in 2011, I got more of what I had in 2010.

At a party the week before Christmas, my friend Kate told me how much she hated Christmas, how she'd taught her two young daughters (3 and 5) that Santa didn't exist. This was refreshing coming from Kate, who I consider to be one of the more upbeat, positive, cheerful and engaged people I know. Her cynicism seemed to come from the absolute absurdity that everything Christmas has become-- commercial, indulgent, laden with wants and expectations.

I feel similarly about the whole celebration of the New Year. Why now? Why on this particular day am I changing my whole life? How is that even possible? I mean, what the hell have I been doing with myself for the last 365 days if suddenly I now need to shake it all up, turn everything on it's head and start from scratch. That's overwhelming. That's depressing. That's ridiculous.

Now, while I truly believe everything I just wrote, I must come clean about an unexpected 2011 New Year's Day event. In December a handful of my friends planned to do the polar bear plunge. Meet at Mount Baker beach and jump into Lake Washington at noon on New Year's Day was the plan. Initially, being pathologically competitive, I said yes to the challenge. Then, on New Year's Day morning, after an absurdly unplanned, highly relaxing New Year's Eve, I decided that I would absolutely not do the plunge. I don't need to jump into a freezing body of water to start the New Year, I told myself. But I wanted to see the event, so the morning of, Nancy and  I walked the two miles down to the lake to "watch."

There were people of all ages (even a 6-year-old from Lucia's kindergarten class), all smiling, shivering, gearing up for the big plunge. It was exhilarating, thrilling, contagious. Suddenly, I wanted to be a part of this group. I wanted to start 2011 with an Arctic jump in the lake like them. I deliberated. It was so cold. I had no bathing suit. No towel. No car to get home. I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but as all of the plungers shed their down coats and fuzzy robes, I was suddenly pulling off my sweater, kicking off my clogs and stripping down to my bra and undies. Holding the hands of my old, old, good, good friends, I ran screeching into Lake Washington. It was a big celebration of all of us. We were all brave, strong, impulsive, excited. And it happened to be 1/01/2011.

I still feel the same way about New Year's resolutions. Why wait until January 1st to jump into change? That can happen any time, and it should. I will probably never jump into Lake Washington in the winter by myself. Ever. But I very likely will do it next year. And for many years to come. I'll hold my friends' hands, adding new ones each year, and run screeching into the ice-cold water, plunging into a New Year of more of the same.

Mommy, why you so busy?

Today I woke up at 4am. I knew immediately that I wouldn't be going back to sleep. Brutal, I thought as I ticked off the 18 hours ahead of me. It was one of those days. Too much to do. Too much to think about. Too much. Put the mail on hold. Find the birth certificate. Finish health care paperwork. Update financials for work. Find something to wear for the concert. Pack for trip. Hang new blinds. Package toffee for the neighbors. Change Lucia's sheets. Might as well change my sheets......

I thought that once Lucia started Kindergarten I'd be like a suburban house-Frau. I'd play tennis (or start playing), have luncheons, go shopping, create a pristine garden, live in a clean house. I have had a few good rounds at Goodwill, but none of the other parts of my fantasy have been realized.

I must get something from existing in this busy state, because once I have a moment of time, before I know it, the moment is filled, like water in a sand castle moat. Zzzjooop. The time is gone. I'm volunteering in Lucia's school or planning a party or writing a blog.

I proposed my too-busy dilemma to my on-again-off-again therapist. I imagined that he would have time management tips for me or some analysis of how I was escaping into busy-ness or instructions for extracting X or Y or Z activities from my life. But he didn't. He said that as long as he's known me, this is my resting state. He said that my busy-ness would be less stressful if I simply accepted it. Essentially, he was telling me to not judge it, to just be in it and take away the added energy of trying to change it. "Basically," he said, "you are going to be this way until you are someway else." What!? I have to live like this?

The truth is that, outside of paying bills and doing laundry, there is nothing in my life I want to give up. But I'm tired. So how do I reconcile this? Surprisingly, the same way I deal with my feelings. I just let my busy-ness be. I stop detaching myself from my busy-ness, stop treating it like some sort of plague that's ruining my life, and ride the wave. So what if I end up going into work on my day off or wearing the same socks two days in a row. It happens. The more I stress out about being busy, the less I enjoy the things that create the busy. I get to go to The Nutcracker with my daughter for the third year in a row. I get to run a yoga studio that I adore. I get to see my 92-year-old neighbor Lois smile when Lucia delivers a bag of treats. I get to start 12,000 craft projects that maybe I'll never finish, but while I'm working on them, give me moments of ecstatic joy.

