Originally published on DivineCaroline.com
Working mothers are a special breed — they have learned how to juggle and keep more balls in the air than your average Cirque do Soleil act. Many carry a tremendous amount stress and guilt, often associated with having someone else care for their children, or feeling like they never having enough quality time with their family.
Is it possible to release the stress and guilt of “never doing enough” and still find time to love our lives and live our dreams?
As a single, working mother, I would like to share these six steps for working moms to reboot their lives:
- Creating Space for Grace
- Calm the Mind and Inspire Your Soul
- Walk and Talk
- The Three Breath Awareness
- Dance for Your Life
- Remember Love
Begin by making a commitment to do one practice, daily or every other day starting with just one week. Then write it in your calendar or journal.
Find a friend to buddy with and set times to call each other in advance.
Give each other loving support to stay on track, no blame or guilt allowed, when in doubt, give even more love.
Listening to the music in stillness sessions slows your frantic heart and reminds you of the beauty in life; soon you will be clear why taking even five minutes to connect with stillness is the very best medicine you could give yourself. Put it on your iPod, your computer and your phone. Try it in the evening before going to sleep, at the office, or in the car-invite stillness into your life in any way you can.
Express yourself! When the challenges of work, a sick or angry child, a romantic relationship or lack thereof sends your mind into overload, and your body into triple espresso raging energy, it’s time to talk it out!!
Take a walk on the beach, a drive in your car, or simply find an empty living room and keep walking and talking until you feel a release of the anger and upset that’s been battling in your head. Once it dissipates, you can go on to step two or four.
Where you regenerate your true power is what you want to get back to when you are out of sync. Stop whatever you are doing and practice the three breath awareness. Take three DEEP breaths while holding your focus within. Like a cloud on a windswept day, allow your breath to float on a current of stillness. Within three to five minutes, you will feel a shift; carry that feeling with you to enjoy the rest of your day.
So you think you can’t dance? YES, you can! There is more than one way to release your worries. Turn on your favorite tunes and dance on down the highway (figuratively). Solo dancing is best-no inhibitions allowed, be silly, be outrageous, be wild, and keep that energy pulsing through you until you feel the distress you had dissolving. Try it! You’ll really like it!
When you think of those you love and all the generous hearted souls you’ve ever known, it generates happy cells in your body that will keep you quite naturally on the path to wellness. Worry tends to regenerate your anxious cells, hence depression and unhappiness, while love stimulates and refreshes. In this moment, stop. Smile. Remember love, and feel it growing in your heart as you do.
The practices are like keys that open doors to new ways of thinking and living. They can be applied as simply as brushing your teeth, and will be as healing as a day at the spa, as comforting as hot peach cobbler, and as profound as any “aha” moment you’ve ever had.