Hello everybody welcome back to season’s EB and flow for the season of divorce and beyond my name is Lee Wright I am a divorce coach and today I’m very excited to be interviewing jna Patel she is a life transition coach and a mindful living coach and I’m going to be just asking her questions about how she helps people incorporate mindfulness into their day-to-day lives and so for right now I’m just going to turn it over to jna to let her tell us a little bit about how she got here how she evolved to find this and why she loves working with people on it thank you so much for having me Lee it’s it’s um my pleasure to be here with you and chatting about mindfulness that’s my platform and as a life transition coach I’m going to reset I fumbled a little bit as a life transition coach I’m really passionate about weaving in mindfulness to help people go and and learn how to regulate their nervous system as they’re navigating um you know treacherous Waters in life so whether you know it could be navigating a divorce it could be navigating moving to a new city moving to a new country um having you know being parents for the first time or being empty nesters I mean the list goes on and on when whenever you’re impacted by a big life transition and you find yourself at crossroad that that’s where my coaching really comes in um so again mindfulness is the platform that really helped me through my major life transition recently and um I’m just really passionate about how easy it is to weave it in so I I definitely work on incorporating mindfulness into my day-to-day life and like for me the thing that I found to be the most helpful is doing periodic check-ins with my body uh throughout the day and even just taking like three deep breaths just knowing that that calms my nervous system and if I find if I do that kind of throughout the day it helps me just for one be more in touch with my body but also like keep my Baseline lower how would you if some someone said to you well what is mindfulness like what what for you is the way that you explain it to your clients and what you are helping them do when you say mindfulness so how I sum up mindfulness in one sentence to me mindfulness means really bringing your entire awareness and presence into the now and so whatever you’re doing if you can just use your senses to connect with your body so what you’re if you’re washing dishes right the way that your hands are touching the water and the soap um the the smell of that dishwashing liquid um you know what your eyes are seeing what you’re smelling that really helps you bring your experience into the present moment so often in the world that we’re living in today as modern humans our mind is is really uh taking over in terms of what we’re experiencing we’re gone with our thoughts we’re thinking about the next thing we’re you know dwelling on the past and and we really are hardly spending time in the present moment yes and and you know the present moment is here and then it’s gone right and so if we can just be more mindful about that and it doesn’t mean that you have to sit for hours um you know meditating all day every day it really is what you just said you just take three breaths and to connect with your body and really literally feeling the surface beneath your feet or you know if you’re sitting beneath your sitbon so those are really simple ways to just help yourself regulate help your nervous system regulate um especially when you’re having on those days when it’s really really intense yeah and that when I work with my clients like let’s say uh prepping to go into mediation I talk to them about like trying to ground themselves in the morning and know that they can ask to go to the restroom and just take a few minutes to reset like we get worked up and once we’re worked up we are not our frontal cortex is not online as much as that emotional reptilian part of our brain and sometimes just excusing yourself and taking those moments for yourself to like regroup is so important and really yeah yeah it really is and you’re essentially by giving yourself that pause um you’re creating that space so that you can just you know think about your next step from a place of um you know without being reactive or fight ORF flight right just taking those three three deep breaths say okay what is my next move especially in mediation where it’s constantly having to make decisions or and to really know how to set those boundaries for yourself you know um and that as you know is super important when you’re going through a divorce so absolutely absolutely yeah I think and what I want to pick out there that you just said is boundaries for yourself I think when people a lot of times when they talk about boundaries they’re always assuming like I’m creating this boundary to protect myself from this other person but what I think an important way to think about it is a boundary for yourself and those can be boundaries like I am not going to work past 800m or I am going to a lot three hours of self-care time a week 

