How can we help our children, and ourselves to live happily, peacefully and spiritually?

This is for all parents and all women. Yogis believe that all women are mothers, whether of their own biological offspring, other children in their lives, people in their community, or any other earthly creations. I am afraid this has become less of a blog post and more of a very long article with loads of ideas!

Many mothers have asked me recently how they can help their children calm down during or after a tantrum, how they can deal effectively with unreasonable behaviour, how they can allow children to express anger without hurting themselves or others, and how we as mothers can remain calm and avoid losing our tempers during these very stressful and upsetting episodes. As a mother of two young girls, a yoga teacher and a healing arts practitioner, I am always contemplating these same questions myself. And for me, the answers to many of them lie in how easily we and our children are in touch with and led by our spirit. Because I have experienced that when we speak and act from that place deep inside ourselves, life flows more easily and happily.

So I would like thank those who have approached me as you have inspired me to write and share some of the ideas and methods I have been using over the last few years with my own children and within yoga sessions, both for children and for adults. There are so many more ideas out there, these are just a few that I use most. Some of these I have learned from others and some I have made up myself and some are a mixture of the two. I hope they can bring a sense of peace and grace into your lives as they have into mine, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts and your own ideas for awakening and soothing our children and our souls.
Meditation and visualisation
Early this morning as I was sitting peacefully in front of the window with the sun pouring in, quietly and breathing before starting my yoga, feeling blissfully alone, I suddenly found myself - hmm, how can I put this positively? - embraced by my two-year-old daughter Bella AND our significantly older, larger and heavier dog, Brecon. They appeared to be competing, though quite good naturedly, for the best place on my lap. In the end Bella conceded and hugged me from behind while Brecon curled up in my lap, quite like a baby, only several stone heavier.

I had to laugh (a yogi must never lose their sense of humour). I have always told my students that animals and children love yoga. I have been visited by cats, dogs, frogs, even geckos before, but this is the first time I have had an enormous great hulk of a dog, (lab/collie/who knows but definitely with a bit of bull terrier thrown in) actually nestle his way into my arms. Brecon proceeded to spread out on my mat beneath my triangle (downward dog) and snuggle into my outspread arms like a lover when I was relaxing on my back an eventful hour later. I wished James had been there with his camera. It would have been wonderful to show this photo to illustrate what I strongly believe: that, as parents, and in particular mothers, we are the spiritual guides of the household. When we shine, our families bask in our light.

The best way for us to teach our children to live from their heart – not the organ but the home of their spirit – is by example. Telling a small child to sit still and breathe or to stay in a yoga position as long as possible is likely to suppress their natural energy and instinct, let alone their enthusiasm for yoga. I have seen this happen with Jemima in the past, and just yesterday in my kid’s class when I mistakenly tried to help five year olds perfect their dog poses, instead of letting them get it in their own time as I normally do.

When a child sees you enjoying some minutes of quiet breathing, or a particular yoga pose, s/he will be inspired to join you. The peaceful energy you will usually radiate will at some stage become irresistible for your child, and they will be curious to know why you want to do what you are doing. Your flow may be interrupted but if you are able to open your heart, let go of your attachment to the previous plan you had for your yoga and wrap your loving arms around your child (or pet!), you are likely to get twice as much benefit from your meditation.

I know this is true from my own experience. I have had times when I have got annoyed and begged to be left alone and ended up raising my voice with my own children, leaving me feeling guilty and all of us miserable. This is hardly the desired result from meditation, and is a sure way to make children believe that meditation will be of absolutely no benefit to them! Now I try to let go every time and go with the flow, cherishing those sacred moments of holding and connecting with my children and listening to the silence around and within us. Usually they will then wander off and play before long and I can continue with my yoga. When they do not I just have to resolve to wake a little earlier the next day so I can have some solitude before our yoga cuddles begin.

Of course there are some wonderful meditations to do with very young children, which they will love to. All children love to sing mantras. They do not have to be in English - in my classes the children often chant mantras from Sanskrit or Gurumukh – but you can make up any of your own mantras to suit the moment. Some examples are:

I am happy, I am good.
I am brave, I am bold, my own spirit I can hold.
I feel my peace, I feel my light, I feel my love.
I am strong, I am well.
I sleep peacefully.
I am beautiful. I am thankful… and so on.

Jemima has climbed up many hills with the mantra “I’m not tired, I feel strong!” after melting down into protests before hand. I know, poor child! Reassuringly, she has often resisted this technique, letting her own resilient spirit shine through, firmly grounded on her bottom at the foot of the hill. But she has also embraced it and sung it at the top of her voice and called out: “It works Mummy!”

As children get older, around six or seven, although they can continue to enjoy the above ideas, they can also be encouraged to sit quietly for a few minutes of listening to their breath, visualising drawing light in their body, or any other ideas you like to use. Start with one minute and slowly increase the time as your child gets older or more used to it. I feel it is important that we should always be sensitive to how long they seem focused and try to end it before they lose interest so that they feel good about what they have done rather than being left with the feeling that they could have done better. Always emphasise the point that this is supposed to feel nice, help them care for themselves and their body and if there is any challenge, it should be a healthy, happy, fun personal challenge only (e.g let’s add 30 seconds on to our quiet time today shall we?), rather than a competition with anyone else. Remember that laughing is ok, as children get the giggles when asked to meditate for the first time. You might also remind them gently to relax their face as I have noticed children sometimes screw up their faces with great tension when they are concentrating. If they just can’t sit still, let it go and try again another time.

You can help your child sit for longer by adding visualisations. These are easy to find on line or in books and I also make up a whole host of different visualisations that suit the moment or that follow a yoga story we have done. Examples are: lying gazing at the stars picking out their special star that is watching over them and breathing deeply and imagining they become that star and are shining so brightly they can guide others and lift them in their light; thinking of a word/image that makes them feel good (give examples for words, e.g. happy, peaceful, loving, loved etc, but normally left alone they will choose an image on their own that means a lot to them – jewels, butterflies, rainbow sparkly fairies and strong men/lions seem to come up quite frequently) and breathing in the word/image so that they become that word/image and when others come near they feel that way and breath it and become it too; imagining they are on a beach and their breath is a gentle safe wave washing over them calming and soothing them… and so many more. Children love to be given something to hold during meditation or relaxation, a soft scarf or a cuddly toy and they love to be told that the animal is drawn to be near to them because it feels so safe and good to be close to them. They love to take care of their animal and be responsible for its well-being.

At night Jemima often falls asleep with a rainbow visualisation where she floats on a cloud through all the colours of the rainbow and each colour washes over her so that she can feel the quality of each colour – I do it with the chakra colours and qualities. Jemima always gets to start the story so she is often a rabbit or a puppy and she often has lots of friends around her who also have to feel the colours … arrghh! It can get quite complicated and exasperating at times when I have to remember a whole load of different made up names and the five minute sleepy meditation becomes an hour long saga! Perhaps you could start with more boundaries than I did!

There are so many different ideas for this sort of meditation and the lovely part about it is that as adults we can become creative and activate our childlike imaginations again. One day I will write down all my stories and ideas but this is getting long enough already! I will just say that in class, when I wake children from their relaxation I do it with a puppet who whispers something different and relevant and affirming it each child, something I have noticed about them in class, or something I feel about their presence. Obviously, this is always something positive, and might be different each week. Healthy children are like sponges when you tell them something lovely and true about them, and those who finder it harder to believe will benefit all the more from this positive affirmation.

After an argument/tantrum
Let’s hope that some of the above will help our children become less frustrated and angry, and more able to deal with the pain they experience in moments of trauma. And I really do mean trauma. Have you ever heard your child cry out in their sleep during what appears to be a terrible nightmare? This is a great indicator for truly understanding how small a child’s world is, and just how huge and important, tiny inconsequential things can appear. Bella is often tormented by having to share her grapes or have the pink bowl according to her sleep talking. It makes me laugh at the time but it also reminds me never to say: “It doesn’t matter” to her, because quite clearly, in her world it does matter an awful lot.

For a two year old, not being allowed to take open the car door themselves when we are in a hurry, or having to share a toy, can cause such toxic levels of the stress hormone cortisone to rush to their brain that it can kill off brain cells. They are experiencing pain and if we are able to put ourselves in their tiny shoes and their tiny world (our own yoga will help us be able to do this!) we will be calmer ourselves and more help to them. Such emotional pain can also be experienced by a five-year-old whose mother cannot find the right shade of grey tights for school that match her best friend’s tights. Yes, that was this morning. Click here for more info and ideas for understanding and dealing with different kinds of tantrums.

