The Sacred Keeper of the Family Ritual

Santa wasn't coming to our house this year. No, I haven't been naughty (at least not naughty enough, although that might be fun) -- just wiped. After a tumultuous year feeling as if I had been on the stretching rack to the point of breaking, the thought of gearing up for Christmas just felt like too much. I just wanted to run away. You see ... I am Santa Claus. I am so sorry to break the news to you - hope I haven't shattered your whole world. I want to believe in Santa Claus, too; if only he would deliver me a personal assistant and a housekeeper life would be pretty sweet. But, it ain't happening.

Why on earth am I writing about Christmas when it's October? I hear you - I find it annoying to see shops putting up Christmas decorations in early October (saw this happening at Macy's and spotted holiday cards at Barnes and Nobles - they're on sale btw). Hello! Halloween hasn't even been celebrated yet. My kids don't even have their costumes yet either. But that's the point. Because, as soon as October hits, it's all over for me - Youngest Child's Birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Mother and Sister's Birthdays, Advent, Christmas, New Year's Eve, Epiphany and Husband's Birthday. I am tired just looking at the list. I just complete one event, come up for air and the next one is coming relentlessly at me like rogue waves in the Pacific. I know what's coming - a lot of work for me. I was pretty enthusiastic when my first was a baby, but now after thirteen years of this I think I finally realize the truth: this is work and I am the one to make it happen.

So what's happening? What am I doing? Who am I? I am the Sacred Keeper of the Family Ritual. I am going to add that to my resume - sounds pretty darn impressive. That's because it is. It's a big job. I create, prepare for and maintain the many different  experiences that that we repeat over and over as family - these are also called family traditions. Sometimes a family ritual is ordinary like eating meals together each evening; sometimes family rituals are part of annual events, like going to the County Fair or celebrating traditional holidays.

 Family rituals ranging from from simple family meals together to annual holiday celebrations have great importance on the health and well-being of our families. Family rituals hold families together. They create a sense of security and are a marker of time for us and for our children. Positive family rituals foster good communication and strong emotional connections. Here's a link to an article I like highlighting some of the benefits of family rituals (I am particularly tickled with the section under Stage 1 where it quotes, "teens who do such routine family work as washing dishes show more concern and care for others." - now that's a good reason to get your teen's hands in the soapsuds!) And here's a link to a blog post about creating simple family rituals.

In my family, I am the primary Sacred Keeper of the Family Ritual - kind of like the director and producer - I make it happen. I suspect that women are generally the ones who take on the heavy-workload part of this job - it may not be so 100% of the time, but I would bet that's the case the majority of the time. Just sayin'. My husband is more of the techie and stage prop guy who I have to direct around - he definitely adds his touches, performs a lot of the manual heavy lifting and follows through; he's just not planning or orchestrating the whole thing. The success of family rituals, however, depends on every family member's involvement, enthusiasm and support.

Family rituals make an impression on us - they affect us. The way we approach our rituals speaks volumes about who we are and what we value. They tell a story. Our family story. Are we connected to traditions handed down from our family history? Are we creating new, different rituals arising from our own individual family dynamics? Is thoughtful consciousness put into our ritual experience or is it done without thought or care? These experiences that we choose mold our children's beings and affect their experiences and the memories they will carry of family life and connectedness.

I appreciate having a reminder that the effort I put into these experiences has value. That creating and sustaining family rituals that have meaning for my family is something worth doing. When creating my family rituals these are some elements I like to keep in mind:

Breaking from the daily grind: Just getting through the day-to-day can be overwhelming; there is so much to do. Family rituals can provide a time of reprieve - whether it's as simple as purposefully gathering to watch a family movie together or as entailed as a whole day devoted to celebrating an important event.

