Category Archives: parenting

preparing for change: how to prepare for parenthood

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When one is on the verge of a big life change, it’s easy to shy away from the enormity of it all because it feels too scary, too overwhelming. It’s all so unknown. We think, “If I knew what I was walking into, I’d more willingly go.” Yet, big life changes (like life in general) don’t come with a crystal ball.

For a while now I’ve been thinking about this in the context of preparing for parenthood. I can remember saying, in the first few months of motherhood, “It’s no joke when they say there’s no way to prepare for this.” Yet, over the past 3 years, I can see how I actually was more prepared than I thought. I’d had a somewhat decent meditation practice going so knew the power of mindfulness. I worked as an Infant Mental Health Specialist, so knew about attachment and general child development. I’d had years in therapy and some solid friendships, people I could be completely honest with about my experience (once I was honest with myself about it).

My daughter is 3 now and I can more clearly see what a shit job our society does in helping prospective parents prepare for the biggest change in their lives. It’s not that it’s a total shit job – it’s important to know how the baby is developing and how to stay healthy and to prepare a space for this new being in your life. But, in my opinion, what’s missing from this education is all things important: how to stay present; how to be comfortable with the unknown; how to have conversations with your partner about your expectations, thoughts, and feelings. We don’t give future parents the tools they will really need. The tools that will help them keep their sanity and become the parents their children need them to be. The tools for life, really.

So, this is where I let you know that I’m this person attempting to teach these things to people. I feel so strongly about having these conversations that I could nearly cry. I feel so strongly that preparing for parenthood is NOT ONLY about preparing the nursery and making sure you eat well. Instead, I believe preparing for parenthood needs to include:

  • Getting clear on what your expectations are from yourself, your partner, your child, your experience, your friends and family, etc.
  • Connecting to your own needs. The ways in which you meet your needs will likely change in parenthood, but what can stay is the mindset that your needs matter.
  • Exploring your own childhood and sifting through what you want to bring with you into your own experience and what you hope to leave behind (and how to respond with self-compassion when you inevitably reenact some of what you hated about your own experience).
  • Learning to be mindful. I believe mindfulness is the one tool all parents (and, really, people) should have. It helps with EVERYTHING.

In short, we fail, as a society and culture, to teach people how to prepare emotionally for parenthood. We have this Keep It Light Culture, meaning we don’t go deep easily. We don’t talk about the hard parts, the fears, the vulnerabilities. We especially don’t talk about it before someone is even a parent! And that’s when the support and education need to begin. So many people find themselves on the other side of pregnancy (meaning the baby has arrived) and slammed with fear, doubt, vulnerability, etc. (this was me).

I want that to end. I want people to walk into parenthood equipped with the tools they’ll actually need. The tools that can’t be bought; they can only be cultivated.

I can’t tell you what kind of parent you’ll be. I can’t tell you what kind of baby you’ll have. But, I can help you clear some of the muck out of the way that keeps you stuck in worry and believing whatever scenario your mind is throwing at you. I can help you learn to be mindful so you can more comfortably say, “I don’t know what it’s going to be like, and I don’t need to know. I’m okay being right where I’m at.” That’s the sweet spot.

***If you are in this place in your life, either preparing for pregnancy or are currently pregnant, and are in need of support, I have spots open for working together one-on-one. If interested, please contact me at sarah@greenblueskies.com to learn more and schedule a free 30-minute consultation. Also, if you know someone who might be interested, please pass this along!


when an angry mama bear wakes up

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***I haven’t written in a long time, and because of that I now have a backlog of thoughts and feelings. I have pent up stories and experiences that could easily materialize into metaphor. But, because I haven’t taken the time for myself to get these thoughts onto paper, they’re now one jumbled mess. And the energy of them sitting dormant is now strong enough to force me through the surface. (See..told you there was metaphor….sometimes we must wait for the process to unfold in its own time ;)).

***This post turned into a bit of a political piece about the recent Alabama abortion ban. It’s a rant on some levels, but mostly I have questions for the people who are a making these decisions. Here goes…***

Last night before bed my husband told me about the Alabama abortion ban. Instantly, I was outraged. Angry to the point of tears. Even trying to write about it now, I’m stuck.

What do I say?

How do I get my point across?

What if I offend someone?

What I want to tell you is that I’m a pissed off mama bear ready to go to battle for her babies. And in many ways, I am. But I’m also scared, teetering on the edge of hopelessness. It seems it keeps going from bad to worse, ad nauseam, and I simply don’t know what to do with it all. When I’m overwhelmed my habitual response is to freeze. In this frozen state, it’s not that the emotion – the anger, rage, grief, despair – goes away; it gets trapped. It rumbles around in my mind, sometimes coming out sideways because, like any energy, it needs to go somewhere. It spills into my relationship with my husband, it clouds my view of motherhood, it changes my own reflection in the mirror.

I hate that this happens. I hate that there are no easy solutions. I hate that there are people so hell-bent on making life harder for so many so they can continue to sit on their self-created pedestals under the illusion they reign supreme.

To those people: what happens when your daughters are raped? (1 in 5 will, according to National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2018.) What happens when they get pregnant from said rape? Or a little too early in their lifetimes because of poor planning or failed contraceptives? Would you even support their babies? Can you really tell me you’d make them enter motherhood on these terms?

And if you do, do you get mental health support for your girls and their children? Do you? Because what they will now be living, and passing down for many generations, is a lifetime of trauma. And those traumatized children may grow up to keep the cycle going, on and on, like clockwork.

I’d love to know what your plans are for supporting the women and children who must now endure unimaginable pain. Pain you think you won’t ever have to confront on a personal level (until you do; no one is immune). And it’s easy to make decisions about others’ lives when you’re so far removed, isn’t it? Perhaps it’d do you good to get to know the interior of peoples’ stories before you go around waving your imagined magic wand, thinking you’re creating some kind of…I don’t even know what you think you’re creating…

So, all this to say: my heart is hurting. I’m an angry mama bear fueled by an overwhelming sadness at the state of our world. What I want us to remember, to know above all else is this:

We are the grownups of the world and hold the responsibility to create safety and security FOR EVERYONE. Banning abortion does not make people safe. It does not stop rape from happening. It perpetuates the cycle of trauma. And trauma, I believe, is the root of all of our societal problems. To change the system, we must change the system. How about starting with treating people as people?

all grown up. forever a child.

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There’s a message in our culture that tells us growing up means we shouldn’t want to be taken care of. That we’re codependent for being attached and needy. That, if we’re to call ourselves adults we shouldn’t want what we longed for and needed in childhood. This creates the illusion that we can somehow separate ourselves from our childlike fantasies and playful spirits, from our basic needs even, all in the name of evolving. We buy into this idea that we must sever ties with, cut ourselves off from, the parts of ourselves that are seemingly too young or too immature or, sadly, too vulnerable.

What if, though, something entirely different wasn’t only possible, but integral to healing?

Try this on: we’re BOTH the adult and the child.

I can remember the day when all this knowledge (that I’d been learning for years) finally sunk in. I was making myself lunch, something I can be rather grumbly about because I just don’t feel like it (thanks, ego). I want quick. I want easy. And even though making lunch doesn’t really take much, resistance makes it seems like I’m preparing lunch for 10 people about to leave for a hike: Too. Much. Effort.

On this particular, day, though, I didn’t give into that old familiar friend in my head by snacking on this or that or skipping real food altogether. No. I made a proper lunch despite all the noise in my head. (This is another important lesson about being an adult – doing things because they need to get done versus not doing things because we just don’t feel like it.)

It sounds so trivial writing it out, but the real learning came after I made the meal.

I sat down and ate it as the child. Having food made for me is one of my most favorite things. It’s one loving action that continuously gives me the warm fuzzies. And in this moment, I felt those warm fuzzies as though some other grown person had prepared my food for me. It was as though I hadn’t done it myself at all. The wonder! I was, and am, both the adult and the child all wrapped into one complicated human. 

This is just one example of what it looks like to connect with the different parts of yourself. For many of us, we long for something from someone who isn’t available to meet our needs for various reasons. Maybe they haven’t learned the lessons themselves. Perhaps the time of childhood has simply passed. So we wait, mostly unconsciously, as we project and get irritated and anxious and controlling with the people currently in our lives. We want to boss around the people who can never replace what’s missing.

Yet when we learn to do it ourselves, we can stop waiting (and, thus, stop doing all that other stuff too). We can stop denying and shaming ourselves and take the short road to satisfaction because we realize we are holding the reins of our own lives. We can be the parent we’ve always longed for. And the child inside, with his or her beautiful spirit and vulnerable needs, never has to go away. This isn’t easy. It’s not quick. There’s a whole psychic landscape to navigate either before or simultaneously as you grow yourself up and tend to your inner child and world. As you learn to be both the holder and held.

