Author: Rachel

(Mom.me)

My toddler son and I spend a lot of time at the children’s museum. It’s an oasis — that rare place where a rambling, fired-up little guy can run freely, a sanctuary of rounded corners and rubbery surfaces where I can sit down and exhale for a minute or two without worrying that he’s going to dart into the street or careen down a staircase.

But every time we go, I find myself stealthily scoping out the other mothers (or fathers or nannies or grandparents) and wondering what they’re thinking. Are they, too, relieved and exhausted and under-showered and over-caffeinated? Do they look at me and see a cool, calm mama?

If only they knew …

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(Mamalode)

He’s fallen asleep, finally, finally.

His teething mouth is clamped onto the Ergo strap.

Is he breathing?

I check.

Yes, phew, breathing.

I am so tired. He is so tired.

He’s been up every hour the last two nights.

Out of the blue, after settling into a nice pattern of sleeping for 6-7 hour chunks, followed by a quick 3am feeding, then cuddling in the big bed til 7am. It had become a lovely routine.

We took it for granted.

He hates to nap. He needs to nap.

I need for him to nap. Desperately.

Those naps save me.

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(OM Yoga Magazine)

Buddhists talk about learning to cultivate spaciousness: an internal boundlessness, a softness, a room free of excess thought and clutter that lets the tumbleweeds of changing thoughts and moods blow right by, a certain openness to what is, unreliant upon what was or what is to come. Geographies of prana – be they the big Utah sky over the salt flats, or your backyard garden, or a quiet detour off the Appalachian Trail, or a roadside rest stop off the Great Highway overlooking the Pacific Ocean – cultivate this spaciousness, open it up, crack open our chests and allow room for breath and life and a connection with the buzzing kind of material realness that we can only find in nature.

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(BeYogi)

I’ve been taking more care with my words these days. Having learned from my yoga and meditation practices over the years not to identify with my thoughts, I try hard to no longer say I’m tired, I’m furious, or I’m over it.

Yoga philosophy teaches us that the world is in perpetual motion and that all realities are always changing, whether they’re our bodies, relationships, or thoughts. That underlying notion of a permanent me? Simply an illusion. That’s impermanence for you.

With that in mind, rather than saying I’m exhausted, I’m angry or I’m sick of this, I decided to consciously practice saying I feel exhausted, I feel angry, or I feel sick of this.

I am mortified became I feel mortified.

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