My Sweet L....

My Belle, my Mademoiselle....There is a line in a kid's book, Eleanor, Elletony, Ellencake, or something close to that, that was given to me when Ellie was born. We read it all the time and of course I always call Ellie , either L or Belle, rarely Ellie. Anyways, my sweet L, is turning 7. Birthdays get a little harder as they get older. They get so much easier as they grow, but you are always reflecting upon when they were babes. So, she came up the other night and said, " I need a cuddle" about the sweetest words to any mom's ears. I told her that someday, like when she was 16, she wouldn't want to cuddle and I would remind her then when I wanted a cuddle, how she looked at me in disbelief. When I tucked her in she asked if she could live with me forever and that she DEFINITELY did NOT want to go to college. Of course I encouraged her to live with me forever.

My times with my eldest daughter are not always so smooth. A few times a year, during big transitions, she falls apart. She literally has tantrums equivalent to a two year old. It is awful and leaves a huge pit in my stomach. Her transition to first grade was painful. She endured and I am so proud of her, and quite frankly, of myself for keeping it together, but it might have been our roughest one to date. Just when I was ready to book the child pysch appointment, and soon after my book, "The Explosive Child" arrived, she found her groove again. What it all boiled down to? Connecting. My fellow yoga teacher and I have been walking at the crack of dawn and today she asked me if she thought everyone who practiced yoga saw the world through the yoga lens. I can't say they do, but we as teachers sure do.

Kids are so honest and while it sometimes takes Ellie awhile to connect with her feelings, when she does, she tells it like it is. She hadn't found her one friend to connect with. Of course this came out as, " NOBODY LIKES ME. I HAVE NO FRIENDS" but she is finding her niche and her connections and the emotional roller-coaster has evened out.

But why can't we as adults be so honest? Why can't we let our egos slip away and in times of our own emotional turmoil confess to what it is that really bothers us? Maybe we don't always know, but I do believe a good portion of the time we do. When I moved here and was finding it so difficult to connect, I didn't cry and say, I HAVE NO FRIENDS, even thought that is exactly what I was feeling. My loneliness, loss of self, and ego issues were masked by anxiety and turmoil, most of which I hid. It is so difficult to let down our guard, peel away the armour, and reveal our Self.

And of course, since I see the world through a yoga lens, I am grateful to my practice and my tool for saving myself from myself. I hope my greatest gift to my daughters will be to do the same. I am so proud of my sweet L, she is learning to conquer her emotional distress and find her lens.