024 - Bullying, Differences and Deep Breathing - With Anadamayi Baker

Parenting the Intensity · Dec 07, 2023

Transcript

SPEAKER_02

00:00:00

Welcome to the podcast! Today we're having a bonus episode of Sword because I wanted to talk to you before the early day for many of us about a book. So if you're still looking for gifts for your little ones, that thing that would be a very great option. It's a book that talks about inclusivity, bullying and also address deep breathing exercise in a very playful and integrated in the story. So I'm sure that will be very valuable. So the book is written by Ananda Moir Baker and Ananda Moir grew up in the California Bay Area and had a good fortune of having a backyard to play with in and it saved her childhood because her family was dysfunctional and she could talk with lizards and tadpoles better than with her own family. She ended up writing her major in community development and race relations graduating from UC Davis and even if she never did it really use that major it has transformed her entire life in terms of understanding racism, bullying, inclusivity, cruelty and so on. And she also found her path in yoga in 1985 and it also saved her and gave her the knowledge that she is supposed to be here and the internal peace that was possible with it. I think that's very beautiful. So let's listen a bit more about the book of Ananda Moir. Welcome to Parenting the Intensity where we'll talk all about how we can drop the general parenting advice that doesn't work with our emotionally intense kids anyway and let go of the unrealistic expectations society puts on us as parents. Together we'll find solutions and ideas that work for you and your kids. Chances are deep down you know what they need but you need a little encouragement to keep going on harder days and permission to do things differently and help you fully trust that you already are a wonderful parent to your exceptional but challenging kids. Do you read all the things, listen to all the things, take all the courses and you know a lot of things about parenting but you struggle to actually apply them in your real life?

SPEAKER_02

00:03:02

Then you're in luck. I just started the Parenting the Intensity community which is a monthly group support for parents of emotionally intense kids and the goal is exactly that to take all the information you learn from the podcast and from all the other sources and adapt them so that it works for your child and your family, your reality because things can work but not always the same way for everybody so the same thing might need to be adapted to work for you and sometimes it's hard to sort through everything to choose the right things so that you can really enjoy your life and your kids not always being afraid of the next outbursts. You can join by clicking on the link in the show notes or on the website. Welcome today we have Anandamoy over on the podcast and we have a special episode so we'll talk about her book that I really love because it's a lot about difference and the fact that it's normal which I think apply to everyone who's listening so welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00

00:04:12

Hi I'm Anandamoy Baker and like Anouk was saying I wrote a little book called Bee Coming Strong. It's about a little bee named Josianza who gets bullied because when she was little she couldn't see well so she flew into the side of her hive and now she has a corkscrew antenna and Mama Queenzee Bee, called her over and outfitted her with some big glasses because bees have five eyes so she's got two big ones on top and on the front and some little ones on the top and really what I wanted with this book was two main things that have helped me in my entire life because I grew up in a pretty dysfunctional family and my saving grace when I was little was connecting with nature. I spent hours countless hours either on the ground on my knees on my belly watching ants do their thing which took me out of the house and away from all the discord shall we politely say and you know being able to be I was really blessed that there was some little frogs that were there and lizards and I was able to just put my hand against tree trunks and it just like being with nature saved my life when I was young. I realized it I was just drawn to it and that's the big things that I think is really important for children and adults obviously something that we as a society if not the world seem to be moving away from because we're all on our devices and all of that stuff takes us out away from ourselves away from the magnificence of what's inside us so that was one of the things connecting with nature and then also I've been blessed for almost 40 years now to have been able to study with a yoga master and so yoga in the West we think of yoga as only postures and actually a lot of times it's kind of strange the way yoga is taught or it's really like there's vigorous yoga hot I've even seen wine yoga people doing it's like come on yes doing all these elaborate postures holding a glass of wine and like you really think that's yoga yoga means harmony of body mind and spirit so body mind and inner self so when the body and mind get calm then we can connect with our inner self and so breath so there's several breath practices that Mama Queen ZD teaches jazzy onset to help her become calmer because she gets bullied so there's anxiety with that and and so those are the two big things nature and finding yoga learning how to breathe learning how to do postures in a very slow deep way has really transformed my life and that is what I wanted just kind of a fun story I the way it started was when I lived on Palomar Mountain which is in northern San Diego County we had a little fountain behind where I worked and bees would come and drink from it and what I noticed was children were freaked out about bees and they run and scream and flail their arms and of course it's

