From the Deep

What’s this? Look over here! It’s my blog! A little dusty from neglect, but sitting here stalwartly as I endure the last dregs of our unusually long summer break.

In case you haven’t yet heard my story, my kids have enjoyed a four-month-long respite from academia while builders finish construction on their brand new school building. After four years of leasing a strip mall, the school finally has its own beautiful–and big (hallelujah!)–home. Well, it will. In a few days. If everything continues to go according to schedule (oh please, God, let it go according to schedule).

I began the summer with great intentions and perspectives. I designed a summer alliance with my kids that would help us all survive and thrive. I’d strike a balance between hanging out with them and working (having let go of many work tasks such as more frequent blog posts), and they’d have lots of flexibility and freedom sprinkled with enough structure to keep us all sane. Best laid plans, as they say, but at least we had something to shoot for, and while we didn’t attain all of our goals all of the time, I feel we did pretty well overall.

For the past eight days we’ve enjoyed “stay-cation” (a vacation where you stay home and play tourist in your hometown), and now we’ve returned for the last eleven days (please, God, only eleven!) of summer break. And we’re all mentally and emotionally done. We’ve had enough summer vacation. We’re ready to push ourselves back from the table of summer break with that satisfied, full feeling.

But our chairs won’t budge.

Instead, we sit at a table covered with crumb-filled plates and pitchers of drinks drunk to the dregs. What do we do?

I shared the situation with my coach, Phyllis Mathis, in our session today, and she suggested that I just let it all go. That I, for lack of better terms, “wallow in the dregs.” And while that may sound pitiful, when she said it, I felt freed. I’ve kept myself and my kids on top of so many things over the summer, and maybe I can take a break from the vigilance and let us all relax until school starts or until my kids grow tired of the laxness, whichever comes first. Who knows…perhaps they’ll create something really inventive, being the gifted kids they are. Or maybe they too will feel the release and be better prepared in body, soul, and spirit for school to begin.

Do you have an area of your life in which you’ve done your best, you still have time left on your term, and you could benefit from letting go for your sanity’s sake? Will you indeed let go?

I give you permission to do so! Who knows what might happen if you do. After all, lookie here–I wrote a blog post!

When the Gershwin brothers–George and Ira–and their fellow writer DuBose Heyward, wrote “Summertime, and the Living Is Easy” for the opera Porgy and Bess, they clearly weren’t anticipating spending three months home with gifted children. I’ve done this gig for a few years now, and I always find myself trying to outsmart summer, to make it bow to my need for predictability and sanity. But the only two predictable things that will happen are: 1) within fifteen minutes of vacation beginning, my children will make me wish it were over, and 2) multiple times during the summer I will lose my sanity.

So what can I do to make summer easier if I can’t exactly make it easy? Here are some strategies I will be trying, and I offer them as possibilities for you and your family too:

• Sign up for summer camps! I just signed up my kids for the final camp I plan to send them to. I will also remain open to other opportunities that will present themselves. The National Association for Gifted Children has a listing of summer camp opportunities; you can access this resource here. (Note: this is not an endorsement of the list or any activity on it, merely a mention of a resource for you to view.) Giving children something to anticipate, a new experience to try, and just time out of the house can create sanity for all of us!
• Practice, practice, practice. I’m a big fan of practices, those actions we take on a regular basis for our own self care. This summer, I’ll be delving into M&Ms. No, not the candy (well, yeah, maybe the candy), but practice-wise I’ll engage in movement and meditation. If I can do those two things each day, I will maintain physical and emotional energy for meeting the challenges of being with my kids all summer and running my life coaching business. If I find I’m feeling stressed, I can do one of these two disciplines again to help me recenter myself. What practices feed your soul? Can you commit to doing them everyday for your own sake and, ultimately, for your kids’ benefit?
• Balance structure and flexibility. According to Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, we all fall somewhere on a continuum between being really structured or really flexible. (To learn more about personality type and to take a temperament test, you can click here.) I tend to fall on the side of flexibility. In fact, adaptability is a great strength of mine. It can also be a weakness for me; I rely on it too much, and with children, it can cause confusion and insecurity. I’m recognizing my need to give my kids more structure in order for us all to feel good. My kids need to know what’s going to happen each day. They also need tasks to do so they feel good about accomplishing something, so we will be exploring new chores that they can grow into doing (and that’s a win for mommy!). Others may lean more on structure and may need to allow space for flexibility in their schedules to make summer a more free-flowing, relaxing time. Where do you fall? How can you create a palatable balance between structure and flexibility for you and your kids?
• Create a summer perspective. Sometimes when we feel stuck in situations–for example, when we know we have the kids home for summer and we’re going to face a challenges such as arguments between siblings, multiple proclamations of boredom, and the responsibility of being the adult on duty 24/7–we can get ourselves unstuck by creating a new perspective about it. Think of how you currently view it. Perhaps you have an “Ack!” perspective, or an “Ugh…” perspective. Perhaps you have a “Bracing for Any and All Challenges” perspective. Can you feel how clenched these perspectives might make you, and what possibilities may or may not be available to you if you stay in these perspectives? What if you were to shift your perspective to “Ease” or “Summer Island” or “Swimming Pool”? What might be possible for your summer then? What actions would you take? How would you feel? As for myself, I’m exploring the perspective of “Bright Colors” and seeing what lightness and joy that perspective might bring me and my kids this summer.
• Have a summer powwow. Today I took my kids to Starbucks, and over our tasty drinks we imagined what we want our summer to be. I drew pictures of each of us with smiles on our faces, and asked my kids what it would take for us to look like that every day this summer. They had plenty of ideas about how to be with each other and activities they’d like to try. I was also able to share my desire of balancing my time with them with my work responsibilities in a way that can bring us all joy. Might you find value in tapping your kids’ ideas creativity about how to have an awesome, ease-filled summer?

