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why you should teach your child mindfulness

Audra McDonie / Health & Wellness, Self-Help / Leave a Comment

Why should you teach your child mindfulness? If you have visited my blog before, you know that I am a huge proponent of mindfulness meditation. One of the best gifts you can give your child is to show them how to live in the moment. To accept the experiences of the mind, body, emotions, and environment without judging. By teaching them mindfulness you are furnishing them with a tool that will help them to navigate every stage of their lives.

Why teach them mindfulness?

Develops Self-regulation

According to psychologists Philip David Zelazo and Kristen E. Lyons, teaching children to be able to reflect on their experiences (mindfulness) in the moment helps them to develop self-regulation. Self-regulation means self-control of thoughts, actions and emotions.

They found in their studies that developing self-regulation in childhood has been found to predict outcomes in the children’s future. Children who have learned to regulate themselves do better in school, have better physical health, are less likely to have problems with substance dependence, have better socioeconomic status, are less likely to engage in criminal behavior, and have higher IQs. You can read their research in more detail in their article in Child Development Perspectives.

Decreases anxiety and stress

A child’s growing up years from birth through adolescence and into teen years are filled with stressful events. From learning to communicate and walk to developing relationships and trying to become independent. We all know growing up isn’t easy. Mindfulness is an enormously powerful tool to help your child deal with life stressors. Also, studies have shown that you can teach children mindfulness as early as preschool!

Helps them to manage their emotions

It has shown that when children practice mindfulness it brings them to a positive state of mind. It helps them feel better and happy because they feel in control of themselves. Studies have shown it may also help children who have aggressive behavior.

Improves attention and focus

Studies have shown it may also help children with ADHD.

Improves memory

Children spend their lives being told what to do; eat this, do this, go there. This may make them go through their day on autopilot. Mindfulness brings them back to the present moment so they can be present in their lives.

Helps with self-acceptance and self-understanding

Mindfulness brings their thoughts and feelings to the forefront. By looking at their thoughts and feeling objectively and without judgment, they experience more acceptance and understanding of themselves.

Practice What You Teach

Before you begin the process of teaching your child mindfulness it is important to learn about and try it yourself. Mindfulness is a simple concept and does not require years of practice to know what you’re doing. It would be helpful to you to know about it so you are ready to answer questions and make your child feel more comfortable with giving it a try. You can try the mindfulness exercise below and you can also check out one of my past blogs, Mindfulness Meditation-Begin Today To Change Your Life.

Fun Mindfulness Exercises to Try

For all of these exercises, begin with 5 minutes and then as your child becomes accustomed to it you can add on time slowly.

Simply Breathing

This is as easy as sitting or lying in a comfortable position with your child. Then bring your attention to your breath coming in through your nose, going to your belly, and then back out your nose or mouth. Just being aware of your breathing. As easy as that!

Nature Observer

You and your child should sit outside for this. You should get comfortable on the grass in the yard or a balcony. If you can put your bare feet on the ground all the better. Then sit and listen to the sounds you hear. Try not to talk while your listening. Tell your child they can tell you everything they heard when the five-minute timer goes off.

Heartbeat

For a minute do jumping jacks or running in place with your child. Then sit down comfortably and put your hand on your chest. Then pay attention to how your heartbeat and breathing feel.

These exercises are a great place to start. There are many other ways to practice mindfulness. You can find them online and there are also guided mindfulness apps you can use. It really doesn’t matter how you do it. It is just a matter of being in the moment.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Jon Kabat-Zinn the founder of MBSR mindfulness-based stress reduction said, “mindfulness is defined as the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experiences moment by moment.” He also said, “Be aware and accepting of whatever state the body and mind are in. Mindfulness can be practiced through; mindful eating, driving, walking or any experience in our lives.” He is an amazing mindfulness teacher. I have taken his Masterclass and it was a life changer for me and I highly recommend it.

