The most important lesson I can teach you (but will you listen?)

This morning I decided to do something different in yoga class.  Unfortunately, only one of my yogi moms was the beneficiary of this exercise since the school’s delayed opening (yes, more snow!) sent everyone’s schedules into a tailspin.  But I have decided that as a yoga instructor, running/triathlon coach and health coach, it is the most important lesson I can attempt to teach.  It’s a lesson that is not limited to one’s yoga practice, but rather, it can, in fact MUST, be applied to one’s running, triathlon, parenting, career, really anything in life.  So since you weren’t in my class this morning, here you go.

You may be familiar with my smilepacing philosophy.  Basically, I believe that whether you are training for a race or competing in one, you need to smilepace.  We are so dominated by numeric gauges in our lives, and in training and racing this shows up in the form of heart rate monitors, stopwatches, splits, calories burned, lactic threshold, Personal Records, finish time, age group placement, pounds/inches lost, time spent in training, etc.  You need to have an engineering degree to keep it all straight.  In fact, many triathlon coaches are engineers as their day job. 

When I trained for my first triathlon, my coach, an awesome guy and coach, figured out all the numbers for me and every Sunday he’d email me the weekly plan, with all the numbers he’d figured out.  Yes, he’s an engineer.  I paid him to do all the calculations that to my Big Picture brain are the equivalent of liquid Ambien.  But then I realized that especially come race day, I have no interest in looking at my watch at each mile marker to see if I’m at the right speed.  Nor did I want to be glancing down at my watch to see if my heart rate was correct.  I mean, if I was going at the speed that felt right to me, if I was pacing myself according to the joy I felt at being able to do what I was doing, and was capable of smiling at fellow competitors and generous volunteers, surely I was doing the right pace, and my heart wasn’t going to explode?  Thus, smilepacing became my strategy.

I knew that smilepacing was something that could (and I would argue, should) be practiced in more than one’s swimming, biking and running.  I love to have fun.  If something’s not fun, I want out.  So if I think of parenting, housework, volunteer and paid work – if something isn’t fun, then I don’t want to do it.  Unfortunately I’m not rich enough to pay someone else to take care of the drudgery, so on a daily basis I do have to engage precious time doing stuff like scrubbing toilets, putting away laundry, mopping floors, refereeing domestic disputes, preparing meals the under-5 ft crew will certainly whine about.  That’s life.  But there are so many things in life we can choose.  Who our friends are.  How we make money.  How we help our community.  How we react to things we can’t choose. 

This brings me to today’s yoga lesson.  I started off by reading an excerpt from this brilliant book I’m studying, Yoga as Medicine: The Yogic Prescription for Health & Healing, by Timothy McCall, M.D.  I read this section aloud, Trying Too Hard:

Students often push to achieve the outward form of an asana – trying to emulate their peers or a photo from a magazine – even when their body and breath are telling them they aren’t ready yet.  That is not a balanced action, not tuning in.  It’s imposing something from the outside.  Viniyoga teacher and bodyworker Leslie Kaminoff says that achieving the so-called classical form of a posture is simply not realistic for many people.  Due to anatomical variations, yoga poses readily done by some people are simply impossible for others.  He says, “some people unnecessarily torture themselves over their inability to perform certain asanas without realizing that it’s something inherent in their body proportions or shape.”  If you have thick arms or legs, or if your limbs are short in proportion to your trunk, e.g., you may never be able to clasp your hands behind your back in certain twists, or thread one leg behind the other in Eagle pose.  Trying to make the impossible happen is a setup for frustration and injury.  If you find yourself discouraged, that, too, offers a chance to build awareness through self-study.  Why, you might ask, are you so worried about how far you go into a pose?  Is it about how you look?  Do you feel competitive with others?  Such concerns have nothing to do with real yoga and they can undermine its healing power.  Far more important than outward form, Leslie believes, is whether, as a result of your yoga, you are able to breathe more effectively or move around in a more pain-free way.

Generally, in any yoga pose you are holding for more than a few seconds, you want to move into the pose until you encounter the first resistance to further motion.  At that point you should stop and breathe slowly, deeply, and smoothly.  After a short while, something may release, signaling that it is okay to move more deeply into the pose.  This process can be repeated several times.  Yogis refer to this as working or playing “the edge.”  The resistance to movement often comes from muscles that reflexively tighten to prevent injuries.  The more quickly and forcefully you move, the more likely the muscle will contract and frustrate your efforts.  It’s one of your body’s natural protective mechanisms.  If you try to force your way through that resistance, you may tear muscle fibers.  If you breathe and soften, you may find unexpected opening.

