Polly Campbell's Blog, page 45

Imagine a life without pain – visualization can help

There are mornings when I lay in bed long after the alarm rings simply because I know it’s going to hurt to move. For those of you, who, like me, have rheumatoid arthritis or any chronic pain, you know what I’m talking about. There are times when you are afraid to move or reach or bend or walk for fear of setting off the sirens of pain that will pulsate through the body.

Mornings are like this for me. After hours of rest, my joints creak, and rip, and grind, and throb, when I start the process of climbing, lurching, wobbling out of bed. If I’m not mentally up to the physical challenge of starting my day, it can be even more excruciating.

So, before I move into my day, while I’m gearing to get up, I also do a self-guided visualization. Not only does this quick process ease my pain, it helps me shift my focus and attention to other meaningful and more positive aspects of my day.

What is visualization?

Visualization, often called guided imagery, or creative visualization, is a powerful, natural way to deal with chronic pain. It involves imagining, in great detail, an ideal situation while experiencing the emotions that would emerge from that best-case-scenario.

So, if you’re feeling locked up in pain, you would imagine a vibrant, healthy, comfortable body and allow yourself to feel what that would be like. Stressed out about work? You could visualize your day flowing with ease.

This imagined scenario creates a real physiological response that can ease the stress that exacerbates pain and actually change the physical manifestation of it.

The process is powerful enough that more than 3,000 hospitals nationwide use some form of imagery or visualization to treat patients. It’s effective in helping people cope with cancer symptoms and the side effects of chemotherapy; it’s useful in managing chronic pain; and visualization even helps people recover from surgery faster.

According to one study published in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, levels of cortisol, the so-called stress hormone, drop significantly in people who participate in a guided imagery session. Other research has shown that when stressful, anxiety-producing experiences are replaced with healthier, happier, positive mental images people relax significantly and that helps folks feel better, especially since stress can often cause pain to flair.

Those patients who were taught to visualize their pain in a different, more positive way were better able to manage their discomfort, according to an article in the journal Pain Management Nursing.

Three keys to visualization

Many therapists are trained in guided visualization and plenty of CDs and MP3’s are available to lead you through a session. I do it on my own, just about every morning and sometimes at other times during the day when pain becomes a factor or I need a dose of positive energy. Here is how to get started.

Relax. Stay alert, but get as comfortable as you can. I sometimes do this while lying in bed or sitting upright with feet flat on the floor. Take five deep, slow breaths, or become mindful of your heartbeat. Denis Waitley, an expert in visualization and human behavior, also suggests listening to Baroque music from Bach and Vivaldi as a way to quiet the mind and open it to imagery. Settle your thoughts and begin to imagine.

Imagine your ideal circumstance and the emotions that come with it. Once relaxed and quieted, imagine a comfortable body, free from pain. You can also envision a beautiful location, or your perfect day. Don’t worry if the images aren’t perfect, go for the sensation. Some people “visualize” through auditory cues or physical sensations. That’s fine too.

Imagery doesn’t have to be a picture per se but it does have to invoke your emotions. The power of visualization lies in the feelings you create.

Deal with the details. Infuse your image or sensation with specific details. See your body moving easily, free from pain. Imagine yourself free of stress and filled with vitality. Imagine the pain dissipating into a vaporous cloud moving out and away and leaving only comfort and ease.

Be sure to infuse your visualization with the smells, textures, noises, emotions, and other specific details that make it feel plausible.

A visualization exercise can take an hour or a few minutes. It can be done in the shower, or during a meditation, once or several times a day. Use it as needed, but don’t take yourself too seriously. Have fun. Fire up your imagination. Play with your positive story line. Once you begin the practice, you can expand your visualizations to include any possibility.

See yourself successfully navigating through your work day, or making more money or having a smooth doctor’s appointment or creating a loving relationship. Imagine yourself excelling or overcoming a fear.

Whatever story line you can come up with, imaging the experience in your mind first will have a powerful influence on your real-world experience.

What’s your story?

When things go haywire and life takes a scary, irritating, messy turn – how do you talk about it?

Do you dwell on the drama and despair? Or do you tell a story about how you can figure it out and thrive?

What is the story you tell?

