Ep #85: The Self-Esteem Doctor’s Guide to Raising Confident Kids with Dr. Simone Alicia

How do we teach our kids about self-esteem? My guest today has a really unique perspective on this. She was a teacher during the week and then a runway model on the weekends. And she noticed a challenge as she started kind of leaving the classroom and coaching and teaching kids runway that so many of these kids coming to her were having challenges with self-esteem. And so, in this really unique environment, she found a way to use the runway to help build children’s confidence and self-esteem.

And as she’s kind of studied and gotten an honorary doctorate in divinity, she has become the self-esteem doctor, where she travels all over the world and speaks and helps children and adults and all of us learn about self-esteem. Her analogy about the ice cream cone and teaching children how to fill their own cone and let other people be the sprinkles is absolutely genius. You’re going to love it. You’re going to want to use it with your children. Listen to it, it’s coming up right after this.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves because you know what? We all really need and deserve that too. I am your host, Amy Nielson. Let’s get ready to start the show.

Amy: Dr. Simone, welcome to the show. I am so happy to have you here today.

Simone: I am so excited to be here. This is going to be a great talk, Amy.

Amy: I know. I’m so excited. So, we’re talking about, just to give everyone a little teaser, we’re talking about self-esteem today. And this is just such a good topic and something that I think all of us are somewhat aware of and could use some more information on so I’m so excited. Before we get into it, tell us a little bit about how you got here. Because you told me that you used to be an elementary teacher and a model and I need the details. Give me the story.

Simone: Okay. So, the first part of the story hopefully will be inspiration that tells you no matter where you start, you just don’t know where you’re going to finish and everything can be a building block to get there. So, I was teaching elementary school and with my students I would see them nervous about tests, nervous about body image. I had an eight year old ask me if she was fat one day. I almost fell out of my chair. And I was like, “Someone’s got to work on self-esteem with these people.”

And then I’d build up the confidence with my kids, completely unrelated to my work I’m doing now but I guess it’s related. But I would talk to the parents and I would be like, “No, don’t worry, your kids are confident now about the test.” And they’re like, “But she’s not nervous. She must not care.” And I’m like, “Someone’s got to teach these parents some self-esteem, man.” And then I would do a fashion show on the weekends and I’d be backstage and hearing the models just tear themselves apart. And I think I was just kind of blessed with naivete. It didn’t occur to me to care about that because I’m like, “You’re paying me to walk this straight line and come back. Are you actually doing? Let’s go.”

So, I was kind of naive and I’m like, “Somebody needs to teach these models some self-esteem.” And I think the final straw that kind of made that whole thing make sense to me was I got off the runway one day and there were a group of eight year old girls and I feel like this is where my two worlds collided. And I was walking, I don’t know if they were eight, but they looked pre-teen ish. And as I walked by them, I heard them say, “Oh, my gosh, I love you. I love the models. I want to be just like you.” And my brain was like, “No, you don’t. Someone needs to work on self.” Wait a second, is this me? Is this my calling? I think this is my thing. And so that’s officially where the journey began with me being interested in how do we get people to start thinking differently about who they are and how they’re showing up in the world. And it just kind of escalated from there.

Amy: Oh my gosh, I love that so much. It just hurts my heart to hear that. I remember I was working with a group of kids one time and a child made the comment, she was talking about the bad parts of our bodies or something. When you hear those things and you think, how did we get there? And then how do we pull that back and do maybe some reteaching? So that’s so interesting. Okay, so talk to me then, did you kind of leave the classroom or how did you kind of start this journey where you are now where you coach people? You’re the self-esteem doctor, how did you get there?

Simone: Alright, so sit down, you all, because this story just keeps getting better. So, I was still doing both, I was teaching. And then I actually started teaching at a modeling school which later on felt really scammy, so I left, but what I learned there was important. As the kids were walking the runway, I found, and parents commented, I wouldn’t say things like, “You’re so beautiful. You’re so gorgeous. Let me see your smile.” I was more like, “I can read your mind. You don’t believe in yourself. You’re nervous. You’re scared. You’re thinking I can’t do this. I want to see you shift your mindset, shift what you’re thinking.” It was kind of coming out of me.

