Kelly Smith ~ Navigating Neurodivergence with Meditation

Kelly Smith is a prominent meditation and yoga instructor based in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis. She is the founder of Yoga for You Online, an innovative online yoga and meditation school offering a range of classes and teacher training. Kelly is also the creator and host of two popular podcasts, "Mindful in Minutes" and "Meditation Mama." Besides her online presence, Kelly has been instrumental in introducing meditation practices to broader audiences through workshops, YouTube videos, and a series of books like "You Are Not Your Thoughts."

Visit Kelly on her website: https://www.yogaforyouonline.com/
Follow her on IG: https://www.instagram.com/yogaforyouonline/?hl=en
Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mindfulinminutes

Key Takeaways:

• Kelly Smith offers a unique approach to meditation, utilizing guided imagery and making it accessible for beginners through short, impactful sessions.
• The episode underscores the importance of balancing secular and spiritual elements in meditation practice to make it inclusive and resonate with diverse belief systems.
• Kelly’s personal journey with ADHD and how she utilizes meditation and other strategies to manage symptoms, showcasing the adaptability of mindfulness practices.

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Chapters

• 0:05 Kelly Smith on Meditation, Yoga, and Mindful Practices
• 6:02 The Transformative Power of Meditation in a Hectic Life
• 16:40 Balancing Secular and Spiritual Meditation Practices
• 25:29 Balancing Meditation with Professional Mental Health Support
• 30:21 Breathwork and Body Awareness for Reducing Chronic Anxiety
• 33:45 Guided Meditation and Asking for Spiritual Guidance
• 37:44 Gender Norms and the Challenges of Asking for Help
• 43:17 Navigating Neurodivergence: ADHD, Dyslexia, and Personal Growth
• 50:58 Balancing ADHD Medication and Holistic Approaches
• 58:57 Unconventional Yoga and Meditation Training with Mindful in Minutes
• 1:03:05 alancing Family, Entrepreneurship, and ADHD
• 1:07:04 Writing as Therapy and the Balance of Public Sharing
• 1:11:42 Inspiring Conversation with Kelly on Overcoming Challenges

Transcript

0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast, so happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, body work and beyond. Follow us at @nativeyoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. My name is Todd McLaughlin. This week's special guest is Kelly Smith. I'm so delighted to have the chance to speak with her and to bring her to you. And you gotta check out her on Instagram, at @yogaforyouonline, and also her website is yogaforyouonline.com, she has her own podcast. She actually has two podcasts. She has one called Mindful in Minutes, and she also has one called Meditation Mama. She is the founder of a program called meditation I'm sorry, Mindful in Minutes. And she is meditation teacher, a yoga teacher. She lives in the Twin Cities. She also offers a meditation teacher training. She's really lovely. I think you're gonna enjoy this. Let's go ahead and get started. I'm delighted to have this opportunity to get a chance to meet and speak with Kelly Smith, Kelly, you're joining me from the Twin Cities. Is that correct? Yes, from good old Minneapolis. Amazing. How is it in Minneapolis right now? We're recording this in the summer of 2024, and what is, what is a Minneapolis summer? Look and feel like, you know, Minneapolis summers are actually pretty great. They do get hot, at least, in my opinion, maybe sometimes we touch the 90s, which I'm someone who runs naturally hot, so for me, that's like, unbearable. But the thing is, is a Minneapolis summer is so fun because we just spent so much time being frozen all winter that once you like, let us loose out in the sun. We are we're on lakes. We are doing happy hours. We're going for walks. We're really doing summer, right? Oh, man, that sounds amazing. I can only imagine, I think, have you ever been to Florida in the summer? I have, and I would die. I've actually even been to Florida and it was still too hot. Yes, I have a feeling that might be true. Yeah, when he said, We've almost touched the 90s, I was like, oh, that sounds good. That sounds beautiful. That's like your fall. That's like our fall, correct? Yeah, you're exactly right. And are I noticed that you're a meditation teacher and a yoga teacher. Is that correct? That's right. Yeah, cool. I've been seeing some of your meditation videos on YouTube, and I love what you do. How did you get inspired to start creating, you know, meditations for people and making it available free on YouTube. You know, I started doing it actually. I began teaching yoga, and I feel like in my 200 hour teacher training, there wasn't a lot of meditation there. Like we touched a little bit on it, did a little bit of practice. I didn't know that much about it. And as I started to teach, and I heard my students kind of asking a little bit more about meditation, I've always felt like I can't teach something that I don't know. So I personally started diving into meditation. There was a time in which I went and spent a couple of weeks, like living with some monks to learn about a specific kind of loving kindness meditation. And I just, you know, maybe it's because I'm neurodivergent and have ADHD, I get these hyper fixations, but I just love to learn. And as I was learning more and more about meditation, I started developing kind of the signature style where I would add a few minutes of kind of guided meditation, or guided imagery in shavasana at the end of my classes. And that's where it really started. And then I had a yoga studio in a past lifetime, almost a decade now, at this point. And when I had to leave that because we moved, I actually started recording these guided meditations seven years ago, putting them on my podcast, mindful in minutes, so that I could still share them with my students back in a different part of the US. And then eventually started putting them on YouTube, and you know, all those different places cool. What kind of response are you getting? I. I have been getting a really good response. I've been doing it for seven years, which I feel like, I mean, you know, in podcasting years, that's like geriatric, basically, and that's, you know, I it's something that I feel so fortunate to get to do, and it's something that's totally changed my life. And YouTube, kind of, the YouTube extension is the newer piece of it where I thought, you know, I already have these practices. If I'm putting them on, you know, all the other places, I might as well just convert them to a video and put them on YouTube as well. So, yeah, so mostly, mostly good. Yes, very cool. And how important is meditation right now? Just in general, or to me, or both. Why do we need meditation? And I say right now, just because, well, let me just have let you answer the question. We don't to go into what my right now is. Maybe your right now is perfect bliss. I don't know right now, no, as you know, and I said, Anyone watching on YouTube, you can see I'm in this dark little closet because I'm hiding from my children. So I have a three year old, and I had my second child this fall, and thank you, but my life is definitely not perfect bliss. And you know, I've always thought of meditation. For me personally, it's kind of this like life raft that I have, and so even, you know, it always keeps me from kind of sinking, and it's something I've returned to again and again and again when things just get really hard and really tough. And it helps me to not only kind of manage those waves and those ups and downs and not totally get, you know, blasted by waves, but it's also, for me, most importantly, the way that I've gotten to know myself. So meditation is single, pointed concentration, and so of course, there's all these great benefits, physically, mentally, emotionally, but personally for me, it has allowed me to be able to turn inward and to get to know my true self, which I think has completely transformed my life. It's made me a better person, a better mother. It's made me happier. It's also challenged me in ways, because the more you get to know yourself, the more you start questioning other things. And it's just this really beautiful value add to my life that I feel like I can incorporate as a little micro habit that has kind of a big, a big bang. So for me personally, it's this thing that just brings me so much life, so much joy, and it's also something I can do quickly, and I can fit into a hectic lifestyle, like being the primary parent to little kids and trying to run a business and all of those things. But I think on a larger scale as to why do we the collective need meditation. There's so many different answers I want to give. One that I want to give right now is that we are kind of getting these little goldfish brains, myself included. Even though I