The concept to create short films 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 sizzling chocolate, and a dialog along with her younger son and his good friend 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 once 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 school, practiced yoga, type of slowly discovering my approach. In my thirties, I used to be an extended 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 take pleasure in shutting all the pieces down and quieting, simply getting the mind to show off a bit of bit.
The true turning level for me was when my son was in kindergarten, about 11 years in the past. He got here house someday together with his good friend, and so they have been having sizzling 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 she or he directed me to Conscious Colleges. I wound up taking the six-week course from Conscious Colleges, and I knew that this was what I’d been searching for. I’ve been working towards ever since.
AWC: Take me from mindfulness coming into your life to creating aware quick movies. How did you get from one place to the opposite?
JBS: Properly, it actually began with the recent chocolate second with my child and his good friend. I’d been a filmmaker for some time, and I used to be making tv commercials for a residing earlier than I had a baby, so my pure inclination was in direction of movie. Nevertheless it wasn’t till I took the course with Conscious Colleges 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 mentioned, “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 find it irresistible. 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 make it possible for children in any respect levels of life are having access to this materials? How can I make these in such a approach that they’re instructional for particular teams, however they’re additionally common? That’s once I got here up with this concept of this complete 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 stay in a really visible world. We stay in a world of screens and other people wanting to look at issues, and oftentimes mindfulness is taught in a classroom with lots of phrases.
Folks don’t all the time 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 solution to supply entry to people who possibly wasn’t so intimidating. It was a better solution to get the data throughout sooner, and probably transfer individuals sufficient to wish to take it extra significantly.
I additionally felt prefer it was like a very great approach 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 levels—studying how one can take care of anger, with nervousness, with melancholy, with trauma. And I assumed, What can I do that may contribute one thing constructive to this?
AWC: I observed, 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 speak a bit of bit about that selection.
JBS: I wish to make movies that can have an experiential influence on individuals. Interviewing specialists is essential, however that’s not what strikes individuals. What transfer persons are genuine emotions. Issues really feel much more actual and credible and accessible when there are regular of us speaking on the opposite finish of the digital camera. I feel individuals take it extra significantly 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 how one can 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 one of the simplest ways to try this is to see different individuals residing their very own solutions and never being informed what they’re and how one can 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 by way of 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 mentioned, “I’ve been watching the movie work that you simply’re doing. I feel it’s stunning. I don’t know if you recognize this, however I used to be scuffling with habit, and I went by way of my very own journey. And I opened up this mindfulness-based restoration heart in upstate New York.” We talked concerning the thought 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 searching for 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 type of entry and that stage of openness.
Truthfully, if I had had the time and the assets, I might have stayed there for months and actually performed an enormous function or a sequence. 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 to be, and the way does it differ from different approaches?
AWC: I might love to listen to you discuss what you’ve discovered on this course of about mindfulness and struggling and therapeutic.
JBS: It’s a large query, and it’s consistently altering. It’s a piece in progress. We’re works in progress. The sequence is a piece in progress. I’d nonetheless go off into catastrophic considering, however I can catch it extra shortly.
Mindfulness has undoubtedly taught me how to concentrate on my ideas and acknowledge the way it’s touchdown in my physique and how one can transfer by way of 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, however it 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 consistently peeling off these layers.
Mindfulness simply helps you be extra compassionate, extra conscious, a kinder individual, as a result of you may 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 feel healing 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 due to this fact there’s not an finish to your mindfulness apply. These are all three related. 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 way of mindfulness.
AWC: What are you able to inform us concerning the movies that aren’t but launched? Do you’ve got a timeline? Is there something you wish 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 is perhaps the one movie that I attempt to go actually scientific with, as a result of I feel that persons are skeptical about mindfulness and trauma till there’s knowledge. My guess is that can occur in 2025. This sequence shall be performed on the finish of 2025. Then it’s a matter of individuals discovering it, and determining how one can 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 may speak for hours about these items. On the finish of the day, as my mother likes to say, we’ve lots of work to do as a species. I’ve hope. The apply provides me hope. If we may get extra individuals to grasp this, and apply it themselves, I do imagine we may deliver the temperature down. I am going again to my six-foot sphere of affect: What can I do? What can I do as we speak to make a constructive influence on the individual subsequent to me? And
hopefully, that’s coming by way of the display screen, too, extending to a digital six ft, as properly.
Julie’s work is 100% crowdfunded and provided to the general public at no cost. In case you’d wish to be part of this work, you may donate and unfold the phrase here.
