A Promise of Shared Humanity- An Account from the Border

South Texas Family Residential Center, Dilley, TX

As she recounted the years of abuse, the miscarriages and pre-term births due to physical trauma, the migraines caused by the intentional beatings to her head and the rapes she experienced in front of her toddler son, all at the hands of her husband, I sat with my client at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas desperately wanting to hold her hand. I wanted to show her that despite all that she has experienced in Mexico, en route to the United States and at the border, that there was still hope for her. But I was not allowed to touch her or give her a hug. My heart ached for her and her toddler son.

Members of the SABA Foundation and SABA

A few weeks ago, I volunteered with Immigration Justice Campaign’s Dilley Pro Bono Project (DPBP) in Dilley, Texas in collaboration with members from the South Asian Bar Association of North America (SABA) and the South Asian Bar Association of North America Foundation (SABA Foundation) for a week. With the encouragement and financial support of the Pro Bono Committee of my company MassMutual, and the SABA Foundation, I arrived in Dilley, TX vastly unprepared for this emotional and life-altering experience. DPBP is a group of dedicated immigration lawyers, paralegals and other professionals who run a non-traditional pro bono project of legal services that directly represents immigrant mothers and children. Volunteers sign up for one-week shifts to help carry the immense caseload and rising demand for legal services at Dilley.

While the media has exposed the plight of immigrants in these detention centers, nothing can prepare you for experiencing it first-hand. The South Texas Family Residential Center is in effect a jail, a prison to house up to 2,400 women and children who are in expedited removal proceedings with orders signed by Customs & Border Protection. It is the largest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in the United States run by CoreCivic, the second-largest private corrections company in the country. The facility spans fifty acres with a series of trailers and cottages that house detainees and provide food, medical and recreation services.

After hours of training, we arrived at the detention facility on Monday morning. We were assigned our cases to prepare women and their children for their credible fear interviews (CFIs). These CFIs would be the first official determinations of whether the women and children could stay in the United States to pursue their legal claims based on asylum, withholding of removal or the Convention Against Torture protection. With a positive determination, a detainee could leave the jail and apply for asylum or another form of legal relief from the comfort of their sponsor’s home. A negative CFI would resume the deportation process.

Drawing by my client’s toddler son

For the next four days, working with an incredible Spanish translator and immigration lawyer herself, we counseled several women and their children on their cases. Our task during interview preparation was to synthesize and package why these women came to the United States into successful legal claims. Thankfully because this particular client was from Mexico, the Third-Country Transit Bar that effectively bans asylum for the vast majority of refugees seeking protection at the U.S. southern border, did not apply to her. Thus, my client bore the burden of proving credible fear, a lesser standard: a significant possibility of persecution in her country of origin. In addition to satisfying the other elements of asylum, an immigrant domestic violence survivor must prove the inability to leave her persecutor; physical, sexual and/or psychological abuse; forced labor; deprivation of liberty; and police unwillingness or inability to protect her. During the week, we spent hours living our client’s story, seeking details that would bolster and strengthen her and her son’s legal claims.

As my client went through the horrific details of her abuse, I tried to communicate non-verbally with her in other ways. While I was unable to provide her any physical comfort, I knew that my belief that she had a strong asylum claim lifted her spirits. And as I looked at her through teary eyes when we said our goodbyes, a single tear made its way down her face. I realized in that moment that even though we could not show any physical affection to one another, we were bound by something much larger and sacred than any law, barrier, rule, policy and language: our shared humanity. I left Dilley comforted by that promise. 

Flashbacks of Talking on the Phone

Last night, my son ran up to me as I came home and said he was meeting his friend on Google docs at 6:15PM (what?). Through his school portal, the kids are able to use the Google platform safely, sharing documents with other Cambridge public school students. Kabir’s technology teacher encourages students to share their writing with one another so they can provide feedback, revisions and suggestions to one another on their projects. So it came as as surprise that these boys had found another purpose for the editing feature in Google Docs. Genius!

As my son logged onto the portal and opened his document that he had shared with his friend, he squealed when his friend appeared. “Hi Kabir” his friend wrote on the screen. Kabir wrote back. They engaged in a “conversation” online- talking about football, sharing pics of cool players and puppies (so cute!), asking when the other was going to eat dinner and discussing other topics. And all the while, Kabir had the biggest grin on his face.

I had a flashback to sitting on my bed, deeply engrossed in conversation with my friend, phone in hand. Much to my dad’s dismay, I would tie up the phone line (this was before call waiting was available or affordable!) for hours on end, little spats ensuing over phone time. Eventually, conversations migrated to AOL messenger (do you remember when that was a thing?) but the excitement of talking to friends through different media never waned.

Kabir writes “Where did you go?” on the screen. Waiting, he turns to me and says, “I guess he is eating dinner.” A few minutes go by and his friend writes back, “Have to run Kabir- need to eat. Bye.” With a smile on his face, Kabir writes back “Bye, see you tomorrow.” As I watch my son, I remember that feeling hanging up on my friends after we had exhausted all the important topics. Despite decades between experiences, not much has really changed. And there’s great comfort in that.

Do You Still Sing in the Shower?

I had a flashback a few weeks ago about singing in the shower when I was much younger. I used to spend close to 30 minutes in the shower, belting out tunes and secretly thinking (and hoping) that I would be the next superstar. I would waiver between wanting to be the next Madonna, Cindy Lauper or Whitney Houston, Indian-style. After my shower shows, I would secretly re-enact being discovered, my hidden talent finally revealed to the world. Much to my chagrin and unfortunately for my teenage self, this was never my reality. But I started thinking about these small moments of solitude that I used to enjoy and how these moments are now stolen by none other than my smartphone.