When we’re caught up in what feels like a negative circumstance — a divorce, job loss, illness, or even just an irritating incident, it’s easy to draft a negative, dramatic, victim story around it. This gives our bad-news story energy and makes it feel real and insurmountable.

Often it’s the story we tell about that hard stuff that makes it even harder.

I thought of this a lot when I was diagnosed with melanoma. I knew that how I talked about the experience to myself and others would go a long way to determining how well I managed it in the real world. If I told a sad story about sickness and despair and anxiety – I could create that in my life. Or, I could stick to the facts: I had a malignant mole removed from my knee. That’s all it was. I didn’t need to speculate about outcomes or deconstruct all my fears about the future, time and time again, by telling stories about it.  I felt some stress, but didn’t dwell on it or create a bad-news story around it.

Instead, I took a realistic look at what I needed to do to heal. Then I  created a good-news story around that. I visualized how I wanted it to go.  In my plot, I ( the heroine naturally played by Nicole Kidman) would overcome every adversity with panache, power and really good hair. The experience would teach the heroine greater compassion, it would help her become a better writer and land her on Oprah to talk about how people can transcend even the toughest times.  THAT was the story I told myself.

Our stories influence our beliefs and those are the thoughts that determine our reality. Every time.  Whether the beliefs are true or not, we often act on them and that creates tangible outcomes known as our lives.

If you’re telling scary stories, you’re likely to get some scary outcomes in your life.  But, you can revise your story at anytime.  Here’s how:

State what is – without judgment or opinion or projection. Just say what happened.

Drop the blame. Leave out all the bad things you feel about what happened and why. End the drama. No need to go on and on about how overwhelmed you and how nothing will be right again. It’s not true. And if you’re going to be making things up, go for the plot that propels you into a bright future.

Create the new story line. Write the story how you want it to be. Have fun with this. Play. Imagine the clothes you’ll be wearing when you get your new job. (Check out those shoes, girl.) See all the money falling out of your new designer purse. Experience the energy and that beautiful complexion that comes from the vibrant health you will enjoy.  Feel the love from all the wonderful people in your life and reflect on the learning and all that you gained from the adversity. Notice how resilient you are. You can bounce back from anything. Imagine it all. Not only will you feel better, but surprising things will happen.

When we imagine our life how we want it, (visualization exercises are a powerful way of doing this and something I’ll be writing about Wednesday) the Universe (including your unconscious beliefs) shifts to make it happen. A positive story line  leads to self awareness, inspired action and powerful intention. Those are the things that make fantasies come true.

So, what story are you telling?

How suggestions can sabotage or lead to success

Ever had someone tell you that the procedure would “really hurt” or that the test was “really hard” or that the boss was “impossible to deal with” and then had those scenarios play out just as predicted?

Turns out those early suggestions actually shaped the reality.

In a journal article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, psychological scientists Maryanne Garry, Robert Michael and Irving Kirsch studied the power of suggestion and discovered that deliberate suggestion can influence how well people remember things, how they respond to medical treatments, and even how they’ll behave.

The reason, they say, is attributable to something the Bigwigs call “Response Expectancies.” This means that the way we anticipate our response to a situation influences how we will actually respond. In other words, once you expect something to happen, your behaviors, thoughts, and reactions will actually contribute to making that expectation occur.

If you think you’ll ace the interview and expect it to go well, you’re more likely to do a good job.


If you think you’ll win the race, you’re more likely to train and prepare and perform in a way that gives you a greater chance of winning the race.

Using suggestion in this way can be a powerful tool in accomplishing our goals. But, many of us get caught up on the other side thinking only of our limitations. The power of suggestion works just as well then – to actually sabotage our success.

Suggestion and Self-sabotage

If you think you won’t be a good parent, your behavior will rise up and show you that you’re right.


Think you’ll struggle with the test then, you’re more likely to suffer through the exam and come up with a lesser grade than if you expected to do well.


Has it been suggested that your no one in your family knows how to have a healthy marriage? Then, you may unconsciously do things to sabotage your own relationship.


Expect to get that cold – because everyone is getting it – you’re bound to be ill.

In fact, the influence of suggestion and our expectation is so far-reaching that scientists are now looking at how the power of suggestion and expectancy influence medical treatment, criminal investigations, policy decisions and educational processes.

