Category: Householder yoga

Householder yoga: #4 Metta meditation

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Householder yoga series is a set of practical tools rooted in yogic tradition to help moms build up their daily practice amidst their new role, busy schedules and limited time for themselves. Each tool is integrated in the regular daily activities you are already doing with your baby, in a way that it builds on and expands the mom-baby relationship to directly serve your growth and development. The aim of this practice is to cultivate more awareness, enhance your wellbeing and integrate the power of motherhood; as well as to collect precious moments and have some fun with your baby.

Metta (or loving kindness) meditation is a beautiful practice from the Buddhist tradition, that aims to cultivate kindness and warmth towards the other. It evokes a loving, warm feeling – which is then gradually expanded by repetition of specific, benevolent phrases.

I personally love how it complements and easily builds upon the unconditional love that we feel for our babies. Hence I introduced Metta meditation in our daily mom-baby routine – as it comes rather natural to tap into the space of loving kindness and expand it beyond the mom-baby bond.

Metta meditation can be practiced in slightly different variations. As a part of our Householder yoga series, where our practice is deliberately introduced and intertwined throughout our daily routines, I kindly suggest to repeat the phrases out loud, so that your baby can also benefit from the loving kindness we aim to cultivate. Here is a detailed guide on how to practice Metta meditation with your baby:

Set up a designated time to practice (app. 20 min). I usually do it in the afternoon, when we are on our own and can relax without interruption.

To ease into the present moment, take couple of deep, slow breaths. Try to slow down your exhalation. Just take a few moments there to connect to the present through your breathing, acknowledging your existence in the space.

Metta is always first practiced towards oneself. The premise behind is: we cannot love others unless we love ourselves first. Start by acknowledging your good intention, your good heart. How great it is that you decided to carve up time for this beautiful practice. How great it is that you decided to share the loving kindness with your baby. How great it is that you are willingly expanding it for others. Then, slowly and steadily repeat following phrases (out load):

May I be safe.

May I be happy.

May I be healthy.

May I live with ease.

Loving kindness is build upon the intention of wishing good towards ourselves and other. This intention is expressed through the phrases we use – hence the phrases become our anchor. If feelings of love, warmth, kindness and friendliness arise in your mind body, connect to them, allowing them to grow as you repeat the phrases. What can help is to focus on your heart area, or even to use some crystals (e.g. rose quartz).

Now dedicate loving kindness to your baby. Repeat the same phrases out loud, fully focusing on your baby, aiming to convey these beautiful feeling of love, care and devotion. You can repeat the phrases several times, until you feel how your baby has soaked in these beautiful vibrations.

May you be safe.

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you live with ease.

As a final step, we expand the loving kindness to our wider surroundings, in four easy steps:

  1. Think of a loved one (other than your baby) – it can be a member of your family, a friend or your pet. Repeat the phrases above and continue to expand on any feeling of warmth and benevolence that might arise.
  2. Then think of an acquaintance – a colleague, a neighbor, lady at the supermarket… Again repeat the phrases and build upon the feeling.
  3. Now, think of an “enemy” or a person that did you harm. Connect to the good intention, to the good heart. Remember that more unconscious we are, the more we suffer. Try to find the compassion and forgiveness for that person and send them loving kindness by repeating the phrases above.
  4. Finally, expand the good intention, expand the loving kindness towards the rest of the world. Finish with following phrases:

May all beings be safe.

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be healthy.

May all beings live with ease.

Take couple of moments to acknowledge the beautiful, benevolent energy field you have created for you and your baby. Store that feeling of loving kindness in your heart and remember it is easily accessible for you at any time, not just during the formal meditation practice. You can always leverage the mom-baby bond to feel the connection more easily and hence tap into that space where we share the loving kindness towards all living beings, as we are all ultimately one.

Householder yoga: 3# Dance, dance, dance

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Householder yoga series is a set of practical tools rooted in yogic tradition to help moms build up their daily practice amidst their new role, busy schedules and limited time for themselves. Each tool is integrated in the regular daily activities you are already doing with your baby, in a way that it builds on and expands the mom-baby relationship to directly serve your growth and development. The aim of this practice is to cultivate more awareness, enhance your wellbeing and integrate the power of motherhood; as well as to collect precious moments and have some fun with your baby.

If you hit a wall, climb over it, crawl under it, or dance on top of it.

