Piercing the Veil of Shame

When I was first found out that I was pregnant, I knew that the little bean growing inside of me was a girl. It didn’t surprise me, then, when the ultrasound confirmed it. Dave and I decided on the name Maya soon after. “Maya” has many different meanings, but the one that resonated for me was the Hindu or Buddhist connotation of “illusion”, that the world around us is illusory. But if we learn to pierce the veil of that illusion, ultimate reality or ultimate truth is revealed.

When Maya was born I hoped at that moment that she and I would continue the powerful bond that I feel with all of the women in my family. I hoped that the world she was born into would value her unique gifts, not despite being female, but because she is female.

That hope has been put to the test by some recent, very tragic events which have forced me to really look at the world she will grow up in. In the last several months there have been at least three reported cases in Canada and the U.S. of adolescent girls who have taken their own lives after photos of them being sexually assaulted were circulated on social media and then used to torment and shame them. I cannot imagine the pain these girls endured and the terrible grief and loss their families are now left with.

It is difficult not to feel disheartened and demoralized when faced with the ugliness that continues to exist in this world; ugliness that seems disproportionately to impact children and women. And I wonder how I will possibly be able to prepare Maya to navigate this new reality, a reality for which I am, admittedly, woefully ill-equipped. Smart phones, capable of sharing your darkest secrets with the world, did not exist when I came of age.

The sensible part of my brain tells me that there are, of course, practical strategies I can employ when Maya is older. I can teach her about safe sex, forbid her to go to parties that are unsupervised, warn her of the dangers of drinking, do my best to ensure that she trusts me enough to be able to tell me anything. But if she is anything like I was, those strategies may be rendered useless.

My own adolescence was filled with painful lessons I learned the hard way despite the many warnings, prohibitions and groundings. I was forbidden from going to unsupervised parties and drinking underage. I did it anyways. Of course I had no idea how to drink. No one taught me that. And like most teen girls, I desperately wanted to fit in without really knowing how to go about doing that. I wanted boys to like me. I didn’t want anyone to know how dorky I really was, so I showed off to appear “cool” and “older”. If offered a full glass of straight brandy, I would take it and chug it down. Looking back, those attempts at being grown up were ridiculous, like a toddler thinking they’re grown up because they can put their pajamas on by themselves. But that is the point really. Adolescents live in a strange world in which they know little about, but are required to fake knowledge and sophistication just to survive in it. Their inexperience is quickly spotted by the more worldly (or opportunistic) and easily exploited.

My determination to :”fake it” in that world resulted in being perilously close to alcohol poisoning on a few occasions, leaving me with few, if any memories of that period of time. The memories I do have aren’t pretty. Thinking about it now, I realize just how vulnerable I was, and how completely dependent on the good-will of the people who happened to be around me, most of whom I had never met. It didn’t help that they were also drunk and barely had the capacity to take care of themselves, let alone me.

For the most part, I was fortunate. Any pain, embarrassment or humiliation I suffered was relatively minor. However, had there been photos or video to serve as constant reminders of my youthful lack of judgment, I am very aware that my humiliation would have been compounded exponentially. I was lucky. I got to put the events out of my mind as “lessons learned” and move on. Young women today do not have that luxury.

Social media has become an effective weapon to propagate something that has been used to control women from time immemorial: shame. Women and girls have been and continue to be indoctrinated to be ashamed of their bodies, ashamed of their sexuality, ashamed of their own power, their own voice. They have been taught that their worth is to be determined by others. When the propaganda “takes”, particularly in relation to sexuality, girls and women come to accept those messages, that they are ugly, bad, dirty, defective, blame worthy, worth less, valued less, unloveable. Shame is used to silence women and to subjugate them. It works by making them feel responsible and defective if they are sexually assaulted. Its success is mostly due to the fact that the institutions of our societies, our laws, our religions, cultures, education, health, media, families, communities and our governments, frequently reinforce those same messages.

How does a young woman withstand these powerful messages of shame, particularly at a stage of development when she is experimenting with her sexual identity? It takes heroic amounts of courage and strength. Education can help pave the way for an alternate discourse and allow her voice to be heard. Teaching boys and girls the notion of “enthusiastic consent” might help. I think that we also need to explicitly focus on deconstructing shame itself. It is the toxic effects of shame that poisons people’s ideas of their own worth. This is where the significance of “maya” and illusion arise.

I remember a professor trying to explain the concept of “maya” to me; that the reality we perceive is essentially illusory. I wasn’t getting it. He pointed to a table and explained that the table, on a molecular level, is not solid at all. There are vast amounts of space between each tiny molecule. He told me “The solidity of this table is an illusion.” Then he sat down on the table. “But it is one powerful illusion.” I got it.

So it is with shame. Shame is merely an illusion, albeit a very powerful one. That women should feel ashamed for being consensually sexual or sexually assaulted is a lie: it is an illusion. But because it is backed up by many of the institutions mentioned previously, it is an incredibly powerful one, even lethal.

In order to see the ultimate reality of women, that we are magical, beautiful, wise, valuable, nurturing, creative, sexual beings, powerful beyond measure, we as individuals and as a society need to pierce the veil of shame and see it for what it is; a tool for subjugation, a weapon used to silence girls and women and keep them in their place.

Is combating shame the last battleground of the women’s movement? If so we must re-claim our warrior side. Our battle cry: “No more”.

How do we pierce this veil? How do we, as women and men, girls and boys, withdraw our consent, opt out of the propaganda? What small and large acts of protest can we engage in? How do we deconstruct shame so that we no longer permit it to be associated with women’s sexuality or as part and parcel of sexual assault?

I believe that in many parts of the world we have reached a critical mass where it has become safe enough, for most people, to speak out. There are other places in the world, however, (not just countries but families too) where women who have the courage to speak out risk physical injury or death. But when the critical mass has been reached, and speaking out does not risk one’s physical safety, the only weapon left is shame. And shame requires our participation, our agreement. If we withdraw our agreement, the veil is pierced and shame is revealed for what it is: a smoke screen, a magician’s trick, an illusion.

Piercing the veil of shame is like climbing a mountain; one small act of protest after another. Each time someone speaks out against messages of shame the veil is pierced. Each time someone stands side to side with the person being shamed the veil is pierced, the illusion is revealed for what it is. Each time a community comes together to demand justice for children and women the veil is pierced.

We cannot expect our girls and boys to do this alone. Shame is too powerful to withstand in isolation. We all, each of us, men and women, need to support any act of protest against shaming by standing together. We can be silent no more.

What would happen if shame is exposed as illusory? Would all of its power to silence and devalue women simply evaporate? If shame lost its power, what would change? I think everything would change. I think it is already happening.

What small (or large) acts of protest have you participated in or witnessed that has pierced the veil of shame? Mine are in the comments section. Please feel free to add yours.

How to (not) Explain the Afterlife to Your Toddler

Last night was my turn to put Maya to bed. We still haven’t quite gotten to the point where we can read her a story, tuck her in, give her a kiss and leave the room. That night I reminded her that soon she would be a big girl and mommy would be able to leave the room and she would go to sleep all by herself. She replied “But I don’t want to be a big girl mommy!” We went through a few rounds of her trying to get my attention, with me responding either with silence, or with a robotic “I love you Maya. Go to sleep.” The last time we had this battle of wills she started crying saying “Mommy I have a stinky finger! Mommy I have a stinky finger!! I need to wash it! Mommy? Mommy!!? MOMMY!!!! My curiosity beat out my resolve. “Maya why do you have a stinky finger?” “Because I put it in my bum.” Faaaabulous.

After several minutes of silence, I started to plan my escape. All of a sudden I heard her little voice, sounding like she was on the verge of tears. “Mommy I don’t want to grow up because when you and Daddy grow up I will still be a kid and then I won’t have a mommy and daddy anymore.” Part of me was impressed by her ever more cunning strategies to procrastinate going to bed. My curiosity, as it often does, won again. I responded. “Maya that’s a long way off. Mommy and Daddy will be here for a long time.” “But when I die I won’t be able to play with Pinky Bear anymore. And I won’t have my bed anymore. And I won’t live in this house anymore!” she wailed. I thought, “Where on earth did this come from?” quickly followed by “How the heck do I respond to that?” I had not yet prepared for this level of awareness about death. I was sure I would have at least a few years to prepare satisfactory for these types of questions. I was on the spot.

“Maya I’m sure Pinky Bear will be with you. He’s your best friend. He’ll always be with you.” That did not appease her. “But I won’t live in this house anymore and I want to live in this house forever! And I won’t have my mommy and daddy anymore.” she whimpered. I tried to think of a suitable response. It didn’t help that I do not have the standard answer that religion often supplies. I didn’t believe in heaven or hell. The concept of reincarnation felt a little too esoteric for a three-year old.  

