Practicing Self-Compassion: Parenting a Newborn in a Pandemic

By Karen Laing | February 18, 2021
Birthways Chicago

Parenting is one of the most exciting, challenging, joyful and exhausting times in a person’s life. The adjustment to bringing home a new member of the family is a time typically filled with big emotions and learning to understand one another in this new space together. Even if you’ve read all the books, taken all…

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Calming the Mind: The Brain and Neural Pathways

By Karen Laing | February 20, 2020

It is a commonly held view that meditation is a way to shut off the pressures of your world or of your own mind, but this is not an accurate impression. Meditation is neither shutting things out or off. It is seeing things clearly and deliberately positioning yourself differently in relationship to them. —Jon Kabat-Zinn…

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How to help children manage stress with mindfulness

By Karen Laing | July 11, 2019
5 senses game Birthways Chicago

Young children are at the very beginning of developing skillful responses to change, and just like the rest of us, can feel frustrated or anxious. They experience changes both large and small. Larger changes children experience: The arrival of a new sibling A parent returning to work A new caregiver Moving home Reaching a developmental…

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“Expecting” and Beginner’s Mind

By Karen Laing | April 6, 2017

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” – Suzuki Roshi When you have a baby on the way, you inevitably put a fair amount of energy into planning, anticipating and preparing for what to ‘expect’.  We help families both become informed but also, encourage some confidence in all…

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Old and New/East and West

By Karen Laing | February 27, 2015

While scientists around the world are exploring the impacts of meditation via brain imaging techniques and measuring hormones and biochemical responses, the practices of yoga and meditation have been serving as perhaps the oldest science of psychology and wellbeing that we know of. Western psychology and its clinical application of psychotherapy is a very new…

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Loving Fearlessly. If only for a moment.

By Karen Laing | February 25, 2015

I had one of those moments today when I felt a fearless love for my daughter. Nothing special was happening. I was waking her for school. I crawled into bed with her to start the slow process of pulling her from sleep, finding no alarm works better than the gradual nudges and coaxing of a…

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Five Practices to Find Your Center in 10 Minutes or Less!

By Karen Laing | February 23, 2015

Updated February 18, 2019 I know it feels like there isn’t time to brush your teeth so how can you fit time for self-care practices into your life? A daily practice of calming the central nervous system and regrouping can have tremendous impact. 1. Breathe. Just a few deep and cleansing breaths can begin to…

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