83. Freeing Yourself from Stress + Struggle by Understanding the Human Experience feat. Beth Segaloff

Jan 17

listen to this episode:

Today’s guest is Beth Segaloff—a Licensed Clinical of Social Work, Life Coach, Reiki Master, Registered Yoga Teacher, Certified Firewalk Instructor, and Mom.

Beth's Website: https://www.bethsegaloff.com/

Beth's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beth.segaloff/

Beth and I dive into the following topics…

+ Beth's mental health journey + what brought her to working with teens, teaching yoga, and practicing EMDR

+ How lacking emotion education is for teens and the negative impact this has on mental health

+ The importance of approaching healing from a holistic perspective—mentally, physically, and spiritually

+ What happens when you truly quiet your mind and practice mindfulness—and the impact this has on emotion processing

+ Ways you can incorporate mindfulness + meditation into your daily routine

+ A guided meditation practice to center yourself, decrease stress, and let go of tension you're holding

+ so much more!

Mentioned In The Episode…

+ EMDR

+ Join Beth's mailing list to join her teen program: https://www.bethsegaloff.com/ (the box is right at the footer of her website)

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

Episode Sponsors

⚡️This week's episode is brought to you by MagicMind! For 20% off MagicMind—an all-natural energy drink with adaptogens, nootropics, and matcha to boost productivity + focus while decreasing stress—use code 'persisted20' at magicmind.co/persisted

About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: Welcome to she persisted. I'm your host Sadie Sutton. Every Friday, I post interviews about mental health, dialectical behavioral therapy and teenage life. These episodes break down my mental health journey, teach skills to help you cope with life and showcase testimonials from individuals, including teens, just like you, whether you've struggled yourself or just want to improve your mental fitness.

This podcast is your inspiration to live a life you love and keep persisting. This week on cheap, persistent

Beth: being able to trust the mystery in the other side, to know that it's going to change and we don't know what it may look like, but if you allow yourself to be in the discomfort, whether it's the thoughts and the mind, the emotions, the physical piece in the body.

Sure

Sadie: this speaks, DBT skill is paired muscle relaxation. If you've listened to the podcast for a long time, then you know that this scale is part of the tip scale, but it also can be used on its own. So what you're going to do is you're going to sit in a comfortable position. You can also do this lying down before bed.

It's super helpful to fall asleep. And you're going to make sure that all your body parts are uncrossed and no body parts are supporting any other. So sitting with your legs spread apart and your arms on the sides of you laying down with all your limbs extended, both of those would work great for each area of the body.

You're going to gather tension by tightening your muscles. You're going to focus on the sensation of tightness in and around that area. You're going to hold the tension as you inhale for five to six seconds and then release and breathe. As you release, you can say in your mind the word relax, or you can just do it silently.

As you observed detention releasing, you're going to observe the changes in sensations as you relax for 10 to 15 seconds, and then move on to the next muscle group. You're going to start with your hands and wrists. Move to your lower and upper arms. Go to your shoulders, forehead, eyes, nose, and upper cheeks, tongue and mouth lips and lower face.

Neck, chest back stomach, but upper legs and thighs, calves and ankles. Lastly, you are going to tense your entire body and then release everything. This is an amazing mindfulness practice to do when you're really stressed out. When you're feeling anxiety, when you're feeling tension or before you go to bed.

This is one of my favorite before bed mindfulness practices. And it's super helpful to get you to fall asleep more. Hello. Hello and welcome back to she. Persisted. I'm so happier here. We have an amazing episode for you today. Our guest is Beth Sehgal off. She's a licensed clinical social worker, life coach Reiki, master registered yoga teacher, certified firewalk instructor and a mom.

This episode is jam packed with value, whether it's about the importance of emotion education, we dive into mindfulness. We talk about what EMDR is and how it can be used to increase the presence of a positive emotion, which I've never heard about before. And we really just talk about taking a well-rounded holistic approach to healing.

We also did a guided meditation practice in this episode, which is a resource I know I'm going to go back to in the future and I hope you do as well. So like I said, this episode is just phenomenal with. Value and so many takeaways for you to implement in your life. This is one of my favorite interviews that I've done in a while.

So let's dive into it. Thank you so much for joining me today, Beth. I'm so excited to have you on she persisted. I can't wait to dive into this conversation.

Beth: Me too. I'm just, I'm so happy to be here. And I'm just so in awe every time, just that you created this space. Thank you, credible.

Sadie: You're welcome. Yeah.

So I want to start by hearing your story, your journey, and about the work that you're now doing with teens and with mental health as a whole. So walk me and listeners through what you do about you and how you got to this point of working within like the mental health and wellness field.

