When I became a mom, I realized I could no longer judge my day based on how much I got done, because I could no longer hope to finish even one task.
After struggling for a long time, I ultimately realized I needed to change how I judged my days. I decided that if each day included a little bit of what I valued, and over the course of the week I touched on my whole list, then I could feel proud and productive.
Values Exercise
Try this: make a list of 5 of your top values that are essential to your dream life – creative projects, healthy food, meditation, time with family, etc. – everything that matters. In a moment, I’ll share how to get these activities you value back into your life. First, yoga can shed light for us on how this works.
Yoga Foundation
In yoga, the masculine is unchanging: pure awareness, the part of us that is steady and stable. It can be seen metaphorically as the container for all things to flow within.
The feminine is flowing: creativity, love, energy, the part of us that expresses itself in a million ways: it needs a container.
In our lives, if we want creativity flow, we must create containers for it.
These containers are like little gifts we can wrap for ourselves, and place throughout our day and our week for ourselves to find.
Examples of Gifts for Yourself
For instance, if you want to create a new meaningful career for yourself, wrap and deliver times during your week where you can dream and envision yourself living that future life. During these times, you can play the “what am I good at?” game – ask your friends, and then ask them how they think you could use this skill. You can journal about what you loved to do as a kid –what you would get lost doing, when you’d forget to come in for a meal. Or you can research online programs and coaching to get support and guidance.
However you choose to use this time, follow the thread of your heart’s desire and write it down. Trust that you’ve created the container for it and your authentic path will begin to appear. That’s just how creativity flows.
If you want to feel more calm and open and enjoy life more, place containers for breathing and meditation throughout your week.
And if you want your body to feel great, you must place containers for movement – daily movement in the morning – yoga in the morning (try 5 sun salutes) or walking every night after dinner.
Possibly the most important container of all, your physical body is the container for your pranic (energetic) body. Prana is the energy that nourishes your physical body.
Take care of this container so your prana can flow – try doing a daily coconut oil massage before the shower so healing, loving energy can flow through your tissues as you deeply hydrate.
Of course it’s hard to stick with all these plans amidst the craziness of your day!
So how can we make this actually happen in the midst of chaos?
Get it out of your brain and put it into a list. I use phone apps – calendars, task management software, to do lists – to remind myself, my partner, and the universe that this is the time I am opening up for this particular value to flow in to my life. It’s amazing how the universe often seems to comply with my request.
And it’s not that we HAVE to do it at that moment that we scheduled. If we need to push it a bit, that’s fine – at least it’s in our awareness again.
Here are some no-cost apps that can help you create containers, so even as a busy mom you can live the life you want:
www.cozi.com – A great family calendar for your phone. You can create little packages of time to do whatever you value: put your weekly farmer’s market in, a long weekly hike, a time for a daily meditation, making a healthy treat for the week on Sunday.
www.any.do – This is a super app I just found that’s a really simple task list for you iPhone or Android. It has sweet little reminder sounds, and each morning gently suggests that you drag and drop tasks around to organize your day, as well as put things you didn’t get to into “someday”.
www.insighttimer.com – This app lets you start and end meditating with a soft Tibetan bowl sound. Give yourself 90 seconds to breathe and you’ll be a new person.
www.omnifocus.com – For the Mac only (this one costs money, but there are lots of no-cost versions for the Mac and PC), project management software helps you create containers for BIG ideas and visions to flow, the ones that are way too complex to keep in your brain or even on a calendar.
With these tools, plus your commitment to the future you want to live, you can create packets full of all that you value, so your life will begin to reflect what’s truly important to you.
