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

Butterfly Minds: Teaching Mindfulness to Kids with Natasha Iregbu

• Carrie Lingenfelter, CCC-SLP and Natasha Iregbu • Season 1 • Episode 79

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Discover the gentle power of mindfulness for your butterfly-minded children with mindfulness expert Natasha Iregbu, founder of Butterfly Minds. Unlike the often-referenced "monkey mind," Natasha's butterfly metaphor beautifully captures both the fluttering thoughts and the potential for transformation that mindfulness offers our kids.

This episode delivers practical, accessible techniques specifically designed for children's developing minds. Learn hand breathing exercises that provide visual and tactile grounding, discover how to teach diaphragmic breathing in child-friendly ways, and explore mindfulness activities that don't require sitting still – perfect for your active little ones. 

Beyond techniques, Natasha shares profound insights about teaching children self-compassion. Many kids, especially sensitive or neurodiverse children, develop strong inner critics at young ages. The powerful practice of teaching children to speak to themselves as they would speak to a friend creates a foundation for lifelong emotional resilience. As Natasha wisely notes, "Train your mind to talk to yourself how you would respond to someone you love."

For busy families, the most liberating mindfulness message is that practice doesn't require lengthy dedicated sessions. Discover how to integrate mindfulness into everyday moments – washing dishes, walking to school, or during family meals. These small moments of presence accumulate into significant wellbeing benefits for the entire family.

The episode also touches on the fascinating intersection between mindfulness practices and occupational therapy techniques, offering special relevance for parents of sensitive or neurodiverse children. Ready to transform your family's relationship with stress and bring more peaceful moments into your daily life? Listen now and discover gentle, effective mindfulness practices your children will actually enjoy.

Connect with Natasha Iregbu:
*Website: https://www.butterfly-minds.co.uk/
*Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/butterfly_minds_/
*Substack: https://butterflyminds.substack.com/
*Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Butterfly-Minds/61561529844436/

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*Website: https://hearttoheartlife.com/
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*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

Natasha Iregbu:

a brain training practice to bring your mind back into the moment, and there's different ways that parents can help children with it. You can do mindful breathing. Some kids like that internal with the breath, and other kids it makes them feel more anxious or stressed, focusing on the breath. So it does depend on each individual child. One that's quite handy for the breath is no, this won't be on the video but a hand breathing, which is when you have your hand open.

Natasha Iregbu:

I'm trying to think if you start with your hand open or closed. Think of your hand open and breathing in with your hand open and then breathing out with it closed and then breathing in with your hand open, and you can do it either way. You can start with your hand closed and then breathe in with your hand open, and you can do it either way. You can start with your hand closed and then breathe in to open. Vice versa. It depends on the person, how they feel. Some people feel comfortable doing it, starting with their hand closed or the hand open, but taking three, three to five breaths with your hand opening and closing as you breathe is a nice visual and tactile breathing activity.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Hi 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.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Hi there and welcome back. It's your friendly, conscious mama here, keri, and I'm so excited. I have a guest who has returned to us from our Thanksgiving episode Natasha here today, and Natasha, she has a company called Butterfly Mines. Natasha, thanks so much for being here, and we have to talk about Butterfly Mines. Thank you for having me. It's nice to be back. So much for being here, and we have to talk about Butterfly Minds. Thank you for having me. It's nice to be back. Yeah, I love the name Butterfly Minds. I think I was chatting with you earlier today actually was posting on your Instagram that I love that name because I use the term monkey minds with my kids. What made you think of butterfly minds?

Natasha Iregbu:

My favorite insects has always been butterflies and then when I first did my mindfulness training for kids the creative mindfulness method that was back in 2020, during lockdown I decided to start training in mindfulness. I knew about mindfulness before, but that's when I started my full teaching mindfulness journey and a lot of the time the teacher would speak about the two different wings of mindfulness. Like a bird, so the mindfulness. The teacher would speak about the two different wings of mindfulness. Like a bird, so the mindfulness of awareness on being one one side and then the other side being compassion and kindness. Because a lot of time for mindfulness it's focused on you're bringing your attention to the moment, but there's not so much spoken about when your thoughts come up to be kind towards yourself. It's the non-judgment part is sometimes missed out or it's not as known about when people are starting a mindfulness practice, like listening to audios and things.

