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Cultivating "The Pause"
72 Plays8 months ago
Welcome to The Positively Healthy Mom Podcast! I'm Laura Ollinger, and today, I’m thrilled to welcome Laura Jennings, an expert in mindfulness and well-being, dedicated to helping people live their best lives through the practice of Cultivating "The Pause". Laura is here to share her insights on how incorporating moments of pause into your routine can enhance your overall well-being and bring balance to your life.
In this enlightening episode, Laura explores the transformative power of "The Pause"—not just as a brief break, but as a tool for creating a healthier, more mindful lifestyle. Laura’s journey into mindfulness began with a passion for personal growth and wellness, and she’s made it her mission to help individuals of all ages and backgrounds experience the benefits of intentional pauses in their day.
Laura guides us through practical techniques for cultivating "The Pause," perfect for busy moms looking to integrate mindfulness into their daily routines. She covers everything from simple breathing exercises and mindfulness practices to creating a consistent habit of pausing that fits seamlessly into your schedule. Laura’s advice includes how to start with brief moments of stillness and gradually build a practice that supports your emotional and mental well-being.
For our listeners, Laura also emphasizes that "The Pause" includes making time for yourself, whether it’s for your workout or personal self-care, without interruptions—even from your family. This intentional space becomes sacred, as your loved ones understand that it's your time to recharge, focus, and strengthen your body and mind.
Laura provides valuable tips on how to incorporate "The Pause" into family life, turning it into a calming and grounding activity for everyone. She shares how these mindful moments can help you reduce stress, improve focus, and enhance your overall quality of life.
Laura’s journey is one of dedication and empowerment.
She and her family have embraced "The Pause" as a core component of their lifestyle, finding peace and fulfillment through this practice. Today, Laura offers workshops and guidance, helping others to experience the same benefits and enhance their lives through mindful stillness and reflection.
Key takeaways from this episode include:
The impact of "The Pause" on mental and emotional well-being, and how it supports a balanced lifestyle.
How to integrate mindful pauses into your daily routine and make it a family-friendly activity.
Practical tips for staying consistent with your mindfulness practice, even on busy days, and making it enjoyable.
How "The Pause" can empower you to have uninterrupted time for your workout, allowing you to prioritize your fitness and well-being without guilt.
Building a sustainable wellness routine through "The Pause" and creating lasting habits for long-term mental and physical health.
Join us for this insightful conversation and discover how Laura’s expertise and passion for mindfulness can inspire and guide you toward a more balanced and fulfilling life.
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Transcript
Introduction to Positively Healthy Mom Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey moms, it's Laura Olinger.
00:00:02
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Welcome to the Positively Healthy Mom podcast.
00:00:05
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Because there's no manual for the hardest job in the world.
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello, everyone.
00:00:11
Speaker
I'm so excited to introduce you to a new friend of mine named Laura Jennings, who is a breathwork facilitator.
00:00:18
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And so I recently met her through a mutual friend.
00:00:21
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And this guy said, you've got to meet her.
00:00:23
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She's amazing.
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She'd be so good on your podcast.
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So of course, I'm calling her and texting her.
00:00:28
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And this has been kind of months in the making.
00:00:30
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And we finally
Guest Introduction: Laura Jennings
00:00:31
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had an awesome phone conversation that we got to meet in person.
00:00:35
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And I just fell in love with the other awesome Laura because there's so many awesome Lauras in this world.
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So Laura Jennings and I have gotten to know each other.
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And so we'll kind of get a little bit deeper into that connection in just a minute.
00:00:47
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But to kind of spoil that surprise, I ended up taking her breathwork class, which was phenomenal, life changing.
00:00:54
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And so Laura, just tell us a little bit about, you know, you have this kind of day job, you work at a hospital, but by night you do these other things.
00:01:01
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So tell us a little bit about what you do.
00:01:04
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So my, you know, career job, right?
00:01:09
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The job that I do during the day is I am a medical speech language pathologist.
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And so it is my absolute heart and soul to serve humans who have traumatic brain injury.
00:01:21
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I love it.
00:01:22
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And just in my own personal work, I have developed a passion, which is my by night, kind of my passion project is breath work.
00:01:33
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Yeah.
00:01:33
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So I just, I began to fall in love with the modality of breath because it's available to all of us.
00:01:42
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And it's something that we can consciously create.
00:01:45
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take intention around and shift our whole system, our whole regulatory system.
00:01:52
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And I just think that's a really powerful tool.
00:01:53
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So I love it.
00:01:54
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Yes, yes.
00:01:55
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And so, and you are a mom of three and you had a bonus child.
00:01:59
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So tell us a little
The Role of Breathwork in Motherhood
00:02:00
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bit about the ages of your kiddos.
00:02:02
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Okay.
00:02:02
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So I have a...
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Our oldest son just graduated high school and is at the University of Arkansas.
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He's 19.
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We have a daughter, 17, who's a senior this year who is about to graduate as well.
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So we have a lot of shifts happening in the dynamics of our home.
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And then eighth grade's done.
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So and then I have a I have a bonus adult kid.
00:02:23
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That's awesome.
00:02:24
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So you're right here in the thick of it with all of us because my audience is moms of teens and tweens mostly, but we welcome all moms of all ages and either grand grandmoms as well grandmothers.
00:02:34
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So, you know, how does breath help you as a mom and what today can we teach the moms about breath?
00:02:44
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So I would say for me, the biggest thing that awareness, breath work has given me is this idea of being able to cultivate a pause, being able to have a conscious way to just create a minute for myself, like just to create some space.
00:03:10
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And I found for me as a mom, now, granted, I'm kind of, I've got older kids, but I remember when the days were long and the years were short, right?
00:03:21
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Where you're like, oh my God, I can't, it's just 7 p.m.
00:03:25
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where we're going to put them in the bath and get a routine, right?
00:03:28
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I didn't have a lot of space for myself.
00:03:33
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And so I find breathwork to be a really powerful modality to allow us as humans and specifically moms to be able to create a moment of embodiment with ourselves.
00:03:50
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And I find in our culture and especially just with all the busyness and all the schedules and all the calendar, I mean, you know, being a mom,
00:03:59
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is there's so much going on all the time.
00:04:03
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I find that when I can take a moment and just consciously breathe and expand, and even if that three breaths, literally three breaths, changes my whole way of being.
00:04:18
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And
Breathwork's Transformative Effects
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I want that for moms.
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And I feel like we live in a culture that is very mind focused and
00:04:26
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We spend a lot of time in our mind and thinking and organizing and planning.
00:04:32
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And I find that the breath takes me immediately into the experience of my body.
00:04:38
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I find a lot of wisdom there, which makes me a more whole person.
00:04:44
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person, which makes me a better mom.
00:04:47
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Yes.
00:04:48
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And I think what you said about cultivating the pause with breath, just really painted a picture for me because it's, it is a practice, right?
00:04:58
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And it is a discipline because we can easily be crazy busy, take our three second pause.
00:05:06
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And that's great.
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And I find that it does take some discipline, some conscious effort, some even planning.
00:05:16
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So even to the extent of me planning intentionally to go to your breathwork class, right?
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Like that was an hour class.
00:05:23
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I had to plan it.
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It was in my calendar.
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And man, I was a different person.
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I mean, you saw me from the moment I came in there, which was, you know, scurrying in there to get there on time to the moment I left, right?
00:05:36
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I was like, my, my world has shifted right now.
00:05:40
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And it even, it was awesome because it even led into the next day.
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Like I still felt the effects the next day.
00:05:47
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And then I found, found myself even trying to like recapture that.
00:05:52
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And the next day I was like, Oh my gosh, like last night was amazing.
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And I want to keep giving my body that benefit.
00:05:58
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And so I kept just kind of bringing myself back there.
00:06:01
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So when we talk about cultivating the pause, um,
00:06:04
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It's really, I think, the best thing you could possibly do for yourself, for your family, for your kids, for almost everything.
00:06:15
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Oh, my goodness.
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I mean, as moms, right?
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I mean, we are all almost ubiquitously over schedule.
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We have so many things going on at all time.
00:06:27
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And so to me, the greatest gift I can give myself is space.
00:06:32
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just space, be able to be with myself and to even check in.
00:06:40
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And I also find, I
Techniques and Benefits of Breathwork
00:06:41
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don't, I don't know if you feel this too, Laura, as a, I find I can be very connected with others and I can be very connected with other people and my kids and I can know how they're feeling, but it takes me an intention to figure out how I'm doing.
00:06:58
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Yeah.
00:06:58
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Yeah.
00:06:58
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Totally.
00:06:59
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So to create time, whether it's a, I mean, a breathwork class is, I mean, even that, I mean, taking an hour to breathe is truly life-changing, right?
00:07:08
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As experienced, it is every time for me.
00:07:11
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But even, because I want to make it accessible for people too, right?
00:07:16
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Like if you can't go to an hour class, like what can you do?
00:07:19
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Being able to take, I say the breath is one of my favorite things too, because it's a system that works without us
00:07:27
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having conscious awareness, and it's a system that we can take conscious control over.
00:07:32
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It's really freaking powerful in our lives because when I breathe differently, I change the state of my being and of my mind.
00:07:42
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And I just think it's such a powerful tool because it's free and available if we choose.
00:07:51
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Yes.
00:07:52
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So what I think would be important is because I know in the past when I've done, you know, my deep breathing and sometimes when I'm just so amped up, I find that I can't feel my lungs all the way.
00:08:05
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Like there's something that feels stuck right here and I can't get that final expansion that I'm looking for.
00:08:11
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And so how I feel like that might be one of the biggest obstacles of why moms might say, oh,
00:08:16
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oh, yeah, I've tried deep breathing.
00:08:17
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It didn't really work.
00:08:18
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Or it's, you know, slows me down a little bit, but I didn't get the full benefit.
00:08:24
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So I'm just curious, because you are an expert in this matter.
00:08:28
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What can you do to get that full maximum long expansion?
00:08:34
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So for me, the cue that works the best for me, in terms of being able to really expand into my breath, is
00:08:43
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belly, ribs, chest.
00:08:47
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Yoga, honestly, a yoga instructor gave me that cue.
00:08:53
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But in the world of breath work, you can go into all the science and stuff of it.
00:08:57
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But that to me is the simplest, most accessible way to think about it is how can I take a breath deep into my belly and then my ribs and then my chest?
00:09:08
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Like I'm creating a full body
00:09:12
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like breath and expansion.
00:09:14
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And it does change how you experience the breath if we're willing to like really take a minute and slowly expand fully into it.
00:09:26
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Mm-hmm.
00:09:27
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Yeah.
00:09:29
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I like that because that's where then the focus becomes because I know when I've tried and I do do lots of meditation and things like that.
00:09:36
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But where I find the challenge is and I think a lot of people would say the same thing is they're kind of like fighting their thoughts like they know they're supposed to kind of slow down and observe and let the thoughts pass without judgment.
00:09:49
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But there's still a lot of thoughts because the busy the day still has to go on.
00:09:52
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Right.
00:09:53
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And so the thing I love about this is you're not fighting your brain, your body is
00:09:59
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doing the work.
00:10:00
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Correct.
00:10:01
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And I would say my biggest offering in a space in the containers that I create for breath work is how can we create some space to drop into our body and just let this go for just a little bit.
00:10:16
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Like it does such a good job.
00:10:19
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It keeps us really safe.
00:10:21
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Like the mind is always busy protecting.
00:10:24
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But like the heart and the body have so much to say to us.
00:10:30
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And to me, the breath is what allows me to drop into the experience like right now.
00:10:40
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I had another teacher say this, good body, wise body.
00:10:46
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I love you.
00:10:47
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I'm listening.
00:10:48
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Like that's one of my favorite mantras.
00:10:52
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I love it.
00:10:52
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That's what I say to myself when I breathe now, because I believe that our bodies have a lot to share with us if we're just willing to take
00:11:02
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to cultivate that pause and listen.
00:11:04
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There's like a lot of wisdom there for us.
00:11:07
Speaker
And that's what you kind of touched on, that embodiment.
00:11:10
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So let's talk a little bit more about that.
00:11:13
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Say a mom has never heard of that.
00:11:14
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She doesn't know what we're talking about.
00:11:16
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And we're teaching today.
00:11:17
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And that's what we're doing.
00:11:18
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And this is part of the experience.
00:11:20
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And so we say there's this wisdom.
00:11:22
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And she's breathing.
00:11:23
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And she's really starting to...
