Mindful Moments with a 2-Year Old

This morning, for whatever reason, I opened this meditation on mindfulness. I kid you not, I think I was in some kind of trance. It’s a nice way to start the day, clearheaded and  in the moment. And I was pleased to have the experience as an anchor for the day ahead.

How often do you get caught up in your thoughts, things happening around you, or distractions (smartphone, anyone?) Mindfulness helps you be aware of the now. It’s not to say that to-do list doesn’t need to get to-done, but, like I learned from Daniel Tiger, “Enjoy the wow that’s happening now.”

Yeah, I have learned a lot about Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. That’s my son’s favorite show of late. We watch it, we have the books, we sing the songs, we color the pages…

When he’s in the throes of a nasty tantrum, I might say to him “Oh come on, enjoy the wow that’s happening now.” It doesn’t help! Whatever, he’s working on it, right?

One of our favorite things to do is play outside in the backyard. Water is a big hit for him. Usually we will run the hose through his sprinkler pad, with the kiddie pool filled up, too. I’ll bring out my speaker and play some music while I watch him and enjoy his happiness (and manage his tantrums and clean his hands when he falls).

It’s often a treat to be out there with my little man. When the weather’s right, it’s perfectly heavenly.

But today was different. He wasn’t content for me to sit and watch. He wanted Daddy to play, too. I consider myself a very loving and devoted dad, and I so enjoy the time I get to have with him (what a blessing). But outside is hot and as long as he’s safe, it’s a good time to chill.

So, of course, I joined him. And you know what? For over an hour, we ran through that sprinkler pad, hiya’d our way through it like ninjas, danced in the sprinkler, and celebrated all the mud we were creating together. We held hands as we ran through, and we compared how much mud was on each of us. I didn’t care if I wasn’t looking at my phone. Instead, I had my giggling boy, our music, the feeling and sight of the “Ew! Wocky mud!”, and the sun on our faces. I was really in the moment. And you know what, in this mindful moment that seemed to last forever but didn’t last long enough, there was no Covid, no worries about anything.

“Run with me Daddy!” “I want to hold Daddy’s hand and run!” Enjoy the wow that’s happening now.

As he enjoyed his post-play watermelon-strawberry popsicle, I said, “Do you know how much your daddy loves you?” Sticky melted popsicle melting down his tiny hands, he said, “Yeah!”

Enjoy the wow.

 

That Feeling You Just Can’t Shake…Or Can You?

I’m not an anxious, worrisome person. I tend not to fixate on issues, and have really been working on understanding there are things I can’t control or do anything about. In terms of working through the mental part of this pandemic, at times I’ve taken a laissez-faire attitude toward information overload. Normally I am all over the news, but I have found myself feeling overwhelmed by all the Covid coverage.

That being said, I do like to be informed and like everyone, I have things at stake. Well, it seems that the latest focus relating to Covid-19 is the reopening of schools. You’ve got people on all sides of the issue, each with valid reasons, either for or against bringing kids back into schools.

For me, there’s a part that says kids need to be back in school safely for purposes of their education and socialization, both of which are vital for their development. I have seen the detrimental effects of both on my own students (children with disabilities) as well as my own children (14, 11, and 2). To be sure, there are no easy answers, nor will there be any solution that pleases everyone, nor will there be any decisions made that don’t ultimately cause 1,000 other problems of their own. It’s pretty much an impossible situation.

So what is this doing on this blog, which is supposed to be about fitness, motivation, and inspiration? I’ll explain. One thing I have come to understand on the last few years of life’s journey is that wellness, fitness, and health are not limited to one’s physical self. Indeed, while you run the risk of not being able to live without taking care of your physical well-being, if you neglect your mental well-being, you run the risk of not being able to survive.

Think about it: you can’t take care of anything until you take care of yourself.

I’m getting into a roundabout dissertation on the way to the story I want to share today. Forgive me, but when I was a journalism major in college, I was chided in red ink for being too florid and using up too much space with my extra words. I guess I haven’t learned that lesson.

Anyway, with my interest piqued by the debate about reopening schools, it’s renewed a certain sense of urgency in my wife and I (both teachers) to square away childcare for our 2-year old when (if?) we go back to work in late August or early September. We believe we have options, which is a plus. 

But where we are concerned we don’t have an option is when it comes to our little one wearing a mask back at daycare. Bless his heart, he can be very stubborn, independent, strong-willed, and petulant. I mean, he is two.

So what happens when he shows up at daycare and won’t wear a mask? 

