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In this episode, I interview Bridget Blythe Briere, the host of the Soulcially Responsible Podcast. Bridget says she spent a long time being an imposter in her own life, including clinging to a career in TV News for nearly 15 years because she thought she had to. In fact, Bridget believes many people hide behind what they THINK they’re supposed to do and who they THINK they’re supposed to be and that’s a big part of why she created the Soulcially Responsible podcast.

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In this episode, I interview Kelly Winkler.  Kelly has extensive training working with children as an elementary school teacher and child life specialist for many years. In 2017, she began to feel a strong pull towards a consistent yoga practice. Her inspiration came from watching her preteen daughter fall in love with yoga and use it as a tool to deal with anxiety. Her goal is now to help as many people as she can find the benefit in the practice of yoga and mindfulness. Kelly got her children’s yoga certification through Kidding Around Yoga and now has gone on to also become a Kidding Around Yoga Trainer. She gives professional development for educators to incorporate mindfulness and yoga into their classroom. She is also the host of the Mindful Moments for Families and Schools Podcast.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Kelly shares how she has found her purpose in teaching yoga and mindfulness to children
• Her daughter’s journey with anxiety and using mindfulness and yoga practices
• The importance of normalizing mental health struggles and becoming an advocate for your mental health needs
• Benefits of yoga for children of all ages 
• How yoga teaches us to recognize our body signals/sensations
• How to introduce yoga to children who might be more resistant
• How yoga helps to build confidence
• Mindfulness practices  for parents and teachers to integrate into daily life
  
  Kelly’s Bio:
   Kelly received a B.S. in Human Development and Family Studies from Penn State University. She has an extensive background working with children. She started her career as a child life specialist in the hospital setting. She then obtained her elementary teacher certification and has taught children ranging in age preschool through fifth grade. She is also a mother of four children. Kelly began her journey with yoga 16 years ago when she was pregnant with her first child. However, it wasn’t until 2017 that she began to find a strong pull toward a consistent yoga practice. Her inspiration came from watching her preteen daughter fall in love with yoga and use it as a tool to deal with anxiety. As a former educator and child life specialist Kelly became inspired to bring yoga to children. Over the years the environment in which she worked with children changed, however, one thing remained constant, her belief that the most important things she could bring a child were self-confidence, strength, and the power to create their own inner peace. This led her to become a certified yoga instructor. Her goal has become to help as many people as she can find the benefit in the practice of yoga and mindfulness. Kelly got her children’s yoga certification through Kidding Around Yoga and now has gone on to also become a Kidding Around Yoga Trainer. She gives professional development for educators to incorporate mindfulness and yoga into their classroom. Kelly believes the benefits of mindfulness are so powerful she has created a podcast for parents and teachers where she shares these tools. She strives to educate and engage children and their families in these practices. She is now offering a parent coaching to help families have a more calm and connected home.

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In this episode, I interview Donna Costa, an occupational therapist with expertise in the areas of mental health and mindfulness interventions. Donna has received extensive certifications in leading various mindfulness curriculums. We discuss tools for finding the right mindfulness course for you. We also dive into the impacts of compassion fatigue and job burnout during these challenging times. In this episode we cover:

• Transcendental meditation
• Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)
  • The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) indicates that MBCT should be the first offering for people with depression, based on the styrong supporting evidence.
• Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
• Mindfulness-based Chronic Pain Management (MBCPM )
• Koru Mindfulness Approach (for college students)
• Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness (TSM)
• What is the difference between job burnout and compassion fatigue?
• How to recognize the signs/symptoms of each
• Ways to increase compassion satisfactionResources:
• Dr. Wilough Britton of Brown University produced a toolbox of materials to help teach and practice meditation safely. https://www.brown.edu/research/labs/britton/meditation-safety-toolbox 
• Professional Quality of Life Scale
• Provider Resilience App
• Wellbeing Index
• The Resilient Practitioner by Thomas M. Skovholt
• Clinician Well-being Collaborative of Medicine

Donna’s Bio

Donna Costa has been an occupational therapist for 47 years with expertise in the practice areas of mental health and academic education. She is a fellow of the American Occupational Therapy Association. Donna has authored three books on fieldwork education – The Essential Guide to Fieldwork Education (2004, 2015) and Clinical Supervision in Occupational Therapy (2007) and has served as an Associate Editor and chapter author for the 6 th Edition of The Occupational Therapy Manager. She has also written numerous articles for OT Practice. Donna came to UNLV in 2017 to develop the Occupational Therapy Program and is currently the Founding Program Director and Associate Professor in Residence. Mindfulness-based interventions are a strong interest of Dr. Costa, with formal training/certification in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Chronic Pain Management, and the Koru Mindfulness Program for college students.

