Teaching Humanity Remotely with Dr. Mindy Shaw

In this very personal episode, Dr. Shaw reflects on a recent experience during which she participated in the celebration of an old and dear friend.  The friend was also a body-worker/healer who helped Dr. Shaw's family many years ago and through difficult times, and she talks here about what it was like to be included in that recent celebration and to experience the reciprocal exchange of love and admiration at that event.  Dr. Sha...

In this episode, Dr. Shaw discusses the importance of learning from observing yourself.  In order to illustrate how that works, she shares a personal story about giving parenting advice to her own daughter who reacted by resisting taking her advice.  She watched herself feel somewhat hurt and offended and then feel embarrassed and disappointed in herself for being offended.   Her principles, however, include the notion that timing ...

In this brief but very useful episode, Dr. Shaw talks about the balancing act that parents must maintain with their children when it comes to making commitments that require time, energy, effort and more.   The key is balance... balancing the desire to have your child participate in something fun, healthy and/or productive but then facing the reality sometimes that the commitment you made has pitfalls.  How do you juggle not being ...

In this episode, Dr. Shaw tackles the topic of what happens when we defend our positions during the course of disagreements.   Her discussion was spurred by a recent personal experience, and it has been Dr. Shaw's philosophy for a long time to not take things personally.  When confronted, most people get defensive, but when defending your position you are actually not being open to potentially valuable points of view.... plus, it's...

On this episode, Dr. Shaw celebrates the milestone presentation of her 200th podcast.  During this reflective installment of her series, she reviews a number of the concepts that she has discussed throughout the four years that she's been delivering a weekly message via this venue.  She enumerates many of the life-lessons that she has presented throughout this series and she lays out some of the axioms and guidelines that she lives...

This podcast is an immediate follow-up to last week's episode in which Dr. Shaw speaks about her philosophy that timing is everything.... but she's not necessarily talking about the timing that you might assume she's referring to.... she's really focused on patience in life, not about coincidence and not about immediate gratification.   She's also talking about the kind of patience that allows the truth is revealed.   Dr. Shaw feel...

In this brief episode, Dr. Shaw focuses on how, in life, timing can be everything.   She runs through several examples and scenarios to illustrate how waiting for the right moment can pay off... timing can deliver you the right relationship, timing can help students in school when a child needs an extra moment, patience can keep you centered or when you are waiting for word about a school application or a job or acceptance into a c...

In this brief but insightful episode, Dr. Shaw talks about teaching our children to be flexible.  As with other tenets of Dr. Shaw's philosophy, teaching flexibility begins with proper modeling for our children.  When an adult behaves in a frustrated or inflexible manner, which will happen, it's important to point out that behavior and also explore the situation that you are in for the learning lessons built into it.   When we reac...

In this very personal episode, Dr. Shaw shares her recent experience of having her adult son hospitalized with an serious condition and what her learning lessons were from that adventure.... and the lesson is that it's all about how you show up.   She discusses some of the ups and downs of advocating for her son Joshua in the hospital and how encountering different personalities among the doctors and nurses re-taught her that flexi...

In this brief but important episode, Dr. Shaw discusses the need for setting boundaries for young children and her approach is always that children who, for example, have temper tantrums actually ARE ASKING for and know they need boundaries.  She begins by discussing an example of a substitute teacher who has temporarily taken over an unruly class and suddenly that class is well behaved.   In that case, it's not that the children h...

In this episode, Dr. Shaw takes a look at the use of language and how it can cause misunderstanding or misinterpretation.   She uses the example of the phrase "the universe is testing me," and the framework of that phrase implies a zero sum game where the universe is either for or against us.   What we should say in that situation is the universe presents opportunities, and the manner in which we respond to that point of view becom...

In this episode, Dr. Shaw discusses on one of her most important and frequently mentioned educational tool and that is "noting and marking" occurrences of success.   She shares some of her own experience from her decades of experience, and she then focuses on an illustrative example of noting and marking from her personal life.  She relates a recent story about how she dealt with some anxiety that her granddaughter was feeling and ...

In this brief but insightful episode, Dr. Shaw discusses and illustrates how we are often lucky in our lives when negativity strikes.   While that may seem counterintuitive on the surface, Dr. Shaw provides a few examples of how our challenging moments in life can lead to us being lifted up.   Her poignant conclusion on this topic is worth remembering.... that our moments of suffering are truly gifts because they lead us to the nex...

In this episode, Dr. Shaw talks about the celebrations of the Spring Season.  The religious holidays and other celebrations of this season have a focus on re-birth, growth and freedom.  She relates a personal story about her recent experience telling the story of Passover to her young grandchildren and how she handles some of the scary parts of that story.  She talked at that dinner about how the Passover story allows a vision into...

In this podcast, Dr. Shaw takes a very personal turn and shares an story from her own life in order to illustrate how we should celebrate the good stuff in life.  The story she shares is about selling a home and buying a new one, but the emotion runs deeper than just that transaction.  The new home felt perfect from the start, and much of that happened because the prior owners who built the house clearly created a home filled with ...

In this episode Dr. Shaw addresses the need for empowerment and the ways in which we sometimes give up our power.   She poses the question of when we learn to give up or power and how do we stop doing it?    The way to reclaim power is to not blame anyone else.   As we teach our children to be empowered (while still at the same time keeping them on the track that we want) it is important to give them responsibility.   If we adults ...

In this episode, Dr. Shaw discusses and reveals some perspective on her own humanity in a way that can help parents, and all adults really, keep themselves in check regarding their own personal progress in life.   She begins with the notion that a moment is just a moment, and she points out that when we have dramatic experiences or we learn important lessons that we need to develop a new emotional muscle so that we don't fall back ...

In this brief and personal episode, Dr. Shaw talks about the parenting dilemma of being overly enabling versus allowing our children to have experiences that sometimes can be very difficult.   She shares an illustrative example from her own life and friendships as she describes a parent experiencing their child in an abusive relationship.  Her philosophy is that as a parent, we can't judge or intervene sometimes... we have to help ...

In this episode, Dr. Shaw examines the concept of not moving forward in life because we are defending our positions or defending our own limitations.   She uses some illustrative examples of how we defend our positions in order to set the stage.   Then we learn that what she feels we need first and foremost are good relationships, and a key to a good relationship is having communication that includes the views of our partners and n...