E60 - Lauren MacLean Author of Me and My Sit Spot - Find your spot in nature

It, again, I think it's so important, this idea of A, just being out in nature and I

know Richard Louve does a lot of talk about vitamin N and how important nature is for

our social emotional development, our roast motor development, our fine motor development,

our social skills, but sitting still is really hard for young kids.

And so part of the picture book and actually now that I've teamed up with a publisher

to write a teacher's guide for the book, it's about how to make this playful for kids.

So let's go make a game.

Let's go play hide and seek.

And then all of a sudden my three-year-old is down low in the ferns, trying to hide from

the he has to sit still, and now I found him and we can play that for ever.

And he doesn't know that that's a sit spot while he's hiding.

That is his version of a sit spot.

So I don't necessarily call it a sit spot with my three-year-old, but it's still getting

used to this routine of it's okay to get dirty, it's okay to be down in the mud, it's just

fun.

Hello, people of the world, specifically people in beautiful British Columbia, I have

borrowed one of your famous authors today for our podcast.

Thank you to the province of BC for sharing Lauren McLean with me today.

Lauren, how are you?

You look and sound happy, everything's good, right?

Everything is fantastic, I am coming to you from Port Moody and BC and we have the beautiful

sun out today with just enough cloud cover to make me comfortable.

Well, see, so this weather report brought to you by living the next chapter.

And okay, so Port Moody, how big is Port Moody?

Yeah, we're quite a small town, we just circle around one of the arms of the brood inlet

which flows into the Pacific Ocean.

That sounds really boring.

Yes, yeah, it's not beautiful at all, we've got the water, I live up on a mountain side.

Okay, okay, well, Lauren, we're going to stop this podcast because you're just bragging

now about how wonderful your life is.

I'm sure that you've never had hiccups in your life, everything is perfect every day,

right?

Absolutely, I mean, I can tell you what we just finished getting over in our household.

Okay, well, let's give them a little behind the scenes, Lauren, what's been going on?

Well, the start of our summer, I mean, as we said, everybody's sort of still in the middle,

hopefully the end of this pandemic, we're outside enjoying nature.

We can go out now, we can, there's no stay at home orders, everything's great, right?

Go enjoy back to normal and then our household and many households down here, unfortunately,

in the daycare system has been hit with hand foot and mouth disease.

So we've been stuck inside for the last week and a half.

We all have blisters on our hands, they're itchy, they're poor, I've got a year and a half

year old little girl and a three year old boy and we're a little unhappy at the moment.

Wow, but okay, but you're getting through this and moving forward and...

We have, yeah, we're over the contagious period.

We've been outside now because everybody's blisters and rashes have all healed, so we've

been outside for the last few days and just feel so much more refreshed.

So I don't know, like Lauren, if I, if I just came through this, I don't know if I would

be quite as happy and perky and all of that, I would probably be, be exhausted.

And if you're exhausted and hiding it, you're doing a wonderful job, right?

I, I definitely am exhausted, but I think it's this renewed sense of freedom, oh my goodness,

we can go outside, we can go to the stream and throw rocks and we can go see our neighbors

and not be worried that we're contagious anymore.

So we're just so enthusiastic, right?

I'm happy for you and the kids, happy for you and the kids that you guys made it through.

But yeah, thank you so much for making time today as well.

Oh, of course, it's wonderful to connect with you.

Yeah, so we talked like a little while ago and kind of had like a little pre-interview

chat and what I have written on my page in front of me here for you, Lauren.

I like to always let people know.

I have highlighted the word fun.

You are a fun guest already.

I have that written down, so we're going to have a fun time today.

So I think we've got a good energy.

I like it.

All right.

Okay, so let's tell people a little bit more about your author journey.

You have a podcast and you're a teacher.

Lots of great stuff.

Let's fill people in on where we are at and so people have a little sense of you and

then we'll move into the book and talk about that a little bit.

Wonderful.

Yes, as I said, I am, I am a teacher.

I came into teaching a bit later than I would say the average Joe because my former life

was as a national field hockey player.

So I played field hockey for Canada.

Wait a minute.

Really?

Yeah.

I don't have that on my notes.

Oh, you know, I don't have to bring it up.

I know.

I don't know why, but I think because it feels like it was so long ago.

Come on.

Yeah, but it was that sort of started or really nurtured my

belief in doing things as a team, as a group, working together.

This whole idea of mentoring, it's such a huge aspect of team sports.

So once I left field hockey because of two knee surgeries, went, yeah, painful, went into

teaching, just loved it because it was very similar to coaching, which I also loved.

