It’s exciting to see how homeschooling is growing across the country! I know so many parents who have recently pulled their kids out of the modern school system for one reason or another. These parents know that starting a homeschool journey is the right decision for their kids, and yet they are struggling to make homeschooling actually work well at home. I have some advice that may help you if you’re one of these parents who are new to homeschooling or are considering it. It comes down to: lead with love and trust.
Now I know that may not seem like enough.
You’re probably wondering how exactly love and trust help when:
I’ve experienced all this before and can tell you with confidence that you can move beyond it.
Let me explain…
The biggest reason new homeschooling families have a hard time is that they’re trying to duplicate the modern school day at home. Sitting for hours focusing on curriculum is not a natural activity! And it will negatively impact your family dynamic if you try to do this at home.
Parents are supposed to be the most loving people in a child’s life. They will naturally learn much more from you than anyone else simply because of your influence over them. But this relationship will definitely change if you now try to be a strict teacher. It may actually feel to them like you’re abusing your power.
If you’ve established your own private school or even if you’re working with a homeschool charter, you’re only required to offer certain subjects (this is unique for each state, check your requirements). Here in California, there is no oversight. You simply need to “take attendance” of when your child is in school.
So it is completely your choice of HOW you homeschool. If you try to adopt the failing modern school system at home, it’s likely your child will lose their love of learning to a degree. And because your loving relationship will be strained with your new role, you’ll be adding unnecessary stress to your lives.
Your homeschooling life can be a very pleasant experience! You just need to let go. A lot. And you’ll need to stop comparing yourself to your child’s old teacher. Stop comparing your child to others. And politely tell your family and friends to mind their own business.
Here’s how it began for us…
My son attended a co-op nursery school, but always had a very small class. I was there much of the time and even when we were separated, it was just a few hours a day. So it did not prepare him well for the big social experience and structure of Kindergarten. Unfortunately he also got a taste of bullying and group shaming which I could see were starting to cause some emotional issues. During Spring Break he asked to be pulled out of Kindergarten and we happily complied.
Homeschooling was always my heart’s desire though, so I was fairly prepared. I had already met with a few homeschooling moms and had read some books. But I had a very romantic idea of what I thought homeschooling would be like for us.
I struggled to bring in curriculum. My son refused to do it and would cry and yell. I wanted to pull my hair out. Gradually I just stopped fighting. We went on lots of fun field trips instead and had park play dates with other kids.
I would still try to add in lessons when I could, but unless he asked for it, my son was always clear that it wasn’t working for him. We stopped making him read to us, to write lines or do math workbooks.
Now that he’s almost 11, he’s very self-led with his learning. We lean into the subjects that he’s interested in. This gives me time to work on my business at home since I’m no longer leading the lessons, except for when he wants to do science.
We are called “unschoolers”. This simply means that we don’t have any structure at home and do more “life learning” activities. It’s taken awhile for me to accept this, but what is helping me to do so is to simply look at my son. His brilliance amazes me everyday! Somehow, he has better grammar than I do. He’s a natural orator and loves to read out loud to us (his terms only though).
Our lives have very little stress because of this choice to let him lead. I’m not worried about him missing anything. When he needs a certain skill, I trust that he’ll learn it.
I’m not promoting Unschooling for everyone. In fact, if your child has been in school for awhile, they may actually like having some structure and curriculum as they did in school. However, I do feel there needs to be a strong distinction between what you’re now doing at home and what they used to do at school.
Here are my tips:
I hope this list help you to establish your groove and builds your confidence as the homeschool parent. Please let me know what you think and if you have any questions in the comments below.
And if you want more specific tips about keeping your family healthy as you’re learning at home, you can check out this post that I did last year (in the beginning of The Pandemic):
Homeschooling Mom Encouragement Amid Coronavirus Pandemic
Owning and wielding your personal power is a very important part of human emotional and spiritual development. And yet many people don’t realize that they are lacking a true connection with this inner strength which can help them traverse life’s challenges more smoothly.
Do you need to power up in your life? Read on to learn why it’s important to embrace your power and some tips as to how you can harness it. And watch the video below where I share some personal experiences of when I’ve had to power up.
Personal power is that force inside of you that allows you live with freedom and confidence.