SPEAKER_02

00:08:11

dangerous to do

SPEAKER_00

00:08:12

that like bees are scared of that right yeah and so I had the exact opposite experience because when I would meditate outside they would come and literally crawl around the palms of my hand so calmly and sweetly and I thought oh I want to be able to give this somehow to children like bees in a whole different way so that was the beginning and I had to go to India for a hip replacement and while I was there I had bought a book idiots guide to writing children's books so I bring all these buzzle wuzzle puzzle little words then I got home started working put the book away for ten years until the pandemic so at the beginning of the pandemic I remembered the book mm-hmm and I thought well maybe I should do something with that because by that point I had to retire because I got this near fatal autoimmune disease and I had some time and so I contacted a couple of therapists friends of mine and a friend who's helping raise her grandchild and I said what a kid's dealing with these days because I didn't even know what I was doing was worth it basically and the answers they all gave me were so similar and they just tore my heart I mean I started sobbing because it had to do with bullying with anxiety with meltdowns with just fear depression and I thought oh no I cannot write some because what's gonna be like a little dr. Seuss rhymy book I don't know I do that so I prayed about it and said look do you want me doing something make it really really clear and so I had to drive down about an hour for these special shots I get once a month for the autoimmune disease it was pouring rain thankfully it was in the pandemic so the freeways were empty yes and this was a day after I had just said to the universe you know make it clear I got out of the office building got into the car got in a road and started and looked in the side view mirror in the pouring rain in cold there was a bee clinging to my mirror okay that's what I need that clear

SPEAKER_02

00:10:29

that was clear because it's not the moment we should have seen a bee

SPEAKER_00

00:10:33

no definitely not definitely not so that's how it all started and so I give different techniques in the in the book for breathing and Josie Anza our little heroine bee is the one who's telling her story it's her story and I'm kind of just basically the translator I'm not there it's her story and so tree gives really sage life advice and and the story is filled with things that like you said at the beginning that celebrate differences that because Josie Anza has all kinds of friends the tree a butterfly and the queen bee and and others and I think that's just really important to that we we know that differences differences are to be celebrated differences in one another focus stronger and kinder and yeah

SPEAKER_02

00:11:31

definitely yeah and I love that you we wave in the book like it's so many things in the story like you have all that nature stuff but also you you teach things about nature there's details and information about each of the animals and each of the things she encounter which brings the nature in it's facts but it's like a fun and interesting way and I love that she's talking to the the person reading the book also so they're kind of part of the story which

SPEAKER_01

00:12:02

SPEAKER_02

00:12:03

where I've really seen a story real in that way as the vision of a bee looking at a human and finding human words basically

SPEAKER_00

00:12:13

yeah why don't you have why can't do you only have two feet legs what's wrong with

SPEAKER_02

00:12:20

you yeah which I love because it reversed roles because often children are looking at bees and there's cared of the bees like you said but reversing roles it's easier to be more empathetic when you are at the place of someone else and I think that's a great way of doing it you yeah your roles so that way she's seeing humans in the way that we're seeing bees from the outside in some ways

SPEAKER_01

00:12:45

I love

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that

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point

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of view for for telling the story

SPEAKER_00

00:12:49

and one of the things that I did purposefully is she is so Josie Anza gets bullied also because she can lose her focus because she's so focused on something else she's she forgets that she's flying with her hive someplace but she notices light of butterflies wings that they flap in a way that her wings do not and she pays attention to that and wonders about it and I wrote things like that into a purposefully so that hopefully children as well as adults can can really want to tune into nature more deeply and say that is interesting I've never thought about that why is that because I think nature especially these days is is a savior for us it's it's gonna take us because our devices are taking us to not a great place I mean it's fun we can learn things and do things but it takes us out of the strength of who we really are

SPEAKER_02

00:13:57

yeah and I think it's also double like yeah it's it helps to see the nature differently but it's also as the meaning of seeing others differently just opening and being curious about how others are yeah

SPEAKER_00

00:14:13

yes and I think kids learn that easy early from from their parents from people around them that is that person an other or is that someone who has different is different yeah and yeah societies are torn apart by otherness yes

SPEAKER_02

00:14:34

yes very true very true and I love also all the because that's a big question we always have

SPEAKER_00

00:14:41

is how

SPEAKER_02

00:14:42

to help kids calm down and deal with their intense emotion and I love that it's in a playful way and just weaved into it it's not like now sit down and breathe like that's just boring

SPEAKER_00

00:14:56

and in fact a few parents have told me that when they are reading the book with their kids that the children want to do the breathing things right then and they love them because it's it's fun to like one of the the bigger things is belly breathing and so what it does is it brings us back to ourself it brings us back to the moment because when we're freaking out whether we're adults or children we are out of our body and our brain is going a million miles an hour and when we take a deep breath or like a double inhalation or exhalation like you know and then just start deep breathing or counting the breath it it can settle down everything and so if the technique that I put in the book about belly breathing is you get a little toy something that they connect with or a book or even your hands and put it on it and what it does is it brings us back into our body brings us back to the breath and by focusing on our breath we stop focusing on our mind that wants to just take us

SPEAKER_02

00:16:08

anywhere it's stuck to mine yeah it stops the mind and let's say more nature does basically it's it helps to connect and be grounded more too well exactly yeah yeah so yeah I really love that and what age range would you see the book is

