Let’s find those mindful moments

Our body has an inbuilt self-healing self-cleaning mechanism. Let’s give it good motivation to do it.

7 and 7 minutes meditation: 

Just before sleeping and just after waking up , practice while lying in your bed itself. 

Take deep breaths, search your memory for the happy moments, preferably one that gives  satisfaction to your senses.  For example, the terrace dinner that your grandma fed during summer holidays. Smell of the food, jasmine flowers, noise from your cousins, the story she told to make you all eat, the satiation you felt at the end of it, both in and out - pick something like that. Bring up the memory, savour it and smile. 

Say a Sankalpa, 3 times mentally and go to sleep. 

Do a similar routine while waking up too; you may choose the sunrise memory this time -  the way you watched it before the world started waking up, birds chirping and breeze in your face, slow stirring after the slumber, the beautiful blend of color show in the east, promise of a brand new day, overall sense of wellness -.take deep breaths. 

Please repeat the same Sankalpa 3 times. 

Add a prayer for everyone’s wellness. 

Aahara: 

Bless your food, prepare it with no hurry. Look at it while cutting the veggies, while rinsing the rice, while kneading  atta or when rasam boils. Look at it and think of how it’s going to nourish us. Bless bless bless ... your family’s, and your, mental and physical well being comes from your thoughts too. Let’s practice, take help from family to be there and bless it along with you. Offer it to God if you are religious, if not just bless it with all your goodness. 

Mindfulness is a tough task, but you will be surprised how we are in the moment just by looking at what we do.

Ahinsa: 

Towards us and towards every being. 

With everyone at home, it’s easier to get flustered with constant demands. Please don’t hurt or get hurt. Ideal opportunity to get the family to become experts in chores. We have all the time in the world - no school bus to catch or traffic to miss. 

Ahinsa works on all three levels, thoughts, words and deeds. Please be kind to one and all.

Pranayama 

An absolute must.

Please practice the ‘aa’, ‘oo’,’mm’ Pranayama with your back straight while sitting in Vajrasana or sukhasana. 

Do as many rounds of them as needed to calm down the collective nerves. Sound vibes stay longer, and you don’t have to worry about kids accidentally holding breath and causing problems to their system.

Enjoy the family time, stay mindful and thankful.