ļ»æTRANSCRIPT: Exhale Yoga with Michelle Meech
Hello, hello and welcome to today's bighearted podcast. Today I'm joined by the beautiful Michelle Meech. I have known Michelle for about eight or nine years now. Michelle was a family daycare educator with our sister business, rainbow Bridge Family Daycare, and she was just one of those educators that got it.
She. This beautiful environment that she set up for the children. She ran a beautiful program and I think from there she went on to be inspired because she did move on from family daycare and went and did her yoga teacher training. So from there, Michelle then created Exhale, which is a wellness coaching business, and she also created Exhale Kids and Teams Yoga, which is designed to help people live their best.
Michelle's a qualified Ave wellness coach, yoga teacher, Reiki master, E F T coach, and of course, an early childhood education professional. She's passionate about supporting children and teens and women through her wellbeing coaching program for women and yoga and wellbeing programs for children teams, and early learnings.
Centers, schools, workshops, and private classes. Michelle has a mission to inspire all women and children to be connected to their mind, body, and spirit, and to live a life of vitality, inner peace and high self-worth. So this was a really great conversation, um, a because I love Michelle and I know you will too.
But B, because it touches on a whole lot of things that I think are really important, not just for children, but for educators too, in that we need to prioritize. Our boundaries around self-care and self-care is so much more than just having a bath and, you know, making a cup of tea and, and treating yourself nicely with a facial and all these things.
Deep self-care is much, much more than that. Deep self-care is prioritizing yourself and putting yourself first, and in order to be able to. Be the best for the children and our own families. We have to be the best for ourselves first. So this was a really great conversation and Michelle gave us so many hints and tips that we can bring into our practice with the children on the daily basis.
That will help the children, but also help you. And I know it just seems to be this recurring theme in early childhood right now, where people are feeling overwhelmed. They're feeling overstimulated, they're overburdened. They're just tired. The last couple of years has really taken it out of out of us and our humanness and our ability to show up and not be burnt out and exhausted.
So I really hope that you get a lot out of this and that you can apply some of these principles or practices within your own family daycare because I know that they're going to have an incredible benefit, not just for the children. But for you too, because you can't pour for an EM from an empty cup. We all know that saying, but it really is true, like it's superbly true.
So without further ado, I am going to hand the reins over to Miss Michelle. We will have our wonderful podcast interview and I hope that you get a lot from it.
H ello, hello, and welcome to the Big Hearted podcast. My name is Victoria Edmond and I am your host. Our aim here at the Big Hearted Podcast is to nurture a community of heart-centered educators to change the. Exception and delivery of early childhood education and care in Australia and ultimately around the world.
We want you to be inspired by our guests and the topics we bring to you to think of new ways of being. As an educator, we want you to feel a sense of. Belonging via this podcast so that you can engage anytime of the day or night in any place that suits you. We want you to become an educator that delivers education from the heart, as we believe this is how we create great change within our world.
So join us as we discover new ways to inspire each other here. All the big hearted podcast.
Hello, and thank you so much for joining us today. As you've just heard, we have the gorgeous, the beautiful the ever Miss Michelle from Kids' Yoga. So everybody's heard about you in our introduction, but do you just wanna share a little bit off the cuff and from the heart as to why you do what you do and where you've sort of come from?
Okay, sure. Well, thank you for having me, Victoria. Um, I started working with children a long time ago in early childhood, and I just noticed as I grew and developed as a person, how much children needed these mindful practices in their life. It was something I was really passionate about. It was the way I, um, was educating children and it's just something that merged my love of natural therapies.
I've always had a love of natural therapies, um, and it was something that I had in my life. And then I, I got to a point where I went and studied yoga. Um, and then I just combined both. Um, The early childhood and the yoga into what just evolved into this business. I guess like all of us, we get to a point in our lives.
I was a really young mom and I was busy and I kind of reached a point of, um, burnout myself. So off I went and reflected on my life and did all my yoga training and it just led me to this path and it was just, Perfect timing really of what I needed to do for, for myself, and also something that I knew I could bring to the world.
Yeah. I mean, giving children these tools that we've had to go and learn ourselves at such a young age. Yeah. So that when they, they face challenges in their lives, then they've got all this great, all these great tools to navigate life with. And not only that, just grow up with them. Grow up with that self-awareness.
Super important. Yeah, especially now, especially now with, um, children really needing assistance to work on resilience. And I think it's interesting what you were just saying, how, you know, you got burnt out and then you went and learnt these skills on how to regulate yourself more and how to have more patience and, um, honoring yourself at whatever age you were.
2021. A little bit older, but you, it took you however long in your thirties to get there, and now you are sharing those with children at a young age. I think that's so, so remarkable and really very much needed. Yeah, definitely a hundred percent. And just learning to recognize, you know, when you need to take care of yourself.
It's a really, really big thing. When to, to push through and when to slow down. Teaching our children that from a young age is, is super important. I think too, this, you know, we. We know that, um, the world's a different place now and children have access to all different things that we didn't when we were younger.
So it's a different world to parent in, to educate in, and it's our job to lead children. And the only way forward for me that I see is with mindfulness and practices that, um, encompass every part of the, the whole child that they need. Um, Every day. So yeah, it's interesting, isn't it, because that's one thing that I am really trying to share with educators, and I've sort of taken the approach of step back and let the children do what they need to do without you.
