Wonderings: A hopeful – and hopefully helpful blog for families and caregivers

Searching for a Quiet Mind…

Happy New Year!
This year I hope to write a monthly blog. We’ll see how it goes. Please feel free to leave comments.

This will be a hard month for many of us as we transition to a very conservative government.
This month I am writing about quieting the mind, a practice that can help all of us deal with the difficult path ahead.

For parents quieting the mind is a particularly a difficult thing to do. We are always thinking about where our children are, what to do with and for them, how our relationships with friends and loved ones are going and all the mundane tasks of daily life. And now we add what the future will hold for our children under the incoming administration.

Quieting the mind is not easy. But it is necessary. We can feel calm – even good – after we have had a few moments of quiet to ourselves – a few moments where we let go of being on call, worrying, planning or figuring out what to do for our families or jobs, and everyone else.

Quieting our mind can give us the focus we need to be able to tackle what comes our way without feeling overwhelmed.

Parents are bombarded by so many voices on social media, books, YouTube, TED Talks, Blogs (like mine) etc., telling them the best way to parent. And making them feel like they are terrible if they don’t follow the latest trends on raising their children.

No one tells us to trust ourselves. Yet trusting ourselves is what really matters. It is important to learn to listen to our intuition, to listen to what feels right to us and when we are in doubt to check in with someone we trust. Someone who won’t judge us, and will just listen.

And one way we can connect with our intuition is to quiet our mind so we can feel and hear what we are thinking and feeling.

If you’re interested in pursuing this practice of quieting the mind, here are some suggestions to get you started:

Breathing
Think only about your breathing. Inhale, exhale. Say the words – as you inhale say inhale and as you exhale say exhale. The good thing about this is you can be sitting in the car waiting to pick your child up from school, afterschool, or where ever they are. You can spend a few extra minutes in a parking lot with your doors locked wearing sunglasses, with your eyes closed breathing.

Or you can go to your room for 5-10 minutes and sit on your bed and do this. You can even stand in the kitchen and do this. Over time work up to 10-15 minutes or do this a few times a day for 3-5 minutes. I know it seem like a lot of time, but it’s worth it. Set your timer on your phone so you don’t have to worry about when your time is up. I also find this helps me to fall asleep. It helps keep the stream of thoughts from taking over while I’m trying to fall asleep.

Journaling
You can write for 5-10 minutes. Write whatever comes to mind. You can do this before everyone is awake, or keep a pad in the kitchen and write at the kitchen counter. You can sit on the floor and writ while your kids play or you can write while they’re doing homework. No punctuation needed. Just write even if you write “I have nothing to say.” Eventually things will come. If you worry about someone reading it, rip it up and throw it out. It’s about the process not the product*

Doodle
You can doodle in front of the TV with the kids while they are engrossed in their show. Don’t judge yourself, and don’t try to create a masterpiece, just doodle. You can doodle in all the same places you can journal. The idea is to let your brain relax. Do this for 5-30 minutes. And again, It’s the process*

*If you like you can keep a notebook for either or both of these suggestions.

Walking
Walking can be restful. Don’t exert yourself, just notice the world around you. And breath as you walk. Notice the feel of the air, notice how it smells, what things look like, and how your body feels.
Maybe you will notice new things in places you’ve walked for ages. Walk alone even if it’s for 5 minutes. Don’t answer your phone. You will be amazed at how wonderful the world can feel when you just take in the air, the colors, and the sounds as you walk.

Quieting the mind can be hard. Keeping thoughts about the future and the past out of our head is hard. But we can all learn to do it, at least for a few moments a day.

It took me a long time to learn how to quiet my mind. It was worth it. I’m not always successful, but that’s okay. Making the effort can be just as helpful. Don’t beat yourself up if it’s not helping you.
But do give it time, you will have days that it will feel good and other days not so much.

It is helpful to remember that all of these are practices that we need to do regularly to get good at it. As with any practice we’ll miss days and maybe weeks, but we can always go back to it.

One wonderful thing about quieting the mind is that it can allow us to trust ourselves more. It will allow us to follow our own path in parenting our children.
The more we care for ourselves, the easier it is to be present for our kids, our work, our home, the world and all the other things that come our way.

Thea Shapiro, Director of Religious Education