It is not violent, as some people equate the word “power” with. It’s not a force that you hold over other people. This power is all good, and when fully embraced, can help you with healthy boundaries and solid connections.
Even though we often say that our inner power needs to be built up or developed, it’s more precise to say that needs to be revealed and wielded. This is because personal power is within each and every person. This innate energy is connected to our spirit, our will, and to our motivation for following our dreams.
When someone has issues connecting to their personal power, it doesn’t mean that they don’t have enough of it. It means that something is preventing them from seeing that they have it and using it. In a sense, they have consciously or unconsciously given this power away.
Like many aspects of the self, it’s often easier to notice when you’re disconnected from your power than when you’re fully embracing it.
This negative feedback is really helpful in recognizing that there is room for you to grow! So don’t feel bad if you find yourself caught in these patterns that indicate you’re not in your power:
There are certainly more examples. Anytime you are fixated on someone else’s issues, or living under the influence of ideas that are not your own, you are not fully in your power.
Remember that your power is always present, just may not be valued or used fully. So there’s little work in building it up.
Instead, you need to break the bonds that are making you feel incapable of standing in your power, and find you dependent on others.
I go into detail about each of these points in the video at the top or here and share some of my slightly embarrassing personal examples!
If you want to dive deeper with me on how to work within your power, consider joining me on the Full Moon January 28, 2021. We’ll be focusing on personal power through mindful movement, meditation, journaling, and ritual to help you along this transformation path. So if you’re reading this before then, please consider signing up here!
Living fully in your power is a process.
It’s not going to happen immediately as soon as you bring your mind to it, but make take some time to build courage and feel comfortable being uncomfortable.
It is well worth the effort once you realize that you are no longer under the influence of other people’s ideas. You’ll walk through life feeling confident to make your own choices, not caring what people think of you. I did it for myself, so I know it’s possible for you too.
I hope you have more insight as to how you can be living in your power. Please let me know about it in the comments below!
Modern Yoga is changing, as you may be noticing during these pandemic times. I’m reluctant to claim any “new normal” is on the horizon. However, I will say that the changes I’m seeing in the Yoga world are positive and actually moving us closer to the main aim of Yoga. Read on to learn my predictions about the future of Yoga, and how I believe Yoga instruction is changing for the better if we’re willing to adapt.
Yoga in the U.S. has been quite different from the practice that was popularized in India and other parts of the East. And it’s changed even more over the last 20 years I’ve been teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area, and not for the better in my opinion.
Yoga was once embraced for it’s life changing benefits and the passing down of wisdom from ancient traditions. Here in the U.S. it was reduced down to:
Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE everything I just listed above.
I resigned long ago that this was enough to attract people to the practice. I let go of the need to try to teach everyone to the depth that I experienced as a student when I first started my Yoga journey. But I always tried to give them a taste of this depth to let them know that there was much, much more that could be experienced.
Now that we’re in these challenging times, we’re seeing another shift. Students and teachers who really value the practice are needing to make the following changes. Otherwise, Yoga will be of little help to them and they’ll most likely choose another form of exercise or vocation.
When many of our states enforced a lockdown in March 2020, studios and teachers had no choice but to go online if they were to continue offering Yoga to their students. And if students wanted to continue practicing yoga, they were forced to create a practice space, to purchase their own props, and commit to doing the live or replay classes.
I had to pivot too. Even though it was stressful, I was pleased that students were needing to practice at home. A home practice is something I’m constantly promoting and that’s why I’ve written previous blog posts on the subject:
Should You Develop A Home Yoga Practice?
Resources to Guide Your Home Yoga Practice
The experience of Yoga becomes much more meaningful when you carve out time for it at home. You’re infusing your home with your personal intention. You’re modeling the commitment for your kids. The whole vibe of your home changes.
Once students see how easy it is to practice Yoga at home and experience greater depth, I believe many will start preferring it over studio classes.
We’ll see if I’m correct, but at least they’ll have the resolve to continue practicing Yoga in case their usual set up changes. (Unfortunately we are seeing many studios closing and teachers moving or quitting.)
Your home Yoga practice would not be affected by these external circumstances.
