My children would rate “mediocre” on the hyper-active scale. They are not always calm and sedated, like the quiet children I admired in Kinko’s once. Those children sat underneath unused copy machines for 45 minutes poring over books. They were turtles, content under the cover of their shells. Meanwhile, my children were running around the store, taking brief periodic breaks to check in on the child-turtles to wonder at their self-discipline.

My children are also not the manic type, driving people out of every store we enter, or making our friends wish they had never invited us over. No, my kids are in-between on the energy scale and the babysitters seem to love them.

They have their times, though, when energy seems to have built up for weeks. We recently had a volatile day like that. I had all kinds of errands to run. Any amount of errands with 3 children at your side, even well-behaved children, is enough stimulation to send you to a mental institution to beg them to make the voices stop.

On this particular day, as I was pushing a cart full of groceries through the parking lot toward our car, I swear to you my kids were shooting bolts of energy from their heads, fingers and feet. In a moment of spontaneous recklessness, and despite her knowledge that we do not run in parking lots, Trinity burst into a full-speed run, down the lot, between the rows of automobiles, straight toward an old man and his oncoming shopping cart. The spastic energy of her body was overriding the signal to her brain: WARNING! Head on collision ahead.

Somehow, by what I would call a miracle if I believed in them, Trinity’s legs propelled her to the right, just missing the poor old man with the frozen look of fear on his face, his brain receiving the WARNING! message, but his body too old to react with adequate speed.

That was it. My kids needed to pull it together. They needed to slow down, just enough to make time for their little brains to register the existence of the other people and objects in the vicinity. As we got in the car, I issued a warning threat of my own, “I am going to sit you all down and teach you how to meditate so you can learn to observe before you act.”

“You already did!” piped Blake, as he and Trinity locked their legs into the Criss-Cross Applesauce Position. For all of you old enough to read this, but young enough to not have kids in school yet, Criss-Cross Applesauce is the new Indian-Style.

I do NOT remember teaching them to meditate. Deep-breathing, yes. A little Yoga, yes. But meditation? For children under the age of eight? No. Yet there they were, putting their hands in the cupped position. Giggling.

So I got them started with something to focus on, and began the drive home. It was enough to get us away from that scene of chaos in sheer quiet.

I’m not really good at meditating yet. The Autobahn in Germany takes second place after my brain in terms of the velocity of its contents. Thoughts race through it, out of control. And I can rarely get away to do it while in a house with three children. The longest I’ve been able to meditate is four minutes. I couldn’t believe that much time had gone by. It was a record. A proud moment in my life. Still, I’m working on it. I want to learn to slow my brain down. I want to learn to observe rather than react.

I bet some of you readers are the meditating type, and the rest of you probably think I’m a nut. For those of you who regard meditation as mystical fluff, here is a little science that should convince you otherwise. Recent multiple studies have concluded:

Meditation increases your immunity.
Meditation improves mental acuity and responsiveness. It affects the structure of the brain, increasing thickness in areas dealing with attention and sensory process.
Meditation changes your brain physically, reducing stress, increasing focus, and helping you deal with difficult situations.

The best article on this is one from Time Magazine about research that shows meditation helps you get smarter. This article has now been archived, and you have to pay a small subscriber fee to get access.

In an upcoming post, I will provide more information on meditation. Until then, breath deeply and slowly, and be mindful.