Our Birthday Table sans the Tante Migi cake; Youngest voted for ice-cream cake this year

Yes -it's a homemade ice cream cake in all its bumpy glory

In our household, birthdays are sacred days with special family rituals. The birthday person arises to find the main dining table cleared of its myriad piles of books, school materials and what-have-you, and decorated with gifts, flowers and a special family recipe - the Tante Migi Cake; no "school work" is done on that day and we often go on a special outing; we have our special cake and open presents in the afternoon; the birthday person chooses a restaurant of their choice for a special birthday dinner (we don't go out a lot so this is a big deal.) This is the ritual that has developed over time in our little family and is now expected with great anticipation.

Bestowing beauty: A family ritual is an opportunity to consciously bring beauty into our lives. Flowers, candles, and other items that are artfully arranged can bring a sense of uniqueness and sacredness to any event. Decorations abound everywhere in stores, but I especially love things from nature or made by my children. For the fall we have collected pumpkins, gourds and leaves, and my youngest child made Halloween decorations out of salvaged wood pieces and acrylic paint. The table by our front door is a special place where we can put decorations to celebrate each season. Decorations that are saved and used year after year give children (and adults!) great delight when they are unpacked to be used for the special occasion.

The beginnings of our Autumn display

Bringing joy: A family ritual is a chance to evoke pleasure and good feelings for each family member. Anticipating and then experiencing a particular, expected family ritual can result in feelings of satisfaction and contentment. Family rituals often center around food or include food; the sharing of food raises oxytocin levels in our bodies - oxytocin is often referred to as the "love hormone"; it's the hormone that helps cinch our feelings of connectedness. We can get the same good feelings from oxytocin when we look into our family member's eyes, which is probably more likely to happen in the slower, more conscious environment involved in family ritual experiences when we are enjoying each other's company. Consciously being aware of what might particularly delight or bring joy to our loved ones during a family ritual can be fun a puzzle to solve; it could be as simple as picking out a favorite flavor of ice cream as a surprise for dessert.

Yum! At the LA County Fair

 Another article I read came to a clear conclusion about family rituals that I find so true  - (this article is a little bit longer so I'll quote the part of the conclusion I found particularly meaningful):

First, families are constructions of our own making, requiring a mindful, knowledge-driven approach to their maintenance and success. Second, family rituals are commonly underestimated and overlooked; as decades of research supports, family rituals are some of the most powerful sites of rich and meaningful family interaction, and are the primary contributors to family identity...conscious attention to making and maintaining a strong family is difficult and ceaseless, yet fruitful and highly satisfying work (my emphasis).

Yes, it is work, isn't it? That's always been my point. So, as we enter into another holiday season, know that all your efforts to create special experiences and memories for your family matters. Those family dinners, family game night, family hikes every Saturday, and special holidays - whatever it is you and your family do, it all counts. You are working hard and it's all adding up to strong bonds and positive feelings in your family - whether you're a couple or a family of ten. Creating positive, conscious family rituals creates a strong foundation on which love can flourish and grow; we can then bring forth this love into the rest of the world - it needs it. This year, for us, Santa Claus is coming to town. How about for you?

The Importance of Being Vulnerable

 I've been wanting to share this video with you . I just love this talk. Plus, I had no idea someone could even do this kind of work for a living! Sounds good to me...

There are so many things I would love to write about from Brene Brown's talk, but for this post I am just going to focus on what she said was the crux of what separated wholehearted persons from regular folks (at least regular folks here in the Western world, I'm thinking) - Brene identified the variable which separates the wholehearted from the rest of the crowd as this: wholehearted persons believe that they are worthy of love and belonging.

Wow. I think we need a moment to really absorb the profundity of that statement. The wholehearted possess a deep sense of worthiness and a strong sense of love and belonging. Does that statement make you want to cry? I feel like crying. The sad fact is that so many Americans struggle with something as basic as their feelings of worthiness. This doesn't happen in all cultures. I am remembering a statement from one of Jack Kornfield's books that said when he was training with the Buddhist monks they were perplexed by this particular (and peculiar to them) state of struggle/unworthiness - it didn't exist is their communities

Whoa. Okay. Let's just sit with that for a moment. It's not just a fact of life that everyone struggles with unworthiness. This develops somehow. There is some type of cultural difference the allows for the development of this negative state among its people.