While we often feel helpless during a tantrum there are ways we can make things better afterwards and for the next time. When Jemima and I have an argument or she flips out over something we play this game: We pretend to take off all our angry clothes, flinging them to the side with great energy. I have to do this with her to encourage her and we really get into it. If we are at the school gates we do it very subtly or we play the marshmallow game instead (below). Once we have left all our angry clothes (you can do this for tired/sad/shy etc as well) we do some very freeing swinging twists from side to side with our arms out (not at the school gate) to wash away all the black and make everything sunny again, and then we pretend to get dressed again in lovely warm, happy, cosy and comfy clothes. It is a wonderful fun way to heal and to learn how to take care of ourselves and it can be done in one minute so can easily be done before saying goodbye, rather than leaving each other in a state of stress and regret. I also try to get Jemima to drink water - I tell her to imagine a wilted tired stressed out flower that is dehydrated and when we give it water it grows tall, blossoms and is bright and colourful and happy again. (Our bodies are 77% water so dehydration is an extremely common cause of bad temper and irritability for all of us).

Another very healing and affirming act to do after any outburst or release of emotion is to press our hands one over the other firmly on our heart centre in the middle of our chest. We can say a mantra to ourselves as we do this and children love it.

Oh, the marshmallow game. This is a bit like the sack of sand game, where you imagine you are a hard very full sack of sand and the end opens and all the sand flows out and you become very soft and floppy and relaxed. Jemima loves to pretend to be a marshmallow melting on top of hot chocolate getting softer and softer as all the tension and anger melts away. I know some parents also encourage their children to go and sit in their happy, peaceful corner and calm down.

Of course all of the above has an emphasis on preventing and healing but we also need to teach our children that anger is ok to feel and to express, as long as they do not hurt themselves or anyone else. A cross corner where they are allowed to tear paper, throw a ball against a wall or paint with lots of black paint, dress up in costumes like lions or pirates or whatever they associate with not being lovely and good for a change, is a great way to help children find outlets for their feelings. Our children are mostly expected to produce pretty pictures with nice colours and wear pretty clothes with nice colours and to feel happy. When we can find ways to show them that it is ok not to feel happy and not to feel bright we are setting them free to be themselves, whatever their mood. This usually helps them feel better simply by the pure act of being accepted just as they are. For let’s face it, if there is one thing a parent can and should do for his/her child, no matter how hard this can be at times, it must surely be to set the child free from all of our own neuroses, standards and expectations, so that his/her own true and pure spirit can shine. And what a beautiful, healing thing this is for parents to do: to let go of the reins for a change, and allow ourselves to be uplifted and led by our child’s spirit and light.

For more posts with ideas for children and yoga try
http://motherland1.blogspot.com/2007/11/expecting-too-much-from-my-toddler.html or here or here

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HEALING SPIRITS! (and where are all the childwen Mummy?)

Hooray I am happy to announce that my new yoga website is finally arrived live. Check out www.healingspirits.co.uk and forward to anyone who lives near Herefordshire who may be interested! All is going very well here and I shall write very soon about our new and very lovely dog Brecon, rescued from the hills in Brecon, and the mysterious lack of pre-school aged children in Kington or Presteigne between school drop off and home time. Bella and I have looked and looked, in the playgrounds, in the swimming pool, on the high streets, but as she says, it does seem that "All the children are in Cambodia aren't they Mummy?" Ah, it breaks my heart. I am determined to solve the mystery soon. I cannot endure being woken up with the words "Where are my little friends Mummy? I don't got any do I?" each morning, any longer. Parent and toddler groups watch out, here we come. Or I shall set one up myself.






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How to laugh before breakfast and other yogi ideas …

Most of my yoga students have heard me go on and on about cold showers, though most seem unconvinced, it has to be said. I totally understand that they think I am crazy. I used to raise my eyebrows just as sceptically when my old yoga teacher told me about them - until I tried it myself.
I have always been the queen of hot baths, preferably accompanied by a cup of tea or a glass of wine and a good book, or my best friend sitting on the loo seat to chat to me (three sisters = no inhibitions), or on the end of the phone as a last resort. So, how can it be that in the last three weeks of living in the coldest, snowiest weather I can remember since I was a child, I have had precisely one hot bath and 22 cold showers? You only have to try it once to know the answer.

Honestly, I have had a cold shower every morning since I arrived, including the day we got off the plane from 30 to -2 degrees and snow, and a friend’s very under-heated flat. It takes your breath away of course. In fact it makes me laugh every time I do it, which is a good enough reason to do it in itself – how many mornings do you have a good laugh before breakfast?

Other benefits of hydrotherapy or ishnaan (cold showers) are well known. The practice keeps your skin radiant and softer, (this is definitely true for me, and no product has ever helped my skin before) opens up your capillaries, flushes all your organs (not literally, you should keep your mouth closed), keeps blood chemistry young and healthy and it stimulates healthy glandular secretions. It also strengthens and widens your aura, your electro-magnetic field, your light and your radiance.

You have to do it right though (for right, read, my way:-)). I do not follow all the rules of Ishnaan (there is a sequence of body massage you are supposed to follow but that takes about ten minutes which I think is way too long and uses up too much water.) But here is the more eco-friendly - or more cowardly - two minute version. The winter version. In the summer I can be under for much longer and wash my hair too if I am feeling brave. Of course in Cambodia it was hard to get a shower to be cold enough and you would be sweating minutes after getting dry, but in England, summer or winter, the water runs seriously cold.

In the bathroom, or near enough to it, do a few minutes of energetic yoga. Squats, breath of fire, and aura strengthening arm raises are my favourite. Then put some almond oil in your hands and massage your whole body for as long or as short as you like. Then get in the shower and start by putting your hands under and gradually put your whole body under while massaging your body vigorously as you do. Wash with some natural soap and when you have stopped laughing and have had enough get out! Dry yourself, get dressed straight away and ideally follow with your favourite yoga. And have a cup of yogi tea afterwards as you sit back and bask in your bravery and radiance. It is that simple.

I challenge you to try this for a week and come back and tell me how you feel. I do this every morning, preferably before the children wake up, and when I sit down to do yoga, despite the floors being made of stone, the sun not yet having risen and the heating not yet having come on, I really do feel very warm and very calm. And I bet if you asked my family whether they could tell which days I did this before breakfast they would be able to tell. (I just asked. They can.) It makes me a better mother there is no doubt about it. I feel uplifted and energetic throughout the day after this ritual, and I am much more patient and fun with my children.

Go on, have a go :-)
N.B. Do not practice the above if you are pregnant or have any health issues that would make this not a good idea. If at all concerned google Ishnaan and ask your doctor first.


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Recipe for Yogi Tea

Sorry, this has been a long time in coming. So, for a wonderfully delicious tea that strengthens your bones, purifies the blood, aids healthy digestion and is a natural antibiotic here goes:

To 1 1/2 litres water add 5-10 slices of ginger, 20 cardamom pods
20 peppercorns, 15 cloves and 3 cinnamon sticks.

Simmer for 40 minutes. Add 1 tbs. black tea (optional) then reheat to the boiling point, remove from the stove, and strain. Add honey/milk to taste.

It keeps in fridge for a week and is also nice iced (well, if you are in tropical Cambodia, that is, not snowy Kington!) Jemima likes it diluted with lots of milk and it is good for teething. My father is addicted too now, and the house smells lovely when you are making it.

Enjoy!



Click here for more recipes
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Rambles about new life and new school in Herefordshire! (Unedited, sorry)

Hello hello, we are on line in Herefordshire hooray! And someone has just posted this: Tell us about your household and family and town in Herefordshire! (who are you? :-) and so I shall. And tomorrow I will add lots of snowy pictures too.
It is beautiful and white and frosty here and today was the coldest day recorded in Herefordshire in 30 years apparently. It was barely under freezing which by my Norwegian friend Tone's standards must be a hot day given that it is -30c there right now, but for England it is a bit of a national emergency when it snows.

Schools are closed, buses and trains cancelled, rubbish remains uncollected... and today I think we ran out of salt. (I mean we as in England, not the Treasure-Evans, and salt as in grit, not table salt)

I love it! We are forced to surrender to the powers of nature for a change. Having to take a day or two off work is also a good reminder that we are not that important and the world will not collapse without us. I can say this easily though because James and I are not working yet. At least not in the economically-recognised manner of the word. Cooking, cleaning, rearranging and rebuilding our lives while taking care of two children is keeping us busy enough though. Oh I miss Sophy. (Oh, I must blog about our farewell at the airport. Sophy's entire family came to see us off, placing garlands of jasmine around our necks and pressing their noses into our necks for minutes at a time, sniffing our skin as they do with children, as as if to remember forever how we smell. It was overwhelming and moving and I sobbed my heart out. I really do miss Sophy, and I do not mean for her washing up or childcare. I miss her warm, gentle presence in our family and I wonder how she is doing without her darling Bella to make her laugh every day. Ah, more about leaving Cambodia later.)

