5 steps to building on Self Awareness (as the first step towards mindful living)

It's becoming pretty mainstream to practice some form of mindfulness nowadays. Even within our schools, meditation or focus time are replacing the traditional standards of detention or lines in some states and provinces. There is a growing understanding that mindfulness and calm create better mental health and prepares our children to deal with the chaos and turmoil our world can often offer.

But how do we create a solid foundation in mindfulness for our children... not just the action of it?

I mean, it's a wonderful step in the right direction to get children to sit quietly and listen to a guided meditation, or to focus on their breathing but how do we build the awareness for each child so they can appreciate the actual purpose for doing so?

It's a bit like teaching a child how to do math, but not actually helping them understand the reason why they need it or when to apply it within life.

It could also be seen as the philosophy of giving a child a fish to feed them for a day... giving them calm for a moment so their day is successful.

When we have the ability to teach them how to fish and feed them for a lifetime. Our children can be the generation to use mindfulness and conscious living as daily and lifetime tools for happiness.

I can feel you call me an idealist, but honestly, I feel there's one small shift in how we present mindfulness that will make all the difference.

We just need to pass on Self Awareness first.

Self-awareness gives us the navigation skills to sense when we need meditation, when we need positive focus when we could do with quiet or when we would be best to dance out our stresses. Self-awareness works alongside mindfulness to create presence and conscious living, allowing ourselves to sense when we are starting to get stressed or upset by observing rather than reacting.

Imagine when you were a child having the tools to sense when you could do with some quiet time rather than being “told” you need it. Imagine feeling that stress within you to the point of exploding and being able to find your breath and shift to feeling better. How would that have prepared you for the rest of your life?

Sure, maybe I'm an idealist sometimes. We all have off days and we can all jump off the awareness train when life get's busy. But I called this business Spiritual Aware Parenting for the reason that even when we're off, even when we're stressed, even when we aren't thriving, we're aware of the fact that mindfulness can be a tool to help us get back on. We're aware of our own offness when we practice Self Awareness and self knowledge for a little while, which makes hoping back On all the easier.

So, what does that mean? How do we pass on Self Awareness to our children as a foundation for mindful living.

1. Practice it yourself. Example is key within Spiritual/peaceful parenting. Verbally say you are going to get quiet to “feel more like yourself” when you start to get stressed. Journal, create energy focuses with music, find your joy and follow your bliss. Become aware of Who You Are and How to Step into Your Light.

2. Talk about emotions and preferences. Ask for your child's opinions and listen to them.
   Opinions and preferences are extensions of perspectives and perspectives are extensions of self expression, which comes from self-awareness.
3. Open up to a range of experiences and discuss how they feel. Go on nature walks and simply Be. Watch calming movies/shows after watching something faster or louder. Do something that makes you feel excited or exhilarated and compare it to cuddling together reading a book. Contrast builds awareness to how we feel and what we resonate with.
4. Create and explore curiosity. It's easy to brush aside a child's questions during the day, but breaking rhythms and exploring with them opens life up and allows you both to grow and learn.
5. Quiet bedtimes. Consider bringing bedtime 30- 45 minutes forward so you can create it as mindfulness time without calling it that. Make it your own time for presence as well as your child's. Let the energy of the house shift, slowing down and unwinding from the day. Read happy stories and listen to your child's. Allow the energy and peace flow through your home moment by moment and watch as your child adapts to it, becoming aware of how things change in feeling and how it affects them.

Self/Spiritual awareness is about presenting opportunities to feel, observe ourselves, and experience life.

It's about Aha moments. :) It's about thriving rather than surviving.

I'm so passionate about passing on self/spiritual awareness to children (Some people ask why I put self and spirit together... the reason is simply this. We are all Spiritual Beings having a physical experience, not the other way around. Therefore, true self awareness is spiritual awareness.)

That's why there's a whole section dedicated to Self Awareness within my Spiritual Kids course.. to help lay the foundation. Then there's the emotional awareness section as well, which creates a deeper foundation to our children knowing Who They Really Are, and that's not even counting the meditation section. I created the course so Spiritual awareness could be created in layers, step by step... for you as well as your child.

(I actually have had a lot of parents tell me that they've enjoyed the content just as much as their children have. We can all be Spiritual Kids.)

Spiritual Kids is available from the website and there's a special promo on at the moment as well, where if you enroll in Spiritual Kids you also get the mini course “Go from Too Busy to Play to Connection with Your Children.” which is a 7 day e-course delivered to your inbox with exercises and videos to help you be more present with your children even with a long to-do list.

A Simple Tool for Self Care and Being Present.

I want to tell you about a little process I call the Octopus Effect.