I know, it’s sad, but it’s the truth. Not that I take the phone in the shower with me, but I’m finding that my mind doesn’t wonder anymore the way it used to. Any free moment these days is taken up by my phone, especially social media. It’s like a nervous tick! Being alone with my thoughts and feelings is slowly becoming a rare commodity.

I recall sitting in class, looking out the window, lost in thought. I honestly can’t remember the last time I did that. I remember sitting in the back of the car, listening to old Telugu songs, tuning out to my own thoughts as I looked out the window. Now, on long car journeys, my kids are watching movies or shows on their iPads.

So this past weekend, with dear friends, I tried to stay present. That meant that I didn’t reach for my phone during lulls in conversation. That meant that as I spent yesterday at the Head of the Charles, I walked and biked, absorbed the sunshine on my skin and got lost in my thoughts. Last night, I played with my kids and engaged in some fun dinner conversation. And this morning, as I got in the shower, an old favorite came to mind and I slowly hummed the tune, returning to my younger self.

How do you stay present in the ever-increasing world of distraction?

Will you let your kids date? It depends.

During our recent family trip, we started talking about whether my husband and I would let our children date. My kids are 6 and 9 so truth be told, I haven’t really thought about this just yet. But as I started to articulate my feelings on this, I realized that my answer, while seemingly a cop out, is really my stance on most issues pertaining to my children. It depends.

As a first-generation American, I watched my parents struggle with these decisions. I saw how they wrestled with these Western notions of love, dating, drinking, earning money and independence at a young age. And I remember thinking at the time that when I became a parent that I would do things differently. I wouldn’t make a production about my kids going to prom with dates, or going out on a date. I would be the mom who would be able to navigate American culture more deftly and flexibly. I would be the American mom who didn’t have the same boundaries as my Indian immigrant parents or the same needs to showcase perfection to the Indian community. In other words, I would be the cool Indian-American mom.

Starting to talk about my feelings about my own children dating, I was surprised by my answer. Mostly, because I had assumed that different meant opposite - that I would unequivocally do things radically different from my parents. What my younger self didn’t appreciate is that all of these issues are extremely complicated and not black and white. There is so much gray area and the gray area seems to expand when you throw in immigration, South Asian culture and preservation of said culture, applicability to the second generation coupled with normal teenage issues of puberty, feelings of inclusion/exclusion, and peer pressures that have been around since time immemorial.

But now as a parent, I am not sure how different I will be from my parents. I appreciate and understand where my parents were coming from when they came up with their rules. Dating could be a distraction from their teenage life- period. However, where I think I will differ from my parents will be in our approach. While the ends may be the same, the means of getting there will be radically different in that we will try our best to communicate with our children. We will make every attempt to keep channels of communication open so that they can talk to us about their feelings, anxieties, concerns, and frustrations. And we can do the same with them. Hopefully with this two-way street of dialogue, we will continue to build the foundations of trust and respect so that, when we finally make that decision of whether they are allowed to date, it won’t come as a surprise, to them or to us.

What are your thoughts?

Perfect, perfect, perfect

My fourth-grade son was completing his math homework on the computer last night while at our dining room table. I was cooking dinner. He then said “Uh-oh” and started crying. I ran over, completely perplexed as to why. He then explained that he had answered the problem wrong too many times and that the computer program finally marked it as wrong. His score ended up being 98 out of 100. He was upset that he had missed a perfect 100 by two points.

My immediate reaction was to give him a huge hug, to say “don’t worry!”, then give a pep talk about the importance of mistakes and how nobody is perfect and then to lecture about the point of homework is to practice… Clearly, I was unprepared. In my attempts to make him feel better, I had a case of verbal diarrhea! I kept thinking about what had we been teaching my son such that he felt compelled to cry over a two-point deduction? What messages and signals were we subliminally sending him such that only perfection was accepted in our house? My heart ached for him.

I remembered all too well the feeling of coming home with near-perfect, but not perfect, test scores. How I felt like an utter failure for my mistakes. How I was met with silence, and a look, that signaled disapproval from my parents. And how scared I was of not doing well academically. I vowed then to not do the same with my children. Fast-forward decades later and my son is feeling the same way that I felt as a little girl.

A 2017 study called “Perfectionism Is Increasing Over Time” finds that young people are more burdened than ever by pressure from others, including from parents. Perfectionism, the study’s authors say, “is a mix of excessively high personal standards (“I have to excel at everything I do”) and intense self-criticism (“I’m a complete failure if I fall short”).”

As I sat there with my son, dumbfounded by his reaction, wracking my brain for all the subliminal messages we had been sending him, I thought to a Washington Post article I had read about how the pressures of perfection on children started with the parents. In this article, they claim that the “parental push to raise an uber-successful child has never been more keenly felt, so much so that researchers have a name for it: “child-contingent self-esteem,” or the tendency for a parent to base their own self-worth on the success of their child. Parents now spend more time than ever on school work with their children, while time spent simply hanging out has declined. Meanwhile, between 1986 and 2006, the number of kids who said their parents surveilled their every move doubled.” YIKES!!! I know deep down that I do NOT want to be that parent.

