Ep. 19 | Crafting a Calmer Heart: Emotional Regulation for Harmonious Family Dynamics with Emma O'Brien

Ever wondered how a calmer heart could transform your family life? Emma O'Brien, a HeartMath practitioner and life coach, joins us to share the secrets of emotional regulation and its profound effects on parenting. Emma's insights into nervous system coherence teach us how to respond to our little ones with more compassion, enhancing decision-making and promoting a nurturing environment. This episode isn't just about breathing with your heart; it's about learning to infuse every interaction with calm and joy, modeling behaviors that will shape the future of our children's emotional well-being.

Navigating the tempest of emotions that life throws at us, whether you're a toddler or a grown-up, can be a challenge. Emma walks us through strategies for managing strong emotions and cultivating self-awareness across all age groups. Her conversation lights the path to understanding our triggers, and the ripple effect of our emotional state on those around us—especially within the intricate dance of family dynamics. Join us for a profound look at how these HeartMath strategies can not only improve the parent-child bond but also strengthen the ties between partners, guiding us toward personal growth and a more harmonious home.

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Transcript

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 0:25

Hello parents, welcome to another episode of Brain Power with Dr. Eko. You're in for a treat. Today. I have an amazing guest, ms Emma O'Brien, here with us and she's going to be talking about heart math. Yes, you're really in for a treat. So welcome to the show, Ms. Emma. How are you today?

Emma O'Brien: 0:44

Hi, I'm good. It's lovely to be here. Thank you for having me and I'm excited for our conversation today.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 0:50

Yes. So please introduce yourself and tell our listeners more about the amazing work that you're doing for families.

Emma O'Brien: 0:58

So I'm Emma. I'm a heart math practitioner and a Martha Beck trained life coach, and I really got into the coaching space after my own episode of burnout and having to restructure my life after everything went a bit wrong because I hadn't been looking after my emotional well-being. And it's taken me on this beautiful journey to learn these tools. Heartmath is essentially a set of emotional regulation tools to help us bring ourselves physically and emotionally into coherence so we can show up better, think better, and my philosophy really is that when we feel better, we're able to to do better yeah and whether that's in parenting or our interactions with others.

Emma O'Brien: 1:48

I know specifically for you. You know parenting is a very hot topic and I think we can parent a lot better from a calmer space. So it's something I'm very passionate about is really helping people reduce their stress, manage their lives, change their lifestyles so we can enjoy life and we can create time with the people that are important and, you know, we can enjoy our precious life here on earth.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 2:17

Yes, we only get one chance at it right, so it's so important for us to enjoy our lives. I like that you said that. So let's take a deeper dive into really what heart math is and what are some practical ways parents can incorporate the strategies that that teaches.

Emma O'Brien: 2:36

So heart math really is about bringing your nervous system into regulation. When we're stressed, when we're not coping, when we're tired, we are in our fight or flight response a lot of the time and we then end up with our logical thinking brain offline and we're operating from a space of reactivity which is difficult to make good decisions. We're snappy with our children and if you've got children, I know you speak to parents with children who've got ADHD and autism, and that in itself is a challenging scenario to be in. So heart math really is about learning to bring your nervous system into coherence so you can emotionally regulate better, so that you're better equipped to cope with the challenges that life throws at you.

Emma O'Brien: 3:28

We can't get rid of those life challenges. I mean, everybody has them in some shape or form. It's about learning to be able to navigate through them more smoothly and to be able to be more emotionally resilient. So heart math teaches you how to retrain your system to do that. It's about tapping your heart's intelligence and bringing our heart rhythms into coherence so our brain functions better and we can operate from a space of more effective decision-making and more kindness in effect as well. It's one of the things that drew me to HeartNAS, and it's something I'm very passionate about. Sharing the techniques is just being able to be kinder to one another, and our children pick up on that energy, so it's important we're cultivating that.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 4:24

Yes, absolutely right, because our kids follow what we do more than what we say, so they're like little sponges soaking up everything we're doing. So that's why it's so important, as parents, that we're not perfect by any means, but that we make intentional choices to do better when we know better. So let's talk about a couple of strategies that parents can implement in their everyday lives to help them regulate themselves.

Emma O'Brien: 4:54

Yeah, so the easiest one is heart-focused breathing, and that's the first technique that I would teach someone with heart math. It's freely available online. If you go to the Heart Math Institute, quite a lot of their techniques are there as well, so you have to gatekeep it for you. You can go and have a look, and really it's about focusing on the area around your heart, imagining you're breathing in and out of your heart space and breathing in for a count of five and out for a count of five.

Emma O'Brien: 5:18

I think that's what is so beautiful about this technique is it's so simple and we can practice heart focus breathing when you're in the car. You can practice it if you're in a hospital waiting room. When you're in the car, you can practice it if you're in a hospital waiting room. You can practice it when you're talking to somebody, and it's just a way of being able to get that nervous system calmed down so we have access to better thinking and better behavior. This is something you could do with your kids as well. If you've got children who are a bit stressed and children who are struggling with things doctor's appointments you can teach children the heart math techniques as well to get them in line with their own coherence, which I think it's just so powerful. You don't need any kit for it. It's super simple and I have found that it makes a massive difference to my mindset and how I go out into the world. It's hugely powerful.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 6:14

Wow, I love that. It's so simple. So we're just imagining the air around our hearts.

