Finding A Still Quiet Place

Hello,

And welcome to Incorporate Mindfulness.

I'm your host,

Michelle.

I'm an occupational therapist,

Yoga instructor,

And mindfulness practitioner.

I believe that together we can create positive change one mindful moment at a time.

So settle in for today's mindful moment,

Finding a Still Quiet Place with Dr.

Amy Saltzman.

I am so excited for our guest today on the podcast,

And if you have attended some of my mindfulness trainings or mindfulness courses for children,

Then you should be very familiar with her name,

Dr.

Amy Saltzman.

She is the creator of A Still Quiet Place,

Which is a mindfulness program for teaching children and adolescents ways to ease stress and difficult emotions.

I'll be linking in the show notes this specific book because it was one of the first books that I started looking into how to teach mindfulness to children.

I knew that mindfulness for me particularly was really helpful,

But I wasn't sure where to start with teaching it to children.

And through her curriculum,

I have learned so much about the benefits of mindfulness for children and the most effective ways to teach them.

Several times a year,

She also offers a training where you're able to work directly with her,

And she teaches you how to administer her program.

And I took that training back in 2018,

And that was tremendously helpful.

And at that time,

That was the first time I met Dr.

Amy.

And since then,

I have been such a big fan of her work,

And I am so thrilled to have the opportunity to interview her today.

Hi.

Good morning.

Oh,

Good morning.

It's so good to see you.

I was actually just watching a video.

I think it was the Mindful Living Collective that you did an interview.

I think it was back in the summer sometime.

And anyway,

Just like seeing your face and practicing with you during that video,

I was like,

Oh,

I'm so excited to see her today.

Yeah,

Well,

It's nice to be here.

Thank you so much.

I think starting with a practice is a great idea to kind of just get us settled in.

So do you want to guide us in a practice?

Love to.

So whoever you are and wherever you are,

Sitting or lying,

Just allow your body to get comfortable.

It's helpful if your arms and legs aren't crossed.

And if you're willing,

Closing your eyes.

And if not,

Just resting your gaze softly,

Maybe on your hands or the floor.

And when you're ready,

Bringing your attention to the breath.

So feeling the belly expand with the in-breath and release with the out-breath.

And see if you can call back all the little tendrils of your attention and let your full attention rest on the breath.

Feeling the expansion and release of the belly.

Now see if perhaps you can feel the entire in-breath from the very first sip and expansion all the way through to where the breath is still.

Then feel the entire out-breath from the very first whisper and release all the way through to where the breath is still.

And now perhaps you can let your attention rest in the still quiet place between the in-breath and the out-breath.

And the other still quiet place between the out-breath and the in-breath.

Feeling the stillness and quietness that's always alive inside of you.

And this stillness and quietness is always with you.

It's with you when you're breathing in.

It's with you when the breath is still.

It's with you when you're breathing out.

It's with you when the breath is still.

It's with you when you're frustrated with your spouse or your child,

When you're sending an email,

When you're emptying the dishwasher,

When you're happy,

When you're sad.

This stillness and quietness is always inside of you and you can find it simply by attending to the breath.

So I'm going to give you just a minute to attend to the breath in silence and then I'll conclude the practice and we'll continue the conversation.

So in your own time,

Taking the three slow deep breaths.

And when you're ready,

Opening your eyes,

Returning your attention to your environment and to the screen and we'll continue.

Thank you so much for guiding that.

That just,

It's really such a simple practice to just attend to our breath,

But it's amazing how powerful it is.

I think while we were practicing,

I was also just feeling such gratitude for you and for your work and to have the opportunity to be here with you.

And so thank you so much.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

My pleasure.

And I also,

You know,

When we were speaking earlier,

We were talking about starting our breath practice before kind of the interview.

And I was thinking about how kind of radical that is that we should be doing this more in our meetings or,

You know,

Especially right now with everything with COVID,

We're having so many meetings.

I work now for a school district before I was at a hospital and anywhere I've been every day or weekly,

We're having updates about the pandemic.

And I think there's just a lot of anxiety around that.

Even starting the meeting,

Like what new changes are going to happen?

Are we going to still be able to do our job?

We need to start our meetings this way.

I think that would feel just a lot more present and settled starting the meeting instead of beginning our meeting with all that.

Yeah,

I think it's a great idea.

Yeah.

Tell us,

Tell us a little bit about where your path started in mindfulness and now what you're up to.

So if we go way back,

I actually feel like my path in mindfulness started well before I ever heard that word when I was a gymnast.

And the only reason I'm mentioning that is because it's going to circle back into the present.

So,

I mean,

I think my first mindfulness practices were being present in training and competition as a gymnast.

Then honestly,

I think,

I mean,

I competed as a gymnast and I was a competitive cyclist by the time I was done with those things.

