Living Simply

Welcome to the first episode of Living Simply! In this episode, we take an introductory look into the world of mindful living and mindful parenting with Dr. Gina. We explain what upcoming episodes will be about and look forward to sharing our insights with you.

Transcript

Welcome to Living Simply,

A guide to mindful living and mindful parenting with your host,

Dr.

Gina.

Hi everybody,

Welcome to the show.

I'm Dr.

Gina Madruguano.

I'm a psychologist and a life coach,

And I'd like to introduce you to my producers,

Allie and Ben.

Hey guys.

Welcome to the show.

Yeah,

So Gina,

I'm excited to be here with you,

And I will not be the full-time producer on the show as far as having the conversations with you,

But I'll be here from time to time,

And I'm really excited to be starting this with you.

And I'm really excited for Allie as well to be one of the producers on the show with me.

Allie,

How are you?

I'm good,

How are you?

I'm good,

Thanks.

Allie,

Why don't you tell everybody a little bit about yourself first?

All right,

I am a full-time mom,

Working mom.

I have a sparky little three-year-old,

And yeah,

I just work full-time,

And I spend as much time as I can with him,

But that's pretty much it.

Awesome.

So the show is going to be about,

Well,

First of all,

Let's talk about why we're doing a show.

Gina,

Can you tell us a little bit about why you wanted to start a podcast?

I wanted to start a podcast,

Ben,

Because I wanted to get the word out there.

I work a lot with parents and kids,

And I find we need a lot of positive in the world,

And we can do this through our kids,

And I can do it by working with parents,

Women,

And men,

And hopefully we'll raise happy children and happy grown-ups.

That's awesome.

Full disclosure,

I myself am not a parent,

So that is kind of why Allie is,

One of the reasons why Allie is going to be the producer on this show.

But for this first episode,

We're going to talk all about,

Gina,

Your viewpoints and kind of how you're coming at this.

As you said,

The show is sort of about life and parenting and everything in between.

So how long have you been a doctor,

First of all?

So let's talk about your doctorate and everything about that.

Okay,

So I've been practicing as a therapist for 22 years.

I started with a master's degree,

And while I was doing my PhD,

I was being a psychologist in Montreal.

And then I graduated with a PhD in 2000.

So I've always had two practices.

I'm also a forensic psychologist.

I worked a lot in jails and the community,

And my side business was working with teenagers,

Parents,

And plain old just grown-ups,

Helping them get through life,

Stress-free,

Be happy.

I can definitely use some of that advice.

Me too,

Me too.

I've been doing that for about 22 years and doing a lot of life coaching between all that.

And you talked a little bit about,

With me before,

About sort of wanting to change the.

.

.

You feel like there's a little bit of a stigma with the therapy world.

And you want to bring the life coaching and the mindfulness into that and sort of use both of those things that you do together.

Yeah,

Totally,

Because there are so many different branches of psychology.

And a lot of people are scared to see a psychologist because they think I'm not crazy.

And you don't need to be crazy to see a psychologist.

I see life coaches,

Psychologists as very intertwined.

Depending on your approach to treatment as a psychologist.

So my practice is very hands-on,

Getting clients very independent so they don't have to be in therapy for 20 years.

Yeah,

So I want to get rid of that stigma that you need to have serious mental illness to seek help from a psychologist.

In the same way,

You don't wait until you need dentures to see a dentist.

Yeah.

And then,

So like,

What are some of the things that you do that are different than other psychologists?

Well,

I don't want to say I'm that different in the sense.

.

.

Right,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Sorry.

But I'm more of the approach,

I try to get people down to do things,

Be active instead of just talk about their problems.

It's more get focused in the present moment,

What's right with your life already and how can we enhance it.

So a lot of my work is based on positive psychology,

Strengths-based psychology,

Mindfulness,

Meditation,

Practice,

Because try to get people out of their heads instead of stuck in their heads and in their problems,

Worry about the future.

So there's a lot of behavioral psychologists or psychologists who follow ACT,

Which is acceptance and commitment therapy,

Which is getting you into life,

Exposed to life,

Exposed to your feelings and get you living this life in the present moment.

So you,

You know,

We all have stresses,

Pain,

Bad things that happen,

But how can we be resilient and get through those things?

Yeah,

That's awesome.

And when did your specialty in parenting start?

