This Introvert Mom is getting ready to get Uncomfortable

I'm reading and studying again. I've picked up three books on the same subject and am half way through one and am starting the process how things will change for me and my family. The books are Last Child in the Woods- Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv, How to Raise a Wild Child by Scott Sampson, and Free Rang Kids by Lenore Skenazy. I'm half way through Last Child in the Woods. I'm going to read all three and then give a more detailed over view of where my thoughts are on that specific subject, but I'd thought I'd share my thoughts while I'm in the beginning stages of my 'processing'. Broad overview of the books is digging into the topic of how our culture has shifted to mostly indoors and sedentary and structured and lack unstructured outdoor play time and how that's affecting all of us, but specifically kids.

Fact about me, I'm a processor. Meaning, rather than be spontaneous, I'm tend to process and study and look at all the angles when making a decision.

Total asside, but here's an example of the depth of my process-y-ness. When Hubby and I were dating and all in love and head over heels, Hubs was the first one to say 'I love you'. So he said it for the first time while saying goodnight after I dropped him off a his car and he closed the door really quick so I didn't have the opportunity do say it back. Then the next time he said it, was on the phone one night a few days later. I replied "Drive save!". Ha! Poor guy. What was going on in my head was that I knew this was the man I was going to marry, and I knew I'd only say I love you for the first time only once, and I really wanted that first time to be face to face and special. So I held out until a special date a bit later. I need to process and also, I have strong ideals that I really try to hold onto, and when I commit, I'm ALL in. And he loves that about me, now, mostly.

So, when I get into research mode, I start asking myself a ton of questions and measure my level of commitment, because once I commit, I'm all in, which is a lot.

Just one of the areas I'm processing is that I'm a structured organized introvert. I feel peace when things are not crazy messy or chaotic, but orderly and simple. I'm also an introvert who gets drained by being overly busy or over committed. Part of my process in digging into changing something, specifically in parenting, is fighting the "I'm not doing enough" line. Or 'mom guilt'. When I dig into this subject, I emotionally prepare myself to be open to do things different, not better or worse, just view it as progress and change. Using words like better or worse or bad or good are really limiting and definitive. I try to just use more open words because I will always be growing and changing and never arrive, so my language should reflect that and my expectations of myself should too. 

Also, I try not to see things as being added to my list. My list is full. All of our lists are full. So when I find something important that needs to be put on the list, that means something else needs to come off, or at least morph into something less or different. I can get so overwhelmed when I see change and think about adding this to my list, that I just curl up and feel paralyzed and do nothing.

And, when I reevaluate my list, I'm in a season where if something is not giving me and my family life, it's probably got to change. I might not know how to change it, but being open and beginning to explore options is the best place for me to start.

So, as an introvert, who would rather stay home and make my home structured and organized and orderly with a neat and tidy schedule, I'm looking at leaving my house more to get myself and kids into nature, to explore and discover and have unstructured play time. And so, I am processing what that will look like for us, for my sanity and what I can simply in other areas to make this happen. I don't have much of a specific plan yet, but I'm dreaming and processing and giving myself grace to get there.

A few dreams that I'd like to see if I could achieve in the next year:

- to enrole in Katy Bowman's Restorative Exercise Program

- to go outside with my kids EVERYDAY

- to start a nature study with my kids weekly

- to start/ participate a weekly nature school co-op for other like minded families

- to start a family hobby, like geocaching and hiking and camping, and plan monthly adventures

- to walk 5 miles 3 times a week

- also, in the next year I'd like to be able to do a pull up

I look at that list and can see a list of more, but I'm learning to see a list of dreams. I've decided these things will give me and my family life, so moving around my list to make it happen can be a fun challenge, and breaking it down into manageable steps and simply focusing on that. The example of me wanting to do a pull up, I'm very weak and have a hard time thinking about being able to do it, so I've started hanging every day from a pull up bar or tree branch or monkey bar. So, Ive been doing that. I've gone from barely being able to hold myself up for a few seconds, to ten seconds to now almost a minute. It's fun and rewarding to see progress.

This feels a bit scattered, but that's also how my mind works. My goal in sharing my process would be to hopefully be an encouragement to someone to not be overwhelmed. I think many of us don't dream because we don't think we have time. Never stop dreaming, and if you never stop taking steps forward you will always be able to make thing happen. And so, forward and onward!

