180 : Mindful Parenting & Raising Good Humans with Hunter Clarke-Fields
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Welcome to the Mindful Fire Podcast, a show about crafting a life you love and making work optional using the tools of mindfulness, envisioning, and financial independence. I'm your host, Adam Koyo, and I'm so glad you're here. Each episode of the Mindful Fire Podcast explores these three tools through teachings, guided meditations, and inspiring interviews with people actually living them to craft a life they love.

At its core, mindful fire is about creating more awareness and choice in your life. Mindfulness helps you develop self-awareness to know yourself better and what's most important to you by practicing a kind, curious awareness. Envisioning is all about choosing to think big about your life and putting the power of your predicting brain to work to create the life you dream of.

And financial independence brings awareness and choice to your financial life, empowering you to make your vision a reality by getting your money sorted out and ultimately making work optional. And here's the best part. You don't have to wait until you reach financial independence to live out your vision. Mindful Fire is about using these tools to craft that life now on the path to financial independence and beyond.

If you're ready to start your Mindful Fire journey, go to mindfulfire.org and download my free envisioning guide. In just 10 minutes, this guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life. Again, you can download it for free at mindfulfire.org. Let's jump into today's episode. ♪

Hunter, welcome to the Mindful Fire podcast. I'm so thrilled to have you here. Thank you, Adam. I'm happy to be here. Yeah, I'm so excited to have this conversation, which is so funny how it came to be. I was wearing this hat.

This mindful fire hat, which is blending in at karate, my son's karate. And a woman named Dina came up to me and was like, hey, is this you? She's like pointing at my website. I was like, yeah. And she's like, oh, you like mindfulness. And we started talking and she tells me that, oh, yeah, I work with Hunter Clark Fields. She wrote Raising Good Humans. Would you be interested having her on the podcast? I'm like, yeah, that would be amazing. And so it's so interesting.

funny how these little things like buying these hats because I felt like they would be cool. I'm like one of the only few people that have them and was just standing there at karate. And this opportunity came from that. So it's a pleasure to have you here and really excited to dive into the whole concept of mindful parenting.

That's so cool. Yeah, I love that. It makes me want a mindful mama or mindful parenting hat. Yeah, you never know, right? You never know when someone's going to see it and start a conversation. So that was pretty cool. So Hunter, I'd love to have you start by sharing a little bit about who you are, your journey, and what you're up to in the world. I'm Hunter Clary Fields, the author of Raising Good Humans and creator of Mindful Parenting course and teacher training. And it kind of all came about because I was

a parent who's really struggling, who has a badass temper and was very frustrated with some of the advice that I was hearing that I couldn't implement. I've always been, or always for a long time, I've been really fascinated with mindfulness for me because I'm a really highly sensitive person. I apologized to my parents at one point because

I was just like one of those highly sensitive kids that I'd be up and then I would be down and I would have so much resistance to many things and just felt things very deeply. And so I started reading about and studying mindfulness when I was a teenager just for some relief. And I could really see that these practices, by the time I got to my daughter being about 18 months old, right? That's when they start to...

Talk back to you. When we finally got to that point, I realized that the world of mindfulness had a lot to offer the world of parenting. All this good advice I was listening to, you know, I was listening to incredible teachers that I still love and respect enormously, but I couldn't implement it because I was reactive.

And the world of mindfulness had all these tools to help you become peaceful, to help you become less reactive, to help you engage your whole brain rather than just that reactive part of you. So I realized that this tool,

thing that I had been reading about and studying for a long time at that point really needed to talk to this parenting world. And because I wasn't, it wasn't helping me to just know the good things to say, but then not be able to implement them. I really had to like go back to studying my nervous system and having some compassion for myself and

And having some space to be able to choose my response rather than just have an unskillful response come out of my mouth, which was...

what was happening. So yeah, all this work I do stems out of something that I was kind of inherently bad at. So it's just funny because I don't know, I'm like one of those people who's like a good student. You're good at being good at things. You can get things done. You get the grades and go to the school and all that stuff. And then it's like, oh, I was bad. I was really bad at this. And I couldn't just choose. I couldn't just

choose to be better, which is very frustrating. And it's very frustrating for a lot of people. And so I was like, I really need to crack this code because this is the most important thing in my life. Yeah. I resonate so much with a lot of what you said there, but just the knowing what to say, knowing what to do, knowing the right thing to do, but not being able to access it because I'm so

triggered in the moment. And I find myself doing that constantly. And also similarly, good student, good grades, get into good school, get a good job, all these things. And then add on top of that being the mindfulness guy. And it's, you know, a real tricky combination there. It's like, wait a second, you have a podcast about mindfulness, yet you're losing your stuff over almost nothing. You know, like,

It's very hard to actually do the right things, say the right things, have the right responses when you're in this fight, flight or freeze mode. And that's really what I loved about. Nearly impossible. Yeah. And that's what I loved about your book and how it how you really started is just like

