SYPM 006: Mindful Mama

We're delving a little deeper into the topic of mindfulness with none other than the Mindful Mama, Hunter Clarke-Fields!  We discuss Hunter's journey from being triggered just as often as the rest of us, to using mindfulness techniques to center herself so she can parent more effectively.  She even walks me through an impromptu mini-meditation! You can buy Hunter's book, Raising good humans: A mindful guide to breaking the cycle of reactive parenting and raising kind, confident kids on Amazon or at your local bookstore.   [accordion] [accordion-item title="Click here to read the full transcript"] Jen  00:02 Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast where I critically examine strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research and principles of respectful parenting. In this series of episodes called Sharing Your Parenting Mojo, we turn the tables and hear from listeners. What have they learned from the show that's helped their parenting? Where are they still struggling? And what tools can we find in the research that will help? If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released and get a FREE Guide to 7 Parenting Myths We Can Safely Leave Behind, seven fewer things to worry about, subscribe to the show at yourparentingmojo.com. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us. Hello and welcome to the Your Parenting Mojo podcast and we're here with another sharing your parenting merger episode today with Hunter Clarke-Fields who is the author of the book Raising Good Humans: A Mindful Guide to Breaking the Cycle of Reactive Parenting and Raising Kind, Confident Kids. Welcome, Hunter! It's great to have you here!   Clarke-Fields  01:15 I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me, Jen.   Jen  01:17 So do you want to tell us just a little bit about who you are and what is your work in the world?   Clarke-Fields  01:21 Sure. I'm the Mindful Mama mentor. I do the Mindful Mama podcast and I wrote the book Raising Good Humans. And I basically help parents stay calm so they can have stronger, more connected relationships with their children. And I'm really interested in changing generational patterns, like shifting through the old harmful stuff we don't want to pass on.   Jen  01:47 Yeah, there's some of that, isn't there? Okay so you've always been a mindful parent, right? When your daughter was born, you were immediately mindful and...   Clarke-Fields  01:52 Oh, yes. First, they just shout out of my ears,   Jen  01:57 ...and that's what I thought you're going to say okay, so tell us how that really happened.   Clarke-Fields  02:01 I discovered mindfulness when I was younger, I had already always kind of suffered from extremes of ups and downs. And I would kind of fall into I guess I was like a highly sensitive kid, I'm highly sensitive person. And I would fall into these pits of, you know, just felt like I couldn't handle life every week, or every couple of weeks or so throughout my whole life. And I just thought, this is the way life is, in fact, my father once told me, he was like, rubbing my back after I'd been crying and crying. And he said, this is Hunter. This is just your artistic nature. And this is the way life is going to be for you. And I was like, Wow, thanks. So not helpful. But he was right. And I started to read about mindfulness as a teenager kind of desperate for some relief. And then, about 10 years after that, I finally started doing my own meditation practice. And lo and behold, it is much more effective if you actually do it than if you read about it. And...