Given that Jonah's first birthday is coming up, it kind of makes sense that I've been thinking a lot recently about Jonah's birth and the days leading up to it.

My mom arrived here on the 16th of December, his due date was the 19th. I think sometime around then I went into hibernation mode. I so desperately wanted him to come that I just couldn't face seeing people and having them ask me (totally out of love) about it. I didn't even want to leave the house, my mom was here and it was the small amount of time we'd have together before a newborn and healing became the reality of our lives, but I couldn't get myself to take her out of the house. We played a lot of cards and took a lot of naps.

I was feeling so conflicted during that time. While I was desperately trying to be detached, I wasn't succeeding at all. I desperately wanted Jonah to come naturally. I had surrounded myself with stories of how beautiful and natural birth can be. How important it is for our children to come into this world the way they were meant to, and how like 95% of women are able to have natural births (even if they don't choose to or aren't allowed to by the medical systems where they live). I was searching inside me for any possible sign I could find and around the 17th I started feeling really consistent tiny contractions (in hindsight probably Braxton Hicks contractions) over night. I got so hopeful and excited, and Grayden got so hopeful and excited. But then nothing came of it and I remember feeling like such a failure. Haha like somehow it was my fault that I'd never had a child before and didn't know what it felt like! I think I described it to a friend as feeling "really, unreasonably sensitive and overwhelmed and confused and alone and like a failure." Everything felt so raw, and it was hard not having Grayden home with me and because I'd thought there was movement and their wasn't, I no longer trusted my own instincts to tell me the truth.

In Israel they only let you go one week over your due date before they really push for you to be induced. They make you come get checked at the hospital every three days after your due date (though we totally pushed it a bit), so by our 3rd hospital check on the

Battling Fear and Self-Hatred

I've shared recently some of my thoughts on marriage, and some of my thoughts on raising children (and in a sense each other), I feel like it's maybe time to tackle myself..... I want to be honest here. I feel like it's important to share our stories with one another - especially the difficult parts, the ones that aren't shared enough, and that really help us all feel more compassion for ourselves and for one another. But it's hard. 

I've been thinking a lot lately about fear. It's something I've struggled with all my life. Mostly fear of failure - failing to live up to my own perception of other's expectations/hopes/needs of me and as a result, of losing their love and of being left alone. Annoyingly, the voice that causes this fear, isn't really a voice at all. It's not words in my head - if it were it would be so much easier to combat - it's just this quiet feeling that a situation, or often just my inner reality, is no longer safe for me to be in. It's a feeling that overwhelms my entire nervous system, and yet, because it's not in words, it often takes me a really long time to understand my own reactions (and what I was actually reacting to).

It has caused me to react in ways that I am very very not proud of, to things that in hindsight probably didn't mean what I thought they meant... Especially in my marriage. Over and over and over throughout our first year of marriage (and still in much milder forms to this day), Grayden would do or say something (or more likely in his case - not say or do something), and in my head this would imply criticism towards me. 

One that came up a lot (and still does sometimes) is that I would say something to him and he wouldn't say anything in return. Initially - depending on the nature of the conversation we were having of course - I could take it once or twice a week (now I can take it maybe once or twice a day) before it made me feel unsafe but once that voice started whispering in my ear it would tell me that he wished I would just shut up and not speak and he didn't value my voice and why would anyone value my voice anyways and I should just stop talking and live the rest of my life alone and unhappy, etc. 

Clearly that's not ever what's going on - mostly he originally just didn't have anything to say so he just wouldn't say anything back, now he tries more often to think of things.... But also, he thinks more slowly than I do (or maybe just thinks more about what he's going to say than I do), so sometimes he's struggling to figure out how to respond and his silence drags on and makes the situation feel more and more and more unsafe with every passing millisecond. That one happens frequently - especially when we're already in a difficult conversation and then he doesn't respond or takes a long time to respond to something vulnerable or upsetting I shared. 

