31 Days of Mindful Parenting: Day 17

Not only what they he or she is saying, but also the actual sound of the voice. Has it changed since the time when she was little? Does it sound irritated? Hopeful? Worried? Happy? Without intervening, just notice the sound of his voice.

31 Days of Mindful Parenting: Day 13

Sometimes we have to simply be. The fear is that nothing will get done but inevitably, life moves forward. Even if you just pause for 30 seconds and do nothing, what does happen?

31 Days of Mindful Parenting: Day 9

To explain this a bit further, often we put ourselves in the way of distractions so that we do not have to tolerate something (a feeling or a task) difficult. We can get away with this only so much. Eventually, if we don’t do the task or feel the feeling, it becomes bigger and even harder. Social media is an example of a nested distraction - we may initially get on it to distract ourselves from work. Then we read an article that makes us feel discouraged and we distract ourselves from that by going to a funny video. Then, that funny video reminds us of a book we need to buy for our child…you get the point. There are thousands of distractions in our day. When we are in a mindful state of awareness, we can notice them, stay with the present task or emotion and process or do what really needs to be done. This list provides some ideas of what to pay attention to with regard to what may be distracting.

31 Days of Mindful Parenting: Day 7

You may later want to investigate what those physical sensations mean (e.g., I must be nervous about something, I’m tensing up, why did i get excited about that?) but first try to just notice them without applying meaning. It can help place a “pause” between the actual experiencing of the sensation and the thought or label we attribute to it.