An inconvenient truth…about yoga

While in yoga today towards the end of class we tried something new. Well, at least it was new to me. We laid back on our shoulders and stuck our legs straight (if possible) up into the air. I was feeling like I could do this new move with ease and then proceeded to push the envelope and bent my legs in some kind of reverse “V” thing that had some name I didn’t catch. I looked around and took stock of how I was doing compared to the more seasoned yoga types in the class…the ones that come religiously and actually know these poses by name. Let us just say I was at least comparable. Everything was going great, I was feeling at peace. Not a real thought in my head…remembering to breathe…deep inhale in…deep exhale out…moving with breathe. Ahhh….yes…very nice…wait, what was that? Did I just hear a...? Did that just happen? It’s just a mere bubble of air leaving the cheeks but for some reason it’s like suffering a blow of humiliation worthy of some taunting middle school memory. I won’t say who exactly perpetrated this unavoidable mishap. Let us just say…a “friend.” My friend must be SO embarrassed. I bet she just wants to get up and leave rather than staying the last agonizing 7 minutes of class to enjoy the most important of poses … “Shavasana” (I know the name of that one because it’s the one where you lay flat on your back not moving at all in pure comfort. I like that one.) And now my friend is going to have to miss it as she makes her swift exit. Maybe if she sneaks out no one will know it was her.  No...its unavoidable...the jig is up…she’s caught…now and forevermore labeled, “that one that farts.” People won’t want to put their mat next to hers anymore. It’s really a pity she will never be able to show her face again in this yoga class. She’d better go now. But surprisingly she doesn’t. She stays with the determination of a majestic sequoia. Quiet and at peace with herself. After all, it’s just a bodily function. What’s the big deal? Nothing anyone can claim they have not done. Yet, the embarrassment of publically releasing is somehow unbearable. Imagine yourself at the grocery store letting one loose. How about at church? At a meeting with your kid’s teacher? Just sitting in a chair and slightly leaning to one cheek and letting it fly…the way your Dad did at the dinner table in the days of your youth. No. Can’t be done…it’s not okay to do it with purpose and forethought. But what about on accident…when it can’t be helped? WHY the embarrassment then? Why are we embarrassed by things that come to us naturally?

It got me thinking…is embarrassment of these accidental and only natural stumbles a part of any worthy new journey? And, more importantly, how many more of these unforeseen blunders will I (I mean my friend) have to overcome? Will it, pardon the pun, get even more stinky before it gets less embarrassing?

Gawd…I hope not…for her sake.

Connected

I have a cousin I don’t know very well. The last time I saw her I was a kid visiting Pennsylvania where my family is originally from. To tell you the truth, I really don’t know any of my cousins very well. We moved to Montana when I was 8 and our families drifted apart the way they do in our modern American lives. Yesterday, my mother called to let me know my cousin’s 17 year old son killed himself. As I said what people say upon hearing that horrific news, “I feel so sorry…we’ll be sure to send our condolences…they’ll be in our prayers”, my thoughts immediately went to that place of gratitude for my children. Then my thoughts drifted to instant worry that they could someday suffer from depression and then onto, “Oh my God… please don’t let anything remotely like this come any closer to me.” Like it’s a contagious thing. I’m ashamed to say tried to put it out of my mind. It kept coming back…the thought of my cousin grieving her son. While watching T.V. the theme of suicide and depression kept coming up, then I turned to a magazine and there it was again, a feature on teen depression. After a night of sleep, I looked forward to my busy day. As I attempted my morning routine, my husband called. He just landed in Seattle for his business trip and there it was again. He was calling to let me know he sat next to a woman that was from Hamilton. They got to talking and discovered how small our world actually is…she is travelling to the funeral today. It turns out she is one of my cousin’s closest friends and I had no idea she existed, let alone that she lives 30 minutes from my house. Strange connections. All of these things are not allowing me to just move onto the next thing on the list to accomplish today but rather actually think about the unimaginable...what if my child suffers from depression someday? How would we cope? Where would we turn? In the case of my cousin’s son the burdens of this world were too much to bear despite his loving family and support system. The fact is children are both resilient and fragile at the same time and finding a good balance between the two is part of growing up human. We love our kids deeply and yet tragedies like my cousins sometimes seem unavoidable. Helping kids navigate the waters of childhood is difficult even without added stresses of family dysfunction, addiction, poverty or even worse. It all makes me more committed to attempting this stupid running regime and now seemingly ridiculous blog in the hopes I can be possibly raise some awareness and money to help the kids at YHI that don’t have much in the way of healthy support to find their way. 


My thoughts and prayers go to my cousin Karen and her family.

