In the past, those what ifs have gotten her kicked out of two dentist chairs. She’s so afraid that something might hurt her that she doesn’t even give the dentist a chance. Granted, the last time she was in a chair she was having a baby tooth pulled, but even that experience is a perfect example of trait one and two taking over. Big Girl wouldn’t let the doctor help her by giving her a needle, and she wouldn’t let me help her relax (until the end). She was also quick to think that it would “really, really hurt,” setting herself up for failure. She shrieked every time the doctor tried to put an instrument in her mouth — even the so-called Mr. Drinker suction tube. (I blogged all about the solution and it’s positive outcome: Me doing Reiki on her while the dentist finally did her stuff. But I digress…)

The tooth pulling was quite a while ago, and since then she’s refused to get her teeth cleaned or checked. Oh, yes, we tried a few months ago, but it just didn’t work. The new dentist wasn’t willing to listen to her hysterics, so we left with dirty teeth (hers) and heavy hearts (mine and hers). Not wanting her teeth to fall out of her head, I recently made another appointment with the old dentist — the one who was Reiki-friendly. Despite the fact, I might add, that the guy who runs her practice charged me an extra $25 for all the Big Girl screaming during the tooth extraction. Why go back to a stupid asshat’s practice? I trust the female associate. I like her. She likes me and trusts me, even agreeing to drill my tooth without Novocaine. (The ability to use meditation instead of medication meant I still felt nothing but I wasn’t numb for hours afterward.) Besides, I don’t ever have to see said asshat again since the female dentist told me to come in on Fridays when she’s the only one in the office. This time, however, we’re going in more prepared.

Since our last visit Big Girl has been seeing a behavioral therapist who — using the pack of tools the nice dentist gave me to “practice” at home with — is helping to minimize Big Girl’s anxiety and acting out. She’s hitting the problem from all sides. First, she actually donned sterile gloves and played dentist with my daughter. She showed her what it would feel like to have the polishing tool touch her teeth and gums. She practiced putting the suction tube under her tongue. She talked about what the instruments would feel like. Then they found relaxation techniques to help with anxiety. They listened to classical music, and the therapist created a ten-minute guided relaxation. She even burned the music and the spoken relaxation onto a CD so we could put it on Big Girl’s iPod and bring it along on D Day. (Dentist Day, of course.) Finally, she encouraged Big Girl to let me give her Reiki as soon as she sits down in the chair since it relaxes and calms her. So far, the plan is on track to work. Even Big Girl is feeling positive about the upcoming appointment. She bounced out of the therapist’s office the other day looking and feeling confident.

The dentist is still a few weeks away, but I feel confident, too, that this proactive, behavioral-based plan is going to help us make it through a cleaning  and check-up with little screaming and crying. After all, Big Girl also inherited my strong willpower and imagination — the same characteristics that got me through two labors using meditation alone. I know she’s got it in her to tackle a little dental work.

Are you afraid of the dentist? How about your kids? How do you handle the anxiety and fear? I’d like to know.

The trip was just what I needed. I went in, sat down on my mat, and lost myself. Lost the four stories I have to write by the end of the week. Lost the birthday favors I need to put together for Big Girl’s class and the ones for her birthday party, too. Lost the Girl Scout tasks I need to take care of, too, and the vegetables I need to drop at the food pantry tomorrow. Lost the fact that my husband has two more surgeries in front of him. Lost the fact that I had to say no to an editorial director today — something I hate doing.

Once I got into that room I went inside my body for the first time in weeks. Because while I do yoga daily, it’s usually the fit-it-in kind. The few asanas that get squished in between dropping Little Girl off at school and my first conference call of the day. I’m not able to spend an hour outside of my head and in it at the same time.