Helicoptering over them, but the benefit of that is that they have more time in their work time to get their work done. That's one of the biggest complaints that educators have, is that they just feel so overwhelmed with the requirements, but nobody's really talking about how to, like, we can't. Negate some of them.
Some of them are over the top and I think people need to have the strength of mine to be able to say, actually I'm not gonna do that. That doesn't serve any purpose other than an arbitrary thing box to tick in an office that has no relevance to me or the children. Um, but. But like we need to have this ability to be able to regulate ourselves.
So if we're so overwhelmed all the time, the children in our care are going to be picking up on that and be overwhelmed themselves. So I think it's really, um, a really great point that you raise about, you know, children having these skills now because they will remind us. There, there's a little story when my son was, I don't know, he was just, wasn't even fully talking and he kept saying to us for a number of days, act time, tack time.
And we were like, what I, what is he saying? Like, no idea. And it was when we were in moments of like being frustrated or trying to do something. And it wasn't until I said to him one day when he was frustrated. Take your time mate. And he went, take time. Take time. And I went, oh, that's what he is been saying to us for, for days now take time.
Take time. You know, so they absolutely, the children pick up on where we are at emotionally as well. So do you wanna talk to us a little bit about how, from your perspective, how that does have an impact on children and what educators can do if they find themselves in those moments where they're. A little bit, you know, frustrated.
Absolutely. That's a real, it's a really great topic to talk about for educators because like you said, there is a huge amount of pressure on them. There's little time for themselves, and if you do also go home to children, You know, you, you are go, go going. And I think also your mind's got so many tabs open all the time.
As educator, you're thinking about multiple things. Um, what you get, what you're planning this child, what that parent told you this morning. Huge. Um, that you need your yourself to take some time to download that mind. So not so many tabs are opened. And then when you are regulated, You are able to approach every situation with calm and love and welcome that child in.
Um, and then they obviously absorb that. So that's, that's really important. I think the best way that they can do that is to incorporate mindful breaks in the classroom in the day. So do it with the children when you are in the classroom. Um, So it's a breathing break and I'm not sure if you are still teaching the rhythm with rainbow breach of breathing in and breathing out.
Yeah. And this is the whole, um, way that you are starting your day is to breathing. We have breathing moments and we have breath out moments. Yeah. Really important for a child. Also important for you. So do some breath work on the map. When you open your day, you open your opening your morning circle time.
Breathe with the kids when they're lined up. If you're in a big center and um, the children are lined up, it's time for us to breathe, to take a big breath in and a big breath out before you even enter that classroom ground and center the children. Listen to the sounds outside of the room, inside the room.
Do all that type of mindful sensory experience. The children will love it anyway. You know, it takes 'em a while to get to be focused and to do those processes, but we know that the more we do it on repetition every day, it becomes a routine. Then you are taking that opportunity to take that breath, to take that pause, to drop your shoulders.
Mm, to remove that tension. You're doing it now and it's true. See, as soon as someone says to you, Lay your feet round into the earth. Relax your shoulders. Yeah, your, yeah. Take a big breath in. I was doing it. You said it. It's really, really a beautiful, um, way that you can bring mindfulness into the day. I really, I teach people this.
It doesn't need to be a big thing. It's not another thing to add a layer of your stress to your life. Mindfulness is just bringing ourselves back to the present constantly. Yeah. Um, and there's so many different areas that, so many different techniques that we can use, but I would say for the educators to start.
That part of the day, um, with a breath and just stop and pause before pack away time. Let's do our mindful breath again. Yeah. Um, and then you can use all these different breathwork techniques too when it's a rainy day, when it's too hot. There's some, there's a million different ways you can learn to breathe with the kids.
Yeah. Um, to really incorporate that in your day. So breathwork is probably one of the top mindful techniques I would say to use throughout the classroom. Yeah. As an educator too, when you drive to work, before you get outta that car, just pause for a moment. Pause for a moment and take a breath before you start your day.
Yeah. If you're feeling a little bit, sorry. I was gonna say, if you're starting to feel really overwhelmed about what's ahead, it's just gonna bring you back there and it's not gonna get your mind going. It's gonna keep you nice and and steady. Yeah. It's, it's interesting, isn't it? Because quite often, and, and there was something he said, um, that made me think of the.
Being mindful and coming back to the present moment because anytime that we're busy thinking about what's coming, It's an unconscious avoidance of the present moment. Anytime we're thinking about something that's happened, it's an unconscious avoidance of being in the present moment. And so if we're a person that's ruminating on the past or worried about something that hasn't happened yet, both of those actions are wasted energy because you can't change what's happened.
And you have no idea what's coming. So you are worrying about something that hasn't happened yet. And I know a lot of educators can sometimes get caught into that because they're constantly, and it may not be worrying about something's happening, but it's, you know, thinking, oh, I've gotta do this, and Oh, I've gotta do that and I've gotta get that done.
I've gotta tick that and I've gotta blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But what they're missing is what's happening right here. And I think it's a really valuable reminder to all of us to just take those breaths when we find ourselves racing away. Come back to the tortu, turtle, tortoise, whoever he is, in the hair, in the tortoise, and, and have that moment to just go, oh, hang on a second, that's going to get done.
