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Welcome back. I'm glad you're here. Today I'm going to be covering a topic which could help you make the practice of mindfulness and meditation happen. Lately I have been researching this subject a lot and we have covered it in other episodes. But I've realized how important not only for obviously the mental health benefits, but for the physical benefits, how it helps in pregnancy, how it helps in postpartum in parenting.
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And even we can teach our children how to be mindful in situations or even how to meditate to calm themselves. And I thought Kelly Smith was a perfect person to have on the podcast to help teach this. Kelly Smith is a globally celebrated yoga and meditation teacher, founder of Yoga for you, and the host of the itunes chart topping podcast Mindful in Minutes and Meditation. Mama Kelly believes that there is not one size that fits all for the approach to yoga and meditation and encourages her students to find their own personal practice, listen to their bodies, and find inner joy by accessing their most authentic selves and owning their power. Kelly specializes and is known for her master trainings in meditation, restorative, yoga, and her international retreats.
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I love the conversation I had with her. I feel like she made it very simple. She gave some simple ideas and in this episode we're actually going to go through a really short guided meditation on her podcast Mindfulness and Minutes. She has all different lengths. Guided meditation and if you're someone who you're busy, you've got a lot going on.
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You don't feel like you have time to just ground yourself and find time to meditate. Being mindful is difficult for you in trying to be present in situations. This episode is for you. The very small meditation within the episode that she does is for you and I think you're really going to love it because I fall into your category as well. So I loved hearing her opinion on it and how helpful it was in so many different situations.
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And before we get into today's episode, I do want to remind you that something else we can be mindful of is the nutrition we are putting in our bodies. And for me, I found a really easy way to do that through AG One. I drink AG One right when I wake up in the morning. It's a foundational nutrition supplement that helps deliver comprehensive nutrients to support whole body health. So it replaces your multivitamin probiotic and just is in a simple drinkable form.
00:02:26
I've had it since the very beginning of this year. I'm always very open when I try products. I make sure that I love them before I talk about them and for me, it was a game changer. I totally noticed a difference in my gut health. I seem to have just a little bit more balanced energy and just I think making sure that I'm getting enough vitamins and minerals because you're probably like me where you're a busy mom and you've got a lot going on, and some days I think I didn't always get enough fruits and vegetables in.
00:02:52
And I know how important that is as a trainer. And this is one way that I could make sure that I was getting some of those vitamins and minerals in if some of my food lacked during the day. Now, food is important. I'm not saying it's not, but it was just a sure way to make sure that was happening. I'm all about making things simple on the podcast, so if you're looking for a simple way to take ownership of your health, AG One is a great way for you to make your health routine more effective.
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00:03:37
Check it out. I'll also have that link in the show notes, and I've been on the AG One boat for, let me think, seven months now. And I just love it. All right, let's get into today's episode and talk about how we can add mindfulness and meditation into our daily lives and make it simple.
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Kelly, I'm super excited to have you on today. I feel like this is a subject that truly scares people. It feels overwhelming, which is ironic because it should be about relaxing. Meditation can be overwhelming. And you're right.
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The irony in that, it's kind of funny, but I'm happy to break it down and make it just way easier. Perfect. So tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into this and kind of what you do. So I'm Kelly. I'm a yoga and meditation teacher, and I started getting into meditation when I learned about it, kind of just like, dabbled a little bit in a yoga teacher training that I was doing.
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And I kind of was introduced this idea of meditation. But it wasn't until a few years later when a lot of my students were wanting to know more about meditation, and I felt like if I was going to be able to serve my students, I needed to understand it and learn more and deepen my own practice. So the short version of the story is I found a group of Buddhist monks in the middle of a forest in Missouri, and I decided to go live with them for a little bit. For a few first of all, we got a pause. Like, I'm listening, and I'm like, I found a group of I'm like, how.
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You know the Internet. Okay, so I'll tell you the story. The Internet is magical. The Internet is magical. No, it is.
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But a little caveat here. So this was oh, my gosh, this would have been probably seven or eight years ago. At the time, everyone was convinced that this was like Craigslist killer, like 2.0, that I was going to go and allegedly meet these monks and I was actually going to get murdered in a forest. It was a whole thing. But I had been doing some research.
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I was living in Missouri at the time, so I was doing some research and trainings and different styles and things that were relatively in my area or in my state at that time. And I came across this group of monks that specialize in a style of meditation based on lovingkindness meditation, which really resonated with me. And so I was doing some research and so I was like, oh, I'll just send them an email because I don't know monks email, at least these ones did. And so I was like, I'll just send them an email and see. Do they do trainings or do they do virtual stuff?
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I'll just send them an email. And then we started this conversation and we were talking. And then they invited me to come down and stay with them and study there and study this style of meditation. And I've always been the type where for me, I learn best when I fully immerse myself in it. It's probably my ADHD.
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If I break it up in these little bits and pieces, it's hard for me to return to it. I have to kind of be all in. So my mom was convinced that I was going to get killed. Obviously I didn't because I'm still here eight years later. And so I went and you go there and you're supposed to turn in all your cell phone and all that.
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And I had to explain to them that I needed to keep my phone. So every night I could text my mom and my husband, let them know I was still alive. And so I just went and I was with them for a few weeks. And I wasn't even that familiar with meditation, but I thought, you know what, we're going to get familiar with it. And I just started practicing and learning this particular style of meditation.
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And we would get up at 430 in the morning and meditate for a few hours and then eat breakfast and then do a mindful chore and then meditate some more and then have some lunch. And we just all day long we were meditating. And I had such profound experiences there. And I felt like I unlocked so much of myself and deepened my own understanding that that then kicked off sort of this whole avenue of wanting to pursue meditation, but really wanting to pursue it in a way that feels really easy and simple. So a few things here.
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One, don't necessarily go meet strangers off of the internet. This is now the mom and me talking. Don't find strangers on the internet. It's an amazing story though. It was so cool.
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And I just learned so much because it was like this really immersive experience and it was incredibly challenging because I also had to take a vow of silence. I left that part out, which is hard for me, and I had to learn how to be comfortable just with myself and with silence and boredom and distractions and all of these things that I just kind of felt like I just dove in headfirst. But it was incredibly profound. And that's really what inspired me to start taking these kind of big conceptual meditation ideas and start breaking them down into these little ones that are a little bit more manageable, because we're obviously not all going to go and take a two week vow of silence and go study meditation with monks and you don't have to. And so that's where then different twists and turns have really taken me to what I do now, which is like shorter guided meditations, helping people incorporate meditation into their life in an easy, simple way, but still coming from kind of those deeper principles of meditation that really just took root during that first experience that I had.
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Okay, I love that because I am all about making it simple. That's basically the whole theme of my podcast. So let's talk about what the benefits of it are and can you explain the difference between mindfulness versus meditation? Because I kind of hear them both and I feel like I hear both of them often and I'm curious, are they the same? Are they different?
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And what is the difference if they are different? So they are different. I think of them as like cousins and not twins, but they're often used interchangeably. So I have a meditation podcast, it's called Mindful in Minutes. So they're very much like related, but they're different practices.
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So the way I like to describe it is if your mind is like a light bulb when you're practicing mindfulness, it's like you're turning that light up all the way so you can fully illuminate whatever is in front of you. So you can do anything, mindful, you can fold your laundry mindfully, you can go for a walk mindfully. You can even just be present with your children coloring together. Mindfully where meditation is like taking that light bulb and turning it into a laser pointer, and you're taking all of that mental power and you're focusing it on just one thing. That could be your breath, that could be like a feeling, that could be the words of a guide and a guided meditation.
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Okay? So the crux of it is you can do anything mindfully, as long as you're just present doing one thing at a time, where meditation is single pointed concentration. So you're just focusing and concentrating on one thing, your breath, a mantra, a visualization, a body scan, something like that. Okay, that makes complete sense. So can you tell us a little bit more about the benefits then in this field?
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Because I think that sometimes it's easy to put on the back burner. It's easy to be like, oh yeah, I'll do that later. I'll do that later. Because maybe we don't realize the benefits. I know I'm someone where I have to know the why.
