Mind Love • Modern Mindfulness to Think, Feel, and Live Well

We will learn: How to adopt and teach the scandinavian’s relationship with nature.  How to change your mindset around bad weather.  The little known benefits of unstructured nature play. My husband always says to me, “there’s no such thing as bad weather, just inadequate clothing.” To which my usual reply is, “That’s absolutely and utter bullshit, it’s frigid outside and it makes me want to die.” Okay a little dramatic I know, but my spirit animal is cozy and I like hot tea and fuzzy slippers and warm baths and my husband seems to get off on cold hard steel and I just don’t get it, okay? But I want an expansive mindset that enables me to go or live anywhere so I’m learning to appreciate all that nature has to offer.  My husband’s family is in Michigan, and if you know anything about that state, the running joke is “Don’t like the weather? Wait a minute.” But when there is a beautiful day, they enjoy it. The whole summer is spent outside. They spend time really curating their yards, which are forests, making it an even more beautiful and welcome place to be. Maybe all the gloomy days make the sunny days even brighter.  So how do we pass on the gift of appreciating nature and all that it entails, regardless of its temperature? That’s what we’re talking about today. Our guest is Linda McGurk, journalist, blogger, and author of the parenting memoir “There’s No Such Thing As Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom’s Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids” (from Friluftsliv to Hygge).Links from the episode: Show Notes: https://mindlove.com/209 Sign up for The Morning Mind Love for short daily notes from your highest self.  Get Mind Love Premium for exclusive ad-free episodes and monthly meditations.  Support Mind Love Sponsors   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We will learn: How to reverse engineer learning by looking at the whole.  How to help children deal with mistakes in a way that won’t make them shut down.  How to use fantasy to engage children. I am not a big fan of the public school system, even though I did well in school.  Because after all my hard work, I feel like school was one big broken promise.  And the sad part is, if a child fails a subject, they’re not just getting a bad grade in math, they’re risking their future because “they won’t get into a good college therefore they won’t get a good job.”  Or they’re risking their social circle because they might get held back a grade until they pass, or they’re risking parents’ disappointment, or humiliation from peers, or any of the other number of things adults scare them with. Aside from all that fear, I think the worst part is the real risk that they build a self belief that they’re stupid. But what if the problem isn’t the child? What if the problem is the school system? And what if homeschooling doesn’t have to look like we think it does? What might schooling look like if it were based on the actual science of how children learn? That’s what we’re talking about today. Our guest is Patrick Farenga, who has more than 40 years’ experience of fieldwork, advocacy, and personal experience helping parents and children learn outside of school. He also worked closely with a founder of the modern homeschooling movement. Links from the episode: Show Notes: https://mindlove.com/x63 Sign up for The Morning Mind Love for short daily notes from your highest self.  Get Mind Love Premium for exclusive ad-free episodes and monthly meditations.  Support Mind Love Sponsors  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We will learn: How to identify the harmful patterns that may have been passed down through generations.  Why giving advice or offering solutions is not helpful and what to do instead.  How to yell less.  Everyone has childhood wounds and needs that weren’t met whether our parents even realized it or not. If you have kids, you probably feel like you’ve already inflicted some damage by responding at times in ways that turned out to be less than helpful. But the fact that you love your child enough to think “can I make small changes to do this parenting thing a little better,” tells me that you’re already doing an amazing job. Yes there are tips about communicating with kids and motivating them and helping them learn, but what I’m learning is that the biggest impact you have is what you model for them. One day they’re going to be responsible for taking care of themselves and showing them how you take care of yourself is probably the most effective way to do that. When you take care of your needs first, you calm your own storm, so you can then tend to your child. So today we’re going to figure out how to do all that we can to make sure we raise happy, healthy little humans. Our guest is Hunter Clarke-Fields, mindful mama mentor and widely-followed author of “Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids.”Links from the episode: Show Notes: https://mindlove.com/208 Sign up for The Morning Mind Love for short daily notes from your highest self.  Get Mind Love Premium for exclusive ad-free episodes and monthly meditations.  