3 Mindful Morning Moments

Lindsay Miller  0:07  
You're listening to The Stress Nanny podcast, and I'm your host, Lindsay Miller. I'm here to help you keep an eye on your family stress levels. In our fast paced lives, the ability to manage stress has never been more important for kids or adults. When it comes to stress, we have two choices, we can decrease stress or increase our resilience to it. Here on the number eight ranked stress podcast, I interview experts and share insights to help you do both. When you tune in each week, you'll bring your stress levels down and your resilience up so that stress doesn't get in the way of you living your best life. I'm so glad you're here. 

Hey, there, this is Lindsay, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast. Some weeks I interview experts who help us understand stress and how to decrease it and kind of optimize our stress levels, so that we're getting stuff done, but that we're not overly anxious. Other weeks, I share insights from my own practice and from my work with clients to help us incorporate mindfulness into our lives, which is one of the key things we can do to optimize our stress levels. So this week, I'm going to be sharing some tips on how to add a little bit of mindfulness to your morning. Now a lot of times we feel like the morning is a little bit frantic, we're either trying to get out the house or trying to get to work. As summer kind of ends and we move into more structured time of year, it can be challenging to incorporate mindfulness in sustainable ways, meaning ways that don't require too much effort. And you know, that we can make happen consistently. And so I just wanted to share three quick things that have worked for my clients over the years to help them incorporate mindfulness into their mornings. So the first one is to take three mindful steps. So mindfulness is all about knowing what's going on inside of you what's going on outside of you, and then making a choice on purpose. And when we can connect with like a few mindful steps in the morning, it's so much easier to return to that place of mindfulness throughout the day, we're not trying to like find it, we're just trying to return to it. And so three mindful steps can be like, on your way from your bed to the bathroom, and you're just taking it slow. You're noticing how your feet hit the floor, you're, you know, feeling the textures, whether it's tile, or wood or carpet beneath you, and you're just kind of really connecting with the movement of your foot. So where your foot lands, and then thoroughly, you know, rotating through all the whole step. And so there was a podcast a while back, we did with Tai Chi, and Rubia talked about walk as though your feet were whispering to the earth. And I loved that quote. And I think that when we mindfully walk, we really just connect with our felt sense of being grounded, like we're connecting with the surface beneath us. And to us, taking three steps in the morning is not a big deal, right. But it slows us down enough that again, we can return to it later. So what this has looked like for me or for clients that I've worked with is like for kids on the way to the bus stop. So sometimes for kids, it can be hard to get them to just stop and like sit and breathe in the morning. But if you say like take some deep breaths on your way to the bus stop, see if you can walk slowly on your way to the bus stop. Or if you don't have the luxury of walking slowly, notice how it feels when you're running, you know, like take those mindful steps and make them running steps. But just really notice how your feet hit the ground. And notice the movement of your whole foot. And it just connects you into your body and connects you to a sense of presence, which again, is easier to return to throughout the day. So another one is three deep breaths. So just taking three deep breaths, whether it is in succession, or maybe you have three points in your morning where you take a deep breath, maybe it's when you're washing your hands, maybe it's when you're just rolling out of bed. And maybe it's when you're starting your car, or maybe it's when you're before you turn on your computer before you eat your meal whenever it is. And if it's easier for you to take three breaths in a row, go for that. And if it's easier to spread them out, and you know, attach them to a certain action that you take. Do that notice what works best for you. It might be easier, you know, or it might feel better, or you might initiate more calm with one or the other. So go with that. But the idea behind this one is again to build a sense of presence and bring yourself to this moment. So breathing connects us with our body. And it connects us just with a sense of slowing down and paying attention to exactly what is going on right now. And again, that practice that simple practice opens up that conduit for us so that we can return to mindfulness throughout the day when we need it. But we don't have to, you know fight for it because it's so much harder especially for kids who are you know, working to regulate emotion to Learn to manage social situations, if we ask them to find that part of their brain that's kind of like the monitor throughout the day, if they haven't connected with it before they get into a