Domestic Voilence- Breaking the cycle. A true story of 3 generations of domestic violence and how the cycle was broken.

Chapt. 1
Mums story:  Drummoyne, NSW, 1945.
Mum, dad and 7 yr old brother. Mum was a secretary then stayed at home, dad worked at tire factory.
We lived in a small house and all the kids used to play out on the street in the day time and my dad used to whistle to get me to come back in when it got dark.
My brother was in the scouts and we had an old chevy car with a little 'dicky' seat in the back and my brother and I used to sit in the back in the little outdoor seat with scarfs and hats on. We would go to scout camps.   Once we went on a two day trip to a dam that had broken< Burrabarang dam to see it before it flooded.  I was scolded when I was about 3 from some hot water on the stove and this was a bit traumatic for me and the family at the time, but apart that, times were good.
My father had a 50 yr old birthday party and whilst this was on a thief got into my bedroom window and stole all the liquor and cigarettes.  That was scarey for me and after that I would not sleep in my own bed for the next five years.  We moved to Curl Curl in Sydney and my parents built my bedroom across the hall from them and I slept in that bedroom from about the age of 10 yrs.

My mum and dad both worked every single weekend at the Manly Amusement Fun Pier.  So I would go and sit on all the rides all day.  When I was a bit older I joined Manly swim club and would race there each weekend.  When I was about 12yrs old I stayed home all weekend on my own, except to go swimming and to the beach.  I would do household chores like bring the clothes in off the line and cook tea for myself. They came home about 10pm-11pm at night.  My dad went to the pub every night after work.  He was a big drinker and started to come home drunk every night in a really bad mood.

My mother would nag him a bit and he would loose his temper easily and began to be aggressive towards my mother and my brother if he tried to defend her.  He used to say to him, "Are you man or mouse?" and pick fights with him.  When he was about 15yrs old a big fight broke out between my brother and my dad and my dad put his fists through the wall.  My mother would often faint on the floor when all this went on.  She was always shocked that he would loose his temper.
The atmosphere from then on was really bad.  My brother and I started not to bring home friends at all as we never knew when a fight would break out.
I spent a lot of time in my bedroom crying and looking out at the little creek out the back window with my little transistor radio turned up high so I couldnt hear the arguing.
One night my father came home and the knife at the dinner table wasnt straight and he lost his temper saying my mum was slovenly and ripped the whole table cloth off and smashed everything on the floor.

(chapters to come).

Encouraging gratitude in children this festive season.

Gratitude.
Who hasn't heard someone elderly say at Christmas time, "children today are so spoilt, they don't know how lucky they are.... " .  This may be true in some cases in the more affluent parts of our country, but is it truly their fault that they don't know how lucky they are?
Children who live through hardship naturally learn to be more thankful when good things come their way, but how can a child learn this 'thankfulness' or now the more popular term of 'gratitude' if they have not had to struggle for what they have and experience?
I've found the best ways to do this in my environment is by being a role model in practicing gratitude, teaching practical lessons on gratitude in my kid’s yoga classes and showing kindness to others less fortunate.
At Christmas we do simple things like buy a gift of a chicken and eggs for a child in a third world country through organisations like Unicef and hang the card on the tree to remind ourselves on Christmas Day of those less fortunate.  At a young age children can be given a gratitude journal to start practice writing and draw pictures of what they are grateful for each day, week or month. Adults can practice this too for better sleep and optimism about life, which can set a more positive, grateful attitude within the home. A study found adults with neuromuscular disorders felt more optimistic about their coming week and more refreshed upon awaking then those that didn't. Another study found that adults that practised gratitude showed more emotional support to others as a result of journaling gratitude. (University of California and University of Miami, R. Emmons Ph.D and M. McCullough).
In lessons I ask children to think of three things they are thankful for and to make 'gratitude jars' for the year and every time they are thankful for something pop it on a note in a jar and at the end of the year remember all those wonderful things.  Another good way to encourage gratitude is to expose children to volunteer work by getting the family involved or listening to stories of others in the family or outside of the family who have volunteered in their community throughout the year.
Conversations like these are easy to have throughout the year and not just at times like Christmas. For example, my elderly mother volunteered her time for three years to not-for-profit organisations when she retired and often told stories and involved her grandchildren in activities around her work.
Numerous studies have found that it is not only a 'noble' parent task to do, that is, pass on the ability to show gratitude, but it can also make you and your children 'happier and healthier'. The university of Texas Health Science Centre found in one study that, 'a growing body of research shows gratitude is truly amazing in its physical and psychosocial benefits.
So practice gratitude with your children for a healthy heart, mind and body and in turn the world may become a more kind society overall for everyone.

Tracey Maclay

(Yogamotorskills.com)

Yoga for kids to help with anxiety.

