Turning January Blahs into Joys.

So, how is your family recovering from the holidays?

There is something I’ve always loved about January... the openness, the newness, the space to launch into anything...

And then I had kids and I was introduced to January blahs.

Have you ever noticed how in October everyone is excited about Halloween and then it turns to November and Christmas whisperings start.. it builds and builds... feeling like a cross between excitement and absolutely overwhelm. Finally, it ends with hysteria. I’ve always done my best to keep it calm and cool, but now that everyone is older they are on their own path. Christmas morning comes, I focus on keeping it chill, but everyone has their own processes, their own anticipation and then suddenly after all the build up... it’s done.

I watched my children eek out the holiday spirit through until New Years. We played, they goofed about and we had some amazing family time. Ours is a “downtime” themed holiday... soaking up the music, food and card game vibe.

But life proceeds... and now it’s back into our happy day to day life. No matter how long you keep the tree up, the energy shifts and suddenly, it just... well, I guess it just feels like January. I start pulling out my agenda, and my Leonie Dawson workbooks, I start feeling my way to the new path of 2017.

But everyone under 14 has a bit of a gap. With nothing “to look forward to.” There's some mood swings, some upset over little issues... really a sense of overwhelmed.

Ugh, my husband and I sigh with the whole thing. Culturally children have been told for three months of the year that there is happiness around the corner. 

But really, we all know that happiness is in the day.

Don’t get me wrong, my kids know this too. In fact, one of the things they all noticed during holidays was how the happiness was in the lightness and moment to moment play of each day. The prep had been empty promises, as the gifts and celebration had been hoopla for 15 minutes, it was the after play that really rung out in joy.

But January whispers to them otherwise. Although my boy loved his blocks and toys, and played with them during the week, now they sit on the shelf as he approaches each day with an energy of “now what?”

Outside is cold and stormy, there’s a restlessness progressing and each day he goes to sleep asking “what’s happening tomorrow?”

When a child is 2-3 they know the happiness of the moment, and anything outside of that is overwhelming. They welcome the end to celebrations and big deals. 

But, like our older children, we can also fall for the premise of happiness having to be found and built upon, can’t we? When do we learn to drop in the joy of the day like our babies? Do we pass the restlessness on to them? Do they learn it from us? Is our children’s restlessness a mirror of our own?

It is time to refocus. It is January after all, right? It is time to breathe in the moment and release the anticipation for a greater tomorrow. Let’s embrace a fantastic today.

This is why I extended my New Year sale on the Spiritual Kids course. (this is the last sale I'll be having in a while, everyone I work with keeps having a fit how cheap I offer it.) I think shifting the focus to creating spiritual foundation in our homes is the perfect solution to January blahs. It shifts it from “what is happening tomorrow?” to “What are we being today?” It turns our child’s focus from “What are others doing for me?” to “What can I create for myself?”

When we offer our children tools to find out what makes themselves jive, when we draw their attention to their emotions and their focus through activities and crafts, we help them feel their way to their inner truths, with fun and lightness. And in that vibration, we attune ourselves. They get to show up as themselves, their own individual essences, rather than the “child” who is waiting for the next holiday. Rather than a role, they can shine as themselves.

Roles follow us all and it’s time to break free of them.

Passing on spirituality has made me have to set aside my own sense of roles. I’ve had to show up as myself so I can encourage my kids to do the same.

It’s a wonderful circle pathway to embark on.

Life is fun; each day a seed to grow into a joyful experience. Each moment, we can choose our focus and we don’t need holidays, or events or even outings to create happiness in our lives.

Living in the present is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.

There was a great quote from Abraham Hicks the other day... it talked about cutting out the word "achieve" and "earn"... and replace with "allow".

We need to stop working towards happiness and allow it to be in the moment instead.

And now, I have to slip downstairs to help my son ice a cake we just made together.

Cake is always an extra bonus to a happy day.

Tools for a Spiritually Aware Family

I remember when I was pregnant for the first time I had this overwhelming feeling of wanting to offer my daughter the tools to shine as herself. Even though I was quite young, through my wanderings and studies I had scraped the surface of spirituality, energy, the law of attraction and following bliss. I was experimenting with listening to intuition and trusting my relationship to divine source. Suddenly, I on to my child and I felt like I had nine months to figure out how to bring that to life for her.

wanted to pass tools of awareness

I’ve learnt a lot since then. I soon realised my daughter was spirit, and knew how spirit worked. I soon found that fun and play was the language of the soul and the journey of being a parent was a continuation of my own spiritual path, not a destination which I needed to prepare for.

However, as our daughters grew, by the time they were 3-4,  I had the pull to start sharing spirituality with them. They asked questions which needed metaphysical answers, I saw the opening for them to become aware of their emotions as messages from their spirit, and I knew that they needed to know how to radiate at the energy of what they wanted rather than focusing on what they don’t want. (It stopped whining so quickly!) Therefore, I started to piece together stories and activities to offer them tools for a happy life, to weave together a foundation of spiritual awareness for our family.

