Heather Hester
00:00:06Welcome back to Just Breathe.
Heather Hester
00:00:07I am really happy you are here today that you have chosen just to spend a little time, whether you are on a walk or getting some chores done or just taking a few moments for yourself.
Heather Hester
00:00:24Welcome.
Heather Hester
00:00:25I'm really happy you are here, and I'm really happy to share today's interview with you with someone who is absolutely certain to just make you feel super calm and give you some really, really wise insight and certainly some things that you will walk away thinking.
Heather Hester
00:00:52I'd like to.
Heather Hester
00:00:53I'd like to try that out.
Heather Hester
00:00:55I certainly had a fantastic time interviewing her and talking with her and learning so much from her as well.
Heather Hester
00:01:05So just to give you a little background on today's wonderful guest, Modern Ann Webster is a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in the integration of Eastern and Western philosophies for mental health.
Heather Hester
00:01:24For over 20 years, she has empowered clients to connect with themselves and others through mindfulness and psychotherapy interventions.
Heather Hester
00:01:35She applies her profound understanding of the importance of open communication as her successful private practice in Napa, California.
Heather Hester
00:01:45Her first book, the Stressless Brain, makes a scientific argument for the positive influence meditation has on the psyche.
Heather Hester
00:01:55She is currently working on her second book.
Heather Hester
00:01:58In addition to releasing over 60 meditation singles, Madre n maintains international outreach by appearing on podcasts and holding meditation workshops.
Heather Hester
00:02:11I am really, really thrilled to bring this conversation to you today, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Heather Hester
00:02:31Welcome to Just Breathe Parenting, your LGBTQ team, the podcast transforming the conversation around loving and raising an LGBTQ child.
Heather Hester
00:02:44My name is Heather Hester and I am so grateful you are here.
Heather Hester
00:02:48I want you to take a deep breath and know that for the time we are together, you are in the safety of the Just Breathe nest.
Heather Hester
00:02:58Whether today's show is an amazing guest or me sharing stories, resources, strategies, or lessons I've learned along our journey, I want you to feel like we're just hanging out, out at a coffee shop, having a cozy chat.
Heather Hester
00:03:15Most of all, I want you to remember that wherever you are on this journey right now, in this moment in time, you are not alone.
Heather Hester
00:03:33Welcome back to Just Breathe.
Heather Hester
00:03:35I am so happy you all are here.
Heather Hester
00:03:37And I'm really, really happy for this conversation that I get to have with Madar Nan.
Heather Hester
00:03:44And it is just going to be fascinating, I think, for all of us, especially those who are curious about meditation and the psychology behind it and how all of this works.
Heather Hester
00:03:57So welcome, welcome to the show.
Heather Hester
00:04:00I'm so happy you're here.
Madar Nan
00:04:02Thank you, Heather.
Madar Nan
00:04:02It's great to be here.
Heather Hester
00:04:05So I'd love to start out just kind of with a broad, broad question of who are you and how did you get into this really, really unique work?
Madar Nan
00:04:16So I'm a psychotherapist of about 22 years, and I live in Northern California, Napa county, and I love working with people.
Madar Nan
00:04:29And I actually, interestingly enough, I was in international business marketing when I first was in college.
Madar Nan
00:04:36Many studying Japanese.
Madar Nan
00:04:38I spoke fluent German and English and.
Madar Nan
00:04:41And I just kind of decided it wasn't for me.
Madar Nan
00:04:44And so, like, two years in, I switched majors and completely went a completely different direction.
Madar Nan
00:04:49And.
Madar Nan
00:04:50And it really was around.
Madar Nan
00:04:52I really love helping people and supporting people and holding that space.
Madar Nan
00:04:57And I've been on a journey of doing that ever since.
Madar Nan
00:05:02I'm.
Madar Nan
00:05:02I'm a mother and wife of 28 years, mother of two sons, 18 and 20, and the good ages.
Madar Nan
00:05:14Every age has a blessing and a thorn.
Heather Hester
00:05:18Yes, it is very, very true.
Heather Hester
00:05:21Yes.
Heather Hester
00:05:21I say that having teenagers as well and thinking they're so amazing and they also are just a different level of awesome learning.
Madar Nan
00:05:37For sure.
Madar Nan
00:05:38They're my greatest teacher.
Heather Hester
00:05:40Oh, my goodness.
Heather Hester
00:05:44I could not agree more.
Heather Hester
00:05:45And I think that's such a gift to be able to actually look at them that way.
Heather Hester
00:05:50Right?
Heather Hester
00:05:52Because I don't know, I mean, you maybe did, but I didn't always look at it that way.
Heather Hester
00:05:58And now that I do, I'm like, gosh, this is so fascinating.
Heather Hester
00:06:03I'm always just kind of fascinated by the way their brains work and how they come up with these thoughts that they have and.
Madar Nan
00:06:12Oh, for sure.
Madar Nan
00:06:13I remember when my older son was 4 and saying something super wise and deep and being like, I knew my children were going to surpass me, but age four, really, like, I'm gonna have to, like, step up my game.
Madar Nan
00:06:28That's right.
Heather Hester
00:06:30Exactly.
Heather Hester
00:06:32Oh, my goodness, yes.
Madar Nan
00:06:35That.
Heather Hester
00:06:35I love that happens all the time with my.
Heather Hester
00:06:38Both of my daughters.
Heather Hester
00:06:39I mean, all of my kids really.
Heather Hester
00:06:40But like, they too, like, recently have said things and have done things that I've been like, oh, they have so far surpassed me and like, emotional intelligence and just the way that they understand things.
Heather Hester
00:06:55I was, I mean, light years away from that when I was their age.
Heather Hester
00:06:59So I always think, oh, this is like, so great that you are entering the real world like this.
Heather Hester
00:07:07You know, I'm just so happy.
Heather Hester
00:07:12So it is kind of wonderful and fascinating.
Heather Hester
00:07:16So the.
Heather Hester
00:07:18My one.
Heather Hester
00:07:18I had so many questions about meditation, because I am.
Heather Hester
00:07:22I do love to meditate, and I'm always kind of playing with different.
Heather Hester
00:07:26Whether it's different modalities.
Heather Hester
00:07:28Or do I sit in a chair?
Heather Hester
00:07:30Do I sit in the floor?
Heather Hester
00:07:31Do I, you know, am I supposed to have thoughts?
Heather Hester
00:07:34Am I not supposed to have thoughts?
Heather Hester
00:07:36Is it, you know, all these different questions and you do a very specific, and teach a very specific kind of meditation, which is from Kundalini Yoga.
Heather Hester
00:07:48And then that transfers or translates into the meditation.
Heather Hester
00:07:52So I'd love if you could talk about that a little bit because I think that's so interesting.
Madar Nan
00:07:56Yeah.
Madar Nan
00:07:57So Kundalini yoga and meditation has been very active in the world, if you will, for about 52 years.
Madar Nan
00:08:06And it does come out of an organized religion slash cult.
Madar Nan
00:08:10Like anytime you kind of get a group of people can get a little narrow minded and you get culture involved and egos and control.
Madar Nan
00:08:19And yet the idea of the word kundalini has to do means awakening, aware, awareness.