        

Yoga for kids is gaining popularity each day, mostly because parents and teachers are learning that anxiety in children is a real thing. Not only that: the skills learned in yoga, like calming the mind and being mindful and present, will serve children throughout their whole lives.

Tracey Maclay, founder of Yogamotorskills, yoga teacher for children and adults, and therapeutic massage therapist, explains how yoga for kids helps calm tantrums and manage anxiety, even in those on the autism spectrum. She also shares a few breathing exercises you can try with your little ones at home.

How I got started teaching yoga for kids

I first started practising yoga around 10 years ago at home, in my lounge room, using online videos. My children were 4, 7 and 16, and I’d recently become a single mother.

I’d always previously gone to gyms and practiced pilates, but yoga was new to me. I was drawn to it by the calming way that breathing was taught, and as I practiced more at home, my younger children began to join in of their own accord.

It was a stressful time as my father passed away not long after I had separated and set up a new home for myself and my children. I also had a bad car accident within those years after my divorce and had lingering neck and back problems. I lost my job and my confidence, and had to rebuild myself and my family unit. I had little family support apart from my mother.

During that period, I started attending a yoga class once a fortnight. I loved the teacher I had and felt more able to cope with life each time I left the studio. There was no competition in the room, just encouragement from your teacher to focus on yourself and what was happening on your mat. I felt my body getting stronger each week along with my mind, and continued my home practice and still, often, with my children involved. It would become a happy, playful time in the house and the animal and nature poses, like ‘tree pose’ became the favourites.

At the time, I was working as an early childhood teacher in kindergarten and started incorporating yoga for kids into the kindy program. That was when I discovered that any child at this age could engage in yoga. One year, I even had three children on the autism spectrum in the program, and I saw their enthusiasm and joy in achieving a pose.

2011 was when I enrolled in a course of teaching yoga for kids, and in 2015, I got my certificate.

Why yoga for kids?

After 10 years of teaching yoga to my own children, I can see how they still utilize some of the tools I shared with them. They are able to calm their minds and also keep their bodies healthy and flexible.

If there’s one thing I regret, it’s not teaching them sooner. In India, they often start the practice in school. Little minds are like sponges, and instilling positive ways to relieve stress early on can stay with them a lifetime. 

Yoga activates calming hormones, such as serotonin. The effect is much like when you have a massage or become engrossed in any activity that brings you calm and concentration and you literally forget what time it is. This is a much better way to activate these calming, feel-good hormones. 

Children as young as those in preschool are showing signs of stress and anxiety, which often manifest in tantrums. Simple, fun breathing techniques can teach them the signs of anxiety, how they feel it, and where they feel it in their body — and then learn to do something about it. The movements and poses also teach mindfulness, meditation, and relaxation. Imagine children learning self-regulation!

When a child commits to yoga practice, they also learn determination and perseverance. A shy child can become more confident as they build on their yoga poses with no competition but with themselves.

In addition, yoga poses coupled with mindfulness and breathing  practices assists children to take control of their “monkey mind” and learn to be still for a moment. The Johns Hopkins University (USA) found in a study that, “mindfulness meditation reduced the symptoms of anxiety to some degree across studies (2014, JAMA Internal Medicine).” 

I could go on and on about the benefits of yoga for kids, but I will end with saying that if as a nation we care about our children’s mental health as much as their academic or sporting prowess, then we need to incorporate yoga into schools, homes and sporting facilities or retreats for kids in Australia.

The rates of anxiety in young children, domestic violence involving children, suicide in teenagers, addiction to screens, and obesity in our nation, should be enough encouragement to do something.

At-home yoga for kids: breathing exercises for toddlers

If you are still unsure whether you should send your little ones to a yoga class, or just want something to help them calm them down at home, here are breathing exercises you can try. They are especially suitable for 2-5 year olds.

1.) Ask children to sit in easy sitting position and cross their legs (this is called “Sukasana”).  To encourage them to sit up straight, have them imagine a piece of string coming out from the top of their heads and lifting their bodies up with a long neck and spine (you can get them to feel their spine on their own backs to connect with their bodies and understand how our spine supports our posture and breathing.)

Encourage them to put their hands on their stomachs and fell how their tummies flatten as they breathe in and then goes soft as they breathe out. They can then move their hands up to their chests and feel how their chests rises as they breath in, like a balloon filling up with air and then flattens down like a balloon that you have let the air out of. (A real balloon can be demonstrated at beginning of breathing exercise and to engage the children). Breathe deeply in this manner for three to five breaths together. 

2.) Have the kids lie down on their mats, play soothing music, and ask them to put their hands on their stomachs with their feet outstretched. Have them breathe in and out deeply, in through their nose and out through their mouth. Mouth-breathing is okay if that is easier at this stage.

Ask them to imagine a paper boat on their tummies or place a bean bag on their stomachs and imagine it is a small boat on the sea. Feel it rise and fall with their breath as it moves over the waves of the sea.

