MARRIAGE ISN'T FAIR, AND IT SHOULDN'T BE.

Marriage isn't fair, and it shouldn't be. Say what? 

After kids enter the picture, the marital relationship undergoes a natural and substantial shift. Mom is good at some stuff. Dad is good at some stuff, but those stuffs are usually different. 

Sometimes Mom's strengths are required more than Dad's, like when there's a newborn in the house. It's just par for the course that your husband is kinda out of the loop, for several months, especially if you're nursing. Not to say that my husband didn't clock a lot of hours rocking and singing colicky babies to sleep, but I did the heavy lifting during the first year of all three kid's lives. I had the uterus and the boobs. My fate was sealed.

Even still, there was resentment. I knew on a rational level that none of this was my husband's fault (or was it?), but watching him lost in peaceful slumber, on the other side of the bed, while a baby slept on my face, got to me. Curse words were mumbled in his direction from time to time, or maybe every time.

There are plenty of moments when his strengths out shadow mine, like in Every. Single. Emergency. I'm howling on the side line, and he's the force of calm, cool, and collected. Or, when the babes are sick, he's the one on graveyard shift, sleeping on their bedroom floors, administering medicine, and taking temperatures all night long, because I'm a useless lump after 7:30 p.m. He's also the voice of reason when I'm too indulgent with the kids or have gotten into the habit of lazy discipline, because I've taken leave to my mental happy place and have lost awareness of the children playing with swords in the corner. He gives me subtle nudges when I'm overexplaining, or showing the kids real life brain surgeries on YouTube. Yeah, that happened last week. Regrettable.

There will be seasons when one person is doing more, because their strengths are required. Not to say that the partner should straight up bow out, but it's just not their time to shine. Acknowledging and honoring one another's strong suits, while viewing the inequity as natural, can help to allay resentment. We've taken on these rolls in our households because we're good at them. Part of being a mom means multitasking and storing mass quantities of small bits of information, pertaining to each child's life. Most dad's can remember every line from every movie made in the 80's, but birthdays elude them. Your kid has to go to somebody to watch The Goonies with. That's a skill set in and of itself. 

The best thing we can do for one another is to show appreciation, all the time, even when you just want to linger in a lil' bit of bitter. If you're anything like me, appreciation means just as much, if not more than a helping hand. When I know I'm handling something, and handling it well, I'm fine with my husband stepping off. But, I still want to be acknowledged. Over the years, I've come to notice that gratitude is most scarce when I'm not practicing what I preach. It's easy to lose cognizance of  what your partner is up to around the house when you're sulking about a lack of recognition. 

Praise well and praise often, because you get what you give. I'm learning that if I want my husband to shift his behavior, I first need to mend my own. It takes humility to pull it off, and some tongue biting, but it's got about a hundred percent success rate. Appreciation is cyclical. So, maybe tomorrow morning you should make him a couple eggs and some coffee, or throw a love note his way. You never know, you might come home to folded laundry.

-Angi

THEY SAY IT TAKES A VILLAGE, BUT WHO REALLY BELONGS IN YOURS?

They say it takes a village. Never has that been truer than in the past four months as I’ve recovered from back-to-back reconstructive surgeries on my feet. The bones in my feet are literally being held together by four very long pins, a metal plate and two screws, and I am not allowed to walk. Or drive. Or really do much of anything. Talk about being totally dependent on someone else. Talk about taking me out of my comfort zone.

I spoke in a previous blog post about asking for help. I gained a lot from that experience, far more than just the acts of service I requested. I developed a deeper appreciation for generous hearts of many, a new perspective of what I value in my friendships, and a greater understanding of what it means to serve others in a community.

I found my village.

As I asked around, I realized there are always those will tell you a million times over that they want to help, but they really don’t. I think they like to say the words out loud as an affirmation that they are good, charitable people. I don’t doubt that they have good intentions. Maybe they aren’t ready to be a part of a village, or maybe they belong to a different village.

