Take a breath and reset your life for greater focus, peace, and love

[Editor’s note: this interview was recorded mid-January while Dr. Peter Breggin and I were in Florida and he was undergoing intensive rehabilitation. I recall there was a long pause in the interview and want to assure listeners Peter has regained tremendous command of his speech in the interim. We deeply appreciate our gracious and wise guest who interviewed with us on that day]. Holly Swenson joins The Breggin Hour, and we discuss how to take a breath and reset your life for greater focus, peace, and love! Holly has been a nurse and then a wife and mother of four boys, all now in their teens. She wants to help parents lead more successful, loving, and engaged lives that enhance their children’s growth toward becoming loving and successful. USA TODAY declared: “Holly Swenson: Redefining parenting through mindfulness and wellness.” Stop, Drop, Grow and Glow: Forming Deeper and more joyful Connections with Yourself and Your Children is Holly’s award-winning book. Drawing upon her extensive experience as a nurse, a wife, and a mother who has homeschooled all four of her children, she redefines parenting through a lens of mindfulness and wellness. Holly provides a roadmap on how parents can examine and evolve their own lives, leading to greater presence and thoughtfulness. The positive changes that occur for the parents then enhance and influence their parenting and their children. Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed In a world increasingly driven by crisis, information overload, and technology that too often holds both parents and children hostage, Holly Swenson reminds us of how we can live in the Twenty-first century and still nourish our most basic human needs for creating a home grounded in stability, peace, and love. Do you dream of parenting with more peace, patience, intentionality, balance, and joy? Parenting asks everything and more of you, leaving many of us to feel overwhelmed, stressed, tired, and… The Breggin Hour airs on Saturday and Sunday at 4 pm ET. Listen on iHeart Radio, our world-class media player, or our free apps on Apple, Android, or Alexa. All episodes of The Breggin Hour are available on podcast networks worldwide every Monday. Transcript Summary of this podcast episode We are parents and clinicians who have watched a generation drift from the habits that make families strong. Young families face a quiet collapse of time and attention. Schools spend less time teaching what it takes to be a citizen. Screens fill empty hours. Children report more anxiety and less curiosity. This matters to the heart of any nation. Homeschooling has grown for a reason. It returns education to its original purpose. Parents can teach civics and character and still meet rigorous academics. They can carve out the hours for apprenticeships and crafts. A teen learning to wire a house or fly a plane is not wasting a childhood. That teen is building a life. Parenting is not about coercion. It is about showing up. We urge parents to practice three plain moves. Stop and notice what is happening in your home. Drop the dramas and old hurts that keep you anxious and reactive. Grow by choosing daily habits that nourish mind, body, and spirit. From that discipline comes a glow that children feel and mirror. Boundaries are love in action. Saying no to harmful behaviors is not harshness. It is protection. Teaching respect matters because respect makes civilization possible. Connection before correction preserves trust. Teach children how to work with their hands, how to serve others, and how to think about the common good. Those lessons do not come automatically in modern schools. We speak from long years of practice and from the small hard work of marriage and caregiving. Love heals. Presence heals. Families are the first bulwark of freedom. If we want a healthy society, we must make the loving choices that put children first. Support networks and practical training make this work possible for nearly every family willing to commit and ask for help.