A MOMENT WITH AWAKEN – LAURA SHOEMAKER
October 21, 2021
She’s in 1st grade now and even just walking through homework she might get frustrated and start crying. Again, in the past, I feel like I would have said ‘This isn’t what we cry about. Just keep going.’ But now it’s “Let’s acknowledge your feelings. You are frustrated. I am sorry you are frustrated. Let’s take a break. We can’t do anything when we are in this state.” Those tools in my toolbox have just been so worthwhile for me. And don’t get me wrong we still have our struggles, there’s still crying during homework. But it’s just been a lot better for both of us.
A Moment with Awaken!
For this interview, I was fortunate enough to share some moments with the Treasurer for Awaken Pittsburgh, Laura Shoemaker. She shares some helpful insights from her practice, reminders about the importance of mental health on our overall health, and some beautiful stories about how mindfulness has benefited her relationships.
Awaken Pittsburgh: So to kick this off, what sparked your interest in mindfulness?
Laura: I guess I would say I am relatively new to the practices of mindfulness and meditation. It’s kind of two-fold in life events that brought me to it.The first one was getting married and having children, so I have two young ones at home. And then around the same time, I made some job moves and found myself in the health insurance industry. So, with a background in finance and working in the health insurance industry, I was really looking at health from a cost-perspective for our membership. Asking how we keep our members healthy because that’s better for our business bottom-line. And it just became increasingly evident to me how important mental health was. You really can’t have physical health without mental health. So, I started thinking, ‘where’s my mental health at?’ As a parent, that’s working, and I’ve got two young kids at home. I started realizing I’m yelling at them a lot, I’m short with them, so maybe my mental health isn’t as great as I thought it was. I would even go as far to say that getting into meditation wasn’t an easy task for me. I struggled with it. I almost took pride in the fact that I couldn’t relax. I would think I can’t do meditation because my mind just wanders. So I kinda started doing little snippets. Smaller pieces like the grounding practices.. And I found that I could do that and it makes me feel really good. It really wasn’t until I joined Awaken and took their first class that I learned how to get into that daily practice and how important it is.
Awaken Pittsburgh: I think that’s such a relatable experience of the first few times you sit down and you think, ‘I can’t do this.’ So, that’s a really good tidbit of just starting with these smaller practices because they can be powerful tools. What would you say are some of the first shifts you saw in your mental health or relationships with others after beginning a practice?
Laura: There were kinds of two things that were really why I started digging more into it. One was my patience level with my children. My kids are young; they are toddler tantrums and my patience level just got infinitely better. I was able to take a pause, take my own breath, help them take their breath. Instead of just going right to, ‘Stop screaming about this! This isn’t what we cry about.’ And two, as I was parenting them through the pandemic I wanted to become more present, which was my intention in taking Awaken’s class. It’s so easy to pick up the phone while you’re doing something and scroll mindlessly.. Again, it goes back to taking that breath and recentering yourself.
Awaken Pittsburgh: You mentioned sharing the practice of taking a breath with your kids. How receptive do you find they are to that? Is it an effective tool for them?
Laura: Absolutely. I find myself working on it a lot with my daughter. She’s in 1st grade now and even just walking through homework she might get frustrated and start crying. Again, in the past, I feel like I would have said ‘This isn’t what we cry about. Just keep going.’ But now it’s ‘Let’s acknowledge your feelings. You are frustrated. I am sorry you are frustrated. Let’s take a break. We can’t do anything when we are in this state.’ Those tools in my toolbox have just been so worthwhile for me. And don’t get me wrong, we still have our struggles, and there’s still crying during homework. But it’s just been a lot better for both of us.
Awaken Pittsburgh: Well kudos to you for giving your kids a lifelong tool. Even with the struggles, to have a tool at that age to help recenter yourself is incredible.
Laura: Mindfulness has also helped me understand me more. I was someone who didn’t necessarily understand my emotions or why I reacted in certain ways. So often that would lead to just shutting down. Since I’ve joined Awaken and taken the classes, I’m so much better at identifying my emotions and what I need. And that’s really helped all relationships whether that’s a colleague at work or my husband at home.
Awaken Pittsburgh: What has been the relationship between your practice and the high-stress times that we’ve found ourselves in over the course of this pandemic?
Laura: I joined Awaken during the pandemic and took my first class during those winter months. It was just so helpful to step away from the craziness and take some time for me. And focusing on the present—not worrying so much about the scary news that I was hearing on a day to day basis— it was almost like a group therapy session. I really loved talking with other people, learning about their practices, and also hearing that other people struggled too and that’s normal, that’s a piece of it.
Awaken Pittsburgh: A theme we’ve explored in our online community this past month was the mind-body connection. We touched on it a bit earlier. What do you think about this connection between our physical health and our behavioral health? Is there a link there?
Laura: Oh absolutely, and you can look at it from many different angles. And that’s one of the things I look at in health insurance. Seeing how much worse health outcomes are when you don’t have good mental health. And when you’re facing a chronic condition, like so many Americans are, your mental health is impacted…So you can’t only treat physical symptoms, you have to treat mental health as well. And then even for a completely healthy person like someone running a marathon. Running a marathon is just as mental as it is physical. There’s even a whole component you can take to professional athletes. So, I think there’s a huge connection and correlation. And I said it earlier and I truly believe it, you can’t have good physical health without good mental health. I think they are one in the same.
Awaken Pittsburgh: I agree. And I don’t think there’s a single part of our days that can’t be beneficially impacted by us bringing this sense of gentle awareness to whatever we are doing. It’s amazing how powerful of a practice it can be.
Laura: I like that phrase, ‘gentle awareness,’ and it goes back to the struggles I had getting started with the practice. I would say ‘I can’t quiet my mind enough to do it.’ But that’s the thing. That gentle awareness as you’re doing it allows you to recognize your mind wandering and that’s okay. Just bring it back. That was one of the big things that I struggled with in the beginning so I think it’s important for people to know…
Awaken Practice: Are there any other practices that you’ve found helpful that you’d like to share?
There’s a grounding practice that I like to do that’s really helped me as I realized how unobservant I can sometimes be to the world around me. But you start off by naming 5 things you can see, 5 things you can hear, 5 things you can feel. Then 4 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 4 things you can feel. And you go down until you get to 1. And that practice really helps me because I was someone who could take a walk and not even know what I saw or who I passed. I didn’t stop to smell the roses. So mindfulness has really helped me to take in a lot more and enjoy my surroundings while being present.