MIsadventures of a Parenting Yogi - Book Review

I appreciate people who can talk honestly about life, especially when it comes to subjects like childbirth and parenting.  I also appreciate funny people.  I really adore people who can talk honestly about life and make me laugh while they do it, which is why I am happy to share a book I just read!  The book is titled Misadventures of a Parenting Yogi.  The title had me at “Misadventures”.  Any book with a title containing that word has got to be filled with some hilarious stuff, right?  Add to that the words parent and Yogi?  Yeah…I’m in.

Misadventures of a Parenting Yogi is all that it purports to be.  It is, just like I surmised, a candid and humorous look at parenting from the viewpoint of Brian Leaf, a yoga instructor (one of his many titles) from Massachusetts.   Brian has managed to create a memoir/parenting book combo that is neither preachy or self-indulgent.  The glimpses into his family life and his attempts at conscious parenting are both funny and poignant and although I did not agree with all of Brian's parenting choices, I could totally relate to his struggle to find his "happy spot" as a dad.  I love that rather than offering advice, he simply shares his experiences and the lessons he has learned while raising his own children.

Here is an excerpt from one of my favorite chapters: 

It’s 5:00 AM. I have to pee very badly. 

And I’d like to go meditate.

Someone else would simply get out of bed, pee, and blithely head off to their cushion.Not me.

To do this, I must pull off a CIA operation.

I must remove the covers, inch by inch — in the dead of night our comforter sounds like a crinkly bag of potato chips. I must crawl to the edge of the bed (our bed is pinned against the wall to make room for Benji’s changing table). I must step off, and in the pitch-black, follow the border of the bed frame.

I must round the corner of the bed, where someone who designed our bed has very cruelly placed a jutting protuberance at exactly shin height. At five in the morning I forget this every time. I must stifle my cries. Power through the pain. Eyes tearing, I round the corner and toe the balance-beam width between Benji’s changing table and our bed, ever careful, ninja-like, to step lightly.

I am almost out. But now I face my greatest challenge. The small distance between me and the door, maybe five feet, is a minefield of creaky floorboards. Gwen has them memorized. For some reason I do not. At first I pause to consider my options, and then I panic, sprinting the short distance to the door.

My feet land extra heavy, and the floorboards creak like mad...yet no one awakens. Hashtag grateful.On the way out, I shut the door in one motion, careful that it does not squeak, promising to myself that today is the day I will remember to oil the hinges.

Failure in this operation is not an option. Benji is not sleeping more than two hours at a stretch. Neither, therefore, is Gwen. She is grumpy. I must not wake her or Benji.

So totally relatable, right?  Every parent can picture themselves in this exact same predicament!  And here's one of the answers I liked best from his Q and A session:

Q and A with author Brian Leaf

The subtitle of your book is Cloth Diapers, Cosleeping, and My (Sometimes Successful) Quest for Conscious Parenting. What do you mean by Conscious Parenting?

Conscious Parenting is really no different from conscious anything else. It could be conscious Monopoly playing, conscious eating, conscious hiking, or conscious Texas Hold’em. It simply means being aware of whatever is happening – the challenges, the joys, the anxieties, as well as our reactions to all of this. When we are aware of something we are separate from it. So, instead of acting from frustration, elation, or fear, we act from our deeper selves. We see more clearly and are more free to behave as we choose.

And finally, a glimpse of the author in action:

YesWhat he said! You can find Brian's books on sale at both Amazon and on his website. Perfect Father's Day gift!!

Disclosure: I received a copy of Brian's book from publisher New World Library to help facilitate this review, but was not compensated in any way.  All opinions are my own!

Nurturing the Soul of Your Family - 10 Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life by Renee Trudeau (Book Review)

There have been occasions here on my blog where I have probably shared too much about my emotional issues and how they affect me and my family.  I'm an over sharer.  I know that about myself and have tried to reign it in, but sometimes the need to offer "too much information" overwhelms me and I find myself spewing emotional baggage again.  This is a book review.  But it's about a book that has tapped into some pretty raw emotions for me.  So I'm warning you now.  I might spew.  Just so ya know.