Beth: Okay. Well, It's sort of a really long journey, but I feel like, you know, so much of what I do now, I feel like is based off of what I wish for what I needed or what I wished I hadn't had as a kid or a teenager.

Okay. No, I think they, one thing just to start is that we are all born, you know, with dislike divine experience, right. This pure whole wholeness and life happens, right. Life happens and things happen. And so often I feel like we don't know where we aren't taught how to manage them. And they always, they become struggling.

It's like a good or bad or right or wrong. And. You know, so I think that led me to always just, I was a very, and I connect with you in a way of, I was very, I am still a very sensitive human, right? So always felt things very deeply. And as a teenager, I definitely numbed out a lot of drinking and a lot of things just to avoid sort of the challenging feelings that I was having and really never addressed them.

And, you know, I went through. A lot. I think as a teenager, I went to boarding school, which was interesting because I, I come from a super close family, very close community. And the school situation for me was just not ideal. So I ended up at boarding school, which was for some people amazing for me, it was like probably not.

I did learn how to study and how to be a hundred really good stuff. But a lot of things I wasn't ready for. Yeah. And it led me down a really some challenging paths. And there was a part of me though, that even in high school, I was a peer counselor. Right. So I always, always intuitively had this. I want to help other people.

I want to be able to support other people and looking back it's, it's even just realizing that like, it's me, who needed that? Too, but I was always wanting to do for others. I always saw sort of other people's pain and their stress and I wanted to be there for them. And so I started out, you imagine that young is a peer counselor in college.

I was, did also something similar, a peer or sort of lifelines group, which was looking back again really interesting because there I was like drinking a whole lot, but I had a of issues with food and eating. And there, I was sort of educating people, other students about the issues that I had not healed, or even recognizing myself yet.

And I decided to go to social work school after college, really, because I always wanted to work in schools. I knew that I wanted to be a social worker. Wasn't sure if I wanted to be an ed teacher or, or a social work in school, a social worker. And so I became a school social worker and I had been in a whole different range of programs.

And I loved that role because I would see kids really in every environment in a way of like, whether it was in the classroom or kind of lunch table or at recess on the playground and really get a sense of the whole child. Right. And I loved that working with the teachers and the families and. In my personal life over time, I started to really go through some bigger, bigger challenges.

I was married at the time I got divorced, I got divorced. My son was about two. And again, it was sort of these things that I was starting to uncover myself. Some of the healing that was happening and different relationships that I was in really became a mirror of what I needed to look at internally. And after my divorce, I was fortunate enough to, and blessed to fall in love very quickly.

I, we got engaged very quickly. It was one of those, you know, magical, magical moments. And I remember, you know, he said to me about six weeks into our dating, I have good news and I have bad news. And the good news is we're getting married next summer. And the bad news is that I'm deploying. Um, and a year later he was killed in Afghanistan.

Oh wow. And that my life really became a before and an after. But what happened during that time was I started opening up to different types of healing. So I started receiving energy healing and I found my yoga mat and my yoga mat was. A really scary place in the beginning because when the teacher said quiet your mind, right?

I was like, why would I do that? Why would I cry? My body was so filled with anxiety and grief and pain. My mind was not a fun place to be in, but what happened was I found myself to be able to be in a safe enough place. Where I did get quiet and I sobbed and I sobbed and I cried and I wept, but I finally gave myself permission to be in the quiet and to let those emotions flow through and to let them move through and to let the thoughts pass by and energetically, emotionally, mentally, physically, everything just started to show.

And so what I realized was that, okay. And I was doing EMDR as well at that time. And what I was realizing was that we can't only talk our way through our struggles. Talking is amazing. You know, mental health is incredible, but there are so many other layers and so many other parts of us that also need attending.

And so I decided to leave school, social work, and really dive in and learn all of the modalities that it served me so that I could give them back to others. And so that's what I've been doing for the past. Seven eight years where I see clients, one-on-one some teenagers, some adults, and I teach yoga classes for teens and for adults, I teach a specific class, actually called brief yoga.

And so it's on different workshops and retreats, but it's because I just keeping, being able to, the more I heal from a multi-layered approach. The more, I want to give it back and realize my time if I only knew some of this when I was 10 or 10 or 11, because, you know, I think younger, I think elementary school, and I don't know what your experience was that I noticed this now, you know, they do a good job around, I mean, good job, but there's more awareness around talking about emotions and talking about feelings.

But as we get older, as kids get older, it's not there as much. And when they need it so much more, it's like, it's just, and now with, you know, kids are going to school and it's the fears, they're the emotional, we're not addressing all of it. And so if they really just want to continue to give back and give a different, give people a different perspective.

