#026 How to be mindful in May
As we hurtle toward mid-year, May is a great time to slow down, take stock, and reboot.
May has crept up on me this year.
This month is a hive of activity. I celebrated my birthday this week, and am celebrating Mother’s Day today (there better be a game we play called ‘library spa’ where I get to sit with a sheet mask on while reading a book with a cup of tea! - maybe you are reading this during your own library spa?!). My husband and oldest son also have birthdays this month - meaning May is choc-full of cake, activity, and reflection.
I don’t know about you, but the hecticness of work and life has hit me hard this year. I am tired, and honestly a little (or a lot, depending on the day you ask me) burned out.
Almost every friend I talk to is also tired, overwhelmed, and just a bit blah.
Maybe it is the season of life we all find ourselves in, or the over-connectedness we have to everything through tech, or cost of living pressures, or that we have young children or ageing parents or both. Or maybe it is a little bit of all of the above.
But, a lot of the time there is no quick fix to any of the above.
We might decide not to work at night – but that doesn’t mean the work goes away. It just means the work piles up.
We might vow to get more sleep, but that doesn’t mean that our young children won’t wake us up at night.
We might be constantly worrying about bills, or rent, or mortgage payments, or school fees.
Life can be a lot sometimes.
One of the first things to go out the window when we are busy is the time we take for ourselves each day – whether this is making a cup of tea and sitting quietly before everyone in the house wakes up, or going for a walk at lunchtime, or rolling out your mat for a spot of stretching or meditating.
I have found myself running straight from the gym, to making school lunches, to getting ready for work, to rushing to the bus, to working longer hours. Then at the end of the day rushing home to throw something together for dinner and often listening to kids complain about dinner (there were ACTUAL tears when we had mushroom risotto last night from the older 2 who occasionally dislike mushrooms!!), then doing uni work or work after the kids go to bed.
Some days I would make time to meditate, and some days it seemed too hard, so I let it slide.
After the above schedule played out for weeks on end, I needed a circuit breaker and I decided to recommit to carving out 15 mins (or 1% of my day) to meditate.
It didn’t matter if the kids were up early (frequent), or if we got woken by the toddler at 5:27am to take him to the toilet (more frequent).
I would sit.
Source: West Coast Nest
I decided to sign up (again – 4th year in a row!) for Mindful in May to spice up my practice. Mindful in May is a global, online program where everyone commits to meditating for 10 minutes a day. There is a weekly live practice over zoom with hundreds of people from around the world sitting together to meditate.
The program has a tonne of great podcast-style interviews with meditation teachers, researchers and practitioners, as well as a daily guided meditation. For me, it’s a good program to reinvigorate my practice personally, as well as a way to expand my knowledge as a teacher. A personal and professional development double whammy!
If you have been thinking about trying meditation, or getting back into it, why don’t you try your own personal version of being more mindful this month?
Why meditate?
Meditation has so many benefits (many backed by science), including:
· Greater focus and ability to pay attention
· More positive emotions
· Better ability to manage stress and overwhelm
· Better sleep.
Don’t know where to start?
There are a bunch of great free apps that you can download to get started, like Calm, Headspace, and Insight Timer. Download a couple and try a few different guided meditations by different teachers. If you don’t vibe with the first one you listen to, try again until you find a style/teacher that resonates with you.
If you have tried the apps and want to dive a little deeper, look for meditation teachers in your local area for an in-person class. Plenty of teachers have online class options for learning to meditate – either in small groups or one-on-one.
Ask if your workplace wellbeing network might include a learn to meditate class. More and more companies are supporting employees to learn meditation as a means to boost employee retention and health and wellbeing.
And of course, I would LOVE to work with you or your workplace to teach you and your colleagues how to meditate!
I have designed a 6-week course to equip people with the tools to develop and maintain a daily meditation practice. Wellbeing is at the heart of the course, and we focus on a number of techniques to build resilience, reduce stress and overwhelm, and boost clarity. Email me for more information at alicia@well-well.com.au or you can take a look at the new Well, Well website! I would love your thoughts on it www.well-well.com.au
There are also a tonne of great books on meditation too, in particular:
· 14 Day Mind Cleanse – Jacqui Lewis
· Why We Meditate – Daniel Goleman and Tsoknyi Rinpoche
· The Science of Meditation – Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson
Podcasts too. Some favourite episodes are:
· 10% Happier: Pema Chodron
· The Peter Attia Drive: Dan Harris
· The Waking Up App (paid) has a tonne of fantastic online audio lessons and chats related to meditation and wellbeing.
But just like you can’t learn how to play tennis through reading a book, it is also tricky to learn how to meditate from a book! It is only through working with a coach or a teacher or a guide, that you learn the basics, can ask questions, and refine your technique over time to get the most out of it.
Let me know in the comments what you are doing every day to be more mindful this month!
Be well
Alicia