practice yoga and meditate

And, you know, I think I did pretty well with it. I wasn’t so concerned about keeping score near the end. However, if I didn’t reach my meditation goal, I sure came close. And, regardless, I’ve gotten in the habit of meditating every other night or so. I’m pretty happy about that.

Meditating also helps me relax at night before going to bed. I didn’t realize what a difference it made until I went a couple days without meditating. I had a harder time falling to sleep, had unsettling dreams, and woke more frequently during the night.

Practicing yoga with my daughter is a different story. She would get so excited we were doing it together that she really didn’t pay attention to what we were doing. A little frustrating. But she certainly enjoys the more active poses. I think I’m going to keep doing this with her ~ but I’m definitely not going to worry about doing it x amount of times per week. Yes, yoga is something I’d like to incorporate in my day, but I’m happier I made so much progress with meditation.

Since I didn’t complete one half of my goal, I’m still going to ‘punish’ myself. But I was successful with the first half. So I won’t limit myself to only one hour of internet access every other day. Let’s see…. How about two hours per day: one in the morning and one at night?

I’m doing great on meditating. I’ve meditated 9 days out of 11. Not bad, considering my goal was 4 days out of every 7.

However, I haven’t practiced yoga with my daughter very much. I could make lots of excuses: my in-laws came to visit for a few days, my son isn’t going down for naps, etc. However, the upshot is that I’m just not doing it. I have to make more of an effort on this part of my goal. I really want to practice yoga more, and I so enjoy doing it with my daughter.

Overall, though, I’m happy with my progress.

I meditated using my prayer beads the night I decided to challenge myself to complete this goal. And yesterday, my daughter and I practiced yoga. I tried to introduce the idea of meditation to her (the Yoga Kids videos do as well), but she’s just too excited that we’re doing yoga together to calm down and relax enough to sit still for a few minutes. :D It’s really amusing. So I figure I’ll alternate days: meditate, yoga, meditate, yoga, etc. If I miss a day with one, I’ll compensate by doing the other. I hope to build up to meditating daily, and I want to gradually add to it until I have a simple but meaningful spiritual practice. I also plan to keep trying to meditate with my enthusiastic 4 1/2-year old.

Any advice or tips for meditating with children?

I’ve been flirting with meditation for a while now, but I don’t seriously commit myself to it. I have time before bed to do it, but I keep putting it off. So now’s the time to bite the bullet. I’m committing myself to meditating 4 nights a week and practicing yoga with my daughter three days a week for a month. If I don’t, I’m going to limit my internet access to 1 hour every other day for a month. (I should limit my internet access, anyway, but….)

I have guided meditations galore, meditations to do with my prayer beads, and I know some meditation techniques. I just need to be more consistent with my efforts.

Practicing yoga with my daughter shouldn’t be too difficult, either. I have three Yoga Kids videos ~ we’ve already tried two of them. My daughter seems to enjoy them as much as I do and we can watch them during my son’s nap. Again, consistency is the key.

Wish me luck!