Doubt revisited....

OK, I admit it...I'm a bit nervous about our first home-study visit scheduled to take place tomorrow.

Part of me knows that Chris and I are going to make it through the home-study process with (hopefully) flying colors. Part of me says, "We're great! Any child would be really lucky to have us as parents! I'm going to be a good mom!"

And then there's that other little, irrational, nasty, doubt-filled part of me that thinks its oily, horrible little thoughts in one almost forgotten corner of my mind. It asks in a terrible little whisper... "Who, in their right minds, would let YOU have a kid?"

Doubt.

Vipassana Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal had the following to say about doubt in a talk entitled "The Five Hindrances: Doubt" given on November 24, 20008:

Doubt is said to be the most dangerous of The Five Hindrances...especially for the sake of the spiritual practice because doubt can cause a person to abandon their spiritual practice if you have enough doubt about it. It's said to be a very powerful force for some people and probably for all people sooner or later. Some people have a lot of doubt to begin with or in what they're doing. It's a major, major challenge for them in their practice. Some people have very little doubt. They can be very set, very inspired, very resolved and engage very deeply in practice until some major life crisis arises. Something really big happens in their life...and then the doubt can arise. "Oh, what good is this practice I'm doing? Now that I'm struggling with these major issues in my life I can't see this practice...what good is it going to do me?"

Doubt has the affect of indecision, vacillation, holding back, sometimes resistance, sometimes giving up...It can also come mixed with other attitudes, approaches and emotions. Sometimes it comes along with fear. Sometimes it comes along with anger, sleepiness, boredom, discontent. It always come along with a lack of mindfulness...This is one of the tricky things about all of the Hindrances, but especially with doubt. It has a kind of camouflaging quality about it where a person can be in the grip of doubt and we believe it enough - the doubt - that we don't see it as doubt.

Overcoming doubt and fear has been one of the greatest challenges that I have experienced in my 41 years of life.

Even now - when I am so happy to be on this path with Chris - this path toward becoming Plus One...When I feel so sure and right that this is what we're meant to be doing. Even now...

Doubt.

It's sneaky and insidious and catches me unaware.

And I have a moment where I wonder...where I doubt...

But I don't want to have those moments. I don't want to wonder. I don't want to let myself get into the grip of the little monster - the Fifth and final and most odious of the Hindrances.

So I'll share my moment of doubt here. I'll release it into the world instead of letting it fester and grow in that almost forgotten corner of my mind.

And I will be mindful.

And tomorrow will be just fine.

Becoming a mom...for Sarah

I was surprised today when I discovered a rather lengthy and serious comment left Thursday night on my May 28 post "Becoming a mom...a new idea"

Thank you so much, Sarah, for leaving such heartfelt thoughts. I'm honored that you felt safe enough to share your worries here. You didn't leave a way to contact you so I'm just going to hope that you return to "In the present moment..." and I'm writing this post for you.

Please know that I am (obviously) no expert. I'm just a woman trying to sort through the journey I'm on with my husband and the prospect of becoming a mother.

Please also know that I hear you and I can empathize. In fact, it was odd reading your words because so much of what you shared sounded exactly like journal entries I've written over the years! You shared your fears about: being home all day, being lonely and bored, the pain of child birth and the fear of post-partum depression, not being able to travel, not being a good mother, your relationship suffering as a result of the stress of raising children, and money issues.

In spite of your fears, it seems to me that you are doing great things for yourself as you contemplate the prospect of motherhood - like looking online to see what other women are thinking/feeling/fearing/hoping, looking closely at your own fears and motivations, seeking books to help educate yourself and work through some of your fears, and best of all you are seeing a therapist. While I don't feel it's my place to give out advice, I would encourage you to continue doing the things you're doing - especially working with a therapist if he/she is someone with whom you feel comfortable.

You asked if I know of any books about would help a woman who fears motherhood...I have not read any that deal with the specific topic of fear and motherhood. Instead, I have focused on working through fear/doubt/anxiety in general - by working closely with a wonderful therapist who is helping me to address and understand my issues as a human being.

