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Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama Podcast. I’m Katie from barbaraoneill.online, and this episode is with my in real life friend, Emily Fletcher, and delving into the topic of meditation in a way that you might not have heard it before. And I love her specific version of this because I feel like it’s especially helpful and practical and usable for moms.
Meditation was something I always had trouble really learning and dialing down until I found her method. And I feel like there actually is an ROI to it. I actually notice a difference and we talk about some of the reasons why that’s the case in this episode.
And I put some links in the show notes if you want to learn more about that. But I love Emily. She was a former Broadway performer, super stressed. As she explains her story, she was getting gray hair at 27, had insomnia, and that’s when she found meditation and it completely cured her insomnia and changed her life almost overnight.
And then now she is an international speaker, the founder of Ziva Meditation, and well known for her work in that she’s taught over 60,000 people to meditate and to make this part of their lives. And often on this podcast, we hear about stress being one of the biggest problems we face. And meditation and mindfulness are often recommended as top things by top performers on this podcast.
And I feel like hers is especially accessible and doable. And so I’ll let her explain that in her own words. Let’s jump in.
Katie: Emily Fletcher, welcome. It is a joy to have you here.
Emily: I feel so excited to see your face and to share these tools with your beautiful audience.
Katie: Well, I’m so excited to jump in. I listen to your podcast regularly, and I love it. I’ve followed your work for a very long time, and we’re gonna get to record two episodes to dive into two topics that I think are uniquely and beautifully relevant to moms, especially right now.
And the first one I would love to really go deep on with you today is the topic of meditation, and in particular, how it is such a powerful tool for moms especially.
And I know you have an incredible and beautiful journey with meditation and that you were not always tied into meditation and that it was like a journey for you actually. And now it is seemingly your passion and the work that you give to the world as a gift. So if you’re willing, can you kind of give us the brief version of how you came to the work that you do now?
Emily: Yeah, so I used to be on Broadway, you know, singing, dancing, acting six days a week, eight shows a week. And my job was unique in that I was the understudy to three of the lead roles. And this particular show, it was a chorus line. And so there’s just this constant low grade anxiety, this constant never knowing if you’re gonna be thrown on stage.
And I think people can relate to that right now because, you know, just scrolling through Instagram or like watching the news, you’re like, I don’t even know. Like, is there gonna be a fire? Is there gonna be economic crash? Is there gonna be some political upset? It’s like most people are living in this state of fight or flight.
And then being a parent or a mother, it’s like you don’t know if your kid’s gonna get sent home sick or if your kid’s gonna wake up in the middle of the night sick. Or just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, they hit adolescence or lose a tooth or, you know. So it’s just this constant change that we’re being asked to adapt to.
And that was getting really highlighted for me in my Broadway career. And so long story short, I found a very specific style of meditation. So this is way before there were apps. This is not a monastic style of meditation. This was not like clearing your mind. This was not a guided thing on YouTube, it was a very specific style of meditation.
And on the first day of the first course, I was in a different state of consciousness than I had ever been in. And that night I slept through the night for the first time in 18 months, and I have every night since and that was 18 years ago. So just to paint a picture of before, I was suffering from debilitating insomnia, like I had not slept through the night for 18 months. I was going gray at 26 years old. I was getting sick four or five times a year, which is not great when you’re on Broadway because your voice is your instrument. And then once I found this practice, it was like everything changed. And I really, it was so good. Like it upleveled my performance, my sleep, my sex, my body, my health, my performance so dramatically that I genuinely asked the question, why isn’t everyone doing this?
So it’s not just the name of my podcast. I’m one of those people, when I find something that works, I wanna share it with the world. So I left Broadway, I went to India, I trained for three years to be a teacher. And then since graduating, I made the world’s first online meditation training, and since then I’ve taught over 60,000 people.
I wrote a book called Stressless, Accomplish More, and I’ve really dedicated my life to helping people find access to this tool that’s so simple. And the profundity I find comes in the simplicity. And where I think it relates to moms is that in this particular style of meditation, you’re giving your body rest that is five times deeper than sleep. So for just 15 minutes, your body is getting the equivalent of about an hour and a half rest or sleep, but without a sleep hangover. So even though, no matter how busy any of us are, it’s like if you don’t have 15 minutes, then you really don’t have a life, you know?
