A Little Health...The Lioness and the Lunges

Post as seen on Couragezone.com

When I was a teenager, I watched a nature film of a lioness and her cubs. The cubs were crawling all over her, tugging at her ear, and bounding over her. I thought, "When I'm a mom I'm not going to be like that tired momma cat! I'm going to be the mom that throws the ball, tackles her kids and bikes them to the grocery store to get milk!" Truthfully, I now understand the exhausted lioness, and no, I don't bike the kids to get our milk. However, as a group exercise instructor and master trainer, I know first hand that making your physical health a top priority will enable you to achieve many of your family dreams and personal aspirations.

I used to feel like I couldn't realize many of those dreams. I vividly recall reoccurring kitchen table conversations with my husband over the last years. "Rob, I feel so sick and tired. I have no motivation to clean the house at all. I'm not doing any projects with the kids I always wanted to do. I haven't washed my hair in five days. I don't want to cook and I feel guilty wasting our money on fast food. Why am I so unhappy?"

My Prince wisely and kindly replied: "How is your nutrition going?" Crickets. I realize I've been getting my meals from the kids' leftover plates. "How is your hydration?" Crickets. I have been "going for the gold," because urine that color is a sure sign of dehydration. "Have you been able to get out and exercise?" Head shake no; I used that time and energy running an errand. "How is your sleep?" Ugh. I had been staying up way too late surfing the Interet.

I had "don't-take-care-of-yourself-itis."

The cure for this ailment has particulars that can be individually tailored to your likes and lifestyle. However, whether it's walking, dancing, a sport or pilates, the benefits of exercise and proper nutrition apply to every mother because it:

increases your energy levels, allowing you to finally do activities that you want with your children
releases endorphins, making you more calm and clear minded (meaning less anger and frustration)
increases your cardio endurance-- you can do more for longer and it hurts less (chasing toddlers or teens)
increases your muscle strength--you can do more for longer and it hurts less (from heavy groceries to babies to book bags)
allows your mind to function in a different zone, which rests the brain and opens you up to new ideas and perspectives
delivers more oxygen to your brain and flushes out CO2 build up, allowing you to think more clearly, increasing memory
gives you a feeling of hope and confidence, reducing depression
deeper and easier sleep
enhances digestion and ssuppresses appetite
boosts self confidence--your children and husband will sense the new power in you and it will flow to them!
makes us more decisive and affectionate (you can become your husband's girlfriend again, not just roommate).

Sometimes we can't get to the gym, funds aren't available for babysitters or the weather is too cold or hot to run. I tell my clients to do their age in push ups, sit ups, squats and lunges everyday. House cleaning counts-I burned more calories scrubbing walls and floors for our cleaning company than I did in spin class! Turn on any music that you love and just go for it.

Sometimes we don't feel like exercising. How can we keep our physical health up when life gets in the way or our will power wanes? You must plan a regular time to work out and make that space sacred time. Tell the children "I will be a nicer mommy after I do this workout!" Or better yet, invite the children to do the workout with you. I remember the first time I practiced a Zumba routine in my bathroom mirror. My four and two-year old watched me in silence, literally gaping open-mouthed in shock. Then they burst out laughing. And now we dance together.

If you had more energy, what things would you do with your family or in your career? What personal aspirations do you think you could pursue?

Set a specific time each day to move your body this week. In your daily planner or journal, write down all of the food you eat. Look over the list after three days. What patterns do you notice in your nutrition? Introduce one healthy change to a pattern you see, i.e. more water, a better breakfast, more greens, no skipping meals.

Photo from Freedigitalphotos.net/lionessandcub.Rob Bunneywell

A Little Perspective...Realizing Life

Post from Thepowerofmoms.com by Catherine Averseth

This morning as I nursed my twin boys, changed their diapers, slid bowls of cold cereal onto the table for my three girls, then put the boys in high chairs (for the first time) while making multiple trips to the potty between spoonfuls of prunes because my twin girls decided two weeks ago to abandon their diapers for toilet-training, I thought, “This. Is. CRAZY!”

My life is crazy.

And if I think too much about how crazy it is I might actually go crazy.

But I don’t. (Think about how crazy and hard it is.) Most of the time.

I just do. And do some more.