That time when studying Movement was Depressing and Overwhelming

Once upon a time, there was a young wife who had 6 pregnancies, 4 full term, in a row, in 8 years. She breastfed the 4 for four years, and in-between each pregnancy had either no breaks between breastfeeding and pregnancy, they over lapped or 2-3 month break. This girl was very grateful that her body was capable and able to both get pregnant and carry to term her four babies and grateful for the two she held for just a small while. She was grateful for a body that could make milk for her babies. 

Yep, that's my story. After I had baby number four, baby Z, my body fell apart on many different fronts. I had Pelvic Organ Prolapse (POP), which was frightening because I eventually would like to have two more babies (I know, we're crazy and we love it). I had adrenal fatigue to the point of a total crash. Severe insomnia, where I couldn't fall sleep until between 3-5 am but with a baby that nursed and 3 other littles I was getting maybe between 3-4 hours of sleep in chunks on a good day. Also, maybe because of all the other symptoms I had a pretty bad case of postpartum depression. I was a mess to say the least. It wasn't pretty and my sweet husband really rallied to make life ok for the kids, when mom was curled up in the fetal position and crying at just the thought of making dinner. 

Before having Z I was really trying to stay in shape and had all these goals of doing my daily workouts after having him and 'bouncing back' after pregnancy. I think having expectations not come to pass the way we think they should amplifies our disappointment, at least it did for me. I literally did nothing for months but breastfeed Z, do what needed to be done for the other littles to keep them alive, and laid on the couch watching them play. And read. I always read quite a bit the first year I breastfeed. I admire the moms that can run around with baby on one arm and breast and get things done. I can't. I tried for 3 seconds one time and gave up. I have to sit and snuggle. It's what works for me. So during these early morning or late night times when it's just me and baby, I spend that time reading. 

Because of my POP I started researching what to do, how to fix it or heal it without having to have a major surgery. I'm not the type of person to take something lying down. I know there's always a solution. It might be hard or hard to figure out or take a lot of time, but there's always a solution to every problem. That's the world I live in.

This lead me to a program called MUTU Systems. After research and reading reviews I bought the program. I also learned that the founder of that program, Wendy, studied under a woman named Katy Bowman. So much good information. 

Movement. Movement verses exercise. Chairs, how much we sit and how. Shoes, what kind we wear and how it affects the rest of the body. How the entire body is SO connected to every other part of the body. 

The summary of one of Katy's books "Move Your DNA" is 'you are how you move'. Ugh. I wasn't moving. Hardly at all. I'd walk to the kitchen to feed the kids then back to the couch. Even going out in the back yard was overwhelming and not something I'd do very often. Forget hiking and walking and climbing trees. So, I felt like my body was falling apart, partly because of lack of movement in my life, but I had NO energy to move because my body was falling apart. So, as I continued to research, I continued to feel depressed, like a bad mom, and like I was failing my kids and myself. 

But, as I continued to dig deeper into my research, and to do the gentle restorative moves that MUTU laid out for me and in Katy's book, I started to heal. (I was also going to a naturopath for my adrenal fatigue and insomnia and other severe bleeding, oh did I forget to mention that? I also had crazy heavy and irregular cycles and was anemic too). My mindset started to shift from having the goal of being thin and being able to run miles, to being functional and strong and ok with being patient with myself while I healed. I learned to accept my body for where it was at in the process instead of angry that I wasn't were I felt like I should be. I learned to realize that my body is doing amazing things and simply giving me feedback, rather than feeling betrayed by my own body. I no longer suck in my stomach wanting to appear smaller than I really am. I no longer wish to punish myself for not being ten steps ahead of where I am, but learning to be consistent with the next step a head of me and learning to enjoy the journey. I don't have an end goal. I have some next step goals though.

One of the moves that I practiced quite a bit while I was recovering was releasing my psoas. Here is a tutorial on how to do it, and it's so nice to just lay down and practice this release. 

I also just started incorporating more movement into my day. So instead of sitting or lying on the couch all day, which was KILLING my lower back, I started sitting on the floor. I'd use a pillow or two, but this forced me to move more and in different positions and move different muscles that weren't being used.

