How to Survive the School Holidays

Do you ever notice how kids take the longest time to do the simplest of tasks?!

My 3-year-old has been wearing big girl pants for a few months now but she still insists I come to the toilet with her, even though she doesn’t actually want my help. (Someone must have told her that girls go to the toilet in packs!)

But with Christmas day approaching at a rapid pace, I’ve got a million and 1 things to get organised so I can take a few days off to relax, spend quality time with my family and not think about work. So when she’s faffing over how many squares of toilet paper she needs or is taking a billion years to get the step at just the right angle before she even sets her bum down on the toilet, I can physically feel the impatience rising inside of me. It’s like a knot right in the pit of my stomach.

The knot makes me want to rush her along so I can make it go away. It feels uncomfortable and that makes me narky.

Thankfully, I’m getting pretty good now at letting the knot be. I can focus in on it and just breathe through it about 80% of the time.

It’s yoga that’s taught me how to do that.

When you’re holding a yoga pose, it creates sensations in your body. Sometimes these are pretty intense. But you have to sit with them for as long as you’re being asked to hold the pose. This is how yoga trains you to be able to cope with intense feelings and emotions in your daily life, without lashing out or reaching for distractions.

So today, I’m sending you a sequence which is designed to strengthen your glutes. There are quite a few poses in there that will cause you to feel intense sensations in your body. I’m only asking you to hold these for 5 breaths. Focus on breathing deeply and it’ll help you to tolerate the sensation for the full 5 breaths. Count each breath in your head.

You might be thinking right now, I don’t want to do this! Why would I deliberately want to stir up uncomfortable feelings inside me? There are 2 reasons:

1. Kids are masters at testing patience so if you want to make it through parenthood with your sanity intact, it’s a good idea to get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable.

2. Every time you have the desire to try something new, feelings of discomfort WILL arise in your body. Trying to avoid these means shutting yourself off to new experiences. This will make your world small and can trigger anxiety.

So, set aside 16 minutes and 22 seconds of free time in the next few days to do this sequence, Set a reminder in your phone now and when it goes off, don’t overthink it… go get your mat and just do it.

I hope you and your family have a lovely Christmas

Nicola x