Natasha Iregbu:

So I had that in the back of my mind. So when I was thinking of a name, I thought butterflies. They symbolize like transformation and change. So I wanted my business to be that that people would feel like they're changing from feeling stressed and having busy minds to transform, like a butterfly, to be less busy and calm, with the being kinder and compassionate towards themselves and the butterflies always they still flutter, but a wee bit less fluttering when you're practicing mindfulness to slow down the the thoughts popping up. So it's similar to the monkey mind, like the monkey jumping between the trees, and so they do really learn about that on the course as well, about teaching kids about the monkey mind okay, I love that when you mentioned you, part of the course was talking about compassion you were referring is this correct?

Carrie Lingenfelter:

were you referring to compassion for ourselves and our thought?

Natasha Iregbu:

process. Yes, I think compassion for ourselves. A lot of the course there was in different practices like self-practice that were online for the teachers who were training and within the course as well. So we had mindfulness meditation sips and in the course there was different topics and kindness, being a friend to yourself. To teach kids to be a friend to themselves and to talk to themselves like they're talking to a friend and teaching them compassion for themselves and others and a lot of kids they've maybe have a strong inner critic or are feeling anxious and stressed. So the mindfulness techniques is teaching kids that it's okay to have different thoughts that come into your mind, but to try and not feed the inner critic like self-doubt and doubting yourself. Instead, when the inner critic pops up, to think of if your friend or someone in your family was to say that about themselves how how would you respond? And to train the mind to talk to themselves, how they would respond to someone they love instead.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I love that so much. I feel like with our sensitive, highly sensitive kiddos or neurodiverse kiddos. It's so easy for our butterfly minds to take off and make all of these connections. For our butterfly minds to take off and make all of these connections and sometimes, with the overactive mind, we can oftentimes fill in the gap if people don't say things, but they may make an expression or a face, our mind so often wants to fill in the gap of what they're thinking or saying and that can so quickly translate to the inner critics inside of us.

Natasha Iregbu:

So I love what you're doing, thank you. It works for adults as well. A lot of adults have a very strong inner critic and it's a lifelong practice. It's good to teach kids it because then they'll grow into adults and they'll have it in the back of their minds. But even starting as an adult, to have that at the back of your mind whenever you have a self-critical thought pop up yeah, that's beautiful.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

As far as starting mindfulness with our kids, do you have any tips of what does it look like or how do we? What would be some basics that we could learn or start? I?

Natasha Iregbu:

mean a starting point would be teaching them what mindfulness is, because they might have heard of it but not really, or heard of yoga but never heard of mindfulness before, and so it's explaining. It's a way to train your monkey mind, or train your mind to focus on what you're doing in each moment, so it can be focusing on an activity, like if you're eating your tea or playing an activity. That mindfulness is bringing your full attention and awareness to whatever you're doing, and when different thoughts come into your mind, you can notice the thoughts, but not try not to dwell on the thoughts and just let them pass and bring your attention back to the activity. So it's a brain training practice to bring your mind back into the moment, and there's different ways that parents can help children with it. You can do mindful breathing. Some kids like that internal with the breath, and other kids it makes them feel more anxious or stressed focusing on the breath. So it does depend on each individual child.

Natasha Iregbu:

One that's quite handy for the breath is no, this won't be on the video, but a hand breathing, which is when you have your hand open.

Natasha Iregbu:

I'm trying to think if you start with your hand open or closed.