Other times, I read criticism and failure into him sharing with me things I perceive as telling me who I am or the way I do something is wrong, or him telling me or asking me something that "shows" a lack of trust or faith in me, or a belief that I would do something that hurt him on purpose, sometimes it's even just a facial expression or an intonation that I read into as implying criticism..... In our first year of marriage, especially after I got pregnant, these things came up over and over and over again and each time they did, I lost my entire foundation. Somehow my brain would go from "normal day to day struggle" to "he doesn't love me anymore and I'm alone in this world" in such a way we would both end up with whiplash.... When that happened, it was like the entire world came crashing down around me. 

It became clear over the last two years (as these things do in marriage) that I never really learned to moderate my own emotions when it came to handling pain and hurt feelings that are caused by someone close to me. My instinct was to turn on myself, blame myself for the situation, silently feel anger and resentment towards whoever it was who had hurt me, stay away from them for as long as I could, and if I couldn't, then just to push it down, ignore the pain, apologize and pretend like everything was fine (while inside I was screaming and losing my trust in everything and everyone). I obviously couldn't do that in marriage and didn't want to, but because I barely realized I did it, and because I hadn't really been in a situation in my life where I felt it was okay to act differently, every time we had a disagreement or I got hurt by something or other that Grayden said, I fell apart. I hated everything I could possibly think of to hate about myself while at the same time being angry at Grayden for whatever it was that caused the situation. And when my hurt was met with silence, as it naturally was at times, I broke. 

I find it hard to share this, but sometimes in my despair and hopelessness and self hatred, and his inability to even see them, let alone touch them or help me deal with them, I would turn on Grayden. He would say the "wrong" thing or do the "wrong" thing and I would run away from him and hide in another room, I'd slam doors, I'd scream at him, I'd punch myself or bite myself. A couple times I punched him..... He's a strong guy so I don't think I ever left bruises, but oh how I hated myself for it....... I would tell myself over and over again that violence is never okay, to ourselves or to others (especially to others), I would recite in my head all the reasons why he probably acted as he did and all the reasons I was wrong to feel the way I did, I would then recite in my head all the horrible things I'd done or said in the conversation that were unfair and hurtful and tell myself that I was just making him hate me more and pushing him away more, and lock myself into an endless funnel of self hate. As you can imagine, this never helped the situation and often meant days before there was a resolution, and weeks if not months before there was a feeling of 'safety' again. 

Anyways, I'm not writing this blog post to shame myself. This was the reality of who I was when we got married. It's a bit of an understatement to say that marriage brings out big emotions, and in truth, I acted like a child who hadn't ever learned to handle and deal with their own big emotions. 

It's not my reality anymore, though obviously there are still echoes of it..... At some point, with the help of a counsellor, a therapist and some books I'd been reading (Raising a Secure Child and No Drama Discipline in case you're interested) it clicked in my head that shaming myself when I reacted in a way that wasn't the way I would like to react wasn't helping the problem. So I started trying to have compassion for myself and to accept myself where I was at (because I finally understood that with acceptance would come growth and I wouldn't be stuck there forever). 

And then with help we both learned better language to use to acknowledge our own and each other's pain (for example saying something like "it hurts when " rather than saying "I'm so sorry I didn't mean to, ").

So fast forward to now. Something I've found really helpful in the second book I mentioned above (NDD) is that it talks about how we all have a reactive brain and a receptive brain. How when we're feeling big emotions we feel them in our lower "reactive" brain and through training we build connections which help us to take those big emotions up to our upper "receptive" brain to be analyzed and thought through. If they just stay in the reactive brain, or if they are met there with another person's reactive brain, they can just keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But if we are able to pull ourselves out of the reaction and think through things, that's when we learn to moderate our big emotions. 