I thought about my own beliefs about what happens when we die. My beliefs were not taught to me explicitly, but rather were revealed to me.  It was during a wilderness program called Guiding Spirit (which I’ve written about before in previous posts). We were camping in a place called Ghost River in Alberta. When the First Nations lived there it was known for giving people powerful dreams or visions. One night I had a terrible nightmare. In it one of the program’s teachers was behaving in a childish and cruel way. I woke up terrified. The dream stayed with me the entire day, leaving me with a terrible feeling. I decided that I needed to dig a bit deeper to understand why it was clinging to me. I went into my tent, closed my eyes and started to meditate. As I re-created the dream I felt the same panic and helplessness. Instead of running from it though, I kept my eyes closed and let the vision guide me where it wanted to go.

All of a sudden, it was like a window had opened in my mind. I could see the entire universe, bathed in brilliant darkness. In the middle was a sphere of moving light and energy, glowing as if it were on fire. And there was a little speck of light that was making its way to the massive orb. I knew that I was that speck of light. It reached the sphere and was absorbed. At that moment I felt the most incredible and complex emotion I have ever experienced. I was overcome with a feeling of homecoming, reunion, joy, relief and love. It filled my body. It overflowed. Tears of joy streamed down my face. As the feeling ebbed, it left me with a sense of deep peace. I have since wondered if there is a word for that mix of complex emotions, and the only English word I can think of is ecstasy. But I don’t really like that word. Maybe there is a better one in Italian. Or French.

That experience resolved the intense longing for something I could never quite define, a longing I had felt for most of my adult life.  It also provided me with an answer to what happens when we die. We go home.

Several years later I was talking to a good friend that I met in law school. I called him my spiritual advisor. He is an Orthodox Jew and one of the most amazing (and hilarious) men I have ever met. At one point in the conversation he asked me about my beliefs. I took a moment to think about it. “Oh! I remember!” I said, and then proceeded to tell him what was revealed to me at Ghost River. I had not told anyone about that vision. He found it quite funny that it took me a moment to remember my beliefs. His beliefs are as familiar as his own skin. What struck me was what he said next, that what was revealed to me was very similar to the teachings of his faith. I wondered if that coincidence was meaningful.

As I sat in the dark, listening to Maya’s whimpers, I recalled that vision.  I tried to explain that when she dies she goes home and sees all the people she loves, but was interrupted by her wails that Great Grandpa won’t get to play with her anymore. Trying to explain to a three-year old that death is like being welcomed home might be a bit too abstract. Her sadness about her Great Grandpa not getting to play with her brought tears to my eyes. He had died of cancer the year before at 91 years of age, just after celebrating his 70^th wedding anniversary. We had been able to spend a week with him a few months before he died. It was the first and last time Maya would meet him.

I picked Maya up out of her crib. She snuggled next to me in the big overstuffed chair in her room. Tears fell from my eyes as I reminded her that her dreams were magical. If she wanted Great Grandpa to play with her again, all she had to do was ask him to come and play with her in her dreams before she went to sleep. Then, when she was fast asleep, Great Grandpa would come and play with her in her dreams. “But what if he doesn’t come in my dream?” she cried. “If you ask him to come play with you in your dreams, he will come Maya. Your dreams are magic. Anything can happen in your dreams. You can fly in your dreams, you can breathe underwater, you can swim with whales and dolphins. Just ask Great Grandpa to come and he will.”

She was quiet for a moment and then tearfully said “Great Grandpa will you please play with me in my dream tonight?” We sat together in that chair, with her nestled under my arm, leaning against my chest. Within minutes she was fast asleep. I let her sleep there beside me, soaking in the weight of her body. I marveled at the conversation we had just had, wondering what had all brought it on.

It was the next day that it came to me. She had seen Cinderella several weeks before and wanted me to tell her the story over and over. Each time I told it a bit differently, but that day I had started from the beginning. In the beginning, Cinderella lived with her father because her mother had died, and soon after her father died as well, leaving her alone with her mean stepmother and stepsisters. I hadn’t realized how dark the older Disney movies were until I started watching them through a 3 year-old child’s eyes. Many of them feature a parent dying or a child being kidnapped. The newer ones seem positively sanitized in comparison. Was it a bad thing, I wondered, to expose her to death this young?

The next day I waited to see if she would raise the subject again. Instead she told me proudly “Mommy I heard you leave my room last night and I went to sleep all by myself and I didn’t even cry!” Ah toddlers.

Diary of a Working Mom

The last few weeks have been quite hard on Dave. Maya is going through another mommy phase where, as soon as I walk through the door, it’s as if Dave ceases to exist. I can imagine watching this little love affair between Maya and I must be difficult for Dave, who takes very good care of her all week long. I know that the fact that she is taking him for granted is a good sign; it means that he’s doing an amazing job with her. I also know that this intense bonding between Maya and I is necessary to make up for the five days out of every week that I am not there to applaud when she figures something out all by herself, to cheer when she learns a new skill, or to soothe her when she is hurt.

The mommy phase started on the Easter long weekend, which was the first time I had been able to spend four entire days in a row with her in months. Most of that weekend she spent playing with her cousin, who is about 8 months older than her. Being an only child, cousins are as close to siblings as Maya will have. As she hadn’t seen him in almost a year I wondered how well they would get along. They were inseparable, which made me very happy. It was the first time I didn’t have to hover in the periphery, ready to intervene should a conflict arise. Aside from the few times where he needed a break to play alone, they got along famously. I was in awe that these two toddlers could actually manage 3 days together without one volcanic eruption of “He/she won’t share with me!” or “That’s MY toy!”

That weekend, watching the joy on her face as she played with her cousin, made me realize how deeply I love this child. Although there were other adults around for me to interact with, what I wanted most to do was to watch my daughter play. Perhaps it is the fact that I’m a full-time working parent, or that I had been resigned to childlessness before she arrived in my life, or the fact that I am an older mother, but I find that I want to spend every spare moment I have with her. My time with her seems more precious. What broke my heart when I was struggling with barrenness was that I would not be able to love a child the way I had been loved. I wanted to be able to pass that love on. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel that Maya’s presence in my life is sacred. I don’t want to take a second of it for granted.

It’s for that reason that I often turn down invitations to be with my colleagues (aka other adults) after work. Truthfully, most of the time I’d rather be home playing with my daughter. Being the only parent out of my colleagues at work has left me feeling rather isolated. They likely think I’m incredibly rude. So I’ve tried to make an effort to meet up after she’s gone to bed. But by the time we’ve had our dinner, had our nightly bath, read stories, and I’ve spent an hour in a dark room waiting for her to fall asleep (I know, terrible parenting practice), the thought of putting adult clothes on again, getting into a car and driving somewhere seems like a punishment and not a pleasure. Of course when I force myself to do this very thing it is invariably enjoyable and I’m glad I pushed through the inertia.  But more often than not, the inertia wins.

Although being away from Maya during the week is difficult, work is very important to me (although I likely would not work full-time given the choice). At this late stage of my life I’ve chosen a challenging career, which is a perfect fit for someone like me who needs stimulation to feel human. I love my work and derive a lot of personal satisfaction from it. For most of my life it was my work that primarily defined me and it continues to be an important part of who I am as a woman. I think it would be difficult to give that identity up.  Despite this, however, the most memorable moment in the past few weeks was not my work accomplishments. It was the moment when Dave picked me up from the seabus after work. There was Maya in her car seat, holding a bouquet of dandelions tightly in her little hands, with the proudest smile on her face. “These are for you mommy!” she exclaimed, her face beaming with joy. It made my heart sing.

And it also made me ask the question, what would I be willing to give up to have more moments like those?

Three Hopes for my Daughter

As an older parent, I am more aware than most of my mortality and the fact that I may not live to see my three year-old daughter achieve all of her dreams for her life (particularly if she’s as late a bloomer as I turned out to be). In times of doubt I may not be there to offer her my unwavering faith in her if hers should falter. When faced with the brilliance of her own potential I may not be there to cheer her on as she embraces that light. Knowing that she may only have my words as guidance, here are my three hopes for her as she grows up and becomes a woman.

1. I hope that she will dream boldly and without limits   

I once revealed my own bold dream that I could do something important, that I, perhaps, had something valuable to offer the world, that I could even be Prime Minister. That confession was promptly diagnosed as mental illness. I was informed of the many helpful medications available to treat that particular symptom and sent on my way. I am convinced that part of that reaction was due to the fact that I am a woman. It is only recently that women have claimed the right to dream boldly. However in my experience, we are, in many respects, still tentative. I remember being shocked by what seemed like a phenomenon of young women apologizing in advance of stating their opinion. They didn’t want to offend anyone. After weeks of this I finally said “I’m offended by these relentless apologies! I am not so fragile that I can not withstand a different opinion for the love of god!” My favourite quote reflects this reluctance. It is often attributed to Nelson Mandela, but I have been told that he was quoting Marianne Williamson, who said “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.” I wonder if this will still hold true for my daughter when she takes her first steps into the “real world”.

I am curious to see how being female will impact, or not, my daughter’s dreams for herself. I hope that the legacy of the women in my family will be passed on to her. In my adoptive and birth family I come from a long line of amazing and accomplished women. My great-great aunt was one of the first female doctors in Canada. When she graduated, however, she was not permitted to do her research in Canada. Why? Because she was female. How did she respond? She left. She took a boat across the ocean (right after the Titanic sunk) to a place that valued her intellect.  People told her she was mad. She went on to discover a mathematical equation that is the foundation of all pharmaceutical research. After her death she was inducted into the medical hall of fame by the same country who had summarily rejected her.