Starting with how your nervous system works, starting how the brain works and how when you're triggered, your thinking brain is actually offline. And I resonated with so much of this because at Google, where I was working, I was like,

for my whole career i had the opportunity to be trained as a search inside yourself facilitator i'm not sure if you're familiar with that program but it's emotional intelligence through mindfulness and we talk about very many of the same things so it's really cool to read how you you think about and talk about those same concepts so yeah i'd love to have you share a little bit about

How people can calm their nervous system, create that space between the stimulus and the response so they can actually do the things they want to do in those moments. Sure. And I'm happy to do that. But I just want to also name that probably some of the people listening, like you might know some of this, right? Like, you know, these things like you, Adam, like you have this knowledge of how to do these things and then you have these expectations, right, of yourself, right?

And then these expectations of yourself brings in this layer of like shame that can feel really insurmountable when you're with your children. You're like, this is where the rubber meets the road and I'm failing. And I was failing and I have failed many times. And, you know, we can talk about these practices and talk about these things and

and we're going to mess them up and we're not going to do them right. So I do a teacher training, you know, mindful parenting teacher training, and then they feel like, oh, I should be able to, you know, it's like this piece of, I think there's a really important piece about just acceptance of our

humanity, acceptance of our flawed nature as humans, being who we authentically are. That is so incredibly important. Acceptance that we're not going to get to perfect.

acceptance that we're gonna you know our kid's gonna is gonna say I hate you sometimes you know and that you're gonna be really hurt and those hurt difficult feelings are gonna come acceptance that like these tools can help us be less reactive and help us yell less and all of that

And you can listen to all the podcasts in the world and go to all the teachers in the world and you're still going to have to walk through the difficult moments of I messed up. I think that what I love about mindfulness is that it's inherently built with compassion where you're not only

doing a brain hack, I like to call it, to kind of help you be less reactive. But you're also practicing kindness to yourself. And that sometimes is the hardest part for people. So I just wanted to name that right in the beginning.

Yeah, I think that's really important. It's funny you mentioned that because for the longest time, I've been practicing mindfulness 10, 12 years now. And for the longest time, I was just focused on the breath, bring it back, focused on the breath, bring it back. But

Maybe five years ago, I realized just how important that self-compassion piece was and that kind, curious awareness of my mind has wandered. I don't have to beat myself up about it. I don't have to be so militant about it. I can be accepting and curious about what's going on and accepting.

That is what I'm trying to bring more of into my parenting, both for myself, but also for my kids. Compassion for what they're going through. And that I find very difficult when, you know, I always joke, I'm like, patient, patient, patient, patient, patient, patient, patient. And then I'm losing it. There's only so many times you can be ignored.

And now my son has like an ear infection, so he can't even hear me. It's driving me crazy. Oh, no. Oh, no. Yeah. Well, that's such a great example, though. I'm here for all the tips. That's such a great example, though, that patient losing. Because like so many people say, oh, I listen to Adam. I listen to Hunter. I'm going to be more patient. I'm going to be calmer. I'm going to try to be more accepting of my kids. And then I'm calmed.

I'm missing it, right? It's this kind of subtle thing that happens. So that's why that's actually ties it back to acceptance so beautifully, right? Because there's a balance, a messy, messy middle path between practicing to be what we want to be and where we want to be, right?

And accepting the reality of where we are. And part of what helps us like in the moment be less reactive is just is that awareness and acceptance of where we are instead of maybe the aspirational I want to be this. We have to toggle back and forth. So, for instance, like your kids doing something that drives you crazy because kids do that. They're messy. They're loud. They're noisy. They're

irritating. They're pushy. They make all the messes of the world. Anyway, it's natural that kids will drive us crazy. It makes sense. But then when we're in those moments, it really helps to just have that recognition of what's happening. I'm starting to get irritated. I'm starting to feel tense in my jaw, right? I'm starting to feel my shoulders tense up.

I'm feeling really frustrated, right? Saying these things out loud rather than I'm calm, I'm calm, I'm calm as like a mantra to fake it till we make it. Actually, instead, the acceptance of I'm, oh, hello, I'm here. And this noise he keeps making repetitively is really starting to irritate me. And just acknowledging that out loud can be really the first step to

Taming it and to, you know, it's what Dan Siegel calls name it to tame it. And it really does work to take the temperature down to just name whatever emotion is arising for us. Interesting. Yeah. So just actually like say out loud or in your head or both or either. You start where you can. But yeah, out loud actually really helps to say start to say I'm feeling really frustrated is a huge win.