It's interesting how just having an understanding of this and being able to step out of an interaction and observe our own and the other person's mental state, can make such a huge difference. To be able to say "I'm feeling really reactive right now, and I think you probably are too, can we stop for a minute and calm down?" or to be able to tell him at the end of an exhausting day when he gets home that I'm off balance and feeling reactive so please tread lightly with me. It's amazing how just simply being honest with one another about how we're feeling, can actually save us from difficult and hurtful interactions. Not something I would ever have thought about when people say how important communication is in marriage. 

I guess this is part of why I've been thinking about fear recently. It has been such a huge obstacle to open and honest (and loving) communication in our marriage. Obviously fear is a reactive state, so in a sense all we need to do, to combat fear (and everything that goes with it - in my case self-degradation) is to find tools to help us move into the upper receptive brain.  I was thinking yesterday about what qualities might combat fear. The first one that came to mind was trust. I've often felt that fear is simply a lack of trust (in God, in oneself, in others...). So it follows that trust would be something that combats fear. I think, even beyond that though, love not only combats but it actually conquers fear. To love, is to look with eyes of understanding and forgiveness, compassion and empathy and trust. When we're in a situation where someone has hurt us, reminding ourselves that the other person is noble and underneath whatever they did or said, is a soul who probably wouldn't want to inflict harm or hurt on another soul, reminding ourselves that they want to see the best in us, that they love us, and even more importantly that we want to see what is best in them and that we love them, can make such a difference in our own reactive v. receptive state. 

That's just one of the tools I've come up with for myself to help me to not be reactive in a situation I find unsafe. I'd love to hear the tools other people use to combat their own fear!

Honoring and connecting with the nobility in our children and one another

My Jonah turns eleven months old tomorrow. My little moosh is nearly a year old! I know I was told over and over before he was born and even during these eleven months, how quickly time will pass, but what I wasn't told was how different every single week of every single one of those months would be from each other. How quickly their little personalties become apparent. How quickly they learn and grow and develop!

I've found myself recently saying over and over again 'he's only been doing that for the past week or two!' At first I didn't really notice but recently I started thinking I was sounding like a broken record until I realized that each time I said it, it was about something different - "he's only been crawling for a week or two", "he's only been pulling himself up for about a week or two", "he's only just started interacting with us in the last week or so", "he just started repeating things we do and even sometimes things we say about a week ago", etc. Instead of feeling like a broken record, it made me realize how drastically their little bodies and brains are changing in such a short period of time.

Me and a few of my friends have been reading this book recently called No Drama Discipline and in the second chapter it talks about how every child's brain is changeable, changing and complex ("The Three C's"). It explains this in many contexts, but one is to help parents have patience and compassion when their children are reactive (as in when their emotions are taking control of their bodies) rather than receptive (as in when we can sit down and have a conversation with them about what happened) and to understand that not only are their brains constantly changing and extremely complex, but they are also changeable. So if we respond to their reactiveness with compassion and love and connection (rather than anger and/or lectures and/or our own reactiveness) we have the ability to help their little brains change and become more capable of dealing with those big emotions.

I definitely want to reread this book when Jonah is a bit older as it's not so relevant to him right at this exact moment but it has so many things I want to keep in mind as he grows. Anyways, I was thinking how much compassion and understanding we have for a child under the age of two or three, because their growth is so tangible! It's so easy to see that their brains are all of these 'C's.' But how sometimes, the older a child is, the more we forget that they also are still growing and building connections and that those connections are able to be changed. We also forget that those changes we wish for will manifest themselves far more quickly if we respond to their misbehavior by seeking connection, acknowledging their struggles, listening to them, and helping them understand and learn to moderate their own feelings.

In truth I think we forget that all these things are still true into adulthood. That we as human beings are extraordinarily complex, that our brains are always changing and are always changeable. Not to say we can look at the way we think, say we want to change it and snap our fingers and we're there (if only that was possible!!!). But it is possible to change our thought patterns and our actions and reactions. So often we berate ourselves for not being who we wish we were, rather than seeking connection first - finding our truth, our nobility, the beautiful people we were put on this earth to be, and then seeking to grow with that as our mold. We also forget to do this with others. To look for and find their truth, their nobility, the beautiful people they were put on this earth to be.

