Latest / The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids / Tools and Practices for Mindful Parenting with Rachel Posner

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Tools and Practices for Mindful Parenting with Rachel Posner · The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids

• 0:00
  Rachel: What happens when we start to come into that kind of meditation is we open up the compassion networks in our brain and we strengthen them.
• 0:07
  Rachel: And so when we do that I love what you said about when you're putting on your bracelet so if you take a moment, even if it's just a minute, to practice a kind of loving, kindness or compassion or meditation, it strengthens those networks in your brain and it will be easier when things are a little more intense to access the compassion network because you are such an empath.
• 0:31
  Rachel: What's easiest right.
• 0:32
  Rachel: Your brain loves to do what's familiar.
• 0:34
  Rachel: It's got lots of very deep grooves, so your go-to may be empathy, right, and so you know you're not even thinking about it.
• 0:42
  Rachel: It's not like you're saying I want to empathize and suffer.
• 0:44
  Rachel: You just go there because that's what's really highly developed in your brain.
• 0:49
  Rachel: And so if you start to make little shifts throughout the day where you practice, when you're not in the thick of it, you'll start to strengthen those neural networks.
• 0:57
  Carrie: Welcome to Heart to Heart Parents.
• 0:59
  Carrie: Let's connect with our kids and learn together.
• 1:01
  Carrie: I'm Carrie.
• 1:02
  Carrie: I was a former teacher and speech therapist.
• 1:04
  Carrie: I'm also Thank you.
• 1:26
  Carrie: That's not real life.
• 1:26
  Carrie: I will provide real life experiences and transform them into moments for connections and change for you to use in your house.
• 1:30
  Carrie: Hi there, conscious parents.
• 1:31
  Carrie: Before we start today's episode, it's Carrie here and I wanted to reach out to ask you guys for a quick favor.
• 1:36
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• 1:43
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• 1:51
  Carrie: So thanks so much for tuning in and I'm so excited for you to hear today's message.
• 1:56
  Carrie: Happy listening, hi there, and welcome back to Heart to Heart Parents.
• 2:00
  Carrie: I'm Carrie.
• 2:00
  Carrie: I'm your friendly, conscious mama here, and I have a wonderful guest with us today who I'm Carrie.
• 2:04
  Carrie: I'm your friendly, conscious mama here, and I have a wonderful guest with us today who I'm really excited to introduce you guys to.
• 2:09
  Carrie: Her name is Rachel Posner.
• 2:11
  Carrie: She's a yoga therapist and mindfulness coach that helps people reduce stress, build resilience and thrive.
• 2:18
  Carrie: That's a great word for mamas and fathers.
• 2:21
  Carrie: Her work is informed by the intersection of mindfulness, neuroscience and psychology, and her teachings integrate best practices for the mind, body and brain.
• 2:31
  Carrie: Rachel has been in the wellness field for 24 years and is driven by a deep desire to help people feel calm and connected.
• 2:38
  Carrie: And, rachel, I am so glad to be chatting with you today.
• 2:42
  Carrie: I feel like so many of the pieces that you're bringing to people and introducing to families is right up our alley.
• 2:52
  Rachel: I'm thrilled to be here.
• 2:52
  Rachel: Thanks for having me.
• 2:54
  Carrie: Yeah, I'm so excited to hear the difference between empathy and compassion.
• 2:59
  Carrie: I have never thought about that and, as an empath and having all empaths in our house children and parents I love thinking about this piece.
• 3:11
  Carrie: So I love.
• 3:12
  Carrie: What do you see as the difference between the two?
• 3:16
  Rachel: Well, ok, so there's sort of an emotional component, but I'm thinking about it more from a neurological component.
• 3:23
  Rachel: So OK is when we are feeling, many times, the suffering of others not always suffering, but when we're actually feeling others and our brains help us do that.
• 3:33
  Rachel: We have mirror neurons.
• 3:34
  Rachel: If you're telling me about how you're doing and you're suffering, if I see that in your face, my brain starts to mimic that.
• 3:42
  Rachel: And this can be lovely, right, because it helps us understand one another.
• 3:47
  Rachel: It helps me meet you where you are, but if I hang out there for too long, I will also suffer.
• 3:54
  Rachel: So empaths sometimes have a hard time finding a little space between the sufferer and themselves, right?
• 4:02
  Rachel: So what happens is I start to feel the same feelings that you're feeling and oftentimes, because that's upsetting, it can move me into dysregulation.
