Families today are living in a near-constant state of tension; always bracing, always waiting for the next moment of overwhelm, always feeling like the shoe is about to drop. In this grounding conversation, Amy Kille Elphick brings a breath of fresh air and a reminder that we were never meant to live this way.
Amy lights up when she’s guiding children and their families back to their natural rhythm; back to the calm center beneath the chaos. She utilizes Blocks To Flow coaching methodology to help kids regulate their emotions, trust themselves, and grow into the versions of themselves that feel whole and grounded.
Amy is happiest when she’s helping others find their calm center, when she sees a child’s shoulders drop, when she witnesses a parent soften, or when a family remembers what ease feels like again.
Whether you’re a parent, educator, or someone navigating your own internal storms, this conversation offers a gentle return to rhythm, presence, and the truth that regulation is possible for every system.
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Watch the episode here
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Returning To The Natural Rhythm With Amy Kille Elphick
Coach Amy On Easing Anxiety, Restoring Calm, And Helping Families Find Their Center Again
Returning To The Natural Rhythm With Coach Amy
Coach Amy, I am so excited to see you.
Thank you for having me. I’m happy to be here.
When I start these interviews or chats, I always like to start with something that grounds the guest. For me, breathing does. Do you have anything that you can share with our readers?
For me, breathing is always a great starting place.
Do you have a favorite?
I do some very simple hand-on-heart and hand-on-belly breathing. I will often breathe in, hold, and then let it out slowly through my mouth. I’ll do that three times. I feel like 3 is a magic number, so I’ll do 2 more times.
Let’s do it.
Breathe in, hold, and out.
Thank you for sharing that. Do you keep your feet on the floor? Is that important?
I do keep my feet on the floor.
You’re grounded.
I feel like I’m instantly grounded. I have a longstanding practice of meditation and breathwork. I found what works for me. There are tons of breathing exercises out there you can do, but I find that simple is better. Sometimes, you need to focus on your inhale and your exhale. I like to think of the words inhale and exhale. It keeps me focused on what I’m doing.
Simple is better. Sometimes you just need to focus on your inhale and your exhale.
Uncovering Your Blocks To Flow: A Single Parent’s Journey To Rhythm
I love it. When you hear the phrase blocks to flow, what comes to your mind first?
I feel like there are so many areas where we are all feeling a block, and it can shift around. It changes over time. For me, something that comes to mind right away is my own parenting. I have been a single parent for about eight years. I got divorced when my son was a toddler. My parenting journey has evolved quite a bit. I had to go through some real survival time, like trying to get through the day, for several years. Those toddler years were tough.
For the first time, I had to put my son in full-day preschool. He had been home with me for three years, night and day. I had been a stay-at-home mom for three years. I took a break from the classroom during that time, so I had to go back to work full-time. It was very difficult. It’s all a blur in my memory. I can barely even remember what happened.
I had to find my way through that. I had to find my way beyond that place of pure survival, running on adrenaline every day. There were so many blocks in place for me, but over time, I found ways to slowly but surely release those blocks, find my rhythm, find my flow, and find what works for my son and me in our life that I was rebuilding for us. That’s the first thing that comes to my mind.
Natural Rhythm: There were just so many blocks in place for me. But over time, I found ways to slowly but surely release those blocks and find my rhythm and flow.
It’s hard for Mom, who needs to go back to work. You shared a big problem for every woman who goes through this step. We can share this. Somebody might relate to this. Were you ever feeling like you were making a choice between being with your son or torn?
Yes, every day. Every day, when I dropped him off, I felt I didn’t want to do that. It was so hard. There are so many factors at play when women have to go back to work, married or not. A lot of them are economic. We have to have two parents working because there’s no other way to make it. We have to leave our babies with someone else to do that. That causes so much stress and so much despair for mother and child. For the whole family, it creates this level of stress, but we have to do it.
People have asked me, “I don’t know how you’ve done it. How do you do it?” I always say, “I do it the same as you do it.” All of us moms are strong and powerful. We do what we have to do because we do it. There’s a way to do it, I feel, that can be more peaceful. It can be more empowered instead of running on empty all the time. It takes time, practice, and effort to get there.