Madar Nan
00:08:24And actually Carl Jung and other philosophers brought the concept of Kundalini energy to the west in many, many years, even before this organization grew as the technique as well.
Madar Nan
00:08:41And what I really love is that there is, there's a couple things I'm gonna tie in some mental health stuff and that, you know, a lot of people have anxiety and stress and let's say you don't have anxiety and stuff.
Madar Nan
00:08:56Let's say you have a lot of, some like functioning depression, which means that you go to work and you go home and you have a family, but you worry a lot.
Madar Nan
00:09:04And that can be like anxiety and depression.
Madar Nan
00:09:07Depression.
Madar Nan
00:09:08And what I love about breath and chanting, meditation and movement.
Madar Nan
00:09:12Meditation is that it gives your mind to do while you're going into that process of aware of self awareness and mindfulness.
Madar Nan
00:09:23For many people with mental health issues, which all of us have to some level, if it's zero, if it's a one or a ten, we all have, we're on that, that, that trajectory or that, you know, space.
Madar Nan
00:09:35And what I love about chanting and breath and movement is, is that it gives your mind something to do.
Madar Nan
00:09:42So you kind of get your neuroses out of the way to be able to connect to the.
Madar Nan
00:09:48And the feeling of being in centeredness.
Heather Hester
00:09:51Oh, I love that.
Heather Hester
00:09:53Which really, that's one of the biggest things that people who are like, oh, I know meditation would be great, but I can't get my mind to be quiet.
Heather Hester
00:10:02I can't, I can't be still.
Heather Hester
00:10:04Right.
Heather Hester
00:10:05Like whether it's mentally or physically.
Heather Hester
00:10:07So this is a really great form of meditation for someone like that.
Heather Hester
00:10:15And really anybody, right?
Madar Nan
00:10:16It is anybody.
Madar Nan
00:10:17I mean if, if you break it all down, I believe that prayer in different religions were, was the original meditation.
Madar Nan
00:10:27So being in your synagogue or in your church or in your community center and reading from a holy scripture as.
Madar Nan
00:10:35As a whole congregation out loud, that is a form of meditation.
Madar Nan
00:10:39You're tuning into a frequency altogether, and that naturally relaxes us.
Madar Nan
00:10:44There's actually SC Scientific research that shows that when you chant or read scriptures or do out loud affirmations or even talk in tongues and do all that kind of more stranger meditation stuff, it actually activates a certain part of the brain, which is the top part of the brain, which is the partial, the upper partial part of the brain.
Madar Nan
00:11:05And it increases more white matter.
Madar Nan
00:11:08And science research has found that white matter helps us to emotionally process what we're going through in that moment.
Madar Nan
00:11:16So when you're having a really hard time, I tell people meditation doesn't have to be like this quiet serenity space with an altar and quietness and the perfect sitting stool or blanket.
Madar Nan
00:11:28No, sometimes it might be you doing dishes and reciting a prayer or a poem out loud.
Madar Nan
00:11:36It might be singing a hymn or a chant.
Madar Nan
00:11:40And I find that our brains are so incredibly powerful.
Madar Nan
00:11:45We're able to do multiple things at once.
Madar Nan
00:11:48We can drive from work and in our heads and all upset, and we don't even know how we got home because we're so preoccupied with our thoughts.
Madar Nan
00:11:57So if you throw in chanting out loud or singing a prayer, even this, like, this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.
Madar Nan
00:12:04Like, it seems so simple and maybe even silly or religious, but it's that idea of when you, your mind is, is in like a cycle of just like, and then this happened, and then this happened, this always.
Madar Nan
00:12:16And it never.
Madar Nan
00:12:17When you bring in that frequency, it's like a little bit of a, like, like a bleep.
Madar Nan
00:12:22And.
Madar Nan
00:12:22And then you do enough of the bleeps, your brain starts to rewire how you're processing your trauma drama in the moment.
Heather Hester
00:12:29Oh, that's so cool.
Heather Hester
00:12:31So it's like a pattern interrupt, really.
Heather Hester
00:12:33Right.
Heather Hester
00:12:34So it really could be, I mean, whatever, like, find what works for you.
Madar Nan
00:12:40Yeah, 100%.
Madar Nan
00:12:42And I actually have a very cute story that I share quite frequently.
Madar Nan
00:12:47When I was driving in the car and those, you know, the parents listening.
Madar Nan
00:12:51When you have your kids in the back and they're having a complete meltdown and you're driving, you're like, I just gotta get home.
Madar Nan
00:12:56I just gotta get home.
Madar Nan
00:12:57And my older son's having a meltdown.
Madar Nan
00:12:59He's screaming, he's yelling, he's probably trying to hit his brother simultaneously, who's across on the other end.
Madar Nan
00:13:04End of this seat, in his car seat.
Madar Nan
00:13:06And I'm just like, I'm trying to convince him, like, just, you know, like, stop talking, you know, stop crying.
Madar Nan
00:13:13I'm saying, look outside.
Madar Nan
00:13:14Look at the tree.
Madar Nan
00:13:14I'm like, I'm trying to distract him.
Madar Nan
00:13:16Nothing's working.
Madar Nan
00:13:18And I can just feel this like, anxiousness starting to rise in my body.
Madar Nan
00:13:23And I just started chanting out loud.
Madar Nan
00:13:26And I was just like, I was just chanting.
Madar Nan
00:13:28There's an old chant, a Sikh prayer, which is Guru, Guru Wahe.
Madar Nan
00:13:32Guru.
Madar Nan
00:13:32Guru Ram Das.
Madar Nan
00:13:32Guru.
Madar Nan
00:13:32And I'm just chanting out loud.
Madar Nan
00:13:34And my son's like, stop chanting.
Madar Nan
00:13:36Chanting.
Madar Nan
00:13:38And I said, I'm chanting for myself to calm down.
Madar Nan
00:13:43And it goes totally silent in the car.
Madar Nan
00:13:46And he goes, mama, will you chant for me too?
Heather Hester
00:13:50Oh, stop.
Madar Nan
00:13:51And so it's, it's that piece of.
Madar Nan
00:13:54It's like you said, it's interrupting a pattern.
Madar Nan
00:13:58And it allows us to go in that frequency.
Madar Nan
00:14:00Because being a parent, it's.
Madar Nan
00:14:03It's tough.
Madar Nan
00:14:04Like we.
Madar Nan
00:14:04We have so many things happening and, and nowadays, like the pressures to be.
Madar Nan
00:14:10The pressure to be this perfect parent for our children, all the responsibility to raise these healthy, whole individuals is.
Madar Nan
00:14:18Is.
Madar Nan
00:14:19Is so tough.
Madar Nan
00:14:20Like, it's overwhelming.
Madar Nan
00:14:21Like, no one's perfect.
Madar Nan
00:14:23And so by doing something like that, you can interrupt the.
Madar Nan
00:14:28The like locked in space that we get in our thoughts with our partner, with our children, with our parents, with our neighbor, with our coworker.
Madar Nan
00:14:39And it's that simple thing and it's silly.
Madar Nan
00:14:43And at first when people do it, they're gonna be like, oh my God, this feels weird, but it does work.
Heather Hester
00:14:48That's.
Heather Hester
00:14:49I mean, you can.
Heather Hester
00:14:50I.
Heather Hester
00:14:50Now that you're saying it, like just like this, I can totally see how that works.
