I know that mindfulness has become a buzzword in recent years and now I fully understand the hype.

In all of the work that I’ve done in my own personal growth and the research that I’ve read as I write my self-care course, mindset is the essential part for all of us.

My goal is to break it down, so all caregivers can take action to make one small change to improve their overall well-being. Imagine the possibilities if you made one small change a week or a month. After six months, you would have made tremendous progress towards feeling better.

Mindset is about the awareness of what we’re thinking, what we’re feeling and eventually – being able to step back and ourselves why?

        Why am I so hard on myself?

        Why am I so envious of that family?

        Why do I get sad sometimes when I see other kids outside playing?

        Why am I so sarcastic?

Once we start noticing our inner dialogue and our feelings, we’re usually quite surprised at how negative, judgmental and mean we can be.

Through practice and with time, we can evolve to ask ourselves:

        Why am I so mean to myself?

        Would I ever talk to my best friend in the same manner that I talk to myself?

These inner dialogues that we notice are called stories. This means that they are made up in our mind and have nothing to do with reality. Popular stories that we tell ourselves are:

        I’m too busy to exercise.

        I can never trust my child with anyone else.

        I could be doing more for my child.

        It’s never going to get better.

        I have no time for myself.

While we may believe 100% that these stories are true, we have the power to change them.

The first step in changing these stories is to change our mindset.

You see, life is overwhelming enough and it’s easy to tell ourselves that we simply don’t have the time to change our thoughts – and this is the biggest story (aka LIE) that we can tell ourselves.

Once we take the first step towards mindfulness, we start to feel small moments of empowerment. Once we realize how powerful our thoughts are and that we can actually control them, we start to feel a little more in control of our life.

Control in the life of a caregiver is a beautiful gift. There is so much uncertainty and things beyond our control, that it becomes fun to learn that we actually control our own destiny, our own reactions, our own feelings, etc.

This is the true gift of mindfulness.

In the end, we’re all hoping for a fulfilling and happy life.