A Daily Routine that Keeps my Kids and Myself Present

Everyday it’s a new day and new opportunity to choose to be happier and enjoy our life. If we practice a constant awareness work, we could be able to be more effective and creative though the day. A consistent practice will make us feel more comfortable about our day and about ourselves. And that constant routines helps us to enjoy new adventures and challenges in life.

What I am about to share with you now, it’s a daily routine that I practice for myself and together with my family (my kids). It had help us to be more grounded and connected to ourselves, and more joined as a family.

Here is what me and my kids practice daily:

• We start our day by snuggling together at bed. We talk about how much we love each other. Then, we put our hands on top of our own hearts to listen its beat. And, I ask them to pay attention to what their heart has to tell them. I remind them how awesome and beautiful they and their lives are.

• While seated at the table for breakfast, I always remember to sit down with them for at least 5 to 10 minutes to talk about the activities that we are expecting that day.

• In the car; driving to school, we share what we call “a Circle of Gratitude”. Each one of us has to share taking turns something that is grateful for. We start with general things like “I'm grateful for the sky, for nature, or I'm grateful for the water”. Then we continue with things that are more sentimental to us like “we’re grateful for our family, friends and school”. We continue to be grateful about our body, our heart, our hands, our feet; but always explaining why (like because they helped us to walk, or to do activities.

• In the afternoon when we come back home. We do a meditation, or we have a nap. I might guide them through a meditation, or I might find a meditation online to listen or simply, I put some relaxing music for them to relax. Usually this might take between 30 minutes to an hour; depending how tired we are.

• During dinner, we share our “Sun, Rain and Rainbow”. This is a conversation that we really love to do. Each one of us shares something that happen that day related to those three topics; taking turns. The sun is about a beautiful thing that we experienced that day; explaining why. The rain it's about sharing something sad or unpleasant or that made us mad. And lastly, rainbow is about something “very” special that happened to us. The kids love so much this activity. We go around the table sharing our beautiful day, beautiful things that happened to us and also, we let others know what we did in our day.

• For bedtime, we might do a special personal pray from the heart and a meditation to release. Sometimes the kids like to share a meditation that they made up or I might guide them through a meditation to let go unpleasant situations, bad feelings or emotions or challenges through the day. Sometimes, we might imagine clouds in the sky floating away from us, other times the ocean waves taking away what doesn’t belong to us, or a special box where we put things that are ready to be burn away.

These activities had help me and my kids to be grounded and present through the day. They help us to be aware of where we are, what are we doing, and what we need to do. And also, they make the kids be conscious of the lives and the work that each one of us do every day. The most beautiful thing is that it helps us to know that we are working together as a family and we have each other for support. The kids and us, as adults can be able understand that mommy, daddy, brother or sister have their own beautiful moments and challenging issues to work on and that we are together in the good and in the bad.

We can be present, we can able to enjoy more our life, be more alert, and love life, if we incorporate yoga as part of our lifestyle.

From my heart to yours,

Namaste - Cecilia de la Rocha

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Cecilia de la Rocha is founder of Yoga By Cecilia de la Rocha, a creative and enthusiastic yoga instructor with professional training in hatha & anusara yoga. Always willing to share more with people in a different, loving & fun ways. Her teaching is an innovative fusion of yoga, metaphysics, mindfulness and shadow work that has taught many families, from moms to be, to kids, to adults of all ages and limitations, and to celebrities who want to incorporate yoga as part of their lifestyle. She loves to facilitate privates and group workshops. For more information about her work, please visit: https://yogabycecilia.wixsite.com/yogalifestyle

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