 I’m GNA hold that boundary firm so it’s boundaries with yourself as much as boundaries tied to other people absolutely yeah when so let’s say somebody came to you and they were like I’m just feeling so overwhelmed and there’s so many things coming at me what are some things that you you do with them or encourage them to start practices or yeah so the simple you know if if a client is coming into a session feeling a lot of intensity um I breathe with them and so I do a guided um you know whether it’s a guided meditation or Vis visualization or breath work um it really depends on whatever’s coming so my toolbox is is well um stocked in terms of variety of things that can help them and so and and you know everyone has their own different ways of of um you know coming back to their breath and so meditation might be hard the word meditation is even could be a bit you know too much for some folks right and so it really is a simple just follow my voice and be gentle with yourself and let’s just breathe let’s just inhale and uh and and take a deep inhale if you are able because sometimes that that doesn’t work for people either so I meet them where they’re at and we figure out whatever breathing technique can happen um and you know if I run into a friend I’m you know outside and and a friend shows up or a neighbor and is who’s frazzled maybe possibly just hey let’s check out the trees or the Sun or or listen to the birds without having to identify what bird or tree you’re looking at or hearing really is just connecting with your senses to the Earth honest with you yeah and coming back yeah I think uh so many of us uh were either rehashing the past or thinking about our to-do list and like especially when you’re going through through divorce you’re rehashing how how did this how did we get to this point like and hopefully you’re looking also at like what did I contribute to us getting here but there’s a lot of looking back and then a lot of fear looking forward of like oh my gosh divorce is so overwhelming where do I start this constant urgency that I have to get so much paperwork done or and and it reminding yourself that being in the present moment and calming yourself down and getting your nervous system regulated is so important in order to get that paperwork done but if you don’t do the calming exercises in the present that work is going to be so much harder and I think why do you think that people get so disregulated during life transitions oh my goodness um there you know in the case we we can stick with the example of the divorce and um it’s just shattering right it’s shattering um I would say especially it’s shattering no matter what and if you add kids to the mix it’s a whole other level of Your World just being inside out and upside down and so you’re not feeling anchored to anything during that time in your life you’re feeling destabilized anxious nervous you don’t know which way to go um and you know you and and there are things to do to help yourself of course but if you don’t have a community um where do you go if you don’t have a mindfulness toolkit where do you go and so um you know when you talk about mindfulness it it goes there’s meditation of course and breath work and and all those exercises and you know we talked about setting boundaries setting boundaries is super important as part of mindfulness and um as well as self-compassion and so when you talk about you know rehashing the past it’s like we’re dropping little bombs on ourselves every every single time we’re remembering the past and thinking what if um what if I did this or said this could could I have done something differently I mean you’re really spending a lot of energy even thinking about something that will never come into fruition anyway and so by um you know showing up and and really reprogramming that inner voice that most of us have critical inner voice right um really that awareness to reprogram that voice and to turn it from a Critic into a nurturing loving voice you know that uh a loving voice that you would use um you know for your best friend for your pet for your children and so instead of asking yourself what if when you catch yourself awareness is always number one is the number one step so when you’re catching yourself going into the past lovingly bringing yourself into the present moment you know that was then this is now let’s figure out a way to move forward um that is helpful to you that is loving to you uh how can we figure that out what can you do now and so you’re not rehashing the past because every time you rehash the past or the future by the way our mind doesn’t have the concept of time and so the brain is processing that story as if it’s happening right now so there’s a physiological reaction that our body is taking on and keeping score so that’s what I mean by you’re dropping bombs on yourself every single time you’re rehashing a stressful past um so I just want to stop there that was a lot that I shared beyond your questions so I just want to check in yeah no that was lovely and so on point I think there were so many things that you mentioned in there self-compassion is something that I think a lot of us it’s hard to even get our head around because it’s not something that we were taught it’s only recently that I’ve started to see it in print anywhere and um where it’s becoming slightly more mainstream of the whole concept of repair Parc ing your your inner child and actually uh not lambasting yourself for mistakes that you’ve made and recognizing that we all make mistakes that’s how we learn in life and so that concept of self-compassion is so crucial as especially when you’re going through divorce because even