You may have heard the metaphor of like, our thoughts are like a waterfall and kind of naturally, normally we're just kind of under the waterfall. We're just wet. We're just thoughts, lots, lots. And mindfulness, we're helping to starting to step out in front of the waterfall, right? We're starting to see, oh, these are these thoughts, right? We get a little sense of objectivity. So when we name entertainment, that happens. Like noting in meditation where we're like, oh, I'm starting to feel really frustrated. So we've got made that little bit of space behind us.

between stimulus and response, which is really helpful. And then, but it's also good for our kids because we're teaching our kids healthy emotional intelligence. We're being honest. We're being authentic. If we're starting to feel really irritated and we say, no, I'm calm, honey. I'm fine. Our kids start to not trust us because we're being fake. They have incredible BS meters.

They know when you're not being real. And so you're being authentic and true. You're teaching them healthy emotional intelligence by naming your emotions. And you're also modeling for them a process of taking care of your difficult feelings.

I like that. I think that makes a lot of sense to create a little bit of distance by naming it to tame it. What other advice do you have on creating that space between the stimulus and the response? Because I find myself, as I said, fairly calm until I'm not. And then when I'm at that point, it's like I'm yelling. I'm like storming out of the room, like acting like a baby myself sometimes. And it's

It's not a good look. Parrot tantrum. Exactly. And it's often about very small things. Like, it's like I'm digging in on these things that really don't matter. I'll give you an example. Like yesterday, it snowed and all the kids, as they got out of school, were super excited. And they were like literally rolling in the snow, like not even wearing snow clothes, just all rolling in it. And normally I would want to.

I would be like, hey, like, no, like, don't get all wet. Come in the car. Like, I don't want.

you to have snow all over my car. And I don't know, maybe I recognized like, this is important. He wants to do it. It's not that big of a deal. But other times I get so caught up. I think of, you know, similar situation with mud while back in our backyard, what my son calls mud puddle Island, just loves stomping around in it. And I would get so resistant to it. So I guess like a couple of examples there, but like how,

Can I create more space between, okay, I'm starting to feel agitated. How do I just pause? And yeah, in the moment with kids, like in other situations, I can do it, but

At work, it's a lot easier to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's some in-the-moment work and there's some outside-the-moment work with both of these. But in the moment, it's the three R's. Recognize that you're triggered. Name it to tame it, right? Like, he's rolling in the mud. I feel tense. I'm hearing myself say, I've got to stop this. I'm having the thought that I've got to stop this. I'm recognizing the thoughts and the feelings in me.

that are arising, right? So recognize that you're triggered. That's huge. That interrupts the autopilot response. It's just, it's a really important piece of it, right? Is to practice recognizing. And as we start this practice, sometimes we recognize it after the fact and you're going to be human. You're going to, that's fine. But recognize it as soon as you can. And then the second one is remove yourself if possible. That helps. And actually it can help, it can model healthy behavior

emotional ways to take care of your feelings, right? If you are modeling, I need a second to just step out and take a breath, right? That's fine. That's a great thing to model. So there are plenty of times where that's not possible. But if your kid is safe and it's going to help you, it is perfectly okay to step away. It is much better to step away than it is to scream at your kid.

So sometimes you can remove yourself, but all the time you can use your resources. So once you've recognized it, what I want is that you to realize, oh, this is coming up in me. I'm having this feeling. I'm having these thoughts. Is my kid having a problem with the mud all over them? No. Are they having a problem with the snow? No. Like this is not their problem. I'm having a problem, right? So I'm recognizing the feelings and the thoughts in me. And then once we do that,

We have to recognize, we have to understand that it's our nervous system that's being triggered. It's being triggered because of

maybe stuff from your upbringing or maybe fight, flight, or freeze. You know, there's something that's making you feel unsafe in this situation. And it might just be patterning, right? Might be habit energy from what you're growing up. There's all kinds of reasons, which is why we can talk about what to do outside of the immediate situation. But in the immediate situation, you want to use your resources. So what are those resources? When fight, flight, or freeze, nervous system stress response is triggered, we need to counter that. If we're going to have a

chance of using our whole brain because the stress response cuts off access, the amygdala, the

centers of the brain, they sense you're feeling threatened. So they cut off access to your prefrontal cortex, which just works too slowly. We want to be able to use our prefrontal cortex, which is verbal ability, impulse control, problem solving, creativity. We want that. So we have to say, okay, as soon as you start to feel the tension in your shoulders, as soon as you start to feel I'm irritated,

I'm frustrated. That's when we work to calm the nervous system. And so the resources you can use in that situation are many. Most obvious and most cliche one is the breath because it really works. Each inhale is like a little mini fight, flight, or freeze stress response in the nervous system. Each exhale is like a little mini opposite rest and relax response. You can hack that very simply by taking a deep breath in.

And then just doing a longer exhale. So we could do it again in breath and just make your exhale longer than your inhale. Probably with those two breaths, you already feel a difference. I do anyway. Yep.

So say we do five of those, that's going to make an impact, right? So we can use our resources include longer exhales, resources include mantras like this is not an emergency or I am helping my child put you back in that nurturer role.