Photo by Luca.gargano

This is a complex issue with more than one source. But I want to get back to the basics - the building blocks so to speak. In Traditional cultures, mother and baby pairs have natural births, breastfeed and remain in close contact with each other day and night. Breastfeeding goes on for several years (world-wide average is 4.5 years and that includes our crummy U.S. statistics.) A baby's dependance and need for his mother is generally understood as a normal development and to be expected of babies and toddlers. Closeness and community are encouraged.

In the U.S. distance is encouraged from the beginning. Our highly medicalized births rely  on technology and many mothers feel a distrust of their bodies as if they were machines that might malfunction at any moment; mothers and babies are more likely to be separated in a hospital birthing scenario.  Immediately after the baby is born everyone's asking and joking about whether the baby is "sleeping through the night." Babies are expected to sleep away from their mothers in cribs. Bottles and pacifiers are culturally accepted and preferred over the natural state of breastfeeding, especially in public. Mothers in the workforce have virtually no support in the workplace with pathetic maternity leaves that barely give enough time for these mothers to even get their milk supplies established, much less for them to even enjoy breastfeeding and their relationships with their infants.  Parents are encouraged to leave their infants for "date night" before the baby is barely out of the newborn period in order to assure the "strength" of their marriage/relationship. I could go on and on, but I think you get my drift.

Brene states that the underpinning for this sense of worthiness of love and belonging is rooted in vulnerability. That those who are wholehearted embrace their vulnerability as beautiful and necessary. She says that the state of vulnerability is what allows us to be seen, really seen. 

Photo by tacticdesigns

Humans are at their most vulnerable state in infancy. For a more in depth explanation of this concept, I like this article which explains the biological reasons for a baby's vulnerability and what his needs are: The Science of Attachment: The Biological Roots of Love  A baby is unable to regulate his own self and relies on his mother for regulation of his body and his emotions. He relies on his mother for nourishment. He has absolutely no concept of his separateness from the mother in the beginning - at this stage he truly is one with the world. His concept of himself as a separate being develops over time and even when he develops this awareness of himself as separate from his mother, he still needs her to help him regulate himself. He cannot meet his own needs. Human babies are in fact very dependent for a long time.

Photo by Kim+5

A baby can only try to get his needs met by communicating with his facial expressions, body language and cries. Something is not right, something feels funny - baby communicates. Is mother there? Is she responding? Is he really being seen? But the mother holds the cards of power in her ability to respond or not to his needs. Responding to her infant and helping him reach a balanced state based on his needs and his cues creates in the infant this sense of worthiness - this sense of love and belonging. This is the time to do it - in the early years - to build in the child, this incredible human being, these blocks of self-worth because it really is a more difficult job later on (if even possible.) This happens by respecting and responding to the little one's needs, by embracing his dependance and by mother being there.

And I think that this togetherness is essential for the mother in fortifying her sense of self-worth, too. She is the center of her baby's universe. She is the essential one. It is through her that her baby is nourished and satisfied. Baby thrives due to this interdependence with his mother. What some women are afraid will undermine their autonomy and independence, thinking (wrongly perhaps) that yielding to an infant's unrelenting needs may weaken their own sense of self - this act of complete giving is in fact empowering. When a mother experiences her body's ability to care for and nourish her infant - well,  Breastfeeding Makes You a Mama Bear! Mama gets her grrrrrrrroove.

Mothering through breastfeeding is also an opportunity for healing and for strengthening our own sense of ourselves. I firmly believe it is a second chance for those of us who did not get the strongest building blocks in our own infancies. Sometimes it brings up painful feelings, but by working through the discomfort in the end we come out stronger. And we also get the amazing opportunity to create strong selves in our babies and children. To relish their wholeheartedness. How can we not feel gratified by that? It's a worthy goal.

