Be Thoughtful With Your Presents This Holiday Season

When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there? – Thich Nhat Hanh

Here are some shocking statistics on holiday gifts. About $16 billion were predicted to be wasted on unwanted gifts in 2017 holiday season in America alone. 1 in 2 people dislikes at least one gift each holiday. (Source: https://www.finder.com/unwanted-gifts)

Do you realize how much waste of energy and time that is? So many meaningful things could be done with that money and time by so many people. I recently conducted a poll in a group that I am a part of and the top 3 holiday stressors were money, relationships, and shopping.

If we are spending money on unwanted gifts for people we are stressed to meet in the first place, there is something to be looked at and changed.

But before that let me share a story about a time when I received a gift that I immediately threw in the trash.

A Birthday Gift That Ended In Trash

It was my birthday a few years ago . One of my acquaintances (after this incident I do not know if I should call them friends) gave me a gift basket. My primary love language is receiving gifts.

Of course, I was very excited to receive it. As I opened it, I happened to find a love note from another friend to this friend in the basket. Ta-DA! It was re-gifted!

I took a deep breath in and let go. This was the second time, I had received a “re-gift” with a note inside from the same person. I unwrapped the basket.

I decided to let go of the re-gifting thought and took the products out from the plastic to see what they were. At this point, I was still into the gift.

I have a habit of reading at the back of the product to see the ingredients, etc. This was a bath products basket and it was Made in China (which is fine because what is not made in China these days?). But it came with a warning. “Throw this product if you get urine infection after using it.” WHAT????

I looked at all bath products I use and none of those had that warning. I took the basket, sighed and threw it in the trash. For a person whose primary love language is gifts, a gift this unthoughtful on her birthday is a horrible mistake.

Yes, the thought counts. But a thought would have been enough if there was no thoughtfulness involved after that.

I worked for a fabulous company that made high-quality fragrance and bath products. I know first hand it takes a lot of stress on people who work in gift industries to make sure they put gifts in the retail stores on time.

It is a pretty stressful time as much as I remember when people are striving to get those holiday orders in.

With all this background, all I could think was that this gift was a terrible waste of time and energy of the entire supply chain.

Now you might be wondering what a love language is, so here is a small introduction before we move forward:

Five Love Languages

In The Five Love Languages book, author Gary Chapman outlines the 5 ways that a person may express and experience love. Everyone has a primary and secondary love language. He uses examples from his counseling practice, as well as questions to help determine one’s own love languages.

The list of 5 Love Languages is as follows:

Receiving gifts
Quality time
Words of Affirmation
Acts of Service
Physical Touch

His theory is that people have specific ways in which they receive love and usually use the same ways to express their love. If you pay attention to how people love to communicate their love, you might be able to understand their expectations better.

How can we be more present in this holiday season?

1: Learn and use love languages as a guide to picking gifts

If you take the time to notice people in your lives, you can discover their love languages. Maybe they are giving you hints by doing something nice for you quite often.

Maybe they give you compliments all the time. Maybe they like to hold hands or touch your shirt or love a blanket or scarf or velvet. Maybe they are always planning activities to spend time together.

We are growing to be a generation of less attention span. But at the same time, we are moving to be a more mindful generation as well.

When you are more aware of our surroundings every moment and have an intention of understanding your partner, loved one, child, friend or colleagues love language, you will, of course, find it.

2: Add thoughtfulness to your thought

When you give a gift to a person, it shows that you care about them. That is a nice thought. Now go one step ahead and be thoughtful. Ask a few questions to get clarity on your gift for this person:

What does this person remind you of?
What difference have they made to you in your life?
What would help them feel special with your gift?
Do you really want to give them a gift and go through all this process?
Are they really that important to you or is this really another check mark?

3. If not sure, ask!

If you have not been present too much and not aware of this person’s love languages and you still want to give them a gift. Ask if they have a gift list they can share.

You can look what they like on their social media pages, Amazon wish lists to get hints. You can ask their close friends or relatives if you know them.

4. Keep essence of the season in mind

If you are getting too worked up, about giving gifts, stop. Remember the essence of the season. It is not about gifts.

It is about the celebration of life. It is about counting your blessings. It is about remembering what you are grateful for.

There are times when you might not be able to give gifts to everyone you know. In those times, let your actions and your presence be the greatest gift.

Smile. Make people smile. Give compliments. Show them that you care. Be there.

Remember, people do care about how you make them feel. Most importantly, remember your children are watching how you treat your relationships.

Materialism is secondary. But if you have decided to re-gift, then all I want to say is, please remember to remove the old tag!

Bio: Sneha J is the CEO and Founder of Stress Less With Sneha J (https://stresslesswithsnehaj.com). Sneha is passionate about helping men and women in leadership roles stress less and connect with their inner-happy using mindfulness, mindset, and energy healing principles. She helps them channel their stress-inducing emotions into productive outcomes. Get her free Stress Free Holidays Playbook at https://stresslesswithsnehaj.com/stress-free-holidays/

I Say Laurel And You Say Yanny

Did you hear the recent sound clip “Yanny vs Laurel” that divided the online world? If not, check it out here. Or maybe, you remember checking the Instagram pic of a gold and white (or black and blue dress) that broke the internet in 2015. If not, check it out here.

We all had so much fun laughing and just randomly arguing about how what we saw or heard was correct and how others were wrong. We ganged up on the one person who heard Yanny. We wanted to “unfriend” everyone who heard Laurel. We thought people who say the black and blue dress were outright delusional.

And yes, we all are right in our own way. There are scientific explanations of why our opinions differ and why we hear these words differently or see colors different.

What do we learn from these experiences?

The debates of “Laurel vs Yanny” and “The Blue and Black” dress bring to light that every opinion that we have as humans differs from person to person. We all experience things differently. Our experiences may differ because of our upbringing, our natural likes and dislikes, our surroundings, our race, our religion, our city, our conditioning, our belief systems, our very different growing up experiences and not to mention our internal chemistry and our very unique DNA.

All these matter every single time we experience something and give an opinion.

How many topics are out there in this world that brings out just that in us? A difference of opinion and hatred?

Have you heard people argue about abortion? Have you heard people argue about the existence of GOD? Have you heard people argue about feminism? Have you heard people argue about LGBT rights?

The list goes on…

But today in the light of these debates, I have realized that there is beauty in seeing the world through other people’s experiences. Learning a different point of view, relating to a story, understanding science, history or some other side of an argument can help us bring more compassion in this world.

That does not mean that we have to agree with everyone else and their opinions. What it means is that we do not have to be mean and call names. It means that we do not really have to unfriend people because they have a different opinion.

It means that we do not have to judge them for them being comfortable with the current President. It means that we do not have to be afraid of people of different color and or religion.

It means that we have to breathe and give other person space to have their own experience. It means we have to show more love and respect for people to have their opinion instead of calling them stupid, arrogant or “bitch”.

What can we do differently?

So today in light of my lens and my point of view, I call upon all of you reading this message to show compassion to at least one person who has a different opinion than yours. You do not have to suddenly become best friends with them.

But if you are arguing, be open to listening to their story and their point of view. Be willing to listen where their opinion is coming from. Be willing to let them have their experience. Be willing to share your experience with your opinion. Be open to sharing your own story. Be willing to co-exist and be different. Because different doesn’t always mean wrong, weird or unacceptable.

Different many times means just that…DIFFERENT!

Sneha J is a mom of two boys and a true multi-passionate at heart. She is a Certified Neuro-Transformational Results Coach, a Master Reiki Practitioner, Tarot Enthusiast and a Mom Blogger. She has a Masters Degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from North Carolina State University. She is also a Mindfulness Enthusiast. Being brought up in an Indian culture, spirituality and meditations were part of growing up. After working in a very masculine manufacturing environment for 10+ years, she decided to change paths and explore her true passion. She is deeply inspired to use public platforms to spread the message of conscious connections and less stress in the world. To learn more about her visit stresslesswithsnehaj.com

8 Steps To Avoid Overwhelm in Your Morning Routine

I remember the first year we started pre-k, going to school was hell. (My child went to pre-school one extra year as he was born after cut off for previous kindergarten year). The morning routine was as follows: the alarm would go off, I would wake up, get everything ready and then wake everyone up, get them ready for school. In the middle of it, somewhere, would be my child, slowly getting ready, not wanting to go. He did not want to wear his clothes, would want to finish his cartoon before we left or would have some other thing that he wanted to do.Or if he wanted to go, he would be stalling around at breakfast or for drinking milk or some completely other reason.

I clearly remember getting extremely frustrated at my kids and my husband (poor guy, he got most of my bad side for no fault of his own during those crazy moments) as I was running late to get to work and literally no one would be ready on time.I also remember during those periods that I was skipping breakfasts and getting further late to work as I would stop somewhere to pick up a chai latte and eggs and breathe for a minute before I entered work. It was not the most productive or helpful habit. I was also 20 lbs overweight but that is a story for some other time.

I talked to my husband about these issues and we knew we had some form of changes that we had to make in order for our child to get ready on time for school.

To make changes we had to first figure out what exactly was going wrong.

I believe that in order to improve our lives we have to make some form of a change in our daily routine and do something differently. And in order to do something differently, we have to know what we are doing daily that is not working.

Here were some of the things that were wrong:

He was going to bed really late (almost 10-11pm) in spite of us trying to make him sleep at 9 pm
He was watching cartoon early in the morning
He was not liking his breakfast or it was possibly too much for him
Our morning interaction was nothing but a big yelling match
We were always in a rush mode and at the edge of being irritated
Our mornings were not conscious at all and everything was on an auto-pilot with no space for a connecting dialogue. Those were reserved for the nights
We were not providing any role model for him as to eating breakfast or about being healthy
We always showed how excited we were about his school but failed to bring that excitement in him and have his internal motivation woken up

It is not easy as a parent to admit you have done something wrong. But if it is for the greater good of the family, it is ok to face the truth and change the consequences.

So my husband and I faced our truth and changed our morning routine:

We changed my kid’s preschool. What was not working were his afternoon naps as that gave him a lot of energy at night. There were a few other things that were not working schoolwise so the change was welcome. I would not have very easily changed schools otherwise. It was one of the hardest changes we had to make but we chose a preschool where they did not nap in the afternoon. It brought an amazing change in his night time routine and he started sleeping at sane hours at night. (9pm-ish)
We made a rule to not turn a TV on in the morning. This took a while to catch on and we decided to give some interesting incentives for not watching cartoons in the morning.
We started waking my child up 15 mins earlier than usual so he had enough time to eat his breakfast.
We started eating breakfast with him or in front of him so he could model our behavior of having breakfast at home before we leave anywhere.
I let him tell me what he wanted for breakfast, snack, and lunch the next day so he was excited about his food. When he chose wrong, I told him what the long-term effects could be about eating the wrong food. While he chooses healthy most of the time, we do have some days when he wants Nachos for lunch.
Instead of TV, now I started talking to my child in the morning. Asking him questions about his excitement about meeting his friends, reading a new book or doing some experiment with the teacher. I would talk to him about what I would be doing at my work. My husband started connecting with him more on his level.
As he started growing up, he got excited about choosing his clothes, dressing himself up, combing his own hair and it motivated him. So after he finished his breakfast, I started with letting him choose his clothes for the day and slowly let him get ready on his own.
We consciously got over the rush mode and decided to breathe in and out and take impatience out of our equation. It single-handedly helped us change how we connected with each other every morning. And no we did not meditate for this.
We now have a kindergartener, who gets ready on his own, is excited to go to school and also eats his breakfast at home before he goes to the bus stop.

If you are looking to end your morning struggles as a parent, here are 8 steps to create your own conscious morning routine with your kids:

Find out what is not working for you
Now make a conscious list of root causes of your problem
Own your mistakes
Change them one by one and replace them with what will work for you as a family (not all at the same time. It is the hardest route and can burn you. I have tried it)
Become a role model for a behavior you wish to incorporate in your children.
Develop patience in yourself and your children
Develop self-compassion
Celebrate success and repeat.

If you have had success with your morning power struggles, I would love to know in comments below what you did differently and what changed your life?

Sneha is a mom of two boys, mom blogger focused on mindfulness, minimalism and conscious relationships, mindset and confidence coach (NLP) , tarot enthusiast and Master Reiki practioner. I was also an Industrial Engineee for 10 plus years. I am excited to be here and learn from everyone here.

Sleeping Better in this World of Anxiety & Hyperactivity

Today, I want to talk about an important topic that we all as parents are deprived of – SLEEP. In March, World Sleep Day is celebrated as an initiative to bring awareness on sleep issues. According to worldsleepday.org, sleep problems constitute a global epidemic that threatens health and quality of life for up to 45% of the world’s population. But only ⅓ or less of this population seeks help.

As a hyper parent of two hyper-energetic boys, I must say I regularly sleep for 6-7 hours per night. It is not always easy as my kid’s sleep late and their schools begin very early. Here are some things that help me and them to sleep better in the night and maintain our circadian rhythms:

FOR THE KIDS

These are not in any particular order and not done daily but I have seen these to be very effective for kids to have an undisturbed sleep.

Reiki – I am a Reiki Master Practitioner and I give my boys Reiki every other day while sleeping. It helps calm their anxiety or any hyper energy down.
Books – We read one book (sometimes 5) at least before sleeping. It gives us all a focussed time together. My kids enjoy stories and it helps them feel happy at the end of the day to get that focused attention. We all are busy during the day and sometimes kids can feel neglected on days where parents have work assignments to complete at home. An activity together helps them feel more loved.
Having a conversation – My younger kid is small for this. But for my 6 and a half-year-old, having conversations at night when lights are off are a great way for him to share his love for life, the troubles he might be facing at school or any questions he may have that he was not sure he could ask all day long. It is also great for him because it is his one on one time with us without the younger brother and he can talk without being disturbed by the other one. It helps him relax.
No Nap Time – This is especially for kids 4 and up. They sleep better at night and earlier and longer hours if their nap time is taken away. It helps them get ready for becoming an older kid and preserving energy throughout the day.
Playing one last Star Wars game before getting ready for bed – Boys have a lot of energy and until it is used up, it is hard for them to sleep. Every day after dinner and bath, they get their daddy time playing with lightsabers. They have a lot of fun jumping around the house pretending to be Jedi or Kylo Ren.

FOR THE PARENTS

These are not in any particular order and not done daily but I have seen these to be very effective for myself to have an undisturbed sleep.

Writing down worries and tearing papers out – If I acknowledge my worries and write them out and tear them out as a way of letting them go, it helps me relax. In today’s world of uncertainty, anxiety in parents is at an all-time high.
Self Reiki – If I am feeling highly anxious or not very sleepy, I give myself Reiki. It is a very calming process and I fall asleep most of the times in the middle of the process.
Not Having Caffeine after 5 pm – Even though I sometimes feel tired by 5 or 6 pm and want to drink tea, I stop myself. It helps me listen to my body and it’s need for sleep.
Gratitude – Writing down or even recalling all the things that happened in the day that I am grateful for, puts me in a mode of being in the moment and happiness. It helps me get closer to myself and understanding my needs. It calms my worries down and keeps me less awake at night.
Daily 30 mins of movement – This is my favorite way of making my body tired and sleepy. I do not think in this age of exercise and fitness, I need to go into details of this one.
Lavender oils and chamomile tea – If I am seriously unable to sleep, I use these as a last resort. Make sure you are not allergic to these and ask your doctor about their safety for your use.

Hope you get a better sleep tonight. If you have more ideas on how to have better night’s sleep as a parent, please feel free to post in the comments.

How To Rock A Trip To London With 2 Little Kids

Normally we visit our parents in India or they visit us in USA. The trip to India usually turns stressful considering the length of the trip, the agendas of meeting a whole lot of relatives in a short period of time, no rest and just the need for more vacation after these trips.

So instead of meeting for long period time where everyone at the end of it is stressed and wants an out, we decided to do something different.

We asked both of our parents to go on a trip with us and the kids to London. They had never seen the city before and we had not either. It was also a perfect central spot for all of us to meet (midway between India and US – West Coast).

Our kids were younger then, one was 2 and half and one was almost 5. The 5 year old is a great traveler but 2 and half was frankly not an age to travel with anyone long distance. But we bravely did anyway!

Besides the first couple of hours, where all the toddler wanted to do was walk in the flight, it went pretty smooth. We reached London in 8 hours.

We got through the immigration and customs and out on prepaid taxi to our AirBNB close to the Shoreditch area. It was a fun little house, tiny in size compared to what we are used to in America but it worked. It had 3 bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room.

It was well maintained. The owner had left a few basic things in the kitchen. Grocery stores were walking distance and so were a lot of restaurants.

To our amazement, we had amazing curry (which apparently Britishers call British food) all along in the trip and did not miss being in India for this vacation.

The plus points throughout this London trip were:

We never felt out of place because of the kids. We always felt welcome everywhere we walked.
It was easy to push strollers all around through subways and on the sidewalks.
We were even helped with the strollers by complete strangers.
We could Uber if we wanted to and our T-mobile service with free international roaming was useful all the time (I am not getting paid to say this from either companies I promise)

Some negative points:

It was raining most of the time (which is expected) but the cold in the summer was a little hard to take some days.
We had to pay for bathrooms or ask for keys to the bathroom after having bought something. We are clearly not used to that in America. (We are not used to having too many public restrooms in India…that is a different story for a different day)
I don’t live there… and Now I wish I could move.

Day 1

On our first day, as it was raining we first decided to get in a covered boat and just ride on the Thames river cruise for an hour and admire all the tourist spots from the boat itself. Some that I remember are the London Eye, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey. This was also perfect for the grandkids to get time to mingle with the grandparents. It was less stressful about seeing and admiring things and more about just enjoying the time together.

Photo credit: Sneha Jhanb

After the cruise, it was not raining anymore. We decided it was time to visit the Tower of London. The kids loved this place. There was a lot of space for them to run around outside and inside the exhibition they were amazed to look at the armours, and coins and crowned jewels.

We had more curry and fish and chips at the cafe at the Tower of London. After our quick lunch, we also saw some monkeys on the tree. Ironically, the Tower of London at some point used to be a zoo and held a lot of animals gifted to the kings and queens. You can read all about the history everywhere online but for me what was amazing was again the fact that it was so family friendly and yet so rich and historical of a place.

We ended the itinerary for the day by climbing up the Tower Bridge and taking in the beautiful view of the city from the top. We were all tired after this and headed back to our beautiful house for the night to take rest. Kids watched some TV, slept and read some books. The house was well stocked with kids books to our relief.

Day 2

I would probably change Day 2 if I ever go back again. We went with a popular guided bus tour to Windsor Castle, Bath and Stonehenge.

We got up early in the morning and took prepaid taxi to a hotel that gave us a shuttle to go to the bus depot from where we met with our tour people. We saw the queen’s residence at Windsor Castle. Our kids did not want to be indoors that day so we actually decided to not to do too much of exhibition but walked through the queen’s garden. We walked through flowers and green lush.

Windsor Castle (Photo credit: Sneha Jhanb)

Our next stop was Bath. We saw a beautiful Roman bath and the timeless architecture in the city.

I wish we spent a whole day here. The time was too short. We had to eat something along with sightseeing. The pizza took an hour, we almost missed the bus. It would have been a disaster if we did because it was also super cold. I would really go visit Bath by itself next time to really immerse in the city.

Final stop was Stonehenge. Frankly, I wanted this to be the best part of the tour. I was looking forward to it. But by the time we went there, we were all tired, and it was super cold. And there is no sense of calm and beauty as it has become a very touristy spot.