Combine parental pressures with social pressures to appear perfect in every aspect of our lives (think Instagram, Facebook, etc.) and you have, dare I say, a perfect storm in creating depression, anxiety, desperation, suicide, drug abuse, and eating disorders. The pressures are real and I want so much to protect my children from them. In the Washington Post article, they say that while most parents say they want their children to be happy, what they really want is a high GPA. Having gone through my own feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem, I can say honestly that I truly want my children to be happy. Taking that one step further, I want nothing more than for them to be happy and fulfilled.

So I’m making huge efforts to lay off criticism in a hurtful form, to have my actions match my words, to express empathy and understanding instead of stress, anger or irritability. Above all else, to validate my son’s experiences so that he grows into the person he was always meant to be. And hopefully by validating, acknowledging and understanding my own limitations as a parent, I can start to heal that little girl inside as well.

Our favorite family pastime

Last night, my children, husband and I cuddled on our sofa and watched old videos. My kids are 6 and 9 so it’s not that they are SO old, but this has become a favorite family pastime of ours. We all have our favorites, and for different reasons. The kids delight in seeing themselves when they were younger and my husband and I love seeing how much the kids have grown and how far we have come as a family.

While nostalgia fills the air, this tradition of ours also reminds us just how precious life is and what really matters. This is especially true as we have lost my husband’s mother last year. The first few times we engaged in this pastime, we had to skip over those videos that featured my mother-in-law. The pain was too raw and the feelings were a bit too much and too soon for my husband. There is one particular video that has us in stitches every single time we watch it, and in that video, my mother-in-law features prominently. Last night, while I gave my husband a gentle squeeze, we watched this video in its entirety. We laughed and rejoiced at the memory, at her memory, and were ever-grateful that we had captured such a precious moment on film.

And I needed this reminder. I find this pastime especially helpful during emotional or difficult times. When I’m caught up in the trivial, seeing my children delight in their younger selves grounds me and centers me in a way that few other things can. Experiencing our past together as a family is especially rewarding and reminds me of who I was as a person and who I am now. I especially love hearing my daughter squeal “look what she is doing!” about her younger self and my son basking in the love and adoration that can be felt from the plethora of videos we took of him before his little sister came along. For each of us, we are reminded of some very important and fundamental truths of ourselves and it is these reminders that will help sustain this tradition for years to come.

What pastimes have you developed as a family? Are there any rituals that you perform that center and ground you? Please share!

Superheroes and Superpowers

Spider-Man: Far From Home, X-Men: Dark Phoenix and Avengers: Endgame have all come out recently with much fanfare. Superheroes with superpowers rule the box office. We as a culture are mesmerized and captured by the supernatural, a force beyond the laws of nature. There are remnants of these other worlds everywhere, from video games, books, comics to merchandise and costumes. Which is why it shouldn’t have been surprising to me that when I was out with my friend a few months ago, she starting talking about her son’s “superpower”. She described her son’s ability to constantly be in motion, with the endurance of a marathon runner and the abundance of energy like the energizer bunny. She claimed these abilities as his “superpowers”. I fell in love with this description of her child!

While we exalt fictional superheroes for abilities that are sometimes seen as ordinary, as a culture, when it comes to our little ones especially, we are quick to point out their weaknesses, complain about said weaknesses with frustration and judge one another on these perceived weaknesses. Instead, my friend chose to see her son’s abilities as not only positive, but powerful. How remarkable is that! This exercise of finding the superpower(s) within our children forced me to see the supernatural within my little ones and celebrate what makes them unique.

And I didn’t have to think long to come up with a list. My son’s superpowers are his passion, creativity and ability to focus. My daughter’s superpowers are her self-confidence, wittiness and remarkable maturity and clarity. And let’s not stop there. Taking this one step further, I started thinking of my own superpowers as well. To see one’s own strengths as superpowers not only provides a confidence boost (yes to increased self-confidence!), but also is deeply empowering. I can now use my superpowers of deep empathy and sensitivity, passion and community service simultaneously as body armor and ammunition.

Perhaps what drives the popularity of superhero films is our deep desire to possess these superpowers within ourselves, and what my friend reminded me is that we, especially our children, most certainly do.

"Toot-er"

Last night, as I looked across the dining table, both kids doubled over in fits of laughter, I couldn’t help but relish the moment. Normally I would have been less than enthused that we were wasting time. We were behind schedule; dinner was later which would mean that baths would be delayed with bedtime pushed deeper into the night. But the laughter was that infectious one, the kind that overtakes your whole body, and one that, despite your mind trying to take over, just brings the biggest smile to your face. We laughed and rejoiced. And I couldn’t help but join them.

What was so funny you may ask? I told the kids how finally I was going to meet the first-grade student that I had been tutoring for the past year in his classroom. I was excited to put a face with a name and voice that I had talked to every Friday morning for months now. I told them how we were hosting a year-end celebration with his class and that I was bringing snacks. Then I said, “you know, because I’m his tutor.” The kids lost it then. What they heard was that I was a “toot-er”. Or as my son explained, one who “toots”.

As I sat there watching them in their happiness, laughing along with them, and recounting it later with them while putting them to bed, I couldn’t help but think that this is what life is about. Life doesn’t get much better than this. I was thankful that I was present enough to not only accept this moment for what it was, but also, to enjoy it with my two favorite little humans.

Hanging up

I had to call my son at his after school program a few years ago. I wanted to check in on him and see how he was feeling. This was the first time that we had spoken on the phone without a family member on the other side. It was strange to hear his voice. He was a little surprised, but started chatting to me. And at the end of the conversation, I said “Bye Kabir” and he said “Bye Mommy” and then nothing happened. We did that a few more times and then I realized that he didn’t want to hang up on me. Something in him prevented him from wanting to hang up. Finally I said, “It’s OK Kabir. I love you. I am going to hang up the phone now” and I did.