Jemima started school on Monday and completely loved it. I missed her so much at lunchtime, after five years of having her home! But I love her school as much as she does. It is very eco- and socially conscious, small and familial. Really, I had to stop myself from throwing my arms around her teachers in joy and relief. Jemima's teacher is very zen and softly spoken and manages to make a class of 24 children seem more like a class of ten. The atmosphere in her classroom and in the whole school was so happy and peaceful and there was a lot of emphasis on kindness and caring for each other. We were all really welcomed and spent the whole morning there. The Head Teacher is young and gorgeous and seems to adore her job. And she had so much time for us. She had time to play with Bella, share ideas about James' career, and chat to me, on the first day back at school before giving a lovely and inspiring assembly (yes I nearly cried then too).

This is something I have loved so much about this last week - everyone seems to have time for us. Everyone we meet stops to chat and seems genuinely interested in us and our children. They all seem to want to come to yoga too so I better get that organised soon. And the health food shop will re fill our Ecover bottles! Ah how I have missed little things like this!

Kington is small (about 2-3000 people) and has a lovely high street currently adorned with coloured flags and each house as a Christmas tree on the front wall, upstairs hanging over the street, as has been tradition for centuries. There are small independent shops for everything and a Co'op, with lots of organic and fair trade products. Our house is a mile out of Kington surrounded by hills and fields all covered at the moment in a blanket of snow. We can sit in our kitchen and watch twenty birds having their breakfast in the garden, including the robin that comes right up to the door, if Bella is quiet enough. There are log fires inside, snowmen outside and I have seen the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets every day since we arrived. I am totally loving cooking and being domestic in such gorgeous surroundings and we have been sledging on near perfect slopes which we can walk to from the house every day. The girls are loving it but they need friends. Once school opens again that should be taken care of though. And they have Grandpa.

We are living with my father. This house has been our family holiday house since I was born and my father has been living here alone for the last ten years or so. It regularly fills up with my sisters and their families though so I think he knew what he was in for when he invited us to come and share his home. My father is 80 but looks and seems closer to late 60s. So far so good - we seem to co-exist really happily, sharing meals most of the time but being independent when we need to be. It feels so lovely to be living with extended family and the girls love their grandpa very much. (My mother, Granny Melly, lives in the next county so can easily visit or receive visits from her grandchildren too.)

My father is coping admirably with the upheaval, raising his eyebrows from time to time as we squeeze by him on the stairs with some huge, antique piece of furniture wobbling precariously between us "Just rearranging a couple of things, don't worry about it Daddy!", or as the girls completely melt down over that final item of winter clothing, after half an hour of trying to get out of the front door. He already has our vegetable patch marked out for us and few jobs up his sleeve, and he has babysat a mostly sleeping Bella twice already in one week, it feels so right to be able to help each other out as families should.

Oh gosh it is 11pm which means my friends in Cambodia will be getting up now (7 hours ahead). I can still hear the birdsong and the traffic noises - but I can't imagine the heat anymore, my feet have frozen up as I type. I have to go to bed so that I can get up early before the girls for my yoga. My new years resolution, cold shower and yoga before breakfast, but more about that soon! Good night or good morning depending on where you are reading me!


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Good enough mother or pathological feeder? Setting our children free to be themselves

Wow. I have just read something that really resonates with me and my experience of my own life and of being a mother. (I know it has been ages since my last post and that most of my readers have given up on me. I have been in the UK but now I am back and will try to keep it going weekly from now on :-))

In between nappies and feeds and everything else I have pretty much spent the last few years working really hard to discover a sense of inner peace and an end to the constant self-judgment I slowly realised was my every day state of existence, not to mention trying to discover who that self really is. I have finally let go, accepted that I am who I am, begun to rather like that person, warts and all, and – which is why I am blogging about this at Motherland – in doing so I find I have set my children free to be who they are, rather than who I wanted them to be. And James for that matter. Therapy seems better value when you look at it this way, four for the price of one. (I definitely agree with the yogic belief that the woman is the spiritual care taker in the family and if she is happy and healthy and whole the family will blossom in her light, but that is something for another day.)

A while back I blogged about Jemima driving me crazy with her negativity – which I thought totally inappropriate for her age, quality of life etc. The First Breath She also tended to whine a lot and I heard myself call her a ‘spoilt brat’ on more than one occasion and generally completely failed to accept whatever feelings she was experiencing, instead trying to make her experience a different sort of mood, one that I found more acceptable, and more lovable.

Basically I wanted Jemima to be perfect and lovely and well-behaved and always impressive, without being aware that all this pressure was actually what I had been heaping onto myself for years. It is almost as though now that I allow myself to be real, i.e. flawed, and having finally found a degree of self love and self esteem, my children are also allowed to be real. And I have noticed most of her negativity has since vanished anyway, perhaps simply for having been allowed to express it and have it recognised as a valuable emotion.

It wasn’t as though I was this horrid mother before or that now I am a saint. Of course I was always aware of what I needed to do to let my babies flourish emotionally, but it was hard, which is probably what brought me to embark upon my own journey of healing in the first place, so that I could be a truly happy mother of truly happy children. But however subtle it may be, since my own inner transformation, I see such a change in my response to my girls, and they definitely seem happier. I find myself indulging - or honouring is probably a better word - their feelings and needs with what I see they are looking for regardless of whether or not I think they should be feeling what they are feeling. Well, most of the time. I still flip occasionally and I heard myself telling Jemima yesterday to ‘just stop crying about this right now because it not something worth crying about!’ Not exactly the emotional response she was craving, which brings me to what I have just been reading about.

I am reading a great book called Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope. In it he looks at why so many western adults experience a crisis of self, either a sense of false self or a total lack of self – you know, the kind of craving for something deeper or more satisfying in our lives, a void that can lead to addictions, teenage breakdowns, extra-marital affairs, mid- life crises … or that lands us on the therapist’s couch looking for meaning of life.

It comes as no surprise that this sense of false self is most commonly attributed to the breakdown of extended family and to the unreasonable pressures of modern day society to which so many of us succumb. Parents are too busy and have too many unfulfilled needs of their own to really respond to their children’s needs. What was interesting to me was Winnicot’s theory about ‘pathological feeding’ process between mother and child. Winnicot is famous for his theory about the ‘good enough’ mother who meets and responds to the infant’s needs so that they feel authentically fulfilled. ‘Pathological feeding’ on the contrary is where the baby’s impulses and needs are not met by the mother. In this case the baby, who takes its cues from the outside, learns to want what the mother gives, and becomes the idea of who the baby is.

Of course when you consider the above taken to extremes it is easy and devastating to see how young children can so easily be abused and become abusers. But even on a subtle level in apparently happy families this psychological scenario must be so common. Sleep-training, cots, weaning, childcare... most of the main stream modern parenting advice encourages us to become pathological feeders!

I have just put Bella into pre-school three mornings a week. She thankfully totally loves it and has not yet shed a tear or carried out any kind of protest. But there are several tiny children there who would quite clearly rather be at home with their mothers. If we really were to respond to and satisfy our child’s needs we would take out young children back home on noticing that they are not ready for school. Instead we teach them to want to be there because we have jobs to go to, no grannies and aunts and uncle around to help out. (Ok, this argument happens to be flawed here in expatria where we have nannies and housekeepers etc but they are not often emotionally equipped to respond to our child either, in fact trained and committed school teachers are often a far favourable option).

I know that if Bella turns to me next week and screams in protest about going to school I will have to face the fact that she may not be ready after all (She is only just two!) This might mean sacrificing my beloved new career as a yoga teacher (I am fully certified at last woo hoo!) – where I teach that yoga is being present in the moment with your kids, living every moment meaningfully and mindfully, with compassion and an open heart. Hmmm, then the truth will out. Am I a pathological feeder or just about good enough? I really hope I don’t have to make that choice because, like all of us, in this instance my first choice would definitely be in my interests and not Bella’s. Although school is obviously good for her, she has been running around all morning calling Jemima a ‘naughty poo poo pee pee’

Talking of pathologically feeding… These days Bella is a baffling and intoxicating concoction of squishy, peachy-bottomed breastfeeding baby, almost always naked, with sweaty curls plastered to her head; and independent self-dressing (and undressing immediately afterwards), potty-trained toddler with attitude, who opens her mouth and talks like a three year old. I am confused – the nappies are ready to be given away (sob) yet I think she would happily breastfeed forever if she could. I am ok with it for now, but have not one clue as to how I would ever begin to pathologically teach her not to want it anymore.

Watch this space…

And yes, I accept that these disjointed ramblings are largely for the benefit of my own personal records and maybe for my children to read if they become mothers, but it is still sort of interesting to reflect on isn’t it?

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The first breath

Hmmm, writers block. I am tired, breastfeeding my nearly two-year-old Bella like a new born and wishing for 48 hours in each day so I can do all the mothering, teaching, writing and everything else that I want to achieve in a week. All I can think of is to share a list of all the things I would like to write about in depth if I had the time, energy and inspiration. Perhaps this will be the first step.