Even with studios and health centers now open, class size is limited (currently as I write they can only be open to 25% here in CA).
Though I’m really frustrated with the slow pace that gyms are reopening, I do think that small classes are lovely.
I long for my early yogini days when I’d meet my teacher and class at the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment. We felt comfortable in this intimate community, sharing our life struggles as we related them to our Yoga practice. I remember having class the evening of 911 and we all processed the day’s event together.
Many people are desiring community right now. Small group classes could be very healing if students are allowed to participate in deeper discussions and if the teacher is sharing classical Yogic wisdom.
I see Yoga classes returning to what they once were for me. And with that, I imagine that students will have a better understanding of how Yoga can help them in life.
This brings me to the biggest change happening with Yoga…
Modern Yoga only goes so far with instruction the mind-body connection. If one follows the tenants outlined in the Yoga Sutras by a skilled classical teacher and commits to not only the physical practice, but investigating the mind and heart, there is a huge opportunity for growth. In fact, one may awaken to a completely different way of thinking and living.
Everything we’re experiencing right now – from fear of disease & death to social & political unrest – can be resolved inside of you through the process of Yoga.
It’s possible to experience inner peace regardless of what’s happening outside of you. Believe me, I’m pretty happy right now even though I know the world outside is chaotic. I’m not blind to it. I just know how to co-exist with it.
If you want to deepen your Yoga practice for personal development or want to be an inspiring light for others, I recommend reading the books in my home yoga resource article.
Or let me lead you gradually through the layers of your being in my 6 week course Self Healing Practices for Holistic Health. We explore the physical, energetic, mental, emotional, and spiritual layers in a very practical way, at your own pace, in this self-led program.
The majority of people in the world are lacking the insights of these teachings. Humanity will experience benevolence and peace if they are embraced and shared.
Yoga is going to be an important part of this new world we’re creating. Are you going to be living it and teaching it too?
My health mindset is what guides me when dealing with challenging issues for myself and my clients. However, the same mindset permeates into other areas of my life too. In this post (and the video below), I share with you the five aspects of this mindset and how it can help you take charge of your health and master it by the end of the year!
Also be sure to grab this free health mastery blueprint that will help you flesh out your own health mindset!
I do not have perfect health (few people do), but I am healthier than many. What helps me stay well is a constant movement toward health mastery. The health challenges that I’ve overcome are what make me successful as a wellness practitioner too.
The major challenges that stick out as I reflect on them are my healing journeys around Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, emergency Cesarean birth, and my son’s eczema and gut health issue as a baby.
The following are aspects of my health mindset when working toward healing , which is the goal of any health challenge. As I introduce these, I’ll share how I applied them to putting my thyroid disease into remission.
In order to heal completely, it’s important to look at your situation with a holistic view. Holistic means that you’re embracing the physical, mental, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects that may be contributing to un-wellness. It also means that you’re looking at the situation from all angles.
I knew that there was much more to my Hashimoto’s diagnosis than what my doctor was telling me. I wanted to know the underlying cause and how my lifestyle might have contributed to the outcome, not just take medication for the rest of my life while my thyroid was quickly destroyed.
Branching out from this narrow Western view is what led me to approach healing from many different angles: whole food organic diet, detoxing, energetic clearing with acupuncture & essential oils, and meditation to manage my stress. Without this broach approach, healing may not have been possible.
I’ve come to realize over time that much of the health issues we deal with in this country are due to us being far removed from nature. We have unnatural sleep/work habits, and unnatural diet of franken-foods, we dope up on medications that are highly purified that the body has a hard time recognizing and processing.
Whenever I’ve taken a natural approach to health, things have fallen in place. I’m not just talking about using natural therapeutics, though they are also key. But even beyond that, I feel like I’ve always been offered the best wisdom from nature and practitioners who are aligned with it.
Of course this is what we learn in Traditional Chinese Medicine, that we’re microcosms of nature. So when I started this thyroid healing journey quickly after I starting TCM school, I was set up with both a natural approach, but also teachers who saw me as a whole person. All aspects of me were embraced as a patient. That, on top of the self love I was already experiencing, was deeply healing.
I know this is a tough one for people.
