I’m driving around from place to place, doing all of those things that we do in the afternoon. It can be hard. And for students as well. I think the kids are exposed to things at a much earlier age. Some of it is wonderful. My children, 10 and almost 8, get so much of their information and learn so much from a lot of these online features. YouTube is their favorite thing. I have stopped asking anymore when they have great ideas or they know something that I’m so baffled by how they know it, I don’t even ask anymore, because I know the answer is YouTube. That’s where they learned it. Right?

In fact, it’s taken me a long time myself to get into the habit of looking things up that way.

But for the young people it’s just like, Oh yeah, well that’s just what you do.

It can be a wonderful tool. It still needs to have boundaries. It’s still needed to have limitations. And I think the thing that is the most concerning to me, or overwhelming is that our kids don’t get that break. When I was younger I faced bullies and mean kids just like pretty much, I’m sure everyone can say. Although it was terrible and it made me not want to go to school and I really felt very lonely and isolated when I was in school in elementary school, I at least had the opportunity to get on that bus and go home and to not have to worry about it and to just be able to have a break from it. And I feel like that is the really scary thing where so many people I talked to will say things like, Oh, kids have it easy these days.

And I’m like, Do they.? Or my other favorite that parents will say when I challenge some changes, Well, I survived. So I think that that’s a default that we all have built inside of us and sometimes it’s easier to just sluff some things off rather than address it and really challenge those statements. So for me, I think a lot of my parenting comes down to living intentionally as well as having a practice in mindfulness and really being mindful of the language that I use, not only for myself but also for anyone I come in contact with.

Beautiful, beautiful. And that really sets us up for the conversation today. To begin with, and before we go on the break, I would love for you to share with us what your superpowers are.

Well I love the fact that you call it a superpower, because as a mindful development coach, I spend a lot of time in classrooms with students doing mini lessons on what is mindfulness and doing some mindful explorations. My biggest message when I work with kids is that everyone can be mindful and there’s many ways we can be mindful, which is a big reason why I love it so much. I’m such an advocate for mindfulness and a mindful approach to not just learning but also living. So when I work with children, ages Pre-K all the way up to high school seniors, I refer to mindfulness as my superpower. So when I read the questions and, I know that you’re a superpower mama, I was like, Oh my gosh, I have a connection to this. That is awesome. I love it. I use that all the time.

Yeah. So you use it all the time, obviously at work. Just for a moment, let’s just dive into how you use it as a mother.

So the thing that I always talk to anyone about… when I talk about my love of mindfulness is that by simple definition, mindfulness is paying attention on purpose. So what we choose to pay attention to is completely inconsequential to the benefits of mindfulness. So we can practice mindfulness in so many varieties of ways from the things that we do on a normal basis like drinking our coffee or eating our food or snacks, to walking the dog. Those can be our examples of mindfulness and us, as I say, strengthening those smart parts. But the really great thing about mindfulness is that the more we practice it, it grows stronger. And not only does it change our brains and almost induce this feeling of relaxation and just peace or calm, finding our center, which we all have inside of us.

But it’s so easy to get so revved up from the day of doing, doing, doing, planning, thinking, solving, fixing. All of the things we do. Those 50 to 70,000 thoughts we have a day, it can be really difficult to find that peace, to find that pause, to find that space that we create for ourselves. So when we practice mindfulness, we practice growing and cultivating and getting in touch with that softer spot, that pause. But the benefit is, the more we do this, the more we naturally possess it. So all we have to then do is just remind ourselves of our superpower. When things do get tough, when things don’t go our way, when stuff comes up or just when we are recognizing that there’s this blurry or tsunami of things going on inside of us, or we catch ourselves in autopilot mode, we can simply just remind ourselves of our presence and it instantaneously summons that superpower.

Just by thinking about it and reminding ourselves of our intention or our superpower or our desire to be present and in the moment, we automatically achieve that state of calm, of peace, of space, that then we can respond rather than react automatically.

Love it. Love it very much. Thank you for sharing that and for expanding on the definition of mindfulness because it’s become such a buzz word-

It has.

… that the significance and the beauty of it can get lost.

Yeah. It’s funny. I joke and say that, When I first started doing mindfulness workshops and mindfulness classes, it was often, what is mindfulness? But now, fast forward a few years and my joke is, now I do more about what mindfulness is not, unteaching some of those held beliefs that people have about it, that either prevents them from practicing or not even being open to the idea of it, but just putting it in that column of, I can’t do that. And I think that’s my biggest mission, is to make mindfulness not only accessible but relatable so that it can be, because I really think that that is the greatest way to affect change on a grander level.

Love it. Love it. You know, we have to go for a quick break, Amy. But before we go, I would love for you to share with everyone where they can find you. And when we come back we’re going to talk about your story.

All right, awesome. So my website is mindfulselff.com. And that’s because as a teacher, I love acronyms and I’m a little bit of a word nerd. So it stands for Social and Emotional Learning for Friends and Families.

Very nice. Very nice. So we are speaking with Amy Rubin. We’re talking on the topic of maintaining mindfulness when things are tough, and that’s what we’re going to get back to when we come back from our breaks to stay with us everyone. You won’t want to miss this.