So I did not really enjoy it. Also you cannot go near the stones. You have to see them from a distance. It does not bring any joy whatsoever to see this place with the whole family. I would skip this completely next time. The beauty though was in the surrounding miles and miles of countryside and greenery. I live close to countryside in America but England’s countryside I feel (with my limited travel so far) feels very unique to that area. I had never seen miles and miles of greenery until the sky meets the green ever before.

Day 3

We used our strollers all around London on Day 3. We walked a lot and used some subway and went to see the Buckingham palace from outside. Walked in the beautiful garden across from the palace. Shopped a little. Ate at Chinatown. We saw the royal courts of justice, embassy area, etc.

Photo credit: Sneha Jhanb

Remaining part of the day, we took advantage that day of the grandparents and for the evening took ourselves on a date and left behind the kids to bond with our parents.

We went up the Shard for tea time and had the most beautiful view, tea time sandwiches and scones and pastries. It was so worth it!

Date Night at The Shard – English Tea Time (Photo Credit: Sneha Jhanb)

Day 4

Day 4 was a little bit repeat of Day 3 except we went to Westminster Abbey and saw the tombs of royalty and well known poets, writers, scientists. For the kids this was not that much of an attraction because they wanted to make noise in the church (It was huge and it echoed!) but they were not really allowed to do that. But it was really a very beautiful church. We could have taken turn as adults possibly if we ever do this again to keep kids out of the misery of being silent and not kid like.

We met with my husband’s friend in the evening and had dinner at one of the most popular Indian restaurants called Dishoom. I have never seen such a long line outside of an Indian restaurant ever before in my life! And it was huge from inside and really had good ambiance and food.

Day 5

Sheffield Countryside (Photo credit: Sneha Jhanb)

It was time to say bye to London. We took a train to see my cousin in Sheffield this day. Kids loved the train ride through the countryside. We spent a night with them. Even had Alphonso mangoes (popular mangoes in India and the most expensive ones and very very tasty).

Our kids got along well and played. We caught up on a lot of our memories and made some new. Most of all loved to hear the yorkshire accent of my nephew.

Day 6

It was time for our final destination for this trip. Edinburgh, Scotland. We were back on the train and in 3 hours we were there. The AirBNB here was good but the entrance to the building was horrible and quite shabby. The street did not look as safe though it probably was. For some reason the fire engines went off every 15 minutes throughout our 2 days here.

The distinguishing part of being in Scotland was that the night never felt like night. It always felt like evening. It never got really pitch dark. My then 4 year old and now 6 year old still remembers these two things from this part. The fire engines and the night not being like night.

We took the time off to unwind frankly because we were tired of our busy trip. We ate food at a local restaurant and then rested.

Day 7

We walked around the city. The slopes of the city made it a little difficult to keep walking for the grandparents and for kids. We decided to then use the open bus tours. We went through the Edinburgh Park, the Palace of Holyroodhouse and more local spots.

By the time we reached the queen’s castle it was too late. I was a little disappointed to not be able to tour it. We had ice cream outside this castle as a consolation and headed back.

If I think about it now, I would have not done the Scotland part of our trip in this short period of time. I would have extended our stay in Sheffield by a day and returned to London and spent more time there.

Day 8

It was our time to say goodbye to UK and grandparents and return to our house in the US and get back to normal life. The kids were tired and slept most of the flight.

Our 2 and half year old was a little cranky on one flight but for most of the part it was all very much alright.

Our Family At The Tower of London. Photo Credit: Sneha Jhanb

What made the trip truly enjoyable with 2 kids under 5 was really the grandparents, who make anything much better really. The extra set of eyes, hands and legs we had to keep everyone from getting worked up. If I get a chance, I would do more international trips like that with our parents, hands down.

So, I for one strongly suggest taking grandparents on ALL international travel trips!

Sneha is a mom of two boys, mom blogger focused on mindfulness, minimalism and conscious relationships, mindset and confidence coach (NLP) , tarot enthusiast and Master Reiki practioner. I was also an Industrial Engineee for 10 plus years. I am excited to be here and learn from everyone here.