Push, Balance, Steer

Posted on 04/28/201404/28/2014 by kosanford

When my children were learning to ride bikes this is the mantra we would repeat for them. In the videos of their first successful two wheeler rides you can hear them whispering to themselves, “push, balance, steer, push, balance, steer.” It became the magic words that propelled them onto two wheels.

I hear it in my own head when I feel like I am on shaky ground. It has become my own mantra, my own magic formula for reminding myself what I really need.

Push: We need to apply effort in our lives. Some days the effort can be just getting out of bed. It requires effort to sit down and meditate every day, or go to a yoga class or exercise. Even being polite especially to those we love most can be an effort. Sometimes, it is the effort of not listening to our own defeating chatter, or doing something that scares us. If you push too fast or far, you will fall, but if you don’t push at all you won’t ever move forward.

Balance: We all use the word, I am not sure we know what it means. To me balance means mostly follow the rules, but maybe break them a little every day. Balance means sleeping when I am tired, and eating when I am hungry, snuggling when an opportunity presents itself, and taking every chance I get to make sure I am plugging in to my life. Balance means showing up to the people who care about me, including myself. The road underneath me is always changing, balance means not thinking it will all be smooth and flat.

Steer: Being in the moment does not mean that there is no plan for tomorrow. We need to steer ourselves along a path. We don’t meditate to become awesome meditators. We meditate to become better human beings. We shouldn’t do yoga so that we can be at the front of the class in tight pants balancing on our noses. We should do it so that we are connected to our breath and body. We shouldn’t just fill our lives and hearts with people to avoid loneliness. We should fill our lives with relationships that uplift and encourage us. When we are steering ourselves in the right direction anything is possible. When we aren’t we end up on our asses by the side of the road.

Push, balance, steer, push, balance, steer, push, balance, steer….When you feel yourself wobbling, say it a few times, and you will be back on the road in no time…

Meditation, Yoga

I can’t find my zen in this mess…

Posted on 04/24/201405/23/2014 by kosanford

This morning I lost something. It has been pinned to the wall in my office for at least two years. I have never needed it until this morning, when I actually did. I could picture it, a CD in a pale blue envelope with some writing on it. It is the record of my daughter Mae’s 24 hour EEG, and I needed to Fedex it, to a doctor in New York. I waited until 7 in the morning to look for it, because really the optimum time to look for something important is while you are also trying to get your kids out the door for school.

The corkboard in my office where I swear that thing has been pinned, is also home to the kids’ school calendars, my bib numbers from races, important notes and cards from friends, a giant skeleton poster of the muscles and bones, and one of the central nervous system, 6 bumper stickers, a flyer for the first yoga workshop I ever taught, two pictures of me with my parents when I was little, a man made out of a popsicle stick, a tiger made out of a paper plate, and this very important piece of Mae’s medical history that I absolutely needed this morning.

The entire corkboard situation is actually hard to get to because my office chair is in front of it. You can’t actually see the chair because it is camouflaged by remaining christmas cards, snowsuits that everyone has outgrown, a gallon size ziploc bag of lego directions, a copy of the yoga sutras and two old copies of the New Yorker. When I moved the chair, all of that stuff slid off it and onto the vacuum cleaner which was perched just behind it. This caused the vacuum to tip forward, sealing my body between it and the desk. At this point, my blood pressure was through the roof.

Losing something, especially something which you could swear you see every day is annoying. Being trapped in your own messy, disorganized office, wasting valuable minutes when you need to be getting your family and yourself out the door, is a recipe for disaster. I desperately wanted to yell at someone, or something. Luckily, my family had scattered, either some animal sense for self-preservation had kicked in, or they actually saw me entering the war zone with a take no prisoners look on my face.

There is nothing zen about my office, in fact certain sections of it would land me on the show Hoarders. Most of the time, the mess doesn’t bother me, until I need something and then it makes me crazy.

This is the same relationship many of us have with our own minds. We are fine being busy, and multi tasking. We are fine just stacking thoughts and feelings in random piles to be addressed later. That is, until for some reason it all starts to move so fast that we feel like we can’t slow down, we can’t find anything. The corkboard in my office with it’s layers of unrelated papers and other snippets of my life is probably a fairly accurate representation of my thought process.