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A 16-minute simple body scan meditation to help recognize and release any signs of tension held in the body. Use this meditation to help you connect with your body, settle the mind, and relax the body. With every breath feel tension and stress melt away.

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In this episode, I interview Lesha Nelson. Lesha and I met years ago at the children’s hospital we both worked at.  We immediately bonded over our shared love for mind-body practices and passion for holistic care. Lesha has numerous certifications and licensures from modalities including occupational therapy, psychosomatics, yoga, craniosacral therapy, integral facilitation, spiral clearing process, womb healing apprenticeship, and family constellations. In this episode I talk with Lesha about her unique background and process for working with people who have experienced trauma.

We discuss…

• How is trauma defined?
• What does a trauma response look like?
• Polyvagal theory
• Flight, fight, freeze, and fawn
• How does trauma shape the brain and impact the nervous system?
• What does it mean to be trauma informed?
• Is mindfulness appropriate for someone who has experienced trauma?
• A mix of Eastern and Western tools to help regulate your nervous system throughout the day
• and more…

Lesha’s Bio:

Having spent over a decade studying trauma, meditation, stress responses in the body, embodiment, psychosomatics, the womb, and birth work, Lesha Nelson is an established specialist in facilitating the release of trauma and conditioning in the mind and body, allowing the body to its natural state of thriving and pure potentiality.

She has built two businesses from the ground up: a busy craniosacral therapy practice addressing care for both moms and newborns as well as an online coaching business where she focuses on trauma, nervous system regulation, embodiment, and womb healing. Her work guides women to release trauma and patterning so they can become more embodied, connected to their inner wisdom, and capable of their own potentiality for creation.

She also teaches coaches and practitioners how to help their own clients’ process trauma and to help them to create lasting changes by addressing the nervous system. Coaches who work with her can confidently recognize and treat trauma with integrity and offer deep healing sessions.

Lesha has numerous certifications and licensures from modalities including occupational therapy, psychosomatics, yoga, craniosacral therapy, integral facilitation, spiral clearing process, womb healing apprenticeship, and family constellations.

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This episode is hands down one of the most vulnerable and raw episodes I have posted to date. I am a huge self-love advocate and often talk about showing ourselves grace and compassion. Although I know and believe these things, truthfully, self-love is something I am constantly working on. I have a noisy inner critic in my head that is constantly telling me that I am unworthy and that I need to be doing more to be “enough.” This is one of the biggest reason’s that I fell in love with mindfulness and my meditation practice in the first place. It was the first time that I felt a glimpse of quiet inside my head. It was also one of the first times that I realized the power of observing my thoughts without attaching to them. 

Recently, as I sat in my meditation practice, the old familiar feelings of unworthiness started to creep back in. I found myself observing my thoughts, noticing their presence, and instead of allowing them to spiral me downward, I became curious about them. I turned on my microphone and began recording my experience. There was no script, no agenda, and no editing (except for some extended pauses I took as I was processing). Turns out my external mic wasn’t actually even on, therefore, the quality of sound is not the best.

And still, here I am raw, imperfect, and lovable fully as I am.

In this episode, I discuss…

• My quest for being enough, or what I refer to in the episode as, my search for “enoughness” (I think I made up my own word there)!
• How this belief has shown up in my life 
• My previous coping mechanisms of overworking, perfectionism, people-pleasing, beating myself up, shutting down, and isolating myself
• Shifting from finding self-love in others to finding it within myself
• My step by step process of how I am choosing to respond:

1. 1. Notice the body sensations that are happening
   2. Watch my thoughts without attaching to them 
   3. Investigate where the thought could be coming from without judgment
   4. Show myself love and compassion 
   5. Get back into my body. This could be through physical exercise, breathing, or just pausing to notice my senses. This helps bring me out of my head (which often is not in the present moment) to my body (which is physically here in the present moment).
   6. Come back to my “why.” What is my purpose/what is the outcome that I want out of this life?

As vulnerable as this episode feels to share I think it needs to be heard. For anyone who has not felt good enough, I wan’t you to know that you are not alone. We are all on this journey of “enoughness” together. I hope that these tools will be helpful for you. I am worthy of love and compassion and so are you. I hope we can create a space where we feel more open talking about our mental health and we can continue to support and uplift one another. 

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