Zen Mama

I LOVE yoga and so to save on gym costs I ordered a bunch of yoga dvds and yes, among them are some prenatal yoga videos. No I am not prego yet but I wanted to see what they are like haha.

I have read a lot on how yoga is great for pregnancy and helps with the labor process and the recovery afterwards. I need all the help I can get because I want to go natural and do water births.

During my search process for the best dvds, I found this Zen Mama blog that was very interesting actually. The writer is a buddhist but sometimes we can learn a lot from buddhism. No I am not converting but some of their ideas make sense. They are so good at being at peace, coming back to wholeness and this is usually done with meditation.

Anyway, What is a Zen Mama?

"She is a devoted mother who has tried to stop worrying, who has let go of the attachment of an outcome and in doing so has become closer to her children."

Like I have said before, I am a planner, very organized, want the best for my future kids and their outcomes. What this woman says makes perfect sense but I still imagine it being very hard for me to let my kids just be free and not worry about the little things. But I plan on trying this. I can be a very calm person so I think I can do okay at this.

Nothing turns a child off more than over-worrying. It says you don't accept them as they are and that you don't trust them. I don't really want my kids to think I don't trust them. I want them to open up to me and want to be around me.

So what this woman talks about is amazing.

"How do you let go? This is difficult! You’re so attached to your worry. It’s like a crazy making friend. You know you have to let go, yet your brain keeps thinking about the worry. Thinking makes it so. So the first thing you need to do is to pretend that you’ve let go. As Wayne Dyer says, “Change your thoughts, change your life.” Eventually your brain will believe your new thoughts, then finally you’ll see changes. Letting go of attachments and outcomes is a freeing thing."

"How do you become closer to your kids? When you’re not worrying that their life is a mess, you stop criticizing and being mad at them. Slowly they feel that you’re trusting them more and they open up and want to be around you. It’s amazing and it does work. By the way, being a Zen Mama doesn’t mean you have no limits. It doesn’t mean you don’t care. It means you care but you’ve stopped being controlling. You’re not as attached to the outcome. It means setting limits with calmness, not anger and trust, not worry."

“If you change the way you look at things,
the things you look at change.”
~Wayne Dyer

So awesome. When the time comes... I will try this. In the meantime, I will just be meditating my body with yoga. You are welcome to come do yoga with me! Haha.