Lambs Do It

The other morning I saw a flock of sheep and lambs. The lambs ranged in age from recently born ones who followed their mothers on very shaky legs to some slightly older ones.

The older lambs were learning that legs were perfect for leaping and bouncing and frolicking through the meadow. They expressed their joy at being alive in bodies with every careless kick of their heels.

Later on, when I was thinking about what I’d seen, I thought, “The magic is that they are whole and perfect. They don’t doubt themselves or lack self-esteem. They don’t hear voices telling them they should be cleaning or writing worrying about the future. They will never know guilt.”

And I wondered why I couldn’t be like that. That question turned out to have its own magic because it sliced away the layers of guilt and “should” and self-doubt and the long list of things I should change about myself. At my core, I’m as whole and as perfect as the lambs—but most of the time, I forget that.

What’s the difference between me—and you—and the dancing lamb or the fawns who raced through my former back yard or the bright-eyed curiosity of baby raccoons? It could be those big brains that humans take pride in. Anyone who has ever upgraded their operating systems knows that each new upgrade creates many chances for error.

Imagination, for example, is a great human gift, and I count it as a priceless upgrade, but it doesn’t discriminate between imagining the best and imagining the worst.

Maybe the biggest problem is that the initial user’s manual we get to go with our big brains is the long set of instructions we get from our parents. Animal parents also instruct their children but mostly about real dangers—like humans. Our parents teach us about dangers that may or may not ever come to pass.

This leads to the unique human mental/emotional state called anxiety. It’s difficult to kick up your heels when you’re worried about what might happen in thirty years.

If I want to experience that I’m perfect, I need to live less in the past, where I learned all the things I should worry about and all the things for which I should judge myself. I also need to stop taking all those worries and judgments and expecting more of them in the future.

That’s called living in the present. That’s what lambs do. We can do it, too. Photo credit: Keven Law, Los Angeles, USA

Mindfulness and Delusions

When I was in high school, my family travelled from New Jersey to Wyoming, where we visited Yellowstone Park. While there, we had an incident with a mother bear and her cub.

In discussing it years later, we realized that none of our memories matched exactly. Two siblings said the bear chased us. One said “It was just there.” Another said it “followed” us. I remembered being chased, but I had forgotten that the bear chased or followed us all the way to our car and reared over it, giving us an excellent close-up view.

I tell this story to illustrate the deceptive nature of memory. How I remembered the bear had no major effect on my life. Memories, however, become significant when we assign a meaning to what we think is true and make decisions for the future based on our beliefs about the past.

We can use mindfulness to disrupt patterns based on false memories and interpretations. This process begins when we become aware that what we remember isn’t always true.

NO ONE KNOWS BEST

Being mindful is especially important with childhood memories.

You may have read or heard the notion that would-be parents should be required to pass a test at least as rigorous as a driving test. I agree. In many ways, we are the people our parents created. However, we have a potential choice about who we are. We exercise this choice when we question the truth of our memories.

We can discover and mindfully examine our childhood memories, especially those that don’t match what we learned was ideal family behavior. When I was growing up, the US media, especially TV shows, presented happy families. Things might go wrong, but these cheerful people made everything right again without even arguing about whose fault it was.

Where, I wondered, was my happy family?

I didn’t realize that the parent who never yelled, hit, acted stupid, who was sometimes vulnerable, and sometimes looked at you as if wishing to return to a childless state did not exist. I only knew that my parents didn’t meet televised standards.

Since then, I’ve come to a rational understanding of the cultural propaganda that encouraged me to believe that I lived in a psychotic setting (and, again, I realize that some people did), but I didn’t feel that maybe the comparison wasn’t serving me. If I felt it, I would have to forgive them and, even worse, let go of it being their fault that my life wasn’t perfect.

Because I avoided bringing mindfulness to my memories, they flourished in a fantasy land from which they governed significant aspects of how I viewed my life. As I worked on renovating Fantasy Land, it looked like a different place.

Mindful Memory Practices

1. The more positive and especially curious you can be about this, the better results you’ll get. See yourself as a treasure hunter. Once these gems come to the surface, their reflected shine will lighten you.
2. It can be difficult to admit that one was wrong. I ask myself, “Would I rather be right or be happy?”
3. Don’t force it. Sometimes the search is more about noticing what shows up in your life. Maybe you get invited to the wedding of a hated relative. That could be fun.
4. If at any point, reality is shifting too quickly, and you feel really uncomfortable, stop.
5. Come back when you feel strong, or if you want to explore the subject but feel you need assistance, call a coach or counselor.
6. Keep a journal. It makes good reading.
7. Remember that it’s a project that never ends. New discoveries are always waiting to be unearthed.

