In this episode, I’m thrilled to spotlight Uplifted 300-hour graduate Jennica Joyce—a successful prenatal yoga teacher, mother of four, and expert in integrating the chakra system into parenting. Jennica shares her journey through yoga training, the importance of setting boundaries and rhythms in family life, and creative ways to teach children about chakras through play, music, and movement.
Stay tuned for the mind-blowing discussion at the end, where Jennica reveals how writing and word choice reflect our energetic state through the chakras.
We’ll explore:
🔹 How the chakra system can transform parenting strategies.
🔹 Creative ways to engage children in yoga and energy awareness.
🔹 Chakras as a roadmap for personal growth and self-expression.
🌈 Download My Free Chakra Clarity Meditation! Stop Googling Your Problems & Ask Your Chakras Instead => https://www.brettlarkin.com/askyourchakras
GUEST EXPERT: Jennica Joyce | @jennicajoyceyoga
Jennica Joyce is a mama of four embracing her intuition, conquering her fears, and creating the career and family life she loves through yoga. Jennica holds a Masters in Public Health in addition to her E-RYT® 200, RPYT®, RCYT® certifications. Through her pregnancy and “mommy and me” retreats she helps mamas prepare for childbirth, blissfully bond with their babies and renew themselves.
Connect with Jennica: https://www.jennicajoyceyoga.com/
Get Jennica’s book: https://www.wildmamarising.com/
FREE Practice: 20 Minute Morning Yoga For Busy Moms
Relevant Blog: Chakra Dance: An Intuitive Way To Move Energy
Relevant to Today’s Episode:
✅ 200-hour Online Yoga Teacher Training
🔮 300-hour Online Yoga Teacher Training
🎧 Also Listen to:
#288 – Burnout, Loss & the Yoga of Parenting with Sarah Ezrin
#293 – Model Yoga in Your Family with Sophie Jaffe
#303 – The 7 Chakras as a Tool for Personal Growth
© 2025 Uplifted Yoga | BrettLarkin.com
Experience 3 Training Videos from Inside My 200-Hour Online YTT 👇
Transcript:
[Brett Larkin]
Welcome to the Uplifted Yoga Podcast, where ancient yogic wisdom meets modern business strategy. I’m Brett Larkin, creator of Uplifted Yoga, where I’ve certified thousands of yoga teachers, built a multi-seven figure business, and guided over half a million students on YouTube. Here’s the truth.
You don’t have to choose between embodying deep yogic wisdom and building a thriving freedom-based business. This podcast is your space to integrate both, because yoga isn’t just what you do on the mat. It’s how you show up in every part of your life.
Whether you’re here to deepen your yoga practice, grow your teaching career, or align your energy with your purpose, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive in. Welcome back to the Uplifted Yoga Podcast.
Today’s episode is going to be very fun if you are a parent, or even just someone curious about how yoga and energy can transform family life. I’m very excited to introduce you to Jennica Joyce, one of our incredible Uplifted 300 hour graduates, a prenatal yoga teacher, and a mom of four, who’s really mastered the art of integrating the chakra system into parenting. We’re diving into everything from setting boundaries and rhythms in family life, to creative ways to teach kids about the chakras through play, music, and movement.
And trust me, you’ll want to stick around until the end, because Jennica shares something truly fascinating, how writing and word choice can actually reflect your energetic state through the chakras. If you’ve ever wondered how to bring more alignment, ease, and even fun into your parenting or just your life, this episode is for you. Before we dive in, don’t forget to grab my free chakra clarity meditation at brettlarkin.com forward slash ask your chakras. The link is also in the show notes. This meditation is the perfect tool to stop Googling your problems and start tuning into your energy instead. All right, let’s get into it with Jennica Joyce.
Hello my friends, welcome back to the Uplifted Podcast. And today I have one of our super successful 300 hour graduates on the show. Her name is Jennica Joyce.
She’s a 500 hour E-RYT, an R-Y-P-Y-T. If you don’t know what that stands for, that’s a registered prenatal yoga teacher. She’s also certified to teach yoga for kids.
She’s a mom of four. She’s the only person that I’ve ever met that has actually acknowledged the fact that moms can’t often go on yoga retreats because they have kids. So she actually designs yoga retreats where you can bring your kids and they get all this wonderful mindfulness infused education and you also get time away from them.
She also has a book coming out. And today we’re really going to talk about the chakra system because who doesn’t love the chakras? We’re going to talk about how you can maybe give that knowledge of the chakras to your children.
She’s going to give us a bunch of ideas. Jennica, I’m so happy to have you. And maybe before we start, you can just tell people a little bit about, you know, how you found Uplifted.
