Reading this article in the Independent about “difficult mothers”, I relive once again my beliefs and memories about my childhood. Raising a child is an awesome task. To do it well is to constantly adapt. Parenting supposes a re-invention of the adult, the loss of friends, the changing of habits, homes and mental patterns. One of my best-loved sayings is that “adults don’t produce children; children produce adults”. Never a truer word been said.

I had a fraught relationship with my mother from the age of about 15 onwards. Divorce, overwork, dearth of help made our family fall apart and for a long time afterwards, I harboured unfounded resentments regarding my mother’s interest and care of me. These negative feelings hovered around me throughout my 20′s, but I couldn’t put a finger on what is was that was bothering me. While pregnant, I read the book “Why Love Matters” and suddenly things slipped into place. My overwhelming sense of isolation and loneliness was not the product of my mother not loving me deeply or sincerely enough. It was the product of a broken marriage, paternal absence, lack of money and lack of extended family. My mother loved me, she just didn’t have time for me.

While we waited at home, my mother worked her butt off, studying French at the Alliance Française until earning the highest diploma; becoming a Certified Association Executive, then becoming President of the Canadian Society of Association Executives. She sang alto in her church choir and worked tirelessly to support her parish, championing the social inclusion of minority groups such as gays and immigrants. With her adept fundraising skills and a dedicated group of parishioners, she pounced on the parish, succeeding in building a new Anglican church. It is a shame that her funeral was to be one of the first held at the new building. My mum died of a brain tumour in 2001. She was 68.

With every passing year, I give her more grace. Before, I was an unconscious child, clinging at my mother’s skirts and attributing all my failings to her. With the deep psychological work I am doing through Yoga, I am able to perceive now the Mind, and occasionally untangle one of it’s tricky knots of perception. Every situation can be interpreted a million different ways when two Minds are talking. But when two Hearts are talking, there is no room for mis-interpretation. Love is a physical force that can easily be felt by those who are brave enough to open their Hearts to others and give and receive love themselves. Now that my heart is finally healing, I can recall feeling of the love my mother radiated in my presence. I can feel how much she loved me when I recall images of the past. There is no other love in the world as powerful as a mother’s love. The power and depth of maternal love transforms the woman, pulls her entrails apart and reshapes them. It is a privilege that we women alone own.

So, calling out of all those fantastic mothers out there, all those women brave enough to love tenaciously and consciously, I stand up and salute you. My mother numbered amongst you, Sisters. She was an ambitious, highly intelligent woman raising three children alone and she defied every expectation of her. My mother ROCKED! She taught all three of us determination, courage, tenacity and raw pluck. She taught me to think, to criticise, argue and to accept.  She taught me to celebrate the differences between others and myself.  She taught me to travel, test new waters, and never back away in fear from new experiences.   She taught me to love languages, books and music.  But most of all, my mother taught me what love is.  Happy Mother’s Day, mum.

Me, aged 1 month.

This little gem comes at a time when my poor, downtrodden heart is blooming with a lovingness and openess such as I’ve never experienced before. It is truly a wonderful feeling to feel the heart chakra opening. Lovingkindness, compassion, such bliss. Anyway, that snail feast no more on my poor ol’ heart. My ruby necklace (bought on my last night in Goa) warms and feeds the energy of the heart centre. I am also convinced that the “medicine water” mix we bought back from Kerala holds the energy of the Keralan sun and fills the body with this light at every draught. Total: goodness, joy, lovingkindness, to others and also to mySELF. Om.

A Green Tara mantra:

Om Tare Tuttare Ture Ye Swaha

I see it in photos:  that is partly what convinced me that a change was due, the dark circles under my eyes.   Now, my eyes are brighter, they feel more open, I see more,  my mind is sharper and I am definitely more loving and more tolerant.  I see already that people respond to me differently.  I guess that love is always reciprocated, even unconsciously.

The other thing I find interesting is that this is the first time in my life I don’t feel like an imposter using the words joyful, or radiant, or peaceful.  Before, I was calm on the outside and tormented on the inside. Like many people, I soldiered through the work day only to turn to jelly at home.  Even when I changed jobs and began working with massage, a job I love and never intend to leave, I still found myself struggling to maintain inner harmony.  No matter how much yoga I did – and I used to practice 6 days per week – I still found myself flaring up in anger at small things, or suffocating in a silence of shyness at crucial moments.  But then, this long, long path I walk has led me here, to this place of joy, of peace, of certainty that what I am doing is the right thing to do, the right thing for me, for the people around me and for the world.  And so the anxiety gap narrows, become but a crack, and I skip merrily across it, light as air, knowing that what I believe and what I do are now one and the same.

My daughter is learning to speak and charmingly mixes English, Italian and Spanish in her own little tri-lingual melting pot. This evening when I was putting her to bed, she decided that she needed a little more cuddling before settling down for the long sleep. As she nestled her soft little crown of hair against my shoulder, she proclaimed “qua, happy”. (Qua means “here” in Italian). Here, I am happy, she said. I had to agree with her.
Yes, my love, we are here and we’re happy. Qua, happy. Here, felice.

Since becoming a mother 21 months ago, my Hatha yoga practice has suffered grave insults.  Rarely do I practice asanas more than twice a week and frequent are the weeks when I don’t practise at all.  However, since the beginning, I have retained in my head the concept that I am actually practising Karma yoga in the raising of my child.  In the week in which Karen Matthews was convicted of kidnapping her own daughter in order to secure reward money, it emerged that she was deemed to be unable  “…to successfully place the children’s needs above her own”.  This inability is the manifestation of a juvenile mindset; unable to delay gratification, unable to empathise.  Children are born egotists – they have no concept of a parent’s desire to sleep late, or skip dinner, or not go out for a walk on a rainy day.  Children…want…now.  And our role, as parents, is to both satisfy their needs whilst teaching them slowly to recognise that their needs and desires don’t always coincide with everybody else’s.

And so, parenting, I practice Karma Yoga.  When my daughter needs me, I give.  Love, hugs, food, attention, play, education.  Whether I achieve the objective of detachment from the results of my labour, I do not yet know.  Perhaps, perhaps not.  I suppose it’s natural that in teaching her to speak I hope to create an articulate, polite, well-spoken human being, and that in teaching her to eat I hope to develop a balanced palate, open to new flavours and textures, alive to the possibilities of healthy food and not numbed by doses of salt and sugar.  How to detach from the outcome then?  I know that it will create less anxiety at mealtimes if I detach from the desire to raise a healthy eater and instead focus on the action itself:  the feeding, the nourishing.  But, man, it’s difficult for me that she’s already choosing bread and jam over porridge and flax seeds, or pasta with tomato sauce over vegetable and barley soup.  Yes, the options should not even be available, but her rejection of lovingly prepared foods means that she goes hungry, and so I fail on both counts:  neither do I feed nor do I nourish.  And we all go to bed hungry:  she physically and I spiritually.

And so I practice daily the yoga of devotion and action.  My karma yoga as a parent stretches my limits in a way that other things have not.  I believe that parenting actually makes us better people.  I love the quote “adults don’t make children, children make adults”.  The ancient yogis had firm respect for the phases of life:  they far from believed that all of us are made to sit alone on a mountaintop in meditation until we reach Enlightenment.  In fact, one yogi in a city makes more positive change in the everyday world than do ten yogis in retreats.  And of course, the later phases of life, the renouncement, the time for contemplation, come after the family is grown and the career realised.

And so, I try not to stress about missing my hatha practice.  For today, too, I will detach from the fruits of my labour and love an cherish my daughter without thinking of her eventual adulthood and whatever surprises it may hold.  Om shanti peace.