When you are unwell, or especially if you’re a parent of an unwell child, it is upsetting to think that something you did or did not do is contributing to the situation. But it is important to take responsibility for where you are now because that means that you also have the power to get yourself out of most health challenges.
When I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, I knew I had been burning the candle at both ends. I was extremely stressed out, my sleep was messed up, I lived on coffee, I was getting lots of sinus infections with rounds of antibiotics, my diet was not the best, and I worked around toxic chemicals in my lab.
There was no way I could just turn a blind eye to this disease and continue living as I had. I took responsibility and changed what I could. Those simple actions, built over time, are what helped me heal.
Quite often people delay their self healing work because it doesn’t seem like the right time, or they feel they don’t have enough money or resources. Truly, there is no perfect time and if you really want to heal, you shouldn’t delay. Our time here on this planet is uncertain, so everyday is precious! Embrace life and work toward wellness now!
It’s really important that you have realistic expectations. Be open to stalled progress. Be open to pleasant surprises like the perfect blood work I eventually received after years of lifestyle changes. Just keep moving forward.
Trust that your body is constantly working toward balance and want you to survive and works in it’s own timing.
If it’s really important for you to manage your health issue, you will prioritize the work needed to do so. You’ll also
I started working to heal my thyroid immediately. It was so important to me, that I didn’t care how long it would take or if it would even work at all. I just had to do whatever I could, not just for myself, but as a wellness practitioner I wanted to understand this disease for others too.
This drive for health mastery is what has made me stick to a gluten free diet for 6 years, to put filters on our water supply, and to remove our home of toxic products. So prioritizing and focusing on your health also means to remove the things that are distracting you or keeping you from healing completely.
I hope my health mindset is giving you something to think about if you’re wanting to commit to mastering your health. It has worked for me and my clients time and time again, so I know it can help you too.
If you need more help, get my Health Mastery Blueprint below which has prompts that can help you flesh out what needs to be done to promote self-healing. Please let me know how it works out for you and if there’s anything you’d change. You can share in the comments below.
Well wishes!
If you like this blueprint, then you’ll love my new 6 week course I’m offering: Yoga and Self Healing Practices for Holistic Health. I’ll teach you traditional healing practices that are both practical and deep.
Life is more fun and meaningful when you align your rhythms with nature. Plus, the seasons can teach you so much about how to approach healthy living! I’ve gathered some ideas for celebrating the Autumn Equinox that will help you connect to yourself, to your family, and to nature during this very special time time of the year.
The first day of Autumn is more than just a change in weather and pretty seasonal colors. The Autumn Equinox represents the balance of light and dark and a preparation for great change.
We can perceive the dark as being the absence of the sun since we’re continuing to have shorter days and longer nights until Winter. Symbolically, Autumn is a gradual letting go – a movement toward stillness, emptiness, and even death.
This balance of appreciating what you have (light) and letting go of what you no longer need (dark) is modeled for us in nature during this time as well. Deciduous trees undergo huge transformations by shedding their leaves. They trust that this needs to happen in order for renewal and more growth. Animals pare down their activity and focus on storing food and energy. Letting go is necessary and important in order to sustain life.
There can be a sense of loss during this season too, so it’s important for families to spend more time with each other and develop closer, stronger, more loving and supportive bonds.
Here’s some ways to celebrate Autumn by yourself or with your family and friends to honor the change in season.
Let’s start with the easiest way to appreciate nature: just walk among it. There is so much to notice, especially in Fall with the change in colors and falling leaves.
But what else might you notice when you walk? What’s the difference in smell? How are the animals behaving? Talk about this with your family and friends. Or if you’re doing this alone, maybe you can sit down and journal about what you’re noticing.
From your nature walk pick up what nature as discarded and add them to a wreath to adorn your home. Acorns, multi-colored leaves, dried berries and corn, grain grasses, vines, and dried end-of-summer flowers, can all be woven or glued onto a circular wreath and hung on your front door.
Each time you enter your home you’ll be reminded of the change we all need to embrace during this time.
You don’t need to wait until Thanksgiving for a special feast! And all of Autumn can be a time for you to express gratitude for what is bountiful in your life.
