Mama Needs a Refill

Olympics, The Sound, Sunlight...the stage was set for reflection at our last retreat.

During this past Mini-Sack Lunch-Retreat held on Friday, the stage was set for reflection, which is exactly the place where all the women were on this day.  A place of reflection. The sun was out, the Olympic snow covered peaks invited us, the colors of the Puget Sound danced in the light daring us to ignore the beauty out our window. The scenery was set for them to delve to those deep places that often get ignored. The quiet time was theirs with the sun lighting their way.

That of course can be scary, not everyone wants to hear what is below the surface, right?

It’s amazing and beautiful what can happen when we trust, let go and trust in our own stillness.

I led the women through a meditation. For one piece of it using words I found from Deepak Chopra’s website, we breathed in “I let go of grievances and choose miracles. Thy will be done.”

Since guiding others on Friday, I have been breathing in these words myself and have found significant shifts in my reality. How much more life there is in my world when I let go and am open, releasing the reigns. My world is overflowing with possibility.

Pausing to listen and reflect, taking the time to let go and choose to walk toward the sun leaves my cup more than full.

What would your cup look like if you made room for trust?

What would happen if you said wait a minute, and did something for yourself first? Maybe took a breath or a moment, made yourself a healthy lunch or read one more page before doing something for your kids?

What would your world look like if you put your needs, your soul’s desires, yourself first?

Are you afraid of how it will look? Fearing it appears selfish, self-indulgent, greedy? Or worse do you think you don’t deserve it and guilt is stopping you?

What will it take for you to realize putting yourself first doesn’t mean putting others last and it certainly doesn’t mean you a bad parent?

The world will continue to spin if you stop, just for a moment and take care of you.

Trust me, it will spin even brighter because you will have stopped to let the light in.

Better yet, if you aren’t ready to trust me, we just met, or maybe you’re not even ready to trust God or the Universe, who is holding you up – trust yourself.

For you have all you need, right inside of you.

Believe in your dreams, believe in your intentions, believe in YOU. I dare you to put yourself first for a day...not even a whole day, just 4 hours.

Still time to sign up for this Friday’s Mini-Sack Lunch Retreat. Instead of being discouraged because you already have forgotten about your New Year’s Resolutions, come reflect in a relaxing environment about your New Year Intention.

Create a simple vision board you can fold up and keep in your pocket or journal.

Catch your breath. Put You first for once, this Friday.

For questions and to sign up email: info@mamaneedsarefill.com.

Something simple can be such an indulgent pleasure.

This past Monday the kids went back to school after a week off with snow days.

Monday was all about me. For six hours. The length of a school day.

After a yoga class, my long time college friend and I did the unspeakable, right in the middle of the day. A sunny day. So broad daylight was an understatement.

We went to a movie.

So decadent.

So self indulgent.

That night I lingered longer at the dinner table with my kids, held them closer at bed time and didn’t lose my temper.

What can you do in broad daylight for yourself while your kids are at school that will make you smile long into the evening and hold your children tighter?

Your intentions can manifest intowishes come true, with out needing fairy dust.

Yesterday on the playground, waiting for the after school bell to ring, I began chatting with a mom I see regularly. We wait for our kids in the same spot on the playground. We both took the opportunity to catch our breath before the bell.  In our exchanges of “how are you” we discovered a shared feeling. We both  had been going since the first bell in the morning that signaled the start of school. In those six hours between bells we try to cram it all in, get it all done.

She pointedly asked me, How do we do it? How do we get that time to consciously sit and be still without cramming everything in and accomplishing tasks?

I smiled. Here was my chance to do something  I have been intending to do.  I have been wanting to stop everything at 3 PM and sit with a book and a cup of tea, drink it while it is still hot, catch my breath before getting kids, settle into stillness, read a book.  All for a simple 20minutes, before I walk to school to get the kiddos.

Gina, I said, We consciously do this with having accountability partners. We set our intention, share it with each other, then check in with the other.

Smiling big, her eyes lit up. Yes, her eyes told me, Let’s do this.

The bell rang, we had to stop our conversation and greet children. I’m inspired, she told me as she walked away still smiling.

Me too. Now I had to do what I have been intending to do. Turn it off, sit with me, for twenty minutes.

When do we start?, I asked.

I’m starting tomorrow, she beamed.

Perfect. Me too. Oh, how I love the power of peer pressure. Tomorrow, Friday, we can check in at pick up.

It was set. So not only have I committed verbally to another person, I have written it down.  They say the chances of following through with something more than doubles when you do those things. Speak it, write it down and let someone else in on it at the same time.

It is morning, I haven’t even had my morning tea, and I am already anticipating the afternoon and  hearing about Gina’s “twenty minutes” of conscious” her” time before picking up kids and I am thrilled I get to read Jane Eyre for my twenty minutes. I am thinking about Earl Grey with honey.

These intentions don’t have to be unfulfilled dreams or far off wishes . They can manifest right before our eyes with a little effort, an accountability partner and a lot of letting go.

