Becoming Real - The Velveteen Rabbit

I was reading this story to my son the other evening all snuggled up in bed and the words are so beautiful I wanted to share them with you... I think this extract speaks for itself.

Extract from The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams

“What is REAL?” asked the rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

            “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse for he was always very truthful.

“When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by

bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It

takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who

break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have been carefully kept.

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved

off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very

shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real

you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

“…. Once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”

Satya: Truth and Story-telling

Satya is the second yama - code of conduct in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras - and it means literally to 'speak the truth.' It is important to weave into the practice of satya the first yama, ahimsa (non violence), i.e. to speak the truth without violence or harm to others. I also feel Satya needs to be viewed within the context of the first and fourth niyamas (internal codes of conduct) sauca - meaning 'purity', and 'svadhyaya' - self study, introspective and learned exploration of the 'true self'.

Lets break this down and bring it into everyday parenting situations. When I first started looking at this yama a few months ago, I began to work with my son on his telling the truth - he is a very charismatic and imaginative story spinner - which in our playful life I have totally encouraged as we tell stories and goof/act/role-play together lots, which I LOVE! 

However, I began to notice the importance of his knowing the line of when truthfulness is crucial - and the foundation for all loving human relationships. We began to tell the story of Peter and the Wolf together, and The Honest Woodcutter from Aesops's Fables. I love using stories in parenting from our oral tradition, as little instruction needs to be given alongside them - they wash around the child and build an imaginative yet instructive patchwork in family life. You can find them at (http://www.storyarts.org/library/aesops/index.html)

As we moved through the practical surface level of truth telling, I also saw the need for us to be truthful about our emotions, our resources and abilities - for everyone in our family to hear each others truth and our 'reality' as we see and feel it... Which brought to mind the Serenity Prayer...

- 'Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

                                                The courage to change the things I can,   

And wisdom to know the difference.'

Over these few months of thinking and talking about truthfulness in our family - my son's favourite story from a beautiful Barefoot Book - 'Tales of Wisdom and Wonder' was 'The Blind Man and the Hunter.' This message I think perfectly reflects that our view of the world, people, a situation - our truth - is so much more powerful when it comes from a deep and humble inner-knowing that the practice of yoga is fundamentally about.

You can listen to the story online here:

http://www.storymuseum.org.uk/1001stories/detail/155/the-blind-man-and-the-hunter.html

In joy!

Tough Love

I have a little more to say on Ahimsa (non violence) and parenting, before I move onto the second yama (codes of conduct from the Yoga Sutras), Satya. 

I was surprised that Ahimsa for me this week was pretty much about boundary setting. Hmmm. Tough love is something that I feel less strong in my parenting, but I have no wall-flower for a son - so sometimes it is required. As my friends who have stayed with me over the last few months have pointed out, I do a little jig to get around sternness in my parenting. I believe and admire parents who are softly spoken and respectful of their children’s emotions… but there is a line – and we have been HOT STEPPING it recently! I see those soft-spoken parents I admire also set firm unmoving boundaries and lay out some good laws of the universe for the child to work within. My goal at the moment is to be able to set clear unmoving boundaries without the shouting or blame or accusation. 

My pattern is to stay calm/uber patient, loving etc for a long time and then suddenly BAM - fully exasperated, out of love juice and boiling up a spicy internal rage that I neither want to project on my child nor stew in myself. I’ve got to find a way of speaking my truth (satya… linking into yama 2) before I hit the pressure cooker explosion stage.

So how to bring the principle of ahimsa into boundary-setting? This is my plan… in progress!

1.    Breathe (enabling change to occur in my physical and emotional body... and thus the situation)

2.     What is the truth of my feelings/judgement of behaviour here?

3.    What is my child really needing, asking for? (Quote Osho – ‘the answer is in the questioner’, Book of Woman)

4.    At this first stage, what is important for my son to learn, what is the core boundary/principle?

5.    Embody the boundary at my core, in my physical centre, and then bring softness into my face, voice and breath.

6.    Communicate simply and clearly using positive language.

As I try and practice this I can feel myself growing in this soft yet firm stern-ness; recognizing what is at the root of an issue with my child… And he responded well - seeming to feel more safe and secure in the stronger clearer voice and role I had as his guardian. 

