The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids

Transformative Techniques for Connecting with Sensitive Children with Joana Calado

• Carrie Lingenfelter, CCC-SLP and Joana Calado • Season 1 • Episode 74

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Joanna Calado, a fascinating "woo-woo scientist," joins us to bridge the gap between biomedical science and spiritual parenting practices. Drawing from her background as both a scientist and holistic coach, Joanna offers transformative strategies for parents navigating the complex emotional landscape of raising sensitive children.

We dive deep into practical techniques that take mere seconds to implement yet create profound shifts in both children and parents. The "tense and release" exercise, which can be completed in just 30 seconds, helps teach our nervous systems that relaxation is possible and safe. Body scanning, mindful breathing, and even playful activities like "shaking it off" provide children with tools to process emotions and release accumulated stress from their day.

For empathic parents constantly absorbing their children's emotional states, Joanna offers a refreshing perspective on self-compassion. Rather than just dealing with emotional outbursts after they happen, she emphasizes prevention through self-awareness and boundary-setting. The conversation turns particularly illuminating when discussing manifestation through the lens of conscious parenting. Children, especially those under seven, are natural manifesters because they connect deeply with their senses and haven't developed the limiting beliefs that often block adults. Joanna shares how parents can guide children to harness this natural ability by focusing on sensory experiences rather than just outcomes.

Perhaps most powerful is her GPS analogy for trusting the manifestation process: we set the destination (the what) and purpose (the why), while trusting the universe to determine the route (the how) and arrival time (the when). This perspective invites parents to release control and practice faith—a valuable life skill to model for our watching children. Ready to transform your parenting journey into a pathway for spiritual growth? Listen now and discover how embracing childlike curiosity might be exactly what both you and your children need.

Connect with Joana Calado:
*Website: https://www.mindfulintrovert.com/
*Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewoowooscientist/
*Linktree: https://linktr.ee/coachjoanacalado

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https://www.youtube.com/@consciousfamilytravels

Connect with Carrie:
*Website: https://hearttoheartlife.com/
*Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespiritualparent
*YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSpiritualParent
*Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Spiritual-Parent/61554482625081
*Email: info@hearttoheartlife.com

**Please remember that the information shared on this podcast is educational in nature and does not constitute licensed mental health advice. If you need such advice, you should speak with a licensed professional about your unique situation. Thanks so much happy listeners.

© 2024-2025 Heart to Heart Life LLC

Joana Calado:

they see the world in such a different way. It's so interesting to bring curiosity and have conversations with them and understand what it means to them and why are they doing the things that they are doing. So I think it's not necessarily wanting to guide them out of it, but wanting for us allowing ourselves to be more playful and a little bit more childlike. It's not childish, it's childlike, minded to different ways of seeing the world, experiencing the world and respecting that they can do things differently and they're different individuals than us. I don't know if that answers your question, but that's what I thought I should say.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Hi Conscious Parents. It's Keri here and I am here with a little info about raising our mindful kids. I've got some tips and tricks about breaking free of the box and becoming who you are and teaching your kids how to do that. Along the way, join us.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Hi there, happy listeners. It's Keri here and I'm so excited I have a new project called Conscious Family Travels on YouTube. It's all about mindfully traveling with our highly sensitive kids. We love to give tips and tools about how you can pack, how you can prepare traveling with dietary restrictions. We love to share in-depth guides of certain areas that we are traveling to, as well as some of the actual items that we use along our journey. So join us on this conscious family travels journey. Hi there and welcome back. I have a treat for you guys. Today I have a special guest, joanna Kaladu, and I hope that I said that right. Joanna, she is a she's a woo-woo scientist. She combines her expertise as a biomedical scientist, a holistic coach and an NLP master practitioner to blend science and spirituality. And right away I wanted to ask you. I saw the acronym NLP when I was reading your information and I was curious what that stands for.

Joana Calado:

Yes, first of all, keri, thank you so much for having me here. It's such an honor to be on this lovely podcast.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

My daughter is six years old right now and she's been screaming a lot lately. We can't figure out like, what is the trigger? What is? Why does she keep reacting like this? And it's one thing that we realize is she wants to be heard when she's screaming. And if we keep, if we try to calm her down, let's have a gentle pillow fight, let's do this it's it makes it worse lately for her where it used to help for her.

