Mindspace

Meditation on Tea

I bought a new bunch of teas from my favorite bookstore "East Meet West" and as i sat down this morning with my the tea Lychee Coconut, i realized the tea i had dismissed as tasteless just 2 nights ago was really subtle.
i am trying to wake up in the mornings and drink a cup of hot tea while i meditate and breathe. The warmth of the cup and the liquid in my system has always been comforting and grounding. 
But today as i read Silence and Stillness in Every Season by John Main for Lent, i realize how still i have to be to taste my tea.
And this morning, because i am not rushing around my writing group, because i am not hurriedly gulping down a cup, i am tasting the sweetness of the lychee and the earthiness of the coconut peeping through.
Maybe after 20 breaths, i will really be tasting my tea.

Guilt

Today i will realize that i will always struggle with the guilt of being a bad mother. That i am struggling against generations of perfectionism and result-orientedness. That historically, we have only affirmed and recognized performance and results instead of beings and wisdom.
Because of that i will be gentle with myself during these times of guilt. i will not listen to the voice that says i am a bad mother. i will trust that has a path of success and reward that has some but not all to do with me. That if i instill character, i can guarentee times and life choices that happen in spaces and times i don't exist. If i instill results, i can only guarentee ( and not even ) only instances where i am present.

Preface

This book came about from my wrestlings as a born and bred Singaporean which makes for a bona fide Tiger Mom of the most potent breed because in a country with 2.5 billion people on _____ sq feet there is really only room for one animal. As a therapist, in my own therapy and people ask me about my dysfunctional family, i tell them it's more like i had a dysfunctional country.
i fled and found psychological asylum in the USA, said f-you to cambridge all my Oxford educated professors and proceeded to acquire like clockwork 2 BAs and 2 MAs before i finally landed in a calling quite by accident and purely again in the only way i get anything done -- in sheer drunken reactivity.
This book is written in the throes of mornings when i wake up with a full blown panic attack about worrying if i am ruining my children because i resigned being a TIger Mom. This verifies the fact that in spite of my yearly declawing and a repeated de-voicing and i am still every inch my country's daughter.
This book is a compilations of meditations that i had choked out of full blown panic attacks wondering for the 100th time what exactly are the navigational spaces i am raising my children.
i know what i don't want, but every inch of my body screams of the principles that chant in my head. Most days i struggle with shame and enormous amounts of guilt.
But i know being a psychotherapist now, what really matters and the consequences of being raised inside that cage.

Al- Anon gems

Al-Anon this morning was priceless.
i have been simmering all week. It started out Wednesday when i watched my husband consume 7 bottles of wine with 6 guests. Just the following Monday i was so proud of myself for not stressing out.
Then there were 2 more parties after and then this weekend in Monterey where i watched 1 bottle and 2 half bottles get consumed.
I know that when he stepped out to let a crab go and i wondered if he had stopped into another restaurant to get a beer, i am officially back to obsessing about my husband's drinking. Time for another meeting.
But this morning, we did the 4th Step -- what better distraction from my qualifier than to do a full blown inventory about myself. i've done so well for the month of November with my busy speaking engagement schedule. So busy i hadn't had any time to monitor my husband's drinking. When my meeting-mates ask me, i proudly declare " i am too busy living my life to notice ".
But now that the frenzy has simmered down and the holiday parties are up, i am back to noticing the empty bottles and the dishwasher full of wine glasses.
I notice myself crabbier, and more impatient. More prone to pushing him away. All in the same breath, grateful and thankful that if this is the most it is -- it is great.
But as i rushed in this morning to sit at a meeting, i know it's exactly what i needed to hear:

• One woman's definition of impatience as the inability to believe that we won't be here forever.
As i was taking my 4th step inventory in the meeting, i realize impatience was at the top of my list. i just apologized on text to my husband for being impatient over the weekend. i am trying to own my "defects of character" and "promptly admit it and make amends".
i am learning to trust that as my daughter systematically reads in fetal position and my son burps out loud proudly and they both have atrocious table manners that somehow this is temporary and they will learn in time.
i am trusting that this hard, lonely stage in our marriage is just momentarily, and the tomorrow or maybe in the next second, things may change.
i realize a part of me is so adverse to change, that i am willing to sit here, set up camp and make this god-awful miserable place home, because it's too much work to entertain being fluid and flexible -- even if it's in a good way.
Yet i've been praying for change forever.

• One woman talked about how her sponsor got her to imagine her ailing mother wrapped in a blanket of her own Higher Power.
The part that struck me was "HER OWN" higher power. The one hysterical thing about 12-step is that you don't have to share God. Everyone has their own Higher Power. They define it their own way, they have different relationships with Him/Her. We don't share.
Which a part of me just loves. Which a part of me feels is Christianity anyway -- we all forge our own relationship with God. But i think we often forget, we think our loved ones have OUR God, relate to God OUR way, should see God OUR way.
So this morning, i wrapped my husband in a blanket of his OWN Higher Power, trusting that God loves Him, is desperately worrying about him the same way i do. Ok i edited the last bit.

•One woman talked about how she was mad at herself for marrying her qualifier.
That one hit a chord. i was just trying to figure out this morning why i always hit this wall of fear and incredulity every time i find out my husband drinks. It would be as obvious as if i found out he was Chinese. But i reel. i lose it. i lose it to panic and fear and shame and betrayal.
And i realize as this lady shared, a part of me still can't forgive myself for marrying this part of him. Or marrying him.
It's god-awful to admit, given i am a classic, text-book co-addict. But listening to this lady share and how she married not one for 4 alcoholics/addicts. It is just heartbreaking.
And i am trying to focus on the fact that his drinking has more to say about me than him. That somehow i would be a person that would end up with someone like that.
As if i wasn't an addict myself, or couldn't be one. As if there is a part of me that blames myself for his drinking.
But this morning, i am struck by how i can imagine a part of my husband realizing this blame i feel towards myself and him. How it must be hurtful. How it must be horrifying.
To not be loved and celebrated unconditionally. The way i feel he loves me, when i am not busy reeling from being abandoned by his silence.

