Doing What Needs To Be Done

(Photo courtesy of Libby Mundy. All rights reserved.)

It doesn’t really matter if we are tired or grouchy or unbalanced or sick.  Like it or not, the show must go on.  This is the mantra for any mom – working, stay-at-home, doesn’t matter. We all have things to do, people to see, places to go, kids to feed, plants to water, dishes to wash, laundry to fold, bills to pay . . .

There’s a line in Oriah’s poem “The Invitation” (which is incredible – a call to live life fully and deeply) that goes:

“It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.”

I was acutely reminded of this over the last week as my 12-year-old son, once again, struggles to sleep at night. The start of 7th grade has gotten the best of him and his anxieties are on red alert; a sleeping tiger has been poked.  He awakens in the middle of the night, hearing “things”, thinking someone is in his room. Preparing for how he’ll handle an intruder.  It’s no good. He calls for me and I’m prepared, have already given myself the pep talk before falling asleep “Be patient. Be compassionate. Meet him where he is.”  The simplest solution: Send him in to sleep with his dad. Me, well I’ll fend for myself. I, too, struggle in his room; even I hear “things”.  I head down to the basement to sleep on the couch. Three times in the last week. No sounds, thank goodness, but not much back support either.  The mornings come early – ready or not . . .

Yes, this is what every mom knows. No matter how busy, sleep-deprived, or crazy we may feel, we still have to get up, make our kids breakfast, pack their lunches; do what needs to be done. But where we do have a choice, where we can make a difference, is the attitude in which we approach these chores of ours – our daily to-do list.  And, how we take care of ourselves on a daily basis, so that we bring our best selves, and attitude, to the table – literally and figuratively.

Figuring out how to best do this is truly a labor of love, a constant work in progress.  If Self-Care 101 were a class, the following are my directives for a more balanced life.  And since my life is all about moderating my perfectionistic tendencies, knowing what works and using those to center and care for myself, has gotten me through many a long morning when all I can think as the alarm goes off at 5:20 a.m. is: “When can I get back in this bed???”   Which happens to be a perfect segue to #1.

1. Get up an hour earlier than your kids. I know, I resisted this for the longest time and wanted to get up 10 minutes before I had to wake them. But now, in that hour, I have a cup of coffee, I write, I read my affirmation, I start on their lunches . . . and, I get my head on straight. Then, I wake them with a smile.
2. Eat well.  This is huge and so important.  Know what works for your body (a probiotic has been a life-changer for me!). Make sure you are giving your body what it needs for optimal functioning.  Fruits, veggies, good sources of protein.  It matters. A lot.  And if you are doing this, not only will you feel better, you’ll be setting a great example for your kids. And you’ll have the energy you need to get you from that early morning all the way to early bedtime.
3. SLEEP!  Ahhhh, the elusive lover of all multi-tasking moms. We need it.  Just as much as our snoring husband and busy kids. Try to get the sleep your body needs for a week and see what a difference it makes.  If all else fails, sneak in a nap.  Turning off your brain for 20 minutes provides a re-set for the rest of your day and almost makes up for the late nights and early mornings (or at least makes them a bit more manageable).
4. Exercise every day. For me, I have to be outdoors for the vitamin D and the energy of the air and trees.  I’m not saying you have to train for a marathon but walk your dog, go around the block with your kid, ride your bike and feel the wind in your hair, or do a 20 minute yoga DVD in your basement. Do SOMETHING. Way more than just physical (though we like that too!), this provides mental and emotional benefits that will give you more energy with which to embrace your day.
5. Read something inspirational every day. A quote. Rumi's poetry. Someone’s blog (discovered momastery.com this week and it is amazing!). A daily affirmation. Dwell on this inspiration as your day unfolds.  We can control our thoughts.  And we can either focus on the negative or we can think positively.  Either way, you are in control and whatever you think, you are right! 
6. Connect with at least one of “your people” in some form or fashion (phone call, text, email, or if you are really lucky, do coffee or a walk!).  This connection – big or small – will fortify you. And they might just need to hear from you too – I’m all about win-win!
7. Find one thing each day you are really grateful for and either mentally or verbally give thanks. That thankful energy you send out comes back to you in other forms of good.  We typically go around at dinner and each say one thing we are thankful for. Last night, it was the rainstorm and the power outage.  Sage and I loved sitting in the dark with candles imagining what it was like before electricity. And, being thankful for the many conveniences we take for granted every day.
8. Make your bed! Well, bed-making serves my need for feeling like my house is ready to greet the day but maybe for you it’s loading or unloading the dishwasher or running the vacuum.  Doing at least one of those things keeps it all in perspective and doesn’t let those pesky household chores pile up. I hate when that happens!!!
9. Look for beauty everywhere and anywhere. Notice it. Comment on it to your kids, a colleague, your spouse.  When we notice the beauty, it feeds our sense of wonder and makes room for more of the same.  Maybe it’s the pink of the sky at dusk or a weedy, purple flower amidst the hedge or a soaring hawk overhead. Beauty is everywhere – an instant lift, an affirmation of good – when we are paying attention.
10. Ask for what you need.  This one’s one of those life-long lessons that I keep circling back to. It’s as if I expect to be able to do it all and to do it perfectly.   Or die trying!!!  So I’m saying this for you, as well as for me: ask others for what you need.  And 9 times out of 10, if the other person can help, they will! And your relationship will be strengthened in the process. If we don’t advocate for our needs and ourselves, then our needs, most likely, will not get met. No chance.  But if we advocate just a little, well, who knows what good may come??  And when all else fails – delegate!!!  As my kids have gotten older, I have discovered they can and will help with lots on my to-do list (but sometimes in my rush to work my list, I forget to ask!).