Joana Calado:

Yeah, yeah, no, I get it, and it can be very challenging and it's great that you're working with that therapist because that is going to do amazing. Obviously it would have to be case by case, but on a general situation, what I would say is breath work and with kids it works very well because, let's face it, everyone knows how to breathe. And if you model it yeah, if you model it yourself because if you think about your specific case, if she wants to be heard, and then she's getting what she wants by having that reaction, it's reinforcing the behavior. So if she's being heard as she's screaming, she connects the dots and she'll be like, ooh, yeah, I'm getting what I want. So this is a good behavior to have and so it's being reinforced. Whereas if you just breathe, and you breathe yourself and you model that and you invite her oh, would you like to breathe with me? I'm feeling a bit tense right now. So it's doing. Five minutes is all it takes. Doing a body scan. Have you ever heard of a body scan? Yes, for sure. I love it. You can do it very fast.

Joana Calado:

There's another exercise that is called the tense and release. That is based on CBT cognitive behavioral therapy. It's 30 seconds. I teach this to adults quite a lot because can do it between meetings, can do it at any situation. So it's basically you. It literally takes that 30 seconds. Basically you breathe in very deep and you hold it and as you're holding the breath you are going to tense up all the muscles, all everything, and you just crunch up your face and everything, your butt, cheeks, everything. Then you just release as you exhale and what that does is it teaches your brain that you can relax, you're safe. It's almost like pushing a level of a lever, of being like I'm safe now because our body tenses up without us knowing and with kids, sometimes they have that frustration and they either cry or they just get so tense that their body needs to expel the energy. So that can be a good exercise. You can do it with her and 30 seconds and just being present after breathing out and just Because the idea is breaking patterns and that is what neurolinguistic programming helps as well is breaking the line of thought.

Joana Calado:

I can tell you that I used to have a boyfriend that he would annoy me tremendously and he would there, blabbing, blabbing, blabbing, and I, in my mind, would play, would sing the Harry Potter soundtrack, and sometimes it would annoy me so much that I would actually sing it out loud and that would break his pattern. He couldn't continue arguing with me, he couldn't. He would sometimes would be like, oh you're there, you are doing that again, but it would break his pattern. Yeah, so it can be as simple as that having a certain sound or a certain something, a movement, a touch, that tells her okay, time to break the pattern.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yes, I think that one's great. I would love doing it with a child like my daughter. I was thinking I could name it something like oh, let's squeeze the lemon and then we're going to release it, or something that they could visualize the squeeze or hold a teddy bear and we're going to squeeze every part of the teddy bear and then we're going to release it. I'm going to try that one. I love it, joanna. And for those, I was thinking I know what a body scan is, but our listeners might not.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

So I thought oh, let's come back to that one present moment.

Joana Calado:

You're mindful of your breathing and you're imagining a line scanning all of your body, from the top of your head, and as you're doing so, you are scanning for any tension, any sensation or no sensation at all. But the idea is that you're completely in tune with your body and as you're coming down on your different body parts, you're sensing for any tension and you're releasing that tension as you exhale and you can even add a beam of light that is nice and warm and is healing. That is nice and warm and is healing. And there's a lot of different variants to this. But if you do the classic of imagining a line just scanning your body and looking for any tension and like cleaning it up as you breathe out, that is already a very impactful exercise. That is very grounding.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

That's wonderful. I think I'm going to try it when I pick up my kids from school today. I think I'm going to try it with them and see they are both empath kids and they come home with a lot of that energy from the day. So I think and then add, like picturing rain washing over us and just washing and cleaning all the energy of the day. So I'm going to try that today when we pick them up.

Joana Calado:

Yeah, For that, I would say for kids especially, it can be quite fun. And you can do this in 20 seconds as well, shaking Before they get in the car or as they're getting in the car. You can say, okay, let's shake it out, shake and you physically shake, because if you look at animals in nature, they, whenever a zebra is being chased by a lion and she escapes, she gives a little bit of a she. I don't know if a zebra is a she in my mind it is now is a she. She just kicks her back legs in a like a shake movement and that is just a reaction that the body has to release the stress that she just endured.