Natasha Iregbu:

I think it's your hand open and breathing in with your hand open, and then, I think, it's your hand open and breathing in with your hand open and then breathing out with it closed and then breathing in with your hand open, and you can do it either way. You can start with your hand closed and then breathe in to open. Vice versa, it depends on the person, how they feel. Some people feel comfortable starting with their hand closed or the hand open, but taking three, three to five breaths with your hand open and closing as you breathe is a nice visual and tactile breathing activity. That's not you are noticing your breath, but it's not a fully in all bed, all body sensation that you've got a movement practice as well. So I know that some children moving a lot, so that doing their one hand or both hands, even if they're not concentrating on their breath, even just like opening and closing their hands, that's bringing their attention to the movement is a nice activity to introduce to any age of kids or children.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yeah, I love that. I was going to ask you. We recently this weekend, my husband and I took our kids to a mindful class at a Buddhist center here in Colorado and it was really fun because they asked us to count our breaths. We were doing meditation as a big group in a meditation hall. It was really cool and they asked us to count our breaths and then they went around and asked everybody how many breaths they had and there were a lot of people that said 30 or 32 and my husband said I had 72 breaths. The person conducting it said the number the lower the number, the better.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

It is when you're practicing meditation because you want to have the deep, long breath and I was thinking about that because my daughter said she had 72, but I think she said she lost count and she just guessed a number. But it would definitely be like her to be in the 70s because she moves very quickly. Like her to be in the 70s because she moves very quickly. So do you have any when we're working on our breath, even as a grown-up? I was just thinking about that. This is a little off course of what we were talking about, but I think my husband and I are shallow breathers, like I think we bring it breathe in our chest is. I've heard diaphragmic breathing. Is there anything that?

Natasha Iregbu:

we need to know. Yeah, diaphragmic, yeah, yeah, so if you breathe from your chest, you're more likely to have faster breathing, or?

Natasha Iregbu:

more breaths within a minute, but if you have your full breath from your belly upwards, it slows it down. So if you can have your one hand on your belly and then taking a deep breath in noticing your hand moving and your belly expanding, and then, when it reaches the top, breathing out until the air is fully expelled and then breathing in again, slowly, noticing your belly expanding and then again breathing out, and you can continue doing that with one hand on your belly and you can move to putting the other hand on your side to your lowest rib area and then take the breath in again and you can feel your belly and in your side and then slowly exhale and your side falls, belly falls. And in the last section it's putting your hand on your chest and that other hand still on your belly and taking a slow inhale and you can feel the belly, your side and then your chest lift and then slowly exhale and your chest falls, side falls, belly falls. You repeat doing that your breath will.

Natasha Iregbu:

You might notice now your breath might feel a bit slower. So that's it. You can do it any time If it does feel like you're in a situation that's feeling stressed or you just notice your breathing is just really quick, just taking a few moments to put one hand on your belly, or you can put one hand on your belly and your chest and just see if you can notice your breath being from your belly upwards, okay that's really helpful because I don't think the breath gets to our belly for my husband and I, and that really makes sense with how our children are when we ask them to do breaths when they're having a moment.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

So I'm gonna try teaching my kids that with the. My kids are almost seven and almost ten, so I feel like that's something they can definitely practice and try. Yeah, I love that there's also.

Natasha Iregbu:

I've not got it next to me, I usually have it here, but it's in a bag somewhere. It's called a breathing a breathing ball have you seen them before? Or a hoberman's spear. It's like a colourful ball and it's almost like kinetic, like the sticks, but it's all connected in a ball and when it's closed it's squished up. And then you open it up and ask them to take a deep breath in as the ball expands and then breathe out as the ball closes back in, and taking a few breaths like that can help slow down the breathing. The same with your hand as well. The same action, but with a breathing ball. You can get them online in a lot of different places, but they're always popular tools whenever I take it to do workshops or school visits.

Natasha Iregbu:

The kids always love the breathing ball and, yeah, makes them feel relaxed.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I love that. I'm going to use ours because they even have those little balls that expand and you can contract them. They sell them at Target here in the states. I bought one recently. My kiddos love it, and so that would be a great tool to see it yeah, it's visual for the what's happening in their body, as well as the lungs.

Natasha Iregbu:

This is your lungs, with the.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

The ball opening and closing does it get easier to notice your to to build using your diaphragm and breathing into your belly more as you do it?