I've often thought of children as seeds planted in the soil of God's love. The thing is, just because I grew to be an apple tree, doesn't mean that is the seed that God planted in my son or my husband or my close friends, or even my parents or my brother! It is not my responsibility to raise my son to be an apple tree as well. It is my responsibility to make sure that his physical needs are met (that he receives water and sun and nutrients and light, etc), that his spiritual needs are met (that he receives love and knowledge and guidance and is shown what true beauty is, etc), and that as he grows I guide his branches or leaves or petals or whatever he becomes towards the Light and I make sure first to shelter him from and then to teach him that though there will be storms and shadows, they don't need to affect his growth or his vibrancy. But nowhere in there do I get to decide what plant he will be. God decided that long before he was given to me. I am tasked with making sure that plant grows and bears fruit and continues to draw closer to the Light.

I feel like this imagery can be so helpful in looking within ourselves - for how can I compare myself to others (and find myself wanting) if I come from a different seed, if I was made to blossom and grow in a different mold? For the same reason it is also very helpful in looking at others around us. For it is easy to look at my husband or my close friends or my family and think, 'well I'm bearing this kind of fruit, they should be too' or 'we're meant to look like this or act like this or be like this' etc. Only, it's not true, I can't know what kind of seed was planted in each of those people, nor can I know the quality of the soil it was planted in or the amount of nurturing both physical and spiritual they received growing up, so as a result I can't know exactly what 'drawing towards the Light' looks like in them.

I've been teaching a preschool class over the past year (just once or twice a week for the children of a couple friends here) and this last week we were working on counting and the kids taught me a quote that they had learned in children's classes over the weekend. I feel like it, and the rest of the quote that surrounds it, is an appropriate way to end this post as it reminds us what we should be looking for in our children and in one another:

‘Abdu’l-Bahá tells us:—

To be silent concerning the faults of others, to pray for them, and to help them, through kindness, to correct their faults. To look always at the good and not at the bad. If a man has ten good qualities and one bad one, to look at the ten and forget the one; and if a man has ten bad qualities and one good one, to look at the one and forget the ten. Never to allow ourselves to speak one unkind word about another, even though that other be our enemy.

Reflections on nearly 2 years of marriage

Jonah is nearly a year old and Grayden and I have been married for nearly two years. I can't believe how quickly time has flown. I know so many people say that about family life. It's the kind of thing your parents or your friend's parents said while you were growing up and you rolled your eyes at them when they did. But wow!

I'll tackle marriage first. These last two years have turned my world upside-down in some very challenging, very difficult, very rewarding and very beautiful ways. Seriously. Challenging, difficult, rewarding and beautiful, all at the same time usually. Though the latter two often weren't as apparent at first as the first two were. The world has a way of telling a very specific story of family life. One painted in gold ink, with beautiful smiles and happily ever after written at the end. But it's not even remotely accurate. In fact, in many ways, the story that is told is actually quite harmful. Harmful because it makes people expect that story, and when not confronted with it they often fight, flee, freeze or faint (or all four at different times). None of which are helpful.

The two best things Grayden and I have ever done in our marriage was firstly to understand (and believe) that all our challenges could be fixed so long as we both made effort and were willing to work towards a solution and the second was to ask for help when we didn't have the skills yet to fix them ourselves. We each went separately to see counsellors a few times, we went to see a therapist together a few times and I went to see a therapist myself for months in our first year of marriage (while I was about 6-9 months pregnant). And I'm so so grateful that we had the strength and courage and willingness to do that. I think that willingness is what eventually built the necessary trust in our relationship that allowed us to overcome (and still work through) so many of the challenges we've faced. And I wish there was less of a stigma against seeking help! Honestly, it's one of the things I wish more people had the courage to do in their first year of marriage.