In many ways I have followed a similar path (although I have yet to discover anything useful). I refuse to be devalued. If my contributions are not valued in my field or by my employer or by my husband, and my efforts to change the situation are futile, I will leave and find a place that does value them. There is nothing that infuriates me more than hearing the words “no that’s not possible” in response to a suggestion or an idea or a dream. There is something within me, normally dormant, that erupts. I like to describe her as my warrior, ready to battle the enemy. For that word “no” is the enemy. It represents fear, barricades, doubt and death, which are the kryptonite to the miracles and magic that is possible in this world. I hope that my daughter is as audacious and cheeky as I imagine my great-great aunt was, and that when she hears the word “no”, she will use it to propel her to new heights.

2.  I hope that she will question everything

This is a quality that not everyone will appreciate. It will require an enormous amount of courage, fortitude and a good sense of humour. Even now, as she is fully entrenched in the “why” phase, I do my best to encourage her. Instead of attempting to answer the thousand “why” questions, which are followed by yet another “why” question, I invite her to think about it. “Why do you think that happens?” She has recently adopted the answer “because that is how it has to be”, which strangely enough, is often the best answer to many of her “why” questions.

The reason that this is in my top 3 is that if life has taught me anything, it is that life is complex. There are few easy answers, but many, many questions. When people stop questioning, stop deconstructing their assumptions; their ideas become more rigid and engrained. Support of simplistic ideas can be incredibly harmful and destructive. Take the arguments against gay marriage for instance. My favourite are the slippery slope arguments. If we allow gay marriage people will start marrying their pets! The institution of marriage will come crumbling down! Those “what if” beliefs, which are founded in nothing more than fear mongering, have been incredibly destructive to the LGBT community and the people who love them. They have been impacted by real hate and real violence. Those rigid and engrained beliefs have real consequences.

To all of those Chicken Littles who think the sky will fall if gay marriage is allowed, we here in Canada have had same-sex marriage for over a decade. No one has married his or her pet. The world as we know it has not fallen apart at the seams. The sky has not fallen. In Canada, religious leaders can refuse to marry same-sex couples (but most do not) because it infringes on their freedom of religion. Public officials, on the other hand, cannot because they represent the state. In our definition of democracy, the protection of minorities is a foundational principle. In allowing for the complexities of balancing people’s liberties with people’s rights to equality, we have found a compromise and it seems to be working.

My hope for my daughter is that she will have the courage to question, to challenge, and to protest against oppressive, destructive beliefs and actions, even when it is unpopular.  I hope that her voice will be confident and unwavering. I hope that she will be a force to be reckoned with.

3. I hope that she will never lose her connection with the magic in this world  

What I most love about my daughter is that she is in love with the world. She has the most beautiful open heart. Like most children, she finds the most mundane things fascinating. If there is a spider in our house she will talk to it and follow it and wonder where it is the next day. Each new discovery is magical. She is often filled with wonder and awe. As adults, I find that we are very susceptible to losing that openness, that wonder. We have been hurt so we close ourselves off. We have more important things to do than take the time to really look at a flower and marvel at how nature has created such diversity and beauty.

Without that openness, without those moments, however, life becomes grim. We start to question the meaning we make of our lives, until it is lost all together. Surely there is more to life than the drudgery of commuting, working and a constant state of exhaustion. The staggering rates of mental illness in the modern world suggest that the civilization we have created is not sustainable. What would happen if we reintroduced our connection to the magic of the world around us? If we took the time to appreciate its beauty, its quiet wisdom? Would we be as willing to accept a life that is less than extraordinary? Would we still use our spare moments trying to connect to virtual people trapped in our smartphones? The mystery and magic in the world exists everywhere, inside everyone. It is all around us, just waiting for us to notice.

I hope that my daughter takes the time not only to explore all of the mysteries and magic of her outer world, but also explores the nooks and crannies of her and others’ inner worlds where dreams and hopes and wisdom live. Exploring those worlds has resulted in the greatest adventures and learning in my life. I hope that her love of life endures and is the guiding light to whatever path she finds herself on.

How to Survive the Toddler Years – A Mini-Survival Guide for Parents

Today is my daughter’s third birthday. As I was listening to her dad put her to bed tonight I overheard her say “But I don’t want to be three Daddy. I want to be two again. Next year I will be three okay?” I have noticed that lately she has wanted to play “baby” quite a bit. She will lie down on the floor with her feet and hands in the air making cooing sounds. Then she will show off for me how well she can crawl. After a minute she will announce that she just learned to walk. It drives her dad a bit crazy, but, having worked as a counsellor for several years, I know all too well what is fueling this “regression”. The simple truth is this: change is scary.

We, as adults, might think of all of the changes she is facing as progress, and rather exciting progress at that. We applaud each time she masters a new task and tell her what a big girl she is. But toddlers are no different than we are as adults. Change makes us all a bit nervous. Adults, as a general rule, do not do change well. Think back to the last time you decided to lose weight, or quit your job, or eat healthier, or quit smoking. If you are like most people, before you actually attempted any of those things, you likely spent a good chunk of time in ambivalence; that lovely place where part of you wants to change and the other part is decidedly not as excited by the whole prospect. So instead of changing, we hem, we haw, and we list three good reasons not to change. Then after months or even years of this hemming and hawing, we decide we’re really going to do it this time. And we do it!  We’re off and running for a few months until we mess up or drift back into old habits.

When I think of how many changes my daughter has experienced in the last few months, it’s no wonder she wants to re-visit being a baby. In the last month alone we weaned her, as gently as possible (it did not turn out to be very gentle), from nursing and her bottles. A few short months ago she started big girl swimming lessons where mommy doesn’t go into the pool with her, but instead watches from the sidelines. We’ve been talking to her about getting her a big girl bed; which will mean that instead of sitting quietly in her room with her until she falls asleep, she will go to sleep on her own. Then we told her that she would be going to a big girl pre-school in the fall, which will mean that daddy won’t be there with her. When I think about it, being a big girl doesn’t sound exciting at all! All of it seems to involve letting go of something that makes her feel secure. Of course it’s scary. Of course she wants to regress back to being a baby where mommy and daddy were always there with her.

But there is also that part of her that wants to take the risk of growing. It is that part that I see at her swimming lessons: once her little hand leaves mine and she takes those first few steps into the water towards her teacher, I no longer exist. I see her joyous smile after she emerges from dunking under the water after slipping. I hear her tell this story with pride over and over, “At swimming lessons I dunked my whole body in the water when I slipped!” It is that part of her that I see at the playground when she climbs up a tricky ladder, slips, and then catches herself. “I’m okay mommy. I caught myself!”

It is a delicate balance, as a parent, to honour both of these parts. Our own fears can invite us to pay too much attention to her fears and insecurities and stifle the part that wants to take a risk. On the flip side our own impatience can invite us to stifle those valid fears and push the change before the child is ready. What has helped to remind me to be more compassionate to her ambivalence, is to draw on my own experiences of ambivalence and the process I went through to overcome my own fears.  I try to live the mantra “Be what you say.” If I want my daughter to have the courage to take risks and overcome her own fears and ambivalence, well then I better darn well be able to do it myself. Hence my other motto, “Do something that scares the shit out of you on a fairly regular basis”.

My favourite example was a 20-day canoe trip on the Clearwater River in Northern Saskatchewan as part of a guiding course. River canoeing was thrilling, but very dangerous. People die canoeing rivers all the time. To paddle a river safely takes skill, skill I did not have confidence that I even possessed. On this trip we were learning to be guides. The river we were paddling was a class two river, while we would only be certified to lead a class one, which was much less dangerous.

It was near the middle of our trip that it was my turn to be the guide. I had been dreading it. My experiences of guiding our hiking trips thus far had not gone smoothly, apart from the meals I prepared. That morning, as got everyone up, I tried to portray an air of confidence.  But in reality I was filled with anxiety.  I felt completely incompetent. This trip was supposed to be as traditional as possible, no fancy stoves or freeze-dried food. That day, of course, it snowed. Starting a fire to cook breakfast for our group of 20 was a nightmare. It was not a good start to the day.

My co-guide for our paddle that day was my friend Vicki. She took the stern of the canoe, and I was in the bow. The role of the person in the bow was to follow the orders of the person in the stern. When we came upon a set of rapids, we instructed the group to paddle to the shore so that we could plan our line down the rapids. The goal was to avoid tipping at all costs. The water was very cold and there was a real risk of hypothermia. To paddle the rapids safely we needed to plan how to paddle the rapids, what strokes to use and when to use them. Vicki and I made the plan and instructed the group on how to navigate the rapids. Each canoe made it through following our directions. I felt a small burst of pride – our plan worked! Finally, it was our turn. Everything was going well until Vicki misunderstood the signals from our instructors. Instead of slowly paddling backwards, which everyone had done successfully, she changed her instructions and yelled at me to paddle forwards at full speed. I could hear the panic in her voice. I knew it was not the right call, not what we had planned, but my job was to obey. “Paddle harder!” I heard her yell. I felt helpless to do anything but obey her. We struck a rock and the canoe slowly overturned. I felt the icy October water hit my body. Then I did what I was trained to do. I rescued the canoe and started swimming to shore with it. My instructor had to yell at me three times to let go of it and just get to shore. Once there everything went into full alert. I had to get out of my wet clothes to prevent hypothermia. Someone had to find me dry clothes as my pack was in the water. Someone else had to start a fire. I could tell that Julian, one of the instructors, was worried. I felt like a complete idiot.