A few months ago, I called my daughter’s classroom to talk to her and the same thing happened. We got to the end of our conversation and she didn’t want to hang up on me either. I don’t know whether she didn’t know what to do or something felt wrong about it, but she had a hard time with it. I thought it had to do with my kids not wanting to hang up on their mother, that they didn’t want to show me any disrespect. But just today, as I tutored a first grader in Boston online and over the phone (through an organization called TutorMate), I went to hang up and the same thing happened. My student didn’t want to hang up on me. I finally had to say, “Ok [name], I hope you have a good weekend. I am going to hang up the phone now” and then I did.

Have any of you ever experienced this? On some fundamental level, I think that what these children are responding to is how abrupt and perhaps unnatural it is to hang up on somebody. Or perhaps I’m just reading into this behavior. Regardless, I wish I could have stayed on the phone longer with my student today (and I wish the same with my children months and years ago). And perhaps my student not wanting to hang up on me means that a part of him (and them) felt the same way.

A Rat Race That Cannot Be Won

“I’m ready to lean OUT.”

Sarah Buckley Friedberg

A Facebook rant by a Needham, MA mother of three ends with this: “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to lean OUT.” Since writing her viral post, Sarah Buckley Friedberg garnered over 79,000 likes, 18,000 comments and 72,000 shares. She certainly has hit a cord, mostly among similarly situated, privileged (I’d argue, predominantly white) women and mothers.

What is it about her post that resonates with so many people? I’m exhausted reading the post, let alone being a working mother of two trying to achieve all that she talks about. Society’s expectation that we must be put together, skinny and fit, well-rested, well-adjusted, well-groomed, ambitious, financially contributing members of our families coupled with raising kids who are well-fed, well-balanced and well-rounded (be proficient in at least one sport, instrument and other activity), curious, high-achieving explorers is simply impossible and unfair. It is an unspoken truth that the same is not, and will never be, expected of the opposite sex.

I love this part of Ms. Buckley’s post:

"Recycle. Be Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the birthday planner, the poop doula (seriously when will this end), the finder of lost things, the moderator of fights. Be fun. Be firm. Read books. Have dance parties."

I’ve written a lot about this but my solution to these ridiculous, untenable societal expectations is to ignore them as much as possible. Of course, I’m susceptible to them as much as the next woman is but the more we try to achieve these unrealistic, soul-crushing, goals, the more will be expected of us. It’s a rat race that cannot be won.

One of the reasons I started Messy Bliss a few years ago was to encourage us to question these notions, to embrace the messy imperfections and to find joy and happiness in all of it. Let’s cultivate a counterculture of being who we are, strong women who strengthen, support and promote one another and delight in and celebrate each other’s messiness unapologetically. The more that we can do that, the less these expectations will matter to us all and the less pressure we will all feel. So let’s do more of the leaning out and just being instead.

Turning 40

I lay in bed on the last day of my 30s suffering from insomnia. I listened to my family as they slept. I walked around our apartment in Rome. The minutes crept on and there was no denying it anymore that I was going to be 40 come the new day. This day had arrived a lot sooner than I expected. I had built up this day in my head for a while now, mostly looking at this age with dread and lamenting. In my head, my thoughts went like this, “I can’t believe you are so old,” “How did 40 arrive this quickly?”. “Wait, I haven’t reached my goal weight yet,” “This is not where I thought I’d be in my career,” and so on and so forth. You get the point. I was approaching 40 with feelings of mourning (mostly of my youth), foreboding and unease.

As the sun started to rise, my eyes slowly drifted asleep, I realized that I had been approaching this day wrong. I should have listened to my husband who always seems to be so sensible and mature given these situations. I alone define myself. I alone have the power to make of the moment and feel of the moment what I want. While my age and the lapse of time are simply out of my control, what I think about it, what I feel about it, are solely within my wheelhouse.

So as I woke up, I was greeted with the delightful songs of my kids singing me happy birthday, kisses from my husband, messages from my parents and brother and the sun shining into our beautiful apartment. I was blessed and felt beyond grateful. As I read the beautiful cards my family wrote and sat watching dear friends from around the world sharing beautiful moments of my life, I was reminded of all that I had experienced, all that I had lived, and all that I am.

The expectations I had had for this day slowly released their grasp on me and instead, feelings of acceptance and love embraced me. It turns out that 40 is not that bad afterall. And there’s some relief in knowing that.

Welcoming Spring with a New Look

Welcome to my new site! With spring around the corner, it’s time to refresh, reboot and renew. I listened to one of my favorite podcasts, How I Built This by Guy Raz, the other day on my way home from Springfield. Anthony Casalena talked about how he built Squarespace in his dorm room at the University of Maryland back in 2003. I was intrigued. I started poking around and discovered that his website is much easier and more intuitive for building websites, including blogs, than the service I had been using. I was looking for a website creation platform, or a “publishing platform” as Casalena calls it, that had more clean, modern templates. Finding Squarespace and refreshing my website is a great way to bring in a new season.

There’s something to this notion of “spring cleaning”. Especially living in a cold-weather climate where hibernation tendencies seem to abound, the opportunity to welcome the warmth with a clean slate is especially enticing. How do you approach spring? How do you come out of hibernation? What will you do to start fresh this spring?

The Power of Song

When I play this song, I feel powerful.  If this song is playing as I’m walking down the street, I walk to the beat, with a stride that exhibits power and strength.  I feel like I can accomplish anything when I hear this song.  That’s what a power song can do.  It can reach to your core by empowering and emboldening you.