MindUp For Life

Goldie Hawn has created an organization called MindUp For Life – The Goldie Hawn Foundation. According to MindUp.org, “MindUp infuses developmental neuroscience, mindfulness awareness practice, social-emotional awareness practice, social-emotional learning and positive psychology to foster children’s well-being and resiliency.” Studies show that children who regularly practice “brain breaks,” a mindful awareness practice are better able to regulate their emotions and they have improved mental health.

Let’s be honest, anybody with half a brain knows that our current education system and the way we teach our children need to be reevaluated. We need to come up with new ways to teach our children that take into consideration different personality types, emotional and mental health wellness. If you are an educator please check out this amazing organization. They have programs already developed for schools and families. MindUp For Life – The Goldie Hawn Foundation.

I hope that I have inspired you to teach your child mindfulness. I am very passionate about this subject because I think that it can have a positive impact on so many kids’ lives. Take care and I hope you have many happy mindful moments with your child!

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How the age old philosophy of ikigai can help you find happiness

Audra McDonie / Self-Help / Leave a Comment

Ikigai is a Japanese philosophy that means your reason for being or reason for waking up in the morning. It’s similar to the Greek eudaimonia, which says a life well lived leads to the highest and most lasting happiness. Ikigai brings meaning, purpose, and fulfillment to your life, while also contributing to the good of others. So how can we use this age-old philosophy to help us to find happiness and fulfillment?

It’s believed that everyone has an ikigai. It’s the intersection of passion, talent, and potential to help others. You can see this illustrated in the diagram below.

what you can gain by finding your ikigai

A longer life.
More happiness and peace.
An exuberance and excitement for life.
Improve others’ lives and make the world a better place.

Questions to help you find your ikigai

What activities do you love doing? Think about what you like to do in and outside of work. Also, remember hobbies, passions and things you are curious about.

What things did you love doing when you were a child or a teenager? Think about the games you played, your favorite classes in school and what jobs you dreamed of doing.

Do you have a dream project? Something that you’d like to make come true at some point in your life?

What matters to you? What kind of impact do you want to make? What kind of change would you like to see in the world?

Who or what inspires you? What makes you angry?

What are you good at? What are your strengths? Think about activities that leave you feeling great and energized. What makes you lose track of time?

Examples of personal strengths:

ambitious
creative
flexible
motivated
persistent

authentic
dedicated
honest
optimistic
responsible

caring
enthusiastic
integrity
open-minded
trustworthy

Examples of experience based strengths:

team player
motivational
great public speaker

great communicator
good listener
detail orientated

great leader
follows direction
problem-solver

What knowledge-based skills do you have? (Examples: accounting, marketing, financing, engineering, writing, music, teaching, photography, etc…

What do people ask your help for? What can you teach others?

What jobs can you do? Think about all the jobs you’ve had past and present. Think of all the skills you have.

What can you sell? Think of a product that you can create and sell. What problem would it solve and what need would it fulfill?

Finding your ikigai will take some time and reflection. Write down the answers to the above questions and then look it over and see if you can find your ikigai sweet spot.

How you know you’ve found your ikigai

You love it and are passionate about it.
You are great at it.
The world needs it.
You can get paid for it.

I believe every human being has a purpose for being on this earth. I also know it’s our birthright to have something that we love so much that we can’t wait to get out of bed so we can do it. We all deserve passion and excitement in our lives. Imagine a world where everyone was living their ikigai. I think it would be a much happier and more positive world!

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Practices to Help You Become More Resilient

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Resilient people face life head-on. They don’t fall into despair or use unhealthy coping strategies to get through the hard times in their lives. They experience the same grief, stress, and anxiety as other people, but they have a way of letting the things they go through make them stronger instead of defeating them

We all have our fair share of resilience, if we didn’t we’d spend our lives at home in bed under the covers. That being said, I still think most of us could benefit from learning how to be more resilient. According to the Center on Developing Children at Harvard University, the capabilities that are needed for resilience can be strengthened at any age. So lucky for us, it’s never too late to develop more resiliency!

qualities of a person with well developed resiliency

Feel in control, which allows them to make changes and prosper in their life.
Have a survivor mentality: They believe they’re strong, and that they’ll make it through anything that comes their way.
Manage their emotions when in a stressful situation.
Look at problems rationally and come up with solutions.
Realize that adversity and negative emotions won’t last forever, so when bad things happen they are more optimistic.
Give themselves self-compassion and acceptance.
Have a mental reservoir of strength to draw on in hard times.
Have healthy coping habits. They don’t try to escape their problems.