Joana Calado:

So we as human beings, we don't do that very much because it doesn't look right. So we're very mindful of judgment. But if we let go of judgment and if we just do that, it can even be to a sound of our favorite song or whatever. You're in the car and you're like, okay, let's shake the energies of the day, let's shake whatever energies are not ours and and that is a form of cord cutting, and cord cutting is another technique very good in somatic manifestation a lot of the things that I do, but it's good to, at the end of the day, let go of any energies and energetic cords that we have with other people situations. It's good to do that.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Okay, I love that. It makes me think about when my kids are in a mood or after the school day. We like to dance and I keep thinking of Taylor Swift's Shake it Off song. I think is like the perfect song to play in the car on the way home and working on shaking it off. So, being a empathic mom and my husband is an empath as well we often have moments where we take on the energy of the day, we take on the energy of our kids, or we just have a moment where we strike out at them and we don't mean to. We're trying to control it. We've had a rough day. What would you say to parents about self-compassion?

Joana Calado:

well, it is obviously having that self-compassion if those events happen, but I would say it's better to stop those events from happening beforehand. So, making sure that you have time for yourself alone, that you're able to recharge, doing that checkup, doing that body scan on your own, for yourself, to understand, okay, what kind of energy am I bringing to the table? Okay, how is my face? Do I have the body language that says I'm welcoming or does it say I'm tired, frustrated, exhausted? What does it say? How are people perceive me? And then is really having that self-compassion of saying maybe I wasn't, didn't have enough hours of sleep, didn't eat properly, I didn't have enough hours of sleep, didn't eat properly, maybe I wasn't with my cup full, so I was just running after I have empty and it's okay, tomorrow will be better.

Joana Calado:

Always apologize. It's so refreshing to have a parent that apologizes the way they are, or I'm sorry. Today I was feeling a bit tired from other things. It had nothing to do with you, but you are the receiving end of this, unfortunately, and I just want to say I'm sorry. That is so refreshing because first, it teaches the kids that it's okay to say I'm sorry and it's okay to to take accountability and responsibility for your mistakes. And then it teaches them that whatever your behavior was, it wasn't only because of them right, they are not inadequate or terrible kids or no, it was. It had other things going on as well. So it's important to have that self-awareness and think accountability.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yes, if we can try to prevent it before it does happen, and then how we can try to work to fix it if it does. Unfortunately, sometimes it happens when we're human Hopefully not as often as it used to. But I'm thinking I don't know if this may have a question about a process that I've been through as a mom and in my journey of motherhood, and I was curious if it relates to the somatic pieces. As I have been raising my kids, who were born gifted, spirited, highly sensitive, it's been challenging at times to keep up with them. They came in with a passion for life.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

They came in very sensitive to being in their human form can be very taxing on their souls at times. And this weekend I actually realized I was picking up my daughter's energy. I was feeling like life is so hard, why does it always have to be so hard? And I was able to say in my mind is this my energy? And it was actually hers, but it gave me more compassion for her. This is what she's feeling. This is the challenge she's going through right now. What would you say, with your background, to mothers using this challenge and this hard piece of raising these kids as an opportunity for spiritual awakening and spiritual connection?

Joana Calado:

What would you say to?

Carrie Lingenfelter:

this piece and this idea.

Joana Calado:

I love that question and I love it especially when you say that your kids came loving life because that is the best way they should. They should and we should not say to kids be quiet and stay still no let them, let them love life.

Joana Calado:

I would say that it's quite important to learn from them and sometimes let them lead the way, obviously within those boundaries that we explained in the beginning, but not cut the fun. They see things, and especially with neurodivergent people, they see the world in such a different way. It's so interesting to bring curiosity and have conversations with them and understand what it means to them and why are they doing the things that they are doing. So I think it's not necessarily wanting to guide them out of it, but wanting for us allowing ourselves to be more playful and a little bit more childlike it's not childish, it's childlike be more curious about life, be more open-minded to different ways of seeing the world, experiencing the world, and respecting that they can do things differently and they're different individuals than us. I don't know if that answers your question, but that's what I thought I should say.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I love it. I definitely agree. I try to say fostering the passion and the love in them, while also trying to teach them some of the skills of being a human and how to function in society, because society may not love that side of them or may not respect them if we don't teach them how to function in some of society's pieces but also keeping the authentic version of themselves.

