#Heartfulness Meditation Within Motherhood

Engaging in daily meditation is a thought I have had for many years. Fortunately I finally began practicing it a few months ago through Heartfulness Meditation. I choose the word ‘finally’ carefully because as much as it is true that I have used it in the past, it is also true that I don’t view life as things having ‘finally’ happened. Things like babies growing and learning how to talk or crawl or sleep through the night….. I used to never feel like I wanted them to ‘finally’ happen.

So when I say I finally began the practice of meditation, I really mean it. It is something I would have done well to have started a long time ago.

Within my role of being a parent I feel many emotions. With my 14 year old daughter I get to feel a love that one can only get from a close companion. I am her mother, but we also can hang out as friends. She can share things from her life that I can compare to my own memories from that age. With my 3 year old I get to answer the many questions she has; many of which are repetitive, but come only from a want and need to learn about the world around her. The one and a half year old doesn’t yet talk fully. He says some words and does express himself with sign language or by making particular sounds for certain things. So with him I get to watch a young human develop, as I did with the girls, but I also can see a young boy grow up. He is always ready to give kisses and bury his face into mine as he takes small, quick breaks from his activities.

So why the need to meditate?

Because life needs balance, and it doesn’t come from all things being fantastic and happy, easy and understood all the time. I believe the balance comes from all types of situations arising and being created and our ability to learn who we are and how we handle the different situations. You may have heard the saying, which loosely says ‘it’s not the situation, but what you do with it’.

Having said that, my life as a parent and specifically as a mother has had its challenges to go along with the myriad blessings. I am not implying that a father’s experience is easier or less test-filled. I am only speaking for my own experience as a mother.

I am not a question person. In high school it bothered me infinitely to be asked a redundant question.

When someone would see me coming back from the shops and asked me if I was back: “oh are you back from the shop?”

“Yes. Yes I am back from the shop.”

I worked on it. It still has been hard through the years, but not as much. Now being a mother brings and innumerable amount of questions. As I said above, many of them are repetitive, and the repetition happens within seconds. It’s like a cosmic joke. I try to stay calm and remember I am these children’s primary educator as I stay at home with them.

However, there are other factors too, that make the effort hard to maintain. Having to wake up when the little kids are awake, staying awake and aware the entire day, and sleeping with one eye open at night in case they wake up screaming, or crying, or simply calling your name; figuring out what to feed them, cook, clean, let them help you clean, coming up with school-like lessons, making sure you run the laundry machine while doing other chores or playing with them, making sure they get some time outside the house or otherwise use up their energy and yours, very frequently saying all of these – “stop hitting! Kiss your sister and say sorry! Don’t snatch that from your brother. Be nice. Stop yelling. Don’t jump on the couch, eat your food, don’t use it to practice your long throw!” The list goes on.

Sophia with her kids

In the midst of it all you try to maintain your individuality and you try to have a little side gig, a blog, a life on social media, go to school, do some art… Something or maybe just meditate…!

At the end of the day, or week, or even in the middle of the day, you’re exhausted. You are frustrated. You want to tell your three year old to play the quiet game and not ask you questions for 60 seconds.

So I ask my three year old to play the quiet game, as I get dinner on the table and just want a moment of silence. She seems to understand and want to play, but then she comes to me and whispers a question.

Cosmic jokes, I tell you.

I am not going to get into the role of wife, but it is a part of life that is different from when we were single and without children. Sometimes having a partner can feel like they are a haven, and sometimes they can’t help.

This and I mean all of this and many such “this” is why I choose to meditate.

Sometimes I am so done with the day that I don’t want to meditate. I want to watch last week’s episode of such & such on Hulu or some such service. When I tell myself to meditate, however, it is always exactly what I needed to do.

The 30 minutes to the hour I take to breathe in deeply and consciously, be aware of and absorbed in the Divine Light and Love of the Universe in my heart, remove negative energy from my body and mind, actually is the best thing I do for myself and for my family.

Heartfulness meditation has been helping me in being more patient. It has helped me in remembering my decided role to my children, to myself as an individual with my needs, and finding happiness within that role.

Meditation helps me be present and centered so that I can enjoy these times as I honestly want to; regardless of how tired or frustrated I may be.

My two younger kids sometimes watch me meditate, and I have told them, at separate times, to sit down and do the same. So now they both will do it when they feel like it.
My fourteen year old is currently living in another city. It often makes me feel an angst I can’t explain. While I meditate I am able to not think about it, or anything that is going on in my life. I can just reconnect with … life. After I meditate I feel a bit less like I did before in regards to my oldest child. Then I just meditate again when angst levels rise again (smile).

I strongly suggest Heartfulness meditation to all mothers and all parents. Even if you feel happy 99% of the time, I believe meditation can uplift you then too.

It is not something, I can explain in words, even after all these 1000 words of a blog post. It is something for you to experience for 20 minutes to feel it within you.

This Mother’s Day, give yourself the best gift, your soul would cherish! Visit your nearest Heartfulness Center. 

Please join us, the Heartfulness Institute and World Moms Network this summer at the USA for the Heartfulness Conferences. Write to us at worldmomsblog@gmail.com for your free tickets.

Heartfulness Conference 2016

Follow @WorldMomsBlog on Instagram to check out all the Mother’s Day pictures from our contributors.

Picture Credits: Heartfulness conferences, www.artsfon.com, https://pixabay.com

ThinkSayBe

I am a mom amongst some other titles life has fortunately given me. I love photography & the reward of someone being really happy about a photo I took of her/him. I work, I study, I try to pay attention to life. I like writing. I don't understand many things...especially why humans treat each other & other living & inanimate things so vilely sometimes. I like to be an idealist, but when most fails, I do my best to not be a pessimist: Life itself is entirely too beautiful, amazing & inspiring to forget that it is!

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