One of the most important things we can do as moms is to go through that process and show our children that we can live in peace and positivity, and we can embrace every part of ourselves, even those shadowy, dark places. Anyone who has been through a divorce knows you’re going to deal with those things. You have to grow from that. It’s such an important lesson for our children to see us embrace ourselves, love ourselves, find our own flow, find our own rhythm, and teach that to them by example.
During the time of going through it, a lot of us get into this busy life. Life becomes busy. We forget to look after ourselves until burnout hits
Maybe we get sick. You’re forced to rest. You’re forced to remove things from your life that don’t need to be there because your body forces you to.
Essential Self-Care: Why Boundaries Are The Key To Protecting Your Energy
Tell me. It’s always a work in progress, but how did you try to at least draw some boundaries?
I’m glad you said that it’s a work in progress because there’s no endpoint. There’s not a time when you reach, and you’re like, “I’m cured. I’m healed. I’m fine.” Nobody gets there. It’s always a work in progress. For me, it’s always taking time for myself, which is not something I was raised to do. I was not taught to do that, so I had to teach myself to do that.
I had to learn to be okay with it, even if it was five minutes on my meditation cushion, or a walk with the dog by myself, or even when I’m with my son. It was about still seeing that as finding the ways to support myself when he’s right next to me as well. We still have to establish those boundaries and keep them, so that we can protect our own energy.If we don’t protect our energy, then we can’t give either.
We must establish and maintain those boundaries to protect our own energy.
Another thing that helps me is to find joy, which sounds cliché. It sounds so simple, but it is that simple. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the whole idea of finding the glimmers. Have you heard of that term? It’s the opposite of triggers. The word trigger has become part of our regular vernacular. I feel like a lot of people understand the word trigger. When you’re triggered, you feel your nervous system kick up. You go into a fight, flight, fawn, or whatever it is that you go into to deal with the trigger.
Glimmers are the opposite of that. What are those little things in your day or in your life that soothe you, that bring your nervous system back to balance, that spark that little bit of joy that makes you smile? It sounds like the simplest, easiest, silliest thing, but those glimmers are what keep me going. As a little example, I went for a walk. I’m very lucky that I live next to a beautiful river. I get to walk next to the river every day. It’s fall here, so the leaves are turning. They’re bright yellow.
There were these giant bright yellow leaves on the gravel path. I listened to my feet crunching on the gravel and the rustling of the leaves as my dog was running and playing through the leaves. That was a glimmer for me. It’s the little things. It’s like the practice of gratitude. Some say that it’s the key to happiness. I believe that.
Also, we’re so busy thinking about the past or projecting that into the future and producing something that we are never here. Now and here is such a hard state for all of us. That moment you explained, you were there. That’s it.
It’s a practice. It takes practice to do. Once you start doing it, it starts happening all the time.
You crave it.
It becomes a lot easier. You see things that you never would’ve noticed before because you’ve practiced.
Gratitude is the key to happiness.
Bringing yourself now and here is such a beautiful way to experience that joy.
It’s everything. If you’re in the past, you can’t do anything about the past. When you’re stuck there, you can ruminate on that. You will not be happy. If you’re stuck in the future, you will feel anxious about, “What if this? What if that? That might happen. This might happen.” We all have that. When you get stuck there, and you can’t bring yourself back here, that’s when the unhappiness takes over. Your nervous system can’t regulate. When you’re here right now, that’s why the breathing is so good, too. It brings you right here. There’s nowhere else you can be.
I love it. I’m addicted to it. Being here and now is an addiction.
It’s a good addiction to have.
Is The Education System Broken? The Missing Piece Of Student Readiness
You work in the school system. You’re an educator. Out of the education system, we enter the real world. In their 30s and 40s, there are a lot of people still developing themselves through personal development. Some people even still believe at those ages or later that they’re broken, they’re not capable, or they’re not enough. Since you and I know so much about education, can we see that there’s a missing link that has been missed in the education system itself?
Yes. There’s this missing piece where kids come into school, and they’re coming from all kinds of things happening at home, family life, and whatever. They come into school, and they’re expected to perform, be ready, and learn, but there’s no check-in. There’s no like, “How’s your nervous system today?” There’s not that readiness of being able to even take in the information.