00:11:26
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you know, feel that for the first time?
00:11:28
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And what would you say when she's like, Oh, I feel tightness.
00:11:33
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I feel tension.
00:11:34
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Like, like, what does she do with that information?
00:11:36
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It's an amazing question.
00:11:39
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And in, in my experience, the practice is, can I be with whatever rises up?
00:11:50
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If it's an emotion or
00:11:52
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if it's a feeling of like a crunchiness in my body, like just that there is this information that comes through and with breath, I can just bring my awareness again, my consciousness to it.
00:12:05
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And what I found is there's just a lot of power in that things in our body or in our feelings.
00:12:14
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They just want to be seen is what I find willing to create some
Emotional Support and Resilience Through Breathwork
00:12:21
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space.
00:12:22
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Then we can be with the thing.
00:12:24
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I love the term, like the reminder that we're human beings, not human doings.
00:12:31
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Yeah.
00:12:31
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Right.
00:12:32
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And I tend to be really comfortable in a lot of doing.
00:12:37
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And it's a little more challenging for me, especially as a mom to just be with.
00:12:42
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I find as if I can breathe and be with what's rising up in my own system or
00:12:50
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I'm a lot more equipped to be able to do that with my kids.
00:12:54
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Yeah.
00:12:55
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To be with them in whatever's rising up in their experience, right?
00:13:01
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Instead of being like, I can't even deal with my own shit.
00:13:06
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Yeah.
00:13:08
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possibly hold like just even a space for my kids to be where they're at.
00:13:14
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If I can't be with my own body.
00:13:18
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And I feel like in the past when I've, you know, kind of done this practice and said, I'm going to be with this.
00:13:26
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Um,
00:13:28
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somehow, actually, the negative parts end up dissipating it kind of like they lose their power, because you're not resisting them anymore.
00:13:35
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It's like once you're kind of allowing them, then kind of just float away, like you're kind of hoping they would.
00:13:41
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No, for real, because I have, I, I had another teacher say to me, resistance is the path to pain.
00:13:50
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Just like what you said, most of
00:13:52
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things that in my world that are painful are because I'm resisting them.
00:13:58
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Not it's when I'm able to breathe into something, right?
00:14:03
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Whether it's something that's coming up in my body or something that I'm feeling in my heart, if I can just breathe, like you said, there's not resistance.
00:14:14
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And so it kind of just passes and transmutes or, you know, it just, it, it,
00:14:22
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I find for me, it's just a much gentler way to allow myself to really be connected with what is rising up within me and then extend that outward into my community, especially my family.
00:14:38
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And it even I think, you know, say say something really terrible happening and you're really, really upset and you're doing your breath work and you're saying, OK, I can be with this really difficult, painful emotion right now that doesn't it's not taking away from the validity of the thing that happened at all.
00:14:57
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It's almost just allowing you to tolerate that difficult emotion and then can help you move to the next kind of phase or process instead of just staying stuck in that first initial reaction.
00:15:09
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And I think you said it great the other night.
00:15:11
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You and I both have heard the quote, you know, emotions are energy in motion.
00:15:16
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And so the thing, it's like these things are always moving, but when they get stuck is when we are really uncomfortable.
00:15:23
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Yes.
00:15:24
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Yes, absolutely.
00:15:26
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And
00:15:27
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I also really, the breath allows me a way to bring awareness, acknowledgement and acceptance to whatever the thing is, whether it's a body sensation or a feeling.
00:15:43
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And like you said, it's an honoring of it.
00:15:46
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It's not a get rid of it.
00:15:48
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It's like, oh, this is part of my experience.
00:15:52
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By the way, I get to be human.
00:15:55
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So I'm moms.
00:15:57
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I mean, I have to remind myself of that all the time.
00:16:00
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I'm a mom and I get to.
00:16:02
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be a human too.
00:16:04
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I get to have a whole range of human emotions like everybody else.
00:16:10
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Yes.
00:16:11
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I get to honor the humanity of my experience.
00:16:15
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And this is a really beautiful, simple way to be like, oh, I'm noticing, like you said, I've got some tightness here.
00:16:25
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Can I just breathe into it?
00:16:27
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What might that be trying to tell me?
00:16:29
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How can I be aware and acknowledge?
00:16:31
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Like I feel grief here.
