Out of the Frying Pan, In to Parenting

One of my favorite yogi stories is the one about the sage who goes to meditate in a cave for 15 years in order to abolish anger.  After he feels that he has successfully abolished anger, he triumphantly takes a walk to the village market.  After a few minutes of being yelled at by the hawkers, and jostled by hurried shoppers, he explodes with anger and indignation.  They say that the best place to learn a yoga practice is in the city in a householder's life.   I will amend that by saying that one of the best places to learn a yoga practice is as a mother.

Everyone gets the lessons they need in order to evolve.  For some, it is simply finding a work/family balance in their lives.  Others have repressed a great deal more and need more extreme lessons.  Obviously, I am in need of some extreme lessons.  

I always thought of myself being fairly even-tempered.  Stressed, okay, sensitive, maybe, but calm in most states of crisis.  After all, I counseled people with abuse issues without reacting to some of the incredibly difficult things they shared with me.  

I imagined that as a Mom, I would be a total cucumber, able to deal with a lot of stress, and still be loving and understanding.  

When our first daughter was born, she had colic, crying uncontrollably, not just for a few hours in the evenings like the books talk about, but screaming all the time she was awake, for four and a half months.  We had a fabulous babysitter named Rana who would come over for a few hours every afternoon.  Despite being only 19, she would sit with my inconsolable daughter on her lap and coo "Pretty blue eyes don't cry"!  She had a magical effect on my daughter and her being there had a magical effect on me, because I was able to leave the house for a few hours and have my own time.  

I thought the colic had steeled me for any challenges that would be presented to me. I was wrong.   My daughter and I are so similar in so many ways, so sensitive and needy that I am pushed to my limits almost daily.  The challenge with a sensitive child is whenever my nerves are split, she reacts by acting up even more.  If I were indeed calm and collected, she would stay calm herself.  

I am not calm and collected.  I was childless for 37 years, I could do whatever I wanted to do and whatever I needed to do, whenever I wanted.  I could sleep in, I could go for days without eating or taking care of anyone, I could take ten day meditation retreats. I could abolish anger in the little cave of my existence.  If someone made me angry, I could just break up with them or stop calling them.  You can't do that with your children if you want to grow spiritually.

 The problem with wanting to grow spiritually, is that you ask for the most extreme circumstances in life to help you to grow.  You can't just react to difficult situations and say, "oh well, we just don't get along".  You actually have to observe, analyze and make changes.  

When you get pregnant, the midwife does not sit you down and tell you that now you are entering the marketplace and that every little bit of your evolution will be put to test.  To credit my midwife, she did tell me this in the hospital before we took our daughter home.  

My daughters have strong personalities, they offer to me every day the most extreme circumstances to help me work on myself.  They make it clear that I am now responsible for the spiritual, emotional and physical growth of all three of us.

As much as I embrace the journey, I long for that cave of ignorance where I lacked responsibility.  The main character in Eat, Pray, Love  and countless parents have walked away from this, either physically or psychologically.  I am, however, bound to my practice and the sankalpa which goes with giving birth.  If I don't evolve, my daughters will find themselves carrying on my samskaras and the liberation they assumed in being born into a yogi family will be in vain.