Heather Hester
00:14:55And just the other thing that I know happens for me, and I imagine happens for a lot of people, is that when you are in that space of like, like your example where you feel yourself like getting more and more anxious, like you feel that and you.
Heather Hester
00:15:11If that continues, you eventually get to a place where everything just kind of goes blank, right?
Heather Hester
00:15:14So you completely lose all self awareness.
Heather Hester
00:15:17All like, awareness.
Heather Hester
00:15:20And so being able to do that, like, also kind of reconnects you with self.
Heather Hester
00:15:29And that's so huge, right?
Madar Nan
00:15:32I mean, you know, part of parenting is children want connection.
Madar Nan
00:15:37They always.
Madar Nan
00:15:38And as a child develops, they pull more and more away, which is appropriate.
Madar Nan
00:15:43But what happens is it is our job as parents to keep holding that space.
Madar Nan
00:15:49And I tell parents I do A lot of parenting support.
Madar Nan
00:15:53And there's.
Madar Nan
00:15:54There's five basic needs that every child needs, which is to feel heard, to feel seen, to have boundaries, to have unconditional love, and to feel safe.
Madar Nan
00:16:10Those are the five basics.
Madar Nan
00:16:11I mean, like, they're big, but they're.
Madar Nan
00:16:13Those are the things a child needs.
Madar Nan
00:16:15And none of us get all of them now.
Madar Nan
00:16:18And so part of it is like the boundary piece and the meditation piece.
Madar Nan
00:16:24It's that piece of who am I and who is my child?
Madar Nan
00:16:27And when they're little, we're in, like, the same orbit.
Madar Nan
00:16:30And as they grow and develop, they have to come out of.
Madar Nan
00:16:33They have to start creating their own orbit.
Madar Nan
00:16:36And then they sometimes don't want to, you know, like, they have unconscious and conscious reactivity to building their own orbit, or the parent has unconscious and conscious reactivity of the child pulling away, finding their own identity or, you know, their own voice or whatever it is.
Madar Nan
00:16:52And so there is that piece of meditation and chanting and breath work and doing that mindful practice every day, even three minutes.
Madar Nan
00:17:03Research has found that three minutes of meditation lowers your blood pressure, so it is meaningful.
Madar Nan
00:17:08You don't have to do an hour.
Madar Nan
00:17:10You don't have to do 20 minutes.
Madar Nan
00:17:12It could be three minutes.
Madar Nan
00:17:13It could be one minute.
Heather Hester
00:17:15Right?
Madar Nan
00:17:15And.
Madar Nan
00:17:16And so it's a piece of, you know, life is like, you know that saying, the one constant in life is change.
Heather Hester
00:17:22Right?
Madar Nan
00:17:22So meditation brings us to our, you know, the source within us, our self, our capital S self.
Madar Nan
00:17:30And it allows us to navigate the changes, at least.
Madar Nan
00:17:35Easier doesn't always fix.
Madar Nan
00:17:36It makes it just a little, little bit easier, which is.
Madar Nan
00:17:40Can be a lot sometimes.
Heather Hester
00:17:42It really can.
Heather Hester
00:17:44Oh, my goodness.
Heather Hester
00:17:45And I think just that helping to reconnect.
Heather Hester
00:17:49Reconnect, right.
Heather Hester
00:17:50And get kind of grounded and be like, okay, this is what's going on.
Heather Hester
00:17:54Instead of, like, floating and frenetic and.
Heather Hester
00:17:59Right.
Heather Hester
00:18:00And I think, you know, going back just a little bit.
Madar Nan
00:18:03What.
Heather Hester
00:18:03I love those, the five.
Heather Hester
00:18:07And I know for me personally, the boundaries was the most difficult.
Heather Hester
00:18:15And a big reason is because I never learned what boundaries were.
Heather Hester
00:18:22I never learned how to set them.
Heather Hester
00:18:23And so I was kind of learning at the same time I was teaching my kids.
Heather Hester
00:18:28And I was also like, I.
Heather Hester
00:18:33You know, what I was taught was that we're here to essentially, like, program our kids and put them into the world.
Heather Hester
00:18:40Right.
Heather Hester
00:18:41Well, you know, that isn't.
Heather Hester
00:18:44We all know that now.
Heather Hester
00:18:48But if you're trying to do that, like, the whole.
Heather Hester
00:18:51That kind of blows up everything else.
Madar Nan
00:18:52Right.
Heather Hester
00:18:53And so you're feeling like, all this panic and stress because your child is doing what they're supposed to be doing by, like, doing the separation and trying to, like, create their own orbit.
Heather Hester
00:19:04I love that visual.
Heather Hester
00:19:05Thank you.
Heather Hester
00:19:06And just kind of step into their own.
Heather Hester
00:19:09And if we don't have a good understanding of boundaries and we don't have a good understanding of what our purpose is as a parent, then that's really hard to give them the space to be able to do that and to know what they're doing.
Madar Nan
00:19:25Yeah, right.
Madar Nan
00:19:27Yeah.
Madar Nan
00:19:27I mean, interesting.
Madar Nan
00:19:28We actually all have two boundaries.
Madar Nan
00:19:31And this comes out of the work of Terry, Real relational life therapy, which is a couples technique.
Madar Nan
00:19:36But I do it with my family therapy as well, with parents and children and adult children and parents.
Madar Nan
00:19:43And it's like an orange peel.
Madar Nan
00:19:45So the orange peel has the orange part on the outside, and then it has the white peel on the inside.
Madar Nan
00:19:51Those are two boundaries.
Madar Nan
00:19:52And we all humans have two boundaries.
Madar Nan
00:19:55We have the inner one and then we have an outer one.
Madar Nan
00:19:58And so the outer boundary, which is what most of us talk about in our culture, which is, you're too standing too close to me or you're.
Madar Nan
00:20:06You're impacting me or you don't, you know, I don't want to go or I don't want to be with you.
Madar Nan
00:20:10These are all these external boundaries, which.
Madar Nan
00:20:13An external boundary is us protecting ourselves from the world.
Madar Nan
00:20:20An internal boundary is us protecting the world from our stuff.
Heather Hester
00:20:27Oh.
Madar Nan
00:20:28So.
Madar Nan
00:20:29So if you think about parenting is.
Madar Nan
00:20:32It is our responsibility as best as we can.
Madar Nan
00:20:35I mean, it does go through our DNA to some extent.
Madar Nan
00:20:37That's another whole conversation.
Madar Nan
00:20:39But it's keeping our neuroses and not dumping them on our children.
Madar Nan
00:20:45And that is an internal boundary.
Madar Nan
00:20:47An external boundary would be the, you know, maybe an external boundaries, like, and they can go up and down.
Madar Nan
00:20:53They don't have to always be up.
Madar Nan
00:20:54But, like, boundaries are not always.
Madar Nan
00:20:55You don't want always.
Madar Nan
00:20:56If you have your boundaries up all the time, you'd be alone.
Heather Hester
00:20:59Right.
Madar Nan
00:21:00You have to know.
Madar Nan
00:21:01You got to learn how to, like, oh, my internal boundaries up, but my outside boundaries down.
Madar Nan
00:21:06I want to engage, but I'm going to, you know, I'm going to hold like.