I was in medical school.

And I first started teaching mindfulness to patients with chronic pain and chronic illness during my residency after having gone to study mindfulness at the Center for Mindfulness in Massachusetts with Jon Kabat-Zinn.

So I taught to patients with chronic pain and chronic illness.

I taught to physicians and other health care professionals.

Once I had my own children,

I started teaching to parents to use the practice in parenting.

And then I started,

My son was upset one afternoon and I just said,

Not really knowing at that moment what I was offering,

I said,

Do you want to do a feelings meditation?

So I started teaching mindfulness to my kids.

And then I thought,

Well,

Why do we have to be 40 and getting divorced or having a heart attack before we learn these skills?

Why can't we learn them when we're six or seven or eight?

So then I spent a chunk of time teaching mindfulness to children and adolescents and then teaching professionals to teach mindfulness to children and adolescents,

Which is how I met you.

And then the last piece is my most recent book is on mindfulness for athletes.

So combining my early kind of unknown mindfulness practice with the formal practices and applying them for both athletes and the subtitle of the book is Mindfulness Skills for Achieving Peak Performance and Finding Flow in Sports and in Life.

And what I would say is that the skills,

All of them except maybe training and competing at altitude,

Apply as much to daily life as they do to sports.

It's just that sports was the lens that I used to look at these particular skills,

But they,

I've used the same skills with,

You know,

Executives like Google or Apple or whatever.

And I'll link all of your books too,

So people can kind of check them out.

The one I'm the most familiar with is You're Still A Quiet Place and then the Mindfulness,

What is the title of the mindfulness workbook for adolescents?

So everything's called The Still Quiet Place.

Okay,

That one is just a workbook for adolescents.

So there's a book for professionals who want to teach mindfulness to youth.

There's a workbook for teens and then there's the workbook for athletes,

But they all start with the title of Still Quiet Place.

Oh,

Okay.

That makes sense.

Hence the confusion.

That is a little confusing.

Okay.

So I was also thinking as you were talking that although these are technically for athletes,

But as you were saying,

They apply to children,

They can apply to executives.

And I was thinking how,

You know,

Right now it's almost like we're in a long endurance sport,

But like a training that has never ended now being in the pandemic for gosh,

How many,

I think almost 11 months here,

At least since we've been shut down.

So we have been in a long term endurance sport,

A lot of chronic stress that comes along with that.

How do you feel like mindfulness can help us?

Or is there some similarities with what you've been teaching athletes,

Some skills that also can help us during this time?

Yeah,

Well,

Maybe it'd be helpful if I share a definition of mindfulness and then we can talk about how it applies.

But my definition of mindfulness is mindfulness is,

And I'm going to say it and then I'll break it down.

Mindfulness is paying attention here and now with kindness and curiosity so we can choose our behavior.

So paying attention here and now means doing our best not to be obsessing about the past or worrying or fantasizing about the future.

So doing our best to be in the present.

With kindness and curiosity is the quality of the attention that we want to bring because otherwise we are kind of bringing unkind mind and that self critic and looking at our mistakes and beating ourselves up.

And when we pay attention to our hearts,

Our minds,

Our bodies in the present moment,

And then so there's the inward attention.

And then when we pay attention outward to our circumstances and the people in our lives,

Then we basically have all the data that we need to choose our behavior.

And choosing our behavior is just a simple kind of kids way of talking about responding rather than reacting.

So I think in the pandemic,

It's super easy to kind of blur the past,

The present and the future.

And so just the simple thing of like,

I'm here now in this moment having this conversation with you and not doing my best not to think about,

Oh,

It's been 11 months or how much longer is it going to last,

But just being here with you and being here with you and with me as kindly and curiously as possible also really helps.

And I think especially in the pandemic,

Choosing our behavior also has to do with like really how much self-care can we practice,

How generous with other people can we be.

One of the other questions that you sent me was just like kind of what tools are you using?

And I mean,

I think gratitude,

Compassion and humor at this point go a long way.

So I think those are all helpful.

I love your definition of mindfulness and actually that's the one that I use similarly for whether I'm teaching adults or children.

And the big piece that I really like about your definition is the and then choosing our behavior because mindfulness does give us that space to notice what's happening and see it with some kindness and curiosity and then pause and then choose how we're going to respond.

I think what I would really like to also talk about is emotion theory because I think that that really relates to also what we're going through of having kind of these waves of emotion and the emotion comes at peaks and then it goes.

We may be having a lot more of those waves happening,

Certainly I have,

And then we have other people's waves kind of their emotions are bumping up against ours and we're trying to figure out how we're feeling and somebody else is feeling another way and then the news is feeling some other way.

And so can you explain emotion theory?

You do a really excellent job of explaining how this refractory period also you do a beautiful job of specifically explaining it to children so they can understand.

