Healthy Intentions Community

MINDFULNESS MONDAY

For many of us it is Christmas morning. A time to cherish your loved ones, be joyful, be grateful for all of your blessings, come together and celebrate.

A suggestion for the week:

· At some point today or this week, take some quiet time for yourself and reflect on your blessings, your joys - your family, your pets, or whatever brings you joy.

· Come to a comfortable position and set a timer for 5-10 minutes or more if you would like. Having a joyful thought or a moment of gratitude focus inward on your breath.

· Feel the air moving in and out of your lunge, be grateful for that air and the life it gives.

MINDFULNESS MONDAY

In this time of year, life is extremely busy with deadlines, finishing things before the end of the year, preparation for the upcoming holidays, finishing winter prep (depending on the area you live in), etcetera, etcetera. Our activity this week is to do nothing- let me explain below.

A suggestion for the week: Do nothing meditation

· Set a timer for at least 10 minutes. There is no need to get into a certain position unless you prefer that structure.

· Don’t position your attention in any particular way

· Let whatever happens happen

MINDFULNESS MONDAY

This week we are doing an activity that helps us to give the best gift possible to our kids. “Carried happiness” is a genuine happiness that is carried with you in every aspect of life. There will be times when you aren’t happy and you are having another emotion, but despite that conflicting emotion you know that the world is safe and you feel good about yourself and know that you are worthy of being loved and cared for.

This ability, “carried happiness”, is passed on through parent-child relationships and it grows as your child interacts with others.

A suggestion for the week: Parenting Happily

In knowing that “carried happiness” is passed on to your children, try to take every opportunity to develop this process by making use of daily moments like the following examples:

· Let your children know that “regardless of their mistakes, they…

MINDFULNESS MONDAY

As we approach the end of the year, we often find ourselves reflecting on the past year and planning on the next year. We can, at times, be unkind to ourselves in this reflection, as well as in normal times throughout the year. This week we are looking at breaking the pattern of self-judgement that we may have.

A suggestion for the week: Breaking self-judgment

· Come to a comfortable position, either siting or laying, where you can have stillness to reflect. Think back over this past week and observe how judgmental you may have been concerning yourself.

· What judgment did you make about yourself? Ask yourself what circumstances were associated with each of these judgments?

· In what way or maybe in what context was this judgment grounded?