And I was very lucky to be mentored by amazing teachers, Catherine Ludwig, Janice

Nobukowski, that sort of took me under their wing and nurtured me because I think we can

often feel very lost when we start teaching.

We're in our own little classroom.

It's easy to lock the door and not reach out for help.

And I'm very open with saying, I don't know how to do this.

Who can help me?

Yikes.

I didn't work well.

Who can help me problem solve it?

And so years go on, I'm loving teaching, then the pandemic hits.

And I'm on my first mat leave.

So I'm bored, I'm desperate for adult interactions.

And so I started the podcast.

That was sort of my way of saying, can't talk to knee people.

And so I'm interviewing people from all over North America.

People actually now down in Australia as well, educators, families that are passionate

about learning and playing and teaching out in nature.

How can we do it in different contexts?

What are your struggles?

How do you overcome those struggles?

And it's been fantastic.

I go back to teaching after mat leave.

Boom.

I'm on another mat leave.

I'm still in the middle of a pandemic.

So I think, well, what's my next little journey going to be?

Because I'm locked indoors.

I'm not seeing grandparents, we're not seeing neighbors.

I'm going to fulfill my next dream.

I want to be a children's author.

And so again, I take my experience working at a nature school, being a teacher, loving

the outdoors, and being connected with myself and the place that we live on.

And so I wrote the book called Me and My Sit Spot, which is all about this nature routine

of finding somewhere outside that I visit as often as possible in different weather,

different seasons, different times of day.

I observe, I use my senses, and I just get to know the land a lot better.

So the term sit spot, is that something unique or is that something that's been around?

Like I'm learning about this listening to you.

Right.

Yeah.

It's really good question.

It's not something that I coined.

I learned it from the Wilderness Awareness School founder, whose name is John Young.

And he wrote the book, Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature.

And he has so many beautiful nature routines.

So sit spot is one, wandering, or nature walks is another, mapping, journaling, bird language,

animal forms.

So many amazing ways to connect with nature.

And sit spot is just one that I just was really gravitated towards.

And I think it's because it's difficult for me.

I have a lot of energy.

I don't sit still very well or for very long.

My mind races, I'm always thinking of something else.

And so this was sort of my way of really tapping into something that is underdeveloped in

myself.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I need to slow down.

It's really important for me.

And I notice how much calmer I am when I do focus on it.

I notice how it improves my relationship with myself, with my kids, or even with my dog.

When I'm out there and we're sitting down in our sit spot, even she comes up and snuggles

up beside me.

Yeah.

So we have a couple of dogs too.

You can tell when they're at peace and safe.

And they just relax.

Yeah.

Right.

And it's like, wow, I would love to feel that sometimes that I'm so busy, right?

Doing life, whatever, right?

And just that feeling, right?

That big sigh and, yeah, I'm good.

You know, that's a great feeling.

It's a wonderful feeling.

And I always come back to this quote by John Muir that I'm going to botch it.

And in essence, it says, out of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them

are dirt.

I love that.

I want to get dirty.

I want to be out there quiet, because life is so busy and it's so noisy.

And so if I can take a little time every day to just be quiet and still, it's really interesting

to see where our mind takes us.

And so tying that into children's world, how important it is sit spot for us.

For kids.

It, again, I think it's so important.

This idea of a, just being out in nature and I know Richard Lou, there's a lot of talk

about vitamin N and how important nature is for our social emotional development, our gross

motor development, our fine motor development, our social skills.

But sitting still is really hard for young kids.

And so part of the picture book and actually now that I've teamed up with a publisher to

write a teacher's guide for the book, it's about how to make this playful for kids.

So let's go make a game.

Let's go play hide and seek.

And then all of a sudden my three year old is down low in the ferns, trying to hide from

he has to sit still.

Oh, now I found him and we can play that for ever.

And he doesn't know that that's a sit spot while he is hiding.

That is his version of a sit spot.

So I don't necessarily call it a sit spot with my three year old.

But it's still getting used to this routine of it's okay to get dirty.

It's okay to be down in the mud.

It's just fun.

So we have a world of kids that can't wait to get their hands on these little things.

Right.

And sit here and do this all day.

Mm-hmm.

Well, mom is talking to me and I'm just, right?

Yeah.

How do we get away from this with our kids and as adults as well and find our space somewhere

outside like that?

Yeah.

And I think it's so important.

And I think it is us, as you said, it's us modeling, right?

So I'm putting my phone away.

I really want some fresh air.

I want to go run around.

I want to go be noisy outdoors.

And so we go outside with our kids and we model that playfulness.

We model the fact that we are focused on touching the bark of the tree to notice how deep

the grooves are.

Wow.

That's a really groovy tree.

