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

Finding Flow: Mindful Movement & Authentic Success in Families with Pearl Howie

• Carrie Lingenfelter, CCC-SLP and Pearl Howie • Season 1 • Episode 77

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What does it mean to truly feel alive? In this illuminating conversation with author Pearl Howie, we dive into the transformative power of staying connected to our authentic selves—and helping our children do the same.

Pearl shares her concept of "active meditation," revealing how activities like skiing, hiking, and dancing can create a state of flow where we become fully present. Unlike traditional meditation, these embodied practices harness natural movement patterns that resonate deeply with both children and adults. "It doesn't matter what you're doing," Pearl explains, "when you're 100% present with what you're doing, it becomes a meditation."

We explore the delicate balance between protecting our children and allowing them the freedom to make mistakes. Pearl offers practical wisdom on empowering kids to take ownership of their responsibilities, even when it means facing natural consequences. This approach builds resilience and helps prevent the fear of success that plagues many adults who've been sheltered from failure.

The conversation takes a fascinating turn as we discuss neurodiversity and how different brains thrive in different environments. Pearl's experience with Zumba illustrates how structured, pattern-based activities can create spaces where neurodiverse individuals excel, challenging conventional notions about fitness and social engagement. "My brain is perfect," Pearl asserts, reminding us that our unique wiring enables our unique gifts.

Perhaps most powerfully, Pearl encourages treating our bodies as temples and speaking to ourselves with the same kindness we'd offer a dear friend. This practice of self-compassion becomes a model for our children, showing them what authentic self-acceptance looks like.

Ready to reconnect with your true self? Visit pearlhowie.com to explore her virtual retreat space "Roshanara" and discover workshops on finding your authentic success.

Connect with Pearl Howie:
*Website: https://pearlhowie.com/
*Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pearlescapes/?hl=en

*YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChxr3Q0L5cygvIsAcyaoR4A

*LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pearl-howie-42bb1b120/

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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

Carrie Lingenfelter:

So what active meditation looks like for me is for skiing. I do it when I'm skiing. I don't wear headphones, I keep my ears open so I can hear the swoosh, swooshing, the wind in the trees. I can feel the movement and get my body into the pattern of the movement. And so there's those meditative pieces. And we do it when we're hiking too. So teaching our kids these ideas of movement that can be different than just the ball sports.

Pearl Howie:

Yeah, I think it sounds. That sounds to me very much like being in flow, yes, or being in flow. So it's like, whatever you're doing, just being connected and it's great because you're in that and you just let go of everything and you're just being. I think sometimes we would call it being mindfulness as well, but just being present and being and just being at one, and I love I get that when I'm writing, yeah, and you're just not thinking about anything else. You're so in the moment and I like, oh, it's just wonderful, it doesn't matter what you're doing, like people get it from knitting.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Conscious parents. It's Carrie 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, hi there and welcome back.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

This is Carrie, your friendly, intuitive mama here, and I am so excited I have a fabulous guest that I have welcomed back to the show. We had her on our Thanksgiving episode and she was so much fun and had such amazing insights. I have Pearl Howie here today and I love that. She has dedicated her career and her time toward helping people feel alive through her accomplished books and programs that she has, and thank you so much, pearl, for coming back. Thank you for having me.

Pearl Howie:

We had a lot of fun last time, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yeah, it's so much fun to connect again and already know somebody and have them back. I love that experience. So I was so excited because today we get to dive more into your background and things that you bring to the table for families, and you and I were speaking a little bit earlier. I love that you have this piece that you've talked about with the mission of helping kids to stay conscious into adulthood is to help them stay connected with themselves, to help them stay connected to their hearts into adulthood. Do you find any ideas about the cause of these fears of success that you find with adults? I think part of it, too, is allowing our kids to make the mistakes now, at the young age, because the stakes are not as high right when we're adults and we're making the mistakes, the stakes are a little bit higher. So if we are helicopter parenting right now and we're controlling their environment so much to where they don't make a mistake For instance, my son he's in third grade now in the US, in Colorado, and I just allow him to do his own reading log.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Sometimes it's lost, sometimes it's on the ground in the mudroom, sometimes it's on the floor in his bedroom, but he's in charge of it and I'm letting him figure out how to organize himself, how to plan out that month of reading log info, and that's his own thing, that he's in charge of, right. So if he makes a mistake and he loses it, then he has the consequence of that for himself. Then that's something that I've decided that he needs to start learning about and being in charge of, because a lot of the times it's buddy, you need to pick up your socks. Buddy, you left your rc truck on the front lawn. There's a lot of pieces right where I'm having to take care of him, so I'm trying to teach him a little bit of that independence and allowing him to make those mistakes now. So I think that's where I was going with the mistakes.

