Day 14: Seeing Clearly.

Yesterday, we made the mistake of driving through witching hour. For over an hour, my baby screamed and screamed, her face turning a dark red, contorted in anguish. We tried pulling over, feeding her, changing her, and cuddling her, but the second we put her back in her car seat, she continued on. Even after we got home, she continued to cry it out, long and hard. It was a tough time, I tell ya. This is one story of yesterday I could tell you. It's true. Here's what was also true... Yesterday, my husband, baby, and I drove two hours to the White Mountains. We went to see two of my best friends. The day was glorious- a clear and crisp fall day with striking views of the October foliage from the top of Sugarloaf Mountain and equally picturesque sights from the porch of the magnificent Mount Washington Hotel. I spent it with my favorite people in my favorite place during my favorite season. The baby slept the whole drive out there, flashed a few smiles at her aunties (or flatulence...unclear), and didn't make a peep from her ergo the entire hike. It's , easy to get caught up in what Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) calls Mind Traps. These are mental filters that affect our ability to see our reality clearly. While it was tempting for me to focus on the screaming, that would be applying a "mental filter" defined as, "picking out a single negative detail and dwelling on it exclusively, so that your vision of all of reality becomes darkened, like the drop of ink that discolors a beaker of water."

So beware of the mental filter! Contain that inkblot so you can clearly see the life that is unfolding in baby time, uncontaminated by those temporary moments of darkness. After all, it's all true, not just the tough times.