I feel that that's probably not a cedar tree.

I think this is probably a big grand for a tree.

Let's go look for more of a stripy tree.

Let's go feel what that's like and we're down at the same level as our kids.

They pick up on that energy.

They notice what we're noticing.

They notice if we're happy, if we're excited, if I'm nervous about touching something,

most likely my three-year-olds not going to be touching it either.

But if I say that's okay, you don't have to touch it, but I'm going to go up clothes

and I'm going to touch the millipede gently.

And I'm going to smell how that millipede smells like bars of hand.

That's so cool.

Right?

And there's all this fun exploration when we're out there away from our phones.

Now sometimes, Grayson asks amazing questions for a three-year-old, what's this, and I have

no idea.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Right?

And again, I can model saying, I don't know, but I know how to look up if it's a flower.

Let's look at the color of the petals.

Let's count.

Let's count how many petals there are.

Let's look to see if the leaves are growing in a pattern, like an alternating pattern or

an opposite pattern.

And then maybe if we still can't figure it out, I'll pull out my phone, we'll take

a picture, we'll look it up on a seek app or eye naturalist.

We look at it, we figure it out, then we put it away and we keep exploring.

So it's not that I'm avoiding tech always, but I am trying to model it for most of our

outside time.

See, that's a lot of fun.

So your kids look forward to these experiences and going out and doing this.

Is it kind of like you're dragging them out into the forest, does it go on a several

fun time?

Or are they like, let's go, let's go, let's go.

They're constantly, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go for the bugs, let's look

for the slugs.

We actually have a difficult time getting them back in the house.

Yeah.

It is dinner time.

And so sometimes we take funny videos of my, it has a little take a video of me going

outside saying, okay, we've got two more minutes and then we have to go have dinner and

the both of them go, no, it's like comical.

All right, then we'll eat outside or we'll just wait till we're starving and then you'll,

then you'll really want to come inside.

So it's, it's a really nice routine that at the end of the day, when I'm done work or

I pick them up from daycare or we're done nap time at home, the first thing they want

to do is run outside.

Now again, where I'm living in Port Moody up on this mountain, we do have to have a lot

of safety talks.

I'm going to be the first person to go into the backyard, just in case there's a bear

or a cougar or a bobcat.

So there are things that we do need to be careful and it really depends on our context.

We have a very strict, no touching mushrooms rule.

We have a lot of poisonous ones out here and I'm not trying to make them scared, but we

do need to work on our awareness and what our hazards, just to keep ourselves safe.

Interesting.

Okay, so the book is designed for like preschool up to like grade six or seven, I think you

were talking about.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So is the book available within schools as well or is this something that's only, you

know, you have to purchase the book as well?

Right.

So I do have it available on my website, but the exciting thing is I've actually just

pulled out of my own personal copies.

So it's fantastic.

It was very surprised at how quickly those copies sold.

So now it's available online, like on chapters indigo or Amazon, Barnes and Nobles.

And I'm sure I'll be getting more of my own copies once the shipping is a bit faster

from the States up to Canada because I'm printing down down in the States.

And I have been surprised how many schools I have seen my book in nice, but I don't even

have a personal connection with.

So I've walked into schools as a mentoring support teacher.

I travel to a lot of different schools to actually help with their math programs and

taking their math programs outdoors.

Yeah.

So I go visit these schools and and there's my book right in the front in the front window

and I'm just, I'm still caught off guard because I think, oh my gosh, that's, that was

mine.

Yeah.

This world is still so new to me.

It's amazing, right?

And like I think, I don't know if we mentioned, but I had another author on Mike Ulmer and Mike

has his books across Canada in every public library and every public school, like 167,000

books sold on Emma's for Maple is the one book he has.

And he just, he said he was at a, like a, at a fire side sitting with his friends and

somebody's like, Hey, I have your book on my kitchen table and he's like, right?

And he's like, Oh, well, that's nice.

He's like, that's great.

You know, like it is just, even though we saw so many and even writing for so long, it still

felt odd that you actually bought my book, like that's, thank you.

That's such a great feeling, right?

Yeah.

Can you tell me the story?

And I found it comical because I love his writing.

And I have a copy of the end is for Maple.

I have it in my house for my toddlers.

And I also have a copy in my classroom.

Mike Ulmer, if you're listening, Lauren is saying hello.

And Mike is, Mike is so, he's so fun.

And he lives like a short distance from my house, which I, which is amazing too.

But I love the author journey.

I love the excitement.

I love you.

You create something and you don't even know where it's going to end up or will it take

off?

Will people be passionate about it?

But you are.

Oh, yeah.

And it ends up doing things that you would never expect or going places and one other

author come on from Calgary.