Emma O'Brien: 6:28

We need to breathe in for a count of five. We can do it Okay.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 6:34

Definitely For sure. It definitely slows down your, your. If you had any heightened emotions, that would definitely slow it down immediately and I like that. The focus is on your heart, right, and that's really nice to teach like can we make our hearts happy? How can we make our hearts happy? Let's, let's do some breathing and that will make our hearts happy. Oh, I just came up with a way to teach it, yeah.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 6:59

So I think, if you go at it from that angle, all the kids always want their hearts to feel happy. Same way I tell them about the brains. You want your brain to feel happy, so let's drink some water so your brain can feel happy. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, yeah, that's wonderful, okay.

Emma O'Brien: 7:19

What's Okay? What's another tip, karen, for them? So you'll find, once you start to practice just the heart-focused breathing, that you're able to slow everything down enough to be able to listen to your own intuition a little bit more. I think a lot of us have lost touch with our own gut feeling, if you like, and I think the heart, heart and you know the heart is linked to that. So, being able to really listen to what do I want, what is the right decision to make here for me or for my child, and to really listen to that inner voice, it allows you access to the very wise part of yourself which we often choose to ignore and we'll find out later. We'll be like, oh, I knew I shouldn't have done that or I knew I should have done this, but we've stopped trusting ourselves. And I think it's a great technique to help you trust yourself. And this is why it's so beautiful to teach to children and I know I was listening to your TED talk and you were giving the example of children of how can you make your brains happy and love what you're going to say, how can you make your heart happy? Well, you can listen to it and you can tune into it and we can cultivate a feeling of kindness and really start to think about cultivating a positive emotion.

Emma O'Brien: 8:38

When we're doing the heart focused breathing, which is kind of the next step with the heart mast, it's life changing. When you do this on a regular basis, because it's just. I have found when I've practiced it and I've you know, if I'm really feeling very coherent, I'll go out to the shops or out in the car. People respond differently to you when you are in a different state. It's almost a bit magical. There is some science behind it, so it's not magic, but people respond to you differently when you are calm and coherent and that is why it's such a valuable tool. So, as a parent, you imagine the impact that has on dealing with your own children. A parent, you imagine the impact that has on dealing with your own children and and if you teach children, to do it.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 9:25

Imagine the impact that will have on their lives as well. Yeah, yeah, they will grow up to not discount themselves, which a lot of us I mean myself included we do it out of fear, right, because we think we'll be judged because of what the days we want to do or what we are thinking, or we are free to say what we really want, and that just stunts our growth. I mean, it stunts you in every, in every direction. Yeah, even with what you said, like if you're more cohesive, then you attract people. People react to you differently. It definitely whatever is going on on the inside of us, it's like painted on us, and so it either repels or attracts people. It's so, yeah, yeah yeah.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 10:04

I love that, okay. So that's. The next step is to accept ourselves for who we are.

Emma O'Brien: 10:11

Yeah, absolutely okay, and if we, you know, if we cultivate love for ourselves. I think it's a little bit easier to cultivate love, or, you know, depending on who you're dealing with love or compassion for other people. I think this is one of the great things about using this technique is it allows you to just shift your perspective as well, and oftentimes we get very fixed in our own perspectives and we're not able to see another person's point of view, which causes conflict. And if we're able to say, well, this is my perspective and I can be calm and centered enough to maybe have a look at your perspective, and then maybe we could, we could meet middle somewhere, or, or, you know? And how could we create a solution, as opposed to just fighting about whose perspective is correct?

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 11:02

Absolutely, oh goodness gracious.

Emma O'Brien: 11:05

Well, you know if everybody was emotionally regulated, we probably would have a much more peaceful planet.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 11:12

Right, You're absolutely right. I love that because it's so critical. I mean even for just basic listening, if we even just talked about listening. Oftentimes we're so big we're not really listening because we're just waiting for the chance to say what it is we want to say. And so it's so important for our own heart health that we can take other people's perspectives into consideration, because then we're healthier overall, because then we don't have all the stress hormones surging right that creates havoc because they are like at such a high and we can't calm down. So I see how it's all related absolutely, and it's.

Emma O'Brien: 11:49

It's one of those things. It's just so simple and I think it's simple and accessible and I'd be very interested if you started to practice this technique with your kids that you see in your practice and I know you do some work with kids in foster care as well- yeah.

