Mama Needs a Refill

What you are is gift...and who are you not to shine? Who are you not to use your gifts for the benefit of the rest of the world?

In my HeartWriter Blog today, I wrote about the right to shine. Check out this blog…http://heartwriter.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/mondays-random-thought-shine/

Sometimes it is easier to sit back, let others have the spot light. But shinning, as you are meant to do, benefits everyone. How have you used your gifts today?

We think that we need to do, buy, add to, in order to refill. Often its just surrender and letting go, making room for a little breathing time that does the trick.

Mama Needs A Refill is offering a new series for the Spring. For you new comers, join us in April and discover for you what it means to fill your cup physically, spiritually, emotionally and mentally.

In May let’s discover together what passions in our life we are ignoring or create ways to honor the passions you are already aware of, you just don’t make time for anymore.

In June, just weeks before kids are out for the summer do you have a plan for you? Sure the kids have classes, camps and activities planned, what about time for you? And I’m not talking about…kids at camp = time to clean the house.

Self-care is about nurturing yourself on all levels –

physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually –

so you can live, love and parent optimally.

-Renee Peterson Trudeau

Empty Cup=Bitchy Mama

J.G. McGlothern

Mama Needs A Refill is offering three mini-retreats this Spring. Come get away to a Sack Lunch Retreat, that is designed to replenish, rejuvenate and refill your empty cup in the amount of time you could clean the house. (The results just last longer with refilling your cup.)

Greetings, I am your retreat leader, Jenny McGlothern, mother, wedding officiant, writer, experienced group leader. I hold retreats for moms because it is time to start putting ourselves first. With all of your care giving and nurturing, isn’t it time to start taking care of you?

Get away from your responsibilities in a relaxed environment and in just four hours discover your own unique ways of refilling your cup through sharing, laughter, silence, journaling and creativity.

I also offer an optional private coaching session or inspirational card reading.

For more information and to reserve your spot:

info@mamaneedsarefill.com

www.mamaneedsarefill.com

206 255 0463

One's passion...

We can think we are really good at telling others how to fill up their empty cup. Especially our spouses, right?

This past Saturday my hubby thought I needed time to myself. He suggested he take the kids to the hardware store with him while I wrote or meditated.

Yes, those two things fill me up but they were not what I wanted in that moment.

My tone was signaling to him that I needed a refill but he wasn’t offering what I wanted. I wanted family time, not alone time. I took care of my physical needs with yoga and walking all week long. I meditated most days and I went out to dinner with girl friends. Check, check, check. What was missing for me was to hunker down together, I wouldn’t have minded going to the hardware store.

My husband’s cup will soon be completely filled up to over flowing. It’s March Madness.  And every year we have been together, I believe it is seventeen, he has gone to the Final Four. This year it is in New Orleans. He always comes home smiling. Tired, but smiling.

Now I may think he’d be better off drinking water for four days instead of beer and attending a yoga workshop – but the Good Lord above knows my man will much prefer to be with his friends watching basketball. The jokes will bounce off each other, no one-on-one deep soul connections for these boys. I take that back….that is their deep soul connection. Beer, Boys, Basketball. Then throw in New Orleans as the back drop and I don’t need to say more.

Our seven year old son wants to go. We told him he needs to wait a few years. I said until he is 21, my husband said maybe earlier.

Who knows, the other guys may want to bring their sons and it might not be all about bars in another handful of years, he told me as the whole family drove to a birthday party.

Our needs change. What makes us happy one year may be different another year. It’s about being aware of our feelings honoring them, then figuring out what to do next.

I can’t tell Hubby what should fill his needs just like he can’t tell me what should fill mine. We most definitely may have a really good idea about the others and will be tempted to interject our own ideas, but that’s not how it works.

Filling up your cup can only be done by you. Unlike basketball, you can’t pass it off to someone closer to the net. You have to take the long shot, shoot from outside, take aim. Own it.

...may not be another's cup of tea.

Good friend, good cup of tea...what else is necessary on a Sunday afternoon?

Drinking tea at Queen Mary’s this past Sunday with my long time friend Karen, we learned something about the delicate, unique tea cups from our server.

I sipped my Earl Grey Roobios Blend from my pink and gold cup. Karen had something more off the beaten track and sipped it with pleasure from her yellow rose cup. The server said we wouldn’t believe how picky people could be about their cup. Many were known to send their cup back, ask for another.

Do tell, we encouraged our server to go on, to tell us more about picky customers.

I had downed an entire pot of tea, but since I went the decaffeinated route, I was ready for my drug of choice for the day. I switched to Earl Grey, straight up.

Oh, and I would love for my cup to stay hotter, may I please switch to a more narrow cup?

Absolutely.

Well, what else could she say? She was the one that told us about cup switching and the right to pick a different cup.

We all are different. Every one of us requiring different needs to refill our cup. Some of us run on empty longer and some refuse to get low and take care in filling up our cups spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically.

After trying on different ways to nurture and care for ourselves we forget that something that used to fulfill us deeply no longer does the trick. I used to run, now I yoga. I used to eat lots of mayonnaise, now I use olive oil. I used to be a TV snob, now I watch The Voice. We switch it up, we try different things on for size and if it isn’t working, we send it back. We make individual choices based on our current needs. And we know what we need by listening to ourselves, right?

When I meditate I often don't know what to do with my hands. With the stone meditation that problem is solved.

Have you ever held a stone in your hand and then eventually not been able to notice you were still holding it? Now blending into your palm, weightless and warmed up from the touch of your skin?

For today’s retreat, focusing on silence and meditation, I am going to introduce a Stone Meditation.

Find a stone that sits in your hand, not too big but weighty enough to feel it.

Think of three touch points: the stone in your hand, your tongue resting gently at the roof of your mouth and your eyes. Although closed, rest them so they aren’t moving all around the place even behind closed lids. Centered. Focus on those three things. Stones, tongue, eyes. Make a circle with focusing slowly on those three things. Over and over. Stone, tongue, eyes.

When you get distracted come back to those three things. Just get the circle going again.

You may spend all of your time getting distracted and coming back to the circle of words: stone, tongue, eyes. There is no right. There is no wrong.

See if you can get to a point of not even noticing the stone in your hand. Building up a natural rhythm where the words disappear like the weightlessness of the rock in your hand. Now taking on your body temperature, no longer cold or heavy.

What would happen in your world if you tried filling up the emptiness, the frustration, the distractions, the worries with a little stone time?

I’m gonna try it again. It worked yesterday, bringing me to an incredibly relaxed state of awareness. Hmmm, what could happen the next time?

Taking a time out just for you is sometimes all it takes.

Why is it that we run away from what we need the most?

-J.G. McGlothern

There is room for two more of you tomorrow! Come relax in a peaceful environment, and soak up some silence so you can be rejuvenated for the weekend. Contact me, Jenny McGlothern for more information and to reserve your spot.

info@mamaneedsarefill.com or 206 255 0463.

Silence doesn't equate nothing, just the opposite...fullness, oportunity, growth, love, hope, life. The possibilities are endless.

I chose the topic of silence for next Friday’s mini-retreat topic because it is something many fear, crave, run from and seek.

Such opposite responses, I know.

Being one who often runs from what I crave I have discovered my own voice when I am willing to rest in the silence. I have rejuvenated in stillness when I have allowed myself to surrender to the unknown.

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.