The No-Choice Choice: Having to Do the Unthinkable

It's quiet in the house tonight. But it's a sad quiet. Today we had to do the unthinkable.

It's been a long, rough road to this point. What started out with joy and good intentions ended up being one of the toughest decisions my husband and I have had to make. I am relieved. My husband is tormented.

Our story begins like this:
Once upon a time a Man wanted a dog. He wanted a dog so badly that he felt obsessed. He fantasized about owning a German Shepherd - a big, masculine dog; you know, none of those little fru-fru dogs for him. 


His Wife wasn't so keen on having another dog after the recent passing of their two older dogs; plus, their having owned a GS before, she dubbed this breed "German Shedders" and really didn't want to deal with the mounds of hair all over the house. She was also bone weary from caring for their two children, homeschooling and having responsibility for the household. 


However, the Man truly was obsessed with getting a GS. The Wife finally gives in because it's important to the Man and dogs are supposed to good for one's health by providing a positive environment. 


The Man does lots of research. Picks out the puppy by himself because the travel is too much for the young children. Puppy is brought home. Cared for. Loved. Exercised every day. Properly trained (no treat training for a GS!). Family is warned by Trainer that this dog is "going to be an asshole." Family laughs it off and thinks the Trainer is  exaggerating.


Around the time the dog is almost a year, the Man gets ill. Dog starts acting weird and growling at children. Dog no longer allowed to sleep in the room with everyone. Man gets better.


Dog continues to growl around children. Then proceeds to correction bite them when the children reach for a stick or something else. Man and Wife are freaked out by this, but still think it's correctable. Decide to neuter the dog.


Dog tries to take out the Vet by going for her throat at the veterinary clinic. The event was so traumatic for the Man that it is decided that the Wife will bring the dog in for the actual neutering because maybe the dog feels over-protective of the Man. Dog is successfully neutered.


Life goes on. Continued growling by the dog. And incidents of biting. The Wife is bitten. Now the Wife is afraid of the dog. Children can no longer feed the dog nor be around when the dog is fed. Dog growls if Wife puts on leash for a walk. The dog hates walks anyways and drags at the back to slow everything down until he figures out that they are going back home. Wife pissed because the dog is not even good for exercise. No one can touch, pet or love the dog. Except for by throwing balls. 


The dog ends up not even being good for protection because he needs to be put in his crate to avoid growling and confrontations with family members other than the husband when in the house. The dog goes to the crate by himself or the back bathroom. He doesn't want to integrate. 


Conversely, the dog loves the Husband. Can have fun with the children in the backyard by jumping over courses that they design for him. He likes to boss his minions around by only dropping his ball when he wants to and then barking like crazy until someone throws it for  him. He also likes "two-ball" -  a game where he holds one ball in his mouth and noses another ball toward a willing participant to kick to him; dog greatly enjoys watching the human run around the backyard kicking the ball toward him while he stares at the ball with enormous intent and occasionally noses it back. Sometimes he'll lavish the youngest child with licky kisses. 


Over the years, the aggression escalates. The oldest child hits puberty and the dog doesn't like it. A threat to pack order. He constantly targets the oldest child by growling and sometimes charging. The oldest child cannot enter a room that the dog is in even to get a pair of socks. The dog must be constantly monitored and doors closed to keep them apart and oldest child safe.


Lots of effort is thrown at this situation to try to make it better. The Trainer informs the Man and Wife, "What you guys have here is a Ferrari; what you need is a mini-van." They are bummed. They pay him to help them re-home the dog then hear from him once and then never again. The Breeder tells them to smack the dog's nose with a rolled up newspaper and then proceeds to never return any of their calls or e-mails. The Man and Wife reach out to different shelters. Ask for help from anyone they can think of. Desperate for a solution. The Wife even calls in an Animal Psychic. 


