This holiday season...

'Nuff said.

"I was going to write a book, but then I got pregnant."

Before I got pregnant, I had this awesome idea for a book I would write.  It stems from a book I had heard about a few years ago -- about an American man with back pain, who went all around the world getting treated for it, along the way stumbling upon insights and lessons from health care systems much different from ours.

I was going to do the same thing, in a way, but for maternity.  Through the course of my nine month pregnancy, I would write about the care I was receiving in Korea, as well as anywhere else in the world I happened to travel for work or for pleasure -- the US, India, Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe...

When I was back in New York City this past September, I saw my friend Blake, who is one of those rare friends who not only pushes you to be your best self, but calls you out on it when you're not.  He asks, "So how's your book coming?"  I respond: "Well, I was going to write a book, but then I got pregnant."  His response: "Great! - Sounds like an awesome title for your new book."

The takeaway for me here is that there's a vast difference between what I think I'm going to do around pregnancy and birth; and then the reality of what does happen (while I still get excited about that book and think it's an impactful way to shed light on the state of maternal health around the world, the reality is that actually, I don't want to travel to areas of the world with awful maternal health outcomes (the whole reason Gates has funded us to work there in the first place!) while I'm pregnant; I suppose this must have been obvious to everyone but me.)

... All of which is prompting me to get back on the horse and start blogging again regularly -- before I forget all of this in the haze of new motherhood (on that subject, one of my college roommates -- one of the most articulate and introspective people I know -- wrote an article in The Atlantic about this very thing, called "Before I Forget: What Nobody Remembers About New Motherhood": http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/before-i-forget-what-nobody-remembers-about-new-motherhood/274981/)

So what's happening in my world right now?  Well, today is Veteran's Day in the US, Diwali in India, Singles' Day in China (google it, it's really a thing), and Pepero Day in Korea (in case you're wondering, it's like Valentine's Day, but instead of chocolate, you give your love a Pepero stick -- an evolution of the supposed origin of Pepero Day on 11/11: exchanging tall, thin Peperos in the hopes of becoming taller and thinner yourself -- ah, Korea).

But in the Morente-Bolender family, this day is significant because I'm now 30 weeks pregnant; ten more weeks to go!!

Time's a funny thing.  We all know it's relative.  One week in the first trimester was a wholly different psychological length than one week now.  For me, the first trimester dragged on and on... each individual week was momentous (you could have asked either of us what size fruit the baby was and we'd know instantly -- growing from sesame seed to watermelon seed to an actual real fruit size... now when you ask us, we shrug and look at the other person to see if they know!).

Then the second trimester came, and with it, what I'm now realizing to be the glory days of pregnancy: so much energy, so much appetite (absolutely everything tasted just so delicious!!); that illusive "glow" you keep hearing about and then somehow realize you have yourself!

And now I'm learning that the third trimester is a whole new category all on its own.  Week 27 came as a bit of a shock to us both -- suddenly, it was here (I remember doing pregnancy meditations in week 7 and looking longingly to month 7, thinking -- that's SO far away!!!).  And with the transition to third trimester, both of us realizing we had done next to nothing around actual planning for the birth and delivery.

So began a flurry of weekend activity, all focused around birth preparation: shopping (and finding!) a facility to deliver in; finding a post-natal center to be pampered in after birth (certainly a future blog topic); finding a nanny to help us next year; finding a prenatal yoga center in Seoul; buying and preparing our nursery... Our Wunderlist became a list of all-things baby and delivery.

After spending the last seven months focused on being centered, present, and calm -- the last few weeks have brought my Type A personality out with a roar.  So now it's about finding balance: being the mama bear ready to do whatever is needed, but also being here and present to these last incredible ten weeks.

As the quote hanging in my room reminds me daily: "These are the magic years... and therefore magic days... and therefore magic moments." (and as if on cue, the baby inside me is now kicking enthusiastically to concur).

