Learn Focusing with Sandy Jahmi Burg

Smartview Stories model ways that families and communities can support each other in feeling safe and finding ways forward in these times of change.

No one teaches us how to live in a body. Wouldn’t it be helpful to know the best way to use our brain? Could it be that we are born with an internal instruction manual? Might it be hidden inside each of us from birth? Within a language that many people overlook?

Welcome to Smartview Stories™ – a children’s self-empowerment book series! Our emotional literacy stories help unlock this instruction manual and its hidden language. Our body and brain are always wanting our well-being. We can learn their language. This language reveals what is going on inside of us and around us. With practice, a mutual trust develops within us. What did not seem at all possible IS possible.

Our setting is Smartview Village. We base it on a lovely Appalachian tourist spot called Smart View Recreation Area along the Blue Ridge Parkway near Floyd, VA, USA. Our stories begin in 2018 when a group of people gather at the local library to find a way forward. All around them, they are experiencing cultural norms falling apart. It confuses them. What is clear is that they can help each other. Staying together as a community brings a sense of safety. They can lean on each other. The way they live changes. These families recognize the value of sharing their stories. Each book includes three short stories featuring one family. A fourth story features our Inner Companions. Based on neuroscience concepts, they help illustrate our inner world.

Wow! We finished your book! It was amazing and it was absolutely perfect for all the things we’ve been talking about! We will definitely have to re-read it and I will be sharing it with many people.

What a great gift you’ve given the world. Helping kids find the word to communicate their feelings is always a challenge. This book not only give words and ways to express feelings, it also give words and ways to express the process while you are feeling things you aren’t ready to name.  It’s great for kids and also great for parents to learn the language and tools to connect with and accept feelings.

~Dolphin Thalhauser, Middle School Teacher and Mom of a 6 and 9 yr old

As more books come out we will add ebooks. We are also planning audio versions, maybe via youtube video. What a journey this has been to get the book this far. Our books are now much more than a typical children’s early chapter book. Like any of us venturing out into a world where we find ourselves checking none of the above when it comes to a label, we found we needed a bit more explanation than just ‘other’. The three stories in each book come with their own supportive environment to help them thrive and flourish.