Years go by. No solution. Doors closing. Everyone in the house feels hostage. The Man still loves the dog and feels responsible for him, yet the Man is also tormented by the stress that is constantly evoked in the house by the dog's behavior. The youngest child loves the dog as young children do and doesn't want him to go. The oldest child loves the animal, but feels rightly afraid of this dog and cannot walk freely in her own home. The Wife is at her wits end. She is waiting for the Man to do the right thing.


The Man gets ill again. The Wife fears greatly for the Man's health and survival. The Wife has had it. The protection of the family and the health of the husband has priority over all else. The dog must go. All doors have closed on chances for the dog: 

• He cannot go to a family
• He cannot to go an average single person who does not understand this dog's aggression and might let someone approach or pet it
• He cannot be a protection dog
• He cannot be a service dog
• He cannot go to a shelter because no shelter wants a huge, fearful aggressive animal that cannot be re-homed 

One option comes up only if it is approved of by the Board of the Special Training Facility: The dog can be placed into a special program to train it and try to re-home it in in 8 weeks for $3,000. The New Trainer warns the Wife that this dog will be nearly impossible to place and that staying longer will cost more. Wife figures it will cost nearly $6,000 to $12,000 to try to give this dog a chance and he still may not find a proper home. The Wife also realizes that passing this problem dog onto someone else is not fair, nor is it particularly safe for people out there in the world.


Wife draws a line in the sand. The. Dog. Must. Go. With the only option now being that the dog must be put down. Wife goes to the local vet. Clinic looks at his chart and tells Wife that the dog is too aggressive to be put down there. They need to go to a special clinic that deals with this sort of thing. The Man locates an euthanasia specialist who can come to the house. The Man will have to administer the lethal dose because no one can get near the dog. Plus the Man really loves the dog, feels responsible for the dog and wants the dog to be respected and have a peaceful ending. The Wife just wants the Man to be at peace with however it is done (if she lived in Texas, she would have already taken care of it with a shotgun.)


On the designated day, no one can even love or pet the dog goodbye (expcept maybe the Man); the children have a last run around the backyard with the dog and the Wife then takes the children from the house. The deed is successfully done. The dream of a happy ending for the dog - of the dog running around on some kind of ranch in the open, happy and free - never materialized, despite desperate wishing, hoping and dreaming on everyone's part. It was an ending. Just not a happy one. 


That is our story in a nutshell. It's not everything but most of it. I can hardly believe it even happened. After I finish writing this blog, I will walk through our living room to go to bed without the dog growling at me as I pass by him.

My oldest daughter can now walk freely through the house to search for articles of clothing that she has dropped carelessly on the floor. My youngest will be sad and start hammering at us for another dog. My husband will be very, very sad. He is heartbroken over this. This is the hardest for him.

For me, I am relieved. I do not even feel sad for the death of this dog. Although I do feel sad about the whole situation. This has been the most painful ordeal. Working for and waiting for an palatable resolution. Enduring the stress and intensity of the situation. Waiting and waiting for my husband to make the choice. Sometimes I felt angry that he was not taking action. But in the end, it was I who needed to make the push. Maybe that was the right thing. To take this terrible burden of the choice from him. And at the right time. By this time we were all at our complete wit's end with only the most terrible option in front of us.

I remember when my mother put down her Cocker Spaniel because he was a biter. My husband and I were aghast. Who could do such a thing? Surely the dog was controllable. And our perception as dog owners had always been that only bad or incompetent owners had bad dogs.

Well, this was quite a lesson. I am not sure I have taken in all the parts of this lesson yet, but I am trying to see the big picture. Definitely it fortifies my belief, "Never say never" because that particular situation may just come up in your life to teach you that you are capable of doing just what you said you would never do.

As far as our dog: His name was Udo. I called him Fritz. I hope he is now in a place where he feels safe and at ease; with lots of ball throwing and juicy steaks; a place to run, jump and play; and bark at squirrels. May he rest in the most delicious peace.