Creativity and the Dreaded “Mommy Guilt”

Connie has written some excellent blog posts in the past about how effective guilt is at stifling creativity; I know this firsthand.



Ever since I became a mother, almost a year ago now (although it doesn’t seem like that long ago!), I’ve been battling the dreaded “Mommy Guilt.” It doesn’t matter that I took a year off from my high-pressure position as an editor and inhouse author in trade publishing (and recently resigned from it) because I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, I still often feel guilty about the hours I spend each day on my keyboard, freelancing part-time as a “book doctor” and editor. Most of those hours occur when she is tucked away in bed for the night, slumbering sweetly, but some of them necessitate her going to nursery school two days a week.



However, as my girl grows and increases in independence by the day, I’m beginning to realize that—even if it means late nights and sacrificing some time with my child and a good deal of my social life—my work has benefits for her as well as for me (and for our household in general). For me, my work in the creative arts is not a luxury: it is a necessity. While I devote much of my time to freelance editing, and sometimes begrudge that it doesn’t allow me enough time to write, I am one of those lucky individuals who can say, for a fact, that I truly love what I do. It is my passion. I love taking a diamond in the rough and polishing it up to add more facets. I love helping other authors make their work the best it can be.



For my daughter, my passion for my work means that she not only gets to see firsthand the value of having a strong work ethic, but that she will also grow up appreciating that work should be a delight, something you actively look forward to doing. Already, I am seeing the shoots of her own burgeoning creativity as she indulges in her daily play. My love for the written word has also inspired in her a love of books. Even at just one year of age, she loves to carefully turn the pages (now recognising that pages are for turning and not for tearing) and to point to the bright pictures. Spending time reading to my darling is quality time, and although she is too small yet to fully understand the stories I write for her, I hope that one day they will number among her favourites.



When she was very small, my guilt at snatching short, private moments to write was overwhelming—and sometimes paralysing. But as she grows, I’m realizing that she, too, actively values time spent alone in creative play. She doesn’t always want an adult playing with her or hovering over her; sometimes she wants to explore objects in solitary (although supervised) reflection.



Interestingly, my book of short stories, “Cage Life,” although written some years ago before I became a mother, deals with themes relating to guilt and freedom in motherhood. In it, a young mother longs for the carefree life she once led, which leads to disastrous consequences. Now that I am a mother, it is probably not a story I could bear to write, but I still feel that it explores many of the wistful, private moments that mothers, particularly first-time moms, struggle with: the loss of a singular identity; the guilt; the longing for freedom, either creative or just a few hours to take a long bath or to go to the hairdresser. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a mother. My child will always be my greatest work, and a work-in-progress for my entire life. But, as a creative, I also know that I have other children—children stuffed away in drawers and hastily scribbled upon in brief snatches.



My advice to all new mothers who write, and who are struggling to find the time to be creative while keeping up with diaper changing, feeding, playing with and consoling babies, is that we should try not to feel guilty about anything that rounds us out and makes us who we truly are. Our children need us to be ourselves, with all of our passion, creativity and individuality intact. It is how they learn the value of those elements to humanity. And if nothing else, writing provides an escape from the everyday that is empowering and fully imaginative. We may be covered in baby vomit, have been up since 5 am, and really, really need to mop the floor sometime today, but in our heads we can be dancing flamenco, solving murder mysteries, trying to eke out a living on an alien world, or any manner of other exciting possibilities. So guilt be damned! Tonight she is sound asleep and for those silent hours in between the little cries in the night, I’m not a just a mommy, I’m a writing mommy, and write I will!

Karin’s book of short stories Cage Life is available from Amazon US http://www.amazon.com/Cage-Life-ebook/dp/B005DC6AHM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332765096&sr=8-1
Amazon UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cage-Life-ebook/dp/B005DC6AHM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332765161&sr=8-1
Her book of poetry, Growth is available from:
Amazon US http://www.amazon.com/Growth-ebook/dp/B005D5RCD0/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

Amazon UK Growth
Barnes & Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/growth-karin-cox/1104361734?ean=2940011380730&itm=2&usri=karin+cox
Follow Karin’s blog at www.karincox.wordpress.com
Read more about Karin’s work www.editorandauthor.com
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