Madar Nan
00:21:10Like, with, you know, I'm in a bad mood and my child wants a hug.
Madar Nan
00:21:13If I have both boundaries up, then that child's going to feel abandoned.
Madar Nan
00:21:17They're going to feel like you're not there for them.
Madar Nan
00:21:19They're going to feel like they don't understand.
Madar Nan
00:21:22They're going to wonder, like, what did I do.
Madar Nan
00:21:23If not depending on the age of the child.
Madar Nan
00:21:25But sometimes you might have to lower your outside boundary, which is you're allowing the child to step in because you're their boundary to some extent, you're their security, but you're holding an internal boundary that you're not dumping your energy or, oh, my God, did you know what your dad did or your mom did or what grandma did?
Madar Nan
00:21:43Like, you're holding that in that you don't put that on your child.
Madar Nan
00:21:46So that would be outside boundary down, inside boundary up.
Madar Nan
00:21:50But let's say you're with your partner and you're having a heart, you know, hard conversation.
Madar Nan
00:21:55You want them a little bit down, but also up when they're.
Madar Nan
00:21:59If they're reactive.
Madar Nan
00:22:00Got to put your boundary up, but still have your inner down so that you can still be vulnerable and connect.
Madar Nan
00:22:05I mean, it's complicated.
Heather Hester
00:22:08It is complicated.
Heather Hester
00:22:10But I think it's one of those things that is so good to know and to understand.
Heather Hester
00:22:16Because, I mean, just like everything, once you understand it and you can conceptualize it, then you can actually do it.
Heather Hester
00:22:25And not successfully all the time, but at least.
Heather Hester
00:22:29Right.
Heather Hester
00:22:29Like, no.
Heather Hester
00:22:31And, I mean, I think it's tools that are available to you, right?
Heather Hester
00:22:36So if you don't know that they're there, or if you don't know what you're feeling, right.
Heather Hester
00:22:41You might be feeling all these things and, like, having it, you know, just an innate feeling that, oh, I.
Heather Hester
00:22:47I should be doing this.
Heather Hester
00:22:48I shouldn't be doing this.
Heather Hester
00:22:49But not really understanding why or what.
Madar Nan
00:22:52To do, what to change it.
Heather Hester
00:22:54Correct.
Madar Nan
00:22:55No, this is not healthy, but I just don't know what else to do.
Madar Nan
00:22:57And you may not even know.
Madar Nan
00:22:59Know that intellectually or cognitively, it's just a feeling, right?
Heather Hester
00:23:04Yeah, it's a lot of that.
Heather Hester
00:23:06Like, I feel it here, or I feel it, you know, in the gut, and you're like, I just can't articulate it.
Heather Hester
00:23:12And so.
Heather Hester
00:23:13So very helpful.
Heather Hester
00:23:15Now you have your second edition of your first book, Stressful.
Heather Hester
00:23:21The Stressful Brain.
Madar Nan
00:23:22Stressless Brain, Stress.
Madar Nan
00:23:24Stressless Brain, stress Less, not stressful.
Heather Hester
00:23:28We're gonna take the stress out of the brain.
Heather Hester
00:23:30Okay, so you're.
Heather Hester
00:23:32The second edition is coming very, very soon.
Heather Hester
00:23:36Do you talk about this and is this part of.
Heather Hester
00:23:39Okay.
Madar Nan
00:23:39I don't talk about the boundary piece or the five basic needs of a child that will come in another book that maybe in a year or two.
Madar Nan
00:23:48I kind of have a few in the lineup that I love.
Madar Nan
00:23:51My goal is to write a book a year for 10 years.
Madar Nan
00:23:54By the time I'm 60, my goal is to write 10 books.
Madar Nan
00:23:56So I'm about one and a half down, so.
Madar Nan
00:23:59Or one and a half in.
Heather Hester
00:24:02That's impressive.
Madar Nan
00:24:04So that's my goal.
Madar Nan
00:24:06But the book, the Stresses Brain does have the meditation.
Madar Nan
00:24:10It has all the psychology and meditation philosophy in there.
Madar Nan
00:24:15It also comes with 26 downloadable meditation tracks that comes free with the book, plus instructions.
Madar Nan
00:24:23And I really talk about how the difference between stress and anxiety and that they are normal to some extent.
Madar Nan
00:24:32The problem is our culture has gotten to a place that it's really normal to hear people say, like, how are you?
Madar Nan
00:24:39Oh, my God, I'm so stressed.
Madar Nan
00:24:40Oh, I'm so stressed, too.
Madar Nan
00:24:41You want to go get a cup of coffee?
Madar Nan
00:24:43And it's like.
Madar Nan
00:24:45But it's like, well, what does that mean?
Madar Nan
00:24:46Or I'm just so anxious.
Madar Nan
00:24:48And so the book really talks about the difference between them and how some is.
Madar Nan
00:25:47Some is normal and some becomes unhealthy.
Heather Hester
00:25:51Right.
Heather Hester
00:25:52Could you just add to that, like, just a really high level a little bit?
Heather Hester
00:25:56Because I think that is something that is so common.
Heather Hester
00:25:58I mean, you totally hit the nail on the head there, where it is.
Heather Hester
00:26:01It's like one of those things that we used to say, I'm fine or I'm busy.
Heather Hester
00:26:07I'm busy.
Heather Hester
00:26:07Such a big one.
Madar Nan
00:26:08Right.
Heather Hester
00:26:08What does busy mean?
Heather Hester
00:26:09So I think stress is another one.
Heather Hester
00:26:11Like, I'm so stressed.
Heather Hester
00:26:13Well, a lot of times I'll like, say that, and then I'll be like, well, actually, I'm not.
Heather Hester
00:26:17Why am I saying that?
Heather Hester
00:26:18Right.
Madar Nan
00:26:19I mean.
Madar Nan
00:26:20I mean.
Madar Nan
00:26:20I mean, that's not mean.
Madar Nan
00:26:21I can analyze that.
Madar Nan
00:26:22Right.
Madar Nan
00:26:23Not you necessarily, but just our culture.
Madar Nan
00:26:25And I think that there's.
Madar Nan
00:26:26I think that people saying, I'm so stressed.
Madar Nan
00:26:29It is another way of saying, I'm so busy.
Madar Nan
00:26:31I have so much going on.
Madar Nan
00:26:33And it gives an underlying.
Madar Nan
00:26:36It's a message.
Madar Nan
00:26:37I'm important.
Madar Nan
00:26:38Unfortunately, I think that.
Madar Nan
00:26:39That if you break it.
Madar Nan
00:26:40If you kind of like, break it down, break it down, come to the core.
Madar Nan
00:26:43It is a sense of.
Madar Nan
00:26:44There's a certain sense of, I must be important if I'm so busy.
Madar Nan
00:26:48And then if I'm so busy that I'm stressed.
Madar Nan
00:26:50The big thing to think about with stress is stress is part of life.
Madar Nan
00:26:56We can't avoid it.
Madar Nan
00:26:58So the difference is when it's healthy, stress versus it becomes a toxic stress that turns into anxiety, is that when you're stressed about something and that something happens and your stress does not go away.