Let's do nothing

This morning I heard the same story on KUOW for the third time in three days. The odds of this made me think that there must be a reason behind it. Why was I hearing the repeated weeping of the surviving mother of an Iraqi war casualty three times in three days? Maybe I was hearing it because my 6-year-old is pushing every button in my body and I feel unmotherly feelings of less than love for her! Maybe there was a message for me in this woman's tragedy being aired on public radio?

I'm always surprised by what I hear. So often the radio or a conversation at a party can be white noise for me, with just snippets becoming audible. This happens for me constantly in yoga. Last night I practiced in a state of exhaustion, which is often the most relaxing kind of class for me. I love it. Mostly Kristen's voice was background music, but periodically I heard, "Let it go" or "Let your muscles relax." Different instructions that began with "Let." It was the perfect combination for me in my fatigued state. I didn't have to do anything, I just had to let myself be some way.

It was kind of epiphanic for me. Instead of telling myself to relax or release the tension in my neck or my toes, I just had to let myself do nothing to get to this natural state. We all have this capacity. It's like a baby sleeping. Their shoulders and hips and knees seem almost double-jointed in their relaxed state. It's because they aren't doing anything with their bodies. They are void of all the repeated movements, traumas, stressors that we adults have quietly absorbed in our years of development.

So, when Kristen told us last night to "Let our jaws be slack" or "Let our brows soften", I heard it anew. "Don't do anything" I told myself. Do the opposite and see what happens. So far so good.

"I'm sorry I'm so emotional......."

My partner Nancy said to me the other day, "I'm sorry I'm so emotional, I just got my period." Being one of a cluster of sisters and a gaggle of great women friends, I have heard this sentiment thousands of times in my lifetime. For some reason, on this occasion, I heard the words differently. I got indignant, borderline angry! "You don't have to have a reason for being emotional!" I snapped. "Maybe it's hormones, maybe it's the holidays. Maybe there is no explanation for why you are emotional." Clearly a personal button had been pushed.

In the land of emotional indulgence-- therapy, self-help books, 'find yourself' workshops-- it is natural to want to understand the origin of our feelings, to want to dissect our emotional patterns and find "a cure." Full disclosure-- I am a big fat fan of therapy and self-help books but, I think there is another way to navigate emotional terrain, a (dare I say it) better way.

It's exactly what we learn in yoga every day. Let go. Be in the moment. Find your present self. Be in that experience. Blah blah blah. Only it's not blah blah blah. It's brilliant. The phrase that catalyzed the writing of this blog, "All feelings pass" explains it. The problem is, most of us are impatient or over-analytical, or just simply too uncomfortable to wait it out.

What yoga teaches us is to wait in a different way, not like waiting for a plane to land or waiting for GRE scores. It is a totally different kind of waiting. We learn to wait for the unknown. It sounds crazy-making, but the truth is, it's the easiest thing in the world, and really the most logical. If I spin my wheels and wonder why I am emotional and belabor the topic with everyone in my wake, I am still waiting to get out of whatever emotional gridlock I am in, I am just doing it way more spastically.

If, on the other hand, I refrain for labeling or judging or explaining my feelings, if I just give them a break and let them live in peace for a while, eventually they will change. They will move. It's a choice. Hunker down, get comfy with your feelings and know that they're going to stay for as long as they're going to stay or run around like a rabid squirrel.

I'm not a pro. It's way easier for me to preach this stuff than to actually practice it myself. What I do know is that practicing yoga is my every day reminder. For example, I struggle mightily with Standing Head to Knee Pose. Progress is slow. I worry about my left knee. My right hip is perpetually tight. On the contrary, I adore Standing Bow Pulling Pose. I know that I can't race through Standing Head to Knee to get to Standing Bow Pulling. I have to wait for it. I trust that eventually my sad posture will end and my happy posture will arrive.

Mean Mommy

Lately, Lucia has been saying, "you're the meanest Mommy in the world." At first it kind of smarted when she said that. Lately though, (like tonight when she chanted it naked from her bathtub while I, like a maidservant searched for the bedtime book she wanted) the words bounced off of me with barely a sting. After Lucia's raging tantrum and full-on tirade declaring me "the meanest Mommy in the world", we talked in bed. "Lucia", I said, "just because you are mad or sad or tired, does not give you permission to be unkind to me. It is my job to make rules for you and sometimes you won't like them. Sometimes it will seem like I am mean but I love you all the time, even when I'm mean." Now, calm and sweet and irresistible with her eau de Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo, Lucia explained emphatically, "Mommy, I know you're not really mean. Sometimes I just need to cry it out. But I always know you love me." Whatever. Maybe I'll crack the code to parenting and maybe I won't, but in the meantime, I'll still make rules.

