Welcome Tim Hwang, an occupational therapist in New York City's public school system. Tim’s specialty is teaching mindfulness to young people with “disabilities classifications” - Autism, ADHD, and so on. Some of these teens are into the practice, some are bored by it, and some are highly resistant to it. And that’s what we get into!

Tim, Tasha, and Jeff all have experience teaching meditation to young people, so there’s much insight-sharing and general tomfoolery. Unsurprisingly, Tasha and Jeff revert to their rebellious teen selves when Tim starts guiding them in his GROW practice - an acronym that means Ground, Relax, Open, Warm (the heart).

Good times! This episode is for anyone interested in supporting young people - whether you’re an educator, a parent, or a teen yourself.

We get into:

* emotional regulation

* customizing meditation for neurodiversity & ADHD

* how to use “five-finger breathing” to calm down

* the role of community,

* and how teens can find their own unique pathways to practice.

Tim - thank you, friend! And to all teens: feel free to ignore everything we say and do it your own way 😅 One-finger breathing!

Then join us for The Afterparty video! And let us know in the comments at www.mindbodpod.com how you liked the GROW practice!

K, That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

This episode is a transmission, no doubt about. Our guest wandered out of the Ontario forest and is here to challenge how we think about ourselves and meditation and nature and agriculture and the old crafts and a lot more. Welcome, Steven Martyn, founder of The Sacred Gardener School.

While living alone in the bush - mediating, surviving - Steven came to understand meditation as a form of hunting for the origin of thoughts, looking for the “I within the I.” His relationship to nature changed. More intimate, more connected to nature’s gifts. He found the old ways of agriculture, of grafting, of building – all of them sacred practices. And now he teaches this in his forest mystery school.

For our first guided exercise, we go back to being little kids and receive blessings from our elders, our ancestors. “There’s so much animosity and stress out there these days, we need to take care of our little child,” says Steven.

For the second exercise — near the end of the episode — we practice seeing the natural world in a way that may push us out of our idea of being a small, separate self.

We talk leadership, authority, hierarchy. Steven describes the power of the group at his school and how he helps participants move deeper into their relationship with nature.

Lots of good stuff – maybe life-changing if you let it in!

Then join us for The Afterparty (at www.mindbodpod.com), where your hosts discuss the natural world and plunging nondual fuckery unto infinity. Then we talk about losing connection to the blissful interconnectivity of nature, talking to plants, Jeff’s discarded book ideas, and Kurt Vonnegut.

Let us know in the comments how your bond with nature’s going these days!

K, That’s all for now! Thanks for tuning in & see you next week.

Love always,

🧘🏽‍♀️ Tasha & Jeff 🧘🏼‍♂️

Welcome Eileen Laird, author of Healing Mindset. This episode, we target autoimmune disease and the role that the mind-body connection can play in reducing pain, increasing resilience, and living a more vital life.

There are over a hundred different autoimmune conditions — from rheumatoid arthritis to lupus to Grave’s disease to multiple sclerosis and more — one in ten people have an autoimmune condition worldwide. Stress makes the condition worse… fortunately, this also works in the other direction! In moments of overwhelm, we can learn to send an anti-inflammatory cascade back through the nervous system.

And that’s what we practice today! Eileen guides us in a soothing meditation of self-compassion, both working with pain and befriending the body.

In our discussion afterwards we explore:

* how to work with pain and find safe places in the body

* the relationship between sensitivity and autoimmune conditions

* how to notice early warning signals

* how Eileen supports herself via daily routines

* and much more…

Take the practice for a spin and tell us in the comments how it went!

Eileen, thank you for writing your book and for supporting so many people through your incredible podcast.

LINKS:

* Healing Mindset Book

* The Phoenix Helix Podcast