• 4:12
  Rachel: I start to move into fight or flight or freeze.
• 4:14
  Rachel: I feel uncomfortable.
• 4:15
  Rachel: We're kind of now in the same boat and that doesn't help you.
• 4:20
  Rachel: If you are the sufferer, me suffering along with you doesn't help you.
• 4:24
  Rachel: It may help you for a moment to feel understood and seen, but what I really want to do, as the person who's holding that space for you, is shift to a compassion network in my brain.
• 4:35
  Rachel: So empathy can turn on the emotional network which often leads us into fight, flight or freeze, whereas compassion keeps us in our prefrontal cortex.
• 4:46
  Rachel: This is where we feel calm, we feel regulated, we can think clearly, we can still have emotions, but we don't feel overwhelmed by them.
• 4:54
  Rachel: So the difference between empathy and compassion is the difference between feeling your suffering and simply having a deep desire to alleviate your suffering, simply having a deep desire to alleviate your suffering.
• 5:07
  Rachel: So I do want to understand you and I do want you to feel compassion and to feel seen, and I want to hold you with a lot of love.
• 5:11
  Rachel: But if I get too deep into your suffering, I'm not going to be able to help you.
• 5:16
  Rachel: In fact, I might even make you suffer more.
• 5:19
  Rachel: Because two people who are dysregulated tend to reinforce dysregulation.
• 5:24
  Rachel: Because two people who are dysregulated tend to reinforce dysregulation.
• 5:26
  Rachel: One person who is suffering, upset, dysregulated, sitting with a person who is calm, who's regulated, who's feeling compassion it's easier for them to come out of that distress when there is.
• 5:41
  Rachel: This is co-regulation.
• 5:43
  Rachel: Our nervous systems are always kind of checking in with the other nervous systems in the room and it helps to ground us and keep us regulated when we are around other people who are grounded and regulated.
• 5:54
  Rachel: So sometimes, when we are feeling really empathetic, we think that we are actually doing the person a favor because we're seeing them, understanding them, connecting with them, when in fact we're neither doing ourselves or them a favor if we stay in that space for too long.
• 6:11
  Rachel: Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
• 6:14
  Carrie: Oh, totally, yeah, yeah, and I, I completely understand as a mom, I'm I'm trying to feel empathy and I think I need to switch my mindset and I'm going to try switching into this feeling and this, this mindset.
• 6:30
  Rachel: So I want to do just a short experiment as an example.
• 6:35
  Carrie: Sure, that'd be great.
• 6:36
  Rachel: Okay.
• 6:37
  Rachel: So I mean, as a mom, you have many, many opportunities to see your children in distress.
• 6:42
  Rachel: I have two daughters, teenage daughters.
• 6:45
  Rachel: I witnessed plenty of distress.
• 6:48
  Rachel: But see if you can think for a moment and your audience, of course, welcome to join us in this Think for a moment about a time when one of your children was in distress and feel into your body even just like a glimpse of what that felt like, to witness that distress and notice if you can kind of feel a pull to right away, really feel it and it's not that hard with our kids, right, we can get really driven in.
• 7:16
  Rachel: And so just imagine, in that moment, when you're making maybe eye contact with them, maybe there's some physical contact, you're doing something to help them feel calmer.
• 7:25
  Rachel: Imagine if, in that same moment, you can give yourself a few deep breaths.
• 7:30
  Rachel: You can feel yourself not just in their bodies and with them, but as separate beings.
• 7:36
  Rachel: Feel yourself in your own body, take a few nice long breaths with a long exhale, feel that kind of calming quality of the exhale and then just bring in a sensation of I love you, I wish for you not to suffer, I wish this were a little easier and it's sort of like you're.
• 7:57
  Rachel: You're kind of finding a sentence, a mantra, a wish for your child that brings them out of the suffering, instead of dropping yourself into the suffering.
• 8:09
  Rachel: So I guess I wonder, even in this brief moment, can you kind of feel that difference of what it would be like to interact with your child in that way?
• 8:19
  Carrie: Definitely I could feel like almost like a burning in my heart and my throat when I was picturing the time that happened earlier today in our house.
• 8:29
  Carrie: And, yeah, just thinking about that, those feelings that you were saying in those words, yeah, it's perfect, yeah.
• 8:37
  Rachel: And so you can find a sentence, call it a mantra, whatever you want to call it, something like may you feel at peace, or may you feel loved, or may you feel connected, and there's sort of a positive feeling that might help them move out of their distress.
