Last night, I was helping my baby fart at 4:30am. For like ten minutes. That's really remarkable when you think about it, on many different levels -- the biggest being how truly helpless babies are. Baby horses stand up and walk the day they are born. On the other hand, for months after birth, human babies need help supporting their necks, burping... even sleeping and yes, farting. Of course, there's a very good evolutionary explanation for this, which essentially ensures that the human baby has the largest head (and therefore brain) as possible, while still being able to be safely born. Because of this, babies are born "under-developed" compared to other mammals; baby experts call the first three months post-partum as the "fourth trimester", where the baby essentially is still significantly developing outside the womb.
There have been two major implications of learning this in my world. First, there was a huge a-ha moment somewhere in week four, when Tyler, Elliot and I were finally back in our own home. Tyler and I would hold Elliot for hours (literally) until he was sound asleep, only to find that as soon as we placed him down, some sensor would go off and he would scream and start crying. Suffice to say, this was extremely frustrating. Bouncing on the bouncy ball (aka yoga ball - turned pregnancy ball - now turned "get-the-baby-to-stop-crying" ball) was supposed to be an investment -- extra bounces to put the baby to sleep... not stasis (stop bouncing and a second later, wailing). But learning more about the fourth trimester put things in greater perspective -- after all, in the womb Elliot was held 24/7. While we think holding him for 8-10 hours is excessive, from his perspective, this is a major downgrade!
The second implication is that, of course, Elliot is a helpless baby -- still in his fourth trimester and still needing everything to be done for his basic survival. And while this is indeed factually true, it also isn't the full story. I started thinking more about this wide-awake at 4:30am this morning -- as I was pulling his legs up to frog-position for the umpteenth-time.
Because the thing is, even though he's "only" a "helpless" baby, in many ways he's teaching me so much. And I don't just mean virtues like patience, empathy, and faith that inherently come with caring for a baby (though he's definitely taught me those as well). I mean, quite literally, that he's become a model and a teacher.
You see, I've been an "aspiring" yogi and meditator for years now. It doesn't come naturally for me at all, though the practice of returning to the breath -- again and again despite the challenges -- is the practice. And looking down at him this morning, it struck me how many of the concepts we learn about in meditation and spiritual retreats that this "helpless" baby does just naturally. For instance:
1. Giving 100%. This is a core concept of the Art of Living principles and is shocking how difficult it is to do. There's an old Zen proverb that's remarkably simple in statement, yet challenging in practice: "When you walk, walk. When you eat, eat." Even with all the recent studies showing how unproductive and energy-draining multi-tasking can be, focusing on one thing and doing it full-throttle is shockingly hard -- my smartphone is just too enticing with its plethora of fun distractions.
But when I look at Elliot: when he eats, he gives eating his 100%. When he cries, that too is 100%. And yes, even farting (which includes engaging his entire body) is 100%. I remember thinking this back when he was only a few days old and we were still in the hospital. Inspired by this, for the first time, I started eating my hospital meals and only eating (no smartphone or other distractions). I've since reverted back to my old multi-tasking ways, but Elliot serves as a good teacher to giving 100% and doing one thing at a time.
2. Belly breathing. The first time I went to a meditation class (this was in India almost ten years ago), the teacher informed me that I was breathing wrong. Of course, I was adamant that I was breathing correctly and he was wrong (besides which, how was there a "wrong" way to breathe anyway?!) Many meditation classes later, I began to concede that I was indeed breathing -- if not "wrongly", then at least "inefficiently" -- with my lungs rising on my exhale, rather than the other way around. Once I finally mastered that, I was then informed I was still breathing "inefficiently" -- as I was only breathing to my lungs -- not to my belly (and ideally lower belly). Needless to say, it was a slow process to get me to "proper" belly breathing, which maximizes the relaxation response and getting attuned to one's body. Of course, anyone who spends time with a baby knows that the way babies breathe is through belly breathing -- and deep belly breathing at that.
3. Letting things pass like the weather. I learned a fascinating fact earlier this year: emotions typically flow through one's body in something like 8-10 minutes -- things like anger, fear, anxiety... But it's when our mind "hooks" on these emotions (and starts the seemingly-inevitable cycle of assigning, "this is bad/this is good") that we become "stuck," mulling over that old argument or statement-in-passing years later. Take something like being sick (which is a timely example since right now all three of us have one of those cold/coughs that refuse to go away): there's the event itself (getting sick); and then there's all the mental "crap" that I often bring to this -- "I can't believe I got sick the week I'm returning to work", "ugh, how will I ever get better if I barely sleep to begin with" -- not to mention blame of who got me sick in the first place and forward-tripping of what this sickness means in the future ("apparently infants with bronchiolitis are more apt to get asthma later in life!").
Needless to say, I'm not a fun person when I'm sick. But then I look at Elliot. He's up all night coughing with bronchiolitis, nose running, sneezing up a storm... but it's almost like he treats this like a passing weather pattern -- not assigning good or bad, just coughing when he needs to cough -- perhaps smiling the next minute or falling back asleep. My point is, there's no mental "hooking" that keeps him stuck on the "negative" of being sick -- it's simply about letting things flow and pass like the weather. Sure, it's easy to say he doesn't know better or he simply hasn't developed the mental capacity for that, but that misses the point.
And the point here is this: As someone as focused on "self-improvement" and personal growth as I am, what I'm ultimately realizing is that maybe it's not all about learning and improving. Maybe instead, it's all about un-learning and re-remembering.
All of these "existential" spiritual concepts fundamentally boil down to learnings that my two-month old teaches me every day, if I only look out for it... and remember that he's not as helpless as the baby experts make him seem.
(my buddha baby with his buddha belly... day 5 of bronchiolitis)
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