situation where they're struggling, it's really, really hard for them to have the level of like discipline or self regulation that they need. But if they can just do a super simple practice in the morning, before they start their day, we open up the connection with that part of the brain so that it's much easier for it to work throughout the rest of the day. So taking those breaths again, like at the bus stop, as kids are waiting for the bus, or maybe you're at a stoplight, and you just take three deep breaths set, you know the first stoplight that you stopped at that day, maybe you're taking your deep breaths again, before meal, or maybe you're taking them as you grab your purse or wallet to head out of the house. If you're working from home. Again, it can be right for you turn on your computer, just give yourself a moment in the day where you can tether that breathing practice. And just make it super simple, super quick, so that you'll do it and let it serve you for the rest of the day. And then the last one is to sense three things. So tuning into our senses is a mindfulness practice that is consistently, you know, really works well for a lot of people. And it can be any of the senses, I would encourage you to choose three different senses. So maybe your sense of touch something like you know, when you're washing your hands, really noticing the soap on your hands and noticing the temperature of the water. If you're holding a tea or coffee in the morning, you know, noticing the texture of your mug and how warm it is. If you are waking up your little one and have morning breath, noticing that smell, you know like there's only going to be so many mornings when you smell that smell. So noticing morning breath or you know if your dog comes up and licks you feeling that on your face and you know, noticing whatever their breath is like but noticing like just using your nose, right smelling your breakfast, cooking and just taking a minute to stop and savor that. Or if you're walking out of the house and the trash is smelly. You know, it doesn't have to be something amazing and super pleasant. It can just be normal, whatever is part of your morning, if you're changing a diaper, I'm not saying soak it up. But I am saying like, Okay, I'm really present with my sense of smell right now. You know, that's all it takes. And so if we can tune into one of our senses, so again, we can be like just taking a bite of our food really mindfully and noticing that taste and the textures or food, we can be looking outside, I love to see this sunrise, my daughter and I have a practice of noticing the sunrise over the mountains in the morning. And we always just kind of take a minute to soak in that visual because it's gorgeous. And it's just right, because we're headed to school. And so giving yourself a chance to just tune into your senses allow the birdsong to bring you to the present moment, whatever it is, just let yourself be present with your senses. And again, if it's not a super pleasant sense, and you're walking by the garbage, and you're like, Ah, I need to take this out again, today, I can just say like, I'm really aware of my sense of smell right now. And that's it right, and that you've done it. And so being present with whatever smells, and visuals and tastes, and you know, all the different, all the different

ways that we take in the world being present with that in the morning, can really open us up throughout the day to again, more senses. So we if we connect with our sense of hearing, and we hear the birds in the morning, as we're kind of pulling out of the driveway, or as we're, you know, getting ready, there's a good chance that throughout the rest of the day, we're going to connect again, when we hear the birds, right, or we're going to be attuned to the dog barking down the street, or we're going to be able to hear you know, the whisper of the rain, when it starts, there's just a lot of opportunity to bring that practice into the day, if we initiate it in the morning. If I start my morning, really smelling like my herbal tea, then throughout the day, I just have a more savoring mentality right when it comes to smell, whenever I'm eating, I feel like I just want to kind of sense it, smell it, taste it and really soak it up before I just kind of inhale it. And so again, the practice of doing that first thing allows it to be a return to later in the day, instead of you kind of grasping for it and trying to find it. And the funny thing is, is that they seem like really simple practices, right? Three mindful steps, three deep breaths, and then sensing three things. But if you do them, you'll notice over time, just how much it invites you into a different state of mind. And that state of mind is one that again, you may not sit there the whole day, right? But the idea with any mindfulness or meditation practice is that we return to it and that we refocus and recenter so for feeling lost throughout the day, we're feeling really frustrated or our kid is taking a test and they're getting really anxious. It If they've practiced their three deep breaths on the way to the bus stop, or while they're standing there waiting for the bus, they're going to be able to take those three deep breaths at their desk. And it's going to bring them back to