It was with that idea this morning that I left my early AM conversation with my dear wife to go do my morning meditation before our morning workout (see how I’m incorporating mental health and physical on this blog?) For the first time since I gained an interest in meditation (which was admittedly only a few months ago), I decided to look for one about relieving worry and anxiety. That tight chest feeling that I couldn’t shake surely could be shaken by a good visualization and mind liberation. 

The Honest Guys meditations are really soothing, comforting, uplifting, etc. So I chose one of theirs. But as I was encouraged to see my worries lifting toward an ever growing cloud above me, only to be carried away on the atmosphere’s winds, to disappear over the horizon and never be seen again, I just couldn’t shake the feeling of worry in my chest. There were too many thoughts about my little man in a mask, his beautiful smile shielded from sight, his little sneezes stuffed inside a piece of cloth snug against his face, his almost certain unwillingness to even try to tolerate a mask, and the idea of how outrageous it is for anyone, MUCH LESS A TWO-YEAR OLD, to be expected to wear a mask for 8 hours.

Again, things I can’t control. Working on it.

My meditation ended, and I wasn’t at my best. It really hadn’t done much for me. But on the screen when I opened my eyes was a gentle image of a lake framed by a few leafy branches dancing on the breeze. Man did it look peaceful. What is it about water? The stillness, the repetition, the cleanliness, the opportunity, the endlessness? Whatever it is, I mean, water just gets me.

Serenity.

So I stared at that for a while until my wife joined me in the basement, ready to work out, but needing to provide a little therapy instead. What was I grateful for this morning? So much, but especially my angel.

We talked about this for another 20 minutes, baby monitor silently watching us as a reminder that there’s only so much time before we’re in parent mode. We usually start our workout by 6. Today? Not until 6:30!

I wasn’t even feeling it. Didn’t really want to do it. The heavy chest feeling messes with you, and tells you useless, troubling things. Today, it told me I don’t have to workout, I should take a break, I should focus on what’s bothering me. Thankfully I have a wife who knows better. We pushed play, got ourselves moving, and by the time we got to about 15 minutes in, I said, “I’m so glad we’re doing this workout.” That heavy chest feeling was gone, and it hasn’t been back since.

I guess I’m glad I got to workout today, because my day started off in a troubling place. I guess I’m glad I was able to pick myself up, because honestly, the day has gone much better than I ever anticipated it going. I’m grateful.

—

Update on 2B Mindset

• Four days in and I have to make a point to drink more Water First before eating. I’ve been drinking a minimum of 200 ounces of water each day, but I want to time it better to fill me up more.
• I am really enjoying Veggies Most. My wife made sesame chicken last night and I asked her to make enough of the sauce so we could have it on broccoli. I filled 2/3 of my plate with the broccoli, about 1/4 with chicken, and the rest with rice. So satisfying. For lunch, I had a bowl of peppers, carrots, and mushrooms with hummus and guacamole. So refreshing on a hot day. Breakfast this morning was two scrambled eggs atop half an English muffin loaded with caramelized onions and sauteed peppers and mushrooms, along with a couple of pieces of feta. What a texture and flavor treat!
• The Scale has been a highlight of the morning, even this morning when it showed a .3 gain. The idea is that the scale is a tool, not for judgement, but for figuring out what works for your body. I ate a later dinner last night and had a snack that was probably too carb heavy. (Side note: it was these awesome Banana Oat muffins from Cookie & Kate that I made for my son because he loves cupcakes. I modify by using less sweetener and adding veggies, because heavens forbid he would ever try one off his plate, or anyone else’s for that matter! This latest batch was my most ambitious. I put carrots and zucchini in. I guess when you also throw in some chocolate chips, you don’t notice!)
• Tracking has been a mostly faithful exercise – if you bite it, you write it. However I do need to do a better job of putting specific amounts. Sometimes you don’t realize how much you’re taking.

A Mindset of Gratitude Makes Everything Better

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, the global pandemic has affected literally every person on this planet. As a teacher in one of the hardest – if not the hardest – hit areas of the United States, I had students whose parents and grandparents contracted Covid-19, and in our school there were far too many children who lost parents to the horrid disease. Family members of mine suffered through it, thankfully coming out healthy. Friends and coworkers have also been sick.

The details, effects, and news are unavoidable unless you live under a rock. On a personal level, my son no longer gets to go to his favorite places: the library, the gym, the park, Trader Joe’s, or Costco. Even though he is only two, he knows these places are closed, and talks about it often. All three kids have had their have had their social lives upended and our older ones both missed out on the pageantry and pomp of graduations this year. Working from home as a teacher, with a wife who is also a teacher, while raising a 2-year old was not only challenging, it was virtually impossible. Being unable to see our family as often or as unrestrictedly as we would takes an emotional toll. In short, although throughout this pandemic life has been good to us, it’s also been hard.

