Yoga Saved Their Lives

Yes, I meant to type "their", because although I do it more for me and my body, surprisingly it has had an astounding effect on my patience, which in turn saves my children's lives, EVERYDAY!

I wake every morning, sit on the side of my bed dangling my feet letting the doggies give me morning kisses and tell me they love me, while I give myself an spiritual pep-talk. "I will be a loving a kind person today, for I am a loving and kind soul. I will be patient with my children, for I am a loving and patient mother. I will be devoted and helpful to my husband, for I am am devoted and loving wife. I will be a listener, an adviser and a teacher, for I am a loving and patient person. But most of all I will be honest and true to myself, I will admit and accept my vulnerabilities and allow myself to be the most genuine me I can be, because I am an awesome person." Then I stand up, make my bed (it is good to be neat.), take the dogs out and do my morning salutations to the sun (yoga), come in grab my coffee, feed the dogs and come back to the office turn on Pandora to the Celtic or Relaxation station and catch up on email, facebook, pintrest and blog if I feel it.

Which today I do, don't you feel lucky?

Then I am ready to handle pretty much anything that might be thrown at me today. Then I hear it, the air grows still as I listen...

The clomp, clomp, clomping of noisy feet down the hallway, is it happy clomping or heavy "I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, everybody better watch out" clomping? Thankfully, I'm not worried anymore, because I started from a peaceful place. I know that I can remain peaceful and calm with them, thankfully. Now it is getting to where the deeper I go into that peaceful place, the longer I can remain peaceful and calm. I am almost able to make it a full day, but it wasn't always like that.

I love my chitlins to the moon and back a few million times over, but there have been times that I have wanted to return to them to what ever realm of argumentative annoyance they came from. You know, what's funny, when they were born I don't remember the nurse handing them to me, laughing hysterically as she skipped out of the room singing, "No backsies!" over her shoulder, but now, that they are older and I am no longer under power of their cuteness spell, I am pretty sure that she did, indeed, do that."I will find you, someday, you evil woman!"

They could cause even the sweetest little kindergarten teacher, you know the one that is just so sweet all the kids love her, she has the pristine dress, perfect hair, kind caring eyes, soft voice, never yells is always encouraging the children, but she is so sweet she makes your teeth hurt, but you love her anyway. I think these children, if all in the same classroom could make even her question her choice of professions.

You have the image in your head? Pretty isn't she? I feel I start off that way every morning, and then the arguing starts. Someone says or does something and someone else tries to correct or redirect. Then the other one, not wanting to admit the possibly of being in the wrong maybe even just a little, spits back and so it goes. Normally, it happens between the older teens who are "trying to help mom out" and the younger ones who have absolutely no problem informing them, "you ain't my momma." And it just escalates from there.
They just don't stop. I don't know where they get it from, although I have a feeling their dad isn't as innocent in all his as he professes he is. He just giggles, "that one's yours." To which I snarl and hiss, "you can't prove anything! It was all that nurses fault, she brought us the wrong one. She had to have, this is not normal! Is it?" as we cower behind our bedroom door, hoping they can't smell our fear.

All the while I felt myself turning into, well although the hair color is pretty and the complexion almost like porcelain, I just didn't like who I was becoming. Always yelling, feeling my blood pressure rise, feeling like I didn't have control of my own household, my own children. I was bigger and older then they were, why was this happening? Why couldn't I be the parent and remain calm and not be dragged down to their level? I needed to figure this out, because I was starting to seriously question my abilities as a parent. Was I going to be able to get them through their childhood whole and unscathed? Or was I was going to wind up screwing them up?  Or worse, needing a bigger back yard for all the bodies?

That went on for quite awhile, until I found yoga last year at college, let me tell you it was amazing, I fell in love, I wished it was more than just twice a week, I needed it craved it, dreamed about it. *ahem* Oh well, needless to say, I  recommend yoga to anyone and everyone, finding balance in your body as well as learning to let all the stresses and anxieties out while breathing the calm and peacefulness in, is nothing short of a miracle. Anyone can do yoga; old, young, over weight, great weight, extremely limber, or movement challenged. Yoga isn't about pushing yourself through the pain to reach that next level, it is about accepting your limits and working with them to slowly and gently find the balance to overcome them, be it physical or mental. Gentleness and balance is always the way, and it has allowed me to become more like this; calm, still, allowing the water to rush around me, yet remaining in that calm, still place so that I might teach instead of react.

Now their arguing, I am able to handle better, I don't immediately want to wring someone's neck. When Nicholas, who I really teach yoga to, gets to a point that he cannot be stopped/reasoned with or controlled, I tell everyone to back off and send him  to his room and after I am able to leave him there calmly, I go and I sit and I become quiet, then I go to try to help him see where he went crossed the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. It is amazing how that little thing, 50 minutes a day and the 10 minute break has changed how I interact with them. I am making conscious choices of when and how I will react to their behaviors. It has changed me so much and saved their lives more than a few times over this summer alone. So although I know I cannot control their arguing, I can control how I will react to it, deal with it and hopefully teach them that there is a more productive way to coexist in this family of differences and house of many. I still have my moments, I still fall short of the goal of  complete calm sometimes, but luckily for them I am determined to lead by example. So I will not falter, I will not give up in my quest to have a happy and more peaceful home and existence. 

Now when the come to me in the mornings and question me as to what I am doing, when I am doing yoga or throughout the day when I am just sitting quietly, I simple reply, I am saving your life. :)