I love this is not an emergency because your body and your brain and your habit energy from your upbringing or whatever is trying to make you think it's an emergency. And it's not. There is dirt. There is snow. It's not an emergency. Everybody is safe. I'm helping my child.

Any kind of mantras that work for you, there's a whole bunch of them. And then you can even like shake it out a little. I think this one's fun because I got this one from Robert Sapolsky. He's an incredible author, incredible thinker. One of his books is called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. I think it's a great title. But why zebras don't get ulcers? You'd think they'd be very stressed. The lion chases them on the savannah. The zebra's

for their life. This pack of hungry lionesses is coming. Why isn't that zebra all stressed out? Because the zebra does the same thing your dog does and shakes it out. They shake out their whole bodies and you can do that with stress because stress is making your muscles tight,

It's tightening your muscles. It's a physical response. So you can just release that energy. And I'm shaking my hands for anyone who can't see. You can shake your shoulders. You can like, if you're home and your kid's outside in the mud, you can just go full on zebra and be like, oh, you're just like whole body, like shake it out completely. And that is a great tension release, right? So all those things that you want to do to just calm the stress response, that's what you want to do. And then

Then maybe you don't have to respond to it. You just laugh because your kid's covered in mud at this point. Yeah. Then you use your brain to think about how you want to respond. And we have all of it. We talk about that in mindful parenting, but that's the heart of it is the three R's. Recognize it. Remove yourself. Use your resources. Got it. Yeah, that that's definitely helpful. There's some of those I was aware of, but some of them are new, like shaking it out like a zebra. That's good stuff.

You mentioned some other practices that you can do outside of the moment. Would love to understand what those are. So for you, you saw your kid all in the mud pit. What do you call the... Mud puddle island. Mud puddle island. I love that. So mud puddle island. And you noticed, you observed in yourself that mud puddle island got a response from you. What did it feel like? Definitely tense. Definitely jumping ahead to the cleanup process. Just, yeah, just frustrations.

frustration big time. Yeah. Okay. And so that's totally natural and normal, but also what does it come from? He feels this joy. Why do you think you feel this tension? Yeah, it gets to another question I wanted to ask you, which is kind of this

feeling I have of just like not right. Like it's not doing it right or it's not good enough feeling that I feel like comes from my childhood and that I can see myself repeating. And so I see like he shouldn't be doing that. I don't know why. It's not that big of a deal. He's having fun. But I have this voice in my head saying that's not right.

You shouldn't be doing that. I find myself constantly, don't do that. Stop doing this. And sometimes they are emergencies because they're doing things that could get them hurt. Other times it's not a big deal, but I am still saying those things. And I feel like that's like 90% of what I say to my kids. And that is not the balance I want to have. So that's what comes up when I see that. I used to have a thing with the winter jacket. And in hindsight, I

It was so dumb. I should have just brought a winter jacket with me when we were walking out. She didn't want to put on the winter jacket. I wanted to make her put on the winter jacket. And it turned into such a big thing. I should have just brought the winter jacket and said, wow, it looks like you don't think you need a winter jacket. I think you might need it. I'm just going to grab it just in case. I should have just done that. But I made it into a power struggle because of, I don't know.

probably my own upbringing and stuff like that. So it really helps to understand the patterns that are going on, right? Like you have some habit energy is what they would call it in the plum village tradition, habit energy. I love that word because it's so neutral. It's like

No one's fault. It's just his habits being perpetuated. You have some habit energy around cleanliness, of course. That makes sense. And all of these things, it makes sense. But this is where, yeah, you could do it on the cushion. You could do it with a therapist. You could do it with a journal. And Raising Good Humans, and actually, I have the Raising Good Humans guided journal. So there's a place to write out all these questions. There's some questions to understand about. This is a place to understand like,

why am I being triggered by this? From one perspective, yeah, of course, like you don't want to clean up all that mud, sure. But from another perspective, your kid is away from a screen. Your kid is out in mud pit island. Your kid is connecting with the earth and just having a great time. That is such a wholesome, imaginative, physical, wonderful thing for him to do. I mean, that's

that's a different perspective that wasn't in your head at that moment. I'm not trying to judge what was in your head at that moment and say it's wrong. Just saying that

We have these thoughts, right? And our thoughts are just thoughts. Like they're not truth or reality. They're judgments we're placing upon these things. And you notice that these thoughts that you had cause all this tension and difficulty in you and with your child. So that's a really good place. That's like fodder for self-understanding and self-awareness.

And if you think about like, how did my parents react when I was messy or made messes? How did they react with other people? You know, what was it like in my upbringing, maybe with my grandparents? And start to understand what were the

the behaviors and the attitudes that were being modeled for you, that's like recognizing it, right? Recognize it. Oh, hello. Like then you can say, as I speak about this, does anything come up for you as far as like what it might be stemming from? Not really. Like looking back, I assume that they didn't like me getting all covered in mud and making a mess of the house. That would be my assumption, but I don't remember any specific memories of that. Yeah. Yeah.

