This is how I felt when I recently came across the site- Mother Nature Network (MNN). I also discovered one of their writers  Jen Savadge who writes about green parenting, raising eco-friendly kids and she had this to say about Finding A Moment’s Peace

Check it out- they have loads of great information.

P.S. Haven’t been on vacation this summer? Need a virtual one? Check out Mother Nature Network’s slide show 8 of the Greatest Eco-Friendly Beaches

Read my recent post on Weil Baby Simply Beautiful: Natural Cleaning Alternatives to Household Chemicals

Here are my best five tips:

How to Clean Naturally–Get Back to Basics

1. Microfiber cloth. This fantastic little cloth gets the great all- around award for cleaning any surface and it just needs to be dampened with water. When it’s dirty toss it into your washing machine.
2. Vinegar. Equal parts vinegar and water become your spray bottle of disinfectant. Add a few drops of your essential oil (lavender, lemongrass or rosemary are great choices) and you have a disinfectant that smells good, too.
3. Baking Soda. Becomes your paste cleaner when sprinkled on a half of lemon. Smells fantastic and cleans even lime scale.
4. Lemon. use it with olive oil for furniture polish, or take a wedge and whiz around your sink to keep it squeaky clean.
5. Essential Oil. I use essential oils for many purposes besides cleaning, however they work well as cleaners and leave that lovely clean scent behind.

If you prefer to have some help with “getting it all together” check out this Eco-Me Cleaning Kit

Learning to create “Sunday morning” feelings gave me a tool to help myself. With practice, it becomes quite easy to re-create something that feels great—a relaxing body sensation, a wonderful sound, or a laugh-out loud memory. In doing this, I raise my vibration in attracting other positive vibes, people and situations in my life—with the bonus of feeling good in my self. Here is one  of my favorites—can you “feel” this?:

Sunbathing

One of my favorite childhood memories is one of climbing out of a swimming pool. Cold, shivering and dripping wet I rest my slender young body onto the warm cement edge of the pool. I can still feel the heat of the concrete underneath me, the bright sun above me, sandwiching me in a blanket of bliss.

Turn back the clock and practice “playing” in your imagination. Create a feeling.You are the producer.You have endless resources of experience at your disposal. Generate a ‘real life’ fantastic sensation.Try it now.

A moment’s peace

To combat the occasional morning blues, sometimes I like to pretend it’s Sunday morning, even when it isn’t. A wave of relief comes over me, oh-yeah, it’s Sunday. Thank God. I roll over, snuggle in my soft sheets, comforting pillow, and let myself drift back into a blissful, peaceful rest.
Use this scene as an example to practice an exercise in feeling this moment.Think back to how you created a feel good sensation in the first chapter and begin to create this feeling in your imagination right now.Imagine your body is feeling relaxed and full of contentment. In this dreamy and stress-free ‘moment,’ your mind is relaxed, free of worry and frustration. Allow yourself the luxurious epiphany of a completely relaxed, content Sunday morning feeling. Let the feeling tickle you. No worry, no commitments, no place to be—only the quiet and loving space of your bedroom. Bring this feeling front and center into your awareness and settle into it. Wrap this sensation around you, covering you in a secure freedom. Allow it to permeate through you. Be confident.
Know that you can re-create this feeling anytime you want. Every moment, a moment’s peace is available to you. The choice is yours. Focus your attention, and do it. Isn’t that a better way to get out of bed?

The warmth of human touch nourishes our soul

During those times each of my three children developed their own special cuddling tradition. Sarah was a hand-holder, interlocking her tiny, slender fingers between mine. Allie would nestle her head just below the bottom of my neck, resting in the flat, soft space of my collarbones. And my youngest, Sam, had a move that interlocked our ankles by resting his tiny foot on top of mine. We coined it the “foot wrap.” All of these maneuvers were not so close as to be smothering, but just enough touch to feel the warmth of another body, the security that human contact brings, and a feeling of love that is unconditionally mother and child. This tradition went on for years, the kids rotating turns whenever Ron was away.

Time passes, opportunities change

One day, Sarah announced that we could skip her turn the next time it came up. She really no longer wanted to “sleep over.” She liked the space of her own room and bed. My other two continued the tradition for another couple of years. Then, eventually, Allie, now entering puberty, let me know that her bed seemed just fine. She liked the idea of turning off her own light when she was finished reading, listening to her own music, having her own space. These things outweighed the idea of snuggling with Mom. No worries. I rested assured, as I knew lots of other mothers who had remarked how their boys had always been their “best” cuddlers. I relished the thought of the next few years of these occasional special nights with Sam, my youngest.