So it’s like if you can get up just 15 minutes earlier or take 15 minutes off of your workout or do it while you’re nursing, or you know, kids just went to school and you sit down and do it before you start your emails. It’s like, if you can just fit in this tiny little window. What I like to say is, if you can invest just 2% of your day in your brain and body, then the other 98% become so much more amazing. I wasn’t a mom when I started doing this, but now that I am one, I’m like, I don’t know how I would do it without this practice.
Katie: That’s incredible. And I would say your method is the first one that really resonated with me. Like meditation was a practice I was attempting long before that. And when I had the idea that it simply meant clearing your mind, that always felt difficult for me because especially as a mom, my mind was always on and always going in so many directions.
And so I sometimes felt like I was failing if I wasn’t able to like clear my mind and accomplish like this zen version of meditation that I had created in my head. And I love the way yours resonated. And it does feel to me very different than other techniques I had tried or things I had read about.
Can you kind of explain with Ziva what sets it apart? Because I have felt that like the drastic rest feeling that comes from it and how much energy, and I feel like it’s so unique. So can you walk us through some of the differences?
Emily: Yeah, I’d be happy to. And first of all, I just wanna say thank you for naming that because I think so many people now have tried the apps or the YouTube videos, and they’re like, okay, just let the thoughts go. Imagine they’re like clouds, or just try and clear your mind or calm your mind. And then inevitably, that’s impossible, right?
Because the mind thinks involuntarily, just like the heartbeats involuntarily. And so then people… you’re a busy mom, I just carved out 10 minutes to do this YouTube video, or I just downloaded this free app on my phone. I did it, I feel fine, but it’s not changing my sleep. It’s not changing my sex, and I’m not seeing this return on investment.
So now not only have I feel like I’ve wasted my time, now I feel like there’s something wrong with me, right? I have too much ADD, my mind is too crazy, I can’t sit still. And then we get this story that like, sure, meditation works for Tim Ferriss and Oprah and all the other high performers and Ray Dalio, but I’m just, there’s something wrong with me. And so I actually dedicated my book to anyone who has ever felt like a meditation failure. I was like, you’re not a failure, you just haven’t been taught yet. And oftentimes what people have been taught is a practice that was originally made for monks. Whereas if you have kids, you ain’t a monk.
Okay, so like in India, which is where my training comes from, there’s less than 1% of the world’s population is monastic by nature. And the other 99% of us are householders. Meaning we have jobs and kids and we live in society and we like having sex and we wanna share our lives with people. And so, by definition, we have less time in our days with which to meditate. So we need a technique that is made for us and not for monks.
And one is not good or bad, it’s not better or worse. It’s just if you’re a monk, you have hours and hours a day to meditate, that is your contribution to society. If you’re a parent, you are nourishing and educating and giving your time and attention to raising the next generation, that is your contribution to society. So again, neither is better nor worse, it’s just we have, we need different techniques. So with Ziva, even though it’s based on something that’s 6,000 years old, it’s based on something called Nishkama Karma Yoga, which means union attained by action hardly taken – lazy meditation. So yoga means union, karma means action, and nishkama means hardly taken.
And so that’s what I love about Ziva is that it’s like the lazy meditation. So you go in to do it, and your body within seconds is accessing a verifiable fourth state of consciousness different than waking, sleeping, or dreaming. And in that fourth state of consciousness, the right and left hemispheres of the brain are functioning in unison and the body de-excites. So it’s very different from apps or guided YouTube videos, or most of the monastic practices, which are more about focusing, they are more about concentration, they’re more about clearing the mind. And again, like there is value in that, there’s value in discipline, there’s value in training the prefrontal cortex of the brain.
Ziva’s just very different. You’re accessing… Dr. Srini Palle, who’s a psychiatrist from Harvard, he says that it’s like focused unfocused time. You’re carving out space to be unfocused because otherwise the brain can go into focused fatigue. And I think that, especially those of us moms who have had any sort of trauma. If we have a level of vigilance in our body, a level of like, I have to be always on, sometimes that can inadvertently get transferred to our kids, to the soccer schedule, to how many snacks did I pack?