• 8:54
  Rachel: And even if it doesn't, it helps keep you out of their distress and if you are out of their distress you will do a better job of helping calm them down.
• 9:03
  Rachel: So I it's I'm not suggesting it's like a magic pill that if in your mind you will do a better job of helping calm them down, so I it's.
• 9:06
  Rachel: I'm not suggesting it's like a magic pill that if in your mind you say I wish for you not to suffer, and that can sound kind of prescribed.
• 9:15
  Rachel: So you have to find something that feels authentic, and there will always be something authentic that you wish for them to feel at least a little ease, like we don't always want to get our kids out of their feelings, but we want them to feel a little bit more ease with them so their feelings don't feel so overwhelmed.
• 9:34
  Carrie: Yes, yes, and I definitely am taking on a lot of that energy, and with my kiddos it's not often like a sadness, it's often going to anger, and so I can just feel my skin start to boil.
• 9:47
  Carrie: So I will try this out for sure.
• 9:52
  Rachel: Yeah, and so in that situation you might be just kind of holding this background feeling whether you say it silently in your head or just a background feeling of um, I wish for you to feel a little calmer, or I wish for this to not feel so intense for you, like something that's really happening, instead of tell me more about your anger.
• 10:14
  Rachel: And not that there isn't a place for them to tell you more about their anger, but if they're really in the height of that dysregulation, they're in fight or flight.
• 10:25
  Rachel: That's generally not the best place to really be able to articulate what you're feeling.
• 10:32
  Rachel: Right, you're overwhelmed.
• 10:33
  Rachel: Articulation can actually lead to even more frustration.
• 10:37
  Rachel: When we're asking our kids, when they're super emotional tell me how you're feeling, right, that's just like somebody did that to me.
• 10:44
  Rachel: Seriously, not right now.
• 10:49
  Rachel: So instead, really more of just I'm with you, I'm, I'm loving you, I'm with you, I'm here, and can be a lot more effective when they're overwhelmed.
• 11:00
  Rachel: Then tell me what you're feeling.
• 11:02
  Carrie: Yes, yes, that's really helpful.
• 11:05
  Carrie: I love that and I love practicing that ahead of time.
• 11:09
  Carrie: I might think about it when I'm like putting on my bracelet in the morning or things like that, just having it there and ready to try in my mind.
• 11:19
  Rachel: Yeah, A million, so for the day a million um.
• 11:23
  Rachel: So this practice in within the buddhist tradition is called meta or kindness and um, if, if you ever work with anything like insight time or mindfulness apps basically lots and lots of loving, kindness or meta or compassion could be called any of those three things meditation, and they're really just the repetition of a mantra or a wish.
• 11:46
  Rachel: And what happens when we start to come into that kind of meditation is we open up the compassion networks in our brain and we strengthen them.
• 11:55
  Rachel: And so when we do that I love what you said about when you're putting on your bracelet so if you take a moment, even if it's just a minute, to practice a kind of loving, kindness or compassion or metta meditation, it strengthens those networks in your brain and it will be easier when things are a little more intense to access the compassion network.
• 12:16
  Rachel: Because you are such an empath, what's easiest, right.
• 12:20
  Rachel: Your brain loves to do what's familiar.
• 12:22
  Rachel: It's got lots of very deep grooves, so your go-to may be empathy, right.
• 12:26
  Rachel: Your brain loves to do what's familiar.
• 12:27
  Rachel: It's got lots of very deep grooves, so your go-to may be empathy, right, and so you know.
• 12:28
  Rachel: You're not even thinking about it.
• 12:30
  Rachel: It's not like you're saying I want to empathize and suffer.
• 12:32
  Rachel: You just go there because that's what's really highly developed in your brain and so if you start to make little shifts throughout the day where you practice, when you're not in the thick of it, you'll start to strengthen those neural networks and it'll be easier when things are overwhelming to stay in compassion versus to get stuck in empathy.
• 12:53
  Carrie: Yes, I love that, and we'll be right back after this message.
• 12:56
  Carrie: Hi there, changemaker moms and dads.
• 12:59
  Carrie: It's Keri here.
• 13:00
  Carrie: I hope you're enjoying today's episode.
• 13:02
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• 13:08
  Carrie: A little helping hand goes a long way.
• 13:10
  Carrie: We appreciate you tuning in, and here's more so.
• 13:14
  Carrie: Is that part of your cultivating calm that you talk about, or is that something different?
• 13:19
  Carrie: I love that piece.
