Having a mind/body practice has helped me through three major shit storms in my life…
Shit storm #1
The location: San Francisco
The time: 1995
The set-up: I’m 25 years old. I’ve lived in San Francisco for three years. I moved here after college graduation with a boyfriend with the goal of becoming an editor.
The boyfriend and I broke up two years ago and my dating life since has been pretty pathetic. I am working for a small (now defunct) book publisher, where I first answered phones and made coffee for $7/hour and have now worked my way up to editor. That sounds like a good thing, but now that I’m working in my “dream” job, I’m thinking, “If this is a good as my work life gets, I’m going to have a nervous breakdown.”
Then I loan my car to a friend while I go on vacation. He is rear-ended by an airport shuttle van. The car is totaled. (No one is hurt.) I get a settlement check for $11,000 and decide to quit my job while I plot my next move. I go to my first yoga class in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday. Riding my bike home after that first class, I remember seeing the individual leaves on the trees that the day before had only appeared as one big green blob. I also felt exhilarated by the range of possibilities before me instead of paralyzed. I kept going to class. (And ultimately decided to move to Manhattan and get back to my East Coast roots.)
Shit storm # 2
The location: New York City
The time: 2002
The set-up: I’m 32. I’ve continued practicing yoga and have quit my corporate job to work for a non-profit and enroll in a yearlong teacher training at OM yoga. I’ve also sublet my apartment and moved to suburban New Jersey with my boyfriend of two years. Two weeks after the moving trucks pull away, my boyfriend dumps me for a woman a decade younger than me. Except he doesn’t tell me that’s why he’s leaving—a mutual friend does. I’m living in a town where I know no one, in the midst of a radical career change, and find myself back to square one on the dating front when I had thought I was one step away from marriage. I regularly cry on the shoulders of strangers who happen to sit next to me on the commuter train and naively ask me, “How’s it going?”
Thankfully, the teacher training requires that I do boatloads of yoga and get very disciplined about meditating. That year, I healed from that relationship, developed the confidence to pursue writing, made lifelong friends, and learned that even when it feels like everything is falling away you’re still getting exactly what you need. Just as the training was ending, I met my now-husband at a party. A prom party. (He was wearing a hideous 70s tux; his orange bow tie was it for me.)
Shit storm #3
The location: Brooklyn
The time: 2007
The set-up: Scott and I are married. Now 37, I am in labor with our first child, Lillian. Although regular contractions start on Saturday night, and my water breaks on Monday morning, by Tuesday morning there is still no baby. She isn’t born until Tuesday night, a whopping 72 hours after labor first started. I believe two things finally kicked things in to high gear and helped me avoid a c-section: a homeopathic remedy administered by my midwife, and an impromptu dialogue I had with my uterus while meditating in the delivery room.
I thought everything would be bliss once Lillian arrived. But turns out, newborn babies stress me way the heck out. (See my essay in Yoga International for more on this.) Every time she cried, I sweated blood. If she had a short nap, I wanted to throw myself out the window. I just could not relax during those early months. But I stuck with a home yoga practice, which helped me find glimpses of relaxation and gave me perspective on the little problems that seemed so very big at the time.
And then came Shit storm #4: the arrival of our son, Teddy. Everyone told me that going from one to two kids was an even bigger adjustment than going from no kids to one. How I scoffed at them!
Then Teddy arrived and I started the whole wigged-out-mommy cycle all over again. And then my work completely evaporated just as my self-funded maternity leave ended. I was broke, exhausted, doughy, and dejected. I gave up on my practice for a while, and things got even worse. I just couldn’t find the time or energy to roll out the mat. I also couldn’t find any inspiration for making motherhood and the pursuit of mind-body balance: I talked to my friends who are moms and practice yoga, and they all admitted that it took them years to get back in a regular yoga habit. I felt totally adrift.
So I started experimenting. I began meditating while I nursed Teddy to sleep. When Lillian went through a phase where she insisted I stay with her until she fell asleep, I did gentle yoga on her bedroom floor. I started doing a child’s pose in bed as soon as I woke up or just before I passed out. And I began viewing some of the mundane tasks of motherhood – sweeping, reading the same book over and over – as exercises in mindfulness. And I realized something incredible – even tiny pockets of time devoted to a wide range of practices can have a huge impact on how I feel, how I relate to my kids, and how I perceive the world.
Day by day, I climbed out of the disenchanted hole I’d fallen in to and developed a whole arsenal of ways to keep an open dialog going between my mind and body. And now, a year and a half later, I’m dedicated to sharing all that I’ve learned with anyone who feels they’re too busy, tired, or stressed to take better care of themselves.
I’m targeting working moms because that’s what I am, that’s what my friends are, and that’s what I know intimately. But if that moniker doesn’t describe you and you’re intrigued by anything you read on this site, you are so very welcome to be here. So. Very. Welcome.
Contact me at: kate[at]msmindbody.com.