There are resources from which I have drawn incredible comfort, solace, inspiration and learning and they are mainly focused on mindfulness...Some of my favorite books:

Inner Wisdom by Louise Hay

The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and John Kabat-Zinn

Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach

Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons in Living a Life That Matters by Bernie Glassman

Additionally, I have found that listening to Buddhist teacher, Gil Fronsdal, on my commute to and from work has been a source of great peace and learning for me. I downloaded Dharma Talks by Gil Fronsdal and have found the following talks to be of special interest and use in my life:

1. The Five Hindrances: Doubt (11/24/08)
2. Mindfulness of Thinking (weeks 1-4 given 8/13 - 9/3/07)
3. What is Mindfulness? (4/13/08)

The other resources that have proven to be the most incredibly helpful and inspirational are, of course, the many wonderful people in my life: my husband, parents, friends, colleagues, therapist, and folks like you that I am meeting online. It's truly amazing how willing everyone has been and continues to be to share their stories, advice and wisdom. The more I share my concerns, the more kind and generous people make their way to me to help me in this adventure. I am so grateful and blessed.

What will work best for you, Sarah? I don't know. But you appear to be seriously exploring the possibility of motherhood and I imagine that if you continue on this path that the resources you need will find their way to you just as what I needed found its way to me.

As I said before, I am by no means any kind of expert, but I will always try to share what is happening on this journey to parenthood.

I wish the very best as you sort through your own journey, Sarah - whether you choose to pursue motherhood or decide that perhaps it is not quite for you. If you feel comfortable, I hope you'll keep in touch and share where you are in your process.

The Good Mother...thinking about my thinking

I think...therefore I am.

Really?

Because here's what I've been thinking for the last few days:

"What if I'm not good enough?"..."Maybe I'm not good enough."

These are not the thoughts that I want to be if I am indeed who I am because of my thinking!

Like some tiny, vicious winged insects that keep buzzing around my head and that I keep shooing away...they just keep coming back.

Over and over and over again.

Buzz buzz buzz...

Gil Fronsdal, Buddhist Vipassana teacher at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood, CA, had the following to say about thinking and repetitive thoughts in a wonderful talk entitled "The Mindfulness of Thinking":

It's amazing...it's awesome...it's awful how repetitive our thinking can be - at least mine can be. Probably some of you also. You can think the same thing 3 or 4 times, right? 10 or 20 times? 50 or 100 times? 500 times? With slight variations [each time]...just thinking over and over and over again. If someone walked next to us and talked to us as incessantly and repetitively as we talk to ourselves, we would think they were crazy. We would probably want them institutionalized...please!...we'd bribe them to be quiet. Anything!

He continues:

The world of thinking [is] really marvelous and wonderful and something to be marveled at and it's also something awful. It's something frightening. It's amazing the amount of suffering and damage that can come through the world of our thinking. So an important part of any spiritual life and certainly in a mindful life is to have some handle on the whole domain of thinking - the world of our thinking.

A good percentage of our suffering can be traced back to our thinking... for some people thinking becomes the medium through which the channels of suffering get expressed or get actualized or get felt. So if we want to become free from our suffering or get a handle on our suffering it helps a lot if we can get a handle on our thinking. And so it takes some time to look at our thoughts to understand what's happening there. The advantage of it - of learning about our thinking - is that then also we can appreciate when our thinking is not causing our suffering, but instead adds to the richness of our life.

From another Gil Fronsdal Dharma talk on "The Mindfulness of Thinking":

Many people don't realize how caught they are in the world of their thoughts...We might not even see that there is a problem or an issue...But then there can be this moment when there is a shift in the mind and the mind separates itself from being so closely tied or velcroed to our thinking. There's a kind of pulling away - a separation - and you say, "Ohhhh...there's thinking that's going on." There's a very clear recognition - "There is thinking."...To step back and realize "Oh, I am thinking" ... with the right kind of perspective - it can lead to a sense of freedom or a sense of ease or a sense of, "Wow, I'm not so caught in that world."

So apparently the annoying vicious little doubt-filled thoughts buzzing around in my mind are just one small part of the wonderful, marvelous, awful and sometimes frightening world of my thinking.

Buzz buzz buzz...

And it would seem that because I've allowed myself to get caught by these horrible thoughts about doubting my ability to be a mother -

"What if I'm not good enough?"

"Maybe I'm not good enough"

- I am causing my own suffering!

So, perhaps

• by "getting a handle on my thinking,"
  
• by not allowing myself to get so caught up in the world of my thinking,
  
• by taking a step back from thinking, and recognizing and identifying "Ohhh. This is just thinking"
  
• and by recognizing that I am not my thoughts...

then I can free myself from my self-induced, thought-caused suffering.

Or am I just thinking about this way too much?