I flow in a sea of humanity,
       pretending I am alone.
But in this sea of humanity,
       there is much I do not know.
I look around and what do I see?
Others they are floating like me.
 
Tribes gathering like the seaweed
   beds that otters lie,
clumping together in
       hashtag refrains
calling out each other’s names.
I hear them echo across the
                     wind,
as I swim towards open water.
 
I float in. I float out.
I swim up, around, and about.
Coming into tribes and out.
I am my own group, my own
                      bubble
    floating on the waves.
But I am not alone.
 
I float in a sea of humanity,
   this community
upon which I depend.
 
No matter how solitude I think I might be
No matter how much I isolate within,
   or pretend I am not. I am.
I am part of the dance.
I am part of the sea.
I am connected to, affected by, and
   others are connected to me.
 
I float. I flow. I swim…
even though most times
    I wish
            to fly.  
 
- JP
 
************************
 
A See of Humanity
A Star Lite
 
© Jeannine Proulx, A Possibility Pause
The Star Shine Club
www.aworldofpossibility.com

There are a lot of things that stress us out in life. Grown-uping is hard. Parenting is harder. Life in general is hard. There are jobs to get, bills to pay, decisions to make, kids to care for, parents to care for, life to live. And in all that we can get overwhelmed and feel uneasy with where we are or who we are in life. And if you are a seeker or someone who loves to grow and change and push yourself? The stress can be even more intense.
 
That is when the simple principle that is talked about so often it can be dismissed as too simple comes to play: gratitude.
 
In The Melody Method Life Readiness Lessons (based on the fun, jazzy Melodies songs  for preschoolers!) we use Gratitude to Change our Attitude, helping kids turn whining into gratefulness. We can use this same idea to take the power out of our own adult worries and move into a state of mindfulness as life throws its challenges our way.
 
On the base side of using gratitude, we can just name a few things we are grateful for or write in a gratitude journal. This works to help us feel better for a moment and change our attitude toward life. But what if we really wanted to release some stress? What if we really wanted to change how we see an issue and totally take the power out of it as it stares us in the face challenges us to be worried? That’s when we go deeper.
 
3 steps is all it takes. But the results last a lifetime!
 
1. Breathe.
We love our breathing! Breathing helps us move out of that fight or flee and into a state of relaxed safety. When we breathe we are telling our bodies, it’s all okay. We are good! So yes, breathe.
 
- Take a few deep breaths in and release them very slowly. Rest and settle into where you are right here, right now.
 
2. Imagine.
We often thing imagining is for kids. It is not! It is a magical tool of using the power of our minds to envision a different world than the one our 5 sense are seeing.
 
- Imagine one thing in your life that is stressing you out. Think about what it is that you worry will happen. Don’t let it overwhelm you. Just think about what is the root of what is stressing you out.
 
3. Use Gratitude.
Take back your power! Using gratitude to create your own boundaries and find the help that is available in your life to support you.
 
- Imagine that this thing that is stressing you out has already happened… but it has turned out great! It is amazing! It is awesome! It is better than you ever thought and you have a huge sigh of relief. It all turned out amazing.
 
Feel into this feeling of relief. Feel into this great outcome of that which is now stressing you out. What are you grateful for about how this turned out so well?
List it here if you wish!
 
___________________________________________________
 
___________________________________________________
 
Our survival self is always looking for the dangers ahead to help protect and keep us safe. But this can cause us great stress in our lives always looking for the worst. This tool of using gratitude and our imagination to envision the best that could happen can not only ease our anxiety in the moment, but help us create and attract that great, best, things to come!
 
Here’s to the joys, the wonders, and the amazing joys that are to come living a mindful life full of possibility.
 
- Jeannine Proulx
Author, Creative, Possibilities Life Coach, Creator of The Melodies in Motion and The Possibility Path, Supporter of Moms and Kids Everywhere, and Founder of MindfulnessMothers.com
 
 
*Honored to be able to announce that The Melodies in Motion is going to be taught at the Mindvalley University event in Croatia this summer! And the complete curriculum for preschools, yoga studios, homeschools, and parents will be available to the public by fall! If you are interested, please email me and I’d be happy to share more @ it and how you can bring harmony to your home!