That's okay. But you have a feeling inside. And this might be something to sort of journal about. Like, I have a feeling inside of this being wrong, right? Like, I have this belief in me that it should be this way. We should be clean. We should be neat. We should be tight. Whatever, right? Like, this is how it should be right now. And this is substandard or incorrect or bad is the other way. And is that true? We could ask ourselves, is this true, right? Like, is this really true? Oh, yeah.

Maybe you decide like, that's really important to me and I really want to uphold that. Or maybe you decide like, hey, maybe it's okay for my kid to be in the mud, right? And I don't want to be so triggered by this thing. Totally depends on what you and where your values are, because it could be anything and people have different values about different things. So

It's really helpful to examine those thoughts and say, like, are these really true thoughts? Are these really helpful? Is this thought really helping me in this situation? Not because your kid's going to definitely be in the mud later, but they probably will. Or there'll be something similar, right, that will come up. Like, these things tend to come up. And then as it does, if you do some of that self-examination, you can say, oh, hello. Oh, there it is again. Hello, old friend. Right.

should be clean. Right. I see you there. Okay. And then it's like that recognizing it. Then you can say, you know what? I see you. I hear you. But I don't really believe that's true. And I'm going to make a different choice. That's what gives us that space between stimulus and response.

to make another choice. That's what some of the work of doing things outside the moment and maybe a, of course, a regular meditation practice or mindfulness practice really helps with building that non-reactivity muscle to have, to build that self-awareness of like, this is, this thing is coming up for me. So yeah, it's a lot of building that awareness of outside the moment and what are the

habits and patterns that I'm perpetuating, or this is a big feeling for me, this is bringing up an outsized reaction in me, this kid's behavior about this thing is bringing up an outsized reaction in me, that means there's something there. That means there's something for me to uncover about myself and discover about myself and to heal and to nurture about myself, right? Because what our kids really need from us is, yes, they do need us to

teach them how to be clean and wash their hands. Of course they do. But what they really, really need from us is they need that unconditional love and acceptance. I'll see you, I love you, and accept you when you're being, quote-unquote, a good child and you're doing, quote-unquote, the right things. But I also love and accept you when you're having some really bad feelings or you're

really messy or you're, you know, I want to be for me anyway, I want to be that home base for my kids where they feel safe and accepted.

And that is the best gift we could give our kids. And we're not going to, we're going to mess up at this, guys. We're not going to be perfect. So don't go shaming yourself for all the times you're now thinking of, like where I wasn't accepting of my child. It's okay. We just start to practice and we can start to give them that a little bit more and more.

When I notice myself kind of in that pattern, which I'm often in, don't do this, stop doing that, this and that, is it kind of bringing the three hours back into it and just kind of creating a little bit more space and really kind of evaluating like, is this an emergency? Do I actually need to stop this or can I just let them play?

You got it. Yeah. I mean, that's why parents self-care, parents taking care of themselves, parents having the best thing you can give to your kids is you feeling ease and peace and relaxation. Sounds like a lot to ask, I know. Ease and peace and relaxation sounds like a high bar. But honestly, that's the best thing you could give to your kids, like more than

All the classes, the vacation, all of those things. If you can take 20% of all of that extra stuff that we're told that we need to do for our kids away and use that time and space to give yourself some breathing room to be more peaceful, to be less stressed, to feel less pressure, that would be an amazing gift to give your kids. Yeah, I really like that idea of being like the home base where they can

You know, whether they're being quote unquote good or bad, they get that unconditional love. They know they can come to you with anything. Cause you know, I always, I always think about like now it's annoying, but later on when they're teenagers, it could be a very serious issue right now. Being that home base is nice and creates a good environment for them, but it's training them later on to know that if something is off, um,

Or they're not sure about something or there's, you know, somebody offers them drugs or whatever it might be that they can come to you and know that you're going to be there for them. Not judgmentally with mindfulness to kind of work with them on dealing with whatever comes because, you know, the stakes go up. Yeah, bigger kids, bigger problems is true. I have teenagers and that's true. Like I listen to some really annoying stories.

stories about my little ponies and i would be like okay trying to come back just focus on my child right like using my child as an object of mindfulness right like i am here i'm noticing my annoyance and i'm coming back to the present moment um but she comes to me and tells me things they talk to me it's worth it it's worth it yeah

There's more work in the front end. It's true. There's a lot of work in the front end. It certainly feels that way, Hunter. Absolutely true. Let's get into some questions from the audience. Rui asked, do you have any tactics that you'd recommend to get them off of screens and to be more interested in things like board games or reading? A, what are you modeling? What are you doing? I think that screens are tough because they're like...

