Summer Whine-Down

By luaparrish

It has been a while, dear blog. You have suffered. I have suffered. Not sure anyone else has suffered, except maybe my own family.

It's been about a month since I started my new work schedule, and we are STILL trying to get all the pieces into place. I am working in my garage (fixed up as a work-out room, where no actual working out seems to take place), at a small table with laptop and that's about it. Not so ergonomically correct, but it will do for now. Our childcare situation is in flux yet again, with our wonderful high school sitter starting pre-season soccer practice already (two weeks of practice, twice a day?? gotta be kidding me). And before all this, there was a (very nice) vacation and schedules changing and our house in complete disarray and Ian getting his last teeth in (those canines -- now he truly IS a wild little beast). So it's been sort of stressful for me lately. Putting it mildly.

Ah, stress. Here is the thing ... When things get stressful for me, I completely lose myself.

For example, under extreme whining conditions. Yes, it is the dawn of the whining age. Will has been practicing, and now at almost four, he is quite accomplished.

"Eeee-aaaan, that's MY car!"

"Mooooooo-ooom, I wanna drink toooooooo."

"I wanna peanutbutterandjelly now, Moooooooomm. Peanutbutterandjell-eeeeeeeee...."

It's like nails on a chalk board. Especially during that "arsenic hour" while I'm trying to get dinner ready and Ian is clinging to my leg, screaming.

So yeah, I get a little stressed.

But yoga is helping. Did I mention yoga? I started going to a local studio once a week when Ian was maybe 4 months old. It was therapy, really. I was *told* by my counselor to get out of the house and do something for myself, by myself, at least once a week. I chose yoga. I could walk to class so it was easy. Had to be, cause at that point I had such little energy for much of anything.

I know some folks get turned off by the non-physical aspects of yoga. The Hindu traditions, the language of opening your heart, inner spirals and what not. But not me. I think they are now becoming the reason I show up at yoga twice a week.

Those mantras, the traditions, have been slowly teaching me how to handle the whining. Their whining -- my own whining. Oh, because I do whine a lot. To be sure.

If it's one thing you can't really do on a yoga mat very well, it's forgetting yourself. Losing yourself. Very hard to do when you're contorting yourself into a pretzel and "softening" your heart at the same time. Believe me, I've tried... And yoga has also pushed me face to face with THE FACTS. And those are:

1. We all suffer.
2. Suffering sucks.
3. We all want to be free from suffering.
4. We forget that we already know how to be free from suffering.
5. Let's do something so we can remember.
6. Let's do that something more often, so we don't forget as much, and maybe
7. We won't suffer as much as well.

Simple, to the point. Hard as hell...