1) Why was it that on Sunday morning by the beach in a lovely little hotel café, during breakfast, not one of the twenty or so westerners was able to do anything other than scowl and grimace at me as Bella screamed the house down in one of her favourite meal-time tantrums? (Only when she is ill, which she has been for two weeks now, with a stinking cold and cough. Mostly she laughs her way through it but meal times are her favourite time to yell. She refuses to let me sit down... however slowly and sneakily I lower myself to my chair, in a desperate attempt at a quick slurp of tea or bite of toast before my time is up, she will not stand for it.. so I have to instead.) Ok, their peaceful breakfast was disturbed, but the looks of judgment and disapproval were quite frankly uncalled for. It reminded me of going back to Britain, where kids should be mostly seen and not heard, and preferably neither after 7 o’clock at night. If it had been my first time round, with Jemima, I would have gone away feeling like a terrible mother, for their looks insinuated that I was just that. But, it being second time round, I just went away thinking they were terrible fellow humans instead.

2) I spent four days at a very intense yoga workshop in Bangkok two weeks ago, with Bella and a hired babysitter. I was up at 4am meditating on and off until 7 at night for three consecutive days and it was quite amazing. Bella loved the whole adventure and despite my being mostly absent, I loved having time with her alone, taking the plane, walking in the garden, feeding the fish... it reminded me of all the time I had alone with Jemima, sacred space just to get to know one child in their element without anyone interrupting them or influencing them in any way.

3) On this workshop we did a rebirthing meditation that enabled us to relive our first breath. The leader talked about the significance of the quality of the first breath and how it influences the way we view life. E.g. What do you see written here?

www.opportunitiesnowhere.com

Whether you see opportunities nowhere or opportunities now here reflects your outlook on life, and this is partially determined by our first breath according to yogic and other philosophies.

It got me thinking, well crying really. While Bella came into this world without drugs, her eyes wide open and smiling, latching on and breastfeeding within seconds of her birth, Jemima was born stoned on Pethidine and unable to breathe. She was whisked away to a brightly lit table and a suction tube was shoved down her throat. And here I am teaching prenatal yoga and encouraging conscious pregnancy. And it is true that Bella is always happy, easy-going, and generally sees the bright side of everything most days, while Jemima’s glass is half empty much of the time.

Maybe this is just a phase? Jemima was very like Bella at her age after all. But I am struggling at the moment with the fact that while Bella, at 20 months, already says ‘thank you’ spontaneously and uses the sweetest intonations and facial expressions when she asks for things (they make her sound so polite!), Jemima at four and a half still says “I want! Get me this!” and even when the table is laid with all of her favourite things, instead of saying “Yey, peanut butter!” she will ask for whatever she wants in a way which suggests no one was ever going to allow her it. Ok, not all the time, but lately this has been her dominant nature. Her teachers say she is lovely at school still, so perhaps I should give her a break.

Of course it is also possible that she gets it from me, for as a child I was always sulking about being the youngest, seeking attention etc. But I am not like this now (apart from family gatherings where I regress frighteningly quickly). Perhaps it is because she too is fighting some virus? Or adapting to the stifling humidity as we enter the hot season? Even so, it is driving me crazy!

I am being as yogic as I can about it though. I try to resist calling her a spoilt brat and am instead gently brainwashing her with nightly meditations where we sing mantras such as: “I am beautiful! I am bountiful! I am bliss!” and then I add “I am thankful! I am blessed! I am so lucky!” So far I have managed to stop myself from continuing, “I am so lucky not to be a street child, not to be foraging for food on the rubbish dump, not to be sold by my mother into the sex-trade, tra la la la”. It doesn’t fit with the tune anyway. And finally, feeling bad about my day’s resentment and judgment, when I know as her mother I should accept and affirm her, I get her to sing “I am! I am! I am! Just as I am!”, in the hope that it will make up for my maternal failings.

I’ll let you know if I see any progress!

Hey, this worked! Now I feel like getting my book out and editing it and self-publishing it right away!






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Asia Life article - Kids Love Yoga

I have taken over the Next Generation column of a local magasine called Asia Life. Here is March's edition.. sorry, yoga again!!! But with great photos!

Kids love yoga. Any parent who practices at home knows this. Just roll out your mat and they’ll gravitate towards it, along with all household pets, the occasional frog, a gecko or two... It is not only children’s innate, irresistible, primal urge to stretch, wiggle and contort their body into every conceivable shape and form that draws them to yoga. Often they simply want to curl up in your lap and absorb your peace. Either way, it can only be beneficial. Especially in hot, noisy, stress-inducing Phnom Penh, where the opportunities and spaces for letting our children run wild remain scarce. Yoga provides the perfect escape, as my four-year-old daughter Jemima taught me not long ago.



We were quietly picking our way through the rubbish and dead rats that adorn our walk to school, all efforts at conversation having been drowned out by the noise of cutting metal from the building sites along the way, when she unexpectedly transported us to a beautiful island.

“The pavement is the beach, Mummy, and when it ends, we’re not falling into the road. We are jumping and splashing about in the sea! The motor bikes are sharks... friendly sharks though.” A Hummer roared by. “And the cars are whales”.

The Tuk-Tuks were fishing boats, from which we ordered our dinner, fresh fish for that evening. Every so often one of us tripped on a friendly crab, or an empty coconut shell fallen from a palm that fringed the warm, white sands. All we could hear was the lapping of the gentle waves on the shore, the call of the birds in the trees, and a soft breeze rustling the leaves. I bet you feel calmer just reading about it.

This same island paradise got her through 30 minutes of teeth-extracting hell at the dentist a few days later. Grown men would have been howling, all coping mechanisms buried deeply beneath years of accumulated baggage. My daughter breathed.

Without having to think about it, (let alone lie down on the therapist’s couch), Jemima had found a way of creating the exact conditions she needed in order to maintain her relaxed, centred, happy state of being, rather than allowing herself to be at the mercy of her less desirable external environment. Which, let’s face it, is pretty much what yoga is all about. The word itself, coming from the Sanskrit word jugit, means to unite. The practice of yoga, which incorporates breath, movement and meditation, is essentially about achieving a happy union of mind, body and soul. About feeling whole, and at one with God, the Supreme Consciousness, the Infinite.

If yoga isn’t something you do at home but you would like your child to stay connected to his or her inner constancy, peace and joy, you will be happy to hear that if there is one thing Phnom Penh is full of, it is yoga classes for kids. Teachers take the children on magical adventures through forests, oceans and jungles. They fly like butterflies, growl like lions, dance like monkeys! They grow from tiny seeds to big beautiful trees. They do just about anything the imagination allows – every yoga posture can be turned into something that fits in the story!

The physical stretch and workout they get is wonderfully beneficial, and could not be more natural. All of us have, in our life time, regularly practiced each of the 84 postures that exist in yoga. Yes, you too. As a baby in the womb. But even more important is the sense of peace, grounding and self-love that each child gains through their yoga practice.

Some yoga classes start with the chanting of the mantra Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo, which in Sanskrit means “I honour the one creative consciousness, I honour the divine wisdom within.” Or, as six-year-old Shawna puts it: “I am saying hello to the teacher in my heart. Which means, I have the answers within”.

As Anya Weil, my own yoga teacher and constant source of inspiration, explains, yoga gives children tools for growing into self-confident individuals able to fulfill their unique potential in life, while always in harmony with their spiritual selves:

“When I do yoga with children, I am profoundly aware of their future. Children's yoga does not pull or demand, it guides and plays. It is a means of physical and spiritual expression, of development. As responsible parents, we focus on social and mental development in a healthy constructive environment but children's yoga offers a means for the union of the child's physical and spiritual elements as well. Yoga builds these core bases upon which they will make their individual ways through life. It is a privilege and a pleasure to be a part of their journey. It reminds me of my own path, my own journey.”

Uplifting songs and meditations fill the children with positive affirmation. “I am the light of my soul, I am bountiful. I am beautiful. I am bliss” is the one Jemima sings herself to sleep with every night.

“I am happy! I am good!” is another favourite mantra, though Archie, three and ever the realist, prefers “I am happy! I am sad!”

Expatriate children are not the only ones benefiting from yoga in Phnom Penh. Several NGOs now incorporate it into their programme. It can be especially healing for children who have suffered trauma. Roza, 14, was recently evicted from her home in the Dey Krahorm area of Phnom Penh. “Yoga makes me feel good. When I am sad I can do yoga and forget about things. It feels lovely”.

At the end of their adventures the children lie down and have the opportunity to drift into a deep relaxation. Guided visualisations help them to truly relax and be still, even for a few minutes at a time, though they often stay there for longer than you’d expect.

I have never seen children sit so still and look as serene as I have in kid’s yoga classes. Over time, those who come with behavioural issues, stress or unmanageable temper tantrums seem like different children, so much calmer, so much happier. Really, when you watch children practice yoga it is easy to imagine a world without war.


Yoga for kids in Phnom Penh
Anya Weil teaches yoga to two-to five-year-olds at the Giving Tree School both as part of the curriculum and in their after school programme. See http://www.thegivingtreeschool.com/Yoga.html for details.

ISPP has yoga classes for 5-8 year olds. See http://www.ispp.edu.kh for details.

