I’ve been reading a lot about mindful meditation, and the benefits it has on your life, your mood and your ability to stay calm and how to react to stressful situations. It started well and I did it solidly for a week, every morning for 10 minutes. Ten minutes is the recommended allocated time that is needed to make a difference, there are guided meditation videos on YouTube, and it only takes 10 minutes and that time would of ordinarily been spent scrolling mindlessly on my phone anyway so why not?! Why not spend that time doing something that might potentially make a big difference in your life.

As I said, it started of well, but lately we’ve had a change of routine and with the change of routine comes the falling down of everything I had put in place before. Just a small change of routine sets a domino effect off in this house and it quickly tumbles into chaos! Sometimes that chaos can’t be unravelled and most of the time it just takes months and months to rebuild what we had before. It’s completely exhausting, feeling the need to be 10 steps in front of everything in order for this home and our lives to run as smoothly as it can and prevent the chaos being unravelled.

As it is, I haven’t meditated in about 3 days and I’m actually starting to miss it. I could do it at another time of the day, but that is also so difficult, because trying to factor activities into an already busy schedule can be overwhelming and that just makes me shy away from it and avoid it. And I can see then the way Charlie’s mind works and the way that he ends up avoiding certain tasks as they become overwhelming.

Mindful meditation has been heavily promoted lately, because of the benefits that it has on both adults and children and there are lots of children’s resources out there too. The hope was that if I can build it as a healthy habit for my life, then maybe that habit will build for Charlie and then he will benefit from it too. So what are the benefits? Well there is the calming techniques, being in the present, grounding, mental wellbeing, reduce stress, efficiency and better sleep (and we can all do with better sleep).

I have definitely felt and seen some benefits even though it was only for a short time. I felt calmer throughout the day, less anxiety and I noticed a change in my voice and my sleep habits too. So I will continue as those benefits are definitely worth it when I consider it’s only 10 minutes out my day, where I would of normally just been scrolling on social media anyway! Definitely worth the sacrifice.

Georgina