Monthly Archives: May 2020

I’ve been really enjoying outdoor mindfulness activities in the garden with my children during the coronavirus lockdown. I thought I’d share some of what we’ve been up to – Mindful bubble blowing You could either make your own bubble mix together as a sensory play and learning experience or use ready made mix. Notice theContinue reading “Summer Garden Mindfulness Ideas”

When I started writing this blog two weeks ago I gave myself until the end of mental health awareness week to get it to the point it would be good enough to launch into the public domain. I don’t want to delay launching because it’s not perfect yet, even though my mind is offering aContinue reading “Mental health awareness week 2020 – Launch D day”

Mindfulness practice with young children can be valuable in improving their emotional literacy, just as it can with anyone else. Regularly noticing your own thoughts and feelings in mindfulness practice can help with verbalising them through increased awareness. Because my way of using mindfulness with my children is to make it activity based, for exampleContinue reading “Mindfulness and emotional literacy”

To set the theme for this post, I’d like to start by sharing a poem by Portia Nelson: I love how this poem captures the cycle of growing awareness of a problem, and how this builds over experiencing it a few times before being able to contemplate change, then trying to make change, before finallyContinue reading “Mindfulness and Spotting Traps”

One of the wonderful things about young children is their natural curiosity about themselves, others and the world. Mindfulness perhaps like learning a language is a skill that is easy to absorb young and then carry forward as an asset into adult life. Perhaps one of the most useful aspects of mindfulness is the socraticContinue reading “Cultivating mindful curiosity”

All children develop differently and at their own pace. Probably like most mums of two my experience has been that my children have developed differently from each other, each with their own unique preferences for what they want to learn about when and how and their own personality shaping how they want to go aboutContinue reading “Mindful child development”

It’s important to look after your own wellbeing first – or taking a flying analogy, to fasten your own seat belt before assisting others. Mindfulness when practiced regularly offers a great opportunity to notice if, when and in what way your own wellbeing needs attention. When practicing mindfulness, the goal is not to relax orContinue reading “Mama mindfulness”

I’ve possibly never enjoyed mindfulness more than I have with my children. One reason is that young children are naturally very present focussed, which I find life affirming. Another is their natural curiosity about their experience, which makes me notice loads I otherwise wouldn’t due to habitually taking it for granted as an adult. AnotherContinue reading “Mother and Baby Mindfulness”

As a first time mum I think I’d underestimated how much was involved in post natal recovery – physically and emotionally. Given ACT has an evidence base as a good approach to coping with chronic pain, it’s a good fit with the post natal period. For me, I had a significant perineum repair to rehabilitateContinue reading “ACT and post natal recovery”

Breastfeeding is definitely a time in my life that knowing about ACT has come in useful. There are lots of practical resources out there on the physical side and plenty support groups where I live – and I imagine in other urban areas of the UK too – but perhaps less on breastfeeding and mentalContinue reading “ACT and Breastfeeding”