Mindful Communication: The Gift of Being Heard

Introduction and Welcome

Britta Bushnell: Hello folks, and welcome to transformed by birth, a podcast about the rite of passage of pregnancy, birth and new parenthood. I'm your host. Britta Bushnell, author, mythologist, childbirth educator and an all around deep diver with a side of goofball. I'm so glad you're here. Today's episode explores bringing mindfulness practices off the cushion and into our parenting. So grab your comfy beverage of choice or take us along for a walk as we connect with mindfulness teacher and author of raising good humans, Hunter Clark fields, before we begin, we start the way we always do by lighting a candle. If you'd like to join me, please do so, or just take a breath as I light mine. Today's candle is an invitation into a moment of mindfulness.

The Challenge of Modern Parenting

Britta Bushnell: Ah, so let's face it, folks, parenting is tough as parents, our body, our nervous system and sense of grounding regularly take a beating in the daily work of raising children, the demands of modern day life frequently clash with the pace of kids. We're frequently cramming little feet into two small shoes, then strapping a kid into a car seat and zooming off to get the things done on our never completed to do list. And then there are the days and moments when the joy of seeing our children grow and witness the beauty in the world can move us to our core. We need tools to help us navigate the energetic and emotional yo yo that is life with children. One such tool is mindfulness. Now I want to acknowledge that a formal meditation practice wasn't a part of my daily life when my kids were little. I know many parents who have or have had a regular practice throughout child rearing, but frankly, that wasn't me. So if you're worried this episode isn't for you, because you know you're not going to have a seated meditation practice, keep listening. The tools of mindfulness, even without a regular, formal practice, were woven throughout how I raised my kids and were foundational to fostering the presence and clarity I wanted to embody in my parenting. Which brings me to today's guest Hunter, Clark fields, who has over 20 years of experience in meditation and yoga practices and has taught mindfulness to 1000s worldwide. She is also the mother of two active daughters who challenge her every day to hone her craft. So this isn't just theoretical here, folks, it's part of her real life. Hunter helps parents break free from reactive parenting patterns that often get passed down from generation to generation, and she's here today to share some wisdom with us. So Hunter, welcome and thank you for joining us here today.

Hunter Clark-Fields: Thank you for having me. Britta, this is lovely. I've never done a podcast with a candle before. It's so nice.

Britta Bushnell: Well, I'm kind of a ritual person. So I love a little moment of mindfulness, a place where you and I connect here and and a candle is also a ritual moment to take for you and I even as we sit across a zoom with one another. And for our listeners, yeah, it's kind of a little bit wonky, because our listeners are like, wait, I'm out walking and there's no candle, but it's really just an invitation, yeah?

Hunter Clark-Fields: I bet, yeah, dear listener, you feel the candle. You feel the candle,

Britta Bushnell: and it kind of connects to what we're talking about today, which is even just bringing in moments of mindfulness. Yeah? So I want to start, if we can, with sort of the loaded question that is in the title of your book, which is, what does it mean to be a good human? What does

Defining a Good Human

Hunter Clark-Fields: it mean to be a good human, yeah. I mean, I think it means different things to different people, but for me, you know? And actually, I just talked about this, my daughter, whose high sensitivity was the inspiration for raising good humans, is now 18, and we were together over the weekend. And. Um, I said, I remember saying this to her that like for me, my intention was like I wanted my daughters to feel comfortable inside their skin. I wanted them to be empathetic for her to others, and to balance that with self awareness and just that, you know, yeah, that comfort inside your skin. It's the best way I can say this, because it's this idea of, I accept myself as I am, you know, I I'm a human and I'm flawed, and that's okay, and I accept myself, and I have, you know, I have empathy for others as well. So for me, a good human is kind of wrapped up in that, mostly. And I also think it has to do with, you know, how you care about the world as well, you know, I think part of mindfulness, especially with little kids. And it is, is, oh, wow, look at this world. Look at this plant. Oh, my goodness, it's and bringing that curiosity and that awe into the world, and that slowing down and appreciating it, or, yeah, bringing that curiosity into everything, so so that from that comes a caring about the world in a certain way. You know when you can cultivate that, that ability to pay attention, to slow down, and to be curious, and to wonder about the natural world, about other people, etc, all of those things. And so from that come all these good traits that we want, which is like caring for other people, caring for the earth, you know, taking care of yourself, right? And that's all, all of that together, I suppose, would be what my personal definition of a good human is.

Britta Bushnell: I love that I like. I'm kind of hearing it on a couple of different levels, that that empathetic, compassionate connection to self and others and the world, kind of all of that looped in together, sounds a little bit like the nexus of what you're saying. And I love that. And this shows up a lot in your book, that one of the main things you spoke to is that empathy and connection to self, because that's Ooh, boy, that's loaded in parenting, isn't it?

Hunter Clark-Fields: It's very loaded. But yeah, if you can feel comfortable in your own skin, you have confidence, right? That's how you raise confident kids. If they're comfortable in their own skin and they accept themselves, they have some level of confidence in the world and and then that's all you know, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how we were raised and what our circumstances were all tied up, and how we experience that ourselves as parents.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, so there's also that mirroring aspect happening, where it's helping them find that place of feeling comfortable in their own skin while working as the parent to feel comfortable in our own skin?

