disclaimer

I know how tempting--and how easy--it is to imagine that our favorite mama bloggers' lives are as sweet and serene as some of their blog posts: all quiet contemplation, moments with coffee and notebooks while the kiddos nap, knitting while the little ones craft, nature explorations and shared conversations over long farmhouse tables. And, from there, to look at our own very real, messy and shabby lives, and feel like we are not enough, are not there yet, are missing something. Just in case you have dropped by here recently, perhaps have read how I am living the dream, and have been tempted to think I lead such a life of peace and ease and bubbles, let me take a moment today to disabuse you of this notion.

Most days, certainly for some moments of each day, my mama's life is one of chaos, despair, lost tempers, lost hopes. I am in the weeds up to my eyeballs, just like every one of y'all.

well, there is some peace...

Here is something else I know, something I have discussed several times with my fellow yoga teachers: teachers teach what they most need to learn. If I write here, and teach in my classes, about mama mindfulness, awareness of breath, tending to what is in front of me, lowering standards and relaxing as it is, it's not because I have this stuff down. It is because these are the things I most desperately need to learn how to do.

I use to feel bad about this. I used to moan and complain that I do all this yoga & meditation, that I read all these mindfulness books and blogs, that I actually teach this stuff, and that I'm still a total mess. Surely all that practice should buy me a little peace? It does--it just doesn't buy me whole days of peace. It buys me little slivers, little pockets of peace. It doesn't prevent me from wanting to scream--but, sometimes, it gives me a little breath of time in which to pause, and refrain from screaming.

This is why I am so relieved when some of the teachers I admire reveal how they are messes, too. Like when one of my favorite yoga teachers, whose main teaching message is about self-love and being sweet to ourselves, scoffs "You think I love myself unconditionally? Pfffff!" Like when Maezen says that we don't practice because we want to, we practice because we have to. I have to practice this much, not to be the mama I desperately want to be, but to be the good enough mama I am today.  I have to believe that that's okay.

...and some coffee

I also love those dreamy posts, the crafts and the coffee. Goodness knows I need the hope and the inspiration they offer! But I need to remember, reading them, just as I need to remember when the happiness (ahem) hits the fan over here: moments, whether beautiful or painful, are just that. Moments. Followed by another, and another. And any one of them need not define us: not me, not my mama idols.