Busy Mothers at Mid-Life

How are you? 

Busy! is the proud reply.

How we love to brag about how tired we are, how full our calendars are, how overfull our lives are.

But it's killing us, too.

Thomas Merton calls it a form of violence:

 "The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence."

And women seem particularly prone to this over-doing, over-giving. It's as if all our lives we've been praised for being busy, for you know what your mother said, idle hands are the devil's workshop. That's an old adage, but this drive for constant productivity has at its root a fear of laziness, a fear of the dreamer, the impractical one described in Aesops' fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper. The hard-working ant stored food away for winter, and worked hard to provide for the hard times, while the lazy grasshopper fiddled and played and sang, and starved once the cold weather arrived.

We have taken that message so much to heart in our busy culture that we can't allow ourselves to rest! Busy bees, busy ants, constantly moving, doing, connecting and creating. Except that at mid-life, the battery starts to run down. The wear and tear shows not only on the joints, but on the soul. We need a little more R&R, or the sabbatical day of the week to be brought back. Add to that, a tech-free zone where no one can reach us.

In her book, Overwhelmed, author Brigid Schulte makes the case that mothers have the least leisure time at all. In an interview in the Globe and Mail yesterday, she says we do it because it makes us look like 'a good woman" - look how busy I am. I'm putting myself last. 

She remarks that even our leisure time is spent driving kids to soccer games or carpooling. True leisure time is when you have time for yourself, to refresh, connect with your inner longings and desires, or simply sit and read a book, time you have a choice in what you do.  (read the article http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/too-busy-to-live-in-a-contemporary-world/article17758066/) 

So what can we do? downgrade our expectations of how much we can get done in one day. Strike 2-4 items off the endless to-do list, and be satisfied. Learn to say, I am enough, I do enough, I am enough!

Push back against the constant pressure to be busy! allow your inner creativity to come out and daydream a little. Give yourself some down time to do what you love. Explore why you don't even know what you love to do anymore. Get off the Guilt Train. That old feeling that it's never enough, never good enough, and pat yourself on the back a little more often.

Mothers at mid-life have many stressors and lots of 'things' to do. But they need a day off too! Give yourself that, at the very least. Let the laundry sit in the basket one more day, and get outside for a walk, listen to the birds. 

I'm headed out there now, while the sun is shining!

Musemother/jenn

 

Turning Fifty? So What's the Big Deal?

Now that I'm the wise old age of 57, sometimes I forget what it was like to approach fifty. My forties are a bit of a blur because I had my children late, and they hit puberty as I was hitting menopause. I do remember the arguments over plates on the counter, not in the dishwasher, and begging them to make their beds, until I gave up and just closed the door. But my personal life sonmetimes took a back seat to raising children and renovating our living space.

Even at fifty, my youngest was only 12...so the good times were still to come. There were lots of good times of course, family times, picnics, vacations, soccer games, ballet recitals, hip hop concerts, you name it.  But 'me time'? not so much.

So for me, turning fifty and above has been mostly about trying to carve out some time for me - time to find that well-adjusted psyche and sense of fulfillment people talk about in articles on mid-life. If you have your children in your late thirties, your mid-life may end up being in your late fifties. And you may still be adjusting to mid-life in your 60's.

Being fifty, (or 55, or 57) is about finally finding your self, your choices, your own tastes, your own heart's desire.  Mid-life has been like a second adolescence for me, partly because I stayed home with my kids and so the question of what I wanted to be when I grew up was still relevant. I had already gone back to school, gotten a master's degree, but what did I really want to do with it? Writing at home in my little room was no longer as fulfilling. I wanted to go out into the bigger world and play!

So my fifties has been about discovering this side of me: I've taken workshops, lead workshops, read books, written a few, and now I am leading retreats for women as well as creative journaling classes, which is so much where I want to be. Learning, exploring, following my passion, doing what I feel like - which involves more learning about what I love, what I feel, understanding my patterns and places I get stuck, finding out what really excites me.  And sharing those discoveries with other women.

It sounds like it's all about me - and it is.  I have found my vocation is largely talking about myself, something I've always loved anyway.  I use my own stories to illustrate the mid-life journey, as well as those of others I've encountered. There's a lot of uncertainty for women who have raised children, worked as caretakers and managers of households, once they begin to wonder what their skills are, and where their gifts and talents lie beyond bandaging scraped knees, driving kids to piano lessons and multi-tasking. Actually even the women who work full time as well as raising families sometimes question their roles at mid-life. Not a few women I know have created new careers, started businesses, or gone back to school in their forties and fifties.

