15. On Getting Things Done “Lazy River” Style
Happy Suzday, Everyone.
After a rotating spell of back-to-preschool viruses which made the last month totally unpredictable, I’m enjoying one of those weeks that just hums along, with everything more or less in its place. It’s like a special form of Zen, in which I switch out the various hats I wear in somewhat of a flow state.
It’s kind of like Vinyasa yoga, where one thing links to the next in a coherent manner. It doesn’t have to flow perfectly, but it does move you along. And that is the energy I’m here to help you cultivate as we officially begin the Fall season.
Welcome to Yoga for Mom-Life. I’m Susana Jones, and I help lighten the mental load of early motherhood. With the wisdom of the ages, and minimalist yoga techniques that work in your life now, you can be fully present with your children, and build positive momentum in your life. Get started with a free download today at yogaformomlife.com.
Now, this can be an especially wonky time of year from Moms. We just completed three months of Summer, during which otherwise-stable-routines get upended for various reasons. Whatever summer looked like for your family, I bet you hustled and made the most of it.
If the end of Summer entailed the kinds of relaxation you might be craving this time of year, I wouldn’t have an episode to write about it. But right when you’re ready to slow down, put your feet up, and enjoy the cooler temperatures, life speeds up to a dizzying pace when children go back-to-school, and work gets busy again.
When your child’s cubby overflows, and your calendar fills up with commitments and festivities, a vague sense of dread can creep into your headspace. Especially when your body and mind haven’t gotten the rest and replenishment they needed after being all-in over Summer Break.
Because we, as Moms, are so adaptable, thanks to all those changes that happened in our brains during pregnancy and postpartum, we adjust. But just because we can handle so much doesn’t mean we have to live in survival mode for months or years at a time.
We can, without abandoning anything, establish ourselves in a flow-state, one that bends with unexpected turns, and moves us along the tasks at hand, one at a time.
By the way, I say “we” a lot, because there’s something universal about the experience of early motherhood. My son is three-turning-four, and I am figuring this mom-thing out one day at a time, like every Mom who listens to this show.
We are all in this together, and that itself is a very yogic concept. Of oneness. Union. So, I’m right in it with you, and grateful to have these perspectives from my years as a yoga therapist and educator to share with you.
Because it is possible to keep ourselves in a good place - mentally, physically, and spiritually while also bringing magic, harmony and logistical wizardry to everything we do, this season and the next. As Moms, we have legit superpowers. They’re called siddhis in the yoga tradition. We are capable of pulling off the seemingly impossible, are we not?
During a demanding time of year, in which you might be more susceptible to illness and exhaustion, your Mom-skills and special qualities can help you and your family thrive with a practice I call “unitasking.”
Unitasking is the opposite of multi-tasking. It’s doing one thing at a time.
As an example, I had to get up to pee while writing this episode, and on the way to the bathroom, I thought of how I also needed to change outfits for my live yoga class that started in an hour.
Then I noticed some toys that needed to be picked up before my house cleaners arrived.
I considered changing real fast and tossing those toys in their basket before sitting back down to write.
But honestly, changing contexts like that - from writing to wardrobe choices, to tidying the house- is hard to rebound from, and makes it difficult to do any one of those tasks well.
So I paused for a moment, and checked in with myself about what to do or not do. This made it clear that
1) I really wanted to keep writing this episode because I enjoy doing it and it needed to get done on time, and
2) Just because I write it from home doesn’t mean I need to do every-other thing that pops up in my field of awareness.
I’m sure that anyone who works from home can attest to this. The struggle is real, and it’s definitely heightened when there’s a young child in the picture.
When I task-switch, it takes me a while to get back into the mental framework of what I’m working on.
For me, that looks like sitting down with my fingers pressed against my forehead as I try to regain the mental stamina that just went into deciding which yoga pants to wear for class, and how many rooms worth of toys to pick up - all during a simple pee-break from writing.
All three of these tasks were important to me for various reasons that day. So, I set an alarm to change clothes right before teaching my class, and decided to gather the toys afterward.
