For many of us, we conjure up the past not just to resolve an issue (which is often healthy and productive), but with a compulsive tendency to re-hash and re-live it because it irritated us (which is a waste of time). The mantra, when it’s over, it’s over, is a reminder to me that […]

Some professions thrive on perfection. I don’t want my brain surgeon saying, “Oops” and smiling sheepishly. I’d prefer my dry cleaner never to use the wrong chemical or leave the iron down too long. It’s excellent if the pharmacists doesn’t leave a message on my machine that starts with, “Umm, did you take any of […]

Even the most enlightened of us make mistakes. We all make mistakes…
In a sense, it’s not about what we do wrong as much as what we do next. (After she lost her temper and slapped her daughter) my friend first comforted her child by getting a cool cloth. Then she asked herself what could she […]

Mothering offers many opportunities to screw up.
In the last six months I have let my cell phone disrupt the class play, much to the chagrin of the entire cast and audience. I have repeatedly forgotten my child’s lunch, play dates, and library books whereabouts. We missed the opening day of baseball. Spaced out on […]

When you find yourself unable or unwilling to be totally in the present, when you are counting the seconds to bed time, when a paralyzed look of dread and angst takes over your face for the last two hours of the day, remind yourself, you’re not Buddha (although you do have Buddha nature within you). […]

Here’s an example of how it might work. You’ve asked your children to pick up the mess in the living room. Then you ask again. Instead of finding an industrious, cooperative agent of good, you find a surly eight year old who rails that you aren’t the boss of him. Rather than launching into a […]

A good analogy is that if the anger well becomes too high, there’s a threat that the water will spill over. In real terms it means we might let loose on our kid by doing or saying something we otherwise wouldn’t have. Becoming aware of your internal anger state is a key preventative tactic. If […]

Until I had children I didn’t think I had a temper. Any kind of temper. Pestilence, minor car collisions, my groceries put into someone else’s cart after I paid for them were met with an almost beatific composure. Having kids opened me up to a whole new side of myself. Buckling uncooperative passengers in car […]

You might be reading this because you are a mother with considerable free time on her hands. But more likely you are reading it because like any person trying to do the work of motherhood, you find yourselves at times overwhelmed, stressed out, anxious, and furious beyond your wildest imaginings. Probably not all at once, […]

Mantras, while beneficial, can’t change the basic makeup of the job. Mothering will always involve long hours, heavy physical work, and the type of worry that could bring down an elephant if put into a dart gun. At the same time, mantras can provide instant coping strategies to help us safely manage extreme feelings. Mantras […]