Attending to my children’s needs means, sometimes, choosing between their needs and my own.

As a mother, this is often the most difficult place to be.

At night, I want to cuddle into my husband and be there in that space with him completely, but I’m watching one kid on the baby monitor and, equally, am always aware that another, older child is sleeping soundly too. In other words, my kids are always on my mind.

To be fair, I’m the sort of person who has a busy mind. (Actually, the reason I practice yoga is not because it comes easily to me to be mindful and to stay present within my life, but because it doesn’t—so I know I must need the practice.)

My husband, however, has a much easier time of placing his attention on the task at hand, be it parenting when the kids are up and alert or, alternately, paying attention to me in that twilight of the evening, and the only couple hours that we currently have alone in our life.

There’s an active debate these days, over putting your children or your spouse first. Let me declare boldly that I loathe this debate.

Again, as a mother, we are already all too eagerly put into difficult positions, and intricate dance routines of “wearing our own air masks” and, well you know, being good mamas, and now I’m supposed to also have to choose between the man I love and my kids? Let me tell you who will win every time, and it probably won’t, unfortunately, make me popular.

My kids. Spoiler alert—my kids will win every time.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t hold my marriage high up in my heart, or that my husband is any less important to me than the day we said our “I do’s,” but what it does mean is that, in choosing to have children with him, I make them my priority.

If this contemporary notion that our kids will one day thank us for placing them beneath our need for coupledom is true, then my kids will be disappointed.

Because I am consciously choosing to love their dad, but to be as OK as possible with the reality that our evenings out and our passionate make-out sessions and our fill-in-the-blank, single couple needs are temporarily on hold.

My husband told me that he wouldn’t want to be married to anyone who would place him above his children. He values the way that I want to be there for our kids.

While this doesn’t mean that either of us judge parents who have date nights and a handful of babysitters to choose from—and if there is any judgment it’s only slight envy—this does mean that I have accepted that with two children under 5 years old, my “date nights” are often going to involve cranky dining companions and food splatters on my dress.

I took my children to a wedding recently and was surprised when another guest displayed disapproval. Although my kids were fully welcomed, and just as invited by my friend getting married as she was, I, apparently, should have chosen the babysitter option and declined their “kid menu” invite. I did not.

Instead, I relished that my kids were invited. I adored buying my daughters new dresses when I wore one already hanging in my closet. One of my favorite things about my childhood was dancing with my dad at his cousins’ weddings and, these days, I both live nowhere near family and, perhaps more importantly, haven’t been invited to weddings lately where kids are welcomed so readily.

We had a blast. All four of us had a wonderful evening.

My girls were both so well behaved and we even made it beyond my goal, which was to make it to one song on the dance floor before they crashed. The baby might have been asleep on my shoulder, but my husband, my 5-year-old and I all danced our behinds off on the wooden parquet floor before calling it a much later night than is typical.

Would I have loved to slow dance all night with my lover? Absofuckinglutely.

Would I have left my kids home if their grandparents lived closer to watch them? I’ll be honest—maybe.

But I’ll answer one thing with total certainty: that night was memorable for all four of us, and anyone who wasted their breath wondering if my kids wouldn’t behave or would be burdensome to me can go ahead and exhale.

I love being a mom.

Although I experience more frustration and worry and difficulty in this relationship than I ever have before, including my over 21-year relationship with my partner, I experience, too, more love and affection than I thought possible.

There’s nearly no greater feeling in the world than watching my social-butterfly 5-year-old experience her girlish dream of dancing at a lavish party in her chosen-by-her yellow dress—and dancing so little-kid vivaciously that I’m glad I put bicycle shorts on underneath it.

My kids will grow up and they may or may not thank me for putting my relationship with their dad at a very close second to their own upbringing. None of us can properly predict how our kids will view us as they age, although, surely, we can speculate.

So I’m doing what feels right to me—I do what feels right for my husband and myself, because we are parenting these two tiny people together.

What feels right is making sure that both mine and my husband’s separate and together needs are met, while recognizing that my girls only have one childhood, and that this is it—and I want to be there for it.

The post Why I Choose My Kids over My Husband. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I wanted to call this article something “mature” yet catchy, like “When Sex Can’t Be the Band-Aid.”

My husband, however, suggested “From Ballin’ to Crawlin:’ Can Your Relationship Survive Without Sex?”

Because, the thing is—I’m not a “sex” writer.

