Midtown Sacramento Counselor

Mother’s Day isn’t a happy Hallmark experience for everyone.  For some people, the endless rows of sentimental cards are just more reminders of the mothers they never had. If you’re childhood was rocky, or your relationship with your mom is strained, the kind of card you’re thinking about probably isn’t G-rated enough for Target.

Then there’s the endless stream of jewelry commercials. Over and over again, adoring husbands present diamond pendants to impeccably groomed mothers of young children, because, apparently, husbands who really love their wives buy them diamonds, and deserving moms are never single, and no one has student loans or car payments or teenagers who eat $200 worth of groceries in minutes.

Or maybe you have lost your mother, or your child. Mother’s Day takes on a whole new meaning for you, one much more profound than jewelry. You may feel like no one gets what you’re going through, but there are people who understand, I assure you.

It’s important to remember that these images presented on TV and in newspapers are fiction. The expectations and the ideals promoted there are not really attainable. It’s just a fact that not all mothers were good enough, and that life, as lovely as it can be, is temporary. Furthermore, real mothers of toddlers have shirts with food stains. Mothers of school-age kids are often exhausted from working hard and driving all the time. Seldom do families of young children have diamond funds set aside. Yes, they deserve precious jewels, but from what I hear, these moms mainly want extra sleep and house cleaners.

Don’t let Macy’s or Hallmark decide what your Mother’s Day should be, because we just all fall short of that.

Instead, reclaim Mother’s Day for yourself. Reschedule any brunches with extended family for Saturday, and have a Sunday morning jammies party with your own children.

Celebrate the love you have in your home now.

I’m a baseball fan. Not an “answer-all-my-emails-during-the-game” kind of fan. Not a bandwagoner, when any California team is in the post season. I’m a real fan. I send out my Season’s Greetings in the first week of April.

This week I was moved by an interview I heard on NPR with R.A. Dickey, major league baseball’s only current knuckleball pitcher. R.A. Dickey’s story is about what happens when all your dreams come true, and then, in a moment, they vanish.  He was the next best thing, drafted in the first round by the Texas Rangers and about to be signed for $810,000. Then a doctor on the Texas payroll saw a picture of Dickey on the cover of Baseball America, standing side-by-side with a group of other top pitching prospects. He noticed that R.A. Dickey’s arm looked just a little off compared to the others. So, the Rangers tested Dickey extensively and found he was missing a key stabilizing ligament in his elbow.  Just like that, the hottest new prospect, wasn’t. His bonus went down to $75,000, and he went down to the minors, for years, never quite good enough for the big leagues.

From this point of no where else to go, R.A. Dickey began to learn the rare and complicated knuckleball pitch. I have only seen one other knuckleball pitcher in 25 years; that’s how rare they are. A knuckleball pitch is easier on an unstable elbow, and when done masterfully, can be nearly impossible to hit. It is a high commodity, and a very creative coping strategy.

Even still, R.A. Dickey wasn’t doing great in the minor leagues. Nice family, good friends, high Earned Run Average. Six point something, which is bad. Pitchers are not supposed to earn runs for their opposing teams.

Then, in 2007, he had another game-changer. On a team road trip, on a whim, because he’d always wanted to, he decided to swim across the Missouri River.  His teammates came down to watch him do it.  He got halfway across, looked up, and realized that the current had taken him way down river, far from his teammates, who looked like ants by then. He was out of control and exhausted. He tried to turn back, but his body soon gave out, and he began to sink, and to pray. In his new book, Wherever I Wind Up, R.A. Dickey describes “weeping under water.”

He was just about to give up, open his mouth, and breathe in the river when he hit bottom.  Literally.  His feet touched, and he used the bottom to push himself back up to the surface and get air.  Amazed, he did this again and again, and in this way, propelled himself all the way to the riverbank, where one teammate, who had followed him all the way down, was waiting with a hand.

He says that when he got out of the river, he became consumed with wanting to live in the present well. He began to pitch differently, concentrating on each pitch singularly, and letting all thoughts of the last pitch leave his mind. He decided he wanted to live his whole life this way. He started to see a counselor, and began to make sense of the hard parts of his past, so he could live fully in the present. Living in this new way, his ERA dropped to two something, which is good, and he became the Pacific Coast League’s Pitcher of the Year.  Now, at 37, pitching for the Mets, this gamer seems healthier than ever.

So let’s salute human resiliency, the creative coping strategy, the drowning, weeping person with one more push left,  the game-changing life experiences we never see coming, the one friend waiting on the riverbank, and the inspirational choice to take life one pitch at a time, in this moment now.

Good-enough yoga.

I’ll never forget the day my friend Marit told me I only had to sweep once a day.  Until then, I’d been following my toddlers around cleaning up their wake of debris, so that my home looked like a commercial for educational toys. My goal was to get as much art, music, physical activity, reading, and socializing into the day as I could, and still maintain a charming home. I fit this into a structure of breakfast, lunch, dinner and two healthy snacks, capped by a comforting bedtime routine with baths and flossing. All this with a soothing voice, a natural beauty, and an indefatigable enthusiasm. Failing that, I thought I was defective, since the magazines must be right.  Finally, women began to level with me. Cynthia flat out told me that swimming counts as a bath.