The result was that the writing flowed, and it took less time than it would have otherwise. I got the other things done in a calm way, and accomplished a lot that day while feeling pretty good, physically and mentally.
What we have to look out for is the thought:
“let me just….pick up those bath toys”,
“let me just….change clothes real quick while I’m near my closet.”
Breaking our flow of activity to “just do’ those little things is like petting a cat backwards. It doesn’t go over well.
Keep with the thing you were doing. Move on to the others when you’ve brought the first thing to a natural stopping point.
What this does is it creates a quality of focus we refer to in Yoga as dharana. It’s a kind of single-mindedness that turns scattered mental activity into a flow of consciousness.
This helps us live in more of a flow-state.
It alleviates the decision fatigue, brain fog, and exhaustion that we’ve come to accept as being part of life as a Mom.
We don’t have to live that way. Another way is possible.
This perspective comes from contemplative practices like mindfulness meditation, but it also applies to going through the movements of everyday life.
I love this because it’s a practice that meets us where we’re at on any given day, and makes things go more smoothly.
And like any practice, it brings about progress. And because the brain itself is so malleable, it supports our cognitive health as well as our mental-emotional well-being.
And it’s so simple that it seems easy, but we know our habits well enough to know that this will take a little effort.
And the effort, my friends, is good for our brains and for our sense of accomplishment throughout the day. Choosing to stick with one task until a natural stopping point could look like
10 minutes of focused tasks around the house before sitting down to work until you’re in need of a break.
Or sitting and playing with your child without looking at your phone while they’re busy
Finishing the folding before replying to your friend’s text from earlier.
Making your child’s lunch for the next day, and then making dinner.
Sitting down to eat a snack until you’re satiated.
You might already do a fair amount of Unitasking in a day. Celebrate those wins, and keep accruing them in other areas of your daily life.
The beauty of adopting this way of getting thighs done is that you get to choose what the natural stopping point is for a certain task. You’re in charge.
The point is to stay on course, rather than letting a backseat driver - or worse, a carseat driver - dictate how your day’s going.
Instead, let’s be like a lazy river. Lazy because you’re like, “I’ll get to it.”
We’re not swimming, running and riding a bike in one go. Why? Because we’re just getting our strength back from Summer, are we not? If you are doing a triathlon, you’re probably super focused while training - for all the reasons I’m talking about.
Again, this stuff is universal. We can all benefit from a little lazy river mentality, in which the thought “lemme just do this real quick”, or “I’ve gotta do this this and that” turns into the mantra: “I’ll get there.”
This will likely annoy the crap out of your more high-strung side, and that’s why I love it for you. Challenge the part of you that needs everything done yesterday, in the chillest way possible. You can quell some of the agitation by knowing that you’re actually getting things donw in a more efficient manner. OK?
The lazy river will carry you into that task eventually. No worries.
And, yes, there will be moments where we need to switch tasks abruptly because something legitimately important comes up. That’s alright.
And it’s OK to not do this perfectly. Practice is progress. Like we might say to our kids.
The difference is making conscious choices about where to place our energy, and not draining our batteries from inefficient use. It takes a little redirection at times, but the payback is huge.
So start noticing what it feels like to flow from one task to the next. It’s really peaceful. You might as well be in a giant inner-tube with your feet up.
In yoga, we refer to this flow-state as dhyana. It’s being in the zone with minimal conflict and maximum clarity. It’s a theme that I will continue to speak about on this show, because it’s so practical and so effective for lightening the mental load of early motherhood.
So try it out. One thing at a time, love. You’ll get to the rest. Just keep floating along, and enjoy the peace and the presence that it brings to you.
Now that we’ve reached the natural stopping point for Episode 15 of Yoga for Mom-Life, I’ll invite you to join the waitlist for my upcoming season of online yoga designed for Moms of young ones.
My approach to teaching yoga is all about presence of mind, and creating big results in small amounts of time. Sign up today at yogaformomlife.com, and you’ll be the first to know when my digital doors reopen.
Thanks for tuning in and sharing this show with the Moms you love. It’s Yoga for Mom-Life, and it’s about time.
