art 4 regulation
What are your family’s top 3 favorite meals?
My family loves to eat. There are a lot of us so narrowing down three favorites is harder than it sounds. Add that we are fickle and change things up a lot, I can hardly speak for the whole group, but here goes my best jab at it.
1.Pasta with red sauce, meatballs, sausage, peppers and onions, ragu.., however you do it you can’t go wrong with a good red sauce
2.steak and potatoes, maybe a green salad, maybe potato salad, a simple vegetable
3.tacos.
I like the concept of dedicating a day to give and be thankful.To be thankful and give. A whole day to pause and count up all the wonderful blessings life has tossed my way and to look for ways to give to others…
I also like that as humans our one constant is change. Every year we are different. Every year we bring a new version of ourselves to the literal table.
This year I’ve been plunked down in my California beach hometown to see my kids, grandkids and good good friends. A welcome interruption from my stint in the North East. This unexpected twist has me feeling, you guessed it, intense gratitude!
There’s a grandparent thing that is unexpectedly amazing. It has something to do with the fact that you get to just be yourself and these adorable people LOVE you. From baby to teen, for some odd reason, you show up, and yeah. There are no words for how utterly awesome this phenomenon in itself is.
Our just turned two baby lives near her other set of grandparents, so she sees them often. At one point she realized that there were two of us. Two grandmas! Two! She told everyone. She told both of us. She told it like someone who just realized they won the lottery, twice!
How do babies know that they are this loved and this adored ? How does this same feeling span seamlessly across every age? And here’s another part of the miracle. It’s not dna. G is not my kids dad, but he is absolutely their kid’s grandpa. I know many examples of Grand-parenting where little to no dna is involved. What there is is love. Kids understand that part very well.
Here are a few things I’m feeling tearfully grateful for this year: (besides the miracle of my being here),
A one-on-one game of football using a cornhole bean bag for the ball with the sweetest 9 year old, only boy in the group (who will still slip his hand into mine while we walk and relentlessly try to get a word in edgewise around his hilariously chatty sisters ). It was a serious play-running game that turned into everyone who ‘didn’t want to play’ plus one birthday two year old running and laughing and PLAYING together.
An impromptu tea party with a real China tea set, a not yet two toddler and her dad. Buttered toast cut into lady fingers (four strips) and real tea (herbal of course) many pours and misses into tiny cups. Sweet bliss.
A failing attempt at making gingerbread cookies. Betty Crocker did not have the recipe I used to use .The one we found online was terrible! Such a weird consistency that we decided to make houses. (weird meaning the cookies were reminiscent of building material), so houses of course. Except that constructing three little houses from cookie dough despite looking easy on tictok, we can now tell you it’s not.
Hours later, after falling apart and sagging in and getting covered in frosting (us, the houses the table, the floor…) three little houses made it through the night intact, finally ready to be decorated. Many reasons to laugh here.
A visit with dear friends, a walk on our familiar stretch of beach and yoga classs with all my friends. I brought my seven year old granddaughter along because she was beyond excited to try yoga and certain she would love it. Which she did!
And finally, a full day of hanging out with part of my own little tribe, cooking and eating, playing games and listening to music that we all love. A few silly dance moves and a lot of laughing. Hydration pong (beer pong with water) was quite the hit…
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, I hope you have moments to be thankful for today as well…
If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?
Marc Chagall maybe… Janis Joplin? Jimmy Hendrix? I’ve heard a different version of this question before. If you could have dinner with three historical figures, who would you choose? I’d probably pick at least one comedian (do I know a clever funny historical comedian? Groucho Marx? then, maybe Einstein, maybe Frida Kahlo. Since it’s a whole dinner, I’d want good conversation and some laughs. But to just meet? There are a lot of interesting characters in history. Van Gogh, Churchill, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Tolstoy, The Brontë sisters. Louisa May Alcott, Paul Cezanne, Franz Marc, Abraham Lincoln, Lewis and Clark, Henri Matisse….go ahead and pick just one
Do you trust your instincts?
I do.
If instincts and intuition are the same thing, then yes. If they are not, still yes and here’s why. I have spent a lifetime learning to listen to myself. I may have learned this lesson by not listening or not believing, but there were always those moments when I did. Every moment that I did what my heart or gut or instinct or intuition suggested, I learned something about who I was.
