paint your heart out

Do you remember being a child so in love with the experience of painting and art that what it looked like didn't matter, you just loved the colours and the feeling of paint brush to paper? Do you remember having so much fun that as soon as you were finished one piece of paper you were ready for the next?

Most all of us start at this place. The point of pure creative abandonment. And then someone comes along, a parent, a teacher a grandmother maybe even another child who says, "what's that supposed to be?" And as you said, "well, it's a land with fairies and gnomes and a big tree where they all live together" the response is "That doesn't look like a fairy" And then it's over.

This is the moment where almost all of us got the message that we can't paint, we're not artists and we're not good enough. This is the moment for many where we begin to compare ourselves to others, judging our abilities and gifts in relation to those around us.

The other day I gave my children paint and paper with the only instruction, "do whatever you like and have fun" My son at first was frustrated because he couldn't "paint good" and I said, "just pick a colour you like and start putting it on the paper" Before he knew it, he was so immersed in his work that he asked for 3 more sheets of paper. My daughter who is 2, has not yet begun to compare herself to others and just painted her heart out.

I started a class called The Ruby Slipper Project in September. It is amazing to me what a success it has become and how freeing it is for women to come and paint, explore and give into their creative impulse without judgment or restrictions.

Would you like to come and paint your heart out? I'm holding a one day retreat March 21st from 9-4pm, just for you. Think you can't paint? Yes you can. Come, hold a paint brush and see where the paint takes you. You will amaze yourself.

we were not meant to mother this way

Have you read this book? It was recommended to me a couple of years ago and it changed my life. It is a feminist take on an old biblical story of a woman named Dinah and her life's journey traveling the desert with her family and in the end finding her own salvation through midwifery. It is a powerful story for sure.

However, this is not the part that changed my life. What opened my eyes was how she and her 4 mothers lived in a tribe. Now, I'm not a polygamist, nor is that the lifestyle for me. However, although these four women shared a husband, they also shared the role of mothering. They cooked together, ate together, raised children together, breastfed each others children and bled together, once a month in the Red Tent while the men fended for themselves for 3 days.

I could say so much about this book but what really stuck out to me was that we as a human species were not meant to mother alone. This modern idea of us all sequestered into our own little homes, cooking, cleaning, child rearing, partner caring....is not how we were meant to mother. That is why it can be so isolating, overwhelming, lonely, frustrating need I go on?

Women all over the world live in community, women in my own community live in community. Taking care of the children is not just one woman's job, but the whole villages job (insert cliche here). The bottom line is that we need each other, we need support, we need encouragement we need someone to come over and fold our laundry or take our kids to the park. The trouble is, now that we are so accustomed to this individualistic way of living, it can feel impossible to ask for help. Sure you might have done it when your baby was a month old, but now that your child is 2 years old, surely you should be able to take care of things on your own. No you shouldn't. We aren't superwomen with the abilities to facilitate a craft project, make a pot roast, clean the bathroom and fold the laundry in one fell swoop. We are still human and we need the support of others.

I greatly encourage you to read this book. And then I greatly encourage you to call a friend and ask for help, with whatever you need. And if you don't need help right now, offer to fold someone else's laundry. You will make their day.

love thyself

Valentine's day is coming up this weekend. I always love this time of year, it is a welcome splash of colour and excitement in an otherwise gray and dull time of year.

This is also a time of year for many that is filled with an uncomfortable expectation to spend exhorbarant amounts of money on flowers, chocolate and fancy dinners. Some people resent this holiday as yet another commercial machine fueled by Hallmark to both make you spend and feel inadequate.

At the beginning of the year a friend of mine sent me an email sharing the view points of 8 year olds on love. The one that stuck out the most to me was a response that said " If you want to really know what love is, start with the person you hate the most." That is powerful stuff.

It would be easy for me to think of a few people that truly challenge my ability to love. However, as I really thought about it, I realized that the person I need to learn to love the most is me. Ok, that is just about as cliche as a Hallmark card saying I love you. But it's true. I wouldn't really say I hate myself, but if I was dating myself, I would have dumped me a long time ago. I know I'm not the only woman, and certainly not the only mother who treats herself like this.