Support Mind Love Sponsors   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We will learn: How our egos interfere with our parenting.   How to release our children from our need for approval.  How to create a life that mirrors our child’s “being”.  Regardless of what plants the seed for the transformation, it’s always a choice.   There are plenty of people who allow trauma to break them down and they never consciously rebuild themselves, which is a key part in transformation, in my opinion at least.   Just like we have a choice to begin to develop resilience in the face of adversity, we also have a choice when it comes to parenting.   For some people, parenting isn’t an opportunity for transformation at all. Without bringing some sort of intention to the experience, it can become an opportunity to further activate our own neuroticism.    We can see how parenting styles across cultures tend to create a personality that would best fit into that culture. It can affect confidence, work ethic, or how serious or outgoing a person is.   What I’m more interested in, is not how to raise a human that best fits into my society or that best conforms to my ideologies and expectations. I am interested in what this experience - creating life, giving selflessly, raising a sovereign being, and helping him to discover himself - will bring into the light.   So that’s what we’re exploring today... how to be a conscious parent. Our guest is Dr. Shefali Tsabary, New York Times best-selling author, and specialist in the integration of Western psychology and Eastern philosophy.   Links from the episode: Show Notes: https://mindlove.com/x62 Sign up for The Morning Mind Love for short daily notes from your highest self.  Get Mind Love Premium for exclusive ad-free episodes and monthly meditations.  Support Mind Love Sponsors  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We will learn:  Why autonomy is critical for kids and how to help them develop it.  A 4-step process for dealing with kids emotions in a productive way.  How to help kids develop motivation beyond reward-based activities.  November is parents month! Whether you have your own kids or not, this month will help you understand the children in your life as well as learn to deal with your own inner child better! Communication can be difficult with children. When they’re young, they might not comprehend enough language to grasp what you mean. And even when they do have the words, they might not be emotionally ready for the message. Children’s brains work differently, and those brains are not fully developed until they are in their 30s. So communicating with them means meeting them where they are. We can also help them to develop their logic centers by helping them engage that part of the brain. So that’s what we’re talking about today. Our guest is Ned Johnson. He is the founder of PrepMatters and the coauthor of "The Self-Driven Child" and a new book "What Do You Say: How to Talk With Kids To Build Motivation, Stress Tolerance, and a Happy Home." Links from the episode:  Show Notes: https://mindlove.com/207 Sign up for The Morning Mind Love for short daily notes from your highest self.  Get Mind Love Premium for exclusive ad-free episodes and monthly meditations.  Support Mind Love Sponsors Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We will learn: How our childhood experiences influence our innate parenting habits.  How to bring awareness to our expectations and our triggers.  Easy practices to find stillness in the small moments.  As simple as the concepts of mindfulness are, it’s also a new way of living, which involves breaking other habits to create new ones. So it takes time to feel natural in it.    But as life changes, so do our needs and habits, so at times our mindfulness practices need a revamp.   I am experiencing one of those phases now as I’ve stepped into a new role of motherhood, because right now, my self care can not always come first.   So how do I prioritize myself while also being an attentive mother and managing my home and pursuing my purpose?   In what ways can I fit in small practices throughout my day that will make the biggest difference?   That’s what we’re talking about today. Our guest today is Josephine Atluri, expert in meditation and mindfulness, and author of a new book focused on mindfulness specifically for parents.   Links from the episode: Show Notes: https://mindlove.com/x61 Sign up for The Morning Mind Love for short daily notes from your highest self.  Get Mind Love Premium for exclusive ad-free episodes and monthly meditations.  Support Mind Love Sponsors  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We will learn: How school suppresses a child’s natural learning.  Myths about literacy and teaching children young.  Better ways to help a child learn literacy, numeracy and socialization.  While I’m raising my own child, I’m also healing my own inner child.  