Recently I was offered the opportunity to review a new book by Renee Trudeau called Nurturing the Soul of Your Family – 10 Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life.  The last few years have been incredibly trying for my family for many reasons, which some of you know about, but I won't go into any of that here.  The stress has taken it's toll.  The atmosphere in our home was not a happy one and I felt an immense amount of guilt every single day for not being able to overcome the trials and for not being able to change the way we function as a family.  I could not bring the peace and feelings of love and security to our home that we all wanted and needed.  I felt broken and stupid for not knowing how to create a different experience for my family.  

Well, this is my year of change.  My year to be "fearless" in my pursuit of peace, happiness and family unity.   The fact that helpful tools like Renee's book keep finding their way into my life tells me that I am on the path I am supposed to be on.

I should admit that I was all "Here we go...another parenting book" when I first cracked it open (or rather when I first brought it up on the computer screen. I opted for the digital copy cuz one less thing to clutter the coffee table). The first thing I noticed and appreciated when I started reading Nurturing the Soul of Your Family is that Renee shares some of her own life experiences as she offers advice to her readers.  Sometimes it's easier to follow "expert" advice when you know that the advice comes from a person who has actually lived through some of the same trials  with which you are dealing.

The book starts off with an introduction that calls for a "new way of being." Renee invites us to live an awakened life by slowing down so we can nurture our hearts and souls, as wells as those of our family. She invites us to 

"think of our loved ones as a carefully chosen collective of souls who have joined — not by accident, but intentionally — for an important reason: to support one another’s collective growth."  

Now, my religion teaches that we chose to come to the families into which we were born, so this concept is not at all new to me.  Sometimes I question why I would choose the family I chose or why my boys would choose me as their mother, but I always believed the concept to be true. But I guess since my mind and heart have been much more open to change this year, that statement really slapped me in the face!  All of the sudden I realized that these people that I share my house with are NOT THE ENEMY!  We were not conjoined as a family for the sole purpose of inflicting pain and grief on each other.  We came together to love and support one another.  

I know there are people who are reading what I just wrote and going, "Duh. How screwed up are you that you think of your family as the enemy?" (Pretty screwed up.  But that's beside the point.  Plus I'm fixing the screwed up part, which is why I'm reading the book.)  I don't think of them as the enemy, but sometimes when I have to fight the kids tooth and nail over chores and homework or my husband can't handle life events and retreats and does nothing to help fix the event, it FEELS like I am at war with them. And I hate fighting and contention.  I grew up with lots of fighting and contention and I despise it.  It makes my soul hurt. But enough about that...back to the book review.

Toward the end of the introduction, Trudeau poses this question and then follows it with ten chapters to help us find the answer:

"Each family has its own beautiful, unique essence or sacred connection. Just as we need to tend to the emotional well-being of any relationship in order for it to thrive, we have to consciously nourish and nurture our family’s sweet,tender soul. What type of daily care, feeding, and love does your family’s essence need in order to grow strong and soar?"

The chapters cover a wide range of topics that include: 

• self-care
• healing
• dealing with life in a digital world
• nature as an anti-depressant
• spiritual renewal
• spending more time together
• celebrating family culture
• making choices
• asking for help   

I found the three workbook type sections at the end of each chapter to be particularly helpful:

• "Pat on the Back" gives readers the chance to reflect on what they are doing right.
• "Putting It In Practice" asks questions that help the reader create a plan of action
• "Imagine a New Way of Being"  - a journaling exercise designed to help you envision what’s possible for you and your family.

Nurturing the Soul of Your Family – 10 Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life is a great book for anyone looking to bring more peace and balance into family life.  It's not preachy or negative. Renee doesn't spend all kinds of time telling you what you are doing wrong.  Instead she offers realistic and achievable steps to help readers facilitate the change. I hope other readers get as much out of the book as I have.  And major thanks to Renee Trudeau for giving me some of the tools I've been looking for to create the family I want!

ABOUT RENEE TRUDEAU

Renée Peterson Trudeau is an internationally-recognized life balance coach, consultant, speaker and author. She is the founder of Renée Trudeau & Associates and Career Strategists and the author of The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal.  Renée speaks and leads life balance workshops and retreats for Fortune 500 companies and writes for numerous publications.

For more information:

• Visit Renée’s website.
• Follow Renée on Facebook.
• Follow Renée on Twitter.

**Disclosure:  I received a copy of Nurturing the Soul of Your Family to facilitate this review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own honest opinions.**

  

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Moms Review and Giveaway

About a month ago I was honored to be chosen as a "Don't Sweat" Mom.  The title doesn't come with a cool tiara or a guest spot on Ellen or anything like that.  What it does come with is an opportunity to share some insights and support with lots of other moms out there, many of whom have held me up during more than one difficult parenting situation. It also comes with an awesome new book called Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Moms, by Kristine Carlson.

Kristine Carlson is a mother and grandmother and the wife of the late Dr. Richard Carlson who authored the highly successful "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" series.  Kristine created her own very successful Don't Sweat series by writing 3 bestsellers of her own, including Don't Sweat the Small Stuff in Love and Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Women.  

In her latest book, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Moms, Kristine talks to moms about finding joy in everyday parenting and reveals how to:                                                          

• be a mom (not a friend)
• balance being a woman and a mom
• pursue your passion (but not at the expense of your children)
• and reclaim your family time.                                                                                   

Personally, as a mother, I tend to be a "sweater."  I DO sweat the small stuff.  Everyday.  All of the time.  I know why I'm that way.  I have this overexaggerated need to make sure that my kids have a home life that is very different from the kind of home life (or lack thereof) that I experienced.  Many times though, that drive creates the opposite effect and my micromanaging makes things very unenjoyable at home, for ALL OF US!  So it's been good for me to step back and get some input from other women who have figured it out, ya know? 

Kristine's book lays out some good advice, in short concise chapters, that helps busy and stressed out moms gain some perspective as they navigate the daily challenges that sometimes prevent us from enjoying our families more. One of the most helpful chapters for me as a mom at this particular time is called "When Things Fall Apart".  

"Then, they enter puberty and somehow we feel as though we've hit a wall.  We are exhausted; we've lost all confidence in ourselves, in our future, in our ability to mother with the wisdom and pleasure we once had.  What happened, we ask ourselves.  Nothing much - unless you notice that our own lives are convulsing too.  One might think that Mother Nature is playing a terrible joke when we stop to realize that our kids' teenage years are taking place alongside the emergence of our own midlife issues that can exacerbate the stresses we feel with our children."

BOOM!  Someone just defined exactly how I am feeling!!  How relieved am I to know that a) I am not the only person who does not feel at all prepared to deal with teenagers at this particular juncture of my own messed up life and b) that this midlife crisis thing that I feel like I have been going through for-freaking-EVER is also a somewhat normal, albeit unpleasant, part of the parenting journey?!?  I don't know that this realization will make this part of the process any easier, but at least now I have a definition of what the problem is so I can work on developing the parenting tools I will need to make sure my family survives this period of growth.

It is truly amazing to me how things and people come into our lives when we need them the most.  This is the second book I have read in the last few weeks that has spoken directly to the issues I am facing as a mother trying to hold her family together during a difficult time and as a woman looking for fulfillment in her personal life.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Moms reminded me that I'm not going to get everything right when it comes to raising my boys.  I know that, but it's hard to let go of the warped idea that just maybe, if I try hard enough, things might go exactly as planned and my two boys might have a shot at being amazing people.  I get too uptight when things go wrong, which seems to happen a lot the last few years.  And knowing how it feels to be on the receiving end of someone else's poor choices or mistakes, it causes me great pain to think that I might wreck their lives because of choices I make.  So I try to control everything and I fail miserably and we all end up depressed.  As Kristine says, "there's no such thing as a perfect mom."  As much as I want their childhood to be safe and happy, things are going to happen that will be difficult for our family to navigate and no amount of micromanaging is going to change the fact that life is messy and my kids might get a little dirtied up trying to figure it all out.  The best gift I can give them is to let go of the "small stuff" that undermines my confidence and find a way to be happy with who I am.  When I can learn to do that, I will be free to create a home that allows them to feel safe and loved while they figure out who they are and what they want from their own lives.

So...now that you know my thoughts about Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Moms, wanna win a copy of your own?  To enter, leave a comment that tells us some of the best parenting advice you've recieved.  Contest will end on June 9th @ 12 pm MST.  Winners will be chosen at random and notified by email or announced on this blog.

