Transforming Children's Lives Through Mindfulness: Lani Gerszonovicz's Journey
"Your breath can calm you down. But your breath can also give you energy and focus and clarity."
Say hello to Lani Gerszonovicz, an inspiring mindfulness coach, author, and creator of A to Z Mindfulness. Lani's personal experience as a young mom dealing with the stresses of life led her to revisit the mindfulness techniques she learned growing up. Since then, she has been committed to sharing the benefits of mindfulness with children, helping them navigate their emotional well-being and self-awareness. Her engaging and lighthearted teaching style allows her to connect with people of all ages, making mindfulness not only accessible but enjoyable for everyone.
We're in a mental health crisis, and it's really my responsibility to empower as many people as possible.
In this episode, you'll hear Lani discuss how to:
- Practically weave mindfulness into your day-to-day activities to conquer stress and enhance focus.
- Equip children with vital mindfulness tools for a positive and self-aware outlook on life.
- Capitalize on the crucial mind-body link with effective breathing techniques and meditation exercises.
- Upgrade your management and business skills by exploring mindfulness approaches tailored to executives and entrepreneurs.
- Foster a nurturing self-care routine underpinned by an attitude of gratitude and appreciation for lasting positivity.
Lani is a member of The Mindful Coach Association, where you can connect with her via her profile listing.
You can find more details about her work at her website A-Z Mindfulness.
Transcript
Hello, and welcome to The Mindful Coach Association. And I'm your host, Brett Hill. I'm a mindful. Somatic coach and founder of The Mindful Coach Association. I meet a lot of coaches working with The Mindful Coach Association, and so inspired by their stories and the courageous work that they're doing that I created this podcast so you can hear them too. If you're align with this work, then join us@themindfulcoachassociation.com where you can list your services for absolutely free and receive invitations to community meetings where you can network and meet your colleagues. We hope you'll join us. And now The Mindful Coach Association. So, welcome to this edition of The Mindful Coach Association. Really excited to welcome to the show Lani Gerszonovicz, who is the founder, course creator, workshop presenter, and mindful coach at A to Z Mindfulness, as well as the author of The Mindful Coach Association and Emotional Learning in the Classroom and beyond, and another writing called The Mindful Coach Association. She's a graduate of The Mindful Coach Association, somatic mindfulness training and also a member of The Mindful Coach Association. And so welcome to the show, Lani. So great to have you.
::Thank you, Brett. It's so wonderful to be here with you.
::Well, thank you so much. I'm inspired by your work. In particular, you've had kind of a full transparency, I know, leaning a bit from The Mindful Coach Association training that we did and her story and her arc and her inspiration and her amazing connection to heart and a desire to do good in the world. In my mind, you're just a great example of a coach who's trying to do mindful work in the world. But what was it that actually got you started interested in practicing and teaching mindfulness in the first place?
::Well, it's been a long journey for me. I come from a family that really practices integrative healing modalities. So as a little girl, instead of popping an aspirin, we were going inside and disappearing our pain, and we would have our family meeting.
::Hold on, I got to ask you a little bit about that. You said you would go inside and disappear your pain. You were coached to do that by your parents.
::Exactly. So it's a physiological phenomenon that two things can't occupy the same space at the same time. So if you have a headache and that energy is in the space, and you're able to put all of your awareness into that space, and you really use your senses to identify the headache, you're going in, and you're noticing the color, the size, the shape, how much it weighs, how much water could it hold. And you stay with it and you just keep noticing as it shifts. And inevitably, if you're very present and very able to be in the space and welcoming your headache, it eventually dissipates.
::But this is something you did as a child, like your parents were leading you in this, like, early on. Is that the way it worked.
::Yeah.
::Wow.
::They were always doing a lot of personal development and yoga and mindfulness and meditation and breath work.
::Nice.
::And ecstatic dance and drumming. So I was exposed to all of these really alternative integrative healing practices, including nutrition. So it was just my foundation. It was just who I was. Knowing that power that you can heal yourself and being exposed to that kind of thinking and philosophy is really empowering.
::Okay, so I interrupted your story about how you wound up teaching and coaching. So that was just a fascinating idea because I think that's unusual and also is very interesting to me that it lays the foundation for what you're doing now.
::It is in the fabric of my being. So learning how to disappear my pain, learning how to do Pranayama, my uncle was Shivananda yoga instructors, so you might.
::Want to explain what that is for the listeners who might not know.
::Pranayama is breath control. So at a very young age, learning how to lengthen your breath, slow it out, do all different kinds of holds and breath retentions and churning your internal organs around the breath to get more oxygenated and really connecting to the power of the breath. So that's what Pranayama is, like a yoga practice. In a way, it is one of the limbs of yoga. So doing your Pranayama work, your breath work, there's other forms of breath work that I've practiced over the years, wim HOF being one of the more notable ones. But your breath can a lot of people don't know this, but your breath can calm you down. I think a lot of people do know that. But your breath can also give you energy and focus and clarity and Eastern philosophy that any kind of block you have in your body is what creates pain and illness and disease and use.
::Breath to work through those energy. So it's great for energy work for those that are aligned in that way. Yeah. Beautiful. Wow. It's like I can't get through a single topic with you because I want to find out about everything.
::Well, thank you for your curiosity and excitement around my story and my life and how I got started in this work.
::Well, of course, that's why you're here, because it's interesting and fascinating moving along, what happens next to lead you into the work you're doing.
::So, like, yoga became my own practice when I was a young mom. And obviously in the past I had done it, and I was doing it more to connect with my family and to have those kinds of connections. But it wasn't my own practice until I had the stress of a husband and children and sleepless nights of taking care. Yeah, and then I'm like, I have tools, and I need to revisit this as my personal practice. So I started doing yoga regularly, and it was really empowering, and I loved it. And then I took a yoga teacher training. It was really more for my own personal knowledge at that time. And then I realized how much it lit me up and how empowering it was. And during that time, my son was a young boy, and he was suffering anxiety. He had trouble sleeping and separating, and even at one time, going to school became very stressful for him. He had gone to a Bulls game and got a flu or a cold at the Bulls game. He started becoming symptomatic, and in his little brain, it was like, OOH, going to public places is dangerous, and I don't feel well when I'm in public places without mom. He wasn't with me. So it took obviously some time for us to figure that out. But it manifested in a way where he didn't want to go to school and he didn't want to go to sleep. And he had a lot of anxiety presenting, and he was just a little boy, and I'd lay in bed with him, and we would breathe, and we would visualize being safe and practicing gratitude. And it was really able to help him over the hurdle of his anxiety. And we also did some other strategies that are really empowering of really embracing your fears and naming them and being able to move through some techniques to discharge and release them.
::Yeah, that sounds like adult work.
::It is adult work. And that's, I guess, what is part of my passion with teaching kids. It's the same concepts and principles and core values, and you're able to do them. I've worked with kids as young as five and adults as old as 95, and it's the same practices. It's just really the delivery on how you connect.
::So how is he now?
::Anxiety is something that is present in his life, and he has tools to manage it and navigate it, and there's years where it's not very prominent, and then there's times where it just hits him and he needs to really pull on his tools.
::It's so amazing in some ways and how different we all are. Right. Do you attribute that to just a certain kind of nervous system that he's just inherited for whatever? And that's just the way he's wired, and he just has to manage it. I don't want to say neurodivergent, but someone has Add, and they have to deal with the world differently than someone who doesn't. And so is that where this lands for you? He's just the package that he has, and so you're helping him with the skills to manage it.
::I learned through therapy that people who are more hardwired to be thinkers, if you're really smart and you spend a lot of time thinking about things, it's likely that you can be more prone to experience anxiety. When you're more of a feeler and you embody what's happening in your world, you're less likely to experience anxiety.
::Interesting.
::And he's just wired to think he's very smart, and he loves turning things over and exploring things, and that can often create some anxiety.
::And so we're on the path in this story, like, okay, you've become a mom now, and you've turned to yoga and all these other practices to help you manage your new life and your relationships. And so what else? What's the next chapter here then?
::So the next chapter, I graduate my yoga teacher training. Not really sure how I'm going to use it other than for personal. It's really giving me a lot of value, giving my family a lot of value. My husband's noticing a shift in my ability to be more responsive rather than reactive. My kids are noticing it. They're like, oh, that's a win. Yeah, big win. My kids are like, mom, you didn't meditate today. When I'm reacting and losing my mind, not being my highest self, they're like, OOH, maybe you should do yoga or meditate. So they were very little recognizing the benefits for me. And then I graduated my teacher training, and they needed the studio that was offering the training, needed someone to step in and teach a teen class. And I was scared out of my mind and stepped in anyway. And I just realized that it was incredible to be able to share what was so beneficial for me and what I felt so connected and passionate about and be able to share that with other people. And having this childlike playfulness curiosity and personality that I have was a platform that made whether you were a teenager. And then I went on to teach adults and little kids and seniors and people of all ages, like I said, but knowing that that childlike spirit and curiosity and playfulness really resonates with people, no matter how old you are, there's, like, something inside of us that wants to be awoken. And we really connect through this level of playfulness and just really being present and exploring. One of my students always says to me, when you say, reach for the sky, I really want to do it. It's like this excitement around the practice that's really beautiful.
::My language I use Inhabit. You inhabit that. It's actually a somatic experience, and you're going to inspire those who are listening to kind of like, I'd like to do that. That's so fun. So you started teaching at the yoga center, and then what happened after that? Because you went beyond just that. It seems like you did some other work as well.
::Yeah. So just being a lifelong learner then, I wanted to get more into the mindfulness and meditation aspects of it. So I took a course on meditation and then yoga. I don't know that people really realize it because in the west, we sort of make it more of a practice about body, but it's really a practice of mind, body spirit. So incorporating those mindful moments into the beginning and end of my class and a lot of yoga in my community. The people really resonate with the flowing practice and just slowing that down so you can still flow but being really present in what's happening. So my classes started to gain a lot of popularity. People were like, whoa, this is different. It's exciting, and it's very fine tuned to having an experience instead of moving so quickly to get your workout in. I think a lot of people started using yoga as another form of strength and stretching. And then the mindfulness piece was an added bonus that not every teacher really dove into. So I think that started to differentiate me in my community. I also had an affinity towards the energy work, so then I got certified in Reiki and reconnective Healing and Quantum Touch. Then that led to an Ecstatic dance facilitator then with you doing the work as the somatic mindful coach. So it's just this curiosity about energy and body and breath and spirit, and I love the work. It's like, really what I'm here to do, and I'm called to share it with other people.
::That's amazing. Ecstatic dance, by the way. I did some sessions, some work with Gabriel Roth back in the day, so that was a ton of fun.
::Amazing.
::Yeah, it was incredible. She used to come to Boulder, where I lived. Every now and then I went to Hawaii a few times where she was practicing. There's nothing like it, and there was a time when I was pretty deeply into that. So I just have a shared experience. There a little bit with you on that. Tell me a bit about how you got focused or part of your focus seems to have also lit up around working with kids, and so I'd like to know more about how that came into focus for you.
::So I was working at a day camp, and I was doing enrollment and business development for a day camp for seven years. And part of my job was to make these connections in the community. So I got to go into schools on behalf of the day camp and teach yoga and mindfulness.
::So the day camp was a yoga mindfulness camp for kids then?
::No, it was just our way of giving back to the community. It was full day camp that offered everything. Dance and yoga were one portion. They offered, oh, I see everything. But it was a way of going into the community and making a positive impact.
::Nice.