Time is short, and at fifty, you face your own time limit. It's time to find out what really turns you on, what you really want to do with this wild and precious life, as Mary Oliver puts it. Maybe it scares you a little, but you find you have the courage, one baby step at a time, to explore new options, discover new territories, set out on adventures beyond your back yard.

And for some, the adventure is to come back to the roost and rest, to stop churning and turning in busy busy mode, and simplify. To learn to do one thing at a time. And that's an adventure too, because it is also unknown territory.

Whatever your adventure, getting to know your self along the way makes it more interesting.  I've only used about half the box of crayons, and there are so many colours to discover!

Namaste,
Jenn/Musemother

Home made Retreat

Watching the sun rise over tree tops and leaves gently rustling in the slight breeze - I am ecstatic to be up here in St-Sauveur at my retreat house/chalet, playing house, placing dishes in cupboards, folding sheets and making beds.  It feels like this is 'my own' house, somehow, just for me. Perhaps because I have come up here alone, to honour my work.

It has been decorated simply, white curtains, pine walls, wood floors. It feels homey yet very bare, the way I like it, just add a rug and a few chairs and it will be perfect (we bought it partly furnished, table and couch, beds in place).

I especially love the silence. A good place to meditate, write, prepare my class in.  Yes! a whole day without telephone, email, disruptions, to concentrate on my work. If I can do this once a week it will be so amazing. I am very fed up of schedules and being busy. Am I finally ready to listen in and follow my inner guide? Unplug from the busy world?

What can I hear by listening in, trusting the silence, instead of fearing the emptiness?

Later, I lay outside on a blanket and rested my sore shoulders in the sun. Wearing a brace on right forearm because of irritated nerves from too much typing, lifting, overwork.

Sigh, I want to write and my body is saying, rest. This chalet will be a place for both.

Enter the silence....

musemother

Summer Solstice and upheaval

http://www.aurumastrology.blogspot.com/

My sister Sue is blogging about astrology at the blog link above. If you are curious about the Summer Solstice, the coming full moon and the eclipse about to hit us soon, and the effects it has on the inner and outer landscape, check it out.

There is lots going on in my household. Daughter, 18, just back from Germany is taking off to Quebec City for two days (have a safe drive in the rain Caitie!) to celebrate St-Jean Baptiste Day with friends on the Plains of Abraham (an historic battle field if you don't know).

Julien and his dad are off to Bonventure in the Gaspe for salmon fishing trip with their brothers, cousins, uncles, 'les gars', a male bonding tradition every June 23.

So I will be musing by myself, reflecting on the five day Rotary International Convention and the tprf.org booth that I helped build and volunteered at for 3 days. So many connections with people thirsty to serve, ready to help the world with clean water, nutritious food and disaster relief efforts. Very inspiring those Rotarians.

Maybe I'll even get a chance to work on my Retreat Coaching teleclass homework....building better retreats to offer in the fall of 2010.

Maybe sometime this summer I'll open up my journal and begin to write down my soul.....listening into the the inner voice and letting it have free rein, without censoring it.

Maybe I'll find some time to play....and I definitely will make myself a retreat at Kripalu in July, with my buddy Brigitte.

Alors....happy solstice.

nameste, musemother

The Productivity Trap

Big article in the Globe & Mail this morning about how many families don't have time to eat and play together, but are constantly running from work to soccer games to caring for aging parents - they quote statistics about the low number of times a family sits down with a teen son or daughter to eat dinner.

Wellbeing is the rubrique it falls under, in the report to come out Tuesday from the Canadian Index of Wellbeing called Caught in the Time Crunch: Time Use, Leisure and Culture in Canada.

"Canada has become a society operating 24 hours a day and, as a result, more people are working odd hours – weekends, nights, rotating shifts. That has cut into the time they would normally spend with their spouses and their children and doing the things they really like to do. And that can lead to burnout.

“If we are on this treadmill, we will end up being less productive, less contributing to society, less knowledgeable,” said Roy Romanow, the former Saskatchewan premier who is the chair of the Index of Wellbeing’s advisory board. “And therefore, not only is our well-being being affected, but so might our productivity be affected.”

One in five Canadian adults reports being caught in a time crunch, with slightly more women than men saying they feel like they are perpetually under the gun."