In the moment when it's needing to be done, this is where I need to be right now. And stop and share that with the children because it is, it makes a difference. You know, sometimes the children get wild, they get wound up, and it does require that new holding that space and bringing it back into that place of peace and calm.
So especially with family daycare, educators too, because you are on your own. And you are responsible for how this is all flowing. And if you can manage that just as something to start off with, it's free. It doesn't cost you anything. You can do it anywhere. Yep. If you're on an excursion, you're in the car and the children are bickering, let's take a breath.
Absolutely. And just really incorporate that. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. That's good. It's more educators in their own home, you know, taking, like I said, To do it in the car before you get to work, but for, well, family daycare, you can have that moment of mindfulness before they arrive. Yeah. You know, whether you turn on the essential oils or you do whatever is.
Connecting to spirit. Really do whatever you, what is right for you and what your beliefs are. And just having that moment to sit. Maybe it might be just on the grass and the sun grounding yourself. Some people need movement. If you're feeling a bit overwhelmed, you might need a bit of movement. Um, so whatever that is, that will then put you in that nice mindset so when the kids are come, you are ready to receive them.
Yeah. And then you are ready for your day ahead. And then again, as I said, take pauses. When you have your lunch break, take a pause. But if you're having a day where you are really overwhelmed and you know that's coming through, Take the kids outside. Nature's the best healer for, for everybody. Change up what you're doing and this you having your own self-awareness will make your day completely different as an educator and completely different to those children's lives because whatever, I don't know how many you've got coming in.
4, 5, 4, 4 coming in from four different families. Yeah, every day you don't really know what's happened before those four children come in. So they've got their energy, you've got yours, you've gotta come together. And this is the great thing about mindfulness. It can bring you together in a really beautiful, connected way.
Yeah. So I guess that's the part of that, that Morning Circle bring, bring the first practice into the morning circle. Yeah. So you can even sing a song and breathe with the song. Yeah. How I start my kids' yoga classes. We sing a song, we're welcoming and it leads us into a breath, and the kids know it and they do.
Do you wanna share your song? My Welcome to Yoga song? Yeah, go on. I'm sing for you, Victoria. Okay. Yes, I do, Sarah. So I used it in all different ways. At the moment, we've been singing this song, we listen to the sound ball and I tell the children when the sound ball stops. So they have to come to center and they have to listen.
We're going to put our hands on a part of our body that needs love today. So the song goes, welcome to relax.
Quiet, then I know it's time to bring the singing bowl, and I ring it. And then we place our hands on our heart after we listen or our heads or wherever they find in their body. And obviously, you know, the little ones might scream when the shines, but we're learning, it's a process. Yeah. So I do that mainly with kids under, under six.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's, it's those cues, isn't it? And it is the whole thing of not everyone you know, is going to join in, in a capacity where they're sitting there in a circle neat. And tidy and, and like fully engaged. Some children might be off the mat and a little further away and they might not even be appearing to pay attention, but they're taking that in and because they're part of Always take it in.
Yeah. Yeah. They're part of it. And some of them will know the song and just sing the song. Some of them, yeah. Wait to hear the sounds and others of them wait to place their hands on their body. Yeah, they all take something from it. It's really interesting because I can give you a wonderful example of abor, of children absorbing things.
Obviously I have two, two girls, and they're a lot older now, but they've had this in their life forever and quite often now they'll be like, mom, we're not doing yoga. You know, like, Well, they'll be like resistant to me because of course I'm mum. But one day I was driving the car and it was really hectic and, and busy, um, on the highway and I pulled off and I said to my daughter, I'm just gonna pull off and have a moment.
That was pretty full on with, because we'd been rushing and she just started to count me through our breath work. Ah, inhale mom. 1, 2, 3. And I couldn't even breathe because I was just so enjoyed. Yeah, that she was able to take that cue and go, oh, mom, let's just breathe. And then off we went. Yeah. And life just went on and everything was great.
Yeah. But just that she was able to guide me through that breathwork, so she'd been listening and absorbing and knew exactly when we needed it. So always, always do it. It's the same as, keep putting the veggies on the plate. Concept. Yeah. Just keep doing it. Yeah. Try. That's right. I, I, I real, I wanna circle back to that comment about the f and I've never even put that into content, like thought about it like that before.
But, um, when you talked about four different children coming from four completely different families and all of that coming into your space, like, oh, I've never even put that into context and, and how to manage that and contain it and hold it until, They acclimatized to your environment? Um, I, I talked about a really dear family to us.
Um, but mom had to have two children at my door at seven o'clock on the.in order to, and it had to be a quick drop off because then she had to be at work by eight and she was like 45 minutes away. So she would come in and. Like I would do what you, I talk about this in the essential elements. I would sit for 10, 15 minutes before my day started.
I'd get all my things done and then I'd sit and I would think about each child that was coming in for the day and think about how we were gonna have a beautiful day, the things that I wanted to focus on with that child for that day. I'd hold a picture of them in my mind and I would, um, just be in total reverence to that little being that was coming to be with me for the day.
