Today my acupuncturist spent a lot of time diffusing my energy. And it got me thinking.
I was probably not thinking what you are -- Acupuncture! Therapy! Yoga! This gal spends an inordinate amount of energy searching for the mindfulness in motherhood! And is maybe a little bit crazy to boot. But, see, it's what I do now -- search and share my results with you.
At any rate, what I was thinking, beyond how lucky I am to be able to do a little acupuncture sometimes, is how overly concentrated energy is probably a key component of motherhood. With so many competing tasks facing me every day, I wish I came equipped with a laser-like focus, a sort of Mama Ray Gun that I can blast at whatever needs doing NOW -- quality park time going down the slide with Jake; intricately researched, detailed, brilliant legal memos packed into the time between yoga class and the end of Jake's school day; prepping the veggies I bought last week before they are too wilted to eat in an effort to distract Mike from once again preparing his favorite meal of sticky rice and Chinese hot sauce while I'm putting Jake to bed.
Lacking the handy Mama Ray Gun, I compensate in the way I know many of us do. I multi-task with a heady burst of adrenaline until I find myself, at day's end, too spent to do anything but shovel a few spoonfuls of Stonyfield Farms Gotta Have Vanilla ice cream into my mouth before I fall into bed.
The only way I know how to have energy is in bursts. Diffuse? Full-bodied? Thick and spreading and viscous like warm honey?
I must FIND this healthy balance! Get me the ray gun, quick!
Going At Life in Bursts
Even before I became a mother, I was a Fixer. Anything that bothered me, threw me off balance, kept my life from being the perfect, RomCom-like romp I thought it was supposed to be had to be fixed. Quickly. This attitude may account for the fact that I have moved every two to four years for my entire adult life.
Imagine the rush I got when I realized, after Jake's arrival, that I now have a whole new life to fix.
It's not so crazy, I think, for a mother to want her child's life to be as perfect as she can make it. We all know that, sooner or later, people face sadness and pain and frustration. In fact, our toddlers make it clear to us that even at the tender age of, say, sixteen months, all these emotions are fully in play. Still, if we know our children are going to face a certain amount of the suffering that is part of life, why not shield them from as much as we can? Why, in other words, not give them a warm little kiddie pool of life's difficulties to play in instead of letting them plunge into the deep end of a swimming pool full of sorrows?
Hence, last night I felt it was vitally important that I figure out what caused Jake to wake up that second time demanding, once again, to be back in bed with Mommy when Mommy had just managed to rouse herself enough to put him back in his crib. Not that I could do anything about it, but if I just knew what was wrong I could plan for future nights; I could ease him back into staying in his crib with a minimum of crying on both our parts.
Jake has, recently, been exhibiting symptoms of a multitude of those toddler afflictions that can't be determined with any certainty but that do the trick for explaining sudden bouts of grumpiness. His digestion has been off -- or, rather, way on as if someone opened the poop spout too far and then way off as we went 24-hours poop-free. Could it be the cherry snack bars that showed up, fittingly cherry-like, on his cheeks? Or were we too enthusiastic about the black beans Mike fixed in a huge, fill-up-the-freezer pot? An examination of said poop suggested the latter.
But, wait, was it the poop causing his diaper rash so extreme he developed angry little sores on his bottom? Or was it the (I'm so ashamed to admit it) bleached, scented, chemical-laden Pampers that cut into the creases between baby butt cheeks and chubby legs? And is sixteen months too late to change to cloth diapers? (Even if Jake would tolerate it, the change is, I fear, too late for me. My sister-in-law threw me a baby shower in which she cleverly used cloth diapers as napkins and secured them with diaper pins. I needed assistance getting mine open, which is a sign of how very little I know about using cloth diapers.)
Of course, there's always the allergy worries to turn to. Figuring out what your baby is allergic to is a little bit like doing a puzzle that is all one color. One piece at a time, you search to see if that piece fits and then discard it to focus on another indistinguishable piece. What if, heaven forbid, we had inadvertently introduced TWO allergens at the same time? How would we ever figure out what was causing the rash-inducing poop?
