Renegade Woman- straight talk from the heart!

Surrendering the need to control- Lessons from a Type A in Remission

2010-07-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

Before having children I was efficient, punctual and tidy. Known as “controlling” by those closest to me -a textbook Type A. I WAS also meticulous about my personal grooming and hygiene.

Evolution has since exerted its influence and old standards have been re-evaluated. With the entrance of each newborn child into the family commune, a little piece of my old self has been lost. Thrust into this structure-less system while maintaining composure is my perpetual quest- for if I don’t adapt, I will perish.

A few examples of how I strive to surrender -

1. Type A loss of “voice”- On any given day should I fail to make the beds for instance, a feeling of despair and uselessness overcomes me so I’ll eventually finish the morning housework, albeit by 5pm. Rationally speaking, it’s pointless to make a child’s bed four hours before bedtime, but Type A will make a statement de facto despite Type B’s philosophical domination.

2. Career waitress/server- I am resigned to my full-time position as a waitress-server and my inability to achieve synchronized hunger between all my children on any given occasion. Having become a one-woman Morrison’s Cafeteria, I have about 5 pre-cooked no-brainer meals on hand and ready to heat up on demand.

3. Loss of order and tidiness - My drawers were once the envy of the The Gap’s employee of the year, but now I’m content just to have same genre garments together- whether rolled into a ball or folded neatly in a drawer. This would have been totally DESPICABLE and UNACCEPTABLE the first 30 years of my life. Now it’s the hallmark of success in this department.

4. Loss of ability to own and care for quality stuff- We had collected very unique ornaments on our marital journeys across different lands. This sentimental memorabilia has ultimately lost the battle against my young army’s combined destructive limbs. Memories have thus gone “paperless and cease to have physical manifestation in this world”- thereby, becoming mere symbols within our collective imagination. Our relationship with the material world is so precarious- we’ve learned to love and let go of our cherished, hard-earned material accumulations abruptly. Although it still hurts and pisses me off each time it happens.

4. Abandoned Evening Rituals- Long ago, television existed and books were part of my wind-down routine. Stretching and lubing up with delectable scented lotions were the finishing touch just before lights out. All said activities have since been replaced with creative writing followed by collapsing face down onto the bed- if not right onto the keyboard first. (Here is where I’ve noticed a little “slip” in my former self's “Extra-mile self-pampering treatment.”)

As a controlling Type A in remission, I’ve had to surrender by accepting the complete abnegation and resulting nullification of PC Self, Pre-Child Self. This is the deal at least until the wee hours of the night when my free spirit returns and I transform into a Soldier numb to the chronic exhaustion.

At this time, I escape into my rich inner world. And now I think that maybe I don’t need to control so much my outside world. And I like that by force of nature, I’ve been re-invented and am learning to thrive under these foreign conditions.

Does this mean that I’ve “arrived” and have now morphed into one of them? If so, I am no longer “in remission” but in “transformation.”

Embrace the Resistance

2010-07-04T19:44:00.000-07:00

If you're a runner or a cyclist, you'll be able to relate to this well. Have you ever begun your run or ride and realized immediately that you were working so damn hard and making little progress? You feel yourself exerting tons of energy and yet, the wind resistance is so unrelenting that you struggle to advance anything.

At this point you begin to question your ability to run or pedal and start eyeing your watch. You entertain thoughts of returning home to an obscenely oversized bowl of ice cream and call it a day. If your inner conscience doesn't allow you to quit however, you keep going and gradually adapt to the challenge continuing, albeit at a snail´s pace, but forward. Now it's easier as your mind and body have learned to embrace the struggle and your muscles work hard to rise to the challenge.

Following your chosen course, there's an abrupt shift in position and suddenly you have the wind at your back. Your movements seem effortless as you gallop along as though a huge hand were at your back pushing you ahead. In fact, you feel that if not careful, you'll certainly fall forward. If biking, you shift into the highest gear actually yearning for some resistance. You're cruising along at almost the speed of traffic and not even breathing hard. At this point you determine that it's a joke and this activity can no longer be defined as "exercise."

You have just experienced the "winds of change" and right when we think we can't go any further, a small adjustment in direction is made and it's as though we're riding an escalator. This is my metaphor for life. Simple, yet profound.

The key is to just keep going, even if only able to accelerate little more than a virtual standstill. As you press on, circumstances and situations naturally and unexpectedly evolve thereby allowing opportunities to filter in. Without warning you'll find yourself no longer struggling to survive, but thriving with the changed winds in your favor.

No matter what your predicament or quandry, never give up and never assume your fight is eternal. It's just a moment in time. By practicing the virtue of patience and persistance, continue peddling toward the finish line. At the moment that you feel you cannot go on and are "out of gas," change will take you by surprise and you'll find that everything is miraculously quite simple.

Wake up call! Have I become my mother?

2010-07-04T18:06:00.000-07:00

My 5 year-old boy is going through a very rough stage- at least it is for us. He is defiant, disrespectful and mouthy. Needless to say, we spend much of our time reacting to his negative behavior- scolding him via time-outs, suspension of privileges, etc.

At first, I’d allow his unruliness to get under my skin and upon disciplining him would end up frazzled and stressed out. I knew something wasn’t right when I’d find myself suffering with unbearable migraines caused by internalizing this naughtiness. Thus, my new strategy is that of stoicism as I try not to engage him in conversation while he’s delusional or irrational.

The other night I was putting my 2 year-old to sleep and I overheard my mother, who lives next door and lends a hand when hubby travels, yelling at my son and condemning his horrendous behavior. He had unleashed a nasty tongue upon her when she attempted to corral him to bed. I just listened.

There I lay still as a cadaver, in the darkness of the night, along side my baby girl. Slowly, a few repressed painful memories began to emerge. Memories of how my mother, who at the time was going through her own personal hell, would whip out a mouthful of hardcore rejections in reaction to my misconduct. I remember how it burned to hear my mother use such cruelty with me. At times, it led me to believe that my birth alone had ruined her life. As a kid, I didn’t know anything substantial about her marriage, just that I caused her more grief than she was capable of handling.

Now as a woman with “feisty” children of my own, I recognize how hard it is to parent insolent, spirited children. It’s utterly draining. In retrospect, I now understand the whole picture- she was miserable and felt trapped in a marriage to a man she did not love. And that fact alone contaminated her mothering judgment and polluted her techniques. That is not my case, but that was my example.

To know something intellectually is one thing. To transfer your knowledge into learned instinctual behavior is another level- perhaps an accomplishment for Deepak Chopra or some other guru. Mistakenly, I thought I was immune to some of the dysfunctions of my upbringing- I was more loving, softer, more patient… and happier overall with my life. That was until I heard her shouting at him and it sounded all too familiar.

Now, the truth is out. Nine years into this parenting thing, I must come to terms with the reality that I DO channel what I learned under her roof. Just that I didn’t know it until my child pushed every single one of my buttons. All at once.

I wanna fight this tendency and break the cycle. I don’t want to say hurtful things to my boy even when he looks me in the eyes with hatred and tells me how he wants to leave. I need to remain unaffected. I don’t want to cause him any more emotional damage than that which he causes himself with his own fictitious theories.

Patterns are so hard to break. I’ve studied psychology formally, read countless self-help books, yet this factor called learned behavior is extremely potent- especially when absorbed during the impressionable early years of life. Now I accept that the ugliness must have been there all along- dormant yet waiting patiently just below the surface.