I love post-prompts like this one, as they make me think about my everyday actions, especially the ones that come out of habits I created overtime, and no longer think about. Let’s get right to it and I’ll say that even though some of my dos and don’ts apply to varying types of relationships, I am focusing on romantic relationships like the one I have the pleasure of having with the man who is my husband. These are only a few of my favorites: (more…)
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!
“Please join us in the 2016 #Heartfulness Meditation Conference in the USA. If you are a World Moms Blog contributor, or reader, or fan, please contact us (info@worldmomsblog.com) for a free pass.”
Below, #WorldMom, Sophia from USA, recounts how the process of ‘cleaning’ helps her to deal with her everyday life-situations better, and with clarity and wisdom. She regularly attends the weekly #Heartfulness meditation on the Webinar workshops conducted by #WorldMomsBlog
Over a month ago I joined #Heartfulness meditation sessions once a week. The first time, after going through the relaxation method, I was able to calm down by taking deep breaths and focusing on releasing the … weight of my body. The instruction was to feel everything melting away, eventually my heart as well. Then to dwell there for a few minutes, focusing on the light in my heart.
Well, that first time, I fell asleep. It was about 9:30pm, and the babies had just gone to sleep, and I couldn’t help but feel relaxed enough to fall asleep where I was sitting!
I haven’t fallen asleep during these meditations, since. One thing I have learned through my short life is that taking a moment to breathe deeply, and taking a moment to release the tension, intentionally smiling, and just shake your head at a ‘trying’ situation … they all make my life simpler.
A few days ago, I attended a session facilitated by our Heartfulness Trainer, “P”. We spoke a bit about our lives and things that are heavy for us to deal with, at the moment. After sharing what I am dealing with emotionally, that is physically affecting me, she suggested I try the “Guided Cleaning Process”. So before beginning the usual meditation, she guided me through it.
Immediately I had a massive headache! (I didn’t say anything, though, as it just came out of nowhere) Then she said to imagine all complexities and impurities going out of me from the top of my head to the tip of my tailbone. And to imagine them going out in the form of smoke or vapor.
For me, the mental cleaning was much easier to get into, than meditation has ever been. I could imagine the dense smoke going out from my system. The massive headache was gone and I felt … space; which is a beautiful thing to feel when you have been busy over-analyzing your current situation in life. And I felt a sacred energy entering my whole body.
I felt like my body’s particles were floating with energy around them, remembering that all of creation is made of the same energy. And I mean all of creation, not just humans.
After taking me through the guided mental cleaning, which I have been doing everyday we decided to do our regular weekly meditation session. I kept losing track of what I was doing, and my mind kept wandering off. Twice, though, I was able to imagine my heart as light, and it was fascinating.
It’s hard to explain all of this!!! I think it’s something one has to try for himself/herself, a few times, as once may not be enough. Repetitions are important, I feel, in today’s life.
I think everyone could benefit from removing complexities and impurities from life.
Do you meditate? What method(s) do you use to meditate? What do you do to bring yourself back to center?
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!
This week marks the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Syrian war. Five years of fighting, death, destruction. Heartbreaking stories, loss and questions. How much longer can this go on for? How is this going to end? (more…)
Nadege Nicoll was born in France but now lives permanently in New Jersey with her family. She stopped working in the corporate world to raise her three children and multiple pets, thus secretly gathering material for her books. She writes humorous fictions for kids aged 8 to 12. She published her first chapter book, “Living with Grown-Ups: Raising Parents” in March 2013. Her second volume in the series just came out in October 2013. “Living with Grown-Ups: Duties and Responsibilities” Both books take an amusing look at parents’ inconsistent behaviors, seen from the perspective of kids. Nadege hopes that with her work, children will embrace reading and adults will re-discover the children side of parenthood. Nadege has a few more volumes ready to print, so watch this space…
A truly marvelous thing happened to me this month. Or perhaps more accurately, it was a series of interconnected events. Thanks to social media, I have reconnected with some of my closest friends from the past after a gap of about three decades. This has been a real roller coaster ride of fluctuating emotions. Rediscovering these special people from my childhood has triggered highs of emotions that I don’t remember experiencing since giving birth to my children.
Comparing our stories and memories of shared events has caused me to experience a real epiphany: people don’t always see us in the same way we see ourselves. For me this has caused real joy…and relief!
Since leaving England to live in southern Europe I have tried my best to reinvent myself. I wanted to leave behind the troubled child and young woman who never felt comfortable in her own skin, who was complex to an extreme degree because she was motherless from six years old and fatherless from 15. The memories of holiday gatherings and celebrations where I felt awkward and depressed were pretty difficult to shake off. The flighty attention seeking behaviour I used to exhibit as a teen has terrorised me over the years during many a losing battle with insomnia. It is true to say that I’m fairly embarrassed about the teenage girl I once was.
