By Sylvia Maldonado

As 2016 draws to a close, I’m grateful for my family and friends, good health, the upcoming spring and summer months - made so much sweeter by Chicago winters. I am so blessed to be an aunt to a darling niece and nephew and a godmother to several children whom I love dearly. But I am not going to sugarcoat it; it can be lonely coming back to an empty house and craving to hear the pitter-patter of little feet.

Thankfully, instead of focusing on what I don’t have, I focus on what I do have, and what I am making happen, like my “baby": breathe bar, my new meditation service.  I’ve realized that our “children” can take many sizes, shapes and forms, and I am blessed for mine. Though it was “delivered” in a unique package that I wasn’t quite expecting, breathe bar is the closest thing I have to a baby. It fulfills my nurturing, maternal instincts in a strange way. I devote my time, energy and effort into breathe bar, and it fills the gap that I sometimes feel as a PANK: Professional Aunt No Kids.

Starting a new business takes a huge leap of faith, whether you feel like you’re ready to make the jump or not. It is breathe bar that is consuming me, and that I am living and breathing, day and night. I know other start-up CEOs - and perhaps new parents? - can empathize.

Like a baby, breathe bar sometimes keeps me up at night, like early this morning, when I was up at 3:0 AM thinking about how to promote a new class series at a popular grocery chain – how cool is that by the way? Meditating before you grocery shop? I was tossing and turning, thinking about emails to send and calls to make. Giving more fuel to my “monkey mind,” everywhere I turn these days, a music mogul or Hollywood royalty is opening a studio for meditation, which is beyond awesome and amazing. These studio openings demonstrate the great demand for meditation in the marketplace. However, these celebrity-backed businesses bring up my toxic trio: anxiety; fear; doubt. I’m no Russell Simmons, just a regular girl from Chicago, and I don’t have his check book, unfortunately.  (Hey Russell, if you’re reading this, I dig Tantris, call me!)

However, thanks to my mindfulness practice, I don’t stew too long in the worry. I return my focus to my "baby," and what makes it special. I come back to the present moment, and transform my toxic trio into positive drivers. I bring to mind my “five friends” in meditation, and I wish you the blessing of these five friends in 2017:

- Loving kindness
- Non-judgment
- Forgiveness
- Compassion
- Letting go

A heavy dose of faith, hard work, and hugs and kisses from nieces and nephews go a long way too! May the new year bring you peace, love, happiness and, most of all, a “baby” or two of your own!

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Sylvia Maldonado is an Emmy Award winning television producer and former Peace Corps volunteer. She's been meditating since 2010, and enjoys sharing the practice with her nephew, Lucas, and her niece, Natalia. She lives in Chicago.

Photos: Sylvia with her nephew, Lucas and niece, Natalia
Published: December 28, 2016