00:16:33
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I feel it might be.
00:16:37
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And yeah, it's just helped me be such a healthier human.
00:16:41
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Yes.
00:16:42
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And I want to touch on more the part about how if you can be with your difficult emotions, then it trains you to be an even bigger kind of vessel for your kids' emotions.
00:16:54
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So tell us like a little bit like about what that means.
00:16:56
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I, it's like, I get the concept because for me, I teach this all the time to parents about how to validate and how to empathize and all that stuff.
00:17:03
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But from your standpoint, like, what does that mean?
00:17:08
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So,
00:17:09
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In my own journey with myself, and of course, pain is what has led me to find tools, right?
00:17:19
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I mean, that is how it works.
00:17:21
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And so in learning different tools to be able to honor, be with, honestly create acceptance in my own self for
00:17:37
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the range of my human experience, all the way I feel, whether I feel mad, angry, sad, frustrated, like I'm not enough, whatever, whatever the thing is on the day.
00:17:50
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It's allowing all of that to be part of my experience.
00:17:55
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If I can allow, what I used to do is shut everything down, right?
00:17:59
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Like Laura Jennings is a person who's only positive.
00:18:02
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I only want the good emotions.
00:18:03
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Okay.
00:18:06
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And then positivity.
00:18:07
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Yeah.
00:18:08
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Yeah.
00:18:08
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It's not real.
00:18:10
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Not to mention that when you become a mom, hello, you're like,
00:18:15
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this is the hardest job on the face of the planet.
00:18:17
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I have a lot of feelings
Impact of Breathwork on Interpersonal Skills
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about this.
00:18:18
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And I wish I had these tools when I was a young mom.
00:18:21
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Oh my God, my younger, I wish.
00:18:25
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And, you know, here I am.
00:18:27
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But for me, when I can hold myself in all those emotions, right, that aren't just the good ones, right, allow the full range of my human experience, then I'm able to do that with my kids when they're,
00:18:45
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losing their mind about something or they're anxious or they're worried or they're pointed or they feel all the perfectionism things.
00:18:53
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Like I've been with those things in my own being and then I can offer them that.
00:19:00
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It's a lot.
00:19:01
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I have like the skill from being with myself.
00:19:03
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So.
00:19:04
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Yeah, I think that's so great because so many parents I hear from get so triggered by their teenagers, big emotions.
00:19:13
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And I think that's the thing.
00:19:15
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It's like once we are able to handle our own, then we're better able to handle theirs.
00:19:21
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And really, it's giving us that insulation or like immunization kind of resistance or not resistance, but like the ability to handle that.
00:19:31
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Right.
00:19:32
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Yes.
00:19:33
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Yeah.
00:19:34
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And I have found that the more space that I create for myself in that, right, the more the more I can breathe into my own experience, the more spaciousness I have in like in just my practice with myself, I find I am far less triggered by everyone else because look, we're all just being human.
00:19:57
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we're just human again, right?
00:20:01
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Like we're all doing this.
00:20:03
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So I feel that like, Oh yeah.
00:20:08
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And I feel that it makes me honestly, not just a better mom, but a better partner.
00:20:13
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I'm able to meet my husband in more, um, a better community member.
00:20:17
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I'm able to hold my people when they have stuff coming up.
00:20:20
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It's just really been transformative in that way for me.
00:20:24
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:20:25
Speaker
Well, you just all said, you said it so well.
00:20:27
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That's why I'm so excited to have you come on and just articulate this all to the moms.
00:20:32
Speaker
So how can people
Closing and Contact Information
00:20:33
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find you?
00:20:33
Speaker
I know you have an Instagram page.
00:20:35
Speaker
Where, where, what is your handle on Instagram?
00:20:37
Speaker
It's soul, S O L dot H U G hug.
00:20:42
Speaker
So soul hug.
00:20:43
Speaker
Soul hug.
00:20:44
Speaker
I love it.
00:20:44
Speaker
I love it.
00:20:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:20:45
Speaker
Well, I am definitely going to be following you from now on and thank you so much for spending the time with us.
00:20:51
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:20:52
Speaker
Thanks for having me.
00:20:54
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Positively Healthy Mom podcast because there's no manual for the hardest job in the world.
00:21:01
Speaker
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