have ADHD, I feel like we are getting we're just so overstimulated all the time. Our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter and shorter. We have studies now that I believe, are saying our attention span is like six seconds down from like 40 seconds when our parents were our age, which is interesting wild and so we need that mental kind of training component. But I also think we need a vehicle to connect with ourselves and to try to find a way to calm the waters. There's just so much going on. Life is a lot. It's busy, it's overstimulating, it's loud, it's scary, and so to be able to hit the pause button and to practice intentional introspection and single point of concentration, even for a few minutes every day, is something that I think can be extremely transformative. Nice, good point. I'd never heard that stat before about the variation between, say, a 42nd time span to a second as an average from, like you said, our parents to us, that's pretty crazy. Where I mean that would indicate, then, if that trajectory stays on the same track, we get down to a 5432, a zero, second, ability to to concentrate on and I that's kind of wild to think about. I know because we are getting so much information, how do we sift through it all? What is do you have a strategy for managing your filters? What kind of filters have you kind of created for yourself to help maintain your mental clarity in relation to the amount of information that you take in? So I try to actually turn to my body first, which is maybe an interesting answer, but I have found that, and if you think about six seconds, like, that's kind of the average length of a Tiktok video, which is this particular study that I was looking at, was correlated. And like, you know, I definitely scroll on Tiktok, you know, I, you know, I'm on social media. It's something that I do, but I can, like, feel. It in my body, I feel like I begin to feel like antsy or anxious or constantly, mean, like some kind of stimulus. And I can just physically feel it if I'm engaging in too much of that. And so I try to listen to my body's signals, and when I start to get just those little Ooh warning signs, like, right after my daughter was born, my baby, you know, there's, I was up all night, all the time feeding. And you know, what else do you do, other than, like, randomly purchase stuff on Amazon, you know, when you're up, or, you know, scroll on Tiktok or whatever. Because if you do anything, you know, if you try to read or anything, that you might fall asleep. And I could just feel like my mental health deteriorating, and I was like, Okay, I need to do less of this. And then I physically can feel myself feeling better, not feeling so antsy, not feeling so anxious, not feeling so like, amped all the time. So I tend to listen to my body, and when it starts saying, Ooh, I don't know, then I recognize that enough is enough, and I start taking breaks. I'm not like a big cut it all out. Person, but definitely, you know, start, start reining it in. Yeah, similar. I would agree with that. That's really good strategy. Good advice. What is your what are your thoughts on the consumption of information in relation to, like you said, you can notice, like, physically, you'll get some sort of reaction like that, that you're just like, getting a little bit, like, uncomfortable. And I think when I look at my phone and I catch myself, like, did I get a new follower? Did I, you know, what was there? Was that comment over there? That type of thing. And then I can sense my like, addictive wanting to, like, do that again, and then go back to the other platform and look again, and then go, you know? And so with that being said, when you decide I'm putting phone down, and how do you explain what happens mentally for you in that sort of absence that like, when you when you recognize that you do like it like it's kind of fun. It can be really fun, right? It's like you can learn a lot, and you can, you know, interact and communicate. Is there? Because I It does feel good to be in silence, and it does feel good to have no stimulation, but sometimes no stimulation feels unnerving. Can you talk a little bit about your own experience with that. Yeah. And you know what, I would say that most people would not agree with you, that silence and not having stimulus feels good. I think you're in the minority, because something I hear all the time and like the kind of the whole premise of my podcast, like short guided meditations, I like to think I'm, like, people's meditation gateway drug, and I happily wear that badge. I like that because, like, a seven second meditation, like five minutes or 10, like, rarely do you find anything you know 20 minutes or above on my podcast, unless it's like a full yoga needs your practice or something. But that's because that's all we really need. Like, studies tell us, like, even eight to 12 minutes, I say 10 minutes a day is enough, but I think often people feel there's a high barrier to entry for meditation, because they feel like they have to do it for a long time. They have to sit crisscross applesauce. You don't do all these specific things and you don't but what I hear from people is often they'll say, Oh, I tried meditation and I hated it, and I love when people tell me that, because I'm like, Oh, tell me more. Like, what did you hate about it? Or people say, Oh, I could never meditate because, you know, oh, I'm, I'm so add, my brain is so scattered. I'm like, Oh, tell me more. Like, as someone who both has ADHD and a meditation teacher, like, Tell me more. And I so many people are, and I used to feel this way. I even used to be. I'm a reformed shavasana Skipper. Like, when I was young and I was doing yoga classes, I was like, oh, Shavasana. What a waste. I'd roll up my mat and I'd walk out the door. I'm reformed now, but I used to feel that way. Or I was like, What is the point? And I never got it until a teacher finally explained to me, like, the purpose. And I think for so many people, not having a stimulus is really hard and really uncomfortable. And then when you're just by yourself, it's like they say, quiet the mind and the soul shall speak. But it's really like, quiet the mind and everything starts yelling at you, and you start, you know, having to be with your own thoughts, be with your own feelings. And that can be really scary and uncomfortable too. So I think a lot of people resist that alone time and that stimulus free time, because then what's left just you and your true feelings and your true thoughts and your potential discomfort or struggles or challenges. And I think we have a tendency to be a little bit avoidant when it comes to that area of life, I would agree with you, yeah, but I personally love quiet and silence and being alone. And I, you know, consider myself like an outgoing introvert. So I, you know, I personally have found that when I do find myself being. Overstimulated or engaging too much social media, or, like you said, like sometimes the numbers, it's that instant gratification. Whether it's social media or you log in, you look at your podcast, you're like, oh my gosh, look how well this episode's performing. Or these numbers, there is that instant gratification, but at the end of the day, it's just an external part of you, like, what's left? If, you know, podcasting went away, or, you know, as we're recording this, right, we're in the middle of, like, airline meltdowns, which I was affected by, just crush them. I just got stranded in Boston for a few days, unintentionally. But like, you know, what if some, what if some it thing happens in the podcast was gone, then what's left? And so trying to recognize, like, what is kind of this nice, like, instant gratification, or like, feel good thing, but then what's actually like a part of me, and the more that I've gotten to know myself, the easier it is to just sit and be with myself and my own existence, instead of kind of chasing these external bits of validation or gratification or stimulus. Yes, wonderful, great answer. I'm curious how you balance secularized meditation with either faith or spiritually based meditation. Where do you implement and deliver or teach, and how do you teach in relation to that? You know, I don't think anyone's ever asked me that question before. I really, I really appreciate it. Do you does it make sense, though? Because I feel like, if you, meditation and prayer can be so synonymous and unique in their own ways, but also so similar. And I'm just curious how, and I know it's a personal question, because perhaps you don't want to speak about religion, like there's certain things we're not supposed to talk about, like we don't want, definitely we're not going to talk about politics. I'm sorry. I'm not gonna, I'm gonna say no money. You're not supposed to talk about and religion, right? Like, you just don't, just let people do what they want to do, and don't, don't push them. But so if you