By 8 am the day is on and we’re in high gear. I move quickly from one necessity to the next. Mostly it’s the basics. Food, clothing, clean-up, laundry. I mediate inevitable conflicts, nurse “owies,” braid a pony’s mane and rescue teething toys from the toilet. (True story.) If there’s a lull in the chaos, we pile onto the couch for a story, or dance to a favorite tune. Not much time for reflection, reading, writing, the things of the soul. Things I crave.

But I also craved children. After years of infertility, my husband and I experienced what we like to call our “family explosion.” Five children in four years, including two sets of twins. Fraternal girls followed by identical boys. Our boys were born one week after our oldest daughter turned four.

It has been exciting, exhausting, intensely joyous, out of control, but absolutely precious.

The boys are now 9 months old and we’re slowly coming out of survival mode. As the pace slows a bit, I’m harnessing more happy moments, noticing more episodes of contentment. Finally finding my groove as a mother of five. (Wow. That still sounds weird.)

So last week I saw Our Town – the great American play by Thornton Wilder. My aunt and her daughter watched all five kids so Doug and I could have a night out. (Yes, it took both of them.) Having read Wilder’s play but never seen it on stage, I anticipated the evening for weeks.

The play began. From spotlight to curtain call I was completely absorbed. All barriers between audience and actors faded away. We were right there in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. The actors were so comfortable with their roles, with each other and the audience – there wasn’t a bit of uneasiness. The play was left to work its subtle magic.


Our Town is a love story about George and Emily. Childhood sweethearts who grow up next door to each other. They marry right after high school and begin their family. But during the birth of their second child, Emily dies.

The entire third act is about her transition into death – what she experiences on the other side. She watches her own funeral procession and burial. She sees the faces of those she loves.

“Live people don’t understand, do they?” she asks. “I never realized how troubled and how…in the dark live persons are…From morning till night, that’s all they are – troubled” (96-97). [1]

Then, despite cautioning from those who have already died, she chooses to go back and relive one day of her life. Her twelfth birthday.

“Don’t do it Emily… It isn’t wise… It’s not what you think it’d be” (98) the dead admonish her. Still, she goes.

She steps into her mother’s kitchen, circles the stove and table, watches her mother prepare breakfast. She sees the birthday gift George left on her doorstep early that morning. A post-card album she had forgotten about.

“I can’t bear it. They’re so young and beautiful. Why did they ever have to get old? Mama, I’m here. I’m grown up. I love you all, everything. — I can’t look at everything hard enough…Oh Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really see me…Mama, just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s look at one another” (107).

Finally, she breaks into sobs. Overcome with the grief and beauty of it all – the wonder of her ordinary life.

“I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another…Take me back – up the hill – to my grave” (108).

Before leaving, however, she wants one more look. Longingly, she says good-bye to clocks ticking, her Mama’s sunflowers, new-ironed dresses, hot baths, sleeping and waking. Then suddenly she throws her arms out wide and laments,

“Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you! Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it – ever, every minute?”

“No.” the stage manager (who acts as narrator) replies. “The saints and poets, maybe – they do some” (108).

“No.” That was his answer. And he was right. We don’t realize how wonderful life is every minute of every day. We’re too busy, too hurried, too distracted.

After Doug and I returned home to our five little ones – all asleep – I cracked their doors open and stroked each cheek with Emily’s voice echoing in my head. “Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you!”

There, in the whisper of the night, I embraced my motherhood and every bit of tenuous longing I had for this gift.

The next day I moved through the house with different eyes. I saw the busy hum of what we were about with fleeting but tangible beauty. It won’t last – can’t last – and will be gone before I know it. So I began to make note of things I saw, felt, and cherished. A scrap of paper here, a note on my calendar there, and some plinking away on the keyboard at day’s end. It took some time. But how could I not? Writing it down makes it last.

While washing Sami’s hands, I noticed her dented knuckles, the pudgy softness. The way she lets me slap her paws together – blowing suds onto our faces and shirts. I wondered how long her hands will keep that three-year old look, how long she’ll let me hold them under warm water, my body bent over hers, before she wants to do it herself.

I noticed how Ali flutters instead of walks. Sailing from room to room, with a song spilling from her lips, she stretches her fingertips out to catch the wind. Teetering, gliding, dancing on tiptoe. My graceful girl, with wild brown curls – floating through our house.