Pearl Howie:

Oh, totally I think, do you know? I think the thing is because we started talking about like things like wandering off and talking to strangers and stranger. We've started this conversation at a very talking about quite what we could call quite high risk behavior. Yeah, yeah, more higher. So when we talk about things like that and it is really challenging. And then when you talk about things like doing your homework- yeah and letting kids make their own mistakes and figure it out.

Pearl Howie:

That's brilliant place for kids to learn about consequences. It's so great for people to learn about consequences. That's what it's all about, really, isn't it? Having challenges, setting homework, all those kind of things what happens if I don't do my homework? Then find out. You're going to find out I'm. My mum was so hands-off when it came to homework. She was very much look, that's up to you, that's completely up to you. And, yeah, I was very aware that that was completely up to me and I think that for me, that was really useful because it makes you very, it does encourage you to be organized, yeah, and not expect somebody else to keep telling you hey, you need to do this, you need to do that, you need to do the other yeah and but again it's.

Pearl Howie:

Sometimes it's also I remember helping my nephew with his homework because he got into a real model and as I was going through it I was like this is incredibly complicated and confusing the way that the school were setting up the assignments online and I was like how do you keep this straight? You've got each week, every other week, you have a different lesson in the same slot and they put the homework online before they've done the lesson. So it's saying you need to. The homework's available to do, but and I was like but you and he was doing it and I was like, wow, this is. And he said, yeah, but I haven't done the lesson yet. I said why are you doing the homework? So I'm just trying to get it done. I'm like, no, you need to do the homework for the lessons you've actually done because you're making it harder on yourself.

Pearl Howie:

But honestly, at that point it was like when I went into, I thought you know what? The school, or actually they've got a problem. They've got a problem. I think sometimes we do assume it's the kids have got the problem. You're like, actually, sometimes it's so, not, it's just, it's this problem. And I think again it's like that isn't it, that kids know that they can come to you and say, look, I don't understand this. And then if it was my mom, she'd be like, yeah, you've got to figure it out. She really, she literally be saying that and I wouldn't have had somebody in my corner to go to then say, actually, the school have made the mistake, not you. Yeah, yeah, and unfortunately that it's really all this stuff. As you say, it's all a learning curve and sometimes the consequences are huge if you don't have that support all the way through. I remember my sister.

Pearl Howie:

Actually, she failed one of her exams because they taught them the wrong syllabus oh man for two years oh and then, yeah, exactly, and then they only found out they only found out once the exam results came out that they had actually been studying. They studied the wrong thing, and that's two years of so again. Sometimes it's we that's a huge issue, but again it's trying to.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

You would think at that age that you could trust the school to provide a good learning yeah, it's to each kid, right, it's independent and it sounds like those are external factors, right, instead of Instead of an internal factor.

Pearl Howie:

Totally. But I think sometimes that, as hard as it is and as bad as that is, at the same time it's also we learn as we grow up that that institutions make big mistakes and that they're not infallible and that we cannot put a hundred percent trust into any institution. Really, and sometimes that's an important lesson that we all need and our kids need, as they get older to question authority and to question what they're being told. It's so important. So it's really hard because when they're younger we're all like, yes, listen to the teacher and trust the teacher and do what the teacher tells you to do, and this kind of thing. And as they get older it's hang on a second you have a right to question your teachers.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

You have a right to do that opinion. Yeah, yeah, and part of that also, I think, is teaching our kids to feel empowered enough to have that question. Do you have any tips for staying empowered or finding empowerment as an adult or as a child staying empowered? Do you have any thoughts on empowerment that?

Pearl Howie:

was one my husband and I were discussing this morning was empowered.

Pearl Howie:

I'm always talking about listening and I think when you listen to your kids and it doesn't matter what they're saying, when you listen to them and you find them interesting, and I think when you really listen, you always find them interesting. It's when you're, it's when you're half listening, when you're doing other things that that they you know, you think, oh, they're talking about this. And when they're four and they're just telling you everything, you start to tune out. And I think we we need to get good at waking up that listening. And it's the same with older people, it's the same with your parents. As you get older, they talk a lot and then some in there there's some really important things that they tell you that you have to stay switched on to listen to. In amongst all of that there's something really important that they just tell you in amongst it all. But I think when you have I suppose one of the things is as an auntie there's a thing when you're like, oh, you're always saying to the kids oh, you're so interesting, oh you're so brilliant, oh you're so wonderful, and that is really empowering for them because they do. They feel like somebody wants to hear everything, somebody wants to hear all these silly stories and we're sometimes as parents. We do tune out and we don't want to listen to them because you still haven't got them to pick up their socks and that's what you want to talk to them about, and it's so. There's that of really really listening, and I could always say that as an adult, it's about doing that for yourself. It's actually listening to your own, listening to your heart, and sometimes we have that. There are things about ourselves that are difficult and annoying and boring, but that's because we've got used to ourselves and we've stopped listening.