You took the 300 hour training. That was a long time ago now. And what did you get out of that program that kind of helped you be where you are now before we dive in?
[Jenica Joyce]
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me on. This is a dream come true to be able to talk to you after that training because that training, what attracted me was the chakras, ironically, plus a business mastermind with a yoga teacher training.
[Brett Larkin]
It was very unique that I could focus on the chakras to fuel our business.
[Jenica Joyce]
And I love the chakras. I was introduced, you know, early on in my yoga career, I guess, or yoga journey. And so to really spotlight and you had some experts that I’d been reading before, Anodeya Judith.
I was really impressed with the instructors you had. And then actually doing the training, it was so streamlined. You could watch the videos, you know, when you wanted, but then you had your mastermind groups.
You had your ability to ask questions and it didn’t seem so overwhelming, yet you got a lot of information. So I took that training and I have friendships that I developed while I was there that I still hold on to. Another student of yours published a children’s book recently, and I got a copy of that, which was really cool.
A yoga kids book. So to kind of cheer each other on and also still talk to each other has been amazing. So I really appreciate that, that you’ve created that as a way to, you know, meet other yogis and grow in your profession.
[Brett Larkin]
Yeah, grow your professional network. And I love that you say the chakras is what attracted you to it. That’s so, you know, just kind of like fun to hear and so perfect for our conversation today.
So let’s dive in. And, you know, it’s been so fun too, to like watch you grow and see that you have a book coming out. And I think you actually also came back, right, and taught in our somatic training recently.
So it’s really fun, like the community and these connections that we get to make. Let’s talk about, you know, kids and life with kids, because something I said right at the top was like, you acknowledge that women have children. So we can’t like go have an eat, pray, love experience very often.
And you wanted to create retreats that incorporated kids. Then, you know, you mentioned the training was very friendly and approachable, even for someone who has a lot of kids. And I just so, I’m so grateful you said that because I think that is something that holds people back because they think it’s going to be overwhelming.
And, you know, it’s a lot of content, but I love that you said it was manageable because I was like, if it’s manageable for you as someone who’s running your own yoga business and was a mom of three at that point, now four, I think that’s really a testament to, yeah, hopefully how easy we make it for folks. Tell me a little bit about how you incorporate the chakras with your kids right now in your daily life at home and what your goal is in doing that, like whether it’s teaching values or I don’t know, where do you want to begin?
[Jenica Joyce]
Yeah, sure. Actually, very interesting enough. I use this behind me to help bring us back to the chakras as part of our family, the way we roll.
And in the beginning of my parenthood, I gave too many choices to the littles, you know?
[Brett Larkin]
And I just want to say for those of you not watching the video, she has behind her this like beautiful, it’s a flag. It’s like a quilt. I just want to make sure the listeners like who might be driving can visualize this.
Like she’s sitting on her couch in her living room and behind her, she has this really beautiful, like it’s like a flag of, you know, the red, the orange, the yellow going up. So I’m imagining this is in your living room. Continue.
[Jenica Joyce]
Yes. Thank you. Thank you.
Well, and just to say the chakras are not like a ladder. It’s not like you level up, level up this. There’s so many different layers that you can look at it, which is what I love, right?
But for kids, when they’re into games, and I have now an eight year old and a six year old, I use this to talk about leveling up because I think you can use chakras as developmental as well, in addition to all the ways we look at chakras. And so as a parent, I used to give a lot of choices, which is developing your willpower, right? Which is developing your solar chakra.
And you don’t really want to help your three year old develop their willpower. You’re going to have enough battles already. So I realized that that doesn’t really shouldn’t come till puberty where you’re trying to develop their solar chakra to do their will.
And in the beginning, you want to focus on boundaries, on safety. You’re setting your rhythm. And so when they lose their first tooth, I had this aha moment last year.
That’s when they up level to the sacral chakra in your parenting techniques. And so that means more pleasure and creativity, more choices, but they’re still your parents choices because you’re just trying to give them as many options to explore what they find interesting. And so when they lose their first tooth, which my oldest had done, I went to like steak and shake and got like six different sauces.
I never get all these sauces, right? And then he could dip in each of the sauces and figure out which ones he likes, right? So it opens it up to more, more of those kinds of experiences.
And it gives them like, why can’t they do something yet? It helped me with setting boundaries in my own parenting on, well, when you’re go through puberty and it’s not an age, it’s a developmental thing. That’s when you hit the solar chakra.
That’s when you get to decide more things. But until then it’s mom and dad. So that has really helped set our foundation.