I smelled Eliza’s hair at bedtime. The scent of gritty playground. Wind and dirt all tangled up in fraying ringlets. I felt the heat rise from her body as I tucked my arms around her and sang. She snuggled into her favorite blanket and quickly fell asleep. I kissed her cheek, wishing she could know how much I loved her in that instant. My oldest. My first.

I admired my boys as they took milk from me in the morning. Their eyes closed, softly caressing my arms and neck. The tender sight of their hands clasped together. This won’t last more than a month or two. It’s the closeness I love, the time alone with them, the giggles and tickling after. A quiet dependent circle, all three of us, needing each other.

And then I saw it. Today. The flash of silver in my husband’s hair – glinting in the light as he tossed Gordon into the air, the two of them laughing deeply. It’s a rite of passage, those flecks of gray. They tell of living – a sign that we are aging. Together. My heart flew to him. Grateful for his arms around my waist when the house is finally quiet.

Writing about these small things seems to freeze frame the joy, slow it down. So I can return to it, handle it, remember.

I’m no saint, but I’m trying to realize you, Life.

One day at a time.

On this earth that I love.

[1] Thornton Wilder, Our Town – A Play in Three Acts (New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 1938) p. 96 – 108

A Little Perspective... Stop that Complaining!

A few years ago I read an article in Real Simple that talked about complaining. I don't want to be a complainer, so I read the article to my husband and we discussed it, as well as our complaints. I can't say I have stopped complaining, but I am trying. So here are the things the article discussed that I am trying to stop complaining about:

1. The weather - everyone who can hear you is dealing with the same weather, when its hot we want it cold, when its cold we want it hot. I grew up in California, the weather was perfect, but we always complained about the coastal wind. When I go back now I love that coastal breeze. My husband and I agreed that since we like the warm better than the cold, we would never again complain on a hot day. After all, Winter is always just around the corner.

2. Traffic - again everyone deals with it. And if you are in the thick of it, so are the people listening to you complain. I don't like traffic and I avoid it. My husband usually works odd hours and doesn't hit the commuter crowd, but occasionally he can't avoid it. So when he gets home on those days I try not to complain about his lateness, after all he was the one sitting in the immovable throng. It could be worse.

3. Being busy - is it really so bad to be busy. I am really bad about this one. I think I thrive on busyness, and while I think I complain about being busy to excuse my scatter brain, I don't want it to come across as bragging. Yes, my life is busy and truthfully, I like it that way.

4. Tired - too relative, most of us are tired. Sometimes I find this becomes my easy answer to "How are you?" I think I use tired as an excuse for forgetfulness too. There are times when I think, "If I pass out in public will they call an ambulance? And if they do does that mean I get to sleep at a hospital?" Realistically I know that sleeping in a hospital isn't restful, but tired plays tricks on us. I'm tired, you are probably tired, none of us gets enough sleep. Yes, I AM TIRED, but you don't need to hear about it. I'm giving this complaint up. One time I fell asleep standing up,doing the dishes, it has been worse.

5. Fat - if you're not really, then complaining about it is insulting and if you are, then you risk an uncomfortable silence that can be hurtful. The reality is I want my twenty-two-year-old body back, but I don't want to be twenty-two again. I like who I am now. I feel good, I'm comfortable with who I am, I'm trying to be better in many ways. This is one three-letter word I am tossing out of my vocabulary, for my sake and the sake of my daughters.

So there it is, my list of forbidden topics. I'm giving up complaining and never looking back, or at least until someone cuts me off on the freeway.

A Little Perspective...Dropping Out of the Female Rat Race

My first yoga class was in college nine years ago. It was at 4 p.m., during a rough relationship period (weren't they all in college?) and just in time to change how I think about myself and view other women.

The instructor said something in the third class that sent my mind into another dimension; I haven’t looked back since. She said “Do not compare yourself to your neighbor. Let go of competition.” As she said this I remember I was specifically looking at a girl in the front row who could easily touch her toes in a seated forward fold. And I wasn’t just looking. I was trying to catch up to her, I was feeling like I was somehow less because I had tight hamstrings and a short low back and she didn’t. I was losing an unseen race of self worth.

I was crazy.

