April 24

It has been another amazing week full of insights.

Thanks to Sarah’s nutritionist from years gone by (and now a friend), I started tracking how many ounces of fluid both girls consume in a day and it is at best half or 2/3 of what they should be getting. EGAD! This is awesome to know!!! We can work on this. I love it when goals can become so clear. This also may be a simple explanation for why each had been so backed up. In practice it is proving quite difficult to get to the goal amounts. Sarah got to the goal on one day and has been close on a couple others. Amy is routinely at half of the goal, and that is with me working diligently to hand her a drink frequently.

I’ve been wondering if there is a connection between Sarah unearthing memories of books she used to love when she was very young or trips that we went on 3 years ago and her clearing her backlog of poop. There is no way to prove anything and we know that Sarah’s memory is amazing and her sense to linear time is rather fluid, but I do like the concept.

Sarah went to school every day this week and had good days except for Friday, which was harder for her. She cried more and had many more verbal ism moments, which are quite distracting in a class setting and mean that she is feeling stressed. I am so grateful to Sonia for being there every day, just outside the room and largely unneeded most of the time. The times when she is needed it is priceless to have her able to give Sarah the time and space she needs, beyond what a school setting allows. 

As I continue to receive neuromuscular work and do my Alexander Technique constructive rest I continue to be ever more aware of all the layers of tightening I have/do. It is so exciting and amazing to be discovering it. I am able to notice it more quickly when I start tightening in many situations and then I can let it go more quickly. The most effective letting go happens in constructive rest when I really have nothing else I am doing except letting go. This all feels quite life changing and ever more hopeful. I am also excited about the possibilities of helping other people with what I am learning. In the past I had thought AT could help me with the headaches if I could just free my neck during a headache. It turns out, in the midst of severe pain that wasn’t something I could really do. Now I understand that it is something to practice and practice and practice so that free and easy muscles become my new norm.

When I give Alexander Technique lessons or massages I have it clearly in my thinking that my hands are issuing an invitation to the body they are contacting. It is an invitation towards more ease. The way to issue the clearest invitation is to have an easy supported connection from my feet up through my hands and to also consciously invite my own muscles to release. If I am working with a neck muscle then I am asking my own same neck muscle to release. According to what my hands perceive, this seems to work quite well. Tuesday morning I realized that I could think of my interactions with my kids in the same way, that I am issuing an invitation with my being for their beings to be at ease. This echoes wise statements from all wise people about being the change we want to see, etc, but this is in my language and I know the experience in my body in a clearer way so it feels easier to do it. When I feel resistance in the girls, I aim at releasing and loosening my own resistance to the situation. My resistance is usually felt muscularly. Astonishingly (how did I not think of this before?!?!?), this all actually seems to make a difference in how the kids relate to me! 

After 4 days of amazing easeful experiences, yesterday I totally didn’t have it at all. It truly felt like I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, which is possibly called 5:45am. The harder things felt then the more upset I became because I was so frustrated with myself. When Carl and I were on our way to a party that had the theme of celebration, I felt like a big fraud because I originally thought I was celebrating my new parenting insights but I felt like I had lost them. He asked me if there was a different framework with which to view the situation, perhaps in language relating to the Alexander Technique. He asked what I would tell a client who was having trouble maintaining the ease they found in a lesson. Aha! Then I would say that it isn’t about reaching an end point and having it all figured out forever. It is a process of noticing when you aren’t how you want to be and moving into how you do want to be. It is something to be renewed repeatedly. It may feel different each time. It is good when things go “wrong” because then we can see our habits more clearly. 

Easy support and supported ease to all of you.

April 17

Just because you come late to spoken language or find some words hard to say doesn’t mean you can’t be a word nerd. Yesterday Sarah came down for breakfast and declared, “Amy is ornery.” I’m so proud! 

We did a follow-up x-ray and Sarah’s digestive system is much clearer. YAY! She didn’t go to school all week except on Friday, but Friday was a great day for her. Her last couple of volunteer sessions have also been extra wonderful, with her volunteers noticing increased connection and spark. On Wednesday, L. wrote, “Sarah was on fire today - really sharp and inquisitive and funny. She really must be feeling so much better and clearer. I could see all of the things we dream for her today!”

There was one day when Sarah asked for a protein shake and as I went to get her almond milk for it I sang a little made-up “ boopity boopity doopity do” song. I paused just because I had gotten the milk and then Sarah picked up the tune and sang a little bit! I hadn’t even been trying to invite participation! Another time when I asked Amy to get her water bottle, Sarah said, “I’ll get it!” and ran to do just that.

