Tonight is my last Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction class. The eight weeks of Monday night meditation learning and practice with the teacher, Kate, and my group of 40 other travelers is coming to a close. And I'm sad. However, my five year old son is not-so-sad.
This week he asked me while we were driving in the car to daycare, "how many more classes do you have?" I answered, "just one more," at which time he threw a fist in the air and cheered a long drawn out "Yessss!" At which point my heart began to ache.
Making choices about how to spend our precious time on earth is always challenging, and working mom's are particularly aware of this. But what do you do when awareness is more like conflictedness?
Do I spend more time playing with my kids or building a career to financially support my kids? Do I nurture my spiritual life on a Sunday morning or clean the bathrooms? Do I spend money and time on a class to cultivate my contemplative life or do I spend my time and money on guitar lessons for my son?
Of course I'm saying either/or and it is not about either/or, it is about balance. But in the process of balancing the needs of my whole person (which includes being a mother, wife, psychotherapist, spiritual seeker, friend, aunt, daughter, sister, concerned citizen) I inevitably will be making choices everyday that leave one thing in and another out. If I do this today, then I'm not doing that.
When my son was just born I read a book called "Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting." It was co- written by Mindfulness Expert Jon Kabat-Zinn and his wife Myla. I read it in a moment in time when I was coming to some reality acceptance as a working mom that I will be literally unable to do everything I would like to or that I need to, and unquestionably, everything will not be done perfectly. For veteran working moms out there, you will know I am stating the obvious. But for me, as a recovering perfectionist, this realization actually came down early in my parenting life as one of the harder lessons to learn. And unfortunately, it has also been a lesson that I've had to relearn several times over because as I've said before, my acceptance curve is apparently very slow and not limited to the work-parenting life balance because I equally struggle with the family-spiritual life balance too.
Recently, I read an article written just after the publication of that very book in which Mr. And Mrs. Kabat-Zinn share more nuggets of wisdom about this whole balancing act of mindful parenting that they went through in much more detail in their book. In the article Mr. Kabat-Zinn said: "I believe that spiritual practice is about life, not about retreat from life...The real meditative practice is to open up to the full range of what happens in life. And parenting is a fantastic arena for doing that kind of spiritual training."
Later in the article, Jon Kabat-Zinn goes further to suggest we embrace parenting moments as opportunities for mindful practice. He says "to look at your children as live-in Zen masters who can put their finger on places where you're resistant, or thinking narrowly, in ways no one else can. You can either lose your mind and your authenticity in the process of reacting to all that stuff, or you can use it as the perfect opportunity to grow..." I couldn't agree more.
But for me, getting those moments (whether they be a day, an hour, a moment, an afternoon) to get a mindful meditation booster shot without the kiddos around is what helps me through those advanced placement parenting moments. Can't it be both? A time for spiritual practice in the context of parenting moments like getting a shoe onto a toddler's foot and a time for complete solitude on top of a local mountaintop quietly gazing out at the foliage?
As I said, I don't think it is either/or, it is both/and. I can choose to engage in my day to day parenting as a spiritual practice, and I can engage in the very sanghas and retreats and morning meditation practices that make the former possible. So in the end, maybe I don't do everything in one day? So maybe I don't do everything perfectly? Parenting or spiritual practice. What I will aim for is an intention to have an over-all balance. I won't win every game, but I will shoot for a winning season.
The Kabat-Zinn's end this article with a list of 12 tips for Mindful Parenting that are all in their book. I will leave you with #8:
"Learn to live with tension without losing your own balance. Practice moving into any moment, however difficult, without trying to change anything and without having to have a particular outcome occur. See what is 'workable' if you are willing to trust your intuition and best instincts."
I hope these words are helpful to all of you out there who also identify as seekers who try to embody your spiritual life in both your work and parenting. If you do, I'd love to hear from you.
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