Just as cleaning and organizing a wildly messy living space gives us a sense of possibility and maybe even ease, so does taking some time to sit and bring a little space into our minds.

Take some time today to sit down and look at the space where you spend the most time: your head. Just take 10 minutes, find a quiet place to sit. Organize your body in a comfortable, alert but relaxed position, listen for the sound of your breath. When your attention wanders from your breath, just bring it back. It will wander a lot. That is OK. You don’t want to clear your mind of thought the same way you don’t clean your office by emptying all the shelves. You just want enough space in your mind that you can actually see your thoughts clearly, and weed out the ones not related to where your body is and what it’s doing.

If you go months and months without cleaning your office, things will start to build up. Important papers will get mixed up, and you won’t be able to find things when you need them. The same is true in your mind, it is easier to do a little bit every day than to wait until the day when you really feel yourself stressed and disconnected trying to center yourself on ever shifting ground.

Family, Marriage

I may be the kind of person who curses in front of toddlers

Posted on 04/22/201404/22/2014 by kosanford

One year after Christmas we went to Michigan with my husband’s family for a few days of rest. Both his brothers were going through painful divorces and I had gone from being the last of the daughters-in-laws to marry into the family, to the only daughter-in-law in a few short years. I wanted very badly to do a good job in this role, on one level because family is important, and the less elegant truth that I love being a hero.

My sons were just over 2 and 3, they were adorable. The younger one in particular looked as if he had fallen off the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Blond curls, chubby little legs and sweet smile. One afternoon, during this winter week, we were all bundled inside, a fire blazing and the gentle quiet that descends on winter houses filled with families. One of my brothers-in-law was on his computer, my father-in-law was snoozing, my husband, Colin, was reading, the kids were puttering around, and my mother-in-law and I were playing Scrabble with Colin’s older brother. At that moment, the door to the screen porch blew open. My two-year-old, Peter was just walking by it, and I asked him to close it. He threw himself against it, and it closed momentarily. Seconds later, it blew back open, and Peter valiantly hurled himself against it to close it again. It closed and he said, “Stupid door!” I responded by saying something to the effect of, “Peter, we don’t say stupid,” and looking at my mother-in-law to make sure she understood I was a perfect mother in every way. Peter, was still looking at his foe, the door, and said “If it opens again, I am going to say Fuck You door……”

This is the moment when everyone started to laugh so hard we had to stand up. Ten minutes later we were still giggling and wiping away tears. The whole thing was so ridiculous, the angelic child saying “fuck you” after his well meaning but sanctimonious mother had corrected him for using the word “stupid.”

This story always makes me laugh, because it is funny. It also makes me laugh at myself. I don’t really use the word “stupid” very often, but I apparently was not afraid to drop the F-bomb now and again. My children have never failed to remind me what is true. When I am striving to make the world believe I am perfect, they will unintentionally remind me I am not — either by cursing in front of my mother-in-law, or some other equally embarrassing disclosure.

The person I lie to most often is myself. I think that’s true for almost all of us. No one wants to think to themselves, “I am the kind of person who regularly curses in front of toddlers….Or I am the kind of person who prefers to watch the Real Housewives of something instead of the news….” This was so true in my case we had to cancel the cable, to save me from my from glassy eyed, slack jawed 11 pm self.

The truth is, we are all flawed, we all want to be the hero, curse less, exercise more, improve on what is there. To improve on anything you have to be honest about it. If you are going to be honest with yourself, do it with humor, do it with kindness. Every time I find myself pretending to be something I am not, I picture a defiant toddler saying ”fuck you door” and I am reminded that our true nature will always make itself known. So try and greet yourself with a smile and a wink…..and hope you mother-in-law does the same.

Family, Meditation, Yoga

I am my goal weight and still get parking tickets

Posted on 04/09/201404/09/2014 by kosanford

I am my goal weight and still get parking tickets
*Being your goal anything does not prevent you from getting parking tickets or anything else

You will never have more time after you “just get through this week”
*I have gone months when I say this every week

You aren’t going to yoga class because you don’t have time
*You have time, you are using it for other things

Those expensive pants you bought on sale, will still be too small next year
*No matter how discounted something is, if it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit. If you don’t wear them they cost too much no matter what

Gluten-free, organic, soy-free or dairy-free are not synonyms for good for you
*A bag of potato chips can be all these things, but if you eat the whole bag, you will probably regret it

There is no reason you cannot meditate
*It is OK not to want to, but don’t pretend you can’t

That person’s life is easier than mine because.
*This is never true, every single one of us experiences challenges, you just don’t know about theirs

Every day, I hear myself and the people around me hinging happiness on the future or creating a reason to not engage the present. If you want to develop a meditation practice, then sit down. If you want to have yoga in your life, then go to class. If you want to be happy, you have to understand what that means when you say it.

Fundamentally happiness is being loving and realistic about what you need and how you spend your time. You have to look at your habits and patterns with generosity, kindness and most importantly honesty.

There is no future happiness, it is a choice for right now, and you are the only one who can make that choice.

Family, Meditation, Uncategorized, Yoga

Practice what you preach

Posted on 04/07/201404/18/2016 by kosanford

As a yoga teacher I reference the mind/body connection a lot. Encouraging people to notice their breath and to make the connection between what’s happening in their mind and how their body may be responding is central to my teaching. It is impossible for us to be in a state of stress and anxiety and not manifest that in our bodies. The same is true with happiness, when we are at ease, our breath is deeper, our jaws relaxed, and our general overall posture improved. I talk about it all the time, but I didn’t really understand it until this fall.

In September, I went on a week long meditation retreat to Karme Choling in Barnet Vt. My in laws came in to replace me and help Colin with the driving. I left notes all over the house with instructions. The kitchen actually looked like a scene from the movie A Beautiful Mind. I set up outgoing messages on my email alerting people that I was removing myself from my life for a week.

The retreat itself was wonderful — not just the meditation sessions and the teachings — but Vermont in September is beautiful. For six whole days I did not cook, clean, put on anyone else’s shoes or wipe their buns. There were breaks in the middle of each day and I would go for long runs. In the morning I had at least an hour before breakfast to do yoga in my room with no dog to come in and lick my face or child to ask me to stop because one of their siblings was somehow ruining their life.

The last day I missed my family, and was ready to come home and see them. What amazed me was how easily I had spent the rest of the retreat as a solo act. How quickly I shed my skin of mother, wife, daughter teacher and friend. All of my responsibilities fell away and for almost a week I was really connected to the rhythm of myself. I felt great.

For the first few days at home, I continued to feel unusually present and aware. I smiled at strangers and they smiled back, I was not agitated at all and felt very much in sync with my life, not just inside my body and house but out in the world as well.

Then on Sunday afternoon, having been home for three days, I headed with Mae to the grocery store. We were doing a week’s worth of hunting and gathering but for some reason were not at our regular grocery store. I can’t remember why, but we went to one I rarely go to, and don’t have as clear a map of in my head. Either way, she was very well behaved the entire time, despite the fact it was taking longer than usual, as I wandered us up and down aisles in search of our weekly staples. By the time we got to the check out line she had had it. She started fussing a little, and a nice woman whose youngest had just left for college tried to distract her. I am not sure how her empty nest qualified her to engage my special needs six-year-old but she meant well. Mae was done however, and proceeded to launch into a tantrum that wasn’t epic by any means but was dramatic for sure. It is the banging on the side of her head that is horrifying and the inconsolable quality of her screams. I held her in one arm as she kicked and screamed, a perfect illustration of what we imagine an angry kid looks like. I used the other arm to unload the cart. I know people offered to help, but that isn’t so helpful. The checkout girl for my lane and the the one for the lane behind me both ceased to work. Their jaws actually hung open. Finally, I said to the checker in my aisle, “you know what would be very helpful, if you could continue to check out my groceries so I could get out of here, she will be fine in the car.” I remember thinking that my voice was very calm and in fact feeling very calm. Making a scene is not my favorite thing in the world but we have made way worse…on airplanes..

