As I sit here writing this post, this writer took a moment to hit the pause button to reflect on a meaningful, mundane transaction on today’s to do list. Specifically, I shuttled our teenager off to their final early morning summer cross training workout.

It’s not cool to call things like that day camp or playdates anymore (all too tempting). And you don’t call it practice, it’s now called training.

To wit: it’s hard not to hear George Carlin’s spirited questionable assertion, was it ever cool to call getting together with peers or friends playdates?

A vocational internship, community service hours, college tours, soccer season and the beginning of a new school year are all happening and on our household’s horizon. With a kid in school and dad who works in them, that’s what’s up. It’s a process many parents and caregivers have experienced before.

As parents, we’re trying to be mindful of our approach, because like any responsibility, it’s easy to fall prey to the doing, become robotic, and lose sight of the sacred moments along the way. That can happen in all aspects of life, if you’re not careful.

Speaking of transitions, the one constant is change along the trails of life. Are you noticing the subtle hints of Autumn are in the early August air?

These sense experiences mix alchemically with the microscopic, minority radiance of vibrant hues of leaves turning, whilst offering an early prequel to a backdrop to Nature’s theater. May we bear witness to everything old beginning anew again.

It won’t be long till the Equinoxes are here in later September, where light and dark are equal again, and peak foliage colors the tree lines again, if only for a brief moment in time. Ah, the yin and the yang at play!

Looking ahead, our days will get shorter until the darkest day of the year on the Winter Solstice in December. However, if you live in the Southern Hemisphere, Spring is springing, and it will be the Vernal Equinox at that time. Those days will get longer until sunlight peaks on their Summer Solstice.

For the rest of us in the living moment, a Full Moon is waxing and will fully reveal itself in the second week of August. Historically, Full Moons go by different names. One of the traditional names, as indicated by many of our ancestors, is the Full Sturgeon Moon.

These mighty freshwater fish still thrive in the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain regions in the Middle of the Americas. Like turtles, sturgeons have been around at least as long as when dinosaurs roamed Mother Earth.

In much the same way as everyone else, these fish are at risk in today’s changing tides. And yet, these living fossils are still around. Moreover, sturgeons reflect the power of survivors, and as such, are symbolic of resiliency. Like the murky waters these fish stir up, we need to swim through them with resiliency in our tackle box, if you’ll pardon the pun.

But what is this resiliency we speak of? After nearly two decades of social work practice in Public Schools, it is a dream come true to see that we are paying more attention to building resiliency in school community settings.

It’s no secret that we humans come into this Earthbound experience with our own unique, prewired blueprints. While our core temperaments don’t change, our personalities are an evolving process over our life cycle.

Resiliency is something that we are equipped with, and have an aptitude for- some more than others. But we can all build resiliency, which has a positive ripple effect on each other.

Systemically, one way we can all develop our capacity for resiliency is to create and follow a self care routine. I’m a big fan of the Keep It Simple Sweetheart (KISS) model.

Like any healthy self-care routine, building resiliency starts with yourself and invites an intention and commitment to a daily routine of mindful attention.

For example, teaching more meditation, mindfulness and social emotional learning (SEL) as part of the school curriculum supports resiliency and facilitates the challenging process of learning how to be human.

Strategies like focusing on peaceful, calming thoughts, positive self talk, mindful belly breathing, relaxing our judgments and learning to be gentle on ourselves are healthy ways to build an internal state of resiliency and harmonize with our environment. Of course drinking mostly water, emphasizing consumption of plants and being more meat minimalist doesn’t hurt.

Remember that saying yes to self care means that you are saying yes to your own mental health and well being. The rising tide of Inner Peace awakening increases as the more of us become living role models of these behavioral changes. Further, the more we make waves in this dimensional shift, we will collectively see ourselves becoming the change we want to see in the world.

Here is a practical self care/SEL demonstration below in the form of the The Mirror of the Mind meditation. Regular practice of this powerful strategy will support sound mental health and well being in your daily life:

Take care of yourselves everyone,

Ari