Marriage isn't the 'everything comes naturally and beautifully' perfect picture that is so often reused and recycled over and over and over in the movies. Don't get me wrong, I pray that with time, patience and effort, our marriage will be exactly that, but usually the media paints this perfect picture for the first part of marriage, the getting to know one another's characters/newly wed part. That part, just doesn't look like that for most couples. The beginning of relationships and marriage is messy and painful and challenging. You come face to face with your own ego over and over and over on a daily basis and you can't just ignore it like you could before marriage. You're forced to confront yourself and your assumptions and your actions on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. You also bring your spouse face to face with their own ego over and over and over again. And setting ego's aside, living in the same space, in the same bedroom with another human being of the opposite gender, when you've never done that before as an adult, is an eye opening, sometimes frustrating, sometimes embarrassing, sometimes confusing, sometimes shocking experience! We are all so different from one another. Our habits and attitudes are different,  the assumptions we make based on one another's behaviors are very different (and often are dead wrong). And it can be hard to put aside that feeling of 'I'm right, and you're wrong', 'my way of doing things is right and yours is really weird.' Honestly even when you know that feeling isn't true, sometimes it's just really hard to try to understand the perspective of someone who's brain functions in a very alien way from yours. Communication is just so hard early on! You've never had to communicate with anyone, not even your parents or siblings, about so many things - big things as well as little things.

Silly enough, the first thing Grayden and I ever argued about was where our pajamas should be placed when we make the bed in the morning. I'd always been taught and always seen everyone fold their pajamas and put them under their pillow (well lets face it, not everyone folds them and I wasn't a stickler about that, it was more the 'out of sight' part that was important to me). I took for granted that this was what everyone did and it had never crossed my mind that there were other ways of handling pajamas. Grayden on the other hand had always folded them and put them on the end of the bed, on top of the covers (!!!). I couldn't understand how that was okay! I mean, guests could come over and see your pajamas! How embarrassing!!! Lol, nearly 2 years later and I think it's hilarious, but at the time, it felt huge! I didn't want to criticize him or make him feel badly. I didn't feel like I had a right to ask him to change but I also didn't want them there. I think I actually held in my frustration so long that I might have blown up at him a bit when I finally told him - sort of a 'why in God's name would you do that??' explosion rather than an 'I feel a bit uncomfortable with them there' kind of sentiment.

Everything felt so BIG in that first year. I was looking for reassurance and love and understanding and compassion and was meeting him with confusion and sensitivity and uncertainty. He in turn was probably expecting similar things from me and was meeting me with similar attitudes. It's so hard to build trust and understanding when you're hoping the other person will take the first step to convince you of their love and trustworthiness! Luckily, both Grayden and I were able to communicate enough to one another to make it clear we were both trying. We kept stepping all over one another and hurting each other left and right. We kept assuming things that weren't true, based on our own backgrounds and sensitivities, and jumping to unfair conclusions based on our own shark music. But we knew that we were both trying and would keep trying until we overcame our struggles. We strongly believed in the institution of marriage and that our marriage was what God wanted for us. We knew that we would get to a place where our marriage was a fortress for wellbeing, and also even though we were caught a bit off guard by how difficult marriage was, we both had heard many times that the first year was challenging (and oh how it was!). Somehow knowing other people had clearly also faced struggles their first year (and probably most people for it to be such a common thing people said) made us feel less alone, less like we were failing somehow and more able to see it as part of the process of building a strong foundation.