Georgie teaches yoga for 3-6 year-olds at Gecko and Garden Pre-school on Tuesdays at 330. Please call 092575431 for details.

The Kundalini Yoga House teaches yoga for children and adolescents from the Aziza
School in the Tonle Bassac resettlement area. See www.kundaliniyogacambodia.org for details.







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Long post! Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I hope you all had lovely Christmases. Ours was very quiet with visiting family, perfect really.

Ah it has been so long and I have missed my blog. I have been writing here and there and perhaps I should have just posted it all here as well to keep readers interested. I fear I have become such an infrequent blogger recently that no one is reading anymore. Comments are very rare, so then I think ah well, no one will miss me. But I miss it and you so shall continue blogging regardless! You will be pleased to hear that I am finally getting published again! Not my motherhood book, I have left that to brew for a while. But two short stories will appear in a new book called Expat Journals. I have also co- written an article on gang rape soon to be published in LOOK magazine, which has opened up another world to me, one of slavery and cruelty beyond most people’s wildest imaginings. The sex trade will become my campaign of 2009 I think.
Of course right this minute I should be studying. This always happens. I open my books and read a few pages of my yoga files, that cover everything you can possibly think of that has anything to do with life, as we do and do not know it... the anatomy of the human heart, the soul, dharma versus karma, destiny versus fate, recipes for health, how to love a woman... it is like a sacred manual for succeeding in life and death that I have in my hands. As I read I can’t believe how it is that I have lived for 35 years without thinking about all of this! For ten of them I have even practiced yoga and enjoyed the experience, but still not given it much thought. I always thought of us as human beings who have the chance of a spiritual experience but now I believe we are spiritual beings born with the chance of a human experience. I was always postponing the spiritual experience but now that I see it in reverse and am practicing daily yoga and meditation, I feel very different. I feel like a spiritual being who is constantly trying to improve, and live to the full, life as a human being. And the result is that, mostly, life feels so much easier lately. Things work out, knock backs don’t hurt so much, anger and despair are no longer daily or weekly emotions for me. The river just seems to flow more smoothly somehow.

Because of the changes I feel in my life since following this path, every time I sit down to study I last about five minutes before I get so inspired I want to tell everyone about it! Last time I attempted my homework I ended up writing a poem. Often I go and do yoga or meditate. The thing I really struggle with is staying put and doing my assignments! I will never get my certificate at this rate, though I could argue that I am experiencing it and spreading the word.

Well today I shall give myself only 20 more minutes to blog and then I shall get back to my studies I promise. My plans for 2009 are to get this certificate under my belt so that I am no longer bound by homework and reading course work and can focus more time on writing and reading about all the other things I want to, still all closely related to yoga and mothering of course. Then I will have more time to develop my teaching and begin to work therapeutically with women and children who have suffered trauma.

But, this will probably be in the UK now, rather than here. Yes! In six months or so my blog will have a distinctly colder, windier, wetter feel to it altogether. We are leaving Cambodia. The decision has been made and although I still have half a year to enjoy and so much I want to achieve while I am here, I can no longer think of anything else.

This is where you can help me, my British readers at any rate. I am staying awake worrying about car seats and the tantrums that go with them, twenty layers of clothing (and the tantrums that go with them), the sudden exposure of my very stylish (dresses over skirts over skirts are her latest thing) and confident four year old to peer pressure, fashion, labels, consumerism generally (and the tantrums that go with that!)...

How negative all this sounds. I am also kept awake with exciting plans for creating a lovely room for my children in my father’s house where we are moving for a while, to keep him company and to delay the decision about where on earth we should settle; dreaming about the vegetables we will grow in order to survive while my husband studies and I look after the children. I will teach and write too when I get the chance but still, we have pretty much decided to be broke for a while and enjoy being together as a family. So yes, that is a lot of vegetables we need to grow. I am excited about bringing Kundalini Yoga to the countryside, though town halls and school gyms feel less than ideal after having been so fortunate to teach on wind swept, sun dappled roof tops in Phnom Penh.

Probably what keeps me awake most, having complained about the heat for three years, is the cold! Suddenly I am terrified of moving back to cold, and so often grey England. Having longed for home all this time I am now realising that life in the tropics is so easy as a mother. The kids are always naked, potty training happens with us barely noticing, clothing and shoeing the girls costs practically nothing, and we always get to see the sun. I get sudden panics that the girls will suffer depression from seeing so little sun after having it everyday for most of their lives. How pathetic I sound. I’ll tell you why.

Over the last few weeks Cambodia has been officially cold. 24 degrees in the shade. The water in the pools feels so cold that I hardly take the girls swimming anymore. I am wearing jeans and a jumper as I write, and even Jemima wrapped herself up in my cardigan on the Tuk Tuk on her way to school this morning. 24 degrees! What has happened to me? My friends and family won’t recognise me. This is the same woman who has swam in the coldest Cornwall seas, who for thirty years could not physically pass a lake, river, sea or pool without having to get in, whatever the weather, whatever the season. I stopped short of those Boxing Day or New Years Day plunges, but only because we were never near water. Had it been a family tradition I would have been first in. I was your hearty English lass. James reminds me how utterly unsympathetic I was when he quite literally turned blue on the beach one summer on holiday in Cornwall with my family. I have been spoilt, my character has softened. And if I have, imagine how the girls will react to the cold English seas. Of course by the time we leave here we will have endured the hot season and I will be back to my old sweaty, miserable, moaning self (it will be interesting to see if the yoga and meditation will mean that the heat becomes easier to endure too, I will let you know), so hopefully the cold will seem more enticing by then.

James says the biggest shock for me will be no longer having Sophy around the house to take Bella whenever I want to write or do yoga. He is so right. I am quickly realising that all the things I want to do for myself will have to wait until after bedtime. At the same time I am looking forward to spending more time with Bella while Jemima is at school. Now I tend to work most mornings, so that will be a nice change for a bit. But ah Bella! She is one. I think I will post my chapter on this area of mothering from my book actually, to remind myself as much as to share with you all. Notice my emphasis on tantrums above... Actually Bella is so far stopping short of full tantrums, and still mostly delightful and gentle, but she is just at that stage where she wants to do everything for herself in her way, yet, of course, is not always able. She gets understandably cross with the bicycle that won’t drive through closed doors, or the t-shirt that won’t cooperate with her arms, or the cat for not letting her ride it. And she gets even crosser with me for trying to help. This is another post on its own so I will write it soon. My twenty minutes is up long ago. Bella will be back from her little play group in about half an hour. Oh dear, another studying period gone pear shaped, and all I have to show for it is a very, very, unblogly long ramble. Back soon, if you are up for it.

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For city kids... or anyone into happy children, school runs and yoga

This morning Jemima and I walked to school, dodging dead rats, motorbikes and Hum Vs (really, the tanks in PP have to be seen to be believed. Unfortunately the drivers inside them cannot see the rest of us mortals, especially small children), and stumbling on and off pavements that come abruptly to an end the minute we pass each brand new, gated-home development. Only very rich people get to have pavements outside their homes in Cambodia.

If you lose concentration, when walking on these rare and blessed safe islands, you will find yourself suddenly flat on your face as the paths inevitably end in a huge pile of abandoned rubble on the borders of the new construction. A pile of rubble which will gradually become littered with refuse, plastic bags, rotting food, a pile of rubble and rubbish that will never be removed. At least not until some one decides to build another posh tower block in its place. It’s fun honestly, our walk to school. Better if you go early to avoid the scorching sun, oh, and probably best to avoid taking a bag so that you do not become one of the poor souls to be robbed by a passing motodup as is now reported to happen at least twice weekly on our street, but still fun, really. A little prayer of protection is always helpful too. Or, as Jemima taught me today, a guided visualisation. Really, children have all the answers.

As the noise of cutting metal from the various new building projects rang in our ears, Jemima announced that we were pretending we lived on a beach. Lazy Beach to be precise, on the island we visited two weeks ago. This island has no shops, no people, nothing, just some bungalows and a restaurant. So as we walked Jemima led me through this beautiful pretend land where we would walk to school along the beach. The road was the sea, so we could splash in the water whenever we got stranded at the end of our pavements, and the Tuk-Tuks were fishing boats, whose drivers we were ordering our fish from, fresh for dinner that evening. Every so often one of us tripped up on a friendly crab, or an empty coconut shell fallen from one of the palms that fringed the white sands. Best of all, we could hear nothing but the gentle lapping of the waves on the shore, the call of the birds in the trees, and breeze in the trees.

On my way home I continued to imagine that I was in this beautiful peaceful scene and decided I would tell my yoga class about it. After all, one of the relaxations we do together is almost exactly the same. And I did tell them, to remind them that we too can reach within and find what it is we need to keep us strong and happy and healthy and whole, from within our own body, mind and consciousness, just as children do, even if we think we have forgotten how, or if over time we have lost touch with that inner wisdom.