Pearl Howie:

And if we stop, I think when I always say, one of the best practices you can have is you stop, and always it's a long meditation we do, but generally it's all about just reflecting and looking at yourself as your own best friend. And I always remember like I was. It's a silly thing. I remember I was in a gym once and I was like probably on a treadmill. I was running and you look along and you see all these people and it's one of those classic things that we have often, especially women, in that we don't, we can be quite negative about our own bodies, and I remember I was on a treadmill, running and I looked over and I went, wow, that woman's got fantastic legs. I wish my legs looked like that. And then I was like those are my legs, those are my legs, and I'm looking, oh wow, because I think it's somebody else.

Pearl Howie:

So when we reflect and we stop and we just reflect back and look at ourselves as a good friend, as a best friend, and so much of the time you look at you think I would never talk to a friend the way I talk to myself in my head, I go, I'll just get on with it. And if I stop and I reflect and I look at all the things that I've been through or I've done, or how hard I try at certain things, or the effort I put, and I look like as a friend, I'd always say you are amazing, you are incredible with what you do. And it's so easy to take ourselves for granted. You know, take and take our families and our kids and our parents for granted. And if we just stop and we, we look and we listen, we go, oh wow, you're amazing.

Pearl Howie:

And that is so empowering when we realize and even if we're not doing very well at something, we can look and say why am I doing? Why am I not doing very well at this and a lot of times it's I haven't given myself any time, I haven't given myself what I need to do this thing, whatever it is. We can say, oh, you know what, this is something that's really hugely challenging for me and I'm doing great. I'm doing really great because I'm showing up and I'm trying. So that can be another thing, that the way of looking at things and that's if you said that to a kid about anything they were doing, that would make them feel so great.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I love that. I love your being your best friend. I was listening. I was watching the holiday recently and there was a part that I really loved where there was the older gentleman telling one of the main characters you need to be. You need to be the main character in your story. Don't be the side character, the sidekick character be the main character, the sidekick character, be the main character.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

And I love that because, right, it's like your best friend is telling you your best friend yourself is telling you how to be the main character. These pieces that we love about the main character and these empowering pieces, and I'm thinking in my mind as you're saying it how could we model that for our children I'm raising? I have a six-year-old, almost nine-year-old daughter or seven-year-old sorry, almost seven-year-old daughter here, and the area I live in Colorado is very healthy. We're like a bubble of health. Did you just do your triathlon this week? Yes, I did. I just hiked six miles. I'm going to go for a ski later, like it's very healthy where we live. But I am an. I have an Argentinian, spanish body type where we have our hips and our thighs and we are built like a guitar, and my daughter is already built like a guitar, and so my husband and I are thinking we need to start now. We need to start this mindset and show her these empowering pieces about our body type.

Pearl Howie:

Maybe I don't have the energy to run the five miles today, but yeah, that's a really specific type of fitness and I tell you, I will tell you this, I was the most unathletic child, you know, and I like practically basically failed p, failed sports like all the time, because anytime there was a sport that I was any, anytime it's a sport that I was any. Any time it was a sport that we got introduced to that I was any good at, they went. No, we're just gonna go back and do like netball. I don't think we have netball over there. It's the way. I hate it. I'm sorry for anybody who loves it. It's basically like basketball, but you can't bounce the ball, oh, so you have to just pass it and it's what they make girls play. And I have the worst hand to eye coordination when it comes to balls and I am terrible at running. Yeah, and also I have inherited something from my mother which is called you get a ball in the face anytime you go near a court, when it doesn't matter if it's a tennis ball or a volley. I've been smacked in the head by so many balls. I think the worst one was a volleyball. I got really like a volleyball smacked right in my face and it's my mum. You, my mum, can't go anywhere near somewhere because literally, if she goes anywhere near that she would get a ball in the head, and so I was the most uncalled. And then at a certain point I've got to go to the gym because I'm getting older and I can't lose this kind of thing. And then I started going to Zumba. I became a Zumba instructor and I love it. I've been to conventions three times. I did it full time for six years. I was nominated as best Zumba instructor in London.

Pearl Howie:

Women and some men as well, who were like I hate sport, I hate exercise, I hate this, and then they would come in and they would have so much fun and they were like a kid again, like a teen. But I love clubbing, I love clubbing, I've always loved dancing and oh yeah, and I always remember I had girls coming in because I did also did Zumba kids, which was I did mainly with primary school children, but I often have a lot of like young adults coming in with their parents or on their own coming in. And I remember I had one girl and I'm sure you don't mind saying me saying this she was. She was doing her silver Duke of Edinburgh award, which we do over here. A lot of places do it and you have it's.