And I talk about that in the essential elements as a whole section on that. Wow, that's awesome. But this mama would come in, so I'd be, you know, I'd had the incense on the, the music quietly playing Diva Pral was one of my favorites. And, um, I'd be in that zen zen zone, you know, and this mama would come in and it was, honestly, I'd stand there when she'd gone and be like, Oh, it's like a hurricane.
My kids would be like, here comes Joel, the hurricane in a loving way. You know, because we'd all be like far out. Wow. That was intense. And I totally understand why she, I don't know how she did it. I, there's no, I can't even get myself out the door by seven o'clock, let alone two children at the kindie ready to go like she was.
It's impressive. Yeah. Incredible. And, but it's a different in energy and it is. That whole thing of, so what I ended up doing, those children was getting dinner on, so they'd help me get the dinner on into the slow cooker, or we would make like essential oil blends or we would do. Or chill down activity.
How good is family daycare? It's so good. It's so incredible, but it's incredible. I've never thought of it like that. Managing the different energies that, and you, they, you are inviting them into your home, so you wanna have, and it's totally okay for people to have a boundary. Around how people enter and exit your home and what the children bring in with them.
So I really, really love that idea that the gathering together, like I always did it too, but having a consciousness and an awareness around having a purpose behind everything you do is important. And I think that's part of that mindfulness stuff is that, you know, you don't wanna do things just for the sake of doing it.
There's gotta be a part. No, there's intention. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the wonderful thing about that as well is the ripple effect it creates, because 90% of the time, children's. Um, worries or the way their energy is is coming from the home. Mm-hmm. And that's no judgment against the parents because we're all parents and we know what it's like.
Um, but what the children learn, they then take back to their home. Yeah. So when we're teaching them then breath work, we're teaching them a yoga pose or any other type of mindful activity that, that I teach, even if it's through a creative way. Or a song that goes back home. And when we have sharing circles at the end of yoga as well, I always, um, encourage the children to, to set, to, to take what they've learned and to take it back home.
So I will say to them, oh, you could teach your mom and dad that today. You've loved learning this technique today. Why don't you go home and show mom and dad and teach it Tina? So it's bringing everything we learn back. To give that to them to take back out into the world. So when I'm teaching relaxation, do you know you can do this in bed at night when you, when you can't go to sleep?
So it is teaching them the skills for real life. It's not just, we just don't do it at yoga. This is life. Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, so that, that's essentially a really important part of, um, of yoga and even in, in early childhood as well, because Yeah. You are there all the time with them. You have a massive influence on their life.
Well, you can't change what's happening in their life, nor that you were meant to change anything. But you, you, you are their support. You are their, their little lighthouse to guide them during the day. Yeah, a hundred percent. Hundred. It's a really important thing to note as well. It's, it's really interesting, isn't it?
Because, and I'm not comparing children to animals. Please don't come at me, but it's like when you have a, a dog. You know, and a dog, you've got people that'll come in and the dog is just like, ugh, neural like, or or afraid of that person. It's, it's that energy. And some people have an energy that's like right out here for those listening at home.
I've got my hands in front of me as far as I can go. Um, I, I can remember a time walking, um, and. It had just been raining and I had this really incredible experience. Um, and I was walking past a big paddock. There was bush on my left, this big open paddock on the right, and there must have been a natural waterway that ran under the road.
And I could hear the trickling, trickling water. And I stopped and I paused and I was like, wow, doesn't that sound beautiful? And then the bell birds were going, and then there was frogs and then there were little fis and other little tiny birds. And I actually, I was just standing there and I was like, I feel like I'm in one of those nature CDs showing nature.
But you know, though, where people actually play, um, the. Just one second. I'm just gonna pause for a second. Okay. So sorry for everyone in the, uh, podcast world. My dad just came and, yeah, interrupted. Anyway, so I felt like I was in this nature CD and I, I stood there for I don't know how long. And was just like, wow, the luckiest person on the face of the earth, like legit, the luckiest person on the face of the earth.
And, and then I was like, okay. And I kept, I kept walking. I, I, I continued with my walk and I got to a hill and it's, we call it kill Hill for obvious reasons. And, and I realized as I was like, trudging up the hill trying to get up the hill and I'm. Deep breathing and I'm puffing and I'm walking up the hill.
And then I realized that I was pushing my energy so far out of my body that the animals around me were flying away from me. Wow. And I had this massive awareness and I went, oh wow. And I consciously constricted my energy to be closer to me. Like we all have an energy field going woowoo people, but I. Um, lots of people like to wanna do.
Um, so, so I consciously pulled my energy in and I noticed the difference. The animal stops, the birds stopped flying away and, and all that sort of thing. And they just more observed me and I was like, oh, that's really, you know, really interesting to note. And. I had to then slow my walk down because I didn't wanna puff so hardcore.
I, I just wanted to be in this moment. And it's very interesting because if we're not aware as educators that we might be having issues with our own children. We're our partner or you know, uh, a parent that dropped off their child before and said something to you, or, you know, you're having this thing happen because, you know, maybe that child's a little bit unwell or whatever is going on.
Like all the million things that can offput us and take us out of being in the present moment. Like it. We're not giving our best to the children and we're not giving our best to ourselves either when we are. Pulled off our, our center like that. And it's the same for children too. They, they get that as well.
Yeah. And you are just able to move out of your head, back into your body. Yeah. In a really positive way. Yeah. Yeah. So that's exactly what you can do for those kids too. And they get dropped off. And that ex, that example with the, the mum that had to do the fast, quick drop off. Imagine what's going in their little minds.
Yeah. Get them back down into their physical body for a bit. However, want to do that with movement or love or hugs and Yeah. Get them outta that worry state. Yeah, because sometimes you can't breathe when you're in that state as well. You've gotta get that, get back into the physical body. Yeah. Like you said, there is all layers, different layers of the body.
Yeah, it's true. It's interesting, like, I mean, I, I wanna talk to you about nervous system as well, because I, the chiropractic work that I've done has given me a, a tremendous amount of, uh, awareness around the nervous system and the impacts that general life has on people's nervous system. But one of the things that go with, uh, breathing too, is so many people breathe up to here.
And that That's right. Just into their chest. Yeah. When really, when you can drop your breath down into your lower belly and Yep. It makes you be calm doing that. Becau, that's a terrible English Victoria. It makes you feel calm when you do that because it actually takes more time to get down there, essentially.
But you've gotta consciously push it down there until it becomes unconscious that you breathe from there. So that's, that's an interesting thought process too. So tell me more about nervous system from a, a yoga perspective. Um, because I think that's interesting and people really could use a lot of assistance or awareness around that themselves.
Yeah. So with, um, with yoga and your nervous system, I guess. Well, with yoga and with the nervous system and breath work, what you're doing is bringing yourself out of that. Um, Sympathetic nervous system where in the flight, right free state and back into parasympathetic nervous system. We've probably heard that happen a lot.
So I guess, um, that's the whole idea of doing the breath work is to regulate the nervous system. Um, and, uh, there's many ways your nervous system can become unregulated. It can be with an educator just through chronic, um, overwhelm. Yeah. Chronic stress, constant overwhelm, which then leads you into a place of, um, unregulated nervous system.
So the messages that are going to your brain, the way that you are interpreting information, um, it isn't really clear and you're working from the back part of your brain, um, and the front part of your brain in, in an incorrect way. Mm-hmm. If I go into the science of it, it's gonna get really confusing. So I.
What I would just say to you is that the breath work allows you to come back into your body and calm yourself so that you are not, um, feeling unregulated in your mind and your body. So the messages of that are being sent from your brain. To your body are then, um, nice and clear and calm and you're able to come back into a, a calm state.
Yeah. Um, I dunno if I really explained that very clearly, then without becoming scientific, I just don't wanna go there. Um, but basically for a child with a unregulated nervous system, they're not going to even be able to process their emotion or. Interact with other children or even probably feel comfortable sitting on the mat in a group because they're in a flight fri free state.
So they either wanna run, they're either really fearful or they're just frozen. They're not sure what to do. You see kids freeze a lot. Yeah. But they just kind of stand there. They're not really sure where to go. Yeah. And that's because their nervous system is, is out of whack and we need to regulate that.
So the breath work helps sometimes a little bit of padding on their body. So just coming over, touching, rubbing the back of their body slowly, deeply, so they then can start to calm and relax their body. Yeah, and then you can get them to breathe in and out. Then they've come back to that state and then you can help them work through what's going on that calm state.
Yeah, interesting, isn't it? Because I kinda look at it like a highway, like your nervous system is like a highway and there's information that goes cuz your brain, and again, I talk about this in the essential elements, but. Your brain has a, a covering in in the meninges. Yep. So when we've all heard of, you probably haven't heard of meninges, but everyone's probably heard of meningitis.
So anything that's itis is a swelling of, so meningitis means that all of the sheath that's covering the brain is swollen and it's causing restriction, um, and constriction around the brain, which is never good because the brain needs to be able to move and be active. But from the brain is every single nerve.
Cell, um, nerve ending is connected somewhere into the brain. Mm-hmm. Those, those nerve endings are then connected to the meninges that cover the brain, which then goes down the back of the head into the brainstem and forms into the spinal column, uh, the, into the spinal cord rather. So every, and when you look at a, a picture of a, a, a, a nervous system, it then looks like.
Roots of a tree coming off to everywhere. So how the, the spinal or the nervous system works and it's the only thing that's fully encased in bone to protect it. So the spinal column is hollow. The nervous system runs down through that, and then through all the gaps in there is where the nerve endings come out.
So it's like a highway. Information goes down, it gets sent out where it needs to go, the information comes back and shoots back up the nervous system into the brain. Happens quicker than you can blink, you think move your hand like that. Had to come from the brain, shoot down to my hand, come back to then make that movement happen.
Like you can't even see it happening. We just know that that's what happened. Really. Phenomenal concept, isn't it? Oh, it's fascinating. And so then when, when we become dysregulated, Those, that information isn't going where it needs to go. It's getting stuck somewhere. It's getting blocked somewhere. Um, quite often that's when people have, um, spine issues.
Like they'll get a subluxation, which is a joint goes outta place. They'll get a scoliosis or they'll, their, their body will, you know, their hips will come from, we'll, you'll see it through posture. Yes. And for anyone looking at home, you can't look at home on the podcast, but I'm standing like an old person.