Lucia knows that I will always be her mom. She knows that when she pours water in her gym shoes and puts glitter all over her scalp I will still love her. She knows that she can roll her eyes at me and slam the door in my face and I will still love her. She knows that she can hate me and be ragingly frustrated with the rules I impose on her and that I'll still be here. I'll still be her mom. Like all moms, I am her touchstone. She'll go away from me and come back, sometimes staying for a long time, calm and content and then she'll run from me, stifled and needing independence. Just like I did with my mom. Some days it feels thankless. "I birthed you and this is how you treat me?!" I know that, just like me, Lucia is in a process, feeling her feelings, finding her way with Mean Mommy.

For me, Mean Mommy comes in the form of my yoga practice. Anyone who has read my blog knows that I often go to yoga feeling resistant. I make myself go because I know I will always always always feel better after I practice. In the time I have been doing yoga I have gone through great times, good times, mediocre times and don't- want-to-get-out-of-bed-can't-eat-a-thing-don't-want-to-brush-my-teeth bad times. No matter where on the emotional continuum I start my practice for the day, I am invariably better after practice. My better feelings might last for an hour or a week or a month. When I go on vacation and eat crap and don't exercise for a week, I know what will make me feel better. Yoga. When I forget to pay my gas bill for three months and feel like a loser. Yoga. It's like Visa. Yoga is priceless. For me, it can make me feel better about almost anything.

My job as Lucia's mom is to keep her safe, teach her the rules, guide her so she is equipped to navigate through her world. My yoga practice does the same thing for me. When I am a spinning out of control maniac trying to manage a business, parenting, friendships, emotions, Yoga keeps me sane. Just like Lucia knows I will always love her, always be there, I know that about my practice. I might resent it, push away from it, even avoid it, but I know my yoga practice is always there. It will always love me.

It's inside.

Last month I witnessed a group of people practicing yoga every day for thirty days. This means these people spent over 45 hours yogastudio. They committed to doing this challenge for a range of personal reasons. Private reasons. They were not graded nor judged nor paid. The rewards came from within. These 30-Dayers reported feeling happier, more energetic, calmer. They told me they slept better, ate better, smiled more. I received so much joy from teaching the 30-Dayers. They were (and are) strong, radiating energy and strength from within. Amazingly, though very few factors in their lives changed during their challenge (stress at work, relationship challenges, financial woes), they were happier, inside out, bones to the skin.

I've always been an over-achiever. If a teacher told me to do it, I’d do it. No shortcuts. The more tedious the assignment, the better. If I struggled more, I felt more accomplished because there was always the reward at the end of the task in the form of a grade or a compliment. I was forever competing with my twin sister or my classmates. When my partying high school girlfriends opted for a free period junior and senior years, I balked, signing up instead for the non-required Physics and Chemistry. When my swim coach gave us a ball-busting workout, I joined in the moaning and groaning of my teammates, but inside I was thrilled. I could work harder, show my coach that I was stronger. Then he’d pat me on the back and say, “Good work today Culberg.”

But what reward was I getting internally? Was I feeding my own sense of accomplishment or was I just ticking off achievements to tally at the end of each day? It was not until I was years into my yoga practice that I started to move away from being mostly externally motivated in my actions. Yoga is personal. It is a process of seeking the divinity within. In my yoga practice, I began to recognize the satisfaction of approving myself. It was enough to be proud of myself in standing head to knee pose. I stopped worrying (and even noticing) if I needed to take more breaks than the 75 year old woman practicing next to me. I practiced because I wanted to, because it was a gift I could give to myself.

Understanding the power of self-satisfaction has affected almost every part of my life. Of course I still struggle. I find myself in petty emotional predicaments with friends and family. The trouble is almost always rooted in some kind of disconnect I am having internally. I’m trying to be the most popular friend or the number one daughter. The difference is that now I can see when I am playing that old game. I can step back and say to myself, “What do you want? What do you need? And how are you going to get it?” And, like the 30-Dayers, in my process of finding what I need inside, I am exponentially happier, calmer, and more satisfied with the world outside.