(p. 92-3)

A few of the women I’ve been training have been afflicted by injuries.  I suppose this doesn’t reflect well on me as, well, I am after all supposed to be guiding them as they walk, run, high-and-low plank.  I probably should have read the above excerpt at the first class, and had each participant swear to me that she would adhere to its message.  Alas, I can’t control what people do, especially during the 165 hours each week that they are not under my tutelage.  Smilepacing, or breathpacing, does not come naturally especially in a culture that reveres people who go to any extreme in order to “succeed.” 

I realized about a week ago that it’s now spring, and triathlon season will be upon us in 2.5 months or less.  I have been in the pool once this year, on my bike twice, and haven’t run further than six miles at a time.  The only bricks in my life have been the bran muffins I made the mistake of baking last week – forget bike-to-run (“brick”) workouts.  Not because I don’t feel like it, but because I spend a lot of time training others.  And yet as I was thinking this over, about my lack of serious training, and what effect it may be having on my fitness level, I also thought about the fact that six days every week, I am working with beginner runners, beginner walkers, beginning yogis.  I am helping them to discover the joy of going out for a jog at 6am in 30 degree weather while the moon is still out and the family is asleep.  The satisfaction of realizing that a yoga pose you couldn’t do only last week is actually almost comfortable today.  So, I could be pounding the streets working on that 7:30 10k pace, or shaving 3 seconds off my 100 yd swim, or wearing down my bike’s rear tire on the trainer.  But that wouldn’t be smilepacingâ to me.  That would be doing what Dr. McCall suggests above, when he encourages self-study.  Of course, it is great to push yourself and I abhor mediocrity or the long-term status quo.  I see every day as a chance to improve as an athlete, a mother, a wife, a dog owner, a spiritual being, a coach, photographer, friend… I suppose it all boils down to intention.  It’s important to ask yourself, why am I doing this?  Why is this so important to me?  Am I going faster than my coach suggested, because it makes me feel more successful?  Because I need to prove something to myself – or to someone else?  Can I go out there for a jog and not take a watch with me, just go – or is this too uncomfortable for me?  And if so, why?  Smilepacing (or breathpacing) is not license to be a slacker, to stop challenging yourself, to settle for less than you’re capable of doing.  All it is, is figuring out what feels right for your body and your psyche, and then using that as your gauge to measure your pace.  Remember:  “if you breathe and soften, you may find unexpected opening.”

Parent University

Saturday the Newtown Parent Connection, S.M.A.R.T. and the Brookfield Substance Abuse Coalition held the 4^th annual Parent University.  From 8:00am-1:15pm parents and any interested adult could attend seminars on topics that included bullying, internet safety, depression, transitioning from middle school to high school, what’s really going on in our towns (drugs), ‘tween & teen sexuality, and so on.  $5 and free babysitting!  I had my weekly yoga/run mom group I coach, so I was only able to attend the last session – but I’m glad I did.

The session I attended was “21^st Century Parenting with Challenging Children and Teens.”  It was taught by Charlie Manos, Director of Special Education & Support Services for Brookfield schools, who also has his own practice as a marriage and family therapist. 

Charlie talked about how much society has changed in the last few decades in terms of family dynamics and the place of the child in society.  In the 1950s there was a clear hierarchy.  Adults set the rules, the kids followed them, and if there was any disobedience there were consequences.  Parental authority was not questioned.  This changed in the 1970s and today, there is no hierarchy.  Children in many ways act as if they are equals to adults, and parents today usually need to be convinced (according to Charlie) that there should be a hierarchy.  It doesn’t help that even if a parent does think a certain way, she will often be challenged by her spouse or her own peers.  Things are no longer as clear as they used to be.

There are some positive sides of this.  Parents are communicating better with their children and taking into account feelings, self esteem, and so on.  Charlie described how there is a spectrum when it comes to the temperament we are born with, with fearful being on one end and risk taker on the other end.  In today’s parenting, with our tendency to be less authoritarian, we are more likely to be motivated to work with our child’s temperament, which is a good thing because when a parent’s temperament tends toward one end of the spectrum and the child’s temperament tends toward the opposite end, chaos can erupt.  Charlie pointed out that it’s important to understand our child’s temperament and communicate to our child that it’s okay to be that way, this way it doesn’t become a source of shame.

I admit that in spite of my involvement with S.M.A.R.T. (which has been rather minimal since the fall, when I focused on Ironman, my business, and my kids’ swim team practices), when I first saw the seminar offerings, my immediate reaction was, “my kids are young, I don’t need to know this stuff yet, and by the time I do need to know it the rules, threats and drugs will all be different.”  I did want to help out, though, and I was curious to see what this whole Parent U was all about, so after my class I took a quick shower and sped over.

