Tentative Parenting : Calm the F*** Down!

Email from K2's teacher : I just want to let you know of an incident...
Working Mom : Lost it and took all electronics away for a weekend. I had a talk with him on actions and consequences but I didn't behave like one of those calm moms who have an adult conversation with their kid, I became THIS screaming banshee...and think I scared myself as much as I scared K2 (and probably his dad)

Last month I read about this technique called the CTFD  (calm the F*** down) technique - and it applies for the PARENT not the KID!  I wasn't a picture perfect kid - I broke things, I fibbed, I beat up all the boys in my big brother's class and I was probably below average on my grades and my parents dealt with it. And I turned out alright! So I need to CTFD and take a deep breath and determine my course of action. The reality I have realized in my meager years parenting is :

#1 Childhood shouldn't be a race.
"Every child learns to walk, talk, read and do algebra at his own pace and ... it will have no bearing on how well he walks, talks, reads or does algebra...or even how successful he or she is in life

#2 Sometimes, you just have to slow down.
“I will not say, 'We don't have time for this.' Because that is basically saying, 'We don't have time to live.'

#3 Pay attention.
“If you pay attention, kids will teach you how to laugh loudly, how to love deeply and how to live fully. They will also ruin all your stuff and drive you crazy...but then didn't you sign up for this parenting thing?"

#4 Get comfortable with dissonance.
"Our families are where we first learn how to say 'No' in a safe, supportive environment. If we don't learn to do so there, we won't learn to do so anywhere. If our children can't say 'No' to us, they won't say it to anyone -- AND I am not signing up to raise a doormat/pushover" 

#5 Stop solving everything.
“This one took me years to figure out. It's one that is really hard to get good at because I love fixing and solving things for K2...but I have learnt he would rather solve his own problems"

#6 Beware  of distracted living.
“We live in an age where we are constantly fed messages that we should try to do as much as we can as fast as we can- multi-tasking to live at maximum efficiency. How many homework assignments and grocery store runs, appointments and meetings, Zumba classes and posts to social media sites and DVRd shows and any number of things with varying degrees of importance do we try to cram into any one day?”...Let's just stop and enjoy the "Cherry Blossoms"

The honest truth is - I don't know how I do this parenting thing. But I don't think it is hard because I am a working mom trying to do a balancing act on a tight rope...nor do I think it will be any easier if I was a stay-at-home mom... I don't know how any of us do it. It's glorious and rewarding and full of love and it is at times probably the shittiest roles I ever signed myself up for. Yet what I do know for a fact is - I will take every day as it comes with an open heart and mind and take it for what it is vs. judging, evaluating and wanting to change it.

Bhagvad Gita and the Work Place

I have had a crazy work schedule the past 4 weeks - barely getting the time to make ends meet in matter of time...yet every Sunday for a couple hours I pull up my Bhagvad Gita Online Course and get immersed in it. I do this for 2 main reasons :

• I feel closer to my Bapa. He spent his last year  doing the same Online Course through his chemotherapy rounds and his stays in the ICU and I  believe it made him a more strong and positive person
• I feel like I am making some progress along the spiritual knowledge path. Yes, I am one of those weird ones who believes in God.

As time passed me by, it's been almost 10 months and 14 Lessons (out of 30 Lessons) completed. Some weeks I have been a better student than others...Yesterday, I had an AHA! moment in the shower (one of the few quiet places in my life where I am not inundated with fires at work, sms pings, pressure cooker whistles or a clingy snotty nosed 7 year old these days) - my mind is the battleground and there are constant battles being fought internally between the ignorant and the wise, the positive and the negative and the right and the wrong...ultimately the good in me needs to win over the bad...

This is probably one of the key verses that has worked for me in the past couple months, coming into a society that believes action should have results, in instant gratification -- I have struggled with this concept for many months (unsure I have internalized it yet...) yet it is an important learning for me

1. For action alone have you the right
2. None concerning its fruits
3. Let not the desire for the fruits of action be your motivation
4. Nor should you desire to abstain from action
5. Act with equanimity of mind and intellect sans attachment to success or failure 

The Bhagvad Gita speaks of two kinds of (work) culture that can be broadly defined as the following -

(a) Daivi Sampat which involves fearlessness,  self-control, straightforwardness, calmness, absence of fault-finding, envy, pride and greed and a gentleness towards dealing with people and (b)  Asuri Sampat which involves egoism, delusion, instant gratification, self-promoting work, constant fear etc. Mindfully practicing the former is a goal I have set for myself.

