Momfulness as a Daily Practice
By Denise Roy • Santa Clara, CA

“Momfulness” is the word author Denise Roy coined for the spiritual practice of conscious mothering.

I want to be straight with you. Momfulness is not about perfection. It is also not about motherhood as bliss. Nothing is bliss all the time. I love being a mom, and at the same time, it can be incredibly grueling and frustrating, often pushing me to my limits.

Momfulness is also not about adding another thing to your to-do lists. So if you think you’re too busy to engage in a spiritual practice, think again. You can do this right where you are. If you’re steeped in dirty diapers, if you’re dealing with acting-out teenagers, if you’re trying to balance work and home and it feels like you have time for neither, this is the practice for you.

You can’t practice Momfulness by sitting on a meditation cushion all day (not that there’s much danger of that happening!). Momfulness is practiced in the trenches—while carpooling and cooking, working and waiting, crying and celebrating. This is a practice where you learn how to meditate in motion in the midst of family life.

The Dalai Lama teaches, “We learn affection from our mother, not a guru. The guru comes later. First we receive the lesson of compassion from our mother by example.” Momfulness is the spiritual practice of developing our capacity to hold our lives and those of our children with a compassionate and loving heart. We learn to move closer to—or even embrace—what is difficult rather than brace against or close off from painful feelings. What does that look like on a daily basis? Here is one simple practice that you might try with your kids:

Late-for-School Practice

Take any given morning. You’re running late, everything is going wrong, the kids are not cooperating. For the fifteenth time you have asked the kids if they are ready, and now one is crying and saying that he can’t find his teddy bear, and the other is insisting on tying her shoes herself.

You’ve reached that moment when you are well past your calm, serene self. You are thinking either that you’re the worst mother in the world or that your kids are the worst children in the world. See if you can catch yourself in that moment before you lose it. First, take a slow, deep breath—for you. Become aware of your thoughts, your feelings, and your physical sensations. Recognize how cranky or stressed you are.
Now take another deep breath — this one for your children. Notice what is going on with them. Did they go to bed too late? Do they want to be independent but don’t quite yet have the skills? Do they want attention? Are they too young to understand the whole concept of time? When we are able to understand our children’s behavior, we can respond more effectively.

Finally, take a third breath for the “Now what?” Ask yourself, What is needed in this moment? Then choose what you want to do next: find the bear, or tie the shoes, or give a clear instruction, or simply settle into the fact that you will be late. Recognize that whatever is going on, it’s not worth losing your sanity over. Three breaths. One for you. One for your kids. One for the “Now what?”

Over and over again—maybe every morning—we get to discover that we are not the perfect mom. If we are ever tempted to believe that we are, our children will bring us back to reality as they teach us our limitations.

Just remember: life is not about perfection. It’s about practice—the practice of recognizing the grace that’s present in each moment. The grace is always there. We just need to create a little space, a little breathing room, to be aware of it and to let it open us and soften our hearts.

So every day we keep practicing—paying attention to what is happening inside of us and outside of us and opening to the movement of grace. We don’t remember to do this in all moments—or even most moments—but as we practice, we discover that little by little it gets easier for us to respond to ourselves and to our children from a place of wisdom and compassion.

Excerpt adapted from Momfulness: Mothering with Mindfulness, Compassion, and Grace ©2006. Reprinted with permission of Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA. www.josseybass.com or 877-762-2974.

Denise Roy, LMFT, M.Div., is an award-winning author, a psychotherapist, and a popular speaker on the topics of personal and spiritual growth, parenting, and women's issues. Visit her Web site at www.DeniseRoy.com.