They're like sugar. They're like a drug, right? Like we have way too much of it available. It hacks our system. There's very well-paid, very smart people whose job it is to make us stay addicted to these screens, right? So they're really tough. I think that's definitely one of the places where it's important for parents to hold boundaries, right?

don't give your kids full access to the screens. Like I wouldn't, I would definitely not recommend that. Hold off as long as you can. Don't give them a smartphone until they're in high school. If you can, right? Like all of those things have boundaries and talk to them about why you have those boundaries. Teach them to be smart about it. But I would definitely have some boundaries. Like one of the things we did that for our,

Many years, 15 years is that we had a screen-free Sunday. And that was great. And I don't check my emails on Sundays. I don't look at social media on Sundays.

We would maybe check the calendar, search for whatever that we need to go to, but blocking out some time can be really helpful. I'm not going to say it's easy. It's not easy for anyone because of the nature of this situation we're in. But yeah, I think that it's okay for your kids to be bored. It's an important thing to remember here that it's actually really good for your kids to be bored, but...

boredom is a precursor to creativity. Those screen-free Sundays, they would be bored. But that was when all the like cardboard projects would like get built, all the things, all that stuff would happen. And when your kid's bored and they're begging for their screen time, you know, you can just hold that boundary kindly. Kim Payne, who's the author of Simplicity Parenting, it's a great book. He said to say something to do is right around the corner.

Something to do is right around the corner and you just become so boring that they go find something to do. They go find something to do. But yeah, it's not your job to be your kids entertainer. I think that's an important underlying kind of mindset about this. And it's okay for your kids to be bored. That's actually like a good precursor. Yeah, I don't know. I struggle with this as much as everybody, I guess. Still, you know, it's it's a really different world we live in these days.

Yeah. Look, I think the same thing could be said for adult relationships, right? Like I'm on my phone a lot. I think how you start the book, it's like what you model is what they will become, right? So this applies to everything. And I think that's something that we can keep in mind all the time and kind of come back to as a mantra is like, what am I modeling? And

I find that when I'm on my phone and I've gotten into this bad habit of while they're in the bath or whatever, like I'm just like checking my phone, like literally looking at nothing important. And then they act up to get my attention. And then I react badly. And it's just this vicious cycle. So maybe I could just put the phone away. But what I was saying about like any relationships is like we get the kids to bed and then we're eating dinner in front of a screen looking at our screens.

So that doesn't breed connection, but it's easy to do.

And the slot machine is there to, you know, kind of pull the lever on. It's like, what's on Instagram? What's on my email? And so we need to be very intentional about not doing that. So I love the idea of screen-free Sundays or just picking a day or a night where we just put the phone away when we don't look at, we don't watch TV or whatever. We just talk or read or do something else because most of our time is looking at screens. Yeah, yeah. And I would definitely say, no matter how old your kids are,

Plug your phone in downstairs. Make it a habit in the whole family. Everyone in the whole family plugs their phone in downstairs. I'm assuming a two-floor house or just not in the bedroom, in the kitchen, in the collective family space. Plug it in away from your go-get-an-alarm clock.

Go get yourself an alarm clock because you're not going to want your kids once that when they have any kind of device, you don't want them to have it in their room because it's really dangerous for teens to have it in their room. So start it from the very beginning that this is what we do. This is just how it is. This is how you deal with it is you keep them away from your bedroom and you don't plug them in your bedroom and you don't have them right by your bedside at night. A lot of benefits from that. Just, yeah.

Yeah, from a don't look at it right before you go to bed. Don't look at it right when you wake up. Tons of benefits. I love that. That's great advice. Another question he had was, how do you find the energy and peace of mind to spend quality time with them after a long, stressful working day? Oh, I don't know. Maybe that's not the best time for quality time with them if you've had a long, stressful working day. Yeah.

I think it's important to, I would encourage you to take time between the working day and being with your kids. And so it used to be we all worked at a, people worked at a different place. Now we work at home. But like, it might just be like, I walk around the block once or something.

I sit in my car and I take three minutes of deep breathing. Just something to create a transition between the workday and your day and to kind of reset yourself so that you're not just a swirl of work walking into a swirl of home stuff. I think that's important. Maybe I think you're expecting too much of yourself. That's not that realistic. We only have finite resources of attention and energy.

It's okay. That's how humans are. So maybe you can rally to do some rough and tumble play with your kid, like a little bit. If they're little kids, that can be fun. You connect somehow, right? Maybe you rally for five or ten minutes of play. And then you play the mom or dad has collapsed on the couch as a zombie or is...

