If you’re reading this, I’m delighted that you’ve found me here at our new home on the web. Since our family moved from Florida and IfSpace continues only in our hearts for right now, it was time to complete the migration and permanently move all of my homeschool and parenting content and coaching. My commitment to your families remains the same, and I’m using the time that I’m not spending comparing bulk prices on popsicle sticks to roll out two brand new podcasts, some really great online course content, a parenting book club, new resources for collaborative homeschooling, and a couple other pet projects – and a BOOK! It’s overwhelming!
As you can imagine, professionals who work with homeschoolers are in high demand right now. If you’re interested in working with me for school planning, co-op founding, or other alt-ed projects, please reach out via email and share a little bit of what you have in mind and what your timeline is. I’ve been able to add just a few new family coaching clients this month, but hopefully once the bottleneck clears, I can get back to the one-on-one work that I love so much!
I thought I was pretty good at slowing down and living in the moment, but this summer has been an education in what slowing down really means. When we talk to parents about slowing down to facilitate easier transitions with toddlers and preschoolers, we often tell them, “Slow down…again… a little bit more. Slower than that. There you go.” Toddlers and preschoolers move and operate on an entirely different time scale than adults (the running joke in this physics nerd family is that it’s because they’re short and closer to the ground – groan, I know). It turns out that maybe they’re operating on Covid time, because it moves pretty slowly, too.
Deep breaths and deep noticing have long been a part of my meditation practice, but even on my most mindful days I often have somewhere else I have to be at some point before bed. There have been many days since March where that wasn’t remotely true. Nothing is impinging on my ability to stay in the moment, and yet I can’t quite seem to settle. We’re programmed to wait for something to happen, to anticipate the next trigger, to anticipate the crescendo and eventual decrescendo of our meditation, in order to go on to the next thing. Relaxing into this unfamiliar, expansive space is hard work – the pain of release is just too sharp sometimes.
Mindfulness demands that we notice without judgement – that we leave space between the noticing and the assessment. Notice, catalog, release. Hear, acknowledge, disengage. See, identify, blink. These small actions create the space between the trigger and the response that we expand on in our everyday lives.
I’m so happy to be with you here at Human at Birth – to take everything we’ve done and learned together at IfSpace and in our various digital homes on the web and work together to make a world that’s better for children and families. Thanks for sticking around.
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