I was talking about teamwork with our youngest the other day, and our eldest daughter started talking about “the idea of the family as an orchestra, parents as a conductor” and how they had learnt about consideration and what feels good. I had to laugh at hearing words coming back to me, words and concepts that have been taken to heart by my children and philosophies that they are using day after day. I am so proud at how my children see spiritual concepts as every day, purposefully meditating before schoolwork and consciously choosing tv shows that resonate with what they want to feel.

I sigh in relief that my children know themselves and can find ways to tune into that when life gets too much.

But over the years, as my business as a parent coach and author has developed, that desire is more and more prevalent. Over this past month as the world has taken some strange dips and turns, parents are asking for this more and more.

We all want our children to be able to shine as Who They Really Are, to trust their heart and to know how to feel their way to their own deeper bliss. We want them to feel strong in their own individual journeys, not victims to what they think others think about them and not swaying in their own sense of self to please someone else. It is a powerful time for our children to shine, as themselves.

Perhaps that’s why it felt like the perfect time to finally put my first e-course together.

Spiritual Kids; building foundations for a spiritually aware family, comes out this Monday. The course is designed to empower you as a parent to shine as yourself, and offers you tools to offer your children through crafts, activities, and experiences. They get the games and fun, absorbing information about spirit, meditation, emotions and the law of attraction,  while you get to watch the video lessons and guided meditations. It is a combination that creates an organically rooted spiritual and emotional awareness in your home and family.

Feel free to check out the video below to get a greater sense of what I’m talking about.

But also make sure you check out the website to learn more. Once the course goes on sale it will be up for a promotional price for the first 50 courses sold (which includes lifetime access and a private facebook group) so, keep posted for sure! I can’t wait to share this information with you.

November Stresses and Preparations

And November is here.

There’s something suspended about November. Something that feels hesitant and expectant. I don’t know about you, but there’s always part of me that feels like I should be doing something, but I’m unclear what that is. And it’s always worse for my children.

I just sat down with my daughters with the homeschooling “What do we need to do before the end of the year?” conversation. Personally, I like knowing my end of year goal, it creates focus and intention. My eldest, well she wasn’t exactly happy about it. She’d rather have a further goal... say Spring. Knowing where she is headed with a little more distance creates more clarity.

I think that’s because, although the end of the year feels like a strong intention, it’s always interrupted with the big issue of Holidays. Winter holidays always seem to create a gray area, and for many that gray area starts in November.

What is it about a certain period of time that suggests we need to get certain things done by certain dates? Why do we add to-do lists to our already busy days and feel pressure to meet certain traditional criteria for things like Thanksgiving or Christmas? What’s even more baffling is the idea of tradition to pass it on to our children. We want to create good holiday memories for them, or at least we feel like we “should”. However, looking back at our own holiday memories growing up, they are often ripe with stress and everyone running around like headless chickens. It was after it was all done, the peace that followed the storm, that we smile back at.

There’s a lot of stress that comes at this time of year... and probably more stress and anxiety this year, as for many the holidays are following what may be one of the more stressful weeks in current American History. This week is election week, which seems to bombard our newsfeeds and conversations alike, and once the dust has slightly settled, American Thanksgiving will be picking up speed. Of course, 4 weeks after that we’re looking at Christmas, Winter Solstice, Hanukah, and other celebrations... only to collapse into a New Year relief.

It’s not just us who can feel the stress build up. Our children sense it in the air. They sense anticipation for something that is supposed to be exciting. They sense it in the fear over political events and they sense it within us, as our schedules build up and we start to feel pressure from unclear things. It’s important to create a strong foundation for our family. One founded in love not fear, and also founded in the present moment, not in future events. Life is each moment of our lives. That is what our children remember and that is what gives them the tools to create a happy life for themselves.

This month I have a lot to offer you and I hope that they will help you create a seamless blend of foundational tools for you and for your children as well as offer you the opportunity to start laying the groundwork for incredible Intentions for 2017.

First, last year’s audio course is back to being available until November 21^st. Then it will be locked back into the vault until next year. You can find it here.

Secondly, I am offering you a free 3 part video course next week on Passing Spiritual Tools onto our Children. I thought it would be fun to share with you some simple tips and tools on passing some awareness and clarity on to your children, now when it can be such a muddled and mixed feeling kind of time.  You can sign up here!

Sacred Tree Recordings will be releasing some guided meditations of mine over the next couple of days. They produced the Mp3s for Spiritual Kids, and have created Theta Music to accompany them. It's a very exciting project and one to help you find groundedness, clarity and re-alignment.

Hmm. It might be a good time to sign up to the newsletter... because this month there's a lot to keep track of.

 Lastly, today marks the start of the empowerment summit over at Heather Devore’s place. It’s free and you can grab your spot here... and still be in time for my awesome interview on Friday (as well as my gift!)

Yeah, like I was saying... there's just something about November that makes you feel like doing something.