I like to play this power song as prep for a big meeting, or en route to my company’s headquarters in Springfield.  I crank up the volume and just play it.  I absorb it all- the feelings and images that are created by the music.  I still don’t know all the lyrics.  And honestly, the lyrics are not what make this song a power song for me- it’s the music, the beat, the ability to walk in sync with it and the gait with which I carry myself.  I find that when I play a power song, that I feel more confident, that I feel better about myself and that I can conquer anything.

I’ve had different power songs for different periods of my life. Songs that I listen to over and over again, because they usually help me through a difficult time or inspire confidence. During my senior  year of college it was Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of by U2 and while running the marathon, Remember the Name by Fort Minor provided me with the added umpf that I needed to push through and cross the finish line.

My power song at the moment is You’re Mine by Raving George; what’s yours?

New Year Intention- Letting Go

Happy New Year 2019!  I’ve been anxious leading up to the start of the new year because this year I will enter a new decade. Frankly, this freaks me out! How did almost 4 decades go by? How am I here already? I have so much more to do, see, and experience. As I go down the rabbit hole of questions and self-reflection, my husband gently brings me back to reality. 40 is the new 30 according to him (and the rest of the country it seems). If you can’t change it, embrace it. It is what it is. C’est la vie as the French would say.

So as we enter the new year, there is no better intention for me than letting go.  Letting go of expectations- of what I had expected to achieve and accomplish by now, of what I thought my life would look like and of what others expected of me. Letting go of negativity, toxicity, ill feelings and low tendencies.  Letting go of the small things.

What I intend to do is to embrace the new year with excitement, joy and healthy anticipation.  To embrace the “swerve” as Michelle Obama calls it and enjoy the ride. This is my ride and only my ride to go on so what others think of me is irrelevant.  I will surround myself with positive, well-meaning people who want the best for me.  And I shall focus on the bigger things- the people and things that matter.  

These are lofty ambitions, but a new year brings an opportunity to reassess, reframe and reposition you in your own life.  To make small adjustments to your life such that you can achieve more happiness, joy and fulfillment.  For me, this means letting go and embracing all that life can be in a new decade!

What are your intentions for the new year?

Post-Marathon Blues

On October 7th, I experienced one of the best days of my life when I finished the Chicago marathon. It was a magical day, from beginning to end, and one that I will replay in my mind for years, and even decades, to come. In an earlier post, I discuss my second chance at training for a marathon, a goal that was 10 years in the making. And on this overcast, fall day in Chicago, this dream-goal of mine became a reality. I crossed the finish line with my hands up high in a sign of triumph.  Nothing could take that perma grin off of my face...

...until after I accomplished this goal. After spending the better part of 2018 training and gearing up for this moment, I've spent the last 6 weeks in a slump despite another major positive change in my life (a topic for another day, but I've recently changed jobs). I've started referring to this period as the post-marathon blues and a period for which I was wholly unprepared.

While in this post-marathon haze of feeling down and out, I've had to re-calibrate my mindset and refocus my energy. Here are some of my tips to combat your own post-achievement blues:

1. Don't quit cold turkey.  After running a marathon and training for months, it was easy to stop running for a little while (and my legs thanked me for the respite).  However, I miss running- the discipline, the routine, the feeling.  Even though it might be difficult to sustain motivation, quitting cold turkey whatever you have been working so hard towards automatically lends itself to feelings of loss, both of purpose and of a goal.  So it's best to taper down whatever it is you have been doing, unless you are burned out from it.  In my case, I love running outside so I've been running outside on the weekends despite the cold.  And I just joined an indoor running studio so I can run on a "special" treadmill that is kinder to my legs.

2. Re-focus on other areas of your life. While I loved training for the marathon, by the end, it was all-consuming. I now have my weekends back! I can sleep in on Sundays! I can indulge in a glass of wine (or two) on a Saturday evening. I can spend some quality time with my children and husband. By trying to focus on the areas of my life that I had been neglecting, I've been able to emerge from this slump by redirecting my attention to these areas.

3. Set another goal. I approached the Chicago marathon thinking that my goal was to complete one marathon in my life. In the past six weeks, I've realized that what I miss so much is working hard towards something. And for me, these goals tend to be athletic-related. Having completed one marathon, I'm reassessing the "only one marathon" notion and thinking of training for something else. In coming up with a new goal, I've tried to have fun in the process. I'm also discovering new things about myself and my resolve to compete and constantly improve.

4. Meditate. Doesn't it seem that everything these days can be cured by meditation? You have weight issues, meditate. You feel down, meditate.  You feel lost and unmotivated, meditate.  And the list goes on.  But I just started to meditate (read my post on the importance of creating a morning routine) in earnest and I can honestly say that I feel different when I am meditating.  Even if it's for 5 minutes a day.  So when all else fails, meditate 😉

Have you ever felt low or depressed after having completed a major achievement?  What strategies and tactics worked for you?  Please share your thoughts below!

The Battle with Tech

We are surrounded by tech.  People are obsessed with their devices, from iPhones to tablets to Bluetooth this and that, we cannot escape this thing called technology. On the subway, on the street, in the car, on the bus, at work, at home, on the plane, in airports, in bathrooms, in Starbucks and grocery lines, on football fields, and in stadiums and at concerts, people are glued to their screens.  It’s almost like a zombie effect has taken over our society and all you can see are the masses, hunched over, eyes glazed, emotionless, staring into the ether that is their screen.