And so, I noticed, I was targeting people’s brains to affect their bodies. And I was like, “This is obviously connected because it was working.” So then, while still teaching there, and I’d left the classroom by now. I actually opened up my own studio where I was like, “Let’s put people on the runway since they’re kind of fascinated with that. But then let’s talk about kind of coaching their thoughts while they’re on the runway. Let’s improve posture and body language and just use the runway as the tool but really go to the mind.”

Well, a girl walks in one day with her mom. The mom tells me that this young lady was sexually assaulted when she skipped school one day by three different boys and that she needed my help. First with tears in my eyes, I’m like, “What? What are you saying?” And then I was like. “No, I can’t. No, you need to go to a therapist, psychologist.” At this point I’m an ex-model, ex-teacher just trying to do some empowerment, kind of coaching stuff. But I went, “No, sorry you can’t come here.”

And she begged and she was like, “My daughter already has a therapist. She’s already seeing a psychologist. What we need is you. I need to see my daughter back. I need her to be able to feel good in her body again. I need her to feel confident.” And I was like, “Oh my gosh.” I prayed and I was like, “Let’s go.” So, I put her on the runway and it was within literally our first session, her just being up there. And I was using language that later on I found out echoed neuroscience type language, that reframing and helping her to reposition her body while having a new experience.

It was this whole mental thing that was going on. And her mom was like, “You’ve saved my daughter and man, you fix them [inaudible].” And I was just like, “This is amazing. This seems like another big rung on the ladder of where I’m meant to go with this.” And at that point, my mom’s friend said to her, she’s a clinical psychologist. She said, “If Simone’s interested in this, she should go study NLP.” And that stands for neuro linguistic programming, and that’s precisely what I did. I was like, “I’m interested in this. I’m interested in making this type of change and this kind of fun and letting people find their power back.”

And so, I studied NLP, became an NLP practitioner. From there, I started coaching, and I’m getting similar successes but now even with more tools. And, I mean, things were just really fast. Clients were just bam, bam. And I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, this is great.” And then from there, I saw that the spirituality was starting to overlap in this world. So, I started to go on this whole spiritual journey, got an honorary doctorate in divinity. This whole thing, it just started to continue to escalate in this beautiful and culminate into this beautiful thing.

And I was like, “Alright, you know what? Let’s fully lean in. Let’s make this accessible to the world.” And I just kept on growing it and that’s my life story.

Amy: That is so amazing. I love it so much. Okay, I want more information. Okay, so let’s talk about it because I think we hear self-esteem and we’re like, “Kids need this, we want to give them self-esteem.” But then, what are we supposed to do if we just tell them, “Well, you’re doing great. You’re so amazing.” Handing out the participation trophy. I don’t know. What do we do to help them actually feel confident without just having to have that constantly be fed with compliments? What does it look like? Tell me the things.

Simone: Such a good question. I got all the things. So, I think first off, I want to find self-esteem for you the way that I use it with my students and in my presentations. I say that self-esteem is the way we are thinking and feeling about ourselves. And what I found was this really big power in integrating our thoughts and our feelings. When we are a little bit more in this managerial place with our thoughts, again, not trying to control every thought that comes through, but being aware of what you’re thinking. You start to realize that you have a certain self-talk going on. You’ve got a certain dialogue going on.

And these are making connections in your brain so when you’re believing this inner talk, you’re affecting the way your brain is working. You’re affecting the chemicals that are flowing through your body. You’re starting to affect those emotions. You’re starting to affect the hormone release, your thoughts and your emotions have such a big role to play in the functioning of our body day-to-day, but we don’t really give it that much attention. So, one of the first things I found to be most powerful and most prudent in this work was to say, “Well, what is self-esteem anyway?”

It’s the way you are thinking and the way you are feeling about yourself. And when you realize that that’s something that, number one, you’re in charge of and number two, you can change, then I feel that puts everyone in a more empowered state. Rather than saying, “This was given to me or this person did this to me and so I’m in charge.” When we give that power to the kids and say, “This is about you. It’s not about the mean kid next to you giving you self-esteem, even to a certain degree, your mom and dad giving you self-esteem.” Now, obviously the kids, they need the guidance. They need us as adults to show up for them. They need that support. They need to feel validated along the way.