But for each of those people, there were ten more who astonished me with their generosity. Not all of them liked to help in the same way, nor did they always know what type of help I needed. It was up to me to ask, be specific and sometimes ask again. Some preferred playing chauffeur, while others couldn’t be near but offered emotional support and helped me work through the logistics of what I needed. Some gave gift cards while others wanted to bring the Martha Stewart meal in a gift basket with fancily-labeled dishes and homemade pie. Some watched my kids while I rested and iced my foot. One even wanted to clean my toilets. Not one of them served a more important job than any other. I needed them, every single one of them. Not only did they make my life easier, they all brought me joy and filled my heart with thanksgiving.

Yes, they do exist, these amazing people with the heart of a servant who will give graciously and ask nothing in return. They are clued into something I believe is so critical to human nature and yet is sadly dissipating from our busy, modern lives. When you give of yourself, when you become a part of someone’s village, you transform your life.

These are the people I want affecting me on a daily basis. I want to be inspired by their beautiful souls, feel invigorated by their sharp minds and safe in their loving presence. I want to grow with them. They are the food that nourishes my soul.

I’ve done some spring cleaning of my village and evaluated with whom I want to invest my time and emotional energy. It’s not to say I would turn down an opportunity to serve someone outside my village, whether an acquaintance or a complete stranger. I will always strive to have the heart of a servant. But as for cultivating relationships, I will save that opportunity for those who give my life sustenance. It is my hope that I can reciprocate.

I encourage all of you to do your own evaluation. Ask yourself who you want in your village.

Do you want the narcissist who sucks the life out of you? What about that stagnant friend from your past? The one-dimensional person who speaks of little more than dirt and air? Or, do you want someone who will help you, share with you, challenge you, lift you up and enrich your life?

-Suzy

HOW SPIRITUALITY STOPPED ME FROM BEING A VICTIM.

I was angsty as a teenager, prone to fluctuating moods, crying, and emotional outbursts. I pity my parents, but it's standard teenage stuff for some. If Emo had been a thing in the 90’s, I'd have been the poster child. All I needed were chin length bangs to hide my tears behind and a black section at Wet Seal.

I'd grown up Catholic, but after years of catechism and mostly consistent church going, it still didn't resonate. It was the judgment thing for me. And the burn in fiery hell thing.

I started reading books on spirituality when I was 19. That's when my mind, effectively, got blown open, and those books have shaped my life and thought processes. Forever.

I could go into the nitty gritty of my spiritual beliefs, but that's not the important part of my mental transformation. What happens after we die doesn't have a whole hell of a lot of impact on how we live today, no pun intended. It's intriguing and esoteric, to say the least, and it's safe to say that it's the greatest mystery of our species, but laboring over those metaphysical "what ifs" can take away from the importance of how we operate in the now.

There were things that happened to me, during that period in time, that spoke to my soul. Sounds cheesy, but I can think of no better way to say it. I felt like the Universe had laid a path out before me, and as long as I kept on it, new steps would always appear in front of me just as I became ready, in the form of books. Each that I read referenced the last somewhere within its pages. It was a spiritual puzzle, tailor made for me. I began having peak experiences (ethereal, transcendent, out of body moments), on the regular, another cue that I was heading in the right direction. Guidance seemed to float into my lap. One time, when still testing the whole thing out, I asked for the meaning of the word zeitgeist. The following day, three professors wrote it on the board and defined it. What the? I couldn't deny the synchronicities. The framework had been laid for my world, and that intricate web of thoughts, ideas, and beliefs saved me from the victim mentality that many of us masquerade behind for the duration of our lives. Life wasn't just happening to me, it was happening FOR me.

Every experience and perceived wronging is an opportunity for growth, a chance to remember that I'm responsible for how I react to each moment. I got my power back, I no longer had to lay the blame on an elusive “other”.