Madar Nan
00:27:13So let's say you're Giving a speech at work, or let's say you're in a play, or let's say you're gonna propose to your partner, or let's say you have this event happening, you're preparing for it, you're thinking it's appropriate to be nervous, it's appropriate to be a little stressed.
Madar Nan
00:27:30Like, how's it gonna work out?
Madar Nan
00:27:32Am I gonna say the right thing?
Madar Nan
00:27:33Am I gonna do I understand what I'm saying?
Madar Nan
00:27:36Or what are they gonna think?
Madar Nan
00:27:37That's normal to some extent.
Madar Nan
00:27:40When the event happens and you open your mouth and you're in five minutes into it, the stress should be going down every handful of five minutes.
Madar Nan
00:27:51And when you're done with it, the stress should be gone.
Madar Nan
00:27:53That is healthy stress because it's anticipation.
Madar Nan
00:27:57We just don't know what, what, what it's going to be like, and we want to do a good job where we want it to work out.
Madar Nan
00:28:04Unhealthy stress, when it starts becoming more of anxiety, which is unhealthy, toxic stress is when we're worried about something, the event happens and we're still worried.
Heather Hester
00:28:18So does that translate into something else then?
Heather Hester
00:28:21Like, does that.
Madar Nan
00:28:22Because if the event is over, it becomes anxiety.
Madar Nan
00:28:26It means, I mean, there's plenty of people who live in a constant state of anxiety.
Madar Nan
00:28:31It's almost like one thing ends and they're like, oh, my God, oh, yay, my kid graduated, you know, from middle school, or, you know, oh, my God, now there's high school.
Madar Nan
00:28:42It's like instantly, like they just go.
Madar Nan
00:28:44And they're always in that state of worry, worry, worry, worry.
Madar Nan
00:28:47That is one kind of stress and anxiety.
Madar Nan
00:28:50And that's the piece where some people unconsciously think, feel and think.
Madar Nan
00:28:56Worrying means that I am taking care of things, that I'm going to get in front of it, that I can anticipate what's going to happen.
Madar Nan
00:29:05But what happens physiologically?
Madar Nan
00:29:07What happens in our body and our brain is our amygdala, our adrenals, our glandular system are in a constant state of fight, flight, freeze and fix.
Madar Nan
00:29:19We're constantly like, do I run?
Madar Nan
00:29:22Do I stay?
Madar Nan
00:29:23Do I fix it?
Madar Nan
00:29:24Do I freeze?
Madar Nan
00:29:25Maybe they don't notice me.
Madar Nan
00:29:26And when we do that, we it like tons.
Madar Nan
00:29:30All health problems, most health problems, not all, but most health problems come from that state.
Madar Nan
00:29:35There's a really great documentary on.
Madar Nan
00:29:38You can go, I think it's on YouTube, or you can Google it, called Stress by National Geographics.
Madar Nan
00:29:46I actually mentioned this research.
Madar Nan
00:29:48It's a professor from Stanford, and he talks about how stress affects.
Madar Nan
00:29:53So this is a little tip for our listeners.
Madar Nan
00:29:56If you have a really stressful experience and you have that cortisol release in your body and the best thing to do is to walk or dance.
Madar Nan
00:30:09So if you can't leave the house or the office and you can't go for a 20 minute, 40 minute walk because there's they he found in the research is that whole motion of walking is that you're actually releasing the cortisol out of your body and we don't store it.
Madar Nan
00:30:26So a good negative example is oh my God, I'm late for work.
Madar Nan
00:30:30I got another red light.
Madar Nan
00:30:32Oh my God, I have a presentation at work.
Madar Nan
00:30:34Oh my God, I got another red light.
Madar Nan
00:30:36So all that cortisol is pumping.
Madar Nan
00:30:38Your amygdala does not know that this is not danger.
Madar Nan
00:30:43It's just stress.
Madar Nan
00:30:44It's, it's not danger, but your amygdala thinks we're being attacked by a cyber tooth tiger.
Madar Nan
00:30:50Oh my God.
Madar Nan
00:30:51Fight, flight, freeze.
Madar Nan
00:30:52Fix fight, flight, freeze.
Madar Nan
00:30:53You get to work and what do you do?
Madar Nan
00:30:55You sit down in your desk for eight hours and all that cortisol goes to your stomach, goes to your hips, goes into your organs and then you do repeat.
Madar Nan
00:31:05Oh my God, I'm late to get home for work.
Madar Nan
00:31:06Oh my God, my kids.
Madar Nan
00:31:07I got to pick up my kid at the school.
Madar Nan
00:31:09Here we are again, right?
Madar Nan
00:31:11So if you can't do the walk, go in your office, go in the bathroom, close the door, put on some music and shake your whole body.
Madar Nan
00:31:20Shake, shake, shake.
Madar Nan
00:31:21It helps to release the cortisol.
Madar Nan
00:31:23Have a good old dance party by yourself.
Heather Hester
00:31:26That is awesome.
Heather Hester
00:31:28That is really, really great advice.
Heather Hester
00:31:31First of all, because we've all been there.
Heather Hester
00:31:34I mean all of us.
Heather Hester
00:31:35Meet me every.
Heather Hester
00:31:36Yes.
Heather Hester
00:31:37I mean it's just kind of part of being human, right?
Heather Hester
00:31:42I'm wondering how much of this response like the using stress as kind of almost a coping technique or letting it, allowing it to get to that 10 toxic and then anxiety stage, how much of that originally started as also a coping technique?
Heather Hester
00:32:06Like, and what I'm thinking is like if you were in situations where to in your mind survive, you needed to like know what all the potential outcomes of whatever situation we're going to be.
Madar Nan
00:32:22I mean, I mean this is when we can kind of get into a little bit unfortunately how our ancestors impact us.
Madar Nan
00:32:29I mean there's one study I read or research paper many years ago that says that when the mother is pregnant and she's under a tremendous amount of stress, she's not only Taxing her own adrenal.
Madar Nan
00:32:41She's taxing the adrenal of her unborn child in her, in her belly.
Madar Nan
00:32:46So the baby comes out already at a deficit and.
Madar Nan
00:32:49Not that again.
Madar Nan
00:32:50No shaming out there.
Madar Nan
00:32:51Please don't take it on.
Madar Nan
00:32:53We all.
Madar Nan
00:32:53It just happens.
Madar Nan
00:32:54There's a book called It Didn't Start with youh which talks about how our trauma drama is passed through our DNA.
Madar Nan
00:33:01And there's another research study I actually read recently that found that grandchildren of grandparents who were in concentration camps in Germany had the same digestive problems as their grandparents who were born and raised in New York City with normal diets.
Madar Nan
00:33:21So part of it is in our, it's in our DNA a certain, like if we have a disposition to depression or anxiety.
Madar Nan
00:33:29Now the good news, I don't want to leave it on the bad news, the good news is we can change it.
Madar Nan
00:33:35We can change it through our diet, we can change it through supplements, we can change it through meditation, we can change it through exercise, we can change it through doing our own mental health work.
Madar Nan
00:33:49Because that supports.
Madar Nan
00:33:51I tell adults, parents that are adults in my office, you working on yourself is going to benefit your children, even if they're 30.
Madar Nan
00:34:03Because when they see you shifting in your, your, your anxious approach or your depressive approach or your anger approach or whatever your disposition might be, you create a change inside of you.
