Exhale #34 Creative curation and Baba day
Why grief should be embraced, keeping your marriage 🔥, and a huge unexpected parenting hack
Hey friend,
I just released a new podcast episode with Brian Sanders of Food Lies where we discuss what he learned about nutrition from studying tribes in Africa, why institutions lie to us about what we should be eating, and more.
I also just released all of the dates and locations for Soul Searching Adventures in 2022… and I’m SO stoked about them. This started as an experiment earlier this year, and it has become immediately obvious that this my calling in this chapter of life. I can’t wait to explore with more of you this year. You can check them out here and apply now or forward them to someone you think may want to go on a trip. If you’ve already applied, I will be in touch.
On to the Exhale...
I interviewed my grandma recently about the story of her life. I wrote about my project of interviewing my grandparents in depth here.
My final question for her was, "What value or lesson do you wish most to impart on your ancestors? What do we need to know about life?"
"Family," she said. "Family is what's most important."
In honor of her this week I want to share with you a few family related things from 3 different generations of Cazayouxs.
Grief gives us compassion
This was the most significant thing my grandmother shared with me: I knew that she had lost her mom when she was a teenager, but I had never talked to her about it directly.Â
During the interview she told me the whole story. It was so beautiful.Â
She told me how she felt as a 14 year old, losing her mom and having to go and live with an aunt and uncle.Â
At some point I asked her what she gained from the experience, if anything.
With tears in her eyes she said that being in so much pain gave her more compassion for her father.Â
Years later, when he wanted to remarry, other family members were angry at him because they thought it might be too soon.Â
My grandma, on the other hand, saw him as another human that was suffering and needed love in his life.Â
Her grief saw his grief, and she was in full support of him remarrying.
This reminded me that the extent to which we allow ourselves to grieve loss is the extent to which we are capable of loving ourselves and others.
Creative Curation
Adee and I had our 5 year anniversary in August.Â
Over the years it has taken a conscious effort to "spice things up" and avoid our relationship getting stale.Â
It is so easy, automatic even, to become complacent in our efforts to delight our partners. I've fallen into that rut more times than I can count.Â
However, Adee and I have maintained a pretty kick-ass sex life and consistently have a ton of fun together.Â
One thing that really helps us is creatively curating experiences for each other and for our relationship.
It's like we throw little parties for our relationship where we start with how we want it to feel and then creatively design an experience to that end.
For our anniversary we created an experience for ourselves.
The goal was to feel max connected, to feel gratitude for our relationship and to commemorate some great experiences.
Before the night I gave her directions on what to wear and what to bring.Â
We were each to bring 5 items for show and tell. I told her that these things should be a symbol of something you want to celebrate about the relationship or the other person or just an amazing memory together.
We got a babysitter and went to an airbnb. We set up an altar with some incense and candles, and we put all of our items on it. We said a short prayer to the alter of our relationship, we had sex, and then we spent an hour or more showing each other our items.Â
We continued talking for hours and just had an amazing time together.
It took us 10 minutes to think about the flow of the evening and another 30 to think about what we wanted to bring, and that led to an incredible night.
It's become obvious that there is no limit to what we can create for each other if we're willing to put in a little effort.
Baba Day
The most common cause of conflict for new parents is around how roles and responsibilities are divvied up. I've written in detail about some of my and Adee's conflicts around this when our son was born here, and Adee has written about it on her blog here.
TLDR is basically one of us, usually Adee, would become resentful at the other because one was doing more work than the other. (And she was ALWAYS right that she was doing more lol - still is).
Then for about the past 9 months things have become really smooth.Â
I think one of the biggest reasons is a change we made when he was a little over 6 months old:
Adee suggested that we each have a day every weekend where we are completely free and the other is solely responsible for Shai.
"Oh fuck no," I thought.
It sounded terrible. It sounded hard. Boring. And a part of me thought, "I'm a man. Men aren't supposed to be taking care of young kids this much."
I told her, "I really don't want to do it, but I'm open to trying it out."
So we tried it out... and it was amazing.Â
I got one day per week where I was completely free.Â
She got a day that she was completely free (which is very rare for new moms).Â
And best of all, I loved hanging out with him for an entire day. The first one or two were really hard, and I was exhausted at the end of those days. But I genuinely loved the chance to take care of him all by myself.Â
I felt like I was getting to know him better and he was getting to know me.
Baba day (Aba is Hebrew for father, so he calls me Baba) prepared me for what came next - full weekends alone with Shai.Â
Adee went on a couple bachelorette trips in the past month, and I had Shai for 4 days each time. I loved it. I had a blast with my son, and I loved the idea that Adee got to have so much time away.Â
It also helps me not to feel guilty when I'm gone from them for an extended period of time because I've taken him on my own too.
One ask
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Peace,
Michael