Pearl Howie:

You have to do some kind of physical thing. And so she came to me and she said, exactly was two of them? And they said, could you do us a letter to say we've come to your class and we've been doing a class and how we've done? And I say, of course, no problem at all. And one of them, she said to me her p teacher was just had just said you're never going to do it. And she was just so cruel to her and when, and she just kept saying to me, she's saying I wish I had you. I wish you'd, I'd you'd been in my school when I was 12 or 10 or whatever, because I'd have been doing this, for I'd have been doing this for six years. I would have loved it because and it's not even some people have that sort of and, as you say, having a latin body type.

Pearl Howie:

When you go and do zumba, come on, yeah, and there's a zumba. Kids is what we have for the kids and it's all about I love it because you don't. With the kids, class is different, we do it differently, but it's like you learn about the history of the music and the rhythms and the countries and that culture and who doesn't love that? It's just amazing. But I think it's just embracing. There's all kinds of I love walking and I love going up mountains, I love climbing up mountains and things like that, and yeah, and it's like why do we make fitness this really niche? This little tiny thing? You have to do weights or you have to run oh my gosh, running, oh, don't hate running, oh no.

Pearl Howie:

And I remember every time before I was at the gym I would just be counting the minutes really, and doing the weights and doing the thing and all that. Oh no, and I have to do a bit. Now I have some physio exercises I have to do and I, when it's really bad, you just put music on and we put music on, it's easy yes, it's so powerful yeah, and that's my daughter.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

She said she, she started ballet when she was three and a half. It was after the pandemic, and I was like I think she would love dance, she loves music. Music is her reset. And so she came to me and she said, mom, ballet is too slow and I want hip hop. So I know Zumba will be up her alley one day. And yeah, what you? I think everything you're describing is feeling alive. Or there's also this new theme. I don't know how new it is, but there's the active meditation theme. Right, there's the feeling connected when you're hiking or walking or skiing. So what active meditation looks like for me is for skiing. I do it when I'm skiing. I don't wear headphones, I keep my ears open so I can hear the swoosh, swooshing the wind in the trees. I can feel the movement and get my body into the pattern of the movement.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

And so there's those meditative pieces and we do it with we're hiking too, so teaching our kids these ideas of movement that can be different than just the ball sports.

Pearl Howie:

Yeah, I think it sounds. That sounds to me very much like being in flow yes being in flow, yeah.

Pearl Howie:

So it's like, whatever you're doing, just being being connected, and it's great because you're in that and you just you let go of everything and you're just being you. Just, I think sometimes we would call it being mindfulness as well, but just being present and being and just being at one, and I love I get that when I'm writing, yeah, and you're just not thinking about anything else. You're so in the moment and I like, oh, it's just wonderful, it doesn't matter what you're doing. Like people get it from knitting. Yep, hate, I hate knitting. But cooking sometimes I really get into flow when I'm cooking, especially when I'm being experimental, and just let me try this and let me try that and it doesn't really matter, it doesn't matter.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I get it with washing dishes. It's like the one thing that really I can just peace out, check out. I can just be calm, I have no thoughts. Sometimes I'm working through a thought, but oftentimes I just have no thoughts going and I'm just thinking about the motion and the cleanliness and the procedure. And I just have no thoughts going and I'm just thinking about the motion and the cleanliness and the procedure and I just follow that.

Pearl Howie:

Well, in a Buddhist village, what they always say is that you should wash dishes as if you're washing the baby Buddha and being present and being 100 again, being in flow, being 100, 100 doing what you're doing and it and it's. Whether it could be gardening, it doesn't matter. When you're like 100% present with what you're doing, it becomes this being in flow and it's yeah, it's like a meditation, it is a meditation, it's a form of meditation. And I think the thing with exercise it's really interesting, especially January. You've got the crazy exercise stuff going on. Everybody's saying, oh, honestly, honestly, all this stuff and everything. And it's brilliant that so many people like engage and they're joining the gym and they're going and I love it. A little extra push that says come on and do this. And it's funny.

Pearl Howie:

I was in, I was swimming yesterday and I set myself like goals with swimming. I love it and I love being present, everything. But I excuse me, I I want to do a little bit more because I can cheat myself. I get in and I do a bit and then I go, oh, so I've only been in five minutes. So I do set myself goals and I was swimming and I thought you know what, bring yourself back and remembering that swimming is what we could call. It's a puja for your body. So it's a blessing for your body, an act of an act of really seeing that my body is my temple and it's just and maybe that's something as well to bring into when we're working with kids and fitness and exercise or active any kind of activity is that, whatever you do, it's a beautiful thing of loving your body.