Beyond the unknown

A good friend sent me this poem this morning.  As I sit here sipping my pregnancy red raspberry leaf tea, watching the sun set over the mountains on an unusually clear Seoul evening, I thought I'd share:

"In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to  be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus  and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”" 

- Útmutató a Léleknek

A Celebration

It's a momentous day for me.  Today I'm 20 weeks pregnant!  Literally at the half-way mark.  There's much to celebrate -- particularly since getting pregnant wasn't easy for us.

It's funny though.  Celebration doesn't come naturally for me.  I once took a women's professional development class about putting passion into practice.  One of the core tenets was to "celebrate".  I literally raised my hand and asked the instructor what she meant by that.

There's a voice in my head that tells me not to get too happy -- that getting too happy means just waiting for the other shoe to drop.  It's like some invisible glass ceiling when I start to get too joyful -- a nagging voice that says this joy can be taken away at any second (our engagement was a constant stream of acute anxiety for me -- equal parts fearing I would lose my individuality, at the same time fearing Tyler could die every time he got on his motorcycle... good thing I was never melodramatic).

And forget about actually sharing this feeling of happiness with others.  That brings a certain vulnerability, letting others know what you want so badly.  Because what if it doesn't work out?  (I remember a good friend not telling me she was applying to business school until after she already got in -- even though I was already in b-school and could have helped with her application.  I told this to another friend who said, "What's weird about that?  It would have been so embarrassing if she hadn't gotten in!").

So is it embarrassment?  Maybe.  There have been loads of great articles written about the 12 week "communication hold" and keeping silent about your pregnancy throughout the first trimester (this article in "Medium" is one of my favorites).  The basic gist of the general argument is that miscarriages are so common during the first trimester (as high as 50%, though that also includes the mom not even knowing she was pregnant -- just seeming like a late period) -- so it basically just sucks to tell everyone you're pregnant, only to have to tell everyone you then had a miscarriage.

But why is that the case?  As the author of the article in "Medium" writes:

"I wonder whose anxiety we're trying to protect in concealing these first few difficult months.  Is this supposed to be for my sake?  Are we trying to protect me from the embarrassment of admitting that I can't go 45 minutes without eating and am gaining weight at a rapid clip?  That I spend most of the day crying and moaning on the couch, Alicia Florrick my fictional companion?  That I'm afraid of losing the pregnancy but can't fathom that this debilitating state of being has anything to do with an actual baby?  Are we really trying to save me from having to share the news if I have a miscarriage?  Or are we trying to protect our culture from admitting that not all pregnancies are beautiful and easy and make it to term, and that the loss can be absolutely devastating?"

I argue it's something even deeper than anxiety and even embarrassment, which I'm only starting to fully realize now.  It's around shame.  Shame of having to tell people you love and admire that you had a miscarriage... or that it's hard to get pregnant... or [insert issue here] -- especially when the outside self you seek to cultivate is, well, perfect.

As a recovering perfectionist myself, I recently devoured the book, "The Gifts of Imperfection," by Brene Brown (her TED talk on vulnerability is amazing; link here).  She argues that the gifts of imperfection are courage, compassion, and connection -- and that practicing these daily is how we cultivate worthiness (this is now on a sticky note on my computer).  In her book, she talks about finding the courage to celebrate those intensely joyful moments even though we've convinced ourselves that savoring happiness is inviting disaster.

The deeper I get into self-reflection and wholehearted living, the more I realize how flawed my black/white - either/or thinking is.  Rather, I'm finding it much more useful to think about the world in terms of juxtapositions and "and's".  I am joyful to be at 20 weeks and I am nervous that something may go wrong (am I drinking enough water? eating enough protein? getting enough sleep?)  Negating or downplaying the joy doesn't reduce the fear -- it makes us numb.  And keeping these fears a secret doesn't keep me safe.  As I'm learning, it's this vulnerability to open up and admit we're not perfect that allows us to really connect -- with those we love, as well as even strangers (I think back to a post I read about a woman who was convinced even up to her 20 week check-up that the doctor was going to say, "Sorry, just kidding! You're not really pregnant! -- We messed up."; thank goodness for this post -- it has kept me grounded and laughing more than that woman can possibly know.) 