With kids, you know, I used to be super gung ho. I did homeschool in kindergarten and I was, I had little felt chakra, like red, orange, yellow, green. And we’d lay it on their body and it’s all play.
And that’s, that was great for me. I feel like when you try to teach the kids a chakra system, you really learn it. But I don’t think you have to use the word chakras with kids.
It’s something like, I like the analogy of music, right? So following like, you have sheet music. I think that’s what your course is on the chakras.
Like it kind of breaks it down. What is an overactive chakra, underactive chakra? And it’s brilliant for people who want to help other people using this system.
But for kids, it’s too much. For kids, it’s all, it’s all inside of them. For them, it’s just about the rhythm, right?
The beats. And that’s where it’s the, that’s when you teach music to kids. That’s where you start.
Can you clap after me? One, two, three, one, two, three, right? And so I believe for me and my, we try to set a rhythm in our daily life for our age group, because we’re in the younger crowd, eight, six, four, and eight months, right?
To help us really get the boundaries and the safety and the red chakra, the root chakra really strong.
[Brett Larkin]
This is fantastic. And I want to zoom out because I think what you’re actually talking about here is one of the things that is addressed in Anadeya Judith, PhD’s book. It’s Eastern Body, Western Mind, I think where she breaks down the chakras by developmental stages.
It’s required reading for 300. So just do it because it’s a great book. And then of course we go deeper with her in the course.
But let’s maybe outline for folks kind of what that looks like, because it sounds like you’re taking that knowledge of how the chakras develop inside a human being as they grow up. And then you’re actually making them actionable, applicable parenting strategies in your life. So I don’t think we need to do a ton of detail.
Listeners, go read that book because it’s the best. But let’s just maybe give them a high level view of these key stages. And I can help you too, but you want to just kind of just go through them super quick.
Root is obviously when you’re first born and you really have to have all your needs met because you can’t feed yourself or do any of that. And then talk a little bit going up from there, just quick high level for folks who might be curious or not as familiar with the chakras in terms of developmental psychology.
[Jenica Joyce]
Yeah. Well, and I think that there’s multiple cycles that you go through in life, right? That you can go, you can, you know, where not all your needs are met.
You’re getting more creativity, three to five year olds. You’re starting school, getting more choices, developing, you know, what’s your routine. You’re moving into maybe your heart chakra as you really decide what you love to do and who you are in your community.
As you go into your throat chakra, you’re finding your voice and being able to communicate that as well as really listen. I think that is a developmental thing that doesn’t happen until later on, you know, maybe even post-adolescence for a lot of us. And then onto the third eye chakra, where you’re really more dreaming about your future, where you can actually see time now, where it’s like, if this can happen, what’s going to be.
And into your crown chakra where a lot of spirituality or a lot of the because and I know now happens. And a lot of our elders and mentors choose to live sometimes in this crown chakra because it’s maybe the near the end of the stage of life. And you’re really contemplating more of the meaning and where and what’s next for you and your path.
[Brett Larkin]
And what I remember really stuck with me from Anadea’s book is, you know, she talks about how the chakras are being developed, right? As you grow up, obviously, we’re utilizing and circulating and they’re all going at all times. But she talks about kind of like these chakras being developed or coming into solidity or form at key ages.
And just as an example, for those of you listening that I think really drives at home as she talks about, like the terrible twos, right? As like that ego, that willpower being fully formed and coming out, right? I think when children are first born, I know when they’re newborn, they actually don’t have a sense of individuality.
They literally think they’re still a part of their mother. And then that changes. And I think she gives the example of like the kid, you know, hitting the spoon being like, no, I will not eat that as them actually establishing like healthy ego identity, healthy will.
So now that we have sort of that backdrop, but is there anything you’d add to that? Like key things that you remember from?
[Jenica Joyce]
Well, I think for me, what I’ve learned from is it really is in cycles. So you may go through the twos with the willpower and then you kind of go circle it back. It’s a full circle where you’re kind of strengthening your roots, your stability.
Maybe you’re getting a job now and now you’re getting creative with that job. You’re growing in your profession. And so I feel like it’s cyclical for not only your age, but also whatever kind of a new activity you’re doing or something that you’re some other, I guess, vocation that you may change.
You kind of have to cycle through it and develop those areas.
[Brett Larkin]
Yeah. It makes me think of like the Ask Your Chakra exercise that we do in 302 where it’s like, you know, what is my little toddler? Like who’s angry kind of willpower overactive?
Like what does it want to say? Like what does it want to stomp out? What does it want to scream?
Like what spoon does it want to kick away? Because these parts are so alive inside all of us. So tell us a little bit more.