Yeah,

So let's just start with there's a man named Paul Ekman who's researched emotions all across the world and so far he's discovered seven universal emotions which I kind of think of like the seven dwarfs so it's happy,

Sad,

Angry,

Afraid,

Surprised,

Contempt,

And disgust.

And what he's found is that each of those motions has a facial signature and a body signature so if the audience wants to play along you can just like widen your eyes and make your mouth into an O.

Which of the seven emotions do you think that is?

Is it like surprised or something?

Surprise,

Yep.

I can't remember all the seven.

Nope,

You got it.

And then if you pull the corners of your mouth kind of with your cheeks down towards like the center of your collarbones.

What's that one?

Sad,

Probably.

Sad,

And can you feel it in your body?

It's amazing you're just doing that your whole body.

Yeah,

Just one motion.

Yeah.

Right and there's hundreds of muscles in the face and Paul Ekman goes through what each muscle does in each emotion.

I don't actually recommend reading the book because it's very tedious but you guys will get the basic idea here.

And then the last one is pulling the corners of your mouth up towards the corners of your eyes.

And what's that one?

Happy.

Yeah,

And you can also feel it in your body.

So part of emotion theory,

So Paul Ekman says that in nature emotions are a wave and he actually kind of depicts it as this lovely bell curve.

And we'll come back to that in a minute.

But at the top of the wave is something called the refractory period.

And when we're in the refractory period,

We're kind of in our lizard brain and we're in fight,

Fight or freeze.

We can't be creative.

We can't problem solve.

We can't take someone else's perspective.

We can't be compassionate.

We're in survival mode.

So usually at that point,

The best that we can do is kind of let the wave pass.

And then if I have a child,

My spouse,

My coworker and they're in the refractory period,

Doesn't matter how kind or brilliant or gracious I'm being,

They can't hear me.

So I also need to be able to let the wave pass for them as well before we have any conversation.

So I want to go back first to the image of the wave.

A lot of us,

It's not this lovely wavy bell curve.

It's like this flat line and then a big spike up and all these sharp.

.

.

I was laughing because that's exactly mine.

So just knowing that also is helpful.

And then getting back to what you were saying,

We can have more than one emotion ourselves.

So I can be nervous and excited or I can be afraid and angry.

So even within myself,

I can have more than one wave.

And then if I'm interacting with other people,

They can have more than one wave.

And so this is not Paul Ekman.

This is Amy's riff on Paul Ekman.

But in physics,

There's this idea that if two waves are in sync and they combine,

Then you get an even bigger wave.

And conversely,

If you get a big wave in either little ripples or a trough,

Then you get a smaller wave or small ripples.

And if you're.

.

.

I guess we're talking about families,

It could be an athletic team or a work team as well.

But if you're in a moment where there are a lot of big waves,

Then you can have what I like to call an emotional tsunami.

However,

If one or two people can breathe through their waves and settle,

Then maybe the tsunami is not as big or maybe you don't have a tsunami at all.

So having that awareness can make it less likely that we're not going to have tsunamis.

It's ever that we're not going to have any.

We're human beings.

That's probably going to happen.

And part of the way that we can be aware that we're having waves is to check in with our bodies and to notice how our feelings actually feel in our body.

So can I notice when my voice starts to change and when I'm grinding my teeth and my shoulders are going up and it's like,

Oh,

That's the beginning of the wave.

I'm going to pause here before the wave gets really huge.

I'm going to get a cup of water,

Take a walk around the block,

Say I need to go to the bathroom and I'll be right back.

But just give that a moment to dissipate before I continue the interaction.

I had somebody that I interviewed,

She referred to those as check engine lights.

And I really,

Really liked that.

I don't know if kids could relate as much or appreciate,

But I really liked that.

It's like the check engine light.

It's sending us a signal like,

Hey,

There might be something going on.

Let's pause and figure this out and do something before the car breaks down or before you have a tsunami,

Like you were saying.

So I think that it's probably safe to say that there are a lot of emotions just happening right now surrounding the recent election and the pandemic.

And I think probably in California,

Everybody's homeschooling or virtually doing school.

Is that correct?

It's interesting because I moved from Northern California to Santa Barbara.

And so I now have individuals that I'm working with kind of up and down the state.

And it really depends on the school and the district and almost the day.

People can be in school or they can be doing a hybrid thing or then they can suddenly be at home or they could have been at home all semester.

Each school and each county is kind of doing it differently.

And we've had kids go back into the classroom and then get pulled out again.

It's kind of all over the map right now.

Okay.

Yeah,

Here in Utah,

We are,

It's kind of similar.

So depending on different counties and stuff like that,

Some are only online and then some are doing virtual and kind of a hybrid.

And then we've had lots of classrooms closing and so they come for a little bit and then go home.

