Practicing mindfulness in my daily life has made an enormous difference to my personal health and well-being and also to my relationship with my family.
In retrospect, I was not a very mindful parent for a great deal of my early parenting years. Much of the time I spent with my kids I was multi-tasking or worrying about what I had to do next and therefore I wasn’t fully present. This anxiety coloured much of my interactions with my children and I often reacted with judgement and without a lot of empathy or compassion instead of pausing and responding from my true values.
Learning about and practicing mindfulness in my daily life has allowed me to reduce my anxiety, let go of judgement, show self-compassion and therefore approach my interactions with my children from a place of calmness, empathy and joy.
— Hersh, father of 4 sons, ages ranging from 17 to 27 years old