I've healed so much in the last couple of years. Z will be 2 this summer (CRAZY) and it's taken about 18 months to feel more normal. I'm still indoors more than I'd like, but moving towards getting all the boys and myself outside more often. I'm sleeping much better. My hormones are coming back into balance, not perfect but where I feel functional and not overwhelmed or like I'm going to have a panic attack over.... everything. I am now going for walks most days, it's my alone time to breath and have quiet. I still floor sit most of the time. And I am not stressed about my healing. It's coming and will continue to come. And I'm still deeply grateful for all my boys. 

Giving it Away

The biggest motivator for studying all these types of subjects related to health was driven by my motivation to do right by my kids. Once I knew I was responsible for another person that I really really didn't want to screw up, I started down this road to figure out what was best for them.

One of the things I studied was the effects of sugar and how many negative side effects it has and how addictive it is. So, I've raised my boys on a very low sugar diet. About 3 years ago, though, I had to face something in myself. I was very good at restricting the boys diet but not my own. I would often have sweets during nap time and after bed time. Ice cream. Yum. Or anything chocolate. All the chocolate. I deserved it. It was my place to take a break and just relax and enjoy something while the boys napped or after a long day. My thought process when thinking about cutting back on sugar went something like, "I'll go one week without any dessert or extra sugar" to "Well, once a week dessert is defiantly moderation and very healthy" to "Well, it's someones birthday, but I didn't really enjoy that cake so it doesn't count as my once a week dessert" to "a couple of sweet snacks through out the week's not terrible" to "forget it!". This cycle would pop up every now and then. It wasn't my fault I had my grandpa's sweet tooth. 

Then, my boys started getting older. They were seeing the ice cream and snacks I was putting in the shopping cart and asking about if mommy was eating the ice cream after they went to bed. I had to face some truth. What were my reasons for it being ok for mommy to eat the sugar when I was trying to educate them on how unhealthy sugar was? When you ask yourself questions honestly, it forces us to get uncomfortable. And so, I asked the uncomfortable questions. Why do I not value my own body like I do my boys? Why do I make excuses for myself and not for the boys? Why is there a double standard? Why am I ok with controlling with goes in my kids mouths but not my own. I came to face my hypocrisy. I realized that I was teaching them that there are different rules for being a grown up verses a kid and that once they grow up they can eat what they want. But until then they are not being fed sugar by someone who really isn't convinced of the things she's preaching to her babies about how unhealthy it is. 

I didn't want to continue to be two faced with my kids. Besides, kids can smell insincerity a mile away. So, I turned and faced myself in the mirror. I had to call myself what I really was. I was a sugar addict. We can make jokes and laugh it off or say it's over dramatic, but it's very real. Studies show that if you see how the brain reacts to cocaine and how it reacts to sugar, it's the same and sometimes sugar gets a stronger reaction. It's powerfully addictive stuff. It changes our tastebuds and neural pathways and it had to be called what it was. That's when I got serious. I didn't want anything to control my kids and I didn't want anything to control me. So, I cut it out. All of it. No katsup with sugar in it, no coffee with sugar in it, no spaghetti sauce. I made everything from scratch for myself and wrestled with this process for a month or so. And I came out on top. I honestly will always be a recovered sugar addict. Even this year, I got loose in my standards for myself and ate some of my kiddos Easter candy (just being honest) and I started to get that slightly out of control feeling. So, I cut it out again. Hard core, get serious type cut it out. 

It's so good to not be under that any more. But it's also amazing to see the difference in my kid's 'buy in' to eating healthy. They know mom and dad believe what we say and it makes a huge impact on how they view this whole subject. They desire to be and eat healthy and as I educate them and model, they are really great at making good choices for themselves and learning how their body feels through it all. 

One of the things I learned through this process, is you really can't give away something you don't have. If I'm not walking the walk and talking the talk it's going to be very challenging for my kids to buy 'it', whatever 'it' is.

I know sugar is a sensitive subject and I not saying that everyone has to do what I did. But, we need to be ok with asking ourselves the hard questions. We have to start by being honest with ourselves before we can be honest with our kids. That's really all they want anyway. Not a perfect parent, but an honest one. It's my job to be consistent. Consistent in what I say and do, or what I say and don't do will be ineffective. So, a lot of the things I've researched and changes I've implemented when it comes to parenting are really family changes, not just kid changes. And so that is where I will be coming from in my thinking, it's from a place of being honest with myself and with my family and starting from there. What is my next step towards growth and not getting overwhelmed by perfection or comparison but simply focusing on growth. Because not only my family, but I deserve to be the best me I can be, and only I can change that. And so, forward and onward.