“If real treatment and suggestion lead to a similar outcome, what differentiates between the two?” says Maryanne Garry, one of the authors of the journal article. “If we can harness the power of suggestion, we can improve people’s lives.”

On Wednesday, I’ll write about how we can use the power of suggestion to create and enhance our positive beliefs and power-up our every-day lives.

 

Photo by: Stock.xchng

The Someday Speech

I promised myself a long time ago that I would never write anything when I was really angry or annoyed. Anything written in those moments sounds like a rant. Well, I am breaking that promise today.

Here is what happened: I was talking to an industry acquaintance this morning.  It was a lovely and pleasant conversation about this that and the other. Mostly food. At the end of the call, she asked if I had started my dream project yet. I had told her about it a year ago. I was quiet and then proceeded to do what I have been telling my students, mentees and kids not to do for years – I gave her my “someday speech”.

I have the “someday speech” perfected. “Oh, I cannot start my project right now. I don’t have the [pick one] – funding/time/brains/talent/clothes/office/chair.”

My acquaintance listened quietly and then said, “Really? You are the one always encouraging me to do try and do new things and you are not starting your dream project because you don’t have time?” (Yes, this conversation, it was time I was lacking or so I thought).

I wanted to hide in a corner after that call. I felt so ashamed. I had been telling everyone for years to walk away from the someday schtick and here I was, selling myself on it.

So let me tell you (and myself) this loud and clear: Someday never comes.

There is always a reason for not doing something. Always. I have used every single one of these reasons. Every one.  And they are darn good reasons:

I have no time .

My take: Yes, I do. I have time. I just have to find it. Otherwise, it is a self fulfilling prophecy.

I don’t have the funds.

Well, this depends. We may not have a million dollars to start the project but since when do we not have the capacity to write a business plan to start planning how to get the million dollar funding? Just saying.

I am not talented enough.

This is my personal favorite and I have had an editor tell me so. So, I can either listen to this person and be miserable or do what my heart says is right.  Talent is very subjective, by the way. I saw a movie and hated it. Hubby saw the same one and loved it. Who is right?

The time is just not right.

Never is. Really. But then Rowlings wrote her book sitting at a coffee table in some coffee shop as she survived on food stamps. Now don’t tell me that it is okay since she was talented. How would she have known that until the book became a smashing blockbuster.  It is now or never, baby.

I can go on. But do you really want me to?

SO – here is the deal. I am making a commitment, right here, right now to start my dream project. As a show of commitment, I finished the executive summary that I needed to write to create the business plan.I am ready to go.  Are you?

And for the love of God, if you ever hear me say, “I’ll do it someday,” please remind me of this post and then give me a swift kick in the behind.

Monica Bhide   is  an engineer turned food/travel/parenting writer based out of Washington DC. Her work has appeared in national and international publications, including Food & Wine, The New York Times, Parents, Cooking Light, Prevention, Health, Self, Bon Appetit, Saveur, and she is a frequent contributor to NPR’s Kitchen Window.  She has published three cookbooks, and her essays have been included in Best  Food Writing anthologies in 2005, 2009 and 2010.

Quiz: Are you creating a life or coping with one?

We are all creative beings. Creativity is innate and not at all exclusionary. It is one of the evolutionary installments that has helped us survive on the planet all these years.

But, I’m not talking about the paint-like-Picasso kind of creativity. I’m looking more at the aspect that helps us solve problems, engage in life, live our purpose, deal with challenges, and thrive despite troubling times. I’m talking about the kind of creativity that helps sculpt a life.

Don’t worry, you’ve got this kind of creativity in you too. You can create the life you desire. You can recycle a good day from one that started off in the dumpster. But most of us don’t do this. We cope, instead of create. We get by, wait and see, respond to life rather than engage, participate, and leap into life.

Take this quickie true and false quiz to find out whether you’re a creator or coper.

Coper or Creator

1. You usually wait to see what others are going to do before making a decision.

2. You’re working with a bucket list – things you’d like to do before you die – and you’re confident you’ll make them happen no matter the circumstances.

3. You never get too excited about anything so you don’t feel disappointed when things don’t go your way.

4. You believe it’s important to give up on your dreams and goals if the experts tell you it’s unlikely you’ll achieve them.

