Mindfulness as a Life-Wise Skill (with Jenna Martin)
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What starts out as a conversation about children's literature geared toward teaching parents and children mindfulness turns into one of the warmest, deepest, most vulnerable, and wonderful conversations we've had to date. Jenna Martin joins the show and talks with us about her book, Milo and the Wisdom of the Sea. By the end of their talk, Jenna and Courtney have also taken a deep dive (pun intended) into mindfulness, loss, grief, trauma, nervous system regulation, perspective shifts, and gratitude. Jenna's work focuses on helping people thrive through adversity and her views on post-traumatic growth are heart-felt and revelatory.
Jenna's work in helping parents and children connect with one another mindfully aims to release parents from the "heavy burdens" of protecting children (and ourselves) from the challenges and adversities of life. Through the teachings of Milo, and an invitation to mindfulness, we all learn how to better accept discomfort and just go with the flow (more puns, yay!).
About our guest: Jenna Martin is the author and creator of “Milo and the Wisdom of the Sea”. It's the first in a series of chapter books dedicated to teaching children (ages 5 through 9) emotional resilience. Through the characters in her books, children learn how to recognize, name, and move big emotions through their bodies. On a deeper level, they also learn to trust their intuition, explore their own unique identity, cultivate self-compassion, and increase empathy for others.
Jenna’s creation of the Milo series is inspired by her previous work with children in both educational and clinical settings where she spent the first part of her career training to become a child and family psychologist. Of course, there are many other sources for her creation of Milo including her own intimate experience with adversity. She’s also dedicated the last four decades of her life to a rigorous meditation practice studying intensively with Zen Buddhist teachers like Ed Brown, and Reb Anderson as well with mindfulness creator Jon Kabbat Zinn. She now teaches meditation and other “life-wise”skills including creative journaling to big and little humans.
When she’s not writing children’s books, creating Milo content, and teaching resilience, she’s consulting as a UX content designer and helping to humanize the apps we use every day.
You can find Jenna on the web at themiloway.com and on Instagram as @miloseastarwisdom.
