Mindful Parenting Book Club Part II - Page 5

[mamakarata]

haven't had my chance to read the chapter yet, so can't respond to it yet, but wanted to relay my understanding to breathe about the feelings surrounding ovulating again. felt the same way, for the same reasons. and i started at 6 months! i was looking forward to a whole year without af, not even thinking about my libido being related to it.

oh and heather, you silly rabbit, you are doing fine! i think your"friends" comment was right on, and I watch friend re-runs on dvd! -the idea being, it is not the sole reason for living (as it IS with some folk). i agree with breathe, you don't seem the type to harm a fly!

btw- i had a step in law ask me if my ds was a good baby, and i responded similiarly with "sure, all babies are good" and she says, "no, i mean, is he a good baby"

she just wouldn't back down and/or take the hint about the absurdity of the question! so i just gave up and said, "yes, he is a good baby". 'course i thought of a million other things i should have said afterward, but 3 days post partum, i just wasn't up for the fight.

[Curly Locks]

Thanks everyone for bearing w/ me this week! Ds is taking a nap and I should be too, but I'm such a disaster and can't sleep.

Maybe Momcat is right about needing another thread. I like this group of people and we sure have a lot to write about other than the book and how mindfulness relates to our lives, babes, DH's, etc. I will start the thread or but I was wondering what we should call it?? Mindful Parenting Book Club Member Support Group or Mindful Parenting Support Group?? I want it to be for those that have read the book and know what we mean about MF parenting.

[Curly Locks]

Next week

Today is going better so far! Does anyone feel they need more than a week to talk about Part III or Part IV? I'm looking ahead to my reading for next week. Please let me know so I can figure out how to divide up Part IV-A Way of Being (about Zen Masters and meditation, letters to a young girl interested in Zen, breathing and a few more chapters), if you want to discuss it for more than a week. : Thanks!

[nuggetsmom]

I think I slept for a week

I seem to be missing some time in my life, and I thought we were still on chapter 3. Now we are already on the next part, and there are a hundred posts after mine, and I didn't read them till now. I reallyt feel like I spaced out for a whole week and I am missing some time

BTW I got AF 3 mo PP and my libido is nowhere to be found. DH and I definately need to work on our relationship and I think sovereignty is important there too.
Actually I did sort of tune out for a bit. I really needed some time to do nothing so I let the laundry go, and I didn't clean and I made DH look after DD a little more. Very healthy and relieving and I feel ready to tackle the world. Well, maybe just the laundry, which is considerable after having houseguests. My terrible mother moment of the weekend was that I was lying on the floor with DD playing in her room and I FELL ASLEEP

so she was running through the house with no supervision til DH came home and asked me what I was up to which woke me up.

can't keep track of who posted what, and my thoughts are really jumbled in general but here goes:

About empathy and compassion. Sometimes empathy and compassion is giving someone else the oppurtunity to help themselves. In line with the book, that if you give everything, you are denying the other person the lesson of helping themselves, you are giving yourself away (and you won't be "whole against the sky"). It is important to have your own bounderies intact because it shows our children that it is OK for them to set their own bounderies too.

To come back to these two quotes:
Page 54: "Sovereignty is very different from unbridled entitlement. It does not mean that children should be given everything they want...It is our job to protect and nurture sov. in our children w/o fostering an attitude that whatever they do is fine...Each person's sov. is interdependent and interconnected w/ everybody else's b/c we're all part of a larger whole, and everything we do affects eachother."

Page 55: "Indeed, as adults and as parents, we may very well need to explore, nourish, and develop a more abiding connection to our own underlying sovereignty since it's so fundamental and at the same time so elusive."

This is really what seems key to me. I read other posts wondering whether AP makes for bratty kids and if they are raising kind children etc. and I think that if you really only give of yourself and give up your own sovereignty and always put others first, you are actually not giving your children soveriegnty because it IS interconnected. Obviously a tiny baby has no concept of the fact that I have needs, but a toddler needs to learn about "other minds" and the fact that everyone doesn't want what s/he wants and the fact that other people have needs and that their needs will be met just maybe not instantly. Also, life has limits and boundaries. I do read other threads that seem to speak disparagingly of theselimits, calling them walls etc. For instance in our house, bedtime is just that. Because I know if DD does not get enough sleep, she will be miserable the next day. Of course that does not mean I leave her in her crfib screaming, but I she is not going to play anymore. Obviously there are times, like this weekend where the routine was messed up and it took a lot of sensitivity and extra playtime to get any sleeping accomplished. Of course I did get an unorthodox nap in there I don't think this is a "wall", but if I never let DD take her walk around the block to tast rocks and try running in the street (I do stop her) at her slow slow pace, I would not be letting her be herself.