5. You believe that you’ll find a way to manage and cope with any situation that arises.

6. You know that change and uncertainty are part of life so you’re willing to make adjustments as you go to have the life you desire.

7. If others have a strong opinion about what you should do you usually go along with them. It just makes life easier.

If you answered true to questions 1, 3, 4, 7 you tend toward coping, getting by, going with the flow to avoid trouble or disappointment. True answers to questions 2, 5, and 6 indicate you are actively creating your life.

The difference is subtle. Look at questions four and six for example. There are times when it’s wise for all of us to adjust our approach, shift our mindset. There are times when we may opt out of one goal because another, more important one, takes root. There are plenty of times when the opinions of others can provide us important information.

But, creating a life rather than coping with life is more about action and attitude. When you are creating your life, you are conscious and aware and engaged. You have little time for worry. You know challenge and change and uncertainty are part of the deal, so you flex and move to accommodate whatever comes. You listen to what others say and then you go within to hear those inner voices. Then you pursue what is right and unique to you — even if it’s messy or illogical.

When you allow those external forces to victimize you, when you quit on something that matters to you because it becomes inconvenient or hard – then you are coping. When you lament and complain about the difficulties rather than looking for the meaning and gifts within, you are coping. When you most often plan ahead rather than live in the present, you are coping. You are responding primarily to outside circumstances rather than your own passion, purpose or spirit.

Thing is, you can choose, in any moment to be a creator rather than a coper. You can choose to take inspired action. You can choose to experience disappointment without being derailed by it. You can choose to make decisions about how to feel, how to work, how to live. You don’t have to stick to the familiar. You don’t have to do things because you ought to or because your people have always done it this way. You can, at any moment, change a bad habit for a better one. You can choose to experience, shape, and engage in the moments of your life – to be a creator. Or you can simply respond to what others offer up.

Which will you choose today, right now, in this moment?

 

 Photo b: Stock.xchng

Fulfill your desires by living close to your values

Can a clean house really contribute to a meaningful life and the happiness that comes from that? Sure can, but it all depends on what you value and how you fulfill those values.

Plenty of science supports the Bigwigs who say our deepest sense of happiness comes from living a values-based life. This means that we are happier when we live in alignment with the values that give our lives meaning. And, our desires help us do that.

Seems straightforward. You know what you value. You desire the things that help you live close to those values and when those desires are fulfilled – you are, waa laa, happy.

But, here’s the thing: I don’t think a lot of people know what they truly value anymore. And I think we’ve been taught that to desire anything, is selfish and wrong.

Our values are clearly influenced by our life experiences, how we feel and also how we were raised. They are influenced by our sense of right and wrong; our education and beliefs; by what our parents say; and by how we behave when life gets messy.

And, like anything, they can become outdated. We can outgrow our values as we change and grow. And, without even knowing it we lose sight of the values that truly guide our lives. When we don’t know what we value;  or when we act out  of alignment with our values, we feel off balance. Stuck. Out of sorts. Confused. And, to get technical, icky.

When you know what you value, you’re more likely to know what you want and need. Then, you can pursue those desires. The process – your life – becomes creative, energizing, inspiring. It becomes infused with purpose, meaning, and joy – even when you’re experiencing struggle.

Here is how you can uncover your values and desires.

>>Answer this one question. What matters most to me? There are no wrong answers. Don’t judge yourself. Just answer the question, on paper. Honestly. It’s about getting clear. And really seeing the life you’re creating as compared to the life you want to create. Value money more than your health, write it down. Value fun more than work. Make a note. This is about awareness.

>>Rank the things you wrote. Put a number one by the thing you value most today. Recognize that while your core values are likely to remain the same, their ranking may change from time to time. If you rank your health #5 on the list, for example, and then you’re doc says you need to lower your cholesterol, your health value may shoot to numero uno.

>>Now, evaluate how you support your top five. List a couple of the things you will do today to live in alignment with those values.

My family holds the second spot, behind my health. In keeping with that value we had a family dinner last night and I made lunch for my husband. I worked out and ate a salad for lunch in keeping with my number one health value.

