5 Benefits of Mindfulness

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5 benefits of mindfulness that can help you become the parent you want to be.

I started practicing mindfulness as a way to help keep myself calm, balanced and present for my kids. I was not always my best self around them and was losing patience easily. I think the final straw was when I was standing in the kitchen yelling at my middle child because he was yelling at my youngest child. And as I was yelling at him for yelling at someone else, an inner voice said to me, you know this is crazy, right? You know you are modeling the behavior you don’t want your kids to do? And at that moment I wish I could tell you I stopped but I didn’t. I let that feeling of stress and overwhelm just drive that train all the way into the station to ‘Old Yellerville’.

I never wanted to do that again. That feeling of losing it by yelling at my kids and seeing their crumbling faces as I was yelling broke my heart. So I did what we need to do as grown-ups: I looked at myself in the mirror and decided to do something about the stress, strain and overwhelm that was driving my life. I chose to live mindfully and in doing so, I changed my life and the life of my family. That shame of the day in the kitchen became a gift as I grew into the parent I wanted to be. 

When I talk about mindfulness, I sometimes get eye-rolls from parents. Often people think, how can breathing and meditation make you a better parent? It’s too simple. I get that. I used to think that too, but here is the secret about why it works, it rewires your brain. That’s not so simple, now is it. It’s amazing that practicing mindfulness can change your brain, your stress level and response and take you from a reactive parent to a responsive parent. 

MINDFULNESS AND MEDITATION LOWER STRESS

Mindfulness and meditation are highly researched and scientifically proven to decrease stress, anxiety and depression, which are like adding a backpack of bricks to all the everyday things you already do. They weigh down who you want to be, your decision-making skills, your emotions...all of it. Mindful breathing and meditation can help lift those bricks one at time. 

If you’re active in your practice of breathing and meditation, you begin to notice the bricks before they get put in the backpack. You begin to choose not to put the bricks in at all. Over time, stress, anxiety and depression can also lead to chronic diseases. If your end goal in this whole parenting scenario is to sit around the Thanksgiving table with a whole bunch of grandkids running around you, or maybe fun travel adventures with your spouse once the kids have grown, will you be able to enjoy them? Or will you have created such dis-ease in your brain and body over the years that you have to sit that part of your life out?

MINDFULNESS HELPS YOU BECOME MORE SELF-AWARE (WHICH HELPS YOU RAISE SELF-AWARE KIDS)

We are always asking our kids to be more aware of their words, actions, goals, habits and behaviors. We want them to think of others and create meaningful, connected relationships with themselves and others. If they are always looping thoughts about the past or worried about the future, are they really able to be aware of all the things that matter now? The things you want them to know in the present moment, like saying thank you when someone does a kind action or hanging up their coat by the front door to be responsible for their things? Well, if we aren’t self-aware, we can’t focus on those things and the best person to teach your kids how to do this is you by modeling it. You being aware of how your emotions, behaviors and actions impact yourself and others is a life-changer when it comes to being connected to your family. 

MINDFULNESS CAN HELP YOUR BRAIN FUNCTION BETTER

5 Benefits of Mindfulness

5 Benefits of Mindfulness

If you suffer from over-reacting, stress or worrying constantly, you have trained your brain to be that way. The good news is that you can train it to do something different. This is called neuroplasticity. We have the ability to train ourselves to create new neural (brain) pathways that can literally change our reactions personality, behaviors and habits. The way to start doing this is to introduce some mindful practice into your day. Even five minutes of quiet breathing followed with one minute of intention setting can yield high results. When you think about it, six minutes a day is totally worth it to not feel like you are losing your mind on a daily basis. 

Mindfulness also helps our brains combat decision fatigue. Decision fatigue is when our brain gets so overloaded by all the decisions we need to make in a day that it slows down our ability to make good, effective decisions when we really need to. The key to changing brain wiring is to be consistent. Make this a habit and soon it will become a behavior you even really have to think about, like brushing your teeth.

MINDFULNESS CAN HELP YOU FOLLOW THROUGH

Mindfulness has helped me be consistent in my parenting. When we raise the self-awareness bar, we can more easily see our blind spots and adjust to correct areas that may not be a strength. Mindfulness can help us develop patience and allow us to create thoughtful responses, not fly off the handle punishments that we can’t back up or shouldn’t back up.

Mindfulness helps us to keep our goals in sight and not get emotionally invested in the hangry kid meltdown happening. We can see it for the lunch-needing moment it really is instead of letting our emotions muddle the situation. It helps us to raise kids who are happy, healthy and confident. It also, and this is so important to me as a mom, increases trust and security between my kids and myself. They know they can trust their mom to be a constant in their lives at an emotional level and that they can trust me to respect their feelings and emotions.

MINDFULNESS CAN BE THE MOST IMPORTANT GIFT YOU GIVE YOUR KIDS

When your kids see a confident, content, resilient parent who seeks to better themselves and is a continual life-long learner of personal development, they see that as important qualities to strive for in their own lives. In a word that is constantly telling kids to look from the outside in as to what can make you who you need to be, isn’t it so powerful to show our kids that the strength of understanding and becoming who you want to really takes place on the inside if you want true wellbeing? 

Growing the skills necessary to become a confident parent who knows how to parent effectively with emotional strength is key to raising happy, healthy, confident kids. Your mindful skill-building can change how your children see themselves and their role in the world. Being mindful lets your love shine right into your kiddos. I work with parents to build these mindful skills and the results in their families are nothing short of miraculous.

Ready to get started? Take it easy and slow to start. Here’s some free resources to get you started.

If you want to find out more about mindfulness in general, here are some great articles to get you started:

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