Many new scientific studies show a positive correlation
between Meditation and recovery from Mental Health disorders, such as
Schizophrenia and severe depression. Not
only are meditative practices beneficial for those with mental illnesses, but
they have also been shown to greatly benefit everyone. Ritualized meditation is found in every major
religion. Other studies have shown that
mental patients with a meaningful religious affiliation show better recovery
rates than those who identify as atheist.
Similarly, among people who are not mentally ill, those who practice
some form of spirituality are more likely to be in better overall physical and
mental health than those who do not. Meditation aims to aid the practitioner in gaining
control over one’s natural inclination towards negativity and despair. “Mastering
the mind requires freeing it from automatic mental conditioning and inner
confusion.” Mind of the Meditator Meditating changes the brain’s make-up,
enlarging and strengthening the parts that positively impact mental and
physical health. Meditation is at the
base of eastern medicine’s, ‘mind over matter’ approach. Regular meditation helps an individual manage
stressful situations as they arise, thus not allowing stress to wreak havoc on
the body. Stress is an important cause
of many chronic disesases like cancer, obesity, heart disease and high blood
pressure.
In contemporary US society, people face rigorous demands on a
constant basis. Due to the Recession
people are doing jobs that used to get done by 2 or even 3 people. Also, both parents often work, so doing household
chores, plus shuttling the kids around or doing homework add yet more stress
during precious off-hours. Knowing how
to manage stress throughout a busy day can come naturally by practicing
meditation. There are three common types
of meditation, 1) focused attention, which centers the mind in the present
moment, 2) stream of consciousness, which requires the meditator to track
internal bodily sensations and inner self-talk, and 3) compassion and loving
kindness, which cultivates feelings of compassion and loving kindness towards
others. These are all increasingly
practiced in hospitals and schools and are also increasingly being studied in
scientific laboratories. Here is how my
meditation practice helped me to deflect stress during an average morning before work with two
kids and a husband:
Artificial sound blasts from my
husband’s alarm wrenching me out of a deep sleep. Rolling on to my other side, I discover a
soft warm body nestled next to me in the bed.
She stirs and asks groggily, “Mommy, watch Disney Junior?” in her lispy
drawl where l, r, and w all sound the same.
I fumble for the remote. Tapping my open hand lightly on the bedside
table, I hit my glasses first, my phone next, then finally palm the
remote. I struggle with the massive array
of buttons, jabbing the memorized pattern semi consciously, with my stiff,
heavy thumb. “Mommy! Not Disney
Juniow!” The remote slips out of my
hands. “Oh, sorry baby.” I grab at it and try again. “There you go, is that it?” No answer, so I crane my head, squinting
against the blur to check the channel information before I hear an engrossed
little, “Yes.” My head slams back on to my
pillow. I burrow it in and try to will
the tiredness away.
Like clockwork, though steeped in a
thick fog of fatigue, Justin has methodically gone down the stairs, flipped on the coffee
maker, and made his way into the shower, where he’ll remain for the next 45
minutes. Before I know it, I hear a
plaintiff, “Mommy!” from the kitchen at the bottom of the stairs. “Mommy!! I want my ceweow!” Since he rarely eats much dinner, Henry is
always starving by the time he hears his Dad descend heavily from the converted
master suite of our old farmhouse. He’s
strictly forbidden to get up before he hears the shower turn on. The minute he does, he’s up. “MAH MEE!” He repeats a third time, no longer
whining, but commanding. “I want my CEE
WEE OW!” It’s pointless to resist, so I
clumsily crawl over Charlotte calling out, “Coming baby!” He was a collicky baby. We all learned very early on that Henry’s
eating and sleeping are paramount in keeping the peace. We’d already tried preparing the bowls with
little lids after he went to bed and putting them at his place on the kitchen
island. It failed miserably, because he
would just sneak out of bed at 3 or 4 AM, devour it and be up for the day. Of course this meant he would crash by 7,
before the day had really even begun.
I stiffly make my way down the
stairs, squeezing my hand along the railing for balance. My ankle cracks uncomfortably as my body
struggles to shed its sleepiness. “Cee
wee ow cee wee ow cee wee ow” Henry chants, not unpleasantly, but like a hungry
3 and a half year old. “Okay, okay
buddy. I hear ya. Give your momma a
minute please. You want the orange bowl?”
