This Works by Paddy Brosnan

Author:Paddy Brosnan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hay House
Published: 2018-08-24T16:00:00+00:00

The mindfulness of ‘mam’

A few years ago, I was contacted by a local medical doctor in our area (who is also a personal acquaintance), asking if I might be able to help one of his patients with some basic training in mindfulness.

The patient, Marie, was in her late 30s, was working part-time from home as well as looking after her five children – all boys and all under the age of nine. Marie was feeling constantly stressed and harassed; she was not sleeping and barely finding the time to eat properly; she was certainly getting very little time for herself, let alone a short break or even a day or two away from the boys occasionally. This situation had been ongoing for some years, and Marie’s GP was concerned that she was on the verge of some kind of complete physical and emotional collapse. He had prescribed various anti-anxiety medications, as well as sleeping tablets and antidepressants but, he told me, these could only be short-term measures and weren’t a healthy, or even a very effective, long-term solution. He was hoping that mindfulness might bring Marie some relief.

I agreed to meet Marie and said I’d do my best to help her. At our first appointment, when I mentioned formal meditation and that, ideally, she should devote 20 minutes morning and evening to its practice, she just stared at me as if I’d lost the run of myself completely! Although in my experience most people can manage to set aside 20 minutes twice daily if they apply themselves, in this case – given that Marie’s youngest was usually up and about at around 5:30 a.m. – I knew better than to suggest that she set her alarm clock half-an-hour earlier. We agreed instead that she would do her formal practice only once daily, in the evening, once all the kids were in bed – if she could manage to stay awake that long, that is...

However, it was also clear that it was vital for Marie to try to reduce her stress levels during the day as well. I chatted with her about the possibility of getting an app for her phone, but she said that that might end up being a double-edged sword: the two oldest boys were technology-mad, and she knew they’d most likely keep dashing to her phone to stop the alert (and invariably get there before she did) – and that a fight over her phone would almost certainly ensue each time, making any chances of being mindful very slim indeed!

We puzzled for a while about how she could remind herself to take time out every now and again – even for three mindful breaths. All at once, Marie came up with an inspired suggestion: ‘Why don’t I use the word “Mam” as my trigger to do some mindful breathing?’

With five young boys clamouring for her attention the whole day long, I realized that this word was one which would be heard repeatedly in her household – probably almost non-stop at times, I imagined!

This strategy worked a treat.

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