Yesterday I blogged about how, while the kids are out of school for Winter Break, I’m choosing to keep two practices everyday that will keep me sane and happy this holiday season: movement and soaking. Here are some other ideas that may speak to your soul or may spark other ideas for practices you’d like to adopt over the next couple weeks:

1. Lighting a candle and leaving it lit throughout the day (whenever you’re at home);
2. Listening to music that feeds your soul;
3. Carving out a half-hour every day for a cup of tea and time to read;
4. Taking a walk by yourself;
5. Watching a show every night that makes you laugh;
6. Praying;
7. Journaling;
8. Doing something to express your creativity such as drawing, playing an instrument, writing…;
9. Reading through the Christmas story a bit at a time;
10. Taking a bath;
11. Meditating;
12. Connecting with a friend;
13. Piecing together a puzzle for fifteen minutes;
14. Exchanging back rubs with your spouse; and/or
15. Taking a nap.

Today was my children’s last day of school for 2008. Yay! We’re on Winter Break!

Ack! We’re on Winter Break! Seventeen days with two children in tow hyped up on sugar, engaging in Christmas festivities, lacking their usual structure, with abundant free time on their hands. Seventeen days in which I don’t have my usual structure and space to pursue what energizes me, to accomplish goals, and to converse uninterrupted with other grown-ups.

On the one hand, I’m looking forward to time with my kids. I really enjoy their energy, creativity, laughter, and play. On the other hand, I know that so much time together can often result in emotional stress that creates havoc at holiday time.

How am I going to handle it? I’m going to practice.

Actually, I’m going to engage in two specific practices that help me stay grounded and connected to my joy. The first is movement. I’m a fidgeter. If I don’t get enough movement, I feel as if I have extra energy zinging inside my body desperately seeking an outlet, and it eventually leads to frustration. Mitigating that frustration requires extra energy, creating a hazardous cycle until I blow up. I’d rather expend energy through movement I love–dancing, walking, and playing outside or at the gym with the kids–and avoid the emotional outbreak that comes when I don’t.

The second practice I’m committing to is soaking. This discipline involves laying or sitting still in God’s presence, focusing on Him, and allowing Him to show up however He wants. I’m finding that this practice grounds me, centers me in God and in who He created me to be so that I can hear His voice more clearly and act more in line with His will. It feeds my soul.

Amid all the holiday hubbub, I will do each of these two practices everyday. All my other customary pursuits may shift around my children, but these two activities will happen as preventative measures–preventing me from losing myself then from losing it with the kids.

Are your kids on Winter Break? What practices might you commit to so you’ll stay connected to yourself and your joy at this holiday time? 

Yesterday I hit a wall. No juice left. After the nine-day Thanksgiving Break from school, preceded by three days home with a sick child, I felt no motivation or inspiration to tackle my to-do list which grows daily and exponentially, like mutant bacteria run amok. I didn’t know how I was going to accomplish the usual tasks, such as writing blog posts and answering e-mails, not to mention continue the added activities Christmas season often brings: the decorating, gift-list constructing, shopping. My tank was on empty.

Often, when my tank is on empty, I don’t think clearly, so I’m actually amazed that, unlike my usual pressing-through M.O., I somehow found the wisdom to temporarily unplug myself from life. (OK, I must admit, this was my sister’s idea. My older sister. She was right…again. Dang.) I only had a few hours before the kids bounced back home from school, but I managed to “go off the radar,” to separate myself from my computer and all my social networking plug-ins. I also ignored the toys strewn across several floors, the dishes in the sink, and the laundry. (This is no small feat in this house!)

Ah…it felt so good! I hadn’t realized the harried pace I’d been running nor the disconnect I’d been feeling from my life focus. Going off the radar gave me the opportunity to ask myself, to ask God, “What’s the point? Why am I doing what I’m doing? Does it make any difference?”

The answer didn’t come right away. Which was good…instead of making this break time “useful,” I really got to relax, and I desperately needed to relax! As I let go of my expectations for myself and immersed myself in a good book (and indulged in a bit of a nap), the answer emerged: DanceFormation. I’m not talking cheerleaders or ballerinas. What I’m about in the world is transformation: substantial, good, lasting life change. And since I love to dance through life, naming this focus–indeed this inherent value–DanceFormation seemed to express the overall sense of my purpose: to bring change in the world through fun and play.

This clarity has fueled my actions today: my Twitter posts, my e-mail messages, my dancing, my interactions with store clerks and friends. While doing all these things, I’ve asked myself “Where’s the possibility for transformation and joy here, for me and for those with whom I’m connecting?” It has led me to send Christmas well wishes far and wide, to name what I see in people, to apologize for times I’ve said something less than helpful. And my enthusiasm and energy have returned.

How is your energy level these days? Your inspiration? Your motivation? Could you, too, benefit from going off the radar? What might you find there if you do?