I’m seeing an unreal amount of anxiety in the classroom. It manifests in different ways. Many children are so elevated all the time. They cannot learn new things, analyze information, work with their peers, or even sit and raise their hand to say something. They blurt it out. It’s like they got to do it right now. It’s almost impossible to teach the content in that kind of social, emotional environment. There’s a huge missing puzzle piece there.
The readiness is missing. I always compare it to a plane before the plane even hits the runway. We have to make sure that all the systems in the plane are working, aligned, and activated before we hit the runway, and we’re going to take off. After takeoff, we don’t go, “Maybe something’s off here.”
That would be a problem.
Our students are the same thing. We think they’re accelerating and assume they’re ready to fly, but they’re not. Their systems are not in alignment. They’re not activated. We are a system made up of different subsystems. We have to make sure we are okay to hit the runway.
There are so many pieces. That readiness can be in place in one system, but not in another. That’s where the misalignment happens. We have parents at home, too, who are also feeling misaligned and unregulated. When mom and dad are feeling this misalignment, and their child is feeling that misalignment, there are going to be all kinds of miscommunications, butting heads, arguments, misunderstandings, and emotional mishaps. It can be very challenging and difficult for a family dynamic.
Natural Rhythm: When Mom and Dad are feeling this misalignment, and their child is feeling that misalignment, there’s going to be all kinds of emotional mishaps—miscommunications, butting heads, arguments, and misunderstandings.
It’s very explosive.
A lot of emotional things happen that are then difficult to manage. You’re constantly like, “What do I do with this?” You’re in that survival mode. You’re trying to get through it. That’s no way to live, honestly.
We’re in an anxious state all the time.
You’re waiting for that other shoe to drop all the time.
Unlearning Toxic Beliefs: Separating Your Self-Worth From Your Achievements
What was the hardest part for you in terms of a pattern or a belief that you had to unlearn, and how did you move through it?
That’s a good question because I feel like there are so many. I’ve had to do a lot of work on my worthiness. It was like, “Am I even enough? Can I do what I want to do? Do I have what it takes?” That’s something that a lot of people struggle with a lot.
Let’s hold onto that. When do you think you started collecting facts and forming those statements that you were not enough?
A long time ago, when I was little. I had very highly educated parents with high expectations. They were intelligent people. Also, they were a different generation. My parents were activists in the ‘60s. My dad was a scientist. My mom was an educator. There were a lot of facts, but also a lot of justice work happening. For me, I needed to be on the right path and do things the right way. If I didn’t, then there were punishments.
Grades were very important in our family. The expectation was perfection. That’s how it felt. It may not have been the actual expectation, but that’s how it felt growing up. That manifests. That builds over time. It comes out in all kinds of different ways. I don’t know how long you have, but I could go on and on about how it has manifested in my siblings and me in different ways. We all grew up in that environment, and we all had to deal with that. It started a long time ago.
How did it move that into the classroom? Let’s talk about the school system, then.
Do you mean for other children who grew up that way?
No, just yourself. At home, you have this environment already set up. You move into the school system. At grade one, you move in. What did that do to the identity you created?
When I went into the school system, school was a comfort zone for me in a lot of ways because I could do the work and do it well. I could tick those boxes. As I got older, though, in high school, I realized that I had quite a bit of anxiety. I had social anxiety. I wanted to be in with the right people, but I didn’t know how to do that. I also went to a very tiny elementary school, so going into high school was a culture shock. School was not hard for me. Then, school got hard, and I didn’t know what to do. That’s when the anxiety started to kick in.
I was always a hard worker in a lot of ways, but when I got through high school and into college, I did nothing but work. Kids go to college, party, and have a good time. I did none of that. I took full loads of classes and worked a job, which was 30 hours a week or something like that. I had zero social life, so my social development suffered as a young adult, because I felt like I needed to meet these expectations.
If I wasn’t perfect at it all and reaching those made-up expectations, then there was something wrong with me. I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t performing. I wouldn’t be enough if I didn’t reach these educational milestones or if I didn’t get this degree, that degree, or whatever it was, which is not true. That doesn’t define who you are. It didn’t define who I am. It took a long time for me to realize that. I have grown up and developed as a human being since then, but college was very hard because of that. It took a while. You feel like when you get out of college, you’re a grown-up. You should know these things. You should be that developed person.
