Slow December, Breathing Out.

All month long all over the internet I've been seeing blog posts and Instagram posts about slowing down for December. Slow Advent. Slow Christmas. Almost as if on cue. Most are saying the same thing. Some are selling a product and some are just selling kindness. 

I just have one question…why do we need a reason to slow down? What if we could learn to breathe in and out consciously so we can slow down when we need to and speed up when we need to without feeling guilty or judgment? 

Let’s practice. 

Put your left hand over your heart. Close your eyes. Breathe with me.  In and out, nice and even. Feel your heart beating. What can you hear? What can you smell? What do you need right now? Don’t worry, your children will let you know when you need to be done. They are really good at that! Stay here just breathing for a few moments. You have more time than you think.

This space of breathing in and out governs our life. There are times when it is appropriate to rush. The problem comes when we forget to stop rushing and we spend our lives on autopilot. Instead, what if we could teach ourselves to consciously rush? 

I have a challenge for you. What if you didn’t just slow down in December? What if you instead committed to learning to breathe? What if your biggest desire for the new year was to just breathe? 

“That’s easy for you to say Melisa, you don’t have the stress that I do!” 

You are right, I don’t know exactly what is happening in your home. What I do know is that parenting can be exhausting and exhilarating at the same time! Sometimes we have challenges like single parenting, aging parents, unsupportive partners, working from home, children with special needs or maybe you have to work more than you’d like. 

No matter what the challenge, we need to BREATHE! 

You might need to slow if:

• You are yelling more than you want to at your children.
• You are rushing, rushing and always late.
• Your children are a continual source of annoyance because they are slow (they are teaching us!)
• You haven’t had a good night’s sleep in ages.
• You forget to breathe out.
• You have neck pain at the base of your neck.
• You constantly feel unsupported.

These are just a few cues for us to slow down. 

When we are not conscious about our rushing then we miss all sorts of things. These things tend to cost us more time than if we had just slowed down and in the end it takes us twice as long than had we just chosen to go slow, get present and get conscious. 

What about those times when rushing is appropriate? Let’s get conscious about those. If we are conscious then our children won’t feel the rush, our minds will be calm. We can be present. 

Breathe. 

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