The Forces are not with Us

From what I see, many people are struggling with parenting, how to raise kids and enjoy the process. I believe asking questions is one of the most powerful things we can do. Did people generations ago really have such a grasp on parenting that this generation doesn't have? Or maybe, just maybe, we're trying to raise whales in a fish tank, and it's just not working. Maybe it's not the whales or the whale trainers 'fault' but the tank. What if we could transition out of the tank and all these little issues that seem unrelated start to heal.

One of my favorite authors right now is Katy Bowman. All of her books and blogs and podcasts are amazing. She's a biomechanist who studies humans movement. She's very smart and I'll write quite a bit about what I've learned from her and her work. In her book "Move Your DNA" she discusses orca whales in captivity. Most of us have seen the dorsal fin being flopped over in whats that are in captivity, specifically male whales. Remember Free Willy? Do you know why this is ( the fin flopping over, not your remembering Free Willy)? The dorsal fin is not made up of muscle but a cartilage. And what traditionally holds it up are the forces of swimming deep in the ocean for long distances in one direction. Transfer this whale into a shallow tank where they swim in circles over and over and the forces on what normally holds up the fin have changed drastically. Take minute and do something for me please? Stand up and walk in a circle for 30 seconds and take note of how you feel. Or take a drink of water in your mouth, hang upside down and then swallow. Forces are real and make a huge impact on the world around us, even is we can't see them. Part of the reason the whale wasn't built with a muscle to hold up his dorsal fin was because it would be a waste of energy to have a muscle working all the time to do a job that the natural forces around the whale doing what a whale would naturally do, would accomplish. 

I love this example. It's very clear. Forces have huge impact on our bodies. And often, because of their amazing design, we expect that we can live how we want and we're upset when we experience some form of 'fallen fin' syndrome in the form of back pain or joint pain, or excess energy or fallen arches or inconsistency and on and on. Or we go into treating the fallen fin, what type of pill or exercises can I take or do to make this fin stand back up. What if our body's are dysfunctional, but simply lacking the forces to hold us together. What if they are responding just right for the environment they are in? What if, as amazing as our body are at compensating, there are limits to how functional we can be in different environments? Another way to refer to these things could be casts. When someone breaks their arm and it's in the cast for 6 weeks or so, how does it feel when it comes off? It's weak. In just that short amount of time, the muscles have changed dramatically.

One example is that in the US we are seeing the age of who is getting hip replacements dropping dramatically, getting younger and younger. And the number of hip replacements is huge. "Over the 10 years of the study, the number of procedures more than doubled, from 138,700 in 2000 to 310,800 in 2010. The number grew by 92 percent, to 80,000, among those age 75 and older. It jumped by 205 percent in those aged 45 to 54, to 51,900." 

This is just one statistic, we live in a society where it seems everyone needs a joint replacement or hernia surgery or deals with a chronic physical aliment and pain and discomfort. Are our bodies really that frail or are we seeing the impact of lack of forces we need to be held together and not 'flop over'?

And so I have started reading and researching how all these things effect me and my children' bodies. Things like shoes and chairs and how the cultural sedentary lifestyle we are living in is allowing us to fall apart because we lack the natural forces we need to keep us functional.

What specifically are our fish tank? Or our cages? Chairs, shoes, screens, diet to name just a few. I want to explore our options. Obviously we can't throw all the things out move into the woods, forage our own food and do all the movement to survive and yet not live our lives in our cultures and families that we are plugged into. But we also don't have to turn off our minds and believe the lie that we don't have any options, that they are all too expensive or hard or inconvenient or simply unattainable. In order to not have the consequences that our sedentary cultural lifestyle we live in produces, we have to start to take steps to break free. And the first step is always being ok with asking questions and looking for answers and not allowing the feeling of being overwhelmed to stop any momentum. It's not doing nothing because we can't do the 'perfect' thing. It's deciding there is no perfect way to do anything, but there's always a next step. My personal goal is to not be in the same place year from now as I am right now. And the only way to do this is to simply focus on the next step. I see so many moms become paralyzed by this idea of being perfect or being a failure or not being like so and so. This breaks my heart because it stops us from becoming the best us we can be. It prevents growth and change and as humans that's what we're made for, growth and change. So, the questions I ask are for that purpose, growth. I don't ask questions to begin a comparison competition or to try and achieve any level of perfection. Believe me, that will never happen for me in this lifetime. I simply desire to know my next step and to take it and to never give up doing that.

