Balance As A Daily Practice: Talking To Young Teens About Balance
We're talking about balance a lot in our home right now.
How do we find our balance in the transitional season of Fall? How do we balance between what's happening outside of our control (outside of us) and what's happening within us?
At breakfast we talked about checking in with our mind, body, and spirit each day.
How do we do that? Is our mind getting what it needs? With school in session this might look like giving the mind a break once in a while. What does that look like? Paying attention to our consumption of information, what else? Mindfulness, meditation, meditative walks? This led us to our bodies.
To be in balance we need to tend to our bodies as well. This one was easy enough to discuss. What we eat, drinking enough water throughout the day, movement, fresh air, forest bathing...which led us to spirit.
How do we tend to our spirit? If you're not religious how do you talk to your teens about connecting to spirit in a regular way? I rephrased "spirit" as their inner self or higher self for my teen boy. We came up with being in nature, having quiet moments of simply being rather than doing, doing art or journaling, and going on a long bike ride.
There is more than the usual transitional anxiety this fall season.
The pandemic, race and economic disparity and tensions, as well as politics are pervading our daily life no matter how mindful we are about the news and social media we consume.
I'm using all my tools to stay relatively present these days. Being transparent with my kids about underlying stress and tension they may be picking up on (of course they are) feels better than denying it. Young teens are watching our words and actions.