That night I made dinner for the group. Dinner was usually my strong point. That night, however, I ran out of food before everyone had eaten. I scrambled to make another meal, knowing that people were cold and hungry. Once I had served everyone, Julian noticed that I wasn’t eating. I told him that I wasn’t hungry. He asked me if I was the type of person who didn’t eat when I got stressed out. I said yes. He gently told me to eat. I listened. Later that night I walked as far away from everyone as I could. I cried and cried. The day I was supposed to prove myself was a disaster. Everything had gone wrong. At least, I thought to myself, the next day I would go back to being a follower and not a leader. Tomorrow would be better.

When I woke up the next morning I was told that we were staying there for the whole day. When I asked why I was told that we were staying because they recognized that I was scared shitless. We were going to spend the day going down the same rapids over and over again until I regained my confidence. My heart sank. If there was one thing I did not want to do, it was go down those rapids again. I heard later that when I got into the canoe with Pat, our other instructor, my face was white with fear. What I remember most about that day was Pat’s determined gentleness. He knew I was scared to death, but he also knew that I could do this. He never sounded discouraged, or impatient, or frustrated. He showed me that even paddling in the bow, I had more control than I thought I had had. We paddled down those rapids together over a dozen times. The last time we went down we did it with me in the stern, barreling right down the middle at full speed through the waves and filling the canoe with water. I was calm and breathless from joyous laughter.

Later that evening, I found myself bawling again. But this time I wasn’t alone, and it wasn’t from despair. I was surrounded by people and felt a strange mixture of joy, sorrow, love, relief and gratitude. They had seen me. They had really seen me. They saw my fear and my courage and they had honoured both. They didn’t berate me for being afraid, but didn’t support me in that fear either. They supported me through my fear with compassion and a belief in my abilities. I will never, ever forget that.

That is the memory that I hold on to when I see my daughter struggle with her own ambivalence. I see my daughter. I see her fear and her courage and I honour both. I have compassion for her fear. I honour it by comforting her and holding her close to me. I tell her that I know that feeling discouraged and disappointed and sad feels yucky. I tell her that I am here for her. I tell her that she’s my little baby. But I also honour her courage and her desire to grow. I gently push her towards her goals and clap with pride when she tells me “I did it mommy! I did it all by myself!” I say “Of course you are!” when she reminds me that she is not a baby or a little girl, but a big girl now. I want her to feel seen. I want her to know that I love and accept and honour all of who she is, her fears and her insecurities as well as her courage and abilities and strength. I want to see her barreling down her own rapids, breathless with joyous laughter.

 

My Top 3 Not So Easy Steps to Raising a Daughter

When I was an angst-filled teen I remember a family member saying to my mother “It’s so much easier raising boys. I’d rather raise 10 boys than 1 girl.” I recall feeling rage, initially, which morphed into a kind of shocked surprise. I had no idea that girls, as a group, had a reputation for being difficult. I thought it was just me! Perhaps I wasn’t as alone as I had felt after all. Looking back on those cringe-worthy teen years, I suppose it was not surprising that one might think raising me was a tad more difficult than raising my brother. I snuck out of the house in the middle of the night to meet up with boys, got sent home from a junior high dance for being completely drunk, and so on and so on. When my parents suggested I should see a psychologist for my bizarre behaviour, I informed them indignantly that I was completely normal, which would be proven when my little brother started rebelling in the same way when he got to be my age (I think it was 14). Unfortunately, my hypothesis was flawed. My brother was a perfect child who grew into a perfect teen. He never got into trouble. Not once. (He may dispute that). So much for that!

When I discovered that I was pregnant four years ago, I knew that the little bean growing inside me was going to be a girl. She had to be. All of the first born children in my complicated family tree have been women. I was right. Now I have my own daughter (which still seems surreal). Dave, my partner in crime, is already preparing for her tumultuous teen years by practicing the line, “Go ask your mother.” Having worked with troubled teens for several years, I am well aware that many young women struggle at the age that I did, 13 or 14 (or in my case from 13-21). It seems to be a well-known phenomenon. Being one who handles anxiety by being as prepared as possible, I have developed a list. It mostly represents a blind hope that something I do now can help to inoculate her from the misery of being a teenage girl. Or at least make it slightly more bearable.

1. Encourage mastery

Mastery, in my experience, involves two things that are equally scary; failure and stepping out of one’s comfort zone. Some of the most important learning I have experienced, however, is when I was nudged out of my comfort zone. Even (maybe especially) as an adult, I think it is important for us to do things that scare the crap out of us. It helps us discover that we’re made of stronger stuff than we had thought, that we can master more than we thought possible.

I remember one moment distinctly when I was about 9 or 10 years old. I had been taking piano lessons since I was 5 and had been asked to play in front of the whole school. I had agreed without comprehending how terrifying it would actually be. I stood backstage waiting for my turn. I could feel my whole body shaking with anxiety. “What if I screwed up? Everyone would laugh. It would be the worst thing in the whole world. I can’t do it.” As those paralyzing thoughts were going through my head, I experienced something completely extraordinary. I can only describe it as another part of me appearing from within, rising up through my body and becoming me. This part was totally calm and confident. She knew, without a shred of doubt, that I would play beautifully. My body stopped shaking. I became totally focused, like I imagine athletes are right before the shot of the starting gun. I walked to the piano with confidence and I did play beautifully.

That part of me may never have appeared had I not needed her to help me navigate something new and scary. She has come to my rescue many times since and is the source of much of my confidence. As a result I encourage my 3 year-old daughter to try new things and to take risks (within limits of course). I do my best to encourage curiosity by providing opportunities to explore the world around us. Walks in the forest are adventures where anything can happen. At the playground I let her climb things that the worried part of me thinks might be too high. When she falls I hold her and soothe her, and when she’s ready, I encourage her to try again. I am there to offer small, barely perceptible assistance when she needs it, but not more; what Vygotsky called the “zone of proximal development”. The look on her face when she has mastered something difficult, all by herself, makes my heart soar.

2. Encourage generosity and gratitude

In a world that seems to be ever more focused on consumption, generosity seems old fashioned, like hand-written letters. I admit that I am not immune from its seductive power. Maya is an only child and I like to spoil her by buying her things. Part of it is likely guilt from working full-time. I want her to know how much I think about her when I’m not there. I tell myself that spoiling her now is inconsequential, as she won’t remember any of it, but the truth is that I am creating a set of expectations that will be difficult to break. Consumerism reminds me of addiction. It fills people’s feelings of emptiness, but it is a temporary fix. The good feelings that come from new things are illusory. There is no substance to them. I remember reading a study about people who were chronically depressed, helpless and hopeless. What turned their lives around was not consuming. It was giving; giving of their time to their communities. It gave them a sense of purpose, that what they did mattered. Their emptiness was filled up with something real, solid and lasting; generosity and compassion, which in turn led to self-confidence and a feeling of being connected to the world around them.

A definition of generosity that really challenged me was to be given something you coveted and to then immediately, with an open heart, give it away. I wondered if I was even capable of that kind of giving. There were possessions I had that I treasured and couldn’t imagine giving away, let alone with an open heart. So I decided to experiment with this. I had dolls that my grandmother had given me. She had died several years before and they were the only things I had left from her. The thought of something happening to them filled me with grief, as if I was experiencing her loss all over again. But the dolls were not her. If they all burned in a fire I would still have her memories, would still feel her love. I decided to give one of them to a friend of mine who would take good care of it. That act of giving was very powerful.

Giving invariable leads to feelings of profound gratitude from recognizing just how much we are given. I have often found that in encouraging myself to feel gratitude, to really feel it right into my bones, is the best antidote to depression. It opens my heart, helps me to understand how connected I am to the world around me, how much I am loved.

Even though Maya is not yet 3, and in the “mine!” stage, I try to encourage generosity. I try to involve her in daily routines like cooking and cleaning to show that we are a giving, helpful family. We put together care packages of her old clothes, books and toys and talk about how we are going to give them to the new baby and how happy the new baby will be to receive all of her things. Weeks later she will talk about how the new baby will be “sooooo happy” to have all of Maya’s clothes.

At Christmas Maya helped me wrap presents for my aunt’s mother, Old Gran. We talked about how much we hoped Old Gran would like them and how happy she would be to receive this gift from her. Maya was so excited to give her these presents. Every twenty minutes or so during dinner she would get down from her chair, walk to the Christmas tree, take them from under the tree and bring them to her. “We have presents for you Old Gran!” she would exclaim excitedly and with a huge smile. Even though she likes presents, I have yet to see that huge a smile on her face when she opens them.