I don’t know about you, but it would be helpful to me to develop more of the above qualities. So what can we do to become more resilient?

practices to Help You become more resilient:

Learn to Reframe Negative Thoughts

One way to do this is to focus on a small thing that you can take action on. Even if a situation is really bad, you can still find things within your control to improve.

Also, try to look at challenges or problems in your life in a positive light. Tell yourself that the problems are here to make you stronger and to help you learn new ways of doing things.

Change your self-talk

Your inner voice can make experiences better or worse. If it’s positive, you feel less stressed and things work out easier. If your self-talk tends to be negative, things seem more difficult and you feel more stressed.

How do we change our inner dialogue from negative to positive?

Write down whenever you catch yourself thinking negatively.

Try thought stopping – when you notice a negative thought, stop it mid-stream and say to yourself “stop.” Saying it aloud is even better because you’ll notice your thoughts more.

Do the rubber band snap – Put a rubber band around your wrist. When you notice negative self-talk pull the band back and let it snap on your wrist. The sting of the rubber band will make you more aware of your negative thoughts and help in stopping them.

Replace negative thoughts with milder or more positive ones. Ex: Negative thought:” I can’t believe I did that. I’m so stupid.” Milder version: “I made a mistake. I don’t have to be perfect and I will learn from my mistake.”

Build resiliency on a daily basis

You are what you repeatedly do. Resiliency is built through decisions and actions that you make and do daily. Small challenges dealt with and overcome in a healthy way are excellent practice for when larger adversity comes your way. You will have developed the tools and thought processes needed to handle even the most difficult situations. Remember, how you handle the minor moments is how you will handle the big moments.

Find your purpose

One of my favorite books is Victor Frankel’s “Man’s Search For Meaning.” This amazing quote is from it, “everything can be taken from a man, but one thing: the last of his human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances. To choose one’s way.” Research has shown that people with a stronger sense of purpose have more resilience, are more at peace and they also have better brain function. Having a purpose in life protects the brain against the negative side effects of stress. For help in finding your purpose, you can read my blog Find Your True Purpose Now.

Stay in the moment

Focus on the present moment. Most of our inner turmoil comes from thinking about the past or projecting what is to come in the future. The only time that actually exists is this moment right now. So be in it, do the next best thing in this moment and you will find a peace you didn’t know existed. For help in practicing mindfulness, you can read my blog Mindfulness Meditation – Begin Today To Change Your Life.

I think that resiliency is one of the most important tools we have in this life to get through it in a whole and healthy way. I hope that this blog helps you to become more resilient. Remember, “it’s your reaction to adversity, not adversity itself that determines how you life’s story will develop.” Dieter F. Uchtdord.

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how to never be bored

Audra McDonie / Self-Help / Leave a Comment

I don’t get bored very often. I am intrigued by the world around me. There are so many things that I find interesting, places I want to travel, and things I want to experience. As Henry Miller said so eloquently, “develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music – the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls, and interesting people. Forget yourself.”

My grandmother used to say you have to have “joi de vivre” or “a love of life.” This is the feeling you have when you’re doing something that brings you great enjoyment. Many times this joi de vivre gives us joy because it allows us to escape ourselves; by helping someone else, creating something or by having fun.

I believe it’s extremely important for every one of us to find things in life that make us happy to be alive. Things that make us want to jump out of bed because we can’t wait to get to them. I hope that this blog will give you more joi de vivre!