Natasha Iregbu:

yeah, the more often you do. You then realize when you're not doing it you're like, oh, you almost feel. Do you ever feel like out of breath when you're stressed, that you feel like almost not hyperventilating but you just feel like there's not any space to breathe. Do you practice the belly breathing? Over time You'll notice that when your breath changes it would be quite hard to do belly breathing all the time, but it does. Yeah, being conscious, doing it will help you at times in your subconscious. You will do it at some times.

Natasha Iregbu:

But you probably just don't realise that when you're relaxed you're probably belly breathing, but you won't be consciously paying attention to your breath.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

So when you notice it more, it'll start to calm you when you're breathing that's good to know and I think with a lot of the kids who are neurodiverse sometimes it can come with a core weakness, so a lot of the kiddos go to ot and pt for the core. Does that affect our breathing too?

Natasha Iregbu:

the core weakness yeah, yeah yeah, not. So I don't know that much about for the kids, for the core, but I know that even for for mums. A lot of the exercises postpartum are based on and and developing that core strength. I went to Pilates postpartum Pilates and a lot of it was based on posture, your core and breathing combined, because if you've not got a strong core, it affects your, your back, and then you might not feel the connection between your core as well.

Natasha Iregbu:

If you've had it depends can be either either type of birth depend. If you've got any separation, then you might not be able to feel very much. So, yeah, building the and then you wouldn't realize the connection between your breath as well as your breath, belly breathing.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

So it does all connects that makes so much sense, because conscious breathing is when you're having the moments postpartum that makes so much sense, or even like when I have big kids and needing to have moments of breath. If you're not strong in the core and not able to get there, then that can make it so much harder to calm your body and stay connected.

Natasha Iregbu:

Yeah, ground yeah, and a lot of times people kids and adults will be like tense in your stomach as well. Beginning of, like, my yoga classes usually start with a breath awareness and before I do the breath awareness, I ask people to close their eyes or lower their gaze and notice where they can feel tense in their body, because a lot of time you, when you're just sitting down, you might be unconsciously holding your belly in and not fully relaxing your belly. So invite them to relax your belly, relax your shoulders, your jaw and your forehead, because those are points that a lot of the time don't realise, that your shoulders might feel really tense and it's just relaxing them down or if you're constantly holding your stomach in, just letting it relax and your jaw as well if you're tense in it.

Natasha Iregbu:

It's just a thing that when you're stressed, just carrying a physical reaction that you're carrying that stress and even just relaxing those different points in your body can help you feel more present and relaxed is that something that you can teach kids too?

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I feel like I've heard, even from the dentist, that my daughter she's super sensitive and going through a super sensitive moment and she's been grinding in her teeth yep or if they're having a moment. I can hear them going with the teeth or I see the hands clenched sometimes yeah, yeah.

Natasha Iregbu:

So even just asking her, it might even be that she doesn't realize that she's like grinding her teeth. It might just be an unconscious coping strategy. So you could even ask her just to if she's in a moment that she's like grinding her teeth, it might just be an unconscious coping strategy. So you could even ask her just to, if she's in a moment that she's not like fully heightened. Or especially, try the mindfulness techniques when children are calm, because then they learn it when they're calm and then over time they can then use them when they are dysregulated. So when she's calm you can try a short mindfulness activity so you can just ask her to sit down and to she can be just sitting comfortably and then ask her to notice how she's feeling in her body and ask her just to see if there's anywhere that feels it feels tight. And she might be like like that's all stiff and then she might. Then you say, oh, there's tight.

Natasha Iregbu:

She might like just naturally relax and then you can prompt by saying are you holding your stomach in, are you holding your tummy in?

Natasha Iregbu:

And if you are, see if you can relax your tummy and then relax your hands, your shoulders. Do they feel like they're close to your ears or do they feel uncomfortable, and you can ask her to wiggle her shoulders and just relax her shoulders down and then move into the jaw. You can say relax your tongue, because your tongue is not something that you think about relaxing either. So you could say, like your tongue rests and your jaws and then your forehead, and then have a neutral, our face will just be fully relaxed. And then you can ask her to take a few deep breaths. So you could ask her to take a deep breath in and count, counting to four on the deep breath in, and then slowly exhale, and she could exhale for eight or any number. That depends on each individual person. Some people can hold their breath in for longer and out longer, so you can, as long as the exhale is longer than the inhale, and that helps to relax I love that.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I'm going to try that with her when she's going to bed after we've read our story. We've been doing like guided meditations and type of grounding and releasing energy from the day. So I feel like that would be a really great one to incorporate into that moment for her.