Explore. Discover. Be mindful of the moments that make up our lives!
www.mindfulnessmothers.com

 Why Self-Care is Trending
 
When children are little their needs come first. If they are not attended to, fed, kept warm or cooled off, held and loved, they will die. Because women are still the ones who biologically hold the babies in their bodies, caring for them long before they are out into the night air able to cry, women are still seen as the main caretakers of the world.
 
This feeling of needing to care for other or they will die translates into all parts of our relationships. It enters our jobs, (they can’t lie without me) our relationships, (he/she’s such a baby when they are sick) our friends, (we live for each other) and even our parents, (who honor us when we care for them.)
 
We get our self-esteem, our love, our cuddles, and our feeling of good in this world often by caretaking for others. We are taught it is self-less-ness that makes a good person. We are taught to put others first (or the babies die.)
 
In this time of transition as women are not more and more the main bread winners in the family and parents are living longer and longer and children are not able to live on their own as young as they once did, this paradigm of women putting everyone before yourself can leave you completely and totally burnt out. You can become angry, mean, sick, and tired of being everything to everybody. At a certain point our bodies just give out.
 
That is why self-care is trending.
 
In order for a human body to function it needs a few things: sleep, food, stimulation, rest, and social interaction. Just like babies need to be fed, clothed, loved, played with, and put to sleep, so too do our bodies. Our bodies are like babies. They need us to take care of them just like we take care of everyone else’s bodies.
 
When we don’t, we aren’t any good to anyone. We get mean. We get angry. We get sad. We get sick. We get tired. We cannot function well. We lose who we are and get wrapped up in drama and negativity chaos that is not our own. We can even begin to over care take for others who don’t need it as a deflection of our own needs onto someone else. (We want them to feel good so we feel good.)
 
Self-care is not about spas. (Although lovely as that can be.) Self-care is as simple as getting a quick bite to eat on the way to see grandmother at the hospital even though it will mean you will be 5 minutes later than you said you would be. Self-care is putting down the social media at night and instead crawling into bed with some soft music so your mind has time to rest and reflect before you crash into sleep.
 
Self-care is pulling off to a park inbetween work and home to take a few deep breaths and process the day for a moment before walking into the house and being attacked by kids and their needs.
 
Self-care is brushing your teeth. Self-care is cutting your hair. Self-care is stepping outside at night to breath the cool air before going in to put the kids in bed. Self-care is trading in the real plants for fake ones so you don’t feel guilty not having time to water them. Self-care is asking a neighbor to watch the kids for a few hours and going for a jog all by yourself. Self-care is taking a walk in the woods. Self-care is calling a friend when you are feeling lost and lonely. Self-care is keeping trail mix in the car not just for your kids, but for yourself.
 
Self-care is loving yourself the way you did the children when they were (are) little.
 
You are as precious as those children! You are still the glue that holds the family together. You as a woman are still expected to be the caretaker, even if you run a fortune 500 company, the burden and blame societally is still on you. (Ironically even if it’s a dad who stays at home, if there isn’t a healthy snack at soccer, the judgment is still on you!)  The tides have not yet turned in our society to share the blame or responsibility for the caretaking of all.
 
Which is why self-care for women is trending right now. We need it. We need it more than ever! We need it in the worst way and in the simplest terms, Permission granted. Feed you. Let you sleep in! Breathe it in. Let social media go by the wayside. Let the kids be in their PJs all Sunday. Let you be in your PJs all Sunday! Take care of you.
 
And the rest? One day they will either learn how to take care of each other, or take care of themselves. For now, Happy Mother’s Day 2019 mom!
 
Thanks for all you are… and? All you do.

- Jeannine
 
 
Happy Mother’s Day!
 
