The Stress Nanny with Lindsay Miller
Mindfulness and stress management for families raising kids with big goals, big feelings, and everything in between.
Hosted by mindfulness coach Lindsay Miller, The Stress Nanny is full of practical strategies for calming anxious kids, supporting high-achievers, and teaching emotional regulation in everyday moments. Each episode offers easy-to-use mindfulness practices, stress management tips, and confidence-building tools that empower kids (and parents!) to navigate challenges with ease. Whether you’re raising a child who struggles with big feelings, a high-performing student-athlete, or simply want a calmer home, The Stress Nanny will give you the resources and encouragement you need.
The Stress Nanny with Lindsay Miller
Ep 194: How Presence, Boundaries, And Spiritual Practices Help Families Find Ease Every Day
What happens when a former speech therapist realizes the “perfect plan” for parenting doesn’t exist—and chooses presence over pressure? We sit down with Carrie Lingenfelter to explore how mindful attention, compassionate language, and simple spiritual practices can transform family life, especially for highly sensitive and neurodiverse kids.
Carrie shares her journey from evidence-first frameworks to heart-led parenting that honors each child’s wiring. We unpack how labels can open doors to support without defining identity, why words like gifted, spirited, and sensitive change a child’s inner story, and how to build a shared family language that spotlights strengths. From quick pre-pickup resets to modeled boundaries that sound like “give me five minutes to recharge,” we offer practical steps that shift the home from reactivity to co-regulation.
You’ll learn kid-friendly energy tools that actually stick: morning “white and gold light” protection, grounding roots into the earth, a simple mantra to keep emotional spillover at bay, and bedtime meditations that release the day’s weight. We talk about helping children become experts of themselves—recognizing when empathy serves and when a clear boundary is the most caring choice. Friendship dynamics, reflective questions, and story-based coaching round out a toolkit that helps sensitive kids navigate loud social worlds with clarity and confidence.
If you’re craving strategies that feel human, doable, and steadying, this conversation offers a path back to calm connection. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a little extra ease, and leave a review to help more parents find these tools. Your presence is the most powerful practice—start with one small ritual today.
Lindsay Miller is a distinguished kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not cheering on her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes.
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Welcome to the Stress Nanny, the podcast where we take the overwhelm out of parenting and help kids and parents build calm, confidence, and connection. I'm your host, Lindsay Miller, Kids Mindfulness Coach and Cheerleader for Busy Families Everywhere. Each week we'll explore simple tools, uplifting stories, and practical strategies to help your child learn emotional regulation, resilience, and self-confidence, while giving you a little more peace of mind too. I'm so glad you're here. My guest today is Carrie Lingenfelter. Carrie is a former speech therapist turned conscious parenting advocate, podcast host, and change maker. As the host of the Heart to Heart Parents Podcast, she empowers parents with mindful and spiritual tools to raise emotionally intelligent, compassionate children. As a mother of two, Carrie draws from her personal journey of overcoming anxiety, perfectionism, and parenting burnout to inspire parents to step into their power. Her mission is to support change makers raising change makers by fostering self-awareness, emotional growth, and spiritual connection within families. Carrie, thanks so much for joining me today. I am excited for our conversation. Thanks so much for having me, Lindsay. I'm so excited to connect.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. So for a little background, I was a speech therapist, early intervention, so birth to age three. And I also was a first grade teacher before I had kids. And when I had kids, I had told my husband, I've got it. I'm a child specialist. No need to worry. Like, I've got it. I'm ready to be a mom. And as soon as I became a mom, all of that went out the window. I suddenly started to realize I would get into my head a lot. And each child is obviously so different. But when you have your own, it you really do understand that in a new way, versus being a teacher or speech therapist. So it quickly became clear that I needed to find new ideas and new ways to connect. And luckily, I had spiritual people around me, my mom and other friends and my grandmother. I was raised spiritually. And so just having them there to help me ground in myself and reconnect with myself really helped me to put away some of the parenting books, put away some of the expectations that I had for myself and that I had read online that I needed to have for myself as a mom and how to even just follow a sleep schedule was like putting that away. And that was not for us. So learning to follow my kids and follow my inner guidance was something that I have been learning and growing in for almost 10 years now. My son's turning 10 next month. So yeah, so that's where that background came from. Spirituality has always been a big part of my life. And as we grow from sensitive kids, like I was a sensitive child into an adult, sometimes it can be hard to come back to the way that we connected with ourselves. And so as a parent, that helped me to find myself again and find that for myself to start practicing again after being a know it all in my early 20s. No, I'm just kidding. But um, you know, you're developing into your own. And so you sometimes stray from what you originally had as a foundation in life. So finding that again for myself was really powerful. And then as my kids got older, we started to realize that there were some neurodiverse pieces. They're gifted and talented, and they have other labels as well. I love to say my kids are gifted, spirited, and highly sensitive. So I ended up starting the podcast to help other parents so they didn't feel alone in this journey of hearing ourselves, finding what we need for our kids, finding the strengths in our children, helping our children to see those strengths in themselves, and then working to keep them conscious and connected to themselves into parenthood or into adulthood.