• One other lady shared about how abandoned she feels by her husband who found recovery and now instead leaves the family to go to AA meetings instead of drinking or drugging.
A part of me laughs. An addict is an addict, and when you get sober, you just graduate to more acceptable addictions -- like meetings.
A part of me resonates with him as she insists that he is losing his family while helping the world -- sponsoring other men. i know i feel the same way with my husband's trips to Haiti and dad's mission trips at a time when his grandchildren are growing up right before his eyes.
i am reminded of a scene from a movie when Jim a famous missionary leaves his family to go evangelize the aborigines who eventually killed him. i remembered the tears in his young son's eyes who begged him not to go.
This estrangement, this ambition, this purpose and calling God puts on men's hearts -- it's just heart breaking. Don't tell me it's good.
It's another addiction. i've reconciled myself with the idea that in order for men to feel purposeful in the world, they need the support of women, and then they leave.
We are suppose to find support elsewhere.

But i sat there, eyes closed listening to each share. Thankful for a mindful, cost-free space to reflect and hear myself. And to hear my Higher Power speak to me, and tell me serenity is possible; to say the serenity prayer with a group of other people. To hear others struggle with addicts in their lives with grace and dignity.
i love my Redwood City Homegroup. i feel so loved and seen by them. i am finally staying back and talking to them. i got a number from a friend today. Grateful. Thankful. Loved.

Grateful Mondays

Its a beautiful foggy Monday -- i am loving and relishing my precious day off. It starts the week off right, with the busy weekends we keep. i am getting my routine down and protecting it with my life. i typically, wake up, try not to stress the kids out  ( " Why are you so calm mommy ? Usually, you are all over the place. " My little mirror comments ) because they typically oversleep from the weekend activities. We grab a quick breakfast and i try to start their week calm and prayerful.
I run one errand before my 10am Al anon meeting, stroll casually to my 12.15 Dailey Method workout, lunch and possibly do one more errand before early pickup at 3.10pm.
On Mondays, i wake up and dress down the one day of the week besides Saturday. i wear my perfectly coordinated Lululemon workout clothes and meticulously wear a dress-down, non-made up "Nude look" and mess around in my Ugg clogs.
i relish the fact that my Al-anon group and the mom's group at school get to see me in my workout, stay-at-home mom outfit of the week. Every other day, i am dressed to the nine for work. Never thought i'd appreciate dressing down.
But Mondays i am typically overwhelmed with gratitude, grateful for the give. i am realizing that it is indispensable given now my schedule has me back to back for the next 4 days. Tuesday i am on from 9-5 back to back, with one hour to wolf down lunch.
i am so aware of other times in my life when the day ran into each other and i didn't feel the warm security of and a single finite day of hard earned rest. Of feeling the absence of guilt, and the pre-ache of a hard driving week ahead.
Everything is so much more precious in contrast.
Listening to K-love on a foggy day --- thank you Lord.

Natalie Baking

The kids have to be about the perfect age -- more than being articulate, introspective and insightful post-hours therapists, they recently newborn cooks.
Nally's totally coming into her own in the kitchen. She now attends cooking classes on her own, googles recipes,  makes full blown cakes while i nap on Sunday afternoons.
Between that and watching Daddy's cooking shows, i am so pleased to see Aidan sitting there flipping the pan and shaking it noisily like the professionals. 
I now can be effectively bribed to take them to Mcdonalds on a school day morning by waking up to fully made, calorically acceptable breakfast -- scrambled eggs with spinach and turkey/fish/chicken and a cup of coffee ( Starbucks mixed with peppermint cocoa and a dash of creamer ). It's full service in our house.
The other day, i sat down on a Sunday to make stew in the crock pot and i had 2 suse chefs who fought over who gets to cut mushrooms and onions, peel potatoes and carrots. We had more fun making the soup than eating it.
But i am so struck by how we would never had experienced this new surge of interest and independence if we kept our in-house cook -- the nanny.
We learnt that if we let the kids make their breakfasts, they eat it. The other day, Aidan chastised me for assuming that i knew what he'd like for breakfast and putting it on the table BEFORE he opened the fridge and figured out what he wanted. ( Nevermind he liked my suggestion and ate it heartily )
But here are pictures of them cooking and cleaning. Nally bakes every weekend getting the same therapeutic relief from flour and mixing i get from writing and reading poetry.
I for one get increasing grouchy as the kitchen gets increasingly covered with uncontrollable dusts of flour and sugar.
The upside is on days like this on Thanksgiving morning, we are greeted with chocolate chip pancakes made on the fly, in the moment -- they are amazing!

 

Shoreline boating

Beach Beauties

Saint Sabina Hildergard von Bingen Retreat

Kite Running at Shoreline

Little girl has been complaining about stress. She has since 3rd grade. i think between Math, Chinese, Violin and piano -- everything was "using too much of her brain".
So this year we went through her weekdays with a fine tooth comb and and it turns out that it's our weekends that are stresses her out. This could be part of Daddy's hyper agenda of 2 street fairs, 2 playdates, one choir practice agenda on the one weekend day he's home.
This day, i asked her what she wanted to do and the little girl asked to fly a kite. It turned out to be the most perfect day, with glorious skies. We laid on our backs and found people and animals in the sky. Aidan and i played base-ball. Nally flew and conquered her kite. We made sandwiches and watched the sun-set.
It was exactly what the soul needed.