Madar Nan
00:34:15And that has a ripple effect into your family.
Heather Hester
00:34:20It does.
Madar Nan
00:34:21And even when I have children whose parents won't go to therapy or won't work on themselves, adult children, it's like you doing the works.
Madar Nan
00:34:28Not that it's your responsibility necessarily, but doing the work does have benefits.
Heather Hester
00:34:34Oh my goodness.
Heather Hester
00:34:35It absolutely does.
Heather Hester
00:34:37It absolutely does.
Heather Hester
00:34:38Well, even like you mentioned earlier, doing that if you can.
Heather Hester
00:34:4220 minute walk, right.
Heather Hester
00:34:44I love the idea of a dance party.
Heather Hester
00:34:46I mean, who is for a dance party even in your car.
Heather Hester
00:34:48I was saying this to somebody earlier, like if you love music and you're in that, that space, like flip on your favorite, you know, pull up your Spotify playlist and car dance and sing and who cares who sees you, right?
Madar Nan
00:35:01100%.
Madar Nan
00:35:02And that, that is going to help, will fix everything.
Madar Nan
00:35:07No, but it does make a huge difference.
Madar Nan
00:35:10And it's not about.
Madar Nan
00:35:12There's a great.
Madar Nan
00:35:13I said this to a client many weeks ago.
Madar Nan
00:35:15I said, it's not the finish line, it's the journey there.
Madar Nan
00:35:20The finish line is our last breath.
Madar Nan
00:35:23Not to be morbid.
Madar Nan
00:35:24Our finish line is when we die.
Madar Nan
00:35:26It's all about the journey there.
Madar Nan
00:35:28There's a Great quote.
Madar Nan
00:35:29I can't remember who said it, but I love it.
Madar Nan
00:35:31It's not the life you live, it's the courage you bring to it.
Heather Hester
00:35:35Oh, that's good.
Heather Hester
00:35:37Yeah, that is a really good one.
Heather Hester
00:35:40It's so true.
Heather Hester
00:35:41I mean, it's going to be messy.
Heather Hester
00:35:43That's what I say all the time.
Heather Hester
00:35:44It's just all.
Heather Hester
00:35:45It's all messy.
Heather Hester
00:35:46But it's beautiful.
Madar Nan
00:35:48There's.
Heather Hester
00:35:49It's both, right?
Heather Hester
00:35:50I mean, it's just.
Heather Hester
00:35:52It is both and we, we are all works in progress.
Heather Hester
00:35:56So, you know, it's never too late to start working on yourself, to start trying some of these things and seeing what works for you and what you connect with and what just.
Heather Hester
00:36:12Holy cow.
Heather Hester
00:36:14One step at a time.
Heather Hester
00:36:17Yeah, I want to shift a little bit here because we were talking before we started recording and I just want to touch on this question, but this is something that I was asked recently and we'll will kind of touch on down the road a bit.
Heather Hester
00:36:35But talking about.
Heather Hester
00:36:37It's talking about trauma and then grief.
Heather Hester
00:36:40So in this specific question was handling and processing the grief that comes when you come out after a loved one, whether it's a parent, grandparent has passed away and how to deal with that, you know, not either not being able to tell them or having waited to, to, you know, come out until after the, you know, why that happened.
Heather Hester
00:37:05Right.
Heather Hester
00:37:06So how does one kind of.
Heather Hester
00:37:08And it goes into like the bigger overarching, like how do we process grief?
Heather Hester
00:37:12But I think that is a very specific scenario that would be.
Heather Hester
00:37:17Speak to my audience for sure.
Madar Nan
00:37:20Well, there's a couple things.
Madar Nan
00:37:22One is there's a great saying that I also share that I got the concept from Gabor Monty's work, which is it's not what happens to you, it's how you make sense of it.
Madar Nan
00:37:34So in that, in that concept of, of how you make sense of it.
Madar Nan
00:37:39So when, when a person chooses to not tell a parent about, about your identity or your grandparent, there's one that's like the logistics of it.
Madar Nan
00:37:49What's hurting us is how we make sense of us choosing to not share or choosing to wait.
Madar Nan
00:37:57What meaning are you giving that what you're.
Madar Nan
00:38:00What you're.
Madar Nan
00:38:00What you chose to do and that the meaning that you give yourself why I did something or didn't do something, that's going to be more of the tug, I call them hooks, that might be more of a pulling and stuck feeling that maybe I wait for to do.
Madar Nan
00:38:16You know, tell my grandparents until they pass.
Madar Nan
00:38:19And now I come Out.
Madar Nan
00:38:20And I just.
Madar Nan
00:38:21I still don't feel, like, a sense of relief.
Madar Nan
00:38:24And that's when we want to look at, well, what's the meaning I'm still holding that I give to this choice I made?
Madar Nan
00:38:33Not about good or bad, right or wrongs.
Madar Nan
00:38:35Not talking about that.
Madar Nan
00:38:36We're talking about the meaning each individual person gives to the choices you make.
Madar Nan
00:38:41Now, we don't always know that cognitively.
Madar Nan
00:38:45We don't always know.
Madar Nan
00:38:46Well, I know I did this because of this.
Madar Nan
00:38:48If that's where spending some time to really sit with, wow, I'm still feeling hurt, pain, anger, confusion in this choice I made or didn't make.
Madar Nan
00:39:03What meaning am I giving it that's allowing me or holding me stuck in the journey of why of doing it.
Heather Hester
00:39:13I love that.
Heather Hester
00:39:15That's such a great question.
Heather Hester
00:39:16That's a question that you can ask yourself.
Heather Hester
00:39:18Like, you don't need someone to hold yourself.
Madar Nan
00:39:20Yeah.
Madar Nan
00:39:21You can go journal.
Madar Nan
00:39:21You go for a walk and you ask it multiple times.
Madar Nan
00:39:25If you're still holding it, then you say again, what meaning am I giving it now?
Madar Nan
00:39:30That keeps me from letting go.
Heather Hester
00:39:34Right.
Heather Hester
00:39:36Oh, that is so great.
Heather Hester
00:39:40That is something that we all can do.
Madar Nan
00:39:43Yeah.
Heather Hester
00:39:43Right?
Madar Nan
00:39:45Yeah.
Madar Nan
00:39:46And grief has multiple.
Madar Nan
00:39:47Multiple steps.
Madar Nan
00:39:51And grief is not linear.
Madar Nan
00:39:53It's all over the place.
Madar Nan
00:39:54So the steps are in.
Madar Nan
00:39:56No.
Madar Nan
00:39:57And they.
Madar Nan
00:39:57This is the order they are.
Madar Nan
00:39:58But you go in and out of different ones.
Madar Nan
00:40:01So it's shock and denial, anger, sadness, depression, acceptance.
Madar Nan
00:40:08And then you throw in there every once in a while.
Madar Nan
00:40:11You throw in there.
Madar Nan
00:40:13Wishful thinking, numbing.
Madar Nan
00:40:16And we bounce around.
Madar Nan
00:40:18Like, one.
Madar Nan
00:40:19One moment we're angry, and anger can.
Madar Nan
00:40:21There's lots of different kinds of anger.
Madar Nan
00:40:23And then we're just in denial.
Madar Nan
00:40:24Well, I'm still gonna think about it.
