awareness

Pausing; How To Practice When You Don’t Have Time

15 Nov
by admin, posted in Blog   |  No Comments

couresy www.mariashriver.com

Imagine this. Your toddler is having a meltdown in the grocery store.  Your own heartbeat speeds up and your breathing becomes shallow in a nanosecond. You feel your child’s distress and your own. This is where we hit the “pause” button and imagine something different (and you can try it right now). You take several slow deep breaths, notice your sensations including your feet solidly on the ground, and send  kindness to yourself and your child for being in this predicament.  Rather than feeling a creeping sense of panic and seeking the closest escape route, you look at your options more calmly. You may still leave the store, but your heart is no longer beating as if you are being chased by a lion. You are simply a mom with a overwhelmed toddler finding a solution to the problem.  How did you do it?
Continue Reading

The Myth of Balance

12 Jul
by Alison, posted in Blog   |  No Comments

“The key to keeping your balance is knowing when you’ve lost it”. Anonymous

“Can parents have it all?” There is a lot of talk going on in the media, again, about the balance between work and family.

Does your life feel out of balance?  You’re not alone. In fact, most parents feel out of balance.  Part of the problem is the way we define balance and then strive to achieve it. Balance simply does not exist except for fleeting moments. Balance is something that comes and goes, not a static goal to be achieved and maintained.  Just as we sigh and think finally we have found  the perfect balance, Continue Reading

The Yoga of Parenting Turns One: What’s Next?

06 Jun
by Alison, posted in Blog   |  No Comments

The Four-fold Way: Show up, Pay attention, Speak your truth, Let go of the outcome –Angeles Arrien 


I am celebrating the first birthday of The Yoga of Parenting by reflecting on what I learned this first year and what is coming next.  It reminds me of my son’s first birthday. We decided to have a big birthday bash (bad idea). We invited about 10 families all with at least one child, some had two. You get the picture, 20 or more adults and about 15 infants and toddlers. While I was getting the house ready for the party, I accidentally pulled down a glass-front china cabinet. All I could think about was “what if it had happened during the party and a child had been near?” Note to self: change out all glass in house for plexiglass wherever possible and bolt all furniture to wall.  I spent an hour cleaning and vacuuming and vacuuming again and again, afraid there might be a piece of glass on the floor.

People started to arrive and so did the clown who was supposed to entertain the children with magic and fun. Instead, he sent them all screaming for the cover of their parents legs and arms. The only child who didn’t freak out was my son, who stood up and walked for the very first time, straight for the clown, with a huge grin on his face.  I don’t remember much else from that day, I do know that forever after we adopted the ‘age +1 rule’ for the number of guests to invite to birthday parties. Continue Reading

Peace: Ending The Mommy Wars Within

03 May
by Alison, posted in Blog   |  No Comments

A new round of debates about motherhood and feminism have been spawned by the book, “Conflict”,  by Badinter. In  The Eternal Internal Mommy Wars, Dell’Antonia describes the debates as an expression of the constant war within mothers (and now more frequently within fathers) between satisfying their own needs and those of their child.  This dichotomy is a false one and causes endless suffering. More often than not, what is good for mommy is good for baby and visa versa.   A beautiful example of this convergence was expressed by Anna Quindlen in an interview on Fresh Air , in which she spoke about her decision to stop drinking… Continue Reading

Moving At The Speed Of Now

26 Jan
by Alison, posted in Blog, fast paced, mornings   |  No Comments

“Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still.”                                   David Foster Wallace

Fast food, faster internet connections, and yes, even fast yoga.  We live in fast paced world and it is getting faster all the time. When things get stressful, it’s great to slow down and pull back, but sometimes we just can’t.  What makes moving fast so stressful?

Can we replay the video of you making sandwiches, eating breakfast, finding the lost sock, getting the kids packed in the car, loosing your keys, finding your keys under the diaper bag and running back out to the car, without the part where you hold your head in your hands about to weep and lean accidentally on the car horn? Is it possible to move that quickly without feeling like you put in a whole day by 7:30 in the morning? Continue Reading

Page 1 of 212
Close
loading...