Natasha Iregbu:

Yeah. Does she like meditations? Has she tried meditations like try meditations, like guided meditations audios before? Does she like listening to them?

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I haven't done the guided ones, I've just done the ones that I do with her. Sometimes I do based off of what she loves. I'll do like a princess one with castles and things, or lately we've been having a lot of nightmares. We just, I, started doing like an energy work, one where we're bringing our energy from the core of the earth up to her and spreading it throughout her body and then sending any negative feelings or big feelings from the day into the earth. So we've been trying to do that.

Natasha Iregbu:

Yeah, that sounds like a relaxing bedtime routine.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

It has this last weekend it didn't really help.

Natasha Iregbu:

I've got a short kid's meditation routine. It has this last weekend. It didn't really help. I think it's only four minutes or four and a half minutes so I can send you the link. It's on my website if anyone's interested. But it's a free kids yoga nidra meditation and it's. I've recorded it a while. I think it's like a jungle. I think it's a jungle, a forest. It's a forest meditation.

Natasha Iregbu:

So Yoga Nidra is it's not mindfulness, it's separate to mindfulness, but you are still being present. But there's different aspects to Yoga Nidra. It takes you through different levels of awareness of your body. So it's similar to Reiki how it goes through different levels of your body. Yoga Nidra there'sothers for the kids ones, because it's quite the one I've got. I wrote the script and created it myself. It's quite short, but then there's varying lessons for kids and adults and it's basically the end result is to help you fully, deeply relax, because you're relaxing all levels of your body from. You're relaxing your physical body, your mental and emotional body and, yeah, physical, mental, emotional, yeah, all different layers of the body to help that's great.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I will check that on your website and we'll put your website in the show notes too, because yoga nidra, you had mentioned that, that's really yeah to try, so moms can do it as well, or parents yeah as well.

Natasha Iregbu:

Yeah, yeah, it's a good practice, for usually for adults, around 20 to 30 minutes is a good beginner. Yoga nidra what is your favourite type of meditation? There are different elements to an adult's one. There's counting and visualisations, breath awareness. It's my favourite type of meditation. I like mindfulness and do more everyday mindfulness, practical mindfulness and some mindfulness breathing. But if I want to have a longer duration of relaxation, yoga Nidra is my go-to. It's said that around 20-30 minutes of Yoga Nidra is as restorative as two hours of sleep. So you don't fully sleep, but your body goes into the liminal, the state of kind of like when you're about to fall asleep or when you're just waking up, that kind of hazy feeling. During Yoga Nidra you're in that state, so it restores your body and your energy. So it's very good for mums who don't have much sleep or just, yeah, feeling a bit stressed and just need some relaxation time what's your favorite thing to tell parents when they're starting out on a mindfulness journey?

Carrie Lingenfelter:

or what's your favorite tip or ideas where do you like?

Natasha Iregbu:

to start or share share, to not feel overwhelmed or to feel that you need a lot of time to practice mindfulness that can be brought into everyday moments that you don't have to carve out a long amount of time every day, like every day to practice.

Natasha Iregbu:

It can be brought into the activities, like if you're like washing dishes or doing housework, you can bring your full attention to the process of washing the dishes, like watching the water, using the sponge or the brush or even stacking the dishwasher, just bringing your full attention to that activity. And when your mind jumps from different thoughts, just try to not delve into the thoughts and bring your attention back to the activity and that will help you. If your thoughts thinking, oh, I need to go and clip the kids or I need to hoover and to do loads of different things, just focusing on that one activity can help your mind slow down and you can practice that at any point yeah, I love that.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

We think we need two hours of self-care to recharge washing the dishes. It's funny you bring that one up, because that is probably one of my moments where I really just focus on what I'm doing and when I walk away from washing the dishes I feel like recharged in that moment.

Natasha Iregbu:

Yeah, yeah.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

So that's one of my favorites. Yeah, it's so hard. I don't know about overseas. If it's the same in the US, I feel like we always. It's all over Instagram. It's like how to use the most of your day, multitasking, and there's always tips and pointers about doing two or three things at once. And so I love what you're saying. I feel like our culture tends to go the opposite.

Natasha Iregbu:

Yeah, it's the same in the UK as well. You're trying to fit as much into short amounts of time, which is useful in some aspects if you're wanting to completely try and get a lot. If you're working, you want to focus and doing like 20 minutes and then have the pomerodo I think it's called pomodoro yeah, I'm not pronouncing this pomodoro technique or method and that's. I find that quite useful and it's, yeah, 20 minutes of focused activity and then having, I think, five or ten minutes as a break and then continue doing that. That's a good productivity hack for working.

Natasha Iregbu:

But yeah, I do agree that it can be hard when there's so many different things that you're consuming as well, because a lot of times it's hard to know. It's hard for mums especially to connect to themselves because they're thinking about their kids, or when you're not thinking about your kids and you go on social media and then scroll and then you're consuming what everyone else is saying and then maybe entering into comparison and then it just ends up in a big loop and you never actually have time to or create time to connect to your own intuition and oneself yeah, yeah.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I think that's so important and it's so important we're modeling it for our kids because if we're here, if society is at this point from where it was when you and I were little I don't know, I was little in like the 80s, early 90s I can't imagine where it's going to be in 20 years or 30 years from now yeah, I know.

Natasha Iregbu:

Yeah, it's scary to think what, or even 10 years, how things are going to. Yeah, be be different for kids.

Natasha Iregbu:

Yeah I hope that there are more, because mindfulness and yoga are so well known about now and so many different people try it, that children, more children, are interested in doing it and if they see their parents practicing mindfulness or going to yoga, they'll then copy them or be interested and ask questions about what what it is to help their own well-being. I'm not sure in the us do they have? I know I see it because I follow people on instagram. They have like yoga classes and things, but do they have the schools? Do any? Do they have like mindfulness or yoga things in school?

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I think that yoga is a big piece, so we switched our kids over to a charter school. So it's not the regular school and its focus is social and emotional. So they do a lot of mindfulness. There's even like little affirmations that my kids came home with recently in first grade and third grade yeah, it's been really cool that is good.

Natasha Iregbu:

Yeah, it'd be amazing if that was in in all schools that they're. I know their social emotional learning is within schools, but it'd be good if it was like an allocated amount of time every day. That was like for 15 minutes every day. We're going to do some mindfulness activities or well-being activities.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Make a difference yeah, I think there's this push in American culture to get your kids into an activity, so they have an activity like every day, and so I try to choose one or maybe two at the most activities for my kids, so they do have the down days where they can just play and get into. For my son it's like he gets in the flow state playing with his Legos, or my daughter gets in the flow state with coloring and writing, and so, yeah, giving them that downtime.

Natasha Iregbu:

Yeah.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

But I think, even if parents are not able to cut back on activities or they're busy in their lives, I think for us recently I've been thinking about like when we're eating I've been telling the kids let's slow down, let's look at our plate, let's say I have a moment of gratitude, thank you to this food for nourishing my body and giving me the energy that I need for myself. So thank you. So just even just having that little moment to maybe think about like food and what it does for our bodies and yeah, mindful eating is quite a yeah a good practice for for kids.

Natasha Iregbu:

Even just to notice that, then, with the sense, bringing the senses into mindful eating at mealtimes is good as well. Like noticing what's on your plate and different colours, and then when you're, it smells with the food and different tastes and textures as well. When you're chewing, notice what is it? Something smooth or spicy, like different, yeah, different, yeah, different senses within meal times can help slow down. So sometimes it can be if you've got something to go to after or you've just had a busy day, it can be easy just to like we'll just sit down and just eat quickly, but just to slow down at dinner time, to just fully, even as a family because I know that some families have all the same meal and our families might have different meals but even if they're at different meals, you can still practice the mindfulness activity together, noticing what's on your plate and, yeah, what colors. Can you see? What? What smells, how does it? The food tastes?