It's the simple pleasures and letting go of the stressful bits that overwhelm us this time of year.

It’s December, Christmas no longer around a corner but in the final stretch.

Where is your refill level? On empty? Swirled around and going in so many directions you have no idea what your needs are and if they’re being met or not?

Christmas will come regardless of what you buy, make, prepare or do. So what about adopting a less is more attitude this month and just be?

The other day at the pool, instead of doing three more laps to make it to an even half mile workout, I flipped over on my back and floated. I let the warm water fill my ears. The other laps would have to wait until another day. All I could hear was my breath.

My breath not doing anything but being…and really what more is there to do but just be? What else really matters?

Christmas will come even if you don’t send out the perfect Christmas card, make home-made gifts, take the kids to see Santa, make a gingerbread house. But if in doing those things you are filled with joy, experience the Christmas Spirit, then by all means knock yourself out, go to town. But if you are stressed out and missing the joy, screw it and sit down and read a Christmas book and have a second cup of cocoa.

When we wait for our time, put ourself last, our needs, our passions and desires will get lost, forgotten.

Still in a food coma and out of town staying with family for the Thanksgiving weekend I need a moment away from everyone to figure out what I need today to fill my cup. Tucked away in the guest room out of site from the others I seek refuge. The local yoga studio is closed but a walk is a definite possibility and my sister-in-law is game to join me. Contemplating a nap and it’s only 10 in the morning, I would not be missed, so many of us here, I could get some serious shut eye before they even discovered I was missing from the crowd.

And this is what it means to take the time, make the effort, to fill your cup. Move away from others, quiet your mind, do what you need to hear your desires that stir below the surface. As I write this three different people have knocked, or just come in to the guest room, apparently the Black Friday bug has hit half of the group. Four people.  Knock, knock, make it five visits in my place of refuge.

My solitude may have to happen in the bathroom. But I don’t give up. Because it is literally a few moments that I need, just  a long inhale’s worth of time to refill.

If I gave in too early and threw in the towel I would only later erupt from frustration.

So I answer the knock calmly and say, just a few more minutes, then I’ll be ready.  I read a few words, quiet my mind, write, check my online chess games, breathe again, post this, then I am ready to go back and be part of the crowd.

You have to take your time for if you wait for it to happen, it just doesn’t. It will get swept up in the crowd, washed down with the pie and whip cream, blown over, forgotten.  And sometimes the little bit you take is just enough to get you to the next place.

Cups at a recent retreat waiting to be decorated...just like us, waiting to be refilled...eventual potential!

A few weeks ago the words of my yoga class instructor resonated loud and clear and have stuck with me. When leading us into a pose she directed the moves guiding us with her words. Then at the end of her instruction detailing how the posture should look, she would add, Eventually.

Hands here, head there, and then, Eventually, but not today your eyes will see the wall behind you. Or after making sure we were safely in the next pose, Perhaps not today but one day your forehead will be on the ground, eventually, not now.

What a lovely, gentle way to speak to ourselves. We don’t have to achieve it all now. Every step leads us to the next. It is impossible to move to the final step, the goal if you will, if you haven’t taken the steps leading up.

Eventually, one day we will get there. When we have done the work, taken the time and are ready.

A retreat attendee paints her cup with a reminder we all need...Believe.

Today was the second of the Mama Needs A Refill mini-retreat series: The Mental Cup. Six women gathered to unwind, reflect, connect, and refill.

With all the planning and preparation that goes into this, the fact that I get so much out of giving these retreats, is just icing on the cake. I may be the facilitator but we are all the teachers, reaping the benefits of everyone’s wisdom.

We shared on what drains and fills our cups. Many of us readers we found books a great way to mentally refill. All mothers we found the daily chores of house duties to often be draining and overwhelming.

With all the wisdom circling the room it was clear no matter how you choose to refill your cup or how it gets emptied, it all starts with believing in yourself. Believing we are worth it and discovering everyone is better for it when we create time for ourselves. The added icing to the cake (who wouldn’t want cake without it?) is knowing we are not alone.

Recent trip to Disneyland with my family.

Just home from a trip to Disneyland with my family where I didn’t get much me time. I didn’t get to yoga, I barely wrote, not a lot of time carved out for me. And you know what? I still came home with a full cup.

The moments gathered together in one hotel room or around a table for a meal or squished together on a ride filled me up and that isn’t always the case for me. Often I’m too wound up, tired, stressed to enjoy my family. But I was so focused on having fun as well as creating fun for my kids that I found my needs being met by letting go of being in control and just having fun. We got to connect as a family in ways we don’t always get to with time, schedule, commitments and other priorities.

I wanted this family, this is what I asked for and then with life stresses you forget that and you forget to have fun with each other. And really that is the priority, that is where the importance lies.  Oh, to live like we are at Disneyland, spinning around and around with those we love, with those who matter most, without a care in the world.