Hello Out There...

Is it just me or is anyone else finding the grind of summer exhausting? Seriously. If you are out there, please let me know as I am starting to really doubt my parenting skills. I think the memory of youth I am trying to recreate maybe happened to me beginning at the age of 7 or 8, not 4. Between teaching, prepping to teach (under great duress as I never leave myself enough time), fulfilling the studio obligations (kind of), squeezing in an occasional walk/yoga practice, running a household and most importantly refereeing/ entertaining the kids, I am running all day long. How well am I really doing any of these things? When I feel great about teaching yoga, I don't feel so good about parenting. When my parenting is on, my yoga life is off. How does one strike a balance anyways? Or is it just me? and if it is just me, what is it that prevents me from achieving balance? One of my favorite Desikichar quotes is "the goal of yoga is to act in such a way that all of our attention is directed towards the activity in which we are currently engaged" When I am at the yoga studio I could not be more fully present. It is my reward for teaching. I am in the moment. I am engaged with the activity. At home? Aren't we pulled TNE THOUSAND different directions? My kids need something (mostly my attention - and lots of it), meals to be made, laundry, bills, phone calls, gardening, yard work, and on and on and ON. I rarely feel connected with one task. I clearly am falling short of of practicing what I preach.

I finished teaching at noon. Returned home to STARVING children and a hungry mom - me. Got us all fed, we sat down read a few books, sent them to different rooms for some quiet time ( Piper and Ivy really have a hard time being away from each other, they sneaked into the playroom together after about 10 minutes) Ellie helped me empty the dishwasher (she is such a great little helper), did the dishes - breakfast and lunch, returned a few calls, attempted to tackle the blueberries we picked yesterday-wash, sort and freeze, my mother in law dropped off the beets she is growing for me since mine didn't come up, put them in the pile with the blueberries and now my CSA delivery (at this point...seriously, what is wrong with Safeway??) then off to swim. Could have skipped that. Ellie wasn't feeling well and sure enough, the highlight of my day, she started puking on the way home and poor thing, just let her rip. She is asleep now, but something tells me it ain't over. Got dinner, lost it with Piper, sent her to time-out, fed them, fed myself, emptied Ellie's puke bucket, and at 7:30 Shawn got home and I hit the couch to blog and try and figure this whole thing out....is this just life with 3 kids? Do I make our lives harder than they need to be? (yes, I already know that...too many expectations, but I am working on it.)

How do you practice what you preach? I did one of my favorite breathing exercises in class today: "breathing in compassion, breathing out expectations" and revisited the brahmaviharas (pathways for developing more loving relationships with ourselves and others - today I talked about compassion. ) I have cycled right back to where I started: overwhelmed with my obligations, underwhelmed with my role as a parent, loving my kids to DEATH, but yet doubting my ability to raise them well and yet knowing that this is my yoga - finding the balance because this is IT. This is my life, one shot, one moment, one opportunity......

Better sort those blueberries.