You, your shoulders hunched forward, your hips tuck up and you get that hunch back. So that's an intelligent decision by the body to bring a top and the bottom of the spine closer together. And you'll notice that in an anxious child, their shoulders have been rolled. Yes. They'll be in towards their heart instead of opened out.
Yes. Yeah. And just, yeah. And they put a cage around their back of their ribs, become like a cage because it's like they're preventing, you know, that that discomfort coming in. They, they're protecting their heart, you know, that heart center. So it's, I mean, that was a little bit scientific too. And, and you do what I wasn't gonna do.
Great. Thank you. Sorry. I love talking about that stuff because Yeah, it's, Yeah, when, when things come in and, and information comes in, if we can't deal with that, our body will wall that off. Mm-hmm. Our body of that, if that highway gets too busy with too much information happening, and this is why sleep is so important for children and come at me because I will.
Give you the scientific evidence as to why sleep is imperative for young children and educators, having a good sleep yourself. Um, but when we don't sleep, that highway becomes like peak hour traffic in Manila, in the Philippines or in the heart of LA or whatever. There's so much information on there that the brain literally just goes.
Can't deal with this. So what it'll try and do is it'll try and gather as much as it can and separate it from the, from the nervous system and get a chunk of those cars off that highway. But where does it, what does it do with that information? It keeps it separated and then you get a sore arm or a back, or saw Nick because you know that.
Essential part of the highway has been missing. And everyone, you, I dunno if that's making sense. I hope it is, but it does to, yeah, it does to me. And I, and I, I get where you're going with that and with such enthusiasm because it is, it's pretty phenomenal when you can understand the science behind your body.
Yeah. And why you should do, why you should do mindfulness, basically, what do you wanna call it? Holistic wellbeing. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's so important though, and educators ha when you understand that, You can look at a child in fear Frighted flight and free or freeze and be like, oh, I know what's going on.
They're having a hard time processing this information. Let's just stop the world right now. Let's, like you say that gentle padding and safe container for them. Yeah, yeah. You have the ability to do that. You have the awareness and you have, you know, a little bit of the knowledge, the deeper understanding of what's actually going on to be able to help them in that process, to shift through that.
So I think that's really important for, um, for us to share that today. And thank you, um, even though. I did go where you didn't wanna go. I think it was No, that's ok. I, I like to keep things simple and not confuse people, but it is, it's a really important concept to share and I think that for me, from my perspective on that is, um, creating routines in your life.
With these practices. Um, and in Aveda we call this Dina Cherry, but creating routines the same as we do for children in your life, as well as in the daycare setting is how you just regulate that nervous system constantly. Yeah. And as we know, children thrive on a routine, so it's super simple to bring these concepts in because you've already got something established.
Yeah. Um, it's the same thing. I'm really. Um, would a hundred percent agree with you with sleep? If people are having trouble in their life, the first thing I'll look at with them is sleep. Yeah. Um, Because it, it really is. It's everything. Yeah. And especially with a child, they're really, some kids are very sleep deprived.
Yeah. I see it a lot. Um, and this is why Relaxation is a really powerful tool for kids to learn how to sleep without a device, without anything. And also, um, Learn the value of knowing it's okay to lay down and relax. So that will bring you to a different concept altogether. But the teaching children to just relax with nothing but themselves.
Mm. And, and, um, they're actually quite good at it. Once you guide them into it, they're actually very good at it. Even little, little children, because they. They crave it and teenagers probably crave it more than anything as we know their brain and everything that's going on with them and their growth at that stage.
It's almost like coming back to a toddler with the rapid and rapid growth. Yeah. So if the children in your care are growing, Every day learning new things and language and, um, physically as well, not just developmentally their, their physical, um, developmentally, I mean, their minds and their language, their communication.
We have to give them the tools to relax. Yeah. So taking that time to lay down and to feel into their body and teaching them that you're not sleeping. We're not sleeping now, we're just resting. We're just taking an opportunity to be with ourselves. Yeah. Um, is, is really important. And, and for the educators out there, super simple technique that you can do is just to do a body scan and to start with their head all to their toes and get them to relax their body part one by one.
Um, and get them to lay still. And that's when you bring all the magic in. Yeah. As creative educators, you bring in, um, I use gemstones a lot or crystals as you lay still or place these crystals on you. And they'll lay still because they want the crystals on them. Yeah. Or you know, you don't have to go down that path.
You can just do something as simple as laying a, um, eye mask on their eyes or on their body, something. Waited to help them stay still or give them a teddy. The magic little teddy, or I use all different things like little wooden butterfly might land on your hand if you lay still nice. Just to encourage them to be there.
Yeah. And then once you've encourage them to be there, they, they'll do it. Some children will just go, yes, I'm there. Other kids will need, you know, our big movers, um, our, our, our children at uh, Have that big energy and find it hard to be still. Yeah. They really need it just as much as anyone else. We use a lot our trips in our creative ways, and I know your educators will have so many ideas there because that's, you know, that's their specialty.
Yeah. Um, and they know the children in their care. They know what makes them, what makes them tick, so they know how to do that. But just giving them that space in the day. Yeah. I know you have rest time, sleep is important, but also, That's your breathing in and breathing out again, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. We talk a lot about that in the essential elements, the in in breathing and the out breathing and how it's important to make sure they flow together and you've not got too much of one because.
