Kid Soup

This picture makes me smile.  It was taken today, when we were celebrating my friend Nirmal's birthday.  The kids were having so much fun together and it was a delicious day. We were with great people, ate yummy food, enjoyed beautiful surroundings. I keep having days that are even better than I could have imagined.  It is sweeeeet.

What have I learned lately?

This month I started participating in a year long course called Evolve that works on creating more consciousness and intention in personhood, parenting, partnership and prosperity.  It includes webinars and Q&A's about those topics and daily assignments for personal introspection, journaling, and intention setting.

The daily questions are usually along these lines:
What am I grateful for?
How do I feel right now?
What is my intention today?
What am I joyfully anticipating?
What have I learned lately?

Simple.  Right?  It takes just minutes yet it can be really helpful.

And that last question - "What have I learned lately?" - has made me more aware of some really great things I've learned in a new way lately.  Here are some from recently:

Intention Works
I find that having a defined and written an intention helps me remember what it is I'm going for throughout the day.  It is a touchstone I come back to again and again throughout the day.  For me, the written part is really key - I have been mentally making intentions forever.  But something about writing it down makes it more concrete for me.  It takes so little time but gives such benefit.

Most of my intentions end up being some variation of Just lighten up and enjoy this moment.  Not those exact words necessarily - but that seems to be the underlying gist of what I want to do in every single area of my life - as a person, parent, partner, and towards prosperity.  It applies everywhere - having more fun, being less reactive, making the most of the blessings that are right in front of my face.  My intentions are manifesting much faster now that I am putting focused intention on them every day in written form.

Don't Wait to Love or Help
Our extended sickness has taught me the power of love and support in healing.  I noticed that our biggest spikes in health came when we got an influx of love and support.  This has made me understand, in a deeper way, that when people express that they are struggling, we might as well just go ahead and give them some love right then.  No waiting because we aren't their closest friend or because we are afraid they don't want our help or because life is too busy.  (These are often my reasons for waiting.)  Now I think: do it now.  Say a prayer.  Send them a kind email.  Take them a meal or some flowers.  Offer to keep their kids.  Whatever.  Do something.

And I'm trying to extend this to all areas of life, in general.  I am striving to open my heart more and more so that I can love people right now.  It turns out that's not always an easy thing to do.  It feels risky sometimes.  It feels like trying to penetrate layers and layers of protection sometimes.  But what the heck - I'm giving it a try.

Don't Wait to Accept Love or Help
And the other side of love and help is, of course,  accepting it.  This has been another big lesson for me over the past two months.  Somehow I have held the belief that accepting help is a failure (but not for other people - just for me. Ha!)  I've been aware of this weirdo attitude for years but only recently came to know that I have to shift it.  So when help started popping up when we were sick, I made myself accept it.  Oh, and sometimes it made me so squirmy.  I have struggled with tremendous (ridiculous) guilt if I allowed someone to help me.  What a strange thing.

But what I've realized is that sometimes the strongest, most competent choice is actually to accept (and if necessary, ask for) help.  And accepting that gift is also a giving of a gift.  There has to be a flow.

I know, these are no revolutionary thoughts but for me, it has been revolutionary in experience, in feeling it more deeply, and in choosing something different that is more in line with what I want.

And...we're back!

Whew!  Things are finally looking up - way up.  Sukhjot is having fewer and fewer coughing fits/apnea/vomiting and every day it gets less, lighter, easier.  Satvinder has been out of school for most of time since Christmas (every time we sent her, she'd get sick again) but I think she'll be able to go back soon.  My mom has been here for the past week helping us.  And Mangala started a new job that he is excited about.

It was pretty rough there for a (long) while but with lots of help and support from friends,community, healers, and prayers, we got through it.

Here is the sweet Valentine I received from Satvinder.  It make me smile every time I read it.  Today I framed it.

My mom and the girls playing in the back yard today:

Satvinder and bubbles:

Suky was a little more cautious about bubbles.  But everybody is smiling.  Everybody is getting well.  So grateful.

Whoop, Part 2

So...still going with the Whooping Cough. When I wrote my last post, it was sucking quite a lot.  And now it sucks quite a lot even more.

The good news is that Satvinder has passed through the rough phase.  It took four weeks (or eight weeks if you count the cold-type symptoms that preceded the hard stuff.)  But she got through it and this week she has been back at school.  Whew!  What a relief.  High-five to Satvinder!

But right around the time Satvinder got better, Sukhjot got worse.  So over and over through the day and night, she is consumed by the involuntary coughing fits that stop her breathing, causing her to turn purple or blue and then finally vomit . Watching her little face as she loses the ability to breathe is heartbreaking and it happens to her a lot. The fits are so intense that we spent one night in the ER monitoring her oxygen levels. (While she does certainly have a hard time during the fits, she recovers well, thankfully.) And even though the general consensus is that not even antibiotics will help, I (a totally anti-antibiotics person) got her started on them just on the chance they could maybe help a little bit.

