Teaching Humanity Remotely with Dr. Mindy Shaw learnwithmeremotely

In this episode, Dr. Shaw takes a look at the use of language and how it can cause misunderstanding or misinterpretation.   She uses the example of the phrase "the universe is testing me," and the framework of that phrase implies a zero sum game where the universe is either for or against us.   What we should say in that situation is the universe presents opportunities, and the manner in which we respond to that point of view becomes a demonstration of where we are as individuals and how we show up.  How we choose our words impacts our experience, and we don't want our words to turn us into victims.  What we need to do is see ourselves in each and every moment and if we can teach our children to do the same thing via modeling, we will be helping them tremendously.

In this episode, Dr. Shaw discusses on one of her most important and frequently mentioned educational tool and that is "noting and marking" occurrences of success.   She shares some of her own experience from her decades of experience, and she then focuses on an illustrative example of noting and marking from her personal life.  She relates a recent story about how she dealt with some anxiety that her granddaughter was feeling and how noting and marking a successful experience in dealing with that anxiety.  She believes that learning is not a selfish experience, rather a generous one, and this story can help reinforce how modeling the right behavior goes very far in educating.

In this brief but insightful episode, Dr. Shaw discusses and illustrates how we are often lucky in our lives when negativity strikes.   While that may seem counterintuitive on the surface, Dr. Shaw provides a few examples of how our challenging moments in life can lead to us being lifted up.   Her poignant conclusion on this topic is worth remembering.... that our moments of suffering are truly gifts because they lead us to the next moments of complete healing.

In this episode, Dr. Shaw talks about the celebrations of the Spring Season.  The religious holidays and other celebrations of this season have a focus on re-birth, growth and freedom.  She relates a personal story about her recent experience telling the story of Passover to her young grandchildren and how she handles some of the scary parts of that story.  She talked at that dinner about how the Passover story allows a vision into the human condition and is very focused on the notion of freedom.   There are lessons in there about co-existence and it demonstrates different belief systems.  The conversation then turns to handling relationships that may not share the same point of view... her conclusion is that someone may not be a friend, but that doesn't mean one shouldn't be friendly with that person.  The understanding that comes from this is that in order to have peace in our lives, acceptance of differences is key.

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

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