Learn to Moodle

This idea comes from writer Brenda Ueland. She thinks that our imaginations need moodling, which she defines as” long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering” to flourish. During this time she says to do some “personal sleuthing” to find out what brings you pleasure. Think about the things you enjoyed in your past, but set aside because life got in the way. Did you like spending Sunday afternoons meandering through art galleries or museums? Did you used to paint or write poetry? Volunteer at a hospital? Moodling allows you to take the time to get to know who you are and what gets you excited about life. It’s impossible to be excited about something and bored at the same time!

do some research

There’s so much to do and experience in the world. You’d be surprised at how many fun things there are to do and ways there are to give back in your own town. It’s easy to get tunnel vision sometimes and never really venture past our tried and true daily experiences. There’s a whole world out there. Why not go on a fact-finding mission to see what looks interesting and excites you? Then go out and try new things, because you never know where your joi de vivre will come from, and at the very least it will keep you from being bored!

be less selfish

In Richard Winter’s book, Still Bored in A Culture of Entertainment, he makes a case that boredom and selfishness are related. “One of the reasons why boredom has become so much more common is because we have become preoccupied with looking after ourselves, making sure our needs are met, and to put it bluntly, we have become too selfish.”

Let’s face it, we’re all selfish. It is part of the human condition. It’s important to realize that selfishness is a part of who we are, so we can work on overcoming it. Selfishness is a major contributor to boredom and unhappiness. A preoccupation with ourselves and our problems is never going to be conducive to bringing us more joi de vivre. So in light of this fact, here are some things you can do to become less selfish and I promise less bored too!

Listen attentively to people – Attentively meaning; eye contact and nodding. Ask them questions and show them that you’re interested.
Give sincere compliments – Not just about someone’s looks, but something that you admire or respect about them as a person.
Clean up after yourself and help others.
Take the focus off yourself and on to someone else.
Put your phone aside when there are other people around.
Give blood.
Make plans with someone you care about.
Tell a joke and make people laugh.
Be empathetic when you know someone is going through a bad time.

As Ferris Bueller said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.” I hope this blog inspires you to take a look around and get outside yourself and your usual limits. There are so many amazing and beautiful things in this world that there is absolutely no time to be bored. However, there is plenty of time to nurture and develop more joi de vivre!

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Acceptance is the road to change

Audra McDonie / Self-Help / Leave a Comment

Accept How You feel

Why has it been drilled into our heads since birth that we should strive to be happy all the time? Happiness seems like a fickle master to me. There’s so much information out there on how to live a happier life. I’ve written a blog or two on the subject myself. Maybe happiness isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. What if when we’re unhappy we accepted and embraced it, instead of fighting it and feeling bad that we’re not happy?

As human beings, we’re going to experience all kinds of emotions. The chemicals in our bodies reacting to the environment make us feel sad, excited, scared, lonely, afraid, and a myriad of other emotions that are not happy.

Emotions are normal and they change a lot, just like the weather. We don’t feel bad when bad weather rolls in, instead, we accept it and wait for it to pass. Our emotions change faster than the weather and the majority of the time happiness is not in the forecast. So let’s take ourselves off the hook and accept whatever emotion might pass through us at any given time.

Instead of suppressing how we feel, let’s notice and observe the emotions instead. We need to stop beating ourselves up for having negative feelings. By facing our negative emotions and not judging ourselves, we can see ourselves clearly and not as we want to be. To make the life we want, we must accept what and where we are!

Accept Who You Are

Below is an amazing quote about accepting who we are and not caring what other people think of us:

“We are going to cross paths with people that just don’t understand us. That’s just a part of life.

Stop worrying about what other people think of you and focus on yourself instead.

Focus on what makes you happy, focus on what makes your soul at peace.

You are the biggest commitment, so start loving your flaws, your awkwardness, your weirdness, your intensity and your vulnerability.

Life becomes so much more fulfilling when you are just simply yourself.

The world keeps spinning whether people understand you or not, so why not make this next trip around the sun about you.”
The Mind Journal – Unknown

acceptance is the road to change

Acceptance doesn’t mean giving up and it doesn’t mean approving of something we don’t like. It also doesn’t mean we’ve failed or surrendered, and that we’re still not working for change. Acceptance only means that we’re aware that things are what they are.

