 to physical therapy for a better life. I'm your host, Christine Linder's physical therapy specialist. Practicing mindfulness has changed the life of myself, my friends, my patients, and my colleagues, and even as short as three to five minutes a day. Practicing mindfulness has given people hope and can help you find calm in times of stress, depression, anxiety, or even panic attacks. I just had a patient come in and hugged me and she thanked me so much. She just had a major loss in her life. I showed her how to do a few minutes of mindfulness and she said she played it six or seven times and really found calm amidst her panic attack. So I wanted to bring you these simple strategies into your own home so you can reboot your mental health on this very special once in a lifetime day and find your calm, find your inspiration, find your strength to enjoy this day, this week, this year, this life. Let me introduce my guest Latisha Tish, our massage therapist and wellness practitioner so we can learn what we all need a little bit more of right now. A little bit of self-care, a little time devoted to ourselves, and a little mindfulness meditation so we can de-stress and find calm. Welcome Tish, thank you so much for coming on. Good morning, Christine. Thanks so much for having me. I know that you and I have been so inspired to do this show on two, two, two, two, zero, two, two on Tuesday and I can't wait to get going. So as a wellness practitioner, I love every time I get to see you because I always feel so calm no matter how overwhelmed I'm with my to-do list for feeling stressed about every little aspect of my life and I just feel so calm when I'm around you and just the word choices you use and I am just wondering, tell me a little bit about you and your mindfulness. You said to me, I'm going to go do a meditation and get myself ready for the show and I was doing the same thing. Tell us what can we do right now just to find calm or clear our minds? I know you mentioned a little singing bowl too, give us an idea. So for me, I really feel like we are a being of all parts. So we're a body, mind, spirit and emotions. So what we want to do and I'll say this in anything that I practice and any kind of health and wellness that you're going to receive for your own self is that you want to address all of those areas of your body and your being. So I was thinking about this episode and what would touch base on all of those areas as far as self-care and mindfulness and meditation really takes the boat with every single area in your life. You can have the vibration, you can have the frequency, you have your body, your mind, your spirit, everything. So I think that meditation would be the number one. I think so too and you know why I like this show so much is I often, myself included years ago, you hear the word meditation. If you've read Eat, Pray, Love, people have seen how people, oh my gosh, I can't meditate. I can never quiet my mind. I can't stop and sit like that for all that period of time. And I think when people say meditation or hear meditation, they maybe misunderstand what it really means and mindfulness meditation and focusing your thoughts on what it is right now and clearing that mental space. And so I love that we're talking about this right from the start because people get scared away from meditation and I want them to understand the beauty. Like you said, it takes the cake on self-care, the effects that it has. Yeah. And it's, I think the cool thing, I mean, like right now I'm having to be a little mindful because somebody just started construction next door. So I'm like, oh gosh, okay, settle in, settle in. But it is daunting. It's daunting when you think about meditating because a lot of people have a hard time just sitting still, right? And what am I supposed to do? Focus on a flame, focus on my breath. I mean, personally, I'm a super active person. I think you share that with me, Christine. So for me, I started with active meditation. So active meditation really works for me, like going on a mindful walk or a hike or something like that. And then you're adding in the other aspects too, like nature and sensory sound, smell, all those things. If being quiet and sitting down or laying down is a good way for you to meditate then honor that. I just think that you should really, people should try it out. Also, big, big point that I want to touch base on is that you don't have to do meditation for an hour every day or half an hour every day, even if you can find a couple of minutes every single day and dedicate that time, even if it's just two minutes of oming, two minutes of doing the sound you or two minutes of while you're brushing your teeth, just be mindful, be aware, allow yourself to totally check in with your breath, with your thoughts, with your heart, how's your body feeling? Where are you? Where's your mind going? Are you feeling grounded? Give yourself a couple positive affirmations, that consistency, that's been proven, that that is what is going to make positive life changes, life changes. That's amazing. And you talking about all those little ways that you can find mindfulness reminds me of a couple of different examples of things that I've experienced, like when I was working in Connecticut, a very busy clinic, somebody said they went to a mindfulness seminar and they were saying, just in