On our experiences, because the reality is the, like it's going to happen. Things are going to be challenging and we can continue to avoid them. And we know what happens when we avoid them. We numb out, you know, I mean, it's, you know, well, you know, Tik TOK, social media, what numbing could be drinking or, or social media or eating, keeping busy.

And we can focus on that. Or we can continue to really dive in from different layers. And what I found was in that space of either grief or trauma, when we look at things like through a very, if it's only through the most. Right. Like, and I don't think people can see me when they're listening to this, but like on YouTube

Sadie: too, we,

Beth: we looked through like a little person, a little tunnel.

Right. But when we open up the bottom, when we open up the energy, when we open up the breath, you know, it just, there's an expansion there's so much more to see. And everybody experiences some version of an adverse experience that can just narrow. So, if we're able to use a multi-layered approach, then we can continue.

Sadie: Absolutely. No, it's, there's so much to impact there. I think what you disrupt wrapped up on, like our emotions do manifest in our body. When we look at the symptoms of depression and anxiety. And when we look at the long-term symptoms of, of mental illness and just extreme. Or trauma. Like we know that there's the physical component of healing that has to be there because the emotions are a physical experience.

Like your mental health is just

Beth: in your head. Have you ever heard this saying, um, the issues are in your tissues?

Sadie: No, I have it.

Beth: Yeah. It's true in your tissue. Think about it. It makes so much sense. It's like that, you know, think about how many times you've been worried about a test or having that hard conversation with somebody.

And it's like, I know for me, you know, I can ask you, you know, do you know where that is in your.

Sadie: Nope. You'd pick maybe like my brain, like, I feel the thoughts going on.

Beth: Right. But your body is literally like a signal. Your body sends you signals all the time. For me, it's my stomach. I get the stomach ache.

And I'm like, okay. It could have been that. I didn't eat something. That was so great. But it could also be. Okay, well, it's showing up my body. Literally your body will tell you all the time if we learn how to listen to it.

Sadie: Yeah. You guys have heard me talk about them before, as we are chugging along in this spring semester and essential in my routine is magic mind because of how busy my schedule is with the podcast and work and school.

I really need to be optimizing my days to get everything checked off of my to-do list. And this is where magic mind. What it is as an all natural productivity drink with adaptogens to decrease stress nootropics, to boost blood flow and cognition and macho to keep you focused. It comes in a little bottle picture, like a little juice shot.

It has the cutest packaging and you drink it in the morning. I drink it with my normal cup of coffee. What it does is it improves procrastination, brain fog, fatigue, and helps you be more productive. I find that I get super tired and I like want to take a nap day, especially the early afternoon. When I add magic mind to my morning, caffeine, I don't need extra cups of coffee and I'm able to power through and keep working rather than getting into that mid day slump.

It is a game changer. If you are busy and have lots of things to do throughout the day. So if you want to try out magic mind and improve your productivity, you are going to go to magic mind.co/persisted. That is M a G I C M I N d.co/. And when you use code persistent at checkout, you're going to get 20% off your order.

So we get, if you're looking to improve your productivity and add a little supplement to your coffee routine, go to magic, mind.co/persisted for 20% off. I think the other thing that I loved, what you said was about quieting your mind with mindfulness. I remember. Mindfulness is like a key component of dialectical behavioral therapy, which was the treatment that I did, which was a game changer for me.

And it's like one of the first modules that you learned, it's super ingrained to the whole modality. But I remember I was talking with a therapist and she was like, when you're first really struggling, when you're really suffering, when your mind is a really uncomfortable place to be, can be kind of dangerous to do mindfulness.

You're sitting with these really dark, scary thoughts. And so I loved what you said about like the whole. Well-rounded approach if being able to cope through and work through the emotions that arise when you're sitting with what's in your head, and then being able to like quiet your mind, like it's, there's all of these different components that go into this full well-rounded understanding of healing, whether it's the physical body, whether it's the piece of mindfulness, whether it's feeling your emotions to process through them and work through them, it's just extremely complex.

And you can't have one without the other.

Beth: That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. And it's yeah, it's just, if it's things that I know I was never taught. Yeah. Right. And so, and what happens is it's like, okay, my stomach hurts. So it's a quickly like, well, what do I do to fix that? You know, maybe I'm gonna w whatever the version is of how to fix that in the reality is that.

Nothing needs to be fixed. You're broken. Your body is telling you to either like, you know, quiet down, settle down. And the fact is that it moves, it shifts. It always does, but it's sitting with it. Most people in this brief yoga class I teach, I'm always kind of like not many people are like, yay. I can't wait to go.

Yoga, but what happens is there is such a, it's like the being able to trust the mystery in the other side, to know that it's going to change and we don't know what it may look like, but if you allow yourself to be in the discomfort, whether it's the thoughts in the mind, the emotions, the physical piece in the body, it will show.

Sadie: I remember that exact experience. And it was so scary to me to be working towards something that I didn't know what it would feel like. Like I was like, okay, I know I am investing in myself. I'm going to therapy. I'm trying to get better, but I don't remember what it feels like to be happy or live my life worth living.

So I was like blindly stumbling towards this goal that I didn't understand. And for you. I was just in the head space of saying, you know what, I'm suffering a miserable. I've never felt worse in my life, but at least I know what this feels like. At least it's comfortable. At least it's familiar. I'll just stay here because if I try to get better, it could get worse and I cannot bear for it to get any worse than this.

And it gets better. It really, really does get better. And I think. You experienced that throughout the process? Like, it's hard to just trust someone. That's like, oh, it gets better. Like you really have to live through that and experience it. But it's scary. It takes a lot of courage and bravery and trust in yourself that you'll be able to handle what healing throws at you and that you'll be able to get through it, but you've survived every day up until now.

And you can continue to do that. I'm

Beth: curious though, because you said. You had this, you knew what suffering was. Right. But you weren't sure what was on the other side of that. I think that's also interesting because from an EMDR perspective, it's, if we keep saying I'm suffering, I know what this is, I'm suffering, I'm suffering.

We continued that those, those beliefs, they root in deeply like a tree into your brain and into your body. Right. And so one of the things. I mean EMDR and I don't know what your experience, all of your experience was, but one of the things that I believe is like the most potent medicine ever is when someone can sit with you with that and not to say, you'll be fine, try this, try that.

But just like I'm with you. I can see that this is really hard and not to fix it, but to see, like, I see your pain. And to then, you know, be with you and to be present, to allow that, to move through.

Sadie: That was the shift that took place with my parents and our relationship completely changed. It was a game changer.

It was one day. I could just see that I was suffering and create space for that and voice that they saw it. And they knew that I was in pain and that they didn't necessarily get it and they couldn't help me and they weren't going to, but that they saw it and they had the appreciation of that was what I was going through.

Unbelievably powerful for our relationship to build a foundation, to then work through conflicts and patterns that we're adding to my mental health challenges. It's, it's an extremely powerful tool to be able to give to someone else or to,

Beth: yeah. But a lot of people can't do that because it's so hard. And what I again, and I'll use the word awe, when I listen to your podcast and your story, and it is because it's so brave.

Because when I work, you know, I have a lot of clients who are adults and alive, our teens and my adult clients, you know, and I can put myself in this bucket. It's like, people may get used to saying I'm suffering, I'm anxious, I'm anxious. And then after some time together, my client may say, Oh, like, actually, I don't think that's anxiety anymore.

I think it's fear or I think it's worry, or I think it's sadness because we get so used to the narrative and the dialogue that we've been telling. And so what I love about what you share in the platform that you have is that there is an ability to shift and it's like, and to learn. And my whole sort of Hashan is to rebrand mental health because.

Let it be normal. Like we're human. I don't have anybody who doesn't they're there, you know, this whole health, if you are a human, you have experiences. So what you're doing is really incredible by just bringing the dialogue and bringing the area. Thanks.

Sadie: I really, exactly. To what you said about like realizing that the emotions you're spitting out, like aren't actually what you're feeling.

I remember for years on end, whenever anyone, no matter who they were asked me how I was, I was sad. I was fine. I remember I'd find these like really depressing Pinterest graphics that were like fine, like deeply in pain. And they turned it into an acronym that was like fearful, isolated, like terrible.

Anytime anyone asked me didn't matter who it was. If it was a therapist para friend. I remember on instinct at one point during my treatment journey. So I was like, oh, how are you? And I was like, I'm fine. And I had to like catch myself because I was like, I'm fine. Like I'm good today. Today's a good day.

And I'm feeling happy. And it was the weirdest, most bizarre thing to have to catch myself and like, be like, wait, this, repeat that I've been on for years. This narrative is no longer true. It was really a beautiful thing, but it's you, it's also scary to be like, okay, wait, I'm going to tell someone that I'm good.

And like, that's actually true. And like, yeah, they could go away. But for now I'm in this emotion. That feels pretty amazing. So it's, I totally related to that.

Beth: I love that.

Sadie: So you mentioned EMDR, I've had a couple of gas, mentioned it here and there in the podcast, but I was wondering if you could just briefly explain what that is.

So listeners who haven't heard that terminology before I can under.

Beth: Sure. So EMDR stands for eye movement, desensitization, reprocessing, and that's a lot, sorry, big word.