• 13:22
  Rachel: So how I think about it is sort of the pathways to nervous system regulation, which is just another way of saying staying grounded and relaxed, not feeling overwhelmed.
• 13:31
  Rachel: And so when stressors come in which they will all day long, we can handle them right, they become a challenge versus an overwhelm.
• 13:39
  Rachel: So the three pathways that I talk a lot about are calm, connection and compassion.
• 13:45
  Rachel: So calm is that pathway that tells us that we're safe because our brains are always looking for cues of threat.
• 13:53
  Rachel: That's our brain, developed to keep us safe.
• 13:55
  Rachel: It's much more interested in safety than thriving and things like that.
• 14:02
  Rachel: It just wants us alive, basically.
• 14:04
  Rachel: So if we can reinforce the fact that we are safe, it helps to keep us in regulation and we don't have to get so vigilant, always looking for what could go wrong.
• 14:16
  Rachel: Right, that's the calm part staying safe, comfortable, calm.
• 14:21
  Rachel: And we also stay in our parasympathetic nervous system or that relaxation response through connection.
• 14:28
  Rachel: So when we feel that we're not alone, we're braver, we're more calm, we're grounded.
• 14:35
  Rachel: So, however, we can look for cues of connection and feel connected in our lives, whether that's to other people, to ourselves, to nature.
• 14:39
  Rachel: There's lots of ways to connect in our lives, whether that's to other people, to ourselves, to nature.
• 14:43
  Rachel: There's lots of ways to connect, but connection is another thing that keeps us grounded and in that relaxation response and compassion.
• 14:51
  Rachel: So if you think about compassion in terms of compassion versus judgment, and you think about the kind of tone you use with yourself throughout the day, when we use a tone of judgment, of criticism, we tend to move into that stress response.
• 15:08
  Rachel: And when we use a tone of compassion, we tend to move into that relaxation response.
• 15:14
  Rachel: So criticism comes in as a lack of safety.
• 15:19
  Rachel: That's how our brain sort of interprets it.
• 15:21
  Rachel: So I think about those three pathways.
• 15:23
  Rachel: How can I cultivate a sense of calm or safety, a sense of connection and of compassion?
• 15:30
  Rachel: And when I can do those more often, then I'm much more likely to see stressors as challenges versus as kind of overwhelms that flip me into that fight, flight or freeze response verses as kind of overwhelms that flip me into that fight, flight or freeze response.
• 15:48
  Carrie: It's really interesting because I feel like for my kids, if they're flipping their lid, as Dan Siegel often uses if they're flipping their lid, they're seeking out one of those three C's, and so I love that yeah.
• 15:58
  Rachel: That's so, that's exactly right.
• 16:00
  Rachel: And I mean with kids.
• 16:01
  Rachel: I love to say this to parents a lot of that safety piece comes from our physiological experience.
• 16:07
  Rachel: So if we are hungry, if we are thirsty, if we haven't had enough sleep, our brain interprets that as a lack of safety.
• 16:15
  Rachel: We're not getting our basic needs met, which is why kids often flip their lids, and so to adults, which is why kids often flip their lids and so do adults, by the way when they are just not meeting some basic physiological needs.
• 16:27
  Rachel: So I like to think about safety in that bigger way, that it's not really literal safety, right?
• 16:33
  Rachel: Our brains perceive a lack of safety not just when someone is going to try to physically hurt us, emotionally or physically.
• 16:40
  Rachel: It perceives a lack of safety in all kinds of ways, one of which is I just need a drink of water.
• 16:46
  Rachel: So when our kiddos are thirsty or tired or hungry, they're much more likely to flip their lid because internally there's a cue that they're not safe.
• 16:56
  Carrie: Yeah.
• 16:56
  Carrie: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 16:58
  Carrie: I love that.
• 16:59
  Carrie: Yeah, it's it.
• 17:01
  Carrie: It really feels so simple.
• 17:02
  Carrie: I feel like when you're thinking about a child's version, because they're a lot of their emotions are not as complex as ours yet.
• 17:10
  Carrie: So, yeah, thinking about those, those pieces is helpful as I'm trying to calm them or soothe them.
• 17:18
  Rachel: I love that, yeah, and just sort of basic piece of that to ourselves, like sometimes.
• 17:23
  Rachel: I like what you said.
• 17:25
  Rachel: It's true that their emotions are not necessarily as complex, but emotions are oftentimes a lot simpler than we think, because when we start telling ourselves a story about how miserable a situation or a conflict is in our lives yeah, we are well fed and rested we don't tell the same story right.
