Mindfulness for Mums and Dads Proven strategies for
calming down and connecting
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DR DIANA KOREVAAR is a consultant psychiatrist specialising in women’s
health, pregnancy and perinatal psychiatric disorders. She has had extensive
training in mindfulness-based treatment approaches, and has employed these
techniques not only in her work, but also in her personal life. In the course of her
work, Diana has observed how men and women from all walks of life have
benefited from this approach. She co-wrote the Mind the Bump mindfulness and
meditation app developed by Beyond Blue and Smiling Mind in 2014. Diana
continues her work in this field from her practice in Melbourne, Australia.
drdianakorevaar.com.au
‘Beautifully written and illustrated, Dr Korevaar admirably succeeds in
translating latest neuroscientific understandings into everyday language and
simple practical exercises. I can wholeheartedly recommend this fabulous book –
not just for mums and dads, but for aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and
children!’
James Bennett-Levy, professor of mental health and psychological
wellbeing, University of Sydney
‘This is a little gem of a book. Quiet, helpful and well written. Full of gentle ways
to change your thinking, in a way that actually sounds feasible to a parental brain
at warp point. The kind way Dr Korevaar writes makes me want to drop round to
her place for a cup of tea and a sob. But the book’s a close second; warm, helpful
and readable.’
Annabel Crabb
To my husband, our precious children and our family
– this book is dedicated to you all.
Contents
Cover
Title
Introduction
Part One:
THE SCIENCE OF MINDFULNESS
Lesson 1: Wired for negativity
Lesson 2: A wandering mind is an unhappy mind
Lesson 3: Wired for connection
Lesson 4: Stress, strive or connect—the three main circuits of
emotion
Lesson 5: Connections and disconnections in families
Part Two:
PRACTICES AND TECHNIQUES TO TRY
Lesson 6: Meditation—a personal practice
Lesson 7: Meditation—body-based practices
Lesson 8: Meditation—breath practices
Lesson 9: Formal and informal practices
Lesson 10: Just this breath
Lesson 11: Inhabiting the body
Lesson 12: Riding the waves of emotion
Lesson 13: A mountain of courage within
Lesson 14: The stories our emotions tell
Lesson 15: Beyond life’s inevitable challenges
Lesson 16: Noticing reactivity
Lesson 17: Your child’s mind
Lesson 18: The science of positivity and optimism
Lesson 19: Meaning making
Lesson 20: Equanimity
Lesson 21: Gratitude
Lesson 22: Compassion
Lesson 23: Savouring and the beginner’s mind
Lesson 24: Attunement
Lesson 25: Mindful communication
Lesson 26: Mindfulness for two—a PAUSE practice
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Resources
Index
Copyright
Introduction
T he world that we are living in and our children are growing up in
is incredibly complex. It moves very quickly and the experience is
often challenging. It is all too easy as a parent to get into an automatic
pilot mode of living, simply pursuing one goal after another; in the
process missing out on so much of the journey. In this book I hope to
inspire you to step aside from the busy flow of life, and take advantage
of the exciting developments in the field of neuroscience and
mindfulness, by finding ways of applying the techniques to your own
personal experience of life.
For most parents, attaining a sense of contentment and being at ease
can all too often seem frustratingly elusive. What starts with the
excitement (or pressure) of wanting to achieve a pregnancy, is often
quickly replaced with worry—that check-ups will confirm things are
‘normal’ and that the child will be well. If, at the end of the pregnancy,
we are presented with a healthy baby it can then feel as if a whole new
world of things to worry about pours into our life. Why is this baby not
sleeping? Is she getting enough milk? Why won’t she stop crying? Am I
doing the right things? And on it goes.
The trap we can easily fall into is coming to rely too heavily upon
what is or isn’t happening in order to feel okay. The experiences we get
excited about—a new partner, a pregnancy or a holiday, at best provide
only a temporary settling of this inner yearning for happiness.
