Watching Mindfulness Unfold: A Dialog On Mindfulness, Therapeutic, and Movie

The concept to create brief movies about mindfulness got here to Julie Bayer Salzman throughout a meditation session—however the full story goes again to her kitchen desk, a cup of scorching chocolate, and a dialog along with her younger son and his buddy concerning the amygdala.

Conscious editor Ava Whitney-Coulter sat down with Julie for a Q&A about utilizing movie to showcase the tales of individuals of all ages who’re utilizing mindfulness to navigate nervousness, melancholy, habit, and extra. 

Ava Whitney-Coulter: Let’s begin with you. Are you able to inform me about your mindfulness journey? How did mindfulness first come into your life?

Julie Bayer Salzman: In all probability the earliest was after I was 16 and taking a world religions class in highschool, and we realized about meditation. I dabbled all all through my teenagers and twenties—I took a strolling meditation course in faculty, practiced yoga, form of slowly discovering my method. In my thirties, I used to be a protracted distance runner, and that was my type of meditation, too. I spotted that I actually benefit from the stillness. I benefit from the quiet. I get pleasure from shutting every part down and quieting, simply getting the mind to show off a little bit bit. 

The true turning level for me was when my son was in kindergarten, about 11 years in the past. He got here residence someday along with his buddy, and so they have been having scorching chocolate, and so they have been speaking about their amygdala and their prefrontal cortex, and what occurs after we get offended and the way we calm it down. They have been studying about this in class, so I contacted the principal, and he or she directed me to Conscious Faculties. I wound up taking the six-week course from Conscious Faculties, and I knew that this was what I’d been in search of. I’ve been training ever since. 

AWC: Take me from mindfulness coming into your life to creating conscious brief movies. How did you get from one place to the opposite? 

JBS: Nicely, it actually began with the recent chocolate second with my child and his buddy. I’d been a filmmaker for some time, and I used to be making tv commercials for a dwelling earlier than I had a baby, so my pure inclination was in the direction of movie. Nevertheless it wasn’t till I took the course with Conscious Faculties that the fullness of the thought got here to me. I used to be right here in my workplace, meditating as a part of the category—and I actually noticed the primary movie. I simply noticed it in my thoughts. The following day, I talked to the principal on the faculty and stated, “I’ve this concept, black and white movie, interviewing all the children, speaking about anger within the mind.” And she or he was like, “I adore it. Let’s do it.” So then we made that movie. It was known as Simply Breathe.

Then I began to consider how we proceed this schooling. What can I do to make it possible for children in any respect phases of life are gaining access to this materials? How can I make these in such a method that they’re instructional for particular teams, however they’re additionally common? That’s after I got here up with this concept of this complete collection of brief movies for each age group. 

AWC: Are you able to inform me extra about why you’re feeling this content material particularly must be on movie? 

JBS: We stay in a really visible world. We stay in a world of screens and other people wanting to observe issues, and oftentimes mindfulness is taught in a classroom with plenty of phrases.

Folks don’t all the time be taught by what they hear. There are lots of people who have to be taught by what they see, and, as a documentary filmmaker, I noticed it as a option to provide entry to people who perhaps wasn’t so intimidating. It was a neater option to get the knowledge throughout sooner, and probably transfer individuals sufficient to need to take it extra significantly.

I additionally felt prefer it was like a very fantastic method of introducing individuals to one thing that’s so essentially essential to our collective survival proper now. I used to be seeing all the issues that have been associated to individuals’s emotional instability, emotional immaturity. I used to be in a time of volatility myself. I noticed all these completely different phases—studying find out how to take care of anger, with nervousness, with melancholy, with trauma. And I assumed, What can I do that may contribute one thing optimistic to this?

AWC: I seen, in each movie, there’s no narration. You give the mic to the one that is on the middle of it, and permit them to inform their story of their phrases. I’d love to listen to you speak a little bit bit about that selection.

JBS: I need to make movies that can have an experiential impression on individuals. Interviewing consultants is essential, however that isn’t what strikes individuals. What transfer persons are real feelings. Issues really feel much more actual and credible and accessible when there are regular people speaking on the opposite finish of the digital camera. I believe individuals take it extra significantly once they don’t really feel someone has an agenda.

It’s been my strategy as a filmmaker to be very honest concerning the tales I’m telling, and as a human being to be a honest human being and never come throughout as some skilled who’s gonna inform you find out how to do issues or who’s received all of the solutions. As a result of I don’t. I don’t imagine in telling individuals what the solutions are. I imagine in letting individuals discover these solutions for themselves. And the easiest way to do this is to see different individuals dwelling their very own solutions and never being advised what they’re and find out how to do them. 

AWC: That segues properly into A Good Day, your most up-to-date movie about mindfulness in habit restoration. I’d love to listen to about the way you discovered Samadhi, the restoration middle that’s featured within the movie, and the topics whose tales you inform. 

JBS: The founding father of Samadhi, David McNamara, and I have been colleagues years in the past within the industrial world. We have been working collectively within the early 2000s, after which we parted methods. I went off to do my very own movies and lift a household. Unbeknownst to me, over the course of these 17 years the place I didn’t actually see him, he had gone by a mindfulness-based restoration program himself after which began the Samadhi Heart a number of years in the past. He reached out to me on Fb and stated, “I’ve been watching the movie work that you simply’re doing. I believe it’s lovely. I don’t know if you already know this, however I used to be fighting habit, and I went by my very own journey. And I opened up this mindfulness-based restoration middle in upstate New York.” We talked concerning the concept of collaborating sooner or later sooner or later. 

I went to go to the middle and David simply gave me full entry. I used to be in search of individuals between the ages of 30 and 50, and he put the phrase out amongst his individuals and received a few volunteers. So we returned in November of 2022 and we solely had three days, as a result of we had a very small price range. Folks have been actually open with us from the get go. I felt extraordinarily fortunate to have that form of entry and that degree of openness.

Actually, if I had had the time and the assets, I’d have stayed there for months and actually executed a giant function or a collection. There’s a lot materials in there. However working with what we had, I needed to create a day-in-the-life snapshot. What does mindfulness-based habit restoration appear like, and the way does it differ from different approaches?

AWC: I’d love to listen to you speak about what you’ve realized on this course of about  mindfulness and struggling and therapeutic.

JBS: It’s a large query, and it’s continually altering. It’s a piece in progress. We’re works in progress. The collection is a piece in progress. I’d nonetheless go off into catastrophic pondering, however I can catch it extra rapidly.

Mindfulness has undoubtedly taught me how to pay attention to my ideas and acknowledge the way it’s touchdown in my physique and find out how to transfer by it. I take into consideration struggling on a regular basis. It’s not possible to not have a look at the world proper now and see all of the struggling. It’s inevitable, but it surely doesn’t have to forestall us from experiencing the enjoyment that’s throughout us, and that, I imagine, actually imagine, is our inherent nature. Mindfulness is continually peeling off these layers.

Mindfulness simply helps you be extra compassionate, extra conscious, a kinder individual, as a result of you’ll be able to acknowledge the struggling extra. It lets you be with that as a substitute of getting buried by it. 

And that goes into the therapeutic. I believe therapeutic is an ongoing course of. I don’t assume there’s an finish to therapeutic, as a result of there’s not an finish to struggling, and subsequently there’s not an finish to your mindfulness observe. These are all three linked. So long as we’re alive, we’re going to be experiencing all of that. We’re going to be in a cycle of struggling after which therapeutic by mindfulness.

AWC: What are you able to inform us concerning the movies that aren’t but launched? Do you could have a timeline? Is there something you need to say concerning the themes?

JBS: There’s the one on grief that I’m engaged on now. Then the one on trauma is subsequent. That may be the one movie that I attempt to go actually scientific with, as a result of I believe that persons are skeptical about mindfulness and trauma till there’s knowledge. My guess is that can occur in 2025. This collection will likely be executed on the finish of 2025. Then it’s a matter of individuals discovering it, and determining find out how to package deal all of them into one factor and get all of them seen.

AWC: Is there anything that we didn’t contact on that feels essential so that you can say or share?

JBS: We might speak for hours about these items. On the finish of the day, as my mother likes to say, now we have plenty of work to do as a species. I’ve hope. The observe offers me hope. If we might get extra individuals to grasp this, and observe it themselves, I do imagine we might convey the temperature down. I am going again to my six-foot sphere of affect: What can I do? What can I do immediately to make a optimistic impression on the individual subsequent to me? And

hopefully, that’s coming by the display, too, extending to a digital six ft, as properly.

Julie’s work is 100% crowdfunded and supplied to the general public without cost. Should you’d prefer to be part of this work, you’ll be able to donate and unfold the phrase right here.