It’s better to be just good enough. Donald Winnicott was the British pediatrician and psychoanalytic researcher who coined the term “Good-Enough Mother.”  The good-enough mother completely focuses on her baby’s needs at first, and when the child feels discomfort, she does her very best. But, being human, she falls short at times, and the baby feels cold, hungry, lonely, or sad. At this point, the good-enough mother tries again, and usually comes through. Each day the good-enough mother mostly meets her child’s needs, and sometimes doesn’t.  Because of this, the child gradually builds a faith in mom, and a tolerance for her imperfections. Her occasional shortcomings aren’t so unsettling. The child learns to roll with it.

At the same time, the child is gaining a tolerance for his or her own failures. She is learning it’s okay to fail, and that hard times are temporary.  She is becoming flexible. People whose mothers are too good, however, are somewhat fragile. When they make mistakes, it’s hard for them to dust themselves off and try again. They don’t let themselves take reasonable risks. In fact, the effect of “perfect” mothering can resemble the effect of “bad” mothering, where a child’s needs are usually not met. Both can lead to an inability to trust oneself and others.  Both keep children feeling on guard. Adults whose mothers were not perfect, but good-enough, know how to deal with a C-minus day. They can give themselves a break. They know when to take a vacation. Children of good-enough mothers can self-soothe. They sing, read, and play solo to calm themselves and find joy. They are resilient.

So in this moment now, give yourself a break. A good mom is good enough. If you blow it, repair, and begin again. Every blue moon,  you can take your kids to the movies for dinner. Popcorn is a vegetable.

I’ve been doing an informal survey of my colleagues in the mental health field, asking them, “What are the things you think about when a client comes in feeling depressed?” All of them, without exception, mention exercise. It’s either their first or second thought.

Fontanillis Lake in the Desolation Wilderness

A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in 1999 found that participating in a regular aerobic exercise program increased the mood of people with depression as much as Zoloft, and as much as a combination of Zoloft and exercise as well. The follow-up study found that people in the exercise groups kept the depression at bay over time. That’s just one of a whole host of studies on exercise and depression, anxiety, recovery, self esteem, even parenting.  When you exercise, endorphins are released into the brain, and you get a happy feeling.  Regular exercise releases endorphins regularly, and you get, quite simply, happier overall.

The problem is sustainability.

People tend to think that every run has to be 3 miles, every hike up a mountain, every gym session an hour and a half. They set up impossible systems like waking at 5:00 AM, or lifting weights every day.  Most bodies can’t handle that and it causes quitting. I like the iphone apps called “Couch to 5K,” or “Ease into 5K.” The first run you do is 30 seconds!  They increase gradually from there, and after 9 weeks you get to 3 miles. A coach once told me, “if you train like this, you can accomplish anything,” and I tend to believe her. It’s doable because you can start where you are.

Everything counts. Walking, swimming, weeding, pillow fights, riding a bike, Kinnect, yoga, skiing, shooting hoops, dancing, picking the oranges, playing catch, hiking, running the dog, Zumba, Cross Fit, belly dancing, Frisbee, even vacuuming. It all works.

The solution? Motivate from the inside out

It’s wonderful to be inspired by others. It’s great to have exercise buddies. But judging your own body by another’s capabilities isn’t an effective mood lifter. Nor is looking for your motivation in the mirror because we tend to see only what we’re not. Compare and despair. Instead, try this: remember a time when you felt fit, energetic, and engaged in the world. Close your eyes and rest with that feeling in your mind and body until it feels familiar. Then, as you exercise, see if you can contact that feeling again. Recognize it. Name it. Notice it every time you exercise. This is your very own feeling of well-being, made by you, just for you. With this as your motivation, you can find it anywhere,  even in this moment now.

Check out the research yourself: http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsweek/Exercise-and-Depression-report-excerpt.htm

It’s wonderful to have dreams, and exciting to hold a vision of a better you.  It’s like finally admitting your potential, your brilliance.  Of course you could lose 20 pounds, have more friends, be more productive, run a marathon.  These are all fine goals.  But, are they meaningful? If you are like most people, what you resolved on New Year’s Day, tends to move to the back of your mind in February, becoming yet another thing that didn’t get done.  It just doesn’t seem important anymore.

Well, maybe it isn’t.

As a grief counselor I hear a lot about unmet goals, about men who always wanted to sail, but didn’t have time, or widows who were going to travel with their husbands, but couldn’t get to it, or children who never got to graduate.

Interestingly, however, if you allow people time to talk about their loved ones, you will usually hear some beautiful stories of lives lived well.  Grieving people don’t talk much about the time their sister lost 20 pounds, or the day their son ran the marathon.  It’s more likely to be some story about a great scrabble game, or an impromptu drive down the river road, how they laughed as kids at the dinner table, how happy he was on a mountain, or that time they stayed in bed until 2:00 making love and eating toast. What seems to be most memorable about a person isn’t what they achieved, but how they lived.

So if the journey really is the goal, or if, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, “…to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive,” then what do we do on New Year’s Day?

Resolve to pay attention to your life.  Rather than focusing on the end result of all this, focus on what you are doing now.  Then do it more, and fuller, and richer.  Be a more engaged lover.  Eat the food you really enjoy.  Swap a treadmill for some trees.  Speak eye-to-eye.  Allow yourself to feel athletic again.  Spend more time with people you can laugh with.  Play the piano.

Rather than reaching for goals, reach for what’s already here. It may turn out that what’s most important about your life is happening in this moment now.

Joyous New Year to you.