Change is in the air and on the leaves. Wild and carefree summer is turning to cozy and contemplative fall, the season of gratitude and tradition.
In this autumn season of scarves and sweaters and pumpkin-flavored everything, school time routines are settling in, the sun and our children are settling earlier, and it is a wonderful time to reflect on our daily intentions.
Jon Kabat-Zinn writes in his 2011 book Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment–and Your Life that today’s adults are so busy multi-tasking that each of us is “becoming more of a human doing than human being.”* It is easy to be swept away with schedules and responsibilities and to forget the value of simply being.
So as our activities move indoors and crackling campfires turn to cozy hearth fires, let us also turn our intentions inward to nurturing our own well-being. This season of transitions is an inviting time to establish new reflections in your family, which can lead to new conversations around the dinner table or during the bedtime routine.
I offer here a lesson I learned during a week-long mindfulness retreat I attended last month. One of our leaders was Eve Ekman, an emotions researcher for UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. She shared with us five evidence-based habits that lead to greater well-being if practiced every day:
1. MEDITATE or PRAY
2. EXERCISE
3. Identify three GRATITUDES
4. Perform one random act of KINDNESS
5. Document JOY
These are manageable enough goals for both adults and kids, even in busy family lives. Meaningful meditation or prayer can be done in 10-20 minutes a day, and mild exercise can take only 20-30 minutes a day. My family shares our three gratitudes each night as we tuck our children into bed, so they drift off to sleep thinking about the events in their day for which they are grateful . One deliberate act of kindness every day should be something we all strive to perform ourselves and teach our children. And finally, research shows that noticing joy every day makes a greater impact on our well-being if we share that joyful experience or emotion with another person (perhaps during an evening meal?) or record it in a journal.
Remember when you wake each morning, when you review your schedule of things you need to do, to also set an intention of how you want to be. Every day is a great day to establish new habits, for the happiness and well-being of everyone in your family.
* Kabat-Zinn, J. (2011). Mindfulness for Beginners. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.
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