(Holistic) Physical Therapy, Buddhism, Sobriety And Alternative Education With Melissa Mayer

[5/2/2022 UPDATE: Uploaded overlooked mp3 for the non-youtube podcast version]

Physical therapist and writer Melissa Mayer joins the podcast to talk about her life, work, and various topics of mutual interest like Buddhism, sobriety, travel, healing, service work, meditation and education. From Melissa’s bio

I have been practicing physical therapy for over 13 years in traditional practice settings. Yet, every moment of those times questioned if the environment was truly serving the individual.  Unfortunately, the answer was often no.  Therefore, I went on a self educated path of ‘self help’ books, lectures, energy therapy, holistic health, positive affirmations, etc.  Through practicing yoga, meditation, energy clearing, and more I have experienced healing myself which reiterated the fact that healing involves more than just externally addressing the symptoms.  If we want to be the best versions of ourself then we need to go deeper and seek internal awakening which leads to a shift in consciousness.  As Albert Einstein says, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it’.  

On 8/1/18 I donated my kidney to my husband.  It was a transformative and miraculous experience. I am grateful my husband and I recovered well and presently experiencing radiant health.  This transformative experience led me to write a book about the subconscious work I did in preparation leading up to this event and a divine wake up in which I felt more connected than ever to myself and to spirit.

It has been my mission ever since to continue the journey that led me here and help others seeking healing, self growth, transformation and an expansion of humanity as a whole.

More notes on some of our chat, not necessarily in this order:

• [pre-show I ask about living very close to Camp Hero of the alleged infamous Montauk Project]
• a kind of John Mayer joke
• my request for Melissa to give a bio and say a little about her life and work
• ‘Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.’ —A Course in Miracles
• three main views I seem to encounter about physical therapy:
  1. just like any other prescription
  2. those who sort of people please, or do it for the practitioner(s) more-so than themselves
  3. folk who find it too constraining/limiting
• traditional health care, physical therapy and more holistic care
• healing arts/work at places requiring rent, at yoga studios, and from home
• various aspects of meditation and Buddhism
• our tales around giving up alcohol
• India, Africa and Sri Lanka travel experiences
• child rearing:
  • Simplicity Parenting
  • Waldorf Education
  • being the governor, gardener and guide
  • Alternative Education
  • attachment parenting
  • [forgot to plug past related podcast Conscious Pregnancies With Kristy Geltz]
• what donating a kidney is like

Find Melissa Mayer online:

• https://www.melissamayer.org
• https://www.facebook.com/melissa.anthony.7
• various places to buy her book Recovering My True Self: https://www.melissamayer.org/check-out-my-book
• https://www.instagram.com/melmayevolve

The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:

welcome this is josh dipple of integrating presents and today i have melissa mayer right not meyer the gals of the coffee shop that i sometimes work on with the computer are listening i have to ask are you any relation to john mayer no i am not okay well at least i asked right so i tried here how are you doing today melissa doing really great hey i’ve we’ve only chatted a little bit with text and i’ve checked out your website and some of the topics that we kind of converge on but i don’t really know you don’t really know much about you yet so why don’t i just throw it over to you about tell us a little bit about your life and your work sure well thank you so much for having me josh and uh so i’m a mother and a holistic physical therapist i live on the east end of long island and i wrote a book called recovering my true self it’s about my transformational journey donating my kidney to my husband so um that was the transplant itself was in 2018 and you know i describe in the book what i had as a divine wake up i mean just a deeper spiritual connection with myself with spirit after the surgery um leading up to it i would have you know characterized myself as a spiritual person but never a religious person i grew up with um you know i grew up in a suburban new jersey area with you know strong christian leanings and um but never really uh resonated with me so i started practicing yoga i’m a certified yoga teacher i practice meditation i’ve been to buddhist centers and um that always resonated with me more but also well in addition to prior to the transplant i started reading a course in miracles i was um always a big fan of marianne williamson so i had heard uh reference to it many years through wayne dyer and louise hay and said you know but saw the book and thought it was super intimidating but then opened it up and said you know and the course says you know when you know it’s your time it’s your time and i guess knowing that i had this huge you know life you know um obstacle in front of me i said i think this is my time and it does use a lot of christian language the word god for example and um and that at first was a little you know i was like i don’t know if this is right for me but something told me to just keep going and what really resonated was just a miracle is a shift from fear to love and that that was revolutionary for me because