When I was 26 years old I did this course called ‘The Art of Living Breathing Part 1 Course.’  I know it sounds really naff when people say this, but it changed my life.  It really did.  When I registered for the course I didn’t realise just how much I needed it.   I’d spent so many years of my life being really busy.  I was constantly trying to fit in as much as I could.  I  guess I believed that the more I did the more fully I was living.  At the end of the day what that mostly left me with was a over-riding feeling of worn-out-ness.  (Yes, I made that word up).

On the course we learnt this breathing practice called the sudarshan Kriya.  It was powerful.  I’d done many breathing techniques before and I’d been teaching yoga for a few years, but nothing I’d done came anywhere near this.  Our teacher said that if we really wanted to experience the benefits of the kriya we should practice it once a day for 30 minutes over 6 months.  I took it on.  I was really keen to see how it would affect me.   For me the benefits were huge.  I was able to get so much done in heaps less time, quite effortlessly. I was working as a freelance journalist at the time and needed to on-goingly produce a lot of articles quickly.  I’d really have to work at that, until I started incorporating the kriya into my daily routine.  Because my mind was so fresh after practicing the kriya I was able to punch those articles out in no time.  The words just flowed through me.  In fact the course had such a huge impact on me that I ended up becoming a volunteer teacher of it.

How To Get Your Kriya and Meditation Done When You Have A Newborn

For the last 12 years I’ve done the kriya at home pretty much every day. When Joshi was born I missed a few days, but was back into it within 10 days or so.   Kriya’s not something you can do while your baby’s awake and needing your attention, so the way I fitted it in initially was to do it during the day as soon as he fell asleep. Sudarshan Kriya technique can help to say good bye to Insomnia  It could be any time of day, because he didn’t yet have anything that vaguely resembled a sleeping pattern.   Anyway, as soon as he’d fall asleep I’d drop what I was doing and go straight into my practice.  There was pretty much always laundry to do (when isn’t there with a baby!), dishes to wash, rooms to tidy, etc, but I knew that if I was to get it done I had to seize this small and unpredictable window of opportunity.  All the other things could be done when he was awake. Kriya couldn’t.

Of course there were times when my practice would get interrupted because he’d wake quite soon after he’d fallen asleep.  Sometimes I had to come out of my meditation really quickly to tend to him.  But I decided that I wasn’t going to complain about it.  Instead I’d practice being grateful that I at least got 10 or 20 minutes in, or whatever it was.  Better than nothing, right?

How To Get Your Kriya and Meditation Done When You Have A One Year Old

Now that Joshi’s almost a year old a lot has changed.  When he wakes up in the morning (usually around 6.15am), instead of getting a bit of extra sleep while Simon looks after Joshi, I get up, have a shower and spend the next hour doing my practice.  I do 15-20 minutes of yoga poses, 30 minutes of kriya and 10-20 minutes of sahaj samadhi meditation, (which I also learnt through the Art of Living Foundation).  When I’m done, I  look after Joshi while Simon does his.  This is what works best for us now.  It wouldn’t have worked when he was a newborn coz I was just too tired to get up at that time in the mornings.

What I often wonder is how parents cope without something like kriya in their day because this parenting journey is really demanding and you really need all the energy you can get.

Tip of the day for parents-to-be:  learn the sudarshan kriya and meditation now, before you become parents.

Extra tip for mammas-to-be:  learn how to do the kriya before you become pregnant because you can’t learn the it while you bub’s growing inside you.  Once you have your baby it’s so much harder to make the time to do the course.  Not that it’s not possible, just harder.  The Art of Living course is a total of about 18 hours spread over 6 consecutive sessions, so it’s a committment.  And you can’t miss any of the sessions, so you’ve got to be able to really get your head around taking it on fully. But once you’ve learnt it you’ve got one amazing tool with which to take care of your mind and body.  And I promise you, you’ll need that when you’re a parent, especially if you want to bring your best self to the family table and not your worn out, sleep-deprived self.

PS.  The Art of Living Courses are taught by volunteers in more than 150 countries, so you can do it almost anywhere in the world.  Oh, and your kids can do the Art Excel Course if they’re between 8 and 13 years old.   They’ll love it. It’s heaps of fun.