This isn’t a complaint. I don’t even pretend that we have it rough. All of our problems and issues, while they are problems and issues, pale in comparison to what so many others have had to deal with. I can say this with no irony or qualms because of the gradual shift in my mindset about life. It’s bearing out to be true that everything happens for a reason. Let me explain.

This February, my parents, my family, and my sister’s family got to go to Disney World together. We had planned toward this trip for years, and I personally took the reins on the finer details of it. Excitement was building everyday as we headed toward our departure date. A few days before my family and my sister’s family left for Florida, my parents flew down with the intention of crossing the state to see friends before meeting us in Orlando.

A couple of days before we left, my mom called me from Florida and asked me if I was driving. It was an unusual, but unsuspicious question. I wasn’t. Then she asked if I was sitting. I started to sense a problem. I was. Then she dropped an absolute bomb of horrible news. My uncle had unexpectedly passed away. I yelled into the other room where my wife was, and before I knew it, I was sobbing uncontrollably. My uncle was a wonderful man, and he and I had always had a special bond. His unexpected death was a major gut punch to everyone. He left behind a wife, two adult children, and three grandchildren. Like everyone else, they all adored him.

My mom returned from Florida that night. The next morning we went to his funeral. And a couple of days later, we were up at 3:00 am for a flight to the so-called “Happiest Place on Earth.” What a whirlwind of emotions.

It was, however, on this trip, that I learned something very important, and that is the power of gratitude. How thankful we all were to be able to share in this incredible trip together, given the tragedy that had befallen our family only days before. Framing that trip, as best I could, with that lens of gratitude really made it all the more enjoyable. I certainly didn’t take for granted that our family could all be together in such a magical way.

When we returned from Disney World, we went back to work. At this point the pandemic was becoming more of an issue but still seemed a world away on the western coast of the U.S. But days passed, and things worsened. My son turned 2, and two days later, we celebrated his birthday at home with family, pizza, and ice cream cake. The next day, it was announced schools were closed indefinitely, and we went into lockdown. The life we knew was over. Not one month before, we were in Disney World, carefree and naive. The day before, my entire family was in our house. Now, we were home, on our own, isolated from family, friends, school, work, and everything normal that we had always taken for granted. Another gut punch!

I had an opportunity once the lockdown started to do one of two things: dwell on it and make it awful or seize it as time we might never have again. Along with being able to spend more time with my wife, Jaime, and children – time that otherwise doesn’t exist when we’re all running in our own directions and being shuttled around – I have found meditation to be an effective tool for me to cultivate gratitude.

I look at it this way: I can choose to dwell on everything horrible in this world or I can choose to be grateful for everything wonderful. I’ve never been an anxious person, but I haven’t always been the most positive, either. Starting each day with a meditation puts me in the right mindset to enjoy the day, no matter what comes.

If you haven’t meditated before (and I’m a total noob, myself), let me just give a short rundown of how I’ve begun dabbling. I started with ten minute guided meditations I found on YouTube. As I did those, I realized I wanted more, so I bumped up to 20 minutes. The key is to have a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. For me, it’s the basement at 5:30 in the morning, earbuds in, Jaime respecting my time, and all 3 kids and the dog snoozing away. The 20 or so minutes I spend in my own head and body without any distractions is sacred and fantastic.

I always had a weird feeling about meditation. This came from a place of ignorance and lack of knowledge (don’t those two always go hand in hand?) Basically, when you do a guided meditation, you close your eyes and position yourself comfortably, focus on your breathing, and listen to a luxuriously calming voice walk you through some thoughts and visualizations of yourself and nature. It really is an incredible tool.

On the days I am really focused and not distracted by my own thoughts, the experience is always uplifting and gives me drive to live the day as positively and gratefully as possible. Some mornings, if I’m not well-enough rested or I have a lot of jumbled thoughts, it’s harder to find clarity – but at least there’s something.

Through meditating I have been able to focus on who I am at my core, which is a positive person. I am learning that things don’t happen to me, but around me. I have learned that there is gratitude to be found in every possible situation. It’s a truly liberating and transcendental mindset to know that my life is absolutely wonderful and there is always, always, always so much to be grateful for.

These are some of my favorite guided meditations if you’re interested in getting started.

Open the Magic Book – 26 mins (helps you find answers to your deepest questions)

The Wishing Well of Abundance – 15 mins (short and sweet, and always leaves me smiling)

Mindfulness Meditation – 20 mins (just being aware, very powerful)

There are really so many out there. You may find some don’t work for you, but that’s no problem. Read the comments on the videos and you’ll see you’re not the only one.

I would love to read about how this goes for you, so please leave a comment to share!