Mindful Mama: Raising Kind, Confident Kids Without Losing Your Cool | Parenting Strategies For Big Emotions & More

Hunter responds to the Parkland Florida high school shooting and offers ways to create change in your own life and family.  Click here to start the conversation about this! ABOUT HUNTER CLARKE-FIELDS: Hunter Clarke-Fields is a mindfulness mama mentor. She coaches overstressed moms on how to cultivate mindfulness in their daily lives. Hunter has over 20 years of experience in yoga & mindfulness pra...

Hunter talks to Todd & Cathy Adams about How To Be A Zen Parent. Some big takeaways from this episode include: 1. The goal of zen parenting is not to pass your baggage down to your own children. Self-awareness/mindfulness helps you see what’s coming up in you in those challenging moments. 2. They value discussion over discipline. The goal in the long run is not to teach them to fear us. The goal i...

Maybe you've heard it before, especially if you have a daughter... "Wait until she's a teenager!" Good news! According to today's podcast guest, Dr. John Duffy, it's JUST. NOT. TRUE. (Yay! Bust out the pom-poms!) Hunter talks to Dr. John Duffy about Available Parenting in the Long Term. Dr. John Duffy is a highly sought-after clinical psychologist, best-selling author, certified life coach, parent...

What does it take to come back from challenging time and go beyond just "okay," to flourishing? Kari Gormley is coach based in the principles of Positive Psychology and host of The Running Lifestyle podcast. She’s also mom on a mission to maintain the running lifestyle while balancing everything else in life, including family, career and wellness. Some big takeaways from this episode include: 1. T...

And us moms, we don't even realize that we subconsciously undervalue ourselves or only value ourselves in relation to others. This week's podcast episode is about all the reasons you should go on retreat...the growth, learning, relaxation, sisterhood and more. But I challenge you to take time for yourself simply because you deserve it. You deserve it because you're here, living, and breathing.  Fa...

Hunter talks to Randi Zinn about Going Beyond Mom. Some big takeaways from this episode include: 1. Investing in support. Expecting and harnessing support is imperative. Know you deserve support. Own that support. 2. The body is our foundation. A sense of well-being in physicality translates into a well mental state of mind. 3. Every single day nurture some part of who you are beyond your role as...

Hunter talks to Carla Naumburg about How to REALLY make change. Some big takeaways from this episode include: Willpower doesn’t work effectively and can be stressful Power of self-compassion - helps us to begin again. Making compassion a practice (intentionally doing something with the goal of getting better at it). There’s a big power in lovingkindness meditation practice - what you practice grow...

How can we create family relationships that weather any storm? Dr. Shauna Shapiro explains how our old paradigms of parenting get it wrong, and research-proven ways to become a mindful mama.  Some important takeaways from this conversation: “What you practice grows stronger.” If we practice judgement, we become more judgmental. If we practice kindness, we strengthen hat. We know that with neuropla...

Life regularly squeezes us. No matter how much we try to avoid or block out the difficult moments, they're inevitable. That's just life.  The real question is, how do we respond to those moments?  Do you shame and blame yourself with harsh words?  Or do you offer yourself compassion, understanding, and kindness?   This episode is a very special one taken from a live talk I did last October at the...

Hunter talks to Cassandra Vieten about tapping into the science of your consciousness. Some big takeaways from this episode include: 1. Meditation boosts mother-infant bonding 2. There is an interconnected layer of consciousness 3. Our minds have a powerful effect on our health & relationships Cassandra Vieten, Ph. D. president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Their work rests on the notion th...

Hunter talks to Kimberly Johnson about healing, balancing and restoring post-childbirth. Hunter’s big takeaways from this episode: There are big problems with the way we handle birth and the post-partum period that are leading to long-term problems for moms. We have unrealistic expectations about 4th trimester; healing is slow. We treat it like it’s any other time. We don’t understand that there a...

Yes, I cried a little in this conversation, but more than that, I was inspired by talking to Jon Vroman about his work with the Front Row Factor and helping to make dads more conscious.  Three big takeaways from this conversation were:  The power of dedicating your life to making a difference - as Jon says, choosing our experience. The power of reminders and intimacy with death. We have 936 weeken...

Do you get stressed during the holidays? Feel overwhelmed? On this episode my dear friend Carla Naumburg and I solve all of your problems. Just kidding - but maybe one or two of them. We discuss everything from how to be intentional about what does bring us joy, to letting go of some traditions that you don’t care about anymore, to knowing what family rhythms you have to hold on to and what you ca...

After being in the car for hours on our drive home from visiting family for Thanksgiving, we got stuck in traffic during the last 15 miles home. I was driving, feeling totally done, more than ready to be home. The girls were understandably irritable. It was not a great scene. Yet, out the window was the most beautiful sunset. It was breathtaking -- a pink and red epic experience. It was utterly br...

In her editorial,Happiness is Other People, Ruth Whippman (@ruthwhippman ‏) says that, "The most significant thing we can do for our well-being is not to 'find ourselves' or 'go within.' It’s to invest as much time and effort as we can into nurturing the relationships we have with the people in our lives."  Hunter and Carla discuss this idea. Some topics covered: Can we control our feelings? Or do...

We focus on the food, but it’s the relationships that bring us together. Yet, gathering with our families is not always all we’d hope it would be. Many of us come from families with a lot of suffering. Certain relationships tend to cause a lot of suffering in us. Peace is not always served at our tables. It can be a stressful time to say the least. But it doesn’t have to be. We have enormous power...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you could look into the future and see the results of mindful parenting? You get to do that in this episode with parent educator Larissa Dann. She shares with us the results of years of respectful/peaceful/conscious parenting using the communication skills of Parent Effectiveness Training. We talk about: Mediating a conflict with toddlers Giving kids...

Why don't we teach every child how to deal with challenges? How to process their feelings? For my latest podcast guest, Renee Jain, all her work started with those questions.  We are in an epidemic of anxiety now - for both kids and adults. That's one of the reasons I was so happy to meet someone who was bringing this important work straight to kids.  Renee talked to me about the science of wellbe...

What does it mean to parent like a traveler? Traveling provides some parenting lessons that we can take into our everyday lives to help us live and parent more mindfully. In this episode Hunter talks to Patricia Monahan. Patty Monahan was born and raised in Brazil, lived in Hamburg, Washington D.C. and Madrid and is currently based in Birmingham, MI with her husband and two daughters, Sofia and Ju...

Does your child sometimes feel like a ticking time bomb? Ready to explode at any moment?  That's how it was for me with my oldest daughter. It seemed like almost everything caused her some kind of distress. She was SO attuned to my moods; we had to cut out all of the tags in her clothes; and if she missed a nap? Forget it, we were doomed. There was SO much to learn. There were so many skills I did...

How do you get your child to listen to you? This week, I have the amazing psychologist and Parenting Beyond Punishment founder, Amy Bryant on the Mindful Mama podcast. She tells me about two types of parent: Parents who are worried that kids can’t learn without being punished Anti-punishment parents who are afraid to set boundaries Which type are you? We also take on the question that moms write t...

Did you ever get so fed up with your own yelling that you wanted to just make yourself stop cold turkey? That's what this episode's guest, Sheila McCraith did. Sheila is a mother to 4 young boys and author of, "Yell Less, Love More: How The Orange Rhino Mom Stopped Yelling at Her Kids-and How You Can Too!" Are you frustrated with parenting? Do you want to practice conscious, compassionate parentin...

You know you don't want to yell at them, but what do you do when your kids are driving you crazy? How do you teach them right from wrong? In this episode, Carla Naumburg and I talk about discipline --what we thought about it before we had kids, how we've shifted, and what we realize now.  This is a must-listen episode for every parent!  Fan of the Mindful Mama Podcast? Support it by leaving a quic...

What do you say to yourself when you mess up with your kids? If you are like many of us, you berate yourself. My guest, Kristin Neff, has done the research that shows that our harsh self-criticism does NOT work. It doesn't help us grow and become better parents. In fact, it does the opposite. So what does work? Self-compassion.  Kristin Neff is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, c...

I know that the tools and teachings that I've immersed my life in are life-changing. Mindfulness, self-compassion, and skillful communication have transformed my life and the lives of millions around the world.  They are research-proven, powerful tools. But it's more than just the tools. It's a change in the way we approach the world and life itself. I took the time to think about that recently an...