Madar Nan
00:40:27And then we're just like.
Madar Nan
00:40:28And then three days later, three weeks later, we're just kind of sad.
Madar Nan
00:40:31God, I wonder why I'm feeling melancholy or wonder.
Madar Nan
00:40:34Well, okay, come back to like.
Madar Nan
00:40:36There's something I'm processing and I'm still.
Madar Nan
00:40:39And we're working towards acceptance.
Madar Nan
00:40:41And there's a great sharing from the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
Heather Hester
00:40:48It's very good.
Madar Nan
00:40:48And he talks about that.
Madar Nan
00:40:51One of the things that I'm paraphrasing just this.
Madar Nan
00:40:53I'll be writing about this in my next book, hopefully comes out in December.
Madar Nan
00:40:57That part of how we get out of anger and sadness and shock and denial, part of what gets us out is the idea of wonder.
Madar Nan
00:41:09I wonder what it would feel like, be like if I wasn't feeling sad, depressed, angry.
Madar Nan
00:41:16I wonder.
Madar Nan
00:41:17I wonder what my life would be like if I wasn't holding on to this.
Madar Nan
00:41:21I wonder what my life would transform if I were to grieve the loss of X, whatever that is.
Madar Nan
00:41:29When you can start wondering, it opens up a space for new growth to happen.
Madar Nan
00:41:35But as long as the wondering is closed, you're more likely to unconsciously or consciously be bouncing around these other steps.
Heather Hester
00:41:46That makes so sense.
Heather Hester
00:41:47So much sense.
Heather Hester
00:41:49And I love, too, that this is something that you can really process, like, take upon yourself to process.
Heather Hester
00:41:59Right.
Heather Hester
00:42:00And if you need the help of a professional therapist, then absolutely.
Heather Hester
00:42:05Right.
Heather Hester
00:42:05But it's something that you can spend time journaling or you can, you know, walk and just kind of let it.
Heather Hester
00:42:13But opening up that.
Heather Hester
00:42:14I mean, that makes so much sense to just open.
Heather Hester
00:42:16That's like the idea of parallel to just being curious.
Heather Hester
00:42:20Right.
Heather Hester
00:42:21Which I use a lot so that I had forgotten I read that book 100 years ago.
Heather Hester
00:42:27It feels like.
Heather Hester
00:42:27And that's such.
Madar Nan
00:42:28It's so good.
Madar Nan
00:42:31I had to do it in, like, stages because it is heavy.
Heather Hester
00:42:35It is.
Madar Nan
00:42:35So I had to, like, do it and then take a little break, read something else, and then read it and then take a little break.
Madar Nan
00:42:40And.
Heather Hester
00:42:41Yeah, I think it's one of those books that if you.
Heather Hester
00:42:44You kind of have to have a little life under your belt to read, because if you read it too young, it doesn't make any sense or you miss a lot of.
Heather Hester
00:42:53A lot of it.
Heather Hester
00:42:54Right?
Madar Nan
00:42:54Yeah.
Heather Hester
00:42:55Oh, my goodness.
Heather Hester
00:42:57So I have just.
Heather Hester
00:43:01I'm trying to decide here.
Heather Hester
00:43:02I have a couple more questions, and maybe we'll touch on this one, because I think it'll be a good parallel to my audience.
Heather Hester
00:43:12So it's a little bit about trauma, talking about trauma and when.
Heather Hester
00:43:17When is good to acknowledge it, to work on it, and when we shouldn't do that.
Heather Hester
00:43:24When it.
Heather Hester
00:43:24When.
Heather Hester
00:43:25How do we know when it's not the right time?
Madar Nan
00:43:27Yeah, well, I'll start with the latter.
Madar Nan
00:43:30I think it's not the right time.
Madar Nan
00:43:32When you have.
Madar Nan
00:43:33When you have something that you're really trying, like you're in college or you're really trying to get through college, then you want.
Madar Nan
00:43:40And you want to be able to say, okay, I'm going to work on this.
Madar Nan
00:43:44When I'm not so focused on something, or let's say you're trying.
Madar Nan
00:43:47You're focusing on something else.
Madar Nan
00:43:49When we unpack trauma and we have other things going on simultaneously, it can feel like Pandora's box.
Madar Nan
00:43:56And we can feel a sense of we're treading water in our life, which can bring us into depression or we can feel like nothing ever works out for me, and we can get into that mindset.
Madar Nan
00:44:08And I also think that, and I say this very gingerly, gently, is when you're younger, like when you're from birth until 30, your brain is not fully developed.
Madar Nan
00:44:21And so the idea of self awareness, I mean, you have it.
Madar Nan
00:44:25But who I was that we were talking about this earlier, who I was at 20 is not the same person I was when I was 30 or 40 or now in my 50s.
Madar Nan
00:44:34Like, it's not the same.
Madar Nan
00:44:35And it's not about better or worse.
Madar Nan
00:44:37It's different.
Madar Nan
00:44:39And that's the part of.
Madar Nan
00:44:41When you're in your teens and your 20s, it's really about cultivating experiences.
Madar Nan
00:44:48You are a sponge and your brain is developing so much.
Madar Nan
00:44:51They say that you can learn the most in these ages.
Madar Nan
00:44:55But then when you're older, you have the ability to reflect a little bit different because you have more experience.
Madar Nan
00:45:02So when you're younger, you're really gathering information and experiences.
Madar Nan
00:45:07So that's.
Madar Nan
00:45:07One second is how to do our trauma.
Madar Nan
00:45:12Part of it, again, comes to that concept I was sharing earlier.
Madar Nan
00:45:15It's not what happens to us, it's how we make sense of it.
Madar Nan
00:45:20So when you have, let's say you have two siblings in yourself and a family, and there is a traumatic or dramatic experience in the family system, all three of the children are going to have a different kind of trauma or pain.
Madar Nan
00:45:34And one is not better or worse than the other.
Madar Nan
00:45:37They're just different.
Madar Nan
00:45:39And so part of it is when you want to do some work.
Madar Nan
00:45:45You know, there's lots of books out there that can kind of guide you through, but it's really coming to the idea of what are the parts that come up in me when I think about this trauma, because that will be an example of how you've made sense of it.
Madar Nan
00:46:01I'm not enough.
Madar Nan
00:46:02I'm too much.
Madar Nan
00:46:03Things never work out for me.
Madar Nan
00:46:05I never get what I want.
Madar Nan
00:46:07People don't see me.
Madar Nan
00:46:08I never understood, like, all of those, always and nevers, those are.
Madar Nan
00:46:13That's our hooks, right?
Madar Nan
00:46:16And.
Madar Nan
00:46:16And it's being able to really sit with that and give your time, yourself time, set up a time.
Madar Nan
00:46:25Maybe it's weekly that you're gonna reflect on it and then you're gonna say, like, okay, I'm going back to my life.
Madar Nan
00:46:31And it sounds kind of corny, but you say, like, whatever.
Madar Nan
00:46:33Like, is it the inner parts work?
Madar Nan
00:46:35Like, hey, my four year Old self.
Madar Nan
00:46:37I love you.
Madar Nan
00:46:38I'm gonna be back.
Madar Nan
00:46:39And then the next week on that dot, you got to be back.
Madar Nan
00:46:42It's got.