This shift in ideology took some getting used to. Culpability requires personal action. It's effortless to roll with “everything happens for a reason,” and just let it end there, helplessly accepting your fate, which I did for several years, post "spiritual awakening", in the name of the “greater plan” at work. My ideas were growing, but I wasn't.

The moment I absorbed that my experiences are calls to action is when the true expansion of self began.

I seek out the lesson, but more importantly, I search my emotions for my ego’s reaction to my feelings. If I'm having negative mental responses to someone or something, it’s on me to explore what fear or inadequacy they are triggering within me. Same fight with your husband all the time? Never seem to get ahead at work? Always have friends with drama? Do you always have drama? Always broke? Are your kids disrespectful? You. You. You. That's all on you. You may not be able to directly change any of those situations, but you have one hundred percent of the control when it comes to morphing how you experience them, and it's inevitable that when you do that, change occurs. The Universe places people and situations into our lives who will mirror back to us all of our ineffective ways of being, in an effort to remind us that we’ve got work to do. It starts as a gentle knocking, but you'll eventually get your door pounded in if you don't take heed.

When your friend says she can't help you because she’s too busy, you can call her a selfish bitch and reminisce on everything you've ever done for her when you just didn't have time, slowly building judgment and resentment, or you can dig a little deeper, and ask yourself what's really making you feel like shit in this situation. Did a wound reopen, a feeling of not being good enough? A fear of rejection, or that you aren't loveable? Same thing when your husband doesn't notice your new hair or the clean house. It all comes back to the reflection you're desperately trying not to see in that mirror we talked about earlier.

A steady diet of fear and judgment isn't going to feed your soul, but shame isn't going to provide sustenance either. Responsibility. That's the ticket. When you remember the power that you wield, that's when you take the reins. When you find the gift in each annoyance, each challenge, that's when your life becomes your own, no longer subjugated to a fate driven, anger laced experience.

I don't really care how you get there. It's your path, and whatever speaks to you will also lay the steps of progress before you, but you have to be willing to look for them, sometimes in very uncomfortable places.

In case you're interested or still searching for a path that feels right, I'll include some of the books that have transcended my experience of this world.

“The Seat of The Soul” Gary Zukav

“Through Time into Healing” Brian L. Weiss

“The Four Agreements” Don Miguel Ruiz

“The Happiness Project” Gretchen Rubin

“Conversations with God” Neale Donald Walsch

“The Code of the Extraordinary Mind” Vishen Lakhiani

“Ego is the Enemy” Ryan Holiday

“The Obstacle is the Way” Ryan Holiday

-Angi

WHY I CHOSE TO BIRTH MY CHILDREN AT HOME.

As a home birthed baby of the early 80’s, I have the sepia-tone proof that my mom and dad brought me calmly into this far-out world. In their four-poster bed, my mom is reclined against the embrace of my shirtless, long haired dad. He is smiling, leaning in towards her cheek to give words of encouragement. Eyes closed, she is laboring, adorned in an array of patterned blankets and knee-high socks. A midwife, her expression both relaxed and intent, is curled into the space between my mom's exposed thighs. This nest of support, wisdom, and trust exudes what birth can be, and what I assumed it always was.

Fifteen years later, my baby sister’s birth was something else all together. My mom chose to keep this life inside her, even as her own health began to decline. I stood vigil beside my birthing mom, in place of a bygone lover, wishing I could crawl in bed beside her. The blue hospital gown haphazardly covered her cinched waist where an electronic fetal monitor held her. I ached for the comfort in that old photo. And, as if she knew the struggles that awaited her on the outside, Mary Jo fought to remain in the womb. A pair of forceps and a vacuum extractor could not convince her otherwise. At last they clutched her tiny wet body from the parted abdomen of my anxious and exhausted mom.