The beauty of yoga is that it gives us tools to use in our every day lives to help us tap into our inner resources. Resources that children can conjure up easily, being so much more connected and responsive to the messages of their bodies and intuition. They are such pure souls, sensitive and close to whatever we like to call that bigger energy out there... universal consciousness, cosmic energy, God, infinity...

And the beauty of children is that they remind us and teach us every day a little more about ourselves and our own potential for growth and awareness. Normally we sing a meditation on the way to school, one of Jemima’s favourites. I’ll give it to you below. I love the fact that today Jemima found her own way to forget the city and take us to a happier, more peaceful place, where we both found ourselves filled with a wonderful sense of well-being. Bliss.

Two kids meditations
I am the light of my soul, I am beautiful, I am bountiful, I am bliss, I am I am. I wish I could sing it for you, though you could always find the tune on a website like www.spiritvoyage.com I imagine.

Her other favourite meditation served her well earlier this morning, before breakfast. Jemima and I were up early because of her cough and she seemed very grumpy. I asked her if she was ok and she said: “I thought I would be happy today but I’m not”! Neither she nor I could think of anything that might be making her feel sad, so I asked her if she wanted to do the ‘I am happy’ meditation. Of course she did not because that is the last thing anyone feels like saying when they are not happy! So I asked her to remind me how it went because I could not remember. And off she went:

“I am happy! I am good! I am happy! I am good! Sat Nam Sat Nam Sat Nam Ji! Wahe Guru Wahe Guru Wahe Guru Ji!” Over and over she said it until she was laughing and back to her normal self. Yey if only parenting were always this easy! If you do this meditation with your kids, sit in easy pose, crossed legs, and hold hands out in fists with index fingers pointing out in front of your heart. As you chant you wag your fingers up and down as though telling someone off, to the rhythm. Sat Nam becomes more like SataNam.

Have a wonderful weekend all.

If you liked this, have a read of this: lovely yoga and meditation for kids.
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A poem....

Dear dear readers, I am so sorry I have become such a fair weather blogger. In fact I blog so infrequently I am not even sure if you are still bothering to visit me. So in way of an apology for deserting you, and as a bit of an explanation, I am going to make myself very vulnerable by publishing yet another of my terrible poems. And so if you are still reading me you HAVE to let me know, after I have been so brave as to share this with you. Either on the blog comments space or email me at gmtreasureevans@gmail.com.

So here it is. Basically, I was getting bored and tired last night while trying to catch up with my yoga theory homework. In the middle of a desperate attempt to find a way of explaining the science of how mantra works to clear the subsconscious mind, (it's so complicated, but anyway, it just does ok? Try it and you'll see) I felt an overwhelming desire to write a poem about why I love teaching and practicing yoga (much more than studying it). I nearly sent it to my teachers hoping they'd be so charmed they'd ignore the fact that my homework is over due. But instead I decided to share it with you in the hope that you would understand why I am spending so much more time on my yoga than on writing my blog.

Learning to teach yoga ....

gives me humility. I used to judge.

gives me an outlet for my compassion, which feels more limitless and more free flowing every day that I teach.

fulfills me everyday as I am in precious possession of a sacred gift.. to make people feel happy and whole and at peace, if only for a couple of hours a day...

gives me the chance to gaze at beautiful bumps and love and welcome unborn babes into this world

gives me the chance to love and nurture mothers and fathers and spread messages of positive parenting

makes me love and forgive and accept my own children more every day

gives me faith that the world of our children could be a beautiful, pure place

gives me an excuse to pretend to be any jungle animal I want whenever the mood takes me

takes me on my own personal spiritual journey...

I have so far to go...

I am a perpetual beginner, a perpetual student... but I am starting to feel my peace.

Little

by

little

by

little.

Teaching yoga helps me love and forgive myself.

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"The teacher in my heart". Yoga, meditation and other lovely relaxing things to do with children.

“Georgie will take your children on fun-filled journeys through forests, oceans and jungles. They will fly like butterflies, roar like lions, dance like monkeys or grow from tiny seeds to big beautiful trees. And as they do, they will gain a sense of peace, grounding, self-love and self-confidence. Parents or nannies are welcome to join in the fun!”

This was the ad I wrote for my yoga classes for three to five year olds at Jemima’s school. And I admit that as I wrote it a bit of me wondered whether it would really turn out to be true… how much could yoga really benefit children? Would they really enjoy it?

Three lessons later and there’s not a doubt in my mind. Yoga for kids is simply brill! I am amazed at how the children respond. Not so much to the games and fun because all children love that. But the way they lie down at the end and slowly start to chill out, the time they stay there quietly studying the ceiling or with closed eyes... yoga really does seem to bring them a sense of peace and well-being. During the meditation (I am brave, I am bold, my own spirit I can hold!) there is no stopping them. They really get into it and the looks of belief or concentration on some of their faces are so heartfelt and earnest it makes me feel like crying.

Of course they all mess around and it gets noisy – just as it should. They get really excited as we go on our different adventures and it is quite knackering to teach! But they seem to go so easily from something really active, like swimming like a mermaid, to being very still in child’s pose, as tiny shells. One girl says she does it every morning with her mother now. When I asked if anyone could remember why we sing a special song to begin the class the same girl said: "To greet the teacher in my heart". She was right, but expressed it way better than I ever did! Jemima keeps telling me she wants to do yoga in the mornings so her muscles don’t hurt so much next week. It definitely makes them aware of their bodies and breath and gives them ways to use their breath to control their mood and feelings. So lovely to see.

It’s great having Jemima in the class. She asks me to plan the class around a particular thing- usually fairies or mermaids – and then tells me what yoga pose to use. You can imagine this. Jemima wobbling about in some strange, twisted posture, saying:

“Teach that one Mummy!”

“Urm, ok! But how about doing it a bit more like this?” I respond, while desperately trying to think of an actual yoga pose that looks remotely like her bodily creation. My changes don’t always go down so well but I am just pleased she’s happy to do it with me. I have made it very clear she can take it or leave it as I was worried she would start to resent yoga now that it is such a big part of my life. But so far she seems to be enjoying it. As for Bella, well everything she does with her body looks like yoga to me. I am constantly amazed how bendy she is (makes me realise how quickly Jemima's nearly four year old body is already stiffening up now that she has to sit on chairs etc..)

It is lovely to find ways of doing it all with them so that it does not always take me away from them. And this brings me to our new bedtime arrangement, one I am seriously happy about.

Until now every night either James or I lie with Jemima while she falls asleep. It is something we have always done – or at least since I was pregnant, when I was glad of the power nap that got me through the rest of the evening! But lately both we’ve started to get impatient and wanting to get on with things we need or want to do while they are asleep. One of these things is preparing for yoga classes and my own practice. I have been aware for ages that I hardly ever find the time to meditate on my own despite teaching meditation being a part of my new found career! But there never seemed a quiet moment apart from early, early morning.. ahem.. I am not there yet. And then it struck me – my brilliant idea which has been making me and Jemima so happy ever since. Now, every night after stories and lights out I sit on her floor with a candle and meditate while she curls up in bed and watches me. I get my half an hour of peace and meditation practice and Jemima gets to fall asleep by candle light with a lovely calm energy around her. I feel less distracted because I know that she is happy (Bella’s normally already asleep at this time) and that I am doing something for her as well as me. And it becomes so much of my routine that for the first time in my life I am meditating every day. Perfect. Love it.

While we are on about yoga and relaxing and what not here is a recipe for yogi tea – very yummy and, a little diluted, also great for soothing teething babies and good for children generally.

Yogi tea – too many benefits to list but see a few below...
To 2 quarts of water add:
15 whole cloves – good for nervous system
20 green cardamom pods slightly crushed – digestive aid
15 black pepper corns – blood purifier
5 2inch sticks of cinnamon – strengthens the bones
8 slices of ginger root – healing for colds, flu, natural antibiotic, energising

Boil gently for 30-40 mins adding water as evaporates. Add ½ teaspoon black tea (creates right chemical balance with rest of ingredients) and drink black or with milk, hot or iced, with honey to sweeten if necessary

Makes 2 quarts

And here, if you will excuse the note form, is a copied and pasted bit of an email to the breastfeeding group summarising all the things we came up with for relaxing with baby/child while breastfeeding or not.

Relaxing with baby - both of you!
Skin to skin - not only feeding but baths together, co-sleeping/napping, sling
Carry baby in sling as much as poss - some skin on skin if poss
Soothing music - same each time - (I have lots of relaxation music use for yoga)
Chamomile in bath or oil burner and chamomile tea for mother (chamomile tea also v nice bottom wash instead of wipes when at home)
Candles, lavender
Meditate before (can recommend a simple 3 min meditation for a calm heart)
Relax baby before feeds - bath together, play your music, massage him (lavender & chamomile and olive oil), curl up in special place...
Calm thoughts while feeding - whatever you say to your baby, they know what's going on inside! Try reading to him - even if it is an adult book you find inspiring, or make up a story, or tell the story of his life so far, hum, sing to him, long deep breathing etc...
Drink lots and lots of water - when dehydrated we become easily stressed and anxious.

