Finding Your Peace Points

The worst time of day for me is in the morning.  There is something extremely volatile about corraling the children into the car and then into my mother-in-law's house that makes the stress barometer shoot its needle out the side of my head.

My general protocol for extremely stressful situations is creating a "peace point" immediately following.  For example, when I get home from work, I like to make popcorn and hot cocoa with the kids and watch a movie or a little TV before cleaning the house or making dinner.

But how can I possibly have a peace point in between dropping the kids off and being expected to perform at work?  It seems like an impossible task that evokes more stress than dropping the kids off in the first place.  At first, I would just complain about it and wish it could all go away.  Then I realized I am now an adult and must be able to do these things.

So here is my peace after dropping the kids off:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejKCiZGewgw

Yes, I sit at a traffic light and drink my coffee.  I choose a mug, NOT a travel cup.  I pretend that I am in a cafe watching people while "easy listening" music plays overhead.  I smell the aroma of the freshly ground beans and hear the banging of the espresso filter.  I feel like I am the most important person in the world and no one can see me.  Then the light changes to green.

Learning to Breathe

A chiropractor told me I don't know how to breathe.  Perhaps I forgot.  Perhaps I learned incorrectly.  Perhaps that chiropractor can take that advice and shove it in her pie hole and--oh, excuse me.  I breathe shallowly; it stresses me out and makes me angry.  I didn't mean to get all Medieval...

Baby's First Bath

This video looks like it comes from somewhere in France.  It is so sweet and peaceful the way this woman gives these babies their first baths.  My favorite part is how careful she is to cover the baby's face without getting water in their noses.  This active consciousness is the kind of care I want to be giving my children when caring for them.  I felt like I was watching a new communion of soothing between the caregiver and the babies, and she was welcoming them into the world by giving them a type of nostalgia of what life was like sometime before that difficult time of labor and birth.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2012/04/skip-your-morning-meditation-watch-this-instead/