I realized that if I could truly love myself, unconditionally, gently, with all the encouragement and positivity that I give my children, my husband, my friends then I could really change something. So while I'm all for loving your enemies, if we could learn to love ourselves, really love ourselves, we could change the world. Because when that love is there, the ego, self-loathing, self-destructive talk walks right out the door like a bad relationship.

So I wish you a very happy Valentine's day this year. Not in the candy and flowers kind of way, but in the "You are a beautiful gift to the world and I hope you see that" kind of way. Treat yourself to something this year, you are the most important Valentine in your life.

Love,

Catherine

what $5.00 will buy you these days....

Well, maybe you can get a coffee, but it would have to be black. Maybe you can rent a movie, but not at a major movie store, or maybe you could buy a loaf of bread, but not organic because in my town that is at least $6.00 a loaf.

What $5.00 bought me tonight was the first moment of real self-care I have had in a long time. After a visit to the doctor because I think I'm dying of heart disease (which I'm not, but it runs in the family), my doctor says that she thinks my issues are stress related. She asked if I had a supportive husband and I said yes (although the cleaning fairy did come today, thank you Lucy) and did I ever get any time alone? Well, yes I do, but I don't spend it very wisely. Lately my alone time is either dedicated to working on the computer or watching shows on the computer and eating comfort food, not so healthy.

So tonight after dinner, my husband said "get your things, you should go for a swim." So I ignored my aversion to bathing suits and went. The swim felt great, but the steam room, that's where the magic was. It was so hot and steamy that I couldn't keep my eyes open. I also had to take deep, slow breaths to stay in there as long as I did. The result? 10 minutes of pure relaxation where not only was I alone (heaven) but I was able to actually turn off my mind for once and enjoy the moment.

I feel amazing and despite my feelings about my bathing suit, I can't wait to go back again. Turns out $5.00 can buy you a whole lot of magic if you know where to spend it.

What do you need to do to take care of yourself? You are worth every penny.

did the microwave make us impatient? Part 2

Today was my son's 6th birthday. Well, his actual birthday isn't for a few days, but today was his party. Instead of having a brood of 6 year old boys tearing up my house, we decided on the bowling party. It was great, the boys loved it, all I had to do was bring cake and we could leave all the mess behind.

Now while this overstimulating place with the loud rock music, clash of bowling balls and kids screaming, not to mention the crazy decor was all good for the 6 year old, I was amazed to see a 5 day old baby there. Yes, 5 days old.

Did you know in many countries around the world including China women are not encouraged to leave the house for 30-40 days? When I first heard this 6 years ago, I thought it was archaic. I mean, what male centered society thought this one up? As if women weren't oppressed enough, now they can't even leave the house? My tune has now changed greatly.

This idea of not leaving the home for 40 days is wise. Newborn babies have just come from a perfectly balanced environment providing them with warmth, darkness, safety and closeness. Once they enter the big bright world, their senses are not yet equipped to deal with all of the stimulus around them. In situations like the bowling alley (and yes this baby was doing it), they shut down. They tend to "sleep" and be quiet until it is all over and they spend the next 4 hours screaming. The slightly older baby may just scream in that moment. It is an assault on their senses, not to mention the mother's.

This all brings me to the thought, why in our society is our productivity and capability measured by how quickly we can leave the postpartum space rather than remain in it? Is this yet another example of how impatient we have become as a society that we have not only forgotten the importance, but actually hold disdain for staying in the sacred space of our home? A place that is quiet and warm for both mother and baby? A place where they can rest, heal, be fed nourishing food, bond and breastfeed? Not only is the world too much for the newly emerged baby, it is also too much for the newly emerged mother. Both have come through a profound transition and both need to enter the world gently.

There is wisdom in slowing down and being taken care of and by rushing the postpartum process we are doing harm to all those involved. In cultures around the world such as Guatemala, Thailand, China, Korea and South East Asia just to name a few, where women are kept warm at home with their babies they are given daily massages, warm foods prepared for the mother, housecleaning and warm baths. The whole intention is to surround the new mother with love and care so that she can recover from the birth slowly and nourish her baby peacefully. This process honours the woman's transformation into a mother as something that is sacred and to be respected.