Even mundane acts of generosity are important to acknowledge. During our dinners together I will make a point of thanking Dave (when I remember) for making us such a delicious dinner. Now Maya on her own will often say “Thank you Daddy (or Mommy) for making such a delicious dinner! It’s so yummy!” Of course it’s a daily commitment; she still demands things with a furious look on her face (I want JUICE!!!), we still have crying fits when she doesn’t get what she wants, and when she has opened her last present at Christmas or on her birthday she be disappointed that there aren’t more (“Are there more presents?”). It is a work in progress.

3. Encourage wisdom

Looking back on my youth I often marvel at the fact that I survived. I got myself into so many messes that it is truly by the grace of god that I made it through adolescence relatively unscathed. Since Maya has been born I have wondered, often, what I can do to help her through her own messes. How will I help her know who to trust and who not to? How do I help her embrace life to the fullest, but with awareness that there are people out there who may want to hurt her? The only thing I have been able to come up with is helping her to trust and honour her own wisdom.

One of the most difficult lessons in my own life has been to acknowledge and value my wisdom. There have been countless times where I have experienced intuition or a gut feeling and ignored it to my peril. In the aftermath I would wonder, “Why I had ignored my own knowing?” It has been a long process filled with successes and failures to learn to first recognize my knowing, and second, to give voice to it. I grew up in a time where children were supposed to be seen but not heard, although this was changing. The unfortunate consequence of that is that a child’s fledgling knowledge about themselves and the world around them is also silenced. It is in that silence that terrible things can happen.

When I was in grade 4 my science teacher, Mr. Alan, was overly friendly with the little boys in the class. He constantly brought them up to the front of the class and put his hand up their shirts to pat their backs, and patted them on the bum. He never called on the girls, despite me having my hand up to answer every question. I remember thinking that the way he touched those boys was not right. No other teacher did that. But instead of trusting that knowing and speaking out, I decided that my unease must be wrong. My mom and dad touched me like that and they are adults, Mr Alan is an adult, so it must be okay. My mother remembers me telling her that Mr. Alan didn’t like girls. I wonder if she had been curious about that statement, if she had asked me more about it, if he would have been caught sooner. One day when I arrived at school we were told that Mr. Alan was no longer a teacher, but not why.

I know that standing up and giving voice to one’s intuition is a scary prospect. It makes you vulnerable, the lone deer in a crowd of wolves. There is a reason that people don’t do it, that they conform to the silence. It takes courage to speak up, particularly when all you are relying on is the little voice inside your head or that feeling in your gut that is telling you that something is not right. I want to help Maya develop the courage it will take for her to trust and give voice to her own wisdom. I have already shut her down once, out of embarrassment. It was at the Christmas dinner at my cousin’s house. Their two boys are older than Maya and weren’t particularly excited to play with her. Dave and I spent a good chunk of the evening trying to lure her away from them and their toys that they didn’t want her wrecking.

At the end of the evening, when we were at the door getting our shoes and coats on to leave, Maya looked at my cousin Matt and his wife Tracey and said, calm as can be, “I don’t really like Matt and Tracy.” I was mortified. I told her sharply that she was being silly and to please stop it. She repeated herself, more forcefully. Tracy, bless her heart, said “If that’s how you feel Maya I think you should just go for it.” I could feel the discomfort, and heard Tracy’s dad jokingly tell Maya, who was 2 1/2, “that’s my daughter I’ll have you know!” I suspect he was only half joking. I just wanted Maya to be quiet. Instead, she used a version of a line I had used to try and explain why some kids won’t play with her. I would say to her “Some kids are friendly Maya and some kids aren’t. That’s just how it is.” Still calm, Maya held up her hands in an “I can’t figure it out” posture, and said to Tracy “Some people you like and some people you don’t.” And on that note, we left.

What bothered me later wasn’t the fact that she expressed herself, I was sure it was directed more at the boys, but the fact that I had done my best to silence her, purely out of embarrassment. I never did ask her more about it.

Since then I have made a conscious effort to ask more questions and to coax out her own knowledge into the open. When she asks her million “why” questions, I more often than not respond with “why do you think?” I encourage her to tell me stories, instead of me telling stories to her. I am trying to refrain from offering my opinions on her accomplishments, and instead invite her to explore her own opinions. It’s not much, but it’s a start.

I’m sure that as I ponder this question of raising a daughter more steps will come to mind. What are your thoughts? Your experiences? What have I missed?

How to Mess Up the Weekend with your Toddler in 5 Easy Steps

As a full-time working parent, to say that I look forward to spending the weekend with Maya, who will be three in a week, is a massive understatement. I cherish the time I get to spend with her. Saturdays are special time just for Maya and me, so that Dad, who stays home with her during the week, can finally get some work done. Sundays are our family days. This past weekend, however, it was special time with Maya all weekend long. I should have realized, from experience, that it is not wise to place high expectations on things that are likely to fall far short, things like an entire weekend with your toddler. In hindsight, there were several things that I did that messed up my weekend. You can learn them too! Here they are, in five easy steps.  

1. Have ridiculously high expectations

It is difficult not to do this. I cannot help but look forward to the weekend and envision everything going perfectly well: a perfectly behaved child who listens and immediately complies with all commands and requests; a child who asks for nothing, but when given something remembers to say thank you; a child who is gracious and humble; and most importantly a child who gives me random hugs whilst telling me she loves me. We walk hand in hand, skipping along through the day like Mary Poppins. The sun shines a little brighter for us. Flowers bloom as we walk by. Birds and small animals come right up to us to say hello. That was my hope. I forgot to factor in two important things, however. One, she had just gotten over a fever a few days previous, and two, she was, after all, a toddler. High expectations are just a recipe for tears and disappointment.  

2. Go to places where they will legitimately expect treats, and then deprive them

As per Maya’s request, on Saturday we went to the Vancouver Aquarium. After perusing the fish on the upper floor, we went to where the real action is, the play area at the bottom, where Maya can take a large stuffed seal and pretend to nurse it back to health. After about an hour of this I dragged her away so that we could go outside. It was the first sunny day we had had in days and I wanted to take advantage of it. Being a weekend parent means that I am not as familiar with schedules as I should be. This is coupled with the fact that I have an organization deficit. If I remember to eat during the day it is a small miracle. I often come home from work ravenous and irritable, having forgotten that bodies and minds need sustenance to function properly. When I was the full-time parent, I was quite proud of myself that Maya and I had made it through a day, properly fed. It was quite an accomplishment. 

But I have not been her full-time parent for almost a year now, and my awareness of her routine has faded. By 11:30 she was starting to get irritable. She was probably starving. I sat her down near the beluga whales and took out the snacks that Dave had prepared. I forgot, of course, that the last two or three times we had been there she had had a slice of cheese pizza. And a juice. What did I have with me? Water and slices of cheese, apple, and ham.

Maya has amazing recall for an almost three-year-old, and remembers every single pattern of behaviour. These become her routines. If we deviate from these routines, she will protest. Loudly. “Mommy I want cheese pizza and a juice!” “Maya, mommy brought nice snacks that Daddy made us. Look we have cheese slices! And ham! You love ham!” I reply. She ups the volume. “Mommy I want cheese pizza and a juice!!!!” After several minutes of this, with the pitch of her whines getting higher by the second, I try the scolding tactic. “Maya we are not having pizza and juice. Now I want you to stop this or we’ll just go home right now.” This was followed by howls of despair. When your toddler is having a mini meltdown in public, it really is difficult to ignore the fact that people are watching you. If you don’t calm your child down immediately, you can hear the judgment “Look at her! She doesn’t even know how to be a parent. If that were my child well let me tell you…”

I ignored the real or perceived judgment and took her in my arms. I used the tactic that works best with me. A calm voice and a dash of creativity. “Look Maya!” I said excitedly, “I bet those seagulls over there would love your ham and cheese snack! Why don’t you show them how good it is?” And she calmed down and started eating her ham and cheese, while the seagulls watched from a distance. I was quite pleased with myself. Which leads me to step number three.

3. Ensure your toddler returns home wounded

Just as Maya was happily enjoying her snack and wondering when we would give the seagull some of her cheese, a gull took flight and flew right towards her. I stared at it in shock as it swooped right in front of Maya and tried to take the cheese right out of her hand, biting her finger in the process. I was so shocked that I barely reacted, except to say, “Maya watch out!” which was completely and utterly useless. It was another parent who had the sense to shoo the gull away. Maya, of course, burst into tears, with the cheese still in her hand. I did my best to comfort her, but I knew, immediately, that I had lost. I had lost all credibility as a person who could make things better. If anything I was the one who invited the gull to attack her for her cheese snack in the first place.

I took her into the line for the cheese pizza. The only battle I won was that she settled for water instead of juice. Wound or no wound, I wasn’t paying $4.00 for a juice for the love of god. I asked an employee if they had some kind of bacterial wipe or handwash. The gull had broken the skin. I was pretty sure that gulls beaks were teeming with all kinds of exotic bacteria that were now making their way into my child’s bloodstream. I may have made it sound worse than it was. Two first aid attendants rushed over with a gigantic first aid kit. Seeing that there was no blood, they got on the walkie-talkie, “It’s not a Code Two, just a Code One.” One sighed, with relief or disappointment I couldn’t tell. But in between bites of her cheese pizza Maya got two bandaids and a sticker. I wondered if they had a sticker for “worst parent ever.”

