I do not have time for anything
Nothing at all. And I wouldn’t care if I were 23 years old (like with my first child). But I’m already 30+, there’s a lot of things to do at home, children who need a mother.
It seems to me that soon my husband’s socks (he doesn’t put them away, he’s such a bastard) will crawl out from under the chair on their own and walk to the washing machine. Oh yes, and along the way they will grumble in their sock-smelling language about the one who has been ignoring them for weeks.
What about washing? I go into the bathroom and see how the drawer with dirty laundry is simply sick from the number of things. With one hand (Yuna hangs on the other) I sort and throw things into the washing machine. I’m not able to put the powder in, so I taught my newly-minted first-grader how to start the laundry) well, ok, I think I got out of it.
By the way, speaking of the bathroom... I wash the sink every evening. Before washing the children. And in the morning, when I open my mouth, I am amazed.. The sink looks like they tried to write the Arabic alphabet on it with paste.. And okay, there I see the familiar color of the paste.. There are also shades of something unfamiliar to me, something that would be hard to wash off. There are also traces of unknown crap on the mirror. But I don’t wash it in the morning. And I have to use the sink. I'm disdainful. Because I'm not sure about the stains. Perhaps it was my husband who washed Yuna’s butt in the evening... He does everything for me halfway)
I'm going to the kitchen. I understand that it’s almost lunchtime, and I have nothing to feed the one who stayed at home with me. And nothing else comes to mind except how to quickly cook broth. And buy triangles for it. Who is the most cunning? Of course it's me.
I go into the nursery. I feel like my heel is standing on something small and sharp. There are a lot of indecent words in my head. Okay, that’s not on the tongue... The war with Victoria for purity. I'm holding defeat. As usual. Victoria has no equal in this battle. When it’s time to clean up, this sweet child goes to the exit at super speed.. Then his tummy dies without food.. Then suddenly he starts to fall asleep. This point needs to be changed urgently, very urgently! And it's not that I don't like losing. It's my heels...
Oh, I didn't specify. That all this time a little toothless man has been indignant in my arms. I play with her. I am constantly studying: revolutions, toys, colors, abacus... I voice everything, show it. It’s not because I’m such a damn good mother) there are just 2 options: either walk with her around the apartment back and forth all the time.. Standing more and more often with your poor little heels on toys in the children’s room.. Or study everything. I choose the second one. But Yuna doesn’t last long. Especially if there are coups planned. I do not like. She can’t do it) but she began to pull her right fist towards the toys. He grabs his fingers as best he can. We will continue to work, I have a lot of free time) and she has a lot of free screaming)
And then the most interesting thing... Picking up the eldest from school. Oh... Okay, it's warm now. But in winter I can’t imagine... Victoria doesn’t pass by a single curb... Yesterday she skinned her knee and elbow. She plods along like a snail.. We have to hurry her, because the teacher is taking the kids outside.. She asks not to be late.. Victoria asks to go to all the playgrounds in the world, at a time when we are really in a hurry!
We always arrive on time. Sometimes I just run with a stroller and Victoria in my teeth.
The teacher comes out. Something is being said about homework, the children's skills... I don't hear anything. Because Yuna is no longer sleeping (we walk 15 minutes from home to school). I push the stroller back and forth. Victoria asks to be held. Ksyusha lays her head on me. Tired after school. I’m standing like a mama Christmas tree. All covered in baby toys.
We rush back home.. Because Yuna is already grumbling. And so all the days of this week...
What would I like? Yes, everything is simple: put Yuna to sleep - be with Victoria, do some small things with both hands) and wash the same unfortunate sink)
I'm afraid that my older children are missing me. And the husband comes late. It also works often on weekends.
How to teach Yuna to sleep alone? At least a little.. I tried not to pick her up at the first call.. But she gets so hysterical.. That it’s not worth it.. I’m really already looking at ergo backpacks. But my Yuna is so capricious. Will she sit there?
In general, my maternity leave hasn’t really taught me anything yet) I’m talking about how to cope. I just want to put the kids on the bed. Lie down between them, hug each one and lie around, not thinking about business) find out how someone’s day is going, play in the cities and just see their happy happy eyes) we will strive for this!