Nope. I’m a mom, and a yogi, and a this and a that—but I don’t write about sex.

Except for now I do, and I will—about something that I believe fully in; about something that lately has been regularly reinforced as a serious truth in both my relationship and my life as a mother.

And here it is: an outright declaration that couples planning a family should find other ways to connect intimately, besides sex, before having kids.

Because all couples think they will be that special, magical couple who still has a hugely invigorating sex life, after kids.

There, I’ve said it.

Don’t worry, we all think this, or no kids would likely intentionally be made in the first place—if you like sex; which I do. So this, please consider, is also written from that standpoint. (I’m so sorry, Mom.)

Yet, it’s a universal joke for a reason: having sex with kids in the house is a whole new ball game—hahaaaa! Sorry again, but it’s a reality that we need to have other ways to connect.

Our kids learn to communicate from us.

Children see the way that their parents exchange differing opinions, the way that we hug, or don’t hug; the ways that we embrace—in words and arms and lips—in front of them.

Kids see everything.

But, as a couple, if our main way to reconnect and get close after a blow-out or a “discussion” is sex—then we’re in for potential trouble.

Sex can be an easy way out.

It can be a mind-blowing experience that we pretend means soul-mate love, or it can be a way for those of us who are otherwise well-matched to reconnect after a bad experience. Sex, though, is no longer the easy way out when you have kids.

Instead, it becomes planned (well worth it), or perfectly timed (again, well worth it) or ignored (ugh) or placed on the back burner (place it on the front burner of the schedule again).

Because, yes, sex should be something that we make important, and that we make time for—but, that’s a different article, no?—but trust me when I say that it cannot be the main way that couples engage in communication or play if the relationship is going to have longevity.

So what else can we do?

The following are a few suggestions for couples who want to get along well, so that they still want to have sex:

1. Talk.

I will not play the gender card here either.

Some people are more verbal and others are not, and I don’t believe this is a man or woman thing. Instead, it’s a hodgepodge of how willing we are to share, if words are the way that we show love, and likely, too, of how our families expressed themselves—etc, etc.

Yet, don’t misinterpret that we do need to talk through things. No—we need to talk through everything.

Get used to it.

If words are not your best form of expression, then consider writing down what you need to say. More, if you—like I—am an extremely…passionate—read: hot-tempered—individual, then consider occasionally sending an email that gets ideas across better than can sometimes be conveyed through conversation.

2. Hugs.

Hugging is hugely underrated. It helps forge a feeling of closeness and it also cuts through life’s tension that gets in the way of how we feel about our partners, if we could stop time and co-exist outside of work and child-rearing.

Raising children isn’t the only reason a relationship might go through a sexless or less-sex period. Illness and long distance are other possibilities—and my relationship has gone through all of these reasons.

I’ll never forget seeing my husband, then boyfriend, as I got off the plane to visit him across the country in New Mexico. I can still feel the sensations of his strong arms as they completely enveloped me, standing in front of him. That hug meant and said more to me about his love than any words could have. His hugs still make me feel wonderful.

In other words, hug it out.

 3. Listen.

Speaking of hugs being underrated, talking is also over-rated—listening is the new best thing.

Honestly, listening involves stopping our own thought processes and authentically being present with our partner, and truly hearing and taking in their experiences of both life and our relationship through life together. This is worthy of an article by itself.

Regardless, let’s all put on our listening ears.

4. Stay present.

I’ve been with my husband since we were 14 years old. In other words, it’s easy to re-hash the past. Don’t.

Stay here.

Stay current.

Trust me, I’m horrible at this.

I have an elephant’s memory and a sensitive heart, and it’s taken me years and years—echo after me : years and years—to learn, and repetitively understand, that while yesterday’s problem might still be today’s, it’s crucial to discuss what is happening now.

This is easier said than done, both externally and internally, so my suggestion (aside from professional help for recurring problems) is to:

5. Walk the fuck away.

Walk away.

When we cannot move mentally past a conflict or regroup ourselves for our best dialogue, then we need to walk away, cool down, internally reconfigure our feelings and then express them at another moment.

In short: Walk. The. Fuck. Away.

So, in closing, parenthood is glorious.

My blunt delivery of the aforementioned facts, that life after a child’s birth is when a relationship’s true challenge begins, might not completely display this.

Because, let’s be real: parenting is when a relationship becomes hard.

This is good! (I’m being serious.) Why stick with the same person if we can’t progress together as individuals?