Self-Awareness and Attachment in Parenting

Hunter Clark-Fields: Yes, exactly. And it's interesting, because there's, you know, everyone's very interested in things like attachment. Of course, when you're your your babies are little, etc, you want to hold them close and all that because of attachment. And you know, I've had been doing the mindful mama podcast for over 10 years and and it's been interesting. I've talked to many people about attachment, and one of the things that comes through again and again is that it all comes down to it's not about the thought about how you're sleeping. It's not about whether they're in a stroller on your body. It's like, it's about you, and your level of being able to be present with your own feelings and stuff. That's that, that self awareness in you as a parent, and it's so interesting, and it's, it's like, what a lot of people don't want to hear you want to have a list of actions to do? Can't

Britta Bushnell: you give me my more on my to do list, that's just I get to check it off.

Hunter Clark-Fields: Yeah, but it really comes down to your own self awareness as a parent, your own ability to metabolize your emotions, to be able to feel what you're feeling in the moment, to to be present with what is, whether it's difficult or or not difficult. And that's that's really hard to do, that's hard to do for us, in all humans, you know. And forget about it when we feel like we have the weight of, you know, here's this precious human life on my shoulders, and I gotta get it right. Right? So, so, yeah, sometimes, I think sometimes the the second baby is a little better off, and sometimes in that, in that realm, because the parents just a little too distracted and a little more relaxed, and that's so great for the kid. They may not remember every single thing, but it's so nice to have, like, just a slightly more relaxed parent? Yeah.

Britta Bushnell: I mean, I often say because the first child, they are the one that initiates you into parenthood, and that child comes into an adult world, and the second child comes into a child's world, like your world has already turned topsy turvy. The schedule has shifted to the schedule of a child. Your energetics around, how they move and what their pacing is, has already shifted. So when the second child comes in, it's like, oh, toys on the floor. Yep, check. Used to that. And so there's a there is an ease in that, yeah, it

Hunter Clark-Fields: is easier. Also it can depend on the child. For me, I was lucky in that my highly sensitive child came first. I feel for the people whose intense, you know, spirited, sensitive child comes, like, second or third, because then you think, Oh, I got this. It's easy. You get that kid who needs a lot, and you're like, wait a second, what happened?

Britta Bushnell: Absolutely And yet, therein lies some of the value of a mindfulness practice, or the tools of mindfulness to one of the things you talk about in your book is about meeting your child anew every single day, like you wake up every day to a new kid. And there's that aspect, even with that energy you just spoke about, of of this child, that child. I mean, those are bigger versions, but, but every morning,

Meeting Your Child Anew & Curiosity in Parenting

Hunter Clark-Fields: it's true. Yeah. I mean, the truth is, is, that's true for all of us, in that impermanence and Change is the only thing that is constant in life. So it's it's happening at a slower pace for for all of us, but it's so quick and with our children and with our babies, and the baby, it's hourly, it's it's, you know, it's daily, it's weekly. We're seeing these, these changes happening. And I don't say that to add pressure to parents to say, Oh, be present every moment. Watch every moment, because it's going by so fast and and because you can't, it's impossible, so, so don't, it's okay for you to be a human that has has other thoughts in your head than about your child, right? Like, that's okay. But, yeah, it's helpful to help us bring a sense of curiosity into the situation. And I think when they're babies, sometimes this may not be necessarily what you need, because you're like, Whoa. This is all new. Everything is curious and new, and you just want some rhythm and some stability and some sanity. And you know, you want those things that where you're inviting in that energy of like a mountain, and that stability into this churning world that you've just, you know, your world has just been churned up. And then, you know, the idea of bringing this curiosity comes in when our when we start to get back into our rhythm, and then our mind starts again, taking this shortcuts that the mind starts to do. You know, our brains want to, are use a lot of energy, and they want to conserve energy as much as possible. So the brain takes shortcuts as much as it can to conserve energy. And that may be coming up with an explanation or a thought of something that was from your own childhood, or, Oh, it may come, you know, with something like, oh, that my eight year, they're trying to manipulate me. Or, you know, they're

Britta Bushnell: old, habitual patterns of thought may not be true, but they can feel very real, yeah, because they're embedded, yeah,

Hunter Clark-Fields: that's where we want to get curious. You know, when I saw my oldest daughter barking orders at my younger daughter, I thought, Oh, wow, this is a wake up call this. These habitual patterns of communication that I had been repeating weren't so skillful, weren't so helpful. They don't sound so good coming from the mouth of a three year old to a one year old. You know? Yeah, so, so, yeah, this curiosity is, you know, who are you today? Can I get in this place? And of on the spectrum, it is curiosity on one side, and judgment on the other. And judgment is our minds, natural, understandable, normal ability to take shortcuts, because it just conserves energy. And you need a lot of energy, right? But we can start to shift into curiosity. We can practice it. It can grow stronger.

Britta Bushnell: And I think that relates even in the earliest, earliest days of parenthood, because it can there are often these experiences, right off the bat, a baby comes out, and there's kind of a expectation from that judgment side that we should have it all figured out already. We're the parent. We've got this when we actually maybe don't got this where we're as newborn as our baby is in the form of our parenting, and that can be really tricky to and to be able to have that practice of curiosity can be soothing. I'm not going to say it's necessarily an antidote to the judgment, but it can be soothing to the judgment.