One thing I’ve realized is that so many of the things I’m learning about raising him… like communication, how to teach him, how he learns… are also relevant to how I deal with my own inner child. The way I speak to myself is so similar to how I should speak to him. Connecting through emotions before logic. Letting curiosity lead. Even if you’re not planning on having children, there’s a wealth of info on how to care for yourself. Healing your inner child is all about re-parenting yourself.  So today we’re going to be talking about how to foster skills that are actually helpful in the age we’re living in - whether you’re teaching these skills to your real child, or your inner child.  Our guest today is Kerry McDonald, author of multiple books, including: Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom.Links from the episode: Show Notes: https://mindlove.com/206 Sign up for The Morning Mind Love for short daily notes from your highest self.  Get Mind Love Premium for exclusive ad-free episodes and monthly meditations.  Support Mind Love Sponsors   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We will learn: What defines empathic reception.  Why do empathic people have to tend to what’s out of balance in their lives to gain authority over their sensory abilities.  How to honor the collective space and filter emotional debris.  Plus I’ll teach you a tool at the end of the show on how to perceive a person’s first energy field.  Empaths feel the emotions of other people. They are highly sensitive, physically and emotionally. And the level of empathy can vary from person to person, almost like a sliding scale. People can become highly empathic in response to trauma, but they can also be born empathic. Either way, if they don’t learn to manage it, they aren’t yet an empath. They’re just a sponge. Because potential empaths absorb other people’s emotions, many potential empaths are a little bit volatile. They can experience very high highs and very low lows for seemingly no reason.  To become an empath instead of just a sponge, sensitive people must learn how to discern which emotions belong to someone else and which emotions are their own. Being an empath is basically like having a 6th sense. So beyond just learning to manage it or protect yourself, you can also learn to heighten your gifts in a way that serves you and other people. And that’s what we’re talking about today. How to consciously evolve your empath sensitivities.  Our guest is Signe Myers Hovem, author and a spiritual counselor who teaches workshops and training in the art of being an empath.Links from the episode: Show Notes: https://mindlove.com/205 Sign up for The Morning Mind Love for short daily notes from your highest self.  Get Mind Love Premium for exclusive ad-free episodes and monthly meditations.  Support Mind Love Sponsors   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We will learn:  What we can learn from different cultures around managing emotions.  Why we cry.  Healthier strategies to cope with sadness. How often do you get sad? What does being sad feel like to you? How long does it usually last? Are you sad right now? Do you even know? Do you know the answer to any of these questions?   We all have feelings, so we should know these things right? But I don’t think most of us do know the answers to these questions… well, some of them at least.   Our words create our realities. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be “fine”. I want to feel good, like really good. So why am I reinforcing a mediocre reality with words that keep me in the in-between… that space of just coasting. Not feeling bad, but not feeling good… so really just not feeling anything. What kind of life is that?   Maybe actually admitting and really feeling our sadness is the only way to feel the true depths of our joy.    Well that’s what we’re talking about today. Our guest is Helen Russell, bestselling author, journalist and speaker. Links from the episode: Show Notes: https://mindlove.com/x60 Sign up for The Morning Mind Love for short daily notes from your highest self.  Get Mind Love Premium for exclusive ad-free episodes and monthly meditations.  Support Mind Love Sponsors  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We will learn: How to move through our emotions with the FEEL framework.  How to get your body in balance after physical trauma.  The power of primal breakdowns.  Do you make a conscious effort to feel your feelings?  Really think about that question and be honest with yourself, because it’s not as obvious as you might think it is.  If we’re feeling our feelings by sinking into our victimhood, we’re likely building up more emotions than we’re releasing. And if we don’t consciously release those emotions, they will find a way out, only in ways we have even less control over. They might come out by random breakdowns, or by lashing out at people we love. It could manifest as depression or anxiety. So today we’re going to learn a better way to feel. Our guest is Ashley Bernardi, author, media relations strategist, and certified Life Designer®. Links from the episode: Show Notes: https://mindlove.com/204 Sign up for The Morning Mind Love for short daily notes from your highest self.  Get Mind Love Premium for exclusive ad-free episodes and monthly meditations.  Support Mind Love Sponsors   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices