Mindful Conversations with KAY

or today's Mindful Moment, we will practice Soaring High Breath. This is a great breathing technique to refocus attention, get a full body stretch, and to encourage deep breathing. Let's try Soaring High Breath.

Find a place to stand where there's enough room to raise your arms straight out to the sides and above.

Begin by standing with the feet shoulder-width apart. Take a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth with your arms hanging down at the sides of your body.

Then, on the next inhale, allow the arms to slowly float up, straightening the legs, and going up on tiptoes. Exhale as you float your arms back down, bending at the knees and bringing the heels back to the ground. Repeat this several times.

As you practice, you can imagine what kinds of bird are you. Where are you flying? After a few Soaring High Breaths, you can write a story about your bird's adventures.

Thank you for practicing Soaring Hig Breath. We hope you enjoyed today's Mindful Moment!

Happiness looks and feels different for everyone, but how we get there is often quite similar: through a deep connection with ourselves.

Maria Castelluci Moore, entrepreneur, writer, and mother of 4, joins Kristi and Kelly on this week's episode of Mindful Conversations with KAY. Their engaging interview dives deeper into the unique experience of happiness and how slowing down and paying attention to our surroundings can lead to a new, fresh perspective — at any age.

Listen in as they discuss:

More about Maria:

Entrepreneur, first-generation American, writer, and mother to four children, Moore strives

Purchase Vivienne in Paris directly from her website:

https://mariacastelluccimooreauthor.com/. Also available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, and wherever books are sold.

Connect with Maria Moore on Facebook or Instagram:

https://www.facebook.com/mariamooreauthor/

https://www.instagram.com/mariamooreauthor/

For further reading & learning opportunities:

Bringing Mindfulness To Our Everyday Tasks: Find Joy in being present: https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/bringing-mindfulness-to-our-everyday-tasks-find-joy-in-being-present/

The 5 Senses: An Autumn Experience: https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/kids-yoga-autumn-senses-fall/

Mindfulness Exercises: https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/mindfulness-exercises-classroom/

Mindful Parenting: https://learn.kiddingaroundyoga.com/p/mindful-parenting

To practice, we will focus very closely on a single object and let all of our other senses turn off and rest.

Find a partner and sit facing each other. Look into each other's eyes very deeply. Blink when you need to but keep staring.

Notice the colors that you see, the shapes and movements. We're going to keep looking into our partner's eyes for a few moments. Be still and quiet. Let the whole world disappear as you keep looking into your partner's eyes.

After a few minutes, you can start to blink. Sit quietly right where you are and ask them to notice how they feel. How do you feel?

Take a nice, big, deep breath in, and let your body completely relax. See if you notice anything interesting during your eye to eye meditation.

Enjoy this mindful moment and tune in again next week for more.

Imagine a room full of preschoolers engaged in an activity. The teacher announces it's Circle Time. This shift from play to stillness takes a lot of effort and skill for these young children.

As parents and educators, it is our job to support children in developing these skills and helping them learn how to control both their physical and emotional responses. But how?

In this episode of Mindful Conversation with KAY, Kristi and Kelly dive deeper into the concept of opposites to teach self-control and self-regulation in children. They share a variety of games and techniques to implement at home and in the classroom as well as fun and engaging ways to introduce self-regulation tools to children of all ages.

Further reading & learning opportunities:

The Power of Yoga Nidra for the Entire Family: https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/the-power-of-yoga-nidra-for-the-entire-family/

Practicing Self-Regulation with Children’s Yoga: https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/self-regulation-yoga-children/

The (Scientific) Reasons to Practice Yoga with Your Children: https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/children-yoga-science-benefits/

Engaging Yoga Games For School-Aged Kids https://learn.kiddingaroundyoga.com/p/engaging-yoga-games-for-school-aged-kids

Explore our games and activity bundles:

https://store.kiddingaroundyoga.com/collections/games

In today's mindful moment, we will be planting peace. In this exercise, we will be growing our empathy, our emotional regulation and our self-control. Let's try it!

What happens if you plant a tomato seed? Hopefully, you'll grow a tomato. And if you plant a sunflower seed, you'll grow a sunflower. The same works in your brain. Imagine your mind is like a garden planted with many different kinds of seeds. Seeds of joy, peace, mindfulness, undertsanding, and love. Seeds of craving, anger, fear hate, and forgetfulness can grow in your mind garden, too. Both wholesome and unwholesome seeds are always there, sleeping in the soil of you of your mind, waiting to be watered. The quality of your life depends on the kinds of seeds you choose to water. If you water a seed of peace, peace will grow. When the seeds of happiness in you are watered, you will become happy. Water the seeds of anger and you will become angry. The seeds that are watered regualry will grow strong.

How do you water seeds? If you think positive thoughts and you act in kind ways, you will water the good seeds, and while you are watering the healthy seeds, the seeds of anger, sadness, stress, and pain don't get watered and as a result, they stop growing.

Which seeds have you been watering lately? Maybe you can imagine the positive seeds you are growing are literally fruits and vegetbale and flowers.