And so you just,

I think we can imagine and we already feel it just like these ripples of just waves that it's like one thing comes and then the next thing we kind of settle a little bit and then another comes.

I think the important thing for me has been to realize that although there feels like there's all these different waves and constant kind of change and things like that,

There are these moments of stillness in between where it kind of settles and then maybe another wave starts to begin and we can think of that as like our emotions or just things happening around us of feeling like this unpredictable environment and just constantly kind of feeling like we don't know what's coming next,

Which is what our mindfulness practice is about,

Right?

We don't really have control of what's going to happen and this process of letting go.

So I think that for me,

It's been this process of recognizing the waves,

Noticing that there are times when there's stillness and that might be the stillness between my breaths or just some stillness in my meditation,

Whatever it is.

But then also I've really had to have,

Be very conscious of what kind of letting go,

Letting go of that control of I don't know what the next minute is going to bring or the next minute.

Well,

For me,

I think a lot of our distress has to do with just not accepting that things are impermanent and things change.

And so we expect them to be settled and then when they're not,

We become unsettled.

And I think if the pandemic's teaching us anything,

It's just life is unsettled.

And so if you can make a certain amount of peace with that,

It's unsettled,

That definitely helps.

Okay.

What is,

What are we trying to learn from the shortage on toilet paper?

What do you think is happening in the minds of people?

Another mindfulness practitioner,

We were laughing about that.

Because we have,

Like,

We personally haven't really experienced that,

But I think,

I think it's symbolic of fear,

Right?

Like people are afraid of being without and afraid of being without essentials.

And so they're hoarding and it's based on fear and the idea of scarcity.

And I think there's a middle path of trusting that there'll be enough and not having to take everything off the shelf so that the person behind you in the store doesn't have any.

And,

You know,

Maybe being wise about your use,

You know,

How many sheets you're using and remembering,

You know,

That other people need it as well.

But I think,

I think the root of the hoarding is fear.

I absolutely agree with that.

I've been having lots of conversations just with my parents around this time because I think it also has impacts all of us in different ways.

And I think our fear shows up in different ways.

And for my parents,

They're aging.

And so when I was having a conversation with my dad recently,

He opened up to me that there is this fear of losing time,

That we don't know how long this pandemic is going to be and that he feels like he's missing out on time being with his family and being with his grandchildren.

And this sense of like,

This pandemic is taking away my time and it's kind of robbing me of these things.

And I think that I bring this up because I think that's something I've heard from a lot of people and we see just how divided we are as a country right now.

But what are your thoughts on that,

This idea that like COVID is doing something to us,

Like it's causing,

It's robbing me of my time and my family?

I mean,

I think there's this balance of,

There is a certain acknowledging of just the grief of the current reality.

And then also being grateful for what is possible.

Like you and I are having this conversation on Zoom.

I'm sure you're talking to your parents on Zoom.

Families are more home together and maybe playing more games and there's a way that life has also slowed down.

I mean,

And some of it's simplified and some of it's more complicated if your life is slowed down but you're homeschooling your kids and you're still working from home.

I mean,

There are complications,

But there's this equation that says suffering equals pain times resistance.

So there's some pain in the present circumstances,

But then if we add to that pain or multiply that pain by saying it shouldn't be that way or it's robbing me of my time rather than like kind of focusing on making the best of it.

And I don't mean to be Pollyannaish and to say that there's not grief and sadness and frustration.

It's just,

Okay,

The circumstances are what they are,

The feelings are what they are,

And now we're back to choose your behavior.

So what are you going to choose to do?

How are you going to choose to spend your time?

What can you do?

How can you connect with people,

Whether it's writing letters or phone calls or Zooming or being as creative as possible?

I was chuckling because I said that same thing to him.

I was like,

There's an equation.

This pain times resistance equals suffering.

And we talked a little bit about that,

That the more and more that we resist,

The more suffering that we bring about ourself.

And I like to,

And maybe you taught me this,

I've done it so many times.

I can't remember who taught me it,

But I take one of those finger traps and we use those and this might just be a common mindfulness thing,

But I pass those out to the kids in the class and they,

Of course,

I'll put their fingers in them and then they're screaming and joking and their fingers are stuck.

And so then we talk about how,

What happens the more and more we resist,

The tighter it becomes and we can't pull our fingers out.

They're stuck in this trap,

Right?

But the more that we are able to kind of breathe and if we relax actually and really let go of any of that tension,

Then actually we can pull our fingers out.

I think that actually might've been used more in a pain reference.

I think that might've been where I heard about that kind of analogy,

But I think it works similarly with our emotions that our emotions can create a lot of pain and suffering.

And so that same idea of the more that we resist,

The more it persists.

We've been talking about the emotion theory in these different kinds of waves.