Her book is going to the moon.

Wow.

In the end of this year, it's going to be put on and sent to the moon.

So her book is going to be there forever.

Oh, my goodness.

And I'm like, she's like, I almost never wrote the book.

She's like, I'm so happy I did.

Right.

So you just don't know.

You just don't know and it is exciting.

It's a little terrifying because I don't know what the end result is going to be.

And for it's just sort of having this trust that we're just going to see what happens.

It's exciting.

Who knows what I have been surprised by is the amount of requests that I've had for

workshops around sit spots and nature routines from individual teachers, from schools and

actually from school districts.

So I've been quite busy doing, unfortunately, online workshops, but we're starting to get

back into in-person workshops, which is so much better.

And it that's been a really exciting perk I never thought that that part would take

off.

People are so excited to learn more about outdoor learning.

And so yeah, I'll take you outside.

I'll help you figure out what the nature management, instead of classroom management, here's some

structures on how to ensure a more successful outing with your learners, how to scaffold

those expectations, especially for learners that have English as a second language or a

third language or a fourth language.

Here's some visuals we can put together to help them connect with nature because it might

be new for them.

And just that whole sensory piece getting out of the book, even though we're talking

about authors, getting away from the book and actually, like you said, touching the

bark of the tree and holding the leaf and just experiencing that, smelling the Mars

of Pan, you know, like that's right.

You can't capture that on a video or anything, right?

Well, definitely.

Yeah, it's been really exciting.

And I was a vendor for the first time last week.

That's something new.

So I had a table at a yoga launch party, this beautiful store.

It's not a store.

It's a beautiful company.

And it was an outdoor event.

It was so exciting to see yoga connecting with SITSBOT because it's very similar.

It's about mindfulness and meditation and it was a really exciting event.

I learned so much from the other vendors.

I went up to them and I said, this is my first one.

How do I set up a table?

How do I see people?

How do I, do I just stand here awkwardly?

Do I talk to everybody that comes by or is that too salesy?

What works for me and it was quite comical because I had to bring my two kids along and

my husband's away for work.

And so I actually wasn't at my table for very long.

I had to chase my kids around outside.

But it was a wonderful learning experience and I got to meet some amazing other authors

and other artisans.

Amazing.

Okay.

So for the authors that are listening, any tips, any advice, author to author, how would you,

what can you let people know?

How can you encourage them in their journey to become an author?

I love that.

I, for me, the biggest help was having a friend going through it at the same time.

So she was a few months ahead of me and her name, I was a childhood friend or both teachers.

Her name is Kelly Shudo and she now has a series of children's book, The What Does It

Mean Series.

So her first one was What Does It Mean To Be Brave?

And it's all about, we're not comparing our brave, something that I do might not be

brave for you because we're on different, we're on different paths, we're on different

learning journeys.

And so it's all about accepting and not being comparative.

So her, it was her dream to become an author.

She learned the ropes.

She told me about it right as I was on my mat leave.

She helped me figure out how to get my words down on paper, how to find an illustrator

that I connected with.

And I think if I didn't have a friend to talk to, I would have felt really lost because

I had a million questions.

There's so much to know.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Yikes.

It's amazing.

It's amazing.

Yeah.

See, that's great.

So having somebody, somebody, slightly ahead of you to kind of look up to you and kind

of work towards an inspiration or mentor.

Right, a mentor.

Yes.

Beautiful.

It's amazing.

So, okay, great success so far.

Where are you headed?

What's next?

Where do you go from here?

So I'm really excited because I have signed on with a publisher now because the picture

book was self-published.

Yeah.

And now I'm working with a publisher to write a teacher's guide for sit spots because

again, there's not a lot of information about sit spots specifically for outdoor learning.

So this is for how to introduce the routine to your learners.

How to ask a question for all your learners to go sit and observe.

How do you give them a nature journal?

What do you expect them to put on paper?

How do you take those little questions and turn them into big, in-depth inquiries outside?

So there's a lot of information to help teachers in this book and for families that are keen

to be outside with their learners.

And I think in the next couple, maybe in a year or two, I'm actually going to partner

up with Kelly Sudo and we're going to write another book together.

So number two, it'll be under her series, the what does it mean?

And we're going to start talking about what does it mean to love nature.

Okay.

So can you put a little pin in that because we definitely want to come back to that.

Okay.

And I would love to have you and Kelly on together.

That would be amazing.

That would be amazing.

That would be amazing.

That would be wonderful.

Yeah.

I'm excited about that.

I'm excited about the author journey.

And just listening to the passion and the creativity that you have for your message and

how it's going to help kids and families and adults just to connect with nature.