Emma O'Brien: 12:09

I'd be interested to see how that might help them and help them cope better with things, and how that might shift things for them. I think it's a shame that kids aren't taught meditation techniques in schools and they're not taught techniques to manage their emotions. I think often children are taught you know, it depends what environment they're in that some emotions are fine, some aren't. You have to squash these ones. It's not OK to do that, and you know this is a technique to help manage those emotions. So right, just my take on it.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 12:47

But you are absolutely right, because I mean, let me talk about myself growing up. I mean it's, it's like, ok, you can't really express yourself, you need to be quiet. So then you learn to just bottle up the emotions right and don't let them out, and then you have to find a safe place where you can actually be yourself. But I mean, of course, everything is within reason while we are saying your emotions are okay, we also don't want the child to learn that if they feel this way, they just need to let loose and scream. If that's what it is, I mean they need to learn to. Okay, I'm going to take deep breaths when I feel like screaming so that I can calm myself down, because they'll only be taken advantage of if that's their only reaction. Like we don't them without teaching them how to, how to be balanced right. So I it's definitely an important tool, for sure. I mean, even young kids can learn this yep instead of saying no, no, no, don't do that.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 13:50

We can teach them. This is what you do instead. Yeah, I'm taking notes for my own self. I'm going to practice with my kids.

Emma O'Brien: 13:59

I love it and I think, to come to your point of learning to express emotions, if children have the techniques, if they're feeling incredibly angry and they're going to explode, is to teach them that in the moment it's not necessarily appropriate to do that because of you know, and this is the thing, isn't it?

Emma O'Brien: 14:20

We've got to learn how to express the emotions in a safe and I'm going to hate to use the word appropriate, but we live in a society where we have to behave appropriately. However, if they've got the techniques to be able to say I'm seething with rage, but I've got a tool to calm it down for now and I know when I get home or if I go to see my psychologist or wherever I'm going, I can take that and that is the space for me to be able to explore these big feelings I'm having, as opposed to feeling like they have to shove them down because that's not healthy. But it's learning to deal with them, and I think the more you as a person kids, me can learn to emotionally regulate, the less big those emotions are. If you're on a more even keel most of the time, it doesn't get rid of the fact that sometimes you're going to blow a gasket or want to, but it's. It just helps, I think, to have a perspective of do I really need to go that mad with anger right now? Absolutely.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 15:27

I agree with you about the point of pairing the this is the tool with. I am a safe person, you can come and talk to me after you have employed the tool and you feel better, and now we can discuss it in a calm manner. But we, the parents, also probably need to be calm when we see that, depending on what it is, we too might be all riled up as well. So both of us need to employ the tool and understand that we can come back and have a loving, calm conversation, and actually not just for parents and kids, it's for parents, their partners, like the parents themselves. If they talk to each other, if they deal with conflicts in this manner, then it helps, right? If we each say to each other okay, we're going to take a hard moment now, take care of our heart and come back, more marriages would be better and partnerships would be better and stronger, I think. So, yeah, I can be using all different kinds of relationships.

Emma O'Brien: 16:27

Yes, you can use it everywhere. That is the beauty of it is just to be able to manage what you're putting out into the world. Because I have noticed, and when I am very, very regulated, I was in out the other day at the pharmacy standing at the counter being served and one of the other pharmacists and somebody else just turned around and waved at me and smiled, huh, and I'm thinking, okay, I mean, they're not somebody I knew, it's not like I'm in there all the time, it's just I'm very regulated, so I'm obviously giving something out that people want to engage in a in a friendly way. So it's really fascinating to me and you, you know. Conversely, if you go out in a foul mood and you cross, one thing after another will just go wrong and you're bound to and it escalates yep, and it rains and then it thunders before.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 17:24

Yes, you're absolutely right, I love that. So, yeah, parents, let's all do an experiment because I'm definitely going to try it and let's see what's we, what's different about our days and who comes up to us, and how we relate differently with people. So what's one last tip that you would like to give our parents or our kids? Either one.

Emma O'Brien: 17:47

I think it's learning to be self-aware and learning to feel into the feelings we're having. I think so many people are so stressed and overwrought we're actually kind of a bit numb from the neck down and it's taking time to understand when you feel stressed and understand when you feel angry, and notice when you're triggered and start to investigate that a little bit more. I mean, it's part of the coaching work that I do in a longer container with people is getting to know yourself a little bit better, because when you're self-aware you can change things and you might start to become aware of how your behavior is impacting others and how others' behavior impacts you. And the first step to changing things for better starts with that awareness of self, because we we can only really manage what's going on within ourselves, and I think it's important two million percent.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 18:54

agree, I totally agree. So please tell our listeners where they can find out more about you.

Emma O'Brien: 19:02

You can pop to my website, which is emmaobriencoachcom. There's all the info about me on there and I'm at emmaobriencoach on Instagram and TikTok and, if you would, if you've enjoyed this conversation and you're starting to play with this, I would love to hear from you. I'd love to see how it's helped and get some feedback, because I just think it's so nice to be able to know how this is impacting other people's lives as well.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 19:34

Yes, wonderful. I have so enjoyed this conversation and I hope you have too as well. Thank you so much, Emma, for coming on today. Such a pleasure to talk with you today, so thank you again.

Emma O'Brien: 19:45

Thank you very much for having me. I've really really enjoyed it as well.

Dr. Hokehe Eko: 19:49

Yes, and so for parents. Please thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing this with people you think might need it. Thank you for subscribing and leaving us a review. We really appreciate it. Until the next episode, have an amazing day.