Like walking up a hill. Yeah. It's unbalanced. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, yeah. It's interesting. So you, you've just given us one tip. I know you've got a couple more tips up your sleeve that educators can use, um, to help with the children and for themselves. Can you share a little bit more with us? Okay. Of different techniques you can bring into your day.
Yeah. So yeah. So the first one I did before was the breath work. Definitely bring some breath work into your day. The second one was your relaxation. Mm-hmm. Um, you can put on guided relaxations Insight Time is a really great tool for that. Or you can just do what I said with the guided body scan. Mm-hmm.
Um, and I'm happy that I can share that with, um, you, Victoria. You can send it out too if they want a script. Amazing. Really easy for me to send that through to you. Thank you. Um, that always makes it easy when you don't have to think and you can just read through something as you learn. Yeah. Uh, and then of course it wouldn't be a mindful day without a bit of fun yoga.
So I tell you, do some grab deck of yoga cards. Go outside and have some fun. So mindful colon kids have a beautiful set. I wish I had them here in my other room. Um, of yoga cards. Um, they're, they're. Specifically for that age group that you are dealing with, and they've got a beautiful poem on the back of each card, that's an easy and simple way for educators to bring yoga in without needing to know all the facets of it.
So yeah, spend some time because different poses obviously will bring different. Elements into what you're trying to, to achieve. Lots of balancing and standing poses to bring focus. So children love tree pose. We all know tree pose. Yeah. Do you know tree pose Victoria standing on one leg? Yes. She's doing it for me and drawing the other.
Up the, the leg. Um, and then bringing your hands out into the shape tree cuz it's super fun. Um, and I don't know, everyone seems to be on Instagram doing tree posts, so it won't be a hard one for you to learn. The kids love that. It's grounding, it brings focus. Um, and another pose that I love doing with children is child pose.
It's when you, when you're forward to the mat and you curl up and their bottoms are down on their heels, and I call that little mouse where they're all curled up. And they're just in their little mouse house and this is also really grounding and bringing their energy in. Yeah, so bringing yoga poses in um, to your day is great.
The physical benefits, but also just being in that present moment, and you'll have fun as well. You just have a laugh. It's not serious. Yeah. We're not moving through a whole sequence of poses with the younger children. We're just having a playful time with them. So grab yourself some yoga cards. There's so many resources out there, but mindful, um, current kids, they have some beautiful products.
Um, so we'll link them into the show notes too for Yeah, absolutely. Um, what else can I say to you? Just being really aware of, um, sensors as well is a very great, is a awesome, mindful thing to do. So you can do that without it even being a structured time, even just around eating, smelling, noticing the food.
Meaning mindfully taking our time, um, really chewing our food. Why are we doing that? It's great for our body to digest. Um, bringing that education through in each of your, um, routine practices. Hmm. So I think that's a really important one as well. It's a great one for the home too, because when you sit around the dinner table and you're eating mindfully, um, uh, We are having connection.
Mm. You know that, you know how eating around a dinner table and you do that in family daycare too, which is also really beautiful. Yeah. Is, um, bringing connection into the home. We see it through cultures throughout the world. Eating a meal, a shared meal together is really important. So that's where you can bring in the mindfulness of the smells and the tastes, and using your senses to become very aware of what's going on in your body and around you as well.
I think that's a super important one. Plus, that's a nice one for at home too. Yeah, because I know parents are busy. We all do this and we all do this. Uh, we do it in our house. We have the nights we're allowed to sit them from the TV and mindlessly. Right. Just not even being pride. We all do it. There's no judgment around it.
What I'm saying is that you can bring. Mindfulness into your day really simply. So create some time where you do that. And in childcare setting, it's super important that that's a daily practice. That's part of their routine. Yeah. So you don't need to feel like, oh, this is another thing I have to do. This mindfulness being present in the moment.
Just do it through the routines. Yeah. So noticing the food, tasting, the warmth of the food. The texture. Yeah. The smells. You can just have a conversation around it. Yeah. Um, I think that's really important. It's what openly share too. They love to share. I love, I love to see when educators actually sit with the children and eat their lunch with the children.
Um, I always worry when educators don't because they're like, oh, it's too busy, it's too busy, you know? And it's like, but hang on. Why is a mealtime so rushed? Why is it so busy? If, if you can consciously slow it down, there's no reason why you can't have your meal. At the same time. Like if you've got little ones that need to be fed, Give them some finger food that they can be eating the finger food while you are eating your lunch and helping other children at the same time.
Like, that's right. When, when you consciously go, no, this is going to be a relaxed time. It's going to be a, a period of connection between all of us and we are going to get the most out of this and be like, have that family-like experience. Because I think that's missing a lot now. Um, I think, you know, parents are so busy and their work times are staggered, so they can both work full-time and manage the children and, you know, children are doing their best.
Yeah. They, oh, absolutely. There's no judgment on that. But if we can create that space where we have this slowed down day, which I think is so important and so easy to achieve in family daycare, if we can have that. As an educator, you are nourishing yourself too. At the same time as nourishing the children and bringing that mindfulness and that capacity for enjoyment at mealtime and a real sense of community, then you're ticking so many boxes, but it's more about having a lovely experience than ticking boxes.