This is exactly the tightrope I talked about in an earlier post. Having to always find the balance of the interconnectivity of everyone... I also read somewhere else, and I do think the KZ's bring this up, that it is not so much each individual time that we respond that matters, but the consistency of our response that gets internalized. So not reading the baby's cues right once is not so important as getting it right most of the time.

The KZ's really seem very wise to me and I hope that I will be that wise someday (soon). Hopefully I will learn to express myself more coherently and eloquently someday too.
:
OK, I have to get back to work.

[Curly Locks]

Nuggetsmom, I love those two quotes too! I should have them framed and put above the toilet next to the prayer and mother's a beacons pictures. Sorry if I created confusion about where we are in the book. I just thought spending a week on "How can I do this?" would be like watching paint dry. And Part II really goes with Sov., Empathy, and Acceptance which is Part III. I hope the others check in to see that's where we're at.

I totally agree about the tightrope of both finding balance between letting Holden have free reign of the house while I have tend to my whatever (dishes, cooking, phonecalls, letter writing, etc.). It's tough to know when we've crossed the line sometimes. Like right now ds is moaning and looking at me like he needs me! So I better go and see what's up!

[Mamaste]

I'm so glad I found this thread! Hope it's not too late to jump in ... I'm a huge fan of this book, which I recently re-read and then started keeping on my current reading shelf so that I can refresh myself frequently. ... As mama to a 17-month-old DD as well as a 9-year-old DS, I get so frustrated with people who seem to think AP ends with the preschool years. It's so easy to sink into mainstream thinking when our children aren't under our feet and in our arms every second! While I read a great deal of Eastern philosophy (and philosophy in general, for that matter), I think the thing that thrilled me about this book was not so much its treatment of mindfulness but the fact that it talks about parenting across the full spread of the childhood years. Hip-hip-hooray!

Dinner bell's a-ringing ... Back to this thread with more comments on current chapters soon. THANK YOU for creating this thread!

[Breathe]

Welcome, Baby Phat! I also love the book's discussion of older children, and I love it that we have mamas here with a wide range of children, ages zero to teens!

Can't type long, but just found this:

http://216.92.20.151/discussions/sho...threadid=32349

It's an MDC support group for "concious parenting" -- it's so funny, but it's a totally different group of people, talking about sovreignty, etc! I still think it would be okay to start another thread for support and discussion of day-to-day life, if people want . . . maybe call it Support for Mindful Mamas, or something like that. I don't know -- too tired to be creative right now.

More after bedtime!
El

[Curly Locks]

Baby Phat (cute name)! We all love the book too and our group here. We're VERY glad to have you here and that you found us!

Thanks, Breathe for your input about the new thread Momcat [brilliantly] suggested we start, to post mindful ponderings that aren't related to the book discussion. I'm going to try to get it started this week. Any other ideas on the name? Otherwise, the name Breathe suggested sounds fine to me (Support for Mindful Mamas).

BTW, when we do start the thread that doesn't mean we have to stick to discussing the book 100% of the time in our posts here...just as much as possible to make life easier for those that are too busy to keep up with reading all the new posts.

Analisa~I'll be thinking of Meg on Sunday (and next Thursday)!!

[momcat]

Baby Phat - I LOVED the "Mamaste" at the bottom! Ha! I'm afraid I'll have to steal that at some point. In fact, can we use that as the name of our new thread??!

For some reason, I simply could not sleep last night, so had the opportunity to read the enire section (Loathely Lady, empathy, compasion, acceptance), but will definitely not have time to do that much reading in one week on a regular basis (unless I decide to become a regular insomniac which, in addition to ds's teething episodes, would be the end of me). So, Heather, my vote is to divide the sections into manageably small pieces.

Loved the discussion in the last thread about sovereignty, haven't added to those thoughts.

As for empathy, see "nursing every hour while teething," and you pretty much have my current thoughts. Without empathy, I would have had a meltdown by now (how are you, tara?!).