Got a plan, got sick, gotta wonder

Since my last post, I looked up "Couch to 5K" and hope that will serve as my "plan" of sorts to reach a goal of running 30 minutes without needing to stop by the end of February.  I started this plan a week ago but then I got a nasty head cold that stopped me for a few days.  Today, I started again and this week my schedule calls for a stretch of five minutes in a row a couple of times during my 30 minute routine.  While I was attempting this feat, my daughter was watching Scooby Doo.  Remember how Scooby and Shaggy run?  They kinda run in place for a few seconds before they take off from their start position...suspended there in space with a look of panic on their faces.   That's kinda how I imagine I look while running my "long" stretches.  But I keep thinking if I keep at this, it will get easier.  I will actually start to move forward.  If I keep trying, maybe even the excuse of a cold won't stop me from the treadmill.

This week I meet with Shawn Gray who is a therapist at Youth Homes.  I'm hoping she'll give me some inspiration by telling me about the kids she has in care at the group homes.  Selfishly, I need these stories.  I need some momentum.  Something to get me moving forward instead of just up and down.  I'm wondering if some of the kids at the Youth Homes might feel like even though they're ready to start, they can't quite move forward yet.  Just suspended in the air...everything frozen except their legs running in place...just wondering if they will actually start to move.

A Plan

Just got off the treadmill and I am reflecting on an earlier conversation I had with Chris Carey (Youth Homes employee and exercise guru). Chris asked what my plan was for training. I responded with a jolt of anxiety and answered that I had not really thought it out yet. Then promptly jumped on the treadmill (which I needed to plug in, removed toys from and actually find the power button). I then started from what I will now refer to as “ground zero.” Walking at first…feeling good, listening to tunes, watching over children in front of the electronic babysitter. I got this. I’m not THAT out of shape. I can totally do this. I mean that’s what people have been telling me. And then I attempted the run. Not bad…going at a 3.5 speed, made it through one whole song…then maybe a quick break. I just need an adjustment. Maybe a bathroom break. Then back to it! I’ll hit it strong now…up to a 4…found one of the greatest rock and roll songs of all time in the playlist, “I want you to want me” by Cheap Trick (I don’t care who you are, you have GOT to move to that one.) Then half way through the song, a small side cramp, dry lips, out of breath…AND we’re walking again. Maybe if I keep my mind off it. I start to run again. I found my imagination wondering. Now I’m fantasizing about random things…anything to keep my mind off of being in my basement on this damn contraption. First, I’m a bad ass rock star. Okay, quickly moving onto something a bit more believable. Maybe some kind of Olympic athlete in a rare and completely impossible sport to master…I am SO cool. Then onto inventing something to wear…some kind of apparatus to firmly hold things on my body I was previously and blissfully unaware that shake so I can keep my concentration on my pace. Hmmmm…a plan you say.

So it begins...dusting off the treadmill

http://www.youthhomes.com/

So I’m going to do something kinda nuts. I’m committing to something I have no experience with…no practice at and not a lot confidence that I can complete it. I am going to do something I’ve never attempted before and had no reason to try. I’m going to test my patience, my tolerance for pain and my character. I’m going to want to give up. I’m going to need support.
I’m going to run a half marathon in July and I’m doing it in honor of a kid at Youth Homes. Some kid I haven’t met and probably never will. I’m doing this because I can’t come up with any more excuses. I’m doing it because I am in awe of what this kid I have never met will need to do to survive.

This kid will need to wake up each morning and fight their urge to self medicate with drugs or alcohol. They will feel small and alone and need to build themselves up with little or no support from family. They will need to fight demons of past history from memories of abuse, neglect and family conflict. At age 4, 9, 15, 12, 17 ½ …they will need to overcome self abuse, self hatred, insecurity, chemical dependency, rape, incest, hunger, poverty, mental illness, ignorance, and negative role models that they happen to love deeply. And the amazing thing is they do overcome these things (or learn how to deal with them) with time, practice, self determination, love and support.

So, at age 37 I can no longer crack jokes about being “40 something” because I see it around the corner. After three kids, I have three real big reasons to get healthier. As I contemplate how hard it is to run 5 minutes in a row after a lifetime of never really (not kidding) exercising into a full sweat, I know it pales in comparison to what kids struggle with each day as they try to get healthier with the odds against them. Knowing the odds are against me too…no time, weak bodied and weaker mindset…I will do this, largely in part, because I know you will help me get it done. If I have your support, then that kid will have our support.
As some of you know, I used to work at Youth Homes as the Development Director. I resigned from that position after 8 years to be home with my family and practice art. In the last week of the job this happened:

A therapist on staff at Youth Homes just paid me a visit in my office. She just got a kid back. This kid had been “on run” for almost a year. The girl… I’ll call her Becky, chose to run away because she feared having to go back to live with her family that represented conflict and pain in her life. At the same time, Becky longed to be home with her family but worried that the expectation of being home in a healthy environment wouldn’t actually happen. Seems like she almost felt if she got “too healthy” they might reject her. She also chose to live on her own terms instead of dealing with the restrictions and guidance she received in a group home. She started to listen to her own rationale again instead of her head and heart and maybe she just wanted to see if she could live by her rules instead of what she knew in her gut was a healthier path. Often “healthier” means a difficult road ahead. It’s strange how we sometimes choose physical pain over emotional work but it happens all the time.

Becky is now seventeen and has a tremendous amount of all kinds of pain. It turns out, the last year of her life produced fear, physical abuse, risky behavior and decisions that lead to a young life almost wiped out. She spent time with pimps, drug dealers and even in hospitals. She was degraded and neglected. She was left on the side of the road. She was 16. Don’t forget she is someone’s baby. Yet she was alone. Becky was looking for freedom and days without having to wake up and decide to actively choose to not do drugs, work hard at school and look to a future. A major issue that often causes this confusion in a kid facing hard work is a lack of a foundation….nothing to build on. No one to draw guidance from… No ability to reach inside and turn up anything but emptiness… And here goes the similar themes we hear time and time again with the kids at Youth Homes. One parent died violently when she was young. Another made horrendous parenting mistakes to the point of losing custody. Both parents suffered similar if not the same fate they handed down to Becky consisting of lack of education, affliction of poverty, drug use at an early age, unspeakable abuse and the list goes on. And that’s just it….it often keeps going on.

The only hope I’ve seen as a common dominator in this mess of human suffering is that people are mostly good. They want better even when all odds are against them and they seem to never be able to make a good choice. People dream of happiness…all of us do. As for Becky, she was lucky to have good people trying (sometimes desperately) to convince her she deserved this happiness. Becky had Youth Homes. She spent what she describes as the most stable and happy time in her life in a group home in Missoula, MT. There she received challenging therapy, a drug free home and a network of caring role models as well as “siblings” to share experiences.
The silver lining in this heartbreaking story is that Becky learned her worth at the group home. I know this because she showed it while on run. You may ask, “Where is the success in her story?”

Well, here it is…in between putting herself in situations you see on television dramas or shutter at the thought of as you read a newspaper headline, she reached out to the staff she trusted the most. She would email and then they would hear nothing. Then a few months later she would call and then nothing again. And then just last month (May 2009) she bravely asked to come home. She wasn’t sure they’d take her back. But she knew she deserved more. She knew she needed a better life. She knew she wouldn’t last much longer on her own. She knew she was disposable to the people she was with and not to the people here. She made a choice and finally it was a good one.

This of course is not the end of her story. I have hope that she will “make it.” I have hope she will know in her head, heart and gut that she is worthy of a good and happy life. I guess only time will tell but I do know she was here today with her therapist. She smiled at me and said “I’m doing okay” when I asked her the common question, “How are you?” Funny how when I asked her that I had no idea what this young lady had been though. But I heard something in her voice that stopped me. I’m pretty sure it was relief mixed with regret but most importantly …a little bit of hope.

So I’m asking you to join me with the Youth Homes Run 4 Kids team and run or walk the half or whole marathon on July 11, 2010. If you can’t do that, please give a donation. I need to raise $500 (although I’d like to raise more) and I would love your support. I will have a first giving web page coming in the next couple of months so I will be in touch if you don’t join the team yourself. Last year the whole team raised over $60,000. I’d like to help them raise even more this year. For me the raising the money is not the scary part…it’s the running. I need to run at least 4 or 5 days a week. To some that amount of exercise is nothing, kinda like waking up in the morning feeling safe, happy and content. But I remember kids like Becky wake up feeling scared, worried about how to take the next step and most of all…alone. Please join me…I need the support and the kids it will benefit need it too. Contact me at kimandersonart@yahoo.com if you are interested in joining the team and I’ll get you connected. For those of you that care about running…the Missoula Marathon was just given Runner’s World Readers choice of Best Overall Marathon…pretty cool.

I agreed to “blog” about my experience with this. Wowza…I know…another blog in the world. But I promise I will fill you in on how a kid is doing in the Youth Homes each time and hope to make it relevant to you and your support in this endeavor. Also, I will make it MUCH shorter than this initial plea (I need time to run for God’s sake). Please consider passing this blog address on to others and bookmark it for future reference. I will plan on updating it through the big day in July!

Thanks for your consideration and all my best,

Kim