don't want to go there, I totally understand, but more just I think sometimes, like sometimes religiously oriented people might think that meditation is a bad thing because it might infiltrate their current spiritual practice. And then sometimes people that are more atheistically orientated don't want to go into a meditation class that has some spiritually angled concepts. And so I'm curious what way you approach and kind of mediate this all Okay, so I'm kind of at what I'm hearing from you and let me know if I'm hearing this correctly. So the question is, you know, not only, how do I navigate being a meditation teacher, and then if that maybe feels to be in conflict with certain students beliefs or my own beliefs. How do I navigate that as a teacher? What does that mean to me personally, and how maybe can we find the sweet spot, or the personal intersection between the practice of meditation being single pointed concentration and then maybe our own like spiritual beliefs? Is that right? Perfect analysis? Yes. So, you know, I actually, I'm so happy to go here with you on this topic, because when I said I owned a yoga studio, the part that I left out was I owned a yoga studio in a one bar one Walmart town there, actually there's like three bars in one Walmart because, you know, priorities, right? You need, you need more than one bar. And in rural Missouri, in it would have been like 20 it was from 2018 Yeah, 2016 to 2018 anyways, one bar, one Walmart town in rural Missouri, there were no yoga studios when I first moved there, and I had lived in Minneapolis the first time, and my eyes are really opened to this discussion. I remember I was asked to teach a kids meditation class at the local library, and I brought this book is called peaceful piggy meditation, which anyone who teaches kids yoga. It's actually a great, you know, pick it up on Amazon. It'll be a great ad to one of your kids classes. The kids love it. And I was told that I could not use that book because I couldn't use the word meditation, because it was against the organizers beliefs and a lot of the kids, you know, their family's beliefs. And this really opened my eyes, because I had never, I had never heard this before, and, you know, and I was young, and, you know, I needed my eyes to be opened as well as to, you know, there's different beliefs out there. And I was like, Okay, well, if I can't use the word meditation, I can certainly still talk about the concept of single point of concentration. This, you know, this book in particular was kind of talking about, you know, using simple meditation for emotion regulation, like in a child. And so I just started swapping the word meditation for, you know, intentional breathing, or, you know, yeah, being present with your feelings. I just started subbing it for other things. And I had many people coming up as well, adults saying, oh, you know, yoga is against my really. Just beliefs. And I ended up having this discussion at the beginning, almost a decade ago, at the beginning of my teaching career, with a lot of my students and and what I landed on, and I still, I still teach this way, whether it be yoga or meditation. And this, you know, question comes up is that meditation itself is single, pointed concentration. So it's like, if your mind is a light bulb. When you're practicing just mindfulness or being present, you're turning that light bulb up all the way and, you know, the light is just illuminating whatever you're doing. Meditation is taking that light bulb and turning it to a laser pointer and focusing it on one thing. It could be your breath. It could be, you know, a mantra, even if we're uncomfortable with that word. It could be a, you know, a positive phrase. It could be visualizing something, whatever it is, but you get to choose what your point of concentration is and what your intention is for meditation. So if you feel like your meditation practice and your religious beliefs don't necessarily coincide, that's perfectly fine. Have breath be your point of concentration, and then have a separate space where you can then have your devotional practice, or your time with your spiritual beliefs, or if you're if you're someone who you know you don't want any religion into your life. You can apply the same thing where you're taking all of that mental focus, you're taking that light bulb, turn it to a laser pointer, and then you decide where you're pointed, but you also like, for me personally, my answer to this is, I find the sweet spot is like kind of weaving my own personal beliefs, which I don't have necessarily a definition. I feel like I'm, you know, still on a journey every day as to like, what do I believe? What is the meaning of life? But the more that I get to know myself, yeah, the more that I get to know myself, the more that you know, I get to know kind of what I believe or what interests me. So I find meditation to be a really great way to also explore my personal beliefs. But I think it's very, very possible and very easy, like there's no bit of, you know, religion or anything in the meditations that I create for my work, but you can basically infuse as much or as little religious belief or spirituality or anything into your meditation practice, because you're just taking your light bulb, turning it to a laser pointer and pointing it at something, yes, but I personally believe that prayer is a form of meditation where you're pointing that laser at you know, your time to be with whatever it is that you believe. But if you don't believe that, that's perfectly fine. Too. Very cool. I love it. Well, I can see why and how you would be able to fit in, then into the town you were in, in Missouri, and and create an open space where, you know, you're making it welcoming for people and able to communicate with them, and not this kind of closed mind, you know, sort of thing. And I always associate the meditation community and or the world of meditation, as being a fairly open, open kind of circle you know, of belief and that it can help that. And it's amazing, like with the way you're explaining it, it's really amazing how you can direct it and blend it and pull it into your current practices and and and not really have anything bad happen only, and in my opinion, only good. Have you ever had or heard of any bad experiences from meditation, like, have you ever heard anybody like, what truly bad? Like, I believe, like, sometimes things seem bad in the moment. Like, you go and you go, sit, you have a full meltdown, you have an emotional experience. You might come out and go, Gosh, that was horrible. I just really don't like doing that. That's really tumultuous. But then a year goes by and you look back and you go, Oh, wow, I was really processing some heavy stuff, and that actually was a really positive thing, and I've grown from that experience. But like, I've never heard anybody like, they've never broken a bone. I've never heard anybody have an accident, like, anything. I know the legs can get tingly when you're sitting in padmasana, or if you are going crisscross applesauce, you know, maybe you'll feel a little tingling, but as soon as you undo your legs like No, I've never heard of anybody losing a leg or anything. What about you? Has there ever been anything bad that has ever come out of meditation in your experience of practice and teaching? My my initial answer is no. My second answer is that kind of depends what your definition of bad is. I do think that. So one thing that I do caution people against, you know, and a couple of things I to go back to what you're saying about, you know, trying to have an open mind with my community. When I was teaching, I think as a yoga teacher, it's our job to serve our students and to meet our students where we're at and not kind of have this attitude of, like, Oh, I'm going to take these people who just don't understand meditation and bring them to my level. Like, I think that's just such, like an icky way to do it. Yes, it's, you know, it's my job. I have these tools in my toolbox. It's my job to then show people how to utilize the tools in their life. Right? And that's just my personal belief. I think we're here to serve our students and meet them where they're at, not be like, Oh, let me elevate you. You know, through my knowledge, it's like, I don't know. I don't like that very much. I agree with you. But okay, well, amazing. And you know, I think that one thing that I do caution people against, I also think it's important when we teach people to know our scope of practice and what we are equipped to handle, what we are not equipped to handle. If someone is struggling with their mental health or they are needing support from probably a professional, I will have people that will send me an email. And again, it kind of depends on what your definition of quote bad is. But I'll have people that will email me and will sometimes say, you know, I'm working you know, I'm hearing these voices