This is exhausting and emotional.  Life does that sometimes, I guess.  And you just have to keep on keeping on.  So we hold her and comfort her.  We tell her she is strong and it will pass.  She is.  And it will.

P.S. Prayers and healing thoughts are welcome and appreciated!

Whoop

Joining our theme of 'being with what is,' the Whooping Cough (Pertussis) has come to our house in recent weeks.  It's all over the place it seems - friends have it, Satvinder's school is swarming with it, and it has taken hold of Satvinder, Sukhjot and me.  What I've learned recently (and maybe this will be helpful to others) is that it is grabbing all kinds of people now and it doesn't get scared off by the vaccine that a lot of people get.  So vaccinated or not, be aware.  The thing that makes Whooping Cough particularly good at teaching the 'being with what is' message is that there's nothing you can do about it.  Treatment is only useful in the very early stages, which looks like a common cold - nobody thinks they have Whooping Cough at that point.  By the time you know you have it (when the distinctive cough and symptoms begin), it is too late to do anything at all about it.  I mean really - nothing kicks this thing.

As a mother, that's maddening.  Satvinder coughs so hard sometimes that she vomits.  Coughing grabs the body like a spasm and leaves her gasping for air.  This has been going on for weeks.  And there's nothing I can do about it.

Even knowing that, I keep trying stuff.  Herbs and oils and pills and syrups and Chinese medicine and baths and pressure points.  Maybe it helps in encouraging balance and health.  But it doesn't get rid of the Whooping Cough.  You just have to ride it out.

So Satvinder and Sukhjot have had it for a while and I've had the girls home ever since we realized what it was.  And now I've got it.  Two visits from out of town guests have had to be cancelled.  We've missed  parties and all the fun things I thought we'd do over Winter Break.  After weeks of thinking "I'll beat this thing," I've finally surrendered and just accepted that this is what we're doing right now.  Whooping.  Okay, so we're whooping and we'll just keep on whooping until we're done whooping.

P.S. This is yet another time that I give thanks that Mangala and I both currently work from home.  There is always lots to be grateful for.

It's my party...

I can remember, as a kid, thinking people in their thirties were so old.  So adult.  Obviously, they had it all figured it out by then and knew the ways of the world.  Of course, our perceptions in childhood seem funny in retrospect but I am realizing now, as I am today turning 35, that I have carried a bit of that expectation into adulthood.  I think I kind of expected that by now I'd know what I want to be when I grow up.  Or something like that.

For most of my life, I have known my interests and goals and I have pursued them.  I had just turned 21 when we opened the first Yoga Yoga in Austin.  I knew I wanted to do yoga centers and teach yoga and that's what I did for most of my working life so far.  I have always wanted to be a mother and always known I would be. These children existed, for me, before they even existed in this world.  And writing.  Writing has always been there nagging me, whether I wanted it or not.

But now I find myself in a complete unknowing about what I want to do - or even what I can do.  We are passing through the intensive baby years. Obviously, I am still needed as a mother for many years to come but there is something else that asks me to seek it out as well.  And I don't know what it is.  For really the first time in my life, I have no idea what I want to do.

And along with that, there are several other significant factors in life that are big, big question marks - which would, when sorted out, heavily influence what is even practical for me to do.  Over the last few months, some big foundational pieces of life have been broken, crumbled, or otherwise demolished and I'm not sure what the reality is now. So what do I want to do?  What can I do?  Right at this particular moment, the only answer is "nothing."  Yet.

I feel like I know less about myself, my purpose and my life than I ever have and here I am, at the very point in life when I thought, all along, that I'd have it figured out.  Funny how that works.  

From a spiritual perspective, I fully believe that these times of unknowing are magical openings - doorways to big transformation and possibility.  And from the perspective of someone going through it day to day, I can admit it is hard.  It is hard to not know anything about your self or your life.  But if I were reading my life as a book, I think right now would be the part when I would really be starting to get excited.

What will she do?  What will happen next?  How will this story unfold?

So begins 35.

Wrap up

Hello, 2012.

Here are some pictures from over the holidays.  I know, these are soooo last year but better late than never, I guess.

Winter Solstice:
Satvinder and our friend, Elia, prep for a Winter Solstice celebration. Elia sliced beets for dinner. Satvinder  wrote things she wanted to let go of - filling out strips of paper that we later burned in a fire to symbolize release.

Here is a sampling of things Satvinder wanted to let go of.  I wouldn't mind being done with most of those myself.  (Mouse damage refers to a computer mouse that she accidentally broke a few days before.)

Christmas Eve:

Dinner with Mangala's parents (Gurdarshan not shown because she was taking the picture.)

Sukhjot with her Dadaji on Christmas: