Yahoo!! If you’re reading this, there is a piece of you that is willing to try this meditating thing. Added bonus for us busy moms? You’re an expert the first time you try it. Seriously. There is no wrong way to meditate. You don’t have to sit a certain way. You don’t have to wear anything specific. You don’t have to make any special noises and you don’t have to listen to any sort of music or chanting. You can do it right now. Here’s how:
- Close your eyes and pay attention to your breath. (You can think: “breathing in, breathing out”)
- Your mind will wander (i.e. at some point you will notice that you are not paying attention to your breath)
- Go back to paying attention to your breathing.
Ta da! You did it! You meditated! The benefits of meditation are many but for busy moms, the two most helpful are:
Self Compassion
Task Completion
This 3-step process trains our brain so that it’s easier for us to complete tasks + we practice being nice to ourselves. This can be on a simple task: “I’m going to spend 10 minutes on email without checking FaceBook” to something more significant “I’m going to quit overeating at night”. When neurologists study our brains, the process models look the same when we’re meditating as when we’re choosing not to look at Facebook or not to overeat at night. In essence, we go through this process in our brains:
(1) We recognize that we’re being tempted in some way (focus wavers),
(2) We remember what our actual goal or intention is,
(3) We exert some sort of control on the part of us that’s moving away from our goal to come back to our goal.
Like everything, this is a practice. Some days it seems all my mind is doing is wandering while others it barely wanders at all. When I can drop the judgement of what my meditation “should” be like, I can relax into it and magic happens.
If you want more to learn more about bringing mindfulness into your life, make sure you’ve subscribed to my podcast. I release an episode every week to help us all make small changes so that we are living a life we love. Let’s beat overwhelm by living in a 
less reactive, more in-control state.
Please feel free to contact me to learn more about my “Mindful Mom Workshop” or to learn more about my #6weeks2 Mindfulness Program.