or and it's not to discredit anything that this person is experiencing, but I read that, and I'll respond to them and say, Hey, like, I'm just a meditation teacher, like I, you know, I don't feel like I have the tools in my toolbox that's outside of my scope. You know, can I help you find someone who, who does know how to support you in this way? And so that's the only time that I've heard of someone maybe having a quote, bad experience, is when they were potentially looking for meditation to solve a problem that probably would have been best supported through professional medical help. But you know that can be hard to kind of decipher for yourself, especially when you're in, you know, a tough mental state, but that's the only time that I have ever heard of someone having a bad quote, bad experience is they just weren't getting the support that they needed. And meditation is so wonderful and beautiful, but it is I will never tell someone like, don't see your doctor, don't see a mental health professional. Like, stop your treatment plan and just meditate like it's such a beautiful complimentary practice to what you're doing with professionals, but I would never recommend someone like, you know, throw caution to the wind and give up on everything and not listen to science and just meditate everything away. But that's such a specific case. Yeah, ooh, well said, and I'm really glad that you brought that up, because that's so important, and especially as yoga teachers or meditation teachers, where we understand our scope of practice. So I'm so glad you brought that up, and I'm really happy that you're giving credit toward the need for mental health counseling and to break down the barriers that seeking help is a symbol of weakness and that I am unable to ask for help. So I'm glad that you're putting the laser beam on that for a minute. That's so important. And we do hear continuously stats about the decline of mental health. And it's interesting, if we were to correlate the lack of ability to concentrate moving from 40 seconds to six and the increase of mental health issues in our country andor world, it does seem like I like that. You're also bringing up the fact too, that, like my first when I asked you that question was, like, just looking at it from the single of like, you just can't go wrong. Just try meditation. Meditation is only really going to help you out, but it's so true what you're saying. If we're in a really, really challenging place and we're seeking assistance, we're probably going to need a couple of different tools, and not just not just one, and the combination of tools can help. On that same analogy, if we do have a toolbox, and imagining your meditation techniques are the tools in the toolbox, and you have, like, say, 10 different tools in the toolbox, but there's one or two or three tools that you kind of always grab when you go to your toolbox. What are your meditation technique tools that you seem to kind of keep going back to? And you mentioned one, like going back to your body, you know, feeling your body. Can you expound a little bit about, about maybe some of your other like, key tools that you employ? Yes, so breath is one like, and I'm talking very, very simple breath, three deep, easy breaths. You'll hear me all the time. Beginning of meditation, take three deep, easy breaths or slow down your breath, become aware of your breath. Every practice that I do, I almost always start with, even if it's just a couple breaths, because of the ability for slowing down our breath and becoming aware of it, the impact that it has on our nervous system. And so I feel that, well, I feel very strongly that you can't really do anything on a deeper level until you get your body out of fight or flight. So I worked on a book recently. It's called you are not your thoughts. It's a eight week meditation book and journal for anxiety. And while I was working on that book and doing research, I really was dying. Getting into, like the nervous system, and how truly, our bodies are designed to survive, right? So fight or flight by itself isn't necessarily a bad thing. It gets a bad rap. It becomes an issue when we're chronically in fight or flight, but it's really important, and it is a survival mechanism when we experience it in the short term, when there's an actual threat. But the problem is we get into this chronic fight or flight, and then it, you know, then it becomes a domino effect. And you know, before you know it, you're, you know, everything's dysregulated. We're having this chronic anxiety. So I always start with, almost always start with just a tiny bit of breath, because that helps to get the body out of fight or flight, and without that, it's really hard to do anything deeper. We're not going to take a conscious journey to your true self if you are just in survival mode physically. So a few breaths again, checking in with the body. So feeling it. How does my body actually feel? We're in our heads all day long. Even if we don't necessarily practice meditation and mindfulness. We're always up in our thoughts. But it's like, wait a minute, what does my body say? You know, whatever. There's that meme where it's like, you know, hot girls have anxiety and and tummy aches or whatever. And it's like, you know, but, but why? Why do I have an upset stomach? What is going on? Tuning into the body. Why am I feeling stressed and checking in physically, emotionally, mentally like so I guess answer your question a couple, few deep breaths, checking in with the body, the mind and your emotions, I find is so powerful. And then I love imagery, and I it's something where I love to tell a story, and I love to also be like brought on a journey. And so I'll do a lot of, you know, imagery or pull from places that I've traveled. And I do this a lot being people's, you know, meditation, gateway drug. I think it's also easier to follow a guided practice that takes you on a little bit more of a story or a journey, as opposed to saying, okay, you know, breathe in, notice the moment between the inhale and the exhale, and then just keep doing that for 10 minutes. I think, you know, that's just asking people with our little HAMP from somebody who also has a hamster brain. It's just asking us to go that have that, you know, the wheels start turning instead of giving people a little bit more guidance. So I love to use more imagery and kind of walk people through a practice and then weave different elements from different disciplines into those practices. Nice, very cool. Now, if there's still 10 tools, and we pulled out the first three, but there's one that you have in that toolbox, like for a just in case scenario, like a real random situation, and you're not teaching, and you're doing self practice. And you mentioned, I liked how you said, I don't know if I'll nail it or say the same way you said, but like, you know, like having a deep journey of the self, you know, like, if your mind and body is, like, kind of out of whack, and you're hanging on for dear life, having some sort of aha, mystical experience is going to take a little time to kind of maybe work into. Is there something that you do that's a little deeper, that kind of helps you for your own personal experience? I love to ask for guidance from my true self, my highest self, and also my guides or or anyone, I'll kind of just open it up. And especially when I struggle and I'm having a hard time, or if I'm trying to like something that, you know, there's a lot of noise of on online, is being a parent, right? You can even down to my baby recently started eating solid foods. And so there's all these different philosophies as to how you should introduce solids to your baby. And no matter which one you take, the other camps will say that that's a horrible idea, and you're going to, you know, damage your baby for forever and there's a lot of noise. And so the the tool that I pull out of my toolbox, personally, the most to have a deeper experience is, you know, quiet the body, try to quiet the mind, and then just ask for guidance and clarity. So it could even be something of, you know, introducing solid to the baby and sitting there being like, Okay, how do I actually feel about this? Can you help me cut through the noise? Or maybe I'm, you know, sitting or feeling uninspired, or I just want general guidance. Or I'll say, hey, guides. My guides happen to be kind of funny. I'll be like guides, like, is there anything that I need to know? And having a conversation with kind of those deeper parts of myself. That's one of my favorite tools that I'll I'll pull out whenever I need it. And it just always feels good to me. Yes, great answer. I love that advice. I feel like in that process of asking for guidance, on some level, is such a nice key little turn to actually ask and be receptive and wait to kind of. See what comes up. That's so cool. I like that. I'm gonna definitely like to talk to your guides, not a