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Buying beds in Phnom Penh... (was going to be about yoga but turned into an expat ramble...)

Bella and I had a great morning in the mattress shop today. She spent it bouncing and contorting her body in ways that barely looked possible, even from a relatively-but-not-very-bendy-yoga-teacher’s perspective, while I tried to find a mattress that did not contain (what smelt like) deadly toxic poisons within. There is no way I would have Jemima breathing in whatever was in some of those mattresses for 12 hours a night. Really, the things people have to put up with here that would not be legal in any of the rich countries in the world.

Yes it was one of those mornings when I struggled to reconcile the life I lead here with that of so many Cambodians around me. Anyone living here understands. How do you feel when you have just spent close to $100 in a shop, while playing with your baby, watching everyone else play with her and love her and try to feed her nice things etc, and the next thing you do is meet a six-year-old boy, in the middle of one of the busiest highways in Phnom Penh, with his brother, the same age as Bella, strapped to his body in a Krama, telling you his mother and father are dead?

They are not dead. They have sent their children out to beg... for – if you believe most locals – money to fuel their drinking and gambling habits. But maybe not... maybe they need the money for food and rent. The older boy’s clothes were completely torn and his younger brother was naked, with something like scabies on his face and arms. I didn’t give him money because the biggest street kids’ organisation in Cambodia, Mith Samlanh, asks us not to - it just fuels begging. As long as their parents think they can make money from the streets, these children will never get the chance to go to school as. Try explaining that to the boys though. I felt horrible as the tuk tuk tried to move forward in the traffic and the boy held on for as long as he could.

I have been through all this before on Motherland I know. It is just that same old story of feeling guilty because instead of spending all my time trying to make my own children’s life lovely, a bit of me feels I should do more to try to make life happier for Cambodian children. Last year I did, and next year maybe I will. But right now in my life all I want to do is be there for my girls and study and teach yoga. The latter takes up enough of my time for me not to want to spend a minute of the rest of it on anything other than my family. Oh to live somewhere back in the UK where this decision does not make me feel like so uncaring and uncompassionate. Instead I live here, and it could almost be anywhere. (Actually I am sure my Cambodian friends and helpers, Sophy (cleans and looks after Bella when I work) and Sokhun (our tuk tuk driver) would beg to differ. I do spend half my days with them speaking their language). But you know what I mean, the things that make me feel happy and fulfilled these days are joining in circle time with Jemima’s class, or teaching Bella to swim. Neither of these things have much to do with Cambodia, let’s face it.

Really I am just indulging in a little off loading because I am not planning to change anything about my life right now. In fact the reason I first sat down to write this post is because, despite the nagging conscience, I am blissfully happy with things at home at the moment and wanted to share some of the stuff we’ve been doing recently that has been so lovely for the kids. But because this has turned into a ramble (and one barely worth publishing but I have written it now so I may as well!) I will finish here and link you to a new post which I shall now write called Yoga, meditation and other lovely relaxing things to do with children.
P.S. If you got this far thank you!

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Incoherent ice-cream fuelled ramblings about mothers' guilt

Ok. Starting again. I am officially working part-time and loving it. My new career as a yoga teacher feels totally brill and meant to be. That is, as long as everyone else is happy. You know what I am talking about ... the night you go out with your friends and have a ball and come home to find the baby has been screaming and you suddenly regret the whole evening and never want to see your evil friends again. Or when you come home blissfully relaxed after spending two indulgent hours reading Hello! Magazine at the hairdresser to find your husband exhausted and cross, the house a mess and the children hungry. Suddenly you hate your new haircut and catching sight of it in the mirror makes you utterly feel self-indulgent and unfit to be a mother and wife. How quickly our feelings of elation can turn into tormenting guilt.

This is what I am going through at the moment. Although, after all my fretting, it turns out that Bella is not the one I need to worry about. Despite my guilt about leaving her so young (if I did not have one more year in Cambodia to do this course and certify I would put the whole thing off until she was two.) she is just as happy as ever, playing with her beloved Sophy and her little friends in the mornings while I work. It helps that I am only out for two hours at a time so I still feed her and put her down for her nap. No, to my surprise, it is Jemima that seems most affected by my new pursuits.

At first I was just impressed by her emotional intelligence and cheekiness. Last Monday morning as I was taking her to school, hurrying her along as I had a class to teach, Jemima pointed out that I am working every day now. When I reminded her that I worked in the mornings only and asked what was it she wanted me to do while she was having fun at school, her response was: “You should wait outside the gate until I have finished”. I laughed (while feeling guilty because really I know I should be spending that time alone with Bella before her big sister comes home).

But, a week later, I realise it is not actually very funny after all. Today I learnt that Jemima’s feelings about my new career are obviously more intense than I thought. She chose not to go to summer school in the morning (“I am so tired of playing!”) and got very upset when I said I had to go out to teach for a couple of hours. And then after lunch she disappeared to the bathroom and refused to let me come in. She left the door open though, but would not tell me what she wanted to do or why I could not come in. I left her for a few minutes and when I returned I found her behind the bathroom door having pooed in her pants. Jemima has been fully potty trained for ages - this was not an accident. At first she cried and pushed me away but after a minute or so of me coaxing her gently she eventually allowed me to wash her off. When I flushed her pants down the loo by mistake we had a moment’s reprieve to laugh about it, but really I found the whole thing quite heart breaking.

As I gave her a bath I asked her:

“Did you just want to know how it would feel or did you do it for another reason?” “Another reason” she replied.
“Did you want me to come and find you and help you or did you want it to be a secret?” “I wanted you to come and find me” she sobbed.
“Has it got anything to do with me working this morning?”
“Yes!”

Ouch. How do full-time mothers do it? Ok, this last ten days has been more intense than usual because James has been away so I have had to leave them with baby sitters on Sunday and a couple of evenings when he would normally have them, but honestly I am here for three meals a day, nearly every afternoon, bedtimes, during the night on demand, and yet my nearly four-year-old child is missing me. This is the same child who makes new friends every day and frequently tells me she wants to go and play at X’s house and “You can just me off, you don’t need to stay”. It makes me wonder just how much we teach our children not to need us.

Surely children who have been in nursery from an early age do not express themselves like this? Surely it is only because Jemima has had me to herself for three years, and shared with Bella for nearly four, that she feels so strongly about this. Not just that she misses me, but that it is her right to have me around. The belief that young children need and deserve to be at home, do things in their own time, and have their mothers with them seems to be firmly ingrained in her mind and heart simply by that being her experience so far. Jemima has been reminding me of my duties regularly since I started teaching a month ago. “You don’t play with me enough, Mummy” or “You really do not need to do yoga every day!” or “You never take me to school” (James, does, and I pick her up, except when he is away when I do. To her credit, when I point this out she says “Oh yes, that’s true.”).

Today was the first sign of real distress and it quickly passed when I cancelled all our plans for the afternoon and took her swimming alone while Bella slept. She was so happy. She fell asleep telling Bella and me what a lovely day she had and how much she loved us both. But at the same time she also explained to Bella that she could not be there for her in the mornings because she had to go to school, which was her work, so Bella would have to learn to be without her for a bit. Oh god, is this what I really sound like?

I’m trying to work out whether she is actually missing me or simply picking up the vibes of me having something else big and important in my life, other than her and Bella. She sees me coming home from a class on a bit of a high and while she reaps the benefits of a happy, more energised and playful mother (oh the joys of yoga), does she also detect a new passion in my life?

I ought to say at this point that I miss both of them too. I just cannot imagine how it must feel to walk out of the house in the morning and come home at night in time to put your child in bed. (And then in another bed... sorry, no more co-sleeping rants I promise). Even after two hours away I find myself interrogating Jemima on what she has played, eaten, thought about, how she has felt... And although I know that I would do nearly anything possible to avoid working full-time and leaving them whatever my circumstances, I do feel incredibly grateful that the choice that I have made, to be (now mostly) at home with my kids, has been made so much easier by living here.

I suppose all I can do is try to work more in the evenings and look forward to James’s return and our holiday in England in August. And, along with all mothers worldwide, I shall probably continue to love my new job on a good day and want to give it all up on days like today. Oh goodness. I have finished the ice cream. Something else to feel guilty about.

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Have I given up?

Someone kindly told me today that they miss my blog posts. Thank you! I do too. I miss those quiet nap times during Jemima’s mornings at school when I make my coffee, close the door and just write. Someone else asked why I do not write for magazines and newspapers, adding: “Have you given up on the writing?” Her question has been put to me a lot lately, not just by others but also by myself. I have only just I decided that the answer is probably yes. At least in terms of making writing a career, I think I have given up. Here is why.