 
- Jeannine Proulx
Author, Creative, Possibilities Life Coach, Supporter of Moms and Kids Everywhere,
and Founder of MindfulnessMothers.com


Explore. Discover. Be mindful of the moments that make up our lives!
www.mindfulnessmothers.com

- Jeannine Proulx
Author, Creative, Possibilities Life Coach, Supporter of Moms and Kids Everywhere,
and Founder of MindfulnessMothers.com


Explore. Discover. Be mindful of the moments that make up our lives!
www.mindfulnessmothers.com

When I met my now husband he called me a Tree Hugger teasingly. I looked at him with my innocent blank faced and said “Yes! I LOVE hugging trees!” I had no idea the term was given to environmentalists at that time. To me it was pretty straight forward. Tree Huggers meant I hugged trees. Which I did, a lot.
 
It all started at camp in 7th grade. When we were getting a bit rowdy inside the dusty, wooden, stale smelling bunkhouse, we were given the punishment task of going outside and hugging the big tree in front of the cabin. The first time I was sent outside for being too loud I was reluctant. Being taken away from my friends and banished like the bad loud child was embarrassing. But the second I got outside in the fresh smelling early summer night air and wrapped my arms around that big old oak tree, pressing my face against its rough bark, I got a rush. I got a feeling of calm. I got a sensation of peace running through my tiny little seven year old body.
 
All the noise from inside felt so far away and I was not jealous or lonely at all! I was alive. I was centered. I was grounded! The thought ran through my mind that I wished I could sleep out there with the trees instead of inside with the noise and the smelly socks and spiders. I’m pretty sure I mis-behaved several times after that just so I could go outside and hug that tree!
 
Ever since then when I get overwhelmed and overdone by the inside noise of humanity, but the hum of the screens and the smell of the people, I feel the call of the trees. I must go outside. I must be out in the wide open oxygen rich world with the trees, the sky, the water, the birds, and the air. I close my eyes, take a big deep breath, and let the wonder of Mother Nature calm, balance, and center me.
 
I am now aware that the need to be outside every day is as critical to my overall well being as much as any other part of my basic self-care. It is a part of who I am. It is a huge part of what I need as a human being to stay well.
 
Studies are now showing that the air around forests is different than in the human buildings world. It is filled with all sorts of good tings that our bodies thrive on to live healthy and happy. The practice of “Tree Bathing” has started trending. Even natural playgrounds are making an appearance as we begin to recognize how important the natural world is to our well being in life.
 
Take your kids out to hug a tree today and while they are at it, join in! It just might re-fresh, re-new, and give you that sense of alive that it did all those years ago to a seven year old me who thought she was being “punished.”
 
Happy Spring!
 
 
- Jeannine Proulx
Author, Creative, Possibilities Life Coach, Supporter of Moms and Kids Everywhere,
and Founder of MindfulnessMothers.com


Explore. Discover. Be mindful of the moments that make up our lives!
www.mindfulnessmothers.com

Days come and days go. We move through life often on automatic pilot. When things go smoothly we can feel “in the flow.” We get so much done. We feel accomplished. We can be in our mindful space, our mindful place, so well. We do our self-care. We journal, breathe, do our Yoga, and take our vitamins. But then life happens. Something changes drastically.
 
It can be something as simple as weather or illness. Our life stops. And there we long for the smooth times. We long for the times when we were “in the flow.” We feel we have done something wrong, or if we just could make it to Yoga or take that walk, all would be okay. We can get antsy or anxious. We can get crabby. We can get irritable. We can get lost in blame or frustration, taking it out on others or ourselves.
 
Sitting with uncomfortable feelings can be extremely difficult. We want so much for our lives or our world to be different than it is. We dream of it being different, easier, more smooth. We long for tomorrow when it can or should go back to “normal.” We wish. We want. We whine. We cry. We sigh.
 
Ultimately the only relief can come from acceptance.
 
Life is a series of daily issues to be dealt with, a series of problems to be solved. Sitting with the feeling that things are not as they should be can be painful. Whether it is your child acting out or the world politics or policies, it is the hardest thing ever to sit with the feeling of no control. It can be exhausting. It can take more energy not to do than to do!
 