Continue to lay like this and talk hem through their breathing in and out slowly in their own rhythm. (Tip: watch the rise and fall of one child in the group in the age group your teaching and gage your counting of in and out breathes to that rhythm, children have a faster breathing rate then adults).

You can add children’s relaxation stories to the process, either taped or make up your own.  You can also imagine you have a lemon in your hands and show them how to tighten their hands and squeeze the lemon, then let the lemon go and do the same with different body parts or just their hands and toes to start, them feel the difference when their hands and feet go ‘floppy’ and melt into the mat like ice-cream.

3.) Give a craft feather to each child and demonstrate how to breathe onto a feather to “make it dance.” Gradually move it away from their mouths as they blow and see if it can still dance. For fun, try holding their feather in their toes and breathing onto it doing a forward fold pose, bending from their hips and reaching down to their toes.

working with teens in yoga.

Some ideas for opening up a class to the concept of 'emotions' with yoga philosophy and psychology.

Talk about their ideas for boundaries on butchers paper and relate that to yoga concepts.  

Eg.  Right speech: Throat chakra (which I'll go into more later when we talk about energy lines and focus of chakras in yoga).  

 example: When discussing any reactions or responses ask themselves:

Is it true?

Is it kind?

Is it necessary? 

Speaking freely but without harshness to others.

Practice active listening.

Acknowledge feelings.

Be present.

Observe.

No judgment.

No hasty solutions.

Just listen.

I had these ideas for settling in activities.

1. Creating a mask- use a template of a mask/divide in half,  and colour with pictures,ideas, words- one side with the mask we show the outside world most of the time and the mask we have to ourselves on the other which is what we feel most of the time really.  

discuss how we start life with no masks and our inward feelings are easy to see on the outside and as we get older we experience, sadness, fear, suffering in different ways and we begin to wear masks in the outside world.  What isn't resolved stays under the mask.

We eventually live at odds with our own true nature and the one we present to the outside world.  What the outside world sees does need some regulation, however we will try to learn better ways to reclaim our true identity and be a  peace with any sufferings  we may be 

covering up.  Yoga can help.

Lie down and practice the concept of R.A.I.N. (quiet music playing as I speak).

2.  The concept of R.A.I.N (Buddhist psychologist and author Tara Brach).

R= Recognise: notice what we are experiencing in our body and mind right now.  What is the 'weather' like today in our body?  Is it cloudy, sunny, or a bit of both?  If something or someone once bothered you in life, can you step back and just observe rather than react with that feeling you had?

simple name what was present? anger?, annoyance?  wanting to cry?

And simply be with it without trying to change it.  Don't be hard on yourself for feeling the emotion, just sit with it and sense where you feel this emotion (can take yourself away from the 'story' going on if need be)  then have self-compassion for yourself and sense in which body part do you feel the emotion?

(We can use our folders to draw a body figure and draw  each emotion they may feel and where they feel it in their bodies eg. anger: clenched teeth and hands etc.)  talk about alleviating anger in healthier ways?

I= Investigate:  Look deeper to underlying emotions, maybe there is a softer emotion of hurt underneath your anger? sit with this softer emotion if you can.  Try to send out a message to yourself of no longer suffering or to the person- for them to no longer suffer in their emotions.

N- not-investigate:  Have a feeling/thought etc., instead of 'being' it.  disentangle yourself from that feeling? how could we do this?

Knowing that this experience is fleeting and things change constantly and our initial reaction may not be the best choice relating to the emotion felt.  That feeling is not the total of who you are.  It too will arise and pass.  This is just one part of you; you don't need to claim it as who you are, it is just a passing feeling- you can claim that feeling

 and then sense the spaciousness that comes when you experience it as a flowing emotion.

Follow on with breathing, then asanas and savasana to open up the heart chakra WITH BACK BENDS, and feeling grounded with base chakra poses:  Goddess, staff pose, bound angle pose, pyramid and finish with a relaxation focusing on each chakra and listening to own feelings.

Tell them to try and go home and have a bath one day with lavender sense, epson salts and baking soda to feel relaxed and calm.

'Om shanti'.

Tracey

(Yogamotorskills).

Mindfulness in schools/home/daycare/ activity 1.

Mindfulness and Yoga in Schools.

What is Yoga?

•      Definition of Yoga. The word ‘yoga’ comes from the Sanskrit root yuj, which means ‘to join’ or ‘to yoke’.  As we practice yoga we make a ‘union’ between the mind, body and soul.

•      Yoga is not a religion, but a practical aid to live life more harmoniously and well with good virtues and health.

•      It began thousands of years ago in India as an ancient art/practice  involving controlling the breath ‘pranayama’ , prescribed body positions ‘asanas’ and meditation ‘dhyana’ to reach a state of liberation and union with self or higher state of being.