no matter how many times i meditated or went to yoga or did things you know i would find myself in the pattern of negative mind chatter which i think we can all relate to it’s the human condition and just saying this is fear-based thinking i need a miracle i need to shift from fear to love and then with the transplant you know i kind of got on my knees in a moment of spiritual surrender and said god if if that’s what you are i i need a huge shift from fear to love i’m fearing this thing and i need to be in a place of love so i felt like when i woke up from anesthesia i got this you know not really like verbatim message but like miracle granted you’re gonna be okay your husband’s gonna be okay your kids your family your life you’re gonna be okay you’re you know we’re here with you you know spirit the entity is with me and um and it changed my life i mean it changed my life subsequently afterward um i was i am a physical therapist i always had an interest in metaphysics holistics in my leanings in my work but it really gave me the courage and conviction to really practice in a holistic manner i stopped drinking afterward as a result i felt so clear and focused and i said i don’t want to muck this up with anything so that was i mean i would never consider myself prior to that in alcoholic but i was a highly sensitive person i still am and i was numbing myself with alcohol and i didn’t realize any of that until i stopped drinking and my writing um was just coming so clear i felt like i was channeling spirit through my writing and through my work and i said i’m not taking any chances by poisoning myself or you know just kind of setting myself up to fail i noticed that alcohol would really interfere with my negative mind chatter even more especially the next day waking up feeling like i could not stop the thoughts in my head even more so so the clarity was profound and it still is we kind of have similar journeys in a way with that my own thing with alcohol when i first started meditating um it just got gradually over time where i used to go out with company culture and drink and just have to tell people who got blackout drunk the night night before kind of things they did and what they forgot i would always remember i would go i would get up and i wasn’t really that hung over but as i started meditating and oh i after i hit rock bottom and noticed such huge difference how quickly um it helped me right away that eventually within a year i just less and less it got to the point where i would drink one beer and be like hung over for like a you know almost a day sometimes even longer than a day it’s like this is ridiculous why even bother if one drink is even going to do that so um as well the course in miracle stuff i’m barely a little familiar with that but these uh quotes you have on your website from them are really powerful and if i’m just going to read them actually it’s just um two lines here nothing real can be threatened nothing unreal exists i think that’s so amazing and for real i equate that with truth too there’s a guy on insight timer who says his tagline is the truth is all there is right so that this is a clarifying statement to that nothing unreal exists and the fear thing you speak to is really powerful because i know i’ve um struggled with that early on too but it’s also like a reference point and a training for becoming fearless and becoming courageous too right and so when we go through those those tests and trials in a way and come out the other side we can become a hero for those still going through it and a hero in the good sense of the word too not like the cliche sense of it as well yeah absolutely absolutely well said all of that um and just to kind of piggyback on it i you know nothing unreal exists basically only and it goes on in the course to say only love is real fear is an illusion so i remember years ago discovering eckhart tolle and how monumental you know his work was to say that i’m not the thinker and of course you know in buddhism and other spiritual philosophies share that too that i mean that was freedom right there because people would say oh you’re a good person and i’d say and i think to myself no i’m not i have these terrible thoughts in my mind and when eckhart tolle said no you’re not that that just gave me so much freedom to to say oh my gosh thank you and then in the course you know it continues with we’re all love i mean we’re here we’re created we’re extensions of god we’re love and anything else is fear it’s illusion and you know it just helps guide me when i’m thinking about things a situation when someone where i’m like who was right and who was wrong and i’m like it’s all illusion you know i can just rise above all of that and you know again we do it in meditation and mindfulness you know when you just sit still and you transcend all of that all of the suffering and all of the thoughts you realize only love is real you know the the the right side is just love the you know above it all where and and you realize too you start to say when i am in that fear-based place it’s just an illusion and when other people are you know you start to forgive there’s there’s so much in the course about forgiveness because you forgive yourself when you deviate from that and you forgive others because we we can we can point our finger all the time say look at that person what they’re doing is wrong but you start to say i forgive them because it’s an illusion and i can transcend all of this and i can be free god doesn’t need me to police the universe and uh you know i’d we just