Within that hour I felt how much stress I am holding in my hips. How my right hip in particular was super-tight, and how the left one released the tension. Downward facing dog to flipping my dog to downward dog split, the tension slowly left my body. Eka Pada Rajakapotasana — pigeon pose. My right leg bent into a right angle. My left leg far behind me. Bending my left leg up and catching my ankle, more pain, more release except this time my quadriceps were the beneficiary. Arms, back, shoulders, neck, even my abs were wound tight, a physical manifestation of what goes on inside my body and head every day.

And while I wasn’t thinking about all the stuff that drags me down and worries me? I was able to reflect. To think good things about myself, my family, my husband. I was able to give thanks for what I have for a change, and forget about what I don’t. Combined, I walked out of that class recharged, happy, and relaxed. My muscles and bones had spaces between them. My body felt free. I was at peace.

Simply put, yoga inspires me, and makes me think about what’s important. Money and success are nothing if we are too stressed and unhappy to enjoy it. Our bodies are useless if we are too tight and uncomfortable to appreciate  the joy it can bring. And our mind is not ours if it’s filled with all the have-tos and should-haves. Yoga centers me. While I hate to say it, I really have to make more time for yoga. Shouldn’t you, too?

A friend just e-mailed an article to me and a few other friends. The Washington Post has a story written about some time management stats out of the University of Maryland. According to John Robinson, a researcher and time management guru, moms and dads have plenty of free time. More than 30 hours a week, to be exact.

I’ll bet a lot of parents would balk at that number, as the Washington Post writer did, too. How could that be? We all work so hard. Kids make us crazy. Housework, bills, yard work. Where does 30 hours come from? You know what? I think Robinson is right. Even in this house, where we work really hard, we have downtime.

I go to the gym. I go to yoga. I see friends. I’m in a book club. I read. I watch television. I go to playdates. I take my little one to classes. I play Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook. I read blogs — lots of them. I write this blog. I read to my girls. I play with my girls. I laugh with them. I am on a bowling league. I go to volunteer meetings at my local beach club. I go out for coffee or dinner with my husband. We play board games. We have our alone time. All those things add up in terms of hours. Just last night I went to an hour of spin and, when yoga was canceled, ended up meeting two friends at a local coffee house. I got home and watched an hour of TV with my husband. That was almost five hours of downtime. Granted, I stay up way too late, and I work a lot, but I’m still getting in plenty of me-time.

If you take the time to read through the entire Washington Post article you see that the author, who was resistant to the idea in the beginning, slowly comes to realize that she has more time than she thinks she does. When she first starts out, some of the folks in the story — including the author herself — bemoan the fact that a good portion of so-called “leisure time” is actually spent exercising or spending time with kids, which doesn’t always feel like leisure. But as the story unfolds the folks that she interviews help her to realize that to-do lists often don’t need to get done, and leisure time is what we make of it. The author wrote that she, as a working mom, did actually have close to those 30 hours of time — she had about 28 — but that it didn’t feel like leisure because she was too busy worrying and thinking about other things that needed to get done. “Even during a so-called leisure activity, mothers are more likely to be worried about something, planning what to pull together for dinner or strategizing. Sociologists call that ‘contaminated time,’ ” she quotes Rachel Connelly, a labor economist at Bowdoin College in Maine as saying.

I think this story is pretty interesting, and hopefully something that will give readers hope. As someone who has always been selfish and self-centered when it comes to taking me-time, I can say it helped me re-discover the fact that it’s a wonderful thing that I do take that extra time for myself. That it’s important. That it helps me feel like me and be a better journalist, wife, mother, and friend. How about you? what have you done for yourself lately? What do you count among your 30 hours of weekly leisure time?

This past Saturday I took an amazing class at Little Yoga House. The Anatomy of Breathing. It was taught by Leslie Kaminoff of The Breathing Project. Leslie, who co-authored Yoga Anatomy, was on Long Island for a Long Island Yoga Association program, but this class provided an even better opportunity. Seven of us and Leslie in a room learning about how we breathe and how our anatomy affects breathing. With a little yoga thrown in.

