When you’re a busy mom, finding time for yourself can be really difficult. Meditation for parents might sound like one more “to-do” you don’t have time to cram into your already packed schedule.
But what if we could show you how the rewards of starting a meditation practice are totally worth the effort?
And what if we told you that you can start reaping those rewards in only TEN minutes a day?
It might make meditation for parents seem less like a chore, and more like a necessity!
Why Meditation For Parents?
Parenting is a ridiculously emotional job!
You can become frustrated, angry or impatient when your kids don’t meet your expectations.
You can also feel some serious guilt if you fail to measure up to your own parenting ideals. Meditation can help.
If you feel stressed, emotional, or reactive in your day-to-day life, taking some time out to meditate and center yourself will (over time) help you become more patient and focused around your kids.
Meditation Benefits
How can meditation help you become a better parent? In a nutshell, meditation does the following:
- Promotes Calmness
- Increases Self Awareness
- Develops Compassion
- Improves Creative Thinking
Let’s take a closer look at each of these four benefits and see how meditation helps develop them.
1. Promote Calmness
First, a regular mindfulness practice helps cultivate feelings of calmness.
You learn to observe thoughts, but not act on them, which increases your emotional control.
This helps keep you from blowing up when little things go wrong, and it can help you control your reaction to your environment, however chaotic it might be in the moment.
This is a great skill for parents to have!
2. Increase Self Awareness
The second benefit of meditation for parents is that it increases your self awareness.
Everybody has certain habits. Some of these are beneficial, whereas others don’t really serve you.
These patterns are often formed back when you were a kid, and can only be changed once they’re identified.
Through the increased awareness of meditation you can finally start to see these old patterns.
You then have the power to determine which patterns are getting in the way of you being the kind of parent you want to be, and you can start taking steps to change them.
Related: Amazing Benefits Of Teaching Mindfulness To Children
3. Develop Compassion And Understanding
Meditation also helps develop the critical parenting skills of understanding and compassion.
Sometimes when kids are upset or emotional, they can seem like irrational crazy people. This might cause you to not look deeper and try to understand why they feel the way they do.
Mediation encourages a framework of open-mindedness, which helps you empathize and take the time to try and see things from your child’s perspective.
Kids generally have a reason for acting the way they do. With empathy, you can connect with your child to see what the reason is, and then respond with true compassion.
4. Improve Critical Thinking
And finally, research has shown that a regular meditation practice (as little as 5-10 minutes a day) leads to more creative thinking.
Mindfulness makes our brains less rigid, and therefore open to new ideas which can translate into you dreaming up more creative and fun activities to do with your family.
We’ve noticed some of our best out-of-the-box ideas come after our morning meditation practice. Isn’t that worth a few extra minutes a day!?
Related: 6 Simple Mindfulness Exercises For Kids
A Simple Meditation Practice
To get you started, here’s a simple meditation practice ANYONE can do. It’s the perfect introduction to mindfulness because you can do it anytime, anywhere and it only takes 5-10 minutes.
Try doing this exercise everyday for two weeks and see if you don’t feel a little less stressed and a little more focused.
- Sit or lay down in a quiet, comfortable space.
- Become “present” – How do you feel? What are your thoughts?
- Focus on your breath.
- Feel each part of your body. Start at your toes and work your way up. If your mind wanders, come back to your breath.
- Practice 5-10 minutes every day!
Once you’ve mastered this easy practice, try a free app like highly-rated Headspace to discover new ways to expand your meditation practice.
Also In Beenke – Anger Management For Parents: Keeping It Together
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