Today marks the 15th Mother's Day since I became a motherless daughter. I am grateful that my mother and I were able to resolve our difficult relationship, and my heart goes out to the many for whom this holiday brings nothing but pain. Earlier this week, I spoke with Lynda Martin on San Diego Living (click to view) about the Mother's Day dilemma. Tonight, my Rx for Mother's Day airs on KOLO-TV in Reno/Lake Tahoe, the region I fled to forty years ago, to escape her. For anyone who has tried to … [Read more...]
Transcendence in the Mother-Daughter Way
For the final week of the Mother-Daughter Way, we focus on transcendence. What does that mean in everyday terms? When my mother asked me to sit for this portrait, I resisted. I was busy. She was dying. I imagined having yet another unfinished portrait to remind me of the ways we couldn't sign off on each other. However, I agreed on the condition that I could write while she painted. I loved watching the way she rallied when she picked up a brush. As I recorded her … [Read more...]
Seek and Defuse Emotional Triggers
For the 10th week of the Mother-Daughter Way, we seek and defuse emotional triggers that sabotage momentum, harm self and loved ones, and destroy peace. These sometimes-benign categories can derail your best self. This week, we do a writing exercise to unmask the devils. In our mind-body practice, we gird our spirit with Ujjayi, or Ocean Breath (click for audio guide) and Utkatasana (Chair) or Fierce Pose. The list of emotional triggers includes some that you would expect – alcohol, drugs, … [Read more...]
Compassion is Another Kind of Beauty
Compassion is the focus for the 9th week of the Mother-Daughter Way – compassion for self and for others. Valentine’s Day messages bombard us with lush images of romantic love – images that can be elusive and misleading. They exude a manufactured beauty that doesn't fit all shapes, sizes or ages. By contrast, compassion is always a good fit. This week, we look at times in our lives when we gave up on a dream that still smolders. It's essential to recognize and heal those … [Read more...]
Blessed Abundance or Cause for Panic?
The weather forecast for this weekend is all about abundance. Of snow. Which conjures Abundance's evil twin, Scarcity: scarcity of groceries, transportation, and brawn to shovel the walks. When I walked the dog today, I was warm because my sister Deb, who travels to Sweden, taught me that there's no such thing as "bad weather" -- just "bad clothing." She doled out this tidbit of sisterly wisdom on a cold winter day in Cape May, as we prepared for Christmas. The wind was bitter and I was … [Read more...]
January Thaw II: A Green Light on Your Possibility
Last week I wrote about the origin of The Mother-Daughter Way, and offered a glimpse of the power of the MOM Fix to shed light on, and reveal alternative endings to painful mother-daughter stories. I’m excited to do this pilot program with a group of interesting, thoughtful women. And I do the entire program right along with them. Yes, I've been doing this work for over fifteen years, and yes, I love the life I am living. But if I fail to cultivate my own self-mothering traits of mindfulness, … [Read more...]
Christmas Story: Mothers and Daughters
Red was my mother's favorite color. I love blue. For the first week of the Mother-Daughter Way program, we focus on safety: feeling grounded and connected to earth. Within the practice of yoga and energy work, we honor the ethereal body by balancing the chakras. The healing begins with the root chakra, which is associated with the color red and the element earth, or source. Every Christmas, I feel close to my mother when I surround myself with red. What brings you close to your mothers or … [Read more...]
MOM Fix III: M is for Mercy
Even when I was an angry teenager, long before my mother and I forged our way back to forgiveness of each other and ourselves, we shared a love of the colors of nature. I was grateful for the beauty of the roses my father grew in our garden, and when I picked a few and gave them to my mother, she expanded the gift by creating the painting above. Later, when I prepared to move across the country, she gave me the painting as a memento. The 3rd profound shift to lighten and reframe the … [Read more...]
MOM Fix II: O is for Openness
The open doors of her third floor studio inspired this black and white watercolor my mother painted to illustrate my grandmother's poem about aging and seclusion. When the three of us started working on The View in Winter, Alice planned to use her skill as a colorist to brighten up her mother's poems. I argued against the use of full color illustrations because I wanted the art to complement, not overpower, the verse. Alice agreed, reluctantly, to work in black and white, and later, she was … [Read more...]
The Mother-Daughter Way Unfolds . . .
I'm excited to share a work-in-progress, the Mother-Daughter Way, although I rarely do that. This work is highly collaborative, and I welcome your questions, comments and feedback. In the potential cover for the book, my mother sits before a blank canvas in a watercolor self-portrait, "Winter Work," (1994) done in her Merchantville studio. The image on the right is her oil portrait of me, "Jan in Blue," done in 1973 as I prepared to move across the county and start a new life as far away from … [Read more...]