Long gone is when you find yourself in an elevator striking up a random conversation.  Or making eye contact with the person behind you in the grocery line. Or exchanging pleasantries with your neighbor.  In our attempts to be more connected, available and up-to-date, we have lost touch with people, places and happenings right in front of us and of our physical realities….

You’ve heard me rant and rave about this before. But here’s why I have a bee in my bonnet. Reading the newspaper a few Sundays ago, I came across this article about how “Silicon Valley Nannies are Phone Police for their Kids”.  You’d have to live under a rock to know the damage that excessive screen time can have on a child’s development.  Recently, there’s been talk that the very people who create, sell and market the use of technology in Silicon Valley expressly prohibit their own children from viewing any type of screen whatsoever.  Now that’s unsettling. But these Silicon Valley types and those with means are taking it one step further and hiring nannies to expressly police and protect their children from screens altogether.

The articles goes on to talk about the hypocrisy of these parents who limit or deny screen time while simultaneously being glued to the so-called criminal devices themselves. They are addicted and need to hire outside help to prevent that very addiction within their offspring.  Now, I get it. If you’re ever out to dinner and look around, you might see that family where everybody is on their respective device, barely engaging in a conversation.  Or you may see a group of teenagers messaging their friends, who all happen to be sitting right next to them at their very table.

But have we taken this all a little too far to now be hiring nannies specifically for the purpose of playing tech police?

And taking this one step further, is this just another way that the privileged will leave those who are underprivileged behind? Yet another learning gap that will have to be surmounted in order to be successful in the future?

It all seems a little preposterous to me.  But, these are the times we are living in.  Here’s what we do in our household to battle what ails us of tech:

1. Limit screen time to 20-25 minutes/ day. They are allowed to watch 1 show on PBS Kids and generally no commercials. There are a few caveats to this rule. Because of where we live, during the warmer months, if the kids play outside with their friends after school or summer camp, no screen time that day (mostly because there’s no time).  The kids happily forgo their screen time to play outside and thankfully, this has never been a problem.  If we are running late in our evening routine, no screen time.  We usually make this up with reading extra books before bed.  If we have any activity that runs later into the evening (an event at school, piano lessons, etc), no screen time.  Of course, we also make exceptions the other way when there is a major sports event going on (Go Sox! Go Djokovic!) or if there is a special I want the kids to watch. Ironically enough, my parents had limited my “TV-time” to 30 minutes a day back in the 80s when I was growing up so I feel OK with using this as the allotted time period.  The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends 1 hour of screen time per day for kids ages 2-5 years and kids ages 6 and above to placing “consistent limits on the time spent using media”.

2. Prefer the TV to a tablet or phone.  We have found that there is something more addictive to a personal device versus something being displayed on the television.  Plus it’s easier to turn the TV off instead of wrangling a device from the kids hand.

3. If poor behavior, no screen time.  Screen time is something to be earned and is a privilege. We are trying to dispel the notion that screen time is ubiquitous with being a kid or with life in general.

4. Do as I do. My husband and I are hyper aware of our phone usage around our children. When I pick up my phone around my kids, I usually announce what I am doing- “I’m looking up the weather” or “I need to check a work email” so the kids know that I have a purpose for looking at my screen. This has taken lots of getting used to but now, when we enter our home, we really make a concerted effort to be off of our phones. It’s certainly not easy and I can vouch that the addiction is real.

What rules have you adopted in your house to curb tech addiction? What have you found to work and not work? Do you have a nanny that serves as a tech police? Please share!

Establishing a Morning Routine

I’ve been all out of sorts lately and feeling out of my element. In one of life’s contradictions, while I love change and embrace the thought of it, with such change also comes feelings of anxiety and instability.  As I began a new job last week, I realized that I had grown accustomed to my former morning routine, my established way of beginning my day.  Now that I am commuting to work (in a car!) more frequently, figuring out a new job in a new role, and adjusting to the limited daylight, my body and mind are revolting.

Routine by definition means “a sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program.”

So if you have kids, a job, a spouse, or anything else that gets you out of bed, chances are that you do the same thing every morning.  Whether it’s brushing your teeth, drinking coffee, reading the newspaper, checking your emails, waking up the kids (or being woken up by the kids on a regular basis), taking a shower, these are all simple routines you have probably established and just do without thinking about it.  But when I refer to a morning routine, I’m not talking about just performing these types of tasks.

I’m talking about the deliberate stringing of tasks (whether they are for hygienic purposes or not), that in the aggregate create a morning ritual.  When completed, a morning routine empowers one to begin the day with purpose and intention.  It means waking up at the same time every morning, doing the same things in the same order, on a daily basis.  Obviously there is room for slip-ups or variation based on what is happening in reality, but for the most part, morning routines are performed to bring some calm, control and discipline to one’s life.

As luck would have it, as I’ve been floundering and trying to get my bearings after a week on the new job, the New York Times published this article about best practices for morning routines employed by highly successful people.  Here is a summary (including some of my additional thoughts):

1. Set your wake-up time after experimenting with it.  Figure out what time works for you.  If you want to exercise and do other things in the morning before you need to wake up the kids or go to work, then you may need more time and to wake up earlier (see #2 below).  Change your wake-up time gradually.  I’ve read changing in 15-30 minute increments a couple of weeks at each new time until you get to your desired wake-up time works best. For example, if you wake up at 7AM now, for the next few weeks, wake up at 6:30AM.  How do you feel?  If you need more time, then in a couple of weeks, change your wake-up time to 6:00AM.  And keep doing this until you’ve reached your ideal wake-up time.