4. Only visit playgrounds where no one will play with your toddler, no matter how cute she is

The next day I couldn’t decide what we should do. It was going to be a beautiful day and I wanted to go to the beach. I had hoped to go to Crescent Beach, where I had spent my summers growing up, but we had quite a late start to the day and it was a long drive. We settled on a beach closer to home that had a playground. Maya LOVES playgrounds. I love watching her interact with other kids. Her eyes light up when other kids play with her and she smiles the most wonderful smile that is reserved for the pleasure she gets from playing with new friends. Knowing she will be an only child, watching her can be an emotional experience for me. I am always so happy when other kids play with her.

But this time, no matter how hard she tried, the other kids ignored her. It didn’t help that she tries to play with kids a bit older than her, or that all of the kids seemed to come to the playground in pairs, not needing or wanting a third. I watched with distress as Maya’s attempts to join in the play were rejected. She is so good-natured that she kept following these kids, scampering after them, saying “I’m coming!” so that she could go down the slide with them, never noticing that they weren’t really interested. For whatever reason, that day, watching her broke my heart. I felt like weeping. I am weeping now as I write about it, and wept earlier today as I told a male colleague about it. He was mortified that my tears just kept coming. I couldn’t stop them.

I struck up a conversation with one of the moms of the child that Maya was following and lost sight of her. I peaked around the corner to where the stairs were, and saw her. Her mouth was open in a silent cry. I ran towards her and saw an indent in her forehead. Within seconds it grew into a terrible, giant lump. It made me wince just looking at it. As I held her and walked to the bench, one of the dads told me that she has slipped on the metal steps. It looked like she hadn’t even the time to brace herself. I held her and did my best to soothe her. She cried and cried. But, being a toddler, within a few minutes she was fine and wanted to go back and play. Luckily all of the older kids, that I now wanted to throttle, had left. There was a little girl with her mom. Maya went right up to her, and she looked up adoringly at Maya. Maya took her hand and led her to the slide and we all went down together.

It finally looked as I might have turned the corner on the weekend, but no! Any semblance of redemption was eliminated by the fifth and final step.

5. Make sure your toddler does not nap under any circumstances 

We have been experimenting with Maya and her nap schedule. There was a period of time where she wasn’t going to bed until 9:30 or 10:00 at night. I would put her to bed, then walk from her room to mine and go right to sleep. No time to myself. It was intolerable. That is when Dave and I had “the talk.” His eyes widened in horror when I told him we should take away Maya’s afternoon naps. “I’m not ready for that yet!” he exclaimed.

So we experimented. The days she didn’t nap she went to bed at around 7:30 and wasn’t all that grumpy. But there were some days where she still needed it. Desperately. Saturday was one of those days. Of course because we were out for the entire day doing fun things, napping was not part of the schedule. We had recovered from the seagull incident and had relocated to Second Beach, with the best playground in the city. There were lots of kids there, and Maya found friends easily.

On the way home, Maya fell asleep in the car. I had asked Dave to meet us at the shops so that we could pick up a few things. I figured he could use a nice walk. He found us in the parking lot and got into the car. Maya woke up. She was not happy to see her daddy. She screamed the entire way home. She screamed and thrashed when I got her out of the car. She screamed when we got into the house. She wanted juice. Dave brought it to her and she almost kicked it out of his hands. She screamed for juice again, and again thrashed wildly when he tried to give it to her. She struggled to get out of my arms but then screamed if I wasn’t holding on to her.

Normally, in situations like this, I would use my super powers and have the situation immediately under control: super powers being my boobs (see Bye Bye Num Nums for a more detailed description). But my super boobs were out of commission. Dave and Maya had gone to Ontario for 10 days and when they returned, I had tried, as gently as possible, to let Maya know that mommy didn’t have num nums anymore. That first night she arrived home was terrible. After a long day of flying and time zone changes, she settled into my arms all set to nurse. I tried to remind her that mommies don’t have num nums forever, and she wailed in reply, “I don’t want to be a big girl mommy!” After several minutes of her hysterically trying to withdraw my boob from my bra, we both sat in the big chair in her room and cried. She finally fell asleep with me stroking her hair saying, “You’ll always be my baby sweetie pie. Mommy will always be here. You’ll always be mommy’s baby.” The next morning she protested slightly, and that was it.

But that Saturday, I would have given anything for those super powers. I had never seen her like this, completely unable to calm down. I was at a loss. Then I remembered how terrible it is to have feelings like these that are completely out of control. I had felt like that before. It was an awful experience. I felt a deep sense of compassion for how horrible she must feel. I contained her thrashing as best I could and cooed to her “I know it’s really hard to have these yucky feelings sweetie. It’s really hard to feel all of these yucky feelings. I know. Mommy is here and we’ll just wait for all of these yucky feelings to go away. I know it’s hard sweetie. We’ll just wait.” This seemed to do the trick. She quieted down and eventually drank some juice. Then she was back to my loving child. Sundays “no nap tantrum” was thwarted by the arrival of my friend Jeremy, who Maya adores, particularly because he drives the same Triumph Bonneville as her Uncle Jason.

As I took the sea bus to work this morning, I couldn’t figure out why I was in such a terrible mood. It was a gorgeous sunny day. Flowers are blooming while the rest of the country is under a thick blanket of snow. I should feel good. But I felt miserable. It was when I started weeping while talking to my mortified colleague about the playground rejection incident that it hit me. The weekend I had so looked forward to wasn’t perfect. There were some terrible moments in there, moments where I felt like a failure as a parent. There were moments that were heart wrenching. I know that part of it is that I’m not there for her the majority of the time. I need to grieve those bad moments. Because when I do, when I look at these moments with compassion, the magical moments appear. As we were driving home Sunday, after a weekend of emotional highs and lows, a part of my dream weekend did come true. Maya said to me, out of the blue, from her car seat in the back, “Mommy I really love you.” I really love you too Maya.

Confessions of a Wannabe Writer

I have been meandering through my life reminiscing about dreams I had realized in my recent posts, which had started out as a public acknowledgment of my most sacred of dreams, to be a writer. Being a writer is by far the scariest of all of my dreams, as it is the most dear to my heart. I had felt, for the longest time, that I had the most to lose if that particular dream did not materialize. So precious was it, that I hid it deep down in my soul. I refused to acknowledge it, let alone take steps towards it. I actively resisted, like a toddler who refuses to put her shoes on so that you can actually get out the door and get to work on time. She senses your desperation to leave and squirms and wriggles and pushes until you are on the verge of a tantrum yourself.

There was no desperation in this dream of writing, however. It was not pinning me down, forcing me to put my damn shoes on. It was simply out there, in the universe, waiting patiently for my acknowledgment. Every now and then there would be a gentle nudge, a word of encouragement, like a hand reaching out, waiting for me to take hold. But, like a stubborn child, I would not.

The first gentle nudge of encouragement came in my first year of university. I hadn’t wanted to go. I was, to put it bluntly, a mess. Unbeknownst to my parents, who meant well when they pressured me to attend, I was in a very dark and terrible place. My unsophisticated attempts to get out of the deep pit I found myself in, by choosing the most self-destructive means possible, merely served to push me down further. I was too oppressed by this darkness to protest my parents’ wishes, and so I signed up for classes. In the bizarreness that was my mind at that time, I reasoned that my parents could force me to go to university, but could not force me to actually attend classes or learn anything. In high school I had managed to keep up my grades while writing out Pink Floyd lyrics in my classes, but this strategy proved to be not at all effective in university. I was flailing. I went to one exam having been to only one class. I wrote the exam in 15 minutes and left. I heard later that people had determined that I was either a genius, or had no clue what was going on. It was the latter; my first failing grade.

In one of my English exams I wrote a poem. This would not have been a problem had the exam not required me to compare and contrast two plays, only one of which I had actually read. Defeated and not even able to bullshit, I decided to perfect a poem I had been working on. My goal for this particular poem, and every poem I had written since I was 14 years old, was to make it as depressing as possible. I wanted the reader to feel every ounce of pain and hopelessness I felt.

It must have worked. My English professor called me into his office and requested that I see a counsellor. He was concerned about me. I’m not sure why this surprised me. Of course he would have thought the poem was a call for help. The last line, if I recall, said something like “she landed in death’s sweet arms”. Consciously, it was not; the poem was simply me not knowing how else to fill up the empty pages of my exam booklet. But I agreed to go to a counsellor nonetheless. As I left he told me that the writing was very good. He said that I should consider taking creative writing. I thanked him. I was secretly quite pleased, but of course, nothing more came of it. I didn’t sign up for creative writing. I could have. I had two years of general studies to complete before I was required to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, but writing was not even considered.

The counsellor was decidedly unhelpful, likely because I was a very unhelpful patient. She asked me all kinds of questions like “How can I help you?” which was met by my bewildered silence. Aren’t you supposed to know that? Isn’t that why I am here? I went once and didn’t return. I dropped out of university the following year.