And so in kind of the example of where I was just talking with my dad,

I think probably a lot of people can relate to this.

Similarly like parents that are like,

How long is this homeschooling going to last?

Or there are so many different examples.

So the first step is to kind of recognize like the physical cues of the emotion,

Right?

And kind of name what's happening.

And then what do we do when we start to climb up to this refractory period where those emotions for some people can feel really out of control.

And I think fear is a very,

Very real emotion that's happening right now.

And that fear can probably feel really consuming and scary.

So what do we do when we're starting to get up to that peak?

I think,

I mean,

I want to say two things.

When we're starting,

Often there is this place where we can feel it start and we can kind of make a choice again,

Take a walk,

Have a cup of tea,

Go for a run,

Play some music that can allow us to kind of bypass the wave.

And there's other times where life is so intense or something comes on so fast or we're just kind of run down from the whole pandemic life where we don't catch it.

And then the best we can do is kind of,

My son was in a super difficult carpool and he coined this phrase called shut up and sit there.

Oh,

I actually just read that this morning and I chuckled.

So he,

You know,

The person in the other kid in the carpool or one of the other kids in the carpool was like always goading him.

And he would just choose not to react or respond in that moment in the kind of then,

You know,

At some point the kid would switch gears.

When we're in the peak of the refractory period,

I think honestly the best we can do is to know that that's where we are and do our best not to react out of it.

So just know,

Okay,

I'm in it,

Some emotional intensity.

I know I'm not going to be wise or compassionate or creative right now and I'm going to wait till this abates.

And you know,

If we react,

Then we can be compassionate with that.

It's like we're human,

It's going to happen.

We have unskillful moments,

We have unskillful days,

We have unskillful periods of time.

And I think maybe one of the other things,

Which isn't directly mindfulness,

But you know,

If you're struggling,

I'd really encourage people to reach out for support for mindfulness coaching,

Reach out to a friend.

You know,

Maybe it's time to see a physician or a therapist.

You know,

We don't have to do it alone,

I guess is what I'm saying.

Right.

And I think it's also important to note that I think for me,

I was always afraid to get to that high intensity of emotion.

I kind of oscillate between the avoidance or like being consumed by my feelings,

Which is something that you also talk about in a still quiet place of there is kind of this range of how we can experience emotions so we can avoid,

Avoid not noticing it or go to the other end where they consume us.

And I love how you phrase it of what is it?

Having our feelings,

Having our feelings and studying without our feelings,

Having us without our feelings,

Having us.

And I can fully admit that I've kind of been on both ends of the spectrum and the more that I practice,

I kind of find myself getting to that,

That middle place.

But I think I was always really afraid of feeling my emotions because I was afraid they would consume me and then I wouldn't be able to come back down.

But what I've realized is that the more I allow myself to feel them and kind of just sit with them and be sad and cry and then eventually it kind of comes back down.

What I have a harder time with and I bet a lot of parents can also relate to this is now other people's emotion waves,

You know,

Mine kind of gets settled and then somebody else is experienced maybe fear or frustration or whatever emotion it is.

And so then they're starting to go through the waves.

What recommendations do you have for that?

I know you mentioned that if we have one person that can kind of stabilize and breathe,

Then it can kind of change the trajectory of that.

But any other suggestions?

Yeah,

Well,

I think there's a couple things when I work with kids and parents together,

It's often that the parent is bringing the kid because they want the kid to learn mindfulness because they get too angry or too afraid or too X or Y or Z.

And they're really focusing on wanting the kid to learn the skills.

But really,

If your child's having a big emotional wave,

There's not a whole lot that you can do for them in that moment other than keep them physically safe.

And while it's super tempting to want to like tell your child to just breathe and practice your mindfulness and let it go or whatever,

If they're in the peak of the refractory period,

That's not going to be super helpful either.

And so what we can do as parents is we can breathe with our fear of their fear or our frustration with their frustration and you can say like,

Wow,

You're having,

You can do a little bit of what I call mindfulness out loud and say,

Wow,

You're having some really intense feelings right now and I'm noticing I'm having some intense feelings about your intense feelings and I'm going to choose to sit down and breathe and be here with you and with me till this wave passes.

But it's not you're doing your practice for you.

You're choosing your own behavior.

You can't choose someone else's behavior.

And so,

But you're also acting as an example or demonstrating what's possible.

And you can stay with your child through that wave.

And then after you can talk about it.

And then the other thing I want to say is there's this saying of like,

I don't know why it's knit because knit doesn't make any sense.

But the saying is knit your parachute before you're on the way down.

So I think for parents and families,

Like,

Right,

If you introduce mindfulness when someone's in the refractory period,

That's going to be an absolute disaster.

But if you start sharing mindfulness with your kids who are probably under 12 now,

Then you will have some little bits of language and some practice to pull on in those moments.

