Just Breathe...and Notice

Auld Lang Syne

I'm not gonna lie:  2011 was not my favorite year.

It was a year of losing someone very dear to me.  It was a year of loneliness.  It was a year of failing, time and time again, to really do my best.  It was a year of stagnation.

It's New Year's Eve morning, 2011 and I'm sitting -- literally and figuratively -- in the same place I was 365 days ago.  I am still a barely-employed stay-at-home mom/consultant.  I still start evey day with a promise to write something/anything.  I still end nearly evey day with the shame of having frittered away my time.  I still walk around with that same gnawing sense that something essential is missing.   2011 is ending, and I have not brought my best.  I've not even come close.

Stagnation is an odd thing though, and not entirely without blessings.  My lack of motion left me with a whole lot of time to squirm around in my skin.  In 2011, I was like a car stalled on a desolate back road.  Without movement, I had no choice but to stare at the same scene day after day after day.  Stalled out on that desolate back road, I frequently found myself nose-to-nose with bits of myself that were easily blurred and overlooked  by the motion of more momentous years.

These bits and I  -- we've have a bit of a showdown in 2011.  Some of them I picked like scabs, then wallowed in various combinations of grief and self-pity as I bled.  Some of them I tried to cover, like hanging a picture over a chunk of broken drywall.  Some were ugly.  Many more, surprisingly, were not.  They all shouted for attention.  They all demanded to be claimed.

So that's what I did in 2011:  I tentatively and reluctantly began to lay claim to myself.  I have brushed against my own ugliness and beauty, envies and desires, hopes, fears, and scars.  And, sitting in that stalled car on a desolate back road, I've learned a little bit about each of them. 

I've learned that even the ugliest thing isn't so awful.  I've learned that envy makes me a smaller person.  I've learned that I often don't put enough energy into things that matter, and put way too much into things that don't. 

I've learned that desires and hopes need voices before they can even begin to take form.  I've learned that my deep sensitivity and deep compassion go hand in hand and neither should be stemmed.

I've learned that the most frightening thing to claim is my own beauty and power, because once I own them, I can no longer deny my responsibility to myself.

I hope I can get my car stated in 2012, because while I've made some peace with this view, I suspect there's lots more for me to see.

Happy 2012 to us all. 

May we all be be loved and accepted. 

May we all  love and accept. 

May we all bless the spaces and people we touch.

May we all be blessed.

 

Why can't he just ask how babies are made?!?

I think I've mentioned before that Ean struggles with anxiety (apple/tree, right?).  His anxiety peaked last spring/summer and included both panic attacks and some very unsettling intrusive and obsessive thoughts.  I did what I could to help him manage it, but it wasn't long before we realized we were in over our heads.

After lots of phone calls (and one false start with a therapist who suggested we needed to consider the possibility of schizophrenia) we found someone with experience in both childhood anxiety AND autism-spectrum disorders.  Ean really connected with him and has learned some wonderful cognitive-behavioral strategies for dealing with anxiety.  The most effective strategy  (or at least what we THOUGHT was the most effective strategy)?  Cursing (silently, of course!) at his worries. 

For the record:  nothing gives a 9-year old boy as sense of power like being given free reign to drop the F-bomb -- even if it's only in his head.

It wasn't long before we began to notice a rapid and dramatic improvement in Ean's affect.  Naturally, we assumed that it was attributable to all the time (and money!) spent in therapy -- so imagine my surprise when we had THIS conversation:

"Mom, I don't worry anymore.  Wanna know why?"

"Of course I want to know why -- just remember that curse words are only for INSIDE your head!".

"No.  No!  It's not the curse words.  It's God!!"

"God?"

"God!  I learned in Hebrew school that we're all God's children.  So, since parents are supposed to keep children safe, then God must be keeping me safe.  I don't have to worry about anything because God is protecting me!!  Right?  RIGHT?!?!?"

Aw, SHIT.  

Honestly?  There was a brief millisecond when I considered just running with it.  Of saying RIGHT!  RIGHT!!!   OF COURSE!!  Even throwing in a few hallelujahs and amens for good measure.   For that one brief millisecond I wondered if affirming that faith, however illusory, would give him the peace he was seeking.

I couldn't do it.  I could not, in good conscious, tell my child that he doesn't have to worry because he is protected by God.  As someone who suffers from severe anxiety, I understand the appeal of this belief.  I understand how serene I'd feel if I could be assured that nothing bad was ever going to happen.  As someone who believes in God, I also understand how tempting it is to try to place the responsibility for my safety and serenity on the shoulders of divinity.

The simple answer --- the easy answer -- would have been to say say yes. It would have soothed him.  It would have stopped the cycle of fear and anxiety. It would have made all our  lives easier, at least temporarily.

But I didn't say yes.  Instead, I stammered and muttered some lame explanation about how "God doesn't really work that way", followed quickly by "hey, who wants ice cream?!?"

And that, my friends, is how you parent your 9-year old through his first spiritual crisis. Fo shizzle.

The question has bubbled up a few times since then, though never quite as directly.  I still stammer my way through a response --- mostly because I don't know how to distill my own beliefs into words and concepts that will be meaningful for a fearful 9-year old (or an unfettered 8-year old).

I want my children to know that they are not at the mercy of an anthropomorphized, interceding God. 

I want my children to understand that lasting serenity is not found by believing in divine protection.  Lasting serenity is found by accepting that there are no guarantees, and embracing life regardless. 

I want my children to be responsible and proactive, but still appreciate that they can only live one breath at a time, because that's all we really have.

I want my children to know that the stories they learn in Hebrew school were written by people, not God, and while rich with beauty and wisdom, they should only be understood as metaphor.

I want my children to know that an anthropomorphized, interceding God is an illusion.

I want my children to understand that God is both fully transcendent AND fully immanent.   I want them to know that every bit of life vibrates with Divinity, but that God is so much greater than the sum of all the parts.  I want them to understand the greatest mystery of all:  that the full and complete God dwells within each and every person.

I want my children to embrace their own Divinity and to honor the Divinity of others.

I want my children to find true peace and serenity in their lives  -- not because they believe they are exempted from tragedy, but because they are willing to dance next to it.