See, we're all incredibly busy. As parents, we are systematically known for feeling scattered and overwhelmed. We run about, like toddlers, often after toddlers, focusing on as many things as we possibly can for as little time as possible. We literally feel like headless chicken and then we feel guilty for not dropping into the zone of connecting with our children... or guilty for not having any self care time.
 I have a new little mini course for you over on the website and it's actually only $17 for 7 days of fantastic content and daily little lessons in how to Go From Too Busy to Connection.
The course is all about releasing the guilt that often weighs us down when we feel too busy to have time with our kids and truly connect with them, it then helps you find the clarity to find balance instead.

One of these exercises is the Octopus effect.

I used to identify this scatteredness with the feeling of having lots of tabs open on an internet browser. We try to focus on one, but we just can't. So we have to train our minds to close the tabs.

And then, I figured out the Octopus Effect. 

Imagine an octopus, with its tentacles spread out in all directions.

Now, imagine that each of those tentacles is a thing on your to-do list, they are scattered, varied and all over the place.

Imagine when you feel scattered and all over the place you are focused within the tentacles, scattered in all directions. You try to focus on one, but then feel guilty for the lack of attention to the other ones.

You try to move all tentacles at once and life goes haywire.

Now imagine shifting focus to the core body in the centre of your octopus. Withdraw the arms, knowing that by putting energy within that core and creating stability, the flow of life will take care of all the other parts of the whole.

This is what its all about. We can all spend too much time chasing our own tails, running for tentacle to tentacle, task to task.

But when we draw that energy within, and focus within that core, then we feel relief from the chaos and can find ourselves again... so that we can radiate out through all those tentacles, fully and aligned.

Isn't it exciting? To know that some simple self care techniques can have the incredible ripple effect of bringing ourselves back in the moment and withdraw from the scatteredness of day to day life?

Now, the next step of the exercise is to allow a word for that core to flow to you. Withdraw your tentacles, breathe deep and listen. Give yourself a moment to hear that specific word that signifies that core of your inner “octopus”.

Got it?

Awesome.

This word may surprise you. Mine was “stillness”, which was less exciting or energizing than I thought I'd find. But still when I tried it on, it really was exactly what I needed to hear.

Now, when you have that word, try breathing deeply and focusing on the word. You can even let the word flow out on your breath, letting it really resonate within you.

This simple tool can be pulled out whenever you feel overwhelmed or stressed. By using the image of the octopus you have a reference point for your own focus.

Within the day, you can ask, are you focusing from the outer ring, from the tips of your tentacles and scattering that energy... or are your resonating from within your core; centred within yourself?

This little exercise really reminds you how important a bit of self awareness and self care is. It's more than a to-do list item. Self Care can't be one of those tentacles. Rather, it has to be the focus of the core, so that the rest gets done. Self care is an inside job. It's a focus and intentional job and once we practice it, well then, woosh, everything else just gets done in a flow.

I am really passionate about helping you find ways of fueling that core self. I believe that in this time, when routines and patterns are thrown in the air, you can consciously put your mind on, well your mind and allow stillness to enter within.

I really encourage you to visit the course page and check out the new mini course, it's a wonderful way to start the autumn and set new patterns up before the winter months.

Teaching Our Children to Love and Live in a Time of Fear.

A few days ago we woke up to a scared nation.

Even if I don’t live in America, I could feel the panic, the fear and the shock ripple through social media and worldwide. Through my groups and clients, I felt that fear in parents come in two focuses.

How do we protect our children from being victims of hate; sure that was definitely there. But mostly, the fear was in asking how to pass on to our children that it’s not ok to hate. How do we pass on love and tolerance, acceptance and compassion, when it looks like intolerance is tipping the scales and that’s what our children are around?

I see it in my own son’s eyes sometimes lately. He’s been around a lot of talk and then after election night, he was hearing stories of people’s worries and fears. He doesn’t say anything, occasionally takes part in a conversation, but you can tell there’s an uncertainty there and I wish he wasn’t hearing so much. (A teenage sister who is homeschooling and is fascinated by politics... it’s going to happen.) He hates violence or seeing any signs of aggression or nastiness.  I think this is more common with children now. Children around the world are sensing a shift and they don’t want the aggression. It’s not just America that is being given these extreme choices of love versus fear. Children across the world are witnessing polar perspectives. They might slowly become desensitised to it, but if kept aware of how they feel, they can sense that they want to feel more joy than anger. That the pursuit of happiness is an instinctual motivation.

So, how do we prepare our children and pass on tools of love and compassion? How do we offer them the space to feel Off, to feel upset or angry, without worrying that they will grow up intolerant? How do we offer them the space to get to know themselves and also attune ourselves to our own sense of love, so that we can radiate what we want... not what we are scared of.