Acceptance? I think it ties in with empathy. As we have been discussing our dhs, our moods, etc, I think of the quotation on pg 85: "When a child, no matter how old, feels our acceptance, when he feels our love, not just for his easy-to-live-with, lovable, attractive self, but also for his difficult, repulsive, exasperating self, it feeds him and frees him to become more balanced and whole." If that's what I need/expect (as I am ugly, controlling, exhausted, etc) from dh, ds, and others around me, why would I not afford the same to ds?

I also liked the quotation on pg 84: "Every time we are able to see a little more clearly what our own issues are and where they come from, we have the possibility of choosing not to react in automatic and often destructive ways, and creating new and healtheir possibilities instead." It's therapy without the bill, mamas!

Gotta run, but one more thought (confession?) on TV (before we get to that section of the book...): I admit to being a West Wing junkie. It's seriously the only thing that gives me any hope for the future of our country these days... and yes, I know it's fiction, but someone is writing it, expecting people to watch it, so there must be more folks like me out there...

[Curly Locks]

Mamaste?? Is that like namaste??

I already started our 'Support for Mindful Mamas' thread. I was too excited about it. I hope everyone is o.k. with what I wrote. Here it is: http://216.92.20.151/discussions/sho...threadid=32560 I hope that will make life easier and more fun for everyone!

Momcat~Sorry about the change of plans for this week. I'll try to do better at breaking down the pace. I agree that's a lot of reading. I still haven't read the acceptance section for a second time myself. Speaking of tv there's a newer thread with a poll about tv use. Thanks for your thoughts about empathy in Part III. I am enjoying re-reading this section! Especially since ds is teething, sick, and getting into that clingy toddler age that everyone else has been struggling with. It helps to be reminded that empathy is important. My mom was not empathetic so I am trying to break that cycle of sarcastic and distant parenting I was reared with...not an easy thing! UUUUGGGGGHHHH!

Would breaking down Part IV in two halves be short enough for everyone? That would be about 30 pages for next week and 30 pages for the following week. Remember some of the chapters are about meditating, Zen Masters, breathing, letters to a young girl interested in Zen...stuff that is easy to skim through.

Breathe~I think you have everyone confessing about their favorite shows. My favorite show used to be Wheel of Fortune and Friends was pretty high up there! Well I guess I better save some ponderings for the new thread. Will we still post our favorite mindful or not so mindful moments here??? Also, I checked out that other thread for conscious parents, pretty neat! Mamasoliel found her niche there...she was with us on the 1st thread.

[Mamaste]

Yes, it's "Mamaste" like "Namaste" -- "Mamaste" is my screen name on APConnect!, the AP board I run for Dallas/Fort Worth-area parents, as well as a handful of other places as well. I think it was taken at the time I registered here ... Maybe I'll try to re-start it when we change ISPs and email addresses next month, although I kinda hate to lose my post history and name recognition. Oh well.

I do have to ask: I keep re-reading recent posts but I'm not sure I'm understanding at what point in the book we are. We are now discussing what part? And what day do we begin discussing the next part -- which is what? Sorry for being thick. :

[Curly Locks]

Baby Phat~It's funny that you have that as your screen name. Dh and I thought we were the only ones that joked about namaste (namastay) sounding like mama stay. The yoga video we have, uses that phrase when they bow inward with hands together. Dh used to drive me nuts when I was trying to do my yoga video and when Rodney Yee would say "namaste" dh would say "mama stay home." But now it seems funny! I get your sign off though since I read this book and it explains the bowing in Part IV "Mindfulness: A Way of Seeing" not "A Way of Being" like I wrote earlier.

To answer your question about where we are in the book: We agreed to discuss one chapter (sections within the Parts) at a time through December. However, we decided to discuss chapter two and three (What is Mindfulness and How Can I Do this?) in one week (but it wasn't decided until after the fact). "How Can I do This?" seemed a moot point for this group. Plus we also decided that we can always feel free to go back and discuss other chapters at any point. We move forward on Sundays and last Sunday the 30th we moved onto Part II and III, Sir Gawain and The Loathely Lady" which was a direct segway (sp?) into Part III "Sovereignty, Empathy, Acceptance." I felt that spending two or three weeks on such a short section would be a long time for this group b/c we spent so much time on sovereignty on the previous thread. But if anyone feels like they need or want more time to focus on Part III, please let me know. Otherwise, I'd like to propose that we move onto Part IV on this coming Sunday the 8th and discuss the first 30 pages through Saturday the 14th. Then on Sunday the 15th move onto the second half of Part IV. Sorry for such an in-depth explanation but there seemed to be a lot of confusion from everyone. I hope this clarifies what happened and where we are now, which is Part II and III "Sir Gawain and The Loathely Lady" and "Sovereignty, Emapthy, Acceptance." We each discuss as we have time and whatever relates to our individual lives. So we don't always discuss the same quotes within the section we are currently on.