Pearl Howie:

And I think sometimes we lose that in goals of, okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to exercise because I need to be healthy or because I need to lose weight or build muscle, or I need to improve my coordination, or all right, well, because I want to do an activity with my friends or anything, and sometimes we forget that the very basic thing is this is an act of love for my body, this is just a beautiful thing. In the same way as when I'm washing my hair, it's OK, I have to wash it because I'm all sweaty, but it's also an act of love and caring for myself and for my body and it can just be that, it can just be joyful. Sometimes we've got so many different messages being bombarded at us and saying you know what. It's just kindness, it's just being kind to ourselves.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yeah, I love that body is a temple, I think, especially right after I had babies and you have the mom body. I remember I just started this act for myself in kissing my hand and saying I love you. I love you the way you are. You created this tiny human and I love you for what you are. You've done miracles already, so I started to do that.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I have to go back to it because I think you ebb and flow in your different routines, but seeing yourself for the gift that you are, and then modeling this for our kids, and it's coming to me to think about doing that in the mirror, for my daughter is looking in the mirror and being like I really love myself for who I am. I love me for my smile that makes other people smile. I love me for my eyes, for seeing the rainbow in a storm, or these types of things that we can start to teach our kids now so that they can feel complete in themselves as they are, especially with our neurodiverse kids like my two kids are just so deeply feeling that, and their brains, being gifted too, are so overactive, so it's very easy to go to the anxious piece, right, it's easy to go to the overactive piece of oh, I really need to train 5,000 miles if I want to accomplish the body I want. You know what I mean.

Pearl Howie:

I think I recognize myself in that because being neurodiverse myself and some of that is problematic because I also suffer from migraines and I also have the thing where my brain goes like a million miles an hour and I think it's really coming to the understanding of I am perfect and my brain is perfect and I was thinking about this recently especially coming to this understanding later in life, like a lot of people are, especially women are coming into this understanding later in life because our understanding of what it is to be neurodiverse is and it's something that really impacts when you hit around 50, when you're going through perimenopause and a lot of people the symptoms it's a bit like when you go through puberty. A lot of people understand that they're neurodiverse when they're going through puberty because of the hormonal changes. So it can make things a bit clearer. Okay, this is same thing with perimenopause. A lot of people when they're going through it and it's funny sort of talk when you start talking to people like how many people only come to the understanding of that they are neurodiverse. And also our understanding of what it means to be neurodiverse has changed from. I remember doing trainings in my sort of 20s and 30s when I was supporting people with autism and the training was okay that this is the line where we're gonna say someone's autistic, and now we, that line is out here and we would say somebody is autistic at a much, we say lower level, down on the spectrum perhaps. So our understanding has really changed, especially for women. But one of the things I always think to myself is my brain is perfect, because if I didn't have that million miles an hour, I couldn't do the things that I do, especially considering that sometimes with migraine, I'm completely incapacitated. So it's almost like I have a. It's funny.

Pearl Howie:

I remember somebody saying it's like having a Ferrari mind and bicycle brakes. So that's so you go. Oh, okay, that's one way of looking at it. But the other thing is you say, okay, get off the bike track and get on the race track, because then you're using that Ferrari mind and you will tie yourself out, guarantee you. I guarantee you, yes, you use that and you will tie yourself out. And it's much easier than trying to drive a Ferrari at three miles an hour, because everybody else is going at three miles an hour, like when you're in at school if you're in a regular school when you're trying to not be that strange person who's going at Ferrari type speeds.

Pearl Howie:

But the other thing I was thinking about is I thought you know what, again, it's like in terms of society if we didn't have people whose brains go at million miles an hour. Look at all the things that wouldn't have been invented. We wouldn't have all of these things. So it was something you said also about your, your post-birth body, and I think that's sometimes we think of it in those terms. Say, for example, you having a baby. But I was thinking myself.

Pearl Howie:

I was having a time when you're going to say perimenopause and all the hormones and like that, and it's very troublesome and problematic, but at the same time, when you look at it on a bigger picture, you think, but if we didn't have these changes and hormones and shifts and there would be no human race, we wouldn't have any babies. Yes, so this stuff that we think of as challenging and problem, it's absolutely essential. Yes, it's absolutely essential. So it's really awesome about us trying to say okay, okay, yes, it can be really uncomfortable and difficult and there are times we do need to get support. We absolutely do need to reach out and get support because things become so difficult for us, but at the same time, how much of that is when you look at and say you know what? This is absolutely essential. It's abs. If I didn't have this brain, I wouldn't have written 80 books. There's no way.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

That's what I was just thinking when you said that. I was like nobody else has the time or the energy. That's, it's amazing, but it connects, yeah it connects.