the divorce process itself is you don’t know what you’re doing and you make mistakes or uh you know you maybe you choose a lawyer who isn’t the greatest lawyer and you end up having to switch lawyers or and then you know you are like how did I make that mistake and all of this is It’s hard these are hard things they’re not things most of us have ever done before and giving yourself Grace and self-compassion is is so crucial and I think having coaches to help you see that is so necessary sometimes like your personal Network like your parents and your friends they can be that for you a little bit but sometimes one they get exhausted and two sometimes they aren’t skilled enough to help you actually see that you are being so hard on yourself and um um and then the other thing you said is the story that you are in and uh maybe you can tell us a little bit more about why the story that people are kind of saying in their own heads can be uh detrimental or CH make things harder for them sure well let me start with you know giving the example that we can all relate to when you you know you’re looking at a you’re thinking about a lovely memory um that you’ve had with a loved one it you know pick anyone of them when you’re recollecting that memory

 it feels so good you know you’re smiling your heart is is filling up with uh remembering all of those feelings and the good times that you had um and we can relate to that right we have so many memories that we’ve built with loved ones and um and in a similar fashion when you remember a stressful memory you can notice the reaction in your body like how are you feeling in different parts of your body do you feel a tightness in your chest do you feel your heart racing do you feel like you know you’re clenching your jaw and you’re feeling um the stress really when you’re remembering that that stressful moment and so your body is having a reaction to you remembering that that you know incident in your life and so that’s what I mean by the when the brain is recollecting something it does not know that it happened in the past or you know whether it’s happening now as far as the reaction is happening it is happening to your body right now and so recollecting a loving memory is fantastic right but we’re not going to walk around doing that all day that’s not um that’s not realistic and so when someone is constantly recollecting the stressful memories they’re preventing themselves for uh from taking that next step forward in their healing process does that make sense absolutely yeah yeah so we want to with self-compassion and other Mindful and and breath work and other mindfulness techniques we want to help them um you know raise that awareness and detect oh I’m in the past and let me work on bringing myself to the present moment and really whether you’re asking yourself questions whether you’re deciding to use movement to get back into your body whether it’s walking running dancing or sometimes you’re exhausted so really listening to your body needing rest because we are cyclical beings um so we can’t be operating at a you know at 100 all the time at all seasons and so really tuning into your body and figure out what it needs um you know cuz if someone is really tired um then going out to walk or run is probably not the best choice to regulate their n nervous system and so self-care is a component is an important component of mindfulness living so um so that’s what I mean by you know when you’re recollecting past events you’re really bringing all of that baggage into the present moment which is then not helping you um make that next step forward yeah yeah I read the book your the body keeps the score and um it really like was so reinforced that whole concept that what we think and the pain and all of that gets stored in the body and if we don’t address and let those feelings flow through us so some people as they’re going through a divorce either tend to drink more or work more and distract because they don’t want to sit with any of those hard feelings but if they don’t let those feelings come through them then they get stored in their body and eventually many times lead to disease or just you know chronic fatigue or any of those uh autoimmune issues because they haven’t processed the feelings and they are storing so much in their body or staying in stories and letting them take hold within their body and once I started to understand that it made me have to really do a lot of work on myself to retrain the way I thought but also the way I connected with my body and um like I started to understand that I stored a lot of tension in my stomach area and I had never even realize that until I started really dropping in and paying attention like anytime I got a little stressed I would pause and just try and notice where I was feeling that in my body and that was so new to me I had never done anything like that before I was very disconnected and I feel like once you start to build that awareness a little bit it then grows exponentially but sometimes you need guidance on starting that process for sure um and there was something that you said in what you were saying before that I wanted to touch on but I have lost it for now so um I’ll let you uh share something while I’m re G my head I’m happy to and um so I wanted to clarify one or or make it clear that mindfulness is not the goal of mindfulness is to get us to be more present in the now because that’s where life is just so so full of riches that we tend to miss um you know all the time and also the self-compassion piece is super important so that you’re not beating yourself up trying to perfect the practice of mindfulness yes and that’s that’s another topic um you know that I can talk on for for a long time but I’ll say this the goal is not to prevent you from going into the past we are humans and we are you know engineered for lack of better term in a way that allows us to experience a gamut of emotions and in the way that our brains operate and it’s it’s really awesome and fascinating and so you know I can get angry I’ve been practicing mindfulness for a very long time I can get angry I’m allowed to get angry I’m a human being um experiencing all kinds of emotions and that is completely normal and so even if you’re enlightened you will get angry and that’s okay so when you do get angry the ability to recognize it so that you’re not spending a lot of time there or or you’re able to bounce back faster so whatever that looks like and mindfulness is going to show up in ways that will surprise you I remember when I started my journey I thought I think I’m doing it right I’m not sure and I wasn’t seeing immediate results because I was wired to see uh you know immediate results in my life if I did this this would happen and you know so on and so forth and with mindfulness it really is really gradual and sometimes it show up shows up in really surprising ways and so um you know what I want to drive forward is is it’s it’s not something you try once and then it works or doesn’t work it really is gradual and it’s a matter of weaving it in just like you would weave in um you know brushing your teeth every day and to a point where if you don’t practice your mindfulness whatever it looks like then something’s missing oh I didn’t spend time in nature today that’s my thing right like I need to step outside for 10 minutes um to do that every day so um so hopefully that was a bit of useful information for your audience there a lot of misconceptions about mindfulness yeah and I think so you touched on that perfectionism of like okay now I’ve been told there are like five things that I should be doing to be doing mindfulness and then lambasting yourself for not doing all five in the day and that concept of perfection is unhealthy like progress not Perfection if you start to incorporate it and you’re starting to make some progress 1% better is better than none and trying to be 100% or nothing and ends up you consider yourself failure so don’t try and put too many things on your plate to do mindfulness like add little bits at a time and be very self-compassionate if you don’t do all the things you told yourself you would so I think that Perfection piece is really important and then the other piece that you mentioned is rest and I think our society does not encourage rest it does not reinforce it positively uh people love to say oh I’m busy I’m swamped because that’s recognized as success or you know that’s considered good but I think many people need to feel no guilt for needing rest taking rest and um be happy to share when they have taken rest because that’s what their body told them because uh it it’s self-care and that is something to be proud of um how like if you can see one of your clients is just like go go go and uh expect so much of themselves how do you encourage them to allow themselves to take

rest that is such a such a good question because again we live in a world that is just constant go go go and you know when we were in our 20s we had that stamina to go go go and 20 years later you’re just like I can’t I can’t go like this anymore my brain operates differently my body is operating differently and my body’s changing change is a constant in our lives and on The Daily we are you know cells are dying and cells are being born and um uh so and yet we seem to want to operate the way that we did in our 20s so the body keeps Gore like you mentioned and we will feel the results of that and there’ll be this disconnect of um you know the body just like not being uh in sync with your youthful spirit for a lack of better better term so um how would I to go back to question how would I help a client really just take that pause so [Music] um I would dive into their schedule their their self-care regimen because self-care looks different for everybody um that some form of exercise you know what is healthy for your body are you eating well are you sleeping well are you EX exising um in a way that is you know healthy and and for your body so all those really is a basic checklist right and also are you able to weave in a little bit of meditation no okay let’s start somewhere else are you into art like creativity is a powerful medicine and we don’t see it as medicine and that’s a bit of a problem because it really um when you tap into your the right side of your brain you’re really allowing um the sense of flow and so when you’re you know I um and it doesn’t have always have to be something that you did in the past so that is a very useful exercise right if you used to dance and you stopped dancing for 20 years try try exploring that again see how that feels great if you want to explore something new great all is welcome and so I’ll