This week overall has felt super amazing in many ways and I also feel sort of small, raw, and confused, while also feeling excited, determined, relieved, and inspired. 

We started the GAPS diet for Sarah over 3 years ago to see if it would help her cognitively but also to help get her off of laxatives, which she had been on for basically her whole life. We thought it had worked. I certainly wouldn’t wish to undo it because now our whole family eats way more healthily. However, we now see that it really hadn’t worked in terms of constipation. Or maybe it did and didn’t at the same time. I don’t know how old her blockages were. I didn’t know that a person could be backed up and still poop regularly. So will things now be ok since we cleared the blockage? Or does her slight hypotonia (low muscle tone) contribute to the problem in a way that diet can’t solve? Are many many foods actually ok? Or are even more foods not ok? I know nothing! I am confused! I am eager to hear from the naturopath with the results of the most recent tests we did, some of which will give more information about allergies and intolerances. I am mainly so relieved that we are clearing the blockage and that Sarah is responding so well. 

I also feel incredibly hopeful about ending my cycle of headaches and possibly never having them again. I have no proof except what feels so right and true in my cells. I feel like with my team of massage therapists, Alexander teacher, my own AT work, my acupuncturist, and my confidants I am in the best possible place to escape the cluster. I am aware in ways I never have been of how my headache pattern fires when I tighten certain muscles, which I habitually do all the time. This is so amazing to notice because it gives me the power to consciously change my habits (it takes a lot of time and diligence and awareness but is soooooo worth it). It is also incredibly humbling if this really is the way out because then it has been my own self completely responsible for these headaches all along. Still, I feel like everything is really going to be ok. I am healing from trauma to my system that I didn’t even know I was carrying. I have had such ongoing low-level fear of the headaches for the past 20 years. I am also more aware of some of the fears I have been carrying regarding scary moments in Sarah’s life (her birth, her seizures as a baby, her falling down stairs, her pneumonia, her anaphylaxis, her not wanting to eat for the first couple years of her life, her coming to milestones so late that I didn’t know if they would happen). It is a relief to unearth the places in my muscles where I have been holding these fears that I didn’t clear at the time. Now I am clearing them and I’ve had some good cries doing so. I could feel in my heart how much grief I carry about maybe not doing enough for Sarah. When I stepped in to tell myself that was crap because of course I do enough then I could feel more tightening. I needed to let the grief be there, let it be noticed, and then I could let it go once it had said its piece. 

I want to run around with a large flag of joy streaming behind me, yelling to everyone about how I have the most amazing life. The most amazing support team! The most amazing husband! The most amazing mom! The most amazing bodyworkers! The most amazing Sarah-Rise mentor! The most amazing volunteers! The most amazing sister-in-law! The most amazing overall supportive family! The most amazing overall supportive friends! The most amazing daughters! The most amazing current school for Sarah! The most amazing house! The most amazing jobs! The most amazing varied ways of supporting Sarah! 

Some of the biggest blessings in my life have come from the things that have felt the hardest: my headaches and Sarah having special needs. Look at what a treasure trove has come from that! I know so many deeply incredible people that it boggles my mind. 

I am renewingly aware of the tiny works of art in tiny moments of life. The little things that Carl does when he comes home, having loving attention for me and the kids regardless of what his day was before that. How does he do that?! The way Sonia can read my mind and take care of something in the house or be with a child before I even say the thought. The way my volunteers come every week and greet Sarah with such joy and delight. The way my bodyworkers care so attentively for my muscles and self, sensing what needs to happen when I am not even consciously aware of it. In my very clear moments I can see that I could approach each moment of life with the same thinking I do with my clients, thinking of how to support each fraught moment as I would support a tight muscle. Press it? support from elsewhere? give a slight and slow tug? just wait? This clearly feels like the answer to life, the universe, and everything. And then my kids whine and yell and I somehow am not so clear anymore and my habits come in in roaring force. 

Anyway, I am raw, whole, vulnerable, flying, healing, hopeful, clear, and uncertain all at once. I hope your Sundays are going well too.

April 10

Well… Poop. I saw the x-ray and met with Sarah’s GI doctor. Holy sh*t. We have a serious backup. Sometimes Carl and I have different opinions about the same situation. I was busy feeling like a failure for Sarah’s current situation. When I told Carl about the x-ray and the plan he was excited that now we know what is going on and have a clear plan of treatment. He was thinking I was amazing for getting us to this moment. Sometimes it is best to listen to one’s spouse.

Yesterday Sarah got hurt a little bit on her lip when she tripped.  She was crying a lot for a long time. She eventually regained equilibrium when I started talking about past times she had gotten hurt, which she loves to discuss. She then said, “Sarah pretending to be Sarah getting hurt” and went into her usual dramatic and joyful description of going thump, thump, thump down the stairs. This was the first time she said she was pretending to be herself. 

I knew I had a habit of pressing my tongue to the roof of my mouth and also of tightening the muscle around my right eye. As I continue to diligently unwork, through Alexander’s constructive rest, I have become increasingly aware of just how often these habits come into play. ALL. THE. TIME. I mean, all the time!! All of it. This is quite an exciting and an empowering realization because it is something I actually can control if I put in the time, awareness, and patience. I do not know if this is the root of my headaches but I believe it is strongly related. I had one more session with my new MT who combines myofascial release with neuromuscular work and it was again an amazing experience. I feel continued hope in our team work to undo this cage I have built around my head. I know the theory of myofascial release and I have felt the connective tissue releasing in my clients and I have received work from some highly skilled amazing therapists. That said, this last session was the first time I have really really really felt it melting in me. AMAZING. If I was not already a massage therapist and bodyworker then I would be deciding to become one now. I have also been exchanging with one of my office-mates. What I appreciate about both of these MTs is how present they are when they are working with me. I can tell they are paying close attention to unraveling the puzzle. They inspire me to really make sure I am fully present when I give massages to others. I could even expand that to when I am with my kids if I wanted to get really bold and crazy! :) I have to undo a lot of my knee-jerk reactions to some of their behaviors. I love this idea and I actually work on it a lot. But for now I will keep the main focus on my muscles, because that is really a doorway into all of the rest of everything anyway. I see right now, as I write, that I don’t have to know the answer of how I do want to respond to my kids, the first step is just not to do my habit.

When F.M. Alexander was unraveling his habits, he determined that he would maintain his good use (of his whole self) and speak (which is when his bad habits happened) or maintain his good use and not speak or maintain his good use and do something else. He would not let himself go back into his habits to achieve any end goal. I am keeping this in mind as I go through my days, seeing the to-do list, the mess, etc. My primary to-do item is actually an undo item. And that has to come before all else. I will undo the tension around my eyes and tongue and I will clean or not clean or do something else but I will not tighten. Or I will un-tighten as often as I notice tightening.  The really fascinating moments are when I do lose my awareness and then regain it, wondering for how long I was jamming my tongue to the roof of my mouth. Seconds, minutes, hours? 

I hope you are all clear and easy in your intestines, thinking, and muscles.

April 3

This week was a good clothing week. Grammy and Granddad sent some new clothes in the mail and the girls were squealing with delight as they shucked their old garments and donned the new. They started saying “look at me! look at me!” and then Sarah said, “Look at us!” Those tiny shifts in speech (especially pronouns) come so easily to so many but not Sarah, so it is really huge when she makes a shift on her own.

Sarah was outgrowing some of her pants so I took a chance and bought her some jeggings (jean leggings). She loves them! She has loved jeans for ages, but only when they were on other people. She wore them to school on Thursday and had a great day, the best day she has had at school in ages. We don’t know if it was the jeans that led to the extra good day or because I was outside the room the whole time (that was the needed security blanket to have her agree to try school). All week she had Sonia or me outside the room and we may need to continue in that fashion. She is doing great, but protests going unless we offer the option of being there. Friday was a good day too and also included jeans.

For the nitty gritty details and in case the information helps anyone else with their struggles, we got an x-ray of Sarah’s abdomen and confirmed my suspicion that she is in fact quite backed up. We are starting a temporary regimen of Miralax plus continuing increased fruits, veggies, and water. I also realized that for months now I have been wanting to keep my head in the sand and not give up any food items that I had long ago deemed ok. Yet, clearly things have not been ok (for either kid’s digestion) and so I had to face that and make changes. We are phasing out the rice bread that I had thought was ok. We are not going to have bananas around any more. No more orange juice (to cut back on the sugars ingested each day). I may phase out Beanitos at a later date if need be. I came to my realizations while grocery shopping and it took effort not to cry in the store. Sarah’s food is so limited anyway that I hated going back to even more limitations, even though she often handles it with more ease than I do. It is also different to limit Amy’s food more, but she seems ok after the initial disappointment. We will see how she does once the rice bread is actually all gone. When I initially eliminate a food option it has to be completely out of the house. It is too hard for me to say no if it is in the house. Decreased options also mean more work on my part because I have to make even more things from scratch. And did I mention that Sarah’s favorite veggie crackers are no longer being made??! I have a variation that she is now ok with and I have enough boxes to last for a few months, but after that I will have to experiment with making my own.

Yesterday our neighbor gave us an enormous cardboard box and Carl made a bus out of it. Sarah the Pigeon was very excited to drive the bus!