Parenthood will progress a relationship automatically past go. (You may or may not collect $200.)

For me, becoming a mother has been the most difficult and mundane job I’ve ever performed. This distinct dichotomy is precisely why it’s such a challenge. More, marrying this arduous work with the man who I chose to spend my life with is honestly the most difficult thing that I’ve ever attempted—and it’s also the most important.

I love my husband.

Because of this I equally think that sex should be prioritized.

It has to be squeezed in between children’s bedtimes and when you don’t feel like it; in between long days at work and long days at home.

These tips will help couples to still feel romantic after long days of childcare and work.

Life isn’t easy; maybe yours is, but mine isn’t.

My life is, however, glorious—sometimes my eyes prick with tears from the beauty of watching my baby walk for the first time, or my husband talk to me about his job as a physicist or my oldest child write her letters all by herself.

It’s the little things in life that matter.

Talking, hugging, making love, listening—this is what we need to experience and enjoy with every ounce of our souls.

And sex? It’s huge. It’s important.

But it isn’t everything, or, more accurately—it doesn’t have to be.

Photo: Flickr/The First Couple…

The post 5 Tips: Can Your Relationship Survive Without Sex? first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Date a girl who likes to shovel—she’s not afraid to dig deeply into life.

She’s not afraid to get red and sweaty in a way that has nothing to do with sex, and while it might not seem important now, it will become welcomed when life gets difficult and when she’s delivering your baby after less than 30 minutes in the hospital, including parking time.

A girl who shovels knows to take it moment by moment, or else it would be too much. She knows there is often ice underneath powdery perfection and, yes, she made up that terrible metaphor for how she can handle love and humanity’s flaws.

She enjoys the simple things, like exercise and the outdoors and she knows, also, that these basic pleasures will keep her mentally and physically healthy to both enjoy and deal with the world as it comes to her.

A woman who shovels understands that her Pilates and yoga workouts are meaningless if not translated into daily living; she has a strong body and the ability to breathe through life one inhale and exhale at a time.

She’s aggressive. She’s aggressive enough to love the way that love deserves—powerfully and fully.

Date her because the most noxious fumes she wants to smell are the ones coming off the grill sitting in the driveway, piping smoke away into the snowy air.

She appreciates the shot of tequila you brought out to her and she took your offer to help as the token of love that it is and not as a sign of her femininity. More, she knows when to both accept help and turn it down.

She’s self-reliant and fiercely so. She’s the definition of a strong, independent woman. Still, she doesn’t believe for one instance that love is without need.

But she is no masochist—the skirt of the driveway is a beacon of joyful completion.

Yet she doesn’t fear challenges. A woman who shovels is likely the most stubborn bitch you know—which comes in handy when she ferociously stands by your side through life.

Date her because she knows snuggling by a fire would be romantic, but that getting you safely prepared for work the following day is a much more practical gesture of her affections.

Date her because she’s not afraid to be practical. Yes, love requires romance, but lifelong partnership requires much more (and she knows this).

Date her because her parents shoveled too. She watched her mom don thick, brown suede snow boots and head outside—and she’s learned the value of working for what you want.

Date a girl who shovels snow in a chevron pattern because she’s a geologist at heart (okay, personal inclusion there—bwahaha, geolgist-jokey pun intended).

But, seriously, date her because all she wants as a reward for her hard work is a snow-angel—this woman knows, equally, how to play and work to capacity.

Date her because you might someday want to marry her, if she’ll have you, and then, if you have her children, know that she’ll want her own little daughter to watch her shovel with her nose pressed against the cold glass inside, standing near a more-than-capable dad—date her because she believes that both men and women should be feminists; that all of us are more than capable human beings.

But, lastly and without fail, date her because, at the end of the day, she knows how to make it easy to come home.

Photos: Author’s own.

The post Date a Girl Who Likes to Shovel. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

If I promised not to hurt you, would you trust me forever?

Or is human trust only meant to go so far?

My love for you exceeds words, even though I believe I’m very capable of them.

My love for you is, in part, felt as deeply as the snow falling outside because you accept that I am hugely flawed.

I am enormously flawed.

I yell at you when I want deeply to grab your face and kiss you, but can’t because we have two kids and one is needing to nurse and the other wanting to play puzzles.

I hurt you, time and time again.

When we were kids and young-love dating, the wounds were not as deep but they felt like it because we were 14 and less biologically evolved to deal with it.

When we were adults, I realized, finally, that who we are would never be who we have the capacity to be—that is the ultimate flaw of being human.

But I would never hurt you, even though I hurt you all the time.

I’m a total asshole in the morning before my coffee. I’m a complete lunatic when I’m hungry, and the stress of life lately has been difficult for me to bear.

But what if I promised never to hurt you?

What if I promised always to love you; your heart; your body; your mind?

What if I promised you that every time I’ve affected you, it was my own self that was defected and not your own? Would it help to lessen the blow?

And what if I told you that I’ll always hurt you?

I’ve recently been meditating in my yoga room and working on dealing with the depression that has followed our glorious baby’s birth—but I am not now, nor will I ever be seamlessly ideal.

I sit in meditation and I feel reverberate throughout my body the perfection of my soul; of space; of me—and then I walk out from the room and back into reality and I’m gigantically imperfect once more.

Yet what if I promised to always love you, even if I hurt you?

Would you believe that I don’t mean to; want to; avoid to?

Because I will hurt you, even though the thought makes my spirit wretch.

And I do love you—over and over again, and time and time again and more than words can share—because you love me, especially my flaws—and I love you and yours.

Photo: Author’s own; Flickr/Handshake man-woman.

The post If I Promised Not to Hurt You. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Love isn’t static.

It swirls around you like balmy air sent up from the south.

The wind catches your hair, and a few strands stick in the moist crease of your lips. You reach with your hand to move it, but you don’t have to because he gets there first and brushes it aside.

He gently touches your cheek with his slightly coarse fingertips (from working on his bikes in the garage).

You look up into his eyes (he doesn’t have to tilt your chin to him with his hand because you’re assertive enough to move yourself), and your shared gaze lingers a beat past your comfort zone—and in that moment you learn a lot.

You learn that you’re vulnerable, and that you need him—and you think you saw that he’s not as afraid of this as you are.

He’s not afraid to be vulnerable, because he’s naturally confident and understands his emotions much better than you know you’ll ever understand your own, and it’s not because you don’t want to be raw and open and accessible—it’s just because you’re scared.

What are you afraid of?

Are you afraid that he’ll hurt you?

No, that’s not it.

Are you afraid that he’ll leave?

No, he’ll never do that.

Are you afraid of death?

Partially. That’s the only way he would walk away from you, and you both know it.

Yet, that’s still not it.

But you know it’s this fear that makes you pull away‚ that encourages you to fight with him when you don’t even want to (when there’s nothing really to fight about).

And tears are streaming down your face, but you’re not sure why.

Maybe it’s because you yelled at him this morning when he didn’t deserve it. Maybe it’s because you know that you were wrong, that you’re needy and hot headed—and that this combination is unstable.

Maybe you’re afraid because you know that you aren’t stable without him, that you need him, because without him the ground is too shaky to walk on.

And it’s scary to need someone to hold you—and sometimes carry you—across that trembling surface.

It’s unnerving that in this huge, whole world there’s only one person that you want to hold your hand, and that if he wasn’t there to kiss your cheek and gently stroke your thigh right before you both fall asleep together, that this world would fall apart, that you would fall apart.

Because you’re strong.

You’re aggressive—but that was a lie. He often has to pull your chin up, and then he has to force you to look him in the eye, because you look away.

Sometimes it feels easier to look away and pretend that you’re whole enough without him—and maybe you are…enough.

And now the tears are dripping down your nose and falling into the crease of your lips and he’s not there to reach over first and dry them because he’s already gone to bed—he was too tired tonight to deal with your moods.

And you’re sorry.

You’re sorry that you screamed, and you’re sorry that you lied (with your eyes and your cocky stance) because you do need him.

He’s the air that you breathe. He’s the water that you drink. He’s the hole in your heart where it aches after you’ve hurt him.

Your heavy tears splash onto your keyboard and you get up for a tissue, but settle instead for a napkin because you can’t see anymore and the tissues are all the way down the hall (and besides, you don’t want to walk past the bedroom and wake him up).

But it’s okay. Soon you’ll crawl into bed after you’ve turned off the light that he kept on for you, waiting.

And in the morning he’ll reach over and touch your cheek and caress your thigh where he didn’t get to the night before.

And he knows that you lied to him (with your angry words and your haughty heart), because to him you’re see through.

He knows that he’s your world because you’re his too—and that’s enough.