But ultimately, when I’m coaching and giving kids the tools, I’m telling them this is something they’ve got to develop from inside of them. And once they start to understand that and we understand that, then we realize it’s not about telling you all day long, you’re beautiful, beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re awesome because it’s so easy to shut that out. No, I’m not. No, I’m not. No, I’m not. Done. Conversation’s over. But when we say to the child, “Okay, can you formulate things that are positive about yourself? Can you formulate things you’re thankful for?” Can you, as Joe Dispenza would say, elevate, create these elevated positive emotions within you?

Then we start to feel like they start to develop the neural circuitry they need to feel better about themselves, to think better. They start to form those habits of thought. So, one of the most important things is whatever we’re practicing, whatever we’re teaching our kids, whatever we’re showing and modeling, we also have to put them in the driver’s seat. No, you take out your pen and pencil or pen and paper and you make a list of positive aspects about yourself. You do affirmations in the mirror while I listen along.

You point out real truthful things and successes. Make a list of your wins. And just let them get in the habit of finding those things and not feeling bad about it. So, I think that’s one of the things we can do is to put in their hands, define it clearly and then let them be a participant in generating the self-esteem part of self-esteem.

Amy: Oh, my gosh, that is just so powerful and so true, there is no amount I’ve learned. And I now have teenage daughters. So, I’ve been kind of at this from littles all the way up, and to having an adult daughter. And one of the things I feel I’ve noticed is that there is no amount of telling you something that’s going to make you absorb it and believe it. You have to be able to get there yourself. One of the things, and I’m curious as to your thoughts about this. I’m always like, “Okay, give me feedback. Tell me how to fix this session.”

But one of the things I’ve done with my girls, particularly my teenage girls and we talk about as they’re getting into starting to date and things. And I have said something like, “Hey, the most important love relationship you’ll ever have in your life is the one you have with yourself, because you’re the one that’s inside of your head all the time. You’re the one you’ll never get away from. You’re the person you’re going to be with and live with for the rest of your life, forever and ever, and always. And so, you have to pay attention to that relationship, that love relationship.”

It’s kind of the most important one and it allows you to be able to expand that then and love other people in a more complete way, I think. I don’t know. What do you think? Give me some feedback.

Simone: I think you nailed it. Sometimes we have to realize that the way we say things to our kids kind of determines if they accept it or not. We all have this language of the mind, the way we listen. So, I’m going to super NLP nerd out on you.

Amy: I love it. Yes, go.

Simone: So, when you said that to your daughters, it’s beautiful because it kind of gives them the auditory piece because they can hear what you’re saying. They can almost visualize and imagine that relationship with self and then pouring that onto others. So, we kind of tap into multiple modalities, if you will. So, in NLP we talk about the way that we see the world, an internal representation. So, I might be super auditory. So, if you tell me, “Simone, you look gorgeous.” Then I might go, “Oh my gosh, thank you. I heard that. I received it.”

And with other things here too, love language and all that, but let’s just kind of stick with the NLP side of things. But if I’m not auditory, if I’m somebody who needs proof, I’m audio digital, I want to see data, details and you’re like, “You’re beautiful.” I’m like, “Yeah, whatever, whatever.” You’re going to have to essentially prove it to me, prove it. And then so that person might need more details. You’ve got the latest earrings on. And your shirt was ranked number one in the world. This is her style that this superstar had. And you’re like, “Okay, well, judging by all these details, maybe I do look good.” They’re going to calculate their beauty.

And then someone who’s more visual, is going to need to see it, “Look in the mirror and look how you look like this person.” And they’re going to need visual cues or proof, if you will. So sometimes it’s beneficial, it’s always beneficial in fact, to know what your child’s internal representation is so that you can kind of talk to them, teach them, reach them. So, here’s something really subtle that can make sense for many people. If you have a child who’s visual, which I think many children are. We tend to use that as one of their main modalities. And you’re trying to prove to them, “Listen, self-esteem comes from inside.”

Well, those are words. Those words just went in one ear and quite literally out the other. We need those words to stop and make a picture in the children’s mind. Your brain sees in pictures. We want them to have a picture that kind of proves it to them. So, one of the things I do with my clients or even when I’m doing these big presentations, I’ll have everyone grab a piece of paper. And if you’re listening along and you have paper, or rewind it and do this also.

You’re going to draw an ice cream cone on the very bottom of your paper, and you’re going to label it me or put your name in it. And then you’re going to realize that you’re in charge of putting the scoops of ice cream on yourself, and you’re going to draw one, two, three scoops or however many you want. On each scoop, you’re going to fill yourself with something sweet. I’m kind. I’m thoughtful. I’m amazing. I’m wonderful, whatever it is. I’m worthy. I’m capable. And you’re going to write those things and realize I’m in charge of those ice cream scoops in my own cone.

And then what I show the audience is that we now have sprinkles and sprinkles are the opinions of others. So that can get sprinkled on top. But I needed to have filled the ice cream cone myself with something sweet first. And if you show the other part of that analogy, or the opposite of that, and you have a cone that says your name on it and you just take a bunch of sprinkles, I need everyone to love me and you dump it in the bottom of the cone. It is so unfulfilling.

Amy: Oh, my word.

Simone: It’s the cone with sprinkles at the bottom, might sound like sugary fun for some kids, but it’s not fulfilling. You want the ice cream scoops and then the sprinkles. And so that’s kind of one of the analogies. And analogies work great for kids when you’re trying to get them to build their self-esteem. How do you get them to see this? So now you have a kid walking around and you can say, “Hey, remember to fill your cone today. Remember, it’s your job. No one gives you ice cream, people give you sprinkles. You have to give yourself ice cream. And if you’re walking around feeling empty, don’t look for everyone to sprinkle you up. First, ice cream, then you can accept sprinkles.”

Amy: I’m typing away. Just keep talking. I’m just taking notes. I love this so much. So, I feel like I’m very visual too, and in my family we tend to be. And so, we speak in story, we speak in pictures. That’s what we do a lot in our home. And so, I’m just eating this up. I want all the ice cream. This is so good. I’m sharing this with my kids as soon as they get back. This is amazing. I love that so much though, because it is so visual like you said and sprinkles are good. We love sprinkles.

I am like a child in an adult body and you give me candy or sprinkles. Yes, you too. I got married recently. So, I’ve been married for two and a half months now. Very exciting. I think my husband just sometimes continues to be a little surprised, you give me a sour patch kid, I’m a happy camper. I’m such a child. But anyway, so the sprinkles thing, I love sprinkles. But they’re not going to fill you. You need the ice cream and that’s your job. I love that, so good.

Simone: And then you’ll have the child who’ll say, “Well, what if somebody puts something bad on it, rocks instead of sprinkles?” I’m like, “Well, it’s your ice cream. Do you want it on or no?” And then they’re like, “No.” I’m like, “Well, then scrape them off. Just scrape them off. You don’t even have to keep them on there, just scrape them off.” Now, ice cream is going to melt into your cone and become part of you. That’s why you’ve got to put that, but rocks or something gross, you just move them off, move.” And they’re like, “What?”

Amy: I can just take that off.

Simone: And it’s all visual. And they’re like, “I can do that.” And then we go deeper into how you actually do that, because essentially that’s how the brain works. It’s just when you’re repeating things and remembering, putting it back together, it’s creating these connections. And if you essentially ask your brain to delete something, which takes a couple of steps, but you can literally just kind of like, “And that’s gone. I’m not letting that one create a really clear neural pathway in my mind. I’m out of here.”

Amy: Yeah, erase, you’re gone.

Simone: Exactly. And there are sincere ways to do that. It’s not always just, forget about it. Oh, let it go. Oh, don’t listen to them. This is the advice we tend to give our kids and unfortunately, and no offense to anyone, I’m sure I’ve said it myself, but it’s useless. It’s useless advice, “Mom, they hurt my feeling.” “Just don’t listen, don’t listen.”

Amy: It doesn’t matter. That’s not real. Why do you even care about that? I know. When you’re like, “Well, don’t be sad.” And I’m like, “I have said that before. Why did I ever say that?” Oh, my gosh, I know. If we just knew everything we know now after. I’m like, “Well, hopefully, eventually I’ll start getting it more right.” Anyway, but that’s where we’re all at. We’re learning together. Okay, so I need to know, tell me about this, how do we add the scoops and then how do we delete? Because I think taking those rocks out sounds real great.

Simone: It is amazing. So, this is not only for your child. This is obviously for all of us when we are trying to just not cement something in our mind. So here I’ll start with this example. If something horrible happens, we tend to remember it down to the most minute detail. And I understand that they have, there’s a big emotional you know, rust there, so I get it. There are a lot of other things going on, so I’m not suggesting, don’t feel anything. You’re just going to smile for the rest of your life.

No, let’s be very clear, you will still have sadness. You will have negative emotion. You’ll have stuff. You’re still going to be a human being. I have not mastered how to make you a robot just yet.

Amy: Well, I mean, feelings are good. We’re still alive. I keep reminding myself. I’m so glad I can still feel. This is such a good thing.

Simone: Yeah. it is a good thing, even though sometimes we don’t want it. So, I just don’t want anyone to take this to the extreme like you were suggesting that you’ll never be upset again. But what I am saying is that we have a little bit more power that we can exercise once we have the option to do so. So, when we have something negative happen and it kind of just boosts us in that really negative way we tend to ruminate. We tend to picture it, remember it, imagine it, think, why did it happen? We ask all those questions. We’re really investigating it.

Essentially for a visual component here, we shine a magnifying glass on it. We put it under the microscope. We start evaluating to the finest details. We’re seeing all the little arms and legs of everything and so it’s really burned in our brain. It’s in there because essentially we’ve practiced it. We’ve practiced remembering it like how you study for a test. We have reviewed it and reviewed it so we’re really good at recalling it. And if we’re good at recalling it mentally, we’re good at recalling it emotionally and therefore we can stay stuck in that emotion. Well, the same is true for the potential of these positive things. We just don’t give it near as much attention.

So, something good happens and it’s like, “Oh my gosh, it was a great day, thanks.” Anything else? “No, it was really great, it was really good.” Well, what about the bad thing that happened? It was 7:15am on a Thursday. She’d got on a purple shirt with ruffles. And you’re like, [inaudible], wearing on my birthday? I don’t remember. It was a great day. So, we’ve got to start doing what we call milk the good times. We have to start being really deliberate about milking those good times.

And when we do that now, we can become quote ‘masters’ of memorizing those good emotions and those good feelings. And then our brain can kind of fall back to those a little bit more easily. So, I’m going to bring this back to a quote that I recently used at a keynote I did at the University of Virginia. And I started by saying, “I fear not the man who studied 10,000 things one time. I fear the man who studied one thing 10,000 times.” And that was a Bruce Lee quote and again, it was referencing martial arts, for example.

But if you practice that one kick, that one, 10,000 times, you are the master of that kick. Anyone comes within your radius there, they’re getting knocked out, that kick is happening and it’s perfected. So, I said to myself, well, don’t we essentially, with these 65,000 or so thoughts we have every day, don’t we just kind of have the same ones over and over? Are we essentially practicing 10,000, 20,000, 30,000? It’s the same thoughts and if they’re negative, if they’re historically sad, then we’re becoming masters of that thought, that type of thinking.

So, one of the things I say is that we need to reach for the positive thoughts. Those don’t necessarily just fall in our lap or we don’t give them enough attention, we’re like, “Oh, thank you,” and we just take them for granted, as they say. But I want us to start actually being deliberate about milking those positive thoughts. What if you thought about the good things in your life 10,000 times a day? What if you switched that narrative and said, “I woke up today. I woke up today. I woke up today. I woke up today. I woke up today. I woke up today.” Whatever, you’ve milked that.

But instead, we’re like, “Yeah, I woke up, I’m so thankful.” And then we move on and then we go to the bad thing. And it’s like, “Yeah, and I’m grateful.” Five minutes of gratitude and then the rest is not. So, I’m just asking us to flip that narrative. So, one of the ways we can do that is through journaling, is through just having mantras, is through doing the affirmations. Which I know there’s a lot of angst with affirmations because, are we doing them right and do they work and are we lying? Are we faking? I made a whole YouTube video on that, by the way.

Amy: Okay. We’ll leave a link to that in the show notes for sure, okay.

Simone: Right. But I want us to start being very aware of the power of that repetition and being aware of what’s going on in that self-talk and what am I giving my attention to. And on a more spiritual level, people say that attention is the currency of the universe. So, if I’m spending my attention, spending, I’m paying attention, I’m going to get what I paid for. So, if I’m paying attention to everything that is negative, stressful, bad, horrible, awful, and not even paying anything for the good stuff then I’m not going to get the good stuff.

So, I want everyone to recognize that the ice cream scooping is really you deliberately looking through your life and you’re not lying. You’re not pretending everything is perfect. You’re not pretending nothing bad happened. You’re simply looking at the full picture and selecting, that was really great. And that was really great. And I’m really thankful for that. And I love that. And build on the details of that. And milk that the way you so easily do for the negative things. I’m asking you to switch that and those, that’s how you put those ice cream scoops on. [Crosstalk]

Amy: Yes. Well, I was thinking, as you were telling the story or talking about it and I’m thinking, okay so I’m online. I’ve been online for eight and a half years now and people comment when you’re online, especially if you have a large audience, which I do. And I remember, I had one of my first super hyper viral videos, I think it went to, I think it was viewed 50 million times or something on Facebook alone. And someone made the comment, they’re like, “You have really chubby fingers,” or something like that.

And there’s all these other comments. People are like, “This is amazing.” Clearly it was seen by 50 million people. It was shared a lot. And this was an educational reading activity, 50 million people are watching how to teach their kids to read. So, this was good, the response was amazing but there was this comment that someone’s like, “You have chubby fingers.” And ever since then, you’re looking at your fingers. You’re like, “Oh.” Because there’s so much you can do about that. Anyway, so, I was thinking about that.

And it made me think too, when you were talking about what we’re looking for. Because that’s what it is. There was so much good and I was paying attention to that one. And I talk to my kids about, we kind of live on almost a full acre. And my backyard is kind of like a mountain. And so, it’s just covered in wild foliage, whatever. And so, you can go down and just kind of get lost in there. It’s great fun.

So, I talk about my kids and I’m like, “Hey, if I send you down into the backyard to go look for weeds or to just kind of get through the yard to the back fence or whatever, you’re going to kind of get through. But what if I sent you out there to look for Easter eggs? If I send you out to go on an Easter egg hunt, how many Easter eggs are you going to find compared to if I just were like, “Hey, can you just go down and get something down at the bottom or whatever and come back?”” And I’m thinking, you might spot one as you’re walking by and be like, “Oh, cool like this must have been left over from Easter,” sort of thing.

But if you’re hunting and looking for how many eggs you’re going to find and so I talk to them about that. And I think, my gosh, when you go into your day, how many Easter eggs can you find? And that’s what we talk about, how many beautiful little pieces, how many Easter eggs can you find in your day-to-day? And we talk too about, my friend would talk to me about contrast and say, when I was going through my divorce and really difficult things and talk about contrast. And this idea of equal and opposite forces, that we see all over in religion and science and all over the place.

And saying, “Hey, if you’re having bad stuff in your life and hard things,” which we all do. My kids have been through some really hard things. There’s hard things everywhere. But if there’s that, there’s equal and opposite forces. So there has to be some good stuff. And so, if you’re looking for that, you will find it and you have to go hunt for the Easter eggs. And then that’s what you see when you’re looking instead of the weeds.

Simone: Oh my gosh, I love that so much. Okay, so spoiler alert, next time I do the talk, you may hear me mention Easter eggs, it is from Amy. And speaking of talk, it just reminded me, so this is actually a spoiler alert because I do this at some of my talks. So, if you come, you might see it, don’t spoil it, if you see it. But I will put up a screen with just a scene and I’ll tell the audience to look specifically through the scene for a particular color. I’ll say, “Look for yellow, be very detailed, the roof, the ceiling, the floor or the couch, cushions, anything that’s in that scene, try to find yellow.”

And then I’ll say, “Okay, close your eyes,” or I’ll blank the screen and then I’ll say, “Okay, now as quickly as you can and as loudly as you can, shout out everything you found that was purple.” And they’re all like, “What, you said, yellow.” And I was like, “Well, tell me, what’s purple quick.” And they’re like, “I was only looking for yellow.” And I’m like, “Bingo. Well, you’re only going to be able to reflect on what you were looking for.”

So, when you go through your entire day and let’s say that yellow is the bad stuff just for this example, and you’re searching for yellow all day long and the bad stuff, bad stuff, bad stuff. And then you get to bed at night and then you lay in bed and you’re like, “I wish I found purple today.” Did you look for purple? Did you look for it? Did you search for it? So, if you’re not going to find it easily, you’re going to start to report how terrible life is, and it doesn’t mean it’s not difficult and it doesn’t have hard times like you said.

But it’s way harder and far more difficult if we haven’t even bothered to look for the things that could bring us joy, that we can be grateful for and thankful for. And it’s not just an arbitrary practice of, okay, go look for happy things and then smile and be pleasant. We’re talking about real physiological things happening when you go through that list of things to be grateful for. And you feel this hope and you feel this appreciation and then your heart rhythm starts to change and regulate. If you follow Joe Dispenza, you’ll know what I’m talking about, getting into heart coherence.

This is where your heart rhythm now gets into this balance. Your brain starts to match up with your heart. You’re playing this beautiful orchestra now. You’re not clashing and colliding with yourself. You’re in rhythm. In that state not only is the field around the body, I am super in this right now, guys. Sorry, follow me. Not only is the field around your body at its widest and broadest and most magnetic. But your body is in its highest state of healing and harmony. So, this is where you heal from disease a little bit faster, a little bit better.

This is where you are more clear, you’re more conscious. It’s a beautiful state of being and it’s not just about, okay, let me go be thankful so that I don’t complain tonight. No, we’re talking about [crosstalk].

Amy: And yeah, it changes everything. I remember, I think it was Jay Shetty I was listening to, his podcast and he said something about feeling gratitude is what allows us to feel loved. So, the action has already been done to us, but us recognizing it, acknowledging it and feeling gratitude, is what allows us to feel what was being gifted to us in the first place, which was love. And I have found that really powerful. Going to a real world example because I think, coming back to children, this is life changing for adults, for children, for everyone.

But coming back to a real world example, very recent for me. I have these three little girls. They were playing and one of the little girls got sad and was having hurt feelings and feeling like the other two were leaving her out. And so, we started talking and chatting about it and I’m like, “It feels so yucky to feel left out, and to feel not wanted.” And we were talking about this. And I said, “Okay, so talk to me though, what is the thought that you’re having that’s making you think that you’re being left out.” And we start talking about that thought, “Well, they’re playing this game,” and whatever.

And so, we’re talking through it and I’m thinking, so that is one thought that we can choose. I’m like, “But there’s other thoughts we could look at too. One is that they actually, usually almost always include you and want you to join them. They ask you to come and play. They ask you to do this with them and this with them and this with them. And they come and look for you when you’re not there.” And so, we talk about these different thoughts. So, I’m like, “So, here’s what happens. Any thought we choose, we start looking for proof around those thoughts. And then we can kind of find it, because we’re really good at that.”

So, I’m like, “But is this thought, are we sure it’s true and is it serving you? Does it make you feel good, this thought? Do you like this thought? Is it one we really want to keep or is it one we could maybe just be like, “That thought doesn’t feel very good. Don’t love that one. Maybe we choose this one.” Is there any chance this one over here is true? Let’s look for proof about this one.” “Oh, there’s a lot of proof about this thought that they love me and that they care about me and I am included. I like this thought a lot.”

So, it does feel really yucky to not feel included, but we have to maybe go back to the thought and see and just check and see if we really think that thought is true. And if there’s more proof over here, let’s go to this one because it feels a heck of a lot better. And so, we did that exercise with the seven-year old and it was magical. And she got up and went back to play and they were thrilled to have her back. And everybody’s playing, having a great time. And it is so powerful when we can teach kids to kind of do this work and choose their own thoughts.

Simone: I love that. And can I add two things that I think would help everyone who’s listening?

Amy: Yes, please.

Simone: So, one, if you have a child that’s a little older, who might just kind of be like, “No, that’s just what it is.” Just make sure you really emphasize that we’re choosing all true thoughts because that’s exactly what you did with the seven year old. These are all true options. Is it true that they played with you before? Is it true that they let you? Is it true that they looked for you? So also, to let them recognize that we’re not looking for some positive thinking fake thought to feel. But we’re actually just saying, “Let’s look at all the real thoughts that could happen right now, the real options A, B, C, D, E, F, G. And we’re just picking one that leads us to a better outcome.” That’s, I think so huge that you did that and oh, my gosh, I love that.

And then the second piece, going back to when we talked about NLP and the language of the mind. If you have a child that’s a little bit more tactile, kinesthetic, they might want to follow along with that, but be like, yeah, but blah, blah, blah, none of this is processing. I actually once had a client and this was over Zoom, and I told her, “Go get some stuff.” And she ends up getting these little bingo chips looking thing and then two baskets. And I said, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to take all the thoughts. And the negative thoughts will go in this one.” And we decided, which one was the negative.

“And then the positive will go in here,” and I go, “But it has to all be true.” So similar to what you did, except this time it added the kinesthetic element to it. So, she started going on this. This particular one was the child was afraid to go to camp. Actually, for this summer, she was afraid to go to camp at the sleepaway camp for a long time. And so, I was like, “Grab your chips.” And she’s like, “I’m scared of it.” She threw it in the negative one. I was like, “Okay, got it.” And I go, “What could be good about it?” And she’s like, “My friends are going.”

I’m like, “And?” “We’ll play games.” When we were done, I go, “Okay, now look at your baskets.” And so, from a visual and kinesthetic standpoint, she looked and she was like, “Yeah, there’s so much less negative.” And so, I was like, “Every single time you get scared, I want you to keep adding chips and you could still be honest, I’m scared, say it, put it in there. I’m nervous. My parents won’t be there.” We still had a few more chips in that basket. But at the end of the day, it was just so much more positive than negative and she had to see it and feel it because of the nature of her personality, she was not able to hear it.

So just to add onto that amazing idea you had, if anyone has any children who are a little bit more visual or need to touch, a little more tactile, that’s an amazing way to put that together.

Amy: I love that so much. Oh, my word. Okay, so we’re out of time and I just want to keep talking. Can we go to lunch? My gosh, this was so good. Just before we go, how do we come and find you and get more information? Because this has been so brilliant and I can already tell there’s so much more that you have to share and offer to help us, so where do we find you?

Simone: I know, my gosh. Okay, so first I want to say thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This has been delightful and I love when we can just expand conversation. And I feel like I’ve learned from you and hopefully you’ve learned from me and everyone listening is just benefiting greatly. I do have events that I do online to allow my global audience to attend, so I have mastermind classes. The next one coming up is about being the authentic you, so just keep an eye out for those.

And I have an online academy where I have a free library and I just want to offer that as a gift to everybody to sign up for that free library, get some of these ideas, these tips, my videos, things that will just kind of help you. And then of course there are courses if you want to go on to do those as well. All of that is available at theselfesteemdoctor.com. So just type in www.theselfesteemdoctor, all spelled out .com and the same for Instagram, which is one I use the most. So, Instagram is @theselfesteemdoctor. And I hope you guys follow along because I love to inspire and uplift. And this has just been such a beautiful conversation. I don’t want to go. Do I have to go, Amy?

Amy: Wait, wait, do we have to stop? I know, but people can only listen for so long and they have lives.

Simone: I know.

Amy: But this has been just so beautiful. I just thank you for coming and for sharing your time and your wisdom and your experience with us. I just feel so edified. I feel I’ve learned. And the ice cream thing, I’m sharing it with all my kids. This is so good. So, thank you so much for coming and sharing and we will send the people to you and good luck with all the incredible work you’re doing.

Simone: Thank you so much and same to you. Thank you for providing this platform so we can teach. I appreciate you. Thank you.

Don’t you just love all the fun things we’re learning on the show together? Well, we wanted to give you a chance to practice a little bit of it at home. And so, we made you a special freebie just for being a listener here and you can grab it at planningplaytime.com\special-freebie. That is planningplaytime.com\special-freebie. So what this freebie is, I’ll tell you, is an amazing alphabet activity that you can start using with your kiddos and it is based in play and is so fun.

You can use dot markers with it, you can use Q-tip painting, you could use circle cereal. There’s all kinds of options, but you can print it out today and get started. Just head over to planningplaytime.com\special-freebie and we’ll send that to you right away.

Thank you for hanging out with me today for this fun chat on Raising Healthy Kid Brains. If you want to see more of what we’re doing to support kiddos and their amazing brains, come visit us on our website planningplaytime.com. See you next week.