pick the the example of waterc coloring because that’s something I had an experience with recently I don’t consider myself an artist but there was something about um you know when I look at watercoloring videos online where the brush is is touching the paper and the color just kind of bleeds out and it’s doing something really um fascinating and relaxing and Visually mes mesmerizing that was something that really drew me in and so I started to I said okay how can I bring this to home and I ended up buying a watercoloring book and I have watercolor pens um markers and and I have it on on a table and I have it open my kids can come and and and use it I can come and add to it and it really is open for the family to come in and just kind of sit there and it’s it’s interesting because when when I watch myself or my kids come in and contribute to this piece that really is there to help our mental well-being yeah and it doesn’t even matter what the outcome is we we’ll stay there for longer than the few minutes that we thought we we wanted to stay there for initially so there’s something about creativity that when you kind of hook yourself in something just kind of keeps flowing out of you and it relaxes your nervous system and so I would say in any self-care that you do um if it’s stressing you out again stay in touch with your body if it’s stressing you out just relax just find something that really is calming um and healthy because you know you someone can come and tell me me 

Well alcohol is calming me down and and that’s fine but check in with your body see how the alcohol feels the next day or does it disrupt your sleep right like your body will tell you um what’s working for it or and what’s not yeah I really love what you said about creativity I mean it’s beautiful that whole concept of the watercolors and everybody can contribute to whatever in that having it out on the table I I think that’s such a neat idea so thank you for sharing that and um I I think we Overlook creativity as a form of mindfulness exploring those Outlets um because actually what during my divorce I took up Latin dancing which is something I’d wanted to do for so long and I did dance as a kid and then took a long Hiatus and that social dancing was something I had been interested in trying as an adult but had never well my ex and I attempted but it wasn’t very successful so then I did it for myself and it was like really I feel like one of the things that helped me through my divorce because it was all for me and it was I met wonderful people and it got me out of the house and I was using my body in new ways and I do when I work with my clients on post divorce healing or getting through that divorce difficult period I do really encourage them to think about what outlet and um or hobby but creative experience that they can have that will just take them out of their mind a little bit and let them get into a flow of some sort and I think that that is such a very good point that people I think forget that they think mindfulness is breath only and it’s so not right and to connect the dots with you know I love that you mentioned inner child work and reparenting yourself um that is a really powerful technique and modality and so when you’re immersing yourself in uh creativity whether it’s dance or painting or being in nature hiking um you really are connecting with your inner child and so that inner child of you it’s that childlike sense of excitement and wonder and look I’m dancing and and that is opening the pathways to that Creative Energy to to come in and and support you and really um help in your healing process yes so I just want want to acknowledge the fact that you know inner child work is is deeply profound yeah yeah actually I just got back from a festival called inner Fusion festival and I attend it every January I started attending it the year of my divorce I believe or the year after and it’s like a three-day Festival in DC but it has all different forms of dance and yoga and Acro yoga and then courses on a whole bunch of other things time massage and but there’s so much playfulness in a lot of the activities you’re doing and the dance and and everybody who’s there just has a very a lightess to them and I feel like that was a gift I gave to myself as well which the dance led to me finding that Festival so it’s interesting you try one thing and it opens up a door to another thing and um but I I go it’s in January and I feel like it’s a nice way for me to start my year to bring in that playfulness and I never thought about it but you are kind of connecting to your inner child when you are doing those kinds of activities that’s pretty a neat way to look at it as well yeah and um when you talk about you know if I had to say um if people were to ask me you know how where do I start how do I start really get curious and playful yeah and that combination um really can take you in in all kinds of adventurous directions and that was my experience um in my when I was at the bottom and trying to figure out how to move forward oh let me try this and let me try that and uh let me explore let me sort of have that that childlike curiosity and and it was nothing short of healing and magical and fun and and funny as well at times so I would highly recommend folks just remember those two things and whether you call it mindfulness