Can you feel the chill in the Autumn air, as passing time brings us new seasons and change. 

Autumn is also known as being the season of opposites, the weather starts to chill, the trees shed their leaves, hibernation and rest of the coming Winter is what nature starts to prepare for. We will begin to slow down as the days shorten, bring warmth and comfort inside of our homes, light cosy wood fires, burn candles scented of cinnamon and apple and close our curtains against the early evening darkness.

Nature moves slowly and deliberately through each yearly cycle, Autumn is natures last hoorah slipping into the de-cluttering of its foliage, Winter is the hermit, Spring explodes with new life and Summer a time of light and vitality. If we slow down enough and pay close attention to our mind, physical body and emotions, we have this Autumn a chance to let go of the old that no longer suits you well and make way for the new and fresh. Prune, cut, trim, condense and tidy up, once you've completed these tasks and some may be more challenging than others to let go of. The extra weight that you have once carried, now dropped to the floor like the falling leaves of Autumn, you’ll wonder why you held on to some of those old things for so long. 

Letting yourself have space to breath and be comfortable. Autumn will slowly slip into Winter and hibernation, a time to rest and perhaps a time to move forward in ways that you've never tried before, could this now be possible for you to try?

Life always brings us constant change, just as the seasons change, the more we are able to accept and adapt to our own individual life changes the further forward we can go to explore new adventures experiences.

A cathartic release for some, a permanent record for posterity with other's.

Journal writing is good for you, it assists in helping us to clear our mental clutter, the stuff that justs keeps going around and around in our heads.  Transfering those problems we have from inside our heads onto a piece of paper, the mind becomes clearer, we can then switch our attention from problem storing to problem solving. To relive experiences and events safely on paper without charged emotions. giving us a dialogue with ourselves, breaking down complex experiences into smaller pieces that are easier for us to cope with, reducing stress levels, fear and anxiety.

Journal writing can help us when we need to make decisions that will affect our future life situations, by having a record of the past choices we have made, allow's us to make informed future choices, avoiding past mistakes.  Recording our major accomplishments and moments that we are proud of boosts our self confidence and self esteem.

Wanting to watch your weight? keep a food diary it's a great way to pay more attention to what and when you eat, allowing you to see if there are particular times when you are hungery or whether emotional factors increase your intake of food.

At work, school or university keeping a record of the good projects, pieces of work you've completed on time and had great feedback from or maybe  some other area may come to light that you need to pay a little more attention to.

Sadly at an increasingly younger age our children seem to be facing higher levels of stress in their young lives.  Mindfulness practices can be benifical for children for exactly the same reasons they are helpful to us adults.

It may seem like a huge daunting task to ask your children to meditate, when you can't even get them to eat breakfast before going to school or get them to concentrate on their homework.  Mindfulness can help children to have a happier school/social experience, to focus during exams and reduce stress and anxiety.

Being Mindful is the ability to sustain a focused awareness on the present moment whilst acknowleding and accepting your feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations, maybe a little challenging for children to fully understand, although parents can gently begin to help their children discover their awareness.  Parents could start by introducing short quiet times, bringing awareness to breathing maybe in the morning or evening, a few moments can be really helpful at reducing the physical symtoms of hightened excitement or anxiety.  Breathing is also benifical for the youngest of children games like pretending to lay still like vegtables.  Learning to focus on thier breathing will take a little practice at first so a game is always a great place to start, placing thier favourite teddy on their tummy and rocking it to sleep with the motion of the rise and fall of their belly whilst breathing, pretending that their bellies are balloons making them bigger and smaller.  Focusing on our senses is a really helpful tool, a listening or seeing walk, paying attention to what you can hear or see whilst standing still for a few moments during the walk, maybe stopping at a favourite spot to do this, if its a walk that you take regularly.  Asking your children at the end of their day to remember something happy, nice or glad that had happened to them or someone else they know, can help them to keep themselves in a positive frame of mind.

As adults we fully understand that the vast ocean that is our lives, has small ripples to major storms that we need to endure from time to time, generally if we pay attention to our feelings during these times they don't say around to long, shutting them away is just asking them to hang around and possibly build up into a mountain rather than a mole hill, this is exactly the same for our children no matter how old they are.

Enjoy your family breathing sessions.