There are a few things we can to do move into mindfulness and out of frustration. These work great when kids are uncomfortable too!
 
3 Coping Ideas to Deal with Uncomfortable
 
1. Breathe! Yes, it seems so simple. But when we are stressed or in anxiety we naturally hold our breath. It signals to our body that we are in fight or flee, which can cause us to be filled with more adrenaline filled energy. By breathing in and out slowly we tell our bodies and our minds that we are safe, that we are okay. This can help us move into calm faster than just about anything.
 
2. Find something else to do. Can’t fix the teenagers attitude? Go fix the squeaky floorboard that has been driving you nuts. Can’t get out to shovel because it’s -20 below? Clean the baseboards you have been putting off for years. Worried about the state of the world? Go volunteer and read to children. Connecting with others in a heart felt space can ease the pain. Can’t heal your ill relative? Make them a craft or some cookies that shows you care. Doing something productive that has nothing to do with the thing that is frustrating you not only help time pass until the frustration is over, but it will show your brain and body that there are things you can do. Feeling productive does help get rid of anxious uncomfortable energy.
 
3. Talk to someone. Call a friend, text someone who might understand, go to a support group. Talk. Share your feelings. Share your frustrations. It’s not about whining, it’s about finding some common space. And others may share your frustration, or even have some ideas on how to move out of it! But talking gets the thoughts out of swirling in our heads and out into the open space. It can be like letting the air out of a balloon about to pop. Instead of popping at others, let some of that air out first!
 
Life can be uncomfortable. It is not always what we wish it was. Moving into action and out of reaction brings back a mindful state where we can find some peace of mind.
 
Here’s to more peace in your life and in those you love!
 
 
- Jeannine
 
www.mindfulnessmothers.com
 
FEEL FREE TO SHARE THIS BLOG POST
Just include the website. Thanks! J
 

For January we have a great way to redirect your year! Our Light, Laughter, Life, and Love  - Mindfulness Writing Course. Bring some Sparkle into the New Year. 8 week course starts Jan 15th. Use the holiday discount now! *Fun to do with your family or kids too! One sign up only per family. <3
Sign up here: http://www.mindfulnessmothers.com/mindfulness-writing-course.html

There was a time when time was a plenty. Farmers would sit and watch their crops grow. Neighbors would have you over for lemonade to talk for hours. Families would sit around the fire and tell stories while they stared at the stars. There were no 24 hour screens making noise and lights and sounds. Your after school activity was fishing at the creek and the highlight of the social calendar was the fair or a community BBQ.
 
Progress has come to our modern world and with it conveniences that save us time. (With good things like not having to wash our clothes on a rock.) But it has also created a million little things that now take up our time and vie for our attention. We have not one, but half a dozen social media apps and text messages that demand to be answered in seconds. There are hundreds of emails from advertisers, school pressures, and a thousand television stations on top of streaming a thousand more shows. Policies from the highest offices in the government are made in a split second with 140 characters. Our children now must have our advice on every decision they make, even when they are in a classroom with several teachers, with infinite search engines and books at their disposal.
 
We have so much coming in at us all the time just processing through it to see what is important and what is “junk” takes an enormous amount of time! It’s as though we are living a fight or flee situation from sun up to sun down. The tigers could come from anywhere, so we are constantly looking for them. Even way into the night, the screens flicker in our homes like the fires used to light up our nights.
 
With so much coming at us, we can get caught in the trap of reaction. Our priorities get messed up and we end up doing things we hate or don’t want to do. We can end up spending time with people we don’t like and neglecting the ones we do. We can end of stressed and overwhelmed within moments of waking up. All because of our instant need to react and respond.
 
A text comes in, we react and respond. An email comes at us, we react and respond. Our kid says “Now.” We react and respond. Our priorities in life have become who ever yells the loudest gets the first and most attention. We can become like automatic robots being pushed around by all that is coming at us, without even realizing we are no longer in control of our lives. The ping pong information world owns us and we never even saw it coming.
 