anxiety is a thought pattern

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***for those struggling with relationship anxiety, i write this to encourage you to think about your thought patterns as just that: a thought pattern. consider how your constant questioning, comparing to others, thinking there’s one “right” choice spans more than just your relationship. it’s easy to put the reason for our suffering onto our partners, when really the issue lies in our own mental processes.***

recently, i’ve been exploring preschool options for my toddler and found one in the community that seems to be highly aligned with my values and beliefs when it comes to transitions and attachment. they offer parent/toddler classes to support the child in his or her transition into school, acknowledging that this can be a challenging time for young children. most places will agree that it can be tough, yet often take a ‘rip the bandaid off’ approach that is akin to crying it out (something we don’t do at home nor do i agree with). i’ve decided to sign us up for the class, without really exploring other options, without knowing what the hell i’m doing, or if this is the best place for us to be.

i’ve noticied, though, that despite the alignment of values and warm, caring environment of the school, i’m fighting this transition internally. am i tapping directly into the grief of what this all signifies? not quite.

instead, i’m questioning. i’m questioning my decision, the way many of you do when it comes to your relationship:

-did i make the right choice? what if some other place would be better?
-what if my daughter would be happier somewhere else?
-how can i be sure when i didn’t explore every possible option?
-what if i end up not liking this school?
-what will we be missing out on by saying yes to this one?
-i like that school better because of x, y, z…but this other one has these things to offer…but how will i support her emotionally in the same way this school does?…why can’t i have everything???

does any of this sound familiar? the point i want to really make here is that this same thought pattern, the one that drove me crazy for SO long way back when around my relationship, is showing up again in a different context. it’s a reminder that it’s not the relationship that’s the issue, it’s my brain. and, more importantly, it’s what my brain does when i’m feeling a certain way: vulnerable.

i’m at a growing edge here. i’m doing something i’ve never done before, with limited support or people to talk to about how to navigate these waters as a mother. there’s this unspoken expectation that this process be an easy one. you just find a school and send your kid to it, right? (just like you (seemingly easily) find a partner, get engaged, then married, right?) but it’s not that way for me. just as it wasn’t that easy when i was in the marriage transition (or any transition for that matter).

i rage against the passing of time. my natural instinct – or probably a learned strategy growing up in a family that didn’t talk about feelings – is to bury my head in the sand and avoid what’s really going on. i spin in mental circles instead of feeling lost and alone. i tell myself stories and compare myself to others (why does everyone else seem to have such an easier time with this???).

all because i’m so deeply vulnerable right now.

are you?

when you find yourself hooked into the anxious mind, ask yourself if you’re feeling vulnerable. or alone. or lost. consider the other situations in your life where your mind hijacks your sense of peace and you question it all. noticing how the thoughts flare up in other scenarios is one of the best ways to remind yourself that this anxiety lives in you.

it’s yours to work through, and it’s here to help you connect with your deepest self. because when i can see the anxiety for what it is – a signal that there is much more going on within me, under the surface layer of thoughts – i can process what’s truly needing attention: my little baby, the one who i birthed only 2 years ago, is growing up. yes, she’s only 2. but this step signifies the expansion of her world and a step out of what has felt like such a cozy little cocoon all this time. things are changing, and i struggle to wrap my mind and heart around it all. my heart aches for and grieves her babyhood. we celebrate and cry all at once.

what is the anxiety signaling within you? what is the touchstone waiting to be seen, shining through the waters of grief and longing? your anxiety is yours. it’s not the relationship. it’s not the preschool. it’s the feeling underneath that the thoughts are guiding you toward.

the path reveals itself as you walk it

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one of my favorite metaphors is this: the path will reveal itself as it’s traveled.

what it means is this: we must move forward (or backward, or sideways) to get more of the view of the path ahead (or behind, or to the side of) us.

the key being: WE MUST MOVE.

when i’m working with clients struggling to make a decision, and in my own experience of indecisiveness, there’s a longing to just know what’s next. will i still want this choice in 5 years? will it still feel the same later? what if i don’t have enough information right now to decide?

keep moving. you’ll learn more as you go.

think about when you’re driving. or if you’ve even been on a river. you can’t see the road, in it’s entirety, at the start of your trip. you don’t know what, exactly, is around the next bend – could it be rapids? perhaps there’s a fallen tree? the more you drive and paddle, the more the path is revealed. movement is necessary in order to be able to see what else there is around us.

how this translates into life? we put one foot in front of the other. we make choices and then we get new information. we say yes to something and see what doors open, and which ones close.

seeing as we’re not birds (and even birds can’t see it all), we don’t get to know what’s way ahead of us until we move in some direction.

so notice: are you feeling stuck? if so, are you stuck because you’re wanting more information in order to move in some way?

if yes, what’s one step you can take today to create some kind of movement?

as you ponder and lean into identifying a step to take remember: trust that you’ll learn more as you go. the path will continue to reveal itself as you walk it. the only way to know what’s next is to step into the unknown.

