Mindfulness Meditation (For Everyday Life)

greatest letting go and letting be I had ever been
challenged with.
For one, babies invite and require attending to
constantly. Their needs must be met on their
schedule, not yours, and every day, not just when
you feel like it. Most importantly, babies and children
require your full presence as a being in order to thrive
and grow. They need to be held, the more the better,
walked with, sung to, rocked, played with, comforted,
sometimes nurtured late at night or early in the
morning when you are feeling depleted, exhausted,
and only want to sleep, or when you have pressing
obligations and responsibilities elsewhere. The deep
and constantly changing needs of children are all
perfect opportunities for parents to be fully present
rather than to operate in the automatic pilot mode, to
relate consciously rather than mechanically, to sense
the being in each child and let his or her vibrancy,
vitality, and purity call forth our own. I felt that
parenting was nothing short of a perfect opportunity
to deepen mindfulness, if I could let the children and
the family become my teachers, and remember to
recognize and listen carefully to the lessons in living
which would be coming fast and furiously.
Like any long retreat, there have been easy periods
and harder periods, wonderful moments and deeply