Meditating Mom

By Anchel Krishna @Anchelk

How Meditation Makes My Life Better

In this article Anchel discusses how she fits in a daily meditation and the impact it makes.
In our world a typical day includes an early start, ideally a workout, a time crunch to get everyone out of the house on time, work, meetings, medical and therapy appointments for Syona, balancing three to four separate calendars (work, family, social and Syona’s therapy/medical appointments), searching for appropriate childcare, trying to get a three-year-old who wants to fight her naps but still needs them to sleep, getting home, cooking, feeding Syona, spending a few quality minutes together, getting her in bed before she completely melts down because she didn’t take a nap, usually doing a bit more work or writing, trying to spend a few minutes catching up with each other after Syona sleeps, cleaning up, getting everything in order for the next day, going to sleep and often getting up through the night since our three –year old doesn’t sleep through the night yet.

Photo: Courtesy Anchel Krishna

I bet your days sound somewhat similar. We’re a pretty typical family. We have a number of extra things on our plate because of Syona’s special needs but we also have a strong family and support system around us.

Life is good. But even though life is good it can also be stressful. Trying to deal with the mounds of funding paperwork, back to school, a busy time at work and a packed social calendar can leave us stressed. We’re not willing or wanting to cut any of it out – we thoroughly love our life, but we know we need to proactively manage our stress and protect our mental health.

In addition to built-in breaks and committing to spending a few minutes together each day, both Dilip and I practice daily meditation. Dilip decided to start a few months ago to try to improve his focus and reduce stress. I decided to start almost a year ago to reduce stress and improve sleep, on the advice of a naturopath.

The South Asian culture has such a wonderful focus on self-care – whether through yoga, meditation, certain cultural or religious rituals, etc. and it wasn’t a stretch for us to find a way to incorporate it into our lives.
We both practice in different ways. Dilip spends 10 minutes at the end of the day before bed sitting in front of our little mandir. I lie in bed and listen to a bhajan that repeats the same mantra – it’s a five-minute song.

My mind is not always still when I’m meditating and I accept that. In fact, it is often the opposite – my thoughts race through the day, make plans for the day ahead or I focus on breathing – but at the end of the five minutes I exhale and feel much more peaceful than before. I’m better able to enjoy the great moments that every day brings and deal with the less than great moments as well.

There are always excuses to not take care of yourself, but carving out five minutes to take care of yourself can do wonders for your ability to deal with the stressors that we all face every day.
Do you meditate? How do you take care of yourself?

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