[nuggetsmom]

Originally posted by momcat

I also liked the quotation on pg 84: "Every time we are able to see a little more clearly what our own issues are and where they come from, we have the possibility of choosing not to react in automatic and often destructive ways, and creating new and healtheir possibilities instead." It's therapy without the bill, mamas!

I find that being a mother really brings up my old issues. Being mindful of my reaction and also by extentin of how others react towards DD and to their own children brings up emotions that I apparently haven't processed and that I can't quite place. I think I need actual therapy to work these out, but instead I use my journal and MDC
Anybody else feel that way?

Oh, and I watch friends religiously.

Have a wonderful mindful day

[LiminalOne]

Hey all

I've been nursing a sick baby (and sick me), so am a bit out of the loop. I had thought we were just reading the Loathely Lady this week. The three chapters of Part III are the central substance of the book and I know we've talked about sovereignty before but I still think that they could each use a week on their own. The more you think about it, the deeper it gets, right? But if everyone else is ready to move on, by all means.

Anyways, I'm also not a fan of his fairy tale though I haven't figured out exactly why. Maybe it's the shallow notion that love is about physical attractiveness or that he gains by marrying her out of pity (or out of loyalty to someone else). It doesn't help me think about sovereignty.

Sovereignty this week for me has been holding my baby almost all the time (hi, tara) especially to get him to sleep at night. Letting him watch our home videos on the TV (which we had buried in the closet and haven't let him watch before) b/c he was sick and just kept saying "baby, baby," forgoing temperature takings (cause the degrees didn't really matter tho I despertely wanted to know). Questions that have arisen were about how we define some things as coerceable "for your own good" and how I feel about these slippery definitions. How much I rely on downtime to maintain my sanity? How it's easier to be empathic when ds is sick than when he's not despite greater physical deprivation on my part.

Nuggetsmom's post hit home about this question of interconnectedness vs brattiness. I was so discouraged reading those "bratty" threads b/c I think that gently teaching a child to respect others and recognize their sovereignty has no road map. It lives inbetween all our thoughts and is very subtle. And I'm very scared/nervous that I'm not going to do it "right," that I don't really understand interconnectedness in my own life, despite holding it in high respect. My problem is that most limits seem arbitrary to me. I try to give ds the same flexibility that I give myself (e.g., to eat walking around the house and sleep when he wants), but he's not able to manage that flexibility to the same extent that I am (e.g., clean up his own messes, get himself to sleep after I've already crashed). Small things but also quite large. Most issues aren't about safety--easier for limit setting but about my convenience and sanity. And as Tara mentioned, a parent's needs are largely malleable and are probably better classified as wants, even my sacred showertime. It's not that you should always deny yourself but classified as wants they become part of that endless calculus.

And now there's a separate thread for support but I have a hard time separating life from theory so I'm sure I'll cross some lines. That's what "liminal" is all about anyways

Cheers
Angie

[Curly Locks]

Welcome back, Angie and we hope you're both much better now. I actually thought your interpretation of The Loathely was pretty funny. Maybe you have some valid points there. Also, maybe considering the holidays coming, all the sick babies, and new mamas joining us it would be a good idea to spend more time on Part III. Although, I don't feel 3 weeks is necessary. It would be helpful to me if people would either pm me or add in their posts how they are coming w/ their reading so we know how to proceed.

My feeling about Part II and III is that they are all very interelated concepts. A quote from 'Acceptance' on page 72 "Along with sovereignty and empathy comes the crucial need for acceptance as a fundamental element of mindful parenting. The three are intimately interwoven and complement each other."

Ds has a nasty cold and I am not feeling so hot myself today. It's been a rough week here! Thanks for hanging in there with my nuttiness/scatterbrained running of this thread! I want so much to have a lively discussion on this section, but it's not easy with a sick baby hanging on to me.

[Breathe]

My ds is sick again (and we may lose power soon due to a wretched ice storm), so I vote for not moving on on Sunday -- I also thought we were just doing the L Lady story this week.

And if I disappear for a while, know that it's most likely due to me losing my internet connection!