Spiritual time management: what to do if you don’t have time to live
For a long time it seemed to me that I did not have time to live. Twenty-four hours a day was not enough for me, so I taught yoga nidra just to learn how to sleep less and still get enough sleep. My mother often recalls how once, at the age of 5, I brought a huge stack of books into my room and said with tears: “When will I have time to read all this??” The adults were amused by this, and I carried this feeling into adulthood.
Since school, I kept diaries, diaries, to-do lists, book lists, movie lists, lists of New Year's resolutions, I even took notes on the famous "Santa Barbara" series for a long time, because it seemed to me that it was very important to write everything down as it is, then reread it to your classmates and cross this item off the to-do list. Only the day in which all the day's tasks were crossed out seemed successful. But this feeling disappeared when the next list appeared, that is, tomorrow, because things never ended.
Then I did not yet know about Human Design (HD) and the existence of such a Channel, which my teacher Chetan Parkin calls the “Employment Channel”. It is truly and firmly located in my Life Map, like many Manifesting Generators. Another name for this Channel is “Charisma”. We are people who cannot sit idle, and if there is no work to do, we suffer a lot. Telling us to “relax, calm down, just be” is practically a death sentence. We don't function like that, it's not for us. We will relax, calm down, and just be there when we finish all our business (and, perhaps, the neighbor’s business - as my friend with the same Channel added).
When I first came to India to take a break from the crazy Moscow race, in which workaholism was my middle name, I became scared. How can you just sit on the shore and watch the sunset? How can watching the sunset be a “thing”?? I need to make a to-do list! What?.. And then it dawned on me that there was nothing to do, that I came here to relax, but I didn’t know how to relax. There was withdrawal. I didn’t know how to relax just like that, I needed at least a book to somehow utilize the time on the beach (sunbathing for the Employment Channel is not a thing). I didn’t know how to just listen to music, I needed a notebook to write another fairy tale, or at least write down the ideas that bombarded me, a person with an indefinite Crown (the term DC), without permission or preparation.
Four years have passed since then. Everything has changed - the attitude towards time, rest, existence. No, I didn’t fight the Employment Channel and eradicate it. The essence of living your Human Design is to know, understand, accept and love yourself for who you are. This means that Vipassana is still contraindicated for me.
I also developed simple rules for myself to cope with the eternal anxiety of “not being on time”
- “Spiritual Time Management” has been a lifesaver for me. We, the Kabardians, have a phrase: Si luehur Alyhym bgyedyzolykhye, which means “I leave my work to God.” At that moment, when it seems to me that the world will collapse from my unfulfilled tasks, I take a deep breath and exhale (or rather, at least three) and remember this phrase.
- I realized that things never end, at least for me, and this made life easier. It also helped to understand my nature, the “busy” Channel, and the simple fact that most of the information I read on time management does not suit my lifestyle.
- I accepted that everything I did during the day was exactly what I needed to do. This is my “list of the day”.
- The catch with the Busy Channel is that there is a danger of being busy just for the sake of being busy. I am sure that this is familiar to many; after all, about 33% of the population on Earth are Manifesting Generators. And here is our general rule for all Generators: we must remember our Inner Authority. For some Manifesting Generators this is the Sacral, while others need to gain Emotional clarity before this. But one way or another, all Generators need to learn to respond to the task, and not rush headlong into the pool. Only then does the Employment Channel turn into Charisma and show the magic.
- I can talk about laziness and procrastination, but somewhere deep inside I have excluded these words from my “spiritual vocabulary.” For example, owners of the Rhythm Channel (the term DC) will understand what we’re talking about: they can be accused of procrastination as much as you like, but their sense of flow accurately indicates timelines and deadlines, which can be very different from the calendar and any other person’s schedule.
- All Generators - Manifesting and Pure (which means 70% of the population) - in one way or another will face dissatisfaction associated with unfulfilled tasks. If you follow your Strategy, this feeling will simply be in the background (you won’t be able to get rid of it), but without emotional coloring. I talk more about this in the basic reading of the Personal Card.
