Monthly Archives: April 2011

Is there anything too awful to overcome?

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The woman in this photo was once abducted and gang raped by nearly 100 men. She was 16 at the time. Does she look like someone who survived what must be every woman’s worst nightmare – and worst fear for a mother if you have a daughter? To some extent, we are all survivors. Trauma comes in many shapes and sizes. What matters is what we do with that experience of deep and intense pain, whether it’s emotional, physical, mental or all three.

The woman in the picture is Sally Anderson and you can read her story at www.sally-anderson.com. We will be speaking to her on next Tuesday’s “The Way of the Toddler Hour” on TogiNet Radio (www.toginet.com) at 2pm Pacific/5pm Eastern/10 pm GMT. I suppose Sally is typical of many trauma survivors in that she spent the next 2o years after her abduction and rape in a downward spiral of destructive behavior. And who could blame her? How would you “get over” being kidnapped and raped by 100 different men?

Today Sally is a household name in Australia and New Zealand, where she lives and works as a leadership trainer and inspirational speaker. She writes about how she turned her life around in her book Freefall, due out in the U.S. in September of this year. Her story of total life transformation answers the question: “Is there anything too awful to overcome?” No. There is not.

Sally has left behind the label of victim to embrace her life AND her past. She isn’t bitter. She isn’t angry. She isn’t even sorry that it happened. I’ve met Sally and I can honestly say she has one of the most captivating personalities of anyone I have ever met. She exudes a joy and love of life that is magnetic. You feel better just being in the same room with her.

There are some people in the world that you look at and think, “I want what they have.” Sally is one of those people for me. Would I trade her past for mine? No way. But that’s not really the point. The point is that we can all overcome debilitating pain and sorrow to enter a state of consciousness that is authentically joyful. We all have a choice about how we live our lives – either as victims or as champions of our destiny.

As a busy mom to my three little boys, some mishap or other can often throw me into that “victim” mentality. I can easily throw my hands up in the air and cry, “Why me?” It’s not about what happens to me, but rather my choices about how I react and think about those events. I know for every “uh-oh” or “oh-no” there are at least 10 things in my immediate surroundings for which I can be grateful. And I am looking forward to speaking to Sally next Tuesday and asking her personally for some of her tools and techniques for embracing life as a champion instead of a victim.

Every one of can probably look back on our lives and think of something that was awful for us. Are we still carrying around that experience with us? When Sally shares with us how she let go of her “too awful to overcome” story, we will all learn something about how we too can be free from the things that haunt us.

What Our Children Have Taught Us

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“What Our Children Have Taught Us” is a 25-minute documentary video about the life lessons parents have learned from their children. Through stories and reflections, parents will share their thoughts on ways our kids are teachers to us and not the other way around. This video will be sent out to elementary schools, preschools, toddler groups and parenting coaches. It will be an uplifting insight into the many ways we can create more peaceful futures for our children. By changing our ideas about the relationship between a parent and a child to one where every parent recognizes that a child has much to teach him or her, the parent will be a positive force for the example of lifelong learning and personal development.

For updates on the completion of “What Our Children Have Taught Us” please contact thewayofthetoddler@gmail.com

What’s different about motherhood than the way you thought it would be?

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On “The Way of the Toddler Hour” we are asking the question: What is different about motherhood than the way you thought it would be? This is our prize draw question for a free copy of Kristin Maschka’s book This is not how I thought it would be: Remodeling Motherhood to Get the Lives We Want Today. Lori said she never knew there would be so much laundry! I definitely relate to that. My three boys keep me B-U-S-Y and I never seem to catch up with washing, drying, folding and putting away. It’s on ongoing practice in patience.

For me, I think the biggest surprise has been what an incredibly spiritual experience motherhood is. My kids keep me on my spiritual toes and either amaze me with their profound insights or put my spiritual beliefs to the test as I pull them apart from a one-step-too-far wrestling match. Motherhood is the arena in which so much of what we are taught about love and compassion is brought center stage. We can quickly forget to love or feel compassion when facing a mountain of laundry and cheerios all over the floor. Their presence in my life cotinually challenges to look deeper within myself for answers, to breathe ever more deeply and to constantly reasses my priorities. Are the dishes more important or this twenty minute opportunity to play in the sunshine with my two year old. I know what his answer would be. Always.

It would be misleading to say I always choose my kids over my neurosis…that’s why life is called a journey. Luckily, having children gives me ample opportunity to practice being the best version of myself I can possibly be. When I miss the mark, I do the work to forgive myself, apologize when and where necessary and then move on. My children love me even when I mess up. The least I can do is offer the same to myself. And to them. They need me to “get over it” too. My four year old will often say, “Mom, I don’t want to talk about this anymore” when I have gone on and on about something he did. Do I trust that he has received the message? Or do I keep on making my point despite his protestations? These are the dilemmas of motherhood.

