an epic life

Being Before Doing; Inserting Meditation and Mindfulness into Family Time

March 21st, 2013

“In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.” ― Rumi

I am not a very still person. Add to that, I tend to be future-minded. I’m often not fully in the present moment because I am lost in thought — usually about ideas, motivations, dreams — you know, possibilities. It is not a bad place to be. After all, dreams tend to be exciting.

But I value the present. Time is one of my greatest values. I want to fully experience the time I have with my husband of 20 years, and our three young sons, my parents and grandmother and sisters and brother, my friends, colleagues and clients. It is why I live on purpose and encourage my clients to say no to things that suck the life out of them, and yes to things that give them life. Living our epic life means making each day count and living more consciously. Living our epic life means daring to choose how we’ll experience (rather than spend) our time.

I know we are human beings, but most times I would be best be described as a human doing. I want to be more of a human being.

In an effort to start each day in a more reflective, “being” state, I talked Jerry and the boys into doing Deepak Chopra’s Soul of Healing Affirmations every morning. Since Jan. 1, we’ve been doing this every single weekday morning before we each head out the door to school or work. Since our first son was born, almost 13 years, ago, we started a tradition of doing a brief “family prayer” to start each school/work day. This is a homemade prayer that is filled with mostly gratitudes. Nothing fancy, and it doesn’t take much time. Now, we’ve simply added one of the aforementioned affirmations/meditations to it. It has been an amazing experience, so I wanted to share about it in case you want to try it for yourself or your family.

For starters, these affirmations are short. Each track ranges from 1-4 minutes. So it’s not really a good excuse to say you don’t have time. 🙂

There are 26 tracks, and you can get them for for free on Spotify, which is how we stream/listen to it each morning. Each of the affirmation titles start with a letter of the alphabet, from A to Z. They are Acceptance, Bonding, Compassion, Divinity in Me, Empowerment, Fear, Giving, Higher Self, Intention, and so on, until you get to Z, which is for Zero.

Our sons are ages (almost) 13, 11 and (almost) 6. Except for Wolf, the oldest, the boys were not super excited about adding these meditations to their morning. But over time, it’s been a great experience.

We follow up each day’s affirmation by (usually me) asking, while around the table at dinner time, if anyone thought or incorporated anything from the morning’s affirmation into their day. There are lots of days when most of us have done so. This can only be a good thing, as the affirmations teach us to be patient and compassionate toward self, and others.

Finally, don’t take my word for it that mindfulness has tremendous value. Neuroscience is now supporting long-time Wisdom teachings — that practicing mindfulness, which Jon Kabat-Zinn describes as paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally, on a regular basis teaches us to be able to choose how to direct our attention. Instead of reacting we can create a pause to notice, and then determine if we want to engage a thought or emotion. Kelly McGonigal’s Neuroscience of Change, A Compassion-Based Program for Personal Transformation, is a great source for anyone interested in learning more about the science behind the mind. McGonigal is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford, and a yoga teacher and author of the aforementioned book, as well as The Willpower Instinct.

Many corporations and organizations are implementing mindfulness practices into their work, including Google (with their popular, fast-growing model called Search Inside Yourself program), as well as apps such as Headspace, which is a simple and awesome app for your smartphone that guides you through 10 minutes of mindfulness (doing nothing), and HeartMath’s app called GPS For Your Soul, which is endorsed by Arianna Huffington, and is an awesome app that measures your stress levels and then provides guides, which can be borrowed or created, to help you relieve high stress right when you need it.

• Categories: Family, Life and Leadership
• Tags: deepak chopra, family, kelly mcgonical, meditation, mindfulness, neuroscience, prayer
• Comments: 2 Comments