Being a mom is great. It empowers women as we finally realize the magic we are capable of. It refines our intuition and develops superpowers to raise and nurture our babies, create and express ourselves, as well as deepen the connection with worlds both outside and inside of us.

One of the superpowers I especially love is the drive to reinvent things on a daily basis, striving towards simplicity, practicality and meaning. In other words, for a mom (or for any other human, really) – there is no more capacity for bs. What we spend time and energy on should only serve and nourish our souls.

In light of the aforementioned – one of my favorite things to do with my baby is to dance. She loves the music and she loves to move. I enjoy performing for her and she enjoys being entertained. Besides being super fun, introducing dancing in your daily mom-baby activities can:

  • Promote bonding through a super fun way
  • Support your fitness, in light of the limited time you can dedicate to yourself
  • Help move the energy throughout the body and release any stored emotions or even trauma
  • Help your self-expression, creativity and processing emotions
  • Support motoric development and movement coordination of your baby

As I was a professional dancer for many years, my body craves dancing. Hence to introduce dancing in our daily mom-baby routine came rather naturally. However, if you need some help how to get your body moving, here is how:

Prepare: It helps to set a specific time for dancing that fits in your daily mom-baby routine, in order to build the habit. Then commit that today at xx:xx hours you will show up for yourself and let it flow.

Bring awareness to the body: Put your favorite music on and start by slowly moving the body. You can follow the simple exercise below in order to wake up the body, as often practiced in creative movement and improvisation sessions.

Start by observing and becoming aware of your right arm. Look at your fingers, palm, forearm, upper arm and the shoulder. Start to slowly move all those different parts of the arm, exploring the range of movement in your joints. Play with all the different directions of movement, as well as with isolating a certain part of your arm vs moving the whole arm together. Ask your arm what does it feel like doing today, how does it feel like moving?

Keep the focus on the right arm for couple of minutes and then proceed to the left arm. Do the same with your left arm, engage it through reviving different parts of the arm and exploring different ranges, directions and combinations of movement. Then do both arms together for a couple of moments and play with how they dance together – do they follow each other, dance at the same time or can they do completely opposite things?

After couple of minutes, proceed to the trunk: start from shoulders, through your chest, belly, back and pelvis. Apply the same logic – explore different ranges of movements in each of these parts that together form your trunk. Pay specific focus to the chest to open your heart, as well as to your pelvis to awaken the life force. Imagine you are in tribal mode and just shake your trunk. Stay here as long as you like.

Now proceed to the hips and explore the range of movements in your hip joint. Hips are where our bodies like to store different unprocessed emotions, so be gentle and do not be afraid to go deep. Then follow the movement down your right leg first: from the left hip, through the thigh, knee, shin, ankle and foot. Do the same through you right leg and eventually, move both legs together. Ask the same questions: how are my legs feeling today, how do they want to move, how they play together? Then focus on the feet and your connection to the ground. Feel the floor, feel the Earth underneath you and imagine as if you are tree and your roots go deeply into the ground through your feet.

Last but not least – move your head. Start by moving the neck very gently, in circular movements in both directions. Then let your head dance a bit, engaging all parts – hair, scalp, forehead, eyes, nose, jaw, chin, tongue, ears. After you have awaken your head and your face, it is time to move your whole body together. Keep the attention throughout your body, trying not to let any part out. Then slowly, as you catch the rhythm, let the intelligence of your body take over and just dance, dance, dance!

Be silly: No one is watching! I encourage you to dance like a child, with your child. Don’t think about how you look – you look beautiful. Being able to let go of the body image and just let the body express itself is so liberating. Laugh, jump, turn, do chicken dance – whatever you feel like. Once you bring forward your inner child, you will feel a deeper bond with your baby – as the presence takes over, immersing both of you in a playful dialogue.

Householder yoga: 2# Morning meditation

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Householder yoga series is a set of practical tools rooted in yogic tradition to help moms build up their daily practice amidst their new role, busy schedules and limited time for themselves. Each tool is integrated in the regular daily activities you are already doing with your baby, in a way that it builds on and expands the mom-baby relationship to directly serve your growth and development. The aim of this practice is to cultivate more awareness, enhance your wellbeing and integrate the power of motherhood; as well as to collect precious moments and have some fun with your baby.