Because remember, we attract one of three things; What We Love. What We Hate. And What We Fear.

So, where does that leave us with our children, in a time ripe with fear?

Take a step back. Breathe and note that the sun is shining, the birds are singing and yup... it’s that time of year... here in Nova Scotia snow is forecast.

Are you breathing deeply? Are your children playing?

Grab a cup of coffee and appreciate something.  There it is. A sigh, a release and a shift from holding up what we fear.

Now, listen to me gently.

You have no control over what your child grows up to experience. You can only offer them tools of awareness; awareness to how they feel, awareness to how other people feel, awareness to a sense of feeling like themselves and an awareness to getting caught up in a crowd.

Because let’s face it; fear loves a group. Fear loves to spread and get people talking.

Love is sown well in quiet, in that peace which is created within, when you shift perspective to a Whole Sense of Self.

And what is sown, we radiate. What we radiate, we attract more of. It’s law.

So, then it also comes down to us. To our example and our experience. If we are filled with worry and fear, then it’s not our children who reap from that. We are the ones holding up that fear... it is our experience in the process of creation. We are filling our home with a vibration, which our children pick up on and in that process mirror. Like seeds scattered, some take root.

Therefore, to answer the question on how to help our children through this time of fear?

I say, radiate love and talk often of wellbeing with your children.

Show love and compassion to those who need it.

Offer tools for emotional and spiritual awareness to your children.

And trust wellbeing. Trust that life expands and grows, that the positive always balances the negative.

There are so many ways to offer tools of awareness to our children. Let the question sit with you. Instinctually you will be told what your child needs. If you find centre within yourself, you will feel what way to go. If it helps,  I am offering a video Series in Raising Mindful Children next week. It has three FREE videos with exercises, tips on creating space for mindful living and a free gift. You can sign up here. I’m really excited how it’s coming together.

And (drum roll) as of November 21^st The E-Course,, Spiritual Kids; building foundations for a spiritually aware family will be on sale . The course is 6 parts filled with crafts, activities, stories and exercises for your children as well as videos and meditations for you so that spirit can flood your home and create easy opportunities to become more spiritually aware. I suggest signing up to the newsletter or joining the Facebook group to make sure you hear about the release. 

I am so excited to be able to help you pass on spiritual tools to your children. Because we can turn this time around. Rather than seeing it as dark we can choose to radiate the light. Rather than feeling like it is a heavy time and filling our heads with what others tell us, we can step up, show up and make love happen.  It’s the perfect time as our children are experiencing a true extreme to the spiritual love they FEEL is the true way of living. I hope that we can shift the tide and create a time of pure love together.

How to live in a positive space after an election.

I don’t talk politics. Hey, I usually live somewhere between a chaos of family living, running a business and finding connection time with my Spiritual Source. Worldly events, baffle me and... let’s face it drag me down. We can all get caught up in Facebook land, and complaining and gossiping... but at the end of the day we can usually refocus on what’s around us.

Today, may not be one of those days. Today, the world watches the aftermath of yesterday’s elections and if we’re not mindful, we could talk about it, be scared of it, complain about it, natter about it, turn on our neighbors about it, be in disbelief about it and create monsters, demons and horrors in our imaginations and conversations. We have to take a step back.

Imagine your thoughts... your personal focus, as a beam of light. That light is altered by your focus.

Now, imagine if you and many like you focused on creating a joyful focus; a focus on love, healing and blessings.

It feels like we should be focused on what’s going on in the world today, right?

But there’s nothing that can be done at this moment. WE can’t do anything... we can only fuel fear and upset with our focus.

Or we can re-focus, ground, centre and radiate Who We Each Really Are; mainly Love.

Play with your children today. Go out for ice-cream. Today, more than ever it is important to radiate wellbeing. Maybe I’ll make some brownies and watch a funny family movie. We give power with our focus... I think it’s time the power went to Love, don’t you?

It’s a habit, an addiction to friction and, maybe, just maybe, this whole event has happened so we can heal ourselves and take how we feel back to our own focus.

It’s for our children, you know. They are currently surrounded by panic. 3 year olds are talking about the names Trump and Clinton. It might sound cute, but they are also aware of our energy we are radiating in stress. So, we need to pass onto them the clear message;

We are each in charge of our focus, our feelings and our moments. Wellbeing is flowing and we are taken care of. We allow love to flow when we are radiating love.

Let’s join together in love today and all this week. Meet me over at the group and let’s talk silliness. Bring your favorite story, show a photo of your crystal collection or beautiful yard. Let’s share what brings us joy.

Love and light to you dear one.

(Feel free to forward this email on to anyone you wish or share this post on Facebook. We need to spread the love.)

Love always,

Christina