In this episode of the Where Parents Talk podcast, host Lianne Castelino speaks to Hunter Clark Fields, a bestselling author, entrepreneur, and mindfulness thought leader.
Clarke-Fields shares her personal journey from a frustrated parent to a mindfulness mentor and author. She discusses the importance of mindfulness in parenting, techniques to manage stress and stay present, and practical advice for handling both parents’ and children’s big emotions.
The conversation also covers how mindfulness has influenced her parenting approach and relationships with her two daughters, highlighting the long-term benefits of mindful practices.
HUNTER CLARKE-FIELDS
Best-selling author
Entrepreneur
Podcaster
Mindfulness Coach
Mother of 2
“Mindfulness is making a choice to put your attention into what’s happening in the present moment, whether it’s your child, you’re driving, your steps, you’re sitting in your breath — putting your attention in what’s happening in the present moment and very crucially with an attitude of kindness and curiosity.”
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Welcome to the where parents talk podcast. We help grow better parents through science, evidence, and the lived experience of other parents. Learn how to better navigate the mental and physical health of your tween, teen, or young adult through proven, proven science. Expert advice. Here's your host, Lianne Castelino.
Welcome to where parents talk. My name is Lianne Castelino. Our guest today is a bestselling author and an entrepreneur. Hunter Clark Fields is also a thought leader in mindfulness. A podcaster and a mother of two teen girls. She joins us today from Delaware. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thanks for having me, Leigh Anne.
I'm happy to be here. Well and we're talking about mindfulness today and I'm curious, Hunter, what was the catalyst that pivoted you from being a frustrated, challenged parent mom to then becoming a mindfulness mentor and then eventually an author as well? Uh, well, the, the, the catalyst was certainly my daughter.
It's funny. She's 17 now and she's helps me out in all kinds of things. And it's so funny to think about that. But she, yeah, when she was 18 months, two years old, it really wasn't her, her, she was the catalyst for my temper, which was the real driver. Um, My, you know, she started saying no to me. She started having problems with the way I was parenting her, which wasn't altogether very skillful.
And, um, my temper came out. If she had big upset feelings, she had a tantrum, it would trigger a mommy tantrum. She was very highly sensitive and, you know, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. So I was very highly sensitive and I could, it was incredibly, um, shame inducing and it was horrible because this was exactly how I didn't want a parent.
This was the most Important thing in my life to have this good relationship with this child to raise a child who's, you know, kind, confident, not, you know, not torn up inside in any way. Right. And I could see that my anger, my temper, my yelling was, you know, Was putting distance between me and her. It was scaring her.
I could remember hearing her crying in her room, me crying outside of her room, just feeling like, Oh, my gosh, something has to change. So I have really went. I had been listening to parenting coaches and looking into things. And I was learning these wonderful ways to respond that I couldn't implement when I was starting to get triggered and frustrated.
And I was like, it, I've just read about this three hours ago. Why can't I say it in the moment? And of course. Now we know that it's because of the way the stress response affects the brain, but as I started to dig into that, I realized, oh, I need to go back to these mindfulness practices that I've been reading about since I was a teenager that I had implemented a bit before I got pregnant, and that really helped, and I needed those to help calm my reactivity to have any chance of being able to improve this situation.
I needed to calm myself. We'll dive into those mindfulness practices in a minute, but I did want to pick up on one thing you said there, which is, it sounded like you had the self awareness as a parent to realize that this temper piece couldn't continue if you were going to, you know, um, become a better parent.
What was the tipping point, though, that you said to yourself, you know what, something's got to give, something's got to change, and it's going to start now? Was there a particular incident? I mean, I can remember sitting outside her doorway, hearing her crying in her room, and just feeling this incredible guilt.
But the truth was, it wasn't just one moment. It was because I had scared her again. You know, it was multiple times, and just feeling like, this feeling of, This is, I knew from the beginning, this is exactly what I didn't want because this is how I get this from my father, I get this temper from my father and he scared me, you know, he had a rage when I was a kid, you know, it, I remember, you know, Cowering behind a door, scared of him.
And he's a very loving person in many, many ways, but it wasn't very unusual in the eighties for that to be happening, but it was exactly what I had vowed not to do. And here I was redoing it, repeating that cycle. So I just had to, that was, that was the catalyst. It was just seeing this pattern repeating.
Could you take us through, Hunter, the difference between mindfulness and meditation for parents out there who may not be that familiar with those terms as it relates to parenting? Sure. Yeah. Meditation is a way to practice mindfulness. It may be like, kind of like, uh, you know, the most common way maybe we practice, but mindfulness itself, we can be mindful in any moment.
Mindfulness is making a choice to put your attention in. Into what's happening in the present moment, you know, whether it's your child, you're driving your steps, you know, you're sitting in your breath, putting your attention in what's happening in the present moment and very crucially with with an attitude of kindness and curiosity.
So rather than noticing. You know, you can be mindful of your thoughts, noticing your thoughts and and shaming and blaming yourself for them. You notice your thoughts and you're like, isn't that interesting, right? You practice non judgment with them. Um, you know, you can practice being mindfully listening right here and now.
It's about it. Putting everything down, stopping, focusing your attention and noticing, you know, what arises as I say these words and what, what doesn't arise, right? Hearing the sounds come and fall away. And it's different from regular life in that normally, you know, we evolved to have a brain that's pretty keen on, uh, planning into the future.
Right. That's kind of where a lot of our anxiety comes from. We're planning into the future, even when we're talking, we might be planning what we're going to say next. And to be really present is a little bit different. It's practicing to kind of notice our tendencies to get drawn away by all our different thoughts and sensations, and then bringing ourselves back to the present moment, um, and what you're focusing on.
And that doesn't mean stopping your thoughts. Or erasing your thoughts or anything like that. It just means Being able to have the muscle to come back and be present and be aware of what's happening when you want to, um, sometimes I think, you know, like, we're always in this going, going, going, doing, doing mode as parents, especially like a lot of times.
And we, we kind of think, oh, if I just get this one more thing done, I get all these things done, and then I will be relaxed, and then I will be present. And, um, we spend, tend to spend our days like, the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing, and then we think, oh, you know, when I get to that vacation, then I'm going to really be present with my kids.
And sometimes I think like, well, we've been training our brains to always think of the next thing and the next thing and the next thing and never be satisfied in the moment. We get to that vacation, we get to that moment, and we can't relax and be present and focus on our kids because we have been training our brains to always go, go, do.
So mindfulness is really about practicing to be present here and now with whatever is arising, whether it's comfortable or uncomfortable. As I listen to you unpack that, Hunter, what strikes me is that, you know, We have never been in a world more than today where distraction is a key feature of all of our lives.
And at the same time, you could argue that mindfulness as a result of that distraction has probably never been more necessary. So how then do you go about, especially with parents who are now dealing with other little human beings in their lives and their needs and wants and their emotions, how do you go about just managing?
That piece there about how to get to a place where you're shutting everything out around you in a distracted world in a distraction inducing world to then say, I need to have the discipline to practice mindfulness. Well, I would say it's not shutting everything out. But yeah, that's a great question because we're distracted all the time in all the moments.
Um, I think that what we have to remember is that how we live every single day is how we live our lives and what we practice grows stronger. So if we're practicing. Waking up and grabbing our phone. First thing we're doing that every day. We're making that distraction muscle stronger. If we can put our phones downstairs and practice, maybe sitting on the side of the bed and just taking 10 deep breaths, you know, then we're building a muscle of being present, right?
It can be built in very small, very doable ways for people with busy lives. We can practice really being present with our kids. Like when we're walking with our kids. I remember walking my daughters to the local Montessori school that we live near and there are some days where I could it could be the same exact thing happening.
I'm walking with my daughter across the Peace Park holding her hand and on one day. I'm completely not present. I'm wondering if an email came through, maybe checking my phone, thinking about what I need to do exactly when I drop her off, all the different things. I'm, I'm not aware of the feeling of her, her little hand in mine.
I'm not listening to what she's saying to me, but that same exact moment could be practiced mindfully where I'm slowing down Am I walking? My phone is off. I'm feeling the feeling of her hand in mine. I mean, now I think about what I wouldn't give to feel that like two year old hand in mine. But. feeling that feeling of the hand.
I'm slowing down my steps. I'm feeling my footsteps on the ground. I'm feeling my breath come in and out. I'm noticing, Oh, I thought of what I have to do later. And then I'm saying, okay, that's fine. But I'm going to come back to noticing here. Now I'm really listening to what my daughter has to say. I'm looking around, I'm noticing The sense of the air on our skin and the, you know, birds singing, whatever there is around me.
So they're very, very different experiences. And our kids really sense the difference, really, really know the difference, right? Like. Because what they really, really crave, like, the way we can show our love the best is to just be present with them, to be really here and really see them. Like, do you see me?
Do you hear me? Attention is how we show love. So if we can be, give our attention to what's here and now and what's happening with them, that's like the best gift we can give our child. In fact, there's a quote I'd like to share. By the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and he says, um, when you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence.
How can you love if you are not there? And to me, that's a very profound motivator to practice being present a little bit every day, not all the time, forever and ever, you don't have to be the Dolly Mama, but a little bit every day. Now you talked briefly about having practiced mindfulness while you were pregnant.
I'm curious as to how it helped you during that time. And then, How did it help you once you became a parent and you decided that you needed to go back and sort of refresh and maybe relearn and learn new aspects of mindfulness? Well, when I was pregnant, I remember, I remember thinking that this was going to be the solution to everything.
I remember being really big and pregnant and sitting with a meditation group. And just like rubbing my little belly, big belly, and thinking like, Oh, look at this. She's going to be, they're going to be so calm. Look at this. I'm meditating. This is going to be amazing. And just thinking like, it's all in the bag.
Hahaha. Anyone who's a parent know that that was not true, obviously. She came out so sensitive and you know, there's so many reasons for that. Um, it did help me when I was pregnant, um, and, and yeah, and then afterwards, uh, afterwards it sort of fell away and it really became something then that I had to return to, I needed that grounding, I needed that stability, becoming a parent, you know, shakes our lives in ways that we can't even fathom, right?
We're back in that parent child relationship, you know, You know, my role in the world had changed profoundly, and I was scared that I wasn't doing it right. I'm sure I, there was postpartum anxiety, I think, in the, in the mix there. And so, I needed that sense of grounding, you know, of being steady, of being stable.
And she needed that from me desperately, because she, Needed somebody who could be steady and stable when she had those big feelings. So it just became imperative, right? That I go back to this tradition and I could really see that in the parenting world, no one was talking about this. There was this assumption that.
Parents were just, you know, perfect mediums for whatever you could just say whatever responds you wanted to say if you make that choice. And that's absolutely not true. I learned all the lessons the hard way. And, and I could see that the world of mindfulness really needed to talk to the world of parenting that we needed to take care of ourselves that we needed to understand, you know, the world.
When our reaction was outsized from what was happening, there might be something else to become aware of there, some healing to do. Um, so there's a, there's a lot of awareness work that we don't really relish doing, but is so important for us to do as parents. Along those lines then, what would you recommend to parents in terms of, you know, Preventing reactivity and staying grounded with their children during difficult moments actual tangible steps that they could take.
Sure. Well, I wouldn't recommend faking your calm that, you know, if you're trying that, how's that working for you? Because what happens is we'll say, okay, you know, Lianne and Hunter want me to be a calm parent to help my kids stay grounded. And I'm calm. I'm calm. I'm calm. And then we're like exploding, right?
Because we're pushing down those feelings and then they're coming out all over the place. Um, so that doesn't work. What we need to do in those moments, I think of it as the three R's. And first, recognize that you're triggered, that you're upset. Recognize your feelings. We have this is what Dan Siegel calls name entertainment, right?
When we can verbally acknowledge it. What's happening for ourselves, or, and what's happening for our kid, what's happening in the situation. It just takes the temperature down, you know? So, I'm feeling frustrated. That's a win. That's great. If you can say that out loud, because A, you're acknowledging what's already there, your kid can already feel there's something different in the air, right?
It's not like they're, they're clueless. They can feel it. B, you're, you're taking down the temperature and then C, you're also teaching your kid emotional intelligence by modeling it, right? So saying, I'm feeling frustrated. And then also it's this bell of mindfulness, bell of awareness to say, okay, now I need to take some steps.
That's the first R, which is to address my nervous system, to address that part of myself that's feeling threatened, that's feeling, that stress response, that fight, flight, or freeze stress response. That's the most highly developed, highly attuned response in the body, like when we're born. So I need to take care of that.
So then recognize. Okay. The second R is if necessary. If you're able, if your kid is safe, remove yourself. It's better to take a break. Say, I need a minute, then it is to scream at your kid, you know, it's lovely if you're in the wonderful grounded place and you're going to be able to stay there and practice the third R and model that for your kid, but a lot of times we're not.
And it's okay. You have permission to be human. If you need to take a break, take a break. And if you can't, take a break. So recognize it, remove yourself. And then the third R is you're just use your resources. So your body is in a fight, flight, or freeze stress response, right? Um, which may mean that your, your, your jaw is getting tight.
Your shoulders are getting tight. You. Your voice is getting raised, right? You're feeling like more aggressive and agitated, right? That's fight, flight, or freeze. Um, so what do we do? Resources. Resources that work include slower exhales. You know, the breath is cliche because it works. So actually each, the way to think about it is that each inhale is like a mini Fight, flight, or freeze stress response and each exhale we take it's like a mini rest and relax the opposite response so if you take a breath in for four and Exhale for six.
Let's try it again. Just for good times inhale for
Exhale six
You can probably with one even just one or two breaths feel the difference I can yeah So say if you take Four or five of those, you're getting your whole brain back on track, right? You're able then to access your prefrontal cortex where your verbal ability, impulse control, and creativity are, right?
Problem solving, all of that. So resources include the breath. They include, um, shaking it out, shaking out your hands. They include, you could take, take a drink of water, splash water on your face. Use a mantra like this is not an emergency, or I'm helping my child. Um, there's so many resources, but we, they, it's important that we practice them, that we acknowledge that we're going to need them sometime, you know, and that we give ourselves permission to Um, to model and show this to our kids.
Those are all great tips, certainly. And speak to what the parent can do to manage their own emotions. But what about when it comes to handling the big emotions of their child? What strategies can you suggest in terms of how parents can manage their kids bigger emotions? Especially if we look at times like Around tantrums or resistance as they get older, certainly into the teen, um, and adolescent years.
Well, the first step is all of the previous steps, right? The first step is for you to be able to be present. So if your kid's having some big feelings, um, you don't want your reactivity to add to the mix. If, you know, they're having some big reactions and you're in a bit of fight, flight, or freeze, and you start yelling or, you know, then it, it escalates things, right?
We don't want that, right? So when our kids are having big feelings, whether they're mad at us or situation, whatever the situation is, the best way to help is to really listen and to really be present. So, sometimes, As parents, we want to help our kids, and so we jump in to fix the situation, right? We either deny their feelings, we tell them the feelings are, uh, not really real, or you're okay, you're fine, it's okay, which is incredibly frustrating if you have some big feelings for someone to tell you you don't have them, so we call that a, um, A barrier communication barrier in mindful parenting, or, um, you might go a parent might go in and try to solve the problem.
You know, here, if you do this, why don't you do this, this kind of thing. And that is incredibly frustrating because sometimes when we're having big feelings, just like step one, when we have our own big feelings is to recognize it. The same is true with our kids big feelings, we need to be able to recognize it, to be able, they want to be, feel really seen and heard, right?
That's what our kids really need from us. So if they're having a problem, if they're having a big upset moment, first step is to recognize it, to really see and really hear it. And, You may imagine what that response is for you, but I would invite you to consider that your first response doesn't have to be in words.
You can just listen. Be really present. Notice how you feel in your body. Notice what your kid is saying. Notice if they're upset, what they're saying, what they're not saying, just be curious and be present, even though it's uncomfortable, you may be in a situation with your kid that you can't fix and that they're really upset at, or they may be really upset at you.
And that's all very uncomfortable. And I encourage you to not run away from that feeling right away. To sit with it for a minute and that's kind of how we digest these difficult feelings. I think of our Whether they're our kids or our own I think of our difficult feelings as like little toddlers who really want to be seen and heard And they're like at your pant leg being like See me, hear me, and they're not going to go away.
They're going to hold on to that pant leg until you see and hear them. So this is the same thing with our feelings. So as we start to see and hear them, it's like that, that feeling of. I've got to get out of here really lessons, it's kind of paradoxical and it, it goes away as we stay with it, right? So stay with the feeling.
And then, you know, what the tool we practice in mindful parenting for when our kid has some big feelings is if they're able to hear you, right? If they're having a tantrum, there might be nothing you can do. You just, if you're able to, you stay, you do those longer exhales. Okay. You try to be the calm, be the mountain and be there for when the storm is over.
Keep them safe. Right. That may be all you can do. Maybe if you have an older kid or there's, you know, they're able to hear and see you. Um, you can, you can reflectively listen. You can recognize the feelings out loud. You're so upset. Oh man, that's really frustrating. Whatever the. You know, what might you say to a good friend who was feeling that feeling?
I'm curious, Hunter, along those lines, when you decided that you were going to practice mindfulness in your own life, did that then usher in any other changes that you felt you had to make in order to support mindfulness parenting in your own home? Yes, absolutely. Um, I mean, I think. What it, what it made me aware of was that to make this a priority, I had to, I wanted to simplify and I wanted to slow down a little bit.
I did not want to add things that were going to make us rush. So no back to back classes, maybe one, you know, class per season. Um, I wanted to be able to take my time and not feel that rush. Cause really anytime we're rushing, we, um, anytime we're in a hurry, our body's fight, flight, or freeze stress response is triggered because.
You know, as, as, uh, you know, in, back in the day when there was, there were no clocks, there was no, there were no exact times to be at a certain place. There was no rushing, right? So anytime we were rushing, there was something to be worried about, to be scared about. So, um, so yeah, to, to really slow down was important to me.
So, as a mindfulness teacher, uh, and author, uh, a parent yourself, an entrepreneur, you know, you've got a lot going on. You see this question from different perspectives. Are there commonalities in terms of where parents who want to practice mindfulness, where they're challenged, uh, where they, where they.
experience pain points, and how can they overcome it so that they can, you know, find themselves on a journey of mindfulness and parenting? Well, the pain point is always, how do I practice, feeling the support for practice, because we're often like an individual, um, trying to do this practice in a world that's very different.
Distraction prone and is pushing us every day to, um, to, to be more distracted. So, um, so those are the challenges. So if you're going to practice, say a walking, you know, slowing down and walking mindfully to school, or you're going to practice maybe a sitting meditation for three minutes in the morning or something like that.
The challenge is, um, creating a habit. Yeah. And, and having things around you to support that habit. Um, so, you know, I think, um, ways to mitigate those are. To, to, in the creation of a habit, the way to mitigate that is to make a habit really, really small, like really small to begin with, you know, if you wanted to sit and breathe and have a minute of quiet in your day, like really make it a minute before you try a 10 minute meditation, like take a week to And wake up five minutes early and just sit on the side of your bed for 60 seconds and breathe peacefully and become more aware, make it really easy.
And then when you do, reward yourself or tie it to another habit that's already well established. Um, yeah, like, for instance, this is so, this is sort of random, but I really wanted to do Kegels and I tied it to when I was stretching after going for a walk or run. And it's now, it's like, it's there right together, right?
So if you can tie it to another habit, um, that's great. So maybe you brush your teeth and then you sit on the toilet for 60 seconds and you breathe and that's a great habit, right? Um, so all of those habit forming things are really important. And then when you think about sort of that overall level of like support and being in a distracted world, I think it's important to take in what's going on.
media and things that are supporting your habit, you know, so, you know, like follow mindfulness teachers on Instagram or listen to podcasts, right? Like the mindful parenting podcast, or, you know, something like 10 percent happier or, um, Yeah, choose things, resources that support your aspiration. One of the things I think is so interesting about your story, Hunter, is that you took your own lived experience, decided to do something about it.
And I'm curious as to how your action to practice mindfulness to address, uh, at the time your first daughter, how that's helped you with your second child as they grow older. In what ways has practicing mindfulness impected your relationship with your children. Well, I, I think it's, it helps with my second daughter enormously as far as me being able to be more present for her big feelings.
Um, you know, and part of, you know, in raising good humans and mindful parenting is skillful communication. My communication got much, much better with my second daughter. I was able to be more present for her feelings. Um, she's very emotionally in tune. Um, and part of that may be just how she is, but at least with me, it's, It's been, it's been easier and we've been able to have.
A lot of conversations. So for instance, that I would have found very, you know, difficult. Um, like for instance, uh, on the mindful parenting podcast, I've had Amy Lang come on a number of times to talk about how to talk to your kids about all the different things, sex related. And we've been able to do that.
I'm so proud of myself for being able to do that to get through this discomfort. Um, yeah. But yeah, I think that it has made things easier and easier as time goes on. Mindfulness is this weird practice where you feel like it's, as you hear about it, you may think, oh, this is something I gotta add to my day.
You're asking me to add another to do in my busy life. But it's kind of this weird thing that actually gives you more time. As you become more present, as you single task rather than multitask more, you save so much time in your life by just being more focused. And it just also helps you to, like, we've been talking about how it helps you to get through the difficult moments, but it also makes you more present for the sweet moments, right?
It helps you to just be less distracted in all these, and it goes by so fast. We have 18 summers with our kids. It does go by so fast as you and I both know. Um, I know I'm like one of those old ladies who are like, no, enjoy every minute when they're babies. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But, uh, but, but yeah, it does help you to, to be more there for everything.
Lots of really wonderful food for thought. Hunter Clark Fields. Podcaster, author of Raising Good Humans, mindfulness mentor and mom. We really appreciate your time and your insight today. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you so much for having me, Leigh Ann. I appreciate it enormously. To learn more about today's podcast guest and topic, as well as other parenting themes, visit whereparentstalk.stagingserver.cloud/.
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