But really in those moments,

It's the parents responsibility to do their own practice,

Wait for the wave to pass and then talk about it.

But it is also a sweet habit to like maybe either after dinner or before bed,

Do some mindfulness practice with your kids so that they start to develop that capacity over time.

And an easy way to do it is I have a children's CD that's on iTunes and Amazon.

And I think it's even on Spotify now.

But that you can do it.

I think it is.

I haven't,

I'm pretty sure.

Okay.

For sure.

Yeah.

Those that have been in my group are very familiar with your CD.

And you also recommend Insight Timer.

And I think there's only a couple on Insight Timer.

So I'll look at that and I'll link all of those because I really have enjoyed your meditations and a lot of the students that I work with have also enjoyed it.

I really also agree with that.

There's the saying,

Peace begins with me.

So if we want to be able to navigate these type of situations,

Which it's going to happen with somebody else's emotions,

Being kind of going through those valleys and peaks and our own,

It's just a part of life.

But I really like that of first calling ourself,

Also dialoguing out loud.

Like whoa,

There's a lot of feelings happening or there's a lot going on.

I'm going to take some breaths and modeling that for your child.

And then I think allowing them to come back down.

I think for me,

It's challenging and I know a lot of parents also agree that is it a behavior management strategy we need?

Like they're yelling and screaming and kicking and things like that.

I agree with the safety piece.

But I think a lot of parents also struggle with like,

Do I try to manage that behavior in the moment when we're having a meltdown or can I let it settle and then talk about it after?

There's some theories that say like in the moment,

Like we need kind of immediate feedback for our behavior.

But I almost feel like with understanding this emotion theory and the refractory period that we actually,

Like you're saying,

We can't really be effective if we're trying to manage a behavior right in the moment when we're so in our lizard brain and we're not really thinking accurately or able to use our tools.

What do you think about that?

You know,

In general,

I feel like if there's the time and the space and sometimes there's not but if there's the time and the space to let the wave pass,

Everything is going to be more effective after that.

And you also want to look at what comes before like,

Did they get enough sleep?

Have they eaten enough?

Did somebody say it depending on the situation,

Right?

Like did someone say something to them at recess or on a Zoom call?

Like what,

You know,

We want to look at what came before and maybe with people in my office,

Like it's like,

Well,

Where did the wave start?

And it's not always where we as the parent think it started.

It could have started again,

Like with frustration with math at 1045 and you're only seeing the meltdown at three.

But you kind of have to go back and like I talk about rewinding the tape and playing the video forward to see,

Oh,

Well,

You know,

There was the math thing and then the best friend said this and then and it's like,

If you look back,

Can you see where your wave where your wave started to go up?

And if you can see where your wave started to go up,

Either as the child or as the parent,

Like what were those choices in the moment before it got to the peak of the refractory period?

Well,

First off,

I think it's really important to note that sometimes it's not what it's not about what it's about,

You know,

Like sometimes when we're having this intense emotion,

It may not even be necessarily about that thing.

It's just that thing kind of allowed us to finally express how we were feeling or the straw that broke the camel's back,

Whatever the saying might be.

But I think that that is so important to recognize that there's probably things that have been building up all throughout the day.

And I think with what the approach that you're talking about,

It also really empowers the child instead of I did something wrong.

I'm in trouble.

I acted out and I'm in trouble for that instead looking at,

OK,

What were the things in my day that were kind of adding up that maybe I didn't even realize or my check engine like cues that I didn't pick up on?

And so now this is how it presented itself.

Whereas if we take the other approach and kind of immediately like shut down the behavior,

Shut down that feeling,

We take away some of that opportunity to really explore like what was happening before.

Would you agree with that?

What do you think?

Yeah.

And I'm also thinking I was on another podcast earlier this week.

And one of the things I was saying was for each moment that we're able to respond rather than react.

Right.

We kind of clean up that moment and then we're not dragging it forward into the next moment.

And so in terms of like burnout or pandemic fatigue,

Right,

Every single moment that you're able to respond means that you're not kind of accumulating this baggage that you're carrying with you.

And none of us are going to respond to each moment.

We're human beings and we're fallible.

So but the more places where we can respond,

The less kind of baggage or reactivity we're carrying.

And so,

You know,

Give yourself credit for each moment that you do respond.

And it's so much easier to notice the moments where,

You know,

I wish I hadn't said that or I wish I hadn't done that.

But it's helpful to appreciate the moments where it's like,

Yeah,

You know,

That was kind of intense and I handled it pretty well.

Right.

Right.

You do the three breaths practice.

Is this a time when we've come down from the refractory period or when do you typically use the three breaths when we're kind of starting to work our way up?

And can you explain a little bit about what that practice is?

For me,

I think the three breaths practice can really be used anytime.