• 17:48
  Rachel: The kind of narrative that we have going on in the back of our mind tends to be a lot more negative when we are not meeting our basic needs, which includes rest.
• 17:59
  Rachel: Like just having moments throughout the day to rest can have a huge impact on how quick we are to move into overwhelm.
• 18:07
  Rachel: So in a way, we're really just big toddlers.
• 18:10
  Rachel: We're not that different from our kids, we just cover it better.
• 18:16
  Carrie: Rest I don't know what that word is.
• 18:21
  Rachel: It's summertime, they're always home, so like how do we snag little bits of rest Right?
• 18:29
  Rachel: We can be more present and less overwhelmed, so that our bodies do feel like they're safe and nourished.
• 18:36
  Carrie: Yes, my husband and I we um on the weekends.
• 18:39
  Carrie: We take turns having our own self-care time and we give each other like an hour to two hour blocks and we switch taking the kids, and lately I've felt so much pressure trying to find my self-care activity.
• 18:54
  Carrie: I'm like I get two hours, what am I going to do?
• 18:57
  Carrie: And it's like I have to make really good use of it.
• 19:00
  Carrie: But this past weekend I was like whoa, whoa, whoa, carrie, just phase it out.
• 19:05
  Carrie: Go sit on the bed and read a book, because you're exhausted.
• 19:08
  Carrie: You don't have.
• 19:09
  Carrie: The kids are home all summer.
• 19:10
  Carrie: You don't need to go sand a piece of furniture this weekend.
• 19:16
  Rachel: You definitely don't need to sand furniture.
• 19:18
  Rachel: Yeah, I think that's such a good example Because I think sometimes, when we and we have so many messages about self care and it feels again like it has to be very complicated and meet all of the needs and we should, we should journal more and you know we have these like long lists of expectations for ourselves but self-care can become self-improvement, and we don't need to improve, we need to rest, especially as parents, especially parents of younger children that require so much energy, and so I I just want to reinforce what you just said, that sometimes self-care is doing nothing and not checking off anything on your list, anything on your to-do list.
• 20:07
  Rachel: It could just be laying down, reading a book, taking a nap.
• 20:12
  Carrie: Yes, and it doesn't whatever.
• 20:15
  Carrie: It doesn't have to be a self-care book, right?
• 20:18
  Carrie: It doesn't have to be a nonfiction learning about neurodiversity.
• 20:25
  Rachel: That's often what.
• 20:26
  Carrie: I geek out on.
• 20:27
  Rachel: Yeah, I mean, that's education, it's nourishing, it's all.
• 20:31
  Rachel: But I would not put that in the bucket of just rest, just for the sake of rest.
• 20:39
  Carrie: Yes, yes, we can just, yeah, have our moment.
• 20:42
  Carrie: I love that, thank you.
• 20:43
  Carrie: Thank you for that piece, rachel, because now I'm going to allow myself to do that and then.
• 20:50
  Carrie: So that goes along with mindfulness and the conscious parenting piece of how do we, how do we, maintain that in our busy society?
• 21:00
  Carrie: And I feel like self-care is our magic word right now right, everybody.
• 21:06
  Rachel: Self-care and mindfulness.
• 21:07
  Rachel: It's like the buzzword, and I think again, both self-care and mindfulness can get a little too complicated, like when we hear mindfulness.
• 21:15
  Rachel: Does that mean that, oh, we have to add 20 minutes of meditation to our day in order to be practicing mindfulness?
• 21:21
  Rachel: Minutes of meditation to our day in order to be practicing mindfulness?
• 21:24
  Rachel: And while I'm all for that if that fits in your day, I just I like to just start small and say what could I actually do today?
• 21:32
  Rachel: What if it was just two minutes at the top of the hour to sit before I go to the next email or the next meeting or the next activity with my kids?
• 21:40
  Rachel: What if I just sit two minutes and breathe, or take three minutes to have a drink of water and stare at the wall?
• 21:49
  Rachel: Like, mindfulness is really just about noticing what's happening in the moment without judgment.
• 21:55
  Rachel: And so when we bring in these pauses throughout the day to notice what's happening, then we can make a choice.
• 22:03
  Rachel: Right, we can say, oh, I see, I didn't realize, but I'm hungry or I have to go to the bathroom, or I forgot that I had to make that one phone call, and then we can make a choice.
