Teach Them Young
Nantucket, MA
January 13th, 2013
No doubt about it, parenting is challenging.
I gave birth to Griffin at home, on a well-worn yoga mat, in front of the fire, in the middle of the living room. The mat was green, well-worn and was the only thing between me and the floor during Griffin’s lighting speed, two-hour delivery. You probably know which mat it is: It’s the one with the large tree and floating leaves. Gaiam had it on sale with a matching mat bag several years ago. Millions of people have the same one. I had taken this mat with me to Santa Barbara nine months earlier, to the White Lotus Foundation, during my first yoga teacher training. And it ended up being the only thing I needed during labor. I still have it—though it now bears the even more poignant markings of Griffin’s birth.
A few years have passed and Griffin comes with me to the studio often. He loves building towers out of yoga blocks, and skates over the studio’s hardwood floors in his socks. It’s not unusual for him to join in at the end of one of my classes for savasana and a chant an Om or two.
It wasn’t always this way though. Back in 2009, pregnant with Griffin, I made a ridiculous decision that being a Mom wasn’t going to change my yoga.
Oh that was so naive.
It’s difficult to admit, but for a while, I struggled with postpartum depression. I resented my own child for taking away my me time, and I resented the world for what I then saw as a detour of my dharma from teaching to parenting. I labored to find any sort of parenting-work balance and I was angry and It took me the first year and a half of Griffin’s life to figure out how to bring my yoga practice and parenting together. But eventually I surrendered to the inevitability that my practice was going to include my son, and being a mother was going to require a serious shift in how I would navigate the rest of my life.
Since then, I have made it a conscious decision to incorporate Griffin into the very essence of what I hope to accomplish with my practice: a deeper sense of equanimity, and alignment with integrity. And so whenever possible I bring him into the fold and I try to bring yoga into my home.
Yoga began for me, as it does for many of us, as a collection of beautiful poses. Then it became a collection of tools I used to build and shape my life, and today shape the way I build my life with my loved ones. For many of us it begins with the asanas—we practice and reap the physical benefits, the feel-good highs and the calming moments of stillness. And then, like magic, it turns into something more: a level head, a quieter mind, a meditation practice, a change in diet, or a commitment to healthier mindful living. Maybe we dig a little deeper and study up on the traditional teachings.
If we can integrate these practices into how we run our homes and work our relationships, our children absorb our yoga by proxy.
When Griffin gets upset now, I’ll hold him and ask him to look into my eyes and breathe with me. Sometimes I put his hand on my chest, and rest mine on his. I try to help him find space between his cries or complaints and simultaneously put a pause on my own reactivity. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes all it takes is a little pranayama and touch, and my amped-up toddler will calm himself down to a place in which we can both be still. We are together practicing mindfulness.
“Mindfulness frees us of forgetfulness and dispersion and makes it possible to live fully each minute of life. Mindfulness enables us to live.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
Parenting is one of the hardest jobs on the planet. It’s difficult not to take a toddler’s temper tantrum personally, or stay calm in the midst of a Stop N’ Shop Def Con 5–sized meltdown. Many of us parents find ourselves pressed for time and end up multitasking three or four different things in any given moment—folding the laundry while helping the toddler get his breakfast down, or answering e-mails on our iPhones, while skimming Huffington Post on the desktop and answering questions about the day’s itinerary. No matter how time-saving multi-tasking may feel, it produces half-baked ideas and an overcrowded mind. There is no room for space in a torrent of activity like this and it can make us, and our children, feel claustrophobic.
Now when I find myself having a day like this, my yoga practice reminds me I’m not in alignment with my beliefs.
The next time you get caught-up in the whirlwind of your life (aka the vritti) practice bringing your attention back to the present moment. Invite into your heart the practice of mindfulness. You might just find little chubby arms wrapped tightly around your legs.
Your children will follow your lead.
Let’s teach them young.