“Yes!” Do you want fruities or
honey nuts?” (Both varieties of cheerios)
“Fwuities and honey nuts.” He
says the and emphatically. “Okay
Bud.” I plop his fiesta bowl down in
front of him with a dull ring after removing it from the dishwasher. Then I walk back around the island and bend
down to get the cereal out of the cabinet.
As I’m pouring the cereal, he directs me as to how much of each type he
wants and then critiques my pouring job, briefly threatening not to want it
anymore. “Okay fine. Then I’ll eat it, or I’ll give it to
Charlotte.” That puts an end to that.
“Spoon!” he now commands. “Big
boy spoon or little spoon?” “Big boy.” “Do you want milk today?” “Yes.”
I make another tour of the kitchen gathering the necessary supplies. “Actually, I want the little spoon, the blue
one.” “Nope. That’s not how it works. You said big boy. Big boy or nothing.” “No!”
He starts to grunt and make his scrunchy tantrum face. I take a deep breath and set the jug of milk
down to await a resolution to this latest crisis. “Henry, if you want a little spoon you need
to tell me when I ask you. You can’t
change your mind when I’ve already gotten it out. Now do you want milk in your
cereal or not?” “But I really want the
blue spoon.” He crosses his arms and
legs, leans dramatically back into his chair, hangs his head, nearly touching
his chest with his chin, and juts out his bottom lip. Unfortunately, Henry had already learned he
could manipulate me. I tell myself it
stems from his colic, that I was conditioned to soothe him however possible in those days
where he would cry unceasingly as an infant.
But realistically, confrontation has always made me cringe. “Mommy?”
We’re interrupted. “Yes Charlotte.” “Get me?”
“Okay sweetie.” I trudge back up
the stairs and gather up my warm, soft little girl. I nuzzle into her fluffy curls to give her a
kiss on the nape of her neck. Cradling
her, I walk carefully back down the stairs.
When we reach the landing, I see Henry has the big boy spoon poised and
ready to go. “Milky!” “Alright bud, let me put your sister
down. I transfer her to my hip and
singlehandedly unlock the tray of the kiddie seat attached to her barstool, laying
it on the island. Grabbing her under the
arm pits with both hands, I laboriously aim her two dangly feet at their
respective holes. “MAH MEE! I want my milky!”
“I know bud, it’s comin.” I grab
a banana from the fruit bowl, rip off its peel, find a nearby spoon, quickly
carve some convex banana slices for Charlotte and then hurry to pour milk in
Henry’s bowl.
Charlotte seeing the milk, blurts,
“Miwk?!” “Ok babe, lemme grab your
cup.” I scan the array of kiddie eating
paraphanalia on the dish rack by the sink.
I see her preferred pink bottom and start rummaging for its top. This creates a landslide of plastic pieces
that shower down on to my feet and roll to various resting places on the
floor. “Miwk?” “Alright, let me see, hmm…” Not identifying
the piece I need, I check the dishwasher, find one that will fit, grab it, and
assemble her sippy cup of milk. By now,
I would really like my cup of coffee. My
hand under the handle of the dishwaser, I’m about to go back in for my big mug,
when I hear, “I want some milk.” I pull
open the door and grab my mug, as well as the top and bottom to Henry’s
cup. On my way back around the island to
his seat, I set my mug down by the coffee maker, grab the milk jug that I’d
placed there and continue on to Henry, where I go through the assembly process
for his sippy cup.
Finally, I pour my coffee and reach
for the mason jar of sugar. As soon as I
pop the top, Henry says, “Mommy, can I watch my movie?” I look around to see his belly on the seat of
his barstool, toes feeling for the ground, he acheives the necessay balance to
transfer his weight onto his feet, pushing off with his forearms and elbows. “Ok man baby, which one, Land Before Time from last night?” “Yes.” I follow him into the living room bracing
myself for the multiple stepped ordeal. (Child
locked cabinets, different remotes, a jumble of DVD and VHS cases, cassettes,
discs, etc.) Henry, like many boys his
age, really loves dinosaurs. A couple of
months ago, my Mom had happened upon a set of seven Land Before Time VCR tapes
during one of her antiquing afternoons.
We knew the original from her house.
It belonged to a collection of cherished childhood items that my Mom
enjoyed collecting. First born into a large,
conservative family, the few nostalgic childhood vignettes my Mom shares
suggest that they were rare occasions broadly punctuated by strong
admonitions. As a result, my Mom never
seemed to fully grow up. In fact the
older she gets, the more delighted by toys and dolls she becomes.
