On the last blog, I talked about what mindfulness is; being aware of what we do when we do it. We don’t need to find extra time in our already busy days to practice mindfulness, if you can be aware of the feeling of weight of a hairbrush in your hands then you are already practicing meditation. To help you learn this and to help you develop your own mindfulness practice from this blog and continuing on, we will be offering you tips to build-your-mindfulness-practice. So keep reading, and at the end of each blog there will be a little actionable step for you to consider and to hopefully take.
With Mother’s Day around the corner, I wanted to talk a little about the benefits of mindfulness for mothers and how taking time out for yourself. Self care is essential, not a luxury, so push any feelings of mum-guilt aside because it can actually benefit your whole family.
Mum-guilt is something I’ve heard every mother talk about in my classes. They feel guilty that they may have said or done the wrong thing, they worry that their child is missing out on essential developmental and social activities, they worry if they are providing the most nutritional food, or the amount of screen time their child consumes. The list goes on. All of this guilt and worry that that mothers are experiencing means that it is no surprise that when it comes to taking time out for themselves so many experience the mum guilt all over again. A student in my adult Cultivating Inner Kindness course told me this week that every time she has to leave her daughter with her dad in order for her to attend my course, she feels guilty. She feels bad for doing something for herself when she ‘should’ be with her daughter.
The student has continued coming to the classes and even signed up in the first place because she knows that her practicing mindfulness creates a calmer, more peaceful mind for herself and then in turn she is able to provide a calmer atmosphere for her daughter to live in. However, not everyone is aware of this so I’m here to help you!
Mindfulness helps to relieve stress and anxiety and it creates a sense of peace and calm as we move our attention out of our ever-busy mind and into our physical body. It has been proven that if one person in the household practices mindfulness that it benefits everyone in the household. Mindfulness and meditation teaches us to become aware of our thoughts so that our thoughts do not have control over us. All too often we find ourselves thinking about something and we don’t even know how we got onto that subject. A mindfulness practice helps us to gain control of our thoughts. As we learn to step back from our thoughts we can become aware of how we think and what we think. This in turn results in us being able to step back from situations as they arise in our life, we can step back and assess what to say and do. We learn to respond and not to react.
Now, imagine that you are a mother who feels a sense of peace and calm in your body and mind. How do you think that peace would affect your family?
Mindfulness in Action
Every morning (and evening if you want but I would recommend you start with once a day and build up) I want you to brush your teeth with mindful awareness. This means that when you go into the bathroom to brush your teeth I want you to be aware of your hand reaching for the toothbrush, notice the feeling of the toothpaste tube in your hand, how does it feel when you squeeze the toothpaste onto the brush. What smells are there? What sensations can you feel in your mouth as you brush your teeth?
All you are doing is noticing. I want you to notice that you are brushing your teeth when you are brushing them. 
