How To Meditate Less On Retreat Than At Home

I recently went on a meditation retreat with both of my sons and my parents where I managed to meditate less than I do at home. I missed all of the group meditations but made it to some of the talks. At home I usually meditate on my own each morning for about 10 minutes or 10 breaths if I’m running out the door with the boys. I have a sweet morning routine that I’ve been doing for years that includes yoga, meditation, and writing. Before children it was a quiet and methodical time. Now I usually have 2 kids climbing on me, running circles, and shouting. It’s a different type of meditation, but still good.

The retreat was on a huge lake with cabins, kayaks, a sauna and a big dining hall where we ate together in silence, except for the children and their caretakers. You may be thinking, “That’s a bold move to go on a meditation retreat with both of your parents and both of your kids.” I keep going over in my head why I did this to myself. What was I was thinking?

One angle is that I thought, “Even though I have a challenging relationship with my parents, this is a silent retreat. How much trouble can I get into?” The answer to this is a fair amount of trouble. Going on retreat with 3 generations dug up a huge amount of buried childhood angst that I wasn’t aware I was still carrying and now the task is to look at this quagmire and figure out what to do with it. As I was packing up for myself and my boys I had this sense of panic like I was heading towards impending doom. I try not to take these feelings too seriously because often it’s just the stress of taking my children anywhere, knowing I will sleep less and be exposed to more stress.

I try to breath through these sticky feelings and find my calm but sometimes they may be warning me that I’m making a mistake and it’s time to pivot. The last few weeks have been intense. The week before this retreat I went to Portland, OR for a Holistic Pelvic Care training and unearthed all kinds of buried gems hidden in my vagina. Then I met up with my best friend I’ve known since kindergarten, and we were in such different places in our lives that it was hard to adventure together. Through all of this I was weening my son and started my bleed. The vagina massage added to my body’s ability to release what it does not need, which was messy.

It feels like I’ve fallen back into this pattern of needing to lift every rock and explore the dark underside. Perhaps I’ve forgotten to value ease and joy. I’m not sure. But the choices I made in the last few weeks reflect this. I could have gone rafting with my husband on a fun light sexy adventure but instead I chose to go on a complicated adventure full of family entanglement, also known as “Ancient Twisted Karma.” Why did I feel the need to do this to myself? Will this better me in the long run or did I make a mistake? A friend on the retreat asked me how I was doing and I told him, “I had the choice to go rafting with my husband through big rapids, freezing cold water, and raging waterfalls but I chose to come to the meditation retreat with my kids and parents. This was the brave choice for me.” We both laughed and I felt my courage.

I keep thinking about this image from a writing workshop I took in my mid twenties. My teacher described the process of writing feeling like a snake shedding skin. She described how when snakes need to shed their skin they have to rub up against hard sharp places and it’s a very edgy uncomfortable experience but they have to tear off this skin otherwise they’ll suffocate and die. That’s a little bit how I feel. Like I have to rip off this old skin that doesn’t fit anymore. In order to do this I have to look into my shadow side, which means getting into fights with my best friends, parents, and husband I guess.

I want the world to be full of ease and joy but sometimes growth feels more like ripping off old skin so we don’t suffocate and die. I have this very uncomfortable sense that I’m transforming and although I know this is probably a good thing, it feels bad. It feels unfamiliar like my skin doesn’t fit anymore. Like my life doesn’t fit anymore.

On Mother’s Day this year the gift I asked my husband for was time to myself. I left my family and went hiking through this amazing slot canyon with a raging creek, waterfalls crushing down canyon walls, surrounded by butterflies. I was able to tap into my old self again. The one before kids who felt free and adventurous. I miss her so much. She gets to come out to play more and more these days, but it’s almost like scratching poison oak, where the more I scratch the itchier I get until I’m raw and hungry for the pleasure of relief; in this case the pleasure of freedom.

I want to plan a month long trip in the Grand Canyon or go to Africa and visit my friends, but it’s not time yet. I still need to plan little adventures. Close to home adventures. “Micro Adventures” that give me a sense of wild freedom and courage without leaving my young kids for too long. This is the balance, to notice my need and want for more grown-up time while also trying to value this time with my kids while they are little. Letting myself see and feel the truth in being bored with all the kid activities, while also finding gratitude for my family and the freedoms I do have. Within this balance I want to explode. I want to go crazy. I can imagine packing up my car and driving into the distance with no plan and just letting myself lose control, letting go of the gently maddening rhythm of motherhood and stepping back into my own life, my own rhythm again.