So maybe that's why I've been so quiet on this blog for so long.  At first, I chalked it up to sheer laziness, tiredness, and nausea from the first trimester, combined with the "in-authenticity" of writing but not being able to share what was truly on my mind.  So perhaps this is all a cop-out, writing this halfway into the pregnancy (as the author in the "Medium" article admits as well).

Perhaps.  Part of it is that I'm also finally yielding to "the voice" -- that voice in my head that narrates and introspects on my life and urges me to write it all down.  Bono once said that he doesn't think about the process of writing songs.  He'll just hear notes in his head -- and it's so nagging and annoying, he'll write it down so that he can just go to sleep.  I don't think this blog will win any Grammy's, but there's something to be said about yielding to our desires to express ourselves authentically -- letting the voices or notes in our head flow through us, without blocking their way with fear of what others think.

And so with that, let's celebrate!!  Before I left for Korea, one of my closest friends and "twin" got me these awesome cards on happiness that you open each day.  A few now hang on my closet; this is one of my favorites: "These are the magic years... and therefore magic days... and therefore magic moments."  Cheers to that.

Back!!!

A mentor of mine used to say that "How you do anything is how you do everything."  So I suppose that's the way with blogs as well.  There have been about fifty blog posts written in my head since my last post way back in the beginning of April, just before going into silent meditation.

Since resuming the world of the talking, much has happened.  I discovered my happy place (perhaps not surprisingly, on a beach in Bali)...Good friends visited from the US...Cherry blossom season has come and gone in Seoul (in seemingly the blink of an eye)...Tyler's parents were here for an incredible two weeks.  And I've learned to celebrate every day and every small miracle.

Of course, being a recovering perfectionist, none of these have made its way onto the page.  "It better be really good for you to post that after two months of not writing!"

So I'm bypassing my perfectionist inner critic by showing, not telling.  Here's a small sampling of the last eight weeks in pictures...

My happy place:

John and Michelle visiting from Chicago:

Cherry Blossoms!!!!!

Dan and Kris's visit:

And if there's one thing I've learned over the last month...

Speaking of which...

BAM!!

Oh, so this is what zero inbox feels like...

(and in case you're wondering, no, I'm not cheating! Silence starts tonight...)

Into the Abyss

As I walked along the beach from my hotel room to breakfast, I thought about my friend who did Peace Corps in Mongolia.  He has crazy stories of his host family going hunting in the fall and burying the carcasses, creating their own natural outdoor freezer with the quick coming of winter.  When we did a micro-finance project in the Philippines together years later, conducting focus groups on the beach huddled under the palm shade, he asked incredulously, You mean I could've gone here for Peace Corps?!

I had a similar thought this morning, comparing this environment with the austere nature of my first silent meditation back in Hyderabad, and then thinking of myself shivering and wearing my North Face to sleep during my second silent retreat outside Delhi a few years later.  You mean I could've gone to paradise to meditate?!  

You would think I'd be relaxed as anything this morning, but that's the farthest from the truth.  The Buddhists call it "monkey mind" and this morning, it is particularly going ape sh*t.  I'm antsy and quick to annoyance and anger (turns out professional meditators aren't particularly organized).  But so I usually am before any kind of intense meditation.  It's either nervous energy and/or all of my neuroses coming up for the sole purpose of getting purged over the coming days.  

Today, my inner voice has been particularly snarky, seeing all the signs not only for Art of Living (the silent meditation I'll be doing with 500+ others), but also its cousin, Transcendental Meditation (TM) -- which I learned only last night has its basis in Hinduism and focuses on concentration (slightly different flavor from the meditation I'm used to like Vipassana, which has roots in Buddhism and focuses on mindfulness).  Whenever I'm with folks who don't meditate, I wax poetic about the benefits of meditation.  But when I'm with too many hard core meditators, my inner critic comes out to play.  And so it is this morning.  The whole hotel complex is like Happiness, Inc... Meditators of the world, unite!

My morning goal has been characteristically un-spiritual: get to inbox zero.  Kinda a bit random, since I really haven't cared about an empty inbox since I decided to focus on my larger goals of 2015.  Yet here I find myself in my three-star hotel room in Bali manically purging email (instead of, say, walking on the beach).