And in a busy world where we're just go, go, go all the time, we're always on the move

to just to be able to sit and reconnect with ourselves and with our surroundings.

It's beautiful.

It's so powerful.

Right.

The fact that I can close my eyes and I can visually map out my backyard forest trail,

I know where the Huckleberries are growing right now.

And I know where they're not growing right now because there's an area in that forest where

I know the sun can get in and they are fully out.

I think I ate about, I heard you already this morning on this little lot.

And then the rest of the trail, I know that they're not growing right now.

I know the areas where I should void because that's where I can see that the bears have

their little path through the woods.

I usually avoid that area.

So the fact that I know my backyard forest so well just makes me so unbelievably happy.

I don't, I can't even put into words.

I just feel lucky.

I feel grateful.

I have this connection where I now want to look after it.

I go out there with extra dog bags.

So that I'm picking up after other people's dogs that may have missed it,

hopefully by accident, just to make sure that it's a really safe place for.

I have toddlers.

They're going to walk through that.

I don't want it being brought home.

And so it's about connecting and looking after the world because it's a symbiotic relationship.

Yeah, and to find our place in that world.

Right.

Right.

And and and sit.

Yeah, that's what we need to do, right?

We do, right?

We need that time to tune out, zone in or zone out while you're sitting there.

You can think about something specific.

You can think about nothing at all and just see where your mind takes you.

So whether you live in the beautiful part of the world where you are or you live downtown

Vancouver in the sky rise, in the 50th floor, go down stairs, go for a walk, find your

spot.

Correct.

Yeah.

Make it make the effort because the effort is worth it.

It is.

Yeah, it definitely is.

You'll notice, you'll notice such an improvement in the calmness that you feel.

And it affects everything in your life too.

It's not just, you know, it's not just, you know, your personal time and all that, but

you can feel it.

It's going to impact everything that you do.

Everything.

It carries out through the whole day.

So I've gone on my quick, quick little 40-minute walk this morning, and I feel like I'm still

blowing from it.

Yeah.

I have mostly from sweat.

It's awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I feel very free.

I feel more energetic.

I don't need my second coffee right now.

I'm feeling good to go take on what the rest of the day has to offer.

Amazing.

Okay.

So it's called, the book is called Me and My Sit Spot.

Right.

It's the name of the book.

We will have all the links and everything in the show notes to go find the book and make

sure you buy the book.

And I think one other thing we talked about in the past was our mutual love for Squamish

B.C.

And barbecue.

Right.

It's the past.

Right.

I love that we live on opposite sides of the country.

I know.

And you both.

How do we both?

We both have this connection with Squamish B.C.

It's so random.

I was there for one day.

I was in a 10 hours total and the person that met me took me to Squamish and we had barbecue

and I just stood there with a mountain surrounding me going.

This is like a movie set.

It's just gorgeous.

It is.

And it's funny because neither of us can remember the name of that restaurant, but we both

know it at the end of the road.

We know where it's looking.

We can go.

Railway tracks are behind it.

Exactly.

Right.

So if you're the owner of this barbecue spot, you just got free.

That's sorry.

We don't know the name of your place.

Please respond.

But and if you do know this place and you live in Squamish, tell us so we can give them

a proper shout out.

But yeah, because it's the best every time I'm going up to Whistler, Pemberton to visit

friends.

That's always the place we stop.

Okay.

Lauren, you have some homework.

Can you please?

I know because it's just bugging me now.

It is bugging me.

That is my sit spot in Squamish, right?

Absolutely.

And it's funny when things are like this on oil pilot.

If you go there, I don't even have to think about turning left and turning right.

I know where my parking lot is.

I go there on autopilot, but I never look up at the sign.

How terrible is that?

It is amazing food, by the way, and an amazing little town, a little nugget in BC.

So definitely go there right after Port Moody, Ben Squamish, but so great, Lauren, have

you on the podcast.

Well, thank you so much.

So wonderful to connect with you and chat about everything to do with outdoor learning.

And if you're listening to our podcast right now, and you're like, well, this great episode

by Juan Moore, mentoring nature connections, your next favorite podcast is right here right

now.

Go there, listen to every single episode, like, subscribe, share, follow, do all the great

things to help Lauren and her podcast as well.

Thank you so much, David.

It's so great to have you on.

And please keep in us in mind for the future.

We'd love to have you back again.

That would be wonderful.

Yes.

Let's see what the future has.

Everyone, please go find your sit spot and take the book with you and enjoy it because

Lauren has something there for you and appreciate your time, Lauren, Lauren McLean on living

the next chapter.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, everyone.

Awesome.

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