guides guy. I know good question. I I'm was a guide guy. Then I went, no guide guy, and I'm returning back into the guide guy phase. So I feel like I've traversed both landscapes fairly well and tumultuously at the same time. And now I'm I'm having so much relief feeling it's okay to ask for help again, you know, and but I went through a very kind of like, No, I can figure this out myself, and I don't need to ask for assistance. And because I'm not sure if the assistance is there or not, is it really there, you know, is it me just so now I'm actually saying yes, there is, there is guidance and, and even if it's just me asking you for stop, some help, right? Like, even if it's not in a silent space, but me saying, Kelly, can you help me out with this or something? You know, I think, um, that's been a big one for me to start to kind of feel okay with asking for some help. It's amazing. I start feeling, yeah, yeah, I agree. I'm glad you brought and I think for for anyone asking for help is hard. I personally don't have the lived experience of someone who, like identifies as being male or a man, but I have heard from my students that it can be especially hard to ask for help when you're a man. Do you feel that that's true? I love that you're kind of asking that because yeah, I would say absolutely. I think there's certain gender normalities that we are associated with our, you know, with our certain roles that we have fallen into. And that's where I think it's so fascinating to ask that question and start to even identify or pick out, be able to pick up on, what do I identify with, and what am I unaware of, and what can I become aware of so I do see that. I think I would kind of tend to think it's probably pretty equal for both, but just a little uniquely different for both. So in the sense that I think we share so much in common as male and female and at the same time, yeah, I do have, obviously, we have very specific things to each of our genders, but I like exploring that I do like to try to dig in on it is that because of the my male gender, that I'm having a hard time asking, because I've always been told I should just man up and just be strong and just, like, force it down and don't cry and, you know, push on, You know, that type of thing. So, so, yeah, I guess that probably is a part of it. And then also, when I started to investigate familial growing up patterns, like the stuff we went through as kids, that's all whole nother quagmire. So, you know, what about you? What? How do you? Where are you landing on your gender identity and the roles that come into play as a mom and or just as a basic human being, or not just basic human but like an amazing human being, or however you want to, you know what I mean like to say basic? You know what I am somewhat basic as a 30 something Midwestern mom who loves fall and a good pumpkin spice lot. Yeah, you know good thing I well, just the way, you know, my personal identity identify as a woman, but I think, and I don't think that's necessarily what you were asking. I think you're asking more about the deeper meaning. But I have been thinking a lot about this. Now that I have two children, I have a son, I have a daughter, and I don't know if I necessarily have any answers, but I have found myself being more intentional and trying to pay more attention to how am I, how am I raising these two children differently, and why and and, you know, are there moments where, you know certain behaviors, my my son, who is a toddler, you know, he's working through a hitting phase, which, you know, if anyone's had, like a three year old who's working through a hitting phase, it is just like a, you know, it is a journey to go on. But even that, I think, you know, do I perceive that differently? Because it's a boy hitting versus a girl, and I've been trying to just be a little bit more honest with myself, more intentional with, I guess, unlearning and relearning different like gender norms and how, you know, I was raised and versus how my husband was raised. Because, you know, we're really close in age, and so our, you know, our parents are similar in age, and just kind of deconstructing a lot of that. And when I became a mom, there were so many things that I felt like I had blind spots to, especially to, like the male experience, because I had sisters, you know, I just kind of was always around, like. Women, and then I had this son, and I was like, I don't really know what to like. I don't know how to raise a boy. I don't know how to be a good, supportive, you know, mother figure to a man. I've never really like seen that in my life, and and it's really led me to unlearn and relearn some different things. And so I think a lot about just that experience. And I think I'm only at, like, the contemplative stage where I think about it, and I try to, I always say that our kids are like our mirrors, where, you know, not only do they reflect things back at you, you know, for example, last night, my my dog, Mila, who we love, but she's a Barker, and she just and the older she gets, she's 11 now, if she wants to bark, she's gonna bark. There's nothing you can do. And sometimes you have to, kind of like yell at her. You just have to be like Mila enough. You know, you have to be like enough. And then she'll finally stop. And my son immediately after, he goes, Mila enough. And then he looks at me, and he goes, mom yelled really loud. And yeah, and, you know, he wasn't trying to, like, read me to filth, in a way, but he kind of did, because he was right by me, and I was just and I was like, wow. And so he was, like, reflecting that behavior back to me. But also, our kids can be that mirror, like that super like, 20x that they put in, like, the hotel rooms where, like, magnifies you so close, you know, where you're like, oh my gosh, is that actually like what I look like those who needs like? So my pores look like, yeah, yes, but it's like in every hotel room, and you're like, Why does every hotel need this thing? But they can magnify these things that you didn't even know existed within yourself. And so I always think of our children as like our mirror. And so I really do think about these things and how they're different experiences for men versus women, and I found it became harder to ask for help when I became a mom, because I think I internalized, you know, in society, that a quote, good mom just knows how to do it, just knows how to do it all like a good mom, it's just effortless, which is like such Baloney, yeah, but that's what I feel like I had internalized, and so I had to work on that. Excellent, ooh, yeah, I like that. You're a fan of wanting to work on it. Can you share a little bit of I love that you said neurodivergent before you said ADHD in the early part of our conversation. And can you talk a little bit about your journey guessing you might have had a diagnosis at some point that you are say, probably your diagnosis came first with ADHD, and then now, more modernly, we're having different terms for different diagnoses, and therefore neurodivergence, awesome. I mean, I love that. I like the I love the creativity of the changes of the because it does, it gets our minds to kind of see things differently, as opposed to like I heard one recently. I saw this horrible storyline about what's going on in in Baltimore, about this, this drug that's even more powerful, and then then fentanyl, called tranq, which is like elephant tranquilizer, and what it's doing to people, and what it's actually the physical and the whole effect of all of it on people, how horrific it is. It's really bad and but they're shifting it from, look at these addicts out on the street to substance use disorder. You know, these people have substance use disorder, and it just got me to kind of think a little differently, that, like, instead of, like, spinning something negatively on this person that's going through this very difficult thing, that we could potentially see that they are struggling, and that the the substance itself could be so powerful that they don't have the ability to say, no, it's like, so gripping. And so that's a little off where we were started, but where I started was, like, your experience with neurodivergence and ADHD, can you talk a little bit about your own personal experience? Yeah. And I, you know, I love again. ADHD, I love a good tangent. But I, yeah, maybe I think, I mean, maybe I actually think that kind of being neurotypical is actually the minority. Like, if you think about how the brain works, everyone's brain is so different and so unique. So, like, what is I think the more we learn about it, I imagine it's more of like a spectrum, that it's not like a light switch, where it's like either the neuro divergence, which is on or off. It's like our brains are so, just like our bodies are all different. You know, every aspect of us is so different. So really, what is like neurotypical? I don't know. To go back to what you're