Mom Inspiring Moms

  6 Habits to Boost Mindfulness  To live in the present and to focus our attention to our own thoughts and experiences —- these are the most salient aspects of mindfulness, a state of mind characterized by awareness and acceptance.   Mindfulness has provided people with many benefits. According to Grace Bullock of Mindful.org, mindfulness enables us to live in the present, which significantly reduces anxieties that anticipating the future or reliving the past bring. Also, mindfulness helps us to observe our thoughts, manage our emotions, and control our actions when dealing with difficult situations.  With our aim to become more focused in the present, here are 6 habits that can help us practice more mindfulness in our daily lives. Breathe  We take 10,000 breaths a day, even during our sleep. But the question is, how many of these breaths are we really conscious about? We can practice mindful breathing by focusing our attention on the natural rhythm of our ...

Someone dear to me asked me one time to write something about self-love. She said she has seen a lady speaking about loving herself more after being ditched by her boyfriend for another woman. And yes, it is a crude but rather sad reality that sometimes, there are people - both men and women alike- who love their partners more than they love themselves. And when this happens, they tend to sacrifice their own personal desires just to satisfy their partners — leading to self-reproach when their partners find their efforts lacking despite the sacrifices and self-emptying actions that they have done for the relationship. So what is self-love? According to Oxford, self-love refers to “regard for one’s own well-being and happiness". It is putting an effort to appreciate oneself and working towards personal growth. Additionally, Merriam-Webster states that demonstrating self-love is being attentive to one’s own happiness and appreciating one’s own wort...

This is no ordinary Wednesday.  Instead of heading to my daily workout after bringing Tala to school, I stayed at the school library to listen to a writing workshop for parents.  It is not the usual writing workshop where the participants are taught about writing syntax, grammar, or conventions. Rather, it is a workshop with an aim of helping the parents to encourage their kids to write stories or books.  The speaker, a grade 1 literacy teacher, showed us various books created by children aged 3 and above. You can sense how engaging it is to see those picture books --especially those with nothing but round and linear illustrations, which, to a 3-year-old, is a storybook in itself!  There are many insights imparted by the speaker to all of us, but the one that I want to highlight in this post is something that is not limited to writing but is applicable to every situation imaginable. This is the power of giving nudges and honoring approximations. Giving Nudges and Hon...

Hello, moms! This article is a response to many messages that I have been receiving asking me about how I encourage my 3-year-old Tala to eat fruits and vegetables. Please allow me to share these five tried and tested tips on how to encourage toddlers to eat healthy food. Tips on How to Encourage Toddlers to Eat Healthy Food 1. Model Healthy Eating Habits Toddlers are experts at copying the people around them. More often than not, their actions and behavior are a reflection of how we act and behave around them. Do not be surprised when you find out that they also eat the way that we do. Tala loves eating vegetables and fruits because we always have fruits and vegetables on the table. When she sees me eating a banana, she would also ask for a bite. (She only eats a bite or two because she gets easily constipated with bananas). When she sees her Tatay nibble on okra, she would ask for some, too. As explained by Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, children learn by observing their en...