You mentioned the word boundary and you mentioned the root chakra. And I think a lot of us know or what I personally feel is that young children really need boundaries, right? The more they have those boundaries, the safer they feel.
How do you think about that or implement that in your house with the root chakra in mind?
[Jenica Joyce]
Yeah. I like to think of it more like setting our rhythms out because with rhythms, it doesn’t feel like something you can’t do. It feels like, you know, what’s happening because we do the same thing every day.
You know, we wake up, you got to get dressed, you got to brush your teeth before you can play your favorite game. And that’s just something we do every morning and it’s no longer a fight. It’s our boundary, but we have to set a family rhythm to make it easy.
So there’s no like, oh, I got to do this again. No, we do this every day. This is part of our pattern, right?
And the same kind of ritual when we go to bed, you brush your teeth and then we read your story. You know, you’re not going to read your favorite story until you brush your teeth, but it’s not something you have to be consistent with it. And I think that’s really the stability and the strength of the root chakra is to be able to do that.
And, you know, we set the boundaries as parents, but if I use the word boundaries with my kids, you know, your boundaries, it’s more for my edification than for theirs. They want to know they’re living in the moment already. So we have to set this is what happens when we do it.
And I find that even though the things that I have boundaries on, but I don’t enforce regularly are really tough to enforce with kids, right? So like, I like to keep a clean house, but these kids, they like to mess up houses all the time. Like, I feel like I clean a space and then I look and they’re like, oh, there’s a clean space.
Let’s put things in it. So for me, I have a boundary where I keep a certain area of my house clean and then I can be consistent. Otherwise, I’m just constantly because I have not set a rhythm for this family to like, we’re going to clean the whole house every day kind of type of idea that it’s really hard to keep that boundary, if that makes sense.
[Brett Larkin]
The boundaries have to be consistent.
[Jenica Joyce]
Yes.
[Brett Larkin]
And I love the reframe of, I mean, we can talk about it as boundaries between us, but that with kids talking about it as a rhythm. So what does that look like? Because clearly I’m fishing for tips.
So you said like, maybe there’s an area of the house that you have where they can’t clutter up or play.
[Jenica Joyce]
It’s usually high. They can’t reach it.
[Brett Larkin]
Usually high. They can’t reach it. Okay.
But let’s say if they, if they did, or they were trying to like, what would you say?
[Jenica Joyce]
Sure. Well, usually, honestly, depending on the age, if they’re young, if they’re, if they’re under seven, I would just move it. You know, like if they’re able to get to this high space because there’s a chair there, then I’m going to move the chair and it’s not going to be like, I’m not going to talk about it with them.
If I decide to talk about with them, it’s like I’m inviting them to a dialogue in a way that’s probably going to end with one of us, you know, screaming, right. Or, or banging like normally a little kid might do to discharge, but I’m just going to move the chair and redirect at that point. And then for me and thinking this area of my house is clean.
Now I’ve got to say, well, how do I, what do I need to do to make sure the environment invites what I want and be clear that this is, you know, this is not something that they touch. You know, how do I make it, how do I make the boundaries for me environmental? Not, you know, is that a fence around my thing?
Is that a locked door? You know, there’s, I know my dad has a locked door in his office, you know, that we weren’t allowed in unless he was in. And so there’s things that I can do as a parent, especially for the littles, you don’t have to expect them to remember you’re creating the environment for them to thrive in a house.
And our whole house is kind of a playhouse except certain areas. And they’re usually high up or in a locked door.
[Brett Larkin]
Do they ever like get chairs? Cause my kids do this and go and stand on them to try to access that area. And then, so you say you just work on like redirection.
[Jenica Joyce]
I mean, like in that particular moment, if my kids were to do that, that probably tells me that there’s, they’re trying to communicate with me. They need something. It’s not, they’re not saying, Hey, I’m going to mess with your area because I know that that’s your, you know, you don’t want me to.
Hey, I know this is important. And Hey, I want you to pay attention to me right now. And I feel that for our littles, we can’t pay attention to them enough.
You know, it’s not, my husband would be like, they got to learn how to play with themselves and, you know, he would redirect that way for me and my seasonal life. I, I see, um, I see my kids one day not living with me. I say that jokingly cause I just met a really great woman who’s 65 year old son just moved back in.
So I’m getting a full picture of what could happen. Right. So back on track for me, it’s like they want to, they want to play.
So if I’m not able to play in that particular moment, again, what can I have? I have, you know, tricks up my sleeve, right? We can go outside.
We can do, we can pull out the artwork, right? We can, we can do different areas. If I’m not able to give them my time at that particular moment.