Breathing originates in the diaphragm. I always pictured the diaphragm as a flat muscle running below my ribcage. And I took anatomy and physiology in college! As we found out in the class, it’s actually a weather balloon-looking muscle that drapes over all the organs of the stomach cavity, attaching underneath. We watched a video that showed us how we breathe, which was pretty cool. But the even cooler part came when we saw footage that explained how everything in there fits together. The diaphragm connects — as one uninterrupted muscle — all the way up to the tongue and down to the feet. I was amazed. The doctors in the film showed us, via a cadaver, that they could remove the diaphragm, and by doing so, take with it the throat, tongue, leg muscles, and foot muscles. All connected. All together.

One of the things we talked about is how — because it’s all connected — poor posture or something as simple as achy feet can affect the way we breathe. If your feet hurt, the muscles tighten. When that muscle tightens, it’s almost a given that it’s going to affect the other muscles it is a part of. And I’m sure you’ve figure out on your own: When breathing is compromised, everything else suffers. Mood, thought processes, emotions, concentration. It was so amazing to make that leap. To understand why, if you have a sore neck, it’s so difficult to do anything else. During the lecture we took a few opportunities to get into yoga poses and feel how, with just a little change of positioning, breathing was more difficult or easy.

So how does this fit into Favorite Things Friday? We all breathe. It should be among everyone’s favorite things, right? But so many of us walk around inhibiting free breath. I thought I’d include a few sites — yes, yoga sites — that can help anyone breathe a little easier, and stand a little taller. And for those who say they are not yoga people? Remember when you were a child? You’d get into all sorts of wacky positions? So many of those positions are mimicked in yoga. We, at our most basic, crave yoga. And you don’t have to be in tip-top shape or even willing to go to a class to get involved. You can do simple yoga sitting at your desk, standing in your kitchen, lying in your bed. It’s worth it. Breath is life. Yoga helps us breath easier. Algebraically, yoga equals life. (And I promise I will go back next week to more silly sites that make us laugh and smile.)

• Santosha. There is a non-profit yoga studio by my house called Yoga Anand Ashram. It has a store (Santosha) on its first floor, the studio up above. I took many of the yoga theory workshops I needed as a yoga teacher right there. Its Web site has a listing of asanas — poses — that are beautifully explained, and given a level-of-difficulty number. Perfect for someone just starting out.
• Yoga Cards. Someone gave me a box of Yoga Cards — a PR person, I think — a long time ago. The accompanying Web site is even nicer than the cards because it’s got free video you can watch to help learn some of the more basic postures and flows.
• Yoga Learning Center. I like this site, which is a video subscription site, because in addition to the yoga videos you can download for $69.95 per year, it provides free written step-by-step instructions for those who aren’t willing to pay for the video portion. And since it’s categorized by body orientation — seated, standing, inverted — you can go in and get started more quickly.
• MyYogaOnline.com. You’re not going to get free yoga video here, but this site is absolutely chock-full of yoga instruction. I really like that there’s a category dedicated to workplace yoga, and it actually touches on some of the other limbs of yoga. (Patanjali identified eight in all – asana or posture is the one we’ve been talking about today.)
• Yoga Alliance. One of the best ways to learn yoga is from a yogi or yogini who loves to teach it. Someone who goes through the 200- or 500-hour training to become a certified instructor must learn anatomy and physiology, pranayamas, yoga philosophy, and teaching methodology. They can help a beginner get started, and keep an experienced yogi from getting hurt. They inspire. They love. When you find a fabulous yoga teacher, you will know what I mean. So once you try a few of the sites I mentioned above, why not go out and take a class? You can find one on the Yoga Alliance’s site. You’ll breathe easier. I promise.

Do you take yoga? What’s your favorite posture? How does it make you feel? If you’ve never tried it (or tried it and hated it), what’s holding you back from trying it again?