(But I am SO with you all with the sick babies -- this is TOUGH!)

Hope you're all warm and cozy at home!
E.

[Curly Locks]

I'm so glad everyone made me come to my senses about moving on so quick! I was starting to stress a little with all that is going on in my own life these days. I have no problem responding to posts, reading posts, nurturing ds and dh, but then finding time to read the book and come up w/ an intelligent thought and writing it is a whole other talent!

Let's just keep discussing Part II and III like we have been this week and stay there until we're ready to move forward.

Everyone just enjoy your babes [and get or keep them well] and we'll make this all work somehow! I will see this book to the end with you all if it kills me! Breathe~We hope you weather the storm o.k.!

O.k. now that we got all this "where are business" figured out we can respond to some of the posts about the book. I apologize for all the confusion! We'll get a system down one of these days.

[momcat]

Hi - just wanted to respond to LiminalOne and Nuggetsmom about the whole interconnectedness/brattiness thing.

I, too, struggle with walking that tightrope. I think that it's good to have some limits, but they can be flexible. Ds has never been on a schedule for naps, eating, nursing, etc - we have always followed his cues. That said, we do insist that he take naps every so often because we all function better if he does! Now, that might be crossing some sovereignty lines (he would rather play with blocks or his rocking horse, or books, etc), but part of loving him and teaching him his own limits is to encourage healthy behaviours... and sleeping is one of them! He always feels better after a nap, he just doesn't know that he WILL feel better. Over time, he seems to develop what I refer to as routines, but they are not hard and fast. I think that's what most of us do as adults, too.

There are a few other things we try to regulate, too... we don't often let him walk around while eating, because the dog will take his food from him (or just lick it while it's in his hand... eeew!), we don't let him climb the stairs without one of us with him (that's an obvious safety issue), etc. I think it is a hard line to walk, though, knowing that you want to honor your child's sovereignty, knowing that you want to empathize with his or her needs and desires, and knowing that you want to let her or him explore the world safely.

For myself, I find that much of this is relaxing enough to trust that ds won't figure out a way to spectacularly hurt himself, and allowing him the freedom to explore etc while we are always ready to redirect for safety or health reasons. I feel like I'm rambling a little bit here and not saying exactly what I want to say... but do you get my drift?

My mother had (has!) this impressive inhalatory gesture (think open-throat yoga breathing, but this was quick and panicky) that conveyed her fears to us quickly and clearly. Unfortunately, it applied to just about everything in life!! (My aunt tells me that when I was about 10 months old, my mother had me on a blanket in the grass, and I started to crawl off the blanket. My mother froze, saying loudly and with a panic in her voice: "Now what do I do??!") Needless to say, I have some fear issues still to work through - but I do work very hard at allowing ds the freedom to explore and play, even when sometimes things make me nervous. I stand by and watch carefully, but I also work VERY hard just to relax and trust that he will be fine.

[Curly Locks]

Momcat~Thanks for sharing that with us! Sounds like you're doing a great job at relaxing, yet not being permissive either, and letting ds become his own person. That's exactly how dh and I are with ds. Dh get's nervous about things more than I do. I always expected I'd be the wicked witch in this family...overprotective, overbearing, harsh disciplinary figure etc. But so far, so good! Building a trusting relationship through mutual respect, empathy, acceptance, and allowing everyone their own sovereignty (as needed~when possible) has been key in this family! There's some great quotes in the book that reference how empathy helps the process of parenting, but I have no clue what page at this moment!

Nuggetsmom~Falling asleep on the mommy job! That killed me!!! That shows us how zonked you were. But we know you aren't permissive any more than the rest of us are.

Ds is still sick...woke up at 5:30 this morning throwing up mucus all over dh an I (five times). But he still has that sparkle in his eyes and chipper attitude. gotta go!

[Curly Locks]

Hi, mamas! I hope everyone is o.k. out there. Especially everyone in the east. Breathe may be without power so we need to be thinking warm thoughts for Breathe and her family. I don't watch tv but I saw this headline about the Carolinas when I was on-line checking my email: http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/u...orm021205.html

I have been doing much thinking today about brattiness, sovereignty, empathy, and the Loathely Lady story. Maybe they could have come up with a better story to use as an example. Does one exist or could they have made up a story on their own or even used a real life sovereignty story. Does anyone know the history of the sovereignty concept as k-zs have presented in this book? Just wondering if they got the idea from another book.

Peace and warm thoughts to all!!!