saying about, is it tranq? Yeah, that even just sounds, doesn't sound nasty, yeah. Okay. But what someone shared with me the other day because I really believe in sharing, not shaming. So what someone you know shared with me the other day I was so grateful, is that you know they were saying instead of describing someone as homeless, you say someone currently experiencing homelessness, or that's a good. On, yeah, to see it not as like a label of their identity, that's a good one. Yes, that they aren't a homeless person. They're a person who's currently experiencing homelessness. Yeah, yeah. And that one really stuck with me, too, I think, for, you know, similar reasons of really putting like the person first, instead of the circumstances that they found themselves themselves in. But you know, it's interesting, because I have both ADHD and dyslexia, and I did get an ADHD diagnosis when I was young, like fifth grade, and this would have been like in the 90s, and I didn't get the dyslexia, you know, diagnosis, really, until I was an adult. But it all makes a lot more sense now of how those two kind of, you know, work together. And I felt like, as a kid, you know, growing up in the 90s, especially, being like, I'm bad and being a woman, but I think at the time, we thought that a kid with ADHD was like this really rambunctious, like, boy who's really loud and would interrupt the teacher and be really boisterous and and I wasn't that, but I was really struggling to learn. And like a conventional school system, and my sister is the opposite. She, like, she is amazing at school. And so, you know, scholarly. And, you know, I think there's so many different kinds of intelligences. I don't want to say, no, she was so smart and I wasn't, but like, she's just phenomenal at school, always has been, and so I think, and she's my older sister, so I think people, you know, they would compare the two of us and be like, Well, why is, you know, your sister so good at school, and so, you know, excellent at it. And you are, you know, struggling to learn to read things like that. And, and we didn't know that much about neurodivergence Even ADHD, there's such a narrow scope as to, like, you know, what it actually looks like in a child. And so it was both helpful to get a diagnosis when I was young, and also extremely hard, because, you know, I was made fun of. People just assumed that I was like, lazy. They would label me as like, dumb that I wasn't going to become anything. And now, in hindsight, I realize that it's actually how my brain works differently is what makes me so good at what I do. And so even if I felt like, you know, a quote, failure in school, I feel like once I was done with school and I just was kind of given the freedom to just live an adult life like that's when I started to thrive. And I don't know, so, hmm, I don't know if that answers your question, but I would say it started. It started really, really hard, and now it feels kind of like really special and a really unique part of me that does bring me challenges, like, if you see the clutter in my home, and it drives me nuts, I have such a desire to not have clutter in my home, but my ADHD just seems to not let me out of that. You know, clutter, and I do do the thing. And maybe, if you're trying to self diagnose yourself with ADHD, do you leave glasses of water all over the place? It's a common ADHD thinks you'll get a glass of water. You'll drink some of it. You set it down and get distracted. You forget where you forget where you left it, or you can't remember if it's yours, and you get another that's like, one of those random ADHD things. Do you do that? Well, the funny thing is, just the other day, I had, I have two children, they had friends over, and I swear there was 20 water cups out on the same size cup. And I'm like, whose cup is whose? And I was just like, let me water the plants with all these cups and just start over. Put them on the dishwasher. Let's start over. I don't know if it was all me or if it was all them. I think it was them, so I don't think that was me, but maybe my children, I don't know. I'm gonna keep a closer eye on this, because why did I have 20 water cups all over the house? That's hilarious. Yes, no, you're giving me some clues. Yeah, that's so funny. I love hearing about it because I've, I've never thought of myself as that, but I've had people tell me, like, Todd, just stay on track. Stay on track. And I'd love to go all over the place. So, but, um, I have started opening that my doorway to just like, you know, when you when you get that feeling of like, maybe I do, maybe I am. It's kind of a cool thing, because things start to come together. And I don't know that it makes life all of a sudden perfect, just because, you know, like, Oh, I do have this kind of weird thing about me, but different thing about me, I should say, but um, I love that's why I like to ask you and just hear your experience so I can relate. What about I won't if you decide to tell me your interaction with prescription medication and how that's evolved for you, I'm happy to I'd love to hear about it, but I know that's a very personal question. But yeah, okay, I'd like to know how what was your journey with then at a fifth grade level, there's, a potential they prescribe something. Do you still utilize help, or on that level from pharmaceuticals? Are you? Where are you at with all this? So I have not used any. I took a drug Concerta. I think it was, you know, it was, it was so up and coming, like whatever, in the late 90s, early 2000 Is, and I started taking it a low dose. It would have been in middle school, and I think it really did help me in kind of a traditional school setting, in middle school and in high school. I stopped taking it in college, because I did have some side effects that weren't great. It made me feel anxious. Made me a little bit like, sweaty as a sweaty girl because of it. And once I was in college, my schedule is just really different, like, I, you know, I would only have classes on certain days of the week. I only had to, you know, kind of be dialed in for like, a short amount of time. And I just found, like, the, you know, the the side effects kind of outweighed the benefit at that time, in that situation, but I did find it to be helpful in middle school and in high school, and I took Concerta all through that, and then I never, I've never revisited it, because I just, I never really thought about it. And then I think when, when prescription medication for ADHD became trendy. Will say again, I was in a either trying to have a baby, being pregnant or breastfeeding a baby stage, which I still am in that kind of cycle, and so I wouldn't even pursue it, just because I don't think you can, you know you should be taking, you know, of course, I don't recommend you take it, understood, pregnant or breastfeeding and but I also, I'm sometimes curious, where I'm like, Well, it's been so long since I've taken anything for it. Also, I'm sure the treatment is different than what it was in like, you know, 2001 or whatever. But I for me, personally, I still don't know if the pros would outweigh the cons, because I have just learned how to personally manage my ADHD in a way that works for me. And so I think getting to know myself in the way that like I work best has has been the best remedy for me, especially now, you know, I still, I have an unconventional job. My schedule is unique. I did, however, a few months after the birth of my second baby, ask my mom, who comes and helps with childcare, and it's just like, you know, an angel on Earth. And I was like, I don't know if I'm just too sleep deprived, if I'm having like, this really bad ADHD flare up, or if I'm getting early onset dementia, because it all kind of feels the same to me. And I was kind of like, I wonder if, when I'm done breastfeeding this baby, if maybe I should consider it again. But, yeah, but I don't know. Yeah, that's really just, that's my journey. It's not anything too profound. I also sometimes am a little nervous of starting something that could potentially be habit forming, and so I always think, you know, does with the benefit outweigh the risks or the side effects? And I just think right now in my life, I don't feel that way, but I'm totally I leave the door open to it. If I felt like the potential benefit could outweigh, yes, any risk, that's a very balanced way to approach it. I think you're on the right track. Well, I mean, don't you worry? Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I worry about like, I don't like, I never want to get too I can relate overboard everything was something, yeah, and I, and I have, you know, I struggled with disordered eating, and I guess, you know, trigger warning, but I won't get really too into it, but in college, that was something that, like, I really struggled with, and in my early 20s, and so I know there is that I have the possibility to take things to an extreme level, and I just feel like, don't play with fire, like if I don't need it, yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm with you. I go up against that thought all the time. I do utilize medical services. Like, I go and get checked out and I like, I believe in that medicine and the medical community has improved our existence as human beings on planet earth 100% that's my own belief, but I still tread cautiously when I'm, you know, offered, hey, try this for this situation. And I'm always again, I start reading side effects, and I'm like, Oh no, I don't know which one sounds better or worse. If I'd rather suffer the effects of not using or suffer the effects of using which way, which way, balance the scales. And it's, it's challenging. I think everybody I don't like to clump everybody into the everybody category, but I think everybody's going through that on some level, on some level with something trying to find balance. And that's why I love that our focus is around the meditation piece, because I've found, personally, that's been an incredible part of finding. Balance since, uh, but what I didn't want to interrupt you, you're gonna say something. What were you thinking? You know, I was just gonna say my little caveat. So I am married to a doctor, and so we sometimes have little, you know, spicy conversations about things. But where, you know, my husband and I have kind of landed is that the sweet spot is really where you know, whether you want to say, like, eat, you know, East Meets West, or whatever it is that his perception is always, like I've seen on the back end. You know how much effort and knowledge you have to acquire to become a doctor, that it has made me, you know, really respect the profession. But also, medicine is still, you know, subjective in a way. My husband works in, you know, hospital works with very, very sick people, and there will be multiple doctors that will have different opinions on maybe what the best treatment course will be. And they may not. It may not be that one is right and one is wrong. Maybe they both have different elements where right, but there is still a subjective piece of medicine, but something that I think is really cool. And you know, where my husband and I have kind of fallen into agreement is that, you know, there's certain things I would never say, Oh, you have an infection. Like, just meditate it away. You know, I'd be like, Oh no, you should probably go get that like, let's go get an antibiotic or something. Go get that stat checked out. But you know, even my husband will say, Oh, you're in the hospital for, you know, complications of high blood pressure here. Let's treat, you know, treat this serious thing in the now and then he may say, you know, have you ever explored maybe some more Mind Body practices like meditation has been shown to be phenomenal for high blood pressure. And so, you know, is there something where, you know, I can use my knowledge in the now to work on the symptom. But then can we use some of these, you know, more broad, you know, whole, I say holistic in its true meaning, of like, you know, all encompassing, holistic, not kind of like, you know, MLM, you know, quote, holistic, but, you know, not, you know, bad holistic, but, like, kind of whole body, whole person, can you incorporate some of that into your everyday life so then you don't have to come back and see me for these complications again? And I think that's kind of the sweet spot. I like that. That's where I've personally landed. Like the door is always open to all traditional medicine, but also the door is open to, like, other things too. Yeah, that's balanced. I like it. I know, I don't know. I just, maybe just the Gemini in me that I don't ever want to commit to, like one side or another. Oh, man, I have I'm thoroughly enjoying our conversation. I know we're getting close to our hour together, and we probably have children that are going, Mom, where are you? Mom? I have, I have some extra time if you do, because I love chat, cool, cool. I want to, I want to know more about what your unconventional job is. I I've, you know, I noticed that your, I went on your Instagram page and your handle is yoga for you online, and you have, as you're kind of like key pointers that podcast is called mindful in minutes, and you're the founder of yoga for you and your meditation teacher, and you have E R, Y t5, 100, and you're in the Twin Cities, and your website is yoga for you online.com, and I also noticed that you have a meditation teacher training that. And actually, when I saw that, I think you used some terminology that was, like, an unconventional meditation teacher training, or something of that nature or unique, like you've come up with a new format that you're working with. Can you just tell me a little bit about what you do? Like, what is your job? What is your unconventional job? Yeah, so my unconventional job is, you know, if someone says, What do you do? Say, Oh, I run a location independent yoga and meditation school. But there's so many different things that fall under that. So the biggest part of my work right now is my podcast. I have, well, I actually have two. I have mindful of minutes and then meditation, Mama, they're both guided meditations. Mindful of minutes was the first one. It's the one that's seven years old. Meditation Mama was one when I had a pandemic pregnancy with my son, and I was just at home and sick, and I was like, You know what? I'm meditating a lot while I'm pregnant. So why not? You know, start sharing those on the internet for people who are in the fertility, prenatal, postpartum phase. You know that really specific window in their life. And you know, that podcast has turned into books. So I've written a couple of books under kind of the mindful of minutes umbrella, but really what I mindful in minutes is that the mindful in minutes, that's my podcast, but it's it's turned into a book series like proud of Amazon. Is out where I'd find mindful minutes books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble target, wow, you know, very cool places. Oh, cool. There's my little my little book babies. That was kind of the latest thing that I've been that I've been doing, because anyone who has written a book, it really does kind of feel like you're, you know, growing this. Thing and giving birth to it, yeah, but I really like to in terms of kind of the unique or like, signature style that I have, and in my teacher trainings is I like to be the person that goes and has the hyper fixations, lives with the monks, reads the books, studies the things, weed through all the noise and pull out the pieces and then say, Here, yoga teacher, here, therapist, here, school. I have so many really cool professions that take my meditation teacher training because I like to read through all the noise and be like, You know what? If you want to just start teaching meditation and sharing these tools, and you don't want to spend 1000s and 1000s of dollars and 500 hours and all this time to learn one specific style. Here's the pertinent pieces that you need to know to be able to start sharing meditation with people and deepen your own practice. I kind of call it like the mindful minutes method, and I apply that also to yoga, Nidra and restorative yoga as well. And so I like to give people kind of that foundational base of like, here's how you can learn this one really specific thing and then apply it to what you're already doing, whether it's teaching yoga or, you know, anything else, very cool. Like, if I wanted to take your meditation training, is it the type that is online that I just start anytime I want, or is it like a specific set date where you have everybody started? Yeah, so it is done at your own pace, but I do certain enrollment periods, so I just, you know, recording it in the summer. So I closed enrollment at the beginning of the summer, because I wanted to focus on being with my kids this summer. So I closed enrollment, and then I'll open it up again in the fall, because there is a final project component which everyone panics about and they're like, oh, no, final project. It's really not a big deal, but I personally review all of them, and so I periodically will close enrollment, because I want to make sure I can be present with my students and review their projects. Cool. That's awesome. And do you feel like your career path you made mention that once you finished your traditional schooling, you're able to kind of niche out a career path such as you're in that works really well with just the way you work. What intricacies in the way you work do you think has really melded or meshed so well with this particular job that you have? You know, I think one thing that really serves me well is that I'm just the right amount of reckless, or I'm just the right amount of gold. Like, even when I emailed you and I was like, Hey, I stumble across your podcast. I love what you're