And so, identifying our 'fish tanks', 'casts' or 'cages' and beginning to make changes can seem overwhelming, but it's obvious to me, that our and our kid's fins are flopping, in so many different areas. So, what if we could instead of being overwhelmed and doing nothing, we could start to take steps toward getting out of the cage. Like the example of what types of eggs to buy, there's not just two options, traditional store bought eggs or having your own chickens. Learning that their are other options outside of 'living in a tank' is essential to functionality is all areas. Onward, friends. 

Learning to Live and Parent Cage Free

I'm a parent. I'm a mom. I'm a stay at home mom who has four boys. 

When I was handed my first tiny over 7 years ago, I was clueless. I had done some babysitting and coaching and teaching and camp counseling of children, but that was nothing compared to this 7 pound bundle. So I survived the first 6 months through many tears and melt downs and times I told my husband I was sure I was failing this baby in some way or really all the ways. Then we came up onto the 6 month mark where you are traditionally told to start feeding your baby solids.

I knew nothing about nutrition or what to feed my baby, at all. So I did what I always do when faced with a problem, I research. When I am faced with a problem, I just go into 'research mode'. I have 50 tabs on the subject at hand open on my laptop and I buy used books off various websites and put all the books I can on hold from my library and I pour myself into them. My husband has to listen to me talk about this subject and only this subject for the next few weeks. I'm a little obsessive. It's how I roll. And it hasn't stopped in the last 7 years. 

One of the things I stumbled upon was researching when to feed your baby eggs. And what are the healthiest type of eggs? Omega 3? Brown? What did Cage Free or Free Range or organic really mean? One of the things I found really interesting, was that if you compare the color of egg yolks, store bought compared to a free range chicken, the free range chicken yolk is significantly darker, more vibrant in color because it is more dense in nutrients. And if I took a store bought organic free range egg and compared it to a yolk of a chicken my friend raised and allowed to free range on their property the yolk was even darker and more vibrant. Diet and movement and stress levels play a huge part in the chickens health and therefore the quality of the egg they can produce. 

I've discovered in parenting my boys, parenting is very similar to picking eggs. First, theres the knowledge that you have options and their is a difference between options, and then is the process of aligning where your family is at and what works for your family and where you're at right now. Budget, time, family structure, even ethics come into play.... there are tons of variables that lead into the choices we make. I'm not in a place where I can raise my own chickens right now. I did it in the past, but our current living situation doesn't allow for it. And so I am in the place of making choices and decisions agin for what works best for our family as well as ethics ( I won't get into it here, because this isn't the point I'm trying to make, but I do suggest doing your own research on this subject and how chickens are treated in mass production facilities). In my research I looked at all the factors that play into what is what and what it all means and made my choices. It's not cut and dry, but we need to know that there are options, what they are, and decide what works best for our family. This, also, changes. I am very much looking forward to the day when I can have my own chickens again. 

In summary, I'm starting a parenting blog. The picture that just popped into your head.... yeah, it's not that kind. It's where I document my research and ponderings. I love asking why and how come? Things I have learned through the research that I do and consolidate it in one place. It's not a place where I will tell you how to parent. It's not a place where I will tell you how together I have it. I'm not even going to touch the subject of discipline. I'm digging into shoes and movement and diet and whatever the next subject  is that comes along. I'm looking at all the different 'cages' that we live in, whether we're aware of them or not, and to dig into different choices there are. It's not my hope to ever make anyone feel like they're not doing enough. Ever. You're amazing. If you have a kid and you care and are doing your best, however that looks, high five! I also believe that information is very powerful and so I research, dig in, ask questions, and process options. Even if I make no change, I love the empowerment of standing behind my decision and knowing my why. 

So here we go. Onward.