• 22:12
  Rachel: Yes, yes, but it takes the pause to actually notice what the right choice would be.
• 22:20
  Carrie: Yes, yes, it's so helpful to think about it like that because it's so easy to overcomplicate it, or think that we need to have 30 minutes of designated meditation time or whatever modality we choose to help ground ourselves or empty our brain that day.
• 22:39
  Carrie: Yeah, it doesn't have to overcomplicate it.
• 22:42
  Carrie: So if you had so I have a six-year-old and a nine-year-old right now If you had children my kids' ages what would you tell moms in the thick of it with the younger ones?
• 22:55
  Carrie: If you could look back and tell yourself, or a mom with kids that age, what would you tell us?
• 23:03
  Rachel: Because I did have a six and a nine-year-old yeah, the three years and I mean they're older now, they're teenagers.
• 23:11
  Rachel: But and the thing that I really wish I knew when they were little was I really wish I understood the co-regulation piece.
• 23:18
  Rachel: I wish I understood that when they're stressed, if I get ungrounded, they're going to get more stressed, and so so often I would kind of allow their stress to stress me out and then I wasn't as good at calming them down and I felt yucky.
• 23:34
  Rachel: So I mean, I think sometimes, unfortunately, as parents, we have to do the thing that's good for us.
• 23:41
  Rachel: With this background of I'm kind of doing it because it's good for my kids, I would like to just say I it's enough to just do it, and we sorry I miss.
• 23:55
  Carrie: hang on for a second here, a bit much, and just so we lost you for a second, would you?
• 24:01
  Carrie: I'm sorry, I think, think the internet.
• 24:02
  Carrie: Would you be able to repeat that?
• 24:05
  Rachel: yes, of course um.
• 24:07
  Rachel: Are we good now?
• 24:09
  Carrie: I think you're good.
• 24:10
  Carrie: Yeah, it's back on okay, great, weird.
• 24:13
  Rachel: Um, I wish I understood the co-regulation piece better.
• 24:16
  Rachel: I wish I understood that.
• 24:17
  Rachel: Um, it's okay to keep myself grounded.
• 24:20
  Rachel: Um, just as a human I am, I'm worth that, but also it's a bonus that it's okay to keep myself grounded Just as a human, I'm worth that, but also it's a bonus that it will help keep my kids grounded.
• 24:29
  Rachel: So it's just really important.
• 24:32
  Rachel: I think it's really important as parents to recognize that taking an extra minute when you go to the bathroom to breathe and avoid your children for a minute or two can go a really far away in calming you down, and then it will make your job as a parent a lot easier.
• 24:48
  Rachel: And it's not a magic pill that's not always true but if we're grounded, and one that can help them, but also we just don't get as stressed out by their stress like their kids, and their emotions shift moment to moment, and so the more we can kind of create a little bit of space and be maybe a little less empathetic in terms of feeling their feelings, the more likely we are to stay grounded and not get so overwhelmed by their big feelings.
• 25:22
  Carrie: Yes, I love that.
• 25:23
  Carrie: I think I'm learning that definitely, and I know a lot of moms that tune in and they're definitely working on that piece as well, so I think that's super helpful.
• 25:32
  Carrie: Is there anything that you wish you would have done, maybe taught or said to your kids at this age?
• 25:40
  Carrie: That in the mindful piece for kids and the conscious, the conscious development of kids, or keeping them conscious as they get older and go into the teen years or grow into the young adult, pieces or times?
• 25:54
  Rachel: When my kids were six and nine I taught mindfulness in their classrooms as a volunteer and you are never too young to understand the nervous system.
• 26:03
  Rachel: So I wish at six and nine I mean I wish at 20, I understood my nervous system and to understand what happens that we get simple things like when you get super stressed out all of a sudden you have more cortisol and adrenaline in your system.
• 26:19
  Rachel: It's not your fault, your brain's trying to keep you safe and that can feel really uncomfortable and overwhelming.
• 26:25
  Rachel: And when you learn to take a deep breath and expand the belly as you breathe and take a long exhale, the simplicity of taking 10 breaths like that will help you release some of that adrenaline and cortisol and get a little more relaxed.
• 26:41
  Rachel: So being able to do that with our kids, to teach them just the basics like you don't have to have a lot of information at all to teach some basic nervous system regulation and then kids will feel like they have more agency when they understand what's happening in their bodies, when they understand that it's not their fault that they flipped their lid because they were super hungry and kind of figured it out too late in the game, like just to give them a little, arm them with a little more information.