a sense of calm, and a sense of presence. And it's going to let those worries dissipate. If we've sensed something in the morning, and we've really just woken up to the fact that we're in, in a body and alive in this beautiful world, and then later in the day, we're sitting in traffic, and we're late for soccer practice, and we're not sure how we're gonna get there, and we're worried about what we're gonna have for dinner. And we're gonna get home in time to finish up the things we need to do for bed. And we forgot the laundry, and you know, all the different things that we can be thinking about. As we're sitting in a frustrated space. If at the same time, we start to see like a thunderstorm rolling, and the clouds are really pretty. And there's a different kind of lighting in the sky based on, you know, the clouds rolling in, we're going to connect with it. And we're going to invite ourselves into a different mental space as a result. And so being able to initiate a super simple mindfulness invitation to ourselves in the morning, like one of these practices really will lend itself to greater mindfulness practice throughout the day. And it won't even be something you have to really try for. If you do these simple things in the morning, you already primed for it. And so your brain is going to notice it, you've kind of like created the invitation. And your brain is going to connect with these different things throughout the day. So you're saying this is what I want to notice, I want to notice how it feels to take a step on the carpet in my house, I want to notice what it feels like to take a deep breath in this body of mine and really be present, I want to notice the texture of my child's head. You know, as I as I kind of brush their hair, I want to notice the house, how fine their hair is, or you know, if it's tangled, I want to feel this little knot and help unravel it so that my child can have you know, their cute hair on the way to school or whatever it is. You You invite yourself to presents. And so the whole idea is that you take a few minutes in the morning in whatever way is resonant with you to invite yourself to presence. And with these mindfulness practices, you'll see that that presents that invitation to presents will follow you for the rest of the day. I hope those are helpful. Again, it's really really good if you can tether them to something you already do. So don't try to just insert them randomly in your morning every day. Otherwise, it'll be frustrating. And I'm feel like one more thing to do. So choose one, just choose the steps or the breathing or the sensing, add it to a part of your day that you know you're going to do consistently. And then when you create that habit stack, just notice how for the rest of the day, you invite yourself to more moments like that. And then just a quick note, if you are trying to help your little ones practice mindfulness in the morning, it's infinitely more helpful if you do your own practice first. So if you're wanting to help your family, practice mindfulness, make sure you take your deep breaths before you're trying to help everyone else do that. Because there's nothing quite like forcing or fighting your kids to do mindfulness. So if you can get yourself into a mindful study space, that's the key. And then from there, you can teach it. And if you feel like you could use some help with your mindfulness practice or figuring out how to incorporate moments like this into your day. Please, please join us in my weekly meditation and mindfulness class for grownups we meet at noon on Tuesdays. And we just talk about simple ways to bring more and more mindfulness into our lives. And the result is a sense of calm along with resilience, knowing that no matter what comes our way we can make it through and that we can tune into our intuition, tune into our breathing, in order to handle the moments of life with intention, whether that's a relationship or work conflict, a connection with a child. Having a mindfulness practice allows us to be mindful and intentional in those moments and create the kind of culture both in in ourselves and then in our in our family life and in our social relationships that we want. So come join us on zoom on Tuesdays and see those moments of change happen in your life too. But I'd love to hear if you try these, how they go for you or you know what other ideas you would be looking for when it comes to introducing more mindfulness into your day. You've just finished an episode of the stress nanny podcast. So hopefully you feel a little more empowered when it comes to dealing with stress. Feel free to take a deep breath and let it out slowly as you go back to your day. I'm so glad you're here. If you're a longtime listener, thank you so much for your support. It really means the world to me. If you're new, I'd love to have you follow the podcast and join me each week. And no matter how long you've been listening, please share this episode with someone who is stressed out. If you enjoyed the show, would you please do me a favor and go to ratethispodcast.com/thestressnanny and leave a review. The link is in the shownotes I'm so grateful for all my listeners. Thank you again for being here. Until next time!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai