Speaker 0 00:00:00 <inaudible> you are listening to right on radio on cafe and 90.3 FM and streaming live on the
[email protected] during our cafe AI fall plus drive I'm Josh Weber. And tonight on right on radio a day, talks with Leah Naomi green author of the more extravagant feast, the winner of the 2019 Walt Whitman award and published by gray Wolf press. And I'm Liz old in the last part of the show. Josh talks with Sarah Ridell beach, author of mindfulness for children. He's also the author of mindful moments for busy moms and writes about mindfulness, mindful teaching and mindful parenting for the Huffington post, all of this and more, and stay tuned to write on radio again, during our fall membership drive, it's easy. It's simple. If you love writing on radio, all you gotta do is go to K F a i.org and hit the donate button on the upper right hand side and, uh, fill out the form. It's easy. It's safe. It's simple. Can't can't do any better than that for yourself in the station. And now this
Speaker 1 00:01:41 I'm here. Are you able to hear me?
Speaker 2 00:01:45 Wonderful. I apologize for that. That's on me listeners. I didn't give her the right phone number. So welcome to the show.
Speaker 1 00:01:52 I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 00:01:55 We need to have you here. So I want to begin by congratulating you on the book. The more extravagant feast. It's really great. I can't wait to start chatting to see about it, but also on the 2019 Walt Whitman award, how did it feel when you got that news?
Speaker 1 00:02:11 Um, um, surreal. Yeah, totally surreal. Um, yeah, I definitely stopped everything and, um, had to just inhabit that moment for quite a while before I called anyone. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:02:27 I can see why the judges would be attracted to these poems, especially vis-a-vis Walt Whitman. Do you have an affinity for Walt Whitman because he shows up in your book, obviously we'll talk about that. That's right. Yeah. So you must like him.
Speaker 1 00:02:42 I do. Yeah. And, um, I'm having a little trouble hearing you. You're a little quiet. That's okay.
Speaker 2 00:02:46 Josh, she's having a little trouble hearing me on her end. We'll give you a little more mic there. Okay. Um, awesome. Beautiful. Okay. So, uh, let's just get in and I want to get into something I was really, uh, uh, touched by or affected by it. And that is one word in particular. And that's the word? Communion, Leah. Uh, yeah. Um, it comes through a lot in this book and I don't even mean it in the way that most people are probably thinking of that word right now, which is in a religious sense or a, you know, a Christian ceremonial sense, but, uh, in, in a way that, um, we, uh, are living the world and experience the world and that sort of thing. Uh, I can't, I haven't gotten it out of my mind since I read your book. So, uh, so I thank you for that, but, uh, um, does that make any sense to you? That word, the fact that, okay. Tell, tell us what you mean.
Speaker 1 00:03:40 That makes tons of sense. Yeah. Yeah. And I appreciate your framing it that way. Um, while I'm certainly not Catholic and, and, and anything but Catholic and yet, um, I grew up Jewish and I'm, um, I have a lot of Quaker and Buddhist influence in my life. Um, certainly not Catholic and yet that word does make sense to me and actually does show up, I think, in one of the poems. Um, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, no, I think that the way that I, the way that Isaac communion is, um, is the more extravagant feast, um, which is the question, the title of the book and, and yes, absolutely this idea that, um, that my body is both constantly becoming the world and being made out of the world. Um, yeah. And, um, my, my partner and I grow most of our food for the year. So this is absolutely a theme for the book is that, and of course, pregnancy is also a major, um, part of the narrative arc of the, of the portrait collection. And so really it, it did all come together around what I believe you're calling communion, which is this, this idea that I am constantly, um, in the womb of the world. And it is, and, and, um, I'm constantly taking into my body. This thing that is way more than, than physical.
Speaker 2 00:05:09 Yeah. Very well said very much like a poet would say it. And speaking of poetry. Yeah. Funny that, isn't it something, uh, how about a reading? So what listeners can get a feeling for the work please?
Speaker 1 00:05:21 Sure. So I could view that title poem, please. Sure. The more extravagant feast the buck is falling a halo on the frosted ground shot in our field. Pre-dawn last night, we pulled a float in the Christmas parade. It was lit by a thousand tiny lights. My daughter wrote in my lap and was thrilled when the float followed us. Ours is a small town. Everyone was there and their faces not seeing ours fixed behind us. We're an open C uh, compound C of CS, but parted under our gaze. And Santa was bright though. My daughter shied from the noise of him. She studied the red and white for of his suit. She woke this morning when the rifle fired outside, I lifted her to see the sunrise and her father kneeling above the Buck's body in the middle distance. She asked if they would be cold.
Speaker 1 00:06:28 I brought him gloves and warm water knelt with him in the spare light, by the buck who steamed, whose liver and heart kept so long, dark spilled onto the winter grass whose open eyes saw. None of it realized nothing of my husband's knife slicing open his abdomen, his rectum, the puncture of his diaphragm startled me more than the gunshot opening a Tavern of blood that poured over his white belly. I did not understand the offering, but loved it. The, for red, white incoherent, somehow cleaner. When I come back in, she asks me to draw a picture of her father on the Hill. I pick her up the miracle of her lungs that grew inside me, kept long dark, her working heart, let out into the round or world. The more extravagant feast, the miracle of her dad on the Hill. As we draw him in his big coat, warm afterward, how he and I hold each other differently, feeling the collections of muscles and organs held somehow together. The miracle of bodies formed whole like fruits, skins, unruptured, and containing the world.
Speaker 2 00:07:51 That was beautiful. That was Leah Naomi green. Pardon me? Reading from the more extravagant feast. And that was the title poem, uh, that last stanza Aliyah, uh, could very well been written by Walt Whitman. And I mean, not, I mean, that's a pays the highest compliment I possibly,
Speaker 1 00:08:06 Yeah, I hear it as such.
Speaker 2 00:08:09 Uh, yeah. Uh, there's a lot in this poem. Um, uh, you know, so many images of fur and red, including Santa, um, who is red and as for, and I, and I believe that was probably intentional. Um,
Speaker 1 00:08:23 Yeah, that was, that was really the starting place of the Paul and actually, yeah,
Speaker 2 00:08:27 Beautiful. Uh, and it recalled for me and for everyone else who is, and should be reading this book. Uh, the second poem and Leah, I almost wanted the poem venison to be the first poem in the collection. So it would somehow bookend a more extended and feast. And you know, why, because of the final stanza of venison, do you mind reading that? Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:08:48 I don't mind reading that, but, um, but trigger warning for vegans as you just experienced. And, um, I will say, uh, I was vegan for most of my life and, and the only, the most surprising thing to me in the split coming into the world has been, um, but it has upset some vegans, which of course has not been my intention. Um, but I, I, I will say, and I'm happy to talk more about it. Gear is a very sacred act for, for our family. Um, and it's, it's absolutely something that connects us to how much we need the more than human world. Um, okay. Denison, the deer is still alive in the roadside grass in an hour. We'll cut her open, her left hip, broken the bone in her dark body. Now the white Camaro shocked in the night and the boy wet faced in the back seat.
Speaker 1 00:09:48 His parents at a loss by the hood, too young to have meant any of it that giving or taking. They are glad for our headlights, glad for our rifle, her head still on. She hangs outside our kitchen window for the blood to drip skin pulled down like a shirt. I watched my husband undress her with a knife. I wash the blue plates. When I turn the water off, I can hear his blade on more muscle sail through her fascia. We put her leg and buttock on the wooden table where we will gather her between us to eat all year. It is all, I see a thing alive, slowly becoming my own body.
Speaker 2 00:10:36 That's a very powerful image. Thank you for that, Leah. And so let's talk a little bit more about that. Um, we almost can't leave that poem because it, it is so visceral, just hanging there without talking about it, right. Uh, you, you mentioned, uh, complete, I can't recall exactly how you described it, but your relationship to the land and the earth and to the animals and the fact that, you know, you eat venison and whatever else you do. Um, I'll use the term sacred in a secular way. Cause that's the only way I know how to use it, but there's a lot of respect and love in, in this, uh, collection of poems for, for animals and, and uh, for the way you live with them.
Speaker 1 00:11:20 Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And, um, I really think what brought this whole book together was, um, was the experience of pregnancy, which, um, really just made so real to me, um, that I am no different from any other living creature, um, in a very real way, you know, in the way that I felt very much like a mammal. In fact, I am a mammal, but that came became very apparent, but also, um, that, but also, um, not just to, to animals but to the garden itself. And that's something that I think a lot about and is reflected in this book a lot, which is that, um, the, the tomato or the, or the Mellon in the garden contains a seed, which somehow miraculously contains another Mellon, which somehow miraculously contains another seed. It'll quickly, it'll quickly blow your mind. And you're absolutely right to call it sacred. I don't know a better word for it, for that. Um, yeah. And to realize through pregnancy that my body was doing the exact same thing, um, that, that my ancestors bodies have all done the exact same thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:12:34 Thank you for that. That's circles back and then I'll get off the communion story, but, uh, that comes right back to that. And, uh, again, I would stress for listeners. These poems really do really do stick with you and they will make you think about your place in the world. We are speaking with Leah Naomi green, about her recent collection of poems. The more extravagant feast by the way, published by gray Wolf press here in st. Paul, the twin cities, uh, Leah is calling us from the mountains of Virginia, I believe. Uh, it sounds lovely. Uh, it's snowing here, Leah, we're sorry. You're not here to join and enjoy that with us, but yeah,
Speaker 1 00:13:11 Sorry, it's snowing there.
Speaker 2 00:13:15 And also remind our listeners. It is pledge drive week or weeks or something like that. We're collecting money from our wonderful listeners. Uh, so please, uh, to help us, uh, keep program programming like this alive, we are the very definition of a community sponsored radio station, every honor personality, if that's the right term producer and everyone else is a volunteer, all of this has done with, uh, time, um, out of love for radio and for the music and the shows and the, the issues and the ideas that we discuss. So please remember
[email protected]. When you have a chance, we would appreciate that. So Leah, back to you,
Speaker 1 00:13:53 And I will say I donate to my public radio here, John. Yes. So you all should as well. Yeah. Thank you for that.
Speaker 2 00:14:02 We kind of touched on this, but inspiration for you, family in nature. It seems like to me, is that, is that right? And by the way, do you believe in him as a poet, do you believe in inspiration or do you sit down and work at it?
Speaker 1 00:14:14 Gosh, I thought you were going to ask if I believed in nature, which I could also talk about, we believe in nature, but do you believe in inspiration? Um, really let me know if you want, um, do you want that speech, but, um, uh, do I believe in inspiration? Um, I know that there are moments when I have to write and I can't not write and, and it doesn't, um, offer itself again and that if I, I don't, you know, it's, it's why writers keep notebooks with them. Right. Yeah. And
Speaker 2 00:14:48 Do, do, do you work at a regular, I ask writers these kinds of questions all the time, because I'm fascinated by them, but the craft of writing when you work in how you work, um, what a poem looks like, the shape, it takes that kind of thing. Um, D D do you know going in the way you want something to look or does the poem tell you what it's going to look like? Because your forms take all kinds of different shapes here?
Speaker 1 00:15:15 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, good. I'm glad they do. I, I think that in, in my favorite poems, by, by my favorite poets, um, you know, the form and diction as well, or what ever they need to be in order to contain the poem. Um, and it, it doesn't feel like artifice. It feels like art in that way. It doesn't feel like, like the poets set out to make a poem. Um, it feels like the poet set out to contain what it is they needed to say. Um, and so if I can, if I can aspire to that, I'll be, I'll be happy.
Speaker 2 00:15:53 Yeah. Let's talk about the word feast. I'm really focusing on words tonight, what you're a poet. So that makes sense. The word feast on the cover is separated a little bit from the more extravagant and that's not without meaning. I'm sure. Um, so w what does feast mean for you and why does it show up so much?
Speaker 1 00:16:11 It's not without meaning on the cover in that nothing's, without me, now that I won't say it was sort of just the design, I liked the best on the cover, the cover of this book, by the way, is a Sally Mann photograph, which is worth it's worth buying the book just to have this previously unpublished, honestly. Um, but yeah. Um, so, so there's not much of a story as to why the word used is separated, um, on the cover, but, uh, but I will say that, yes. I mean, this very thing we've been talking about communion. Um, another thing that I might call it, I'm not calling communion is, um, I sometimes refer to it as, as trophic exchange, which is a more of the biologist terminology, um, which is, you know, the exchanges of energy from one trophic level of, of eaters in the food chain to another trophic level.
Speaker 1 00:17:06 Um, thank you for that word. And I like, yeah, yeah, I think the biologists, um, but I like that word very much because it allows me to talk about energy in this way. That's not woo, right. Like, it's very real, it's a very real thing that happens. It's why any of us exist physical bodies at all? Um, yeah. And so I, I, it's absolutely about a book about these things. Um, and, and I intentionally, I do like the word fuse thing on this cover, which is a very mundane, um, picture of a wheelbarrow and a tree. And I mean, it's not Monday because it's selling man, but, uh, in terms of the subject, matter of the image it is. And I love that contrast is important to me. It is important to me that this book is saying, um, that, that the thing we call nature is not, is not just a place that you go to or escape to that.
Speaker 1 00:17:58 It is that these are, these are systems. These are more than human systems that support us all the time. And we are feasting on them all the time, wherever we are. And that's absolutely true in Minneapolis and in st. Paul, um, and in any city, as much as it is in the mountains of Virginia. And it's not, it's not an exclusive feast for the extravagant feast. It's not an exclusive feast and it's, um, and I, I, that's an important thing to me that the book is questioning wealth in that way. It's questioning what we mean by, by wealth. Um, and I really hope to that, that readers of the book can, it can help readers to reconsider what we mean by wealth and what we mean by feasting and what we mean by richness.
Speaker 2 00:18:43 Right. Right. So is that the speech on nature that you threatened to give us earlier? Does that you
Speaker 1 00:18:47 Oh, not quite, but I think, you know, you have your own questions. Well, that was good.
Speaker 2 00:18:53 Uh, so there are four parts to the book. Um, is there, uh, any reason behind that, um, do you want us to feel a certain way about seasons or, um, how these are grouped
Speaker 1 00:19:07 That sound I just made? It was the sound an author makes when you suggest something that she's never thought of before. Like, of course it could be the seasons. Um, honestly it never occurred to me, which is hilarious. Seasons would be the first thought for a nature writer. Um, yeah, no, it's not, that was not the intention. It really is just how the poems made sense. Um, here's, here's these poems that, that spoke to one another and here's these other ones that spoke to one another and there, there were four parts.
Speaker 2 00:19:36 Well, uh, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but we are fascinating end of our time. Can you believe that? Wow. I know it's, it's really unfortunate, but, uh, before I get the signal from Josh, uh, why don't we hear another poll because, um, that's why we're here to hear Portree.
Speaker 1 00:19:55 Um, well, it's, it's up to me. Um, I would, I would choose field guide a field guide to the Chaparral. Yeah. Great. Okay. Field guide to the Chaparral, the fire beetle only mates when the Chaparral is burning and the water beetle will only mate, in the rain, in the monastery kitchen, the nuns don't believe me. When I tell them how old I am that you were married before, the woman you find attractive does not believe me. When I look at her kindly, there can doesn't people in the world, it will only be love that I love you with. When we get home, there will be a kitchen. The dishes undone, there will be our bedroom. What is it you eventually recognized in my face that allowed you to believe me, but that did not come from you. Remember how it did not come from you as white Sage does not come from the moon, but as found by it and lit the Buddhists say that the front of the paper cannot exist without the back, because there is a, there, there is a here Chaparral, the density of growth and the tattered chaps, the mappers wore through it because they had to keep walking without being hurt.
Speaker 1 00:21:26 It is okay if we hurt one, another Chaparral needs fire. The pine cones cannot open. Otherwise love needs lover whose last lover was flood.
Speaker 2 00:21:41 That was Leah, Naomi green reading from the more extravagant feast and a beautiful poem to end on. But before we send you away back to the mountains of Virginia, tell us what you're up to next, Leah.
Speaker 1 00:21:53 Hmm. Well, apparently not a book tour
Speaker 2 00:21:58 Plan
Speaker 1 00:21:59 Of course should have time. But, um, I, I mean, the great blessing of that is that I'm doing a lot more writing and gardening and, and mothering, um, and partnering, but I, um, and teaching all those things, but, uh, but I am doing a lot of writing and I, I'm really excited about writing about, um, uh, well, to bring it back to Whitman about, um, sort of that the Whitman, the Whitman esque idea of death as regenerative, maybe death as separate from loss. I think it's a subject that we're all needing right now to think more about. Um, so I'm excited to talk about death as compost, as regeneration. The fact that nothing exists without it.
Speaker 2 00:22:42 Yeah. You know what, you're, you're singing my song right now. I can't wait to read some of that stuff. Uh, so people can keep track of you. They'll just look up Leah, L E a H Naomi green on the web, and they'll find some of your work. Is that right? That that should work well. That's wonderful. And when you get another book, please let us know. We'd love it.
Speaker 1 00:22:59 I will. Yeah. Well, what a pleasure to talk to you? Good luck to all you listeners out there.
Speaker 2 00:23:05 Very sweet of you. Thank you very much. And back to Josh, I am here talking with Sarah Rodel beach about her new book, mindfulness for children. She's a mindful school certified instructor in member of the mindful school faculty and has taught mindfulness to students, teachers, and school administrators. Sarah's had a personal
Speaker 3 00:23:46 Mindfulness practice for many years and describes mindfulness as life-changing. She firmly believes that teaching compassionate attention and self care to students, teachers, parents, and families can change the world. Welcome to right on radio, Sarah.
Speaker 4 00:23:59 Yeah. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 00:24:01 So I think to kick this off, I want to ask you for our listeners and I think from my own understanding in your own words, what is mindfulness?
Speaker 4 00:24:09 Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, so mindfulness is it's paying attention, but paying attention in a very specific way in this way. That's very curious and nonjudgmental, which makes it, which makes it harder. You know, a dog can pay attention, but your dog can't be mindful that they're not bringing that same level of, um, kind of that metacognition, like being aware of what you're thinking when you're thinking, what you're feeling when you're feeling it.
Speaker 3 00:24:38 Yeah. You know, when I was reading your book, I mean, mindfulness to me, my, my takeaway from it, it's a lot like reading at sands where it teaches you a level of self observation and understand your own feelings and ideas and others as well. Could you talk about that a little?
Speaker 4 00:24:51 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in that way, it's such an empowering practice for adults and certainly for kids to just get a sense of how the mind works and how emotions work. Um, and yeah, it's a gather that, um, that awareness that can really be empowering, if we can start to learn the things that might set us off or the things that upset us, if we can start to see certain patterns in our thoughts, we know what kind of, Oh, this is, this is something maybe I need to attend to, or yeah, this is just my brain going back to seventh grade, you know, don't need to, don't need to worry about that. Um, so yeah, it's bringing that, um, just that, that bit of introspection, uh, into how we're living our life that often we're, if we're just so busy and moving from thing to thing to thing, we often don't take the time to do that,
Speaker 3 00:25:45 Correct me if I'm wrong here. And when I was reading your book, you were saying that there's many schools now across the United States, Australia and the UK that have adopted mindfulness programs. Why has it taken, or why is this such a big trend right now?
Speaker 4 00:25:58 Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's, it's really something in the last 10 years or so that we've seen, uh, expanding so much. I think there's really been this, um, this, this recognition of just how stressed out our students are. I used to be a classroom teacher. I taught high school for 17 years and could just see so much stress in my students and all the pressure they were putting on themselves and not really having a lot of strategies for meeting that stress. Um, w we often say, so I, I also work for, um, mindful schools and, um, uh, mindful schools. We often talk about how, you know, the two most important things that kids need to be able to do to function well in school, and really in life are to pay attention and to be able to self-regulate, you know, to learn anything, we have to be able to focus and attend to something and manage distraction.
Speaker 4 00:26:54 And we have to be able to know what we're feeling when we're feeling it and decide an appropriate way to deal with that emotion so that we're safe for ourselves and others. And so these two things are often things that we don't explicitly teach kids how to do. Um, so I often when I'm working with young people, we'll ask them, you know, how many of you've ever been told to pay attention when they all raise their hand and you won't be, have you ever been taught how to pay attention? Does anyone ever told you to calm down? Yes. All the time? Well, if you've ever been taught, how, um, so it's these, these fundamental skills that I think we just kind of assume that people know how to do, and we really don't, or there's, there's a lot that we could learn, um, to be, to be better at them. And so I think schools are, we're seeing this in terms of the, um, mental health considerations. You know, there's been a big push really in the last about two, three decades, at least on social, emotional learning. And mindfulness really provides a foundation for social, emotional learning as well. So I think for all those reasons, we've seen greater emphasis on bringing these practices to students
Speaker 5 00:28:06 On the taco, emotional learning. You talk about how you taught mindfulness with children, the children you've worked with and allowed them to change how they interact with their siblings. How did you achieve this supernatural feat?
Speaker 4 00:28:23 Yeah, I know. And I will say too, I have two children and, you know, they still will argue and all that. So it's not a magic power, but, um, yeah, a lot of students will tell me that when I'll ask them. So each time I come back to a classroom, I'll ask students, you know, have you used mindfulness since I last saw you? And that's often where kids are using it. You know, I got into a fight with my brother, but I just went into my room and I took some deep breaths. And so I didn't hit him. I was like, yay. Like, that's amazing. Um, so I think, you know, I think it's something, I think there's a lot that's happening in, in terms of what's empowering a child to then be able to take that action. There's just that level of awareness where they can realize that they're getting angry, you know, so maybe they notice that like their body started getting really tight or they noticed they were breathing in a certain way or things that they were saying.
Speaker 4 00:29:19 And that was like, Oh yeah, I'm getting really angry. You know, so often we don't realize we're angry until we're kind of past the point of being able to do something about it. So they're able to kind of catch themselves in that moment. And then they have a tool, they have a strategy that they've been taught, you know, I can breathe in this way. We do, um, it starfish breathing. We, it, where you take, you put your one hand, um, and it's kind of like a single jazz hand. Then you take your finger from your other hand and just trace each finger as you breathe. And it's just this really soothing way to breathe. And, you know, just even just that touch on your hand feels soothing. So they have this really concrete skill that they can utilize in that moment as opposed to, okay, I know I'm angry while I don't have anything else. I'm just going to act out the anger and then it becomes, you know, a negative interaction with their, with their sibling. So,
Speaker 3 00:30:17 And for the subject of mindfulness, I, I, I imagined this as just this holistic process and, but you did something very interesting though here is that you broke this down into layers, into steps in your book. And I was wondering if you could explain your process of doing this for a book on mindfulness for children. Okay.
Speaker 4 00:30:35 Yeah. Yeah. So the book really follows, um, what I believe is the most effective way that parents can share this with their kids. And so that's why the book starts right away with the parent and that, you know, the most effective way that parents or teachers for that matter are going to teach mindfulness to young people is by modeling it themselves. And so encouraging parents, you know, that they can take that deep breath and even modeling that for kids like, Oh, wow, I'm noticing I'm feeling really angry. So I'm going to take three deep breaths and then I'll solve this Lego crisis, whatever it is, that's erupted. So, so starting with the parents and then starting, um, so th the first chapter then for kids is about soothing. So just this being able to find a bit of stillness, or at least relative stillness, you know, there's often this image that mindfulness do, like you can't move and you just have to be like perfect posture and upright.
Speaker 4 00:31:36 Um, but just some way of finding relaxation and ease and stillness in the body is kind of this precursor for all of the other awareness practices. So then from there moving into, okay, now that we've found that baseline of stillness, how can I pay attention? And so we can pay attention to so many things to our, um, to our thoughts. We can pay attention to our emotions, to sounds to our body, to the things that we can see around us. And then from there, um, looking at our emotions and then when our emotions kind of get away from us. So these initial practices are really kind of self-focused and self-regulation, and then the later chapters on cultivating gratitude and joy and empathy and relationship are then how do we take this mindful awareness into how we interact with others? So how can I, if I'm in an argument with a friend, how can I cultivate some empathy and maybe try to see it from that friend's perspective, for example, or just other practices that connects more to the environment and to my community. So it has this kind of from the parent and then the child, this inside out focus in terms of developing the practices and skills.
Speaker 5 00:32:51 There's a great piece of information I had that I've learned from this book is, or at least I broaden my understanding of this at least is the relationship our body has to our brain and regulating our emotions. You describe how I'm going to quote you here, where we're angry. The rational thinking part of our brain goes offline and our more primitive, defensive regions take over and they don't speak any language. They speak the language of our body. And I was wonder if you could describe how we can teach children and even adults, how we can create a space where we could hold our emotions in awareness.
Speaker 4 00:33:22 Yeah. Yeah. I find it. I mean, kids are just fascinated about learning this about their brain and learning about, you know, well, why is it when I get really angry or it's even more for adults, but joke among therapists, the client who comes back and says those anger management strategies work really well, but I'm not angry because like, when we're in that heated moment, it's really hard to, um, to access that thinking part of the brain. And so it really helps to normalize for kids. Like, yeah, that's just how, that's just how your system was designed, because if you were, you know, million years ago and there were, uh, there was a threat or you were really needing to defend yourself, like you didn't need your thinking brain, you just needed a body that would react in the moment. And so normalizing like, yeah, now your body is having that same reaction and it's, it's a math test, or it's just, you know, your brother hit your Barbie or something, you know, it's not, um, it's not that same level of crisis, but your brain thinks it is.
Speaker 4 00:34:24 And so I think kids again, I mentioned how it can be very empowering, just it's, it's very empowering to know that they're normal and that their body's acting or reacting in a very normal way. And so then it's, again, coming back to that, noticing of that, Oh, I've noticed it. Um, there's one exercise in the book, and this comes from, um, Dan Siegel. Who's written several books about, um, teaching mindfulness to kids. And he talks about, it's kind of hard to do on a radio show, but you put your hand in a fist, but your thumb is inside. So from what I know, and like not the way you would actually use your fist to hurt someone. So your thumb is inside and your thumb is like your amygdala, the very reactive part of your brain, your fingers are your prefrontal cortex, the more thinking part of your brain. And he says, when we get really angry, we flip our lid. Like all those fingers fly off. There's no connection between them. And so if we can notice that moment and just breathe, part of what we're doing is inviting, you know, we're breathing in a way that's regulating that fight or flight part of the body or activating the rest and digest mode of the body. And now we've, we've brought back some of that connectivity or that neural wifi, um, between the more emotional part of the brain and the thinking part of the brain.
Speaker 5 00:35:49 There's a wonderful part in your book where, um, which I think everyone can attest to experiencing is it surrounds the quality of a thought work and feels like it's racing, or we're very slow or it's loud, or it's soft. I was wonder if you could talk about the significance of the, the quality of our thoughts and how they have an impact on our daily lives.
Speaker 4 00:36:10 Yeah. I mean, thoughts are kind of, you know, it's like water to fish or we're just swimming in them all day and we don't even notice them. I think they say we have somewhere between 50 and 70,000 thoughts in a day and half of them you had yesterday, they're just they're ever present. And so this instruction that you're referencing in the book, in part, it's encouraging this noticing of, instead of getting wrapped up in the content of the thoughts to focus more on the contour of the thought, so is it loud or soft? Is it fast or slow? Um, as opposed to, you know, if you actually get into the content of the thought, I mean, most of them, a lot of times when I'm guiding people in practice and they noticed they had a thought, and by the time they notice it, they can't even remember what the thought was.
Speaker 4 00:36:59 You know, they're just so fleeting. And so it's a way of helping us not get so wrapped up in story. Um, I love how Bernay Brown encourages us to ask ourselves, what's the story I'm telling myself right now, we're this, this, all of our thinking and some ways it's kind of like a narrator and a documentary, and it's kind of spinning a story about everything that's happening. And some of it's true and a lot of it's fabrication and interpretation and judgment. And so when we can just step back for a moment and see the thought as a thought, not get so wrapped up in the content of it, we can, we can unhook ourselves from that story and kind of see a little bit more clearly like, Oh, that person didn't actually mean to cut me off and they weren't doing it on purpose or, you know, whatever the story might be that we're spinning in that moment.
Speaker 5 00:37:56 This work I think is especially vital today, due to the stress and fast paced tension. Many parents have for lifestyles today, it doesn't really give their children the time or doesn't provide Valley for calm or moments of deep relaxation in your experience. Do kids tell you this? Do they respond to it? Did they tell you? Like, I wish I wish my life was more relaxed and I feel like my parents are always as tense, so they don't give me the time to really breathe.
Speaker 4 00:38:21 Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's, it's crazy. I was working with a group of kindergartners a couple of years ago and we were doing, uh, a body scan practice. I had them all laying down on the floor and, you know, they're kindergarteners. So we weren't doing it very long, maybe three, four minutes, just noticing the different parts of our body and letting our body rest. And then when I had them get up, one of the girls, she stood up, she said, man, I needed that. Like I never rest. I was like, you're six. Like, wow, what are we doing to these kids? That even a kindergartener's like, man, I never take a moment to stop. Um, so yeah, I think kids, kids really do feel that. And it's, and it's interesting. Like we, um, as adults, we kind of, and this is also a generalization, but we kind of crave that stillness or a chance to slow down.
Speaker 4 00:39:13 And for some kids they're so used to that really fast pace that actually slowing down and pausing can feel disorienting. Um, and so that's why when we start teaching mindfulness to kids, we just, we start slow. Um, just a few short moments of practice because it, it can be so unfamiliar and the system, um, can just like, it's almost like right away, we're wanting more stimulation. Um, when I was working with a group of high school kids, we were with high school kids. We sometimes practice a little bit longer and, um, I've been guiding practice for a few moments and I had my eyes closed and I opened them and I saw two kids across the room, were playing rock paper scissors for each other. They're being totally quiet. They weren't disturbing anyone. And I asked them about that later and they're like, yeah, I could do that for one minute. And then I needed something. And I was like, like wisdom from a teenager. Right. Like, it's like, we, we get that stillness. And then we're like, yeah, I'm bored. I want something else. So, so it's an interesting noticing that kids will notice, like, yeah, I'm usually not like this. And Oh, if this is kind of weird to bring in still this,
Speaker 5 00:40:28 You mentioned that for the activity of your hand with the amygdala, um, I was wonder if you could just break down, how, how do you formulate the, all the activities that you illustrate in the book? Was there a trial and error period you, you had where you were experimenting with kids in workshops and seeing how it went, what did you come up with them?
Speaker 4 00:40:45 Yeah. So a lot of them are, you know, and some of them are as, as I referenced there out the book, you know, things that, that I've learned from other mindfulness teachers and yeah, it's really come from years of teaching in classrooms, everywhere from kindergartners through college students. I've been doing this for about six years now, uh, going into various schools, um, mainly in the Minneapolis area, um, and teaching mindfulness programs and yeah. Learning like what are the analogies of metaphors that really land for kids and which ones don't, which lessons do they really enjoy and, you know, have fun doing, and then also learn something about mindfulness and doing it. So, yeah, it's been a lot of trial and error that with a lot of groups of kids,
Speaker 5 00:41:29 When talking about emotions with children, you want the reader of certain emotions
Speaker 3 00:41:34 As good and others as bad. And from a mindfulness perspective, what does it mean when you say no motion is inherently good or bad?
Speaker 4 00:41:43 Yeah. Yeah. So emotions, um, I like to teach kids that emotions are information, whatever emotion you are having. It's your body's way of signaling that something, something needs your attention, if you're scared, or if you're angry or sad things that we typically would label as a negative emotion, um, your body's telling you need something if you're sad. I mean, so I love them the movie inside out the Pixar movie, you know, enjoys getting so annoyed with sadness. Cause she's so sad all the time. And then realizes that sadness was actually what prompted the girl to connect with her parents and have this really sweet moment with her parents. Um, so every emotion that we have is a source of information. And so we can look at that emotion like, Oh, what is it? What is it I need right now in this moment? You know, even anger properly channeled can be very productive.
Speaker 4 00:42:45 You know, it's oftentimes it's when we see injustice in the world or people not being treated right. We get really angry, but if we can pause and we can really see what's happening, clearly we can act on that anger in a way that's productive, as opposed to it just being rage. And then our anger ends up causing more hurt in that situation. So, and that, I think too is really empowering. You know, you didn't do anything wrong because you're feeling this way. And we tend to really have this sense. And I noticed kids kind of have this sense. Like if I don't feel good, I did something wrong and it's like, no, it just means you don't feel good in this moment. And then we can see, you know, what, something that might help you feel good or what is it that you need in this moment? Um, so I love mindfulness. The reframe is more, you know, isn't emotion, pleasant or unpleasant, you know, and emotion can be unpleasant, but that doesn't mean it's wrong or bad.
Speaker 3 00:43:45 Yeah. That's really good. I want to circle back to ENS. There's this point you raised with these two kids who are these two high schoolers who are in rock paper, scissors, you talk about boredom. It is it's essential. It's poor from mindfulness training, what children. So how did you, was there any moral you really drawn to these kids eventually come around? Did you help them? Did you help communicate to them? And Boardman is essential and in mindfulness.
Speaker 4 00:44:06 Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. I often do a whole lesson with kids around being mindful of boredom, um, because th they also, you know, boredom, registers for them as unpleasant. And so just like with anything, you know, mindfulness is paying attention with curiosity. So if we notice boredom, well, let's get curious about boredom. What does boredom feel like? What is that? You know, there's probably something else there. Is it tiredness? Is it just disinterest? Are you, um, are you hungry? You know, what, what actually is it, um, my own children, I, I don't know if this was the intended consequence of it, but they usually don't tell me they're bored anymore because they're so sick of their mindfulness teacher, mom, like responding. Well, tell me what your board feels like really fine. Um, so yeah, it's just, it's really exploring what that boredom is and recognizing that sometimes we do need that moment where our mind is just off, you know, it's like your phone, sometimes you just need to restart it.
Speaker 4 00:45:13 Um, so it can work properly again. And it's often in those moments where, um, where our mind is wandering, which technically isn't really a mindful moment. Um, but it's often in those moments of mind wandering where we often have like good insights or like kind of those aha moments. And so those are to be valued too. And I do think there's a real, a real, legitimate worry about kids today, kids today, um, being on devices and screens, and really not ever being bored, because there's always something that can be pulling their attention. And so we explore that too. Like when you're going on your phone, what is it you're looking for on your phone? Do you need a recipe for dinner? Great. Your phone can be helpful. Like, are you sad? And you need a hug your phone, probably isn't the place to go, you know, just checking in, like, what is it I'm really looking for when I'm turning to these other distractions?
Speaker 5 00:46:17 This is a perfectly up to my last question for you. What advice would you give to parents who are trying to get their children interested in, or participating in mindfulness who don't show any interest at all?
Speaker 4 00:46:29 Yeah. Then I, you know, I, I always say to make it an invitation and to make it fun. And that's why I think starting with the parent is so helpful. Um, often when I go into classrooms, you know, I'll tell students, this is something that's been super helpful for me. Like I started, I came to practicing mindfulness as a pretty stressed out adult and learn some things that would have been so helpful to know when I was a teenager, even when I was 10. And so I want to share these with you and I just, I want to invite you to practice these things with me. And, um, and if there's resistance from kids, then try it at another time. Um, I think the, the last thing we want to do is force it because I forced mindfulness really isn't mindfulness. Um, so I think the modeling of it, you know, when kids can see that maybe something that mom or dad would have flipped out about now, they don't flip out about it and there's Oh, interesting.
Speaker 4 00:47:34 Um, and so where they can see that, um, so that's one and the other is to make it fun. And that's what I try to emphasize in the book too, that they should be fun and playful even with the littlest kids. I mean, you don't even technically need to call it mindfulness. It's just ways of exploring what we can pay attention to and what we're noticing. Um, with older kids, I think a really helpful hook or getting buy-in, um, is talking about the brain science and the research behind this. And there is some pretty impressive research on the benefits of mindfulness, especially when it comes to reducing stress and being able to focus better. Um, and so I find those can sometimes be helpful nudges, um, but I would say, you know, make it an offering. And if they're not interested offer it later and just, and not force it
Speaker 0 00:48:27 For everyone out there in radio land. You've been listening to me, talk to Sarah Rodale beach of talk about her new book, mindfulness for children. Sarah. Thanks for much. Thanks so much for being on the show with us. It was a delight. Talk to you about the work.
Speaker 4 00:48:40 Yeah. Thank you so much. It was fun.
Speaker 0 00:48:41 All right. Thank you. And now <inaudible>.
