SUMMARY KEYWORDS
realise, children, emotions, absolutely, adults, teach, yoga, people, parrot, feel, regulate, body, life, breathe, learn, meditation, kids, sit, yoga teacher, practice
SPEAKERS
Martin O'Toole, Jeanne Welsh, Julia Malcolmson
Martin O'Toole 00:00
Is this episode two?
Julia Malcolmson 00:30
This is episode two,
Martin O'Toole 00:31
episode two of season two of the how to die happy podcast.
Julia Malcolmson 00:35
Welcome.
Martin O'Toole 00:36
Howdy. Hey, how's it going? Willkommen Bienvenue Hello, Julia.
Julia Malcolmson 00:42
Hello, Martin.
Martin O'Toole 00:46
Well, you know, I was just gonna ask you the same thing but I I liked the way you flip the script. How am I doing? I'm I'm good. I'm, I'm working with acceptance. Okay. Because, as you know, the perfectionist in me has very high expectations for the production values of this podcast. And you folks at home, if you are watching won't be able to see but I went out and spent some money on a super cool lighting rig.
Julia Malcolmson 01:25
Yeah, it was kind of hard to watch.
Martin O'Toole 01:27
What, it was hard to watch me buy in it.
Julia Malcolmson 01:29
Yeah, right. I just as you said he's just spent a lot of money on a lot of equipment. Yeah, we like to live a fairly minimalist lifestyle.
Martin O'Toole 01:36
Yeah. But at the same time, I do believe that if jobs are worth doing, it's worth doing properly. And you should go hard or go home as the ute say. So bought all the gear, never made a YouTube video or a video of anything in my whole life. I've avoided making Instagram stories with me in them for the lion's share of my adult life also, and suddenly, we are producing a video podcast. This dear viewers slash listeners will not be without the odd hiccup. And you unfortunately going to experience a little bit of a hiccup in this particular episode. So So in this episode, we spoke to a wonderful woman called GD Welsh, and we'll hear a bit more about that in a moment. But meanwhile, I managed to not ensure that the SD card was cleared on the second camera, which means halfway through May like a quarter of the way through a third of the way through the camera on Jules and I, unfortunately ceases to operate, which means that you will have Genie speaking a lot for the latter lump of the show. Now, that's perhaps not a bad thing,
Julia Malcolmson 03:03
because she's beautiful, and with the most amazing smile. So you get to see that for the rest of the show
Martin O'Toole 03:09
and immensely animated and so passionate about what she does. And you know, who wants to look at my tired old face. However, I might try to have some fun with the edit. So, so I don't know what's going to happen yet. There will be video, there will be imagery of Jules and I but it might just it might not synchronise because it might just be as going for a bit of fun. Just bear with us. You know, this is the new thing. Yeah. And you know we're doing we're doing what we can. So thank you for your patience. And of course, if you don't want to watch the video, just do what you always do. Listen to the video. Listen to the audio.
Julia Malcolmson 03:58
Do you need some sleep?
Martin O'Toole 04:00
I think I do. Okay, so toe talk to audience about the wonder that is Jeanne Welsh.
Julia Malcolmson 04:11
Jeanne, she is a yoga teacher yoga and mindfulness teacher for kids and teens. And you'll see and you'll hear how passionate she is about what she does. And this is something that for her is truly a calling. You know, she didn't go out looking to be a teacher. It really found her. And she not only teaches the children, but she also teaches adults so I actually was one of her students a couple of years ago, learning to be a children's yoga teacher. So she's really bringing these incredible skills. She's bringing them out to us now in a time where we really need them. And she's passing them on both to the children and the adults so that we can really start raising a generation of mindful aware self regulating the beings,
Martin O'Toole 05:01
the word, the word regulation came out a lot, in a good way, self regulation, I have to say this was a really wonderful discussion. It opened up a Pandora's Box, no doubt, and, and I suppose some some tricky conversations to be had around our responsibility as adults, for the mindfulness of our children and for the upbringing of our children, not just our children, children around us, the children who don't have any children, but the children who who witness as being humans. And I think one of the things I was really grateful that we got stuck into was was talking about how, on the one hand, it's an incredible thing to teach children how to how to be mindful and do yoga. And that will be a game changer in generational terms. However, if we adults are not also doing that work to ensure that we are setting the right example, you know, leading by example, and also interacting with these children in a whole more conscious and mindful way, then it might not work. So, yeah, it's beautiful.
Julia Malcolmson 06:19
Yeah, I feel like we could have this podcast could have gone on for hours. So I definitely think we'll have her back at some point to speak with us again, because, as you said, it's a Pandora's boxes. And every little thing connects the dots to the next subject, and then they all interlink. We just find ourselves in this web of, of beautiful things to talk about. And yeah, it was fun.
Martin O'Toole 06:44
It was a fundamentally, what Jean is doing is, is the grassroots work, you know, it's dealing with this tackling the systemic root cause issues in societal terms by by trying to show kids there's a whole other way to interact as a whole other way to communicate externally, but also, of course, communicate internally and to really tune into their body, mind and soul. So it was a fun animated discussion. You as you said, we could have gone three hours. Sadly, it would have been most of that would have been on one camera. But you know, thanks for being so forgiving. And if you incidentally do struggle with the concept of forgiveness, we did do a chinwag on that in season one so feel free to listen now we shall we get on with the episode
Julia Malcolmson 07:36
Yeah, let's have a listen to Jeanne
Martin O'Toole 07:38
Jeanne Welsh.
07:39
07:39
07:39
07:41
Peace and peaceful fields full of wheat on a breeze it's sweet in some place. We grow in community with friends and family and love the sea. Love to see when I'm doing really good
Martin O'Toole 08:12
so I thought parrot ownership in Bali was a rarity. We just met a guy in Ahmed he was a parrot. And no one told you have a parrot.
Jeanne Welsh 08:21
I do have a parrot.
Martin O'Toole 08:22
Yes. I'm intrigued to hear about your parrot Jeanne. My parrot my parrott named Joey who was the most unfriendly bird I had ever met so unfriendly that we thought it was possessed and we got a high priest to come to our home to bless the parrot and after a couple of weeks months maybe we were like no this parrot not changing
Jeanne Welsh 08:59
issues wouldn't let you near it and we thought it would be exciting thing to give it's something to expand its consciousness and literally a day after total new bird. New bird hanging around. Can't leave me alone follows me wherever I go. Yeah, it's incredible.
Martin O'Toole 09:32
So the parrot with micro dosing,
Jeanne Welsh 09:34
we fixed the parrot micro dosing.
Martin O'Toole 09:40
Where we lived in Ahmed, this chap had this parrot and he would the parent would ride on the front of his scooter everywhere. This guy was a little bit eccentric wasn't he think he was Dutch or German. And he would bring it to this cafe where we'd hang out but I could never quite concentrate on him. During my whatever I was drinking turmeric latte, because this parrot just constantly be given it, Billy, you know, Billy, big bollocks. And I wondered if your parent did the same thing
Jeanne Welsh 10:13
it does in the mornings when it feels it needs some attention. And that's what it does it squawks No not yet. Until you get up from your comfortable bed, walk out, feed it, give it some love. And then it settles. It's really needy. I never in my life would I have you ever imagined that? I would feel responsible for a parrot. It's like a child
Martin O'Toole 10:45
is easier than having a child it sounds like it might be.