Even my attempted solution to the black bean problem presented the possibility that it was causing problems of its own. If not black beans, I reasoned, then kidney beans. Jake chowed on them straight out of the slow cooker Monday night. And later proceeded to awaken, cry, and fart in close enough proximity to suggest that I not give him kidney beans for dinner in the future.
Finally, don't ever count out teething. Jake started fussing and drooling when he was three months old. "That's awfully young to be teething," his pediatrician said when I first told her about it; a few days later, in her office, she had to agree that's what he was doing. Which was fine, except he didn't get his first tooth for another four months. The remaining teeth have not proven much speedier at making their way into his mouth. As a result, he has just six teeth and at least that many breaking through his gums simultaneously. He has moved from concentrated thumb sucking to full-hand-in-the-mouth gum massage. Which, along with gas, diaper rash, diarrhea, constipation, and allergies, could wake a guy up in the middle of the night.
So what do I plan to do tonight to avoid that 5 a.m. anger when I have just barely shut my eyes after returning Jake to his crib and awaken to the belligerent cries of the unfairly ousted? How will I avoid that sickening feeling that takes hold of me when I grumpily set boundaries on an hour and a half of REM sleep and a desperate need for more?
Obviously, the concentrated energy, solve-a-problem-fast-so-I-can-go-solve-another-one approach isn't working for me. Zap! Zap! Zap! goes my Mama Ray Gun as I spin in circles shooting it ferociously at the evil gang of maladies torturing me by upsetting my child. It's the teething! No, the allergies! Wait, it's the diaper rash!
It is time, I believe, to try a little diffusion of energy.
The Line -- I Mean Zone -- Between Focus and Fanaticism
A twenty-something, a septuagenarian, and a mom walk into a yoga class. The twenty-something blithely does a hand stand in the middle of the room while straddling her legs in perfect splits, all while planning what outfit she will wear tonight to the party at the apartment downstairs from hers. The septuagenarian will barely bend herself into a slight triangle pose, but her mind will be quiet, her breathing deep, her heart at peace. The mom will be jealous of both, work furiously on hand stand at the wall in the belief that she will -- she must -- one day be able to balance without the wall, tell her mind to shut up over and over and over again, think about her child's smile, remind herself to do her child's laundry before she picks him up from school, wonder if it will be warm enough to wear a tank top since her arms feel pretty damn tight after all this hand stand work, remember that she has some work to do in the office before she picks him up, tell her mind to shut up again, and do it all with exactly what she believes to be the focus the yoga teacher described at the beginning of class.
Focus. It's the one part of yoga we moms figure we understand.
Focus, however, doesn't mean confining your energy to the one task you are, however briefly, tackling. It's not about the Zap! Zap! Zap! of the Mama Ray Gun. Yoga isn't about bursts, unless you are sending bursts of breath out of your body in an effort to cleanse your energy channels so you can avoid ragged energy that comes and goes in -- you guessed it -- bursts.
Focus means letting go of the things that don't matter at this moment. Yes, it entails doing one thing at a time, but it's about doing that one thing fully, without distractions. One of the teachers at the ashram where I did my teacher training described it perfectly for my generation: It's like there's a television on in the room, but you're not paying attention. We can't stop the chatter in our minds, because it's what the mind does. But we can learn how to keep it from distracting us.
So there's the difference. When we focus our energy, and not our attention, we simply display symptoms of ADD. We pounce on the first thing our mind offers with the eagerness of a hungry mountain lion spotting a plump neighborhood dog. A moment later, we whirl around at the suggestion of another thing we could -- should -- be doing right now and throw ourselves at it like my bloodhound mix Audrey going after a squirrel in our front yard, and probably with the same lack of grace. But, unlike Audrey, we don't stick to the scent when the squirrel eludes our jaws. We don't worry the base of the tree whence it escaped, seeing our quest through to its conclusion, however disappointingly squirrel-free. Instead, we run off toward the next distraction, Mama Ray Gun at the ready.
When we instead focus our attention, we don't run in circles from one distraction to the next because we're not distracted. And when we're not in such a hurry to accomplish something in the brief time remaining before we run after the next distraction, we don't have to throw so much frenzied energy at what we're doing now. Instead of rush-stop-rush-stop, our energy starts to spread out, to flow evenly. And, as we stay with it, it spreads, becoming diffuse and infusing our beings.