• 27:12
  Rachel: I think you're just never too young for that.
• 27:14
  Rachel: Certainly at six and nine I was teaching those concepts in classrooms and seeing first graders, second graders, third graders really enjoying that information and enjoying the little three minute practices that we would do.
• 27:30
  Rachel: If I ring a bell, how long can you listen to that bell?
• 27:33
  Rachel: You know little practices that help them feel the moment and when they come into the moment, they're more present and they're more grounded.
• 27:42
  Rachel: When they come into the moment, they're more present and they're more grounded.
• 27:46
  Carrie: So yeah, my simple two minute mindfulness practices with our kids are so fun and helpful and skills that they'll keep forever.
• 27:54
  Carrie: Yeah, that's.
• 27:54
  Carrie: Did you develop that yourself or did you find that somewhere when you were?
• 27:58
  Rachel: studying I.
• 28:01
  Rachel: It depended on the situation.
• 28:03
  Rachel: There were years I was kind of making stuff up and then I remember there was one year where the school came into some mindfulness curriculum and they asked me to do that and um, so sort of it depends on the year.
• 28:17
  Carrie: That's amazing.
• 28:18
  Carrie: I love that.
• 28:19
  Carrie: I love that the school allowed that piece to be taught too.
• 28:23
  Carrie: I was talking to a gifted and talented coordinator recently and she had mentioned that she's trying to help some of the schools bridge that piece to allow some of the mindful development in school.
• 28:37
  Carrie: So I love that your school allowed that.
• 28:40
  Rachel: Yeah, me too, and there are lots.
• 28:42
  Rachel: There's a lot of curriculum, mindfulness curriculum now for all ages.
• 28:45
  Rachel: But what I found so fascinating is that, um, I was doing a mindfulness curriculum for, I think at the time, a first grader and a fourth grader, because I was in both of my kids' classes and the curriculum was basically the same, Like maybe they talked about things slightly differently depending on the age, but, honestly, what I was teaching first graders is the same thing I teach 50 and 60 year olds.
• 29:09
  Rachel: I might have used slightly different language, but not not hugely, honestly.
• 29:15
  Carrie: I love that.
• 29:16
  Carrie: That's wonderful.
• 29:17
  Carrie: Yeah, and I think you had mentioned did you maybe have a freebie that you were going to share with us?
• 29:24
  Carrie: That may have gone along with this.
• 29:26
  Carrie: I was trying to remember.
• 29:28
  Rachel: I have two things actually, Um.
• 29:30
  Rachel: One is just a short I think it's a six minute practice to help regulate your nervous system and it works with muscles in the face, because when the muscles in your face are tense, it sends a message that all is not well.
• 29:44
  Rachel: Tension can translate into, um, a lack of safety.
• 29:48
  Rachel: So being able to relax the muscles in your face can help you again shift into that more relaxed, grounded space.
• 29:55
  Rachel: So, that's one of the practices, and the other is that I have a monthly membership for yoga and meditation, which we didn't talk a lot about today, but the amount of yoga and meditation you can do, these are really fantastic practices to calm the nervous system and I have a free week if anyone wants to explore it.
• 30:15
  Carrie: That's great, and we can include that in the show notes as well.
• 30:18
  Carrie: That's awesome.
• 30:19
  Carrie: I also I wanted to ask you do you have a superpower that you can tell us about?
• 30:28
  Rachel: I think my superpower in my work for sure, and I guess not just in my work in life is meeting people where they are Meaning that I really like to listen and take in information without throwing my story into the mix, and I think that's why I love yoga therapy, because it's really broad.
• 30:47
  Rachel: I'm not trying to solve a particular problem in a prescriptive way, I'm just listening and sometimes offering tools, but more often creating a space for people to come up with their own kind of prescription, their own action plan, and I think I'm really good at that.
• 31:09
  Carrie: Love it, I do.
• 31:11
  Carrie: I have a random question.
• 31:12
  Carrie: I was curious.
• 31:13
  Carrie: I been doing Pilates at home is yoga and Pilates?
• 31:17
  Carrie: Does Pilates bring in the mindful pieces that yoga has?
• 31:22
  Rachel: So I think mindfulness is just all about can you come to the present moment, meaning, can you notice with all your senses what's happening, and can you do that without judgment.
• 31:31
  Rachel: And sometimes we do yoga without mindfulness.
• 31:36
  Carrie: Sure.