or inner child work or creativity um embodying those two values just you know playfulness and curiosity take those two ingredients and see where where they take you absolutely and something uh to like what we mentioned earlier but something I learned when I was working with an attachment coach for a little while is that some of us can fall into binary like black and white thinking and uh if they try something and it doesn’t go well or they don’t enjoy it like they might then look at it as that was a failure instead if you look at it as I’m curious and I’m trying these things and if I decide I don’t like that then now that was something I now know that I don’t like but it’s not it wasn’t bad it was just now I know that and I try something else and getting away from that binary thinking of success or failure especially when you’re trying to do that explor ation and find the things that bring you Joy at this new stage of Life yeah

 and uh that goes back to our perfectionist side and you know we want it to feel right or uh we want it to look a certain way and so really releasing attachment is another way to remind ourselves to um that it’s not all or nothing and you could do a little bit of this and a little bit of that and maybe it doesn’t work now it might work years from now we don’t know so again yeah just um bringing in that self-compassion and um that sense of adventure a little bit that sense of curiosity and that childlike um you know playfulness I think is really a way to to start on that path love that I love everything that you’re talking about and I think in today’s world if more people could just start to explore this a little bit more for themselves and take baby steps into it uh the world would be a better place for sure and good yeah so more people seeking out coaches like you to help them incorporate that into their day-to-day life uh it it really is so it would just add so much to their lives and then it pays it forward it rip the ripple effect on others is it really just would be pretty profound so it would and and I want to add that sense of community can be found in places like festivals or Retreats um or these group containers whether they’re online or in person can really help you along the way and so the the in-person meetups are fantastic having those three-day uh weekend intensive Retreats can can give you that deep dive that you want and seek and be that launching pad and along the way because most of us have a hard time weaving in the learnings from a retreat in our daytoday and and so looking for these uh what I call containers and I offer a monthly series for that reason um to be honest with you where we have you know weekly meetups virtually and that’s a way to practice to come back to the group to share to learn to grow and um and really you’re being accountable to yourself along the way so that can be helpful to some people as well yeah I totally believe that group learning working in a group of people it’s you learn from each other and uh and then you have that compassion from each other that can teach you how to be compassionate to yourself and you can cheerlead for others and support others which helps you as well and feel so good I think there’s so many benefits to finding a group that fits your needs and that you feel safe and comfortable in so that’s that’s good to know that you offer that and uh if you had to add any just last words about uh things related to what you do and why you do it what would you any last thoughts oh my goodness we covered so much and so many good pieces all different aspects of mindfulness so my hope is that uh your listeners have had a good sense of what mindfulness is and that it’s not just about meditation and it’s if if anything meditation is a very small part of it so um let’s see I’m thinking what would be the last piece that I would say uh we talked about about you know the ingredients of starting and exploring and getting curious and really um you know wherever you find yourself in a stressful situation and you’re feeling at the you know at the bottom your light is your that inner light is dim

um it’s important to remind yourself that you’re not alone and that we are all connected Ed in our suffering and that can bring us by leaning on each other we really can uh uplift ourselves and remind ourselves that we are worthy of the life that we want to live and and that starts by tending to ourselves before we tend to others yeah thank you that’s beautiful uh so if people want to find you where can they find you online the best place to go is my website it is uh mindful life transition. coach and from there you can find my social media links and other projects the workshops and Retreats that 

I’m working on so that is the best place to find me okay wonderful well it was a pleasure speaking with you today and I loved everything about the conversation I think it’s so important these are topics that would be so helpful for everybody to hear those going through divorce and any life transition and just for living a happier healthier more peaceful life so I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me thank you so much for having me Lee it was such a pleasure to to talk about mindfulness and all the different ways and uh yes we all deserve to um live mindfully and and Find meaning in life yeah thank you take care take care