I illuminate all of the necessary
technological devices and take the last step of pressing play. I wait a couple of seconds down on my knees
by that VCR player, entertainment center doors splayed open, only to see the
credits roll up the black screen. Darn
it! “Ok babe, this one’s done. Do you want it again or a different one?” “Different one.” Sigh. “Which one? Do you
know or do you need to come take a look?
Why don’t you pick one out and I’ll be back in a minute to put it in,
all right?” I head back into the kitchen
to check on Charlotte. She’s a much more
laid back little personality (for now) than her brother, I muse as I watch her
focus on each cheerio, meticulously grasping them with her chubby, tapered baby
fingers. “Mommy? I have to go potty!” “Poo poo or pee pee?” “Poo poo and
pee pee.” Ok, do you need help?”
“Yes!” I stride quickly over to
Charlotte, lay an impulsively heavy kiss on her forehead, pushing her into my
firm pucker with my right hand submerged into her tangled ringlets. I marvel at how patient she is compared to
Henry. I free her from her seat and put her down on the couch, switching the TV
setting and punching in the number for Disney Jr. Then, I hurry to meet Henry at the closed
bathroom door. “Open it, buddy.” “Ok, I was waiting for you.” “Alright, let’s
go do this thing.” “Hey honey, it’s us,
we’re going poo poo” I announce unnecessarily.
The creaky old door sufficiently alerted Justin of our entry into his
steamy morning sanctuary. “Oh, hi” he
offers unenthusiastically. Henry rips
off his pajama bottoms while walking across the bathroom, his feet get tangled,
tripping him and me too. We stop so I
can pull his legs free and he pops up and mounts the toilet like a gymnast
tackling the vault horse, opting as usual for no stool or toddler seat.
After getting him sucessfully
cleaned up and changed into his school clothes, I decide I should really get
Charlotte out of her wet pull up before I go back for my coffee cup. I march her into the bathroom so we can go
through the motions of sitting on the toilet, but so far, she hasn’t shown any
interest in wearing undies or going pee pee on the potty. She does have quite an opinion about what to
wear, however. Once at her dresser, we
begin the difficult process of negotiating an outfit. Several items get rejected with a sharp,
“NO!” or an “Ugwy!” or even a vehement toss.
When we have finished, Charlotte asks me earnestly, “Am I
booteefuw?” “Yes, you are very
beautiful” I answer honestly, taking in her golden curls, her chubby pink cheeks,
and her button nose. Although, I can’t
help but giggle as I watch her shimmy back onto the sofa wearing stripes, polka
dots, and flowers.
By now my coffee is cold. I’ve just popped it into the microwave when
Henry reminds me that I need to put on his movie. “Did you ever decide which one you want?” I
call as I enter in the 30 seconds needed to warm my coffee. “Duh Secwet ov Sauwus Wock” The Secret of
Saurus Rock was an installment of the Land Before Time Saga. I hope to God that it’s been rewound as I
walk back into the living room. I manage
to find its case, open it and see that it had been. After pressing all of the necessary buttons
on the requisite remotes and fast forwarding through the previews, the movie
starts and the microwave has beeped its third reminder. I hustle to retrieve my coffee in the kitchen,
only to find that it’s now too hot. I
add my milk and sugar and am about to take a sip when I hear, “Mommy! Snuggew wif me!” Even though I’m dying for a decent sip of
coffee at this point, an invitation to snuggle trumps all. Careful not to spill my huge, full to the
brim mug of hot coffee, I weave my way back through the minefield of toys. I alternate my attention back and forth from the
small waves of café au lait crashing into the sides of my cup to the surreptitious
placement of my feet. With the balance
and control of a seasoned yogi, I lower my body onto the couch, bracing my arms
to prevent spillage when the strong little boy body springs into my lap,
rooting his head under and around limbs until it comes to rest against my
breast. A little bit of the liquid manages
to escape, but the warm brown splotches disappear into the bright flannel of my
PJs. With a fuzzy blond head on my chest
and a second curly one envelopped under the crook of my arm, I take that long
awaited drink of coffee. As the sweet,
warm liquid travels down my throat into my belly, I feel a wave of love surge
from deep inside of me and wash out through my arms which then reflexively
squeeze the two baby bodies tightly to my core.