Pearl Howie:

It happens very quickly when I'm in that, when I have a subject, when something is, when I'm passionate about something, everybody knows about it. Everybody knows and it's funny enough talking about Zumba earlier, there's so many people who are on the autistic spectrum, who are instructors or who go to Zumba a lot and it's funny because you think, when you think about the classic things about autism, which are the sensory issues which I have, and sometimes social situations, things like that, it's amazing. But the thing is about a Zumba class is that there's a structure, so it actually is quite relaxing in terms of a social situation, like when I go into a Zumba class. I know this, I know all the rules of this social. It's very easy for me to interact socially with people, whereas it might not be. Honestly, just going in the changing room is sometimes more stressful because some people are over here having a conversation, some people are and I don't know whether I'm supposed to join in or I'm not. And if I go into a zumba class, it's really clear and I'm either in the class or I'm at the front and I'm teaching. And there's a lot of people who have been diagnosed with things like Asperger's we used to call Asperger's, who have found a new way of having a social life because they've gone into an environment where it's structured.

Pearl Howie:

And also this is the thing with Zumba and music and dance and choreography it's a lot of patterns, it's's so many patterns, so when you go in and you it's not hand to eye, coordination, balls and things like that, it's patterns. With the music there's a pattern the verse, the chorus, the bridge. There's a pattern with the terms of the way the body moves. If we're doing tango, it's a hexagon, it's okay, so it's really easy. If you're somebody who is good at picking up patterns and repetition, and okay, and I'm going to do this cue, and okay, it's really easy. If you're somebody who is good at picking up patterns and repetition, and okay, and I'm going to do this cue, and okay, it's like a game and it's really easy for me. So you get to. If you have a certain kind of brain, it's really easy and you get to be really good at something. And if you're not good at sports and you've never been good at sports, you come in and suddenly you're really good at something and it's wonderful. It's just wonderful.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

You come in and suddenly you're really good at something and it's wonderful. It's just wonderful. It makes so much sense, that pattern, and they know what's coming up, you know what to expect. Whereas I think of my son in a basketball game. He's the nine-year-old playing basketball and my husband and I were saying you have to process very quickly what. I just got thrown the ball, or I just got the rebound, and then what do I do next? And it's like sometimes you can see, oh, the brain doesn't keep up. Yet when they're nine years old, they don't know, they can't see the person next to them is open because of their visual spatial cues. So there's all these pieces of it that can be more challenging, whereas Zumba, when you understand what's coming next, it's predictable. There's a pattern, there's a rhythm, there's a beat. So all those pieces make so much sense.

Pearl Howie:

Yeah, if you get it wrong if you get it wrong in a zumba class, you get it wrong we laugh. People love it.

Pearl Howie:

When in as an instructor, if you get it wrong, people love it whereas in a basketball yeah, basketball game you're playing and you're in a team and the stress level of I've got to get this right, and even people who play at the top level say basketball, say you go to NBA or whatever. The strategy that they have to figure out is intense. You could sit somebody down and you could any game. You could sit somebody down and say what should this person do in this situation? And they would have a really hard time. Who's it, who's the really famous basketball player?

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I don't even know, I don't follow sports michael jordan.

Pearl Howie:

Michael jordan, you know him okay, but I think he's the one. I think he's the one and I think the story about him is this is that he he's watched more basketball than anyone's ever watched, in terms of he was constantly when he was on tour and everything. And people would say he was always in his room, always watching videos of games, always watching, trying to crack the code of, not just the physical thing, you say the strategy and trying to figure that out. Yeah, so you can go what it's like. Yeah, that's something really challenging up to the top level. And also here it's soccer, football, soccer, here oh my gosh, and like, when people make mistakes.

Pearl Howie:

When people make mistakes, they play football here. Pressure the pressure, the people make mistakes and it's you see it, at the high level. Honestly, I don't know if you saw when england lost the euros, the men's team sorry, not socially, the men's team lost you and the fallout of that and you just think and I always talk about that in terms, it's so weird, like in my book. So I wrote the book in 29, end of 2019, and I wrote a chapter about, like, fear of success and it was about what happens in a football match if people are called up to do penalties and they don't get it. And it's so weird because that's exactly what happened two years, three years later and and it's this thing of, for the team to get to the final is the best. I think it was the best that the men's team had done since 1960, since 1966, since they were finalists, they won the world cup and the thing is, if you think about it, if they had that performance in the quarter final, it would have been oh no, but it would have been at that level. But because they did even better and they were in the actual final and they ended up going through extra time and then they finally got to the penalties and it was so close, it was literally it was like really nail biting stuff. But because they lost at the final thing, the devastation, the fallout, the, the vitriol, the abuse that the players received just staggering. And you think this is one of the reasons why we develop fear of success. Okay, because it's like it's easier to fail at a lower level than to keep to keep doing well and fail at a higher level, because and it's much worse in that environment for people to fail to come second you know, if they come fourth or fifth or eighth or whatever, they wouldn't have had the drama, they wouldn't have the abuse, they wouldn't have anything like that. And you, suddenly you look at you say we are not supporting people to do their best, we're not supporting people to do their best. And if any of that creeps in at kids level sport we're teaching kids yeah, fail quickly, fail early, don't let anybody build up expectations about you or your performance or what you're going to do, and that's what we are teaching them. So we are actually teaching them fear of success, because if you go all the way and then you fail at the last hurdle, you're gonna get punished in a really horrible way.