wave that bubble wand

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the other day i was driving around my sleeping daughter feeling rather grumbly about life. i was tired, i was triggered, i was not wanting to drive for hours just to keep my baby sleeping (yet also needed her to nap).

in the past i would’ve enjoyed the chance to explore, to look around at houses and see parts of town (including private roads!) that i normally don’t get to see. but not this day. it was just one of those days when life was getting to me.

until i turned the corner and saw exactly what i needed to see:

a man, at least in his mid-seventies, standing in his open garage doorway wearing nothing but a pair of shorts waving around a bubble wand.

yes!

immediately i smiled and relaxed, remembering that life doesn’t have to be so serious all the time. when i’m tired and triggered and just grumbly, life is way too serious. but this man waving around his bubble wand was the antidote to my pessimism. what made it better was that he was all by himself, not caring what others thought (this was on a fairly busy street), and it was the middle of the afternoon.

how random, yes?

play can be such a healing medicine. go wave that bubble wand.

lean in

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earlier this week, my daughter and i were in our bedroom. i was getting ready to go downstairs to meet with a client (i work from home, via skype/phone). as we were walking toward the door, i let her know that mommy would be going downstairs soon to work. she said something like, “no, no, no” and came closer to me, clearly not wanting to separate. what i did in the next moment nearly astounded me, because so often i want to pretend i don’t hear her pleas for connection, at least, or especially, when i have something to do or somewhere to be. i bent down, embraced her, and told her, “mommy will be back. i’ll always come back.” and with that we left the room and she easily went to her dad, waving bye to me.

admittedly, these lines were inspired by blog posts i’ve read about how to support the transition of separating. to remind my daughter that i will, indeed, return after being away seems so obvious, but i needed support in getting to that place. this was, however, really the first time i’ve successfully, fully implemented it. the first time i really met her emotion, took it in, allowed it to be there without trying to minimize (even if only to myself), and offered reassurance from a sincere place inside me. i slowed down to hear her. i leaned in toward her and her feelings.

this experience seems so simple, yet it’s struck and stayed with me as being quite profound. i have a history of not listening to my inner children when they’ve been calling out to me, screaming at me, tugging on me in some shape or form. it’s so easy to ignore, although that nagging anxiety in the background never really goes away when we’re ‘ignoring,’ does it?

what if, instead, we stopped to meet that voice? to crouch down to that two-feet-off-the-ground level and look ourselves in the eye and say, “i hear you.” we don’t have to talk ourselves out of feeling the way we do. or offer candy-coated reassurance that lacks any nutritive substance and only contributes and perpetuates the emptiness we feel inside (think, “everything’s okay” or “you’re fine”). to really listen. simply listen. to set aside our own agendas and acknowledge what’s happening in real time.

when we can truly lean in, listen, make space for what’s actually happening and needing to happen, many times we can find a simple solution, or genuinely reassuring word. just a moment of presence, of connection, is all that’s needed.

the risk of trusting

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two stories : one moral

#1. lately, i’ve been thinking about trust and how hard it can be, especially after we’ve been hurt. i’m currently breastfeeding my almost 14 month old daughter, who now has some teeth. and teeth, you know, are good for biting. she hasn’t bitten me much, or too hard. thankfully. but, in one of the most sensitive of spots, and during an act that is quite a vulnerable experience for me, it hurts. it hurts when it’s unexpected. and it hurts because i’m feeding her and it’s a real shock to the system to be bitten when offering so much love.

i began to think about this experience, and how it’s now tinged with the slightest veil of fear because i don’t know if she’s going to bite me again. even though she rarely bites, and only does so playfully, there’s still fear on my part because i don’t want to get hurt. so, i’m on guard more. a little more tense. a little more weary and on edge. i’ve been hurt a couple times now during breastfeeding…could i be hurt again?

i went to a mom’s group for a little while when my daughter was younger and ran into one of the moms in a restaurant a while back. i chatted with her and her husband, and she was telling me how her son was growing some teeth and how nervous this made her feel as it related to breastfeeding. her husband chimed in and said that his mom stopped breastfeeding the first time he bit her.

just like that.

it’s so easy to give up on something after we’ve been hurt, isn’t it? it’s safer, feels like we’re in more control. as least we have the guarantee that it won’t ever happen again. right? to go back after being hurt puts us at greater risk. at least ego would have us believe that. yes, we’ve been hurt before. but really, it doesn’t spell doom for our future. every time i breastfeed i could be bitten, but i’m not bitten more than i am. and still, it would be easy for me to want to run with the fear.

i’ll admit that i don’t really fear being bitten every single time. but i will say that it has changed the experience. i’m aware of the “danger” yet choose to risk it. i have to choose to trust that my daughter isn’t going to make a meal out of me (well, i guess she is, but i’m assuming you know what i mean) every time she nurses. i choose to trust because the alternative is constricted fear, an avoidance of something so special because of the what if lurking in the recesses of my mind.