Seem selfish to put my physical health in the first slot? Maybe. But, I realized real quick during a cancer scare that I couldn’t care for my family, do my work, or inspire others (according to my other values) in the best way if my physical body weren’t strong and healthy.

>>Leave room for variety. This isn’t about absolutes. And the way your values and desires play out in your life will shift and fluctuate as your life changes. There are myriad ways to live in alignment. But too often we say one thing when we’re doing another because we are unaware of what we are really doing. We are unconscious. We say we value our work, but gripe about it when we’re on the job. We value family, but spend more time at work than anywhere else. We say we value our health, but choose to eat foods that make us fat.

I still eat a hamburger from time to time,  just not as often as I used to before balance and health became among my top values.

Be open minded and aware of all the creative ways you can pursue your desires AND live in alignment with those values.

>>Know the why. You’re more likely to get what you desire when you know why you desire it. Want more money? Why? Perhaps it’s because of the freedom and relief wealth will offer you – that is the why and freedom is the value behind the desire.

Want to lose weight? Why? Maybe because you believe a healthy body will help you live longer so that you can support your family and go on the adventures you desire. Perhaps then health and vitality is the value behind the desire for weight loss. Knowing the why behind what you want will supercharge your efforts to get there.

What do you value? What matters to you? What do you want? If you’re no longer sure sit down and run through the exercises above. When your desires and values align not only will your life take on greater meaning and joy, but you will soar toward your greatest desires, dreams and wishes. And en route, you’re likely to connect with your greatest purpose.

Photo by: Stock.xchng

Five ways to make a great day

At the end of the voice-mail recording I heard this message: “Make a great day.”

And I love it, because it reminds us that we are creators and we get to have a say in the kind of day we’ll have. We get to choose how we’ll react to the circumstances that make their way into our lives.

This is good news, particularly if you’re having a so-called bad day. You can do it differently. You can use those bad feelings to learn about yourself and create a new, perhaps more uplifting, or at least interesting, experience.

Here are five ways to do it:

1. Get curious about the emotions you’re feeling. If you’re feeling low, that’s a clue that you need to get quiet, and tune in to the things in your life that may need some clear-headed attention. Our emotions pack powerful insight and offer instinctual clues about things that are working – or not. They are a built-in alert system of sorts. Instead fussing over the bad feelings, pay attention to what the bad feelings might be trying to tell you.

2. Take what you need. If you need time alone, ask for it, and create the space to make it happen. If you need supplies for a creative project, go get them and set aside time to put them to use. If you need a doctor’s help or acupuncture treatment, make an appointment. Want to go for a walk with a friend, do it. Often when we’re feeling low, it’s because we have strayed from our passions and needs. Decide what makes you feel good and give some time to it. You can take care of yourself without taking from others. Just be clear about what you need right now to be a healthy person and then respect yourself enough to make it happen.   

3. Give. To yourself. To others. To animals and the environment.  Do something for another creature or living being and you’re bound to feel better. You can’t help it. Your body is wired to send feel-good chemicals racing through your system when you act kindly. But instead of just writing the check or volunteering at recess or making the casserole for a sick friend, become mindful to the process and your experience of it. Note the enjoyment you feel. Pay attention to the response from others. Experience the sensation in your body. This is a way to sustain the good-feelings that come from giving long after the experience is over.

4. Call a friend. Social connection is a biggie, particularly when you’re feeling low. I picked up the phone and called a friend that I rarely talk to today and I’m buzzing with feel good energy now. It was just fun to laugh with her, it was helpful to get her perspective, it was healing to be surrounded by her love and support. If there is no one in your life right now that you feel like calling, consider resurrecting an important relationship that you let slide or take steps to form some new ones.

5. Steer close to what is important. Sometimes, persistent negative feelings – exhaustion around your job, anger at your spouse, sadness over a change – can be a sign that we are moving too far from our core values. When we live close to our value system, we tend to feel greater happiness or at least contentment. If, you feel down every Monday, that’s something to pay attention to. Take inventory of your top five values and look at the activities you take on in daily life that support those. If there aren’t many, you need to add and subtract a bit. Add in one or two things a day that align you with your values – for example if a healthy body is one value head to the gym before work. When you are doing at least a few things to support your values each day, you’ll feel better.

