The concept to create quick 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 together 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 anxiousness, despair, 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 discovered about meditation. I dabbled all all through my teenagers and twenties—I took a strolling meditation course in faculty, practiced yoga, sort 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 noticed that I actually benefit from the stillness. I benefit from the quiet. I get pleasure from shutting all the pieces down and quieting, simply getting the mind to show off a bit bit.
The true turning level for me was when my son was in kindergarten, about 11 years in the past. He got here dwelling someday along with his buddy, they usually have been having scorching chocolate, they usually have been speaking about their amygdala and their prefrontal cortex, and what occurs once we get indignant and the way we calm it down. They have been studying about this in class, so I contacted the principal, and she or he 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 on the lookout for. I’ve been practising ever since.
AWC: Take me from mindfulness coming into your life to creating conscious quick movies. How did you get from one place to the opposite?
JBS: Effectively, 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 college and stated, “I’ve this concept, black and white movie, interviewing all the youngsters, speaking about anger within the mind.” And he or she was like, “I like it. Let’s do it.” So then we made that movie. It was referred to as Simply Breathe.
Then I began to consider how we proceed this schooling. What can I do to be sure that children in any respect levels of life are having 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 entire sequence of quick movies for each age group.
AWC: Are you able to inform me extra about why you are feeling this content material particularly must be on movie?
JBS: We dwell in a really visible world. We dwell in a world of screens and other people wanting to look at issues, and oftentimes mindfulness is taught in a classroom with plenty of phrases.
Folks don’t at all times be taught by what they hear. There are lots of people who must be taught by what they see, and, as a documentary filmmaker, I noticed it as a strategy to supply entry to folks that possibly wasn’t so intimidating. It was a better strategy to get the data throughout quicker, and probably transfer folks sufficient to need to take it extra critically.
I additionally felt prefer it was like a very fantastic method of introducing folks to one thing that’s so basically necessary to our collective survival proper now. I used to be seeing all the issues that have been associated to folks’s emotional instability, emotional immaturity. I used to be in a time of volatility myself. I noticed all these completely different levels—studying take care of anger, with anxiousness, with despair, with trauma. And I assumed, What can I do that may contribute one thing constructive to this?
AWC: I seen, in each movie, there’s no narration. You give the mic to the one that is on the heart of it, and permit them to inform their story of their phrases. I might love to listen to you discuss a bit bit about that alternative.
JBS: I need to make movies that may have an experiential impression on folks. Interviewing specialists is necessary, however that isn’t what strikes folks. 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 digicam. I believe folks take it extra critically after they don’t really feel any individual has an agenda.
It’s been my method 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 knowledgeable who’s gonna let you know do issues or who’s bought all of the solutions. As a result of I don’t. I don’t consider in telling folks what the solutions are. I consider in letting folks discover these solutions for themselves. And the easiest way to try this is to see different folks dwelling their very own solutions and never being informed what they’re and do them.
AWC: That segues properly into A Good Day, your most up-to-date movie about mindfulness in habit restoration. I might love to listen to about the way you discovered Samadhi, the restoration heart that’s featured within the movie, and the themes whose tales you inform.
JBS: The founding father of Samadhi, David McNamara, and I have been colleagues years in the past within the business 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 via a mindfulness-based restoration program himself after which began the Samadhi Middle 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 this, however I used to be combating habit, and I went via my very own journey. And I opened up this mindfulness-based restoration heart in upstate New York.” We talked concerning the concept of collaborating in some unspecified time in the future sooner or later.
I went to go to the middle and David simply gave me full entry. I used to be on the lookout for folks between the ages of 30 and 50, and he put the phrase out amongst his folks and bought 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 sort of entry and that degree of openness.
Truthfully, if I had had the time and the assets, I might have stayed there for months and actually accomplished an enormous characteristic or a sequence. There’s a lot materials in there. However working with what we had, I wished 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 might love to listen to you speak about what you’ve discovered on this course of about mindfulness and struggling and therapeutic.
JBS: It’s a huge query, and it’s continually altering. It’s a piece in progress. We’re works in progress. The sequence is a piece in progress. I would nonetheless go off into catastrophic considering, however I can catch it extra shortly.
Mindfulness has undoubtedly taught me how to pay attention to my ideas and acknowledge the way it’s touchdown in my physique and transfer via 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, nevertheless it doesn’t have to forestall us from experiencing the enjoyment that’s throughout us, and that, I consider, really consider, is our inherent nature. Mindfulness is consistently peeling off these layers.
Mindfulness simply helps you be extra compassionate, extra conscious, a kinder particular person, as a result of you’ll be able to acknowledge the struggling extra. It permits you to be with that as an alternative of getting buried by it.
And that goes into the therapeutic. I believe therapeutic is an ongoing course of. I don’t suppose 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 apply. 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 via mindfulness.
AWC: What are you able to inform us concerning the movies that aren’t but launched? Do you will 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 information. My guess is that may occur in 2025. This sequence shall be accomplished on the finish of 2025. Then it’s a matter of individuals discovering it, and determining bundle all of them into one factor and get all of them seen.
AWC: Is there anything that we didn’t contact on that feels necessary so that you can say or share?
JBS: We might discuss for hours about these items. On the finish of the day, as my mother likes to say, we’ve got plenty of work to do as a species. I’ve hope. The apply provides me hope. If we might get extra folks to grasp this, and apply it themselves, I do consider we might deliver 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 constructive impression on the particular person subsequent to me? And
hopefully, that’s coming via the display, too, extending to a digital six toes, as nicely.
Julie’s work is a hundred percent crowdfunded and supplied to the general public without spending a dime. When you’d prefer to be part of this work, you’ll be able to donate and unfold the phrase right here.