Well,

I always worked with parents when I worked with,

Because I was always,

Even when I was in university,

I had an interest in adolescence and I always kind of intuitively knew that kids are not broken,

That we need to work with the parents to help heal children.

So I always intuitively felt that,

Also from my own experience.

But I had a bigger interest to move from forensic to more parenting when I myself became a mom,

Because I was going through the motions myself,

So it gave some credibility to my work,

Because some clients,

You know,

If you don't have kids,

They don't necessarily take you as seriously.

So being able to go,

Been there,

Done that,

I can empathize even better with parents.

So having a kid really helped push me in that direction to work with parents even more.

And Gina,

You have a daughter.

Yeah.

And Beatrice?

Yeah,

She's 10.

So just tell us about her.

Yeah,

So Beatrice is 10.

She's my little Buddha and she's my greatest teacher.

Like most parents,

I think she's amazing.

So she's helped me grow up a lot.

She,

So I part-time homeschool her and two,

Three days a week,

She goes to an alternative school with other homeschooling kids or kids who are there five days.

So it's a very,

Very tiny school.

She's pretty active.

She loves dance.

She,

I taught her to meditate when she was four.

So she likes meditation.

So she's proof that we can do it.

She did it at four and does she still,

She still does it?

Yeah.

So obviously she,

She does it at a level that a kid does it.

But kids are naturally mindful.

So that's why I say she's my greatest teacher because kids are,

Kids embody mindfulness.

So,

And she's all into these things probably because she's exposed to it a lot.

So she,

She likes mindfulness,

Shock,

Raw energy work.

She wrote her own meditation,

Didn't she?

Yeah.

So she's,

She's recorded a meditation.

So I'm getting her to work on it so we can rerecord it and put it on insight timer for other kids.

Yeah.

I want to use that for Braden.

I found like YouTube videos for meditation for him a few times and I've only done it a couple of times.

And it's something that I feel like he probably would do well with.

But yeah,

I've like YouTube some and I'm like,

These are so interesting,

Especially for like that young to be like,

Yeah,

Cause you're so aggressive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And,

And they can,

They can do it for a minute or two.

They don't stay there very long,

But it's a good habit.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And they do it anyways when they're playing.

They're totally present.

Their mind doesn't go to anything else.

Right.

Yeah.

How about you,

Ben?

Do you meditate?

Yeah.

I mean,

I try to,

It's a habit that I wish I did more of,

But,

But yeah,

I try,

I tried the,

I used to do the Headspace app a lot and,

And now I use insight timer a lot.

Honestly,

I do some guided meditations,

But I prefer,

I almost prefer just putting on the timer with like the,

Like a Zen guitar and,

You know,

Just focusing on my breathing and trying to clear my mind and stuff.

So,

So that's kind of what I do more of,

But,

But yeah,

I try.

I feel like I wait till it's like when I'm like super anxious and I try to meditate then and I'm like,

I feel like if I made this more of a habit,

It probably would help like day to day.

And I always wait until it's like,

I need to do this now.

And then I don't know,

I feel like that's a habit that totally would help just day to day stress.

Yeah.

Meditation is gym,

Like brain gym basically.

I don't know if you probably noticed when you're stressed,

You might try to meditate and you feel like it's not working.

Right.

Cause not everybody,

It doesn't always relax you and it's like,

Oh,

It's not working,

But actually it's doing what it's supposed to do.

Right.

Yeah.

It's a good habit to have,

But hey,

You start where you're ready to start.

Right.

Yeah.

So Gina,

I have a couple more questions for you as we start this one.

What sort of like,

What are,

What are patterns that you see?

Like what are some of the biggest issues in general and broad strokes that you see with clients?

First on the life,

Just the general life stuff and then,

And then we'll move on to parenting.

So what comes across my path a lot,

Whether it's parent,

Adults or children is anxiety.

It's not surprising it's an epidemic cause that's what shows up the most is anxiety.

And managing work life balance for adults and for women that cross my path a lot is,

So older women,

If they're in their forties is they gave a lot,

They gave a lot,

They've dedicated their life to their kids to work and they've lost their way.

Basically they've put their needs aside and they're kind of burned out.

So they're trying to find back how to take care of themselves and get their needs met guilt-free.

I see that also with men,

But somehow I attract more women,

But I think more women seek therapy or life coaching than men in general.

I do too.

Yeah,

I think that that's true.

And for children,

Hands down is either anxiety or parents having a hard time getting compliance.

My kids won't listen to me.

So it's the younger age group.

So parents having difficulties with discipline or anxiety basically.

And Allie,

What are some of the issues that you,

You know,

As a young mother are looking for guidance on?

Work-life balance,

Disciplining my child,

The compliance.

No,

He's good.

He's just,

I find when I'm working and I am not with his father,

So we have split time.

And when I'm home,

He wants me to be completely there.

And it's hard to find the balance of like,

OK,

But you know,

We have things to do and we can't always just be playing at all times.

But I also feel like I then miss some of it because I'm like so focused on doing all these other things that I forget to be like,

OK,

Let's just play.

You're right.

Like,

Let's just sit here and play.

So finding that has been very difficult.

And that's something that comes across all the time.

Every family I've worked with is how to balance time with their child and the responsibilities of life.

Right.

Yeah.

And the guilt wanting to be there.

Yeah,

I do it all and guilt free.

So guilt,

I found to with parents,

What drives them a lot is guilt and fear.

So fear is at the tail end of anxiety as well.

It's always scared,

Not doing enough.

Am I making the right choice?

Is my kid going to be OK?

Yeah.

A lot of fear.

So I try to help parents navigate that fear and not listen to that voice too much.

Great.

Yeah.

You,

Ben?

Well,

I mean,

I don't really have any parenting questions.

No,

But you have a life coach.

I do.

I do.

Yeah.

So how you actually found me and started the podcast was that you were you found on Insight Timer.

You were listening to was it like it was Life Lessons and Laughter,

I would imagine.

Which is a podcast that I've done with life coach Glenn Ambrose for five.

This month will be five years that we started recording that.

And that's a lot of fun.

And so Glenn is,

You know,

Not only do I produce the shows for him,

But I am a client.

And,

Yeah,

So having a life coach is great.

I highly recommend it for everybody.

We did an episode at the beginning of the year about how to find the right life coach and how it's really all about finding somebody that clicks for you.

And there's a lot of them out there,

You know.

So there's there's going to be somebody who is doing the things that you need to hear and is helpful in the ways that you click with and that you like their personality and and all of that stuff.

And they can help you.

And that's what I'm excited about for this podcast is for tons of people to find you,

Gina.

And that will click with you because there are,

You know,

Hundreds of thousands of people out there that listen to these shows and millions of people on Insight Timer all the time.

And you have a very unique message and a great blend with the mindfulness and the parenting expertise that that's going to be great for people to find,

You know.

And I think that that's really exciting.

But as far as my my biggest issues would be probably like self-love and self-care.

Yeah,

That's a common issue,

I think,

Across men and women.

Yeah.

We were raised,

A lot of us,

For generations thinking self-care is selfish.

That me first means you're ignoring everyone else around you.

But it's that's not what it is.

Yeah.

Right.

Yep.

But I'm so excited to work with you and Ali.

It's going to be exciting.

And I think we do have a different message.

Not everyone's going to click with it,

But that's OK.

Those who will,

Will listen.

Yeah.

That's so.

So that's it for this episode,

I think this was just an introduction.

And,

You know,

Hopefully everybody likes it and we'll stick around for episode two where we're going to talk about mindfulness in parenting.

So that's pretty much it.

Ali,

Is there anything else that you want to say before we wrap up?

No,

I'm just really excited.

I'm excited.

I feel like this is some information that's going to be super helpful to me in my personal life and things that I'm not necessarily like very good at.

So this will be information that's like totally new,

But totally like applicable in my personal life.

So.

I'm excited.

And Gina,

Where can they find information about you?

So right now you can find me on the website drmadrigrano.

Com and we'll spell it out for you.

D r m a d r i g r a n o dot com.

And I also have a Facebook page,

Dr.

Gina Madrigrano.

Awesome.

All right,

Guys.

Well,

That's it for this episode and we'll be back.

You can find out more information there.

Awesome.

Thanks,

Guys.

Thank you.

Thank you.

For more information or to book an appointment with Dr.

Gina,

Go to drmadrigrano.

Com or click the link in the description of this episode.

Reviews

Great fist episode guys! Looking forward to hearing more 💜x