Family Wakes Us Up: Letters Between Expectant Fathers

by Michael Stone, Matthew Remski

How do a teacher of yoga and buddhism and an ayurvedic practitioner prepare for parenting? How do they understand themselves as men, and fathers? How can love, separation, grief, acceptance, and falling in love again be spiritual practices? This is a serious book about family as the first site of our evolution. It’s intimate, existentially honest and strangely funny. Michael Stone and Matthew Remski share thirty years of yoga practice and teaching experience between them. They’ve each traveled far and wide to study and practice their contemplative arts—living in campervans in the dead of winter, dusty monasteries in South India, frigid temples in Japan and ashrams in rural America. As they both became expectant fathers, Michael and Matthew began an exchange of deeply personal letters that explore the interweaving themes of their lives amidst teachings from Zen, anecdotes from the yoga mat, observations from meditation and Ayurvedic recipes for postpartum broth. How does yoga inform their kitchen, laundry room and their love? How will they find help and take responsibility within a culture of manhood struggling to redefine itself? How can they use presence to integrate their past? How will supporting their partners through pregnancy, labour, and birth enrich their commitment to a spirituality rooted in intimacy and interdependence? Praise for Family Wakes Us Up "This book is a true gift for fathers and fathers-to-be. The intimacy of Michael's and Matthew’s writing is extraordinary, and their honesty will help you find your way as you embark upon the magic carpet ride of being a father." -- Jack Kornfield, founder of Spirit Rock and author of A Path with Heart, and Trudy Goodman, founder of Insight LA ____________ “‘Isn’t it amazing that amidst whatever we think about, the sky still holds us up.’ Like the unequivocal love that conscious parenting, and friendships are held within, this line beautifully captured for me the insightful and intimate tone of this book. Deeply personal and yet quintessentially universal, Michael and Matthew invite us into the innermost chambers of their being, revealing how they have allowed their hearts to open, to close, to break, to heal. They both care deeply about the complex dynamics of relationships and the genuine aspiration to be loving fathers . . . a book for all fathers to be . . . and mothers too!” —Sarah Powers, author of Insight Yoga

Genres: Parenting

264 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 2014

About the author

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Reviews

[H.R · Rating 5 out of 5]

I consider Michael Stone to be "my meditation teacher" despite the fact that I only discovered his work after he'd tragically passed. He has so deeply impacted me and I am still learning from him all the time.

I got to know Matthew Remski through his work with Conspirituality, and know him to be brilliant beyond belief.

I didn't know the two of them were acquainted, let alone very close friends, until recently. Reading these letters, which transpired before both of them underwent huge shifts in their lives, work, and views of the world, was fascinating. Like I knew a lot of what was coming for them but they didn't, I knew their future.

This was an excellent, touching, activating, funny, raw book that needed to be written.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A difficult read because of how raw and unfiltered Matthew and Michael are with one another. It is a series of emails sent between the two as they discuss their partners’ pregnancies and how newborns will change their lives, and are already changing their lives. They both go back to failed relationships and how they impact their current families, how their own fathers raised them, and what they both fear and look forward to with their newborns.

I wish more men were brave enough to be this open with one another. The world would be a very different place if we were a small fraction as honest as these two are. It was all the more powerful knowing Michael’s fate a few short years later. I think of this book often with sadness and respect for both men, and I hope I am a better father and man having read it.