Jeanne Welsh 10:48
It's, I can't it climbs up everywhere. It when I work. It's there. It's nibbling on my computer. It's nothing on pencils, you take it, you put it back in the guide and it walks back. It does the same thing. It's a constant. It's a constant look after and reprimanding. Don't do that.
Martin O'Toole 11:06
Going forward understand
Jeanne Welsh 11:09
it but it's really intelligent creatures.
Julia Malcolmson 11:11
And you've done a good thing you've expanded it's consciousness
Jeanne Welsh 11:15
hilarious. Yeah, it's crazy. How the how the change has.
Martin O'Toole 11:23
I mean, yeah, the changes it's real It really is real. And people are coming over to the house like oh, this is Joey's friendly.
Jeanne Welsh 11:36
Yeah.
Martin O'Toole 11:40
He's at 4th density now. On his way to find this incredible you know, I tell this story. It's funny. It's amazing. Have you read the the Richard Beck book? Jonathan Livingston Seagull? No. But it's, it's quite profound book. And it's about a seagull called Jonathan Livingston, which isn't all that profound in terms of titles, but it's about this Seagull who realises he's in this flock that just does the same thing day in day out. And they do the same aerial routines day in day out and, and he feels like he could fly higher. And he feels like he could do more aerobatics. And it feels like he's got more to say, than the rest of the this huge flock of seagulls. So the story is all about Jonathan Livingston's awakening, perhaps you ought to lend it to Joey.
Jeanne Welsh 12:34
When you said the word awakening, that's exactly what he's going through. Wow. Don't just have a bird.
Martin O'Toole 12:44
By the way, how do I get out of this?
Jeanne Welsh 12:49
How do I transcend?
Martin O'Toole 12:50
So you said? Because you said it was it might be easier or more difficult than then coping with children. But then that's what you do for a living, right? That's why they do yes. So for the wonderful folks at home, give us a quick spin around what you what a typical day for Jeanne looks like.
Jeanne Welsh 13:10
Currently, your typical day looks like waking up attending to the parish. Of course, of course. And just getting on with, you know, working on the online course that I've created, working on. Letting people, getting people involved in what I do, and making them understand that yoga goes far more reaches further more than you know, just the name itself, and how the benefits of yoga can reach children that we have in our lives, and especially now where we never before have experienced so much stress and anxiety amongst ourselves as adults. But can you imagine what it's doing to our children? You know, and just making it known that there is no alternative to what's happening in the West, you know, alternative to this medication or these labels. And that there is this holistic practice out there that can help children self regulate can help children with stress and anxiety, and all the things that the challenges that children are faced with now that we as adults, how growing up didn't have to well, what's happening in the world right now. We didn't certainly have that type of stress. So yeah, just chatting to a few people just reaching out out. Then working physically hands on children with children, one on ones. Helping them breathe, teaching them how to freeze, moving their bodies, creating that sense of awareness within themselves understanding that, you know, they are responsible for their own emotions are responsible for being a better human being, I guess. And then then
Martin O'Toole 15:30
I take a chill , change some small, small minds today.
Jeanne Welsh 15:39
Yeah, that's the goal wake up every morning, and how can I be of service? How can I be of service?
Martin O'Toole 15:46
And you also teach adults? Yes to teach children yoga and mindfulness. And that's how I met you. Because you taught me to be a children's yoga teacher.
Jeanne Welsh 15:56
Yes, I run yoga and mindfulness for children and teens teacher trainings, where we get to teach adults these amazing skills and how we can apply these skills as we learn when you know as how we learn them as adults, how we can apply them develop maps that are developmentally appropriate for children.
Martin O'Toole 16:17
And it's really fascinating as it was works for us as well, because then we start working with realising that we need to do some of that work. Absolutely play like children.
Jeanne Welsh 16:26
Absolutely. Just getting, you know, I think we just coming from such a broken society where we have where we've lost that connection with our inner child. And that's, you know, when we can connect with that we have that remembering of hey, yeah, you know,
Martin O'Toole 16:46
but our society today, isn't it, I suppose. And we are treated almost like we're in a factory. I think from childhood onwards, we're put through an education system that's been specifically designed to to keep us subservient to do as we told to respect authority. No point is there any mindfulness been taught there? We're not. Now I'm I say we're not listen, I'm 46. I'm thinking about when I was a kid. So all due respect to what's happening in the in the school system now. Hopefully, it's improved. Because he used to throw wooden chalkboard. Oh, there's it my head when I was when I was at school, and it was okay. You couldn't see. Her Yeah, that was it. It was it was very much be seen. Not her. But but then there was no one teaching us into relation skills, either the inter relational skills with one another, we just, you just had to kind of work it out. And you had to fight it out a lot of the time. And certainly, from my perspective, as a as a child from, shall we say, a messy home background, my mom was an alcoholic. And so we had a real, I'd say, quite a colourful upbringing, and we were bringing our trauma to school every day. And someone was going to get that trauma. And my brother and I, James, and I were, you know, two years difference. We're at the same school. And nobody was teaching us how to cope with any of this. Nobody was teaching us how to be mindful. You know, we only learned to breathe when we were actually when we were doing martial arts, which we would then take out on the people who got on the wrong side of us as kids. So so what you're doing and of course, when I when I met you, we met. We met you independently, didn't we? When I heard a little bit about what you did. And then of course, when jule's started working with you, I was just blown away because it's, it's what we never had as children is this opportunity. So I was interested. How did you find it?
Jeanne Welsh 18:52
It found me. Yeah, it found me I was a little bit about my story. I come from a home where my parents got divorced. I think at the age of three, moved around a lot. My mom got remarried, our family had to split up into different homes, because for financial reasons. Then through that, we ended up being apart for a really long time. So that survival of having a home we didn't grow up with. And then I remember I made the decision around by myself at the age I think it was 10 or 11 that I would I didn't want to go back home to my mom I wanted to stay with my father I didn't know my father of course you think you know him because he's your father, but I didn't know him and I ended up I decided to stay sorry. I was living in Joburg, Johannesburg, South Africa, Cape Town, and my dad was living at Joburg, South Africa, my dad was living in Cape Town. So I made the decision to move to Cape Town with him. And, you know, very colourful, in a lot of alcohol, alcoholism, drinking views, a lot of that going on was kind of left to my own devices. And then he passed away at a very young age. And my, at the time, the family couldn't afford to look after me. So I was re homed to the government doing all these things that a 14 year old would not typically do. And it got into it spiralled into a mess. It really did spiral into a big, big mess. And by the age of 20, I managed to finish school, some. I can't tell you how I did. But I did I finished school. And I remember, Then the yoga studio opened up in Cape Town and this they started teaching that one of the classes was hated vinyasa class. So in my mind, I was like, Ah, this is a really quick way for me to lose weight. And I'm going to do a heated vinyasa, I didn't know what vinyasa was, of course, we do heated yoga class lose weight, and everything is going to be fine. And so I did. I started off doing these once a week or twice a week, vinyasa, heated vinyasa classes, and things started to change around me and things that I didn't understand. I had no concept of at that time, the metaphysics, you know, all of those things that we know now that we didn't, we weren't educated upon them. And most of it was coming into my body, I was finding, I was finding the time to spend more time with myself alone. Because before I couldn't do that I couldn't spend time alone. And something was changing. And I was like, Oh, I wonder what that could be. And I got really inquisitive about it. And six months into my yoga practice. I wasn't, I was doing yoga to be cool. You know. And so the 200 hour, teacher training came up and the slogan was, deepen your practice. Now. I did not for one moment or second want to become a yoga teacher. I was more intrigued by what deepen your practice meant. And so I signed up for this. And I did a 200 hour yoga teacher training six months into my very own yoga practice. I couldn't even do a chaturanga but here I am doing I had no discipline. But here I am doing a 200 hour. And I I finished it after a month and I didn't get on my mat for six months. Wow, I did yoga, I hated it. It's
Julia Malcolmson 24:09
very common Training is you haven't when I finished mine, they even just said just don't go to a yoga class for a couple of months
Martin O'Toole 24:17
is a 200 hour that was especially 100. But a long isn't a long training session to in a month.