It's best used when you as soon as you start to notice that you're going up.

And we'll talk about it in terms of parents and children per minute.

So if I'm the parent,

The first breath is like,

Wow,

I'm getting really frustrated or really afraid for my child or whatever it is.

So I'm going to take a moment and have a breath for me and have some compassion for me.

And then the next breath is for my child.

What is happening with them?

Like what's really happening with them?

You said,

You know,

It's not about what it's about kind of thing.

You know,

What do they really need in this moment?

And they might need a limit.

They might need a snack.

They might need for you just to find the shoe or they might need to find the shoe themselves.

They might just need for the wave to pass.

But the so the last breath is for now what?

So a breath for me,

A breath for the child or the person in front of me,

And a breath for now what?

And I had a woman who took my mindfulness in parenting class.

I think she took it three times.

And she's like,

Sometimes three breaths isn't enough.

And I said,

You know,

You're absolutely right.

And again,

As long as everybody's safe,

You can just keep repeating.

And then now what?

Maybe I need another three breaths.

I love that.

I think you had said that this is what did you coin it?

The late to school.

There was another practice.

Yeah,

This is also named the late to school practice.

I can relate to that too.

Do you say it out loud?

Like,

I'm going to take three my three breaths?

Or do you say let's sit and do this together?

Again,

It really depends on where the kid is.

And I think actually,

The more distressed the kid is,

The less we need to be in teaching mode,

And the more we need to be in just doing our own practice.

But I do for sure do mindfulness out loud of like,

This isn't this intense moment,

I'm going to take a breath and check in with myself.

If you're willing,

Can you take a breath and check in with you?

And now what can we do?

Like you can give it a try.

But if they're not in a space to do it,

Then you do it on your own.

And again,

If you need to wash,

Rinse and repeat,

Then you can wash,

Rinse and repeat.

And I would assume that this practice,

The breath that is the child or the other person,

It doesn't have to be somebody that's physically in front of you.

It could be somebody,

It could even be somebody that you don't know,

Maybe something that is happening in the world or something that maybe is what you're worried about or a person that's not physically in front of you.

Well,

Yeah,

I mean,

I'm thinking about even about your dad,

Right?

You know,

And again,

It's like,

Sometimes there's something we can do or we can offer them,

But sometimes it's just a matter of holding them with kindness and compassion.

Right.

I think that's so beautiful.

I thought that just popped into my head was that sometimes I and I wanted to ask you about this,

But I do the loving kindness meditation often and in your eight week,

I still quite place program,

It's usually towards the end of the curriculum.

So they've had practice doing the meditations and things like that.

There's often a lot of sad feelings that come up during that meditation and which I think is understandable.

I think a lot of people in this specific meditation,

You're picturing somebody that has shown you love or that you love.

And so that person could have passed.

I'm wondering if similar thoughts might come up with this of maybe you're breathing for somebody who has passed.

So in the three breaths that we were just talking about could also be maybe somebody who's not here that maybe you're thinking about or something like that.

The mood is always very solemn after,

Which is interesting because for me it's the opposite.

I feel similar to when we started the practice today and I had tears just with the breathing practice of that,

I felt so much gratitude and so much love.

But I think it's important to bring up that sometimes these may have a different effect than what we thought they might.

Has that been your experience too?

And what do you do in those situations?

It's interesting because I actually don't generally find loving kindness particularly solemn.

I find it like actually a sweet way to connect with people,

Like even if they're not physically present.

But at the same time,

For any mindfulness practice,

It's not about feeling calm or blissed out or at peace.

It's about meeting your experience as it is.

So part of the reason that the loving kindness practice in most courses comes towards the end is because by then you do have some capacity for just if sadness is what's showing up,

Then you bring your kindness and compassion to your sadness.

Not push it away,

Not make it bigger than it is,

But just meet it with kindness.

Like,

Oh,

There's sadness here.

And sometimes it helps to look at the thoughts or the stories that we're telling that are associated with the sadness.

And again,

Not making them wrong or pushing them away,

But just bringing some awareness to them and maybe even seeing if there's another way of holding the situation.

Yeah,

I think that is so important.

And I always try to bring that up and let parents know as well,

Because I think a lot of times when parents are enrolling their child into a mindfulness program,

What they're expecting is calm and that the child is going to feel relaxed.

And sometimes that's the case.

Other times the children are bouncing off the wall and they notice that they feel really wiggly and they can't sit still and they want to talk.

And so I really try to let them know that all of this is okay.

That just allowing ourselves to sit,

Some of those things might bubble to the surface that we hadn't been realizing were there.

And so maybe there are these feelings of sadness that are kind of starting to bubble up now that we're settled or maybe our body really does need to move and we have lots of wiggles.

And so I think having that curiosity and kindness instead of expectations when we go into our practice,

Would you say?

