Weird night in Europe recently, according to the New York Times:
What began as a routine training exercise almost ended in an embarrassing diplomatic incident after a company of Swiss soldiers got lost at night and marched into neighboring Liechtenstein.
According to Swiss daily Blick, the 170 infantry soldiers wandered just over a mile across an unmarked border into the tiny principality early Thursday before realizing their mistake and turning back.
Juxtaposed against that black comedy in the paper's Most Emailed list was the story of another kind of invasion: the nightly encroachment of the "family bed babies" into mommy and daddy's sheets and blankets. For some reason, the article relates, the 1990s were the dawn of the co-sleeping era, when exhausted parents bought a few hours of sleep by sharing their beds, their warmth, and their heartbeats with their babies. The price – no more sex for the parents – was deemed a steep but fair deal.
Now, we're told, as those co-sleeping kids grow into large, gangly collections of limbs, they still insist upon invading their parents' beds nightly. And parental defenses appear inadequate: buying fancy Harry Potter-inspired 4-posters and Cinderella beds may delight the kids while the sun's up, but at night the family bed is the only hot spot in town.
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More articles like this one in: Ahhh!, Balance, Disease, Energy, Gearing Down, Kids, Newsletter, Parenting, Rants, Rest, Stressbusting
Q: My daughter gets very worried and stressed about all sorts of things. I try telling her to calm down, but it doesn't help. How can I help her get more centered and calm when things aren't going her way?
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Q: What does one do to start meditating? Do you have to take a class? Keep Reading…
Here's an interview and Q&A session with Greg Lynn Weaver, Spiritual Director of the PeaceWeavers. The topic: "Peaceful Parenting When You Feel Like Wringing Their Necks."
Greg Lynn answered questions about:
- how peace is related to fitness and health
- what peaceful parenting looks like
- how we get peaceful when we’ve had a lousy day
- how we can practice peaceful parenting so we have the skills when we need them
- how to break the cycle of guilt that leads to poor choices that leads to guilt…
- how to not beat ourselves up over not being perfect
- whether expressing anger verbally is appropriate or bullying
This call is not for the faint-hearted. The "s-word" is used three times, and Mother Teresa is described as "ballsy." Greg Lynn is not a mountain-top theorist – he’s living in the real world, and his language is real as well. His gentle and compassionate style and great sense of humor can help us remember what’s really important as we go through the impossible and wonderful task of raising children.
Turn on your computer speakers, and you can listen right now to a 5-minute excerpt of the call, in which Greg Lynn helps a member explore her question about expressing anger toward her kids:
The entire call is available as a CD (and soon as an electronic transcript).
When I was nine years old, I decided to give up the piano and study the violin. By that time, I was old enough and musically sophisticated enough to realize what a horrible racket I was making when I scratched the bow across the strings of my cheap, three-quarters size box of agony.
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I was interviewed by Sunny Hills, a well-known teacher of positive affirmations and positive thinking. The topic was, "How can meditation help me with my affirmations."
Because most of the participants in the call were beginners, this interview is a useful introduction to meditation – principles and techniques.
Here is the complete program, with the introductions and some of the chit-chat edited out for your listening pleasure:
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Q: I've gotten panic attacks since college, and the only thing that works for me is medication. I know that stress and caffeine can trigger attacks. Can relaxation help with panic attacks?
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Another definition of stress is not being fully present in the moment.
The question we each need to ask is, "Is this activity helping me be fully present or fully distracted?"
I don't always have time (so I tell myself) to meditate, but I eat and wash up pretty much every day. I generally brush my teeth a couple times a day, and it's a rare day when I don't get dressed and undressed at least once.
Each of these activities is a perfect time for mindfulness. Can I wash my plate, fork and cup and ONLY wash my plate, fork and cup? Without thinking about my conference call, or the fight I'm having with my former client who isn't paying (deep breath), or what I'm going to make for dinner tomorrow, or what was the name of that actress in the Disney remake of The Parent Trap, or – oh, yeah, back to the dishes.
I can chop vegetables while talking on the phone and listening to the radio, or I can focus on putting love into the meal I'm about to serve my family.
Meditation is just shooting foul shots alone in the gym. It's practice. Being present for our lives is the real game.