Breathe Together Breathe for Justice

Celebrate Ivy Child International’s 10th Birthday and enhance wellbeing by practicing 10 minutes of mindful breathing a day with a child or loved one in your life

Support Ivy Child International to raise funds and awareness, to support underserved children and communities through mindfulness programs.

COMMIT TO 10 MINDFUL MINUTES DAILY & A MORE JUST WORLD:

• Sign-up to participate in the “Breathe Together Breathe for Justice,” a month-long mindfulness initiative by Ivy Child International that encourages the value and power of #intergenerational mindfulness practice.
• Starting July 1, practice 10 minutes of mindful breathing a day with a child or loved one in your life or in support of a child in need.
• Commit to taking a small action step each day by working towards a more just world.
• Donate or Fundraise to support a child in need and bring mindfulness education to more communities.

Each week during this month-long family & community mindfulness challenge, Ivy Child will email you mindful resources to help you and your loved ones build practices for contemplative introspection to fuel a calm, focused, action oriented response toward social justice.

COVID-19 has created trauma on a global scale. While many of us have had the privilege of distancing, we have experienced feelings of significant  loss, a great sense of vulnerability, and a whirlwind of challenging emotions, including fear, guilt, and grief. With so many unknowns, learning to live in the present moment is an effective, evidence-based approach to living more fully, compassionately and joyfully.

• Mindfulness has been shown to promote stronger focus, memory, and problem solving, functions that are impacted negatively by stressful and traumatic conditions. 
• Regular mindfulness practice improves the brain’s capacity for decision making and emotional regulation.
• Mindfulness cultivates agility and flexibility in attention, allowing us to more easily tune in to pleasant experiences that are always present even during a pandemic: spring blossoms, blue skies, laughter and love. 
• Similar to skiing or mountain biking, when facing life’s uncertainties, it’s helpful to focus on where we want to go rather than ruminating on the potential dangers.

Breathe Together Breathe for Justice is a mindfulness initiative by Ivy Child International that encourages the value and power of #intergenerational mindfulness practice with 10 minutes of Mindfulness everyday and taking steps towards justice everyday.

We will send you mindful resources throughout our campaign to help you and your loved ones build time-ins, practices for contemplative introspection to fuel a calm, focused, action oriented response toward social justice.

Commit to 10 minutes of mindful breathing a day with a child or loved one in your life or one in need for the entire month of July and beyond. Subscribe to our campaign below and we will send you weekly resources for your mindful journey.

Subscribe to Breathe Together Breathe for Justice and begin your meditation marathon with our 6 minute audio clip, delivered right to your inbox.

Help us by donating, to support underserved schools and communities through mindfulness programs during these challenging times.

Become a fundraiser for “Breathe Together Breathe for Justice” and help us reach our target by creating or joining a team.

Emotional Regulation

Mindfulness has been shown to promote stronger focus, memory, and problem solving, functions that are impacted negatively by stressful and traumatic conditions. Regular mindfulness practice improves the brain’s capacity for decision making and emotional regulation.

Joy

Mindfulness cultivates agility and flexibility in attention, allowing us to more easily tune in to pleasant experiences that are always present even during a pandemic: spring blossoms, blue skies, laughter and love. Similar to skiing or mountain biking, when facing life’s uncertainties, it’s helpful to focus on where we want to go rather than ruminating on the potential dangers.

Genetic & Immunity

Not only do we see improvements in general health, but research has confirmed that mindfulness improves telomerase activity. This vital enzyme controls cellular aging and ultimately the age-related decline of the entire body.

Does this mean mindfulness keeps us young? Possibly.

The entire month of July is dedicated to mindful living and the aim is to achieve a mindful World. To help you on your mindful journey we will practice and share mindful resources everyday throughout the month.

4 weeks and 4 mindful themes to make the world a mindful and better place.

Week 1: Mindfulness for Self
Week 2: Cultivating a mindful family
Week 3: Mindfulness in Community
Week 4: Bringing Mindfulness to the World

Week 1: Practicing Self – Care with Mindfulness

Self-care is the practice of taking an active role in protecting our own well-being, pursuing happiness, and having the ability, tools, and resources to respond to periods of stress so that they don’t result in imbalance and lead to a health crisis.

Self-care means asking yourself what you need, and following through on the honest answer, it can be as simple as getting to bed earlier on a work night. READ MORE

Week 2: Cultivating mindfulness in family

As a family, it can be difficult to effectively and lovingly navigate through the rough waters of relationships. With many individual relationships happening within a family unit, finding harmony and balance isn’t always a walk in the park. Whether between parent and child, child and step-sibling, or step-parent and child, mindfulness exercises for families can be of great benefit. Helping us to see clearly what is really going on when tensions run high – and when things seem rather mundane.

Cultivating mindfulness in families begins with deepening our understanding of the factors that may make harmony seemingly hard to maintain. Some of the factors that make familial relationships difficult are simply due to our being human. While, others are due to the modern day environment. READ MORE

Week 3: Mindfulness in Community

Although mindfulness begins as an individual practice, when mindfulness is shared among group members, a community is more likely to thrive. Individuals become aware when their personal agendas and motives might not be in alignment with collective goals. With awareness, individuals are able to challenge their own beliefs to root out attachments, defenses, and judgments. The beliefs and ideas held by individuals then reflect those in the collective consciousness, meaning the shared beliefs and social norms of the group. These shared beliefs become the guiding force in making community decisions.

When groups operate from the collective consciousness, they are better able to identify conflicts more quickly. They can then acknowledge differences more easily, and take actions that are best for themselves. READ MORE

Week 3: Bringing Mindfulness to the World

The fundamental message of the mindfulness movement is that the underlying cause of dissatisfaction and distress is in our heads. By failing to pay attention to what actually happens in each moment, we get lost in regrets about the past and fears for the future, which make us unhappy. Learning to focus turns down the volume on circular thought, our “entire society is suffering from attention deficit disorder – big time”.

By practising mindfulness, individual freedom is found within “pure awareness”, undistracted by external corrupting influences. All we need to do is close our eyes and watch our breath. The world is slowly changing, one mindful individual at a time. READ MORE

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