What fruit would the seed of joy grow?

What about patience? Or health?

Explain why you think that fruit, vegetable, or flower represents that emotion.

Let’s face it, mistakes don’t feel good, but they are a natural and important part of life. We often view mistakes negatively, however, they provide the opportunity to learn and grow, to try something new, or view something from a different perspective.

Learning to handle a mistake gracefully and using it to your advantage is a valuable life skill. So, what can we do to help our children and students embrace their mistakes and reframe failures as opportunities for growth? How can we help them discover there are benefits to making mistakes?

Join Kelly and Kristi in this week's episode of Mindful Conversation with KAY as they discuss how making mistakes can be a tool for growth. They dive deeper into the best ways to talk to our kids about making mistakes including:

And as Kelly points out, we are all a work in progress!

For further reading & learning opportunities:

Kids’ Yoga Grows Leaders: https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/learn-mistakes-grow-leader-yogiyogini/

The Lotus Flower Lesson https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/lotus-flower-lesson/

The Right Way to Do Yoga https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/the-right-way-to-do-yoga/

Art and Mindfulness: a conversation with Dr. Pravesh Bhoodram: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/dashboard/episode/e1h04eq

Effects of Ability and Effort Praise on Children’s Failure Attribution, Self-Handicapping, and Performance: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01883/full

Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg: https://www.instagram.com/barneysaltzberg/

In today's mindful moment, we will be doing a yoga pose called Cat and Cow. These poses are great for relieving tension and stretching your upper body. They can be done either seated or on hands and knees on the floor.

Let's try it!

If you are seated in a chair, start by sitting tall, bring your hands together, and interlace your fingers. Turn your palms out and extend your arms straight to the sky. Inhale as you arch your back and tip your chin up. You're like a cow with a big belly!

Now, exhale as you slowly pull your belly in and round your shoulders, pushing your spine toward the back of your chair. Bring your arms back down, stretched out in front of you, and tip your chin toward your chest. You're like a scary cat!

Continue to flow back and forth between both positions several times. Feel free to make cat and cow sounds as you move through the poses or you can make a hissing sound on the exhale to release more tension.

On all fours, you'll do the same thing. If you're on your hands and knees, let your belly fall to the floor as you lift your chest and tail and you look up toward the sky in Cow pose. As you exhale, press the floor away with both hands, draw your belly in and arch your back up toward the ceiling like a Halloween cat. Continue through this motion several times.

Confidence and self-esteem are important concepts for kids to embody because they help them to feel good about themselves and give them the power to believe in their own abilities. When kids have a healthy sense of self-confidence and self-esteem, they are more likely to be successful in school and in their personal lives.

Raising kids who are confident in their own skin can be a challenge for any parent or educator. Fortunately, there are some things you can do to help children feel good about themselves and boost their self-esteem.

In this episode of Mindful Conversation with KAY, Kelly and Kristi dive deeper into the meaning of self-esteem and self-confidence and share ways yoga and mindfulness can improve and strengthen these skills. Tune in and learn more about:

For further reading & learning opportunities:

Amy Cuddy - Your body language may shape who you are - TED: https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_may_shape_who_you_are/c

Yoga Builds Self-Esteem: https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/s

For today's mindful moment, we're going to take a journey in our imagination to our Peaceful Garden. This script works well in the classroom and is designed for children sitting at desks, but could be modified for lying down. Be sure to listen in for the full meditation.

Find a comfortable place to rest, close your eyes, or gaze down. Squeeze all of the muscles in your body, then relax. Repeat this one more time.

Take a deep breath in, fill your belly, hold, then release.

Imagine your desk becomes a magic carpet.

What do you see? Buildings? Birds? Clouds?

Who do you see? Friends?

What do you feel? A cool breeze?

Gently land in your garden. Spend some time exploring and decorating your garden.

What do you hear?

What's the temp?

What do you smell?

Now rest peacefully in your garden, then climb back on your magic carpet and return to your desk. Take a moment to remember how peaceful and happy you felt in your garden. Keep this feeling with you throughout your day!

Imagine this: You planned to pick up a pizza for dinner, but when you pull up to the restaurant, you realize it's closed on Mondays. As an adult, you can think through a couple of solutions, but now imagine you're 5 years old and you had your heart set on pizza...

Bouncing back from disappointment. Going with the flow when plans change. Getting comfortable with change and managing uncertainty.

Flexible thinking, an essential life skill for both adults and children, helps us adapt to new or unexpected situations.

In this episode, Mindful Conversation with KAY podcast, Kelly and Kristi share their thoughts on flexible thinking including:

Episode mention: http://www.justforkidsyoga.com/

For further reading & learning:

Why Children Should Practice Yoga: https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/kids-yoga-children-benefits/

The Importance of Learning Through Play: https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/the-importance-of-learning-through-play/

Social Emotional Learning – Yoga and Emotional Intelligence https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/kids-yoga-social-emotional-learning-sel/

Practicing Self-Regulation with Children's Yoga: https://kiddingaroundyoga.com/practicing-self-regulation-with-childrens-yoga/