Latest Posts
"Make a habit of bringing your awareness to your breathing frequently throughout your day. Our breath connects us to feelings of peace and contentment. Take a minute to deepen your breath from shallow, tense chest breathing to relaxed, deep belly breathing. When you feel totally overwhelmed, stop whatever you're doing, close your eyes if possible, take three deep breaths, and let your body and mind relax." -- Jan Marie Dore
It's impossible to be a relaxed, loving parent when you're tense. But life with children is full of triggers that make us tense.
Of course, those triggers, be they tantrums or traffic jams, don't actually make us tense. We make ourselves tense in response to them. It's a choice. Believe it or not, it's entirely possible to breathe deeply and feel relaxed during a traffic jam -- or even a tantrum.
The easiest way to remind yourself to let go of tension is to breathe. Just breathe. It brings us back into our body, back into the present moment, back into balance. Back into a choice about how we respond.
Today, stop and breathe throughout your day. Every time you're upset. When you find yourself in traffic. When anyone in your house begins a meltdown. (Especially you.)
Breathing seems so simple you may find it hard to believe its power. But as Sam I Am said about Green Eggs and Ham, "Try it, try it, and you may!"
READ POST
"Do you know what exhausts us more than lack of sleep? Stress. Our worrying. Our focus on what might be wrong. Our lack of laughter. Our lack of energy. Our lack of exercise to blow off anxiety and boost that energy. The joy deprivation is worse than the sleep deprivation, hands down. We don't feel the physical effects of it the way we do when we've been woken up every hour all night. But the extra weight we carry is something we don't even realize we've taken on and assumed like excess baggage." -- Lu Hanessian READ POST
“The most successful people are good at Plan B” – James Yorke
READ POST
"There is nothing more important for each of us to do on a daily,
weekly, monthly or yearly basis than to bring closure to the events of
our past and completion to our outstanding tasks. When we harbor
negative emotions such as resentment, regret and guilt, we become stuck
in the negative energy that our unresolved experiences hold. We will
then unconsciously be attracted to situations and people that display
components of our unresolved past." -- Debbie Ford
Want more energy? Research shows that when we finally take action on
something that's weighing on us, we feel great. That's true even when
the action was difficult, like having a painful conversation. We feel
especially liberated when we do something we were afraid of doing.
It’s hard to feel good when we’re lugging around negative baggage.
What one thing is weighing on you that you can take action on or
complete?
Do you need to write a letter and send it?
Write a letter and burn it?
Say thank you to someone?
Schedule a visit?
Schedule a day to take care of business?
Can you do it today? This week?
Go ahead.
Leave it behind. READ POST
"Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food and tyrannize their teachers."
-- Socrates.
Most of us worry about our kids' development. When will she start
sleeping through the night? He shows no interest in the potty. Will
she ever stop tantrumming? What a picky eater, he's starving himself!
She'd lose her head if it wasn't screwed on. Would he ever shower if we
didn't remind him? Her room looks like a war zone. He's so
self-centered. How will she amount to anything with these grades?
The amazing thing is that our parents said the same things about us,
and most of us came out ok. Kids do grow up, and most of the time they
become responsible adults. The fact that your kid sneaks cookies and
lies about it doesn't mean he'll grow up to be a criminal. Her lack of
common sense now doesn't mean she won't develop good judgment by the
time she has kids herself. The human brain is still developing into
the mid-20's.
Which means? Appreciate and enjoy your child as much as you can, and
worry as little as you can. You'll both thrive.
May your weekend be filled with love. READ POST
"The more we witness our emotional chain reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. It becomes a way of life to stay awake, slow down, and notice." -- Pema Chodron READ POST
"Is there a way to change how we experience the hair-pulling challenges of mothering? Can one truly alter her feelings in the midst of the supermarket trip from hell? … there is always another way to see the situation, a way that potentially offers greater peace, comfort, acceptance, and balance than our initial response.”
-- Bethany Casarjian, Ph.D. & Diane H. Dillon, Ph.D.
Baffled about what you should do when your kid does something you don’t like, and you're too upset to think straight?
There are always times when we simply can't get our emotions into alignment with our conscious desire to be a patient parent. When this happens, sometimes we have to act our way into who we want to be, and let our feelings follow. So if you don't know what to do, think about someone whose parenting you’ve admired. Your friend, teacher, mom, even your own awesome inner parent who you sometimes are. Act as if you’re that person you admire. Imagine her on your shoulder whispering guidance in your ear. Act as if you know what to do. Then do it!
What would Jesus, Buddha, a joyous mother, do? Act “as if.” READ POST
Parenting Blog RSS
Comments