have to be in a place of love and then when we demonstrate that place of love that is what really inspires uplifts and it connects people to what they are and what they know to be is love and i would find in buddhist texts of course a miracle so many places i’d say how does this person know because these are universal spiritual principles it’s like you know one truth many paths it is and that was a huge shift for me too is when i found out oh i’m not my thoughts what oh my goodness that it was so freeing because i was so identified with thinking right and then the love thing another way to put it too that i found helpful is that um you know it’s a it’s either love or a cry for love right and so yes and then there’s this tagline i have i like to repeat even though where it comes from i’m not totally in alignment with everything there how it’s conveyed but this bottom line on this website um what on earth is happening.com is all is love fear is an illusion um all beings are free truth can never be destroyed and so it’s just like that’s one of the bottom lines there are out there and that i can that i know of um and so so since we’ve talked a little bit about kind of the spirituality side and buddhism side i want to get into um physical therapy and your work but i guess before we do that why don’t we jump in a little bit to the buddhist stuff i i tell people that i’m not technically a buddhist however i have had a daily meditation practice since 2012. i study and practice buddhism you know i do podcasts and shows about it as well so it says you have an interest in this and also you know we talked a little bit about stop drinking alcohol as uh people who are familiar with uh at least the tarabata buddhist precepts uh not refraining from intoxicants is one of the precepts or the precept trainings and we talked a little bit how helpful that can be maybe you can elaborate on that but also traveling to these well the buddhist country sri lanka for sure india uh you know i guess a little bit maybe but then also africa so that’s that’s plenty to chew on here so the buddhism thing alcohol and then your travels yeah i’ll start with buddhism uh local the long island buddhist meditation center um it’s led by sri lankan monk and it’s an incredible place it’s a wonderful community of people i’m really grateful to be a part of it and um you know it was a couple months i think i would be going there for years and certainly prior to the transplant but a couple months after the transplant a good friend of mine who helps run the temple called me up and he said melissa we’re going to sri lanka you need to come and i sit down i just i did you know we had surgery a couple months ago i’m wrapping christmas presents for the kids you know i can’t go to sri lanka and i was in my writing room and i was working on my book and then i thought to myself when have i ever been invited to sri lanka you know you know what you know what kind of opportunity would that be and as i’m writing a book about you know transformation and all these things and i said and you know maybe i could get some real good work on my book done in sri lanka so you know i just had this moment where and the first chapter in my book is called life outside your comfort zone where and it was again one of those moments of like step outside your comfort zone and say yes so i said yes and it ended up being the cover of my book on the cover of the book you see me on the top of mount sigiri and i mean it was this incredible incredible trip i mean bontenando was um you know our local monk who’s the teacher there he was being recognized by the president of sri lanka there was literally a ceremony where the president bowed to his feet for bringing buddhism to the west so just to be there i mean we were kind of like his um entourage so to speak i mean that was i mean this incredible moment and that was at a very you know elaborate kind of i don’t say banquet hall but like you know a conference center like in colombo sri lanka but then we also went to the forest monastery where he did his training as a young monk so we got to have experiences like that i mean meditations under the bodhi tree we were connecting with local villagers and and their um you know head monk and i mean it was just like it was a trip of a lifetime i mean and part of me when i was sitting on the bus writing because we traveled all throughout the countryside was saying i almost said no to this but you know it ended up being this this this incredible experience and the last chapter of my book is called sri lanka and i just talk about that trip in more detail because it was extraordinary and just to tie drinking back in um and kind of the ending of the book i we were sitting around the pool at um one evening and this one monk who was from sri lanka and had um you know there was a language barrier because he spoke singles but he was so jolly that you know it was like love and happiness would just kind of transcend barriers but he was noticing some people were having a little glass of wine or or something and i wasn’t and he said you know drank and i said no and i’m thinking to myself how am i going to describe kidney transplant you know over a language like this and so i’m trying to explain i had a kidney transplant you know i donated my kidney to my husband and i don’t uh i don’t drink anymore after that but he understood and when he heard that i had donated my kidney to my husband he just stopped and looked at me in this reverent way and said thank you and i mean for me that moment to have a monk and somebody