12.30 pm
Before: How I used to live?
- I used to overbook my days. And I mainly blamed other things and people for that.
- I used to think that staying connected to your body and mind is something that needs a lot of time and effort. That it is something that a working mom can´t afford.
Changes: What changes I´ve made to my life since I started to pay more attention to my wellbeing and simplify my life?
- I´ve learned to take responsibility over my life. I´ve realized that I´ve more power over my life than I´ve thought. I just need to have the courage to use that power. Learning to say “no” for meaningless things has been the most important way to get more time and energy for my wellbeing.
- I´ve learned to focus on small things and what I CAN do for my wellbeing as a working mom. I´ve also consciously learned to give MYSELF a little attention during the day. And not only focus on other family members, housework and my work all the time.
- I´ve learned to plan and rhythm my days so that I can calm down for a while at some point.
- I´ve learned practical and easy ways to stay connected to my body and mind. Ways that I can implement in my current life situation. A following way works best for me at the moment. It´s my small relaxation practice that is inspired by yoga asana “Savasana“: Liilia falls asleep best when I pretend to sleep next to her after reading some children´s books. When I´m pretending to sleep, I concentrate on breathing deep. I gently push all the other thoughts from my mind for a while. I concentrate on listening to the feelings, bad and good ones, that I have in my body and mind. And I think what I could do to feel a little bit better. What my body and mind would like me to do? What they would need the most? More sleep? Exercise? Stretching? A peaceful walk outside? Meeting a friend? Talking with my husband? My moment takes only 5-10 minutes, but I´ve noticed that it gives me a lot of energy and relaxation. And when I do it on a daily basis, it helps me to stay connected to my body and mind really well.
After: What kind of positive effects I´ve noticed now that I´ve been able to get closer to Living Simply.
- My know-how about my health and wellbeing has improved: Finding ways to get connected to my body and mind has helped me to listen to them better and learn to know myself better. I´m able to take care of myself better and recognize if there really is something why I need to a doctor for.
- I use less medicines: For example I used to treat my headache and migraine with medicines. Nowadays I have less headache and migraine. Prevention rocks! And when I have them, I treat them with sleeping, eating, yoga and taking long relaxing walks in nature.
- My stress tolerance has improved: The fact that I know that I have one slow moment during my day helps enormously to stand all the other busy moments. Another thing is my better connection to my body and mind; Nowadays I recognize better when it´s time to slow down so that the things woudn’t get too crazy in our family. And so that the stress would’t overwhelm me.
- I feel more balanced and mindful: Due to better connection to my body and mind I feel that my life is more in my own hands nowadays. My self-confidence and confidence for life have improved. Even thought my calendar is still very full, my peace of mind has deepened. And deep inside me I feel more balanced and mindful than I did before children.
Next time you can read about my ways to work.
Click to read the On the way to Simple Living: Intro.
Read all posts from my post series called On the way to Simple Living.