[Brett Larkin]
Say more about any particular milestones that you found where you’ve been able to, you know, maybe bring the chakras in. Like I thought the example of losing the first tooth and then saying, you know, because you lost this first tooth, I’m paraphrasing. So let me know if this is correct, but like you got to make more choices now, or I think there are all these rituals and key milestones for little kids.
And a lot of them echo back to maybe traditions that people don’t want to bring in, like, you know, religious stuff or Santa or, I mean, what, just, I think creative ideas for someone who loves yoga and loves the chakras, like how could they, you know, bring or weave some of that knowledge into some of these like key milestones that we see with children and maybe also like talk to children about what’s happening and why at the same time.
[Jenica Joyce]
Yeah, I know. I think, well, one thing I did want to share is when I was doing your training, I think my oldest was five at the time and he would watch the videos with me. He remembers the tiger one, not all of them, right?
But sometimes it’s just like when we’re doing our passion, they kind of want, they’re curious and I used to, and I catch myself now, like I’ve saying, oh, I’ll switch doing, let’s play your game. But if they’re coming in, they’re kind of curious into what you’re into, maybe you’re doing your poses, maybe you’re studying something, watching something, I say, let them in. That’s much better.
You know, let them ask the questions and then you can answer rather than you trying to say, okay, today we’re going to talk about, you know, what does this root chakra really mean for us? It’s kind of just being part of your life and letting them ask questions is one area. I mean, another is kind of looking for ways, like the yoga anatomy coloring book, right?
Out there coloring. My kids love to color. Can I let go of perfection?
It’s not going to be colored perfectly, but let them color a page and we talk about some of these muscles. It like feeds my brain and my, you know, longing to be more advanced in how the human body works, but it’s also something I’m doing alongside with my kids and teaching us something we want to learn. I’m trying to do it more with singing too, as another example.
So, and I, you know, thinking back to your question of how I redirect, sometimes I use singing and I’m trying to be better at this because it’s kind of a way for me to discharge, but also redirect because I’ll make up my sounds. You know, we can’t play here right now, but we can go outside. Let’s go.
Let’s go. As a way of redirecting and you can, there’s some chakra songs out there, you know, that are set to tunes like Twinkle Twinkle that you could play in the background, for example.
[Brett Larkin]
I love that example. Yeah, I love using, it’s like healing for your own throat chakra while getting the result you desire. And I love this idea of, you know, bringing our kids into our world or into our passions.
I think, you know, I think there’s a lot of modern literature that we have to be so child focused and obviously we are, but, you know, they can, we can also, if they’re interested and want to come into our world, that can be so special. I mean, my son watches me edit and then I let him click some of the buttons and edit videos with me. The other day I was proof reading like my second book and he sat next to me and I just random, uh, like call out boxes in the thing.
I was like, can you read that? Can you read that? Right.
And we were sitting together and just like really having a lovely time. So I think that’s such, such a great reminder, the, the discharge and through the throat kind of bringing in your own throat chakra and some of those like frustrating moments, which is so great because I was literally just doing my morning practice and my husband is home, which he’s not normally. And I was feeling a lot more self-conscious about making sound, but it’s like we can actually discharge and make sound with our kids through making silly noises through singing.
It’s like, it doesn’t have to be like a mantra practice, but we’re doing kind of the same thing in the moment. Let’s go a little bit more just into movement because obviously as yogis and a lot of yoga teachers listening to this, we know very, very, very powerful, you know, link between chakras and different movements or types of ways we can move in the body. Are you teaching your kids yoga at home?
If so, what does that look like? Is it more just, we’re doing movement together? Do they join you on your mat?
Are you incorporating knowledge of the chakra system into that? Or is it helping you kind of see what they need? Tell us a little bit about what that might look like.
[Jennica Joyce]
Sure. Sure. You know, yoga can look a certain way.
Right. And I, you know, my kids will even do like, you know, the sitting easy pose and getting their fingers up like meditation, right? As like they know what yoga is.
But we know yoga is so much more than that. It’s a lifestyle. And I think a lot of what we’ve talked about of just how we live is teaching yoga, you know, whether we label it or not.
When I did a summer camp for kids and actually structured it on the chakras, I made a playlist for each chakra. And I think you can use music to teach these themes. So like for the root chakra, you do like slow and fast for your preschoolers, where the music goes really slow, and you move slow, and then you go fast, fast, fast.
So it’s fun, but you’re not saying so this, you know, this root chakra is about safety, you’re playing music that represents these themes, you know, or I like music that I like to and playing with the kids like ain’t no mountain high, that’s a sun salutation for me, I go up, I go down. And that’s your more strong poses anyway, for your root. And so you go, you go forward.
And I like to just for me, depending on what mood I’m in, sometimes I pick one of those playlists just to play in the background to reset where I want to where I want to go. So I use the kids music while they’re here. And it’s I don’t call it here’s our kids yoga class.
I call it you know, here we’re just playing and listening in the background. When I teach a formal class, and I invite them, my husband jokes because he always says to me, everything’s yoga to you. Because my kids yoga classes don’t typically look like your normal yoga class.
There’s a lot of games, there’s some singing, there’s a lot of play, because I like to teach it thematically, meaning I like to choose, you know, are we going to be focused on community today? Are we going to be focused on making good choices or making choices period? Are we going to be focused on safety, and then make all the games or poses or anything that we do surrounding that.
Right now, I’m volunteering for my son’s my second son, it was public school. And I don’t say I’m teaching yoga, although I mean, yoga is not a bad word. It’s just I’m not doing anything spiritual.
I’m basically giving some movement and wiggles and reading a book, I’d like to choose a book with the same theme, the I Love You book, the Todd Parker’s, you know, feelings for the sacral chakra, pout, pout fish. I mean, these all go aligning with each of the chakras that you can you can teach your kids because they learn a lot just through osmosis by what you choose to read or share or play for them.
[Brett Larkin]
Okay, I want to slurp just a little bit more of this out of your brain before we move on to the story. Tell us a little bit more whether it’s about the summer camp, or just like, I’m loving hearing you talk about the themes and like the different common books and stuff that we all might know. So let’s just like go through the chakras a little bit.
Maybe you can tell us like, just what you did for the summer camp or some of these ideas. So what I heard was like root chakra, or like you could do like a slow and fast thing. You could talk about boundaries, you know, maybe like a book on feeling safe or something like that.
[Jennica Joyce]
Are you a cow? It’s like it’s a board book. It’s called Are You a Cow?
And then you’re supposed to say no. Are you a pig? No, perhaps a pig.
Are you a bear upside down? No. And then it ends is like, well, no, because you’re you know, isn’t that great?
So like, that’s you, right? That’s your root. That’s who you are.
So that’s another example of a book that works.
[Brett Larkin]
So tell us a little bit about sacral you talked about was that maybe the emotions and making good choices or identity? For that, I think of like the color monster book. I don’t know if you know that one.
[Jennica Joyce]
That’s a great one.
[Brett Larkin]
Yes, he’s like feeling the different putting his emotions and colors and jars and things.
[Jennica Joyce]
You know, those emoji stickers, the smiley face stickers. So like you can do smile. They’re like crazy.
And so some yoga classes, I’ll start with just here, pick a sticker. How are you feeling today? Especially kids, you know, it’s the first time I teach at the music festival.
So it’s a different huge group of people. So it allows everybody to interact and be part of that without specifically saying the sacral chakra.
[Brett Larkin]
So cool. And then music or anything else like sacral chakra before we keep going?
[Jennica Joyce]
All the fish and water songs. So slippery fish, slippery fish, you know, because it’s all about movement.
[Brett Larkin]
Okay. And she was moving her hands around if you guys couldn’t see that. Okay.
And then solar plexus. Tell us about that one. I mean, like, do you have them stomp or like movements, games, books, colors?
Like, what do you what are you doing?
[Jennica Joyce]
So you might have two stuffed animals for the solar chakra where you have a dragon and I don’t know, a dog. And so then we go around and say, which one do you want to do? Because you’re exercising your choice, right?
But it’s also doing a little yoga. So then you act like that animal, you might get down into downward dog, you might, you know, put your leg up like a tail for a dragon. So those are the choices we can make.
But also we’re practicing these, these yoga poses, you might do like, you are my sunshine song, right? Because it’s about shining and really getting brighter in that area. So lots of little ideas to incorporate your willpower.
[Brett Larkin]
I love that. And then the heart I’m imagining, you mentioned community, like doing something community focused, or you mentioned that as like a theme earlier. So is that something you’re weaving in kindness?
Are you bringing in the heart chakra when siblings squabble? Or, you know, people have tips during the yoga class or the yoga experience?
[Jennica Joyce]
Well, also, like, that’s a great way to do partner poses, a great place for that. It’s also I like to do most of my kids yoga in circles, right? We’re all together.
But now we might do poses where we actually link arms. Can we all sit together? Can we all stand?
Can we lift a leg? So it’s physically we’re moving together as we’re kind of holding on, if that makes sense.
[Brett Larkin]
So brilliant. I love that. And then yeah, so many books and songs that would just very evidently go with that theme.
