Don't Stress - Meditate

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.