Practice What I Preach: Embracing My Worst Fear

PART 1: BEFORE THE CHANGE

Change is scary. Even for adults. The last month, I have been using a new mantra in my kids yoga class and at home with my kids, change, change and I'm okay. It's simple. It's got its own song. We get all into it.

But when things start to change, how do we find our center through it? How do we know it will be okay? Sometimes it really really doesn't feel okay. Sometimes we freak the freak out! *Deep breath*

Seriously how do we know it will be okay? Because it will. * Deep breath* You always can come back to your breath. (Lisa at www.beingbreath.com will be so proud me!) Trust that you are eternal and at the core unchangeable. Trust that even though everything radiating out of that unchangeable core is changing, that you still have a center, and a breath and there is peace within that core.

I find myself clinging onto things or people that I want so bad to have substance but then I look, and it vaporizes through my fingers. Silly me. The only thing I trust is change and growth, and breath.

In my motherhood life, I've been noticing that I don't like my kids behavior after they've had their daily shot of Netflix. Like...who is this off-the-wall preschooler who doesn't want to listen to me, or seems incapable of constructive independent play. Or who is this wacked out toddler reactive to even more things.

So, I decided I needed to face the biggest fear in my home, for the betterment of my family. 

I decided to brave my fear of getting rid of screen time, in fear of not having any quiet moments to think or get things done without constant interaction from my kids. For my kids, TV or videos have worked like magic! I give them only an hour or at most two a day, and they sit and are mesmerized. No questions are asked. No fighting ensues. Its magic.

Now I do believe a little screen time or computer time is healthy for kids. They can learn thing, and its part of our culture. I don't want my kids to feel like outcasts with not knowing what his friends are talking about or how to work a computer. But it was clear from my kids behavior that I needed to have less.

I decided to drastically cut down the amount of "technology time" my kids have each week. Ultimately, I want to limit it to just 2 or 3 days a week for a max of 1-2 hours a day.

It's a big leap of faith. Like most changes, I know in the end all would be well, but in the meantime it's going to get ugly. 

Stay tuned for how we implement the change in PART 2.

Namaste

The Domestic Yogi