What is mindfulness in relation to yoga?

ž  Dharana is ‘holding steady’ the mind.  Thoughts often come into our minds as waves, which can flow slowly or rapidly. 

ž  In Dharana the mind develops the ability to focus on one object and avoids other thoughts.  Thoughts may come and go but that single mindedness to one thing remains.

ž  Eg. Candle meditation, ‘Drishti’ point in an ‘asana’. Focus on a body part in yoga or relaxation ‘yoga Nidra’.  Focus on your breath.

ž  Focus on a sound.  The object can be help in the mind or as a more ‘physical’ object.

ž  Dharana is the ‘initial’ step of deep concentration meditation.

ž  (see hand-book for further explanation under ‘Mindfulness’ pg 31.)

Helps with emotional regulation, stress management and interpersonal skills.

Mindfulness Activities

Activity 1

Sitting Still Like a Frog Mindfulness

 

Tell children about the story of the life of a frog.  He sits there quietly waiting for flies to come by and doesn’t move or use up his energy unless he has to.  Frogs no how to ‘chill’. Sit with the attention of a frog.  Can you observe how you’re feeling and observe what is around you.  Only moves when it wants to eat or is startled.  It doesn’t waste energy and just sits still.  It isn’t easily distracted and just sits still and doesn’t jump at every chance and doesn’t get carried away with all ideas.  Children to sit still in frog pose or in easy sitting pose, back straight, shoulders down and back.  Imagine sitting on edge of pond. Use your ability to sit still like a frog.  Just take time just to sit and relax your back, neck, hands, arms, legs mind all still. Close your eyes or half close them and now just like the frog, sit as still as you possibly can.  Can you notice if any part of you still keeps moving, is it your eyes, your bottom?  Just notice.  You can learn a lot from a frog and learn how to stay in a moment and just be.  Do you notice which part keeps moving even when you are still?  It’s your breath, just like a frog. Tell them when they’re doing great, but don’t worry if they move a bit, just tell them that’s ok but encourage them just to notice it.

(Adapted from ‘Sitting Still Like a Frog, Mindfulness Exercises for Kids, Eline Snel).

Emotional well-being for children and their parents/carers.

                                        

In the new millennium what do we want our children of the future to be like? What lessons do we want them to learn?

 You have a duty to yourself to care for yourself first and nourish yourself, so that you can care for and nourish others, including your children.

Emotional well-being:  What is emotional well-being?

Laevers’ (1994) ‘Sound well-being results from satisfaction of basic needs – the need for tenderness and affection; security and clarity; social recognition; to feel competent; physical needs and for meaning in life.  It includes happiness and satisfaction, effective social functioning and the dispositions of optimism, openness, curiosity and resilience.’

How do I feel as a parent, carer, teacher?  How you feel radiates out into the world.  Children are very sensitive to your emotions.  To reach higher consciousness and vibrations within the body is to feel love, joy and peace and be flowing in life.  As humans we rely too much on external factors for happiness.  If we do this then ultimately sadness is the opposite and we live in ‘duality’ of the two.  A conscious person uses ‘awareness and response’ and not ego and reaction.  Teaching ourselves and our children to think before they speak and act is vitally important.  In addition, we need to not blame others for our circumstances and choices we have made in our life and teach children ‘ownership’ of their behaviour.  

Yoga practice can help in developing these good virtues to live by.

Tracey (Yogamotorskills).

Happiness is an illusion.

Yes, happiness is an illusion.  Instead, strive for contentment.  Life will always have challenges and misery will come and go.  Always questioning, "why can't I be happy?" will only bring more misery.  It doesn't matter what religion you follow or non at all, life will always throw you 'curve balls' and when it does your choices of how to react will create the best and easiest outcome, not the god you pray too.  Some religions believe 'karma' has something to do with why misery comes to us and others believe 'its just gods way'.  Whatever you believe, it is how you react that is the key.
'Contentment' in life is what we should strive for.  Blaming others is another bad habit some fall into.
It doesn't matter if your begging on the street or driving a Ferrari to your next big money making job, misery can come and striving for happiness too much can again bring more misery.

Wake up with gratitude for what you have.  Smile at people and show compassion for them.  Strive to not take on their 'miseries'.  We will bring ourselves down if we try to cease all others' miseries and solve their 'perceived' problems.

It can be helpful to become a little detached from others' miseries.  This sounds like you don't care, however overly sensitive people need to do this sometimes for their own well-being.  Show them compassion as they sometimes know no better than to wallow in their misery, but protect yourself from being swallowed up by it as often another misery is just around the corner for them in their 'reality' and difficulty due to striving for happiness.
I will speak more on this in the coming weeks.  In the meantime, meditate or just quietly contemplate these ideas when you have a quiet moment.

Peace be with you,

Tracey.