It has been a challenging few months. The effects of my husband’s death nearly seven years ago continues to rear its head. As my young children have grown older, I see the effects in their learning disabilities, anger and upset, as well as in myself, realizing the full effect of post traumatic stress disorder.
Indeed, it doesn’t show up for years later. My stress and trauma have spun us into a flurry, and after a long illness recently, I’ve come to realize what matters most in this world: the health and happiness of you and your children.
I’ve had to step back recently and slow things down. Way down. Of course that comes at great expense to the business. But what else is one to do? I’ve gone back to the basics: serious ayurveda and nutrition, serious yoga about 4 times a week or every day that I can make time for it, weekly meditation with a class at the Boulder Shambhala center as well as a daily home morning meditation and yoga practice.
For my children it involves returning to the place before the wounding. That is where all healing comes from. Before my husband’s suicide I was a stay-at-home mother. I gardened with a passion and cooked meals from scratch using its bounty. I relished making my own gifts and sewing my children’s clothes. Most of all I enjoyed being my children’s first teacher: educating them in the home, spending lots of time in their pre-school classrooms, running the household and helping my husband. When he died, all that died with him. I was faced with enormous trauma, as everything was bankrupt and thrown into disarray. I didn’t have time to grieve: I was penniless and had to act quickly. Less than a month after my husband’s death I had to have my then 5-year-old son’s tonsils out because he couldn’t breathe at night, because the health insurance was to be cancelled. I had to find a way to make a living. I had to sell most of the possessions in my house, the cars, settle the estate, be a mother, run the finances, run the house. I was running, running, running and I didn’t stop.
I didn’t stop running until this October, when illness forced me to. It forced me to realize that my health comes first and then my children’s. That well-being, that focus on the home life, was essential. I had become alienated and lost my community. I was doing everything myself. It was overwhelming and too much. My daughter’s learning disability, my son’s aggression and grief.
Since then I have been refocusing on recovery. I have slowed down, not doing any trainings out of town, or at least only a few every year that are financially viable. I am back to home cooking and home economics, instead of the whirlwind spending left and right just to deal with everything and because predatory lenders loved my outstanding credit, which has gotten me deeply into debt of which now I must dig out of! I want the life I had before my husband’s death, where my family is the focus. I opened a voluntary case with the Boulder County social services. My son and I will get therapy to deal with our grief and trauma. His has turned into depression now that he is almost 12, and his anger shows up in his fascination with guns. My daughter is finally in an excellent school that tested her, discovered her auditory processing delay disability, and had created an incredible individual learning plan to get her up to speed with her peers within two years, as she is in fourth grade and only at a second grade level despite previous intense efforts at tutoring and intervention
I find that the key to the healing has been community support. In a world where we are isolated by cars, internet social networking, television and separate homes where we barely know our neighbors, community is really what saves you. I am so grateful for public social services. I’m working to start a single-parent collective and network with social services in Boulder to help parents with such an overwhelming, and unnatural task of raising children alone. This is not healthy for our children. It really does take a community, and the support of the single parent, especially the mother, is essential. Strong communities are what make healthy children and citizens. I’m outraged at the budget cut taking place in our community that serve low-income people. It’s a disgrace and I’ve been increasingly vocal about it to get the services our community need.
I’ve invited friends over to cook with me; we’re baking all of our Christmas gifts! I’m joining a local food share, and building garden beds, and maybe even chickens, at my father’s house to grow our own healthy and wholesome food that is not part of the corporate agricultural industrial complex. I’m into buying everything local and living as simply as possible. These simple sadhanas really put you in touch with life, with the balance and natural cycles.
I’m delighting in working with my children’s needs using yoga and storytelling in the home. More so using the philosophical tenets to help my son deal with life’s challenges, teaching him meditation and mindful awareness. With my daughter I’m finding techniques and the patience to help her with her ADHD and learning disability. I’ve brought in help from a handyman to assist from everything from keeping up the yard to helping us get a Christmas tree to our house. I’m grateful for the Shambhala community in Boulder where I can meditate with a group, and I love going to my yoga classes which open my heart and I’m obsessed with Ayurveda prescribed by my dear doctor Nita Desai, MD. I am convinced that for what ails you, yoga, excellent nutrition, meditation and storytelling can heal yourself, heal your family and heal the world.
So this season I will be regrouping Storytime Yoga. Look for a new format for the e-courses, League of Yogic Storytellers, as well as expanded offering for Mythic Yoga.
The Spanish-language version of Storytime Yoga is almost out! And I’m delighted to be hosted in Mexico City by a wellness center where they are hosting trainings and classes, as well as visits to orphanages and prisons where women are incarcerated with their young children as part of the Storytime Yoga Children’s Mission. This July I will be at Kripalu doing a children’ s yoga camp concurrent with the divine Shiva Rea’s workshops, and a teacher training at the incredible Omega Institute. In June I have my annual retreat of Mythic Yoga here in Boulder with my dear friend Artist Wendy Rochman, as well as a live Storytime Yoga teacher training. Subscribe to my Mythic Yoga blog at www.TheQueenofBohemia.blogspot.com and start your own personal transformation with yoga and story today!
So that’s enough! Everything in balance. There is nothing to do. Only delight in being.
Join me on the journey in finding balance in your life and health and literacy for your children and community. Have a fantastic holiday season. Much love and Peace and Namaste.