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 buddy in regards to the amygdala.
Aware 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, despair, dependancy, 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: Most likely 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, sort of slowly discovering my means. 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 every thing down and quieting, simply getting the mind to show off slightly bit.
The true turning level for me was when my son was in kindergarten, about 11 years in the past. He got here residence in the future together with his buddy, and so they had been having sizzling chocolate, and so they had been speaking about their amygdala and their prefrontal cortex, and what occurs after we get indignant and the way we calm it down. They had been studying about this at school, so I contacted the principal, and she or he directed me to Aware Faculties. I wound up taking the six-week course from Aware Faculties, 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 brief 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 residing earlier than I had a baby, so my pure inclination was in direction of movie. However it wasn’t till I took the course with Aware Faculties that the fullness of the concept 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 subsequent 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 he or she was like, “I adore 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 training. What can I do to make it possible for youngsters in any respect phases of life are gaining access to this materials? How can I make these in such a means that they’re academic for particular teams, however they’re additionally common? That’s once I got here up with this concept of this entire sequence of brief 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 folks wanting to observe issues, and oftentimes mindfulness is taught in a classroom with a variety of phrases.
Individuals don’t all the time study by what they hear. There are lots of people who must study by what they see, and, as a documentary filmmaker, I noticed it as a solution to supply entry to those that possibly wasn’t so intimidating. It was a better solution to get the data throughout sooner, and probably transfer folks sufficient to wish to take it extra severely.
I additionally felt prefer it was like a very fantastic means of introducing folks to one thing that’s so essentially essential to our collective survival proper now. I used to be seeing all the issues that had 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 phases—studying the way to cope with anger, with nervousness, with despair, 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 who is on the middle of it, and permit them to inform their story of their phrases. I might love to listen to you speak slightly bit about that alternative.
JBS: I wish to make movies that may have an experiential impression on folks. Interviewing consultants is essential, however that isn’t what strikes folks. 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 believe folks take it extra severely after they don’t really feel anyone has an agenda.
It’s been my strategy as a filmmaker to be very honest in regards to the tales I’m telling, and as a human being to be a honest human being and never come throughout as some professional who’s gonna inform you the way to do issues or who’s obtained 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 one of the simplest ways to do this is to see different folks residing their very own solutions and never being informed what they’re and the way to do them.
AWC: That segues properly into A Good Day, your most up-to-date movie about mindfulness in dependancy restoration. I might 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 had been colleagues years in the past within the business world. We had 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 mentioned, “I’ve been watching the movie work that you just’re doing. I believe it’s stunning. I don’t know if this, however I used to be scuffling with dependancy, and I went by my very own journey. And I opened up this mindfulness-based restoration middle in upstate New York.” We talked in regards to 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 folks between the ages of 30 and 50, and he put the phrase out amongst his folks and obtained 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 funds. Individuals had been actually open with us from the get go. I felt extraordinarily fortunate to have that sort of entry and that degree of openness.
Actually, if I had had the time and the sources, I might have stayed there for months and actually executed a giant characteristic 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 dependancy restoration appear like, 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 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 pondering, 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 the way 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 stop us from experiencing the enjoyment that’s throughout us, and that, I consider, actually consider, is our inherent nature. Mindfulness is continually 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 a substitute of getting buried by it.
And that goes into the therapeutic. I believe 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 subsequently there’s not an finish to your mindfulness follow. 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 mindfulness.
AWC: What are you able to inform us in regards to the movies that aren’t but launched? Do you could have a timeline? Is there something you wish to say in regards to the themes?
JBS: There’s the one on grief that I’m engaged on now. Then the one on trauma is subsequent. That could 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 may occur in 2025. This sequence will probably be executed on the finish of 2025. Then it’s a matter of individuals discovering it, and determining the way to 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 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 have now a variety of work to do as a species. I’ve hope. The follow provides me hope. If we may get extra folks to grasp this, and follow it themselves, I do consider we may convey the temperature down. I’m going again to my six-foot sphere of affect: What can I do? What can I do in the present day to make a constructive impression on the particular person subsequent to me? And
hopefully, that’s coming by the display, too, extending to a digital six ft, as effectively.
Julie’s work is a hundred percent crowdfunded and supplied to the general public without spending a dime. For those who’d prefer to be part of this work, you’ll be able to donate and unfold the phrase here.