Women are often the caregivers in the family, and so their workload is the highest, and their leisure time the lowest. Of course, we women are sometimes bred into this role and see it as natural. We have a hard time taking time for ourselves on a regular basis.

Down time, slowing down time, self-care, time to do nothing at all and just veg, this is what prevents burn-out and in the end increases our productivity. All farmers know (or used to) that letting a field lie fallow for a year was necessary to allow the earth to rest and recuperate from all the nutrients going into a crop, and rebuild the soil quality for next year.  Creative artists also know that there is a cycle to creativity, and fallow times or 'off times' are needed to foster it. Creative loafing is a term that speaks to this.  Sometimes the best thing you can do is play with your blocks, a sand-pile, playdoh, or get into your right brain a little and stop thinking. Sometimes brainstorms come to you while you're just waking up from a nap in a hammock or staring at clouds.

Why don't we allow ourselves this down time or loafing time?  The productivity trap catches us all in its snare.  We are constantly running to catch up, to get everything done in one day.  We get addicted to the adrenaline rush of being busy, always reachable by phone, email or blackberry.  We keep running on the treadmill like rodents to keep up with our house payments, education bills, repairs on the car, and we tend to value less activities that feed the soul, like art, music, poetry, picnics. We see them as extras that are the first thing to go when life becomes too busy.

I think our world is being pushed to the edge of this productivity mode.  Don't wait until illness or burn-out forces you to take a break. Schedule a break into your agenda today. Give yourself more time off, time to be unplugged, time to appreciate the little moments of peace that come your way.  Summer is here, in the northwestern hemisphere.  Time to play, time to get outside, time to lie on the grass and count clouds. Just for a little bit. 

Play catch up with your soul, listen to its longing for peace, tranquility, its desire for recognition.  Slow down to the slowest part of you for at least part of your day, every day.

You'll be doing your family a favour, your community a favour, by being less likely to fall off the treadmill.

nameste

musemother

New Year Check In

First off, happy New Year, to all who have stopped by at this post.

I am not one for resolutions, and am especially irritated by goal setting exhortations from self-help types, so I will not incite you to improve yourself in any way, either by losing weight, eating less fattening food, quitting smoking or joining a gym. I've done all that, and it never lasts very long.

Instead, I am reminding myself today that "I am enough". I happened to be reading my journal from exactly one year ago today, and found an interesting entry. In it, I told myself exactly what I would be doing (before I had made steps to lead retreats) and where my real work lies. This may seem odd to you who know I lead workshops and have written books, and think that I must know what I am doing. But the weird thing is, it hit me only very recently that I am exactly where I need to be, and yes, I have been travelling on this path for some time now.

Having made a big move, built a new house and moved in November, it's been like living in a whirlwind. Once the dust settles, you look around and realize you are not in Kansas anymore. Yet where I am feels more like home than ever before. The gift of this brand new location with vast windows overlooking a white expanse of snowy lake, is that here we start anew. Here we live our dreams, the ones we can't put off any longer, the deeply felt creative life that has been calling.

I have given some thought to what the new year might bring, just not formulated any resolutions. Someone asked me what I wished for the new year at a party. I surprised myself by stating emphatically, Focus and Simplicity.

Perhaps these two words don't mean much to anyone else, but they summed up nicely what I want - more acceptance of what is, less distraction of desiring what I don't have, and generally, just focusing on what's unfolding here and now in front of me. (It's not easy, but it's what I want). Yoga helps bring me to a place of contentment in my body, and helps me focus on the now. Meditation has been bringing me to a place of peace for over 30 years now. But acceptance of what I have has always been a challenge.

So, here is the excerpt from my journal that says it all about where I've been, where I am going, and where I am already:

Questions I ask myself - maybe I am too self-involved (to be a good mother)? Yet, the more balanced I feel, the slower I allow myself to be, for example in accepting Silence and Serenity as allies of the Slow Feminine, the better I feel. I still judge myself too harshly, and sometimes allow the fear of not being busy, outside the house working to confuse me. Yet, I KNOW MY WORK LIES IN THIS INNER WORK OF QUIETING, CENTERING, finding balance. (N.B. CAPS are because I can't believe I need to hear this again to believe it).

My inner research time will bear fruit, with patience; once I can live it, then I can teach or share it. I need to assimilate the self-care message - act it and not only speak about it - first. Find a gentle place to move, speak, and act from, and leave behind the harsh critic. Practice stillness, observe.

So there it is - my own New Year's message to me, written last year on January 8,, yet so timely for today.