Throat, okay, so they get to make noise, they get to be wild, I’m assuming like lots of singing, although it sounds like you can incorporate singing with all of these. But anything special you want to say about that?
[Jennica Joyce]
One of the things I had from another kids yoga teacher she did, she brought bells. And so it was a great way to kind of meditate also, but do something fun where because each of the bells made a different sound. And so you’d listen, and then you pass it.
And we’d all listen to the bells. And the latest one I heard was like, raise your hand when you stop hearing the bell ring, right? So now you’re practicing listening, because throat chakra absolutely is about speaking and creativity.
And you can dance, you can do Katy Perry’s roar, right? But that listening skill is such a great one to practice and how to bring that into as part of the throat chakra.
[Brett Larkin]
I love that. Yes, everyone forgets listening as part of the throat chakra. So let this be your reminder.
Okay, then going up, I mean, obviously, six, you know, third eye, six chakra, creativity, imagination, I’m thinking about but tell me.
[Jennica Joyce]
Yeah, I mean, kids are really good at this. I love going around and being like, if you had one wish, what would you wish? Right?
Oh, if you were at a birthday party, let’s like make an imagination. Here we are, let’s blow out the candle, right? Get that breath in.
But use our imagination. As we practice our breath, or as we’re like, okay, let’s all clap. And maybe we just shake our hands because or actually clap our hands, right?
We’re at this cheering for our team, you can bring in a story and have them do it, you know, anything from even like, let’s plant a seed. What what are you going to plant today? I had one girl, she was planting dinosaurs and not to shut out anybody.
Sure, you want to plant a dinosaur, let’s plant a dinosaur. And then let’s watch it grow. And then we grow our body all tall.
And then we got to water it. So we bring it down, right? Because we’re watering this.
And this, of course, can be incorporated in all the chakras. But imagination, when you’re focusing on third eye, you can you can use more, you can use more of a story to paint something that may not happen in reality to to kind of tap into that.
[Brett Larkin]
Yes, I with my son, I was doing this exercise of like imagining what well, actually, we just did this imagination, like visualization where he could go to a peaceful place. And he ended up creating in his imagination, this thing called his peace castle, I was like, this is so cool. And so then he was describing like rainbows that live there and Pegasus that live there.
And then I was using some sort of like, I was using the ideas from his visualization to cue him to do breathwork, right? Like, so I was, I think, you know, I was saying, inhale, and you’re, you know, riding a cloud. And as you exhale, your cloud moves up towards the peace castle or things like that.
So a lot of the pranayama techniques that I was trying to get him to do to calm down and bed, it’s like working within the things that he invented in his world.
[Jennica Joyce]
Yeah.
[Brett Larkin]
So like, such, such fun.
[Jennica Joyce]
Again, I think that ties into the breath, your bubbles, have you? Everybody loves bubbles.
[Brett Larkin]
So good. Yeah. And I think that ties into seventh chakra too, right?
Like that. Is there anything special you’d say for that before we move on?
[Jennica Joyce]
Well, you know, I think like, it kind of ties it all together, right? The crown chakra. And I was thinking, you know, for our family dinners, what we’ve tried to implement is we go around and say what we’re thankful for.
Now that is heart chakra, but that all brings our day together. What are you today? You know, and bringing, letting the kids lead that.
And that goes back into rhythm back into everything else. Now they’re the ones asking us the questions when we forget, Hey mom, what are you thankful for? You know, tell us.
And so I think for crown chakra, it’s putting it almost all together. Um, in that realm.
[Brett Larkin]
I love that. I mean, we’ve talked about so many things. We’ve talked about like developmental stages in the chakra system.
We’ve talked about like rhythms and actually integrating like the chakras into your day-to-day routine, almost like, you know, that kind of higher consciousness gratitude moment at dinner compared to, you know, maybe the, the boundary or rhythm of, you know, brushing teeth and the beginning of end of the day. I mean, is it just, is there anything else you’d say about any of this?
[Jennica Joyce]
Yeah. Um, just that it’s, I guess the analogy that I was really thinking about when I was preparing for this podcast with you, cause like, what are the chakras? You know, like it was a question you always asked in your training.
We had to define what are the chakras now that you’ve learned? And, you know, a roadmap and the, those are all tangible that you can think about that. But for me, I feel like the chakras is like a piano and like there’s keys, right?
That are kind of like the chakras. So you have your chakra scale, which actually ironically is seven, right? As seven notes in the piano, and you can play high and you can play low.
And then as you get more advanced in your chakra knowledge or piano knowledge, you learn about flats and sharps and you can tune yourself. And then once you get to know yourself, you can create beautiful music. And sometimes you use sheet music.
