Meeting the Summer Hols with Mindfulness – part 2

Part 1 of my ‘Meeting the Summer Hols with Mindfulness’ post was a look at my attempt to be more flexible day-to-day and to respond to the needs of the children with empathy instead of ploughing on with our my plans regardless.

Looking back at the first couple of weeks I think this has gone OK.  Last Wednesday we had planned to go to a Museum in town but we ended up going to the library and the park instead as the kids seemed tired after a trip to the farm on Tuesday and swimming on Monday.  Swimming was a last minute decision based on my son wanting to show his 16 year old cousin what he’d learned in his lesson in the morning and it was a good chance (while I had help) to get the twins in the pool too so I guess this was me being flexible.

And guess what? It all worked out well.  Twin 2 particularly LOVED her dip – jumping in A LOT.  Also, I didn’t panic when they both started to climb out of the beloved twin float we’ve been using with them since they were 5 months old.  Instead I realised that my niece was more than capable of being in charge of one little lady, me with the other and as we were in the teaching pool the eldest could always touch the bottom and had his ‘noodle’ with him – phew!!!  I didn’t even ruminate unnecessarily what a waste of time it had been  spending about 20 minutes blowing the damn float up :-)!

Anyway, I have still packed rather a lot of outings into our days and so still want to get better at home entertainment (the good old fashioned sort that doesn’t involve screens!).

In my bio on Twitter (@mummy_mindful, follow me here ) and on Facebook (please feel free to like my page here if you want to read lots of interesting articles and posts from other people that I regularly share) I describe myself as a mum, wife, teacher and sometimes just ME and so I thought it may be good to set out some secondary intentions for the summer holidays based on these different areas of my life.  You never know you may wish to copy one or adapt one.

1. My Mindful MUM intention:  build 3 minute breathing spaces (described further in this post) into the day.  This will benefit me and the little ones as I find the practice relatively straightforward to fit into my day and also still extremely restorative.  It will probably fit best while the girls are napping.  My eldest is aware that ‘Mummy meditates’ so he will be happy to amuse himself, or even better may sometimes do it with me!
2. My Mindful WIFE intention:  ensure I don’t just jump straight on to the laptop when the kids are in bed and the chores finished.  Sit, chat, listen and find out about the hubby’s day and tell him about ours too.  Ensure Saturday night still remains an NO devices night and maybe add another night to this too.  Book a date night!
3. My Mindful TEACHER intention: I desperately need to spend some time de-cluttering my classroom and office (both at home and at school).  As soon as I walk into these spaces and there are papers everywhere I am increasingly aware that my mood changes for the worse.  Tackling this now will have a positive impact on the coming year.
4. My Mindful ME intention:  I feel like my own mindfulness practices has slipped a bit of late.  I would like to get back to doing formal meditations most days and would like to lengthen the usual ones of 10 – 15 mins to 15 – 20 mins.  I am also excited about booking myself on to some sort of refresher course or a weekend day retreat.

I realise that these are fairly personal intentions but I wonder if they strike a chord with anyone else who is reading them.

Do please let me know what your intentions are over the next few weeks (and if they have a link to mindfulness all the better!).