Lost in the land of hopes and fears. That’s what happens when I drop my formal meditation practice. Like an early winter fog that at first forms innocuously but then pervades the entire atmosphere in a thick cloud. Hope, fear, desire, frustration and indifference subtly seep into my thinking process, slowly infecting each mental process with a sticky quality.  Sadly, my spacious and clear approach to living is dominated by a tightly clenched jaw and a narrowed self-centered focus.  YUCK!

From time to time these states of mind take me over, and I find it a real chore to bring myself home, back to a wholeness, where all of the discordant aspects of my being can rest like dust settling after a strong wind.

Ahh, meditation. What a luxury to experience, just for a moment, the profound inner peace that may come with a simple practice like watching the breath.
If you’re a parent and reading this, then you are likely to agree that parenting our little ones introduces each of us to the myriad states of mind that are possible in the human condition. It wasn’t until I became a mother, that I experienced the fathomless depth of possible emotions.

Something quantitatively different began to stir in my mind once I began the parenting journey. Psychology tells us that it is the function of the limbic brain, where our survival responses dwell as well as our emotions and our sheer biological function to protect and rear our young. It just happens that we become emotionally activated through parenting. Does meditation help us to manage our emotions?  Practicing meditation while on this rollercoaster ride of parenting has most definitely provided me (and continues to do so) with a stable and spacious ground from which to raise a family.