Don’t Push and Keep Breathing

My children are slowly edging toward teenager-dom. A scary time. Perhaps now, before all hell breaks loose, I’d do well to find some coping techniques that might work. Yesterday, at doula training, I had an epiphany, directly from labor and delivery, which I think is perfect for life. This one I intend to use: Don’t push and keep breathing!

We were discussing a phase of birth called transition. In this phase a woman moves from the early and active phases of laboring to the second stage, or actual delivery, of the baby. Transition is the hardest and most painful part of the birth. Contractions are coming in greater frequency and are longer and stronger. The baby’s head is lower in the mother’s pelvis, ready to make its way out to the world. It is putting a lot of pressure on the mother’s bottom, but the mother’s body is not yet ready for delivery, and she needs to practice this fabulous lifelong lesson: Don’t push and keep breathing!

What a wonderful lesson for the future! It is a lesson all us parents would do well to remember when the time comes for the baby’s first steps and her first attempt to go up and down the stairs. It is perfect for our son’s first day of kindergarten, his first playdates at a friend’s house, and the first time he goes to the neighborhood store by himself. It’s invaluable for our daughter’s first car ride, her first date with a boy, and for when she asks us for help with birth control. And later, too, this lesson remains: when our boy goes to college, marries, and has his own child. Don’t push and keep breathing! Let go! Stay calm!

Parenthood is a hard road, paved with mistakes, crises, and love. It can teach us so much about ourselves, some that we like and some that we really, but really, don’t like. In the doula class yesterday, we learned that one good position for a laboring woman in transition to be in is to lie on her back in bed with her legs resting on the birthing ball. The blood is flowing easier in her body. The pressure is there, the contractions are strong, but she is in a position of relaxation, and she cannot push.

Keep breathing. Don’t push. Let’s lie back with our feet on the ball and at least try to relax. Let the blood flow to our brains. Soon enough transition will pass. It’s the hardest phase, and after that, at least till the next transition, we can get some relief. The daughter or son who we brought to this world and who had taught us so much will soon be all grown up and doing just fine. Like our road, so theirs is paved with mistakes and with love. If they stumble or fall, we parents are there, ready to kiss and hug and give our support. Don’t push and keep breathing. I know we’re going to be all right.

Criss Cross Apple Sauce

A few years ago, I worked for six months as a teacher’s aid in first grade. The desks in the classroom were arranged around a central area rug, and the teachers often collected the children there to read or teach. I thought this system was great, creating a much more interactive and active environment, though for me, sitting slumped forward and cross legged for half an hour or more caused some back ache.

While teaching on the rug, the kids were expected to sit still and listen. There was to be no touching each other, no playing with their hair, and no tying and untying of shoelaces. Tough rule, I thought, and nearly impossible to keep. When I was six and in first grade, we sat at our desks and studied during all school hours, but no one ever told me that I was not allowed to draw. I happen to concentrate best when I am doodling, and all through my school years, from elementary school to business school, I filled my notebooks with little flowers and shapes.

Keeping a child utterly still and at attention can be as hard as getting the earth to stop moving. What’s the chance that I could convince the world to criss cross apple sauce for a long period of time? One day, when my writing flows, everyone is home, happy, and healthy, I would just press the pause button and order this great big rock to stop. No more transition periods, no more need to adjust to changes, no reason to say good bye to anyone I love. Scary idea, isn’t it? Because then there would be no growth, no travel, no possibility of reshaping life.

And yet I yearn for stability. Transitions make me unbalanced, and I stop writing. Not writing upsets me, and makes writing even harder, rattling me more. And suddenly there is no end in sight.

Whenever I feel ungrounded like that, the solution that presents itself is practicing meditation. And I’m back to criss cross apple sauce and no moving! For a while, I managed to meditate for fifteen minutes twice a day. I have a hard time sitting still. Thoughts creep up constantly, harassing me. My skin itches and my legs fall asleep. But then, once I’m done, clarity suffuses me. I’m a new woman.

I read once about a man who complained that he has no time to meditate. The Dalai Lama responded by asking: do you have time to breathe? And I realize, as I am writing this, that there are many constants in my life. The beating of my heart. The rise and fall of my breath. The blink of my eyelashes as they keep my eyes moistened. And other, imperceptible happenings, like the never-ending growing of my hair or the flaking off of skin cells.

Amazing, isn’t it? Noticing my own breath, a kind of meditation, can give so much calm. It really does. Now I just need to remember that next time I feel overwhelmed by changes.

Hellos and Goodbyes

I used to resent the many hellos and goodbyes in my life. I felt the hole, the emptiness in the house when the kids were at their dad’s. Then, when they returned, I worried over every moment I spent away from them. I suffered under the transience of people in my life: Dar when he still had his apartment, my family and friends who live in other corners of the world.

Hello! I missed you! How are you? And the kids? And then it’s time to say goodbye. And then hello again! How are you? How’s the family? Did you end up getting that job? And goodbye again. How can I live a life when people pop in and out, when I pop in and out, the lives of everyone else? If only the kids were here full time, I thought. Or, if only Dar and I lived together. I wished for continuity, one stable person in my life to whom I wouldn’t continually have to say goodbye.

For a while, my wish seemed to come true. Dar moved in with us and, being between jobs, we spent a lot of time together. Reading my blog to Dar before posting it encouraged me. Seeing him seated opposite me at his desk anchored me to my own pursuits. Watching him planting garlic, potatoes and daffodils in our garden, experimenting with different kinds of soil and locations, created a joyful blanket of safety in my heart. Every daily exchange painted the world in hues of pink and love. My writing blossomed. Stability brought out the best in me. I could feel my creativity pouring out, secure in the happiness of having this one person who is really here for me.

But stability, you know, is fleeting. The Buddhists say the only enduring state is that of change. These last two weeks I got to say a lot of hellos and goodbyes: to family who came for a visit, to Dar who is starting a new job, to the kids as they move back and forth between houses. Yet I don’t feel either the resentment or the lack of continuum anymore. I found other anchors to depend on: my writing, this blog, cooking, my love for the children and Dar, my love for my family and friends. Love and following my dreams ended up improving my tolerance for impermanence, filling up the emptiness and holes from before.

I like to think that my life is a river. When the current is fast, it leaves little time for more than a call “Hello!” and “Goodbye!” to anyone I meet on my way. When the current is slow, I savor the wonders of this world. And more often, frightened out of my wits, I hang on to a bush (which usually turns out to be a blackberry with many thorns) by the riverside, resisting where the current wants me to go. But the river always flows on, and the scenery always changes. As I do, too. And I think, altogether, it's good.