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love that. Thanks for sharing those snippets. And I think too, I really resonate with your perspective around feeling a level of book learning or experience going into parenting, and then recognizing once you get there that there's a lot of flying by the seat of your pants and just being able to adapt and have that flexibility in the moment. And I love the different elements that you've incorporated into obviously your podcast and then also, you know, just your life that allow you the flexibility you needed to parent the kids that you have in the time that you live, in the circumstances that you find yourself.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. It's really been a journey and it's been really fun to kind of let go of the reins and see where I'm guided. I know definitely when I first started my podcast, I was on the side of more evidence-based practice and theory, just learning that in grad school so much and having that so heavy in grad school. And then I would physically, physically receive it from the universe, like, nope, you definitely need to jump in full, jump in full into the deep end of the mindfulness and the spirituality and all these pieces. And yeah, once I did it, it was like all of that relief that came over me. It was like, whoa, this is meant to be. This is where I need to be at. And I'm finding so many people really want that in their lives too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I love that. And I think you and I talked about it on your show when we did our interview, but just the recognition that being fully present and cultivating the ability to be fully present allows the wisdom either that you've learned, that you've heard, that's within you, that's within your kids, that's all around us, that wisdom to find you. Like that's the present moment is where it finds you. And so if we're like spinning off into the far reaches of our worries or last week or next month, it's really tricky to access the vast wisdom that's accessible only if we can tune into right now.
SPEAKER_00:Ooh, 100%. Yes. And then think about if we're teaching our kids that it's it's so empowering for them, especially so many kids coming into the world right now and getting labels. It's so common for so many of these kids. And then hearing those labels, like, what does that do to us as we're growing? We can get so in your head so quickly. So that's been really empowering for my kids. We will say sensitive, we will say gifted, we'll say, oh, my brain works really, really fast and really, really hard. So sometimes I can be a little more nervous than others because my brain goes so quickly. So yeah, naming all those pieces. I love that empowering.
SPEAKER_01:No, I agree a hundred percent. And I want to go there for a minute because I really love the language that you use. Just for a bit of background, my listeners have heard this story before. But when I was doing an internship in college, I was interning in a resource classroom and I had kids with a variety of language or labels, and the language we used in the classroom, like it was so jarring to me, right? And I'm just this new little intern, but I was just like, we're actually talking about people here. And it was just like no no disrespect to any of my coworkers at the time, right? It was just the language of school, you know, and how we referred to certain disorders or disabilities or all of the diss things, you know. It was so alarming to me to come in and see the way that the kids responded to that label because I had a fresh outlook on it. And I was just noticing we are not doing them any favors by using these terms to describe them because they're coming with this whole massive weight. And I agree that we can be served by the label, right? It helps us narrow things down, it helps us like know what support is going to be the most effective, it helps us really understand ourselves better. And so in those ways, the label can serve, but it has to be like gently cradled, right? And it has to be like a thing that we are intentional about referring to instead of this thing that's just like weighing this poor kid down and making them feel like they've got like something they're tugging around with them everywhere they go that automatically sets them, you know, like apart or back or aside from the other kids. So talk to me about your experience there. When you were in this realm as a professional, were you also one of the people who were like, no, no, no, let's refer to this a little differently? Because when I went in that classroom every day, I'd be like, we're not talking about you that way. Like we're talking about you in this moment right here, as you are, with the incredible skills and gifts that you're bringing to right now. And I don't care what your label is, insofar as like it affects your self-worth, because that's a constant for me. And I don't think any label is gonna change that. So let's start there, you know? And so that was how I approached the kids in the classroom. And we respected the label and worked with the label, but I didn't let them be defined by it. So talk to me about your journey to that realization.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, it's almost a little bit of a gift that I started out in early intervention with my speech therapy after going through my program because I feel like in the early intervention program that I worked at in Colorado, we really looked at the whole child. So it was so cool because you are instead of writing IEPs, you're writing, I think it was IFSP, so family plans.