No more foot wrap

Then the day finally came. My husband’s business had taken him away from home for a couple of nights. I walked into Sam’s room to say his prayers and kiss him good night. He didn’t mention coming in for our traditional sleepover. I didn’t mention it, either. I went to bed that night a little sad. Then, in the middle of the night, I felt the presence of him lying next to me. I started to wrap my foot around his. He whispered, “No foot wrap tonight, Mom. I need my space.”
The next morning, over a quiet breakfast of Cheerios, Sam explained that he came into my room not because he missed our ritual but because he felt I was sad, and he didn’t want me to be unhappy. I told him, thank you, that I would miss our sleepover ritual, but I understood he had outgrown our tradition. It was his time to have his own space. I could have let myself feel completely gutted and heartbroken—rejected, even guilty. Not only was I sad, but also my son felt the need to lift me up, even though it was something he didn’t want to do! Instead, later that day I remembered something my mother (who raised nine children) had told me. As mothers we need to give our children the opportunities to feel our unconditional love, providing security for them to be grounded and confident within themselves. Instead of feeling sad or guilty, I felt proud I had raised independent, confident children. And I am continually reminded how I am challenged to keep growing right along with them.

• Make eye contact and return greetings from others; be the first to say hello.
• Give someone a compliment. Everyone has something good and beautiful.
• Focus on personal qualities you like about yourself– such as your smile or your special way of doing something. Let your light shine!
• Show an interest in others. Ask about their homes, children, pets, hobbies, or travels.

Opportunities are always available for me to practice “getting comfortable in my own skin.”

As mothers, the only thing we usually have enough of is guilt, judgment, self-doubt— about us, about our kids.We’re fed negative messages all the time.

Humaness is our power

Having thoughts, positive or negative, is about being human. The trick to feeling comfortable in your own skin is becoming more self-assured. One way to do this is by beginning to notice your thoughts and then redirect them. As Elizabeth Lesser says, “‘humanness’ is our power. Drop through the rabbit hole and find ourselves a human being.”

1. Take a walk. Try taking a walk as if you had all the time in the world. Keep your steps steady and even. Keep your attentions on every strep–heel, ball, toe. When you notice a though (and they will come). bring your attention back to your feet and to the rhythm of your walking.
2. Tai chi. This ancient Chinese practice is believed to offer all the health benefits of silent meditation, while giving you something to do with your hands and feet.
3. Rub a worry stone. Why not? The ancient Greeks used worry stones to reduce stress. Find a special stone. Put it in your pocket and rub it to help calm your frayed nerves.

Disconnect everyday

A first step in a fresh approach to bring a sense of calm into your everyday is transforming reality and your relationship to it. Disconnect everyday. Just for about 20 minutes. Just as I need to delete my cell phone’s voicemails and my computer’s emails, my brain needs to download some space. I need to remove the constant contact. Spending this time in silence reconnects me to another part of me.When I visit this quiet space regularly I make room in myself to serve others better.

Life as a mother keeps me flexible—continually willing to expand and contract. Schedules get disrupted. Plans get rearranged. Weather shifts, a storm develops or a rainy day breaks into brilliant sunshine.

Motherhood is a balancing act

In order to keep myself in balance I rely on my devoted time everyday using the tools of yoga and meditation to help me stay calm, flexible (physically and emotionally) and feeling good and comfortable in my own skin. As a mother it is easy to get trapped into feeling everyone else’s needs come before our own. My sheer perseverance to routinely dedicate a part of each day to self-care puts me in a place of capacity. It creates a “reservoir” that I can pull from—a place that gives me physical and emotional “wiggle room,” enabling me to do whatever happens to need to be done with a sincere and calm presence.

Over the years I have come to realize my carved-out commitment to caring for my body and soul gives me enough energy, clarity and joy to nurture myself and still have plenty to share with those I love…

Shift the gears from feeling pressured to perform and step into a new world, one fresh with subtle but powerful awareness in the present moment. Everyday life is chock-full of opportunity to live with mindfulness.

Imagine life filled with blissful moments—for me, that can be as simple as noticing as the humidity lifts and I breathe in fresh, crisp air, or maybe it’s truly enjoying my aromatic and flavorful lunchtime noodle salad. What I call “present moment” or mindfulness is really a simple 3,000-year-old Zen practice that is also referred to as mindfulness meditation, and it is a valuable gift you can give yourself.