::Yeah, it was incredible. So I got to do that, and through that I've been in hundreds of classrooms, and then the teachers would be like, how do we learn this? And then I started doing a side gig of doing teacher trainings and professional development and working with kids privately and doing groups with kids through the pandemic. There's a platform called Outschool, and I was leading sessions through outschool for kids when they weren't able to be with other kids in classroom settings. And it's just consistently been really powerful and well received in person online with individuals, with groups and classroom settings and home settings. So I feel really fortunate that I've been open to resources that can really bring peace and joy and presence and clarity and make life, like, a little bit more juicy for whatever experience you're having. People are like, I don't have time to meditate, right? I can't designate 20 minutes a day to this practice. I say, okay, but can you put a mindful moment into everything that you're automatically doing or routinely or habitually doing? So if you take a mindful moment when you're showering, I mean, that feeling of hot water on your skin and just being alone and even the acoustics, if you're like one of these people who sings in the shower, it's a very beautiful experience. And it can be something as simple as having your morning coffee or tea and feeling the warmth and just slowing down enough to sense that experience. Smell your coffee, taste it, feel it. Even like in the morning when I get up, taking a moment of gratitude, like, wow, I'm awake in my comfy bed and my eyes open. What a gift. So it doesn't have to change your routine. It's just being intentional with what you're doing, to the point where, like, in the morning after I wake up and I take a moment of gratitude going down and I have a glass of water to hydrate myself after. The 8 hours of sleep and just even taking a moment of being present with the fact that there's water clean, pure water that comes out of my refrigerator.
::It's like, pretty amazing. I know I feel a little weird sometimes, but it's kind of like I'll turn on the water, the tap and water comes out of it and I'm like, this is awesome, and I know it's safe to drink. It's like, that's such an amazing thing. We just take it for granted.
::And taking the awe in those really mundane, routine moments is life changing and quite empowering. Brushing your teeth can become a very mindful moment, an experience.
::So all these things, I love it because it's such an invitation to connect to our senses and wire up the mind, body, holistic experience of now. What's it like to be a human being in a body and have senses. And there's such a rich experience for many of us, it seems like the pressures of our world, we just get disconnected. We become too much. Thinking about tomorrow, yesterday, what I wish I had said, what am I? How am I going to pay my taxes? Who's going to fix my car? So many things. There are things that actually have to be done, and they tend to just take away from our capacity to be present in the moment. So I really appreciate your very practical what's in front of you right now kind of approach. You were inspired at some point to kind of encode some of your practices and ideas and put them into text form. Can you tell us what is it that you wrote?
::So I wrote two books, and the first book was a scripted guide that's The Mindful Coach Association and emotional learning in the classroom and beyond.
::So this was for use in the classroom?
::You wrote this in the classroom or for parents or teachers. It can be used for any grown up who likes things kind of simplified and more playful. But it's really in order for us to be authentic. And if you want to engage kids in mindfulness, you have to have your own practice and experience. So the book was designed so grown ups can have the experience and then they can actually hold space and teach kids. So it's a scripted guide really broken down, simple. My company, what came to me in a concept was I have all of these tools that I've been using since I was a very little girl and putting it in a program that goes A through Z. So there is a letter for a practice for each letter of the alphabet. So whether it's awareness or speed, buzzing breath or cloud, meditation or directing your mind like a director or energy work, there are so many practices, mind, body breaths that have really resonated with me since I was a child. And I picked my favorites. They're rooted in ancient wisdom from body scan and relaxation techniques and gratitude, visualization repetition of sound. They're all like scientifically proven practices. But I've simplified them and put them in this A through Z format so that they're easily accessible. So the first book was really to be a guide, a scripted guide, so that any grown up could lead themselves through these practices and then they could have a scripted guide to engage another person.
::So it's two parts. Is all that in one book or are there two?
::So that's the first book. And then the second book was I finished writing just a year ago. So last July I live in Highland Park, Illinois, and there was the mass shooting at the July 4 parade.
::Yeah.
::And I realized we were a community in chaos. It was a very traumatic event and it affected people very profoundly, of course, many ways. So it became very clear to me that we needed more tools and more ways to engage people of all ages and use these practices so people didn't feel so disconnected coming off of COVID and having the disconnection and then moving through with whether you were in a community that has experienced gun violence or not. There's not a child on this planet or in this country, I believe, that has not heard of it or been affected by it.
::Sure.
::And kids are very it's having a tremendous impact as a nation. We're in a mental health crisis and there's a lot of literature on how stressed out kids are in schools. They're showing up less available to learn, and they're feeling very isolated and depressed and anxious and even at younger and younger ages, suicidal. So we're in a mental health crisis, and it became very clear to me, like, this can happen in my community, it can happen anywhere, and it's really my responsibility to empower as many people as possible. So the second book was a scripted, illustrated it's illustrated rhyming. It's sort of like a Dr. Seuss like book with all of the same A through Z practices to really engage kids so you can read it, do it with kids so they can be guided through. And even for kids too young to have an awareness of their breath and intention, like a two year old. As a parent, I remember the frustration of reading like, Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall and he fell over and you couldn't put him back together, right?
::What about humpty? Oh, my God. It's kind of a horror tale in a way, right?
::And what lesson comes from that? There's no resilience. You fall and you break, and that's the end.
::That's it. It's over for you.
::And that's not the lesson. That our children, our youth, that any person needs. So the second book was really so you can read this even if you have kids who aren't able to do breath control, but you're putting positive images in their mind, and you're planting these seeds so when they are old enough, like as young as five, even four year olds. I don't teach four year olds in groups, but you can do a few of these techniques with three and four year olds. I don't do a lot of yoga with preschoolers. But the mindfulness techniques, you need a little bit more of that mental capacity. But offering planting the seeds, they all have senses. Like, notice what you're looking at right now. Notice what you feel right now. And it begins to plant seeds so that they have tools to use for their whole life. So, as The Mindful Coach Association said, I believe that children are the future. Teach them young and let them lead the way. So you teach one child and you teach someone to fish. They'll always eat fish. You give someone a fish, they eat one meal. So you're teaching these kids how to care for themselves in a kind, compassionate way and practice gratitude.
::And so what's the name of that last book you just mentioned?
::A through z. Mindful me?
::A through z. Yeah. Like, if you go to Amazon, is it there?
::It is.
::So I'll link to it in the show notes. A through Z. Mindfulness do you have programs that you offer for teachers or other people? Like, what kinds of services are you providing to kind of help the adults kind of get their hands around this?
::Like I said, the online and in person classes, I do privates if somebody's interested in individual instruction and coaching. I do group classes for children ages seven to twelve because the zoom gets a little challenging for the younger ones, but so online sessions for seven to twelve year olds and also adults, so broken down into teachers and parents, and then even there's conscious companies. So executives, entrepreneurs also can benefit from the same practices.
::Now, we haven't talked about that aspect of your world. It's like, okay, conscious companies, that's a pretty big pivot from working with preschoolers and kids. So how did that come into your world?
::Just from sheer demand. So in my community, people would start reaching out with privates and like, really big executives and people who run companies and head up teams. They'd be like, so I've come to your yoga class, or, I've heard that you're offering this, or My kid came home from school and told me about this. What do you have?
::So it's like word of mouth. If people trust you with your kids, they're going to trust you with their fathers. Right? Exactly. That's so interesting. Wow.
::Yeah. So I started leading private sessions with a lot of high profile executives and then went on to be able to teach in zoom and in person courses. So I wanted to read this because it was something this was from somebody who worked at Chase Bank, so on their team. And it just shows that these techniques are so important, whether you're an executive or a child. But he said this the workshop was relaxing, enlightening, and helpful. I felt focused, rejuvenated, and encouraged. I experienced a range of feelings and emotions and found it beneficial to have education on these practices and see them in action. I find myself able to focus better and give my six year old daughter my full attention more often. It's made a difference for both of us.