Although a good student and very quiet during lessons, the breaks/recess were a completely different story. I remember being loud and pretty flirtatious…yes, that makes me really blush now! It was my way of trying to get some of the attention I was desperately lacking at home. Quite simply, I don’t feel proud of the teenager I was. The memory I have imprinted of that time was OTT or Over The Top.
The staggering thing for me this month has been to learn that after three decades of avoiding trips down memory lane, those closest to me didn’t see things in the same way. One of my friends described me as being “witty, smart and knowing how things worked.” Another ‘bestie’ told me she found me funny, fun to be with and pretty mysterious as I didn’t like to talk about my family life.
Really? That’s how they saw me? Playful and teasing but NOT anywhere near as bad as I thought?
I have avoided going to reunions for all these decades because I was embarrassed to ‘inflict’ myself on my old schoolmates?
Wow! If only I had known all this earlier! I’m sure I would have been a much more confident young woman with a much brighter self image!
One of these old friends stayed up until the wee hours of the morning last night to scan and send me photos of our school exchange trip to Berlin, Germany, in the late 80’s. I realised that even after all these years good, decent kids usually remain good, decent adults and GREAT friends, too!
My message to you is keep tight hold of your childhood buddies and those closest to you. At some point down the road when you look back on your life, it is those people who will reaffirm the good in you and show you how others see us. These ‘treasures’ are priceless especially to those with low self-esteem.
Encourage your kids to keep up the ties they are forming now, and GO TO SCHOOL REUNIONS!
How many of you still keep contact with best friends from childhood? Do you think that you see yourself the same way as those closest to you, or do you tend to be more self-critical?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Ann Marie Wraight of Greece. Photo credit to the author.
Having lived in 4 different countries, Ann Marie finds it difficult to give a short answer about where she's from. She regards herself: Brit by birth, Aussie by nature, with a sprinkling of Greek and German based on her insatiable appetite for tasty food and chilled beer!
This World Mom has been married to her Greek soulmate for 16 years and they are the proud but constantly challenged parents of two overactive teenage boys. (She secretly wonders sometimes if she was given the wrong babies when she left the maternity clinic.) She can't explain the fascination and ability that her 13 and 14 year-olds show in math and physics or that both boys are ranked 1st and 2nd nationally in judo. Ann Marie can only conclude that those years of breastfeeding, eating home cooked meals and home tutoring really DO make a difference in academic and physical performance! The family is keeping its fingers crossed that---with the awful economic crash in Greece---continued excellence in math and/or judo will lead to university scholarships...
In addition to writing, enjoying a good glass of wine and movies, Ann Marie also works as a teacher and tends their small, free-range farm in the Greek countryside.
It’s one of those truths that have become a cliché: having children challenges and changes you. I’ve changed in many ways thanks to the boys pushing emotional buttons and exhausting me to the point of raw survival. I’ve faced many a demon I didn’t know was lurking in my psyche. Those I expected, although the extent of it all still surprises me. This new place is a bit of a shock.
My latest evolutionary leap is to become brave around physical challenges.
I was the girl who would read rather than just about anything. I played with cut-dolls and made up plays and dances, I built indoor huts and had umpteen projects on the go. I did swim, climb a little, build dams and ride horses but I never really pushed my limits, not really. I kept myself safe. I was an expert at that. And then I had three sons who like to do stuff.
Suddenly, I’m in largish surf being a support Mum at a beach camp. I’m swinging on some revolting swing above a hill slope in which you have to be strapped with a harness and you look down directly at the ground from swear-inducing heights. I luge. I hike through bush where there are no other people and try not to think about abductions and falls while we’re out of cell-phone range. I’m jumping off river banks and wharfs from three or four metres up.
And I’m still scared witless. At least in the beginning.
Then I do the thing and repeating it is O.K. Sometimes multiple repeats of challenges are asked of me. Sometimes I allow myself to be convinced. Those boys have a way of parroting me back to me.
“You can do it.”
“We’ll be so proud of you.”
“It’s really fun!”
“Don’t psyche yourself out.”
“Do it when you’re ready.”
“You don’t have to, but I think you’ll regret it if you don’t.”
“Do you need a hug?”
“Let’s do it together.”
“Just go for it.”
And the really annoying one that I say all the time : “You feel brave after doing the scary thing.”
And so I have luged when I would rather have sat and had coffee. I’ve been in the surf when wine in a pretty dress was more my style. I swung on that horrendous swing. I jump off the river bank and the wharf. And you know what, they’re right. I feels good to be brave. And it really does happen after you do the scary thing. I expect they’ll continue to encourage me to do the stuff I don’t want to do and that’s pretty awesome because I’m an old mum and my kids want to do stuff with me. Then they’ll leave me and I suspect those will be some of my favourite memories around parenting.
Have you done anything physically brave thanks to the encouragement of your children? Tell us about it.