We need to change this idea of showing the world how competent we are by how quickly we return to every day life to how we allowed ourselves to be cared for and nourished quietly at home. These delicate postpartum days are precious and they never come back. Not only does the newborn baby deserve a quiet entry into this world, so does the mother. We can support mothers in this time by bringing them food, offering to do their laundry and giving them a well deserved massage. If you are about to step over the threshold into motherhood, I encourage you to ask for these things, you and your baby deserve it.

did the microwave make us impatient? Part 1

I was standing at my microwave yesterday waiting for my maple syrup to warm for our Sunday pancakes. After needing to put the pitcher back in because it wasn't warm enough, I actually found myself becoming impatient when it still had 10 seconds to go. I started thinking about my life before a microwave (which wasn't that long ago) and I would have no problem waiting for something to warm in a pot on the stove, but in the microwave I somehow expect instant results. When did 30 seconds become a long time to wait?

So as I sat down to eat my breakfast I started thinking about how we as a culture have become so impatient. Everything around us has been expediated, our food, travel, Internet, laundry, dishes, you name it, no one wants to wait for anything. Then the thought came, if we live in a microwave society, it is no wonder that we want our children to catch up to our drive-thru lives and get frustrated when they can't keep up?

I get asked all the time in my classes about how to train a baby to sleep through the night and become independent. I get it. We are a busy society and many of us need to work in order to eat. Although in Canada we have 1 year of Maternity leave, I know many mamas that have had to go back to work sooner just so they could keep a roof over their heads. There are so many books out there promising parents to be Babywise or how to have the Happiest baby on the block or that someone who claims to be the Baby Whisperer will solve all your problems.

The problem here is that babies don't know, and don't care that it is 2010. For all they know it could be 1180BC. Their needs have not changed one bit. They want to be breastfed, they want to be carried, they want to be responded to when they cry, they want to be with their mother when they sleep and they want to be attached, they are incapable of independence. They can't do anything for themselves. If they don't have these things, they go into distress and the essential bond that mother and baby have is put at risk. All of these "experts" have forgotten that children are not dogs you can train and are promising parents things they can't give. Because at the end of the day, babies don't want a 30 second mother, they want a love and bond that takes months and years of patience to solidify.

What we need in this backward culture of ours is not another book on how to have an independent baby who sleeps through the night in the $5000, 00 designer nursery. We need a culture that supports the mother/infant bond by making it possible for us to be able to slow down with our children and really be with them, even if that means a nap together at 11:00 in the morning. This is a huge topic and one that is dear to my heart....there is more to come.

this was not my best purchase

Ok, I'm not sure if maybe my children are railway challenged or if I have been sucked into the idea that this toy is what childhood is all about, but in my house it is a nightmare. I started buying a set for my son when he was 2. I was so excited for him to open the present only to find out that you need an engineering degree to put the tracks together in some kind of interesting configuration or at least to make them connect so that the trains don't drop off into a frustrating land called the floor.

Once you have that figured out, you then need to have reached a developmental milestone which gives you the dexterity to keep the train actually on the track. After many more hopeful gifts of this wooden railway and the blind faith that it would just take a bit of practice, not to mention the frustration and throwing of the wooden tracks, the trains found a home in a basket under the stairs.

Now my daughter, 2 1/2 is excited about them. She points at the basket (which in my mind is still thinking about what it has done) and says, "choo, choo? Me play choo choo?" So here I am today, in a time warp from 4 years ago helping the little one to put the tracks together only for her to end up in a puddle of tears because the trains don't stay on the tracks. She actually put herself face down, head in arms sobbing. A few minutes later she finally conceded and just brought 3 trains to the table and pushed them around. Watching her made me think how much I wished that I had just bought this train and not jumped on the bandwagon. Trouble is, I'm not going to go out and spend more money on any kind of train now since I have a perfectly good basket full of them right here.

Maybe one day they will grow into them....