Lately many people challenge the fact that nearly all self improvement courses are for people who need to take care about themselves or, at max, about their second half. But what about the parents? Especially the single ones? How would my morning glory scenario would work in their case when early wake up happens not due to need for meditation but because it’s time to feed the baby? Indeed…

It is easy to give advice on how to be more conscious, teach mindfulness techniques when I have a privilege to have all the time for myself in my hands. Yes, I do have my day to day job and a side job which I do because I want to, but that still gives me enough space and freedom to have sufficiently so called “me time”. People with kids don’t have that, especially with the babies. They don’t even own their “me” anymore because a very significant part of them is alive in this world and asking for attention.

So how do they do that? Is it indeed mindfulness versus kids? Self-improvement versus family life? This all looked very black and white for me for a long time until one day I got the answer when visiting my brother’s family. So, here is the story.

My brother is happily (in my opinion :)) married man with a couple of kids (9 and 2.5 year old). That specific day of my visit that I’m talking about the elderly son was sick. For those who has kids it’s pretty clear what that is but for me it was very interesting to watch that sick kid does mean a guy lying in bed and sleeping. No, he was some sort of super sensitive and hyperactive little monster, screaming and shouting all over the place. Hence for auntie V that as a bit of a WOW moment. I did not even know how to interact with him in order not to cause additional drama. In my head I very quickly ran through all NLP methodologies and coaching advices but that did not necessarily help.

While assessing the data in my brain and trying to find the best plan of action I started watching my sister in law who was as calm as a rock. As if nothing was happening. As if it was the most normal casualty there can be. That amazed me even more. The amount of patience, calmness and understanding that she had… She could definitely give lecture on “Be peace in the world of chaos”.

Then we started talking as I was the most curious on how she did that. What were the techniques that she was using? When would she find time to meditate or get back to her core, etc. etc. She just looked at me and said the most obvious thing there was – “I don’t know, I guess this is what happens when you have kids. When you have yours, you’ll have the same”. Right… That did not give me much. My brain was not completely satisfied and wanted more.

What she said later made me think really deeply. To become a mother was her conscious decision and she took that role very seriously, understanding that for a certain time in her life there will be someone even more important than her and that her job was to raise and support those people. In baby stage that support level is higher and then it gets smaller as they grow. She understands that it is up to her how she deals with that and how she feels about that. Fair point, right? So in her case she created some kind of motherhood manufacture as I call. She built a routine with the babies. That included reading, painting even ceramics work! While being a very artistic and creative person she expanded her level of creativity to new levels by including her kids into that.

And that was it! I realised that there is no choice between kids or mindfulness. There is no loss or surrender – it is all about entirely different level! The more I obserbe the more I believe that parents are even more conscious than most of us. They very highly function with a very small amount of sleep. They multitask way better than we do and they live in unconditional love while some of us are trying to understand what it is. Without any seminars, courses or self-development camps they learn mindfulness and consciousness by doing. Yes, their form of meditation changes, as well as the form of doing arts but these are exactly the same exercises just in a different form! It’s like moving from high school to university.

Yes, I do not know too many teachers who are on their full blown enlightnenment trip with a baby on their arms. But maybe that says more about me 🙂 And yes, I agree that some of the teachings are full scale applicable only for people who have more time on their hands than an average person. But I also know that the way I feel about it depends on my perception and the choices I make. If in my full time job routine I am expecting myself to be able to meditate 5 hours a day and to do 2 hours of yoga, well, that’s fine, but not very reasonable I’d say. We all are creative and capable of adapting knowledge to our day to day life in order to find balance. There is no need to find any teacher, coach or a hero blindly. Free yourself and find your own ways and new levels.