Make a special meal with seasonal fruits, vegetables, and spices. These may be different than what’s around in November with Thanksgiving. Right now in California we have lots of figs, grapes, corn, and late summer squashes. The different food makes it more unique! You can talk about what Autumn means to you as your family gathers.
You might want to try cooking a dish with acorns which are known to symbolize strength, potential, fertility, and new beginnings. They are also a traditional food in many places in the world, so a good food for you to become reacquainted with!
Acorns can be fermented, ground, and made into a flour to use in many yummy recipes. Here’s an excellent article that will teach you just about everything you need to know about acorns.
Enjoy!
I love to do Sun Salutations to honor the Equinoxes and the Solstices alike. Surya Namaskara is traditionally done as a prayer, a prostration to the Sun, so fitting to celebrate the change in season and the meaning behind it.
I used to do 108 Sun Salutations in my younger years since it’s an auspicious number. Now that I’m 47 and a little slower-moving, I realize how ridiculous that is. Intention is most important, not how much you do!
Just do as many Sun Salutations of versions A, B, or C that you feel comfortable with, bringing your intention into each breath and movement.
Or if Sun Salutations are not your thing, you can choose to do this Autumn Yin Yoga practice that targets the Lung and Large intestine meridians that are associated with this season.
You can simply do a Gratitude Meditation instead.
Or, do all three recommendations! That’s what I like to do!
Light a candle in the dark to represent the balance of energy at the Equinox. You can write down all the things you’d like to clear from your life. Tear them up or carefully burn them in the candle. Then you can write down all the things you now want to bring into your life.
If you have a garden, is there any better way to enjoy your bounty than to share with others? You can get some friends and neighbors together who also have gardens. Each person can bring fruit, vegetables, flowers, grains – whatever they have plenty of. You can trade items and talk about what to do with them in Autumn while enjoying some seasonal teas and treats.
Bring balance to your home with an energetic clearing. This can be done many ways, depending on the healing practices you study.
I love to burn a Sage wand and go around to the corner of each room in my house, asking for all negativity to be cleared from our home and our lives.
Then I do the same with Palo Santo which has a more revitalizing energy to it. I go around and ask that we bring in more happiness, health, and prosperity to fill the space.
The same can be done with essential oils, though I do this more regularly and not as a special ritual. This diffuser blend is fabulous at clearing negative energy:
Clear The Space Diffuser Blend
Lemongrass clears stagnant energy and negativity. Clary Sage clears confusion and brings in more clarity and intuitive guidance. Lime cleanses the heart and mind, promoting more gratitude for the gift of life. The combination of these three also smells amazing!
This is a fun and quick one! If you have enough fallen leaves around your property, rake them all up into a pile. Pick up an armful of leaves and throw them up in the air, mindful of what you’d like to let go of this season to create more harmony in your life.
If you’re doing this in a group, it’s fun for everyone to shout out what their letting go of. Then afterwards you can all talk about what you’re making space for in your life, what you’re now wanting to bring in.
Spend some time picnicking under a tree’s shade, or hugging a tree, or singing to a tree. You can bury special items like herbs or crystals in the ground near the tree with a blessing.
These suggestions may sound silly to some, but I don’t care. Our disconnection to nature is what’s fueling much of the dissent in our world right now and that needs to change.
One thing we can all agree on is that we have a symbiotic relationship with trees and we need more of them. So you can also use this special time to plant some new ones.
You can check out my Pinterest Board here for more ideas and recipes!
Which of these Autumn Equinox Celebration ideas is your favorite? Do you have any other ideas of how you can celebrate Autumn in your home? Let’s hear about them in the comments!
Are you stressed out and want to do something about it that greatly improves you life? If yes, then you’ll want to keep reading because, not all stress relieving methods are the same. Here’s 5 aspects to stress management techniques that I’ll share with you to keep the negative effects of stress at bay.
Everyone experiences stress. Yet since stress is a response to what is happening from someone’s individual perspective, the experience of stress is difference for everyone!
It’s known that as stress accumulates over time, your health can really suffer. So it’s a very good idea to try to relieve it every day. Some ways to relieve it are worlds better than others though, so it’s really important to talk about these five aspects to look for.
Before we get into this list, take a moment to think about or write down your favorite ways to relieve stress. When you’ve had a bad day, what do you do to relieve the stress that results?