Joana Calado:

Yeah, I think that functioning part is giving them opportunities to be emotionally intelligent, aware of their emotions and be able to communicate them, aware of boundaries and to be able to communicate them. I can tell you that when I was a kid and I was going with my grandma, we would stop around the village and the old ladies all wanted to kiss my cheek and to me and my grandma would say, kiss the lady. And they would give me those terrible kisses. And nowadays that contact is just too much for me, completely overwhelming. But I feel like I need to do it to appease my parents or appease my whoever it is that is making that request and that teaches to deem your light a little bit, to please others. That's when people pleasing starts oh, you should be like this, you should do this and little things. It seems nothing right. Oh, just kissing the old ladies in the village, but it has an impact.

Joana Calado:

It has an impact. It teaches something. I have a cousin that he's seven and he never I think I can count with five, five times or less that he has hugged me and that's fine, that's his own choice. I don't say, oh, why are you being such a bad boy for not hugging me? Hugging your cousin that you don't see in a million years? No, he doesn't want, that's fine. So it's respecting boundaries. Children to function better is having that emotional intelligence and having a clear pathway of communication to your body. Always ground them and grounding yourself as well, because sometimes we want to know the why and the what for and the what if. But we don't need that. Sometimes we just need to sit with our body and understand how we feel, and that's they are experts at it.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Beautiful. Yes, can you imagine where they'll be if they're able to start that now? Where will they be when they are 30? It's pretty cool to think about raising these kids consciously like this. Yeah, I saved my favorite question for the end. You had mentioned asking about manifestation as a conscious parent and what that looks like in conscious parenting. I was curious what you would say.

Joana Calado:

Yes, I love this because, like I said, especially kids up to the age of seven, they are complete unconsciousness, like you say, complete empaths. They're always getting in information from their senses and the way I do manifestation is through senses. It cannot just be like oh, let me write a letter to Santa of the things that I want and that's it. No, that's not manifestation. It's envisioning, creating a vision, and that vision needs to be sensory stimulating, in the sense that they can almost feel what they want, they can smell what they want and they can experience it as if they are receiving it today, whatever it is that they want. And everyone can do this, not kids, not just everyone. It's whatever your desire is connect with the senses.

Joana Calado:

And that's why kids are experts at manifesting, because they don't have the oh. What if they don't like me? What if they judge me for this? What if I'm not good enough? What if I cannot make enough money to sustain myself? They don't have these worries. So for them is oh, how does this smell, okay. How does this taste, okay. How does this feel? Okay, what color is it and what shape is it?

Joana Calado:

So it's much easier for them to operate in this sense and, as a parent, you can guide them through it. You can say, okay, what do you truly want? Okay, and how would it feel to have it in your hand? Oh, you want a car, I don't know, from Paw Patrol, I don't know, my nephew likes okay, so how does it feel? What color is it? And how would you feel if you received it today? And it's just getting them in that mode and that teaches them that they can do that for forever. And the idea of manifesting it's meant to be fun. It's meant to be fun, it's meant to be exciting, because that raises your vibration to a degree that makes you much more likely to be in alignment with what you truly want. So bring fun to the mix, just playfulness and imagination. Kids are amazing with imagination, so in that sense, we can learn from them as well.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

It's interesting. I did a guided visualization for my kids before they started school this school year and we pictured walking into the school and feeling in our body at ease and happy to be there and loving to be at school. And I told them to picture walking into the classroom and my son. He said I see so-and-so as my teacher and I said let's not focus on having the specific teacher, let's focus on the feeling because, I don't want you to necessarily manifest who you think you want.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I want you to feel the happiness, because sometimes we think we know the teacher that will bring us the most happiness. Maybe something else changes because you were meant to be in this other class for whatever reason.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

So, that's what we choose to focus on when we're doing. I love to do that with the kids before the school year starts. I was going to ask you when you're talking about manifestation and as an adult, we can say, yeah, how are we going to get there? How are we going to make the money? What is this process? What do you term trusting in the right place in the right time in the process? What do you like to term that? Is it holding the faith? Some people say faith in the process. What do you like to term it.

Joana Calado:

So it is faith and releasing the outcome. But I have an analogy that it makes me. I think it's easier to understand. So imagine the universe being the satnav we say in the UK satnav, but in America I would say maybe the GPS. Right, so the universe is your GPS, and when you want to manifest something, sometimes you don't have the full postcode or the full address. Sometimes you just have oh, I want to feel happier, I want to feel loved. That is a bit vague for manifestation, but maybe that would be the equivalent of having the state or the county or a little city in the GPS.

Joana Calado:

So that is the what you need to understand the what you want, and then with as much detail as you can. Obviously, the bigger, the more complete the address, the easier it will be to get there. But if you don't, that's fine, the city will get you there. And then you need to know the what for and the why, as in why do you want it? What for? So the purpose behind it, because that is going to sustain you, that is going to oh my God, I've been driving for 12 hours. How can I continue? Because of the why. That's what you need to worry about the why and the what. That is your concern. The universe's concern is the when are you going to reach the destination? And the how.

Joana Calado:

And you trust because, the same way, if you don't know the way, you trust the universe. You trust the GPS that it knows any roadblocks, the best way, that sometimes you think, oh, let me go this other way because this GPS, it doesn't know anything, and then it's actually blocked or there's a problem, a lot of traffic, an accident. So the universe, aka the GPS, knows the best route. Trust, trust the same way that you trust the GPS. Trust the same way that you trust when you're driving at night and you have your high beams, I don't know a certain distance and you trust that the road is going to continue. Just trust, trust in yourself that whatever happens, you'll be able to manage it.

Joana Calado:

And trust that sometimes things don't work out the way you want them, because they can be working out even better than you ever considered. So it's trusting and making good questions, because you were saying before that you started to absorb your daughter's energy of, oh, why is this not working out, or why is my life terrible, or something in those lines. So we have a part of our brain, that is the reticular activating system. That is almost like the algorithm of our lives, and so if you are asking those questions, your brain is always looking for the answers and that part of your brain is understanding oh, this is what you're focusing on, so this is your reality. So that's not the case.

Joana Calado:

Your life is not terrible, even if it's terrible for 10 minutes, that's not the full spectrum of your life. So it's having that communication and asking good questions. Instead of saying why doesn't anyone love me? Why can't I get this job that I want? Why are my kids always yelling at me? Why am I always frustrated? It's saying, okay, how can I get to a better place? What is some of the things that I need to be doing to get myself to this, to get this job, to get this promotion, to have more time for myself, to spend more time with my kids, whatever it is, and then releasing the need to have the answer, because there are many forces in this universe that we're not aware that come together to help you achieve what you want.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Perfect. I love the word trust. I think that resonates with me more than faith, and I think I hear the having faith a lot. But I think trusting in it is really powerful too.

Joana Calado:

Yeah, it's stressing because this is a co-creation. It's like you set up the GPS and you tell it where to go and it tells you how to get there and when you're arriving. So that is the reason, and knowing that whenever you're saying, oh my God, how am I going to do this? I can't figure it out, know and trust that it is not for you to figure it out, or at least it's not right now to be figured out.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yes, perfect. Thank you so much, Joanna, for being here today and being a guest, thank you.

Joana Calado:

Thank you for having me, it was lovely.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Well, that's a wrap. Thanks so much for tuning in Changemakers. This is Keri. Well, that's a wrap. Thanks so much for tuning in change makers. This is carrie, and if you haven't done a review for us, five stars and a little few words about what you've enjoyed in our podcast episodes. We would really appreciate it. If you guys would like to ever message me, I would love any questions you have or any feedback. At info at heart to heart lifecom, we also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share. It's heart to heart lifecom. Thanks so much for tuning in and happy life, happy times, change maker families.