For years now I have been starting my day with morning practice – meditation, pranayama, asana. Having a dedicated, disciplined routine helps to set my day, as well as to provide a container for consistency of inner work. After I became a mom, and especially in the first couple of months, it seemed impossible to find the time for myself, let alone to dedicate it to practice. However, as I was craving my inner peace more and more, two things happened.

First, I realized how, in the light of my new caregiver role, I don’t need to set aside a specific, dedicated time slot for when I meditate or work on myself. The meditation, the work should happen 24/7 – not just during couple of minutes/hours per day when we do our practice. Taking our practice off the mats and into our daily lives is the core of householder yoga. For example – we can cultivate focused awareness during any of our daily activities, just as we do so in meditation. As we carry out our endeavors with conscious presence, we begin to nurture the connection to the being, bringing more meaning and purpose to our daily lives.

Second, becoming a mother endowed me with beautiful intelligence supportive to the practice. I find it easier to connect to myself through the endless love for my baby, as well as to stay in the present moment through the joy she evokes in me. I have never been more motivated to practice focused awareness in order to be able to hold the space for my baby (more on that one soon), as well as to overcome my conditioning and expand my being in order to be the best mother I can be.

As a result, my morning practice evolved in a way that it builds upon our mom-baby morning routine, cherishing our connection, nurturing my baby’s development and supporting me in the work. For this beautiful morning meditation you do not have to set up designated alone time – you just need to include it in your “regular” encounters with your baby. Here is how:

Choose the activity: This meditation is recommended to do during the morning play time. However, as each mom-baby have a unique schedule, you will know best which of the morning activities you want to turn into your morning meditation. I choose playtime because it is enjoyable and spontaneous.

Prepare the space: Make sure you the two of you are comfortable and uninterrupted for the next 20 minutes. Set your meditation bell at 20 minutes for optimal timing.

Set your intention: Now, for the next 20 minutes, the goal is to stay fully present and to cultivate awareness. Decide to give your full attention to your baby while interacting through play.

Ease into meditation: You can start by looking at your baby and acknowledging your presence in the space. Observe how beautiful and magical he or she is. Listen to the sounds he or she is making. Connect to your heart through the love that naturally emerges.

Connect with the breath: Start to observe your breath. Take a couple of deep, long breaths, feeling how your diaphragm expands and contracts with each. During the meditation, the breath will be our anchor in the present moment.

Expand the awareness: As you start to play with your baby, bring awareness to every activity you perform. Be in the now. In order to give our full attention to what we are doing, we just need to observe it. It is that simple.

Keep the focus: Try to stay focused for as long as you can. If thoughts arise, just observe them come and go. If you catch your mind wandering away, gently bring the awareness back to breath first, and then expand it to whatever you are doing at the moment.

Wrap up: End by thanking your baby and your self for this moment. Remember the practice doesn’t stop here – you are invited to keep cultivating the awareness throughout your day. Just remember yourself. You can always use breath as your anchor to the present moment.

Tip – During the meditation, acknowledge the silent observer, the presence emanating deep within you, that which enables the space in which all things manifest. Whatever we do, the aim is to cultivate the connection to this part of ourselves, to our being. This is how we return home to our true selves.

Householder yoga: #1 Set your day

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Householder yoga series is a set of practical tools rooted in yogic tradition to help moms build up their daily practice amidst their new role, busy schedules and limited time for themselves. Each tool is integrated in the regular daily activities you are already doing with your baby, in a way that it builds on and expands the mom-baby relationship to directly serve your growth and development. The aim of this practice is to cultivate more awareness, enhance your wellbeing and integrate the power of motherhood; as well as to collect precious moments and have some fun with your baby.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Aristotle

Morning practice is – as every good yogi or meditator knows – absolute essential and a core foundation to our path of growth and development. However, there is something that precedes the morning practice – and it happens in first couple of minutes just after we open our eyes. This is the most crucial timeframe in which, whatever we do, sets up our awareness for rest of the day.

Hence as a first tool in the householder yoga series, I invite you to spend the very first moments of your day immersed in one of the most powerful feelings that instantly raise your vibration – gratitude.

You can do this by connecting with your heart and your baby and acknowledging the appreciation for this little miracle of life. I usually sleep with my baby so it comes very naturally – the very first thing I see when I open my eyes is her. It fills my heart with joy every single morning and brings a smile upon my face instantly. In case you don’t sleep together, I invite you to go get your baby as the very first thing you do after you wake up, in order to build a short practice of immersing into gratitude, joy and happiness.