After you go through this list, you can decide if your stress relieving method makes the cut or if you think you need to make some adjustments
When you’re doing something to relieve stress, does it benefit your physical, mental, and emotional health?
It’s common for people to just prioritize their body, relieving stress that shows up as physical tension. So in the case of a tension headache, they might just take medication to remove the pain, the symptom. But this ignores the fact that there’s likely emotional or mental stress that is manifesting as the physical headache! So to completely let go of stress, the work needs to be on an emotional and mental level too.
Spirituality comes into play as well. When one is not feeling supported in life, like they have no purpose, that is a spiritual issue. So stress might have a root that is even deeper than the heart and mind.
It would be best for you to choose stress relieving activities that are holistic, which means that you give equal attention to body, heart, mind, and spirit.
Yoga is an excellent example of a holistic activity that has a potential to relieve stress on every level. Just be careful here, that you’re not making assumptions about a certain class. The depth of your experience is dependent on the teacher, if you’re doing a led-class, but also on your approach.
You may want to check out Yogic Approach to Stress Relief to make sure that you’re making the most of your stress-relieving practice.
Choose an activity where you’re constantly checking in with ourself.
Watching TV is an activity that many people like to do because they no longer experience the stress of the day while they’re doing it. But this is because they’re completely focused on something else. They are “checked out”.
The stress will still be there when the show is over though. Nothing has changed or shifted!
It’s best to choose an activity like journaling with which you can check in with yourself and actively process what’s going on. In fact, just writing down how you feel can shine a light on how stress is showing up in your life and it will be easier to see how you can avoid or release it. Typically, once our feelings are acknowledged, they shift into something less intense and the physical tension shifts too.
I hope you’ll try it! Here’s more information on how journaling can help you.
Some people reach for alcohol, drugs, or engage in addictive habits when they’re stressed out. This is a way of checking out and unconsciously disconnecting from the source of stress.
This is important to talk about, especially right now when we’ve had continuous stress from the Coronavirus pandemic for six straight months. Obviously, it’s not the best idea to rely on a stress relieving method that harms your health when done multiple times, every single day.
So sorry moms, I’m not laughing at your memes anymore about how much wine you’re needing to deal with your kids who are learning at home. Yes, believe me, I know it’s stressful. But there are much better ways to handle it that actually improve your health.
You can try this breathing practice, for a relaxing start to your day.
Yes, sometimes we need to do something to take the edge off quickly. But typically these are not the things that will lead to long-lasting effects.
Engaging in stress management practices like deep breathing, mindfulness, aromatherapy, journaling and yoga can actually develop you to a degree that you can avoid stress or you’re just less affected by possible stressful events. This cannot be said for quick pampering activities like getting a massage or your nails done.
Believe me, I LOVE to pamper myself. I am not at all knocking these activities and recommend you keep doing them. But I would be clear that it’s for self-love, not as much for stress relief. The reason I don’t like that association is because, again, stress needs to be managed daily, so the way to relieve it needs to be simple and accessible, daily. It also needs to be something you can do for yourself.
Whatever you choose to do to manage your stress will be even more impactful if the effects are noticed and felt by other people in your life in a positive way. It is very clear that when I’m meditating regularly, my home life and my relationships are more harmonious.
What about meeting with friends – going on hikes, going out to dinner, or meeting for drinks? Those meeting can be extremely positive and supportive! Or they can be detrimental and useless. It really depends on whether you’re having deep conversations that help you grow or if you’re just drinking wine and complaining about how life sucks! See, it’s what you do with the time that matters.
I hope this information is helpful and that is doesn’t trigger you! I’m only going to recommend the stress management techniques that work effectively and consistently.
If you want to learn more about self-healing stress relieving practices, join my free 5-day Stress Less Holistic Health Challenge that is beginning on Sept. 28, 2020.
This challenge will also help you with consistency and accountability if it’s just hard for you to make the time for these stress relieving activities. We have a Facebook group that you can join, so we all support each other.
What is your favorite way to relieve stress? Are you still thinking this is the best way to manage it now that you’ve reviewed this list? Please let me know in the comments!
Brandy Falcon, L.Ac., E-RYT
