How to practice self-care, when everyone is home.
How to practice self-care, when everyone is home.
“I can’t do this anymore… even sneaking away to the bathroom isn’t working anymore”
“I love my kids dearly, but I just need to be away from them”
“I need more than 10 mins on my own… I need a full week away”
Sound familiar?
We have now been living with a pandemic for a year and this latest lockdown is the equivalent of the 20 mile mark of a marathon… i.e. hitting the wall.
If you want to get scientific, during a marathon “hitting the wall” happens when a runner’s glycogen (i.e. his or her stored energy) in the muscles is depleted. This forces the runner to slow right down, sometimes even to a walk, if not to a complete halt.
I think there has never been a time when so many non-running people have perfectly empathised and understood the concept of hitting the wall.
So what can you do when you desperately need time for yourself, but you just can’t get away from your house and everyone inside?
You take time for yourself… together.
Seems counterintuitive right?
But the reality is that when you close your eyes during a meditation you go inwards, so does it really matter whether your kids are next to you or the house is a mess?
If you are thinking, “but I read that to meditate I need to set up a clean tidy area where I am not going to be distubed, so then I can’t do it”… please don’t let this stop you.
Yes this would be great in an IDEAL scenario, just like it would be ideal if cake didn’t have calories.
We are past ideals or perfect scenarios, we need to work with what we have. And if that means inviting your kids to meditate with you for 5 or 10 minutes, then that’s where you start.
My hubby used to get annoyed when our then 4yo sat next to him near the end of his morning meditations.
We spoke about it and I said why don’t you reframe that?
Imagine all the love he is feeling for you in that moment and take that love into your meditation.
Feel grateful that he is there with you, feel the love he has for you and the love you have for him.
After that conversation, he tried it and said it was such a beautiful end to his meditation that he looked forward to our little one joining him more often.
We are all tired, we all want things to go back to some sort of normality or at least be able to see family and friends.
But for now, we are in THIS moment.
And our anger, frustration or annoyance at why can’t things be different, won’t change the NOW… but it’s highly likely to continue to add more stress hormones to our already tired bodies.
The good news is that at each moment, you get to choose. I choose to take time to myself and if that means doing it with my son, that is also ok.
Recent Blogs