We can leave the people who mean the most to us behind as we pay so much attention to all the ping pongs coming our way.
 
Attention is love. It is a way of showing someone they matter in our lives. It is a way of saying “I am prioritizing you over someone/ something else.”  It is what our children, our families, our spouses, our parents, and ourselves need most in this constant barrage that has become our lives. We are neglecting the people, places, and joys that we love the most. But we can take back control!
 
To stop this game of Ping Pong we must start with one action: STOP.
 
It’s back to school soon after a long holiday break. More than likely you are already inundated with lists and schedules and things you “Should” be at and things you “Must” do if you are to meet the expectation of every email and text from every random stranger.
 
What if you don’t?
 
What if you, right now, just stopped? Stop and take a look at the whole year as a whole. There will be things that come up that will need your attention. Your kids will get sick. Your mother -in-law will show up unannounced. But there are things you can stop too.
 
1. You can stop saying “Yes” immediately when someone asks you to volunteer or go somewhere or do something. Instead make a note and get back to them the next day when you have had a chance to see what time you actually do have.
 
2. You can stop responding to your child’s text within 10 seconds and instead let them learn patience and independence, and give them a moment to find their own answers to their test questions.
 
3. You can stop making breakfast and instead lay our bowls of cereal the night before, or if they  are old enough, let them make their own and take that half an hour to go drink your coffee on the porch or in bed, alone and quiet.
 
4. You can stop prioritizing what other people think and start learning what it is you think, feel, and know. Get to know you again by watching how your body responds when someone asks you to do something. What makes you happy? What makes you dread? Pay attention. Get to know you! *Do the same for your kids. Giving them permission to say “No” is an important life skill that may save them from much pain in the years to come.
 
5. You can make a date night and a family night where NOTHING else happens. No work days, no school events, just time with the people you care about the most.
 
6. You can schedule in Free Play Time. A blank spot in the schedule where you can just breathe, take a nap, take a walk, drink a cup of coffee, or just chill with your family. Schedule in play time for your kids too! Undirected, no screen, free play time. See how this changes the moods of everyone in the family when they have that open time to just breathe!
 
You can do this. One thing, one step, one STOP. You can take back control of your life and the lives of those you love. Stopping the reaction and instant response to everything and take a pause to prioritize and your time can become yours again!
 
Here’s to less reaction and more relaxation in the year to come!
 
- Jeannine
 
www.mindfulnessmothers.com
 
FEEL FREE TO SHARE THIS BLOG POST
Just include the website. Thanks! J
 
For January we have a great way to redirect your year! Our Light, Laughter, Life, and Love
Mindfulness Writing Course. Bring some Sparkle into the New Year. 8 week course starts Jan 15th. Use the holiday discount now! *Fun to do with your family or kids too! One sign up only per family. <3
Sign up here: http://www.mindfulnessmothers.com/mindfulness-writing-course.html

I am switching up our monthly blog post by going back to my roots as a free flow poet. I see the world through poetry and someone suggested I share my views with you.
May you find that which can allow you to soar this fall!
 
@MindfulnessMoms 
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Falling
----------------------
 
Floating down the red leaf falls.
It knows not where it will land.
I see it fall on the water calm.
The falling leaf it floats.
 
I ask the leaf,
    “Now why do you
       float so gently well?
When I get into water deep,
   I sink, I fall, I drown.”
 
The leaf shows me,
  its arms outstretched,
thin, it bears its weight.
 
It does not fight.
It does not swim.
It simply floats away.
 
If only I could be like the leaf,
   and let the wind take me,
I could fall and fly and float
   arms outstretched I’d see -
         land and sky and waters deep.
Alone I’d reach the sea.
 
And there I’d fall,
   a gently swift, upon the water deep.
New horizons in my view,
I’d fall into the feeling
   of the waves as they fell too.
 