I got a taste of this traveling by myself in Portland for 3 days before my friend met me and then a few days with her, still grown-up time but another person’s needs to factor in. I forgot how much I love to travel alone. To let go of any of the relational drama of keeping track of someone else and just listen to my own internal pulse. To sleep when I want to sleep, fuck when I want to fuck, eat when I’m hungry, socialize when I’m lonely, and go inward when I need to fill back up on my own. Wow!

Part of my current discomfort is due to this taste of my old self and my old life and then crash-landing back home and needing to sacrifice my own needs again, my own rhythm. On retreat, I really felt this because there were 4 other people in my brood to keep track of and then an entire retreat with a schedule to follow and I was unable to follow myself. It was over stimulating and I felt the need to stay calm for my children and my parents. I wanted to get in a kayak and go all the way across the lake by myself but I had nearly no time to myself so I kayaked with my 5-year-old and tended to his needs and safety. We didn’t make it very far.

The time I did have to myself I spent in a “Dharma sharing” group where we all got to speak about our experience of the retreat in the moment. I shared that this was a particularly challenging retreat for me as I was with both of my parents and my sons. Members of my group laughed and some grunted as if being punched in the stomach, imagining what this dynamic would be like for them. I shared that I’d decided to join this retreat from a place of desperately wanting to be held by a tribe, community, village. I got to experience some of this but it was messy and temporary.

I also got to hear about other people’s ailing relatives and challenges with their children, trying to keep little ones quiet during meditations and the stress this caused. It was amazing to get an intimate view into the human condition. So often we are in turmoil internally and smiling outwardly. During retreat it felt like we had permission to be intimate and honest, even with strangers.

Creating this writing project has been about making a space where I can be totally honest about the good, bad, and ugly parts of motherhood and life as a sensual human being. What a wild ride! One friend in my Dharma group shared a quote from a song: “Life is full of disappointment and I am full of life.” This made me laugh and cry. A tenderness of growing up and having children is this realization that many of my outlandish childhood dreams may never come true.

There are still many dreams, like becoming a midwife, moving to the country and living by the river. But currently we live in the suburbs and I work as a massage therapist and get to write sometimes. I’m not the chill happy mom I imagined I’d be and my husband traded in his outdoor adventure jobs for an office. We are still fun grown-ups who prioritize adventure, rafting, camping, hiking, and great sex. But somewhere along the line we grew up. We traded in our freedom loving dirt-bag lifestyle for a mortgage, babies, and a sense of stability.

I miss living outside, moving with the seasons, and the wild community we shared adventures with. In a lot of ways I like my life less now that I’m a mother. I like myself less. I love my kids but I feel boring and burnt out a lot of the time in this little-kid-mommy lifestyle. I want to scream and go wild, climb mountains and jump into waterfalls, but I need to pick up my kids from school and get some work done. I look at my boys, the wonder and enthusiasm that exudes from their boisterous young bodies and I wonder, “What happened to me? When did I trade in my paddle for a laptop? Is this temporary or am I destined to be a boring burnt out grown-up?” The answer is, “I don’t know.”

Well that’s one answer. Another voice says, “No! This is temporary. You’ve given up some sparkle to survive with little kids but as soon as they can both wipe their own butts and generally take care of their own survival, it’s adventure time Mama! Don’t give up hope. Your sparkle is buried under a lot of diapers and coordinating schedules, but it’s still alive and well. It’s waiting until the time is right to unearth itself like the zombies in Thriller.”

So there! Happy Fucking Mother’s Day. Please note that we should be celebrating mothers every day and perhaps ditch the term mother for: Creative Life Giving Goddess. Sending you love and hope. We will get through this and perhaps make the world a more beautiful sparkly place. Mothers are at the front lines of changing culture. This is big work and we deserve support and celebration every day. If you are a mother go celebrate yourself! If you are a mother-lover go celebrate a mom you love!