Parents, you don’t need to meditate right now. In fact, every second of your life is a meditation.
You wake up in the morning to face another day of parenting, playing, teaching, cleaning, working, texting, and planning – and you feel the overwhelm approach. It’s like a wave. You let it crash over you. Then you find your bearings. You take a deep breath. You walk to the kitchen to grab a coffee. And you smile at your kids like the day is going to be awesome.
That is a meditation.
You sit down in front of your computer to have your 15 minutes of allotted email time. Half way through writing a complicated response to a colleague, your child says “Mamma, I just got back from biking. It was so fun!” You feel the little bit of focus you had fade away. And you notice frustration rolling around inside of you. It’s like a tight ball of ice. Just 15 minutes. That’s all you needed. You turn around to face your child. You smile. And say, “That’s so cool, bud! Did you do some jumps?”
That is a meditation.
You flit between children and handouts and online assignments as you homeschool. Your kids whine at you. They whine at you, not as a student whines to a teacher, but as a child whines to their parent. Burning anger emerges from your soul. Anger at the world. It’s like raging fire. You want to scream. You want to throw something. You head to the bathroom. You hear children call your name. You lock the bathroom door. You sit down. And you cry. And you squeeze your hands together. And you tell yourself the truth.
That is a meditation, my friend.
Please don’t get mad at yourself for not keeping up with your commitments. We are strengthening our soul through this. And when we come out, f***, we’re going to be strong.
The sun, cloud, and rainbow metaphors that make up the story in my children’s book The Girl and the Sun were molded piece by piece from my own pain and subsequent drive to overcome it. I use these metaphors every day to parent myself and my children. They are not my own ideas. They come from many teachers along the way: Anita Johnston, Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, Jeff Foster, Tara Brach, Marianne Williamson, and many counselors and colleagues who guided me along my journey. Through The Girl and The Sun I can now share them with the world. Please visit www.ashleyandthesun.com/free-handouts-parents-and-teachers for free handouts and www.ashleyandthesun.com for a thorough explanation of the sun, cloud and rainbow metaphors.