If only I could trust, let go
   of the fears that glue me here,
I’d fly! I’d soar. I’d fall so sweet.
    I’d be free, I’d float at last!
But here I am, alone I cling,
    arms crossed desperately
as the winds they tear me apart.
 
I take a breath,
my time has come.
I breathe once more and let go.
I fall.
I fall.
I fall.
I fall.
 
The wind carries me gently home. 
 
- JP (Jeannine Proulx)
 
 
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**** We have some GREAT articles this month on our MindfulnessMothers.com website. Go check it out!! A BIG THANKS to all the authors who contribute! ***

New articles monthly linked on the home page at: www.mindfulnessmothers.com

 
“I’m grateful because that taught me how to work.”
 
This thought came up in conversation the other day while talking about the difference in the childhoods of yesteryear and the challenges the young face today. We were talking about the jobs we had when we were young, 10, 12, 15 years old. These were the jobs where you did the dirty work of cleaning and pushing a broom, digging dirt, mowing lawns, and babysitting. These were the jobs that were at the bottom rung of the ladder. You weren’t there to move up the ladder either. You weren’t there to get a bonus, benefits, or to support a family.
 
You were there to learn how to work.
 
With the economy changes and the crash that found people with Masters’ degrees working at McDonalds, these on the job training jobs were passed onto people with much more experience. If you could get someone with more experience to do the same thing for the same money, why wouldn’t you?
 
At the same time, schools moved into focusing on testing and college preparedness. The jobs of washing dishes and cleaning cars became seen as less than desirable for our children. We wanted them to have careers that required education, smarts, and know how. We turned to the school systems, after school curriculum, and sports activities to give this to our kids. But what happened was our kids got too busy for those part-time low end of the rung jobs. We put value on their extra curricular and that left little time for work.
 
So now we have a whole generation of kids who know how to play sports, can speak Lation, code computers, and understand advanced biology so they can get the jobs that require a degree. But what they haven’t learned and what we have forgotten to teach them, is how to work, just for the sake and satisfaction of working. 
 
Life is difficult; the working world is no different. The job market has become harder than ever as corporations take over small companies. They can pick and choose their best hires, and wait if they can’t find them. You don’t’ just get a job for having a degree anymore. Kids today are going to have the face the fact that they might not get their dream job right out of college. They may have to work at a job they hate. They may have to work at a job that is less than, or beneath, what they are capable of or educated above. They may have to do the dirty job in order to prove them can do the big jobs.
 
This is a skill we are not providing our kids. The skill of work for work’s sake.
 
This is not to say an education is not work, or that an education is not important, but there is a mindfulness skill in being able to do something you really don’t want to do for a set amount of time just for the sake of doing it.
 
The motivation to work comes with rewards in money, of course. But there are other rewards. The feeling of satisfaction in a surface you cleaned that was once dirty. The feeling of helping someone who really needs a helping hand is rewarding. The knowledge that you can handle a tough job and that you are strong enough to handle a tough situation is not only rewarding, it is huge boost for self-esteem and feeling capable in the world. The joy in a job well done is a tangible thing. It is a mindfulness tool to be able to not be co-erced or bribed or forced into doing something, but instead find the motivation to want to do it. That comes with practicing work. And practice only comes if we give our kids the opportunity.
 
Recently an actor was Social shamed for working, just because the work was at a Trader Joes and not on TV. If our society is a point where we feel that people playing imaginary characters on a screen is more real, more important, and more valued than the person in care of our food, money, and nourishment (ie: groceries), then perhaps it is time that we do take a look at what we are teaching our kids. What do we ourselves believe about the honor, the respect, and the ability to just work?
 
Take the time today to honor work in all its forms,  no matter where or how it happens to be. (And the work that you do as a parent is valued too!!!)
 
 
- Jeannine Proulx
 
FEEL FREE TO SHARE THIS BLOG POST
Just include the website. Thanks! J
www.mindfulnessmothers.com
 
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* If you are ready for a weekly pause, join the Star Shine Club and get a Possibility Pause to direct your attention to positive self reflection and steps that will give you answers when you need them the most. 
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