Photo: Flickr/I Will Never If You Never; Flickr/The Fisherman and the Syren.

This article was first published by elephant journal.

The post I’m Sorry I Love You Too Much. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

My four-year-old daughter just schooled me on a puzzle.

To be honest, I’m not spatially oriented at all and hate puzzles.

That said, she gave me a funny look as she corrected me; putting the odd wooden shape where it really goes.

And people are not pictures.

I observe so many people wanting to cram others’ eccentricities and personalities into even smaller packages than a carefully wrapped Christmas gift.

We want so badly for people to fit a certain mold or image that we forget who they really are and what they’re really capable of.

We want so much for a parent, or a child, or a sibling or a friend to fit into the same-sized shape we’ve already seen made—in our imaginations or at another person’s house down the street or on t.v.—that we don’t see who’s right in front of us and in our lives.

In so many ways my daughter reminds me of my husband.

She’s a constant reminder for me that people are not “man” or “woman,” but individuals who think and move and just are a certain way—their own way.

She handed me this tiny wooden shape—the same one I had just set down in the right corner of her brand-new puzzle—and cocked me a look that wordlessly said, “Mom, you seriously have no idea where the hell this goes?”—as I slid the piece back “into place,” where I had already put it, where it belonged, where my brain had wanted it to go.

But it didn’t go there.

She was right, and I realized this a few beats later as I told her what a good job she had done to know that this puzzle piece went “over there,” in the left-hand corner.

More, she reminded me that I’m not always (or even usually) “right” while other people (especially those I love) are “wrong,” simply because we view the world differently; because our pictures are composed of differing landscapes.

We are not pictures of what other people want us to look like.

Some of us marry, and some don’t.

Some of us have and want kids, and others not so much.

Some of us are religious and others shun religion.

Yet this idea of “the other” is left behind completely when we choose to witness and then accept who is right before us, whether I’m choosing to accept and love myself or my child (or my sister or my friend).

We are all truly unique and not meant to be cut down to fit a certain size and shape, because that’s what trying to cram a person into a prefabricated mold does—it cuts them down.

We cannot recognize and honor who an individual is if we don’t see him or her for who they already are.

And I don’t want to be a vision, but an artist—I want to create my own canvas with my own wild selection of paints.

I don’t want to be a director, but a performer and a willing participant of the audience.

I want to look upon people with gratitude while they look upon me, thinking, “that’s not what I expected, but she’s beautiful nonetheless.”

And I want to admire the people who make up the pieces of my life so that, much like my daughter’s puzzle, the picture winds up beautiful and absolutely incapable of being whole without the rest of its seemingly mismatched parts.

Photo: Flickr/Bodenpuzzleln.

This article was first published by elephant journal.

The post People Aren’t Pictures. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Sitting with someone else’s pain is awful.

It’s hard enough to sit with our own grief, much less that of someone we love, when there’s really nothing we can do or say.

But that’s just it—we shouldn’t have to do or say anything.

Just being present and holding the space of a loved one as they process and move through difficulty is enough—and when we feel the need to talk or hug, it’s often our own discomfort that we’re feeding and nurturing, rather than the other person.

I often have to remind myself of this.

It’s difficult because many of the people I love are a phone-call away and not down the street, so when sadness in life hits, I can’t just sit with them and physically hold their space.

Instead, I’m in the even more uncomfortable position of knowing that my words are not what should be used, but finding it a challenge to hold them back.

Still, even in this long-distance situation, it is possible to hold our tongues and listen; really listen to what the person on the other end of the line is saying.

And, usually, I find that what’s being said is, “I’m hurting. I need you and you’re too far away, but your being here—even on the phone in silence for a minute—is my comfort.” (Although, typically, this is unsaid.)

Because when we open our hearts to another’s wounds, we also expose ourselves to their damage. On the other hand, in true relationships—deep, meaningful connections—we cannot expect to receive and hold space with only the good.

Simultaneously, we are better able to comfort and support if we can find that balance between putting up walls to another’s sorrow and letting it consume us.

One way I’m able to feel genuine empathy while not letting an emotion envelop me, is to envision myself as a rock with water flowing over it. I’m the rock, whether in trouble or in joy, and the flowing water is life’s circumstances. Sure, I might weather from the water, but this weathering is actually a smoothing—a rounding—that serves to make me softer; gentler.