I have been so preoccupied with life and such other things that  a wonderful thing as the Cherry Blossoms had escaped my notice till my son pointed them out to me yesterday. He made me literally "stop the car and take in the sights"....here is a  picture from my trusty Nokia.

How has life been treating you?

In Loving Memory : Happy Birthday Bapa!

Last year at this time (319 days back) I was with you and I held you tight...because I knew you were scared...and you knew I would be lost without you...I wasn't ready to let you go then and I am not quite ready to let you go yet...I love you Bapa and I miss you!

Here  is what I want to tell you today -

Thanks for all you've done

I've missed you for so long

I can't believe you're gone and

You still live in me

I feel you in the wind

You guide me constantly 

I carry the things that remind me of you

In loving memory of the one that was so true

You were as kind as you could be

And even though you're gone

You still mean the world to me

I never knew what it was to be alone, no

'Cause you were always there for me

 ---Alter Bridge "In Loving Memory"

Happy Birthday Bapa...I will save a piece of cake for you !

Eat.Move.Sleep : The 30 Day Challenge

Small Choices. Big Changes

In your lifetime some books come which shift your thought process and make you act vs. just passively read the book and enjoy it.

For me there are a few books which have given me AHA! moments and  have been a lifeline to living not just existing ( eg.Bhagvad Gita) and strangely enough this rather inconspicuous book "Eat.Move.Sleep"...mostly picked up because I loved Tom Rath's first book "Strength Finder 2.0" which I had read way back in 2010.

This is more than just a book, it is a new way to live. I have had friends look at me weird when I talk about Vitamin D and Vitamin B12, flinch when I talk about the 30 grams fiber that a woman needs, eyes glaze over when I mention Chia Seeds, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts,  Kale, Quinoa, Amaranth, Maca Powder...I am not a person who goes with Fads...however I am mindfully making the choice to live a healthy life. 

Eat.Move. Sleep  is motivating to me because (A) the changes being proposed are not radical (B) there is a 30 Day game plan that I can come up with based on a comprehensive questionnaire I take on the site (C) The onus to be accountable is on me 

Day 1:

1. Identify the three healthiest elements of diets you have tried in the past. Integrate these elements into your lifestyle for good. 

• Removed "Whites" from my diet - moved to Brown Rice, Quinoa and Barley as my main carbohydrate source
• Added a Kale Smoothie (with Chia Seeds and alternative milk) to my diet
• Start my morning with hot water, ACV (Apple Cider Vinegar) and Honey

2. Starting today, with every bite you take, consider how it can benefit your body. Use what you have learned in the book to make better choices in the moment. 

I am my mother's daughter...

I was bone weary when I reached home at 7.15 PM from work (it was a hard day) and I needed to find my comfort in food - my Ma's food. So I lifted up my pressure cooker, my rice cooker and a degchi (a wok of sorts)...and of course my handy helper K1. We had dinner on the table in about an hour and it looked like this

From upper right : Aloo Phulo Kobi (Cauliflower with red baby potatoes, Saago Bhoja (Kale cooked with garlic), Lau Muga Dali (Moong Dal cooked with Opo Squash) and Quinoa

I have been reading for the past day a book by Iris Krasnow :  I Am My Mother's Daughter: Making Peace with Mom--Before It's Too Late... .My mother and I have a very stormy relationship...like oil and water. Bapa used to be the translator, the mediator, the communicator in between and with him gone it almost feels like we talk past each other. The only topic where we can have a discussion without dissension is Food. This book is helping me understand/appreciate our relationship and emphasizes the necessity to mend any broken mother/daughter relationship. 

"Let go of the anger. Embrace her imperfections. Forgive her, even for unforgiveable acts. Move on, into a mature relationship between equals, with a lowering of expectations and a surrendering of the heart."

In our case it is a moving past our egos and an inability to look at any point of view other than ours...at the end of the day Motherhood I have found out is :

Hello 2014

Salut

   اسلا عليكم

Ciao

你好 

Sawubona

今日は 

Hallo

ନମସ୍ତେ

नमस्कार

Never have I waited with so much of anticipation for one year to end and another one to begin...2013 SUCKED BIG TIME ! there is just no reasoning or rationale for losing a loved one and trying to make peace with it....I haven't yet, maybe in time I will but for right now I am still in the denial phase.