who i mean i watched him for the last week i mean the country bows to him i mean he’s someone who gives the shirt off his back the food in his hand to somebody to have his approval you know or to have him say thank you in that way it was so powerful and um so yeah so that’s kind of been some of my experience with buddhism and and meditation through the center um india i was there um as more as a physical therapist delivering continuing education to um through an organization called healthcare volunteers overseas in the states of course we do continuing education as medical professionals but in india you know they don’t really have that kind of access and service so health care professionals are sent over there to deliver continuing education so i got to work with physical therapists in the hospital teaching courses that i had taken and it was an extraordinary experience i wouldn’t say i really saw any connected with really any buddhism there i did stay in an ashram after i taught but um and that was even amazing because i was like there’s a lot of um i see i was at christian medical center actually there’s lots of pockets of um where missionaries have started hospitals and communities so they were actually christian based i mean it the country is just such a such a diverse group of cultures language um so yes i wouldn’t say i had too much experience with buddhism in india and africa i went on a yoga retreat with a not-for-profit organization that um was delivering different care and my friend was the yoga teacher and we just got to travel around with the uh not-for-profits seeing like some of their work projects admissions and then of course got to do safari since we were there which was pretty incredible so yeah those three trips weren’t exactly related but each one kind of got me hungry for the next you know i went to india first when i was a before i had my children and was a young physical therapist and then africa when my kids were you know kind of young and saying maybe i i can’t i want to travel again and then sri lanka was was the most recent and prior to covet of course so yeah i’m really grateful to have all those experiences cool yes this sri lankan it’s um there’s gonna be there’s an upcoming retreat that i’m thinking about going that uh bonte sujato might lead there he’s a prolific translator and i i don’t know if i’m going to go or not but like i like you said at the beginning you know choose to get out of your comfort zone but yes travel is a big um a great way to expand the mind expand consciousness as well at least for some people right and so now i guess for lack of a better transition here um let’s jump into kind of like the meat and potatoes so to speak of your work physical therapists so you’ve you’ve had training right uh in traditional physical therapy right and but then you’ve you kind of transitioned um maybe away from that a little bit now what what i i just want to say here i don’t have any experience whatsoever with physical therapy um the folks i do talk to about it i know one of my yoga teachers is just had a hip replacement and uh her yoga t or her friend who was a yoga teacher of mine too in the past she had the same hip replaced and i i see this um i see this happen i think more frequently now than i could remember you know when i was younger i don’t know however here’s there’s like three main kind of stories or um things i see with people doing physical therapy in the traditional western model for lack of a better word of that it’s you get the one it’s just like another prescription right it’s kind of like taking a pill they’re told to go do it so they just do it right it’s you know there’s really no questioning or any um any anything beyond that which is okay right as long as the system works and it’s good for them well then that’s i guess that’s okay i i don’t know i can’t speak from experience the other one would be like kind of a people pleasing thing right oh i’m doing this you know i’m doing exactly what they say i’m gonna get better you know i just follow exactly what they say and that’s all i have to do you know um that kind of thing that’s not quite as common the other one is kind of like oh this is kind of constraining you know they’re not real they can only kind of go by the book and there’s only a few things they can do and it’s very limiting constraining and it just doesn’t seem they don’t seem to be doing all they could or there seems like there could be stuff beyond this that could help me too but i’ll just kind of go along with it because i don’t know what else to do exactly exactly and that’s that i mean you know you you hit the nail on the head there i mean i went to physical therapy school and um because my uncle had had a stroke and it was um i used to go with him to his physical therapy um when he was at a rehab facility and you know i felt a real deep connection to the work of trying to get this person to walk again i’d always liked sports and exercise but i’d also felt a deeper connection to healing and to health so you know i was like here’s a good start but right from the beginning i knew i felt a deeper need to be a healer but i just didn’t know what that meant and i said you know i want to learn the rules before i can break them so went to school and and i’m glad i did it that way because i mean the the traditional healthcare model is complicated and and you know and for some reasons for for for a good reason i mean the body is complicated and you know you have to know how to recognize red flags and to know when shoulder pain is shoulder pain or when there’s something a lot deeper going on like a hemorrhage or you know so i’m glad you know just to practice safely i’m glad i went down that road and then not to mention there’s complexities in different healthcare environments i worked in hospitals and outpatient centers in rehabs there’s so many different diagnoses and things that and nowadays it’s even more complicated patients have you know so many diagnoses and you have to know what those are and how those connect so i’m glad i went to physical therapy school in a very traditional manner and physical therapists i in my experience are very ethical people very thorough knowledge well-educated people so i’m proud to be a part of that field my husband’s a physician i do um very much honor people that practice in the traditional healthcare setting if you’re sick the doctor is a really good place to start but i think a lot of us these days are realizing you know after we see the doctor and get our blood work done and get our screenings done to make sure there’s not something more damaging and dangerous that needs to be treated appropriately you know a lot of us are just kind of are longing and realizing that we need something deeper and practicing in traditional physical therapy clinics for years and dealing with like you said just um the limitations you know documentation insurance over scheduling i mean physical therapy practices have to schedule people every 15 minutes if they want to pay their bills if they want to pay for the building to have electricity so you know in that sense it gets over stimulating it gets overwhelming a lot gets lost there’s not enough time with the practitioner and being a highly sensitive person i mean that that would really start to get to me at the end of the day i’m like i’m seeing all these people and i’m not even connecting with them and you know it was just hard and it almost made me want to leave and stop the work but then after having my children and really connecting with myself as a mother and connecting with waldorf education and just some of those um education practices that really focus on the whole person and kind of you know coming and finding myself again said no this is my work and i want to get back to it so i started getting back slowly and picking up shifts and then with the kind of more grounded bass said how can i work within this and then before i knew it it was time for the transplant and had that divine wake up like i experienced like i explained earlier wanted to write a book about it which was totally therapeutic and then i said you know what i went to a yoga class in my um in my neighborhood and the yoga teacher who owned the studio so about you start doing some therapy sessions here like private sessions i said that would be perfect it’s in a yoga studio the space is right the energy’s right i can get people that are hurt back to their yoga practice so i started there and then um you know people were starting to say well just come to your house you know this way you don’t have to pay rent because i felt like i had to charge them a lot because i had to pay rent with the studio owner so people started coming to my house and then with kovid we did a a nice renovation so now i have like my own healing space that is just set up for them it’s down in my basement but it has this earth energy that is really amazing and i can do bodywork with them myofascial release release the tension from their body and do yoga poses with them and i do um acupuncture cupping i mean there’s just a lots of different you know energy therapy and clearing and then at the end we always do a final meditation to just relax connect ground and kind of like i say like turning the computer off and back on and resetting it to just let everything kind of come together so i love it i’m grateful to find this niche and it you know it took a lot of time getting here after like i said earlier the transformation kind of really gave me the courage and conviction to say you know what you’ve wanted to do you’ve wanted to do this for years now it’s it’s the time and it just all came together so cool it’s it and it the point you made at the beginning is really important too having you know knowing the rules before you can break them and just having that grounding and knowledge and training in in how everything works i mean you so you have that huge reference point and you have all that knowledge and wisdom and you can now bring it even to your own house which i think is really cool because if some people get into like a you know yoga studio it’s a it’s a mostly it’s a cool space right but it’s kind of impersonal in not the the best ways sometimes i mean some places are really great and people connect in a community right away but if it’s somebody going into their own home you know the person cares about the space right and it’s actually kind of a part of who they are in a manner of speaking so i i feel that’s really helpful and the person there’s a trust there too you know letting someone in your own your house for healing as well um now you you i i i have to ask though i mean i’m sure you get this on most of the your other interviews and it seems to be like the most kind of life-changing event um not only for you but if anybody would gone through this having a kidney transplant so might as well just talk a little bit about that before we get into i’d like to talk about some of the education things i’m interested in some of that but this huge um life-changing event of going under the knife i mean you know actually having your own body cut open in order to help another right yeah yeah so i mean it was my daughter my oldest daughter’s 10 so when i was pregnant with her i was sitting in the midwife’s office and my husband who like i said is a physician but was a resident at the time came to meet me and i knew something was on his mind and he had seen a new nephrologist because his old one had retired also at columbia presbyterian where you know we had worked in new york city and he said the new doctor said it was time to get it you know he needed a transplant so you know on some level we knew that this was a possibility but to kind of get it at that time was was was intense but at the same time you know thank goodness we talk about our meditation practices that granted us i said what do we do and he says we need a donor so thankfully we had family and friends that were willing to get tested to be a donor i was pregnant at the time but the best match was me and i wanted to be the donor so at that point the nephrologist said well you have a living willing donor that results in the best outcome we can wait a little longer you know to watch your creatinine your kidney levels um we can monitor them and then when we get to you know kind of the real we’re at a red flag point but when we get to the real red flag then it’s time to you know really spring back into action so they didn’t know if that would be six months a year but miraculously it was seven years so i was able to have my first daughter able to have my second daughter we moved out of new york city to the east end now where we live this beautiful beach community i was able to connect like i said being a mother and i was just transformational in and of itself and then it was seven years later where the doctors because they were monitoring him closely said okay now it’s time so then it was a scramble of chest x-rays and all this diagnostic testing to you know really get it in motion and i was doing lots of inner clearing work i was doing lots of meditating beach walks writing just all these things to like therap like i was by myself a lot like i couldn’t really be around too many people i just had to really stay like grounded and focused and like you said earlier about alcohol in one drink i noticed the week before the transplant i had one glass of wine and i said and my mind started going and i thought to myself i need to be focused here this is i’m going to have surgery you know this is a huge moment emotionally vulnerably physically i i need to be focused i can’t have any of you know this i can’t have this distraction so i stopped a week before and you know again just doing kind of all that inner preparation work and then when i described earlier that kind of moment of spiritual surrender i mean i remember laying on the table and i wrote about this in my book just affirmations left and right just looking at everybody saying i bless you i wish you you know the highest good you know for every all the energy that you put into me may it be professional may it be purposeful i was talking to my kidneys i said goodbye left kidney you’ve served me well continue your divine mission right kidney i know you can handle the work of you know my body on its own and just like the whole time just staying in this kind of grounded meditative space and then when i went to sleep just waking up it was just this it was it was so transformative i mean that’s why i wrote a book i said i have to tell this story because when i woke up i said i can’t believe what’s just happened you know like i mean my life has changed this obstacle became an opportunity you know to serve to connect to recover my true self which is the title of the book so yeah it was it was it was very very powerful and profound thanks for sharing that and it won’t the that inner talk and is so cool too you know people might think that’s if you if they didn’t know that in context if you’re just talking to your internal organs like that people might think that’s a little silly but when people you know would consider having getting cut open and having something taken out right then that doesn’t it doesn’t seem so silly anymore right it seems like a really grounding um beneficial strategy as well and then as that seeps in right in how it actually um is of benefit and it works the power of the mind and intention too and you can just tell by the way you put that forth you know and embody that it’s it’s beautiful i worked with um an uh an intuitive reader um right before the surgery she had um she had never met me before i was on the beach but that’s what she does she does intuitive readings and she was reading me like a book she’s like i see water i said yeah i’m sitting at a beach and and i said you know i’m i’m having this really huge life-changing event happening before me and she said i see spirit inner inner wrapped around your organs i see it in you i see your spirit guides surrounding you i see your organs wrapped up with this energy and you know just hearing someone say that and then i had a reading with someone else who said i’m getting messages to tell you to believe in your bones you know your from your grandfather who passed away when i was a child who said you know believe in your bones and um so you know once i started just hearing from different people and and and feeling like this there’s there’s so much there’s a lot more going on here than just what you can talk about on the surface so i want to tap into that and i want to connect with that and have that guide me through this and i felt like i did have like hands holding me you know throughout the journey very cool and of course in traditional chinese medicine kidneys are linked to water right and so yeah being at the beach and living where you live on long island being surrounded on both sides by water right pretty much um so now you mentioned your your children too and um i’ve never married and i don’t have kids that i know of but i am interested in uh for my niece and nephew and just education in general because i know my education well i would say schooling journey it wasn’t really much education um had been fairly challenging for me um so i’m i’m fascinated by kind of even homeschooling um now in i’m familiar a little bit with waldorf education but not much by name alone mostly but you also mentioned these terms alternative education which i just mentioned but attachment parenting i i feel that’s going to be highly psychological with the attachment thing which is another interesting thing in buddhism there’s non-attachment but it’s healthy to have attachment and parenting right but also the simplicity parenting i haven’t heard of that so any any and all of these you’d like to talk about i’m interested in however you want to approach those yeah i’ll just kind of touch on each one briefly so attachment parenting and you know there’s books and lots of people who maybe would define it differently but how you know i the reason i’m i write about it mention it is just especially when your child is born um a peaceful birth process whether or not you have a home birth or with a midwife but in a natural environment so you know i’ve heard um people say peace on earth begins with birth so just like a peaceful birthing process for you and for the child coming in and then you know breastfeeding co-sleeping you know just things where baby wearing you know the the child is attached to you i mean that’s in traditional cultures and that’s how it always was you know the baby would be you know in a sling on the boob and then at night you know we didn’t have separate bedrooms and beds you know just kind of this really like primitive way but not priming maybe primal you know in a way that just makes sense for a developing human that was in your womb to want to be close to your body and then they naturally leave they they start walking and they walk away so you know people would say oh aren’t you worried they’re never going to get out of your bed or off your boob and they they are in school now far away from me you know i mean they they move and they grow and and kind of the the lesson of teaching independence through having dependence met you know where we’re just like they need to be independent and it’s like well how about they will be independent once they feel their dependence on somebody is met and no longer needed and i’d say that’s really the foundation for um simplicity parenting waldorf education uh simplicity simplicity parenting is is a parenting movement led by an author by the name of kim jong kane who’s an extraordinary um psychologist he’s written tons of books um and worked with people all over the world and what i think is most interesting probably to you and listeners is he talked about um working with children in southeast asia that we’re living in war zones i mean we’re experiencing these children experiencing post-traumatic stress but then working with more privileged families in the uk and noticing that they had similar tendencies of these children that were dealing with post-traumatic stress and that fascinated him and when he tells that story that fascinated me and instantly it was like yes because we live in the states we know why are children who are so privileged and have everything and you know of course not everyone has everything but even you know even people with low incomes have iphones you know it’s like we all have these things but why does everyone seem like they’re in the state of post-traumatic stress so he talks about you know the four principles and pillars of just um rhythm you know especially focusing on the inhale and the exhale the rhythm of the seasons um the rhythm throughout your day not this tight schedule but you know i mean after eating running around outside and then coming in and reading a book and just you know and again it’s so mindful like i mean i loved it i mean it resonated with everything i was doing um uh being very cautious with screen time i don’t want to say no screen time because that triggers people but really um you know we all know it’s like eating junk food we don’t want to give it up but we know it’s bad for us so um the emphasis on that also um simplifying the environments children don’t need these crazy light up toys they stack up rocks by themselves outside if if given that uh given that opportunity and just um and also um protecting them from the adult world you know people say you don’t want to shelter your children but the young child does not need to know what’s going on in the news i mean they have no context for what it the atrocities that are going on in the world so people a lot of people you know think that you have to treat them like a young adult but the young child really needs to be nurtured protected their imagination that they are born with is beautiful i mean we watch babies and we’re in awe and we’re like we have to preserve that and let that be and so waldorf education is you know again you know all connected to it because rudolph steiner who actually developed it in 1919 in austria but there’s schools all over the world it’s not so much filling the kids the child’s head with knowledge but the connection to themself because he also came up with biodynamic farming and anthroposophy which is the connection of the human to itself and that’s what i loved about it you know the early the young children are they’re out there raking leaves and playing in the snow and then working in the garden in the spring with farm animals and they’re painting and you know and it’s not a free-for-all you know i mean there’s there’s no no we’re not going to do that right now it’s not just like this you know we think people think like a lot of these parenting techniques means like let the child rule the roost and kim jong ping talks about you know being the governor the gardener and the guide you know with the young child you’re the governor i mean you don’t scream and yell but no no we’re not going to do this right now and and then when the kid and then that’s the thing it evolves and then when the child is 10 which my oldest is 10 now she doesn’t need the governor and in fact that really kind of breaks our trust when i’m more of now her you know um gardner you know where you you’re looking at the weather you’re assessing the conditions you know like he kim jong ping uses these beautiful metaphors you’re you’re kind of you know you’re assessing things and putting it together and then when they’re teenagers you’re the guide you know you’re you’re guiding from your experience you’re sharing what you’ve known but you’re letting them i mean it’s natural they they leave and and you know they come back but i noticed that with myself i moved to california and it was really hard leaving home and and i remember you know my family had a hard time with it but real day and that’s that was natural it was natural for me to want to you know to leave and then you know they come back but just understanding that cycle and that rhythm so i just loved all of it i learned so much in it you know and thinking gosh this is what i would have loved growing up so i think we make parenting decisions based on what we wanted growing up that that would have really helped me when i was a highly sensitive child running around not feeling like i had much rhythm and and knowing what was going on in the world so it was really great you know i really embraced it as you can as i’m sure you can hear i can um pretty much agree with all of that you know it all makes so much more sense than a lot of the different models and at the same time folks are doing the best they can to do better they would and then we also re-parent ourselves too right but i’ve noticed this in my niece and nephew that um yeah it seems like up to maybe like five or six they do need that really they need attention all the time right they need to be very close total nurturing all the time lots of time and attention but then after that and they start to go into more what you’re talking about um along those lines of yeah getting into the gardening stage right and um now i thought there was another point i wanted to pick up on there um well you know the wal mart waldarf school there’s a farmer’s market in st louis that i went to they had the winter’s farmers market at one of them before it was a really cool place um so with the education i guess we can start to wrap it up here is there anything else you’d like to leave the audience with and also be sure and tell people where they can get your book what kind of events you have coming up how people can get a hold of you your website and social media anything else you’d like to plug or promote too yeah thanks so this is really great and to find out more about me and my work you can go to http://www.melissamayor.org m-e-l-i-s-s-a mayor m-a-y-e-r dot org i’m on facebook of course says melissa anthony mayor my instagram is mel may evolve but really my website has um my blog and um where to get my book and information about holistic physical therapy and podcast events and things like that so that’s really the best resources my website and i guess i’ll leave with since we do kind of share um you know buddhism and eastern philosophy so there’s a quote by latsu a man who knows others is wise a man who knows himself is enlightened and i saw that on insight timer uh because i use that as my meditation um app as well and i love sharing that as i kind of close out a podcast because you know my book and my work you know it’s it’s an offering to others but it always a lot of times too is you know to to learn myself because learning myself is how i can help serve others you know and you know in the course of miracles it talks about too just you know when you’re connected to love that’s how you serve the world you extend the love from spirit to others and the love has to start with you not in this selfish way in a way of you know if anything like suffering with the ego is selfish because you know it’s all about you when you’re in your head being victimized by the thoughts in your head by your ego that’s selfish but when you’re in a place of love and you can practice that and extend that to people you know that’s that’s why we’re here not the job we do or the money we have just how we serve through love so beautiful disappointing too and i tell um people in the christian tradition sometimes love your neighbor as yourself but if you don’t love yourself how can you love your neighbor to the degree you you that makes sense right absolutely so thanks so much for joining melissa it’s been a pleasure and yeah it’s great thank you so much for having me josh you’re welcome and may all you listening be blessed with an optimal ideal level of consciousness consciousness and energy bye now