Cultivating Patience

With one of my babes teething, and one of my babes ready for a tantrum at any given moment, I find my hair standing on end a bit more than I like these days. It's very easy to get sucked in to these emotional whirl pools without warning. I quickly become the three year old stamping her feet and yelling in retort. But, in my best moments (which I'm trying to make more frequent), I step back, breathe, and either ride out the storm or find a way back to dry land.

I recently picked up "Buddhism for Mother's of Young Children" by Sarah Napthali because I was feeling a little lost on this parenting journey. With very little free time to recharge, I wanted to bring myself back into the moment and find a way to be happy or at least at peace with the day to day world I'm living. While I don't consider myself a Buddhist, I find a lot of truth in the teachings. Simply remembering to take deep breaths throughout the day, has done a lot to stop knee jerk reactions. I've also started to do short meditations when Elsa is nursing... just concentrating fully on the breath and sometimes doing a body scan to find the areas in my body that have tensed up.

I'm really glad I picked up this book because at the very least, it has reminded me that this time in my life is fleeting. My babies will grow up, and I need to try to find joy in each stage that they're at and be glad for the life that I have right now, messy house, screaming kids and all. I loved that the author of this book, has a four year old son, not unlike my Oona in spirit and determination. There were also some perspectives from other Mama's, which was an added bonus. I'll definitely be reading this one again, as it had lots of good reminders.

A few things I'm going to start doing after reading this: meditating each day (whether it be for one minute or twenty, this really helps me through the day), walking each day as the weather gets warmer, jotting down a few things each day that bring beauty into my world, and trying to be more aware when anger is bubbling and then stopping to breath and see if it's really worth the upset. I've also been working on counting and breathing with Oona when she gets upset... it works better for me than a time out. Anyway, I thought I'd recommend this to the Mama's out there, as it was definitely an inspiring read.