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Kate’s Blog
Mothers (and Fathers)…Be Kind to Yourself
I have often thought that being a Mother is one of the most amazingly wonderful gifts of life. I have also thought about how much work and challenge the journey of parenting can be.
I began my meditation practice 20+ years ago and I began because I had 3 children and a full-time job as a midwife; I needed some skills! My daily practice has served me well bringing less reactivity and a more of calm perspective. I like to think it served my children as well.
So I offer you this beautiful mediation from:
Dr. Sona Dimidjian is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado, Boulder
http://www.mindful.org/a-loving-kindness-mediation-for-moms/
Comfort Zone
If the point of life were to sink further into well-worn grooves of comfort, this would be a perfectly acceptable approach. But our job is to move beyond these grooves.
The same is true of your meditation practice.
We need to know how to return to a place of ease but we also benefit from moving outside of our comfort zone. Here in this place of challenge we find new opportunities and refreshing views. Try it today…consider doing something differently! Or changing your point of view.
Partner Gazing
Out beyond our ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing there is a field
I will meet you there
When the soul lies down in that grass
The world is too full to talk about
Ideas, language, even the words each other
Doesn’t make any sense.
Rumi
(Working with a partner, take turns either with a hand on their back or shoulder or gazing at them with their eyes closed, then switch)
Know that this person before you has had the full range of human experience
They have known joy and they have known sorrow
They have known grief
They have known success and they have known failure
They have been praised and they have been blamed
There have been times of gain and times of loss
They have known sickness and they have known health
They have known bodily pain and they have bodily pleasure
They have known agitation and they have known calm
They have known love and they have known hatred
They have known friendship and they have known loneliness
They have known passion and they have known indifference
They have known loyalty and they have known betrayal
They have known kindness and they have known cruelty
They have known beauty and they have known ugliness
There are things that they are proud of and things they are ashamed of
They have known fear and they have known courage
All the experiences that a human being is capable of this person has probably known.
The circumstances may have been different, but the feelings much the same.
(It is helpful to end with awareness of breath or loving kindness meditation)