Carrie Lingenfelter:

it's salty, sweet, smooth, spicy, cold, yeah yeah, that's, and you know, what's really interesting is a lot of the things that you're doing in the tools that you're using go along with feeding therapy. It's what the occupational therapists and the speech therapists do with kids that are more picky eaters. So with your tiny one when you're doing that. I think, you have a little guy. So when you're doing all of those things, I did that when my kids were your kiddos age.

Natasha Iregbu:

And.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I still do that Sometimes, we do for fun. If I'm like are you, is your body ready for a challenge? Let's close your eyes. And I'm going to put one thing on your plate, in your mouth, and I want you to tell me which one it is.

Natasha Iregbu:

and so my kids will do that to each other now, like playing around when we're eating yeah, I used to.

Natasha Iregbu:

When I worked with kids in a youth center, they used to do taste tests with them and they always loved taste tests. They used to do with different crusts or different fruits and we'd cover the bowl and they had to taste it, and then it was like a mindfulness activity, but it was. They had to guess the flavor. So it helped them slow down and even if they didn't like it, at least you've tasted it and you can then recognize the different flavors.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

And yeah, it's interesting to know because I've not had any experience working with occupational therapists like directly, so it's interesting that there there's that overlap yeah, yeah, it's really cool a lot of I'm realizing, like so many of the strategies that OTs teach our kids when they're trying to regulate help regulate the systems yeah so many of it, so much of it overlaps with mindfulness yeah and even some pieces of spirituality overlaps with mindfulness, and even some pieces of spirituality come in with the mindful. All these pieces are all intertwined.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

And you see so much growth in these highly sensitive kids or neurodiverse kids or just really gifted and talented kids coming in. So it's really fun to see all that growth. No-transcript, carrie, I am the slowest eater at work oh wow, I was like yeah, I guess in the corporate world it's eat right inhale your lunch and then get back to work.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Yeah, it's hard. So I'm like, yeah, think of where everybody would be creatively if we all sat down to eat and decompressed for a minute. I know there's a lot of busy moms. I'll say something like when I sit down and have a moment and eat. I'll do that a lot, even when I'm eating by myself at home as a working mom at home yeah there's a lot of moms that are like you, sit down and eat.

Natasha Iregbu:

I'm like, yes, you have to do that for your body even if you're by yourself like, just sit down and eat yeah, and I think, just from having like the family if you are with your family as well, it's good to try and have that as like quality time as well, and trying to model that with maybe boys will just always sit down and eat together to yeah, to the kind of almost like a social thing as well, that they're learning, that's what they do and that's uh, that eating can be a social, yeah, social skill as well yeah, I think the biggest takeaway today for me is you don't need to have two hours, you can do your mindfulness as you go.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Is there any last thoughts you have with the mindful pieces for busy families?

Natasha Iregbu:

I'd say those are the main tips. I'll see if I'll have a think if there's anything else. Isn't the kindness element as well? That is, if you do notice that you get frustrated. I know that sometimes when you're starting something like a meditation or mindfulness practice, it can almost be like a challenge. It could be good to get started, but if it starts feeling a bit difficult or maybe not have the time to do it, it can then turn into, oh, I should be doing it, and it becomes like a something that you should be doing rather than something that you want to do or try and practice. So, just remembering to be kind to yourself and remember that it's it's an ongoing journey. It's not something that you just start and you think, oh, I need to do this for 10 minutes every day. That you can every day is different. You can do one minute one day, half an hour the next day. It just, yeah, depends. And be kind to to yourself and try not to put any pressure on yourself to do everything yes, I love that.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I remember when I was little, my grandmother she was very spiritual and I remember her speaking to herself like okay, yolanda, you got this, you can figure this out, like you can do this. So I love the idea of modeling. Okay, carrie, you can figure out this computer program, you can build this website. Try again.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Like modeling that in front of our kids when we're trying hard things yeah, yeah, definitely yeah, I recently was saying I would like to talk to myself or to see myself the way that my husband or my mom see me, because they see me in such a different version compared to what I see myself like or how I speak to myself yeah, yeah, I think that's a lot of people.