Watch for more about this in Wednesday’s post on sustainable happiness.

 

 

 

Letting go and finding faith while parenting

One of the 32,000 challenges I’ve encountered to date as a parent, has been the one that requires me to give up, let up, and let go. To hold Sweet P accountable for her choices. To allow her to cry through her disappointments and cope with uncomfortable things in life – instead of taking over and trying to make everything better.

I hate this part. I want her to know now, how great she is. I want to take her pain, so that she doesn’t have to. I want to beat up the kids who are mean to her. I’d also like her to stop sassing and whining and to always clear the table while wearing a face-cracking smile, but since those last few things aren’t going to happen anytime soon, I suppose it’s unlikely the first few will come to fruition. And, I’m thinkin’ that punching out the other six-year-olds who are mean to her isn’t a great coping strategy either, so I’m leaning again on my spirituality.

In order for our kids to become all of who they are, we’ve got to get out of their way emotionally and even physically and set a spiritual example.

My friend Megan is dealing with this now. Her son is learning to live with a newly diagnosed chronic condition and it sucks. She wants to take it away, keep it from happening, ease the hardship even while she knows that this is the road he must travel to discover who he already is. There is something in this experience for him, (and for her). But right now it’s hard and scary and obscured by grief and uncertainty.

It’s moments like this that you need to call up your faith – that intangible knowing that we are doing just what we need to be, even though it’s icky and scary and infuriating. Faith, says life coach Martha Beck, is the trust that all is happening just as it must. Our job is to find that trust from within.

Allowing our children to be who they are

We all have these moments with our kids, when there is nothing to do but step into our faith and stand with our kid as they encounter what they must.

When she is cut from the basketball team, or he forgets his part in the recital; when he gets his first speeding ticket, or she is rejected by a friend. When she cheats and gets a zero on her test. When life becomes hard and hurting and troubling our job as a spiritual parent is to be there with our kids through the experience. Our job is not to take it from them.

In this way, we’ve got to let go so they become more of who they are. The process, while at times painful for them, is downright excruciating for us. When one of her preschool friends pushed Sweet P down the first time, I honestly felt like leaping over the two-foot craft table to take out the four-year-old brute who ravaged my kid. But, just as I didn’t then, and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t actually have jumped over the table anyhow, I know that I can’t step in and save her now when a friend is being mean or she gets in trouble for talking in line. I’ve got to leave space for her to find her way. It’s a gift to her – even while I hate it.

The best we can do as parents is to teach our kids to become aware of their spirits. To let them know that when external troubles show up and bruise their egos, that that isn’t really them. They are not the trouble. They are more than disease and disappointment just as they are more than the good grades and cute hair-dos. We are not the sum of our external success, nor are we only our failures and sicknesses and stresses.

If we can teach our kids to feel compassion for themselves and others, if we can teach them acceptance and self-love, if we can help them stand in their own experience close to their spiritual self, we are loving them in the best way we can. No matter how much we’d like to, we do not have the right to protect them from their own pain.

“I think, in a weird way, if I try to take care of all their difficulties for them it sends the message that I think they aren’t able to handle it and I can do it better.  That’s not what I want them to think about themselves,” Megan says.

Me either.

What we can do then, is to be with them in their pain. To allow the emotions to come. To make room for them. We can teach them, through example, to behave compassionately through their pain and remind them that while uncertainty is sometimes a part of life, struggle doesn’t have to be. We can show them grace – even when we don’t feel like it. And throughout, we can remind our children just who they are — divine, loving energy — so that they can transcend the heartache and know their essential self.

 

 

 

Three spiritual practices you can do with your kids

The first time I meditated with my daughter, it ended in a tantrum – mine.

Things were already tense. I was the enforcer, laying out the rules. She was the rebel – avoiding them all. We were both fraying. In an effort to create some positive space, to lighten the moment and ease the stress, I decided we would meditate.

She was little, maybe three, and I had her sit with me – against her will. Showed her how to take deep breaths, as I did, and watched as she nearly hyperventilated. The only thing stopping her was the frequent pauses she took to ask questions: “Why are we doing this mommy?” “Mommy, why does your tummy move in and out when you breath?” “Where are your lungs?” “When can we be done.”