*****

#2. today my husband and i took our daughter to the library to play. it’s an easy play area. and free. win win. at the library was a 15 month old little boy who became an instant friend. at least friend in the sense of sharing space together and interacting as toddlers do: staring at each other, babbling at each other, getting a little curious about each other’s faces and clothes. they parallel played for a bit, each doing their own thing. coming together and moving apart fluidly. then out of nowhere this kid just walked up and pushed my daughter in the chest, knocking her over.

she cried a bit. my heart ached and wanted to lash out i’m sure. and then again, it got me thinking. thinking about a lot of things, actually. it made me think about how little control i have over bad things happening to my daughter. there was nothing i could do to prevent this, aside from never letting her interact with other children. i didn’t see it coming. nor did my husband, or the kid’s mom. it was impulsive, toddler behavior. he probably felt like pushing, so he did.

after a short cry and time spent with me, she was ready to get back in the play. she went back to playing with him. back to looking at him, open to engage. perhaps it was resiliency in the making. i thought about her willingness to risk again, despite this kid having just pushed her.

*****

the moral:

life hurts, and there’s not a whole lot we can do to prevent it. in order to love and live fully we have to risk getting bumps and bruises, heartaches and heartbreaks. we can choose trust over fear, even if fear tells us to run or hide or bury because we can’t bear to feel that pain again.

and that’s the lesson: just because we’ve been hurt before doesn’t mean we’ll be hurt again. it’s the heart of vulnerability. to open despite the scar. to wakefully walk into the fire, knowing our heart is on the line. to trust that we’ll be loved, that we can risk the pain to live fully, openly.

welcome the chaos

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not too long ago i read an article in a parenting publication that IMG_0736got me thinking. the format was more question/answer, the question coming from a distressed parent seeking help from the expert. the mother wrote about her 2-year old son who was getting fussy every time he’d go down for his usual nap. she said he seemed resistant, and couldn’t figure out what was going on for this boy. it was stressful and challenging, and just didn’t make sense. i loved the expert’s response.

the expert wrote back saying that her son was likely going through the process of letting go of one of his naps because he no longer needed it. the fussiness and resistance to the nap was her son going through a process of disorganization as he naturally opened himself up to a new schedule, as he let go of one of two (or more) naps and adjusted to a new way of being in the world each day. things needed to fall apart a bit before being put back together. he had to go through the inner turmoil to once again reach a state of peace.

and isn’t this what we go through anytime we’re making a change of any kind? it feels like our world is falling apart, we feel out of control and messy and disorganized and don’t understand why. we torment ourselves because we think we’re supposed to keep ourselves together, that change should somehow be neat and tidy and orderly. but it’s not.

change is supposed to be messy. let me say that again: change is supposed to be messy. and perhaps most important: THE MESS IS A SIGN OF CHANGE! we’re supposed to metaphorically dump our bag out so we can see what we’ve been carrying around all this time that’s been causing us pain. and sometimes the contents of our bag need to sit on the floor for a while. maybe that big ‘mess’ needs to just take up some space. we can learn to live amongst the chaos. it won’t last forever. it’s only when we know what’s been in our bag that we can consciously choose what we want to continue holding. 

our problem is that we judge ourselves, tell ourselves there’s something wrong with us for not being able to hold it together. imagine if we naturally entered our chaos, like the 2-year old, and allowed ourselves the full expression of all we feel during times of big transition. if we cried when we needed to, pounded a pillow, let ourselves fall out instead of staying strong and proud.

we must trust the duality of life. that we’re self-organizing creatures that will naturally return to a state of peace, that at the very least we long to return to a state of peace. just as there can’t be day without night, there can’t be chaos without order.

when we find ourselves in the chaos, it’s our natural inclination to want to escape what’s painful. but when we can be in the chaos (with the use of tools like mindfulness, compassion, etc.), open to the swirl of thoughts and feelings, even physical mess in a home, we can learn to be with a different side of life that has just as much value. this side of life offers us the opportunity to really release what is too heavy, even completely unnecessary. we can relax our defenses and our shoulds and know that life will take care of itself. that the natural process is to move through disorganization back to organization, and that there’s not much we have to do to enable the process other than allow it to unfold naturally.