The Must-Read Book Club: Shift From Overwhelm To Sweetness

Ingrid Marcroft: I heard about Dr. Laura Markham and she felt like she was my parenting teacher. I play lots of roles—yoga instructor, yoga studio owner, wife, daughter, sister, friend, and more—but parent is the most intense role I've ever played. Ever. Probably in all my lifetimes, considering how challenging it is in this one. And I only have one child, an amazing five-and-a-half-year-old girl! It's close to my bed and I reach for it physically and energetically all the time. I just picked it up again, just now, and started to cry. Maybe it's PMS, but oh my god, it's a powerful book.

YCNYC: Favorite quote?

IM: "Giggling releases the same pent-up stress hormones as a good cry in a parent's arms."

YCNYC: What one person would you recommend this book to?

IM: You.

YCNYC: What moment or part resonates with you the most?

IM: "The Fix Game" resides in a section about playing with your child when things just aren't working. It is so natural and completely genius. When you're about to explode because your tantruming child is triggering your mirror neurons and you are turning into a tantruming adult child, being able to take a deep breath and break into a smile and chase after her to hug and kiss her, is pure magic. Sometimes shifting the very creaky, rusty old wheel onto this new track seems impossible, but it really isn't.

It's yoga. And it's so very, very challenging when you're tired: like one of those intensely physical yoga classes where you've been working so hard, the class is almost over, your body is about to shut down and is craving savasana, and then the teacher says, "Okay, let's do [insert an immensely physically or mentally taxing pose that you just haven't figured out]." And the teacher is 22, has never had an injury in her life, is a former gymnast or dancer, has never been a pound overweight ever, and she's not a parent, and she's never had a sleepless night, or sleepless years, or birth trauma, or breastfeeding pain, or shouting matches with a child or a partner or a partner about a child. And you just want to cry or curl up in a ball or throw your block at the teacher.

And then you take a deep, slow breath and really attempt the pose, and you're so crazy exhausted that it actually works because you found a different entry point. And then you laugh and cry at the same time because something has shifted inside you and you don't quite know if you're going to be able to find it again, but it was so very, very sweet.

You can purchase Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting here.

Have a Must-Read book to recommend? Email us here.

—Interview by Allison Richard

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