2. Make time for what energizes you.  It can be many different things including exercising, yoga, meditation, etc.  For my husband, it’s making a cup of coffee and sipping it gingerly while reading the news and catching up on email.  I’ve noticed that when he doesn’t do this, he is more frazzled.  If you decide to wake up earlier (#1 above), then in the “extra” time you’ve gained, start doing the most rewarding things first to keep you motivated.

3. Create a sleep routine (or a night routine).  The quote from Ben Franklin comes to mind- “Early to bed early to rise makes a man  healthy, wealthy and wise.”  Try to go to bed at a reasonable hour and the same reasonable hour every night.  There is a direct connection between your sleep routine and your morning routine.

4. Adapt your routine to different situations.  If you travel frequently, create a morning routine that you can use while traveling.  Or if your kids have a terrible night, adapt your morning routine enough to allow yourself to feel grounded for the rest of the day despite the disruption.  Life happens, so there’s no need to be so rigid and dogmatic with your morning ritual.  Know the different parts of your morning routine, how long the different tasks take and what is absolutely essential to help you have a better day.

5. It’s OK to miss your routine.  It’s OK to not be perfect in establishing your routine.  It’s like a diet.  Just because you have one slip-up doesn’t mean you can’t get back on track the next day.  Or the day after that.  Remember why you want to create a morning routine and what the intent and purpose behind it is.  And then give yourself a break when you miss it.

I’m looking forward to experimenting in the coming weeks in creating a new morning ritual to bring more harmony, peace and calm to my life.

Do you have a morning routine?  Is there something that you do in the morning that is unique?  I love that Marie Kondo, the author of “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” immediately opens the windows to let in fresh air.

Heroes and Villains

In almost every movie or novel, there is a hero and a villain, a protagonist and an antagonist, a person who saves and a person to be saved, or a combination of any of the aforementioned. The time that I spent fighting sexual violence in conflict with Physicians for Human Rights ("PHR") is marked by this dichotomy. The good versus the bad.  Those who are harmed and those who harm. Obviously, it's not so black and white and there's much gray that resides here. But in the last six months, the hero and the villain of my story of combatting sexual violence have come to the fore.

Today, my hero, Dr. Mukwege, and Nadia Murad both won the Nobel Peace Prize "for their campaigns to end the use of mass rape as a weapon of war". Apropos to the person he is, Dr. Mukwege was in the operating room at Panzi Hospital performing a surgery when he learned of this news.

I met Dr. Mukwege almost four years ago as I started my job at PHR. PHR and its Program on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones was in deep collaboration with Dr. Mukwege and his Panzi Hospital to create a cross-sectoral network of doctors, nurses, law enforcement and judges to more effectively prosecute crimes of sexual violence. We met in Washington DC in October 2013 as Dr. Mukwege was advocating for more resources and political support for his hospital in the Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was an uphill battle for Dr. Mukwege to get the attention of the global community for sexual violence and this small region in Eastern Congo, but very personal. As we sat down at dinner, he discussed his motivations, his experiences and his dreams for his country. Here was a man, a MAN, who understood and promoted the rights of women. He understood that women were human, that women were equal, that women were to be celebrated and that women needed to be protected. Why were his views so very different than the men that he was surrounded by? Over the course of the next few years, I visited Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, DRC and met the many survivors who were helped by Dr. Mukwege and his incredible team. I visited Dr. Mukwege in his home and met his family.  He is as authentic as they come. He is real and is good.

But every hero needs a villain, every protagonist needs an antagonist. Earlier this year, I opened my email to find that one of my former interns at PHR was charged with child sex crimes. Joel Davis spent his gap year between high school and college with us in the Boston office of PHR. I had known this young man personally and went to many lunches and walks with him.  I had provided much support, guidance and mentorship to this then-teenager. He would go on to found an organization called Youth to End Sexual Violence. He was granted access to well-known international organizations including the United Nations.  He was the youth ambassador for the highly publicized Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in 2014. He was friends with Zainab Bangura who served as the United Nations Special Representative for Sexual Violence from 2012-2017. We had been in touch over the years. He was my friend on Facebook. We had discussed his pieces for the Columbia student newspaper over messenger.

I couldn't sleep for nights. I read the complaint. It was damning. How did this happen? What did we miss? He claimed to have been subject to sexual abuse as a child. And in this regard, perhaps demonizing him is incorrect because of the cycle of abuse. But it's hard not to do especially knowing full well that he deeply understood the consequences of his actions and the impact he would have on these children's lives. He had studied sexual violence, its impact on survivors.  He had met countless victims of sexual violence (and allegedly was one), both domestically and internationally.  He became a subject-matter expert on sexual violence. He founded an organization particularly for youth and ending sexual violence.  Beneath the disguise of credibility and legitimacy, his actions towards these children seemed especially cruel.

So as I rejoice today about Dr. Mukwege's well-deserved accomplishment, I am reminded that there is still much work to be done to combat sexual violence. I am grateful that heroes exist in everyday life and I am fortunate to have met one of them. However, I am deeply aware that villains exist everywhere as well.

A Second Chance

Yesterday, as my children and husband cheered me on, I finished running 20 miles.  I know that this may not sound like a huge accomplishment, especially for those who are marathon runners, but for me, this was huge.  And my family understood that.