It’s like we’re just always running a loop and we’ve transferred that, I don’t feel safe in my body, I don’t feel safe in my home from when we were children. And then we transfer that into always being on, always going, always working, always doing for others as an adult. And so the thing I wanna really just share with people is that while it might feel at first indulgent or while it might feel at first lazy, or while it might feel at first uncomfortable to invest in yourself and to make time for yourself, I would offer that you regulating your own nervous system, you feeling safe in your own body, is the single best gift you could give to your child.
Because then the quality of attention, the quality of consciousness, the quality of time that you’re gonna have with your children is gonna be so much richer, so much more nourishing for you and for them. Because that’s all our kids want, right? They want safety, they want our time, they want our attention. And if we don’t have the ability to be fully present with ourselves, then we’re not gonna have the ability to be fully present with our kids.
And even if we’re there, we’re running a hundred loops, or checking the Instagram, or checking in on work emails, or thinking about the snacks, or thinking about the stuff we have to pack for tomorrow, versus just being here and now. And so, while Ziva is not about focusing, what happens is that when you give your body that deep rest, you de-excite the nervous system. And when you de excite something, you create order. And when you create order in your body, then that lifetime of accumulated stress that we all have in our cellular memory, that we all have in our bodies, that starts to come up and out. And then the less stress we have in our bodies, the more space we have for more bliss, more consciousness, more presence.
And then we get to directly and immediately give that to our kids and to our family. And I’ve just seen it happen time and time again where it’s like, if I’m stressed, I see it show up in my son, right? And if I am present, he’s like, mommy, can we cuddle more? Mommy, will you please come here? Like he just gets so snugly and he just wants to be around me. Versus if I’m erratic and fragmented and not super present with him, it shows up in some sort of a behavior in him. So it’s just a beautiful paradigm shift of like, as I invest in myself, I am investing in my children. Like I always hear that saying of like, God, I would die for my children. And I’m like, cool, cool, cool. Would you get happy for them? Are you willing to rest for them?
Are you willing to feel your feelings for them? Are you willing to slow down because that’s all they really want?
Katie: I love that and that’s one of the reasons I feel like this is of course relevant to everyone, but especially to moms. I feel like moms really set the nervous system tone for the entire house. And especially, we know before our kids are about seven, we’re actually like co-regulating their nervous system constantly and there’s science to back that up.
And I feel like the probably most talked about and hard to address even health challenge on this podcast is stress. We all know stress is a problem: It doesn’t seem like most people have great solutions for addressing it. And we also know that connection and presence with other people is a very commonality in the blue zones. That having that leads to increased longevity, that not having that is akin to smoking.
So to me, this actually touches on physical health, emotional health, mental health, essentially every area of life. And I would say that meditation and mindfulness in some form is one of the top recommended tips by every expert in almost a thousand episodes of this podcast. I just feel like it is elusive, especially for moms because like you explained, we’re managing so much, which makes this intentional time even more valuable both to us and to our entire families.
And you touched on it in your story, but can you talk a little bit more about how this also directly helps with things like, of course, sleep, immune function, nervous system regulation? I feel like nervous system regulation especially is getting a moment of popularity on social media. And I feel like this is like such a powerful tool.
Emily: Yeah, I mean, that is the beginning and the end of what Ziva does for you. It is the single most powerful nervous system regulation tool I have ever found, and I’ve been in this game for a very long time. I’m meditating for 18 years, teaching for 16, and I was one of the first teachers at Mindvalley, MINDBODY Green, One Commune.
Like, so I’ve had the great fortune and the privilege of getting to experience so many modalities. And I’m so grateful that there is this like renaissance, this resurgence in all these wellness tools. And if you were to put me on a desert island and say you only have one practice, it would be this.
Because without it, my insomnia comes back, my, anxiety comes back. Without… if I don’t do this, it’s like I feel the intensity of the world start to seep in. But if I’m doing it every day and regulating my nervous system, it’s like everything gets better. So as far as sleep goes, there’s the… to understand why Ziva is so effective at insomnia, is that for most people, sleep is the most restful form of rest that we have. And when you give the body rest, it knows how to heal itself. It’s why if you’re sick, doctor’s gonna say, you know, go rest, go sleep because again, rest heals the body. So if sleep is the only form of rest that your body has, then your sleep has to be used as a time for stress release. So body de-excites with sleep, body starts to release stress.
