Imagine this scenario: Your three-year-old has just hit his older brother in retaliation for taking his race car. Now both boys are screaming, crying and working themselves into a frenzy. You’re frantically preparing dinner and realize you forgot to boil the rice and your husband is due home. A typical reaction in my house to this all-too-oft repeated scene is to yell at both boys to stop misbehaving before putting them each in timeout. They refuse, begin to scream louder and I feel my blood pressure rise as I get tenser and angrier and my voice gets scarier.
Fortunately for us, we discovered yoga, and the benefits of practicing it as a family. Now when the above scenario occurs, I can calmly say to my boys, “Remember your breath. Let’s take deep breaths. Relax. Remember what we do in yoga.” It may sound surprising, but it works!
In fact, this ancient eastern practice is becoming increasingly popular in the western world for good reasons. The benefits of yoga are numerous. I am a firm believer that every mother, in fact, every human, would be calmer, more centred and more confident about their health if each of us practiced yoga.
Let’s face it—life is busy. We work; we go to school; we are tied up with after-school activities and household tasks. Families are realising the importance of spending quality time together and the necessity to create space for that time. Practicing yoga as a family provides this quality time while enriching each individual family member.
Fortunately, in Brisbane we have several options available to bring yoga into our family lives. My family chooses Angel Yoga for Kids, Adults and Families. They offer a variety of classes and workshops at different venues and times to suit a range of topics. Mothers and daughters can do a workshop together over the school holidays. Entire families can attend a workshop or a one-hour class together. Mothers and toddlers can attend regular weekly classes. Children can attend classes where parents can participate during certain activities.
Yoga is good for all of us physically, of course. Practicing yoga increases strength, flexibility and general health. However, its intangible mind and spirit benefits can impact us even more than the physical benefits. Yoga can energise us or it can calm us down and help us focus.
The philosophy of yoga teaches people to respect ourselves and our bodies along with all living beings. Taking classes as a family teaches families to respect each other, to cooperate and support one another, and therefore to improve overall family loyalty and connectedness. Yoga helps us appreciate the sacred in life, to prioritise what is truly important and valuable. And when we work on those values as a family, we help to create healthy communities, which are the greater goal: We want peaceful, happy communities where our children can grow and develop.
And probably the best part of all is that these lessons are learned in a fun environment! Families play games, sing songs, do artwork and support each other in physical exercises.
Yoga is a wonderful way for families to spend quality time together and learn something new that is fun and provides techniques to use at home to help with stressful situations, as well as improved listening skills, compassion for each other and mindfulness of the gift of each day. Why not try something with so many benefits? If it’s been around for 8,000 years and keeps gaining in popularity, there must be something to it…..
Check out our Kids yoga class on Thursday 4.15pm and Family yoga class Saturday 9.30am