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If I don't know the why, it's really hard to get me to do something to my parents dismay as a child. And then I'm shocked I have a child like that as well. But what are the benefits? Yeah, and I'm the same way too. I need to know the why.
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I also love knowing the why behind things because it just brings so much more value to it. So I think about the benefits as kind of like three main categories, like physical, mental and emotional. So a lot of the physical benefits are going to be things like lowering blood pressure if you have high blood pressure, increasing circulation, helping to balance hormones. You're getting a lot of the physical benefits that you get from any intentional restful practice because we know how important it is to get in that rest time and that restorative time. And so when you're meditating, you are giving your body that physical break as well.
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So we get a lot of those physical benefits. A lot of them though, are around heart health, which is really cool because we know that a lot of heart health is linked to stress then in terms of the emotional benefits. So people who meditate, they tend to feel more connected to both themselves and others around them. There's been reports of decreased anxiety and depression in those who meditate. Also, they tend to be more compassionate people.
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So things like road rage is actually one that my clients talk about all the time. Like if they're kind of like hot headed on the road, once they start meditating, that's like the first place they notice that. They just like they don't care that much. The things that aren't a big deal that we get really bent out of shape about it isn't as big of a deal anymore. And so not having that really high reactivity to kind of the small things is one that has been reported on.
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Also, I see that in my students and clients all the time. And they also tend to have higher self worth and self love. So some increased body positivity, things like that, which I can only speak for myself, but however, ever since I became a mom, that's something that it's important. It's really important. And the thing that breaks my heart is a lot of people don't it doesn't matter your size, your shape, anything, it doesn't matter.
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But you still should feel proud of your body for walking you around, for making humans, for helping you get out of bed every day, for all the simple things. Yet for somehow we're always like, my body's bad and it's so hard, it's so hard. But I love all those benefits. I could see how that would even be for mindfulness, because as you talked about anxiety and stress, I've noticed when I'm sitting with my kids, but I'm mentally not present, I'm not being mindful. And I will allow myself to tailspin in something that's happening at work or something that's happening here or a conversation I had with someone, and it's probably heightening my anxiety, where if I just really focused on, oh, my kid is sitting in front of me playing with Play DOH, it would probably bring down that anxiety.
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But I'm not being mindful. You know what I mean? I'm not being mindful, I'm not in the moment and working on that. So I'm like, I see how that could help in a lot of ways. And the thing that's wild about that is so our mind, are you familiar, I imagine you are, with the amygdala, the part of the brain, yes.
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The pain, worry, fear, anxiety, center of the brain. It kicks off the fight or flight mechanism for anyone who's not familiar. So with regular meditation, usually like even eight to ten minutes a day is reported to be enough. And so I usually say, just go for ten minutes a day. And what happens is actually, over time, the amygdala begins to shrink in atrophy with regular meditation, which means we're actually rewiring our brain to have smaller physiological stress and anxiety responses.
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But the things that trigger that is any kind of a perceived threat, danger, or fear. So that could be something like you're going out on a hike, a bear crosses your path and you're like, oh my gosh, it's a bear danger. But it can also be watching something distressing on TV or thinking about some weird comment someone made, like a day ago or an argument you had with your partner. All of those things trigger the amygdala and make it overactive and reactive. And so with regular meditation, it's actually been shown that it shrinks that part of the brain and atrophies it and then increases the prefrontal cortex, which is like the part right behind your forehead, which is responsible for emotion regulation.
00:15:38
So we don't have those big swings for up and down, and then it increases your ability for both focus and concentration. Okay, so my question about that you mentioned eight minutes. When you say eight minutes to me, I mean, I joked with you before the episode that if someone told me to meditate, I'd have my eyes closed, and then I'd open one eye and look to the side, and then I would try to wink and see if I saw anything. So give us some practical tips of where we can start for those who are like, eight minutes, that's long to start. I know it's not long, I get it.
00:16:13
But at the same time, it can feel long when you're a newbie. How do we get going? Absolutely. And this makes me think of something that you actually said a few minutes ago about how it usually gets kind of shoved down low on the priority list. And I imagine you see that all the time in your work as well.