The lists have not disappeared from my life, and there is also an explanation for this in my Life Map DC. Now I write them so as not to clutter my mind, and also because I just like writing them. Do I have time to live? As much as possible for me at this point in my life.
Amara (Marina Marshenkulova) is an international specialist in the systems of Human Design and Gene Keys, author of the book “Design of a Cloudless Life: A Big Book of Practices and Meditations from and for Everything,” a meditation teacher. Lives between Russia and India, consults, conducts sessions, seminars and retreats, works with clients from all over the world. Writes healing fairy tales in English and Russian. Sometimes consults at the Osho International Meditation Resort in Pune (India).
Photo: istockphoto.com
I can't keep up... Life of working mothers
Enough time has passed since my children were small. And like many mothers, I kept waiting for it to get easier. The eldest is already 5, but the youngest is still just a baby, I don’t sleep at night again, I’m studying at the institute, between colic and lack of sleep I’m trying to write a course and I hope that a little more and it will become easier. Now the children are already 6 and a year old, age-related crises are approaching and teeth are creeping in. The older one is jealous, and the younger one demands to constantly play with me, I am trying to break between them and again hope that it will soon become easier. And now one is already 9, and the other is almost 4. Lessons, school, children's interpersonal relationships, my work and study and the glimmering hope that I need to wait a little more and let him go. The thought that motherhood is eternal covers me like a dome and rings loudly in my ears. The realization that difficulties are forever and will never get easier, squeezes the heart. I almost said goodbye to hope, almost let it go, almost...
Now I am a working and studying mother of two children without the right to respite. This is how many of us live, torn between family and our work responsibilities. We come home from work, stand at the stove for the second shift, do homework with the children, answer questions, smile, try to believe that this is happiness: fatigue and the desire to die in the evening.
To tell the truth, motherhood doesn’t get any easier; problems pile up from year to year, and we’re just trying not to break down. Moreover, we try to keep our face, be good workers, bring money into the family budget, not lose the image of a good mother and wife, and at the same time live. And this is not just a desire for perfection, this is no longer a desire to become a superman in your family - it is rather a fear of giving up and showing that you cannot cope. And your sin is not even that you work, study and at the same time try not to kill two children, but that you may not be able to cope with all this.
When I write these lines, I think that I probably need to try harder, calculate the time correctly, find rest, take care of myself... and then there will be no problems. And if I can’t do all this, if in this whirlwind of affairs and problems I break down, then I’m just not trying hard - I’m a worthless mother. And immediately all these women of the past pop up in my head, they say, they milked a cow, and gave birth in the field, and ran to the well for water, and nothing. And we are sissies. And here I allow myself to stop. The image of my grandmother is clearly imprinted in my memory; I only saw her in photographs. A stately woman with a stern face, she was never soft, it seemed that she was created for these ever-burning huts and running horses. She had five children, she worked until her last breath and died at 64... If we could cram the unsqueezable into our lives, if we could stretch the day to 50 or 60 hours, then we would probably have time to sleep and put a mask on our face , read your favorite book and work hard for the benefit of the family. I'm sure my grandmother did everything and a little more to work and raise five children. She did it, she did everything that depended on her, and she died so early.
And when I hear about “you have to manage everything” or “you just calculate the time incorrectly,” I understand that this is not all about reality at all. Because in reality, fucked up moms are trying to work and be mothers. And if it so happens that all this is without a smile, then this is not a big sin. It is not our sin that we do not have time, that we often choose between a career and motherhood. But at the same time we hear in response to this: “Cuckoo, money is more important to her than children.” There is no sin when we give up and choose motherhood instead of work, and this is not about laziness or poverty of mind, but rather about the fear of not being able to cope.
Unfortunately, in motherhood the choice is always very expensive. No matter how hard you try to manage and do everything, you still won’t succeed. And often I choose to growl at the children all day and work, because it’s impossible to do otherwise. Sometimes I choose to be a lousy employee, but remain an approachable and warm mother. And sometimes I choose myself to just live.