When we got back in the car I was relieved, and so was she. Immediately she was quiet and we headed home. I was about a mile from home, which meant we had been in the car for about ten minutes when I realized my jaw was clenched, my hands were gripping the wheel and my shoulders ached. Anger was bubbling at the base of my throat and behind my eyes. I was replaying the incident at the grocery store in technicolor in my head. Each time I re-lived it my body responded. I had left the store calm, and by the time I got home I was a mess. If I had not just come home from a retreat the effects would not have been so noticeable. Even now, months later I can connect with that extreme shift in my own state of mind. This drove the point home for me in a very tangible way. My body is very much at the mercy of my mind. When I revisit unpleasant experiences repeatedly my body responds each time with physical and emotional sensation.

My meditation practice had allowed me to see this connection really clearly. I have learned to watch my thoughts, to pay attention to the feelings that arise with them. I am working every day to let go of the ones that do not serve me. I cannot control how the world responds to me, or my children. What I can control is how many times I replay the hurts and slights, how many times I let them restrict my breath and sting my eyes. So for now, I will unclench my jaw and my knuckles, I will relax my shoulders, and take deep breaths, and maybe I will learn something.

Family

I am 1 in 34

Posted on 04/05/201404/21/2014 by kosanford

1 in 5 Americans has a tattoo
1 in 6 has light eyes
1 in 13 has food allergies
1 in 30 has red hair and freckles
1 in 50 has an artificial limb
1 in 68 has Autism

My daughter is 1 in 68. The CDC recently released numbers saying that 1 in 68 children are Autistic. Each one of those children has two parents who also carry that diagnosis with them, always. Does that make me 1 in 34? I think it does.

In every house, in every child, in every family, Autism looks different. But if you are a parent of a child on the spectrum, no matter where they fall, there is some common ground. I know you when I see you; we walk the same path lined with eggshells, and potholes, but it’s ours.

Below is a list that anyone in the 1 in 34 club will recognize. You are probably a member of the club if at least a few of the below ring true:

If you have ever wondered whether your child will have a friend.
If your child has never told you about their day.
If you know what “stimming” means.
If you know what two or more of these stand for: IEP, PPT, SPD, OT, SLP, ABA, BCBA, EEG, GF, CF.
If you know what “scripting” means.
If you wake up at least once a week and wonder who will take care of your child after you die.
If you have ever spent an entire meeting talking about eye contact.
If you look at a package of diapers and wonder what happens after your kid gets to 50 lbs.
If you know what “fecal smearing” is.
If your first thought when invited to a family gathering or neighborhood barbeque is how you can graciously decline.
If an advertisement for a parade or fair, makes you think, “that sounds loud.”
If going to a restaurant or a movie as a family isn’t something you do for fun, ever.
If when you enter a room, your first thought is, “what will my child climb on in here?”
If the question “how old is she?” makes you uncomfortable.
If you count your money in hours of therapy instead of years of retirement.
If the sight of a 16 year old flapping his hands and bouncing on line at the grocery store makes you smile and cry at the same time.
If you know that milestones have nothing to do with age.
If you know that there is nothing better than an ordinary day.
If anyone has ever said to you “I don’t know how you do it…”
If you never wonder what you are made of.

If you know how any of the above feel than you are a member of the 1 in 34 club. It seems to get less exclusive every year. There is no secret handshake, or tennis whites. No one wants to join this club, and once in, you are a member for life.

I look at my daughter and she has taught me so much — a whole new language, even though she doesn’t speak. She is fierce, and bright, and beautiful. She is unconcerned about social pressure and will never wonder if her outfit makes her look fat. She is completely clear about what she likes, and is uncompromising in her pursuit of it.

On her behalf, I have become someone I never thought I would be. I am difficult. I ask too many questions. I disagree with people even when they are doctors. I have cried in public. And most importantly, I have learned that you don’t love someone for who you thought they would be, or for what their future may hold. You love them because they are yours, because even if they are 1 in 68, to you they are 1 of 1 and you cannot imagine your life without them.

Katherine Osnos Sanford