I suppose it's the physical manifestation for what I hope and expect will happen to my mind over the next five days: achieve some sort of gloriously emptiness (and I imagine I'll have more than enough time to walk the beach in silent once we begin).  When I did my first ten day silent meditation in Hyderabad, someone referred to Vipassana (the hard-core meditation I threw myself into) as a sort of mental lobotomy.  But instead of going under anesthesia, you are painfully, excruciatingly aware of every thought as it swirls through your brain and eventually leaves your head.

Sometimes these thoughts are life-changing, such as deciding I would stay in India after my ten month fellowship.  Some are deep yet seemingly out of nowhere, like realizing my intense fear of disappointing others whom I love and respect, which most strongly took the form of my ex-boyfriend's parents.  And some are just so dumb that it's embarrassing how much mind share they take: like the time I spent the majority of my day in silence contemplating the finer points of Twilight (I'm Team Edward in case you were wondering).

On my flight over from Seoul, I read 10% Happier by Dan Harris -- which, for his description of his own ten day silent meditation alone is worth the read.  Subtitled, "How I tamed the voice in my head, reduced stress without losing my edge, and found self-help that actually works -- a true story," it's the story of one unlikely man's journey into meditation.  Harris is the co-anchor of Nightline and basically had a nervous breakdown/panic attack on national television (which he talks about here), stemming from his cocaine and ecstasy habit, which in turn was a result of his "addiction" to reporting from dangerous war zones.  His journey into mindfulness and meditation (which he basically goes into kicking and screaming) is hilarious; he describes his inner monologue of watching his breath as: In. Out. I wonder if they'll have more of that fresh bread at dinner?  Damn, dude.  In. (before then describing his ten day silence retreat as the "longest, most exquisite high of my life.")

I've earmarked so many pages for reference that all I can say is if you're slightly intrigued, read it!  It cuts through a lot of the new age hippie mumbo jumbo and says it all in plain-speak.  For instance: "As best I could understand it, the Buddha's main thesis was that in a world where everything is constantly changing, we suffer because we cling to things that won't last."  He traces meditation to mainstream, such as Silicon Valley ("where meditation is now increasingly being viewed as a software upgrade for the brain"), corporations (Wired magazine has apparently referred to meditation as the "new caffeine") and even the Marine Corps (apparently some old-school meditation gurus are upset that meditation is being used to make capitalists richer and the army more effective at killing).

But that's the thing though.  The edges are dimmed.  On my flight back to Bali, I reflected how I've gone from seemingly one end of the universe (NYC) to another (Bali), with barely a 24 hour stop back home to Seoul.  Yet as I looked around to all the travelers carrying their yoga mats and gear, it occurred to me that sometimes these two worlds aren't so different after all.  The same people who sometimes see themselves as "more enlightened" than Wall Street ambitious types often still compete with one another, albeit in more "spiritual" ways.  Once we break our silence, my experience has been that a common intro is: "What's your name and how many of these have you done?"  It's like being back in NYC, with the ubiquitous, "What's your name and what do you do?" -- similarly casting you in some sort of mental social hierarchy in whatever it is that that society happens to most value.

People ask if it's hard to be silent for so long.  Truthfully, the silence is the easy part.  It's sitting alone with your thoughts for 18 hours a day that's brutal.

But without fail, every time I emerge from silence, there's always some insight into myself and into life that makes it all worth it.  And except for the first time, where I emerged still deer in headlights (as Tyler puts it), after every other silent meditation retreat, I emerge feeling like I've acquired some new super power: all of my senses are heightened (maybe that's what inspired all the Twilight thoughts?? -ha!) and anything I put my mind to becomes shockingly easy: whether it's running for an hour or cranking out work that I know would have taken days.

It's like a drug and part of the spiritual game is not allowing yourself to get hooked -- to practice what the yogis and the Buddhists call "non-attachment."

But I think this is probably enough talk and soliloquy for one day.  So here goes!!  The leap into what's been called the last frontier: exploring all that's within.  See you on the other side!