And by about 8 months, something changed. Trust had somehow slowly seeped into our interactions and we turned around one day and found that the other person had become our closest and best friend. I remember it really caught me off guard. I had been very afraid of giving of myself physically - don't worry, you don't need to look too deeply into that sentence! I was afraid to hug him, to hold his hands to kiss him and definitely afraid of more physical contact than that! I'm very very lucky that he was very patient with me. But I remember one day in our eighth or nineth month were all those barriers that had been there to 'protect' me (the ones that clearly weren't needed anymore), just weren't there anymore. And all of a sudden all these things I'd been afraid of and had pushed away vehemently, not only was I not afraid of anymore but I actually really wanted them. And it wasn't just physical trust, it was like a barrier I'd had up since I was a child came crashing down with the realization that it was no longer needed.... Don't get me wrong, it took a lot of work to get there, and a lot of work afterwards as well. But it has been sooooooooooo rewarding. Because not only did I overcome some pretty huge walls I'd had up inside me for a long time, but I also gained a best friend in the process. One who didn't look or talk or act like any friend I'd had before, one who maybe didn't fulfill every need I have (and in truth, I don't think it would be a healthy marriage if he did), but one who would always be there as best he could and one who I realized I loved more than anyone I'd ever known before him.

I know so many people searching for a partner, and I guess, I just wanted to say that one of the best things that you can do is to reshape the image you have of what partnership/relationships/marriage actually look like. What your image of your partner/spouse looks like in your head. And when you do find someone and you do struggle; to have patience with yourself and with them, to take the time needed to build your ability to communicate with one another and to overcome each challenge that comes your way - and there will be challenges - and yes maybe to go see a counsellor or a couples therapist if you're both willing, trust me they can be sooooo helpful! But the most important thing is to believe that with effort, and patience and faith in yourselves and in one another, you will find everything you're looking for, and so so so much more!

Presenting Perfection vs Growing and Learning

I've been thinking a lot recently about how much I miss writing. Honestly, how much I miss myself... I can't remember the last time I really did something just for me. Strangely, I'm not feeling a sense of loss or anything about that.... Motherhood has a way of removing your need to exist separate from your child -- well at least when they're not smacking you in the face repeatedly or biting you while they're eating or crying unconsolably for hours. Haha, then you may need a bit of father-enforced separation, but in general, I don't really miss the person I was before Jonah was born. I'm happy with my life the way it is, I'm not yearning for 'me' time.

But, I have found myself thinking a lot about how freeing and joy-filled I have always found sitting and writing to be. How it makes me feel like I have a 'voice' and how precious it is to know that there are a few people out there who seem to enjoy reading my thoughts and being with me in my descriptions of life and struggles. In the past this has usually taken the form of poetry. I really love writing poems. The feeling of words just flowing through me and forming themselves into some kind of painting - maybe a clear scenic painting or maybe a muddled, confused painting of random colors that could mean a number of different things but if you look close enough you'll find meaning in it. I love that feeling! But it's been a long time since I've had poetry flow out of me like water.

I'm honestly not sure why, maybe my brain just got too involved in my efforts. Maybe I stopped believing in my ability to write beautiful things. At some point I know I felt that I'd said everything I could say about my life as it was. But I always assumed that marriage and family life would stir the stagnant pool of my poetic ink. But it hasn't. I've maybe written one poem in the last year (where I used to write 30-40 in a month). I think part of it is just that I've become afraid of failure. Afraid of making a mess in an effort to create something beautiful, only to realize at the end that it's still just a mess. I forgot that for every truly beautiful poem I wrote, there may have been 4 or 5 others that I'd written which were just 'meh.'

It's funny how attached we can be to presenting perfection. Don't get me wrong, it's important to always strive in our lives, to grow and learn and change, to make effort towards bettering ourselves. In that sense, we strive for excellence, knowing we won't achieve it, but understanding that by striving towards it we may attain far more than we would if we were striving to be moderately good. I think I got too attached to the outcome and forgot how beautiful the effort can be and how much of a sense of community we can find when we share our struggles with one another.

So I figured, since I haven't shared anything in writing in a really long time, I'd start with my blog. Maybe it will encourage me to write poetry again, or maybe I'll find I actually really enjoy blogging.. I guess we'll see :). Hopefully I'll find at least a few people who want to take this journey with me!