Blogs and Free Resources
Here at PESI, our mission is to provide professionals like you with FREE practical and valuable tools, strategies,
and resources to assist with the great work you do. Find expert tips, helpful worksheets, demonstration videos, CE, news,
and more here. Happy learning!
The RAIN of Self-Compassion
In order to unfold, self-compassion depends on honest, direct contact with our own vulnerability. This compassion fully blossoms when we actively offer care to ourselves. Yet when we’ve gotten stuck in the trance of unworthiness, it often feels impossible to arouse self-compassion. To help people address feelings of insecurity and unworthiness, I like to share a meditation I call the RAIN of Self-Compassion. This easy-to-remember tool for practicing mindfulness and compassion uses four simple steps…
Oppositional Defiance or Faulty Neuroception?
Over the years I have come to believe that oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is not a label that should be used to describe young children. As a developmental psychologist, I view oppositional defiance as a child’s response to stress. Viewing children’s challenging behaviors on a continuum of stress and stress recovery reveals a whole new way to think about this stigmatizing disorder, as well as a new way to support children, informed by neuroscience.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk Demonstrates the Position of Joy
When the body is frozen in a position of terror, it's not possible to feel joy ... BUT in contrast, when the body is in a position of joy and openness, it's not possible to feel terror. In this short video, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk demonstrates the Position of Joy and shows you how it changes the way you take in emotions.
Introducing Mindfulness, Meditation, and Calm Corners into Community Schools
Schools are witnessing the benefits of bringing mindfulness practices into education as a strategy for promoting social and emotional learning among students. Check out these easy ways to integrate mindfulness routines for classrooms.
Let Me Think About That
An exercise to improve executive function
It’s helpful for children to have a strategy to think about an activity or action before they do it. Building “time to reflect” as well as “intent to act” into the thinking process is empowering. This worksheet provides an opportunity for the child to explore the parts of a task, the plan of action to complete the task and the steps to revise their approach in the future.
Yoga and Mindfulness Tools for Children: Grounding and Becoming Present
Get two yoga and mindfulness practices to share with the children in your life. Each exercise comes with matching coloring pages and worksheets to further enhance the experience and deepen reflection, and you can download these supporting materials for free. Don’t forget to try these out yourself as well, as we all could use some orienting and grounding no matter what our age!
Breath of Joy
A Yoga Practice for Children with ADHD
Sometimes children with ADHD just can't stop moving...Here's a quick and enjoyable strategy to help restore attention and focus.
Lizard Brain: How it impacts EVERY trauma treatment plan
...and what you can do about it
When a child with behavior challenges enters our office, we instantly go into teach mode to tell them how to change their behaviors. Why? Because we don't know what else to do.
But the child's behavior doesn't improve. It's not because they're willful, or bad, or even because they don't care. It's because the lasting impacts of trauma have the children in your practice stuck in "lizard brain." In this short video, I explain why lizard brain impacts every trauma treatment plan you create...
Workshop: Yoga and Mindfulness in the Classroom
Practical applications from a PESI seminar
Teresa Sadowski has been a Speech Language Pathologist for 27 years. Join Teresa as she reviews the PESI seminar "Yoga and Mindfulness in the Classroom: Tools to improve self-regulation, learning and classroom climate" and discusses how the tools and strategies she learned can be applied to practice.
Escaping the Shame Trap
Brené Brown on Vulnerability as a Crucial Strength
Brown has taken the concepts of shame and vulnerability and turned them completely on their heads. In short, she subversively makes shame less shameful, a part of the ordinary human condition. So the question isn’t why shame, but what to do about it.