To ensure that I was never in a situation again where someone would actually encourage my dream to be a writer, I decided never to show anyone my writing again. My writing was reserved for my private journals. In my recovery I felt compelled to write. It was as necessary as breathing. But when my first husband read my journal, I stopped writing all together.

There had been a few times where I had tried to write something, a story, the start of a novel. After one page I would tear it up and that would be that. Reading the words on the page was humiliating. They were absolutely terrible. Who did I think I was? It was pathetic. It was so devastating that I would it would be years before the next attempt.  It was “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron that invited me to start writing for myself again. But even though the entire book is devoted to people taming their creative demons, it wasn’t enough to coach my dream of being a writer to the surface. It stayed well hidden in the crevices of my heart, waiting.

I have come to believe that things happen when they should. If I did not feel compelled to honour this dream, then there was a reason. I have decided to trust that there is a wisdom that is guiding me. My job, simply, is to do my best to listen, to see and to feel the universe communicating its purpose for me. It is not always easy. There have been many a time I have requested a big booming voice telling me what I should do, what path I should take. Alas, I have never had the booming voice. My messages have been much more subtle, which can be crazy making at times.

But, at long last, the dream to write has come out of hiding and has risen to the surface to take her first breath. There are several people who were instrumental in coaxing her out of hiding: my mother, Dave (my partner in life) and Jeremy (my old soul).  With their encouragement, I have decided to write this blog; my tentative first steps. I know that there are likely thousands upon thousands of people who have written blogs that think nothing of it. Their decision was likely not momentous, nor profound. But for me, it was. Writing this blog is honouring my most precious of dreams for myself.

Once surfaced, what has allowed this dream to truly take hold was the most sacred gift of my life, the gift of my daughter. She was the only thing I had ever truly prayed for. When I was told that she would never come, that my body would not allow it, I fell into despair. Why? Why? I asked the universe this over and over. And then, at the most unlikeliest of times, a shaman whispered to me in a vision that she was there, a little bean in my womb. Her birth reminded me, with such force it left me breathless, that life is both sacred and temporary. In the first weeks after her birth, the thought that something might happen to her left me with a dread that sent a slow wave of dark sludge through my body. This terrible dread was a constant companion. A car would drive towards us as I walked on the sidewalk and I would imagine that it veered off the road and hit us. I heard a noise at might and imagined that someone was breaking in and wondered how I would protect her. I was convinced that if she died, I would not survive it.

The waves of dread have faded, but the awareness of our mortality has not. I had her when I was almost 41. There is a very real possibility that when she is my age, I may no longer walk this earth. My blog started out as a way to keep our family who live far away from us connected to us. I would write about the cute things our daughter does and says. But it has turned into something else. It is a chronicle of my life, my hero’s (heroine’s) journey. It is the most sacred gift that I can give to my daughter. No matter what, she will have these stories to help guide her in her life.

So I would like to thank all of you who read these words and are sharing this journey with me. I am deeply grateful for your support, your encouragement, your letters, and your comments. It has had a profound impact on me.

Connecting with the Mystery

My theory of the mystery of life has developed from a myriad of sources, which I have pieced together like a mosaic; my version of spirituality I suppose. I read recently that people who define themselves as “spiritual” rather than “religious” are more prone to depression and anxiety. That makes sense to me. Religion, from what I have observed, provides many people with comfort. If nothing else, religion gives people answers to tough questions. For the really tough questions, the answer is simple; don’t question, have faith.

But for people who have abandoned organized religion, they must answer those questions themselves, create their own meaning of life and death. The really tough questions may remain unanswered, which can be quite disconcerting. The search for those answers can lead to a deep sense of isolation and despair. I remember one moment of despair as I realized how truly alone I was in the world. No one except me would ever really know me; it was impossible.

For those who have the courage to persist through that darkness, however, and discover their own answers, are rewarded with a deep and unshakable sense of connectedness and unity with the world that is beyond description. As I contemplated my loneliness and wept with despair, a simple truth came to me. I am both alone and not alone. It is true that no other human will ever really know me, but I chose to believe that the mystery of this world did, knew everything and accepted me anyway, and this belief was comforting.

I suppose I could have simply accepted religion into my life, as I seem to have come to similar conclusions. There are those who don’t need to take that difficult path to discover their own answers, who are content to simply receive the teachings that that have been passed down for thousands of years. I, unfortunately, am not one of those people. I have to do things the hard way. I must find my own answers.

My conclusions about the mystery and magic of life are not well defined, but they all come from trying to understand and make sense of my own life, and my own experiences with that mystery. I have concluded that there are questions that cannot be answered. They are too complex to understand (for my little brain anyway). They require faith.

I decided to take that leap of faith when I was 21 when I determined that my life was intolerable. I allowed myself to believe that this mystery was wiser and more powerful than me, but also, that whatever it was, it was also loving. I felt its compassion and its love for lowly little me, and I surrendered to it. I allowed it to direct my life. I am convinced that it was that experience that was crucial to the transformation I experienced. Through that surrender, the person that I am now was created. I remember telling my friend Pat that when I was a teen I was certain that I would die when I was 21. I had had a dream about it and it was so vivid that I was convinced that my death was imminent. I was positive of it. Knowing my history he looked at me and said “But Julie you did experience a kind of death at 21. You completely transformed.” He was right.

Although I surrendered my life to whatever this mystery is, it doesn’t mean that I don’t, on a regular basis, try to re-assert my will. I think of it as allowing someone else to drive. I have been driving since I was 14 years old, which means that I am a terrible passenger. When I look down the road that we are driving towards I have a tendency to panic and try to take the wheel. “What are you thinking going down THAT path??? We are certainly NOT going down that one!”

This is the panic I feel whenever I get close to my dreams. It is a peculiar type of fear that makes me feel like a small child. When I was young I was quite shy (no one believes this but it is true!). There was a period of time where I hated trying anything new. The thought of walking into a strange room, full of strange people and not knowing what was going on filled me with dread. My parents, being good parents, signed me up for all kinds of classes. At one point it was too much. They had signed me up for a diving class. I refused to go. I couldn’t bear the thought of it. Then my Dad did something I will never forget. He offered to take the diving class with me. All my fear drained away. I was in awe of him. My dad would be there. It would be okay.

I had that same feeling when I decided that I was really going to pursue my crazy dream of being a singer. There was a tiny part of me that desperately wanted to do it, but the greater part was completely terrified. I was sure that I had a terrible voice, that I would humiliate myself if I tried. My Dad wasn’t there anymore to hold my hand. It was up to me to face these fears, all by myself.

The pivotal moment was when I went to visit my friend Jeremy, one of my favourite people in the whole world. He is a musician and I often went to his house and listened to him play guitar. I could listen to him play for hours. I had felt for a long time that he and I shared a unique connection, one I had never felt with anyone else. It was like our souls were connected. I decided that I would sing in front of him. I swallowed my terror, grabbed the microphone, and allowed my voice to be heard. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the sound, trying to stay in key and infuse the words with emotion. When I was done Jeremy said, “That was great Julie. You have a great voice.” It was the moment of truth. I could believe him or not. I was the type of person that had a difficult time accepting a compliment, distrusting people’s assessment of my skill or their motives. I decided to trust him; trust that he would not lie to me, would not say this simply to be polite. I believed him.

This simple act had unexpected consequences and led to moments of synchronicity that Julia Cameron described in “The Artist’s Way”. I was working as a social worker for the government at that time. My office was a bizarre mix of personalities. On my first day of work no one knew I was arriving. My new supervisor was away. One of the women helped me find a desk and took me out for coffee, where she explained that the office was full of crazy people, so I was either with her and the sane ones, or with the crazy ones and I had better choose. Pronto. Later that afternoon I was told the same thing by one of the crazy ones. I became friends with one of the few sane people I found, Wendy. She was my refuge and I adored her. That office was the last place I would ever expect an opportunity to sing. But one day Wendy, out of the blue, asked me if I would be interested in singing backup vocals in her band. I am sure my mouth dropped open in shock. But I accepted immediately.

I went to audition not long after, and was completely nervous. Here I would discover if Jeremy really had lied to me. I started to sing and quickly looked for any signs of a wince or a cringe on any of their faces. I saw none and started to relax. After the audition they welcomed me to the band. I was ecstatic. We practiced every week and played three shows together. It was the most fun I had ever had. I felt like a little puppy dog who had just been let off the leash; I wanted to sing more and more and more. I was in love with the experience.

But, as has happened before in my life, other things called to me. I had worked as a social worker for two years. It was stressful and often heartbreaking.  A career in child protection social work had an average shelf life of two years. I had just barely passed that mark. My dream career was to be a therapist. I saw myself having my own office,  with beautiful art on the walls, and helping people like I was at 21, helping them as my counsellor had helped me. The problems I would deal with would be manageable. That was the idea anyway.

There was only one program in Canada that offered the kind of graduate degree I was interested in. It was very competitive and only allowed 6 people per year. I applied and was accepted for a series of interviews. I flew to Guelph, Ontario for the interview. They offered me a spot a few months later. I accepted.