Jeanne Welsh 24:23
Yeah, literally like 7am to 7pm of just full on yoga. Well, I suppose that makes sense. And, you know, of course, we know now what we didn't know then that I certainly didn't know that. You know, when we when we sign ourselves up for these types of practices. We also sign ourselves up for healing. Yeah. And that was definitely not in my peripheral at all. And I was working in a dead end job, horrible job and I just I that's when I started questioning things. Why am I have Why am I waking up at six in the morning driving an hour to a job I hate? Why am I working till 5pm? In the afternoon? Why does it take me an hour to drive home get home at six Hopper 6pm and still need to make dinner and then go to bed. I don't have my life. I don't the hamster wheel Yeah. And my, I got to understand that there was something inside of me that was longing for more. I didn't know what that was at the time. But something that you my soul started speaking to me. Really did. And I and that's when I started to understand I have a soul. And how can I get out of this physical body and move more to what my soul is asking me to do. So going back to going back to the yoga teacher training, I hated yoga after it. I left my job, I left my dead end job, I think it was off the five years of working in the same job. And I took my pension money and they went with some friends. And we went off to travel Europe a little bit. And I remember being in Ibiza. And I remember spending all my money, you know, doing a bit of things. And, and just waking up one morning after like a weekend. And what, what is going on here. So I had no money went back to South Africa. And I started volunteering for a nonprofit organisation in South Africa who works with prison works in Paul's more prison in South Africa. And just work hand doing the seva doing that work, you've got to really feel called to do the same, you know, do work were you giving back? And then it was like, oh my god, I have no money. What am I gonna do? Anyway, the one day I was sent to teach kids yoga, teach kids yoga in the heart of a township called Google letter. So if anyone's familiar with South Africa, they would probably know that these are poverty stricken rural areas where there's no infrastructure, and just it's a, it's a really terrible place to be growing up. I mean, we I want to say terrible because we as Westerners, you know, I'm privileged. But for you know, anyway, and I remember being so scared, and they said, Oh, go teach kids yoga. And I was like, What is this is like, 12 years ago, I'm like, What? What do you mean? What does that even mean? And I drove in. And I remember parking outside this, the shipping container, this is where they had the, the gatherings. And I remember just climbing out of my car, and I hadn't even gotten out of my car. And I had about, at that it was that instant, where I was like, Ah, this is something something's going on on the inside. And healing practice and healing journey. With yoga, it made sense that this was changing me this was healing me. Again, why didn't I know this? Why didn't I learn any of this when I was a child? Because it makes sense as an adult to use all of these tools. Why aren't we teaching it to children? Because I know if I had learned those tools at a younger age, I wouldn't have gone through half of the emotional turmoil or not have made, you know, the mistakes that I am grateful for today, of course, but it could have saved me a whole lot of heartache, right,
Martin O'Toole 29:39
you could have shaved a few corners.
Jeanne Welsh 29:41
Oh, absolutely.
Martin O'Toole 29:42
I often have that conversation with myself because I have a racing life as a hard drinker and a drug user for 20 years and excuse me, and even as a kid, you know, as he I've given you an indication of a modicum of what it was like so it was the school Because I think when we realise our fragility, and we realise that we're always on the healing journey, but then we, we go through the self awareness through this self responsibility phase and then into, I'm not saying there is a set journey process for this, but certainly, personally speaking, that was mine, then we realised we can be in service to others. Now, I mean, You two did it a lot earlier than that may have been you. You've been, you've been teaching yoga yoga for a long time as well. But, but that that whole space of being in service to others, then is, is and we talked about this with Alexander Menduluk, didn't we another episode is a whole new sense of purpose, isn't it? And it's a whole new sense of being.
Julia Malcolmson 33:01
And also, we need to remember that these lessons come to us when we're ready for them.
Jeanne Welsh 33:06
Absolutely.
Julia Malcolmson 33:06
And these stages of awakening, they're not going to come when we're not ready. And they might start to, like, you know, nibble at you and let you power up, you know, they get in there. But until you're really ready to hear the messages. Yeah. It's not the time and had you know, had you, you know, obviously, you'd be in a very different space right now, had you had these tools as a child, but equally, you might not be now sharing these incredible gifts, with the younger generation and also with us adults, and helping us learn to not teach them to the younger generation. So it always works out how it's meant it wasn't and it works out for the best. But yeah, sometimes we sit there and think, I wish I'd I wish I'd known about this. But
Martin O'Toole 33:47
yeah, but everything's perfect all the time. Even when it doesn't feel perfect. It's perfect. But of course, I can only say that with hindsight, because it was there was plenty of time as a child and a young adult when I felt miserable as sin about my existence. So what you're doing is just amazing. So I'm interested for our listeners, who may be some of which, you know what yoga is, of course, but maybe you don't know what yoga is in terms of a deeper practice in terms of you know, what you how you were alluding earlier on? It's not just stretching and you know, making shapes in the air. There is a whole healing process. But so how, how could you tell these people what it is you do for these children?
Jeanne Welsh 34:38
It's so it's so big, how do you conceptualise it into you and I? It's a few short sentences. As we know, I teach yoga and mindfulness to kids and teens, but it's more than that. When we use the tools of yoga and mindfulness, we teach children and adults self regulation. Can we teach them self regulation and of course, when we are able to regulate ourselves better, we are able to respond to situations better. You know we we kind of we we increase that space between action and reaction. We can regulate our emotions, we can show up and respond appropriately you can avoid a lot of a lot of uncomfortability is that if that's the word
Martin O'Toole 35:31
comfortableness, uncomfortable
Jeanne Welsh 35:35
thanks.
Martin O'Toole 35:38
Whether or not I made that word fell down that rabbit hole, I'm a professional discomfort, discomfort, that's the word.
Jeanne Welsh 35:57
In my defence English isn't my first language offering, I have no defence. I use that all the time. Anyway, yeah. And also, you know, to yoga isn't as a science and the Eastern philosophies about it, how we can use breathing, to breath control, to regulate and modulate our nervous system, how we can use our own physical resource, our breath and our body, and our bodies to anchor us into the present moment we have, you know, we get I, for me personally, growing up, I thought the mind and the body were separated, didn't we all? Exactly. And so using these tools we can, while using our own resource, the breath and the body, were able to control mind, you know, this time travelling mind, and how children are how we learned so early on in life, that we have these thoughts. And we think that that's it, you know, we can't, we can't understand that these thoughts aren't real, that we make them up ourselves. And, you know, we can learn to use our body to ground us and anchor us in the present moment. And that's the body doesn't go anywhere, right. So when we can bring use the body. And we can use the breath, we can create self awareness, we can self regulate, we can teach children or adults who are starting their journey, how to become better adults, better human beings, through these super simple practices of embodiment.
Martin O'Toole 37:40
You put that so Well, I think that the fundamental point is that they are super simple, and is your body and it's free. so I wonder how do you how do you it's difficult different different for 44 year old guy which was 43 year old guy or whatever, at the time when I started How do you explain that to a child?
Jeanne Welsh 39:30
Well, ah So going back to Julia you know teaching adults so teach adults these tools so many children can be so that you become a co-regulator for these children children so you do it and they do it. But how do you teach breathing activities to kids? Just like you know, we go in our nervous systems are strong, they're well developed and we go in we say It's an we're in a class and you breathe for three minutes, of course, our mind takes over and we start fidgeting. And for kids, it's very much the same, right? So just like we go to school, and then the ABC, it's the same for children, right? I would not. Ask your child to sit and breathe belly breaths for 10 minutes, absolutely not. Not gonna work? Absolutely. We have to meet them, where they're at, where they're at developmentally. So I get asked this question a lot, where I speak to parents, and I'm like, Hey, your child to try some yoga mindfulness, and they're like, Oh, my child can't sit still for not even a minute. Your child needs yoga. We introduce things that they're interested in, you know, if we're just introducing it to a four year old, and they love their little teddy bears, or the have a little imaginary friend, and we can suggest, you know, why don't you lay down on your belly and put your your teddy friend on your belly? And then what's your, as you breathe in? What's your teddy friend, your note rise, and as you breathe out, what should fall and they really, you know, fascinated by that, again, we're not telling them to breathe, because we would lose them. So we're saying, Why didn't you put it on your belly and watch that. And then we start training the brain training that mechanism training the diaphragm to get used to that. Get used to it.
Julia Malcolmson 41:51
And it's fun. long as you make it fun and engaging, and never too long. I've seen love it. I remember doing one, I think with you on the training, and it was for slightly older kids, but we had bamboo straws. And on the yoga mats. Good tip for kids with a yoga mat, get chalk, chalk chalk, and you can draw on the yoga mat as the kids love it. And we drew like racetracks on the mats. And then you give them a bamboo straw and a little pom pom ball. And they have to blow the pom pom ball across the racetrack to get to the end. And obviously, through doing that, they don't know that they're learning to breathe, they don't know that they're practising their exhale. But through that, that's what they're doing.
Jeanne Welsh 42:30
Yeah, they don't don't know that we're teaching them that breath control, right. And, of course, it's you know, when we're in that heightened state of arousal, they go to mechanist. And the mechanism needs to be extended exhale, elicits the parasympathetic response right? Now telling that to watch. You know, when we're teaching them things like, blow the pedals off your flower that breathe in, breathe out. Like more controlled, exhale, there have more control over that. And we're just eliciting all of the good stuff in this beautiful.
Martin O'Toole 43:11
So linking it with storytelling seems to be quite the key,
Julia Malcolmson 43:15
like creating adventures. I mean, I used to teach a really close friend's child yoga online. And yeah, it took a while to engage him because it's through a screen. But eventually, he loved it. And Martin always used to laugh, because I'm in the living room, or wherever I was teaching at the time. And I'm like, you know, being a different animal. And we're going through, and we'd always have these amazing adventures for like, you know, it was 20 minutes, 30 minutes, wherever he could manage that, for me. I'm jumping around the living room, like a frog, or the next minute, we're running around like dogs, and it's great, but you bring I was bringing in the stories and the adventures.
Martin O'Toole 43:47
Absolutely. And through all of that you're creating awareness. You know, it's like, reach out and look at your lion paws. You know, then they get to look at their lion paws in inverted commas. And like, how many lion fingers do you have? You're not I'm just making it. Yeah. And then they would have 12345 We're creating that self awareness. Like, Hey, buddy, I have a buddy. You know, I'm here in my body. Yeah. So yeah, it's so simple. I mean,
Jeanne Welsh 44:19
it's so fun. But yeah, there's a there's a there's a big, of course, we need to understand where a child is at developmentally so that we can I mean, we're not going to teach your 15 year old to jump around like a frog. So where that balance is,
Julia Malcolmson 44:36
yeah, I remember you doing an exercise with us where it was to help us learn how long we could concentrate for, and I might quote this one wrong, but I think you we had to count and focus on the counting until we all we thought about something else. So it'd be really reprocessed. And as soon as we thought about something else that was like our limit our number, and you start realising that for us concentration levels are really short. And then you're getting a child and you're putting a child in a classroom and saying, sit down, be quiet. Listen to me for an hour, maybe two hours. And then you start thinking I can't, I can't sit and listen to my own counting for I can't even where I got to do but it wasn't very far. And then you think, Okay, well, if that's me, surely for a child, I've got to have that quarter that and find that that nice work a there. That's an that's an okay time for them to sit and concentrate.
Martin O'Toole 45:27
Yeah, but you make a really valid point. I, we, as adults, in 2022 apparently have an incredibly short attention span. I read, I read a study somewhere that said, we now have an attention span as short as a golf. But I've also been, I've also seen that rubbished by, by the leading voices in the field. But the point, I think, I think it's I think it's still spot on in as much as thanks to these devices we have in our pockets and in our hands. 24/7 Some of us at least, we do have an incredibly short attention span. So we're time poor anyway, aren't we but I think the idea of then adding the fact that we just cannot actually concentrate or not concentrate, or be calm for a moment is part part of the problem. I remember when Andy Polycom launched headspace the meditation app. And I remember I did I think it was maybe my first or second foray into meditation. And I realised how incredibly transformational that was, for me stuck in the rat race, plugged. plugged on every which way you can think into the matrix. But, but realising that I needed to, again to just talk me into breathing for even a minute, you know, like, just get yourself out of fight or flight, you know, realise, look, just sent your body what are you doing? Well, I'm tensed up. Why it sounds dumb, and always tend to stop. Why always tend to steal? It's really good question. What are you doing to your body when you're always tend to steal your your lizard lizard brains work? The lizard brains work in the monkeys doing its thing? And of course, your
Jeanne Welsh 47:17
body's just pumping out adrenaline.
Martin O'Toole 47:21
Yeah, absolutely. Which of course, we can become addicted and actually addicts do, right. Do ride the wave?
Jeanne Welsh 47:30
Yeah. And, you know, going back to what Julia said about the having these children going to school can't focus stressed out because they can't focus or stress up from the environmental factors. So they're in that lizard brain and survival brain. And then they're pumping up all this adrenaline. And then they're told to sit still. And the only way the body can process adrenaline is through movement. So here we are. We're sitting with something we're sitting with a big problem here. Yeah. A big, big, big problem. Yeah. Yes. How are children supposed to learn how to focus because that's something we misunderstand to focus is a skill, something we're born with, we need to train our brains to learn how to focus. So um, yeah, just big problem.