But life prevails under many different births, and soon we were at home with our new, healthy baby. MJ’s infant existence provided me with early access to my “maternal gut feelings.” I swooned over the sweet, warm smell of cradle-cap concealed beneath measly strands of her black hair. Her body nestled into the breast of my mother as I watched completely unabashed; the grunts and suckles, her out stretched fingers seemed in search of the world’s compassion. I filled the tiny wrinkled palm with my own giant finger and vowed to protect her from anything.

The next year came and my mom asked me to help her while MJ got vaccinated. Once in the doctor’s office, my mother and I had to forcefully restrain her frantic body as she thrashed and wailed under the needle. Afterwards, we huddled in the hall, her spent body squeezed between us as we sobbed. I knew we were protecting her from illness, but I felt a moral conflict about the way it was done.

MJ grew during the course of hundreds of pancake breakfasts, and repeat Disney movies on VHS. We painted curly mustaches on one another with watercolor paints and took long walks in our neighborhood, just the two of us, her tiny legs leading the way. The nights passed with my mom at work. MJ and I would pace back and forth together during her marathon cries, pink-blanky mashed between us as we both yearned that mom would return home from her evening job. Each day was filled with decisions that I had no idea I was so thoroughly involved in making for her. As a sixteen year old, I did my best.

A decade later, I was pregnant with my first baby. I recognized right away what ‘felt’ right to me. But in the actual realm of motherhood, I couldn’t ‘feel’ my way through all the decisions; I had to ‘know.’ I was pre-internet during my pregnancy and relied on a fat file of photocopied paperwork on vaccinations. This sat on my left, a dictionary on my right, and a slowly protruding belly between the two.

Like many young pregnant women, I was suddenly isolated from my previous social life. I filled the vacancy of company with writings by Lamaze, Bradley, and Ina May Gaskin. I marveled over the anatomy of a reproductive system that I always had folded neatly inside me.

As my body continued to change, I gave myself permission to embrace my skin and bones for the first time in my life. If I were fortunate enough to have a low-risk birth, I would let my body lead and make every attempt I could to birth without interventions.

At three months pregnant, I held my best friend’s hand as she labored in the hospital. I witnessed the hypodermic needle as it was inserted into her spine. Intrigued, I watched as the pains of labor faded from her face. We spent the next hour watching the infant fetal monitor together, chatting with the nurses about her stronger contractions and happily awaiting the arrival of her son. I realized her body would still do what it needed to do, regardless of the epidural.

Just then the doctor came in to check her progress. She was given a time limit in response to her ruptured membranes. Pitocin, more pain reliever, and eventually transition was complete. We supported her lifeless legs so she could begin pushing at the doctor’s command. I panicked as she refused his orders to push. She asked for more time, and was answered with his gloved hands, physically applying pressure to her perineum, forcing her to push anyway. She pleaded for him to stop. As he refused, I watched her use every ounce of the strength she had left in her numb legs to shove him away. I was quickly escorted from the room.

Respectively, I know of births that were the embodiment of calm and nurturing, and unfolded under the care of a hospital. I am well aware that emergencies require doctors and that sometimes all the reading, training, and support that a person can obtain on the journey to motherhood, won’t stop life from unraveling.

My own four home births have provided me with a knowledge and gratitude for two things in particular:

1) My body never blocked me from having the birth that I sought. I knew what to expect of my body, and it (literally) delivered. I have also shared the moment of disillusionment with friends who had their birth plans rattled. And, after some tears, they rose to the challenge by embracing those difficulties, later even speaking on behalf of other mothers who may have to birth with unchartered complications. Both of these births are “successful” and abundant in blessings.

2) During the labor and birth of my first baby, I was vocal about who I needed beside me at the birth pool. To my great pleasure, these people were there. And the ones that were not there, my in-laws for example, sat in their truck outside the apartment, perhaps with less faith for what I was trying to do, but never with a lack of support for the individual decisions that my husband and I had made. They waited, and even if they weren’t in the same room at that moment, they stood beside our choices. That is a trust that I hope to give my own children when differences of opinions arise. Without the people in my life making space for me as a birthing woman, respecting what I wanted to do with my body, and lifting me (literally, my dear husband’s strong, tired arms) up so that I could confidently give birth.