To extra entries you can do any of the following, just leave a comment letting me know what you did:

• Follow I Am Boymom on this Blog, Twitter and Facebook
• Connect with the Don’t Sweat Moms:
  • Facebook ~ Facebook.com/DontSweatMoms
  • Twitter ~ Twitter.com/DontSweatMoms
  • YouTube ~ YouTube.com/user/dontsweatmoms
  • Pinterest ~ Pinterest.com/dontsweatmoms

Didn't win the giveaway?  Don't sweat it!!  (Did ya see what I just did there?  Sorry, couldn't resist.) Everyone's a winner here! You can still get a free gift!  Kristine is giving moms a chance to get the first chapter of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Moms for FREE!!  Woot!  Just click the link below.

**Disclosure:  I received a free copy of Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Moms to facilitate this book review.  My thoughts and opinions about the book are honest and are my own.**

Here, Home, Hope Book Review

Thanks to One2One Network, I was able to actually sit down and read a book this last week, for the first time in a very long time.  I love reading, it used to sustain me when I was a kid looking for an escape from my weird, dysfunctional life.  I forgot how much I loved the process of getting to know the characters and really trying to put myself into the story. 

Here, Home, Hope is a "chick lit" novel written by Kaira Rouda.  The whole story revolves around main character Kelly Mills Johnson, a stay-at-home mom  living in an up-scale suburban neighborhood called Grandville.  39-year old Kelly has a successful lawyer husband, well-behaved kids and beautiful friends with whom she shares her life, but she finds herself feeling restless and depressed after a breast cancer scare.  When her boys go off to summer camp she finds herself feeling even more lonely and directionless, so  she decides change is in order and embarks on a "Things to Change (T2C)" campaign to improve her life.  The fact that Post-It Notes became part of that campaign immediately caught my attention and made me laugh, because I am seriously THE Post-It Queen. 

As Kelly puts her T2C Plan into motion, she quickly learns that things are seldom as cut and dry as they may seem.  The two perfectly put together, succesful friends she admires so much are not as perfect and put together as she had assumed and have issues of their own that end up becoming issues for Kelly too!   The rest of the book winds its way through Kelly's attempts to make sense of her life and make the changes she needs to make, while dealing with the changes going on in the lives of those around her. 

I read Here, Home, Hope in two days and although I enjoyed the book and definitely  identified with the character's need for growth and fulfillment  as she transitioned from mother of small children to mother of more self-sufficient teens, there were parts of Kelly's life that I could not necessarily come to terms with.  Maybe it was the $300 hair cut and the shopping trip to the high end boutique.  Or the perfect husband who always says and does the right thing at just the right moment.  Or the perfect suburban neighborhood that Kelly describes as her home.  I don't know anyone who lives like that, so that's not real life...to me.  But then again, I 'spose it is real for some people...I just never ran with the "Country Club" crowd, so my version of reality comes from a whole different place.

The book really is a nice, easy read and there was much to enjoy about Kelly's journey to peace and happiness.  I think it does address some very real issues for women.  Trying to be everything to everybody is something with which most of the women I know struggle.  Here, Home, Hope addresses the feelings and frustrations we all feel when we try to bring more joy and fulfillment to our lives.  It also addresses the reality that not everybody deals with their problems the same way, hence marriages end, families fall apart, people inflict pain on themselves and life gets messy.  And as humans, we tend to be judgemental about people's problem solving skills and choices.  I liked the sense of empowerment that author Kaira Rouda tried to bring out in her female characters throughout the storyline.  I loved that the underlying message is one of support and nuturing, rather than criticizing.   And honesly...I loved the T2C Post-Its and Kelly's T2C List.  I have a few T2C's on my walls now.

Here, Home, Hope was a decent, light, quick read that did give me some ideas, some motivation and some hope that I can make the transisitions I need to make in my own life as I struggle to find "my place" in the Universe.  And it reminded me that while I am on my journey, I need to feed and care for my sister friends (T2C #5) without judgement.

Sending lots of love out to all of you who continue to support me as I work through my issues and find my path to fulfillment!

***Disclosure:  I was not compensated for this review and the opinions expressed are my own.  I did recieve a digital copy of Here, Home, Hope from One 2 One Network in order to facilitate this review. ***