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So you're talking about the strengths, you're talking about the challenges, you're looking social, emotional, physical, mental. You're looking at all these different areas. And isn't that cool? Wouldn't that be cool if we did that in our schools when they're older? Right. So that part was really neat. And I did this before I even realized it. I wasn't a mom yet, but I wasn't choosing to talk about naming the labels, like your child has an expressive language disorder or delay. And I would just focus on the needs that they were seeing in that day. I was focusing on what is it that you want your child to do? We would break it down to what is it that we can focus on today? And, you know, it was really funny, but I was I was drawn to the different, the different techniques from my heart. And I didn't really, because I had my back of tricks, all of the techniques, but I would go into a house and I wouldn't know ahead of time until I got there that this child is needing this one. This child is needing the parent. And I would see the family and I would see, okay, the family is really wanting this child to talk, but I need to have the parents slow down because that child is picking up that energy and that intensity and that pressure of like, say it now, say it now. We need you to talk because it's really frustrating. So that was a huge piece was just getting everybody to slow down, release that pressure, calm themselves down. It's interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I love that. And I think that it's such an interesting perspective because you could have the neutrality. Because it is, like you mentioned uh just a minute ago, when it's your own kid and you're watching something that's maybe not going the way you want it to, you're as a parent feeling the things, right? And so there's there's not a I'm not gonna feel option, right? Like especially for parents who tend to be more sensitive. But like there's as parents, we're just invested in our kids in a different way than anyone else is. And so you having that experience in a neutral setting and then being able to apply it in your own home, that's so beautiful to me.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I could definitely practice it outside of my home when I came into my home. It was a different story, right? Because you're so emotionally involved and so emotionally wrapped up in it, yeah, that it really took a lot of. I always say, like, even the most spiritual guru you can think about, like Ed Cartoli is a big guy. Even people like that, do they practice what they preach? I don't know what goes on on the inside, but I'm always saying, you find your system that works well for you because we're all human. And when we're raising children, we never know what's coming. We never know. I always even say, when our kids are coming out of school, we never know what is coming out of the door. Did they have a great day? Are they exhausted? Are they sick? Are they breaking down because somebody hurt their feelings? Like you never know what's coming. So having all of these tools and tricks and ways to energize ourselves, self-care, all of these pieces in our pocket before we even get to school to pick up our kids, is so important.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love that so much too, because I think you're right. And again, it's this idea of presence, right? It's the mindfulness allows us to be in this moment. And I like to describe mindfulness as like knowing what's going on inside of you, knowing what's going on outside of you, and then making a choice on purpose. So, in those moments, like you're saying, before kiddos come home, I know, like I learned when my daughter was younger how my own distraction influenced how the shift into home would go, right? And she's always been a commuter kid, so I've always picked her up. And so if I was on the phone or if I was doing something else, it would have messed with the whole afternoon. It would totally change kind of the way we connected after school if I was distracted. And the other day we were having a conversation, and it had been, I had connected with her twice, like brought her something at school and then picked her up. And both times somebody had called her. I'd had to make a quick phone call. And she said, like, mom, that was so rough that you just weren't available. I wanted to talk to you.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I think that there are schools of thought where you can, you know, tell kids to manage on their own, but that's not how we roll in our house. I've always tried to be accessible to her in those moments because it was something that I learned early on was important. So it was interesting to have her at 15 tell me, hey, this is important to me still. It's important to me that we're able to have a conversation when I get in the car. And you're tuned into me, I'm tuned into you. Because she works hard not to be on her phone. She might need to like respond to something real quick because she's at her phone away. Her school doesn't allow phones, so they have their phone away all day. So she might have to respond to something real quick, but she has her phone away. And you know, the expectation is that I'm gonna be engaged. And yeah, at first, I I took the feedback and I was like, Oh, I try so hard, and most days, you know, most days I really do. And yeah, but in that moment, I just had to kind of sit with it and also just say to myself, like, I'm glad that's something we do, and that she notices the difference. You know what I mean? And I think that I would have had a lot of guilt probably earlier in my parenting career around a comment like that. But I think at this juncture, it's been so interesting to me to just see the ways those small decisions, right? Like you're describing, being mindful of our own well-being before we are ready to adapt and be flexible for whatever walks through the door.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Being mindful of ourselves in those moments is just such a huge gift we can give our kids because it does make such a big difference.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And it sounds like you modeled that so much for her, where she can now say, Mom, I need you present. I need you here with me. I'm being present, I need you present. That's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, it was, and it was humbling too, because I was just like, Yeah, I messed up. Yep, I you're right. I did that two times today. Of the two times you got in the car, I was, you know, distracted and doing other stuff both times. And I don't say that to suggest guilt for people who don't do that. Right. But what I am saying is I have to know what I need to do to care for myself in order to be flexible and adaptive to whatever situations that I'm facing today. I love that as kind of like the groundwork for parenting or the groundwork for reconnection after school.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yep. And then also along with that is the awareness of where we're at energetically, is a huge one, especially. I feel like so many parents are empaths or highly sensitive, whatever term they may choose to feel ways with them or registers with them. I mean, I'm online a lot with podcasting and everything. And I feel like I hear so many parents like, oh gosh, I'm so exhausted. This is so tiring. Like, oh, it does it get better because the screaming is so loud and it's just so intense. And and then I always want to respond, like, have you looked at a highly sensitive person? Have you thought about looking into being a highly sensitive mom? Have you looked at any of this? Because it sounds like maybe you need a little time, a couple minutes by yourself, or maybe you could put in some headphones if it's really loud when you're washing dishes and you're trying to recharge for that minute, or all these different pieces. But yes, I think that awareness of where we're at energetically, if our capacity bucket has enough room or space for the demands that are going to come from the day, if we're energetically available, or I also say, like if our energy level is up here when we're picking them up, versus if we've had a long day, maybe we're down here. And maybe we do need to postpone the phone calls that we need to make so we can try to refill as we're getting to school. Maybe we're sitting in the car meditating before the kids come out. Maybe we're sitting in the car and sitting with some crystals and saying some affirmations like, thank you for the challenges lately. I am ready for what is to come this afternoon. I am feeling whole and ready to see my kids and connect with them. So yeah, I think monitoring our energy level is so important.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I love that. And can you share a few more things? I'd love to hear more of the things you do to modulate your energy and to create this sense of mindfulness for yourself before offering it. Sure.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So it's all over the internet right now, the self-care piece. But definitely, as you talk so much about really being mindful and present in that self-care routine that you choose. But then there's also the day-to-day pieces that come up, especially raising highly sensitive kiddos. It can be maybe there's a lot of screaming during that day, and I'm trying to figure out well, her body's just really emotional right now. So I'm going to try to know when I'm getting frustrated, like the screaming is too much, and I need to switch out with my husband or my partner, who luckily is available for me sometimes after work. Like, okay, my energy is really low. I need you to take a minute so I can recharge and then we'll switch back. So understanding those pieces, knowing when we need to step out to breathe, knowing when I need to put in some headphones when I'm washing dishes. If I have switched off to my husband and he's trying to brush teeth and I can hear the chaos, but I know my system is feeling tax from it. I love the noise canceling headphones and then just actively being present with I'm washing my dishes, I'm feeling the soap in my hands, all of these present moments that we can do. For me, I love because I have kiddos with labels and such, there is a lot of energy in our house. And I'm definitely a giver without always even noticing that I'm giving. So I have to do a lot of meditation at night for myself. I do Reiki on myself. Reiki level two has really helped me to recharge my energy. The podcast is actually a piece where I can find my flow state and I can feel like Carrie instead of mom. I'm Carrie for a few minutes, which is beautiful. So that's another one. And I myself go to a weekly Qigong class in person, and it's like movement with energy, with moving meditation, basically, with some energy work. And that's a beautiful place where I get to connect with others and recharge too.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, thanks for sharing those. Such great experiences. And I also appreciate that it looks different day to day, right? Like I'm such a proponent of a breathing practice regularly, right? And I'll I say, like those two minutes, I'm different without them in the morning, even if it's just breathing for two. I would love to go longer than that, but even just two, right? Yeah, it makes such a huge difference. But just the recognition that every day there's gonna be different things that we can do, right? And while consistency is important, like the the intention to incorporate some aspect of mindfulness into our day, right? Or some piece of self-care into our world, I feel like that's a piece that again, initially I would feel guilty about if I didn't do it a certain way, right? Or if I didn't do the same thing every day, or if I wasn't showing up 100% as great as I could because I missed my self-care practices, I would really kind of give myself a hard time until recognizing that the whole point of the self-care practice is that self-compassion, right? And the ability to adapt to what's in front of us.
SPEAKER_00:You know, it's interesting too. I forgot to mention, I love to model it for my kids. So we talk about energy in our house. One example is if we went to the shoe store and had to go to three different shoe stores because my sensitive kids needed specific shoes. Then we get home and my kiddos want me to play with them right away. Having boundaries and then explaining why I have to have those boundaries to my kids is so important. I never saw that as a child. I never saw what boundaries look like. I never knew about energy as a kiddo. And so now I'm explaining it to my kids. Mom's energy was up here before we went to the shoe store. You know, we went to several places. So I'm kind of feeling a little drained. I'm down here now. But if you give mom five minutes, you go play with your toys. Mom's gonna lay down for five minutes, she's gonna meditate, she's gonna be back up here, and then I can be actively present and we can really have fun playing after I'm done with my time. So that's one I love to share with them.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Oh, yeah, that's so great. And it is like the permission, right? It feels a little dicey sometimes as a parent because if it's not what's been modeled for us or if it's not what we're used to, we're like, is this okay to say? I mean, but then when we do and we notice and our people notice the difference when we engage again, it not only gives us permission to take the time we need, but I also think it gives them permission to state their reality, the words they can use, the options for self-care, like go take a five minute, you know, lay down for five and meditate, or those kind of things. We're giving them so many things in terms of current day and future skills in those moments.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yes. Yes. And, you know, I've been a former speech therapist, I've used so many therapies with my kids. We've run the gamut with all the different therapies with our labels and the energy work and the mindfulness, like which you talk about so much. I feel like the energy work lately for my kids. I've even had therapists who have I've gone to have been like, well, this is this is our background. This is the therapy we've done in the past. What could you do for us? And they're like, I don't think I could do anything else. I don't think there's much else. I'm like, oh, sorry. Wow. Yeah. I love it. Like, I love it. Okay. Well, so I guess we're gonna look at some other energy work type things. We're gonna look at Reiki. We're gonna look at teaching my kids energy work and teaching my kids what being an empath is. And sometimes it comes up without you even realizing it. But it's been, it's been so wonderful to even teach my six-year-old how we are energy, others are energy, plants have energy, we're all made up of energy. And then when we go out to school and we're talking to somebody, sometimes another person maybe could be telling you a story. And without realizing it, they're putting their energy and their feelings on you. And you're absorbing it without realizing it, because that's how we are sometimes when we're super sensitive. And so just teaching my kiddos to be aware of it, both of my kids were doing it without realizing it. And they would tell me stories like, okay, so I was so and so was having a meltdown. And then I sat with him and I was talking to him, and I could feel I was absorbing his anger. I was feeling it. Mom, I'm like, wow, dude, you're nine and you're explaining that to me. I'm so happy you helped them. But also, how did you feel? Did you feel really tired or angry after that? What was that like? So having those conversations, and then recently we've also been teaching them how to protect their own energies. And so one thing that's really worked for us is I taught them. We're gonna talk about a white light going around you. We're gonna picture it going around all the way down, spiraling around you. And then we're gonna picture a golden light. And that's a golden light of protection we're picturing spiraling down. Then we're gonna picture our roots growing way down in the ground so we can stay grounded in our body. And we're gonna say this affirmation for ourselves: no negative energy allowed, only positive energy. And so I would say that and I taught them that. And recently my friend had me add the roots part because I was like, My kids aren't grounded, they're not staying grounded in their bodies. And she was like, You need the roots. I'm like, okay, so we're gonna add that. But so now I'll say, White and gold light when they're on their way out the door to school, I'll say, white light, picture gold light, and then I hear them recite the mantra or the affirmation as they're heading out to the car. My daughter had a moment where she was taking on somebody's sadness. She told me later on after school, mom, somebody was telling me a story and I was feeling sad for them. And then I felt, oh, I'm feeling it in my heart. I'm really feeling all of their sadness. So she said, I did the white and gold light, and I said the mantra, and it stopped. And I felt better, mom. I was like, wow, a six-year-old can do this too, guys. I love it.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I love that. And I what one of the things I think I've said I love that about 50 times today now about our conversation. One of the things I especially appreciate is the shared reference, right? And when I'm working with families and we're talking about mindfulness tools, I we're sharing a lot of stories or like metaphors. And then it's like what you said, like gold light, white light. Like when you can refer quickly to like something you have shared reference of, I feel like those are the moments that are so powerful because you don't have to have a really long conversation, especially in the moments when you're like in transition, when a lot of that stuff comes up, right? Like they're getting out the door of the car and they're telling you about this thing that just happened that they're worried about today later. They're worried about this friend that had this going on and you don't have like 10 more minutes. I mean, you do if you really need it, you could just keep them in the car, right? But a lot of times when stuff comes up and you don't have a huge amount of time to kind of sift and process. But if you can refer to those quick tools and you can be like, this is one we've practiced, you know, but you just refer to it briefly and then they can apply it, that's magic.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love the briefly, or even like having it in the routine too. We've been doing like the guide of meditations at night, and I do a lot of similar things with the white and the gold light and clearing energy. I'm really noticing that those types of things really help our kids to shake off the day. There's even the one where you walk into your car and you can just be like bouncing with them, or you turn on music when you first get in the car and you're bouncing. I learned it in Qigong. It was like shake off that energy of that day. And I even started carrying a container of crystal bracelets. What are you drawn to, guys? Let's put that crystal bracelet on today. It started last week when my son had to take the state assessments and he was just worn out at pickup. I was like, okay, let's get in the car. Which bracelet are you drawn to? You don't have to wear it, you can just hold it. Let's try to recharge our hearts after that long day.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Tell me more about the guiding meditations that you use at night.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So I've been reading, I love this book. What is it? Psychic psychology. And so I've been picking up pieces of it for myself. And then I started noticing my kids had a lot of energy after their day that they had to shift through. And so we love one of the basics that you can do with your kids is you picture a green ball of light. You would want to do it in your root chakra, but I teach my kids at the tops of your legs, you picture a green ball of light. And then it's going to go spinning straight down into the core of the earth. And I'll like walk them through it. You'll start with the deep breathing. You know, you can add all the meditation pieces onto there for them. But once we get that green ball straight down into the earth, it creates a green tube. And then we breathe in and we breathe out all the energy of the day and we send it all the way down deep into the earth because the earth can absorb it and she can handle it and she can take on a lot of the, we say big emotions, big feelings, any big feelings we have to process, we blow into the earth and we do that a couple of times. And then you can bring in green balls of energy from the earth. You can bring it into your stomach and then send it to every cell in your body. You can picture that. So sometimes we'll do that afterwards, or sometimes we'll picture golden light from the sun coming down, and I'll have them, I'll work through it coming down, surrounding their whole body, or going through every cell of their body. We like to do those as well. And so I started putting those on our Friday episodes on the podcast. I love it. I was like, I gotta start trying these out for our kids. And then I'm starting to start going into some of the chakra work too. So teaching them to balance their chakras. But that's kind of new, so we're settling into that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I think it's so fascinating, like at the juncture we are, where we can synthesize so many of these practices, right? And they can become stronger and just like intertwined. With other practices to create the level of resilience that I think modern kids need for the life that they're navigating. And I think one of the things that's interesting is with the onslaught of information, with the increased stimulation, being able to avail ourselves of the increased awareness of the tools that are accessible, of the practices that people have used for ages, and being able to bring those in to balance out the level of chaos we may feel external to us or internal to us. There's something really beautiful about that to me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think about if we would have grown up with that as children, where would we have been as parents too? Instead of having to kind of rediscover, reteach ourselves all of these things. Just I think that's part of my mission is helping these kids who are born with so many amazing gifts, or we call them superpowers in our house, these heightened sensitivities and teaching them to empower themselves and feel empowered in these heightened sensitivities, which society can sometimes make us feel feel bad about it. I know my husband and I were both sensitive kids, and we were not allowed to be what was the term Brene Brown says, high maintenance children. We weren't allowed to be high maintenance kids. And so, of course, going through that inner child work for ourselves as parents, but allowing our kids to be those high maintenance kids and feeling their feelings and big emotions. But yeah, learning how to process all of this now will take them to so many great places.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Like if that's the foundation you build on, what can you build from there? 100%. Yeah. Yeah. I want to ask you a couple more questions before you go. Are there any other spiritual practices you want to share that your family does that you feel like are supportive for everyone?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think a lot of the mindfulness tools that you often talk about has been a huge piece, focusing on the change we want to see in life instead of living in the challenge. So, you know, we oftentimes have that anchor pulling us down of the challenge of the day. But for example, every time we want to go to the zoo on a field trip with both of my kids, it's always rainy. Let's not focus on the rain. Let's get on the proper gear because it's Colorado and you never know, 10 minutes later, the sun could come out here. And so packing the sunscreen too. We're focusing on the weather we want to see. We're not living in the sadness of the day, the weather of that day. And then we talk a lot in our house about the magnetism of the energy that we put out is also what we receive. So if somebody was rude to us or something, really just sending them love. Like they need love in their life for that reason. We're going to send them love because love is what I want to receive too. So that's some of the fun ones. I take them to a spiritual center in Colorado near where we live, and just building that community of like-minding kids. And that even ended up taking us to a social emotional focused school with project-based learning, too. So that's been a huge game changer for us.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. No, I love that like that Robert Frost poem, Two Roads Converged in Yellowwood, and how he talks about like knowing how way leads on to way, like the places you end up when you start to live more mindfully, it really kind of shifts the trajectory in so many things. Whereas, like in the poem, he says, you know, maybe I'll save that other trail for another day, you know, the path he doesn't take. But then he's like, But knowing how way leads on to way, like, I doubt it I'll ever get back to that spot, right? Because I'm gonna be led to other things as I follow this path. So I love that.
SPEAKER_00:Beautiful. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That that's been your experience.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, 100%. And yeah, the kids definitely feel it. It's it's been the biggest game changer in our house versus all the therapies that we have had.
SPEAKER_01:That's beautiful. I can relate to that too. I have a number of clients who were like, I've tried this and this, and just mindfulness has worked better than any of those things, you know. My daughter the other day had gone in. There was a lot going on at school, and her friend was having some struggles with some different stuff. And so they'd gone in and talked to the counselor for a minute, and she was like, wasn't even helpful at all. And I'm a proponent of kids talking to counselors, you know, definitely. And I thought it was great that she'd gone in there, but she's like, she's just telling me stuff that I already thought of that didn't help the situation. So I figured out how to work through it on my own, you know? That's cute. But she had started, you know, the counselor in her very kind, well-meaning way, had started out with trying to help my daughter have empathy for the other person in the exchange. Yeah, and my daughter has loads of that, and so doesn't necessarily need more. But what was beautiful to me in that moment was that she was just like, This is not the time for empathy, this is a time for a boundary, and I need you to help me set a boundary. If you're not gonna do that, I need different help, you know. And she didn't say it to her in those words, but that's what she said to me. She was like, I don't need empathy, I need a boundary. And I was like, Okay, but she, you know, like being present in the moment she was in, she could access her own innate wisdom about it, also knowing herself and the situation and how she was feeling. It was a stark contrast to her to be faced with someone who was telling her to ignore this in favor of an expert opinion about the situation. She's like, No, no, no, I'm the expert here. So that's what mindfulness does, right? It makes kids the expert of themselves. And as challenging as that can be to parents sometimes, the potential that comes from that type of awareness and that type of internal strength is a thing to behold.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's beautiful. I once had a guest on the podcast, and she had mentioned that she grew up spiritually, and I was like, Oh, yeah, I did too. My grandma would put like Edgar Casey, Eckhart Tolle books on my nightstand when I was growing up in my 20s. And she was like, No, no, no. My parents taught me how to tune into myself and how to connect with myself and how to meditate and hear my inner guidance. And I was like, Oh, that's so beautiful. That is such a better way to put it. I love that.
SPEAKER_01:Talk to me about friendship. This is like a slight departure from what we were just talking about, but sometimes when kiddos have a different level of sensitivity, what like the friendship dynamics can be interesting. How do you explain friendship to your kiddos or to kids who are on the more sensitive side?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think you know, it's been it's been interesting because yeah, I do have two sensitive kiddos and they are very set in their own ways. They want to not be told how to live, they want to experience things and they're very adamant about that. So when we're talking about friendship, I often will ask them questions and how they're feeling. How does that feel when such and such happens to you? What do you think you would like to change? That's been a huge piece of it. And then also, I use a lot of my own versions of things that have happened to me as a sensitive person. And I like to share with that often things like what a good friend looks like, what love looks like in a friendship, what compassion and acceptance look like in a friendship. I love to tell stories to give examples of what that may mean for them. Or I'll give an example like one time I had a meltdown as a friend. And my friend was really taken aback because I was a little bit abrasive in my meltdown. Later on, I felt like that friend was pretty much done. She didn't want to be a friend anymore. And I had apologized and explained, but she was done. Do you think that was a good friend moment? Do you think that we were connected in our friendship? And so we use examples like that and we really discuss it openly, especially with the bigger kiddo who's almost 10.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, having the skill set as one that's being cultivated actively with conversation, with awareness, with tools when needed, or questions to help support the growth of the child and the friendships.
SPEAKER_00:It's definitely been a big one. And it has been interesting because I have a son and a daughter, and I feel like with my son, it energetically has been so much easier for him. And they're very similar kids. So it was interesting to see the difference with the boys versus the girls and really how much more we talk about it with our daughter than we do with our son.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so many different dynamics there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So that's been interesting. It's definitely a lot of reflection and how she's feeling and how she feels with other people. I was so surprised, even in first grade, like how it comes up, how we wouldn't want to ever say anything about anybody else. How my daughter was really being exposed to that very quickly. And I was like, this is not something we had been prepared for. But yeah, it came up so quickly. And so we talk so much about loving one another for who we are and seeing that love in others and giving people second chances. And that's been a huge piece of first grade.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, so many social skills to learn.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. So many.
SPEAKER_01:Well, Carrie, this has been so lovely. Thank you for all the insights you've shared and for just the way you show up in the world. I know I sure appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for having me. It's been such a lovely chat, and it's fun to connect with you in two different spaces.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. No, I feel the same way. Help our listeners know how they can learn more about you. Let's, you know, share your podcast so that we can have people find you there.
SPEAKER_00:Definitely. So our website is hearttoheartlife.com, and the podcast is Heart to HeartParents. It's on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and we're on Instagram a lot posting fun affirmations, parent mantras, and all of those things to keep us connected with ourselves.
SPEAKER_01:I've loved listening since you and I connected. Just like the gentle and insightful conversations, I find myself enriched by them. So thank you for all that you do.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much. That's such an inspiration to hear.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thanks again for being on the show. And I look forward to talking to you again soon. Thanks. Thanks for listening to the Stress Nanny. If you found today's episode helpful, be sure to share it with a friend who could use a little extra calm in their week. And if you have a minute, I'd love for you to leave a review. It helps other parents find the show and join us on this journey. For more tools and support, head over to www.thestressnanny.com. Remember, you don't have to do stress alone. Together we can raise kids who know how to navigate life with confidence and ease. Until next time, take a deep breath and give yourself some grace.