My favorite time was when my girls played massage. That was so great. I wish I could bring that back. But yeah, I guess I would just, I'd say, yeah, sure. Try to rally yourself for five or 10 minutes of connecting. Put the phone down. Use your child as an object of mindfulness, like where I'm really paying attention to my child. I'm here in this moment. I'm listening. I'm practicing nonjudgmental awareness. I'm practicing to just

be curious about who they are, bring a beginner's mind to the situation. All of that is like gold, like, yes, do all that. And sometimes you're not going to be able to do that. And then you want to just be kind to yourself and say, wow, this has been such a, I am so tired. Oh, can you drag me up the stairs? And, you know, maybe you'd be a little silly and bumbling about it, right? Like,

Oh, do we have to do I have to help you take a bath tonight? Oh, I guess I do. Oh, I'm gonna put my hands on my head here and take a snooze on the bath that and then you can be maybe you can be silly about it. But it's okay for you to be honest and say I'm just or even tag out. That's okay, too.

Yeah, I love that. And just, yeah, creating some separation between the workday and the home life. When I did that ahead of like, you know, I mentioned before we started recording that the nighttime gauntlet, like that's what I call it. Basically, dinner, bath, bed is when most of my stressful situations come about.

Having the phone is a cause of it being just exhausted and not giving myself, you know, if I went and meditated for five or 10 minutes, I'd probably have a reset. So creating that, that reset time sounds like something that I can implement. That would be very helpful. Sometimes we can do these things. Even when our kids are there, like you can fold forward into a child's pose, just breathe for five breaths or something. And your kid will be like, what are you doing?

But you're modeling like I take care of myself when I'm tired. So let's switch gears, Hunter, into what I call the mindful fire final four. Are you ready? No. Well, too bad. You got to be ready. So the first question is about curiosity and play. Right. I mentioned before we started recording that.

I can be insanely curious in these interviews very easily. But when it comes to being curious with my kids and having being more playful, I find it very difficult most of the time. Right. There's a few go to things, but I'm curious, any advice on how to

Bring more curiosity and play into my interactions with my kids. I think that's such a great goal, Adam. Good for you for having that goal. Because that's really the language that kids speak is play. So it's so great to do that. So connecting to be playful. And I completely relate with you. I hated Candyland. I was just tired. I had too many things.

things on my plate. Like it's like hard to be playful, but it's great to be in the habit of it. Actually, it's great at any age. It's good to be playful with older kids and teenagers too. It's helpful. But yeah, with little kids, oh, it's like, it's the gold. It's like really helps smooth the wheels of cooperation when we can be playful and more curious. I know we slip into judgmental mind. We

Why don't you just do this thing I ask you? And it just is all the frustration. It's really real and debilitating. I think playfulness can be a practice like mindfulness can. We can maybe say, I'd like to create a playfulness habit. I'd like to maybe, I'm going to take...

So one thing that's really helpful is like people call a special time. I think of like a mindful special time. That's what popped into my head when you were talking about that. You set a timer. You're very deliberate about it. You set a timer for five minutes, 10 minutes and say, I'm yours forever.

this amount of time, but you can do whatever you want besides screens. Just I'll play with you. And that's great. And you just use it as like, kind of like a child meditation time, right? You just use that time to bring your attention back to your child and

Bring curiosity, noticing your thoughts, noticing your distraction, all of those things, all the things you do in meditation, but with your child as the object of your meditation in that time and practicing to be playful. And then other ways that can be really good. And so maybe you try for like make a deliberate effort for the next month or two to be like,

I'm going to practice mindful special time. I'm going to write it down. I'm going to reward myself. All those things you do to create a habit. Like I'm going to give myself a reward when I do it three times in a row or whatever. And that's great. Cause that's like putting deposits in your relationship bank account and your child is much more likely to listen to you when you are really listening and being present for them. It's wonderful practice. And I write about it more in raising good humans every day, but yeah,

Sometimes you have to remind yourself to put some sticky notes out. You could make a sticky note that says, you know, robot voice. It is time to go to bed. Bedtime sequence commencing, right? You could try that. You could...

Try hopping on one foot. You could, you know, all kinds of things. You could say, how do we brush our teeth? You know, you take your toothbrush and you go to brush your ear. Is this how we brush our teeth? Is that how I'm supposed to do it? Like be a little bumbling. How do we leave the park? Do I leave the park this way? And you walk into a tree like, okay.

Our kids love that, right? And it gives them some autonomy. It can be really great for them. And like rough and tumble play is really good for kids. Any sex of child, it doesn't matter. Like try to get past me to get to the couch. And that's a great way to like learn bodily autonomy and consent and play and connect and really be there for them. So yeah.

Yeah, I encourage you in your aspiration to be more curious and be more playful. But I would say, you know, maybe read about it, choose some things, write it down, remind yourself, just like you would any habit, it can be cultivated and practiced. Great advice. Thank you.