I am always enraptured over an individual woman’s birth story. Sharing the triumphs and unresolved difficulties of labor and birth is an empowering action that can lie dormant at the core of each mother. By listening and encouraging one another, birth stories can blossom into dialogues that help us navigate who we are and who we want to be, not only promoting other woman to find out what they want from their birth, but ultimately identifying what they need and want from their lives, as well. 

-Emily

I ASKED FOR HELP AND FOUND MY TRIBE.

This is not an easy thing for me to say, but here goes: My name is Suzy, and I need…ugh…I need…gulp…okay here goes…I NEED HELP!

Wow, that was tough, and yet it’s true. I am recovering from back-to-back reconstructive foot surgeries, and guess what I learned? I can’t do it alone. I need help. But sometimes it feels easier to do it the hard way than ask for help. Me, relinquish control of every aspect of my routine? Me, admit that I can’t do it all? Me, watch someone else do it the wrong way?

When you live over a decade with an illness, you learn to adapt. You learn to modify your ways in order to preserve your independence…and your self-esteem. Every time you have to ask for help, like opening a bottle of pain reliever medication so that you can function a little better and not have to ask for so much assistance, it’s a reminder that you have limitations while others don’t.

I don’t think the hesitance to ask for help is solely tied to those with illness or injury, though. I think far too many of us fall victim to this mentality. In this day and age of the multi-tasking, overachieving, constantly-striving-for-self-growth way of life, to admit we can’t do it all feels like defeat. Think about your workplace. A leader is only as good as the people she leads. A great leader has great employees and knows how to delegate. She has help.

Except in real life, most of us don’t have personal assistants to help us manage our lives. We can’t tell someone to watch our kids while we go to the doctor or bring us soup when we are sick. We have to ask. We have to interrupt someone else’s busy routine, one that’s probably just as full as ours.

                  No wonder we are so exhausted.

                  No wonder we feel busy and overwhelmed.

                  No wonder our relationships struggle and we feel alone.

                  No wonder we don’t feel a sense of community. We don’t offer a sense of community.

What are we so afraid of? Rejection? Move on and ask another person. Disappointment? Again, move on and find someone else. Being an inconvenience? Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. Would you feel inconvenienced? Hopefully your answer is no. Are you afraid of strengthening friendships? Having someone by your side to make life a little easier? Sharing in life’s troubles?

You see, we have so much to gain when we learn to ask for help and very little to lose (except for some maybe their pride, in which case I would suggest you need to be humbled now and then).

I’m not suggesting we make every problem someone else’s problem. There is strength and satisfaction to be found in perseverance. But when life seems to be throwing a dozen lemons at us (or in my case, a broken garbage disposal, broken dryer, backed up sewage pipes, broken garage door spring and a totally busted “Franken-foot”), and we only have two hands, why not ask for help catching the other lemons rather than trying to grow ten more hands (and maybe even an extra foot)?

So back to my foot surgeries: I not only accepted but I asked for help. I accepted offers for meals. I asked to borrow a knee scooter. I asked for healing prayers and emotional guidance. I asked for help getting kids to and from school. I asked for rides to doctor appointments and play dates. I asked for help when my daughter got herself stuck inside box spring mattress. Imagine making that phone call. I even asked one of my closest friends to scrub my toilet. (For the record, she is a neat freak whose love language I am pretty sure is cleaning toilets.)

And guess what? Not everyone helped, but a lot of them did, even with the toilets. They caught my lemons! It’s my hope that I can repay them with kindness and generosity. No, I take that back. I won’t repay them. These friends of mine, they don’t keep tabs. But maybe, hopefully, I can be there for them, and others, when the need for help arises.

-Suzy