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Even with physical fitness or training or lifting, we have such a tendency to the things that aren't necessarily that hard or that complicated, but could be really good for us. We have a tendency to kind of let those be, oh, I'll get to it. Or tomorrow, or kind of push it down the priority list, right? And especially as moms, I feel like it's really easy to focus on what everybody else needs and not focus on what we need. It's like, all the time and everything.
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Like, oh, I've got to drop off this school project. I don't have time to meditate. I don't have time to work out. So it's tricky. It is.
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And it's that chronic. Like, I don't have time to yeah, so when looking at that so a couple of things. One, and I get it. Also, being a mom, being a podcaster, running a business, being primary parent, I get it. I understand busy, and I don't want to invalidate that.
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If anyone's listening and they're like, I'm too busy to do that, chances are you are incredibly busy. However, what I usually tell people, especially just those eight minutes, is start doing eight less minutes of something that isn't serving you. For me, that looks like by the end of the day, I finally get my son to bed, and then I go lay in bed, and I'm like, oh, let me open up my phone and start scrolling on whatever. And then before I know it, like, 45 minutes have passed. What if I just did eight less minutes of that?
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There's my time. I don't even have to get rid of anything altogether. And then in terms of where to start, I find that guided meditations are such a fantastic place to start because it's just like, if you're going to a yoga class, right, you don't need to pick up a book on yoga and look at a pose and then replicate it. You can go to a class in which you have a teacher that's walking you through from beginning to end. And we're used to having this kind of guided practice in many other aspects of our life, but when it comes to meditation, that's what a guided meditation is, is you have a teacher that's just walking you through a meditation and just pick a short one from beginning to end, and you just have to listen to what they're saying and follow along.
00:18:29
A big piece of this, too, is also I love to destigmatize distractions. So we have this idea that if I get distracted when I'm meditating, it's bad. It's quote bad. But distractions are kind of like when you go to the gym and you use weights and resistance bands. Like, you need that struggle and that resistance to build up the strength in the physical body.
00:18:48
That's what distractions are for your mind. So every time you get distracted, even within those eight minutes, it's like lifting a weight. It's like, oh, oopsies, I got distracted. And then you just come back and we're going to be really gentle and kind with ourselves. We're just going to be like, oh, ha, I made it 15 whole seconds and I got distracted.
00:19:06
Whoopsies. And then you're just going to come back to it. And you might do that at the beginning. Every 1015, 20 seconds, that's totally fine. But reframing the way we think about distractions, instead of, like, unquote doing it bad or wrong is like, no, those are like the reps with the weights that you need to build the mental strength to be able to focus and concentrate longer.
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Something I thought about when you were talking about if someone's busy doing eight minutes less. I have noticed for me, when I say I don't have time, I will say to myself what the benefit is of the activity and say, I don't have time for so in that situation, I'd say, I don't have time to reduce my stress and anxiety and lower my blood pressure. And when you say it that way, you're like, yes, I do. Yes, I do have time. And so when you say the benefit of the thing you're avoiding, or not even avoiding, that's not the right word you're too busy to do it makes you think, like, something's got to give.
00:20:08
I got to change somewhere. I've got to make a little space. Even if you start with four minutes, like, maybe you're someone who's like, I can't fit eight minutes to start. Start with four. See how four goes.
00:20:17
Add six, go to eight and see how that feels. But do it slowly. And when you think of things that are good for you that you don't have time for, say the same thing with the benefit and see if you still don't want to have time for it, because time is a precious commodity. I'm like you where I do recognize that. But there's some things that I realize where I do the same thing.
00:20:38
I'll open up instagram to get on something. Before I know it, I'm like, oh, my gosh, it's been 20 minutes. How did I end up here?
00:20:46
It happens to the best of us. So I love that point of just doing less of something as well. So what are some of the benefits? What about for pregnancy and postpartum? Because I know we talked about how we can kind of start and that guided meditation.
00:21:00
I think that would make a huge difference for me. And I love that you said, show yourself, Grace, when you get distracted, because I know I would be one of those people, but I'm thinking about someone who is pregnant and postpartum and how it would also possibly help them be able to feel some changes or even mental stability. Absolutely. So nothing really challenged my own meditation practice more, or I guess made me rely on my meditation practice more than being pregnant and being in that postpartum period. And I have a friend who firmly believes that you're in the postpartum period for as long as you are sharing your body with another individual.
00:21:41
So for as long as you're pumping or as long as you're breastfeeding. And so she really believes, and this has always resonated with me, that you can be in that quote, like postpartum period for two years at times, and that it's not just like this very narrow definition of six to twelve weeks. And then magically you're like, oh, you're. Somehow normal again, and you're not at all. Your doctor goes under the hood one time at six weeks, and they're like, oh, look at you.
00:22:08
Your stitches dissolved and you have sex again. You're fine. You can go to the gym and you're not postpartum anymore. As long as your body is still sustaining two lives, whether however long that is for you, that she believes in that postpartum period. And that really stuck with me when she said that.
00:22:30
And so when I say postpartum, I'm thinking like, even when my son was one and like one and a half. And the thing about pregnancy and the uses of meditation in the two, although the practice is the same, I found that in pregnancy, both with my son and I'm currently, as we're talking now, 32 weeks pregnant with my second. And so I'm really relying on this now, is using meditation as a way to manage changes in my body, which is a big one. I personally find that to be challenging in pregnancy every time is that it's just like, wow, even though you know. It'S coming, you know it's coming, but every time it still catches you off guard.
00:23:12
Every time you're like, oh, I forgot things are going to look like this. You're like, oh, I forgot that everything just starts touching everything else, these things. Yeah, you do. And it is hard. It doesn't matter who you are, it's different.
00:23:28
It's hard to see yourself change. It is. And I think that we often, sometimes pregnancy is really painted as this like rainbows and sunshines and unicorn beautiful thing. And it absolutely is that. And also it can be really not only physically hard, it can be emotionally hard.
00:23:47
There's a lot of anxiety, there's a lot of stress. It can be mentally hard. You have all these changes that you're navigating. There's pregnancy itself, no matter what twists or turns it takes, you may have to navigate a loss or maybe you're navigating something going the way you didn't expect it's. This big question mark.
00:24:07
And so in terms of the benefits when you're meditating, when you're pregnant, of course you're getting those same physical benefits, right, that you would get with a meditation practice, which is so important during that stage of your life. But it's also a really great way to connect with baby before they're out here in this world. And so that is a benefit that's been looked at in terms of women feeling emotionally more connected to baby in utero when they meditate versus when they don't meditate. Because when you really quiet your mind and there's a lot of prenatal meditations that you can do. I have a secondary podcast called Meditation Mama.
00:24:50
It was my pandemic pregnancy project when I was at home and pregnant. And I was like, well, just start putting some prenatal meditations up too. But a lot of them focus on even taking a few minutes to just connect with baby. And that's something that can make a huge difference emotionally and to help kind of facilitate that connectedness that you feel then once baby is out into the world. So really focusing on kind of navigating those ups and downs of pregnancy, also taking time to hit the pause button and to not feel like I have to be going a million miles an hour all day long when I'm pregnant and then connecting with baby.
00:25:28
Those are great focuses and benefits when you are pregnant and then postpartum, it's going to be more a focus on kind of that self care aspect. And I don't mean self care and like bubble baths and pedicures. I mean self care of how am I doing? Like the mental emotional maintenance work that you can do in meditation of just being honest. Like, how am I doing?
00:25:52
I'm feeling really sad today. Or I'm feeling really resentful today, or physically, I feel so drained. Like those types of things where then you can meditate to work on supporting yourself as your body rebuilds, as you're navigating this whole new landscape of being a mother, whether it's the first time or the 10th time. And there's also some physical benefits too, in terms of physical postpartum recovery, like after giving birth, meditation has been shown to increase recovery time after any kind of a major medical event in general, and that includes after giving birth, whatever your labor delivery and birth looked like. So they're both so useful, but I like to think of them as kind of two different focuses because you need different things at different stages.
00:26:45
Yeah, the thing I love about what you said is as I'm listening to you explain connecting with baby and then taking a moment to think like, how am I feeling today? I think about that for meditation and think, man, if you could get good at doing that in meditation, it would automatically help create mindfulness. Because if you could learn to do it for a couple of minutes at a time, you could learn to do it for 30 seconds to ground yourself and then be in a situation which sometimes I think we don't even know how to ground ourselves and be present and be mindful. But if you could master. The meditation, it's almost like the mindfulness would come naturally with it in a lot of our normal activities.
00:27:27
So there's even more to it than just that. It's like it's going to create this whole presence and our ability to be mindful in situations. And we will have learned it through meditation almost. Absolutely. I think of it really as like training, right?
00:27:40
Like if I was going to go run a half marathon, I wouldn't just show up to the beginning of the half marathon having not run at all and been like, oh, let's just see what happens. I would have this training where maybe I would build up my duration or my ability to kind of sustain these longer practices. And so that's why we call it a meditation quote, like practice. It's because you're practicing for when you actually need these skills in your real life. And this really resonated with me, or stuck with me, I guess, once I became a toddler mom, too, because nothing quite pushes the patience, your sanity, and even from a meditation teacher, guys, like I have very unzen moments with my two and a half year old.
00:28:25
I'm going to start calling them that unzen moment. Oh my gosh, and my son, he's not even on planet Earth sometimes. And I'm just like, and they just have that ability to like when you are just teetering on the edge or I think of it as like a pressure cooker when it's like one more ounce of pressure and you're going to blow your lid. And they have this magic ability to do that one little thing that just whatever it is, right, the dog's water dish over for the 10th time, or you're trying to get out the door. And it's always the smallest thing.
00:28:59
It's always the smallest thing that's when. You blow your top. And so I think about in terms of meditation and meditation practice when you build that foundation. And this is definitely not a perfect mom, and I have my very unzen moments, but I have found that it really helps in those just, again, making those little things not as big of a deal, where you can just be like, okay, you can feel yourself just that pressure rising, rising, rising. You can almost recognize it and pause before it's too late.
00:29:28
And then not that it's not frustrating, but you can just be like, okay, pause button, we're taking one deep breath here and then we're going to try to put the shoes on for the last time and get out the door, or whatever it is. I have found it to be so useful in those moments because I've been working on this practice for years and years and like, what is a more real moment than when your toddler is just pushing you to the absolute edge as they do and driving you nuts as they do? It's like that's when we really need it. It's like those real life things. It's not when we're in a vacuum, sitting there or living with monks and chanting ohm, or whatever it is.
00:30:09
It's like the real world stuff. It's like when you get into a disagreement with your partner, when your toddler is pushing you right to the edge, when someone cuts you off when you're driving or you've been on hold for 45 minutes with whoever and then the call drops, right? Those are the moments that you really need it. It's not when you're in the vacuum, just being in your peaceful state, but it teaches you then how to return to that state when you need it most. So you're saying it's obviously really helpful for parenting and motherhood.
00:30:39
What are some ideas that we can do for meditation in that phase of life? Because that is a really challenging phase of life, to stay mindful and calm. It really is. And so in my book, that is all about incorporating meditation and mindfulness into the family system. I talk about parents and kids also prenatal and then partnerships.
00:31:03
But in terms of the parenting, I have a lot of really simple, easy practices that are easy to integrate into everyday life. And so when it comes to being a parent, I find that you're most likely to build a habit when one, it's easy and simple and clear and two, it has real world application. So I break it down by topics. So like if there's an Insomnia chapter in the book and so there's an adult meditation for Insomnia, there's one for kids and adolescents and then there's one for little ones. And so looking at these different topics and then having specific practices that you can do around that topic I find sets people up for success.
00:31:46
Because again, Insomnia as the example, if you're not sleeping at night, that's kind of your first priority. And so why not let meditation be something that helps you with that insomnia and so you can use that practice then to improve your sleep or something like resilience or self confidence or gratitude, right? Why not let the meditation practice support whatever it is that you're currently exploring either within yourself or within your household? Because I find it just sets us up for easier success that way. What are the most common ideas for someone who is parent dealing with parenting, meditation and how we can teach our kids?
00:32:26
Can you give us just like one or two examples that we could think of now and kind of start working at now? Yeah. So my top two tips I guess for that is the first one is start a meditation practice for yourself and let your kids see it. We don't have to hide away like really just modeling, right? And they're going to be curious about it, they always are.
00:32:47
And they're going to be like, oh, what were you doing this morning? Or oh, why are you closing your eyes and taking a few deep breaths. And that opens the door for you to just talk about why you do it, how you do it, and the benefits that you personally see. And that tends to really our kids are interested in what we're doing in everyday life. And then my second tip for that is then to let it be really fun and easy.
00:33:10
So in the book, I have different meditation, like games that you can play or you can go on a family mindfulness walk or make a little meditation jar, which is kind of like a sensory jar, but you can use it to explain the concept of quieting your mind. Let it be fun. Meditation does not have to be that serious and it doesn't have to be that hard. And if you're already doing, if you're already going walks, going for walks with your kids, or your kids really like to do crafts, just weave mindfulness into that. And kids usually pick up on it so quickly and it feels good and they like it.
00:33:46
And then you can let it be this kind of family thing that you do together to support your family system in kind of this mental, emotional way. I love that idea for kids. So for motherhood, I'm just going to ask you, would you be willing to do a short meditation for us? Because I think it would make such a difference for me in hearing it now. And I know for me, I think starting with a guided meditation would be a huge game changer and make a huge difference for my ability to do it.
00:34:13
Let's do it. Absolutely. Take a few minutes right now and we'll just do our meditation for the day. Okay? So if anyone's listening, you can pause here and do it quietly or go in your room or pause and do it later so that you can do this.
00:34:23
We'll just do a couple of quick minutes just to see how it makes us feel cool. Okay? And don't do this when you're driving, guys. Safety first. All right, so just creating a long spine.
00:34:34
So nice long spine. We're going to soften the shoulders, and if it feels good to you, just close down the eyes.
00:34:42
And then we're going to start by taking three deep cleansing breaths. So you can just inhale through the nose and then open mouth exhale, just sigh it out, letting go.
00:34:55
And we'll do that two more times.
00:35:01
And one big final deep cleansing breath.
00:35:09
And now let your breath just be smooth and effortless. So just dancing in and out of your body, noticing how the breath feels, what it feels like, where it's going in your body, just let it be completely effortless, smooth and steady.
00:35:43
Then as you're breathing, just asking yourself, how am I feeling today? Without judgment, without expectations, just checking in, how does my body feel?
00:35:59
Checking in with what thoughts you're having, what's going through your mind right now without judgment, then what about your heart? What's happening in your heart today?
00:36:19
There's no wrong answers.
00:36:26
And then take a moment just to say something kind and comforting to yourself. Whatever you need to hear right now.
00:36:36
And then we'll reawaken just by taking another big deep breath in through the nose, open mouth, exhale, sigh it out, and then you can blink your eyes open. And you just did your little mini meditation. How was that? That was actually awesome. That was actually really awesome.
00:36:54
And I realized for me and maybe many listeners, I do need that guidedness because it helped me really be present and it helped me think about what you were asking me. But it actually slowed my mind to actually think about it. You know what I mean? So that was really cool. And that wasn't even eight minutes.
00:37:13
And I feel like that alone already made me feel calmer. You do kind of get that instant. I think of it as like dropping in or dropping down or you kind of just get that instant like you just turn the volume button down a little bit on kind of that chaos of life. And life is chaotic and busy, and that is what it is. But when we can find, especially in parenthood, I find taking these little mini breaks to kind of turn the volume down a little bit is such a great kind of mental emotional maintenance practice.
00:37:44
Instead of always feeling like you need to do one big long thing or one long meditation, sometimes just about hitting the pause button, taking a few deep breaths and being like, okay, what's going on here? And that can give you kind of that instant, just decompression at that time. I have one last question for you. I'm curious. For a mom who is feeling busy, who is feeling all those things, what is the number one tip?
00:38:09
You would tell her to try to foster peace and calm and connection in her life, which is what all your book is totally about. That it's about helping families with those two things. So when people tell me they're too busy to meditate or their minds are too busy or they're too ADHD and I say that as someone who has ADHD to meditate, I always joke that's like saying you're too dirty to take a shower. So if you feel like the thing that you're really struggling with or that's holding you back is kind of that constant, like, go spinning on those plates, I'm overwhelmed. You know when you just chronically feel behind?
00:38:42
Yeah, I'm sure we all know. Yes, everyone knows that feeling. We all know where you're just like, how am I just always behind on these things? And the thing that improves that the most truly is like taking these little pauses and having these intentional moments of introspection and slowing down even just for a few minutes like we did. And so if you're feeling like, how could I ever do this, I have this and that and DA DA DA DA.
00:39:09
To me, that really is like, I'm too dirty to take a shower, there's just too much dirt on me, there's no point. It's like if you want to start remedying, I don't know if that's a word, but if you want to find the remedy to the sensations that you're currently experiencing, whether it's stress, overwhelm feeling behind, whatever it is, this will absolutely help you. And it'll help you in just a couple of minutes. And so it's the thing that will help put the train back on the tracks. And so my biggest tip to circle back to your question is you just need to start somewhere you will feel better, just give it a couple of minutes and then that will start to ripple out into other aspects of your life.
00:39:48
And so it's very much like the seed that's planted and then over time, you watch it grow and it'll help with those feelings that make you feel like you can't even take three minutes for yourself. It'll help start simple and just go from there. Great advice. Okay, Kelly, tell us where we can find you. Tell us about your podcast, because you do guided know.
00:40:09
That's one of the reasons I had you on. So tell us all about you, all the things that we can find you. Okay, thank you, I appreciate that. So if you guys want to hang out with me in my little corner of the Internet, I am a millennial woman, so you can find me on Instagram. Yoga for you online is the handle.
00:40:26
And then I have two podcasts. One is called mindful and minutes. So that one is five and a half years old. So you have over 350 guided meditations to choose from. They're all less than 20 minutes.
00:40:38
Many of them are eight minutes or less. All sorts of different topics. You can just scroll through, pick a topic, hit play. And then I have Meditation Mama, which is for any person who finds themselves in the fertility, prenatal and postpartum period of their life. There's guided meditations on there to support that.
00:40:55
And then I have a book that's coming out, it's called Mindful in Minutes a Meditation Guide for the Modern Family. And it's going to be published on September 5. But you can preorder now and you will get bonus chapters that didn't make the final cut of the book, so you'll get even more practices. And that's available all the places. Amazon.
00:41:15
When does that release? September 5. Okay, just around the corner. Just around the corner. But you can preorder it now.
00:41:23
I always do this. I don't know about you, but it's like I'll preorder a book and then I almost forget about it. It shows up. It's like Christmas. Yes.
00:41:30
And then it shows up and you're like, oh my gosh, it's here. It's like giving your future self a gift. I know, totally preordering things, and then it just appears on your doorstep and. You'Re like, I know, it totally is. And I'm totally going to check out your podcast, because I realize for me to start, I will need some guided meditations.
00:41:48
And I think I can start simple. I can start with two a week. I can start with one a week. Then I can go to can. You can look at the length of them and see, oh, this is a really short one.
00:41:57
I have time for four minutes, five minutes, six minutes, whatever it is, and you can scan and even look at the length and do it, which makes it super easy. Thank you so much for being on Kelly. Thank you for having me. I hope you loved that conversation with Kelly and I and that you learned a lot in it. I'll be honest, that meditation was very different for me because I am so go go.
00:42:20
I'm very open about the fact that I have ADHD as well, and I felt like it did a really good job of grounding me, and that was, like, not even probably two minutes of a meditation. So check out her podcast. You can see the lengths of her meditation. Hopefully, you learned some of those benefits. And I want you to know something I say to you every day.
00:42:38
At the end of that meditation, she said, tell yourself something you want yourself to know. And you want to know what I said to myself? You're doing better than you think you are. I meant it. I mean it every week when I say it to you.
00:42:50
All right, you're doing better than you think you are. And we'll chat next week.