Pearl Howie:

The police were looking into all the online abuse that the players were receiving.

Pearl Howie:

People were arrested, people lost their jobs because of the things that they wrote on social media over the football match, and the players and the manager received terrible abuse as well, and it's a bit like somebody going, say, in american football, if a team goes to the super bowl and they come in second, that they get more abuse than if they hadn't ever made it to the Super Bowl in the first place. So are we doing that to our kids with the sports? Are we doing that with our kids in an academic sense as well, or are we saying what we should always be saying, which which is just do your best, and I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you if you come in, like I always say when I'm a teacher, as a fitness instructor, I'm always saying to everybody is show up, you show up and you do your best, and if you do a little bit, it's great, if you do a lot, it's great. If you can't get that move, it doesn't matter, you can try again.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

You can try again yes, we started very young, we started very early and there there are pieces of that. You see, at kids games. I think we're much more aware of it than we used to be. I was interviewing a coach recently. He was like a more mindful coach and he was talking about how you focus on the growth that you've seen in that season for yourself. You don't focus on the wins, you don't focus on winning each game, you look at the growth for yourself. So that's what we say to our kids a lot. You said try hard. I like how hard you tried this game.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I like how much effort you put into it. I can see you worked so hard at this and I'm so proud of you for doing what you could, doing your best. So that's what we like to say in our house yeah, yeah, and it's.

Pearl Howie:

It's great when you win the things and it's great if you come first. It's really nice, but it's not always the thing that makes people happiest. It's funny. I was thinking about the fear of success and we've got the Oscars coming up soon and it's one of those things. Very often.

Pearl Howie:

You often hear stories from people when they've won an Oscar and they will say that's when they've hit their absolute rock bottom and it's like one of those things that happens to a lot of people when they win an Oscar and everybody's like, oh, you should be so happy. And that's the moment when they go. This doesn't feel the way I thought it was going to feel. And it's when they often realise that you know what all those sacrifices that they've made in order to get to this place were not worth it and it doesn't fill you up. It's. And often you often hear stories about people saying the day they won the oscar was like the worst day of their life or the next day, because that was a moment when they realized that their life just wasn't it. It's you're following a path and when you're really wanting something and you're going after it. And when you're really wanting something and you're going after it and you've got all these pressure and everybody's saying yeah, and life will be perfect when I win the Oscar and life will be brilliant, and then they get there and it's it's just so empty, it's not real authentic success, it's like an illusion of success. And I think that's when people realize that a lot of those times of false success is when we realize that this is not the life that we want to live. This is not what we want, and perhaps one of the things we can do is keep our eye on our kids and see when they're experiencing that as well.

Pearl Howie:

Sometimes, when sometimes good things happen and you go and you notice them kind of being a bit down and it's listen and talk to them and instead of going you should be. Often we kind of go oh, you should be happy because of this and you should be happy because of that. And sometimes when we listen, we go, do you realize they've worked so hard for something and then they achieve it but actually it doesn't bring them happiness or joy because it wasn't really what they wanted. And perhaps sometimes it's also doing it because they're trying to please us, because they think it's important to us, so it's hey, what's important to me, make my mum happy, make my dad happy and then they get there and it's.

Pearl Howie:

It's not enough. Yeah, because they haven't really done what they. In order to achieve this, they've had to give up that which was actually more important to them. And, honestly, working at high levels in finance with people who have, I've worked with so many people who've got all kinds of money and state and all kinds of things and it's like sometimes somebody does a lot to get that really shiny thing the car, the house, the job, the business whatever it is, and even the diamond ring, some people, the idea of getting married, and and then there's a crash because it you know what.

Pearl Howie:

That was a trophy. That wasn't like, it wasn't what I wanted, it wasn't important to me, it was just something that I thought would make me happy or that everybody told me was going to make me happy. And we often see that crash with people who spend all their time. They go on, they're great at school, college, they go to university, they get their degree, they get their career, they do all that kind of thing, and then they have depression or they have a breakdown and we go, but you have everything. But they didn't get to.

Pearl Howie:

But the thing is, it's like they didn't get to go and be an artist, which might be what was true to them.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

It's staying connected, right. Staying connected to hear what you truly want, what's true in your heart.

Pearl Howie:

I think it's just really, and it's the same whether it's kids or anybody in your life, it's you know what, it's listening to what's coming from them and also just saying you know, know what, whoever you are authentically, whoever you are, is I love you.

Pearl Howie:

I, my love is unconditional. And if you, if you start dating, if you're going out with somebody, that's great, if it makes you happy. But it's what makes you happy, not what I think about it. It's your business and it's hard because you want, you want them to be happy and they tell you they want something and then you're really encouraging and then they're like actually, no, I don't really want that anymore, and you're like okay, okay, that's okay, that's okay, you can have, you can do that, you can do this, that's okay and it's it's. It's very difficult because disappointing your parents can be very painful, at whatever age you are, and sometimes you know it, your parents can be very excited about something you're doing and the reason you're doing it is because it's just it's what, it's who they are, not who you are that I've seen that a lot too.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yeah, then you're never gonna feel fully successful in your heart for sure. Thank you so much, pearl, for all of your wonderful insight, and I wanted to have you touch we didn't get to touch on your virtual retreat that you have. Yes, did you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Pearl Howie:

Yeah, it's quite new and it's a free to access space and it's really. It's built and channels all the amazing places that I've been to in my life some of the most amazing places and the vibe of a retreat space, which is somewhere that you can just come and have the space to be yourself and to do the practice of just being authentically yourself and figuring out who that is yeah, it's called Roshanara by Pearl Escapes, and the translation of that is the light of the gathering. So it's a community space so that you can see each other and you can. So, like other social media, you can actually connect with other people. So we have a very stringent code of conduct to keep it family friendly. It's not for kids, but it's family friendly, so it's something you could actually do with your, with your kids, with your teenage. You don't have to hide the laptop when you want to do some. If you want to go on that kind of thing and we've also got some.

Pearl Howie:

I've just been working on a series of workshops which are all about finding your authentic success, so it's called authentic success your way, and there's seven of those and I'm just now putting those on and again free to access so you can go on and do the workshops and they're all the videos are filmed as a retreat, so they're all filmed around here me sitting on the beat and in the woods and in the hotel and to really give you that sense of space and getting away, because I think so often we need that perspective, we need to feel as if we've come away, so that we can turn around and reflect back on life, and I think that's what retreats are all about is just trying to give you. So I know it's not the same as coming on a real life retreat, but I know that so many people want to do that, especially this time of year, and it's very difficult with time, money, all that kind of logistics, so I wanted to give that to people as much as I can really. So that's what Roshanara is all about, and it's based on the heartbeat app so you can actually download the heartbeat app and then have Roshanara on your phone as an app so you can literally just it's like a little heart, and then you just press it and you're straight into roshanara so you can watch the video, you know. So it's great because it's like having it, it's like having a free well-being app. Um, yeah, so I'm gonna.

Pearl Howie:

I've sent you the link, so it's like a little invite.

Pearl Howie:

you have to have an invite because that's the way they set it up, so that kind of protects the community really. So you need, like the little, the password.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Oh, my, okay, we'll figure out how to include that in the show notes, cause I think other people would love that Maybe if they go to your website. Is that the best?

Pearl Howie:

Yeah, if you go to my website, it's pearlhowiecom, and if you go to contact and just join my newsletter or you can join my newsletter on linkedin as well, and so I'm sending the invitation obviously out to everyone on my newsletter and that will probably be on every week. So you get a newsletter once a week and so the link will be on there and then you can go straight. And also it's really useful for me if people tell me what they find works doesn't work. Still very new, it's about a month old, but the whole idea is that it's going to be also because I have a program, fear of success instructors, so that's going to come on there as well. So, like all the resources for fear of success instructors and because I think that's the thing is that more we, I just feel like it's a training that everybody should have, like all teachers should have and anybody who's trying to support people.

Pearl Howie:

Parents, yeah, definitely, because the thing is it's very simple, really fair success. Once you see it, it's like one of those magic puzzles. Once you see it and you go, oh yeah, and then you can really support people and help them. So that's it's all about just trying to help people feel alive and just take time out as well when you sometimes you just need to. I'm lucky I live down here. It's so nice, lovely that's beautiful.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yeah, you're very lucky. Thank you so much, pearl. We'll share that. We'll share your site and the show notes today. Thanks so much for being here with us, thank you.

Pearl Howie:

Thank you, it's been lovely. It's always so nice to chat with you. It's just a lovely vibe, thank you, I appreciate that.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Well, that 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 hearttoheartlifecom, we also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share. It's hearttoheartlifecom. Thanks so much for tuning in and happy life, happy times. Changemaker families.