Think Less. Be More.

A couple of months ago I admitted to our Mum and Baby Yoga instructor that when we do meditation and relaxation I am hopeless. I can not "switch off". As soon as she start yammering on about my in breath, I start mentally plotting my assault on Sainsburys after the class has finished or calculating exactly how late I am going to be to meet a friend for lunch if Euna needs to feed after the session.

She told me (very wise is my yoga teacher) that that is ok. That I should treat my train of thought like a toddler and as soon as I recognise that it has wondered off the "in breath" or visualised lagoon that I should kindly lead it back. Don't punish myself. Don't then sit there and think about how rubbish I am at meditating. Just come back and pick up the meditation.

The conversation got me thinking (after the lesson, not during the next meditation, the advice actually helped with that) that even in yoga I multi-task. In YOGA. As in within time I set aside to BE in the moment, I pay money to have someone lead me in BEING and relaxing. Even then I can be breastfeeding, meditating, exercising and mentally food shopping and running errands all at the same time.

And do you know what happens in those odd moments when I'm not doing/thinking of five things at once? I sit there and think "oh my goodness her babyhood is going so fast!" WELL OF COURSE IT IS! Of course it is when you're spending every waking minute of everyday going at a rate of notts trying to accomplish everything at once!

Then I think to myself... How the HELL do people do it with more than one kid? It must be like this only doubled! TREBLED! And then my head starts to hurt so I pull out my "well you didn't know how you were going to cope with one baby and you do, I guess you just do what you have to" rationale.

It even occurs to me that this "open plan living" is basically architecture designed around our multi-tasking. We can watch them draw WHILST we prepare dinner. They can finish dinner WHILST watching us fold clothes out of the tumble dryer. That's rather sad. We're so programmed to do five things at once we literally BUILD OUR LIVES AROUND IT!

Urgh.

Well here is my theory... The key to stopping children growing up so fast is in your own head. It's not them who need to slow down, it's you. Now I am not for one second suggesting that multi-tasking isn't ESSENTIAL. It is in this house. I imagine most homes would look like war-torn Soviet states without a woman's (yes a WOMAN'S and I make no apology for that generalisation) ability to multi-task around the clock.

So I make a pledge to be more aware of where my head goes to. Like my yoga teacher says, lead your mind back by the hand like a toddler, lead it back to the now and the linear. Spend more time reading that book and absorbing her face. Rather than reading that book and constructing your after bedtime chores to do list. Think less. BE more.

Lesson:

1. Use today's mantra "Think less. Be more."

2. You NEED to go to H&M... These dungarees are from there, they were £9.99 and the softest cord! I am in love with them!

3. "Ooooo" is a great sound to make according to Euna.