Julia Malcolmson 48:14
I think. I mean, I've been I did a bit of research earlier, and I'm, I'm learning that ADHD is on the rise. But a lot of it's misdiagnosed. So we've got children coming into schools, and they're not exercising anymore. I mean, I when I was at school, we did a lot of sport. You know, it was a big, big part of our day. But a lot of schools now don't have playing field is not part of the daily routine. So kids are coming in, probably having been on their phones already. Then they've got to sit in a classroom all day, and then they might be on their phones again. So nowhere in that are they moving? So then a lot of children are being diagnosed with ADHD because from everyone from the adults perspective, they can't sit still they can't concentrate, they can't focus and then sadly, that might go further and they get They're not getting that outdoor time. They're not actually playing. I'm not just that, you know, they're only, you know, when we talk about,
Jeanne Welsh 50:09
you know, senses, there's so visually stimulated, you know, we're not encompassing. The others, you know, the the auditory the, they probably eat food while they are on a screen too, you know? And that's a big problem as well.
Martin O'Toole 50:29
Yeah. And I suppose all the while they're focusing on the senses and the senses and you're, you're likely closing yourself off to your extrasensory perception, which we all have. You alluded earlier on. As you began doing the Yoga, you realise, oh, hang on a minute. What's going on here? I'm suddenly I'm in the world of metaphysics and the realisation of your soul. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's all it's just, it just, we're in a
Jeanne Welsh 50:57
we're in a, we're in a crisis. A crisis where we have these children. You know, like they've been zombified. You know, there have going back to the ADHD Julia. If you look at the physiological effects of stress, what happens when we're stressed out, you know, our body prepares to run away from a sabre toothed Tiger, right back in the caveman days. So we start sweating, we start, you know, rocking back and forth, and we start I must get to try all of these things. And if you look at the if we take it to a classroom environment, and we look at the the ADHD symptoms, it's very similar. It's very similar to the stress response. And then what's happening because we're living in such a fast paced world. And I'm not saying this is true, but we have we're very quick to give child a pill. Yeah, this your child, there's something wrong, your child needs to go to a therapist needs to go to this therapist, this therapist, this therapists, child's going to about four different therapists in one week, child gets labelled with all of these things, a child embodies the label. And then what's happening there, we have a child. So normally say I have ADHD are using it as an excuse to be better, do better become better. And it's just, you know, where are we heading with all of these things, not just not just the ADHD, not just with the labels, but what about not being able to explore the senses? What about having sensory processing difficulties? All of these things, I see it more and more every year, children don't even need to be diagnosed with sensory sensory processing disorder, children are having sensory processing issues.
Martin O'Toole 52:40
Just a standard,
Jeanne Welsh 52:41
just it's just a standard thing.
Martin O'Toole 52:43
It's becoming a societal norm.
Jeanne Welsh 52:44
Absolutely.
Martin O'Toole 52:45
It's already there. Right?
Jeanne Welsh 52:47
Absolutely. And it's just something there needs to be a fundamental change, something needs to be done. Something really needs to be done. And I feel for me as a, as an adult, who, you know, has all of these self esteem issues, or you know, how I've improved my life and my being using these tools? I? I don't see why children does not prescribe to children. Why isn't this prescribed to children? Yeah.
Julia Malcolmson 53:22
Well, and in some places it is. And yeah, there's, there's some, you know, you hear every now and then, like, they've started school, in some school programmes, and England started to introduce a bit of yoga and stuff. And I know, also utopians, we have to be really careful when we use the word yoga, because some people then think it's got a connotation of religious religion, which it doesn't. And then you have to reword how you put it, how you're working with children, but there, every now and then there is, I hear story of it. And I think it gives me a little bit of hope, you know, and I know that you have a lot of exercises that are perfect for classrooms on the you know, it's just little little interludes during the school day, that just take the kids out from a minute from what they're trying to focus on, and give them a moment of movement or a moment of calm.
Jeanne Welsh 54:07
Yeah, just so they can, you know, self regulate, bring them back into their body. And if you think about it, you know, going more, taking it out of your well. Her more developmental approach to it. Physical development is the first call and development if that hasn't developed properly, we're going to see all these problems arise later on in life, you know, emotional, social, all of them. And when we're when we use movement as a tool to integrate the brain, people, it's not just yoga, it's not just the pose, we actually, you know, when when Eagle Pose, we're crossing the left and the right hemispheres of the brain we have you know, all of these amazing things that movement can offer us that we can offer children and again, yet so simple.
Martin O'Toole 54:56
Yeah, well, you put you pose an interesting problem. I am blown away by the fact that the you can even do yoga and meditation with kids. Now that's that's a huge step, I think. And I and I certainly think it's, it's, well, it's this is a systemic root cause tackle, isn't it, we've got all of these broken mines among the adult population. And when I say broken mines, I don't just mean people with serious mental illness or with addictions, or with narcissistic personality disorders, we've all got our, we're all carrying trauma, every adult on the planet is carrying some trauma. And I think that's, that's a piece on its own, where the grownups in the room actually need to accept that they are a little bit broken, that they've that they're carrying some wounds that they never healed. And of course, we know, well, you know, I had to go to work nine to five and I to provide for the family and yada, yada, and nobody ever taught me that. So I'm just going to keep my head down. And also, I really liked this big house, and I like having two cars, and I like that watch. And I like that motorbike and you know, and I liked my lifestyle. So all of these things are set up to distract us from the real work. But at the same time, I think if if we can have that conversation about trauma with adults, and we were talking about this the other day, trauma doesn't necessarily need to mean, living in an abusive household, you might have been dropped as a child, I don't know, there's
Julia Malcolmson 56:28
different levels of trauma that little Ts and T's Yeah,
Martin O'Toole 56:32
right. So. So I think part of the, the fixing of the problem has to be to have a conversation with adults to say, look, you know, you need to hear, fix yourself and heal yourself before you are in the most optimal position to be bringing up mini us. Absolutely. This is something we discount all the time, you know, people are just having babies left, right and centre. And don't get me wrong. The gift of life is a beautiful, beautiful thing. And, and you know, that's that's what that's part of the whole process of being a school. But at the same time, so many people are having children never having repaired themselves and never haven't even looked at themselves. And then what does that do for the child? Well, I can tell you firsthand, you know, we
Jeanne Welsh 57:20
like mother like daughter
Julia Malcolmson 57:22
carrying generational trauma. So it's not even just like their parents and their parents and goes back generations
Jeanne Welsh 57:29
actually having discussion about this. There's also I'm doing this big chakra healing course at the minute and I really started two days ago. So I'm on that base chakra. And we were chatting about generational trauma. And, you know, it goes back to that my granddad was in the wool. You know, that's so far, but yet so close.
Martin O'Toole 57:49
Yeah, and you you're carrying some of that? Absolutely. It's that combination of nature and nurture, of course, have been debates over over the years. Is it nature versus nurture? No, it's It's all of it is epigenetics.
Jeanne Welsh 58:01
And that's been proven. Yeah. And
Martin O'Toole 58:04
the science of epigenetics is exploding now, isn't it to to expose that? So I think that's one of the things we need to do. But I think also it's, it's tackling the education system, isn't it? You know, I know I, I've had some wonderful friends who are teachers, my mom was a teacher for 35 years, and she was a bloody good one, despite her drinking problem. However, having witnessed firsthand what a bad teacher looks like, and I'm talking about people who, well, a they're too young to be teaching too inexperienced when it comes to just life but be they're not actually there to to, they're not actually there to fulfil this, this passion of teaching children are there because they get whatever it is.
Julia Malcolmson 58:51
Yeah. This is your calling, isn't it to work with children?
Jeanne Welsh 58:56
Absolutely,
Martin O'Toole 58:57
completely. So I mean, you know, we've got an hour and 45 minutes, really trying to fix the world here. But, but I think it's important to have these conversations on the show, because as we know, it's all connected, we are all connected, everything is connected. And of course, the obvious thing for a lot of people to say is well, how the hell am I you know, what can I do? What difference can I make? What difference can my child make, you know, this is the system it is what it is just get on with it, you know, let's just let the guy in the matrix. I'd rather just eat my steak and drink my red wine. And not actually waking up looks a bit painful to me. To me, it is it's really painful. It's super hard work. But we have to do these things incrementally. And and I think the wonderful thing about what you're doing is you're tackling it at the base of the beginning, grassroots. So how do you do Actually, I'll stop talking and asking questions. You know, we have a segment on the show every week, it's called Be my guest where we invite listeners to record questions for the guests. Now we have two questions from one listener for you. So let's just do that.
1:00:18
Martin O'Toole 1:00:23
It's really good. He's really good. Yeah. Got a lovely voice. Question one.
Jane - guest question 1:00:50
Hi, there. It's Jane from the UK. And I'd like to know, is it harder or easier to teach mindfulness and meditation to a child rather than an adult? And what's the difference?
Jeanne Welsh 1:01:02
I think it's hard to teach it to an adult. I figured what's the difference? I personally, my own personal experience it, it was harder to teach myself to meditate, then a child. The reason being is because I've grown up and been and so stimulated through all of the external environments, that I had almost had to retrain myself that focus muscle that I spoke about earlier, you know, how do I? How do I strengthen that? How do I strengthen that, you know, just like we go to gym, pick up a weight, same thing. And that take took a lot of discipline. Yeah. So back to children, children are still developing, we have the opportunity to develop this part of them, and so that they have this as an intrinsic part of them to grow up.
Martin O'Toole 1:02:02
So it is baked into their daily practice, just the same as eating and drinking, and you know, going outside 6% of the kids.
Julia Malcolmson 1:02:11
When you make it fun, and it's not a chore, it's not something I have to do, it becomes just part of your daily routine. And then you realise when you're not doing it, things don't feel the same.
Jeanne Welsh 1:02:21
And, you know, a lot of a lot of us get confused, you know, meditation is sitting still, in a seated position, not blinking an eye, that's, you know, no, you there's walking meditation, there's so many things when movement is involved. And for kids, we use that, you know, and when did we include the senses, you know, take a walk around, what name one thing that you can taste two things that you can see three things that you can smell that technique, and we just include these things where children have to become aware of what question comes next, they have to be in tune to my voice. And they have to focus and be conscious and concentrate so that they understand what comes next. And these are, these are short little tricks, and easy little tricks that we can include to help improve that focus muscle, right?
Martin O'Toole 1:03:14
Yeah. Yeah, it's a good question that, Thanks, Jane, I would add, we as adults, don't just have have to go through the process of learning. First, we have to go through this incredibly painful process. Yes, and when I discovered the concept of unlearning, which was only, you know, a couple of years ago, right, I was blown away, because then I started to research neuroplasticity, and neuroscience and how we have essentially, these synaptic pathways that are almost metaphorically carved into our brain. So when an event happens to us, let's say it happened, the first time it happened was when I was age three. And then it happens again, h four, h five. And we train ourselves so just constantly, or that the brain does its job, right, it's in protection mode, in that regard, it just sends us down the same path. And this is where the confusion can call can come across because because the brain sometimes doesn't know the difference between a physical and emotional injury.
Jeanne Welsh 1:04:23
Or a brain doesn't know the difference between an actual real life event and memory
Julia Malcolmson 1:04:27
imagination as well. Like it's all one thing
Jeanne Welsh 1:04:29
we you know, we can and I mean this in a very nice way we can manipulate, you know, manipulate children in a good way to kind of, you know, for the brain to not pick up on you know, is this actually a memory or Yes, but
Martin O'Toole 1:04:46
he's but he's training brain training. And I say this about because people still often ask me about meditation. You know, I've got some still got some friends left in the UK and around the world who are still very much more or, you know, doing the matrix thing. And all due respect to that, you know, that's the, that's their vibe. And I'm, and I'm sure they're having a great time. But people often say to me, how do you? How do you even sit for 10 minutes? I can't meditate. That is not I haven't got time. So people say I've got time, but some people say I just can't do it. I have tried and I can't do it. And it can't. And the answer is it comes with practice.
Julia Malcolmson 1:05:24
People forget that it is a practice. It's like you wouldn't just you didn't just, you have to learn to walk, you have to learn to speak, you have to learn a new language, if you want to speak any language, meditation is the same. And meditation actually takes years and years of practice. Yeah, it does. But it's the practice. That is what you need. And that's, it doesn't matter that you might not actually be meditating, you're working towards that point. And all of that is beneficial, it becomes
Jeanne Welsh 1:05:50
easier when you're when you become self embodied. Yeah, like right now in my life, I, you know, I'm just like, I need to meditate. I have all these obstacles up my way. And I can't wait to just, you know, go for a walk or sit down on my mat. Ya know, it's a for me and my life is like, it's, yeah, and
Martin O'Toole 1:06:13
because, you know, well, I think we've, I can speak for all three of us, we all appreciate the immediate benefits of doing
Julia Malcolmson 1:06:20
my teacher of mine once said to me, we were having a little catch up about my practice. And he said, you know, how's your meditation practice going? You know, your daily because for me, it's important to have a daily regular practice. And I just said, Oh, it's fine. It's something I have to do. And he said, No, no, think about it, as you're taking yourself on a date, you know, and I use it in a lot of my practice. Now, it's like, I get ready for it, I get changed, I might even put some different jewellery on, and I take myself on this dates, and spend time with myself, like you would if you were gonna go with somebody else.
Jeanne Welsh 1:06:53
Absolutely. That's a really nice way to see.
Martin O'Toole 1:06:57
Again, training is so just as just as great many adults will regularly go to the gym, maybe they're lifting weights, maybe they're on the peloton, whatever that that vibe is, that is training. So the mind is exactly the same thing. So unlearning versus learning. And of course, the little sponges are the children, I would presume, if you've got the right methodologies, which you quite clearly do. And all of these, the techniques to train them. And it's, it's comparatively simple, when you're looking at someone in their 40s, who, through no fault of their own, has had to construct a way to be. And speaking from personal experience, having had the the upbringing I had it, I had to, I didn't have necessarily the right advice from other people to do that. And I didn't, and I wasn't See, I wasn't getting the healthy examples from the adults around me. So of course, what happens, then? Well, you then you're doing it yourself. And I used to, when I kept very close to suicide, I had a loaded shotgun in my mouth. One time, my Beagle actually stopped me from killing myself. That's a whole other is literally the podcast. We've already recorded that one. But I realised, through through seeing myself doing that, getting to that point to that lowest point of depression, that the last person I should be talking to about anything to do with healthy living, was me. Absolutely, of course, when you're all up in your head. Yeah. And of course, depression, as we know, means often you don't feel that you can, where you actually might not even have the energy, or the ability to articulate your feelings to anyone else. So So, yeah, unlearn unconscious, we didn't hear James second question.
Jane - guest question 1:08:53
I'd also be interested about your thoughts on labelling emotions. Because I think sometimes it can be quite difficult for children to understand the emotion that they're feeling. But I also think it's hard for adults to actually label the emotion that they're feeling. So sometimes you may feel that you're angry, but you're not you're frustrated, or you're jealous, or you're lots of other things. So I was wondering how you communicate that difference in emotion to children?
Martin O'Toole 1:09:19
Great question. Really good.
Jeanne Welsh 1:09:21
Very good question. Well, we first need to teach them about emotion. I remember growing up and, you know, being programmed into me that we have good emotions and we have bad emotions and being told not to cry or not to express those bad emotions, right. So that's not the case. Not the case. Now, for me. Um, you know, it's getting, of course, at Joe Dispenza. I awesome. Absolutely. I might not say this correctly, but I'm going to try thoughts on are a I can't remember his exact words. Anyway. Emotions are in the body thoughts are in the mind, we have a thought it triggers the emotion, we have emotional triggers a thought this ongoing cycle. So, you know, really, we have to bring awareness to the body again, right? How do we teach children about emotion well in the body. And the great activity I like to use for that is the body scan. You know, sometimes, you know, children will come and they're like, I'm feeling angry, or why do you feel that angry? What does anger feel like for you? You know, and most of the time, you know, I feel anger in my fists. And when they can identify where they're feeling these emotions they can make Okay, oh, I'm feeling uncomfortable in my face. Am I angry? What's going on? When I have butterflies in my stomach and that, you know, love children complain that their bellies are sore? You know, what does it feel like for you is that anxiety? This is what anxiety feels like, Okay, you feeling that now in your body in your stomach, or wherever you feel it, then we can use a breath to kind of balance that out. And yeah, that's not to say that, you know, use the breath to balance that we bring more of the body in tune, you know, bring it more into a collaborative, collaborative state, you know, where the nervous system can just calibrate like, alright, we'll move the body I'm feeling like this. Now, when I move the body I can feel like this Now, what does that emotion feel like for you now? And then
Martin O'Toole 1:11:31
un block that energy would explain that to the child. But obviously, of course,
Jeanne Welsh 1:11:35
of course, it's just, you know, when you're dealing with obviously, if you look at the emotions will you're not going to teach a five year old about all of the, the, the bigger emotions is basic one, sadness, anger, happiness. You can't remember what the other ones are at the minute bit, you know, start with the simple ones, where do you feel that in the body bring awareness to the body makes me feel like this when they feel like this, okay, when they get used to that, you know, they can learn how to regulate where they're feeling, and be able to be like, Okay, I'm feeling anger, it makes me upset, I'm gonna cry. Oh, that's great. Cry. It's totally normal.
Julia Malcolmson 1:12:13
That's the thing isn't it? Being, being allowing yourself to realise that it's okay to feel and it's okay to have these emotions. So I think a lot of us grew up. It wasn't, as you said, bad and good. So you're not allowed to feel angry. You're not allowed to feel sad, don't cry at this point. And, you know, we kind of get to this point, I remember doing this a lot of people are like, how are you? I'm fine. Absolutely becomes this constant monotonous. I'm fine. How are you? I'm fine. And I remember you said that, you know, when we you're teaching us about the children, you said, when they come into your classroom, be honest with them? Absolutely. You don't feel good. Tell them. You know what, kids? I'm a little bit sad today. And I maybe feel it here in my body. Yeah. And allow them to realise it's okay to talk about it. Empathy. Yeah. Yeah.
Martin O'Toole 1:12:57
That's a great example. Because you're right. How are you Martin suicidal.
Jeanne Welsh 1:13:04
expectation, you know, that we need to be happy, and we need to just, you know, it's almost as if I was gonna say something. Just to play off what you said, anyway. Yeah, it's okay. All feelings are valid. Yeah, all feelings are valid completely.
Julia Malcolmson 1:13:23
But a lot of adults don't understand their emotions. And obviously, the feeling, I'm not gonna get into the number, the feeling versus the emotion. I mean, they're two different parts of this. But you know, as adults we have, we often only really understand the basic emotions. So we'll say that we're one emotion, but when we really study it and realise deep down, that's not that's not what we're feeling. That's not what it is.
Jeanne Welsh 1:13:45
If you look at I think it's that iceberg metaphor, metaphor, where, if I remember correctly, at the top is like anger. But then at the bottom, you have this big iceberg with every other emotion and yeah,
Martin O'Toole 1:13:57
the backstory.
Jeanne Welsh 1:13:58
Absolutely.
Julia Malcolmson 1:14:00
And learning to release that anger. Feeling is such a big one, isn't it? Like we hold it in the body? And obviously, all those emotions when they're stored in the body, they become other things later on, but it's just letting that out. And knowing that that's fine.
Jeanne Welsh 1:14:14
Absolutely.
Martin O'Toole 1:14:15
Yeah. We had an incredible chap called Lee Holden on the show in season one, and Lee is an international Qigong master, and he said something that's always stuck with me talks about emotion, energy in motion. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, just breaking it down in such a simple way so that we can think oh, okay, right. And of course, through movement, he's a Qigong master, and an Energy Master through movement. We can dispel it and get rid of it and it's not and it is the interesting thing and a point to make to the listeners. That doesn't mean put it in a box and bury it back in your subconscious unconscious, because you have to we have to Learn to have a healthier life, we have to learn to sit with that emotion, sit in it, sometimes sit in the searing pain of it, depending on what this emotion is, but breathe through that. And through that process realise its impermanence realise that it is about to change, it's going to move, it's going to, they're going to move around your body, it's going to change in severity, it's going to dial down or might even dial up who knows, but, but this was the key learning for me. And it was actually learning about grieving, because obviously, grief is energy, emotion is emotion. It was once I could see that, that emotion change, I realised that it wasn't always going to be the same. And then knowing that and understanding is impermanence. Can I add a whole new reframing is okay, cool, right? So it might it's not going to be forever that is it? No context, helicopter view, you know, like taking that sort of macro view. changes everything. So, yeah, as as she said in the question, and as you've said, as well, Jules, adults, a lot of adults don't have a clue about emotions. And because these are the same people who can't regulate their emotions, who also have 12345 Little People in the house, or around them. So it's an unfortunate vicious cycle, isn't it?
Julia Malcolmson 1:16:29
Regulators? Yeah, until they can regulate themselves with help, we're doing it for them. And when they're babies, they cannot regulate Exactly. We're going from the carer
Jeanne Welsh 1:16:39
we're, you know, telling them to behave one way and then we behave the same way. We're telling them not to behave. Yeah, we're teaching them. You know, we're teaching them morals and values that aren't really aligned.
Martin O'Toole 1:16:53
Then we're also teaching them dishonest. hypocrisy, right.
Julia Malcolmson 1:16:58
Just reminds me when we were talking a minute ago about the energy in motion, one of my favourite techniques that you have is the shakin, freeze. Oh, I love that. And I do it with a lot of the kids and they love it, you know, and it works. I find it works with the majority of emotion. So shaken freeze is where you get the child to stand up, I suppose they could do it sitting and they just move, they move their body, they shake everything, and then they freeze and you do that with them a few times. And then you can kind of after the end of it, get them to maybe breathe awesome how they're feeling and it like it's such a big change it is
Martin O'Toole 1:17:28
do it should we do? Stand up? Okay,
Julia Malcolmson 1:17:36
you teach you tell us to do.
Jeanne Welsh 1:17:38
Right kids? Good morning. Right, so what we're gonna do is I'm going to, I'm going to say, shake, I'm going to continue saying shake, and then when I say free, and then you're gonna shake your body, you're gonna shake your body as much as you can. And when I say freeze, you're going to freeze and you're going to tighten up your whole body. So you're going to as if you're showing me your muscles, you're gonna screens, and then we're gonna shake it out. And we'll squeeze again. Well freeze. Are you ready?
Martin O'Toole 1:18:08
One point to make mind the microphone. So,
Jeanne Welsh 1:18:15
here we go. And shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake and praise. And shake, shake and raise. All right, good. Facial expressions amazing. It's really good.
Julia Malcolmson 1:18:38
Even sitting here like I, I feel like that kind of tingle of the energy like coming out. The
Martin O'Toole 1:18:45
actually, the activity reminds you to take a deep breath as well, if you think about
Jeanne Welsh 1:18:49
it. Absolutely. Just, you know, to go back on the
Martin O'Toole 1:19:00
what we talked about hypocrisy.
Jeanne Welsh 1:19:03
Just to go back quickly on what you said, you know, when we start to ignore our emotions, we start to bury them. And again, like energy is motion. What is disease? It's this ease of the energy in motion. Yeah. And, again, which form and all these things come and we feel these uncomfortable emotions as we become more detached from our bodies. And that's where yoga becomes, like a lifeline. You know, yoga teaches us to get back into our body.
Martin O'Toole 1:19:33
I as a child who used to self harm, and I've talked about this on another podcast, but I didn't realise it was self harming. I didn't even know if I didn't even know what self harming was. But I used to remember the tape cassettes. Anybody old enough to see the latest demographic statistics on the podcast and I know some of our audience know what And when it takes, I was supposed to take the tape out of the case and used to line up these cases, you know, and this, this was a bizarre ritual. And obviously, I was super Pentode time. And then I would just smash 10 bells out of these, these cassette cases until my until there were, my fingers were bleeding until I had pieces of plastic sticking out of my knuckles. And it was only much later on that I realised, because of course, then I felt better. I felt better. Of course, after hurting myself, it was only much later that I realised that there was this significant similarity between the emotional energy and the physical energy of pain. And it was a way of switching one off and replacing it with another. So I suppose it stands to reason that teaching children movement at an early age and meditation at early age might just do a good job of putting pay to self harm do we think
Jeanne Welsh 1:20:59
not just self harm? Well, I mean, addictions, you know, because we just use that to cover up the pain. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the acceptance.
Julia Malcolmson 1:21:11
So if you're allowed to accept your anger and accept your feelings, you're given these tools to regulate them, then yes, that's so many. So many people out there might not be doing what you were doing.
Martin O'Toole 1:21:22
Yeah, it's a it's an incredible thing. And the more you unpack it, the more you realise how, well what a wonderful path you've chosen for yourself.
Jeanne Welsh 1:21:32
Again, he chose me. There's no, I, there's not one part of me that woke up and, you know, set up, that's what I'm gonna do it, it. You know, it found me in every day, it still finds me, still finds me and it's just an incredible for me incredible paths to be on, you know, without thinking about it without, you know, planning it. It's it's just there. It's my dharma. And I'm super grateful that I found it at the age that I did mean, sometimes it takes a whole lifetime for somebody to find this. i I'm very fortunate now.
Martin O'Toole 1:22:11
Okay, so what advice could you would you give to parents who are listening to this and thinking, you guys are onto something? And I've got one or two regrets over there. And they're causing some some problems on the emotion front. So so what what advice could you give them to introduce their children to a mindfulness practice?
Jeanne Welsh 1:22:40
Just got a take on a mindfulness practice for yourself just the basics, and freeze, learn, learn how to instead of reacting to a situation that's uncomfortable, breathe through it, and stop that that is the starting point.
Martin O'Toole 1:23:01
That is Sound Advice. Yeah, of course, you wouldn't honour it, people might not think that, oh, well, you know, sit down and did it there or to a yoga teacher or yada, yada. Now, you've got to lead by example. Abney Absolutely, yeah. And the way we regulate our emotions is witnessed by absolutely everyone around us in our family unit and, and in the first eight years of our lives, that's the the early childhood development stage, isn't it? So whatever mum does and says, and whatever dad doesn't, says, our mum, or mum and dad and dad are just one, they become our role model. male role model our female role models, so yeah, so I suppose it might not be the advice that some moms were hoping. At the same time, it's the best advice ever, because actually, it means you know, if you really want your children to have a better chance at this school business, and shave some of those corners, as we were discussing earlier, Ron. And the only way to do it really is to lead by example. And but actually, little while you realise the or you you don't realise right now, but you will realise very quickly, the incredible transformational benefits that you will feel. And then of course, your children are going to see that they're going to see the change in your physiology, this change in the way you interact with people.
Jeanne Welsh 1:24:30
And not just that they they're going to trust you more because they would be you know, just speaking from experience, you know, I was always scared to approach my parents about you know, something or ask them for something because the reaction would always be kind of fiery, you know, because I would trigger them maybe somehow, right? But when you learn to deal with your triggers and learn to have that space between the action and reaction when your child starts approaching you, or triggering you or what Ever the situation is, you know, your response is going to be different. So it's going to build a better relationship with your child. Yeah.
Martin O'Toole 1:25:06
Yeah. Amazing. You know that the how to die happy podcast is kind of engineered around the 10, common deathbed regrets. And the one of the many reasons why I was really, really keen to have you on the show was, we are constantly talking on the show about giving adults stories and practical utilities, so that they can learn how to live better, ultimately. So when they get to that, that that point, that near death point, hopefully they have less regrets. But of course, what you're doing here is, is providing an opportunity for the small people to reengineer and reframe the whole story, the whole life story on Earth. And that might sound rather magnanimous and rather worthy. But I fundamentally believe it is true. And I, I also fundamentally believe that I don't know which generation it's going to be, but there's a generation coming up, that is going to live in a completely different way to all of us. And they're going to realise their connection to one another, they're going to be able to communicate that connection, they are going to be love. Absolutely. That doesn't mean they're not going to be human. No, they're not all going to be meditating. Because we are human, and we're stuck in this. And this is, you know, a great deal of evolution. That's and beat and began as an animal. And it is it is an animal, isn't it? It's nothing more Mizzu I call it the earth. That's what I call my body. But I fully believed that with the likes of you, and a few more people like you around the world, Genie, we're I think we're, we're in a good place.
Jeanne Welsh 1:26:58
Thank you, Martin. Thank you. Thank you for having me here today. Yeah, I that, you know, see, the change starts with you change. Change starts from within. And, you know, hopefully, if I could just touch one person with the work that I do I know that can create enormous change in the future. So cheers to that.
Martin O'Toole 1:27:31
Thank you. Thank you for coming on the show. I've really enjoyed talking to you. It's been fantastic, isn't it? Yeah.
Julia Malcolmson 1:27:36
Thank you so much love. Thanks so much. You're so you've inspired me you know how much Jeannie has inspired me and then yeah, thank you for doing what you're doing.
Jeanne Welsh 1:27:46
Thank you guys for doing what you're doing. Amazing podcast. Well, I suppose when when I first started doing this, now, nobody can see all the stuff behind the cameras. But I went a little bit crazy on the on the on the equipment from the lighting. All that to say that I always said to Jules when we started here today happy even if it helps just one person. It's worth doing. Absolutely. Yeah. And so I echo your your thoughts and feelings in the same way. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Julia Malcolmson 1:28:18
Thank you so much.