Poet Rainer Maria Rilke writes of life:
“
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your
heart and try to love the questions
themselves, like locked rooms and like books
that are now written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot
be given you because you would not be able
to live them. And the point is, to live
everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps
you will then gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer.
”
If we dare to accept that these painful feelings of frustration, boredom
or worry are not an indication that something is wrong, but are in fact
integral to the experience of life and being a parent, then where does
that actually leave us?
From my perspective as a perinatal psychiatrist, it leaves us in a more
optimistic and exciting position than that of previous generations. Since
the teaching of mindfulness was introduced to Western society over
three decades ago, it has developed into a rich and diverse practice that
lends itself perfectly to the task of enriching our relationships. Not only
that, but when the techniques of mindfulness are incorporated in the
way we parent our children, research suggests it is more likely they will
develop greater emotional resilience, a quality that is more strongly
associated with happiness in life than income or career.
However, the term ‘mindfulness’ has come to be used in many
different ways and is used widely in a variety of settings, from the
corporate world to education and even in the training of soldiers, which
gets very confusing. Although mindfulness training programs in the
area of psychology were initially designed to help manage stress, anxiety
and depression, they evolved originally from more contemplative
traditions such as Buddhism, where there was a much more direct
process of inquiry into what it means to be human and live a meaningful
life. There are now decades of accumulated research into the beneficial
effects of mindfulness. It has been shown that regular practice leads to
improvement in physical health as well as emotional wellbeing and also
creates significant changes in the structure of our brains in a process
which scientists have labelled neuroplasticity.
This term refers to the capacity of the brain to quite literally grow
new nerve cell connections, based upon the patterns of our thinking and
our behaviour. In other words, the more we ‘practise’ certain thinking
patterns or behaviour the more strongly this circuitry gets reinforced
within our nervous system, or in other words—‘nerve cells that fire
together, wire together’.
MRI scans of the brains of participants in mindfulness training
courses such as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction show that with only
a few weeks of daily practice, there are measurable changes in brain
structure. The small structure in the limbic system responsible for the
secretion of the stress hormone cortisol reduces in size over the eight-
week period, and areas in the frontal lobe of the brain responsible for
balancing emotion, creative thinking, insight and wisdom increase in
size.
Over recent years there have been two additional adaptations to
traditional mindfulness training, which enable the skills to be of more
practical use to parents. These two extra ‘arms’ of training focus more
specifically upon emotion (balancing fear-based emotions with those of
courage, kindness and self-compassion) and deepening connection in
relationships, in a process which is called ‘attunement’.
The last decade or so of research demonstrates how it is possible to
shape underlying personality characteristics that were previously
regarded as stable or fixed. For example, if genes and early life
experiences have tended to make us self-critical, irritable or unable to
read the emotions of others with accuracy, regular practice and use of
mindfulness skills can bring about significant change.
However, when we are able to integrate mindfulness skills into daily
life, we are not the only ones who benefit. Research shows how our
emotions don’t just shape the structure and activity of our own brains,
but the brains of those around us! Mindfulness skills are now core
components of training courses in parenting and in education settings
because they help children grow into confident adults who are able to
flourish in their social relationships, their emotional lives and in their
capacity to learn and succeed in life more broadly.
Emeritus Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn is regarded by many as the
father of Western mindfulness training. In his book Wherever You Go,
There You Are he describes the way his own experience of becoming a
parent deeply challenged and ultimately transformed his own practice of
mindfulness. He came to regard the birth of each of his children as the
arrival of a ‘little Buddha or Zen master’, effectively providing him with
his own ‘private mindfulness teacher’. The role of these little masters,
he says, was to challenge every belief and limit he had, providing him
with constant opportunities to recognise the things he was attached to,
and to let them go. In this way he came to see parenthood as a long
mindfulness retreat.
My own introduction to the experience of mindfulness began over
fifteen years ago, when I found my way to a mindfulness teacher at a
time when stress was taking a toll on my life. Unsure at the time of what
was about to happen, my memory now is of meeting a rather physically
imposing yet kind and softly spoken therapist, who allowed me to tell