Acupuncture-Free Energy Diffusion: Trikonasana (Triangle Pose)
As wonderfully warm and peaceful and un-kinked as I felt leaving my acupuncturist's office today (and as much as I'd love to return for a weekly un-kinking), living and all the habits that come with it will immediately set about knocking off that balance. As will, of course, being a mom. Because you just know that I walked out of the office and into a string of errands and even now I'm realizing the things I forgot to get and wondering if I'll have time to go back and get them before it's time to pick Jake up from school.
So we all need a good asana to help diffuse our energy. And, it occurs to me, defuse the Mama Ray gun.
I truly love trikonasana because, once you settle into it, you send energy in all directions. I often think of a star as my heart opens in this pose. Energy moves out my arms, my legs, the crown of my head, my tailbone, my heart -- in every direction. And as it moves out, a bright, peaceful flow of energy effortlessly makes its way in and through my body. I feel as if I can walk off my mat and into my day glowing like a small bit of starlight.
Trikonasana Instructions
1) Stand at the front of your mat and step your left foot back, about a leg's distance. Allow your body to face the left side of your mat, but keep your right foot at the front of the mat, toes facing forward. (You may also enter this pose from Surya Namaskar A (sun salute A) or directly from adho mukha svanasana (downward facing dog) by stepping your right foot to the front of the mat and letting your straight left arm draw you up to standing by reaching it overhead.)
2) Turn your left foot so it is at about a 45-degree angle, facing toward the side of the mat and angled toward the top of the mat. Lift your arms out to a T and check to see that your wrists are above your ankles. If they are not, adjust your feet.
3) Place your hands on your hips and make sure they are square, with your navel facing directly toward the side of your mat. Your elbows should point out to the sides. Then draw your elbows toward each other and let your heart lift as your shoulder blades slide down your back.
4) Keeping your shoulder blades strongly down your back, draw your navel in toward your spine and up toward your heart and feel your lower back release slightly toward the floor. Think about the length and space in your spine; make it a conduit for energy to flow. Then lift your arms to a T and feel the energy flow from fingertip to fingertip.
5) Inhale and feel the energy travel through the crown of your head. Root strongly into your left foot, and as you exhale, let your right fingertips draw your torso to the right as far as it will go. Do this consciously, letting your left foot anchor you and letting your left hip pull strongly toward the left foot even as your fingertips draw your torso to the right.
6) Take an inhale here and see if you can lift your heart and lengthen the right side of your ribcage.
7) As you exhale, lower your right hand (but not your torso) to your shin (or, if you have very open hips, to the floor). Let your left fingertips point toward the ceiling.
8) Turn your head to look at the floor for a moment while you check your alignment. Your hips should remain square to the side of the mat, although your left hip will try to creep forward. Square your hips by allowing your inner thighs to rotate toward the side of the mat and up toward the ceiling.
9) Notice if the right side of your ribcage is crunched or curved. If it is, move your right hand further up your leg so you can draw the right ribcage straight and long and parallel to the floor to allow the free flow of energy. Concentrate on sending your hips toward the back of the mat and your heart toward the front of the mat to help with this spinal lengthening.
10) Finally, make sure your shoulder blades are still down your back, keeping your shoulders away from your ears. Allow your neck to be long, tuck your chin slightly, and allow your head to turn on your neck so you are gazing up at your left fingertips. If your neck feels uncomfortable in this position, continue to look at the floor or straight ahead.
11) As you breathe in this pose feel your heart start to lift and open. Follow the energy it sends out. Feel it traveling out your fingertips, your feet, the crown of your head, and your tailbone. Think of yourself as a star.
Come to think of it, no matter what energy you use to accomplish all you do, a star is what you are.
12) Come out of this pose by letting your left fingertips draw you up to standing with a long, straight spine. Turn your toes so your left toes face the back of your mat and your right foot is at a 45-degree angle with your right toes facing toward the side of the mat and up toward the bottom (now top) of the mat. (Or, from step 11, come through a vinyasa and step your left foot forward).
13) Repeat on the left side.
One more time because it bears repeating. You are a star.
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