Was I always right? Yes and no. Ultimately I’m going to say yes.
Animals are equipped with instinct with no logic to talk them out of listening to it. They still get eaten. They can’t help migrating when the time is right, but lose herd members along the way. Fish do that circling thing, but their big swirling numbers attract big hungry predators.
My instincts and intuition have given me me. I have navigated twists and turns in ways that work the best for me. Has it always been comfortable? No. I used to spend time trying to figure out where I went wrong. This was an activity that did not serve me. The where-did -I -go-wrong game led me into avenues of thought that weren’t optimal. Having some good gut feelings kept me alive and moving and gave me an ally.
I like to think that that is why I have them. Everyone gets their own private navigational systems and uses their systems very independently and personally. As we pick our way along the paths of our life, we have these internal hunches and prompts. We get to decide when or if to follow, at least I think we do. It’s all us for us.
My instinct and intuition help me decide. If I only had logic and reason to help me, I would never have gone to Africa. I wouldn’t have had children and I absolutely would not have become an artist. My heart, my me ness gets to interject, when I follow, I get a life more of and for me.
I have learned to trust myself along the way. I have also learned to trust myself in hindsight. Is self trust instinct? Is it intuition? Or are these the tools for knowing or remembering ourself?
What’s the first impression you want to give people?
Interesting prompt question. What do I want people to remember about me when they walk away from a first meeting? Hmmm. Let’s see.
I like when I walk away from an encounter with another and think :that was fun! So maybe I would like to leave an impression of lightness. I want to leave the other feeling a comfortable and happy energy.
I just spent an afternoon and evening with four of my grandkids. All of them have their own way of leaving me feeling like that. Later I had some moments with my daughter in laws and son. (we were helping decorate some birthday cookies and cup cakes). In separate conversations we ended up laughing so hard we could hardly get words out.( it may have had to do with too much sugar and the late hour) but laughter and lightness leaves me walking away thinking :well that was fun!
It’s not always laughter. Two days ago my son was talking to me about AI. He had a little experiment in which he interviewed me using questions compiled by AI around the topic of my book and why I wrote it. When he mentioned that it would be recorded, I was less interested, but it turned into an interesting conversation and we were both like hey, that was fun!
My oldest grand daughter loves trivia. She likes being tested on it. She stops me every so often and says I could do this for hours so if you get bored we can stop. I laugh and say I love asking her questions that I can’t even answer! In between chatting with the group we keep up the questions. Down the elevator to the car, back to the game room, we keep the questions going (I’m reading them off an app.)
That was fun!
So that’s my answer. Im not a comedian, but I love laughter, I love light, I love some fun thinking conversation. I genuinely want others to walk away feeling a tiny bit (or much) happier. Seen, heard, and part of the fun!
I’m jetting west toward my family in CA. It’s been nearly a full day of travel already.
I still have most of six hours to go, five hours in, I’ve been entertaining myself by reading samples of books I might like to one day read.
I love this option on iBooks. I have several vagus nerve, parasympathetic scientisticy choices as well as trauma regulation research choices also. This subject interests me because it’s a hopeful topic.
As they learn more about regulating a nervous system, there are more and more answers. They are finding that trauma can be met with helpful, productive responses. By understanding the bigger picture, the more whole picture, by understanding that positive interactions can have a hand in regulation, and that giving adults ways to regulate will help them help children to regulate also. It’s good news because traumas will not stop happening, traumas have happened, but research has shown that with knowledge and understanding, no one has to stay in a dysregulated state.
I’ve heard the tough-guy-tough-love-don’t-address the subject approach. I get it. It’s a painful topic. It’s also a big issue, maybe too big and too complicated to digest. Even so, I feel like its good to break it into small portions so we can begin to turn the tide. It might be good to shine some light and unbury some things. It may be that we ourselves are in need of some self love, some inner compassion, some advancements in our own ability to self regulate. (Me me and me)
I’m glad this subject is being normalized lately. The blame of yesteryear is slowly giving way to compassion. It’s no secret that trauma is often multi generational. Many people were parented by ill-parented parents. Some are doing their best to parent right now. No one needs to point fingers or blame. Parenting is maybe the hardest job in the world. Tools, self love, regulation practices, community involvement, kindness, compassion, understanding by teachers, other students, parents and community members can absolutely turn the tide for anyone on the other side of trauma.