What is comforting is knowing that I don’t have to be perfect. I keep on keeping on… Just like my kids. They are a great example of that. Motherhood is about as spiritual a path as you can find in life. Those monks in the mountaintop monastaries have it EASY in comparison. I would like to see one of them trade places with me for a day? How long back on the mountain would it take for him to recover from his one day with my three ninja fighting testosterone fueled balls of energy? My guess is at least four weeks.

Every day I am grateful for what they are teaching me about love and life. Even when I don’t immediately understand what the lesson is, if I take the time to meditate on it, I will eventually come around to an “ah-ah” and gratitude will fill my heart. Life is precious. I know that much better now that I am a mom. My kids have taught me so much.

Massage is for mommies, not just for babies…

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How does massage help moms?

 

This is not about baby massage. This is about you, the mom, receiving a massage.  There is a lot of hype these days about baby massage. But what about mommy massage? Don’t we count too? It’s time to talk about our right to a massage every once in awhile. It will do more than relax us. It will also help us be better moms.

 

Massage is about more than relaxation. It is also about releasing what is trapped in our bodies and freeing ourselves to do, be and have more. When we are not holding on to trauma from the past, we have more energy. We will be talking about how to be unblocked in life through body work today on “The Way of the Toddler Hour.”

 

Our guest, Laura Magpali, began a personal healing quest when she was widowed in her 40′s. Now, she is a Reiki master teacher, licensed massage therapist, advanced certified Bowenwork practitioner, CranioSacral therapist and reflexologist. She has also studied Peruvian Shamanism.

 

Bowenwork is a form of body work consisting of gentle rolling maneuvers at specific points over muscle or connective tissue. She has helped many women unblock years of stored trauma and release it to enjoy newfound health and vitality. We will be talking to Laura about how our bodies can be free of repressed tensions to open our lives up to new possibilities.

 

I hope you will join us.

Truly Amazing Woman Janna Cawrse Esarey

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Janna Cawrse Esarey

Today on “The Way of the Toddler Hour” we will play this clip of a short interview I did with Janna Cawrse Esarey. She is a truly amazing mom of two daughters and a full-time writer. Her first book The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers and a Woman’s Search for the Meaning of Wife is about her honeymoon sailing trip around the world. It is a funny and meaningful look at how our identity changes once we become a “Mrs.” What I admire about Janna is her commitment to her career as a writer and her commitment to her family. Her daughters are two and five and not yet in school. She wakes up at 5:30am every morning and writes before spending the day with her girls. As women, many – most – of us have difficult choices to make about how we slice those 24 hours of a day. There are many demands on our emotional, physical and mental resources. Not least of which is our own dream or goal. What do you do to make it all somehow fit together? Please share your tips, support resources and words of wisdom for balancing life, kids, personal goals, marriages and more… Together, we are stronger.

As always, you can listen to “The Way of the Toddler Hour” every Tuesday at 2pm pst/5pm est/10pm gmt on www.toginet.com. Podcasts are always posted later that day on this website. You will find show descriptions and link to podcasts on the Radio Show/Past Show Archive Tab.

The Way of the Toddler Hour features children’s book author Deb Lund

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She became a mother at 40 and then adopted two more children from Haiti. Listen to this short (less than 2 minutes) interview with author Deb Lund. She was today’s Truly Amazing Woman on “The Way of the Toddler Hour.”

http://www.letahamilton.com/news-events/the-way-of-the-toddler-hour-features-childrens-book-author-deb-lund/attachment/ws600010

Explode, a word familiar to mothers

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Having just returned from the Whidbey Island Writers Conference, I would like to share with you one of the writing exercises I did in a workshop about sentence structure. One of the sentence forms we studied was called “repitition” whereby one word is said over and over again to emphasize a thematic point in the story. In the writing exercise, we had to come up with a word that evoked the theme of what we write about. I write about parenting, so I chose the word “explode.” We had to write for 2 minutes straight using our chosen word in EVERY line of our piece of paper. This is what I ended up with – and I thought it was worth sharing. Any parent (especially where siblings are involved) can relate.

I explode when so many voices want me at the same time. Then they explode when I don’t respond immediately. I explode when I want an hour to work and then I explode when I see the cheerios all over the floor. Back and forth we explode at one another. This is like a tennis match with a ball that explodes. Over and over again, I explode. They explode. Until our faces are red, our bodies exhausted. Did I explode this much as a child? I remember my mother exploding many times. I understand why and how a parent explodes not that I am one. Then, in rarer moments, I explode with great waves of love for my children and they explode back in kind. They are boys, so they l with their voices and their wrestling matches and their battles, while I explode with my fear that one or the other will end up dead as a result of their antics. I explode with calmness, too, especially when I have carved the time to write, to meditate. To “explode” has such a negative connotation and I explode like this often. But it can also be an explosion in the direction of fervent love. I explode with pride at their accomplishments and I explode with great joy at mine. I burst forth with love and I admit, I love to explode.