doing. Do you want to chat like you do when you you can when you have ADHD, be somewhat impulsive, and it kind of gets a bad rap for being, like, reckless. I like to think of it as, like, just the right amount of impulsive, where you're like, Oh, I really like this podcast. Like, I like your vibe. I'll just send him an email and be like, Hey, do you want to chat? Maybe you'll say no, but maybe you'll say yes. And there's been so many times where that served me really well, where I have just the right amount of impulsivity, or, I think, like, I don't know how to do that, but I'm pretty sure I could figure it out. And that is kind of an ADHD component. And I think that a traditional schooling system for me was really tough, because what what tends to stick with me and resonate with me is the stuff that I find to be really interesting. So if I have to learn something, just to kind of learn it and regurgitate it, that's really hard for me to do. Also, I really struggled with, like, foreign languages. Now I know you know, it's because I had dyslexia as well, and so being able to have more freedom and to work on my schedule, to be able to pursue something that I find to be really interesting. And I think having such a tough time in a traditional schooling system has actually made me a really strong teacher and has, you know, I'm really proud of my courses, but I think my ability to sometimes break things down and explain them in a digestible way, was learned through my own experiences of having a hard time learning. I think it really made me a better teacher, both on the mat or on the meditation cushion, but also when I like Teach these continued Ed trainings, because I had such a hard time absorbing information, so I had to learn how to kind of reteach myself. Yes. Well, what an inspirational story. I am so happy that you reached out to me and wasn't shy about it. I didn't in any way think that you're being overbearing at all. I was so excited to receive your email because I'm always loving meeting other people that are doing the same sort of stuff and podcasting and talking, and I love the spontaneity of reaching out to somebody I do not know at all, and then just waiting to see like if they don't respond, and to not get upset if they don't respond is a really great place to land. So I agree with you. It's so cool to hear how you are managing being a mom. A wife, a content creator slash self employed entrepreneur, blending in your passion for yoga and meditation, being able to get focused enough to write a book. I want to write a book baby. I want to I want to birth a new baby. My wife, I have you coach me, I might have you coach me, because I do believe I can do it. I just feel like I need somebody to, like, break down, a little chat, like, a little steps, like, Todd, do this, get that done, come back to me, and I'll tell you what to do next. Like, if I had that kind of a coaching situation, I think I could probably pull it out. But I sit down, I go, Gosh, book will be amazing. Okay, I get my thing out, my notes out, my pages. Where am I start typing? I get about a paragraph down, and then I start, ah, I just need to get really clear about where I'm gonna go with it and be what would you write? Oh, what's the book? Oh, gosh, thank you. It really is a dream. Um, I want to use my life story. I want to tell my story. I want to tell my story from from from my childhood up to where I am now. Yeah, I think I feel like my story is fairly interesting. I went through some pretty amazing things and some really difficult things, so I want to share that. And I guess I get, I get tripped up on how much of that is my ego, how much is that me with my unresolved, sort of therapeutic elements, where I'm like, I mean, on some levels, I feel like, if when I write, it's therapy, it helps me to like process, and if I'm writing about traumatic events, then it's very cathartic and therapeutic. However, the thought of releasing that to the public. I don't know where to draw that line. I just don't feel comfortable yet in that territory, because I also because my children, I if I share the really traumatic stuff, I feel like I don't want to discolor their world. I want them to come up and be able to just, like, look back and say, Dad was cool. And I don't know that. I want them to know all the trauma stuff and so but I know that that could be very like freeing, and it could work out really great, but I'm still a little nervous about that. I'm still a little nervous, and then there's so much to it. I mean, thank you for asking, and I I don't want to take a ton of time digging into my psyche. Maybe you should write it for you first, or just sort of like casual, one thing I've started doing at night is a little bit of creative writing. I've been trying to do more things just for fun, not for any kind of real reason. And one thing I've gotten into is, like, poetry just totally just, you know, for funsies. And so I'll just kind of whatever I don't, I don't journal to, like, recap my day. I'll, like, write, like, a little poem the other day. You can take this part out if it's a little bit too weird, but I just for fun, I would never like share. You can feel free to you can edit this. I'm definitely I was like, I was writing this poem, and it was about the scream, and I was reflecting on my birth story, and was basically how it was such it clicked in my mind that, like, as I was screaming, giving birth is, you know, where you have permission to just delete this part out, and then, and, but then your child. And, you know, I imagine you were there for the birth of your children. And it was how this basically the scream was a scream of, for me, was transferred to my baby, but it was the last scream that I had before I became a mother. So it was a death of me. And then that scream was transferred to, you know, my son was born, and his first, you know, scream, because, you know they come out, you know, screaming. And that was his, like, first scream of his birth. It was just like this little poem about a scream, and will I ever share it with, you know, anyway, no. Is that ever going to see the light of day? No, that was for me, just making that little click of like, oh, how interesting. Like, yeah, that is cool, though I like that correlation, but it's just for fun. So maybe you just write for fun and it'll help you process, and then you can always do something with it later. Yeah, I think you're right. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know, appreciate fun with it. Good advice. Just have fun. Come on, stop being so hard on yourself. Have some fun. Lighten up. Like, yeah, it can be so beautiful and so special and and a lot of what we write, I'm sure your writing is much better than mine. A lot of what you write, it's just like, you get it out and then you're like, Oh, that's not that great. But also, like, it doesn't matter. It's just, like, the act of it, and then sometimes something comes out, and it is great, and it's just, you know, you kind of let it out, and then you don't have to worry about, like, an outline for your book, or, you know, having it. You just start writing to write and then, and then see what comes out. You could always piece it together later. Yeah, great point. I'm doing it. Doing it. I believe in you done that's amazing, Kelly. I'm so thankful. I really appreciate you reaching out. I can't wait to continue to follow you and and everybody listening. Go follow Kelly on her channels and send her a message, send her an email. If you enjoyed this, let her know you appreciate. Time, and I think you did a great job, Kelly, of you're a very clear speaker. You have a great job of formulating your idea and following through and communicating it. You're a gifted communicator. I love hearing how you've turned what seems like a challenge, like into your greatest gift. And I think that's so inspirational. And you have, like, a really positive sort of spirit, like a vibe which is really kind of infectious and quite refreshing. And I'm so thankful to have this chance to meet you, and I hope we can collaborate together in the future. That is, like the nicest thing anyone has ever said. Thank you. Thank you so much, and thank you for sharing this space with me. I know I'd sent this in my email, but I know how sacred a space a podcast is, and so I do not take for granted the fact that you would, you know, share this space with me, and I've had so much fun chatting with you. It's, it's just so fun to chat with someone who loves, like, what we love. Yes, agreed. Cool. Thank you. Well, thank you, and I wish you a wonderful day, and we'll talk soon. Thanks. You too. Native yoga. Todd. Cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. If you like this show, let me know if there's room for improvement. I want to hear that too. We are curious to know what you think and what you want more of what I can improve. 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