Madar Nan
00:46:43It's really important because that's building internal trust inside of ourself.
Madar Nan
00:46:50And that is when healing.
Madar Nan
00:46:52That's when the click, click, click, shifts into that shifting of healing.
Madar Nan
00:46:57And remember wonder so we can get to acceptance.
Heather Hester
00:47:00Exactly, exactly.
Heather Hester
00:47:03And interesting.
Heather Hester
00:47:05The parallel between processing grief and processing trauma.
Heather Hester
00:47:12And they are intertwined, for sure.
Heather Hester
00:47:16But that is, that is interesting.
Madar Nan
00:47:18And.
Heather Hester
00:47:19And just also the awareness piece and having, you know, a fully formed, fully developed brain, right?
Madar Nan
00:47:27Yep.
Madar Nan
00:47:28It does make a difference.
Heather Hester
00:47:30Oh, my goodness.
Madar Nan
00:47:31Difference.
Heather Hester
00:47:33I even think, you know, the work that, you know, my son has done that all of my kids have done.
Heather Hester
00:47:39I mean, obviously they're all under the age of 30, and he's still only 23, but has already done, you know, work.
Heather Hester
00:47:50And I often think about this, like, what.
Heather Hester
00:47:53Where will he.
Heather Hester
00:47:55How will he be processing this 10 years from now?
Heather Hester
00:47:59Because it'll be so different, right?
Heather Hester
00:48:02And my hope is just that they know what their tools are, right?
Heather Hester
00:48:08They know these different little pieces that while it may not make sense or it makes sense in a very different way than it's going to 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from down the road, right?
Heather Hester
00:48:20That they can do that.
Madar Nan
00:48:23I think a big piece of it is when any of us are working on trauma drama or feelings or memories, it's just pausing, like, what do I need right now?
Madar Nan
00:48:35Which is different than what do I need in my life?
Madar Nan
00:48:37Like, you're not going to know what you need in 20 years.
Madar Nan
00:48:40So it's really about, what do I need right now?
Madar Nan
00:48:42And maybe it's like, you know what?
Madar Nan
00:48:43I don't want to deal with this right now.
Madar Nan
00:48:45Write a letter of the trauma drama and go put it somewhere in your, you know, and say, I'll come back to you and put a date, put a reminder in your calendar for three years from now, if that's what you choose.
Madar Nan
00:48:56And then you go back and look at the letter.
Madar Nan
00:48:58I mean, like, it's okay to say, I'm going to pause, but the thing is, don't just pause and then sit there.
Madar Nan
00:49:07Go remember, it's bringing in experience, bringing in knowledge, bringing in learning.
Madar Nan
00:49:12Like, that's where that's building self esteem and self worth.
Madar Nan
00:49:18And self esteem and self worth is an antidote.
Madar Nan
00:49:21It is one of the most important tools to being able to do the work.
Madar Nan
00:49:27So if you can't yet because you're too sensitive, you don't feel you're Enough then put a pin in it and go do the work to build your self esteem and your self worth so that you have, you have the capacity to hold uncomfortable feelings and self reflect the past, yourself, other people.
Heather Hester
00:49:49Right.
Heather Hester
00:49:49Well, I think there's so much power in that being able to just pause.
Heather Hester
00:49:54I need to pause, I need to shelve it whether it's for you know, an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year.
Madar Nan
00:50:01Right.
Heather Hester
00:50:01And, and come back to it when you know there are different pieces in place.
Heather Hester
00:50:09So.
Heather Hester
00:50:10But that just that gift to yourself in another, you know, to not should on yourself all the time.
Madar Nan
00:50:15Right.
Heather Hester
00:50:16So.
Madar Nan
00:50:17And I think it's really important to do things that uplift you and make you feel whole and make you feel.
Madar Nan
00:50:23Because when we do nothing, I always tell people like nothingness is not a good thing because it makes us complacent and complacent makes takes.
Madar Nan
00:50:34We take steps back.
Madar Nan
00:50:36Yeah, it's really.
Madar Nan
00:50:38And that's that piece of.
Madar Nan
00:50:39And you know, inside, outside boundaries.
Madar Nan
00:50:41It's like I gotta protect my partner or my children or my co workers from my whoosh feeling.
Madar Nan
00:50:48Like you never.
Madar Nan
00:50:48And you always.
Madar Nan
00:50:50It's like, well I gotta look at that.
Madar Nan
00:50:52I can't plop that on the other person.
Heather Hester
00:50:55No, no, that alone is, you know, such wonderful just knowledge to have.
Heather Hester
00:51:06And on that note, I'm watching our time and so I want to just really quickly end with a thought on meditation because that's where we started and wonder if you could just give a really quick.
Heather Hester
00:51:21Whether it's a recommendation or point everyone to, you know, where you.
Heather Hester
00:51:28I know that you have a number of things on your website that are wonderful.
Madar Nan
00:51:33Yes, I.
Madar Nan
00:51:35So I have like probably over 50 or 60 meditations on my website and they do come.
Madar Nan
00:51:41Most of them come out of the Kundalini technology space.
Madar Nan
00:51:45And I've started creating.
Madar Nan
00:51:47I have a Christian album coming out for those of you who are listening, who are Christian or I have a Jewish ones coming out because I just want to be able to have something for everyone and they can connect to.
Madar Nan
00:51:59So it's on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, they're on all the streaming spaces.
Madar Nan
00:52:06And one thing I'll leave listeners with is that singing, chanting or breathing in a sequence like where you're having a pattern, like a pattern breath, any of those things stimulate your body, stimulate the vagus nerve, which when you stimulate the vagus nerve you actually naturally can calm yourself from the inside out.
Madar Nan
00:52:31So.
Madar Nan
00:52:33So if you sing in your car, like you were saying, if you do a chant or you do a breath where you're some people that there's like a box, box breathing.
Madar Nan
00:52:44But you want to be really.
Madar Nan
00:52:45You gotta create a little pulse with your breath.
Madar Nan
00:52:48It can't just be long, deep breathing.
Madar Nan
00:52:50It needs to be like a pulse where you're stimulating the lungs, which then which is your vagus nerve, is in the center of your chest and connects to all your organs and glands except for your adrenals.
Madar Nan
00:53:00So by stimulating it, by doing those things, you're able to create a relaxation, starting from the inside out.
Madar Nan
00:53:10That's my sharing.
Madar Nan
00:53:13I love it.
Heather Hester
00:53:14That is the perfect, perfect way to end.
Heather Hester
00:53:17Thank you so much and it's such an honor to have you here.
Heather Hester
00:53:21Thank you.
Madar Nan
00:53:22Thank you so much, Heather.
Madar Nan
00:53:23I really enjoyed our conversation.
Heather Hester
00:53:25Me too.
Heather Hester
00:53:28Thanks so much for joining me today.
Heather Hester
00:53:31If you enjoyed today's episode, I would be so grateful.
Heather Hester
00:53:35For a rating or review, click on the link in the show notes or go to my website, chrysalismama.com to stay up to date on my latest resources as well as to learn how you can work with me.
Heather Hester
00:53:51Please share this podcast with anyone who needs to know that they are not alone.
Heather Hester
00:53:56And remember to just breathe.
Heather Hester
00:54:00Until next time, Sa.
