Marco Sterling offers practical tips for stressed-out dads.
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Being a single father is an often overlooked role in today’s society. The role is usually drowned out by the magnitude of deadbeat dad stories portrayed all around us. The truth is that most of the men that end up as single dads are some of the best fathers out there, according to the children they raised. As with single mothers, raising children alone has its own set of challenges for single dads.
Restoring peace of mind and internal balance can sometimes be elusive in the face of extraordinary parental stress. Daily work and home life-cycles are often accompanied by an uncontrollable internal tirade of worrying, ranting, and anxious pessimism.
Restoring peace of mind and internal balance can sometimes be elusive in the face of extraordinary parental stress.
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If you are searching for the internal “mute” button, meditation is uniquely capable of offering this solution. Endlessly cycling through your internal worries may feel uncontrollable, but is also extremely common. Worrying about the bothersome components of our lives does not typically produce positive solutions. Some things are not within our ability to control, and these are the things that tend to end up controlling us, instead.
Rather than falling into the pit of endless despair, you can learn to control your response to it. Meditation provides a “mute” button, allowing a chance to escape to a better place.
Meditation Relieves Stress in Many Ways
Promoting inner serenity, meditation can produce a calmer outlook on your life by reducing stress and worries. Eight weeks of mindfulness meditation, according to Stanford University neuroscientists, reduces chemical activity in areas of the brain associated with fear and anxiety.
Physical changes in the brains of people who practice mindfulness meditation is also confirmed by Sara Lazar of Harvard University. Lazar reports that the number of neurons in the worry-related area of the brain is reduced following mindfulness meditation.
The health benefits meditation is comprehensively covered by the Office of Health Education at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). UNH reports that meditation is valuable to the health in many ways, including lowered blood pressure, decreased stress, depression, and anxiety, and reduced cravings for addictive substances that are hard to quit, like alcohol and tobacco. It also produces a higher energy level, increased tolerance for exercise, increased spontaneity, creativity, concentration, and job satisfaction. UNH adds that meditation promotes better relationship building, as well.
Begin an Exploration of Meditation
Although a personal faith or belief system is not a necessary component, meditation is often associated with a spiritual search for enlightenment. Nearly every human belief system shares respect for meditating on holy scriptures as a means of increasing internal peace and healing. You may find it helpful to draw from your own system of beliefs in your exploration of meditation.
Breath Meditation
Learning how to clear your mind takes time. Be patient as you learn how to relax and just “be.” Meditation has no right or wrong ways, and may be learned anywhere that is quiet and comfortable. Focusing on your breathing is the easiest and oldest form of meditation. Close your eyes and your mouth and breathe in deeply through your nose, filling your abdomen. Then open your mouth just slightly, and peacefully exhale until your lungs are empty.
Continue focusing on your breath, inhaling and exhaling peacefully. Gently blow the clutter out the window of your brain, focusing only on your breathing. Patiently guide your thoughts back to your breathing if you find them wandering. Start with 2-3 minutes of this practice and work up to any comfortable length desired.
Visualization Meditation
Add visualization meditation to your practice by reciting a relaxing “script” when you feel ready. One common way to do this is to sit down someplace comfortable outside or near a window. Look at the blue sky, inhale and say, “Breathing in, I see the blue sky.”
Exhale and say, “Breathing out, I smile at the blue sky.” Feel your mindfulness expand as your breathing now encompasses the bigger sphere of Earth’s blue sky–the source of your oxygen! You can’t help smiling as you recognize your new physical state of external and internal peace, in balance and at one with the sky.
Mindful Walking Meditation
Finally, take the concept of mindfulness meditation with you while you are walking. Try to keep your gaze forward and avoid wandering thoughts as you focus on your breathing. Patiently return to this “center” anytime you find your thoughts wandering. As this becomes comfortable, add a recognition of the sensation of every step you take.
As each foot connects with the earth, as each breath connects with the sky, maintain your focus on each breath, every step. Your focus is confined so your thoughts will not wander as your mindfulness expands into a companionable relationship with earth and atmosphere.
Consider learning more about the various forms of meditation through the excellent video resources of the University of New Hampshire Health Services project, “Reflections: Meditative Practice for College Students”
Learn Your New Way Home
There will always be times when you find yourself pulled off-balance as a single dad. Overpowering situations and events are unavoidable. Learning to focus your mind, developing an ever-deepening awareness of yourself and your surroundings provides a centeredness to which you can return in the midst of stressful situations.
No longer uncontrollably sucking you into the endless cycle of internal ranting and worrying, meditation can become more than just a “mute” button.
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Meditation can replace the negative habit of attending to troubles over which you have no control with a new, positive habit of blowing your worries out the window with every cleansing breath you take.
No longer uncontrollably sucking you into the endless cycle of internal ranting and worrying, meditation can become more than just a “mute” button. It can become your new home — The fresh, clean place you love to return to, stabilizing your internal balance and quietly, gently, restoring your relaxing peace of mind.
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Photo: Getty
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