Soothing? No. Enlightening? Nuh-uh.

None-the-less, I have meditated with Sweet P since and together we’ve tried other spiritual practices too – the same ones I use and talk about in these pages.

Spirituality isn’t exclusive. It isn’t simply a grown up thing. It’s an aspect of every being. By showing your kids how to tap into their spiritual center, you’re also giving them coping skills, which will help them throughout their lives.

Ways to connect with the spiritual side of your child

Here are three practices you can do with your kids:

Meditation: When meditating with your kids, make this more about deep breathing and calm. Sit across from them, criss-cross-applesauce, or in chairs facing each other with knees touching. You could even hold hands and breath in unison. Match your breaths with your child’s, slow and deep until you share the rhythm. Focus only on taking these breaths together. Try to sit for five minutes. No talking. Just focused breath.

Visualization: I’ve done this a lot with my daughter when she’s having anxiety about school or coming down with an illness. We’ve also visualized our “perfect days” and I like this practice best of all, because it’s something I can do with her at bedtime, when she closes her eyes and relaxes.

Have your child lay down and get comfortable. Then, have him imagine the different muscles relaxing in different parts of his body, start with the feet and move up to the head, even relaxing the brow. Then, simply tell a story with him as the focus and each detail working out ideally. Have him imagine the positive emotions he’ll feel as his head becomes clear and his body feels optimal health. Imagine the warmth he’ll experience when  he treats another kindly or does well on a school exam. Create the story, place him in it, and have him not only visualize the experience, but feel this emotion as though it’s happening. Powerful stuff.

Appreciation: Compassion. Gratitude. These are the biggies and should not only be a focal point of your family’s spiritual heartbeat, but a focal point of your life. When we can appreciate each moment, experience gratitude for the smallest things we not only feel better but we are more compassionate and loving towards others. Each day, as you eat Cheerios with your child, foster conversation about the good things in life. Ask what she is grateful for and when she tells you, ask her how those things make her feel. This is a great thing to do at bedtime too. Or, even after a difficult incident when things have calmed down but your child is feeling separate or bad. You can talk with her about what isn’t feeling good and then move into gratitude.

Gratitude connects you to the goodness in your world. Remember too, there are no wrong answers. It’s normal for your child to feel grateful for her stuff – hers toys and candy and late bedtimes and other pleasures. Help her connect to the good feelings those items or events prompt. As she becomes aware of the goodness in her life she’ll start to consciously discover it on her own.

These practices are a great way to connect with your child, but they also help build habits that will guide them for a lifetime.

 

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Use positive focus to promote a restful sleep and positive day

The moments before you fall asleep, can be among the most powerful and important of your day. They can be the catalyst for making your dreams come true. Or, they can be a time where you mentally run through all your anxieties, stresses, responsibilities and failings – dating back to your elementary school years, before falling into a sweaty half sleep.

But, you can kiss that night-time anxiety good-bye and set yourself up for success during the day ahead by choosing thoughts that support and uplift your rather than stress you out.

Instead of settling lackadaisically into that dreamlike state between consciousness and unconsciousness, use those minutes before sleep to focus your thoughts and buoy your spirit so that when you do drift off to sleep your unconscious goes to work creating positive beliefs and empowering feelings that will propel you into the day ahead.

Three ways to create powerful thoughts and feelings before sleep

Choose gratitude. Challenge yourself to find five things that you’re grateful for. Name them in your mind or aloud, and with each item pause and really experience the positive feelings of love and gratitude for this thing to roll through you. Stay focused. Give thought and emotion to each item. Do not go to sleep until you’ve come up with five.

Remake the day. Visualize the day in reverse. Notice what worked and what didn’t and then use your imagination to remake those less-than moments into your ideal day. Use your imagination to shape a positive reality.

Sleep with a mantra. Pick a power word. One that infuses you with energy and good feeling and possibility and repeat it as you drift off to sleep. Love is a good one. I like the energy of “yes” too. Or you can go with a quality that you’re working to attract into your life: peace, abundance, joy.

Any one of these little practices can help you form thoughts that will guide you toward a restful sleep and good day. Remember, your subconscious is operating even when you’re not, so give it positive material to work with.