And here’s a little tidbit from that nerdy geologist who will always live inside of me: when a rock weathers from water, it’s called mechanical weathering, and the materials that erode away can go on to create soil—soil that will eventually help new life flourish.

So as I attempt to put my words and thoughts to the side and simply be there, holding heart-space with someone I love, my ability to give love is more than challenged—it’s allowed to grow and shine.

Photo: Daniel Zedda/Flickr.

The post The Importance of Holding Space with Another’s Grief. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I was sitting on my little girl’s bed.

Decked out in pink and multiple pillows, she sat underneath the crook of my mommy-wing. Next to me, on the other side, was my newborn little girl.

I sat and looked at them—I just looked and sat—and I felt within my tender new-again mommy-heart this birth of contentment.

This swell of overwhelming joy crept up from underneath my once-again nursing breast. I was cloaked within this feeling of fulfillment and I remembered how so much lately I had felt cloaked in despair.

Cloaked in the reality of multiple dirty diapers and no sleep and frayed, exhausted nerves. And then, looking over at her on the one side and her on the other, I recognized what I have within my life—genuine love.

I’ve had a renewed self-motto lately: Choose love.

Because it’s easy to choose grumpiness.

It’s easy to choose cranky, bitter, held-hostage feelings of jealousy or comparison or general moodiness. I’ve recognized, too, that much of my moodiness stems from me not living from this place of present purity; like I felt right there, on that pink bed, with my two little daughters by my side.

Because it’s also easy to realize when life is sticky and uncomfortable; when relationships are challenged and strained; when people are unpleasant and unkind—but it’s equally simple to choose love.

And that’s it—I choose love.

I choose to let tears fall down my cheeks when my feelings are hurt.

I choose to let my heart be worn on my sleeve, even when it feels invisible to the world I inhabit.

I am not invisible.

I am loud. I am raging. I’m a swollen river beneath my nursing mother chest, and this river does occasionally overflow.

It overflows with murky, muddy waters that leak and seep hatred and sadness—but that’s not the real me, that flows like smooth, glassy, quiet water underneath these often overwhelming currents of life.

And I do choose love—it’s a choice.

I can choose to let my unexpressed feelings build and pile up until they come out all wrong and not how I really feel them anyways—with ugly words and angry glares—or I can choose to authentically share myself; to release myself from this human, flesh-draped cage and live moment to moment, free.

There’s this song that I grew up listening to called Puke + Cry by Dinosaur Jr. I feel like this song lately.

I feel this unburdened, deep need to release everything that I’ve held on tightly and unnecessarily to all of these years.

There’s another song, Glosoli by Sigur Ros, and its last two minutes make me want to Puke + Cry. It makes me want to let go; truly let go.

To me, letting go is something I do not do enough—it’s living moment by moment and from my fragile, wounded, strong, resilient soul instead of from false strength, fear and confinement.

How many of us live from this minute that just past or the one that’s happening in an hour and not from this second, this new second, this now second that’s right here, slapping us in the face to feel everything it has to offer.

Yet that’s the hard part: feeling everything; feeling it all.

Because for those of us who are sensitive, empathetic and emotional, there’s usually an awful lot to feel.

And it’s scary. It’s horrifying, really, to feel that these two little girls sitting on either side of me in a pink and pillow-laden bed are my world and that my world, tomorrow or the next day or the one after that, would be completely different if something happened to them.

But that’s life. And if I spend my now moments waiting for what might or could happen, I lose the magic that surrounds me every waking minute.

Still, for those of us (for all of us), who have ever felt true pain, there’s something sickly beautiful nestled discreetly—perversely—inside: this dark reality that beauty resides everywhere, even within an ugly, ugly truth.

And what I choose to observe and own is what winds up making my reality—I have the power to choose my own reality.

But life is hard. (No one who ever feels it all will tell it differently.)

It’s also gut-wrenchingly gorgeous when we let go and let life in; when we let it happen. (And this is what makes me want to puke + cry.)

And my tiny daughter plays joyously on the floor near me while my other, newer daughter swings softly close by—that moment that gave me such complete elation has already passed. I’m so glad I saw it and took it in, even though it’s gone.

Photo: Flickr/wilB

This article was first published by Be You Media Group.

The post How to Let Go and Choose Love. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

Sometimes I read the news.

Okay—I always read the news, but sometimes this “news” is…People magazine online.

Here’s my big secret spill, though: I tried to watch Downton Abbey.

