The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Hannah Barrett on how to slow down in a busy world

Episode Date: March 4, 2022

On this episode of The Therapy Edit's 'One thing', Anna Mathur chats with the queen of yoga, strength and happiness Hannah Barrett. Hannah shares her experience of burnout and the steps she took to live a slower, healthier and more fulfilled life.As well as being a busy mum, Hannah shares the incredible benefits of yoga with as many people as possible through her App, live classes, YouTube, Instagram, and my yoga-inspired e-guides and programmes. You can find out all about Hannah here https://www.hannahbarrettyoga.com and follow her on Instagram at @hannahbarrettyogaYou can also now purchase her brand new book, the Amazon #1 Bestseller, Yoga Happy, here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yoga-Happy-Practices-Everyday-Strength/dp/1787137678/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1631015771&sr=8-1&tag=linkfire-smarturl-21

Hello and welcome to The Therapy Edit with me, psychotherapist's mum of three and author Anna Martha. Every Friday, I invite one guest to tell me the one thing they would most like to share with moms everywhere. So join with me for the next 15 minutes as we hear this dose of wisdom. I hope you enjoy it. Hello and welcome to today's episode of The Therapy. edit. Today is a guest episode and I have with me, Hannah Barrett. Now, Hannah Barrett is a yoga teacher. She is an author. She's got a new book out called Yoga Happy, Simple Tools and Practices for Everyday Calm and Strength. I mean, don't we all want more calm and strength? Hannah's book is so beautiful. It's got flows in it. It's actually, I was telling her before we click record that it's just by my bed. I just sometimes flick through it before I go to sleep because it's so, it really is calming and grounding. and it's got loads of really beautiful, beautifully illustrated kind of insight into yoga philosophy and lots of mantras in there.

So I really, really encourage you to have a look, whether you're an old hat at yoga or whether you're just kind of dipping your toe in the water. Hannah also has a brilliant app called Hannah. So it's Hannah Barrett. So if you search in the app store, Hannah Barrett yoga, it will come up. And it's got reams of the most brilliant kind of meditation and yoga flows for stuff. sleep and like there's there's everything in there, everything that you want, whether you've got 10 minutes or 20 minutes. So it is great to have Hannah here. I'm very privileged call Hannah a friend. So thanks for joining us, Hannah. How are you today? Oh, thank you. What a spiel to start

off with. And it's so nice to be chatting to you, Anna, as always. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's a pleasure, treasure. So Hannah, if you could tell all the moms one thing, what would that one thing be? That one thing. would be to slow down, to slow down. Like we, so before I was a yoga teacher, I used to work in finance. I was an actuary for nearly 10 years. And I lived life just constantly doing, doing, doing. I never stopped. And I, I was so stressed. And actually, that's one of the reasons why I turned to yoga, to manage my stress levels and then fell in love with it and just realized, like, I needed those moments of pause. I needed to pause to find that calm.

but also to just find more creativity. Like I find sometimes when you're doing, doing, doing, you just can't see the full picture. Like, and when you actually pause and take a step back, you can, you just have more clarity. So yes, my one thing would be to pause more. And you've reminded me, I'm going to find that poem for the end that we love. Oh, I love that poem so much.

And, you know, sometimes I realize that I'm even just walking fast. You know what I mean? like when I don't even need to be so it might be on the way back from a school drop-off and I just clock that I'm walking like I'm rushing somewhere like why do we do that do you think just kind of live as if we're being chased it's so funny you say that

because I yesterday was filming a or recording a walking meditation and I went to go and try it out because I always record my meditations and then try them out straight away just in case I've made any like big bloopers and I tried out afterwards and I was like, God, actually just going for a walk and really going for a slow mindful walk, it's quite hard. I found myself constantly speeding up and then telling myself, actually, no, let's slow down

and let's just kind of feel all sensations and just be aware of what I'm doing. It's tricky and I think both of us have these really kind of busy minds and lots of ideas, but we also have the tendency to burn out. So those pauses are definitely needed to look after ourselves, right? yeah and I feel like it has to be such a discipline like just I have to have such an awareness because I don't know about you but I look at my kids sometimes and I think oh my gosh how are you so big and it's it's almost like when we're just when life is so full on you can't slow it down you can't slow life itself down you have to try and slow yourself down and I don't know about

you but I feel like our culture just it's kind of like beating a drum of like faster more you know, do more, be more, want more. And it's, yeah, I just think we're, we can so easily be, find ourselves on that treadmill. And we have to make those decisions to actually just, whoa, how fast are my feet moving here. Yeah. And it is. It's just all about paying attention, right? And, you know, we don't want to get to the stage where we look at our children and go, my God, like, how are you 10? Like, I've missed all these kind of big moments. And like, you know, that's obviously not going to happen. But it is, you know, in life we're doing so much let's actually um take stock and look at all of the achievements that

we've made and and celebrate them even the small ones like because you know we talked about this when we released books and actually taking that pause and not just going straight onto the next book and like straight onto the next thing and actually just saying like let's celebrate these achievements that we that we make right just kind of absorb it a little bit so if some of the mom's listing and I'm sure, and I know this because this is something I often find myself thinking. It's but like, how? Have you seen my diary? Have you seen how much I've got on? Have you seen how hectic my kids are? You know, how can I slow down amidst, amidst the chaos. Yes, such a good question. So for me, it's calling things a priority. So let's use meditation as an example, because lots of

people like, don't have time. I don't have time to meditate. It don't have time. change your view, say it's a priority. I'm going to prioritize meditation because I want to, I want to bring some more calm into my life. I'm very stressed. Whatever reason, that reason can be completely for you. It doesn't need to be anything in particular. But you make it a priority. So then you get up 10 minutes earlier and then you look at these million things on your to-do list and think, right, what does it need to be done? Right. And I talk in the book about this idea. It's called satchets for truth, and you need to be truthful with yourself. And I think lots of us have this thing where we have these to-do lists, whether in our mind or on paper and we write

down 20 things that we want to do in a day. I always think to put two things on those lists. Be super realistic with what you can get done. And if then you can get more done, fantastic. But like, be truthful with yourself and life becomes a lot easier. So about just asking yourself, what really matters on that list? can maybe be demoted or delegated or just, yeah, saved for another day. And the other thing, the other thing that I, that I notice in myself is my breathing speeds up. Yeah. You know, as well as my walking and my moving and my, you're rushing around the house and

there's absolutely no need for me to do that. It's, you know, it's the speed of my breathing. And I know you've got so many amazing kind of different breathing exercises. but if people are resonating with that feeling of actually I'm not even breathing properly what's a brilliant one that you would recommend yeah I love that question yeah no I love it because um it and you said people recognising but actually a lot of the time we don't recognise how we're breathing okay and our breathing has this huge I could take about for ages so I'll try and do it in a nutshell has this huge impact on our emotional state and it's like this circle so

So when we're stressed and anxious, we get this really shallow breath. It's in our chest and we're not breathing. We're breathing quite fast. But if we take a moment to pause and recognize that, I think I'm feeling stressed. I can feel my breath is really shallow. We can actually change our breath so we can do like it. And I'll do one with you in a moment, one of my favorites. But also by doing that, we can change the way we feel.

So if together now, we just everyone close their eyes. And we're going to do one of my faves that's called the golden thread breath. Talk to me by your middens, Maltouli. and it's really empowering and it helps to calm the system as well. So I want you to breathe in from the root of your belly. So feel your belly expand like a balloon,

feel your ribs expand all the way around, all the way up to the top of your chair. And as you exhale, exhale through very, very thinly parted lips like you're blowing out a golden thread of energy. Release let go. Breathing in. Find that space.

Breathing out. up and letting go. One more time, big inhale. And exhale, slowly release. So hopefully you're feeling just a little bit calmer, just from three breaths. That's how powerful the breath is. And I don't know about you, but mornings are a struggle in our family. my kids are driving me nuts, like putting shoes on, finding socks and all that kind of thing.

And these are like they kind of move on. I'm like, right, take a deep breath before you lose your mind. Yeah, so helpful. And since you taught me this when we met last time, I do it when I'm outwalking and often I'm pushing, you know, an overtired toddler in the buggy. And I literally imagine that golden thread kind of weaving its way through the tree tops. like I find it so helpful Hannah. Thank you. No, the visualisations can be so, it can be really helpful. It is just, you can use it for pain actually as well. So say you have a headache, you inhale into the part of your body where you're feeling pain and you exhale, kind of imagine, visualize that pain like releasing and that golden thread from your body can be really helpful. It's not, none of these things are a magic fix or whatever you want to call it, but they tools for just like strength, like kind of natural tools that you can call them whenever you need, not just on a yoke. program out like as you say out when you're going for a walk or you're in the car or wherever yeah and your book's really packed with with things like this for people so hannah i want to ask you to read that

poem that um that you shared it was actually on social media and it's quite a while ago but it's really stayed with me um so i'm so grateful that you that you bought that you bought that to that space so let's hear it let's hear it you got it yes i have so this comes by a lady called Erin Hanson, who's one of, I love her, she heard her, she's beautiful, but this one really stuck with me as well, so I hope you guys love it. And she says, let me tell the tale of a girl who didn't stop, who climbed up every mountain without a pause upon the top. She danced until each blade of grass was clothed in drops of dew, and the sun knew her by name, but the silver moon did too, for a fear had settled in her bones a fear of sitting still.

that if you're not moving forward, it must mean you never will. So in time, her dance got slower and she looked at all she'd seen, but found gaps inside the places that she'd never fully been. Well, she was a human doing, human moving, human seeing, but she'd never taken time to simply be a human being. And I think it just resonates so much because we don't want to find gaps. We want to enjoy these moments, live in. in the now and it's such a kind of phrase of the moment is now it has been for a while

it's kind of living in the now but happiness is in the now right yeah yeah oh it's so powerful i want to print that out and put that somewhere because i i do think as we were saying earlier it is about finding those ways to keep bringing yourself back because the world and all within it will so often pull our attention forward or backwards and and actually yeah just taking that to just be here now, be where you are, filling in some of those gaps. And that's why I wanted to bring yoga happy into the world to share some of these tools, but like in a super accessible way as well, because I think sometimes people can think of yoga and think of these really inaccessible poses,

and that's not what it has to be. Yoga can be whatever you need it to be, but it helps to bring you into this moment and can be connected to who you are to the world around you. Yeah. And that really is what you bring, Hannah, in your work. So thank you so much. There's so much gratitude I see in the community, because I'm a member of that community on Facebook, the gratitude, just people sharing their stories of how slowing down and honoring their body and bring themselves to their breath. It's quite frankly changing, changing their lives.

Yeah. So, yeah, thank you for that. So Hannah, we always finish off with a few little quickfire questions. So can you share with us what a motherhood high is for you? I love silly things with my family. So we do this really silly thing every morning. So we recently moved out of London. So we have a drive now. So we run across the drive to get to the car to drive to school. And we always do this really silly run.

And every morning I just look at the kids doing this silly run and me joining them. And I'm just like, this is just so silly. But it makes me so happy. Like everyone's always really smiling and happy. And it's just really sweet. And it's just one of those tiny movements. But I know in like 20 years, I'll just remember that tiny moment because the small moments really are the big ones, right?

We've all learned that in the last two years. It made my heart feel really happy just hearing that. Just imagining that, imagining that silliness and that fun. And I think also engaging in the childishness of us as an adult. We need those moments. We need those moments. So Hannah, what's a motherhood low for you? So my low, low, my lowest of lows was when Amelie was.

born. And she went, so my youngest, I had a very traumatic pregnancy and then a very traumatic birth after having a partial placental abruption. And she was very sick. So she was in neonatal intensive care for nearly three weeks. And the first week that she was there was very touch and go. She was fighting lots of things, including sepsis and breathing difficulties and lots of other thing. So I think that was very, yeah, that was my low and it was weird because we walked out of the hospital and she, Emily, is the most gorgeous little girl now and we were very grateful to walk out of the hospital with her because very sadly people don't. But I think because of that, I really kind of buried that trauma, but it was a, it was a real trauma and it came out about three or four

months later and I realized that I had PTSD and post-nated depression and took a long time to get through it. But, you know, I did get out the other side and I see the light now. But it was hard. Yeah. Yeah. And such a, I guess, such a story of hope through that, just that pain. Yeah. And kind of that transformational, and you talk about the transformational affective how yoga has been such a tool for you. in the recovery but you're so open about that story and I think that's just incredibly helpful for those for those watching on and then I guess being able to add value to their own experiences and we do bury these things down sometimes and you know it's normally a way of

being able to kind of carry on when we have to but thank you for sharing that with us Hannah what's one of those things that makes you feel good oh what's one of the god that's a hard one there are so many things. I'm going to use my yoga mat, okay? So I have this feeling with my yoga mat. I don't know if you have it. I'm interested to see, but if when I get on my yoga mat and listen to saying if I don't have like kids jumping on me, if I roll out my mat and I have some form of peace and quiet, whatever that looks like, it literally feels like my kind of safe space. And I'm like, oh, I can take a deep breath. And last night I did this, I got on and I just played for like 20, 25 minutes. And it felt so good. And that is my, that makes me.

feel so good. And it was a really powerful flow last night. It doesn't have to be like a chilled out one, but it was fun. Wow. Do you know what? That's so funny you say that because I saw my husband doing a workout this morning. And he was, he was, my yoga mat was rolled out and he was on top of my yoga mat doing his, whatever he was doing. And I was like, that's my, like, that's my little space. And I, you know, on one hand, it doesn't matter that he's doing a workout on my yoga mat but I think it's that you're right it's the the connotations that that space means for me yeah yeah it's yeah I get it I so I have I my husband's very patient with me right because I leave the yoga mats all over the house like sometimes roll that sometimes I'll roll them away and I leave one

in his office because that's where I film at the moment and like I'll sometimes see a footprint on it and I'm like oh my god he stepped up with his shoes and then I'm like it's my fault because I'm leaving a yoga mat in his office right but then I'm like oh no it's well it's what that space means to you, isn't it? Yeah. And so to finish off, Hannah, how would you describe motherhood in three words? Wonderful, crazy and fun. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining me to share with us your one thing. And just an encouragement to everyone to go over to Hannah's Instagram, Hannah Barrett Yoga, where you'll find all the links and links to her book and more about the app and just generally you can follow along with her thoughts and flows and

stories which are always really inspiring for me so thank you so much Hannah oh thank you Anna take care speak to you soon bye thank you for listening to today's episode of the therapy edit if you enjoyed it please do share subscribe and review you can find more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha you might like to check out my two books called mind over mother and know your worth. I'm also the founder of the Mother Mind Way, a platform full of guides, resources and a community with the sole focus on supporting mothers' mental and emotional wellbeing. It's been lovely chatting with you. Speak soon.