Alright, Hunter. So the second question, we're going to take a little bit of a turn. We usually ask people on their advice on building financial independence. But since I'm so curious about your business and how you've built a business around mindful parenting that includes books,

workshops, coaching, teacher certification. I guess what piece of advice would you give to someone like me who's 30 steps behind that wants to build a business around this concept of mindfulness with many of the same components? I think that the one thing that has helped me has been just dogged persistence. Dogged persistence is probably like the thing that has

helped me the most. I, yeah, I'm not sure. Sometimes I felt like I'm better at running and creating all this thing at certain times more than others. And I guess I would say, think about getting the help you need when you need it. And people will tell you, you know, you need everything. My

get my branding cleaned up and the professional look of things. And I was like, I just cannot afford that. That is not in the cards. That is not going to happen. No. Other things need to come first. So you have to kind of prioritize thinking about where you can, you know, stay organized and keep yourself and getting the help you want and need. I would say it's not easy. It's a really challenging route. I wouldn't think it was. Yeah.

And you learn a lot about yourself and it's really scary. You have to face a lot of fear, I think. So it's not for the faint of heart because I've had many times where I've been like, I'm just gonna go become a bus driver for schools. Why am I doing this? But then other times I think,

This is amazing. Like I get to create my own hours. I create this impact. That's really exciting. I think I'm now worthless for working for somebody else because I'm so spoiled by working for myself. I don't know. I'm a very mixed bag about it right at the moment. Yeah. Well, no, I appreciate that. Yeah, I think persistence matters.

resonates a lot with me because I've been building this business kind of starting as a podcast and then dabbling with coaching and yet putting it out there and like hearing crickets feels terrible, but you got to be persistent. You got to put it out there again and you got to talk to people. And, you know, I think about it as, as planting seeds. And this is, I mentioned to you, I recently quote unquote retired early from working at Google and now I'm pursuing this business and it's all about this year. It's all about planting seeds, which is,

with people in different ways in different spaces. But I'm trying to let that be enough, not focus so much on the outcome, but really just how can I show up and keep moving forward little by little.

I think that's smart. Like you have to have processes that are sustainable. I think that in focusing on processes that are sustainable, I think is really a way to go because you can't just go all out for people who are trying to do something like this. Can't just go out all out all the time. Like that's not going to work. So you do have to kind of build on these small successes and you have to remember that you're going to get

You're going to get the weird, mean emails, you know, and that is kind of a sign that you're like reaching people. Like, how dare you suggest I buy your course email? Or and it's interesting, you know, there's a lot of mindset work to be done because when you're wanting to build, you know, I want to be able to contribute to my family financially. Right.

And do work that I love that helps and heals people. And when you're sharing work in a helping and healing space, people get very weird about

paying for that or having payment for that. And I always think like, do you ask like the doctors not to get paid or the nurses not to get paid for their work, right? Like that they should just give everything away. Or how do you think people are going to do work without getting some compensation for it, right? Like it doesn't all just, isn't funded by the government, right? Like, so it's just, there's mindset work about understanding our own worth and value and

in what we're contributing and that it's okay to be compensated for work that is in the helping and healing space. Yeah, it can be challenging. Like this is something we talk about in the teacher training too, because people don't come to the mindful parenting teacher training because they're like amazing business people. They come because they really love mindful parenting and they want to share it with the world. And so we have to kind of overcome some of that

doubt and that who am I to do this? And I like to remember that it takes me sometimes many touch points to hear someone else's voice that becomes very powerful and healing and helpful on my journey. And if they didn't put themselves out there, it never would have had that impact for me. We have to remember that it's going to take

many touch points for us to be able to reach maybe people that we want to reach and that it's okay for us to help people who are two or three steps behind us right like we don't have to be an enlightened master to help other people and in fact sometimes it's a lot better if we're not because then we can under really understand where they're coming from yeah yeah and i think that really comes through in your book and in the way that you speak it's like i was there i was

I was messing up. I was failing as a parent and I created these resources as a result. And similarly, my kind of experience and my interest in this came out of suffering and making some mistakes that I learned from and that I'm now correcting. So I really resonate with that. All right, Hunter. Third question is, what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path of meditation and or mindfulness? Be persistent. Yeah.

Don't give up. Trust it. Be persistent. Don't give up because the effects on your life, it affects every single area of your life in a good way. And trust that.

And Hunter, the last question is, where can people connect with you online? Find your books? Anything else you'd like to share with the audience here, how they can connect with you and your work? Everything is at mindfulmamamentor.com. You can find the Raising Good Humans books everywhere books are sold. So yeah, find me there. We've got the podcast. We might just...

Be going back to the Mindful Mama podcast from the Mindful Parenting podcast. So look for it under one of those two titles. We'll link all that up in the show notes and all good there. And yeah, look forward to joining you on your podcast and talking more mindfulness in the near future. But thank you so much, Hunter, for being here and sharing your wisdom and experience with the audience. Thank you, Adam. It's really been a pleasure.

Thanks for joining me on today's episode of the Mindful Fire podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, I invite you to hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this. This just lets the platforms know you're getting value from the episodes and you want to be here when I release additional content. If you're ready to start your Mindful Fire journey, go to mindfulfire.org and download my free envisioning guide.

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