However, I’d waited so long that I would’ve had to pay to view the episodes I missed (which is nearly the whole season, since we broke up). While I was considering giving Downton another chance, I’m not interested enough to pay. (I mean, I am still seeing Glee after all.)

I also wrote an elephant journal article titled Dear Husband, If You Do These Things, I’ll Make Your Dreams Come True, which is pretty much just one big secret spill. Yet it’s important to keep in mind that, as my husband puts it, I take artistic license with nearly all of my writing. (You never know exactly what is true.)

So I guess that’s another Monday morning dirty secret spill—that I liberally write with artistic license.

But there’s absolutely the reality that my writing comes from soul-deep nooks and crannies of secret spaces within my mind and heart and my emotional being, and I would love to say that I’m one of those writers who feels insecure and oh my God, I can’t believe I just hit “publish” on that last one, but the truth is I don’t.

And it’s not because I’m arrogant or because I don’t have boundaries. Rather, it’s because I believe in who I am.

In those soul-deep nooks and crannies where light is rarely allowed in, I see myself—I let light in as I witness myself—and I’m okay with what I find.

Are you?

And not are you okay with who I am, because I don’t care—which is exactly my point.

It’s when we become okay with who we are and with what we’re putting out into this world of ours, that we no longer need to seek approval.

Are rave reviews nice? Sure, of course. Are they necessary? No—and if they are, then we’re not living from soul-deep, possibly secret compartments, but from our ego-driven cravings for pats on the back.

And that’s why I have my Monday morning secret spill.

It started out purely as something fun for my friends on Facebook and it’s evolved into something that my readers love to see, and I think I know the reason why.

It’s because we connect with these little nuances.

It’s when we discuss these minute aspects of being human, we’re able to connect on a fundamentally profound level that allows us to open up and expose other more important parts of who we are—in short, it’s the start of communication, which makes the world go ’round.

Also, sometimes it’s good to just tilt your head back, show your teeth and laugh a little—or a lot.

(Oh, and if this sounds familiar, it’s because you read that blog I linked in earlier, so thanks.)

Photo credits: Yes, I seriously posed these dolls.

The post Monday Morning Dirty Secret Spill. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I’m aware that this is Tuesday, so let’s first get that out of the way.

Also, I’m aware that inappropriate is spelled inappropriately in the picture above, but I love this image regardless.

Okay, here goes.

I’m still watching Glee. Actually, now my daughter and I are having regular jam sessions with our recently purchased CD of season one.

I finally took my Christmas tree down…this weekend…and I miss it.

I haven’t been to the yoga studio for a live class in my longest away-from-studio stretch ever, nearly a month (due to weather and illness and general child care related to both of these things) and I’m both dying to get back and also, unexpectedly, enjoying my time “off.”

I don’t actually take time “off” from my yoga practice. I believe all yoga practitioners should have some form of practice at home.

I placed my purple stuffed kitten with the filthy mouth from my kisses on my new yoga room table as part of my collection of special, inspiring things.

The reason that I didn’t say my “childhood purple stuffed kitten” is because I got her in high school.

I’ve already pre-ordered Frozen on dvd (and I’m as excited as my toddler about it).

Not only am I not sick of winter or snow or below-freezing Midwestern temperatures, I’m glad that darn groundhog saw his shadow.

I’m still a little sorrowful that I never got to see the groundhog ritual when I lived in PA. (To be fair, I lived nowhere near Punxsutawney.)

Can you believe that the groundhog has an organizational website page—and that I seriously took the time to visit it?

I unfollowed a few people on Instagram this week because I got so tired of seeing their yoga photos.

I feel like a superstar when I wear my new animal-print Teeki pants. I had the most invigorating practice the day that I got them in the mail and I’m positive that it’s not a coincidence.

Yep, that’s my butt. My husband thinks I should be embarrassed to put it out into cyberspace. But I’m not. And sadly that doesn’t embarrass me much either. (Oh, and I Instagrammed that—yes, I get the irony.)

My daughter and I have matching unicorn Teeki pants, and I’m not sure which one of us gets a bigger kick out of dressing alike when we wear them. Wait, I’m pretty sure it’s me.

I might be an openly sensitive person, but when something shakes me deeply, I instantly want to retract, pull back and coldly detach. I wish I was the kind of person who, when stressed, resorted to needing tender, cozy hugs and soft words, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be this person.

Over and out!

The post A (Belated) Monday Morning Dirty Secret Spill. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.