Sadie: Yeah, but you won't be tested. I promise.

Beth: Definitely not. But as I've sort of been, we've been talking for throughout our time together, you know, we have experiences throughout our lives and when we have those experiences, we automatically form a belief about ourselves.

Yeah. And that. Either, either it adapts or it does not adapt and it sort of roots right in. Right. So, and then what happens is usually if it's, if that belief or that experience, that experience doesn't really process through, and let's say we hold onto the belief of I'm not smart enough, or I'm not worthy, or I'm not valuable that ripples into.

How we relate to other people. It ripples into how we show up at school with our parents, with our friends in activities of, you know, oh, I guess I'm not going to make the team because I'm not smart enough. I'm not good enough. Or I'm going to fail every test because I'm not smart enough. I'm not going to get into the right college.

Cause I'm just not good enough. Or, you know, I'm not going to get, I'm not going to have a boyfriend because I'm not lovable. So all of these beliefs really. They start to ripple into other parts of our lives and EMDR can do multiple things, but it really helps us tie trait between the past, the present in the future.

And so what we do is we use sort of like rapid. Or just something called bilateral stimulation. Again, you don't need to know this, but it's sort of like the tapping tapping back, but not, not EFT tapping, but a different kind of tapping. And so it's the movements in the brain and it's an, it's a very processed, structured process.

It helps to sort of reshift the energy around it, reshift the brain around it, reshift the body. So again, those. Because experiences, they also land in your body. Right. So, but what it also does is it's we can't ever take away. So, you know, when, when Ben died, right. I, for some reason I sat in a closet for awhile.

I was just, I went into my closet. I don't know, you know, and so a closet, I would see a closet and that would become a source of just pain and sadness. And it would just go right back to that. Right. Yeah. But going through some EMDR, that experience can't go away. But what it does is it takes sort of the energy away from it.

So it turns it down, turns the volume down, it shifts my response to it. So then I can see a closet. There's a product. Yeah. And then, you know, the, it doesn't become as traumatic to see the closet.

Sadie: Yeah. The I've had so many friends that have done EMDR and podcast guests as well. And it's just been huge in their journeys for healing trauma, and being able to continue to understand and unpack how different situations impacted them and continue to impact them.

So it's just an amazing tool and resources, and there's a lot of therapists that do offer an addition to talk therapy and these other things. So it's a great resource to be aware of.

Beth: So I do EMDR as well. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. But what's that, what else is kind of really cool about it is that it's not always about going back and reprocessing it.

Of course it can be, but it's also about strengthening what already is. Right? So for example, like I would have, if you and I were doing EMDR together, I would so want to know about that time, where you started to feel. Right. And it's like, let's really dive into like the sensations in your body, the emotions you're feeling, what do you visualize?

And then we enhance and we strengthen that, that feeling because then that. Happy right now in the present moment tomorrow or in an hour becomes your past experience. Yeah.

Sadie: Yeah. I love that. That makes sense. Yes. That's so powerful. So there's so much

Beth: like a lot of my team clients we strengthen and strengthen and strengthen it's really.

Sadie: That's amazing. That's so cool. So if teens are wanting to incorporate mindfulness or yoga, or this practice of really sitting with their thoughts and emotions and to their lives, what are you ha what are some tips that you have that they can try to implement?

Beth: There are so many, but there is one that is free and it is with you all the time.

Any. Yeah. You know, and I remember, you know, kids in schools were being so irritated when I do talk about like coming back to your breath and it's kind of like, I'm breathing, but it's like, there's a difference between breathing and, you know, you can tell them to hold your breath or it can literally take 10 seconds to shift.

Yeah. You know, but it is the, it's the commitment to pausing. Right. So it's the commitment to pausing. And then, so I would say breathing is one of them, um, to really, because certain types of breathing techniques scientifically slow down the nervous system and the nervous system for most people right now, the volume is like, wait, you know, I have an almost 18 year old son.

The other day, he's like my best, like, you know, I, I get, I get my information from him in the way of what's going on, but he's, you know, he was saying he was going to take a nap and he's laying on the couch next to me, but he's scrolling through tic-tac while he's about to take a nap. Wait a minute, but it's true, but he can fall asleep while

Sadie: scrolling on Tegra numbed out to it.

It's crazy. And I'm like,

Beth: that is you're you're not giving your brain second. So it's like, no wonder why nobody can focus or D you know, distracted every, what is it? Tik TOK videos. 20 or 30. I don't know. Yeah.

Sadie: Like all different lengths.

Beth: And so it's done. Yeah. So I think pausing and coming back to your breath is one is one tool to

Sadie: use

Beth: and movement.

I mean, meditation doesn't have to be, you know, sitting on a mat, your body in a certain way. It doesn't have to be that meditation. Maybe it's going for a walk. Maybe it is. Going left right. Left, right. With your, with your feet and in your, your internal voice or it's inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. It doesn't have to be at a certain time, amount of time or a certain way.

It's any way to really refocus your thoughts and allow yourself to watch them and be the observer of them rather than let them sort of own you if that's it. Yeah.

Sadie: We used to do mindful eating as a group. They'd give us like a tiny piece of chocolate and we'd be mindful of like the flavors and the textures, like the experience of chewing.

And we'd take like 20 minutes to eat one piece of chocolate. But I think it's like, it's so easy. Like if you have a cup of coffee every morning, Your cup of coffee, even your first sip, like committing to being mindful for that and noticing what thoughts are going through your head, bring your awareness to your breath.

Like it's, it's powerful. Even a couple of seconds. I think another one that's super easy to implement is like, before. I would love to be able to like, just like meditate myself to sleep. Can't do it, but even doing like a couple of breaths and like just calming down physically is so powerful and improves your sleep.

And so even if you can get like a walk in a couple of moments where you're just paying attention to your breath and really trying to quiet the mind, I think it. Profound impacts because we're constantly, like you talked about how much input we're getting, how we're constantly stressed, like overwhelmed, like we're avoiding, like we're not processing through.

We're just go, go, go, go, go. So to be able to like, bring attention to your thoughts and your emotions and your experiences. It's, it's very powerful.

Beth: Something else that is really helpful is just writing, like, just sort of like a brain dump. So it's, there's no rules. There's no, it doesn't matter about like grammar or spelling or content just, you may write, like, I don't want to write any more.

I don't want him to write anymore, but sometimes setting a timer for one minute, two minute. And you know, I just believe that there's, again, there is different ways. To get to the same place of coming back to your truth. Right? So that may be using your breath to quiet down and maybe writing it, maybe talking, it may be moving.

So any way that we can shift from that place of the stress or the struggle, I acknowledge it. Right. So to not avoid it, but like, all right. Here's anxiety again, it's showing up, you know, let it move through you where it is in your body. Move that part of your body. Right. So if you feel anxious, most of us feel anxious and our shoulders.

Right. We can even like, just while we're sitting here right now, you want to do something together? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, great. Okay. So actually go ahead and just place your feet on the ground.

Sadie: Cut.

Beth: And if you want to close your eyes, you can close your eyes for our listeners, too. If you're driving, please, do you have to address and just take one big breath in together and the breath out

and again, a big breath down

and exhale it out.

And then again, notice your feet flat on the ground.

Feel your legs, but your palms actually be face down on your thighs and then start to lengthen through the base of your spine all the way up to your shoulders. Roll your shoulders up and back.

And then let the muscles in your face, even soften,

you can even separate your teeth.

And then just as much as your feet are connected to the ground, imagine that there is a thread right above the top of your head, gently lifting you up towards the sky and then settle back.

Just notice how your body's feeling right now. Notice any emotions that are showing up,

checking with the thoughts in your mind

and take a moment to really

Sadie: even.

Beth: Feeling to any of the challenging that emotions may be present or maybe around, and maybe it's fear or anxiety, stress,

and take just a moment and notice where you feel that in your.

And then take about 10 seconds and just move that part of your body. So for me, I'm rolling my shoulders forward and back, maybe it's in your nephew or your neck in one direction or the other

it's in your belly. You can kind of do a cat cow seated.

And I'm actually going to allow for about 10 seconds of quiet while wherever you are, you moved through this

right here with you.

And then go ahead and pause and place your hands. And wherever that part of your body was your belly or your shoulder.

And again, one breath thing out

and notice how you feel now.

And then when you're ready, you can release your hands down.

Sadie: I feel so calm. I think I do. I feel, I don't know, like less like jittery energy, much more centered and like that it, how long did it take us? Like two minutes and we can check off our list that we meditated today.

Beth: Yeah. But can you imagine doing that? Before a test before writing a paper before going into a challenging conversation.

And, you know, I think where, where I feel so inspired or curious or motivated is that if kids had access to this.

Sadie: Yeah. So a

Beth: simple, you know, it's like, there's a difference between. When you enter a situation from this perspective where you're feeling more calm than when you enter a situation, whether again, it's a test to conversation, anything from a place of, you know, that the volume is up that feeling.

And I think just again, to acknowledge it, like that's everywhere, we all have feelings of worry or anxiety. And so why don't we. I always get so confused, like systemically how we teach math. Every single day and every once in a while, Smith I'll go, let's have somebody come in and talk about mindfulness once meditation, even

Sadie: then, like, I remember sitting in the classrooms, then it's not like an open to experience a new thing environment.