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Karyn Wills of New Zealand. Photo credit: www.loveoftheroad.wordpress.com (The Skyswing over Rotorua, New Zealand)
A life coach (LC) once told me it is important to be selfish sometimes. She had to explain what she meant because for as long as I could remember, the word ‘selfish’ was synonymous with not caring about anyone other than yourself. Well, LC was one of the sweetest people I have met, yet she did not strike me as one who would accept being pushed around, or would accept becoming a doormat. Usually, really sweet people are considered people on whom you can ‘get over’, right?
When I had this conversation with her I was already mother to by firstborn. However, I did not come to really contemplate the meaning of being selfish while being a mother, until after having my second child.
What LC was conveying to me is that although I am a mother, I am a person. Separate from all the titles I gather in life I have myself and I have to take care of self. You’ve probably heard it or read it somewhere…’If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else’. I have heard people reference it to when an aircraft loses oxygen and you are to put an oxygen mask on yourself before helping someone else, even your own child, put on her mask. Still, the word ‘selfish’ isn’t used here, even though it may be more concise and cost less to print. I do understand why: it just doesn’t sound good.
Nonetheless, being selfish (to an extent) is necessary for sanity, self-esteem, creativity, and a dynamic life.
I don’t know about other mothers, but I tend to analyze a lot. It used to be that before I left the house (children and husband in it), I would think of all I could do to make sure everything for the kids was where it was supposed to be so my husband could easily find it. It was as if the time I was going to be away had to be excused in my own mind, and that I was negatively selfish for not being there to care for them myself. I know this is absurd because we are both their parents and my husband hasn’t indicated, in any way, that he thinks or feels any of the things I am explaining here.
I realized I was hindering my own self from taking a break. From clocking out from my Stay At Home career. From taking care of me. From figuring out how to take care of me beyond taking a shower and maybe putting on some make up.
So about a month and a half ago my husband and I had a conversation. We acknowledged that we both feel the difference in our lives from how it was pre two small children and a teenager, to post two small children and a teenager. We agreed that we both need time to be ourselves individually and together. At the end of that conversation it was decided that I was going to begin taking scheduled ‘Me Time’.
The first time I had no clue what to do with myself. I was happy to leave the house and go do something. I didn’t want to waste my time. I didn’t want to do something as mundane as go window-shopping or take a nap in my car…like I have done a few times in the past. Then I realized I could do anything I wanted and I would be doing it by myself!
When I returned home I felt energized and didn’t feel like I needed to clock out again for a while. The second time I felt kind of guilty, leaving everyone again, so as it was already hard to schedule something with holiday travel, I just let that one go. Today was my third scheduled Me Time and I knew exactly what I was going to do. I was going to take my selfish self to the forest and hike! Yes, I was going to take a hike!
My hike was phenomenal. It was something I needed more than I thought. I wished for my husband and my children to be with me. I kept envisioning them there, but I knew I needed to be by myself. I needed to not worry about what they might need… if they are hungry, thirsty, or need a diaper change. Or if the 15-month old had eaten a crayon or is putting his finger in his mouth and maybe is now interested in sticking it in an electrical socket.
That’s the thing, you know? Being a Stay at Home Parent means that as long as your children are awake, you have to be aware while you’re cooking or cleaning, or doing whatever else you may need to do, Additionally, you have to be present for the myriad learning moments young humans have. I personally think that is tiring. I feel like I am wrong for feeling this way. That, as a parent, but more so as a mother, I should want to be with my children all the time and I should only get a tiny bit tired just as any human would from being awake and doing regular things.
To continue, my hike was what I needed. I focused on thinking of nothing. I took deep breaths as I walked briskly onward in the chilly air. Every time I thought to meditate I would first repeat a prayer I know, and then somehow ended up seeing Purnima Ramakrishnan’s face as if she was leading a meditation session. It was so strange and SO funny! Then I kept thinking about how I should have asked if there are wild animals to be concerned about on the trails. Black bears and cougars would have to just let me have my Me Time, you know?
After the hike I watched a R-rated movie (The Big Short) and ate a cookie.
I got home to two little babes wanting to be tickled and wanting to use me as an obstacle they had to demolish. It was a lot of fun and I knew I was better for them since I went and had some time with my own self.
Do you take time to do things on your own? Do you ever feel like you could be better for your children? When you do take time away, are there specific things you do that bring you back to center? What do you think about the word ‘selfish’?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by Sophia. You can find her blogging at Think Say Be and on twitter @ThinkSayBeSNJ.
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!
A truly marvelous thing happened to me this month. Or perhaps more accurately, it was a series of interconnected events. Thanks to social media, I have reconnected with some of my closest friends from the past after a gap of about three decades. This has been a real roller coaster ride of fluctuating emotions. Rediscovering these special people from my childhood has triggered highs of emotions that I don’t remember experiencing since giving birth to my children.