Sounds silly, right? But think about it- if you are a female and walk into a gym, you are not checking out the guys. Admit it! Most of you walk in, size up the women and compare your waist size, your rear view and treadmill speed. Something inside of us feels smaller or lesser. Maybe you even count cellulite dimples. Maybe you feel something whisper “Yes!” with a pumped fist inside of you when you can out-lap the grandma in the pool. Maybe we get excited when the skinny chick gets swollen during her pregnancy or your girlfriend orders a naughty dessert and might gain weight.

We are existing alone under the control of fear.

Comparison is rooted in competition, and competition is rooted in fear. Fear that if someone is thinner, faster, younger, richer, or can touch their toes in yoga, not face-plant off of the step or avoid sweating a small version of the Great Salt Lake onto the cycle room floor- then they are better than you. They win. When they win you lose.

This is a lie. It is a convenient lie that is whispered to women everywhere to alienate, depress and stimey sisterhood, individual progress and happiness. When we can see that our self worth is inherent and divine and doesn’t have a darn thing to do with whether we can balance on one foot in tree posture then we gain power. In giving away the power of competition and deciding to live our lives in love and not fear- then we gain peace. We can serve other women freely. We can trust. We can gain real friendships. We can lead. Our physical health and abilities will exponentially expand in all directions. We’ll feel a deepening of our essence, our intelligence, and the real “us” as well as see our muscles and hearts strengthen.

Do you catch yourself comparing? Competition in the gym usually doesn’t stay inside the gym. Mental comparisons are probably running dialogues many of us have that extend to strangers in the store, to women in our families, to women at work and church...making them our enemies. Making these comparisons is based on fear, fear that we are not good enough. We ARE good enough. This imaginary race we’re running in our heads isn’t real, and it’s used against us to stop our progress. The images we see and compare ourselves to in the market place convince us the race is real and not imagined so that we’ll buy their products to win.

It is time to stop living life out of fear. It is time to stop making decisions, buying things, faking things, and having tiresome emotional reactions, based on fear. Fear makes the people around us our enemies. That chick who can touch her toes in yoga class or ran a mile on Saturday? She is not your enemy. Maybe you don’t even see it happening in your own mind process, but women tend to compare their weaknesses with the strengths of others. And it’s OK to have weaknesses- and it’s OK to have strengths. We can let ourselves and other people have strengths!

Remember that you are good enough.  No amount of exercise, clothing, jewelry, or comparison with other females is going to make you feel good enough.  Only you can make you feel good enough.  And you deserve it.

A Little Perspective... Learning from the Bachelor

by Aly

 

Photo: LA Times

 I watch The Bachelor.  There, I said it.  I have watched it for years.  It feels good to get that off my chest.  I watched it on Monday when Jake (who, I think, is a total dork) proposed to Vienna.  Here's the thing... I actually learned something from watching The Bachelor.  I know, hard to believe, right?  I actually gained some perspective.  I realized, again, that am really very blessed; blessed to not be on The Bachelor!

 As I watch those people and listen to their drama, I look over at my husband on the other couch (we each have to have our own couch) and I am thankful.  When I hear those women talk about what a good man is, how a good man is so hard to find, how they have been hurt and cheated on over and over, I am relieved and thankful to be in my shoes, and not theirs.  Although, some of them have some pretty fantastic shoes, they don't have what I have.  A husband who is loyal and good.  Amazing children.  A home where I know I am always loved.  And I'm glad it's not me on National television in a ball gown crying about how I want a husband (give me a break).  I am more than happy to settle for my Target PJs laying (seven months pregnant) on the couch adjacent to my adorable husband.  I'd rather play, "guess which hand" with my three-year-old than mud wrestle in St. Lucia... wait, that I might actually consider.  As long as my cute husband is the one I'm wrestling.

A Little Perspective... Haiti

by Janet

Recently we’ve all been watching in horror the devastation and human suffering accompanying the magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti.  How many of us, though, realize how the people of Haiti, and so many of the people in the world, live on a daily basis?

How would you complete the following sentence: 

If you have a bed to sleep on, food in your refrigerator and a roof over your head, you are among the richest ______ percent of the world’s population. 

If you’d like to know the answer, as well as many other interesting facts about our standing in the world, watch this video compiled with the aid of statistics from the United Nations and PBS.  Pretty amazing...