Don’t let anyone tell you differently. We moms, we ARE superheroes.  We bring home the bacon. We fry it up in a pan.  We slay the dragons. We check under the bed for monsters.  We read the bedtime stories with meaning and inflection. We get the clothes ready for the next day . . . We do what needs to be done. But while we are doing all that, please don’t forget about YOU.  Make time for yourself in that long to-do list.  You, your family, the dog – all will be happier, healthier, more whole for the efforts you make on your own behalf.  Unquestionably, to take care of them.  But as importantly, to take care of you!

What kinds of self-care most support you? How are you good to yourself on a daily basis? Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas so we can learn from each other.  And in following with #7 above, know how much I appreciate you – the give and take I receive from my blog and your reading and participation fill me up in so many ways.  Thank you for sharing, participating in my journey, and reading!

The Music In Me

Photo courtesy of Libby Mundy, c. 2015.

When God put me together, I’m not sure, but he may have been distracted . . . For one, I have two different sized ears. This has never really been a problem. In fact, hardly anyone has ever even noticed until I point it out. But alas, my left ear is significantly bigger than my right.  When I asked my mom why she had never thought to have it corrected when I was younger she replied, “Well, you never aspired to be a runway model so I didn’t think it was necessary.”  Nope, no runway modeling for me, darn it.  Simply wasn’t in the cards (or in the thighs, but who’s cataloguing my “imperfections” anyway??).

Another area where God may have been out to lunch? My musical gene.  In all honesty, I can live without music most of the time.  I know, it sounds crazy, right?  But the way my head works, there’s not room for all my thoughts/ideas/conversations (real or imagined)/prayers and music at the same time.  Especially music I don’t like.  Where, for most people, music adds this whole other layer of amazing, for me, much of the time, it adds a whole other layer of annoying.

Unless music is the point.  Then, it’s a different story. If I’m heading to a concert or intentionally seeking out music because I like the band, then I’m all ears. In the car, on a long drive, I love turning on the radio and finding songs like old loves, kindling a flame of memory and emotion. Other days, I can sing along to my kids’ favorite, current “pop” songs; some of which I am big enough to admit, I actually like! So, just to be clear, there are times when my touchy tuning fork is less transparent and I’m almost “normal” – able to truly enjoy the music and feel its magic.