Natasha Iregbu:

Yeah, I do that sometimes as well. I'm like why am I being mean to myself? It's not until you realise that you're putting so much pressure on yourself that when you stop, you're like I wouldn't be putting all this pressure on somebody else or telling them that you should be doing this or you're not doing enough. It is challenging to try and switch it back over to yourself, but it's worth doing it, yeah yeah, even if it's little by little.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I think after this I'm gonna go write a sticky note and put it on my mirror for myself, like words of motivation for myself and then for my kids.

Natasha Iregbu:

I'll do it too, or I might have them write their own and put it on the mirror yeah, I think affirmations are good, but you were saying that your, yeah, your kids got affirmations from school. I've got. I recently made a digital kids gratitude journal. It's 365 days, but it's not got dates in it, so they can start and do it anytime, and each day it's they can write or draw or both three different things. Three things people or places that they're grateful for and at the beginning of the journal there's a breathing exercise.

Natasha Iregbu:

It's called infinity breathing or lazy eight breathing. It's the infinity symbol and they trace their finger around it, breathing in and out. And then it's got the gratitude practice and at the end of each week there's different affirmations as well to affirm the gratitude. I think affirmations are good for all ages, to remind yourself of how you are as a person. Other people probably say oh, carrie's so confident and then just tell yourself that I am confident.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

I am, and often yeah, yes, I love that. I'm going to go check that out. So your gratitude journal for the kids. The download is that on your website as well.

Natasha Iregbu:

Yeah, so the meditation's free, and then the journal is. I don't know what it's in dollars, but yeah, times okay, how cool.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

That's a great idea. So, yeah, we have your website and then we'll include that in the show notes. And there's something else I was going to say with it, but I don't remember right now. So thanks so much, natasha, for spending your time with us and sharing all these mindful ideas so we can walk out as mindful people.

Natasha Iregbu:

It's nice chatting to you. I forgot to mention as well. Yeah, I've got two Instagram pages. One page is my Butterfly Minds, but the other Instagram page is also an author as well. So I've got two kids' mindfulness books and one is Mindful Living for Parents two kids mindfulness books and one is mindful living for parents. So they're all mindfulness through storytelling to help reach more children and families with mindfulness. The kids ones are introductions to mindfulness, like mindfulness of essences and activity pages on social and emotional activities, and in the parents is mindfulness within everyday, everyday life through through stories and different reflection activities and beautiful what?

Carrie Lingenfelter:

what were the name of your books? That's amazing.

Natasha Iregbu:

My first book is called slow down amaya and that's um. Maya's a butterfly who's got adhd and she's very excitable and she learns how to slow down with mindfulness. And the second book she meets Sammy, who's a sunflower and he's autistic, so they become friends. And in the second book is Slow Down Sammy, so it's focused on Sammy and how mindfulness can help with worries and anxiety. So Maya teaches him the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique to help let go of worries.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Beautiful. I love that my kids are. Since we have late start today, my kids are both downstairs watching Stillwater. I don't know if you've ever heard of Stillwater, so there's a book series. It's a panda named Stillwater. I can't remember what the name of this series are, but there's several. There's three or four books that talk about mindfulness practices, and then Apple TV made it into a little TV series and it's called Stillwater is the name of the panda. He's mindful, so it might be really cool with your son.

Natasha Iregbu:

Yeah.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

Peaceful Piggy is another one of our favorite ones too.

Natasha Iregbu:

Oh, I'm gonna tell it goes up, thank you. Yeah, thank you so much, natasha.

Carrie Lingenfelter:

You too, thank you. Well, that's a wrap. Thanks so much for tuning in. Changemakers. This is Keri, 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.