Emotional regulation and emotional resilience are key concepts to develop awareness and skills around for children of all ages, starting from the very young. Good mental health is every person’s birthright, however unfortunately in Australia our children are facing something of a crisis. Beyond Blue reports that 1 in 7 school aged children were diagnosed with a mental health condition in 2015, and this doesn’t take into account that mental health conditions are notoriously under-reported and under-diagnosed due to a pervasive social stigma around these conditions.

It’s really important for parents, carers, teachers and anyone with young people in their lives to be proactive about encouraging the development of emotional intelligence, and raising awareness around good mental health practices.  

 I would like to introduce you to an easy yet effective meditation technique, quite provocatively named, “The Quickie”. No, no, it's not what you think! I first learned about the exercise from one of my favourite teachers, Dr Aviva Romm, and have found it to be a powerful, on-the-go technique that is easy to learn and practice. I've then taken it to the next level by adding acupressure to it, to supercharge this technique for maximum impact.
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So, are you ready to learn more?

By Angie
In a previous post we introduced the idea of a “Sitting Moon”, a Chinese tradition that enables a new mother to be supported in the post-partum period so that she can rest as much as possible and restore herself to radiant health.

During this time and continuing on into early motherhood, there are also things that a new mother can do for herself to encourage healing. These include “mother-warming”, acupressure, meditation, acupuncture and special attention to nutrition. These self-healing techniques help a mother to feel her best to ensure good health for the future, and also so that she can enjoy these precious, beautiful days with her baby. We will talk about all of these things over the next few blog posts.

Here is a simple meditation that suggests you send a “smile” to all of your internal organs and glands. It is a way of saying “thank you” to your body for working 24 hours, 7 days a week! Focusing your attention and smiling in this way can calm the autonomic nervous system, revitalize the internal organs, and increase the flow of blood and Qi.