Sometimes it’s by memory. And I feel for my family, when I think about the chakras, it’s like, how are we creating our harmony? Cause we all have a different flavor and our chakras are all spinning at different wavelengths, but we meet in, we meet in the green.
I always like to say that we meet at the heart, that’s where we’re one. And to make the most beautiful music that we can using all our unique notes.
[Brett Larkin]
I love that analogy. Cause it also, it’s like, it’s like the background, it’s like the cinematic score for your day as well. Right?
Like what type, you know, where, what kind of moment are you in, in the day? Like, are you in the playground and everyone’s running and free and active, or are you, you know, back home and we’re down regulating. So I feel like that analogy can just be used so many ways and I love it.
So thank you for that. Okay, Jenica, this was absolutely amazing. Thank you so much for taking us through all this.
I have so many ideas of how to work with the chakras and my own kids. And I know you had a story you wanted to tell us about writing and it’s something you learned about the chakras when you were writing and your book is coming out. So tell us about that and then we’ll let everyone know where to find and connect with you.
[Jennica Joyce]
For sure. Thank you. Yeah.
So my, my book, I actually, it’s mirrored on the seven chakras or seven sections and I explore pregnancy and postpartum through it. And so as you’re writing, as you know, you’re an author as well, you, you get really picky with the words. And so as I was writing for each chakra, I was like noticing, I was like, hmm, am I using this word too much or this one?
And I was like, oh, I got, you know, contractions, they like the word and, or but, or, or. And so I, I got curious and I was like, I wonder, do the contractions relate to chakras too? And it turns out, I believe they do.
I use and a lot. And it’s the heart chakra. That’s where we put things together, right?
If you use the word but a lot, that’s in the root chakra. Cause it’s like, it’s kind of safety, but you can’t do this, but this happens, but this happens, right? You use, um, you use so a lot.
That’s the sacral chakra cause you’re moving. So I want to do this, but my baby’s coughing. So he’s coughing.
So this, so this happens. So people who use so they’re probably kind of, there’s something going off the sacral chakra. You move into the solar chakra.
There’s, or there’s choice. Do you do this? Or do you do that?
That’s more solar speaking. So we talked about heart with the and you go into the throat chakra. And this is a word I don’t use a lot, which I am awakening my throat chakra all the time.
And that’s the word yet. I believe this can happen yet. I think I want this instead.
You don’t use your, you don’t use, but you use yet. And that activates your throat chakra. You move into your third eye.
And that’s if, if I was in Hawaii, what would I be doing? That activates the dreaming, right? The future sense.
And then your crown chakra chakra, because I’m doing this because I like doing this. I’m talking to Brett because this is so fun because that’s activating the crown chakra. So I’m now more aware of my speech and my writing.
And I think that when you go to teach, depending what chakra you’re teaching or what you’re trying to reiterate, you can be more conscious of your word choice and contractions and evoke a certain feeling.
[Brett Larkin]
Oh my gosh, that is so cool. I love that. I absolutely love that.
I feel like that needs to be like a cheat sheet. So I think we should re everyone rewind this part of the episode and listen to that again, because that was so, so cool. I love that.
Like, because it’s tying into like, yes, what I want to do or yet, or if, and, but I love, but root chakra, my kids are going to kick out of that. Jenica, tell everyone where they can find you. We’ll put all your information in the show notes, but whether people are interested in prenatal yoga, postpartum, your book, the retreats that I mentioned, what’s the best way for them to connect with you?
[Jennica Joyce]
Well, actually, I just launched a new website, wildmamarising.com. And that’s the best place to find out about my book. That’s what I’m, you know, the way I’m going to launch and put other information on.
So check out wildmamarising.com.
[Brett Larkin]
Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. Go be with your beautiful babies and thanks everyone for tuning in.
Hopefully you have some fun ideas of how to incorporate the chakras into your family life or your life with young kids. We’re so glad you got to be part of this conversation and thanks for being here all the way to the very end. Loving what you’re learning on the podcast, apply the ancient science of yoga to your daily life surrounded by incredible peers in my uplifted 200 hour online yoga teacher training, or grow into your role as a leader of others in my 300 hour professional program for yoga teachers, which is also a high level business mastermind.
At any time, I would love to welcome you into my yoga for self mastery course to help you uncover your personal blueprint to serenity or join my uplifted yoga membership for an all access pass to my most popular yoga courses, thematic class plans and practice calendars. Don’t forget to prioritize your wellbeing and get on your mat today. From my heart to yours.
Namaste.