between each patient, we have to wash our hands, right? And just washing your hands and just thinking about, wow, the soap is so slippery. And oh, look at the bubbles on my hands. And I started doing that. I was working with one patient every 30 minutes in a very busy, loud orthopedic clinic. And I started going to the sink and, you know, like this, because my next patient's there, I want to give them my full attention. And I'm tense from the last one. I didn't have that time to clear my brain. So I started washing my hands and how that feels slippery. And honestly, my shoulders went from here to here. And I greeted my next patient with all of me. And that happened every single 30 minutes. And that has been proven. We keep saying this proven, right? It's proven it changes your brain chemistry when you consent to your brain on one thought or one, some people use a, um, like a meditation word, like I had mentioned to someone I heard in this talk by Pauline Lucas, she said, you can use the word one and just say in and out and breathe one. It's a word that doesn't have meaning attached to it, or you could stare at a flame or envision a flame, just make sure whatever you pick as your object or your word doesn't evoke any motion in you, because the idea is to clear yourself and become focused on one thing and not everything that's like out here that we have to do. I forgot about that. The Washington has, I still do it, but I forget to tell people that's something very simple that you can do that just. Another good thing too that I used to use a lot in, um, and I still use it for myself and first on clients in yoga. So a lot of times you do the Shavasana at the end. And when you're focusing or bringing your awareness to your breath, um, I would have them think when I breathe in, it relaxes me. When I breathe out, it releases me. So when you're breathing in, relax, breathe out, release, breathe in, relax, breathe out, release. And even just dedicating a minute to mindful breaths like that, a minute can actually seem like a long time. And it can also seem like just a snap. So, um, that can make some serious changes really quickly. I think that's amazing. That's kind of the message that I want everyone right now who watches this show all over the world, I want them to take that minute or two minutes or whatever you have, take it for yourself because you are worth it. And when we are happy, when you are happy and when you are centered and finding calm, no matter what is going on your life, good, bad, crazy, manic, whatever it is, if you can find your one to two minutes for yourself to nourish yourself, everything around you is better. The people that you interact with, your job, your children, your pets, everything. And I want people to know that you are worth taking that time. We spend so much time doing and pleasing and helping other people, all of us, that we forget about the person that's doing all that and the self care, the take care of me. And I mentioned yesterday to one of my friends who is a retired psychiatrist, I said, oh, that's one of my weaknesses is taking time for myself amidst doing this for everybody else or for myself. And he goes, that's not a weakness. That's a need. That is a need that I need for myself is I need quiet time. I need it. Not everybody does quiet time to me to recharge my self time and I love self time and I am working to schedule it in for myself every week and I see its transformation. Definitely. And I think that what you said about we can find that anywhere. So even just, I mean, I was driving home with five, 14 yesterday. And I mean, that's not super relaxing. But I said, okay, let's all look for whales because it's whale season. And sure enough, one of them found whales. And I just said, we're stopping and we pulled over everybody piled out. We all watched the whales reaching and slapping their face, talking to each other. And it's things like that. Did it take us a long time? No. Will they probably remember the feeling? Yes, will they remember that we stopped and did that? Probably not. Who knows? They may, they may not, but they're going to remember the feeling of being able to just spontaneously, I also made them go and swing on a swing set. Yeah, just before that, I'm like, Oh, there's a playground. You guys are 14. You're still kids. Go swing, go play, take pictures, have fun, be back in five minutes. And they had the best time, you know. And so I think that having those moments throughout our day, where we can just find something that brings us joy, find something that feeds our passion, find something that makes our heart sing, that raises our vibration, that self care. If it's a candle, if it's an essential oil, if it's a sound, if it's dancing, if it's singing, if it's swimming, if it's burying your feet into the soil, your hands into the soil, it's whatever that is for you, find it, do it often, period. Listen to that, everybody. Find it and do it often. That's that thing that it's important to schedule for yourself. Find fun. Now you guys found fun on the fly and that's great, but you made that happen. You said, okay, you know what, let's look for whales. Let's stop this frenzy chatter and find something fun. And I think for people that maybe are working from home, raising their kids, running a business, all those things that I think it's important amidst their schedule to schedule in fun three times a week, you schedule something for yourself that's fun. Schedule, if it's exercise that you find fun, not a chore, but if you find it fun, like I know you and I love it. You going up Cocoa Head, me running at Kalama Beach, like that is so fun. And when I started, it's not that it's easy, but it's fun. I really like it. And so to me, I schedule three times a week. That's my time. And not only does it get me fun three times a week, but I made time for myself and I have something to look forward to. And after my long days on Mondays, I know that I'm going to do the show today, which is fun, but it's work. So I go to the beach in the morning and I know what's going to happen before the show. And that is so important to get some fun, find some joy, make a list right now of things that bring you joy and see how you can schedule it three times this week. So I want to know. It's a muscle, right? I want to just add that it's a muscle that as you condition that muscle, it gets easier. It is work, of course. And it's a muscle, it's a muscle that needs, you know, to be conditioned, just the same as if you were trying to get big biceps or trying to, you know, get a healthy heart or something like that. You just stay consistent and do it. If it's once a week in the beginning, it's once a week, you know, three times a week, schedule it in, definitely. That's great. So I have a couple of questions. I am so stressed out. How can this help me? Well, I mean, there have been all kinds of studies. It actually changes your brain. Meditation in particular, they've done a ton of studies on and there's a vibration that changes within you. And if you're doing some kind of a chanting meditation, it actually, it actually can make you look younger. It helps with your immune system. It helps with your heart health. It helps with everything because you're, if you're saying, um, there's a certain tone there. And not only are you connecting to all of the ohms that have ever been in the universe, in our world, in the history of yoga or any of the other cultural practices, you're also here in you creating that vibration in your face, in your throat, in your heart, all of yourself start vibrating differently. So that's actually a physical change that happens. So I love this. What would that look like? I mean, is it best for people when they do that ohm to do it for five seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds to get the vibration going or is just the ohm quick, good, like what is the, I want to look younger. So I'm not always meditated consistently. And even still, I sometimes fall off the wagon, so to speak, the meditation wagon. So I would say start small. I'd say maybe every morning, when you wake up, find a time that is yours. And if it's in the bathroom, if that's the only place that you can find time that's yours. Say you've got toddlers or little ones or whatever, and you really only have two minutes, you know, um, take, set a timer on your clock or your phone or whatever you watch and just set it for two minutes and just sit quietly, feel your, you can sit in a chair like this, but you're super comfortable. Try to have both your feet on the ground or on the floor so that they're grounded. Close your eyes. Closing your eyes is important because otherwise you can get super distracted. And you can, ohm is a good one to start with, but also the tone hue is another amazing tone that was taught to me by Dr. Zeal. He's an incredible man who studied meditation for most of his life. And he brought that and it has the same vibration as unconditional love. And so how it sounds is take a nice deep breath in, feel your stomach, your lower stomach, your diaphragm, your lungs, drop your shoulders away from your ears and you inhale, and you just keep doing that for two minutes every day. If you can do that in the bathroom, now a lot of people get a little self-conscious about their voice. I was told at an early age that I should stick to singing in the shower. And so I grew up with that stigma and that story in my head that I wasn't able to sing out loud in front of people or even really in front of myself because it didn't sound good. But really the more that we, like I said before, work that muscle, the more you feel comfortable in your own skin, in your own voice, in your own vibration, and the more you can learn to love that and find that self-worth, that value, which is really what it's all about. That self-care is finding that inner value, finding that place where you feel satisfied and content and worthy. Right. I am enough. I have enough. And I do enough. Finding that we are enough. We're doing enough. And we have enough. So I want to show everybody something because I mentioned in the beginning how this has talked to me off the ledge years ago, this mindfulness app that I was looking for when it started to become more popular. And I went to the research seminar in 2016, and there's this little icon here that if everybody can see the little blue one, it's mindfulness. And I paid for it back then. Now it's free. But when you click on it, and this I've shown a lot of my patients who are going through a tough time, it just says take a deep breath. And I don't do anything other, but you can explore so many things on here. But I go straight to the bottom where it says timed sessions. And I click on that, and I go to the three minute. And it's a guided meditation, but you can make it silent. You can make it just play like waves or rain forest sounds. It sings the Tibetan singing bowl. It rings it first, which is another vibration. I want you to play that in a second. But this is something that I have listened to over and over and over again that really calmed me down. The guided meditation helped me get out of all the things in my head and listen to someone. And like Tish said, if it's in your bathroom, I lie down because I'm up all day. And then I'm tense and I have pain in different places. So I would lie down, even though she says, find yourself sitting in a comfortable position. Well, that didn't exist for me at that time of my life. So laying down did. And then I did, I didn't fall asleep, but I listened to it. And it took my brain from just like this to this. And I, after probably a week or two, I felt like a whole new human. And now there's another one that that woman said she listened to over and over again. She had a major loss in her life. And it's called insight timer. It's right there. And that when you click on that, you can get anything you want. You can get meditations for self love. You can get meditations for anxiety. You can get sleep meditations. And that one has a huge variety, but I just wanted to give everybody a couple of strategies for if you want to go to an app to do it, there's tons of them out there. Those are two that I've used and my patients have used that are free and you can maybe get started if you can't figure out anything else. Or if you're shy about oming or the hewing, which I love those two, and I need to remember to do them more. So also, I think another thing to remember are just affirmations, right? So if you're, if you're dealing with something where you mentioned the, you know, being enough and all of that, you could even just say that over and over again for a minute or two minutes, or even just a few times will make a change and a difference. Or say that you're having a hard time with flexibility, say I'm flexible, or with abundance say things come to me easily. I'm an abundant being. I am safe. I'm well taken care of. There's all kinds of affirmations that are out there that will enhance your experience of yourself in this, in this thing we call life. That's true. And one of the things I've been saying actually, I did use the I am enough, I have enough, I do enough when I felt like I was frustrated with myself and I wanted to be a little more loving towards myself. But the thing that I've been saying lately as my ailments have been barking at me the last month or two is my body is healing more and more each day. My body is strong. My body is healing. And so when I get in the little, oh, this is kind of hurting and oh my gosh, I gotta, oh, I'm tense. I do say, you know what? My body is healing itself. And I feel so much better. Yeah. And a good way also to preface it is if you don't know how to start with I or you could just start with a thank you. Thank you for a healthy body or thank you for the birds outside. Thank you for the sun on my face. You know, thank you for being able to hear just the simplest of things, but it starts with a thankful, you know, if you say thank you, that changes the vibration almost immediately. Thank you for my healthy body. I love that. I love that. So we have, I think, a couple minutes left, Tish. I definitely want to hear that singing bowl and anything else you want to add or share or whatever. So the cool thing about these singing bowls is that they are a couple of things. First of all, they're crystal. So you get the energy of that quartz crystal, which is always clarity. And well, it's so many things, but clarity is the big part. And these have been around for a really long time, as long as to bed as well as to bed and singing bowls and all kinds of things. So this put they all have different tones. And a lot of them are tuned to different energy centers in your body. This one in particular is tuned to the crown. So here where we receive those messages from the divine, whatever that may be for you. So just so I know that if you're listening, you can only hear the tones, but if you're here, you'd be able to actually feel the vibration of the tones also. And it's all the buzz these days, sound baths and sound healings and crystal bowls. And even though they've been around from the beginning of time, I'm sure I highly suggest, you know, experimenting with it yourself. So this is wonderful. And I, for all of you that haven't experienced that vibration, I felt the first time that I heard it in New York City, I felt like I was rolling over on my yoga mat. I was in the final Shavasana. So if you can get to find something like that, I highly recommend it. And also we need to close, but Tish and I, she has been gracious enough to give me her time again on April 19th that we will be doing the mental health reboot part two. So if you have any questions or desires, you can email me at sealandersrun at gmail.com or find Tish at ponoliving808 at gmail.com. Is that right? Yeah. That's correct. And we will help Taylor to show towards you. So thank you so much, Tish, for sharing your enlightenment and calm with us and to everyone watching and to think tech. As always, life is better when you listen to your physical therapist. Aloha, everyone.