Almost 10 years ago now, I was training for the Boston marathon, which was to be my first marathon, to ring in a new decade (the Boston Marathon coincidentally fell a few days after my 30th birthday).  Three weeks before the Boston marathon in 2009, I embarked on what was to be my longest run to date, 21 miles.  When I hit mile 12, something was off with my shin.  I've always suffered with shin splints so I thought it was my shin splints rearing its ugly head.  Mile 18 the pain got worse.  By Mile 20, I was in tears.  I should have stopped running but I was a novice at long-distance running and I wanted to finish 21 miles.  I barely crossed the finish line, aided by my Dana Farber marathon teammates.  As I got in the car, I knew that something was terribly wrong.  It was confirmed by the doctor the following day that I had sustained a stress fracture in my left leg.  I was devastated.  I had been so diligent in my training, followed the training schedule, trained during the harsh Boston winter, and had nothing but a boot on my left leg to show for it.

Fast forward nine years and I started thinking about entering into a new decade and what I wanted to accomplish before I turned 40.  I revisited my bucket list and finishing a marathon was still on there.  Dare I attempt it again?  With my children older, logistics not as menacing and an ever-supporting spouse, I entered the Chicago marathon lottery with three friends.  The Chicago course is supposed to be flat and it's in October so it would not require training during the winter.  Plus the added bonus of not having to qualify or raise money to run.  My friends and I were selected to run the Chicago Marathon!  I was thrilled but also super nervous.  Now, almost ten years older, would my shins hold up?  I was worried about repeating past mistakes.

I started training in March in earnest.  I decided to ramp up mileage gingerly through the spring and early summer to allow my legs to adjust and my shins to recover after each run.  I bought special compression socks to provide additional support.  I invested in good new running shoes along with an Apple watch (I love it on my runs!).  Also, I started strength training to build up muscle.  One of my friends running the marathon with me had worked with her running coach to come up with a marathon training plan (thanks S!).  I tweaked her plan a little bit to suit my running times and marathon goals.  During this time, when discussing my training with my strength trainer, we realized that I was running too fast during my short runs.  So I adjusted my mile times and ran slower (this sounds easy, but it's not)!  Taking these extra steps and being deliberate and patient with my training are lessons I could have only learned after having experienced failure during my first marathon attempt.

Needless to say, I was a ball of nerves all week leading up to this long run.  I iced my legs every night trying to reduce swelling and inflammation.  I went on two shorter runs during the week and diligently stretched and rolled out my legs afterwards.  I stopped drinking wine and ate relatively well.  I was ready.  My legs were ready.  I was in the zone.

Crossing the 20-mile mark yesterday felt surreal.  I was stronger both mentally and physically than I had been back in 2009.  I was prepared and more experienced.  Even though I suffered the usual aches and pains of having just run 20 miles, it felt good to be able to run across this finish line, by myself and smiling.  And having my children there to see me reach this milestone truly was icing on the cake.  Chicago marathon, it's been almost ten years in the making, but here I come!

Unexpected Grief

Last week, I found my son crying in his bed as he went to sleep. I rushed over to him and tried to soothe him. I didn't know why he was crying and showing so much emotion. My heart was breaking. After much pleading and prodding, he finally confessed as to the reason. Earlier in the night, as he had turned on the light in the playroom, he had seen his late grandmother's eyeglasses piled up in a heap on a shelf. Upon seeing her eyeglasses, it had hit him, months later, that his grandmother had passed away and that he would never see her again.

A little over four months ago my mother-in-law passed away unexpectedly in Delhi, India.  Thankfully my husband made it to her bedside as she drew her last breaths. I brought the children with me so we could pay our last respects for the very important Hindu rituals on the tenth, eleventh and twelfth days that follow the passing of a loved one.  Before, during and after our trip, we had discussed my mother-in-law's death with the kids, what it meant, whether there is an afterlife, and our feelings of sadness.  But it was the sanitized, non-alarming version.

Death is a very difficult concept to explain to children and even more so in our manicured, curated, picture-perfect society.  When my mother-in-law passed away, I was in India. As part of the rituals and similar to a wake, my mother-in-law's body was displayed in her favorite sari for friends and family to pay their last respects. Clouded by my grief, I remembered that a few cousins had brought their young children to the viewing. I was shocked.  I remembered thinking what seeing a dead body would do to these children at such a young age and how I would never expose my children to this.  But the children at the viewing seemed to not be phased by the whole episode. Dutifully they paid their respects and then carried on as only children can do; they played, laughed and had fun.

In hopes to protect my children from discomfort, pain, sadness and ultimately, grief, I feel like I may have missed the mark entirely.  Perhaps the way that other societies expose children to the realities of death, cancer, illness, and poverty better prepares them for the journey that is life. While I'm loathe to talk in generalities, it seems like that there is a culture in the United States of trying to preserve a  child's childhood to make it as perfect as possible.  In the era of helicopter parenting, we fail to see that our children are stronger than we think they are and more resilient than we give them credit for.   From the Tooth Fairy to Santa Claus, American childhoods are marked by illusions of grandeur, magic, and fantasy. Don't get me wrong, I love playing along with the masquerade of Santa Claus, but what messages are we sending children when we only expose them to fiction while simultaneously protecting and shielding them from reality?

So when my son, months later came upon the eyeglasses and made the leap for himself of what these eyeglasses signified, it was a reminder to me that reality catches up with even our littlest citizens despite vain attempts at protection. That while his grief was not immediate or showy, my son had absorbed the meaning and permanence of his grandmother's death and because of this, he was sad and grieving.  And that despite the tears, sadness and grief, my son ultimately will be a little more prepared for life and will become stronger and more resilient in facing our new reality, without his beloved grandmother but with her eyeglasses. And maybe that's not so bad after all.