Mindfulness Attitudes - Curiosity and Kindness

Hunter Clark-Fields: I think it's best when we're it works best in those times when we're practicing it with ourselves. Oh, I had this feeling. I had this reaction to this, this experience, you know, this past week has made me really anxious, like, what is going on? Can I be curious about why that is, you know, some with babies, we're really trying to fix and solve problems all the time. Okay, what is the problem here? Let me fix it and and with ourselves and our emotions and all the churning that is happening at that time inside ourselves, it's really, really best to bring some curiosity there. You know, can I, can I be kind? So the what we're talking about like, these are the attitudes of mindfulness. So mindfulness is the practice or to put your attention into the present moment with kindness and with curiosity, right? So it's, it's two things. It's, it's noticing when you're lost and coming back to being present and then doing it in this special way, in this way of being curious and being kind. And this is a life, I mean, transformational, life altering experience, and can we be curious and kind about ourselves and what what we're experiencing through this?

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, and that's that's a piece that can begin even before we become parents, that can then create really fertile ground to plant that way of being with our children, because we have planted it and worked on it with ourselves. So even if you're pregnant or trying to conceive, that part of this work is, I mean, all of it can can happen before you have children, and the more that it's embedded in who we are as humans, the more it does seep out into how we are with our children as parents.

Building Mindfulness Practice & Muscle Memory

Hunter Clark-Fields: Definitely, definitely what you practice grows stronger, for sure. So if you're practicing getting up and grabbing your phone and checking social media, or your practice, get up and sitting on the edge of the bed for a moment and taking three deep breaths, right? Whatever you practice grows stronger. These things that you do on a regular basis daily, bit by bit, they really embed themselves in you. And sometimes I think of that like, you know, we wouldn't send our kids to, like, Little League World Series without a coach and some practice, right? Like they need some muscle memory. And it's the same thing with our kids and our parenting and and when we're in that newborn stage, we're trying to survive. We're learning, we're trying to establish that stability. But then soon we're in parenting, right like soon we're we've got an 18 month old, a two year old, and whoa. Now you are really parenting. You are responding to things. Uh, you know, on a moment to moment to basis. And it really helps to have practiced a little bit that slowing down, that being able to choose, slowing down and pausing, making a choice how to respond. If that's like, sometimes people ask me, like, if there's anything you would go and do over again, and mostly I wouldn't, because my mistakes made me learn what I had to learn. And if I could go back, though, I would go back and practice pausing just before I spoke from the very beginning, before I opened my mouth, taking a breath before I spoke, and this is what we practice. I mean, also, it is a spiritual practice, right? Like you practice for life. You don't perfect it and practice it from time, from, you know, once and for always. It's a practice. And I still practice pausing and before I speak all the time, because otherwise I don't do it.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, the pause can be a huge, huge deal,

Hunter Clark-Fields: huge deal. And so that's one of the things I would really encourage parents to learn and to practice. Practice taking a breath before you speak. Practice slowing down, stopping, slowing down before you speak. Now, that can be so hard to do when you're really upset, when you're really frustrated, when your seven year old is having a meltdown, and you're, you've been asking her three times to get ready, and you guys are late, and it's really, really hard, like all these things together, all this compounding stuff, and you got to get out the door, how do you slow down? I don't know. I mean, some people say like, take a time out. I I would love to do that, but I can't take a time out like the kids are there, and it doesn't, like, happen that way. I like what Janet Lansbury says, which is, you know, you like some sometimes you just can keep your mouth shut, like just bite your lip and keep your mouth shut and not say all the things. And, yeah, and that's the same. That's the same thing. Like, those are things you can practice. I can practice this. I can, you know, slow down. I can pause. I can breathe, I can stop and take a breath.

Modeling Behavior and the Power of Presence

Britta Bushnell: We can. We're also modeling how we be in the world to our kids at the same time, and I'm sort of thinking of your daughter witnessing you sweep the floor, and also witnessing you sit down on the Ottoman and finding a way to move her body, connect with your body, so so that she was able to do that piece of it because she has witnessed you doing it with yourself. So she knew the tool. She knew it was possible because she'd seen you do it.

Hunter Clark-Fields: Yes, yes. I mean, that is the biggest lesson in parenting is that it's modeling. Everything is modeling. You're showing them all the time. You're showing them how to be a good human. You're you know, you're showing them through all your interactions. And so, you know you want to show them that I don't know. I think some of the biggest things we want to think, that we want we want to show them is that we can, we can listen right? We can communicate kindly, that we want to show them that also that life doesn't end when you become a parent, that that you take care of yourself and that you that your child is part of your life, right? That your child isn't 100,000% of your life, even though they are in the first year. That's, that's fine, it's fine, but it's, it's nice for them to be integrated into your life and not necessarily the other way around. Yeah, that makes sense. There's a weird thing. Dr Shefali said this once I saw her speak, and she said, Love your children more and care less. And I love that because what she meant, and I love what she means by this, and what she meant was that, like, let them have their lives. Don't care, don't, you know, it's a little bit like, don't hover and over every single thing and and make their lives your lives, because that's too much pressure on a kid to be everything for somebody else, right? And it's too much, you know, let them have some some time where they're, you know, I know it's hard to imagine this as a baby, but like, when that pretty soon, like, let them have some time where they're integrated into your life, and you're, you're not 100% gazing into their eyes every second.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, but I mean, there's a there's an aspect of that, even with infancy, which is acknowledging what is true. For them that may not be something that we can rescue them from.

Whose Problem Is It? Navigating Infant Distress

Hunter Clark-Fields: Yeah, actually, there's in the mindful parenting teacher training we do this piece that's called, is called figuring out, whose problem is it? Who has a problem in this situation, Does your child have a problem? Do you have a problem, right? And that kind of changes how you're going to communicate with the situation. So we go through a series of scenarios about whose problem is, and sometimes it's very obvious your kid had, you know, gotten in a fight with a friend, you know, then they have a problem, right? But there's this one scenario that we talk about where it's like your baby went and had some shots at the doctors that you want them to have and that, and they're upset. Whose problem is that? And and, yes, to a degree, you know, when you have an infant, all of their problems are your problems and that you're soothing them, but it's it's not your problem, like your child is going to be upset, and it's okay for them to be upset. It's actually safe and desired in this situation for them to have this upset. And you can be their comfort. You can be their their source of security and soothing and all of that. But it is not you can't fix that problem for them. You In fact, you know, are there? You're probably the source, right in some way, right? So it's interesting to think about that.

Britta Bushnell: and there's, it's, there's something, there's that there's a there's a letting go, and there's attending to our own nervous system's needs, because feeling the upset of an infant is really hard on the nervous system, because we want our Body is kind of wired to say, this isn't okay. I need to do something to make this better. And sometimes we can't, yeah, and so then, what do you do? What are some tools folks can utilize in those moments when their body is starting to react, because they can't put all of their attention on fixing the problem, which I want to get into talking about fixing problems, because I love that part of your book as well, but we can kind of jump in here

Sitting with Difficult Feelings & The Mindful Middle

Hunter Clark-Fields: so well. I mean, I think that's so interesting, because that's the thing, like, when you have an infant, you feel like you can fix all the problems, right? Like that's your job, right? Is to fix all the problems kind of for them, because they're so helpless and and, and then very soon you go to the doctor's office, soon your infant is walking around and and gets upset and has a tantrum, and there's nothing to fix. There's just the nervous system alarm bells going off, but there's nothing to fix. There's nothing to do. And so one of the biggest skills that mindfulness has taught me, and is one of the most essential skills in life, I think, is to be able to sit with that difficulty and not react to it, and to notice it and to digest it. You know, the one of the things I we talk about is this idea that I don't know, like most of us, were taught, when we have a difficult feeling. We're taught to kind of push it away, like don't cry or go away, go to your room, or to solve the problem like it is. We are naturally, sort of hardwired to avoid that kind of discomfort, but it's the way we move digest those difficult feelings that nervous system difficulty is not to push it away, because then it's like a, you know, a beach ball that you're shoving under the pool water, and it just pops up bigger, later, some other situation, right? We have to actually digest this. We have to digest it. And so kind of the middle path between, you know, pushing things away and then either drowning in things or exploding with feelings that are so unbearable, is to is the mindful middle of feeling them without being subsumed, without drowning, right? We feel them, and we digest them, and we look at them, and I think often our feelings are like little are like toddlers who are like at our legs, and they don't want to let go until you finally see and hear them. And that is what needs to happen. And so we can practice it. Of that baby who's upset, right? We can practice soothing them and soothing ourselves at the same time, not by making it go away by force of will, but by feeling it and breathing into it and noticing where is it in my body. And this is like, you know, there's this famous quote that Dr Viktor Frankl, who is the Holocaust survivor and psychologist in World War Two. He wrote like, you know, between stimulus and response, there is a space, and in that space is lies our ability to make a choice, and in our ability to choose, I'm paraphrasing here, is lies our growth and our freedom, and that's what that is, is the ability to sit in that space of discomfort and let the nervous system ride it out and then make A choice. And that's the definition of being non reactive, non reactive parenting. And it's helpful at every stage and age. Like I remember Maggie a couple years ago, was mad at us for some swim team thing, and was that she was really mad, and my husband, I we had messed up, and at first I was so, like, just uncomfortable with her being mad at me that I was like, I got a broom and I'm like, sweeping the floor as I realized what I was doing. And then I was like, Okay, I put the broom down. I sat on the ottoman. I just breathe as I breathe in. I'm like, a mountain. Breathe out. I feel solid. And I did this feeling of going into that space, of feeling it. I didn't say anything, and within like 60 seconds, she slumped down on that Ottoman near me, and just slumped her body against mine, and I didn't there was no nothing I could say to solve the problem. But just just feeling it and being present, it helped for both of us.

Being Present with Emotions - A Real-Life Example

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, I was recently with my my goddaughter and her family and her son is my grandson in in this family of choice that we've created. And there was a night when my grandson's parents went out and he woke up and he would not happy about it that they were out, and all he had was Bibi and Babu, you know, to to be with him, and he was upset, and I was holding him and able to be in that space where I was taking care of my nervous system. Oh, I'm I was feeling grounded. I was feeling compassionate for him, and solid in my own center, and able to say to him, yeah, you really want mama, yeah, Mama's, Mama's not here right now. And you really wish mama were here. I get that. That makes a lot of sense. And and I, I'm a huge fan of the word, and it's one of my go tos, and BB is here, and I will keep you safe, and it's okay if, if you're you wish that it were mama. And he settled. He absolutely settled. Doesn't mean that he wasn't still upset. You heard, yeah, but he softened. He would go, Mama, and I'd say, Yeah, I know you want mama, and I'm here and I'm with you, mom. I'd say, Yep, I hear you. You wish she were here. And we just kept kind of being in this space. And at one point I said, should we go and see if the moon is outside moon, you know? And so we went. And then Mama, I said, Yeah, Mama's not here, but she's coming home. And we just kind of danced in this dance together, where we were present with what was true. We weren't I wasn't ignoring what was happening, what he wanted, and I just kind of moved with him, and I credit what we were doing together to mindfulness, yeah, just yeah, just being with his experience as well as mine.

Soul to Soul Parenting

Hunter Clark-Fields: I love that that's like what There's a woman named Annie Burnside who wrote a book that I referenced because I think it. Makes so much sense. It's called soul to soul parenting, and what she says is, instead of being role to role, be soul to soul, it doesn't matter how old that other soul is, you're there together with them. It's not about a technique, it's not about a strategy, necessarily. It's not about being the perfect parent, or God parent or whatever. It's just like, Oh, I'm a I'm a soul here with you, and this this other soul, right? And can I be really see you? Can I really hear you? And to do that, we have to be able to see and hear ourselves,

Britta Bushnell: and be able to hear and see ourselves be able to sit down on the Ottoman in a moment where, instead you're trying to sweep right and go, which we've all been there, and take a moment and go, Wow, have that same kind of communication with ourselves. Wow. I'm really bummed that I disappointed my kid? Yeah, I do that. I have adult children now, so I have though the opportunities continue,

Hunter Clark-Fields: yeah, yeah, but there's a gift there, you know, there's such a gift there to be really seen and heard, and if we can practice to do that, more of the time maybe than not, right, or you're not going to do it 100% of the time, right? You're allowed to be human. It's okay. Your kid doesn't need your attention every single time, right? That's okay. But if we can practice to do that, maybe more of the time then we are unskillful. If we can practice to be skillful more of the time, then we're unskillful. The gift that is so beautiful, like I could see. I could see when Maggie was little that I was damaging our relationship with my reactivity. I could see that I was doing exactly what I had decided not to do because I was scared of my dad when I was little, although he had a lot of great qualities, and it was very enthusiastic and creative and all of these things, but an affectionate all parents are human. I know exactly, even

Britta Bushnell: all of us with our best intentions, there are going to be aspects of our parenting. Our kids are not gonna love we're gonna we will mess up.

Breaking Reactive Patterns & Long-Term Transformation

Hunter Clark-Fields: But yeah, I could see that I was damaging a relationship, and I could see that she was getting reactive to me, and we were going down a bad spiral. And I practiced to be to change that right, a practice to be steadier. I practiced to really steady myself for her, because that's what she needed. I thought I was going to be able to take her in the carrier and go to book festivals and let her whenever and just, yeah, right. Like she needs some rhythm. She needs some routine. And I was like, Oh, dang it. Okay, fine, you know. And I really practiced to become that steadiness that she her nervous system needed, her highly sensitive nervous system needed. And the fruit of that is really, I'm really grateful for I'm We're close, and, you know, we love each other, and she tells me things, and she, she has grown and transformed in a lot of ways too, you know? And it's just, it's a, it's a long haul, but the fruit is there in the, you know, as we practice, it's so worthwhile.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, I love that story and just that connection to doing the practice of becoming the parent your child needed you to, needed you to become, and how that message showed up for you back when she was a baby or a toddler, but it has carried all the way through to being a young woman, and that's that's remarkable. I want to pivot and if I can mention the quote from the Dalai Lama that you open chapter five, with which you you quoted him saying, when you talk, you are only repeating what you already know, but if you listen, you may learn something new, and that opens up Your chapter on on listening and and, can you kind of take us into mindful communication with our children? Like mindfulness isn't just what happens on a cushion, but like in what's mindful communication?

Mindful Communication & The Power of Listening

Hunter Clark-Fields: Well, it really is about it is. About listening, right? It's listening to our own hearts. It's listening to our kids, but, yeah, listening is this, you know, we think about communication, we start to think about the words we're going to say, and can I, can I get these scripts right to to respond in a good way? And I remember thinking that and then being so frustrated that I couldn't implement because I would get reactive, and then I'd feel even worse, because then I was like, I should have said, what that person said? I should say anyway. But I think, right, yeah, a lot of, a lot of what's happening with our kids. I think anytime our kids communicate with us, right? They are. They want to be seen and heard. And it's just so important to kind of understand that, that every and that's can be a lot, if you've got, like a preschooler, toddler, they like to be seen and heard a lot. So always get their way, but and it's

Britta Bushnell: both the fun stuff and the challenging stuff, so be all of it, right? So it's

Hunter Clark-Fields: so intense. This is why we need babysitters and and the childcare at the YMCA and all the family and all the help you can get when they're when they're little. It would be so wonderful if we could actually have a village like and that would be so much better for our kids and for us and for everyone's nervous system and sanity. But yeah, they always want to be seen and heard. They're trying to communicate, right? And so a lot of times when they communicate, they have a problem. Mama, blah blah, blah, blah blah, this, this cup is the wrong cup. Or, you know, I know, you know, whatever it is and and we are often a lot of like, our habitual language and our culture is puts up barriers to that. I call those the barriers to communication. We tend to, you know, maybe solve their problem right away, like we write that urge to fix, we just go into fix, well, let me just get the other cup then, right, yeah, we go into fix it. Or we say we shame or blame, even inadvertently, what's wrong with you. It's fine. Or, you know, we may. I mean, I remember using that language of like, you know, you don't want to be a baby, and that's like, dig. Big girls are good with this, and that's not so skillful.

Britta Bushnell: You can be kind to yourself as you remember the old ways of doing it. I see, I see those patterns popping up of, oh my gosh, did I actually say that? I just see listener. We it's all. We all have these moments where like, oh wow, when you know better, you do better, but you don't always know and even when you know better, you still screw up.

Hunter Clark-Fields: Yes, exactly sometimes you know better and you still don't do better because you have habits and you have reactions, and that's okay. It's okay to grow as you you know now for me, reflectively, listening is like so it's funny, because in the like I mentioned in the teacher training, I have to demonstrate, like, the unskillful habits, and it's so hard for me to do them now, because the skillful, reflective listening is So, you know, is so ingrained in me. But, but, yeah, a lot of times when our kids come to us with a problem, there's not anything to necessarily do or fix. We just want to kind of like, like, what you did with your god

Britta Bushnell: my grandson? Yeah, we just skipped the god part on that straight to grandson.

Reflective Listening & Acknowledging Emotions

Hunter Clark-Fields: Yeah, exactly you want to. You want to just see and hear them. And it's amazing, this acknowledging a problem and just recognizing a feeling or a problem or what's going on for another person. It really just takes the temperature down for us, and it's just provides a lot of relief. And they've actually done research on this. Dr Dan Siegel's done research on this, and they show in the brain how it lowers cortisol, et cetera, for just and it's called name it to tame it, right? You can just by recognizing, naming, labeling what's happening. We can it just takes the temperature down. So when our kids come to us with a problem, my brother hit me a lot of times, we don't necessarily even need to step in and solve the problem, especially not at first. What they really need from us is like, see me, hear me. And so some of that is just like, Oh, right. Like, sometimes listening and responding is just like, oh, you know, you match their face to their face. Oh, you're you're upset. Like, this is hard for you, right? Like, I really see and hear you, and it's something. It can be as simple as, like, toddler falls and hits their knee, and instead of saying, Oh, you're okay, you're okay, you're okay, you hear that constantly, right? And you're okay, come on, brush it off. Yeah, okay, that makes it worse. It makes it worse because you're like, No, I'm you didn't hear me. I'm upset. And so sometimes we can just it's as simple as saying, Oh, ouch. I bet that hurt, and we may not need to dwell on it, right? Like, we don't need to, like, you know, therapize the knee, Boo Boo on the knee, right? But it's like, just see and hear, see and hear me acknowledge the problem. This is the number one mistake, I think, actually, that parents make is that you just skip over acknowledging what your kid is saying to you, whether that's acknowledging the emotions or acknowledging the content, and it's like, oh, oh, that must have been frustrating. Or, yeah, like my brother, blah, blah, blah, okay, that must have been frustrating, right? Rather than trying to to fix it right away, just listen. Just be there and reflect what you're hearing them say. I think this is such a powerful parenting skill. It's, it's really a parenting superpower, and it initially comes from therapy, actually from, like in the 70s, Thomas Gordon and and the creator of nonviolent communication, they took that kind of language from therapy, and we're like, oh, lo and behold, it works for all kinds of situations. But yeah, it's, it's really very, very helpful,

Britta Bushnell: yeah, and, and we can do some of that with our own inner voices too, yes. So when we we can do both like we can practice having that, that acknowledging, witnessing voice with our child that is not embellishing what's happening or dramatizing what there's Oh, my God, show me your knee. What happened? Oh, but just meeting. Oh, did you fall? You fell here I see

Hunter Clark-Fields: a very good execution, note, dear listener, pay attention, right?

Britta Bushnell: We don't want to embellish. We don't want to make it bigger, but we want to meet it and similarly, with ourselves. Right? That that mindfulness practice of speaking to our own inner child that is upset or feeling unseen or unheard, whatever the judgment side voices, those second arrows that start coming, they respond well to that same voice that you just talked about doing with our child, right? Is to ourselves? Yeah. I love that. I love all of Yeah. I mean, I mean, I one of the ones that the Boo Boo on the knee, you're okay, you're okay. I mean, how often do we say to our own inner voice. When we're upset, you're okay, get over it. Get over it. Get over it. When really we want to say, Wow, you're really bummed that that didn't work out.

Hunter Clark-Fields: Yeah, it's it can be hard, right? That's why we have I mean, hopefully we are. One of the tips for new parents is to please, please cultivate your your mom friends and your keep your friendships. You know, even if it's not as you know you're not seeing them the same way, but yeah, but sometimes they can, they can say that for you in ways, yeah, we can't for each other,

Britta Bushnell: yeah. And as we, as we speak that way to our children, we help them develop the ability to that inner voice for themselves. Absolutely, which sounds kind of I sometimes fear saying that, because I don't want to load on the guilt, like because the opportunity for more guilt on parents. Feels so, oh,

It's Never Too Late & Releasing Parental Guilt

Hunter Clark-Fields: I know, oh, all the pressure on the first three years. It's so, it's so. I remember really feeling that like, Oh, so much has developed in the first three years. And I remember thinking seeing my daughter, Maggie, be reactive with her sister and other people for many, many years, and thinking, oh, did I really mess her up in those first three years when I was really reactive and I was really struggling and having a hard time, and I remember thinking that, I mean, even as when she was as old as 10. And then, you know, thinking, Well, I can only you. Know, do what I can do, right? I can only practice and etc. And then I remember one time she must have been 14 or something. I remember thinking that she had I was afraid that she had absorbed my reactivity, my temper, kind of, like not necessarily being empathetic. You know, I was worried about that. And then I remember this one time where something happened, oh, I had taken the dog out, and another, like, there was this moment of, like a scary, like, dogs not getting along and barking. And I was, I got really scared, and I got really upset, and I came in and I was talking about his skin, my one, my younger daughter, who's the second one, who's naturally a little bit more empathetic and less, you know, she, she was actually kind of, like, defending our dog and like, Mom, don't, like, don't talk about our dog that way. And and the older one who I had been worried about had just absorbed these, you know, because the first three years are so important. She was, she was like, Zora, can't you see the mom's upset? And she was like, Mom, do you need a hug? And I was like, yes, yes, I do need a hug. And then I was so it was just like, Oh, look at this. Like, she's changed too. Like, as I've grown and changed, she's grown and changed, she's, you know? And, yeah, it's so beautiful. It can happen at any age or stage. We had, yeah, grandparents do this work, you know? It's like it can happen. I had a grandparent do this work with with the mindful parenting course I taught in person, and she because she was taking care of her six year old grandson, but she came to me at the end, and she said, I have healed my relationship with my adult daughter. And I was like, Oh, wow, you know. And it just, there's, it's never it. We're always growing and changing. So it's never, never too late and, and, yes, you are definitely going to make mistakes and, and that's okay, like your kids don't need a perfect person. It would be terrible if you were perfect in fact. Like, how would they feel like, as a normal messing up, angry and frustrated and and mistake making human to have some perfect angel as a parent that they could never you know, like that would be terrible. You have to make mistakes and mess up and yell and and be human. And that's, that's, that's okay, that's good. Let's just, you know, try to make it maybe, percentage wise, we're trying to make a majority of time more skillful, and then we forgive ourselves when we're less so skillful. Yeah, we

Apologizing & Modeling Repair

Britta Bushnell: do the best we can instill, instill a as much of an inner dialog for them when we because one of the things is, when we screw up, we can also apologize. Yes, we can. We can apologize. We can own it. We can, you know, and then they learn how to do that, and it's

Hunter Clark-Fields: like best way to teach an apology. Way better than you better go and apologize.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, right, go apologize to your friend for or that teacher for what you did. It's like, well, if, if we've done and if we've been an unskillful parent, at a moment, we're human, and we can go and say, Wow. I mean, I can remember learning to apologize to my kid for outbursts, because outbursts were one of my things I would hit kind of full Yeah. And I would go and, and I'd be like, Oh, my God, wait a minute. I don't want to respond like that, and something really surprising happened, which is the more I acknowledged the reaction that was too big for the situation, and apologized for the reaction, not always the message, because sometimes what I was communicating was a message I needed to communicate, but my way was outsized, and so I would apologize for that, I actually found that my outbursts reduced, yeah, which I don't know The science behind that, but because I was turning into it and acknowledging it, rather than being like, No, I'm never, I never outburst, right? That doesn't happen. It's like, No, we're pushing the beach ball under the water. Yeah? Maybe that's And so being able to acknowledge. I had a beach ball. Made it so that the beach ball didn't go under the water so much.

Digesting Emotional Hamburgers

Hunter Clark-Fields: The beach ball is actually not my favorite metaphor. Another one works here better, which is, you had an you had a big fat, juicy, messy, emotional hamburger. And you what we often try to do when we try to shove our feelings away. We pretend we don't have them, is that we eat this giant emotional hamburger and then we have no digestive system, and then it's a big mess. It is a big mess, but you digested your emotional hamburger

Britta Bushnell: and then it actually made me not need them as much or be hungry for them. I mean, not that they still didn't happen. I mean, one of my biggest emotional outbursts in my entire parenting was when my oldest was. How old was he? My firstborn? My firstborn was probably 16. And, I mean, I remember it right. It's one of those that that I Ouch. I can still feel it, and I just have to be to this day tender with how, how hard that moment was for me, yeah, and that I didn't have better tools for navigating that. And I really to the point we were talking about a little bit before is I was not feeling heard by my kid, and so I got louder, I got louder, hoping that he would hear me. And you know it so, so that's those are the ways, you know, even back when I was I was the toddler saying, Hey, Mom, hear me, right. Hey, Dad, hear me. Some of these things give us opportunities to practice over and over again for our entire lives. Yeah, yeah.

Building a Baseline Practice to Lower Reactivity

Hunter Clark-Fields: I think that one of the things that it's important to think about here, like, if you're you're a new parent, and you're like, wow, oh my god, I'm a little scared now, Hunter, you think we're scaring them? Is that what's happening? No. But if they're like, you know, and this is all coming like this, heavy, difficult, challenging stuff is that, like, you know, to give yourself a baseline to practice, to give yourself a baseline of stability and solidity, right? Will help you enter all this tumult that we are discussing, you know? So something that's like as simple as I wake up in the morning, or at some point during the day, I sit on the edge of my bed and I take 10 deep breaths, or at the end of the night, I light a candle, yeah, and I take 10 deep breaths, I put my hand to my heart, or I journal, or I give my child to other people, other caring people, and I go for a walk without a phone for 20 minutes, you know, just quietly in the woods, if possible, right? Or, like any of these practices that can lower your baseline of anxiety and reactivity and nervous system overload, that's, that's what your kid needs. That's what your kid needs. That's my, my I'm pulling, trying to pull a takeaway out, right? Like, don't be scared. But practice, practice to lower your baseline of of of reactivity. It helps enormously.

Finding Your Own Mindfulness Practice

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, even, like, if you have I'm a I'm a big tea drinker, and I use my morning ritual of making my cup of tea, not a habit where I just do it without thinking, but as an opportunity to be mindful with the moment, watching the water go into the mug, putting in the matcha powder, if it's a matcha that I'm Having, which I'm currently in a matcha phase. So that's, that's my current one, stirring it, heating up the milk, putting the milk, like I have these. And rather than just from thing to thing to thing, breathing in those moments while I'm doing it doesn't sound

Hunter Clark-Fields: beautiful. I see. I admire that I'm too impatient for that. I like the mindfulness teacher who is into mindfulness because I need it desperately. But like, you know, I've gotten to moments on retreats when I can do that with the tea and things like that. But my daily life, I need. Be like, this is my meditation time. And then I can be like, I'm making my cappuccino, I'm getting my here I go, you know.

Britta Bushnell: So in other words, there's lots of different ways, lots of different ways to do it. Yes, there's not one way that is going to be the way. Yes, it is about being curious, coming back to the beginning of our conversation, being curious with what's helpful to you and being kind to yourself as you navigate the journey of figuring out what helps you be present in moments, over and throughout your day with your children and with yourself. Yes, yeah. Well, okay, we pulled it full circle. Look at look at us. Yeah. So where can folks find you and learn more about your work?

Connect with Hunter & Resources

Hunter Clark-Fields: Everything I do is at mindful mama mentor.com and you can find the mindful mama podcast wherever you are listening to this wonderful podcast. So just look it up.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, and you offer a bunch of snippets too on Instagram,

Hunter Clark-Fields: yeah, yeah, we do clips of the podcast. You can find me on Instagram at mindful mama mentor, but yeah, sign up for I have freebies that are kind of about mindful parenting, and you know what to do when you do yell, or how to discipline without punishment. So there's all kinds of nice freebies that you can get at the website. So that's all at mindful mama mentor.com

Britta Bushnell: Oh, great. And I'll make sure to have all of those links so folks can easily find you. So I like to close with the same question to every guest. So are you ready for our final question? Our last opportunity? I haven't studied, but I'll be as ready as I can

Britta Bushnell: well, you know, we can just be present with this moment, no studying required.

Final Wisdom for New & Expectant Parents

Britta Bushnell: So what's one thing that you feel passionately about, that you want new or expectant parents to see, hear, feel or know about this profound period of their lives,

Hunter Clark-Fields: I guess that it's incredibly hard and that you should get all the help you can get that this time, when your kids are four and under, is the most intensive time of parenting. It's not like it, it gets that much easier. You know, there is an adish, bigger kids, bigger problems. That is true. But get all the help you can get, you know, I you know, get the babysitter, get the get the help that you can get so that you can take breaks and you can have you as well. You know, not too much pressure to be you, but like, it's a huge change. Obviously, everything is changing. But just get, get all the help you can get. And don't burden yourself with being everything to your kid, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Closing

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, try not to burden yourself with being everything to your child. Yes, wise words. Thank you Hunter and thank you listeners for sharing this time with us. If something shared today impacted supported or moved you, please share this episode with a friend. I produce this podcast, myself and your support makes it possible to show a little love for the podcast and these conversations. Please follow rate and review. If you'd like to continue the conversation, please join us on Instagram at transformed by birth. I look forward to being with you on the next episode of transformed by birth. Now let's gather what we want to take away from this episode with an inhale. Hold it in for a moment, and as we exhale, I'll blow out the candle until next time bye, friends.