I do not write to live, I live to write. Well the bit of me that does not live to be a mother does anyhow. This is my main problem. I write about what I feel passionate about, I write to campaign, to challenge minds, to open hearts. I am not interested in writing if what I am writing about does not interest me. Basically I want to be an instant columnist and published author without putting in the hard slog that most respected journalists invest in their careers for many years before they are rewarded their well-earned fame. Instead of writing for local magazines in Cambodia, or small regional newspapers, who are always interested in new ideas, I write to the broadsheets whose in-boxes are flooded with copy every day. And while I sit and wait for the rejections to come in I blog to my heart’s content... hmmm, see what I mean? I definitely do not write to live. I cannot remember the last time I was paid for something I have written.

So I have decided to give it all up. To write about what I love is too hard without being a ‘somebody’. Why would a paper publish an article on motherhood written by me when they could get Deborah Jackson or some other parenting expert? Even when I do get commissions I end up cocking it up by being too ‘opinionated’. One big parenting magazine rejected a co-sleeping article of mine because it came out in favour of the practice. If I had made it entirely neutral I would have got it in. And this is my other problem. Only somebodies get to write opinionated articles.

So instead I wrote to all the mothering magazines which are ‘alternative’, - all those that share my ideals of positive, natural, green, attachment parenting. I waited patiently – most of their websites say they take 3-6 months to get back to you. During which time any serious ‘career’ writer would be busy filing other articles about anything that sells, (especially as these same magazines often pay you in kind – a few free editions in return for your article.) Me? I blogged. Well at least that way I get some response to my work. Thank you all :-).

One beautiful such magazine (English) actually asked me to hold on to my ideas as they were very interested. We had a great telephone chat and I was completely excited as it really was my dream publication. I did hold on. For nine months. Every so often I sent them polite reminders, left messages, spoke to the assistant editor. Only after some twenty unanswered attempts at feedback did I finally pay myself enough respect to actually, albeit mildly, express my frustrations at their lack of communication. I received a curt email in response saying that they liked my ideas a lot but their time was precious, divided between the magazine and their children, and that if I did not understand this perhaps I was not the right contributor for the magazine.

WHAT? If I can’t understand this division of passions, who the hell can? When I wrote a gentle, but assertive, response pointing out that I have respected their time and their ethos entirely... for nine months no less, but that as a professional writer and full-time mother of two I am sure they would understand that my time was also worth respecting, they could not even find the time to reply. I have been sorely tempted to send them an invitation to a time management workshop. Had they just let me know which ideas they were so interested in I would have written them up and sent them the articles by now.

My self-esteem plummeted of course, but my disappointment still keeps me awake at night. If I can’t even get published in a magazine which comes from the very same place as my blog and my book, i.e. a mother’s frustration with the mainstream parenting literature out there and a desire to put forward another perspective, well, you can see why I am giving up. Their absence of communication on top of the lack of interest in my ideas was the final straw. Gosh reading over this post is depressing. My most inspiring parenting magazine has totally destroyed my confidence as a writer about motherhood? One day I shall have to address this. With the help of therapy perhaps.

Before you start to pity me though please don’t. It has not happened without reason. I am embarking on a new adventure which I find exciting, interesting and challenging. Training to be a yoga teacher was definitely meant to be. It gives me the opportunity to continue to communicate with and support mothers, and children, and babies... unborn and newbies! What better way to encourage positive parenting than through a lovely Kundalini prenatal yoga class? And who knows, after practicing for a while I may even be able to offer up an article about something I am passionate about, this time with some actual expertise to back me up as well!

I will always write, I know this. But the energy and competition it takes to try to get noticed and published is simply not something I enjoy or want to spend my time on. Instead I shall continue to blog and enjoy the feedback from the faithful readers I do have. It is true that this yoga takes up most of my spare time, but I’ll be back. I can’t help myself anyway. Most of this post was written one-eyed (Jemima accidentally stabbed the other one with a glitter pen today and my vision is not quite restored), on my lap top, balanced on my knees, while sitting on the loo seat watching the girls in the bath. (The odd splash can’t do too much harm can it?) You see? I’ve made the right decision. I’m definitely not cut out for professional writing.

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Being allowed to love motherhood... and a yoga meditation to help us!

Thanks so much for all your comments and emails everyone. You keep me going. You also distract me when I should be studying, like right now. But I'm tired and have thoughts I just have to express. The good news is that my Khmer friend is breastfeeding after all!

I do not know if she is mixed feeding with the formula that her parents bought her. She did not answer that question and I did not want to push her. But her text said something along the lines of "We are so happy. We are breastfeeding successfully and will carry on". Hoorah! I'm so happy. Not just for the baby but for the mother.

We often think we are putting pressure on mothers when we advocate breastfeeding. I think we forget just how many mothers, who do not end up breastfeeding, really, really wanted to at the beginning, but did not succeed for lack of support, reassurance and lanolin sore nipple cream.

The Kundalini Yoga teachings say that the baby shares the mother's aura, or electromagnetic field, from birth until they are three years old. They specify that the mother and child should remain very close for the first 40 days outside the womb. This is not only to make the baby feel safe and secure. The modern pressures on new mothers are to get their life back, let their baby cry a little, allow the father to bond with a bottle, use a cot, get back to work... They all seem to be in favour of the mother, but I think they simply prohibit bonding, encourage resistance to what a mother's instinctive role is meant to be, and cause frustration, exhaustion, even post-natal depression.

All the mothers I know who have truly followed their instincts, who have stayed close to their babies through co-sleeping, baby-wearing, breastfeeding where and when either mother or child feels like it, are the happiest mothers I know. They have no conflicts, they are not trying to follow any prescribed method or hurry back to life as it was before. These are the women I hear using expressions like: "I feel like I have come home", or "I have found my purpose", or "I have found peace". I know a lot of mothers - surely this can't be a co-incidence. Mothering as nature intended, with the support and encouragement of our social network, is usually without any of the trauma that both mother and child so often seem to experience in western child-raising cultures. (Arrgh writing this reminds me why I wrote my book! To encourage mothers. I've lost faith in it but I must work on that one day. Hmm, I digress, sorry.)

So, having said all this I thought I would share a lovely moment I had with Jemima last week. It was just the usual morning Tuk Tuk ride back from school. But it was one of those moments when you want to give thanks to the universe for being alive. Jemima was on my lap cuddling me and telling me she loved me 'soooo much'. She was laughing and throwing her head about and her hair was blowing in the wind. I know that of all the memories I want to hold onto forever, this one will never fade. It's not corny to admit it. Being a mother is the most valuable gift I could have ever wished for. I want to live my life as mother in a way which ensures that, whatever happens to me, I will never, ever look back and regret not having spent enough time with my children, or cuddled them enough, smelt them enough, listened to them or looked at them. As I write this my sister is in England supporting the husband and children of her dear friend who is dying of breast cancer. We should live every moment as fully as we can and never take our blessings for granted.

I know, I can hear lots of stressed out mothers screaming at me already. So here are two things to appease you. One is simply that not all our school runs are so lovely. On Friday we walked to school and Jemima had to step over a huge dead rat. Today at exactly the same spot, though I had forgotten, she said: "Where's the rat?" We looked down and there was its skeleton, stinking in the heat of the sun. OK, not a such a great story but a little bit of description is always nice.

This one is much better. Also last week, we had one of those horrible evenings when everyone was crying, no one got to sleep on time and I was hot, bothered and at the end of my tether. I wanted to scream and shout and throw things in a way that only tired and hormonal mothers do. But, for a change, I did not. Instead I lit a candle, sat on the floor and looked through my meditation files from my course notes. Three minutes later I was calm, could be civil enough to help my children to sleep despite their protests and focused enough to recognise that I needed a bath and an early night. (A miracle for me as I am the world's worst late night phaffer. I never get to bed before 10:30, and that's on a good night). The result was so effective that even James was calm and receptive to my mood. He offered to let me sleep in the spare bed while he did Bella duty. I was asleep at 930, fed Bella once at 12 and slept on until morning. That is the best night's sleep I have had since she was born. Here is what I did:

It is called Meditation for Emotional Balance (Sunia Antar). You could look it up on the internet for a picture or more information before practicing it, or just follow my instructions and enjoy the benefits. It can take as little (no less) as three mins, and as many as eleven (no more).

Drink a glass of water. Water imbalance is often a cause of emotional discomfort or lack of focus.
Sit cross-legged with your arms crossed across the chest and hands placed under your armpits. As though you were hugging yourself. Keep your head straight and raise the shoulders right up to the ear lobes without cramping the neck. The action of pulling up the shoulders and tightly locking the entire upper area creates a solid brake to the four sides of the brain.
Breathe slowly and deeply. Long, slow and deep breathing gives us indirect control of our minds. This eliminates obnoxious behaviour and promotes a calm mind regardless of circumstances.

After three minutes of this healing meditation you will find that while the thoughts will still be there, the feelings will not. Every mother should know this as they and their children will benefit. Life is too short to keep on feeling negative, when allowing ourselves a few minutes of stillness can help us regain positivity and calm.

Sat Nam. Love, Peace and Light.


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