Yeah,

I agree with that.

That's definitely helpful.

And often,

Right,

Like it can be a little bit uncomfortable to make space for the sadness or the anger or the agitation.

But at the same time,

If we don't,

If we keep putting a lid on it,

I think that actually makes it more likely to have these waves where if we can just meet these experiences gently,

Then they don't kind of build into these big waves.

But when we're trying to kind of keep them over here,

That's kind of when they tend to go into the big waves.

And I want to be clear,

Like making space for our feelings also doesn't mean that we are condoning people like acting out of their feelings and,

You know,

Being,

You know,

Super aggressive if they're feeling angry.

It's like,

Can you bring your awareness to your anger so that you can choose how you move forward?

Right.

So if a child does have a really big emotion,

Say they lash out,

And I don't know,

They say something or hit or something like that,

All of things that we probably have done sometime in our life because we all have these knee jerk reactions.

How do you cue them to kind of because there's this fine balance of like,

We don't want to shame them and we don't want them to feel bad about that.

But what are some ways that you might cue them to investigate that process a little bit or show compassion to themselves?

Because I think also.

.

.

I think there's a couple things.

So we talked about like rolling the tape back.

Like if I was working with an individual child,

It would be like,

Well,

You know,

And we've talked about the waves.

It's like,

Well,

Where did the waves start?

And what did you notice?

And what thoughts were you having?

And what sensations were you having in your body?

And like even I'll say,

If you got to do it over,

What would you do differently?

So it's not about making them wrong about that particular how they did it.

It's just helping them realize that they have different choices for the next time.

And we are all human.

We all make mistakes.

We all say and do things we wish we hadn't.

And so there's also things about,

You know,

Supporting people and making apologies and making amends and doing what they can to make it right.

Like I'm not saying you just let it go.

But it's if we look at it as a teachable moment rather than sometimes we're so focused on the correction that we're actually not supporting them and learning the skills we want them to learn.

Exactly.

I was picturing in my mind that in your Still Quiet Place program for children,

The diagram of like you have the little heads and one is like,

What did I want?

What did the other person want?

And that is a huge part of mindfulness as well is being able to recognize how we're feeling but then also put ourselves in somebody else's shoes.

And I love that about your program,

Too,

Is that we talk about how to have effective communication and how to listen and how to really appreciate how somebody else might be feeling,

Too.

It's funny,

I've been through a lot of mindfulness trainings and I learned the most at the ones for children because it's just it's so simplified and we can understand it and we can relate to it.

So I have really enjoyed your practice.

Anything else?

So we've talked about how to recognize and notice our feelings,

What to do when we're kind of working our way up to that top of the wave and what to do kind of when we've settled.

You also mentioned like finding things that add some joy into our day or things that can kind of help us reset.

I know you had referred to it and other talks I've listened to as like deposits in your bank account.

So depositing some healthy kind of habits or some things that are calming throughout your day.

So kind of adding more deposits throughout your day.

Anything else that you would like to share or recommendations you have for during this time?

I think the biggest thing is like often when someone listens to a podcast like this,

There's the part where it's like,

Yeah,

That sounds like a good idea.

I could really do that.

I'm going to start and then we turn it into this whole new way to beat ourselves up.

Like I should be doing more mindfulness.

I shouldn't have reacted to my child that way.

And I just I think this is a time for extreme gentleness and being,

You know,

Knowing that we're doing our best and being kind and patient and compassionate with ourselves and then as kind and patient as compassionate as we can with others.

I 100% agree.

I think that's something that I have really been working on through this process is being gentle with myself.

And it's I've had to really work on being gentle with other people and recognizing that we're all going through different things and we all have these waves that we might be bumping into each other.

But I feel like one really positive thing that has come out of this is my capacity to love and care for other people and to our common sense of humanity.

So I do feel that I've I have had a lot of gratitude for those around me.

I am just so appreciative that I got to chat with you today.

It was really soul fulfilling for me and also a reminder of some of the tools that I can bring back.

You mentioned like having grace for yourself.

And I think me teaching mindfulness sometimes I can have my inner critic because I think to myself,

Oh,

You should know better.

Oh,

You shouldn't react.

And the truth is that we are all human and we all experience emotions in different ways.

And but this podcast specifically and talking with you is a reminder of showing myself compassion,

Showing myself grace and a reminder of we can start over.

I can try again.

I can I can always use those tools again.

Thank you so much,

Amy.

Yeah,

It was a pleasure.

Yeah.

And I wish you all the best during this time.

You too.

I want to thank you for creating positive change in your life and the life of your loved ones through more mindful moments.

For additional mindfulness resources or information on upcoming mindfulness programs,

Please go to www.

Incorporatemindfulness.

Com or you can find me on Instagram Michelle's mindful moments.