But some discomfort still remained… as someone that naturally orients away from conflict, I found it unpleasant to have a ‘she-wolf’ moment. As I talk of in yoga, pain comes from resistance… so what was I resisting here? How could I be present for his need for love, even in his most mischievious hour, and also step up strongly to teach him about loving behaviour, respecting boundaries and consequences/karma? 

The answer came from Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Mastery of Love, where he talks about the pain we create for ourselves in our deep-rooted expectation and longing to be perfect. This expectation was created when as children we realized we needed to behave in a certain way for acceptance. Many spiritual books talk of the damage done to children through conditional love and punishments. I realized that when I let go of trying to be perfect, I was way stronger and much more clear about what was acceptable behaviour for us both - and I also changed my default disappointment that bad behaviour would come up - and expected Mabon to be not perfect - which was really lovely! It has helped our family atmosphere so much to just work on accepting him and myself and our life, exactly as it is… Being totally prepared to receive challenges in behaviour and confidently correct them has of course made my son more gentle, more secure and the family feels more held.

I’ll close this post with one of my favourite poems, by Mary Oliver, dedicated to Lottie Loosemore, whose parents gifted my son this poem at his birth-celebration walk.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

------------------

* I am focusing on embodying and exploring the 10 yamas and niyamas from the Yoga Sutras in my parenting. Beginning with the  ‘Happy Pancake Day’ blog.

Ahimsa in the rain

I have been a little tentative about how to breathe ‘Ahimsa’ (non violence)* into parenting… Simply because Mabon, being a super savvy 5 year old has recently detected moral or ‘spiritual’ lingo as different from the normal practical interactions we have:

            ‘Oh mummy, why do you have to talk about love, again….’

(Visualise shrugged shoulders, eyes lifted dourly to the heavens… Quite frankly I felt busted!)

I took this as a sign that a) I seem to have a teenager on my hands aged 5 and b) maybe I have been approaching conscious parenting too consciously.... as if loving behaviour is separate from our natural state of being! I.e. Ease off the philosophical conversations and embody more what I wanted to grow in our lives; to learn together through playing and doing, without commentary.

One aspect of ahimsa is sensitivity. Most parents or carers will find our key work is listening and helping children express their emotions, then becoming aware of others’ feelings and the outer environment. Sensitivity also enables us to joyfully engage the senses, which are so alive in children. Yesterday it rained for the first time in 4 months in Goa. Not just a little rain; but torrential, thundering, wind-swept tropical rain. Mabon woke early to the sound of an apocalyptic drumming on the tin roof. I have been aiming to bring more softness into my reactions as a mother, so when he woke ‘too early’, instead of fearing this would mean tiredness and grumps, I turned my focus to where the delight could be had in this situation! Led by Mabon’s curiosity we headed straight out into the rain in our pyjamas to feel the rain on our skin and get a ‘nature shower’.

It turned out to be the most beautiful morning in ages. Mabon played making rivers for his toys to swim in, and putting his sand bucket windmill under the shower tipping off the roof. We stood back and watched the roof and trees steam in the heat once the rain stopped, watching all the water energy transform magically back into steam/air. This morning truly helped me connect ahimsa to the element of water, carrying the message of ‘going with the flow.’ As I know from practising yoga, all pain comes from resistance, and ahimsa is the quality that steers and lifts us from pain and into gentle love.  Swimming with the river… and the rain, has been the image bobbing in my head all week; to softly accept every situation and emotion just as it is, in myself, and Mabon. 

* non violence, non harming, Yama no. 1, Yoga Sutras: see previous post

Happy Pancake Day!

I have very happy memories of Shrove Tuesday in our kitchen at home. We’d line the whole floor with tea-towels or old sheets, mix up a huge vat of pancake mix and take it in turns to lob the pancakes as high as we could, not minding if they fell on the floor. There were definitely a few that stuck to the ceiling! We had different fillings out on the table for our meal – I seem to remember we had to have one savoury and rest could be sweet. It is such a beautiful memory I have always kept it alive.