Thank goodness for my journal, a rich record of my yearnings, longings, thoughts, passions and passtimes. My own silver mirror to see my deeper self in, as Marion Woodman calls it.

I can look back on the last few years, a somewhat painful journey, that brought me through a menopausal descent, and a resurfacing. A few years of searching, and shifting from writing poetry into working with women in workshops. I feel a sense of excitment about the new adventure, teaching a class entitled Time For You: Mini-Retreats, at the West Island Women's Centre, beginning next Wednesday.

Wish me luck, and if you join my class, we'll explore this gentle inner space together.

nameste,
musemother/jenn

Laundry and Writing

Canadian hero folds laundry

Today, CBC radio listeners have nominated Terry Fox as
an outstanding Canadian hero. May 10, 2004

Folding laundry, with quiet
determination
I understand that chaos
and its theory need to be folded and put
in its place.
That the poet and artist’s role
is to fold chaos and put order
into words is a given,
that the housewife’s role is
to fold laundry and put
order into her house
is a given,
that the poet/housewife has a role
and that both of these roles
are equally essential to the universe
for they promote order
over chaos
is equally true, thus

as long as there are housewives and poets,
the laundry of the world
will never be left in dirty piles
and the dirty chaos lying await
in the basements of the world
will be neatly cleaned and folded
one more day.

New year's update

We have never been buried in so much snow! Even in what to some of you looks like the 'far North', and to some others looks like the 'south', we have been having skimpy winters past 10 years. I have never seen my back yard this overflowing with snow, the hedge with a huge white beard and icicles.

My holidays went by too fast. Started with a musicians bash - old and young - jamming the night away and a potluck feast. Thanks Sylvie and Andre. Then a fancy Christmas Eve supper in the Laurentians with friends and kids. Christmas Day supper with family (in-laws). Next day left on the all night train to Bonaventure with the whole group of out-laws including nieces nephews and their prospective girl/boyfriends (23 of us in all). Sleeping Car full of our joyful boisterous noise, some really good scotch and a few bottles of Pinot Noir smuggled aboard. 3 days later, we staggered back on the train in Bonaventure (Gaspe) for another all night train ride, this one a bit more subdued after feasting and music and late night in-house bistro parties.

Sigh, it is a lovely family, my husband has brought me into. And the musician and singer in me loves to stay up late and sing all night.

But I hit the wall or the Waterloo of holiday low spirits in Ottawa, after we spent 2 days with my family.... can't keep up with it like my younger self could. (But then my younger self was very young - from age 19-28 I was a tee-totalling vegeterian, mostly celibate).

Anyhoo, I'm back to my books, (received the whole list of books I circled in the Book Section of the G&M my gawd) and today, luxuriously spent two hours with A Woman's Quest and Blood Bread & Roses.

You'll be hearing more about these two books on my menopause blog or wisdom for women. Cause it is the most heartening discovery of all, to know that we can actually prepare for menopause. We can use the allies of stillness, softness, serenity and surrender to get closer to our own reality.

I always wondered what intuition was, and most of the time I think I have a knack for it. But sadly, most of the time I am moving too fast to pay attention, pushing myself forward, belting my own back with push strive get going don't rest keep moving kind of messages. Ignoring the sad little voice that says, wait a minute, what about my rhythm, my pacing, my needs? You know that the hardest thing for a woman to do is go pee when she has to? there is always something else to finish first. Multi-tasking is dangerous in menopause, there are bones to break, muscles to twist, but I insist on multitudinous activities - can't cross the kitchen without one more thing in my hand to put away, in spite of sore shoulders I still carry in two heavy bags from the car, instead of making 2 trips.

So, slowing down is a challenge. But when you know the rewards - it's so gratifying, to find your hunches are right, and you stay put and things come to you when you need them. The phone rings, your appointment has been cancelled (that was one too many things in your day) or the delivery has been rescheduled till Monday (yes! I can stay in and finish reading that article).

being a stay-at-home mom and part-time teacher of workshops, it's easy for me to put it off til tomorrow, that 'reading' I do for my own learning, to prepare a future class, that doesn't have a due date, or the lecture for September that seems so far away.

But today, now, this afternoon, I am going to give myself another hour and sit in the comfy chair. The birds have been fed, I dug a snow path to the feeder, I walked the dog, I did the groceries, I fixed the phone, I made lunch for the kids....and now, back to the books.

warm fuzzies,
jenn