Um, I think, yeah, just, I always wonder how educators are like, oh, I can't, I can't eat. I mean, I had children. All ages in my care and that every mealtime we sat together and we would just enjoy each other's company, and that's what it was. That's a really important thing. Yeah. And also think about taking care of yourself as an educator.
If you're not eating and you're not pausing and you're not taking breaks in your day, how are you feeling at the end of the day? I remember some days I would feel, um, Just like a train wreck, like a being hit by a train. Like, holy dolly, what happened today? Yeah, yeah. And if you're not taking care of yourself every day, long term, it will affect you.
And in now, it may not feel like that, but long term you will come to that place of burnout. If you wanna be sustained in this industry, you need to be taking care of yourself. We know that Santa Cup all from the empty cup. It's really, really true. Yeah. It really is, it's a gift to yourself. It's self-care.
It's not about not having time. It's it's self-care at the end of the day. And if a parent comes and things aren't what they like, then you explain that. I'm sitting with your child and being present. We're having a meal. This is part of family daycare routine. We're teaching the children to take care of their bodies.
I'm taking care of my body cuz I'm eating nutritious food. This stems in the hallway through, I'm eating my lunch in primary school because I'm taking care of my body. I'm not leaving it. I'm running off to play. Yeah. When we come to the teenage years and we get all these. Problem about self-esteem and it actually, it starts way younger now.
Eight years, seven years, it goes even lower. Unfortunately, nutrition, I'm eating, it's a good thing. I'm loving my body, I'm taking care of my body. So it's a whole way through. This one meal from a young age. Yep. Comes through the the hallway and this is how we've gotta look at these practices, what childhood educators are doing for our future.
I mean, you guys are amazing. This is what the world needs and all these practices that you do daily and sitting down and eating with the children, taking care of you, teaching them this tool, it, it's so important. Don't underestimate the little things you. No, it's all the, I actually wrote, I've got a masterclass on tonight and I actually wrote part of, um, our masterclass is all around that whole process of, uh, slowing down.
And it's all the moments that build up to the big wow moment. But we need to be looking at all these moments beforehand is super, super important. Oh my gosh, Michelle, what a fabulous podcast. What so, so much information that you have shared. It's just been incredible. Thank you. Thank you so much. Do you have any last things that you wanna share, um, before we sign off for today?
Um, there's one little practice that I'd love to share with you that's really important, and I'll say really quickly, um, gratitude's become a buzzword, but it's a really great way to have a healthy mindset, and it's a really powerful tool to teach our kids when they're little, their gratitude will be, you know, what they say, won't have much depth.
But sitting at the end of the day in a circle and just sharing something they love. Yeah. Um, and then you can grow it as they get bigger into, um, sharing what they're grateful for, what they're thankful for as they grow older and they can learn. This practice started really young. Yeah. Give them a chance to share what they're grateful for.
Then we make it age appropriate as well. It's interesting, isn't it? Because there's quite often, there's a number of times where we do a circle either in a business meeting or you know, with other educators at some point, and people find it really hard to talk about things that worked well, that went well, that they're happy with.
We can talk all day under the sun of everything that's not going right, but when, when it comes to being able to quickly think of the things that we're happy for, that worked well, that went well, that we wanna keep doing, some people just get all choked up and they can't find it. So, and same with things that didn't work.
You know, like some people find it really hard to think about things that didn't work, you know, so having that moment and bringing that awareness and, and like flexing that muscle of gratitude and it is a flex, you've gotta keep doing it. To keep getting the benefits out of it makes a big difference.
Absolutely. Yeah. Lovely way to end your day, but thank you for having me and letting me share. What I love about mindfulness and how important it's in the early childcare setting, and I know there's so much pressure on educators now to do all the things, um, but it'd be great to see you, you having the opportunity to bring these practices into your, the children in your care so that you can therefore take care of yourself as well as them.
Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. It's amazing. But thank you. The work you all do is, is really, really important. Don't let anyone feel that, you know, never undermined what you're doing every day is, is so important. Taking care of our future. Absolutely. I can't agree anymore, and that's why I wanna get people like you on, because it's going to help educators to tune into that and drop into it, and then slow down their practice so that they aren't getting burnt out.
So, you know, they, they're the ones that are, yeah, they, they've gotta do that themselves. Absolutely. Shelf stick enough. Near your doorway right on the wall, how amazing you all are. So you can read it every day. I love it. I love it. Absolutely. What we'll do is we'll put your website in the show notes so people can get in touch with you and your social media so people can follow you and Oh, thanks.
Yeah, and um, yeah, I, I, I think it's just so fabulous. Um, you've got the Calm Tools ebook too, which will be out at some point so people can follow you and then they can, um, get ahold of that as well. That's right. Coming soon. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Michelle. I really appreciate it. You go forth and have the most fabulous day.
Michelle, do You too. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. My pleasure.
H i, friend. Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you got a lot out of today's episode. When we work on our own, we can sometimes be in a silo, so having new perspectives and different ways of looking at things is vitally important for the growth of our individual selves and our professional selves as well.
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Thanks so much, friend. We'll see you next time. Till then, big love.