I cook vegan food at home. There are dozens of vegan pancake recipes (adding baking powder for thick bubbly pancakes, sugar, veg oil etc). I keep it super simple: just stirring flour and soya/rice milk together until I get a good consistency… I prefer spelt flour, half wholemeal/half refined. Here in India I use rice flour to avoid wheat. Sometimes I add vanilla essence, cinnamon, nuts or soft fruits like blueberries… Boom! Our toppings can be bananas, desiccated coconut, agave syrup, date syrup, hummus, cashew crème (soaked and blended cashews with lucuma/mesquite and a touch of cinnamon and agave). If you have a dehydrator there are amazing raw pancake recipes too (mango and banana mashed and spread out to dehydrate for example).

The meaning of the pancake…?

Mabon, my son, and I were chatting about pancakes meaning the beginning of Easter on the way home from kindergarten today. Shrove Tuesday hails the beginning of Lent from the Christian tradition. These 40 days leading up to Easter are traditionally a time of fasting, abstinence and penance. My understanding is that pancakes were made to use up the eggs, being considered a luxury that would be cut out in Lent.

In the past I have enjoyed the challenge of giving something up, but recently I prefer to add a discipline or loving way of being to the month, which seems to be more something Mabon, aged 5, can get involved with. I have been studying the five Yamas and five Niyamas recently, two of the eight limbs of yoga from Pantanjali’s Yoga Sutras written in 200 AD. This lent I am going to take one aspect a week to focus on, or equally one yama could be chosen for the whole 40 days:

Yamas (External Codes of Conduct/Attidudes/Virtues for conscious living)

Ahimsa – Non-violence, non harm

Satya – Truth

Asteya – Non theft

Brahmacharya – Conserving Primordial energy

Aparigraha – Non-attachment, being un-possessive

Niyamas (Internal Codes for living/Precepts for individual discipline)

Saucha – Purity

Santosa – Contentment

Tapas – Disciplines, austerities to dissolve personal limitations

Svadhyaya – Self study

Ishvara Pranidanah – Surrender to God

 I have a strong suspicion Mabon will have much to teach me on embodying these guidelines! I will write up the experience each week... Here goes: Ahimsa!

The Wave of Words

‘Though the wave of words is forever upon us, yet our depth is forever silent.’

(Kahil Gibran, The Prophet)

This moment, let me swim with the current in this vast sea of childhood.

In the incessant babble of words and sounds, may I know silence.

In the moving and swaying, may I know stillness.

In the giving, may I receive; and receiving, give.

In the surrender, may I find strength.

In the questioning, may I find wisdom.

In humility, may I find Grace.

Breathing out the Grumps

For a few reasons we’ve had what my sister would call a ‘struggly’ week… I’ve been a little low on ‘mum juice’ to be frank and despite practicing love and patience to the best of my ability, I didn’t know what on earth to do with the ‘grumps’ and whinging and boundary pressing that has been a bit of a feature this week!

I walked out of yoga class yesterday having taught some beautiful pranayamas (breathing techniques) to greet my son . Half way home, in the middle of the street, the bottom fell out of Mabon’s world out of nowhere… the skip morphed into a heavy legged slump, shoulders drooped, and the chatter went to whine in seconds – ‘I’m too tired to walk the rest of the way home.’ Hmmm. Ok. How to deal with this one? I am always amazed at how much creativity is needed in parenting. Pranayama I thought… So I squatted down in front of Mabon, giving him eye contact and repeated what he had told me he was feeling so he knew I had heard him.

‘Oh no! Sounds like those mean grumps have sneaked into you… the only solution I’m afraid is for you take a big breath in and breath them all out into my hand, I’ll catch them and chuck them away.’

So that’s what we did for five minutes… and a few times more that day – accompanied by squeels, exclamation and ‘ouch’s’ from me as the ‘nasties’ spiked and slithered onto my hand and we dramatically wiped my hand and flicked out the whinges. Phew! 

Oh… and a little late this week I remembered my mothering strength is totally dependant on my attention on deep breathing, cooling the reactive fire and breathing in presence, lightness of mind and the much needed gentleness and humour!