Ep. 273 – Kid's Series: Dr. Christopher Willard
Metta Hour with Sharon Salzberg
Be Here Now Network
4.6 • 682 Ratings
🗓️ 12 November 2025
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For episode 273, we are continuing a new series on the Metta Hour, centered on kids, in honor of Sharon’s first children’s book, Kind Karl, coming out on December 9th!
Co-authored by Jason Gruhl, this illustrated picture book is for 4-8 year-olds and is a new children’s adaptation of Sharon’s beloved book Lovingkindness.
For this podcast series, Sharon speaks with educators, caregivers, and researchers about the ways meditation, mindfulness, and lovingkindness can impact children of all ages and the family systems that support them. For the second episode of the series, Sharon speaks with Dr. Christopher Willard.
Chris is a clinical psychologist at Harvard Medical School and author of numerous publications for children and adults. An internationally sought-after speaker and mindfulness educator, his books include Growing Up Mindful, Raising Resilience, and Alphabreaths.
In this conversation, Sharon and Chris speak about:
- The benefits of mindfulness in family systems
- Chris’s personal journey with mindfulness
- How mindfulness can be accessible for kids
- Emotional growth and connection at any age
- Simple at-home practices
- Modeling calm compassion
- How kids can emotionally regulate
- The benefits of meditation in schools
- Challenges of technology in family life
- How self-compassion prevents burnout
- Nurturing empathy, presence and resilience
- The goal of presence, not perfection
The episode closes with Chris leading guided practice. You can learn more about Chris’s work on his website, right here.
To learn more about Sharon’s forthcoming children’s book, Kind Karl, and pre-order a copy with a special pre-order gift, you can visit Sharon’s website, right here.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Meta Hour podcast with Sharon Salzberg. I'm Lily Cushman. I produce this podcast. And we're back today with another episode in our |
| 0:25.2 | ongoing kids series here on the pod. Episode 273, Sharon sits down with Dr. Christopher Willard. |
| 0:36.3 | We're doing this kid series in honor of Sharon's very first children's book, |
| 0:42.4 | Kind Carl, which is coming out on December 9th of 2025. We're very excited. The book is co-authored by |
| 0:51.8 | Jason Gruel and is an illustrated picture book for young kids, |
| 0:57.8 | four to eight-year-olds, that is a adaptation of Sharon's much-beloved book, Loving Kindness. |
| 1:05.8 | So we're doing this series. |
| 1:07.9 | We've had a lot of requests over the years to focus on kids, parenting, all the ways that spiritual |
| 1:16.3 | practice, meditation, mindfulness, and loving kindness can affect family systems, can support |
| 1:24.5 | parents, teachers, and children alike. |
| 1:28.5 | So this is episode number two of that series, |
| 1:32.5 | and just thrilled to have Chris join Sharon |
| 1:36.2 | to bring his expertise and his experience |
| 1:40.1 | to this ongoing conversation. |
| 1:43.9 | Chris is a clinical psychologist at Harvard Medical School, |
| 1:48.4 | and he's the author of numerous publications, |
| 1:51.9 | I think at least 20 different publications, |
| 1:54.9 | both for children and adults. |
| 1:58.0 | He's an international speaker and mindfulness educator and just has a |
| 2:04.3 | wonderful perspective about how to bring these tools to kids to improve their |
| 2:10.9 | resilience their emotional intelligence their ability to regulate, and so much more. |
| 2:19.3 | So the conversation starts with some discussion about the benefits of mindfulness in family systems, |
... |
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