Your educational milestones don’t define who you are.
Somehow, you should come out perfectly developed.
It’s not like that.
We all exit almost damaged.
The pressure is real.
That was hard for you to unlearn, how much you valued yourself against achievements. Achievement equals my value.
I wasn’t taking good care of myself.
You were like, “Who cares about that stuff? I just need to achieve.”
I was young, had the energy, and was able to do that, but I burnt out fast. Then, I went into teaching. We talk about achievement and burnout. When I first started teaching, I got to work early, and I was the last one to leave.
It was because of dedication, right?
That’s right. It gave me value as a person.
Stepping Off The Hamster Wheel: How True Stillness Changes Everything
Now that you have found to be here and now and the joy of now, how does that alignment feel in your body compared to when you were on that survival, trying to prove to yourself, “Do more so you can be worth more.”
The difference is night and day. If you could imagine a hamster on a wheel constantly trying to get that prize, whatever it is, and then stepping off the wheel and finding stillness. That stillness and peace is something I did not experience as a young adult at all. As a more developed adult, I do have that peace. It’s real, and I can tap into it anytime I want. Sometimes, it’s hard, I’ll be honest, but it’s there. I cultivated that myself, and I’m proud of that. That is a huge part of my self-worth and value. When you have that inner peace and that stillness inside, you can move through life in a more fluid way. I don’t know how else to explain it. You move with purpose, but are more flexible. The word fluid feels right. You can flow through life a little better. There’s that word flow again. That is what it feels like.
If your younger self could witness you now, what do you think they’d notice first?
I think she would notice that stillness and peace. Thinking about my younger self and how achievement-oriented she was, she would look at my achievements that I’ve accomplished since then, but maybe not all the academic and professional achievements. It is more the personal achievements, like, “You did cultivate that all by yourself. You did the work. Look at you as a mom. You can tap into that. You can teach your son to do that and parent from that place.” I feel like that’s one of my greatest accomplishments. I hope my younger self would recognize that.
The Simple Daily Practice To Find Flow And Alignment Today
I love it. If our readers could take one simple step or an action closer to becoming in alignment so they can find flow, what would it be?
Earlier, when I was talking about those glimmers, that’s one of the best practices that anybody can do anytime. It doesn’t require any training or special anything. I’m a sky nerd, also. I love the sky. I am always fascinated by the sky. Look up, find something around you, and find that glimmer. Find your joy.
Can we add that before they do, they should learn to bring themselves here and now?
Yes. That will bring you right here instantly. To take it a step further, if you find that glimmer in something around you that you notice that brings you that little spark of, “That’s awesome,” take a breath. Inhale, exhale, and you’ll feel that stillness right here.
That’s beautiful. I love it. How can people connect with Coach Amy? She does offer coaching to anyone of any age. As a Blocks to Flow coach, she can offer to anyone. In some way or another, we’re a work in progress. No one’s ever done. I’m never done. I’ll never be done. What we do and what she does is amazing to move you from that block, recognize it, bring awareness, alignment, and activation, and then we take off. You achieve, and then you are in flow.
That’s right. It feels good.
Thank you. Can you finish this sentence for me? Flow is?
Flow is a connection. If you’re deeply connected to what you’re doing, the people you’re with, and your purpose, you’re going to be in flow.
Natural Rhythm: Flow is connection. If you’re deeply connected to what you’re doing, the people you’re with, and your purpose, you’re going to be in flow.
In the simple moments, even connecting to that, then you find flow, right?
Yeah. As a quick example, you can find flow anywhere. If you are in a conversation with the cashier at the grocery store, it could be very superficial, quick, and without eye contact. You check out, get your groceries, and go. You could look that person in the eye, connect with that person, and ask, “How are you?” with genuine curiosity. That instant connection is flow. You’re going to be in flow.
Connection is flow, so keep connecting to yourself, to your surroundings, and to other people. Find that glimmer every day, right?
Yes, those little glimmers.
You’ll be in flow. Thank you so much.
Thank you. This was great.
Thank you.