Like the kids are like, oh, we have to do deep breathing. This is terrible. Like there's not, I don't think part of it is like, I don't know. I think when you come into a situation curious and wanting to learn, and you're the one that somewhat initiating it, it's a lot more effective and powerful than when your teacher is like everyone.

We're doing our mandatory 30 seconds of mindfulness now. I think also, I want to say it's the way it's presented, but I don't know if it is like, I feel like there's been times where teachers are like, this is the science that shows that like mindfulness is helpful in decreasing stress and increasing performance.

It's I don't, I mean, you're also in like a school environment. You're so you're surrounded by your peers. It's a, it's an environment that doesn't always feel like safe. Like you're worried about being judged. You don't know what's going to go on to be able to. Close your eyes and shut off all the external stimuli while people are around you, you don't know what's happening.

That's a scary experience for a lot of people. Like high school is like not a fun moment, whether you don't feel seen or heard. So I think it's also like a very vulnerable thing to do in such a, a large group. But I think it's also foreign. Like it's, it's scary to try a new scale and to be like, you know what, I'm going to give my, all of this and maybe it'll work.

So I think it's all of those things together. Kids are like, it's easier just to say, I don't want to do this. That's the absolutely

Beth: right. And it's so interesting. Like I wish I could have said like, I don't, physics is really hard for me. I'm just not going to physics today. Right, right. Yeah. But it's so, and that's where, again, I love that you're in this dialogue.

It's just life.

Sadie: Yeah, exactly. And you

Beth: know, again, it is, we can see, I mean, I I'm witnessing besides the pandemic, you know, it was just a month ago or so we, I know in my town, there were like, there was a week or there were four lockdowns, you know? So it's like between social media, pandemic and mass shooters.

It's a

Sadie: scary world. It's

Beth: insane. It's a scary world. And so there's, I, I, again, I just find it so fascinating that people are awake and we're talking about mental health a lot and we're in the biggest crisis ever.

Sadie: It's it's the craziest, like. Parallel thing because you're totally right. Like we've never talked about it more and it's never been worse to like what's going on there because I don't think the answer is to like, not talk about it.

You know what I mean? Because people are able to get support and help and feel more comfortable asking for help when that narrative is going on. But then there's also so many more people struggling. So something that we're doing as a society isn't working a shift needs to be made. And if. I think it'll take time, but we're moving in the right direction.

If we look on the big scheme of things, mental health treatment and, and outcomes, and, and overall, this kills people are equipped with, I think, are, are improving.

Beth: I think so too. Yeah, I think so too. Well, I mean, I'm hearing a lot of, I mean, this, this space for you to have a podcast, this was not available when I was a teenager.

And

Sadie: I, and I think like also, like I'm just thinking about schools like 50 years ago, like the idea of learning mindfulness in a class you'd have been like, what? So we're moving in the right direction. We're getting there. I

Beth: think I want to be clear on something it's not even just learning about mindfulness.

It's learning about emotions. It's learning about being a human, like it's, it's learning about like, again, I remember when I would teach the little ones or, you know, younger kids elementary school literally like about, you know, near those pictures that have the faces of like happy, sad. And so we would talk about, you know, how are you feeling today?

And they would point to grumpy or frustrated. And I feel like we need that. We continue to need that because that's what I'm seeing. And that's what, that's the difference that I'm seeing in my teenage clients where they're like, oh my gosh, like, no one's ever, I never really learned about different emotions and how to identify them.

Hadn't validated because again, remember how you said I'm fine. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone says they're not everybody, but that is the go-to. I'm fine. And so two. Be able to say, you know, to a friend or a teacher, whoever, like I'm actually really sad right now. And then for the other person to be able to not just say, you'll be fine, like go, you know, just don't take a nap or go whatever.

But to be able to say, I get it like. No.

Sadie: Yeah. The emotion education is lacking in a big way. I didn't learn about primary and secondary emotions until I was like fully in treatment. The idea that people don't necessarily know that like anger is a secondary emotion and something deeper is going on there and you're lashing out because that's an easier emotion to process like.

W we should know that that should be common knowledge. How are you able to either decrease the anger or navigate the situation if you don't know that like shame or sadness or fear is going on below that, like, it's right. We, we need these, these skills and these tools. And I think it's like, when you think about toddlers, like you teach them how to handle a meltdown.

You're like, okay, we're going to take a break and then we'll come back. Like, if. Tina's having a giant panic attack or a super stressed about some comic, something coming up. You're not like, okay, this is how we're going to walk through this. And this is how we're going to handle it next time. Like that just isn't there unless you like explicitly go looking for those resources.

