Enlightened Motherhood

photo credit: Amedeo M. Turello

When Beauty, Disrupted, Carré Otis’ memoir about her life as a troubled Bay Area teen turned Vogue cover model turned recovering addict turned Buddhist (with a roller coaster, often dangerous marriage to Mickey Rourke along the way) was recently released, I was eager to read.  I remembered Carré not only from her modeling career, but because we took a daily Mysore-Style Ashtanga class at the same yoga center in Santa Monica, California, years ago.  Now Carré’s a mom of two young daughters, living with her family in Colorado.  I wondered how Carré’s yoga practice had helped her get through the tough times, find health and peace, and become the mother she is today.  Here’s some of a conversation we recently had over email:

EM: Yoga practice — in particular, a daily Mysore Ashtanga practice — was part of your healing process as you worked through a difficult history of domestic violence, addiction and disordered eating.  How and why did you come to practice this particular form of yoga, and what role did yoga play in your healing process?

CO: I was drawn to the simplicity as well as quiet predictability of a set practice… It was incredibly healing for me to show up every day, step onto my mat and be able to drop in to myself, breath, awareness and movement.

EM: As a mother of two, how has your practice changed? Is yoga still a part of your life?  How do you make time for daily spiritual practice (whether yoga, or your Buddhist practices) with two young daughters?

CO: After giving birth to my daughters I have realized that practice is EVERYTHING. It is everywhere that my children are and it is mindfully meeting whatever arises. Some days I make it to the mat or meditation cushions and other days my practice is tending to boo boos!

EM: Have you found your yoga practice slowing down or softening since motherhood?  Do you continue with your Mysore-style practice or have you explored other styles of yoga?

CO: Just today I rolled out my mat after I got my girls off to school and did some gentle sun salutations, a few standing poses, head stand and savasana! It has changed. In general my expectations have mellowed. I am much kinder with myself and honoring of where I am at moment to moment.

EM: How does your spiritual life — your Buddhist practices, your yoga — inform your mothering?

CO: I am more committed to being present with my children, as well as taking notice to those moments I am not meeting that commitment.

EM: Having struggled with an eating disorder, and the harsh expectations of the modeling world when it comes to weight, what are some strategies you use to teach your girls to have a healthy and positive relationship with food?

CO: Our kitchen is all about nutrition. Not calories or ‘good’ foods or ‘bad foods’. We don’t use the word ‘diet’, rather talk about the benefits of different food choices. We don’t talk about sizes but shapes. They learn to check in and when they are ‘full’ they will ask to be excused. We harvest food from our garden and they are a part of meal planning and prep. A well rounded relationship!

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No matter our background — or what we look like when we see ourselves the mirror — MANY of us (myself included) originally came to yoga as part of a healing or recovery process. How does your spiritual life inform your mothering? How do you find inner beauty on the mat — and help your children find theirs? How has yoga helped you through addiction, eating disorders, domestic violence? I’d love to hear your story.

Jessica Berger Gross is the author of enLIGHTened: How I Lost 40 Pounds with a Yoga Mat, Fresh Pineapples, and a Beagle Pointer (Skyhorse). She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with her husband and four-year-old son. “Like” her author page on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter @jbergergross. Visit her at www.jessicabergergross.com.

Creeping out of the house in the dark, fumbling for my keys, trying my best not to wake my son up, I have to say I felt like I was cheating.

It was 6:20 am and I was on my way to my local community center to take a 6:45 Ballet Barre workout class.

Shouldn’t I have been doing yoga instead?

It felt foreign to walk into a brightly lit room in my yoga leggings and T-shirt and hear club music with its unrelenting beat rather than Krishna Das, or silence, or the hushed tones of my fellow yoga students setting up props and saying hello, conscious of one another’s mental states.

Here we were asked to grab weights and mats as the instructor charged up the mic in her headset and pumped up the music.

Should I be back home on my mat? Or, possibly better yet given how tired I felt, asleep?

I’d come because my yoga classes are still on holiday break and with the rainy winter weather here, I felt I needed an early morning boost. As a parent, there’s really no such thing as “free time” to exercise.  There’s time we take from being with our child, time we take from our work, time we take from sleep.

I figured I’d give something new a try. At least I wouldn’t need to arrange child care. The class was fun; I’ve always loved the precise movements of the barre workout in ballet class (I was the sort of dancer who could take a beginning ballet class over and over again and be happy with working on the basics—no ballerina dreams for me.)  I realized some things about my yoga practice too—where I am strong from yoga, and what muscles I manage to avoid. My arms, for instance, held up thanks to Downward Dogs and Handstands—and from carrying Lucien.  My calves? Let’s just say I felt the burn during a series of incremental relevés.  And, though I was (am) tired from waking up an our earlier than usual, it did feel amazing to come home by 8, meditate and shower and sit down to oatmeal and coffee with my family.

I have to say, though. I missed the connection I feel in yoga class, and on my home mat, between the physical workout and the inner work of breathing, listening, expanding, getting quiet and, on a good, day experiencing the yolking, the union that the yoga practice brings us.

Lessons learned?

1. “Cheating” on yoga with other exercise and bodywork traditions can teach me about my practice.

2. Getting up early to move my body feels great—I need to recommit to waking up early enough to fit in a long enough asana session before the day begins.

3. It’s fun to “date” other forms of exercise, but I’m glad to be “married” to yoga.

Jessica Berger Gross is the author of enLIGHTened: How I Lost 40 Pounds with a Yoga Mat, Fresh Pineapples, and a Beagle Pointer (Skyhorse). She lives in Vancouver, British Columbia with her husband and four-year-old son. “Like” her author page on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter @jbergergross. Visit her at www.jessicabergergross.com.