Although I was happy about the opportunity to further my career, I was not excited about the move. I had dreamed my whole life of living in Vancouver. After 8 years I still pinched myself, not quite believing I was really living there. I had never even wanted to visit Ontario. As I drove across the country to start a new life in Guelph, I was acutely aware of what I was leaving behind in Vancouver; friends, family, opportunities to sing and to act, and a city I was in love with. All I could do was have faith that I was on the path I was supposed to be on, and if I wasn’t, that I would be able to receive that message. It was a familiar anxiety, wondering if I was on the right path, whether I was listening to the mystery of the world or the sound of my own anxieties. Whatever it was, I was driving towards a new part of my life, having no idea where it would lead, but knowing that it would likely change everything.

Dream a little dream … Mid Life Crisis Part II

Life without dreams, I discovered at a young age, is a particular kind of hell. It is the kind of hell where all meaning is lost. Whether it is day or night has no significance, because they are both intolerable. There is nothing to look forward to, no point to existence. I had lived in that kind of hell in my early adulthood. I had dropped out of university after two tortuous years to work in the “real world” as a restaurant manager.  It didn’t take too many long nights of washing dishes to realize that my life pretty much sucked. I had no idea who I was. No clue what I wanted from life, or significantly, that you could want something out of life. More importantly, however, I didn’t know what life wanted from me. If this was all that life was, working at a moderately crappy job, going from terrible relationship to terrible relationship, than what was the point exactly? Before I would go to sleep I would quietly ask God to please take me back and let me start all over again. Hopefully the next time I wouldn’t be a massive disappointment.

The darkness and despair I felt was a signal, the discomfort meant to propel me to make drastic changes in my life. But change is, frankly, terrifying and I was having none of it. Instead I muddled around in the world, buying all of the self-help books I could find. I was searching for answers, but not too hard, because I was certain that the answers I found would be too difficult to bear. I had no doubt that if I were faced with the truth of myself, who I really was, it would suffocate me with its awfulness. It would choke me with shame.

I stayed in this uncomfortable ambivalence for many years. I was 21 years old, and miserable. Yet another boyfriend I had been madly in love was distancing himself from me. I could feel the desperation growing in me like a wild fire, needing to call him, needing to talk to him, needing him to know how I felt, needing to understand why. I knew that need would drive him away further, but it was fierce. I picked up a book instead, trying to make sense of this pattern of failed relationships. It was called “Leaving the Enchanted Forest” by Stephanie Covington. The only thing I remember is reading one line, and it almost knocking the breath out of me. I don’t remember it word for word, but the message was this: You cannot depend on others for your happiness. Your happiness is yours alone to create.

I had heard this probably millions of time before, but the words had always floated by and never really taken hold. This time, however, it shocked me with its truth. I realized that that was what I had been doing my entire life. I was only really happy if others (specifically a man) loved me. If he didn’t, I was deflated, absent, like all of who I was could escape with a simple exhale. With this appalling truth staring at me in the face, I decided that I would not be this woman any longer. I went to my room and looked at my phone. I knew that I needed help. I picked up the phone and put it down. I was crying with fear. I hung it up a second time. The third, however, was a success. The person who answered calmed me down, and I made an appointment. I was going to change my life.

I threw myself into recovery, determined to be honest above all else. I held nothing back. All of my shame came to the fore, and I realized, with relief, that it wasn’t powerful enough to kill me. With the help of others who witnessed all of it and accepted me anyway, I learned to accept myself. What I noticed, however, in this culture of recovery, is that many people who had been in recovery for years, were not really living. They were stuck in fear, always recovering. In recovery, their dreams came with a disclaimer.

“Please dream with caution as you are powerless and your dreams might be dangerous for your recovery. Don’t get too confident or sure of yourself. Remember. You are powerless over your (name addiction/weakness here).”

I noticed that recovery and survival were enough for many people. But it was not enough for me. I wanted to more. I didn’t want to just survive, I wanted to thrive. I had recovered my spirit and was eager to re-claim and discover who I was as a woman. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in recovery, attending meetings that reminded me of how powerless I was. I felt powerful. I wanted to taste life, to dive into its waters and learn its mysteries. I wanted to dream. I wanted adventure.

I decided to go on a vacation. It was my first real vacation while working as a restaurant manager. I was really excited because I had decided to go to Club Med for one simple reason, I had always wanted to learn to water ski. Growing up in land locked Calgary, Alberta had meant that things like water skiing had been out of my reach. It was a crazy dream I had had since I was little, and I was going to honour it. I picked a Club that had an abundance of water sports: scuba diving, sailing, water skiing. My mother, who has supported me throughout my life, and does still, gave me enough so that I could stay for two weeks. I was so excited.

I arrived in Mexico and threw myself into every activity. I water-skied every single day. I learned to sail. I took tennis lessons. I learned to scuba dive. I danced all night long. I met loads of people. The people who worked there were the friendliest people I had ever met and they came from all over the world. At the end of my first week it dawned on me. These people actually work in this place! This is their JOB. Every morning they wake up to go to work and this is what they see. This is what they do. This is AMAZING.

I realized something. I wanted this life. Just the thought of it felt delicious and dangerous.

When I came home I told my parents that I had made a major life decision. I am positive that they were hoping that I had learned that the “real world” wasn’t so great and I would go back to university where I belonged. When I had dropped out of university a few years before, it was with the promise that I would return. They had informed me, very seriously, that when people drop out of university they never go back. Dropping out of university, would, therefore, be the worst decision I could ever make. It would negatively impact the rest of my life. All of that potential from the brains in my head would be wasted. I dropped out anyway and promised that I would be the exception.

When I told them, instead, that I was going to be a scuba diving instructor and work for Club Med, I was prepared for my dad, especially, to lose it. I wasn’t disappointed. But strangely enough, when the shock wore off, they both supported me. Coincidentally the very first instructor’s course was just starting up in Alberta. If there hadn’t been one, I doubt I would ever have followed through. My parents paid for me to complete my training, which took about 9 months.

In my instructor’s class I found others, like me, who had become disillusioned with life. A few were lawyers.  What we all shared was the desire for something more from life than what we woke up to, day after day. We were all searching for what that something more might be. We all dreamed of waking up to beautiful sunshine and sandy beaches every morning. In the meantime, however, the actual training was brutal. My first open water dive was in a glacier lake outside of Banff, Alberta. The water was so cold we had to keep surfacing to warm up the regulators so they would work properly.

I dove in water that was in the process of freezing while I was in it. It was one of our last dives in Alberta, before we did our exam dives in British Columbia. It was about minus 30 degrees Celsius outside, even colder with the wind chill. We were all moving quite slowly, not really believing that our instructor, Don, would actually make us dive in water this freezing. After watching us dawdle for a period of time, Don called us together. Instead of a pep talk, he let us have it. “You people are the biggest whiny children I have ever seen! This is the easiest fucking dive you are ever going to do! Now get off your fucking ass and get in the fucking water!” We all stood frozen in shocked silence. We had never seen him lose control before. He had always been so happy and cheerful, in a used-car dealer kind of way.

I got dressed more quickly, but his reproach did not change the fact that I dreaded getting into that water. The air was so cold that steam was coming off of the water, even though it was at the point of freezing. As grumpy as I was, there was a sliver of hope. I had noticed that Don was almost a bigger wimp than me when it came to the cold.

As soon as I got to the bottom I started inhaling as deeply as I could, practically hyperventilating, so that I could use all of my air quickly and be forced to return to the surface. I didn’t need to. My hunch about Don’s ability to adapt to the cold was correct. He signaled to us to go up to the surface within ten minutes. We crammed into the back of someone’s van, trying to remove frozen solid gloves from fingers that could barely move. I would have glared at Don had I not been so grateful to be out of that water. 

After I passed my exams, and was certified as an instructor, I applied to work at Club Med. They called me within a few weeks. I flew to New York for an interview. A few weeks after that I was on a plane, leaving my life behind and flying to Sonora, Mexico, to work as a scuba diving instructor in Club Med.

I had dreamed a dream that was totally and completely mine. It was not my parent’s dream, not the women’s programmed “get married and have children” dream. This dream was utterly and entirely mine. And I had made it come true, with help of course. For the first time, I was excited by what life held in store for me. I had crawled out of the darkness that was my life for 21 years and emerged transformed by that experience. It was surrendering and connecting to something greater than me that allowed it to happen. I hadn’t defined what that was, hadn’t named it, and had no desire to. I simply felt a loving and compassionate presence in my life. That presence helped me to heal and encouraged me to have the courage to stand up for my life, for my dreams. It helped me believe that anything really was possible. I felt certain that whatever that presence was, it was partly responsible for me being there, on that plane, flying into the unknown possibilities of my life. I was incredibly grateful and excited.

Almost a decade later, at 30, I faced another existential crisis as I faced my own mortality. What helped me through it was recovering my dreams, dreams that were precious to me. One was acting, and the other, singing. I knew, from experience, that the key to recovering meaning in my life was to reach out for my dreams, to start a new adventure. I reached out to the universe to ask for help. Help this crazy rock star dream come true. And just like Julia Cameron warned in her book “The Artist’s Way”, there is a reason that people say “Be careful what you wish/pray for, it might come true.”

Stay tuned for the next installment