The Antidote: Forgiveness

I'm teaching a couples' course this summer and have been pursuing two of my favorite related books, The Seven Principles of Making Marriage Work, by John Gottman and Getting The Love You Want by Harville Hendricks www.amazon.com

At first blush, this may seem unrelated to parenting, but the milieu in which children live and breath is established not only by the internal state of parents but also by the way in which parents relate to each other.

I'm particularly struck by Gottman's "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling", and how these problematic behaviours impact couples (and as a result--children).

Gottman www.gottmaninstitute.com claims that in the first minutes of a couple's conversation, he can predict how their relationship with turn out, and interestingly, I think Shonnie Lavender, couple's coach, claims the antidote for these very problems.

Check it out on her recent blog "One Skill is essential to a lasting, happy marriage." www.marriagevowworkbook.com, and let me know what you think.

Jeffrey Sachs

Black Elk, a Ogala Sioux once wisely said, "We are related to all things: the earth and the stars--everything."

Jeffrey Sachs, foremost economist and advisor, speaks of this same mystery in a series of talks with the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2007/ Sachs lectures about our interconnectedness and urges us to stop spending money on war and start building a solid infrastructure for the poor (clean water, food, shelter). He cautions about new diseases impacting us all.

It's easy for my mind to hear this message and be fearful. But if I step away from my fear and open my heart, I can hear Sachs message. Sure, I can listen to my children as I parent them. I can learn from them. But what about their future? Ten million people die every year from poverty related issues, and it makes sense to the head and the heart to address these issues. www.open2.net.

Caretaking and children

The last couple of weeks have been challenging for me, especially in regards to my parenting. I haven't liked that--having in me that life should be easier, go the way I want it to go.

But in the midst of life-as-it-is, I've had a chance to dismantle parts of my care taking behavior and see how (though it appears noble to me) how disempowering it is. When I'm not awake, I don't take care of myself or stand up for myself. I try to fix my kids--getting embroiled in their issues.

When I notice my frustration, it seems like it's because of the proverbial "them". It's their fault. But the frustration is toward myself for being too afraid of losing them to have my boundaries. I want to claim myself as the omniscient, omnipresent and revered mama.

In the 12-Step program www.sobercircle.com they call me a co-dependent--no argument from me.

I am not in charge of their dear lives. My own humanity and my own inability to continually protect these dear children is reality. They don't belong to me anyway.

Interconnectedness

I recently completed training the More To Life Weekend http://www.moretolife.org/ in Knoxville, Tennessee. Nineteen lovely souls participated, and twenty-six students of that program served them during the weekend.

At the end of the experience, I played Soon Love Soon by Vienna Teng. We were all gathered, having worked courageously, to heal the war that rages within. We stood and sat, listening with mind and heart, saying goodbye to this time we had shared, and serendipitously, a father rose from his seat to hold his infant son who had just joined us. Inseparable from the music and the words was this visual of father and son, and in that moment, we saw the song and ourselves.

We are undeniably connected, and when we see it, hear it, open our hearts, every child is welcome and wanted.

Our Human Need for Attachment

In the Virginia Tech slayings, we have ourselves another Columbine. And as I watch the news and see the face of the young man who took his peers' lives and then his own, I wonder what happened to him. Was he born with a propensity toward violence or was he forced into such strict lines by his parents and teachers that he burst through those lines with a final expression of profound frustration? Only two of a myriad of explanations I could concoct.

I juxtapose that news against the Montana Montessori Educator's Association Convention I attended at the beginning of April with my daughter. At it, Maurine Bright, Montessori teacher and parenting coach said that a child's most profound need is to be attached. Before "Take out the trash"; "Where are your socks!"; "You forgot again!" there are three required ingredients to create attachment. They are eye contact, a nod and a smile. (www.gordonneufeld.com) It's a way of saying "I see you. You matter." Or if you've read General Theory of Love (a prosaic account blending knowledge of our biology and psychology), when we nod, make eye contact, and smile, we are creating limbic resonance with those we love.

I don't believe we can know all of the mysteries of the young man who violently and without recourse took the lives of the men and women at Virginia Tech. I do believe that in this world of pressure to achieve, to get in the right school, to have that career--in the world of demands, we have a need to connect, to allow the dust to settle, to level the waters between us and have the sense of 'we' that is within our reach. As human beings, we need to breath next to someone loved and feel their heart beat so we know, in our bodies and at a cellular level, that we are not alone. We are spinning on an orb in space, connected.

Ode To Gratitude

It's all summed up in a word and felt in a body
And seen in each moment, tasted, heard

And lost-over and over, again and again

For if we knew fully

--touched completely
There would be nothing more than a constant state of wonder
Tears streaking down our faces with no time for

coffee shops, business meetings,

--papers, degrees, preparations for later
Diets and deadlines would be eradicated from the absolute and inexplicable wonder that being alive, in this body, on this firmament, this April 7, 2007 moment of time, 3:00 PM
And all would live life in gratitude

But instead, we struggle to find that state
Found in the middle of grief when mothers tell their grown children they don't want to leave them
And step to the other side
Found in a sunny day

for no reason claiming us
Found in seeing the girl of his dreams

the woman who will fully, through the years replace us in his heart
Found in the great cavern, gentle, nothing Saturday afternoon
holding these children who don't know much more than the dreams of their future jobs

or babies or a new bedroom set
Gratitude
Something in me wants to make it cute

or an acronym for some clever expression
But instead it is a formidable friend

beckoning me beyond reason to live within the speechless breath it recommends
In unknown wonder of it all