Unfortunately though, music’s magic doesn’t hold me long.  And the music that is magic to me?  Not magic to my husband (and vice versa!).  We find our tastes veering sharply from one another a good 80% of the time. Take the other night, for instance. He puts on some music as we are getting ready to go out to dinner with friends. If I were picking, it would be something familiar and upbeat – Van Morrison or Michael Franti would have suited me just fine.  But whatever he put on had this squealing guitar (it might have been a “jam” band or just somebody jamming on their guitar) and it slayed me (and not in a good way either . . . ).

Now, give me almost anything from the 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s and I’m singin’ along, reminiscing, sometimes even dancing. Not too long ago, I ran across a cassette tape (my kids didn’t know how to pronounce “cassette” . . . ) of Whitney Houston’s “Emotions”.  I popped it in Sage’s little Hello Kitty radio/cassette player and literally went crazy. (Seriously, I almost threw my back out as I swizzled all around the living room!)  Grabbed Sage’s hairbrush from the coffee table, used it as a mike, and it was on.  And though I think I may have scared (scarred??) my kids, I did Whitney proud. (Even if my walk had a little hitch in it after my fervor died down and I returned to my middle-aged, mom self – much to my children’s relief!).

So, me and music, we’ve got our thing – peculiar, non-traditional, nonsensical (i.e., I don’t like music without words) . . .  but like it or not, it’s who I am. Just ask my husband, I’m high maintenance in some very unique ways (and low in a few others in my defense!); music just happens to be one of them.

The irony in all of this is that as a product of Gerry Mundy, this music malady of mine would appear to make absolutely no sense. Because music was my dad’s religion. And he loved it ALL. Knew every up and coming singer or band. Could foresee an artist’s upward trajectory before their star was ever born. Liked rock, folk, bluegrass, rap, blues, hip-hop.  My dad was a musical master.  The conversation always began, “What are you listening to these days? What are you reading?” Music constantly permeated the tapestry of my childhood.  Some of it I liked, some of it I did not. Nevertheless, it was a mainstay in our home. And where my brother got a super-sized dose of that gene (let’s just say his cup runneth over), my cup, er gene, seems only half full.

And honestly, I’m O.K. with it most of the time. Because what I’ve discovered is that the music I most often seek, well, it’s within me. And it doesn’t always have a band or a melody though it almost always has words (because where would I be without words??). The “songs” I hear inside of me might be visualizations or affirmations or prayers or questions I am grappling with.  Their rhythm and cadence feed me like one of Jerry Garcia’s tunes might fill a dirty, devoted Dead Head: fully and with satisfying, whole-hearted, soul-deep goodness.

So there we have it. Two different ears - imperfectly perfect (the better to hear the nuances of my life with!); a special needs musical gene that helps me more fully embrace the melody I most need to hear: the singing of my own heart. Doing what it loves. Being honest about what it doesn’t. Being true to myself no matter what. Even if that means my and my husband’s paths diverge – musically and in other ways too . . . (And though it’s not always smooth, we’re still learning. For instance, on Father’s Day I *thoughtfully* gave Jeff some high-end headphones for his exclusive listening pleasure.  One friend who knows about our differences commented, “Isn’t that a self-serving gift???” To which I quickly replied, “No, I call it win-win!”)

Yeah, God could have been distracted when he pieced me together but I’d like to think not.  In fact, I think God knew exactly what he was doing when he made me – just another unique musical note from the symphony of his very own heart, put here to embrace all that I am and am not in the quest to be the very best version of me I can.

And you? What “imperfections” have you had to embrace on your path to wholeness? And which of these actually makes you more of who you are in the very best ways? Of course, that’s exactly why they are there. To make us dig that much deeper and find the self-love and compassion to accept ourselves – extraordinary beats in God’s groovy band - no matter what.

Dig away, my friend. And, rock on.

I Am

 

In late July, with Taggart headed to Rhode Island on a school trip, I decided to see if there was an enrichment “camp” I could talk Sage into that would: a.) give me a few very-much-needed hours each day to get a few things done, and b.) give her some fun activities and educational fortification as she gets ready to jump into 2^nd grade in a few weeks.   Given that her favorite 1^st grade teacher was leading the two “camps” I was trying to sell her on – a Writer’s Workshop and Math Fact Frivolities - I pretty much knew it would be a shoo-in. 