It’s a topic dear to my heart because I’ve recently realized that I need these tools. I need to continually regulate and re regulate, I hadn’t understood until recently that for years I’ve been a student of this. I was searching for a permanent solution, but somehow my realization of the impermanence of states has opened up a greater understanding and a more hopeful knowledge of the headway that can be made. Even more lovely is that as we regulate ourselves we can’t help but be regulating for others. It’s a gift inside a gift.
I want to always help make things better. I love knowing that as I make things better for me, I might make things better for you too (and I hope for as many others as possible). It helps me to know that going in and out of a regulated state is what we do and that we actually have a little power over it.
I wrote this post for me today. Sometimes it’s helpful for me to remember what my breathing books are really about and why they feel important.
What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can?
I don’t TRY to skip any part, but if I’m side tracked or in a hurry, I might skip meditation. It happens
In fact, I just set my phone down and meditated, because this particular morning might get hectic.
Opening up 20 minutes might sound impossible, but like the hour I find for yoga or to work out, it is time that gives back, always.
That old should word again. I hear this, I ‘should’ do yoga, I ‘should’ meditate, people say it all the time. People also say, I should eat better when they see me eating something healthy, I used to feel guilty for making them feel guilty, but here’s what I’ve learned. Doing yoga, meditating , and eating healthy nourishing food are their own reward. They make me feel good. That’s why.
If I skip, I pay. I know this well
There was this movie called Amistad. The line that I will never forget is something like
“What is should ?! we have no word in our language for should, you either do something or you don’t do it.” This sounds amazing with an African accent (most things do actually)
But right there, that’s gold, because it’s true. You do it or you don’t do it. End of story Then it’s in the past. And who cares. Unless you suffer, but by then it’s too late. Luckily we get to try again
Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?
Hmm. No one memorable comes to mind… Jason Meraz?
One time I was with my friend Jill with Kfp at the peace headquarters in Washington DC. The kids were passing out kindness matters bracelets and we had paused to chat with someone on staff. A different staff person came up to us and said we needed to go right away to meet some important official.
Without thinking, Jill being Jill said simply that we felt that everyone was important. We finished our conversation and were escorted into the presence of I can’t even remember who.
It’s interesting hierarchy and humans.
It was my job to rake leaves into piles and scoop them into these cool paper bags. Even though the tree is still full of leaves, this was the chore that needed to be done. Today it looks like I never filled 5 bags. Leaves have re carpeted the ground. Is this a metaphor for life?
I enjoyed being outside on a crisp sunny day. I might like raking leaves. The yard looked great for the rest of the afternoon. G mowed for the last time this year and drained the oil from the mower (things I never knew that have to be done). The grass looks healthier than it did in the hot summer. I think the leaves look beautiful, especially the bright red and orange ones against the green green grass. I found this activity to be lovely, cue the music, oh wait this isn’t Hollywood…
I kind of like some of these seemingly mundane tasks. So purposeful in their own kind of way. Such a contrast to the creative thinking, creative make it up and do it once, reinvent the wheel every time, world I live in in my head.
I’m intrigued by how important chores are. How do some things get to be important while other things get to be unimportant? How is that all decided?
I believe these moments are teaching me some things. Life can be beautiful in so many different ways truly, but easy from my spectator seat to say. I can’t imagine doing this repeatedly for days and days until ALL the leaves fall down. The tree is big! It looks like thirty of those cool paper bags worth at least. How awesome would I be finding this activity in ten degree weather with the wind blowing and no sun shining ? Will I be as willing to volunteer as the season creeps toward winter?
Perspective. I feel like a beginner here. I used to think I knew things, but I really don’t know much at all (its okay, I’m teachable)) I wonder if it’s its that I didn’t know there were so many variables until now. So many ways to live and experience life. I love that. I love that it’s not really how we spend our time so much as how we feel about how we do.
Doing important chores, dashing to yoga class, shopping for gifts, making art, baking some apple crisp. All of our doings get to be what we want them to be because they are what make up our life. It’s ours so we can also choose where importance falls.
What is good about having a pet?
So many things
Peace Kit