• 31:36
  Rachel: Any activity we do, we could spend the whole time replaying a conversation we had earlier and judging ourselves for it.
• 31:43
  Rachel: That would not be a mindfulness practice.
• 31:45
  Rachel: So I think, while yoga is really presented as a mindfulness practice because oftentimes it is taught in a very mindful way- notice your breath, notice how you're feeling, feel a sense of compassion.
• 31:59
  Rachel: So it happens to be a practice where there's a lot of mindfulness reinforced, but that doesn't mean we're necessarily doing that.
• 32:08
  Rachel: So I say yes, of course yoga is a mindfulness practice, but it's really what we're bringing to it.
• 32:13
  Rachel: So if I bring those concepts to Pilates, if I'm in a Pilates class and I'm really noticing the sensations in my body and I'm not creating a story about how I'm not strong enough and blah, blah, blah, then I'm in a mindfulness practice.
• 32:27
  Carrie: Yes, I have another question that's random as well, with meditation side.
• 32:33
  Carrie: I wanted to ask you, as I go along and meet parents that I feel like maybe approach yoga and have the cycle in their mind and they say, oh, I don't like yoga, like well, have you ever tried like a guided meditation?
• 32:45
  Carrie: Have you tried that at home?
• 32:46
  Carrie: And they're like I don't want anybody telling me about my thoughts.
• 32:49
  Carrie: What do you usually say to people that are in that almost defensive side, I feel like with meditation?
• 32:57
  Rachel: Yeah, um I.
• 32:59
  Rachel: I usually say is there anything you could imagine that might be helpful?
• 33:03
  Rachel: So you, when people say yoga and meditation is not for me, oftentimes they have ideas about yoga and meditation versus personal experience.
• 33:13
  Rachel: Or, um, they entered into it with an expectation that it was supposed to be 10 minutes of not thinking, so that doesn't exist.
• 33:24
  Rachel: There's no way I can sit here for 10 minutes and not think.
• 33:28
  Rachel: So I mean, I have lots of answers to that, but sort of the first one is what would be interesting to you Do you like the idea of noticing your thoughts?
• 33:39
  Rachel: Do you like the idea of relaxing one place in your body at a time, because a guided meditation is never telling someone what to think, it is noticing.
• 33:49
  Rachel: Notice your feet and see if you can let go of a little tension in your feet or notice the thoughts that are coming through.
• 33:57
  Rachel: Is that where you want to hold your thoughts, or would you prefer to rest your thoughts somewhere else?
• 34:02
  Rachel: Maybe your breath, maybe your sensations?
• 34:04
  Rachel: So I think my answer to I don't like this practice is can you imagine a practice where you ask yourself to pay attention to the present moment without judgment and maybe just start there?
• 34:18
  Rachel: Maybe you're starting with a mindful walk, or maybe you're starting with mindful eating.
• 34:23
  Rachel: There's a lot of different ways to bring mindfulness into your life.
• 34:26
  Rachel: It does not have to be yoga or meditation, so I would want to start where there's a little bit of comfort.
• 34:33
  Carrie: I love that.
• 34:34
  Carrie: I think that's so wonderful and I always try to slow everyone in my family down with some mindful eating in our house.
• 34:41
  Carrie: Yes, have some moment of connection and mindful eating, yeah, in a busy house, I guess.
• 34:51
  Carrie: Well, where can our listeners find you, rachel?
• 34:55
  Rachel: And the best place to find me is rachelposnercom.
• 35:02
  Carrie: Okay, great, and I'll include that in the show notes as well.
• 35:04
  Carrie: I really appreciate your time and it was so lovely to share all of these wonderful self-care mindfulness, all of these pieces, with people.
• 35:11
  Carrie: I enjoyed it.
• 35:12
  Carrie: Thank you so much for your help.
• 35:13
  Carrie: Well, that's a wrap.
• 35:17
  Carrie: Thanks so much for tuning in.
• 35:18
  Carrie: Change makers.
• 35:19
  Carrie: This is Carrie and I just wanted to send one more reminder.
• 35:22
  Carrie: If you haven't done a review for us five stars and a little few words about what you've enjoyed in our podcast episodes we would really appreciate it.
• 35:31
  Carrie: One other thing if you guys would like to ever message me, I would love any questions you have or any feedback at info at hearttoheartlifecom.
• 35:42
  Carrie: We also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share.
• 35:45
  Carrie: It's hearttoheartlifecom.
• 35:48
  Carrie: Thanks so much for tuning in and happy life, happy times, change maker families.