 Off she went to her two little camps and off I’d go to exercise, grocery shop, and cram some vacuuming or watering or laundry in.  And at 2 p.m. each afternoon, I couldn’t wait to hear what she did and how her day was.  She would inevitably say the writing camp was boring though she is very creative and loves to write songs and stories at home.  Hmmmm.  The math camp?  Two big thumbs up . . . double hmmmmmm.  She’s never loved math and always loved writing.  Digging into this conundrum I learned two things: in math camp they played games and did “easy” math; I’d like that too! In the writing class, she had to use her noggin, get quiet, think about things that had happened in her little, lovely 7-year-old life so far, and write about those.

The first “essay” that came home was called “How I Got My Gash”, the story of a traumatic hayride accident last Thanksgiving when her leg got crushed between the trailer we were on and a hackberry tree.  And when I say traumatic I mean just typing this makes my stomach clench and my breath catch . . . it is the scariest thing as a parent I have experienced thus far. She has never wanted to discuss the accident and when it has been brought up, she says she can’t talk about it.  And though she is perfectly fine now and her calf has only a large scar the size of a tennis ball to show for the experience, I didn’t know what indelible marks might have been made on the inside.  So the fact that she put her story down on paper and wrote about it: priceless. Fine by me that she only wanted her teacher see it but didn’t want to share with her campmates, I could finally see her processing her experience – actually have tangible evidence of it - and it thrilled me (as her mom and as a trained counselor).  When all else fails, writing has never disappointed. Has always been there for me.  Maybe my sweet girl gets that too. It makes my heart happy.

So then, on the last day of camp, when I asked “So what’d you do today?” and she replied “Nothin’ really”, I wasn’t at all surprised when she handed me some crumpled papers and I came across a poem she had written that very day.  And it was so much better than “Nothin’ really”!  Following a template her teacher gave her, Sage’s poem went like this:

“I Am”

I am a loving, pretty 2^nd grader

I wonder how tall God is

I hear kids yelling

I see 5 dogs

I am a loving, pretty 2^nd grader

I pretend to be a teacher

I feel a rainbow coming

I touch a tree

I worry about my house on fire

I cry about my Grandma being lonely

I am a loving, pretty 2^nd grader

I understand that T-Rexes were real

I say that nothing is impossible

I dream that I could meet a star

I try to win cross country

I hope I get to eat soon

I am a loving, pretty 2^nd grader

Can I just say, I love this girl of mine? Oh, but I do love her.  Every inch, wart, crevice, crease, cell. So inspired was I by her honest, sweet little poem, I decided to give my own “I Am” a shot. Surprisingly, the hardest line, the one I struggled with for days and had at least twenty different answers to: “I hope . . . “.  (Note sweet Sage’s above.  Written right before lunch, I’m pretty sure she didn’t toil long over her big hope!). It wasn’t easy, boiling down what I am in this moment in time, in this chapter of my life, to a 17 line poem (4 lines of which are redundant, but who’s counting??).  Nonetheless, it was a worthy exercise, shedding light on how we see ourselves and how we want to be seen, what we value, and what we love - I highly recommend it!

“I Am”

I am a divine and pure expression of light and love

I wonder what gifts my children will share with the world

I hear the angels’ sweet laughter

I see my truest self reflected back to me in the eyes of those I trust

I want to leave my own indelible mark on the world

I am a divine and pure expression of light and love

I pretend to not be scared about death and dying

I feel safe in a cathedral of trees

I touch God when I breathe deep and get still

I worry about not accomplishing what I came here to do

I cry when I feel disconnected and forget my own truth

I am a divine and pure expression of light and love

I understand we are all connected by ribbons of energy

I say I am a recovering perfectionist

I dream a world of peace, joy, and enough

I try for balance and moderation in all things

I hope I can always be small enough to believe and big enough to forgive

I am a divine and pure expression of light and love