::Well, that's really beautiful. I noticed I said for fathers, and there was a little bias on that on my part. It could easily as well be mothers or caretakers of any kind. So I just want to name that, caught that and felt, oh my God, that was unconscious bias there. That is so great that you're doing that. And that came to you. So that just organically came around to you because of the work you were doing with the kids. And now you have this whole nother practice where you're working with leaders and executives and folks making quote unquote, big decisions in business and how they can be. So what do you think is the biggest benefit that they get from your work? It was a great quote you just read. So how do you think working with you helps those people make better decisions and be better at their work?
::Well, at the root of mindfulness is just knowing where you're at. So I think just practicing being mindful and knowing where you are is the most empowering thing you can do. So people always say, oh, am I going to be happier and more focused? Well, a lot of people are. And that generally is a benefit. If you practice, you generally do experience greater focus and clarity and ability to problem solve. I mean, there are a lot of bodies of research that show over time, the brain actually changes. So you are changing your brain. However, being mindful, you might go, I'm really nervous, I feel my hands are sweaty, I feel my stomach is tight, I have a headache. And it gives you power because you are then able to make a choice about how you're going to proceed instead of reacting and maybe being in a meeting and not knowing that you're feeling tense or in a bad. State and then just jumping all over your team or doing things in a rush. You might say, hey, can I get a glass of water? Can I take a minute? Even just if you don't have time to do that, taking a breath will get you more grounded and that has the power to change your state.
::Exactly. So I hear what you're saying. It's like if you are in charge of a group or a team, and you come in and you go off on the team because of your anxiety or your stress, and it has an impact on the project, on the people, on the room, on the company. And if we're going to be very profit and loss oriented, that has a cost, right? Operational cost. And so there's no better investment than helping people learn to be more resilient in the moment with their own experience so that they don't give all that stress away to other people. Unnecessarily and unconsciously.
::Absolutely. And when you look at the cost of training and retaining a new staff.
::Member oh, yeah, astronomical.
::Then the only thing we're really responsible for is our own mood and attitude. So if you show up and you're putting negativity into the space or being very reactive, you're setting the tone for your team and people don't like it. Learning that giving a little bit of gratitude or appreciation can literally make someone's decision whether they're going to stay or leave that job. There are studies that show that it's not really the money that keeps people right, it's the appreciation. So bringing that into people's consciousness and just having conversations around who can you appreciate, when can you implement appreciation? Can you put it into every interaction and conversation? Let's practice, how does this look, how does this feel? And inevitably, there's again bodies of research around gratitude being the primary practice to shift your mood and attitude. So not only are you doing something for yourself, but you're also doing something for your team or anyone you're interacting with.
::And it's not just an attitude. These are skills that can be learned and practiced. Yeah, exactly. So beautiful. So if people want to reach you, what's the. Best way for them to find you.
::So my website is A through Z, Mindfulness, and there's contact information there, so anybody who wants to reach me, that might be the easiest way. My email is available. Lanilan at A through z A. It's the dash sign. So azmindfulness.com. Same thing for the website. Azmindfulness.
::Okay, well, that's great. And you're offering one on one services as well as your books and your training for both business and corporate. What did you call conscious companies, what was that called?
::Conscious companies? An elevated education.
::An elevated education. So by all means, I encourage listeners to reach out to Lani and connect with all this goodness. And you can tell she's got a tremendous background and experience in helping people become more connected and grounded in their actual senses so that we can do better work in the world. I hope I'm not putting words in your mouth, but I just kind of want to shine a spotlight on you for a little bit and highlight the great work that you're doing and also that she's a member of The Mindful Coach Association and there'll be a link to her profile there, so you can go and connect with her there as well. So let me ask you just before we go, if you want to leave the listeners with one practice that you could give that you could say that they could do right away, what would that be?
::Well, since we were just talking about appreciation and gratitude, this is something that I've incorporated into my own life. As I said, when I wake up, just taking a moment to be grateful for the day, for waking up in a bed that's comfortable and having another new day and having my body all the things that work without me having to put time or effort. So just being grateful for being awake and the day ahead is a great way to set up your day. And then my husband and I do this practice where we'll say three things we're grateful for over dinner, so to close out the day, kind of, or connect when we both finish our work days and we come home and it's like three things that I appreciate about you.
::That's great practice.
::It's beautiful. I mean, inevitably when I'm looking, I say it's like putting your gratitude glasses on. So when you put them on or you can put on your poop stained glasses, it's your choice, right?
::The world is full of crap. How come? Wait a minute, let me clean my lenses, right?
::My new mantra is shift happened. But that's like a small change into the other thing happening. You just add the letter H and it changes everything. So shift happens. So you put your gratitude glasses on and all of a sudden, I may not really be feeling grateful for anything that my husband has done for me in that moment, but all of a sudden, I start looking like, hey, I'm looking. And then as you go through your day, you're looking, oh, I appreciate that you stopped this store. I appreciate that you worked hard all day, are doing your best to earn a buck, and when you're looking for that, it changes the way what you're focused on. So it elevates yourself. And when you hear that, when I can take in the appreciation of what someone else thinks or is grateful, that for me and my being, it elevates me in a way that is so profound. You don't know what goes on in somebody else's experience. So when they appreciate you, you feel like you have a little window into what they find of value and it's beautiful. Start practicing gratitude.
::So this is from the mindful. Coach podcast from Coach Lani. Here's your assignment today right after the show. Go be grateful. Say what you're grateful for to somebody and get back to us. Let us know how that works. We'd like to hear from you.
::And don't forget about yourself. People always forget like, I'm grateful for me. I'm grateful for who I am. I'm grateful for how I act and what I do and the gifts that I have.
::Right. And the fact I really appreciate you doing that because so often people are struggling, struggling, struggling. And when I'm working with people, sometimes I just have to set them down and have them look at all the things that they've been through and look at all the struggle that they've had, and they wind up being such an impressive force for good in the world. And going despite all the things that you've been through, you care and you're trying to be the best you can be in the world. You're trying hard to connect with people and be a force for good. And that matters. And we really need to just own the truth of that in our own lives and let ourselves feel good about that to the best we can. Now, not everybody can get there because a lot of people are in very dire circumstances, but a lot of people can. And for those of you for whom that's available, and I'm speaking Big Mirror here, Brett Hill, it's a good idea to do that as well for ourselves. And so thank you for naming that.
::I really appreciate it and my pleasure. It makes a difference when you put your gratitude glasses on and you aim it at yourself the same way you start looking in other people. You start looking at for things that you appreciate in yourself and it just really changes your perspective and you feel more connected to yourself and it may even shift your actions. If you're looking for ways to be grateful or things that you appreciate, you might go, oh, I'm going to do this for myself.
::Yeah. One of the things I talk about when I'm focusing on Mindful communications is like, if you want to really, really hear someone. You have to be able to listen to yourself, too. And so this is a big part of that, is listening to your own self. We could go on for days. I know, because we love this so much and you're such a fascinating character. I would like to thank you so much for joining us on The Mindful Coach Association. And again, encourage the audience to go out and be grateful today and connect with Lani on her website. And we'll see you in another week with another fascinating interview with a courageous and inspiring coach from The Mindful Coach Association. Thank you.
::Thank you.
::And that's a wrap for this edition of The Mindful Coach Association. We hope you enjoyed this presentation and if you did, follow us and leave us a review. If you're a coach or helping professional that values mindfulness in your work, browse over to mindfulcoachassociation.com and create a free community profile describing your services so the world can find you and you'll be invited to exclusive community meetings where you can meet your colleague. I'm your host, Brett Hill, founder of The Mindful Coach Association. Coach and coach trainer. Teaching The Mindful Coach Association. You can find out more about me@themindfulcoach.com. Until next time, stay present.