SPEAKER_00

00:16:24

for so I've been told by a few different experts four to ten okay I'm on a lot of different levels so it will connect with that with a lot of children and then I also on purpose there's a fabulous illustrator Akiko Martinash yeah

SPEAKER_02

00:16:44

the image are beautiful

SPEAKER_00

00:16:45

yeah and so the way it was formatted is that there's some little picture even if it's little on every page so that if you're just reading it to a child and they can't really follow along there's going to be a fun little illustration for them to look at so like I said it's on a lot of levels

SPEAKER_02

00:17:04

I would say for four-year-old it might be a very patient for you because there's a lot of words still it's like a small novel more than a picture book yeah

SPEAKER_00

00:17:16

yes and and just even one chapter a night yeah not or half a chapter a night yeah

SPEAKER_02

00:17:23

yeah true true it could be read like and stages for younger kids

SPEAKER_00

00:17:27

yeah I mean I developed the chapter so that one was kind of finishing even if it was to say I wonder what's going to happen next so that they'll but yeah there's chapters so it's not too

SPEAKER_02

00:17:39

long yeah yeah true yeah when you look at it in chapters it's true that it's not as long but I am thinking about my own four-year-old and I'm not sure she would sit still for that long but she's not someone who still looks still that's what I said for maybe more patient for you all but I would have to test it to see it's complicated for me because I would have to translate while I read which would be a bit difficult but but I think it's interesting it can cover that wide of a range yeah of ages yeah very interesting so is there anything we didn't cover about the book that you would like to share

SPEAKER_00

00:18:19

let's see oh yeah there is one thing that I didn't put in the book but that's fun that maybe somebody like your daughter would like there's actually okay this is an old okay pranayams are breathing exercises breathing practices that are literally like 5 000 years old they're very old and they're very effective well there's actually a pranayam called brahmani pranayam and it's bee breath and really what it is and it's very calming it helps stop the mind it's really good if you're thinking bad thoughts or just need to calm down it soothes the nerves and what you do is you just inhale and as you exhale you hum like a bee hmm and you just do it over and over and children love it if you you can close your ear lobes but that might be something that your daughter really like and that other children would like so sure I mean that's interesting yeah that's

SPEAKER_02

00:19:30

interesting technique and I'm sure like kids always love being animals and doing this animal sounds and so that's the way I would never have thought of doing a bee sound honestly and I love it

SPEAKER_00

00:19:42

and it's calming not not with a z with a it's it's very calming I have a friend who said when she's in a lot of traffic she'll do it to herself and it settles it

SPEAKER_02

00:19:56

right yeah because that's always like nothing you talk in the book cannot apply to adult like everything that we teach to child learn to to come back and apply to the parents also

SPEAKER_00

00:20:07

definitely I mean definitely parents have taught me that that they're glad they read it for their children because it's helped them yeah

SPEAKER_02

00:20:15

and I that's always the thing we come back to that parents need to be calm and regulated to be able to help their children become unregulated so it's useful for everybody

SPEAKER_00

00:20:25

yes hopefully so that's my desire great

SPEAKER_02

00:20:29

yeah so that thank you very much for being here that was the goal of sharing it before the early days of if people are looking for gifts I think it's a very great idea because it's useful it helped to be able to learn lots of stuff and it might help everybody calm down in the house yes

SPEAKER_00

00:20:48

definitely yeah so I love it and if people want okay be coming strong be coming strong it's on amazon and also if they want they can sign up for my newsletter it's just once a month and it's got things for children it's got nature stuff it's got fun bee stuff bees are amazing bees are totally amazing I mean they

SPEAKER_02

00:21:16

really are yeah there's a bunch of facts on your website about bees that are very interesting yeah

SPEAKER_00

00:21:21

they are huh so they can sign up for the newsletter by going to my website anandamoodbaker.com and yeah we'll

SPEAKER_02

00:21:29

put all those link in the show notes and the link for the book on amazon also so that people can find it easily

SPEAKER_00

00:21:35

thank you very much

SPEAKER_02

00:21:36

so thank you for being here tonight that was very nice

SPEAKER_00

00:21:40

thank you for having me here a joy and I really I'm really taken with how much you're able to help people through your own struggles through what you've worked through I mean that's what it's all about right yeah

SPEAKER_02

00:21:53

it's always that we always help others with what we're going through I think that's a lot of what we do just for your book so thank you for completing it even if it took a long time yeah

SPEAKER_00

00:22:06

thank you so much

SPEAKER_02

00:22:12

I'm so glad you joined me today and took that time out of your intense life to focus on finding a new way to parent that works for you and your kids to get the episodes as soon as they drop make sure to subscribe to the podcast

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00:22:25

and

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please leave everything in review so other parents can find it

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too also

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00:22:31

check out all the free resources on my website at familymoments.ca so you can take action on what's the most important for you right now and take a deep breath keep going we're all in this together you