How (And Why) To Get Your Family Meditating With You

In an ideal world, we would have all the freedom to commit ourselves to our meditation practice: hours alone to sit each day, attending regular retreats and formal classes. Yet for most of us, our work and family commitments get in the way. Wouldn’t it be ideal if we could integrate our practice with our family life? If our partners and children practice, not only would they see the benefits, but you would all have a more conducive environment in which to meditate.

Transcript

Most of us won't really have the opportunity to go on retreats for any extended period of time. Our work commitments, Our family commitments, Our life commitments in general may preclude us from being able to put aside such a significant amount of time for a meditation practice. If you're in this boat, Which I think carries most of us, We will have a desire to integrate our practice into our daily lives and if we live with our partners, Live with kids, Live with other people, It's increasingly important that they're on board. So what I want to break down is ways that you can ensure that the people you live with are at the very least accepting of your practice, But ideally are joining in with your practice. If you live in a house full of meditators, Everyone's on board, Everyone understands and there's this sort of magic feeling that happens when you meditate with someone else. So what I want to talk about is how to make that happen. The first thing I would suggest is to talk with your family no matter their ages. So this is your partner and your children about the benefits of meditation for you. Why are you meditating? Realistically, It's to be a better person. But how does that benefit them? If you're a better person, You will be a better employee. So you'll be able to earn more money. That benefits them. If you're a better person, You will be more attentive, More caring, More supportive, More engaged when you're with the person. So that will make you a better partner and a better father. If you're a better person, If you meditate, You'll be able to understand and help them through their interpersonal issues and their general life issues because you won't be so invested in it. You'll be able to step back and look at it from an attached perspective and offer the wisdom that they sorely need. So from a very very core level, The more you meditate, The better you will be and that leads directly to helping them through their own issues. But how can you get them on board? Well, Obviously it follows that if there's benefits to you, There'll be benefits to them and you can start off by getting your family members, Getting your partners, Getting the people involved in your life to join in with you. Just a small guided session perhaps and there's a lot of people on this app and you know around the world, There's a lot of resources that you'll be able to find that will have age-appropriate meditation practices that you can play with your kids. Engage them, Use them, Join them in and offer it as a potential solution when they're struggling. So one of the things that I do with my son at the time of recording, He's three and a half years old and I've been meditating with him and my partner's been meditating with him ever since he was born. Now some days he will meditate with us whilst watching a TV show. The idea is that it's not ideal obviously, But he's still in there doing it in the sense that he's seeing the meditation happen. But most days he's there doing it with us. Very quick, Very short sessions and we get him engaged on his level. We play kids meditations for him and we strongly encourage and praise him for doing so. But the real benefits come from when he can apply it in his everyday life. So like I said, He's three and a half and being a young boy, He will often injure himself, You know running, Falling over, Tripping, All that sort of stuff. Or he'll get emotionally frustrated, You know a toy doesn't work or he can't get what he wants. And in both of those situations, Every time it happens, I'll suggest to him take a breath. Take a long, Slow, Calm breath and I'll do it with him. I'll be like in and out. And what we typically find is that after three breaths, He's significantly calmer, The pain's reduced and he's on the mend. And what we've already started noticing is that when he does something and we don't prompt him, He will go to those meditative breaths. So he's already leaning on it as a coping strategy, As a self-care strategy. Just through a couple of minutes every day and observing us meditate as a family. Obviously, Obviously the older the person gets, The resources and tools that you use for mindfulness will have to change and grow. But there's things that you can do all throughout a child's life to punctuate their life with mindfulness. Nature is a good example of this. If you see a snail in the garden or a weird plant or a rainbow or just anything of interest, Highlight it, Talk about it, Look at it, Explore it. How many legs does it have? What does its face look like? What colors are it? What does it feel like? What does it sound like? The idea is that we're just highlighting what's happening in the present moment and not only will the child feel very engaged and have a great time, But they're also learning to step back, Slow down, Detach and look at things mindfully. It's basically punctuating their day with small moments of mindfulness. These same benefits can be suggested and applied across the board. The way to get someone on board with anything is to highlight the benefits to them. If you've got a teenager, They will have certain stresses and desires and beliefs and views that meditation will help them to address. If they want to talk to someone that they're attracted to, They will need to be calm and in control if they want to make a good impression. If they want to play their sports well, They'll need to be cool and collected under pressure. If they want to do well in academia, They would need to be able to manage the stress that that involves. Meditation can assist them with all of these things. It's your job to convince them that it will. The best analogy that I suggest to use is an exercise or diet analogy because it's sort of physical and it makes sense. If you suggest to them, These are the benefits that you'll receive, But it will take time. Just like if you start a diet or start an exercise session, You're not going to see results straight away. It may take you a month, Two months before you start noticing gains in strength or weight loss or whatever your goal is. But you know, You know that if you do the diet properly, You know that if you exercise properly, Those benefits will come. In the same way, The same thing is true for mindfulness meditation. If you take the time and practice daily, You will start noticing the benefits and then help them out. Do it with them. Offer them guidance or just suggest ways that they can do it on their own and to come to you for support. Or give them a book or a resource or a talk like this one that they can come back to and investigate themselves. But whatever you do, Don't make meditation a chore. Don't force it upon them because if you force it upon them, They may quote-unquote do it, But they won't be doing it properly. And as soon as you turn away and not look, They'll stop the habit. The best way to get anyone to do anything is for them to want to do it. So highlight the benefits, Get them on board and best of all, Show them. Demonstrate it by meditating daily yourself and showing them what the benefits of meditation are for you.