Filling the well of the teacher is part of a healthy learning experience for a family.
With home learning by choice or situation or both, there needs to be a balance of all the parts of life: household chores, meal preparation, down time, recreational activities, social time and whatever your priorities and values dictate a rich life is to you.
Doing what you love is the cornerstone of having abundance in your life." -Wayne Dyer
Since I found a magazine with the words, "dramatic simplicity," I have sought for my abundant life to feel simple and dramatic. Dramatic to me is in the moment and real-real lasting joy or sadness or faith, whatever the emotion is that gives life texture and color. Simple means focused on a few meaningful goals over lesser fillers. Here are some of my abundant life components.
Model Life Long Learning
Do you like learning? What does that look like to you as an adult? We pick the books we read, we seek out the things that interest us. Let those be apparent to your children. Let them hear you asking questions, finding answers and enjoying the wonder of nature, art, music, story, and language. I find that my reading life gets a back burner to the busy times of mothering, but when I was struggling through my current pregnancy's first trimester, I turned to reading for an escape and found that I wasted time I can spend reading. My phone unlock screen now has an image of books and the words: Read Instead. Having a book laying around makes it easier to pick it up when I put my feet up.
Patterns take away Battles
When I began home learning, I followed the local school calendar to find that a week off at Thanksgiving, three weeks off at Christmas and a full week of Spring Break did not work for me. The long breaks made all our patterns fade and I had to work hard to re-establish our ways. We now have small breaks. Right now we are having a small break while I desperately pour all my thoughts into this site so I can sleep at night. That being said we need some change and variety.
Variety is the Spice of Life
Trying something new, finding a new resource or lesson idea help keep me feeling a sense of progress and enthusiasm. Some of my lessons I love for a little while and then let them go. I try to stick to one thing to say I gave it a fair trial before discarding an idea that for some reason I began. Each month I have new nature, writing, reading, art, music, scripture, and poetry. We like our time with friends a lot, so with the current restrictions, we are needing creativity to interact with cousins and friends.
Personal Goals
My friend, Courtney inspires me with the way she approaches improvement and goal setting by picking a word for the entire year in which she ponders and practices. Having personal growth physically, intellectually, spiritually, and socially fill us so we can better give to those around us. This year I picked the word "home." Ironic. Yes. We are home and I have desires to make it a lovely place-a loving place. I collect quotes on "home", see it in my study. My reading list has a bit of a home theme. Pick a small clear thing and improve.
Emotional Health
I listen to podcasts to keep an adult conversation in my life. Yesterday I listened to the 3 in 30 podcast that spoke of how to not "spontaneously combust." If you feel stressed, the tips they shared may resonate with you too. First, feel and name your feelings. Self-awareness is self-care. Second, keep active physically. Moving helps our bodies relieve stress. Third, meditate and reach out to others. In a still moment we can pay attention to promptings of who we can serve. Lifting others burdens lifts our own.
What do you do to find peace? Long prayers.
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