Teaching Humanity Remotely with Dr. Mindy Shaw

In this podcast, Dr. Shaw takes a very personal turn and shares an story from her own life in order to illustrate how we should celebrate the good stuff in life. The story she shares is about selling a home and buying a new one, but the emotion runs deeper than just that transaction. The new home felt perfect from the start, and much of that happened because the prior owners who built the house clearly created a home filled with love. Then, not only did it feel that way, but the current owners have been very cooperative and downright sweet in helping access their property for planning purposes. Their land is filled with fruit trees and they generously shared their homegrown fruit and gave lessons on the care and feeding of their garden. The positivity of that exchange and that experience makes the exit from the old home feel very comfortable and welcoming. One can focus on one's struggle, and there can be valuable lessons in overcoming thing, but it's important to also keep a focus here on being present and open to positivity.

In this episode Dr. Shaw addresses the need for empowerment and the ways in which we sometimes give up our power. She poses the question of when we learn to give up or power and how do we stop doing it? The way to reclaim power is to not blame anyone else. As we teach our children to be empowered (while still at the same time keeping them on the track that we want) it is important to give them responsibility. If we adults model being empowered for our children, it teaches them to understand how to hold on to their power. Dr. Shaw gives a great illustrative classroom example of not giving her power away to a student who was being a bully, and then wraps by reminding the listener that her social-emotional children's book series address these kinds of issues directly... those books can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/DrMindyBooks

In this episode, Dr. Shaw discusses and reveals some perspective on her own humanity in a way that can help parents, and all adults really, keep themselves in check regarding their own personal progress in life. She begins with the notion that a moment is just a moment, and she points out that when we have dramatic experiences or we learn important lessons that we need to develop a new emotional muscle so that we don't fall back on old patterns. For herself, she always attempts to be present so as not to respond habitually. She then shares an important example of how this creation of stamina or new behavior came into play for her recently in an important interpersonal relationship. The big takeaway is that we all tend to be our most self-important when we feel unimportant... we all feel our most controlling when we are actually out of control. Knowing this can be incredibly liberating.

In this brief and personal episode, Dr. Shaw talks about the parenting dilemma of being overly enabling versus allowing our children to have experiences that sometimes can be very difficult. She shares an illustrative example from her own life and friendships as she describes a parent experiencing their child in an abusive relationship. Her philosophy is that as a parent, we can't judge or intervene sometimes... we have to help our children navigate their situations, but all we can do is pick up our children when they fall. Sometimes, in fact, when they fall, there are important and hard lessons learned via natural consequences. Our children need real life experiences to build their own independence, difficult as that may be to witness.

In this episode, Dr. Shaw examines the concept of not moving forward in life because we are defending our positions or defending our own limitations. She uses some illustrative examples of how we defend our positions in order to set the stage. Then we learn that what she feels we need first and foremost are good relationships, and a key to a good relationship is having communication that includes the views of our partners and not disregarding their opinions. If we can learn to not defend our positions, we can teach our children to be better friends and not to sweat the small stuff. Don't take things personally... that's an important axiom to live by.

In this episode, Dr. Shaw shares a very personal story about a recent experience in her own life. In this tale, she talks of a moment at which she felt like she needed a reprieve and she internally "cried uncle," and then within hours, the situation resolved itself. The lesson of the situation was that she noticed that she momentarily forgot her aim of remaining optimistic and she actually fell into an old pattern. What she was reminded of was that her new intention of being present and trusting that the universe will help work things out. It was a reminder to remain vigilant about maintaining a vision and to live life in the moment.

In this brief but important episode, Dr. Shaw discusses the concept of acceptance, and mostly from the point of view of self-acceptance. Her belief is that if someone is not accepting them self, then the alternative is to be filled with desire, and that's a negative and potentially dangerous emotional space to be in. We must teach our children to be satisfied with what we have. That is not to say that we shouldn't be aspirational, but we need to move forward based on who we are with an attitude of gratitude. We also want our children to have self-love, self-worth and self-respect. From that position of accepting who we are, we can begin personal growth from a positive point of view.

In this brief but important episode, Dr. Shaw discusses the need to be true to ourselves in order to attract people into our lives who are like we are. She believes that we attract what we need when we need it. It is important for children to understand that friendships go through transitions, and that's ok. Life can be filled with different kinds of relationships, and some may be more fulfilling than others. Things evolve. The keys to communicating all of this to our children are intention, attention and reflection. Also, we must note and mark important moments... children need to be reminded of what they are learning. Through authenticity we earn fulfillment.