Ironically before 2013, I have never set resolutions for myself and have been able to have spectacular success with life milestones :

1. Not being a pack rat - maintaining a reasonably minimalist life style
2. Zero Debt - hard to conceive, even harder to implement - done & done
3. Maintain a healthy lifestyle
4. Make Family a priority

The 2013 resolution I set for myself last January - Live Life in the Present, Live Life Unafraid -- I failed at rather spectacularly - I have spent the past 9 months exactly not doing that - grieving over things in the past ( my father's death), afraid of disease (cancer and such things) and lamenting the if-only's (if only I had booked my tickets a week early in March...)...so I want to try that resolution one more time this year...especially inspired as I hear this beautiful beautiful song - Clouds by Zach Sobiech -

Well I fell down, down, down

Into this dark and lonely hole

There was no one there to care about me anymore

And I needed a way to climb and grab a hold of the edge

You were sitting there holding a rope

And we'll go up, up, up

But I'll fly a little higher

We'll go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer

Up here my dear 

It won't be long now, it won't be long now

January 1st, 2014 is the first blank page of a 365-page book. I will make sure that the story I write is not a  borrowed idea, expected outcomes or history lessons. It will be  about new learnings, living, pushing myself, changing myself and shaping my own destiny unafraid of the path I am charting for myself.

Seven Learnings from Jury Duty

"When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty."

I didn't expect my first jury summon to end up in me getting selected to be a juror...yet that was the case. It did put a lot of the other stuff on hand in the back burner...initially I was a little cranky -- thinking about all the things that needed to get done : customer visit, ops meeting,  To-Do List,  gym classes missed. However, I soon got into the spirit of "By the People For the People"...and by the end of it I was glad I was a part of the process (from the 12 Angry Men which is all men...to 8 men and 4 women in our Jury, where one of the woman became the Foreperson (yes I am talking about me) does seem like some progress).The gist of the case - a civil case over a car accident that happened some years ago, with the plaintiff claiming medical, pain & suffering.
The jury was an interesting mix of people from a yoga teacher, to a customer specialist, a really involved research scientist, a ditzy woman (no I am not talking about myself...and really sometimes I wonder if she was in the same room as me), a public company CTO, a guy who wore designer nail polish (yup I said guy!) among others...as I met these people that I was going to be spending almost a week with...I had a flashback to a movie that was a requisite for one of my courses in Non-Verbal Communications and Group Dynamics - 12 Angry Men. The movie was on to something - I was really struck by how the lessons I learnt as a part of this Jury will hold me good stead at work

1. Long gone are the days of my way or the highway...it's obvious that to reach closure with the decision and for everyone to feel a part of the process it will require a society with a cooperative value system rather than mechanisms and systems dominated by individualistic efforts. If I had my way the decision would have been very different and absolute. I didn't believe that the Plaintiff's case had a leg to stand on and would have awarded "zero" pain and suffering. Yet, as a part of a group where 3 individuals believed that the teenager deserved pain and suffering compensation, the decision was different, though not very radical for the defendant...
2. “being willing to stand alone” is uncomfortable but it is ok to be uncomfortable if the decision comes from your strong beliefs and the reality is even though I am mocking the ditzy woman -- the strength of her conviction that the teenager had suffered was unbendable and unshakeable...having that kind of conviction in the face of dissent is absolutely admirable (however frustrating...and seriously was she in the same room as me???)
3. There was a sincere dialogue towards a solution.  In my experience, respectful listening and sincere consideration tends to influence others in the group in a similar manner. So important to consider in work life where we tend to run roughshod on people. 
4. Constructively integrating opposing views can contribute to developing effective coalitions - what struck me the most was our decision was an integration of the group's view...our views were too radically opposed for us to reach a consensus but I think we reached a decision that all 12 jurors agreed with
5. Just listening - sometimes we think when we talk we sound so smart and say amazing things...but  just shutting up and listening really works. I am learning to shut up and make it about you not me...easier said than done!
6. We really did avoid the pitfalls of Group Think..."putting unanimous agreement ahead of reasoned problem solving”
7. Embracing Diversity and valuing it gave us a greater capacity to adapt, discuss and agree...reaching the desired state i.e., the decision.

If you haven't watched " 12 Angry Men" and have 92 minutes to spare...I urge you to do so -

If you don't...you read my blog post ;-)
I would like to leave you with a quote from the movie - " I don't believe I have to be loyal to one side or the other. I'm simply asking questions."