Just as deer feed their bodies for strength and endurance particularly leading up to colder weather, we can also feed our minds! As we immerse ourselves in the winter season, let’s tune in to our breath to help with calm and resilience while we build our brains. All that’s needed are a few moments to reset and refocus, enabling us to continue with a clearer mind and greater sense of inner peace. Let’s be resilient like deer!

The cold winter months and busyness of the holidays can sometimes leave us feeling blue and overloaded. We can turn to nature and to our breath for help! Think of bright yellow and orange Wintergold pines and firs that light up dreary skies and bring warmth to the landscape. We can bring this warmth and light into our lives too, while practicing gratitude for what’s within us and around us.

Learn evidence-based mindfulness activities and exercises that bring calm, connection and healing to you and the little ones you support, as well as tools to help build resilience.

This creation of a safe space can allow an individual to feel supported, able to let go of worries and stresses, and just simply be. We believe that when an individual feels calm and safe in a space, this can help open up communication and develop creativity, allowing them to be seen and heard.

Learn evidence-based mindfulness activities and exercises that bring calm, connection and healing to you and the little ones you support, as well as tools to help build resilience.

As the world begins to regenerate around us, we too can encourage growth and expansion within ourselves. We can choose to support ourselves by bringing light and warmth into our everyday through mindfulness practices. We can use this time of the year to get outside more and notice the beautiful changes in nature, draw in some morning movement perhaps, write in a journal, or begin daily practices to positively bookend morning and night.

Let’s talk about social prescribing, something being trialled by the NHS in the UK to help reduce demands on GP’s and the system overall. This model involves connecting individuals to link workers and prescribing them what they need to bring into their lives to feel more connected to themselves and the community around them. The crux of social prescribing is to work with people to identify how they can support their wellbeing and social relations, and in a move away from medication to meditation, we at HERE are aware of the connective qualities that mindfulness can bring into someones life.

Many of us have not lived through an experience like this past year, so being thrown into it has been challenging ride. One comforting thought, however, is that there has never been a time that you could pass anyone in the street, or shop, and know that you are all going through the same experience, (albeit in your own way). It’s a reminder that we’re in this together.

So what can we do to help ourselves navigate our way back to our normal? We wanted to share a few tips below that might be able to help with the everyday during this ongoing transition time.

Creating a garden of respect helps put things in perspective and allows you and your family members to take a step back and remember the simple things that are so important in life.

The latest theme was “Brain Architecture,” where we began to think about ways in which we can help children to develop, by providing strong foundations and solid walls of positive experience and nurturing.

“It was magnificent in its simplicity and in its effectiveness in getting the little kids to focus on their breathing. It calmed them down and put them into a relaxed state in no time."

Our kids’ earliest experiences play an essential part in the construction of their brain architecture. It is at this stage that the foundation for lifelong physical and mental health is laid down. But what about the architecture of the parents’ brains? Can we still make structural changes or do some rewiring for our own wellbeing?

When the kids don't want to brush their teeth before bed and we are tired and ready for me time, the easiest solution often seems to raise our voice and loose our cool. Or is it?

How about we first press our internal pause button and introduce some mindfulness into our interaction with the kids? It can really help us enjoy family time more by learning to respond to each other in a calmer more rational manner.