Charlie’s class, like the others, was as expected, geared toward parents of middle schoolers and high schoolers.  However, I definitely got a lot out of it.  According to Charlie, the most common reasons for challenging behavior in children and teens are:

1. unclear, vague, and confusing rules
2. not keeping up with child’s/teen’s thinking (think of your child whom you’re certain would make a great lawyer or captain of the debate team)
3. button pushing (they know exactly how to frustrate us!)
4. power trip (kids wield power over their family by dictating the family mood, so the rest of the family tiptoes round to avoid upsetting the challenging child)
5. the pleasure principle (living in the moment, immediate gratification)
6. peer power (lacking a strong connection to the family, teens will rely on their peers for acceptance and will adopt the peer group’s values)
7. misuse of outside forces (parents are increasingly turning to counselors, shrinks, medication to “fix” their kids)

As any parent of a toddler, preschooler, grade schooler knows, this list is definitely applicable to parenting younger children. It was a great reminder for me to put my own parenting under a microscope.  I can certainly think of times that I have been inconsistent with rules, or Bill and I have been inconsistent.  Jackie (10) could certainly be a fantastic litigator (though I’d be very surprised if she went that route professionally, phew).  Both kids are expert button pushers and if we are tired, distracted, in a rush, etc we may as well be the Staples Easy Button.  On numerous occasions our activities have been dictated or influenced by “what would be less likely to result in a Royal Willo Tantrum?”

There were a couple of other important points Charlie made, that I took to heart.  He cautioned against giving your child constant lectures and sermons, which he says is the best way to get your child to tune you out and to break down the lines of communication, eroding parental authority.  I was very relieved to learn that now, before navigating the treacherous adolescent years, since I acknowledge I have already lectured each of them on topics related to peer relationships, household chores, work ethic, compassion, When Mami is on the Phone You Are to Go Mute, TV and Video Games Turn Kids Into Morons, and so on.  No more lectures. 

The other lesson was regarding strictness.  The list he gave us of common family problems included “Over Strictness.”  I raised my hand and asked, “I admit I’m extremely strict, certainly more than the average parent.  How do I know if I’m too strict?”  His answer was interesting.  He said that the parents need to figure out what their values and expectations are, and then communicate these to our kids.  If we are imposing rules out of fear, this will likely cause problems.  If, however, we set a foundation in our family based on the values that are important to us, and we in turn model those same values and rules, this will be much more effective.  I thought about the source of my strictness:  unlike many of my peers, I do not tolerate being interrupted by children (unless it’s an emergency), shouting or squealing indoors and certainly not in a car, refusal to try new foods, chewing with open mouths, whining, insulting a sibling, using my computer or cell phone, TV on week days, sleeping in the parental bed.  I have explained to the kids why these are important rules for us:  children are not equals to adults, and therefore have not yet earned certain privileges (computers, phones, etc), and must respect boundaries (I know, a growingly extinct concept).  We also travel quite a bit and I have explained to them that out of respect for other adults, they need to be able to be somewhere and control their impulse to be completely annoying.  Of course, as a result of this seminar, I now know that the correct approach is to explain all of this in a non-lecturing way, and to reply to their “fresh talk” with statements such as “I understand that makes you angry” instead of “don’t you dare talk to me that way.”  Getting back to the part about modeling desirable behavior – I need to control my impulse to say something hurtful or based on a power trip, or out of a desire to vent my anger – and instead figure out how to motivate my children, who are so very different from each other, to behave well.  I feel fortunate to have sat through Charlie’s class now, while my kids are still unguarded about their desire to please their parents.  If we try hard enough to be mindful parents now, hopefully we can avoid at least some of the problems that could appear further down the road.

Charlie gave us some interesting lists about Top Child & Teen Hot Buttons (e.g. talking in chapters: bring up the past to bolster your argument) and Five Toxic Behaviors That Can Poison a Parent/Child Relationship (e.g. attacking the person rather than the misbehavior) and Top Ten Parent Hot Buttons (“You never let me do anything!”) – and he commented on the lists and provided some more constructive approaches.  The bottom line is we need to be a strong parental team, decide what our values are and establish a foundation based upon those values, be mindful of our reactivity so we can try to act less out of emotion, develop a hierarchy of consequences and be consistent with it, “catch our kids being good,” as often as possible, work with our child’s temperament by coaxing them instead of shoving them the way we want them to be.

In conclusion, Parent University should be attended by parents of children of all ages - it is never too soon to learn how to prevent issues, or for that matter, what your babysitters may be doing in their spare time.  I expect to see every one of you (my local peeps) there next year!!