And it's, it's really

Beth: unfortunate. I'm right there with you. And that's why you're doing what you're doing. And it's why I'm doing what I'm doing. It's funny, you mentioned the toddler tantrum because in our Greek yoga class and things, sometimes that we'll do is throw. Yeah. Yeah. It's like permission to literally throw a tantrum or feel

Sadie: your emotions.

Beth: And it is, it is one of the most amazing things to witness because people really let go and right. Can you, and it's just like this. Yes. Like it's okay to be angry. Anger is not bad. Yeah. It's not a bad thing to be angry. It's how we. Yeah, how we alchemize that anger, how we use it, how we can witness it, how we can move it through punch a pillow.

That's great.

Sadie: No, it's crucial.

Beth: Yes.

Sadie: So talk to me about your program for teens. And so that listeners know how they can get involved and continue to work with you. If they're interested,

Beth: I'd love to. So that's actually, it. As I've been creating this program, it feels like literally a culmination of everything from when I was 14 until until today.

Um, because exactly this is there. We've talked about it for the past 45 minutes. The reason why, so. The program is called life school one-on-one and it's all around supporting teens to learn how to relieve the stress and anxiety and overwhelm so that they can live more from a place of calm and connection.

And the way that it's run is it is it's focused on this whole health perspective. So each week we focus on one week, we focus on the idea of whole health. Our week is on the mind when we was on emotions, when we was on the body the last week on Intuit. Hmm, but intuition is actually thread through all of it because that's really what it is.

It is about coming back to your wiser self, which you know, is always there. And it's that, that part of you that is like the high sort of like to feel into it's like the most like loving bestest friend, you know, the part of you that like, can do. Wrong. That is the most compassionate, loving part of you.

That is always of like the greatest and highest good, but we get so caught into the compare and the judgment and the shame and the beliefs and all the things that we lose. That part of ourself, we lose that, that wisdom. And so bringing in all of these. Helps get us back to that intuitive self. And so I diverted, but so the program is five weeks of videos and then we come together once a week on zoom and then we'll have the second half of life.

School is sessions and every other week to continue the community continued connection and continue to practice what is happening in their lives so that we can bring it into. Into practice. And so, yeah, that's, we're starting at the end of February and the best way to find out about it will be on my website, join the mailing list.

So you can end, there's actually going to be a, an offering on there for free, just so you can kind of get to know me. And I actually offer a breathing technique there just as a way to sort of get to know me a little bit and to some place that one tool that can, that can help, but it's, it's exactly. What we've been talking about just to bring really normalize, validate and make it just, this is part of life.

And so to do that together in community is, is hopefully pretty magical. I

Sadie: love that. It's so many tools that I think so many teens would benefit from having, whether you feel like you're struggling right now or not. I think. Anyone can benefit from having those tools in their toolbox and navigating future challenges that they might encounter.

So I love that so much

Beth: with this program, just to add to what you were to say, you don't have, nothing has to be.

Sadie: Yeah.

Beth: Anyone can benefit from specific that somebody is going through. Absolutely. Or you just have to be human.

Sadie: Yeah. Yeah. We all have emotions. We all can benefit from listening to ourselves a hundred percent.

That's amazing. Well, thank you so much for sitting down with me and having this amazing conversation. I know that so many people are going to find this helpful, and even if you just take away to take a couple more deep breaths today and center yourself, I, I know it will have a huge impact on you. So thank you.

Where can listeners find.

Beth: Thank you so much. It's really it's. I just love that we get to have this conversation that we're fortunate, able to, to be here together. You can find me. My website is just my name, Beth. Dot com and there will be a link for the, for life school, 1 0 1. So check that out. And otherwise Instagram is back dot sake loft and yeah, those are the places

Sadie: to find.

Awesome. All of that will be linked in the show notes. And thank you again. In case you skipped the end bath. And I dove into her mental health journey and what brought her to working with teens, teaching yoga and practicing EMDR. We talk about how lacking emotion education is for teens and the negative impact that this can have on mental health.

We dive into the importance of approaching healing from a holistic perspective, really taking into account the mental, physical, and spiritual perspectives. We talk about what happens when you truly quiet your mind and practice. And the impact this has on emotion processing. We go into ways that you can incorporate mindfulness and meditation into your daily routine.

And lastly, we do a guided meditation practice to center yourself, decreased stress and lack of the tension you're holding. If you liked this week's episode, please share with a friend rate and review on Spotify and apple podcasts. And tag me on social media. If you're listening, I'll repost and give you a little shout out.

My Instagram is at she persisted podcast. So with that, I will see you next Monday.

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