What turns this seemingly regular mom-baby morning interactions into a powerful daily practice for rising your vibration is intention and awareness – we must have the intention of consciously experiencing these moments and purposely connecting to gratitude. Here is how:

  • This practice must be the very first thing you do in the morning, especially before you check your phone (which is not recommended to do within 1 hour after you wake up).
  • If you sleep with your baby – and she or he is the very first thing you see when you open your eyes – then all we need to do is to bring intention and awareness.
  • If you don’t sleep with your baby – I invite you to go get your baby as the very first thing you do
  • Once you have your baby next to you, first connect to you heart. Remember how blessed you are to be chosen as her or his mother. Remember how, even in the most difficult times, your baby is your biggest blessing.
  • Repeat a little prayer of gratefulness, be it in your thoughts or out load. You can use any of the prayers you already know and are connected to – or simply create a new one. Start by expressing gratitude to your baby for choosing you as her or his mother and deciding to become a part of your life. Then express your gratitude towards yourself for being such an amazing woman.
  • Close your eyes for a second and feel this gratitude deep in your bones, Feel every cell of your body whispering “thank you”. Take a deep breath and as you exhale, whisper “thank you” to the God or to the Universe for the miracle of life. Gently open your eyes.
  • You can continue by expressing gratitude for everything else you feel grateful for that day (e.g. your family, friends, pets, Mother Nature, food, creativity, work, etc.); or simply stay focused on the connection with your baby.
  • Observe the pure being, the pure essence of life that so naturally shines through our babies. Open your heart to their innocence and their intrinsic goodness. Let them wake up the same pureness that resides in your self, in your own inner child. Keep the attention focused in your heart area and connect to the gentle, warm kindness that resides there, intrinsic to every human being.
  • Stay couple of more minutes for some cuddles or ticklish laughs with your baby before you get up and start your day.
  • It helps to commit to doing this short practice daily for 21 days, in order to make it a habit. During this period, try to observe what else changed in your day as a consequence and write it down in your journal.

Householder yoga series

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As a dedicated seeker, I have spend more then a decade exploring and evolving my practice. I have tried different schools and teachings – from traditional ashtanga yoga and vipassana, to Christianity, plant medicine and Gurdjieff – just to name a few. In my experience, different teachings do call you when you are ready to receive them – as they all lead towards the same goal, only the paths slightly differ.

I had an established daily practice to which I was rigorously dedicated – kriyas, pranayama, asana (ashtanga sequence), chanting and mediation. Every night before bed time I would do some reading and studying, as well as some occasional journaling and dancing when I felt like I needed it. And I would do all that with a full-time successful business career in top tier strategy consulting.

Then I became a mom. My whole world shifted and at the beginning, the only time I had for myself was during the shower – so I literally made those 10 minutes of my life time for my daily practice. I would stand under the hot water with closed eyes, trying to feel every drop of the water on my skin. Nothing else existed. I needed it so much, that it was easy to quiet my mind, become fully present and enter the space.

Over time, as my daughter was growing, my body was rebuilding and my energy was getting stronger, it became much easier to manage. As mothers, we do get a new superpower of stretching time, however – priorities do shift, and with your baby being priority #1, you might find yourself lost among all other things that you need to get done (especially if you are a working mom).

Efficiently managing time is also one of the key milestones and among my top themes to address with this blog. Householder yoga series fits well under this umbrella topic – as here I want to share insights on how to best utilize time you spend with your baby so that is serves your growth and development.

This comes from my own need to keep yet transform my daily practice so it fits into my current life schedule. Hence the name – householder yoga. In traditional Indian culture, there are 4 stages of yogi’s life: Brahmacharya (Student), Grihasta (Householder), Vanaprasthya (Hermit) and Samnyasa (Renunciate). Householder yoga series is about switching your practice from Student phase (e.g. couple of hours on the mat or sitting in meditation) to Householder phase (taking your practice from the mat/meditation pillow into your daily life).

Each week I will post one tip on how to use a certain technique or tool during daily activities with your baby, in order to cultivate more awareness, enhance your wellbeing and expand your power of motherhood. You will be collecting moments with your baby that are most peculiar and precious because you are being conscious and present, as well as learn what it means to hold space for your baby. And of course – have some fun!