When we make the decision to accept a person, place or thing we’re taking the first step to making a change when it’s possible and to finding peace when change isn’t possible. It also allows us to accept life as it is, not what we wish it was, or want it to be, and not what we think it should be.

It doesn’t mean we’re giving up. Actually, it takes a lot of effort to accept the things we cannot change and change the things we can. It also takes a lot of wisdom to discern between the two.

Surprisingly, pain doesn’t cause suffering, but resistance to pain does. We suffer when we want reality to be different than it is. One beautiful way to stop this resistance is to practice Amor Fati, which means loving fate. Not just accepting, but absolutely loving what is! It asks us to stop wishing for different outcomes and to stop the what-ifs and if onlys. Accepting the things we cannot change and embracing them!

I hope this blog was as enlightening to you as it was to me. I found that acceptance is a very powerful tool for self-discovery and peace. I have spent a lot of time wishing for different outcomes and getting caught up in the what-ifs and if-onlys. I see what a waste of time this is and I also see how it causes me undue suffering. I’m going to make every effort to practice Amor Fati and accept and embrace my destiny. I hope that I have inspired you to do the same!

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8 Fun Ways to Feng Shui

Audra McDonie / Self-Help / Leave a Comment

What is Feng Shui?

It was originally practiced in China and its roots stem from early Taoism. Taoists believe in chi or the life force that is in every yin and yang element. They believe by balancing yin and yang, you can improve the flow of positive chi in your life and keep the negative chi away.

Feng shui is a method for balancing yin and yang. The flow of chi can be improved by the placement of furniture and decorations in your home. Many people believe that arranging things to create positive chi will guarantee good health, improve interpersonal relationships, and bring luck and prosperity.

I hope by reading this blog you will learn how to incorporate some Feng Shui ideas into your home or office. My hope is that it will bring lots more positive chi into your life!

8 Ways To Feng Shui

Declutter: This is very important for Feng Shui. Clutter around your home takes up valuable space. For new positive energy (chi) to enter your home, you need to make space for the new energy.

Slow Down the Energy Flow: When there is a direct line of sight between the front door and the back door the energy goes through the house too fast. You need to slow down the energy flow by putting a patterned run in your entryway, artwork on the walls, or adding a round entry table.

Balance the Five Elements: The five elements are earth, wood, fire, water, and metal. Your home should contain colors and objects that strike a balance of all five elements.

Adding colors that represent the elements is one way to balance the five elements: Black=Water, Green=Wood, Red=Fire, Yellow, Tan or Brown=Earth, White=Metal

In addition to adding colors that represent the elements, here are some other ways to incorporate the elements into your home:

Water Element: A water feature, items that are curved, peaceful images of water.

Wood Element: Real plants. Jade or bamboo plants are great choices.

Fire Element: Candles, triangles, and heart-shaped objects.

Earth Element: Rocks and crystals.

Metal Element: Mirrors, shiny objects, decorative bowls, statues, or small sculptures.

Now that you are aware of what represents the different elements take a look around your home. Does it look like the five elements are balanced? If not maybe you can add or delete items to make it more balanced.

Close the Lid On Your Toilet: In Feng Shui, it is believed that this is the biggest drain of energy in a home. So before you flush, close the lid.

Want More Opportunities? Add a red flowering plant or some red accent colors on or around your front door. Red (fire element) attracts energy, fortune, and luck.

Use Your Front Door: Many people enter and exit through their garage. If you do this, try using your front door more. Open and close it when you go to get the mail or take your dog out. This is how chi enters your home.

Do a Space Clearing: This clears the energetic space. Diffuse orange essential oil or visualize bright white sunlight filling and cleansing your whole home. When you space clear your home visualize a positive intention, which is something you want to cultivate and create in your life.

Offer Gratitude: Thank your home. Feng Shui is a Shamanic tradition that believes everything is alive, including our spaces.

I know that having good positive energy around us is very important for our physical and mental health. Feng Shui gives us a way to bring this good energy into our homes and our lives. I hope that you learned about some Feng Shui methods that you will want to try and I hope that they bring you lots of amazing energy, fortune, and luck!

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