That stress starts to come out in the form of thoughts, and that is what insomnia is. You lay down on the pillow and suddenly I forgot to call that person back. Oh my gosh, tomorrow’s a big meeting. And you’re thinking, thinking, thinking and then six in the morning comes around and you’re exhausted. If you insert Ziva meditation into the day, which is this deep, deep rest… and what we do at Ziva is twice a day. So it’s actually 15 minutes in the morning, and 15 minutes in the afternoon is the recommended. But even 10 and 10 is going to just, in case moms are like, what? Like even 10 minutes and 10 minutes can really change your whole life. If you’re inserting this deep meditation rest during the day, then the body is using meditation as a time for stress release, which allows your sleep to be used as a time for sleep.
So what we’ve seen on studies is that the sleep latency decreases. So the time that it takes for you to fall asleep gets much shorter. The depth of sleep increases. So instead of your sleep signature going up and down and up and down and up and down, it just goes deep for the whole time. So a lot of Ziva meditators will report they only need six or seven hours of sleep.
They wake up feeling refreshed and nourished because they got such deep rest while they were sleeping. So, and then that’s been my experience and I’ve seen it happen now thousands and thousands of times over. That people’s insomnia goes away within days and then over time, if they used to need eight or nine hours to feel good, they start to need six or seven. Because again, you’re getting that deep rest during the day, the equivalent of like a three hours of rest without the sleep hangover. So that’s sleep.
Immune function is pretty simple. Like if we go into fight or flight, which is what stress is, right? Stress, even the low grade kind, is putting you into a subtle fight or flight response so your body thinks that a tiger or a bear is out to get you. And when that happens, immune system is gonna go to the back burner, right?
Skin acidity increases, so we don’t taste very good if we get bitten by the tiger. Blood coagulates and thickens, which is what creates high blood pressure or hypertension when we’re stressed chronically. Reproductivity goes way down because it’s like the body cannot afford to procreate if this meat suit is in danger. It has to keep this one alive before we can think about procreating for the next generation. Also, the cocktail of adrenaline and cortisol, those stress hormones are acidic in nature.
And over time, if you’re dumping acidic chemistry into the body, that prematurely ages us and decreases fertility. So, but as far as immune function goes, if your body thinks it’s about to be attacked by a tiger, you need all hands on deck to fight or flee. So it cannot afford to run its regular immune functions and so that goes way to the back burner. And then over time of chronic stress, that stuff starts to build up. That cold that you came into contact with, that covid that you came into contact with, that cancer cell that the body would’ve been just clearing out, it starts to build up because the body’s constantly on guard.
And so that’s why I used to get sick four or five times a year. And then once I started Ziva, I did not get sick for eight and a half years, like at all. And that was a big change for me. And I find that now, like if I feel like I’m coming down with something, my throat gets thick, I’m around someone who’s sick, I just do a third meditation, and then I boost. I feel boosted and resilient.
About the fertility piece, that has been huge. I’m 46 now, and I got pregnant on my first try at 39, and I have the fertility markers of like a 21-year-old. I’ve also had, I mean, this is just anecdotal, but I have a whole chapter in my book about this, it’s called The Legit Fountain of Youth. And by the way, I don’t think that we should be chasing youth, I think we should be chasing health. It’s just that in our society we conflate youth and health because many of us are getting less healthy as we age.
But I don’t think that has to be the way, I think we can get more healthy as we age, we just don’t have many models for that. However, I’ve had, not thousands, I’d say I’ve had hundreds of women who were having issues with fertility and then got pregnant once they started Ziva. People who were not even candidates for IVF who then after a couple of years went back to their doctors and they’re like, whoa, I don’t know what you’re doing, but it’s really shifted. So that’s fun to just see because people think meditation’s like a bubble bath for your brain. They’re like, oh, it’s cute and woo woo and I’ll just do that when I have extra time. And I’m like, no, no, this is the single most important piece of mental and physical hygiene that you need to be practicing for your sleep, stress, sex drive, fertility, immune function, and body age.
Katie: I love that and I’ve talked about how that was a valuable piece for me. And I recently have done a lot of lab testing and biological age testing. And like you, my biological age came back as 21 and my fertility markers at 19 and I was like, oh my goodness.
Emily: Wait, can you say that one more time about your fertility?
Katie: Yeah, my biological age was 21 and my fertility markers were on track for a 19-year-old.
Emily: And how old are you? 40?
Katie: Almost 40. Yeah.
Emily: And where, what kind of test did you do?
Katie: I did the full function panel that does like 110 different markers, and then they have a whole algorithm for biological age. So it’s looking at your methylation, your cellular respiration, the health of your cells, how well you’re digesting, all that stuff.
Emily: That’s amazing, bravo. That’s such a testament to you and this podcast and the work that you’ve done. And to have that and having six children, I just wanna really celebrate you because one, your body, I mean, that is a demand, you know, like creating six humans. It is a demand on the body.
And then the time that we need to allocate to those kids is oftentimes time that we’re not allocating to our own health and wellness. So, wow. Like Bravo, I’m gonna give you like a Olympic gold medal.
Katie: Oh, thank you. And I was gonna say one practical thing that I’ve done that’s helped me really make meditation a habit and that I love with yours especially, is to try to get that 15 minutes in outside, in the morning and get morning sunlight as well. Because on a physical health level, that’s I feel like one of the most impactful, free things we can do.
And it’s enjoyable, so it helps really cement that habit. And same with like getting out under the stars at night whenever I can for nighttime meditation. It just feels so grounding. And I would say the quote that originally made me like start paying attention to you and really try your method is you said something along the lines of, you don’t meditate to get better at meditation, you meditate to get better at life.
And I loved that because I feel like there really is a tremendous ROI on this and sometimes that gets missed when we’re just trying to perfect meditation from our type A place of checking all the boxes. And so I would say for anyone who hasn’t tried it, it’s amazing when you actually start feeling those results. And then it becomes a habit naturally because it’s not something you have to do, it’s something you get to do.
Emily: Yes. Thank you for saying that. It’s like how do you make it pleasurable, right? Like how do you attach meditation to something that’s already pleasurable, like sunshine, or stars, and then you’re a million percent, right? I think on my tombstone it will say we meditate to get good at life, not to get good at meditation because I don’t care if you enjoy the meditation practice.
I don’t care if you’re good at it. I don’t care how many thoughts you’re having. I care how good are you at parenting? Like, how good are you at your job? How healthy are you? How kind are you? How much bliss are you delivering at the grocery store and to your coworkers and to your family? And no matter what religion you practice or what sort of spiritual framework you engage in, I don’t know any paradigm that says, Hey, why don’t you just go ahead and be a dick to that person? It’s like, you know, like all of them are like, Hey, be kind. Do unto others as you would have done unto you, like practice compassion, non-judgment. And that is so much easier to do when your nervous system is regulated. You are rested and your body is flooded with dopamine and serotonin, which are bliss chemicals.
It’s so much easier to act in accordance with whatever your philosophy is, if you feel resourced and nourished.
Katie: Yeah, that’s such a good point. And I would love to even go deeper on that and the self-care side of this and the importance of this for moms. Because I know being there myself, like there’s that mom guilt and it’s easy to be kind of like outward focused and to take care of everyone else. And often we have scripts in our head about feeling selfish if we devote time to ourselves or focus on self care.
And I know that this is something you’ve spoken about a lot and I feel like especially important to moms. But can you just kind of walk through your philosophy on this, because I think it’s beautiful.
Emily: Yeah, I mean the simple sort of cliche thing that really is true is that you cannot pour from an empty cup, right? Like if you are depleted, if you are exhausted, if you are overwhelmed, if you are stressed. Not to feel any judgment or shame around that, but just know that that is the cup from whence you are pouring into your children. That is the cup from whence you are pouring into your partner. And so it’s like if you do not find something, time with friends, exercise, sunshine, meditation, any yummy food, self pleasure practice, like truly anything that nourishes you and fills up your cup, then you just are going to have more to give.
And so that’s sort of like you have to shift that strategically in your mind. There has to be this foundational tectonic shift or you start to believe that your bliss, your health, your mental health, your joy matters. And if you don’t make that shift philosophically, then everything else is gonna feel like stress, right? Everything else is gonna be like a tactical response to a should. And that’s annoying, right? Like then it’s just another thing on your to-do list. And I think that’s why with Ziva, I don’t just give people the practice.
I don’t just do a guided visualization of here’s Ziva. I actually walk people through a 15 day training, a 15 day matriculation. And part of what I’m training them on is the neuroscience, of why you need to fill yourself up first. It’s the neuroscience of why the consistency matters. It’s why you getting less stress in your body, ushers you into higher states of consciousness, and then why everything in your life gets easier. So once people sort of have that mental framework shift of, I not only deserve this for myself, but I am going to have more to give to my family as a result of this, then you can talk about the tactics, right?
And I’ll share some ones that work for me. And I’m not perfect at this, right? Like I didn’t… I’m just gonna say I mess up, I miss days. I miss second meditations and then I just start again the next day. I didn’t meditate for a month after my son was born, and that was fine. I was in the trenches, right? Like my postpartum was really challenging. And it’s like, okay, well I had eight years of deposits in the bank account that I was withdrawing from in that time of really extreme demand. So there’s gonna be times like your kid’s in the hospital or you’re going through a divorce, or your mom dies and it’s just like, fine. Take the pause, no guilt, no shame, but then you just start back again, just like you would exercise, just like the food you made last week isn’t gonna feed your kids tonight.
The coffee you drank two weeks ago is not gonna give you energy today. We just start again each day. So but tactically, some things that I found is that actually my son now, he’s six and a half and he occasionally, not all the time, but he will meditate with me. Like he’ll just lay in my lap and he’ll just suck his little thumb and he’ll lay with me while I meditate. But I had to earn that, right? Because he’ll ask a hundred times, can I just have the iPad? While you’re meditating, can I just watch games? And occasionally I do. Occasionally that is the time where my son gets the iPad and then it’s a treat for him, right? Where it’s like, okay, mommy’s doing her meditation and I get to play this game.
So some other things is that I’ll preset out activities. Here’s some art supplies, here’s, you know, I just try and make it fun for him and include him into it as much as possible. Versus being like, shut the door, lock him out, mommy’s meditating, and making it feel like this thing that he can’t be a part of. The other piece about this is that the more we can educate and model by example for our children, like what this thing is and why we’re doing it, and it’s also one of the reasons why we made Ziva kids. So we have a meditation training for four to eight year olds and then nine to 14 year olds.
And I’m really proud of it. It was my Covid project. I made it with folks from Sesame Street and Harvard Child Psychologist. So we have a puppet named Zi Bunny and he’s my co-star in Ziva Kids. And he’s the one that’s teaching the four to eight year olds and we’re basically teaching them mindfulness meditation and manifesting. So sometimes that’s my thing that I will do of like, okay, I’m gonna meditate and you get to watch Ziva kids. Or you’ve already been trained in Ziva kids, so you get to meditate. And then there’s one for 9 to 14 year olds. So I just think it’s one: the philosophical shift, I deserve this, I’m gonna have more to give.
And then two: don’t just think you’re gonna be able to sit down and close your eyes for 15 minutes if you have six children. You’re gonna have to strategize, you know what I mean? They’re gonna have to have activities. You’re gonna have to someone watching them there. This is outside time. And then the other fun thing I say to parents is, depending on how old your kids are, you can train them.
Look, if there’s bones or blood, please interrupt Mommy’s meditation. If there’s no bones exposed and you’re not bleeding, it’s gonna wait 15 minutes.
Katie: I love that, and I think those tactical tips are really helpful. And like you said, you’ve helped now over 60,000 people do this. And I think for parents especially, that modeling piece is really huge. It’s like, especially now that I have teenagers, I’ve noticed what I say to them very rarely seems to actually get through, but they do still pay attention to what we do.
And I actually learned this the hard way when they were a little younger where I kept trying to encourage them to do music lessons. And then I realized eventually like, oh, this is actually coming from a piece of me, like my inner child that wished I had done music lessons more when I was a kid. So what if I just do music lessons instead of trying to put that on them?
And I started taking voice lessons and over the next few months, naturally several of them were like, Hey, can I take music lessons? I wanna take voice lessons. And it wasn’t because I told them to, it was because I showed them and gave them permission to follow their own desires and then they realized they might want to.
Emily: Ah, I love that. And that’s like the Suzuki method, like I think it’s a Japanese method. You cannot teach a child violin until you, the parent or the teacher has learned to play violin yourself. You have to master a level of proficiency before you can even teach the child. And I really… like none of us would go to a financial advisor who didn’t have a good sense of their finances, right? So why on earth would we expect our kids to meditate if we ourselves are not meditating?
Katie: I love that and I love that you have Ziva kids also. It’s been on my list actually to make that at least available to my kids. Again, I can’t of course, make them do anything, but I feel like for my littlest especially, she naturally has kind of followed my lead on meditation, so I’m really excited for her about that.
Emily: How old is she?
Katie: But she’s nine now.
Emily: Okay, perfect. Yeah, so I’d say probably so Ziva kids has play and grow. Play is four to eight and grow is nine to 14. And if she’s still super into puppets and super imaginative, she might still like the bunny ’cause he’s just very entertaining. The older one is like me talking about like Steph Curry and oh, what’s her name? I tried to go after all the pop stars and athletes that are meditating to be like, Hey, you guys, the cool kids are doing it and sharing a little bit more of the science. But in both trainings, what I love is that it’s really framing it as like whatever you’re into, if you’re into soccer or debate or art or dance, like whatever you love, this is a tool that’s gonna give you superhero powers.
This is gonna make you better at the thing that you love. Versus like, Hey, kids, you’re anxious, do this thing. Or like, it’s crazy out there, you need this thing. It’s not pathologizing the stress in any way. It’s just letting them feel like they have a superpower in their back pocket.
Katie: I love that, and I’ll of course put links. I know you’ve mentioned several tools and that you have so many things available in your online world. For anybody listening who, after hearing everything you said really wants to give this a try. Especially if they maybe had trouble with meditation before or never made it a habit, where would you recommend people start? Where would you point them first?
Emily: Yeah, so I’d say to start for adults, we have a free masterclass and it’s zivameditation.com/podcast. So zivameditation.com. That’s where everything is. But if you go to zivameditation.com/podcast, you’ll get to see a free masterclass. It’s only 30 minutes, it’s like a mini masterclass, but it’s really gonna go pretty deep into the neuroscience of why Ziva is different.
And then you get a special offer on our flagship training, Ziva Online, which is just 15 minutes a day for 15 days. And really, no matter how busy any of us are, if you make this a priority, if you’re like, Hey, I wanna take my stress and my nervous system regulation seriously, you can find 15 minutes a day. And ideally you do it consecutively. And then the cool thing is that once you graduate, you don’t need a phone or an app or wifi or headphones or silence in order to do it. You can do it on a plane, on a bus, on a subway, with your kids yelling in the next room. You really have this beautiful ancient technology to take with you for life. So that’s that.
And then the kids training is really simple, it’s just ziva meditation.com/kids. That course is three courses in one. So you get the four to eight year olds, you get the nine to 14 year olds, and there is a training for parents or adults, basically not teaching you how to meditate, but teaching you how to be a good, what we call sidekick, right?
So you don’t become the meditation police, you’re not trying to force them to do it. You’re just supporting them on the journey.
Katie: I love it, and I will put all those links in the show notes for any of you listening on the go. And Emily, I know we’re gonna get to record another conversation on a whole new topic, so you guys stay tuned for that one. That will be coming next on the podcast. But for this episode, thank you so much for your time, for all that you’ve shared and for your work.
Like I said, I followed you for a long time and I’m so grateful for you for being here today.
Emily: I am so happy we made it happen, and thank you for being a Ziva meditator and the bliss that you share with your family and to the world. It’s truly an honor.
Katie: And thank you for listening and sharing your time with us today. We’re both so grateful that you did, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama Podcast.
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